NT Wrong has joined in the (Mostly Dis)honest (S)crap meme fun, and left a comment with the following five statements about himself/herself/itself, one of which is supposed to be true: (1) I am James F. McGrath. (2) I am Matthew R. Malcolm. (3) I am an aardvark. (4) I Am. (5) I am at Baylor. No one should miss the importance of this clue, since basically it narrows the options significantly. If I’m not NT Wrong (and that’s a big... Read more

There was quite a response to my post about Genesis (the band, not the book), including Doug Chaplin declaring it my “secret sin”. Since he is Anglican I’ll defer to his expertise on matters of sin, but I strongly object to the notion that my being a fan has been kept secret! As a follow-up (and public display of my fandom), I thought I’d see if anyone has a favorite (or multiple favorites) among the solo and spin-off projects by... Read more

Jim Linville is a relative newcomer to blogging, but his posts thus far have been incredibly entertaining. I often kick myself and wonder why I didn’t have some of his ideas first (for instance, lolcats versions of the Review of Biblical Literature). His latest post includes a nice cartoon that nicely complements the one Chris Brady shared yesterday: Read more

Having posted on that “other” Genesis, I thought I’d also answer my own challenge and share a band that most people have never heard of but they ought to have. It is a band whose album I bought on a whim back in the 80s, called Prophet. My favorite song from their album Cycles of the Moon, was “Tomorrow Never Comes“. Alas, I didn’t find a complete version of that song anywhere online, so you’ll have to settle for this:... Read more

After I posted on “missing chapters” from Genesis, someone left a comment on Facebook asking if that refers to the period after Peter Gabriel left and before Phil Collins took over as lead singer. I actually have a connection to a different missing chapter from the band Genesis. I went to Bible College with the drummer in one of the two bands which later combined members (leaving other members by the wayside) to form Genesis. Genesis has long been a... Read more

The fourth proposition or chapter concerns the initial state in Genesis 1 being nonfunctional. The description of the earth as tohu and bohu (translated “formless and void” and in numerous other similar ways) is the focus, and as the latter term only occurs three times in the Bible, always in conjunction with the former, it is the former that becomes the important term to define. Walton provides a chart with all the instances (p.48), and suggests that the evidence points... Read more

Chris Brady is blogging about understanding the creation stories in Genesis literarily (pay careful attention to that spelling!). And as if that weren’t enough, he also shared this great cartoon: Read more

The latest Biblical Studies Carnival has been posted. It is an impressively comprehensive as well as diverse and entertaining “Bible Theme Park” hosted by none other than Ned Flanders. This month there seem to have been an unusually large number of common threads running through the biblioblogosphere, due among other things to memes and reviewing the same books. If you haven’t gone over to take a look yet, I highly recommend doing so! Read more

I was surprised to find that someone found their way to my blog by searching for “butler, baker and the candlestick maker in the bible“. It led them here. Do you think they found what they were looking for? Read more

Proposition three is that the Hebrew verb bara’ has a functional focus. Walton starts off by emphasizing that reading the Bible in English is really of no help whatsoever. The issue is not what the English word “create” means, but what the Hebrew word that is usually translated that was in Genesis 1 means. No amount of discussion of English can answer that. And thus it is clear that this is a problem for those who emphasize the need to... Read more