On Sunday 4 September 2011 Matt preached a sermon on The Parable of the Net in Matthew 13:47-51: Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Hermeneutics'
Sermon on The Parable of the Net (Mp3)
September 9th, 2011 No Comments
Tags: Preaching · The Parable of the Net
Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part II
August 12th, 2011 156 Comments
In my last post “Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part I” I discussed William Lane Craig’s position on the Canaanite Conquest account (in light of the fact that Craig referred to my argument in his question of the week: “Question 225: The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited”). I [...]
Tags: Atlanta · Canaanites · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Genocide · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Question of the Week · Society of Biblical Literature · William Lane Craig
Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part I
August 11th, 2011 6 Comments
Every week William Lane Craig answers a question on his website; this week’s question of the week is entitled “The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited”. The questioner asked what Craig thinks of the Canaanite Conquest account. I got a mention in Craig’s reply: “The topic of God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was the subject [...]
Tags: Atlanta · Canaanites · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Genocide · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Question of the Week · Society of Biblical Literature · William Lane Craig
Guest Post: Paul Copan Replies to Hector Avalos – Deuteronomy 25:11-12, an Eye for an Eye, and Raymond Westbrook
July 9th, 2011 57 Comments
My book review of John Loftus’s The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails prompted several responses from Hector Avalos, one of the book’s contributors. Avalos has offered critiques of not just my arguments but also those of my good friend Paul Copan. This Guest Post, written by Paul Copan, responds to some of Avalos’s charges. Paul [...]
Tags: Bruce Wells · Hector Avalos · John Loftus · Lex Talionis · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Raymond Westbrook
Stark Wars
June 23rd, 2011 29 Comments
Thom Stark has written a lengthy response (304 pages!) to Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster? which he has published on his blog, Religion at the Margins; it is entitled Is God a Moral. Compromiser? A Critical Review of Paul Copan’s. “Is God a Moral Monster?” In it, alongside his criticisms of Copan, Stark makes [...]
Tags: Is God a Moral Monster? · Paul Copan · Richard Hess · Thom Stark
Hear Iain Provan on Why Should we Read the Old Testament, and How?
June 11th, 2011 1 Comment
Compass Foundation and Regent College are hosting Iain Provan at an event in Auckland next month entitled ‘Why Should we Read the Old Testament, and How?’ Here is the info from their blurb: Why read the Old Testament? What relevance could this old collection of books have for us today? And how should we read it? How [...]
Tags: Compass · Events · Iain Provan · Regent College
Madeleine on Unbelievable?
May 5th, 2011 7 Comments
Recently we posted a link to an episode from Justin Brierly’s Unbelievable? show on the UK station Premier Christian Radio which featured a podcast of Paul Copan and Norman Bacrac discussing Is God a Moral Monster? Yesterday we were alerted to the fact that at the end of the Unbelievable? episode of 23 Apr 2011, “Rob Bell [...]
Tags: Canaanites · Christian Premier Radio · Hermeneutics · Justin Brierley · MP3 · Norman Bacrac · Paul Copan · Podcast · Unbelievable?
Contra Mundum: Stoning Adulterers
May 2nd, 2011 90 Comments
Back in 2005 there was a minor furore when Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary stated he agreed with the Koran’s teaching that people who engaged in homosexual conduct or who committed adultery should be stoned to death. In the media spiral that followed, some commentators pointed out that it was not just Islam that held this [...]
Tags: Adultery · Ashraf Choudhary · Capital Punishment · Contra Mundum · Gordon Wenham · Investigate Magazine · J J Finkelstein · John Goldingay · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Westbrook · Walter Kaiser
Moving Beyond Sunday School
April 19th, 2011 9 Comments
On this blog we often rail against new-atheist readings of Biblical texts. Our pages are littered with expositions as to what a text is really saying when you consider the context, genre and textual evidence, all of which demonstrates that the new-atheist readings of the texts are at best wanting and at worst down-right stupid [...]
Tags: Hermeneutics · Paul Copan
Contra Mundum: Pacifism and Just Wars
July 5th, 2011 25 Comments
Comedian Bill Maher recently berated Christians for being hypocrites for supporting military action against terrorists in his “New Rules” segment on the U.S. TV show Real Time (transcript here). Jesus, Maher contended, was a pacifist; “Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick. He has lines like, “do not repay evil with evil,” and “do [...]
Tags: Bill Maher · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Just War · Pacifism · War Ethics