Burridge, Richard A. Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. *Campbell, Anthony F., and Mark A. O’Brien. Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Pr...
Belief and faith always have content—a what. But a faith that looks like what the Bible describes is rooted deeply in trust in God (rather than ourselves) and in faithfulness to God by being humbly fa...
Because, more than the other three Gospel writers, John is big on Jesus’s divine authority over the religious leaders. That’s part of his agenda, and so he shapes the past to make the point.
Baker, Sharon L. Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught About God’s Wrath and Judgment. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010. *Batto, Bernard. Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in t...
Anyway, we don’t need to get into all that. My point is simply, no, King David, the heavens are not telling the glory of God (Ps. 19:1)—at least not without a lot of heavy theological lifting and perh...
Aligning faith in God and certainty about what we believe and needing to be right in order to maintain a healthy faith—these do not make for a healthy faith in God. In a nutshell, that is the problem....
Adam in primordial times plays out Israel’s national life. He is proto-Israel—a preview of coming attractions. This does not mean, however, that a historical Adam was a template for Israel’s national...
Was learning to trust God enough (what a concept) to know that, like family (the Bible calls him Father after all), he will come through no matter what, that his love and commitment to me is deeper th...
The passionate defense of the Bible as a history book among the more conservative wings of Christianity, despite intentions, isn’t really an act of submission to God; it is making God submit to us. In...
It is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judge...
A literal reading of Genesis is not the firmly settled default position of true faith to which one can hold firm or from which one strays. Literalism is a hermeneutical decision (often implicit) stemm...
Zehr, Paul M. Biblical Criticism in the Life of the Church. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald, 1986.
Two great critiques of modernity by biblical scholars are Walter Brueggemann’s Texts Under Negotiation and Walter Wink’s The Bible in Human Transformation.
To feel that our faith is threatened can easily turn to fear. But, judging from the long and varied history of thinking within Christianity, being right is elusive, and the Bible is never something we...
The root of the conflict for many Christians is not scientific or even theological, but group identity and fear of losing what it offers.
The findings of the past 150 years have made extrabiblical evidence an unavoidable conversation partner. The result is that, as perhaps never before in the history of the church, we can see how truly...
The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012. *Goldingay, John. Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids:...
Sticking to the Bible at every turn, like it’s an owner’s manual or book of instruction, as the way to know God misses what Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers show us again and again: the...
Physical death is the final letting go that we all experience with loved ones and that we will ourselves experience one day. Dying now the way Jesus says to means letting go already of every comfort,...
One more ball to juggle, but let’s sum up the first two: (1) Israel’s dismal story of the monarchy is the meat of the Old Testament, and the origins stories are an introduction to that main story. (2)...