Strive to Enter, Luke 12:54-13:35 INTRODUCTION Jesus said that blasphemy against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but that blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven (Luke 12:10). The contrast has to do with different periods of Jesus’ work. He came as “Son of Man,” warning . . . . Continue Reading »
And here’s another thing from Murphy on the Exodus plagues: “The Pharaoh’s magicians had proudly imitated Moses’ conjuring: they can turn rods into crocodiles too. But was it wise to demonstrate that they can as powerfully invoke a plague of frogs as the prophet of Yahweh? . . . . Continue Reading »
Oh, as I read on, Murphy is making the book worth it: On Pharaoh and the plagues: “As Egypt’s sources of life and fertility are destroyed, plague by plague, so Pharaoh’s respose rigidifies. Pharaoh is progressively mummified.” She later adds: “The substitution [of . . . . Continue Reading »
The first few pages of Francesca Aran Murphy’s The Comedy Of Revelation were delightful, but her section on Genesis was disappointing. The comedy she sees in Genesis is mainly of her own making ?Eshe simply retells the biblical stories in a jazzy, smark-alecky fashion, and we’re . . . . Continue Reading »
In an essay on Barth’s sacramental theology (in the Cambridge Companion to Barth ), James J. Buckley summarizes Barth’s early views on ecclesiology in the modern age as follows: “Modern man “‘nationalizes’ the Church and the Church allows this . . . . Continue Reading »
Thousands of years before David Blane, there was this, reported in a text called “On the Syrian God” purportedly by Lucian, which describes the orgiastic rites of the goddess Atargatis: “Two [phalli] at the entrance of the sanctuary, 1,800-foot-high monsters. One of them is . . . . Continue Reading »
“Justified” in Rom 2:13 (the first use in Romans) is clearly contrasted with “perish” and “judged by Law.” The structure of vv 12-13 is poetic parallelism: whoever without law sins without law also perishes whoever in law sins through law will be judged not the . . . . Continue Reading »
“You,” “we” and “us” are interesting in Eph 2: Let’s try “you” = Gentiles and “we” = Jews. This becomes explicit at least by verse 11, and I suggest that we read vv 1-10 in the same way: “You Gentiles were dead in trespasses . . . . Continue Reading »
When Paul says that the Gentiles do what the law requires because of the law written in their hearts, who is he talking about? Righteous pagans? Christians (as NT Wright and others have recently argued)? There seems to be an obvious third alternative: That is, Gentiles who are heirs of the . . . . Continue Reading »
This from the TDNT on HELLEN: “In Hellenistic Judaism Hellenism was found to be the most dangerous form of paganism, but as yet there is no simple equation of HELLENES and Gentiles. Hellenism is the historically known magnitude of the Greek world with its language, customs and deities . . . . . . . . Continue Reading »
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