I’ve been reading Chris Wright’s book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament, and have been enjoying it quite a bit. I’m usually on par with everything that has been said thus far, and really enjoyed the chapter on prediction and promise. At one point in the book, Wright discusses 1 Corinthians 15:3,4 and how both the death and resurrection of Christ is “according to the Scriptures.” I enjoyed what he had to say about it, but would like to bring the question to you all.
Read the rest of this entry

As most commentators have pointed out, Paul seems to make an allusion in 2 Corinthians 5:12c to 1 Samuel 16:7. As I am translating this section, I bring this up only to take a look of the use of idioms.

The verse in English is:
“So that you might have an answer against those who take pride in appearances and not in what is in the heart.”

Here is the Greek:
ἵνα ἔχητε πρὸς τοὺς ἐν προσώπῳ καυχωμένους καὶ μὴ ἐν καρδίᾳ.
Read the rest of this entry

As I was working on a bit more of my paper on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, I was contemplating on what Paul is saying in verses 6-8, and verse 8 in particular. Essentially, in these verses, Paul’s degrees of preference surface: Paul would much rather live to see the parousia of Christ as opposed to the disembodied state (vv 2-3), but he would also prefer to be in the presence of Christ in a disembodied state than to be “at home in the body” (vv 6-8). This, of course, makes sense. This is not a hatred of life on Paul’s part, as we can tell from the first part of the letter which gives thanks to God for sparing his life, but a heart-felt yearning of wanting to be with Christ- whatever that may entail. This got me thinking about death and the Christian response.
Read the rest of this entry

I’ve recently started writing an exegetical paper on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, and have become intrigued with David Garland’s interpretation of verse 1 in his NAC commentary. The verse is as follows:

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”

Read the rest of this entry

τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτέννει,
τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ

For the letter kills,
but the spirit causes to live.
-2 Corinthians 3:6

The verse quoted above has been the rally-call of Christians against the dangers of legalism- but is this what Paul actually means? I wrote an earlier entry reflecting on Paul’s descriptions of the old and new covenants, and why it is that he says the “ministry of death” is “glorious” (v. 7), where I stated that the Old Covenant is glorious because it brings conviction of sin. I think that verse 6, far from being an abstraction against legalism, simply states this same idea. In this post, I will try and show that meaning from this text.
Read the rest of this entry

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”
John 1:1

Some have made the argument that the greek word λογος (logos, “word”) in the opening verses of John’s Gospel should be better translated as “logic.” Gordon H. Clark, Christian theologian and philosopher, once wrote “Any translation of John 1:1 that obscures this emphasis on mind or reason is a bad translation. And if anyone complains that the idea of ratio or debate obscures the personality of the second person of the Trinity, he should alter his concept of personality. In the beginning, then, was Logic.”

However, this hardly follows. Why should we assume that a translation is faulty, or outright wrong, for using “word” over “logic?” Presuppositions notwithstanding, I see no reason why every English translation that has been used by the Church since TyndalWycliffe has been a wrong translation. In fact, I believe the context of 1)the prologue (verses 1-14) of John, and 2) the Gospel of John en toto suggests that our translations have it correct.
Read the rest of this entry

I have updated the translation of 1 John through chapter 2, verse 23. In so doing, I realized that this theme doesn’t allow comments on pages- so if you want to leave a comment or suggestion, please feel free to do so on this post.

Per the discussion from a few posts back, I have decided to go with “because” in verses 12-14, with a footnote. Feel free to leave a comment.

This was previously posted at my old blog. I had mentioned that I would post it again earlier and am finally getting around to it. This is part 2 of a 2 part series.

In the last post on Luke and Matthew’s account of the death of Judas, I looked at the differing accounts to see if there was a contradiction. I showed that there was not a contradiction for several reasons: The first reason is that Luke’s account of Judas falling presupposes that Judas was at some height in order to fall. This is confirmed by Matthew’s account of Judas hanging himself. Because one account does not exclude the possibility of the other, there is no contradiction. The second reason is that while we can (and, I believe should) take both as historically correct, we can also see possible typological allusions to the Old Testament in Matthew. While I definitely think Matthew uses some typology, I think we should take both accounts as historically accurate because 1)both authors include other details, which seem to point to a historical reality, and 2) both books are written in genres with a historical bent.

In this post, I want to look at some other details that both authors include that also appear at first glance to be contradictory: Who actually bought the field, and who prophesied the events. Here are the two accounts:
Read the rest of this entry

This was previously posted at my old blog. I had mentioned that I would post it again earlier and am finally getting around to it. This is part 1 of a 2 part series.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about the apparent contradiction between Luke and Matthew’s accounts of the death of Judas. This discrepancy has long been one of the main issues involved in the debate on the doctrine of inerrancy- the belief that the Bible, in the original writings, are without error due to the superintendence by the Holy Spirit. On a superficial look, it seems that these differences would be contradictory and that the idea of inerrancy is defeated. Here are the accounts:

“And throwing the money down into the temple, Judas left and hanged himself.”
Matthew 27.5

“Judas bought a field a field with the reward he got from his wrong-doing, and falling head-first, his body burst open in the middle and his intestines spilled out.”
Acts 1.18

Read the rest of this entry

There is an interesting issue that creeps up in 1 John 2:12-14. Here is the passage in the NLT:

“I am writing to you who are God’s children
because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.
I am writing to you who are mature in the faith
because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I am writing to you who are young in the faith
because you have won your battle with the evil one.
I have written to you who are God’s children
because you know the Father.
I have written to you who are mature in the faith
because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I have written to you who are young in the faith
because you are strong.
God’s word lives in your hearts,
and you have won your battle with the evil one.”

Certainly, the repetition in the passage catches our eye. The Greek is equally, if not more so, eye-catching. Before I actually get into the issue at hand, I do want to add that I really like NLT’s rendering of father and young men as “mature in the faith” and “young in the faith” respectively. The issue that I mentioned comes with how we translate the word ὅτι (hoti), which can be either causal (which the NLT, and most other translations, take it as), which would warrant a translation of “because,” or we it could be showing the content of John’s writing, which would be rendered “that.” In other words, is John giving the reason for writing or is he giving a summary of what he is writing?
Read the rest of this entry