Category Archives: bible

let’s do away with verse citations

Twice already in my life I have suggested to religious leaders that they read a difficult Pauline passage without chapter or verse divisions. In both cases, these individuals have taken my advice and printed off a copy of the Pauline letter au natural, and read it. In both cases they were surprised how much more [...]
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class outlines by john hobbins

John Hobbins has been teaching a class entitled ‘The Bible and Current Events’ in a series of 90-minute modules. He’s been good enough to make an outline of the classes available on his blog, including collections of his own thoughts, video clips including ‘I got tefillin‘, assigned texts, assigned blog entries, and even essay topics. [...]
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Sing with the understanding also: swift and beautiful feet

Today, in church, we sang ‘Take My Life‘, a wonderful little hymn. Given the biblical illiteracy of our day, I wondered whether one particular line might cause trouble: Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for thee. Praying for fast and pretty feet seems, well, shallow, if the biblical allusion is not [...]
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hinneh-na: the big list

I’ve been looking about in Genesis, and I noticed around chapter 20 that I was suddenly seeing the phrase הנה נא hinneh na “Behold now” far more often than before.  So I decided to have a look-see and find out where all the phrase found itself in the Bible, to see what context might teach [...]
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something pesky in genesis 2

I made the mistake of re-reading a familiar passage of the Bible recently (I think it was December 26).  As tends to happen, I was bothered by a detail I either missed before or conveniently suppressed.  And this detail is in verses 4 and 5, where the text says, 4 These are toldot of the [...]
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words are too sticky: capitalism and acts 2

That is, there seems to be a sore lack of words that mean only one specific narrowly defined thing.  Take, for example, the word capitalist.  I consider myself a super-hardcore capitalist, but I often fail to mention that I am using capitalist in a very narrow sense.  I mean capitalist in the governmental sense:  someone [...]
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the three curses of genesis 3

14 Jehovah God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. 15 You will move upon your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between [...]
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the first column of the westminster-leningrad codex

The Westminster Leningrad Codex, Genesis 1, translated line by line: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and void Related Posts:Adam and the Enslavement of Humanity, Part 1On Genesis 1, literal history, and presuppositionsGod is a man?thoughts on genesis, narrative, etc.leningrad codex facsimile online!
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gibborish

I’ve seen the Hebrew word gibbor translated traditionally as “mighty one.” Now, I’m in Hebrew 102 at the Ohio State University, which is a Modern Israeli Hebrew class. However, my primary objective in taking MIH is to transition to Biblical Hebrew, and as part of that process I’m working my way through Marc Zvi Brettler’s [...]
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memorize the whole bible?

Suppose you wanted to memorize the Bible–the whole thing, Book of Eli style, all 31,102 verses, or thereabouts.  Related Posts:pauker’s betternavpress, bible memorization, the word of god, and christian jargonbetter than pauker
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