Scripture, Tradition, and Slavery, Part One: Did Paul Endorse Slavery?

In a review for Commonweal of Mark Noll’s book, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Eugene McCarraher lays the blame for the institution of chattel Slavery in America at the core of Protestantism, the doctrine of sola scriptura. Ultimately, he affirms a reading of the Bible as a document that reflects the oppressive biases [...]

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Some Quotes on the Authority of a Diverse Canon

The biblical scene itself…in both the Old and New Testaments, is a vivid and lively pattern of argument and controversy…. The sense which the reader derives from the Bible will depend not only on that which is positively stated by the Bible, but also on that with which the Bible is in conflict or, to [...]

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A Solicitation for Some Hebrew Know-How

Being his grader I’ve been teaching the beloved Dr. Ray Lubeck’s classes in Old Testament Biblical Theology while he’s away at the ETS and SBL conferences. I could just wait for him to get back, but I’m curious if there’s a Hebrew dude out there who could tell me something. Satan asks the crucial rhetorical [...]

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Isaiah 6-8 and 36-39: The Characterization of Isaiah’s Prophetic Themes

(Two apologies: first, sorry about the length; second, sorry about the footnotes. I got this method from a wordpress forum, but the links don’t work. Any guidance on how to do it better would be welcomed.) The Issue There are two key questions that I wish to center this discussion around. First, why does the [...]

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The Old Testament

I came across this quote this morning while reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers From Prison. It seems to say much more clearly than I could why I have been interested in the Hebrew Bible lately. …In recent months I have been reading the Old Testament much more than the New. It is only when [...]

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Justice and Mercy: §2: Jonah: Yahweh’s Compassion For His Enemies.

To start with, a few quotes: The biblical scene itself…in both the Old and New Testaments, is a vivid and lively pattern of argument and controversy…. The sense which the reader derives from the Bible will depend not only on that which is positively stated by the Bible, but also on that with which the [...]

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Justice and Mercy, §1: Nahum: The God Who Defends The Oppressed

I intend this to be a mini-series of three biblical-theological inquiries into the dialectical tension between God’s passion for justice to be wrought for the oppressed, and God’s scandalous compassion on the enemies of God. This train of thinking has been occasioned by David Congdon’s stellar post on Political Pacifism, the most recent installment in [...]

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