Ancient Hebrew Poetry

The Top Bible Blogs: An Authoritative Guide

I laughed and laughed upon reading Doug Magnum’s guide. Go here. For more great laughs, I encourage you to take a look at a recent post by agathos which identifies the worst preacher ever. Hint: Peter Kirk is not going to like it.

The Pros and Cons of JHV Psalm 1:1-2

Don’t laugh too hard reading this post. I review my own translation of Psalm 1:1-2 (referred to as JHV for convenience), and find it terribly wanting. The problem, as Stephen Barkley notes, is that reading the Bible in English is like sipping a fine wine through a tea bag.

The Pros and Cons of ESV Psalm 1:1-2

Read this first.

In some ways, NLT2 and ESV stand at opposite poles. NLT2 tends to translate in clear, natural, contemporary English, without regard for the Tyndale-Geneva-KJV translation tradition. ESV adheres to the Tyndale-Geneva-KJV tradition in terms of the revision it was given by RSV more than a half-century ago. To be sure, ESV corrects RSV toward the Masoretic text as understood by contemporary philology. Far less often than RSV, it resorts to conjectural emendation or correction of MT based on an ancient version. In addition, though very rarely, more or less as Jerome did in his day, ESV corrects the Masoretic text to accord with Christian interpretation of it (as in Isaiah 7:14). RSV did this too, but less often still (as in Zechariah 9:9).

Psalm 1: A Translator’s Nightmare

Over at the “gold standard” blog for discussion of the Bible in English, David Ker asks what people want to hear discussed when it comes to Bible translation. I am not surprised by the majority of the responses, which I would rephrase in this way:

You must remember this: A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply: As time goes by.

In straight-up, propositional language: the Bible in English debate continues to center on the relative merits and demerits of translations that are as “literal as possible and as free as necessary” on the one hand, and, on the other hand, translations that choose natural, field-tested English over traditional and more literal alternatives apart from a short list of apparently unavoidable Biblicisms such as “baptize” and “Christ.” The latter is, as every field-tester knows, Jesus’ last name.

Iyov on a New Facsimile Edition of the Geneva Bible

Go here, and don’t forget to read his earlier posts on other Geneva Bible editions available (here and here). I’ve been waiting for the good old polemical Iyov to kick in, but it hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime, though I do not pretend to be able to keep up with my fellow blogger, I’ll do my best to stir the pot with a quote designed to inflame my friends over at Better Bibles:

Reflections on the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency

Rick Warren shined as the moderator of a recent forum which featured the major candidates for US President this season, Barack Obama and John McCain. For transcripts of Warren’s interviews with the candidates, go here. For the videos, go here.

To the dismay of many who wish that born-again Christians kept their faith and their political opinions to themselves (see the Garrison Keillor quote below), here comes a Southern Baptist pastor who, besides making the cover of TIME magazine, organizes an event at the intersection of faith and politics which attracted enormous interest. 200,000 questions were pre-submitted by interested individuals. The resultant interviews were broadcast multiple times on both Fox and CNN. Do the math on this event and you cannot fail to get an idea of the immense soft power a figure like Pastor Rick Warren is able to wield in the current political climate.

Evolutionary biology and Genesis 3:14 agree: the snake lost its legs, and it was not a good thing

This blogger (evangelical Christian) and this blogger (Jewish) argue, each in their own way, for the compatibility of recent findings in the field of evolutionary biology with the text of Genesis 3:14. In short, there is evidence to the effect that the (proto-) snake lost its legs about 140 million years ago, and that, furthermore, the loss was a detrimental evolutionary change. The relevant article in JPost is reproduced below.

The Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in Christian Worship: Unanswered Questions

Recent official statements of the Catholic Church prohibit the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in the liturgy. To be sure, the use of “Yahweh” as needed in courses on the Old Testament and in scholarship generally is not thereby prohibited. יהוה is also pronounced by many (not all) Jewish scholars outside of worship as the (rare) occasion demands. The prohibition is presented as a return to earlier tradition in the official Catholic statements, and as an act of repentance by Catholic participants in Jewish-Christian dialogue. Which is it? Should other Christians follow suit?

Faith and Athletics in China

What a joy it was to cheer Federica Pellegrini to the finish line with a roomful of Italians as she captured the gold medal and a new world record in the 200 meter freestyle. The Olympics have a knack of bringing out praiseworthy qualities in human beings, such as the quest for excellence for the sheer sake of excellence, forbearance against all odds, and sportsmanship in the best sense of the word. Given that human kind is understood by Judaism and Christianity – corporeally and spiritually in the strands that speak to me most deeply – to be made in the image and likeness of God, it can come as no surprise that faith and athletics have gone and continue to go hand in hand.

The example of Eric Liddell, whose story, along with that of Harold Abrahams, was immortalized in Chariots of Fire, speaks volumes. This is the verse from the Hebrew Bible that Eric, who came to be known as the Flying Scotsman, lived by:

The Demeaning of TUCC and the Ministry of Jeremiah Wright: A Response

Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright parted ways very publicly a few months ago. To my way of thinking, that the parting became politically necessary is a judgment on the immaturity and cultural ignorance of opinion makers in the mainstream media and beyond. I am also aggravated by the tendency of evangelicals on the one hand and white mainline Protestants on the other to regard Jeremiah Wright and his church as racist entities to be castigated and demeaned. It is surely the case that Jeremiah Wright has said indefensible things, but that fact does not change other and more weighty facts which should have caused both evangelicals and mainline Protestants in the know to circle the wagons and defend TUCC and Jeremiah Wright from the attacks of ignorant people.

The weightier facts are these.