Anyone who has read the Bible with serious intent to understand it will almost certainly have come across the occasional strange annotation, often in a footnote, that says something like “Many manuscripts…” or “the earliest manuscripts and many others…”, followed by a reading that differs a bit from what’s in the body of the text.…
Several news outlets are reporting that biblical scholars Craig Evans and Daniel Wallace are working with a team that may have uncovered the earliest known copy of the Gospel of Mark. You can see full articles with all the details here and here. In short, this fragment of the Gospel of Mark has been found in a paper mache…
We all know the old adage: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. But what about when the thing that looks too good to be true comes from someone we have every reason to trust explicitly, like Jesus? In John 14:13-14, it is reported that Jesus said this: “Whatever you ask…
If you haven’t already heard, you probably will soon: a recent archaeological find in Israel has sparked a new round of attacks on the historical reliability of the Bible. In short, Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen, of Tel Aviv University have recently released the findings of their study of the Aravah Valley (on…
Apologetics Biblical Studies Bible Tools of the Devil? or, What’s the Best Bible Translation? by Craig A. Smith, Ph.D. I remember a campus minister friend of mine who once had a family offer to support his ministry entirely, meaning that he could forget the time-consuming task of raising support and keeping in regular touch with…
So, how do we know when to read the Bible literally vs. reading it figuratively? Well, again, as we’re going to see over and over again: we make that decision the same way that we do it in normal conversation. And basically, the way we do it in normal human conversation is that we assume…
One of the things that sometimes divides what we might call “conservative” Christianity from “liberal” Christianity has to do with whether or not someone claims to believe in the “literal” meaning of the Bible. This is an incredibly misleading concept and we all need to stop getting hung-up on it. The real question is not…
In the last installment of Bible Basics, we made the point that a passage means only what its A(a)uthor[1] intended it to mean. A right interpretation is one that matches up with what the A(a)uthor of the passage meant when H(h)e wrote it. However, while there is typically only one meaning of a biblical passage…
The goal of biblical interpretation is simple: to understand what God meant by each thing He said in the Bible. Here’s one of the most important things to keep in mind when interpreting the Bible: God is the one who decides what a passage means. He’s the ultimate author of the Bible, so God…and the…
This principle is so basic I’m almost embarrassed to include it in the list, but it’s definitely one of those truths that nearly everyone seems to forget. Listen, communication takes work. This doesn’t apply only to communication between God and human beings…all communication takes work. To really understand someone else, we have to listen well and…