In Universal Apologia, John C. Wright’s cursory exploration of the Anabaptists lists Nicolas Stork as the source of its ‘message’. Is it reasonable to conclude that Anabaptists got their message from one man? Where did that one man get his message or did he make it up on the spot? We know (or presume) that there […]
As noted in the previous article on John 1:14, the Word became flesh—embodied itself—qualitatively within the person of Jesus. Don Hartley[1] stated that all mass terms take a qualitative force, including “flesh” in John 1:14: “John 1:14, for example, does not teach that the Logos became The Flesh or a flesh, but rather “flesh,” signifying […]
The previous post “Grammatical Analysis of John 1:1c and John 1:14” noted that the doctrine of the Trinity is not supported by the grammar in the opening of the Gospel of John. Since this is widely considered to be the most important and direct scriptural evidence of Jesus’ preexistence and divinity, one would have to look elsewhere […]
While the doctrine of the Trinity is defended in many ways with many verses, it is the book of John that contains the most compelling evidence. John 1:1-14 is one of two primary passages used almost universally (the other is John 20:28). Its importance to Christianity cannot be overstated. Michael F. Bird underscores this point […]
This is part four in a topical series: (1) “On papal infallibility and cognitive dissonance” (2) “Did Jesus Give Peter the Papacy” (3) “Sacred Tradition of the Old Testament” (4) “Catholic Circular Reasoning” (This article) (5) “The Keys to the Kingdom” (Coming) Today’s adventure in biblical interpretation is a bit different. Rather than looking at one […]
The Bible often uses the words defile and unclean. The Sigma Frame blog has made the argument that these represent different things. The two English words are the same ancient Hebrew word. Many words in languages have multiple definitions and uses, and Hebrew is no different. Words differ in the their contextual meaning.[1] I will show that while […]
The Roman Catholic Church recently made changes to CCC 2267. In it two claims were made: “…the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” “…non-lethal means are sufficient…and more in conformity to the […]
This post is a twist on the much more common question of “is the old testament relevant?” As far as I know, nobody has ever asked whether the new testament is relevant to Christianity.[1] Let me rephrase the question: what would Christianity need in order to survive intact if the new testament were lost? In the […]
The “Adventures in Biblical Interpretation” series is a set of articles that discuss various approaches to interpretation of the bible using specific examples. The focus of is usually on analyzing the arguments (or lack thereof) presented and looking for errors in reasoning. Many critics of religion have noted that there are a nearly endless number […]
This article is part of the series Adventures in Biblical Interpretation. There are many debates on how to handle the law of the Old Testament. We have many questions. How much of it is binding on us today? What are the specific meanings of certain laws? What is the purpose of the law and how […]