Some will immediately say that the NT is the interpretative key to the OT—all things in the OT point to Christ and what we know of Christ from the NT should guide our understanding of the OT. The OT is …
This book will please very few. Atheists will be, and have been, upset or bemused by one of their own rejecting the standard line of materialist reductionism and arguing instead for the irreducibility of consciousness, intentionality and value. They will …
Menssen and Sullivan are two former agnostic philosophers who converted to Christianity. They should, therefore, be cognizant of the concerns of agnostics and the sort of apologetic strategies that agnostics might find appealing or convincing. This book is not written …
This book brings together a number of articles by the late Brother Tom Barling originally published in The Testimony magazine. The book is lovingly introduced by Reg Carr, who writes of Brother Barling’s “lasting legacy of Bible scholarship” of which …
Craig Evans is a distinguished New Testament scholar who has written extensively on the historical Jesus and served on the advisory board on the Gospel of Judas for the National Geographic Society. He is well placed to evaluate the various …
This collection of twenty-two essays by respected conservative archaeologists and biblical scholars, like Alan Millard and Craig Blomberg, was occasioned by the publication of God’s Word in Human Words by Kenton Sparks. In that book Sparks queries the inerrancy of …
Joel is a fascinating little book. Whilst his prophecy consists of only three chapters – a total of 73 verses – it has a very wide-ranging scope. Not only did Joel speak of momentous, earth-shattering events that were taking …
This article is the second of two in a consideration of the date of the Exodus. Typically, only two dates are considered viable: c.1440 BCE (the ‘early date’),[1] and c.1280 BCE (the ‘late date’). Arguments for these dates …
The unique style and content of John’s Gospel has generated a huge body of scholarly comment and opinion. There are innumerable commentaries and articles researching issues of language, authorship, date, and much more besides. Many eminent scholars have been …
TG Q. Why do you write books?
J. As tools for others to use in their own Bible study and preaching. Two other books of mine currently available are ‘Sleeping In The Dust‘, and ‘Rightly Dividing The Word‘.
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The Jewish scriptures are called ‘the Old Testament’ by Christians because they believe that other books are also ‘scripture’—viz., the New Testament. The implicit claim of the Christian church of the second century CE was that there had been …
Adam and Eve were given a clear command that they disobeyed. They had been told that the punishment for disobedience was death. In NT comment on the events in the Garden of Eden we have confirmed that by one …
The previous article concluded that language alone cannot establish the date of a particular book – any linguistic evidence needs to be supported by intertextual and socio-historical evidence. Our hypothesis is that Song belongs to the Hezekiah period and …
Translating figures of speech is a difficult choice for translators if there is no equivalent figure in English. Do you render the Hebrew figure directly or do you offer a dynamic translation? The Hebrew (Ezek 1:22) is lexically ‘as an …
Despite over a century of detailed investigation, the date of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt remains a topic of extensive debate within scholarship.[1] Scholarly discussion focuses on exegetical concerns such as the interpretation of chronological data in the …
As we read of the life and times of Jesus and the disciples, it gradually begins to dawn upon the consciousness that many of the incidents recorded in the Gospel records were happenings which were already pre-figured in the …
Christadelphian approaches to the Letter to the Romans have largely followed the tradition which prevailed in Protestant circles for something like four centuries after the Reformation. That tradition was based upon a two fundamental assumptions:
The Letter to the Romans …
Scholars often support an interpretation of a NT text or idea by referring to Jewish writings; the argument is a contextual one—they say that ‘here in this text’ we find the same or a similar idea to that which …
The New Testament, together with the Old, is the inspired Word of God. However the question of what inspiration entails and by what method the writers were inspired is not clear cut. In what way is Scripture ‘breathed out’ …
What persuades one person will not persuade another and it doesn’t matter whether we think of truth or error in making this point. The human being is capable of knowing truth but as a species we are prone to making …
(1) Establishing the likely linguistic competence of authors is a key desideratum for a debate on the use of the Septuagint; it can hardly be a moot point as Wyns asserts. Tri-bi-lingualism is a factor that helps to explain a …
(1) Much has been said about the bilingual or trilingual (or otherwise) competency of the writers. Perry generally accepts that they were all (to a greater or lesser extent) at least bilingual. However, reader perception is of paramount importance in …
The study of the Septuagint is a specialist study within Biblical Studies, more so than other areas of the discipline like, say, ‘Pauline Studies’.[1] The specialism requires fluency in Greek and Hebrew, knowledge of Linguistics and particularly …
A previous EJournal article on this topic questioned the validity of the LXX as an apostolic source[1] and reflected on the ‘uninspired’ nature of the Greek LXX translation in comparison to the ‘inspired’ Hebrew and employed the …
The narrative function of Job’s wife is to pick up on the conversation between God and the Satan. She reproduces the words of God’s claim about Job that ‘he still held fast to his integrity’ (Job 2:3) by asking Job, …
Conservative and critical commentators read prophecies anachronistically. They see the ‘fulfilment’ in later Biblical history and read it back into the prophecy. They see in 1 Kgs 13:1-3 a prophecy about a future king, Josiah, and they correlate this prophecy …
F. Albright, one of the most famous 20th century archaeologists, argued that the camel was not domesticated until around the 1st millennium, well after the time of Abraham.
According to Albright, any mention of camels in the period of Abraham …
Isaiah chapters 2-4 begin with descriptions of the glory of a restored Zion, but the main thrust of argument is a rebuke to the existing community of Isaiah’s day for their spiritual failures. In Isaiah 5, we have the …
In the New Testament (NT) spontaneous praise, immediate “gladness and singleness of heart”, followed a baptism (Acts 2:46-47). Communally, such joy tokened God’s work “adding to the ecclesia such as should be saved”. A sinner had repented; there was rejoicing …
The meaning of the ‘keeping silence’ verses in 1 Corinthians is bitterly disputed and contested. All sorts of points are made about the text: some have suggested the text is not ‘of Paul’; others have argued vv. 34-35 are …