Category Archives: Blog

Part 1 – “God is Love“ Whatever one thinks of the nature of the Bible—whether word-for-word divinely inspired or written by humans but to some degree and in some ways guided and influenced by divine involvement—few question that the central and foundational nature of God can be best be summed up in one word: LOVE[1].Continue reading ““LOVE IS…””

For many Christians, the meaning of 2 Timothy 3:16 is clear and uncomplicated. They insist that the creator of this text was stating that the sixty-six books that comprise the Protestant Bible are the only books that are inspired by God and that inspiration assures God’s initiation, engagement, and oversight of the authorship, transmission, canonization,Continue reading “Some Thoughts on 2 Timothy 3:16–17”

Wesner, Maralene and Miles Wesner. When God Can’t Answer. Macon, GA: Nurturing Faith, 2022. This is a relatively short (100 pages in paperback) and dense effort to explain why many (maybe even most) prayers are not answered. Fundamentally, the authors explain and conclude that God’s nature and human freedom are the reasons for “unanswered” prayers.Continue reading “Thoughts on Wesners’ Book, “When God Can’t Answer””

In my ongoing—feels like never-ending—research for my dissertation, I ran across the following two paragraphs, written by Jerome to Pope Damasus in 383 CE. It is Jerome’s preface to his translation of the New Testament—with a few comments about the Old Testament. The source of the following quotation is https://vulgate.org/ but I have emphasized inContinue reading “Essay: Perceptions of Scripture in the Late 4th century CE”

Chapter 4: A Biblical Text? The Variety of Versions Not only do we not have any “original” of any biblical book, neither do we possess any “final” authoritative form of any biblical book. The ancient manuscripts we possess in Hebrew and Aramaic (OT), and Greek (NT) exist in pluriformity (multiple, and diverse forms). The ancientContinue reading “More Thoughts on Gillingham’s book, “One Bible, Many Voices” – Part 5″

Re: Chapter 3 — “A Biblical Corpus? The Canon and the Boundaries of Faith” In Chapter 3 of Professor Gillingham’s book, One Bible, Many Voices, she focuses the discussion on clearing up confusion and misunderstandings with regard to the canonization of biblical texts. This is an area of biblical knowledge that is incredibly lacking amongContinue reading “More Thoughts on Gillingham’s book, “One Bible, Many Voices” – Part 4″

Thoughts on Chapter 2: A Biblical Theology? Two Testaments, One Book? I took a lot of notes on this chapter, as I found Gillingham’s discussion to be quite helpful. She reinforced what I’ve learned over the last fifteen years and presented new thoughts for serious consideration. I agree wholeheartedly when she writes, “Given that theContinue reading “Thoughts on Gillingham’s book, “One Bible, Many Voices” – Part 3″

In the first chapter of her book, One Bible, Many Voices, published in 1998, Professor Gillingham explores “the biblical library,” i.e., the collection of texts that are included in the various anthologies we call “the Bible.” She concludes the chapter by stating, In short, Gillingham concludes that the processes involved in the composition, editing, collectionContinue reading “Thoughts on Gillingham’s book, “One Bible, Many Voices” – Part 2″

In the very brief introduction to her 1998 book, Professor Susan Gillingham makes several key points about the nature of the Bible that are essential to its proper interpretation and application. She writes… From my studies, over the past fifteen years, I couldn’t agree more. To use a term that is becoming more popular andContinue reading “Thoughts on Gillingham’s Book, “One Bible Many Voices” –Part 1[1]”

The texts of the New Testament were authored over a much shorter period of time and thus were not subject to a large amount of redaction. However, manuscript evidence does point to differences between copies of the texts mostly due to scribal error, explanations, additions and/or deletions. These textual variants have mostly minimal effect onContinue reading “New Testament Polyphony Explained”