A Dive into Galatians (Part 4: Galatians 3:21-5:12—Sons or Slaves?)
A Brief Recap Thus FarBefore we move on to the next major section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, perhaps it would be good to pause and provide a brief recap...
Tag: Torah
A Dive into Galatians (Part 3: Galatians 2:15-3:20—Faith or Torah?)
The argument in Galatians actually begins in 2:15. Everything up to this point is basically historical prologue that illustrates the theological point Paul is g...
A Dive into Galatians (Part 2: Galatians 1:1-2:14)
The Greeting (1:1-5)If you are like me (or like me when I was in high school), if and when you ever read one of Paul’s letters, you tend to skim through those i...
Morality, the Torah, and a Transcendent Standard: Further Clarification
Before I begin my extended book analysis of Dan Barker’s Mere Morality, I wanted to write a post in which I clarify a number of points I’ve made, both in my thr...
Is Morality Derived From a Transcendent Standard?
Dan Barker, the former fundamentalist minister-turned-atheist, and now president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has recently written his most recent b...
John Walton’s “Lost World of the Torah”–A Book Review (Part 2): Why the Torah Needs to be Seen in Light of the Covenant…and What “Holiness” Really Means
John Walton’s most recent book, The Lost World of the Torah takes the reader through a number of misconceptions we in the modern world tend to have about the To...
“godless” by Dan Barker: An Extended Book Analysis (Part 5): The Bible…a Universal Moral Rule Book?
We now come to Part 3 of Dan Barker’s book godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists. Part 3 is entitled, “What’s Wrong with...
Getting a Handle on the Old Testament Story (Part 1): Merry Christmas–I’m Giving You the Gift of Old Testament Understanding!
The Old Testament is a collection of 39 books, written roughly over a span of 1,000 years, and it covers the entire history of ancient Israel. It contains narra...
John Walton on the Israelite Conquest of Canaan (Part 4): The Depiction of the Canaanites and Understanding God’s Law
In his latest book, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, John Walton attempts to present the conquest narrative in the Book of Joshua in its historical and...
Israel’s Conquest of Canaan: Questions and Controveries–A Look at John Walton’s New Book (Part 1)
Mass genocide. Ethnic cleansing. An ancient form of colonialism. Cruel, superstitious, fanatical, barbarous war criminals no different than Nazis. That’s the an...