BibleX: 2022-03-20

Mar 24, 2022

Ben Witherington on Personal Libraries

I think Witherington's post here is spot on. Unfortunately, I find student's much less interested in building a personal library than when I was in seminary.

Mar 23, 2022

The Dead-Sea-Scroll Discovery—75 Years Later

John Currid provides a short overview here.

Mar 22, 2022

Ratzah in Leviticus 26

Though this article is from a Jewish rather than a Christian perspective, it argues that the best way to understand the use of רצה ratzah in Leviticus 26:34, 40 is that these texts (and others) teach that sin is a debt that must be repaid. The article is interesting at a variety of levels but I appreciate that it supports a key element of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement that sins need to be "paid" for. I find it ironic that at a time in which more and more Christian theologians are questioning the penal substitution view this Jewish article affirms it in a way.

Mar 21, 2022

Using Greek in Preaching

Preaching rules can be broken but David Alan Black has a concise but good caution here about using (or misusing) Greek (or Hebrew for that matter) in preaching. I would disagree somewhat with the point that people are wholly uninterested in references to the original languages. I have found that they often are. The problem is that they are typically interested for the wrong reasons (e.g., it makes the preacher or preaching more authoritative, it settles complex interpretive problems, it makes a particular explanation of the text deeper, etc.). These misplaced notions are one reason why preachers are tempted to use the languages and a good reason why they should avoid doing so.

HT: Henry Neufeld

Mar 20, 2022

The Latest Issue of the Review of Biblical Literature

The latest issue of Review of Biblical Literature is out. Reviews can be accessed by clicking the links below but unfortunately you must be a SBL member to read them.