John Hobbins points to an article in the Jerusalem Post about a new book purportedly revealing startling new discoveries about truths hidden in the Hebrew text of the Bible by Professor Haim Shore from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. There’s endless fun to be had with such mathematical legerdemain, but for now let’s just look…
translating אמן “amen”
Working through some of Jeremiah lately I was prompted to think about the translation of the term אמן (“amen”). By way of reference I decided to see how a number of English translations rendered the term in two places — Jer 28:6 and Matt 5:18 (the latter uses the Greek transliteration ἀμήν). Here are the results:…
when the southerly (finally) arrives
Yesterday was hot, very hot. The local AWS reported a max of 41.5°C (that’s almost 107°F) but we were told that a southerly change was on the way (a southerly change means significant cooling down here). It did arrive, but not until 12:30am, but its effects are apparent from the graph: Phew.
affirming inerrancy
Following up on my earlier post on the topic of inerrancy, Darrell Pursiful has recently posted on the topic and I, since I largely agree with his position, I encourage you to read it. To expand briefly on my thinking on the topic, some formulations of the doctrine of the Inerrancy of Scripture state that…
the prayer of job?
Andrew Barry has suggested that Job 42:7, which reads: חרה אפי בך ובשני רעיך כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה כעבדי איוב ought to be rendered thus: My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken to me what is right, as my servant Job has. The significant difference to…
library woes
First, a warning: this is primarily an opportunity to vent my frustrations. I visited Australia’s largest theological library this week, hoping to look up some material and photocopy a few pages. Theological resources down-under are not as extensive as they are in other parts of the world, but this particular library has most of what…
does the story of job reflect a national tragedy?
The book of Job contains no explicit dating information and so determining its precise historical context is difficult. Although the implied date of the story is widely acknowledged to be in patriarchal times (when wealth was measured in goods and chattels, where people reputedly lived well past 100 years of age, and where there was…
the big dust storm
We here awoke this morning to an eerie red sky thanks to an immense dust storm covering most of NSW. Here’s a photo from about 6:00am:
virtual reality
Not normal fare around here (if there’s such a thing), but I thought this was quite amusing:
the slippery slope
I think it time to share Shields’ Slippery Slope Axiom (although I’m sure someone else has said this before): The truth lies half way down the slippery slope. Many set off down the slope and slide to the bottom. Many remain at the top seeking to avoid the slope having seen too many slide to…