The writings contained in what is known as the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (hereafter OTP) are legion. They date from about the middle of the 7th century BC to the 9th century AD and were written mostly by pre-Christian Jews, Christians, and other minor people groups. Some of the languages represented in the OTP are Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Slavonic, Coptic, Latin, and others. What is the OTP? The word “pseudepigrapha,” as one may see, comes from the Greek compound word which... Read more
Since the majority of our information about Jesus comes from the Gospels, when we try to work out the details of the historical Jesus, we are obliged to sift and weigh these sources. In Part 3, we opened a discussion of John Meier’s ten criteria for this effort with the three strongest. Today, we continue with the remaining two strong criteria, then summarize the five weak ones. (more…) Read more
FPR is pleased to announce that it is no longer an isle of the sea, but a “whatever a founder is”. The only change around here is the acknowledgement of the other founders in a place of honor on the sidebar. Also, I am now contractually obligated to bash on T&S until they ask me to guest-post. Thanks be to all the fine bloggers, readers, and commenters around here. Hopefully, we’ll keep on providing good stuff. Read more
Here’s the announcement of Bibleworks 7. I’ll probably be ordering the update. I am, however, interested in what others think of the “unlocks.” Zerwick –> always handy Blass, Debrunner, and Funk –> likewise, when you’re not in a library Critical appartus stuff –> probably a good idea, at some point But how about Comfort & Barrett? Or Balz & Schneider? (more…) Read more
When last we checked, more people were disturbed by possible polyandry than polygyny on the part of the Prophet Joseph. This week, we continue my personal campaign to put things in perspective: Who is more influential in the church today: Emma Hale Smith or Marjorie Pay Hinckley? Emma Smith: wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, recipient of D&C 25, subject of two books and several pieces of variable quality artwork at deseretbook.com. Marjorie Hinckley: wife of the current prophet, recipient... Read more
This little narrative describes opposition to the use of chloroform to ease the pain of delivery based on the divine decree that childbirth was to be painful. If it’s true, it’s one for the “stranger than fiction” file. I’ll try to run down more on it over the week. In the meantime, I see no author explicitly listed on the site I took it from, but the URL is here: (more…) Read more
This is the second part of the first post from Dan Belnap. Clothing and Definitions But the Garden story is not wholly concerned with nakedness, or rather remaining in a state of nakedness. There are also two scenes concerning the preparation and presentation of clothing. If nakedness represents the loss of one’s identity, which Adam and Eve have, then clothing represents one’s identity, and changes of clothing may represent new identities. It has long been recognized that clothing are powerful... Read more
Anthropopatheia is the name of the figure used to describe the ascription of human passions, actions, or attributes to God. Interestingly enough, at the time Bullinger was writing his Figures, another term for this was Condescension. Readers of the BoM will be familiar with the idea. Anyway, consider Gen 22:7 (more…) Read more
The Septuagint generally refers to the books of the Old Testament in their old Greek translation. Some scholars only use the term to refer to the Pentateuch section, although mostly the term is used to represent the Greek translation of the entire Old Testament. The correct pronunciation of the term, and the one used by Septuagint scholars, is SEP-tu-jent, the ultimate and penultimate syllables almost sounding as one. Most other folks, however, continue to pronounce the term sep-TU-a-jint. The origin... Read more
One of the interesting things about reading the last half of the NT is seeing how each author seems to “open up” OT language about God in order to include Christ. Since this is Creation Week at FPR, I thought I’d contribute a little something on the way the NT talks about Christ and creation. (more…) Read more
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