Undeception

Overthrowing the tyranny of majority

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Entries Tagged as 'Hermeneutics'

Why the debate over creationism matters

November 25th, 2008 · 36 Comments · Evolution/origins, Hermeneutics, Science

Recently I have been involved in a couple conversations with folks who aren’t really “informed” (I use the term loosely) creationists but have been hounded enough by creationists/biblical literalists who have drawn the battle line twixt themselves and evolutionists/biblical contextualists that they sit down firmly just on the creationists’ side of the fence — just [...]

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The place of God’s providence in my theology

August 21st, 2008 · 11 Comments · Covenant Creation, Evolution/origins, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

I have been musing lately about how my stance on the creation/evolution controversy would impact other areas of theology if applied consistently. The stance I’m referring to is my conviction that viewing the history of the natural universe as a string of miraculous interventions into nature is hopelessly misguided. I have argued that the atheistic [...]

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Herman who? Someone every Christian needs to know

July 15th, 2008 · 12 Comments · Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

I come from a Christian tradition that downplays or contradicts basic principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) on a regular basis. The starting assumption is that the Bible is God’s Word written; this effectively entails the idea that the Bible is about as divine as He is: inerrant because He is, authoritative because He is, perfect [...]

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Progressive revelation

June 23rd, 2008 · No Comments · Ancient Near East, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

I’ve not got much to say about this, but please check out Cliff Martin’s post that describes his thinking on the unchanging nature of God, progressive revelation, and the inspiration of Scripture. I don’t think I disagreed with anything he said. Here’s an excerpt:

I believe that the Bible is a unique book, inspired from Genesis [...]

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Ancient and modern methods of recording historical events

June 18th, 2008 · No Comments · Ancient Near East, Hermeneutics, Scripture

Lawrence Boadt’s excellent Reading the Old Testament has a chart on page 79 that illustrates some key differences between the way the ancients viewed history and the way we do today. We tend to be shocked when we discover that there might be any deviation from what we subconsciously have accepted as the only viewpoint. [...]

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Are the early Genesis stories historical accounts?

June 13th, 2008 · 20 Comments · Ancient Near East, Hermeneutics, Scripture, The Fall, Theology

Before I “took the road less traveled by” into historical linguistics, I was highly interested in ancient history, especially as it related to the Old Testament. I wanted to learn Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, and of course Hebrew so that I could study the Ancient Near East (ANE) and how it related to the Bible. [...]

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Life in God’s Garden

May 30th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Covenant Creation, Hermeneutics, Preterism, Scripture, The Fall, Theology

Summary of Part One

God the Gardener created a son (Lk 3.38) to tend the garden.

God, as a father, was training up his children Adam and Eve in the garden.

Adam was put in a garden for instruction because gardening requires faith: both faithfulness in tending day by day and faith that what is planted and cultivated [...]

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Does majority rule in theology?

February 29th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Eschatology, Hermeneutics, Preterism, Reformed Theology, Theology

In this week’s installment of Theology Unplugged, a podcast I highly recommend, Reclaiming the Mind Ministries president Michael Patton made the following comments about full preterists (like myself):
Now I would say, you can believe that, and you can make your arguments — and many people do from Scripture. I’m not persuaded at all by them [...]

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The Fallout

February 15th, 2008 · 20 Comments · Ancient Near East, Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, The Fall, Theology

This is the eighth and final post in a series on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
Part 3: The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture
Part 4: Inerrancy vs. infallibility
Part 5: The literary-generic principle
Part 6: The authority of Scripture
Part 7: Case study: the Fall

So anyway what about [...]

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Case Study: the Fall

February 11th, 2008 · 15 Comments · Ancient Near East, Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, The Fall, Theology

This is the seventh in a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
Part 3: The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture
Part 4: Inerrancy vs. infallibility
Part 5: The literary-generic principle
Part 6: The authority of Scripture
The traditional doctrines of the Fall and of Original Sin [...]

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The authority of Scripture

February 8th, 2008 · 8 Comments · Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

This is the sixth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
Part 3: The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture
Part 4: Inerrancy vs. infallibility
Part 5: The literary-generic principle

Preliminary Remarks The purpose of these next few posts is to examine my perspective of [...]

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The Literary-Generic Principle

January 20th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Ancient Near East, Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Hymns, Personal, Scripture, Theology

This is the fifth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
Part 3: The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture
Part 4: Inerrancy vs. infallibility
The Importance of Determining Genre
Because the Bible is a compilation of literary works, in order to get the sense [...]

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Inerrancy vs. Infallibility

January 15th, 2008 · No Comments · Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

This is the fourth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
Part 3: The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture
In the discussion of the mode of the Bible’s inspiration I pointed out that the Bible is a compilation of literary contributions empowered [...]

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The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture

January 11th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

This is the third of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
Part 2: What is inspiration?
We can summarize the previous discussion by saying that 2 Timothy 3:15-17 teaches that these writings collectively known as the Bible have been infused with the breath of life from God’s own lips, [...]

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What is “inspiration”?

January 8th, 2008 · 6 Comments · Bibliology and hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Scripture, Theology

This is the second of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.
Part 1: “All or “every” Scripture?
This leads us to the specific meaning of the word theopneustos. The phrase “inspired by God” seeks to render this enigmatic near hapax legomenon which is a compound adjective with the components theos ‘God’ and pneustos ‘breathed’, [...]

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