Last month, a friend of mine brought to my attention an October 17th blog post by Ken Ham in which he commented on an article by Religion News Service about new children’s books written by progressive Christians. I proceeded to read Ham’s post, as well as the article in question, and realized that when it…
It has been over a month since my last post in my series regarding the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament. At that time, I looked at the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 and argued that in its original context, Isaiah 53 is about the purified remnant of Israel and that by quoting from…
A few weeks ago, I got into a somewhat heated discussion on Twitter over the issue of the dating of the birth of Jesus. In all honesty, although I knew about the basic problem, it had never been an issue that I had spent considerable time on. In any case, in the weeks following that…
In my previous post, I began to argue that the Suffering Servant in of Isaiah 53, when read within the context of the larger section of Isaiah 40-55, is clearly to be identified with Israel. The “blind and deaf Servant” in passages like Isaiah 42:19 is idolatrous Israel before the exile. That’s why they got…
Perhaps one of the most well-known, and I would argue most misunderstood, Old Testament prophecy quoted in the gospels is Isaiah 53, or more properly Isaiah 52:13-53:12. It is quoted numerous times throughout the New Testament: Matthew 8:17 (the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law); Luke 22:37 (in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples); John 12:37-38 (in John’s…
Perhaps one of the most fascinating things I’ve learned about in my years of Biblical Studies is the issue of the New Testament’s use of Old Testament prophecies. Like most people, I grew up with the general assumption that “prophecy” basically meant “prediction,” and that in regard to a number of Old Testament prophecies, that…
The other day, Ken Ham took to Twitter to comment on a recent article in Christianity Today entitled, “Lose You Faith at College? That’s Part of the Process.” You can read the article yourself, but the gist of it is this: A lot of kids who grew up in Christian schools often have a crisis…
Over the past month, two rather prominent Evangelical Christians have publicly announced that they are walking away from Christianity. First there is Josh Harris. Back in 1997, a 21-year-old Harris wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye and became an instant celebrity within Evangelicalism. The book advocated courtship over dating, stressed sexual purity and abstinence before marriage,…
Well, we made it. Here we are: the final post of my extended book analysis of Jerry Coyne’s Faith vs. Fact. In this post, I want to not only wrap up my analysis of Coyne’s book, but I also want to reflect a bit on all my previous book analyses on the New Atheist Movement….
Welcome to Part 12 of my analysis of Jerry Coyne’s book, Faith vs. Fact, where I will discuss Coyne’s final chapter: “Why Does it Matter?” When it comes right down to it, this chapter is a blend of a summary of Coyne’s argument throughout the book as well as Coyne’s own take on the “culture…