5 Minute Bible

Being Ideal Readers: 2 putting it all together

2010-03-03T14:08:00.002+13:00

In part two we get drawn to the hymn in Phil 2 and discover not only what Jesus' disscension is all about, but also get to understand the talk of us being gifts in Eph 4:11-13 better. (If you have not listened to part 1 do listen to that first.)

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Being Ideal Readers: 1 in which we discover the importance of a Psalm

2010-03-02T17:47:00.002+13:00

In this podcast we'll begin to grapple with a complicated idea, but quite simply begin to discover how to become (more) ideal readers. We'll be looking at Eph 4 , and you will also need a bookmark in Ps 68 . This is a podcast in two parts (otherwise I'd have to change the name to 10 minute Bible, so do listen to tomorrow's episode after today's ;)

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Casuistic and apodictic: part 3: Jesus reads more Scripture

2010-02-18T20:10:00.002+13:00

We look at how Jesus reads other Bible passages (still in Matthew 5) to begin confirming the hypothesis that to read Scripture with Jesus is to make it so extreme that rules (casuistic law) become goals (apodictic command). Before you get to the next podcast it would be a good idea to listen to "What DOES "fulfil" mean?" and "Jesus as fulfilment of Scripture: Slavery and Spanking"

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Casuistic and apodictic: part 2: The Jesus Key

2010-02-09T20:22:00.005+13:00

In this I'll tell you how I think Jesus offers the key to how we should understand the casuistic laws of the Old Testament. It's simple, but as I'll go on to show in later 'casts profound. The clue is found in a passage we've looked at before (Matt 5) especially in Matt 5:17-22. (See here for that 'cast, and here for a whole sermon ;) .

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Casuistic and apodictic: part 1: What the terms mean

2010-02-02T19:01:00.004+13:00

The distinction between casuistic and apodictic formulations of "legal" material in the Bible, seems like a prime example of scholarship which has lost touch with the needs of real Bible readers. Not least the abstruse technical language puts people off. Yet this distinction has deeply theological consequences, and Jesus seems to "fulfill" OT law (at least in part) by rephrasing the casuistic as apodictic.

In this first part I'll begin the boring stuff, and introduce what scholars meant by distinguishing casuistic from apodictic material in the laws of the Old Testament. Part 2 will get to the exciting stuff. (I know this is not the best way to gain your attention, but sometimes work is needed before the fun can start.)

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Our bach is now for Sale

2009-12-31T17:17:00.001+13:00

Please excuse one post not related to audio talks about biblical study, but while we've been in Thailand our son Thomas and his wife Melissa have been hard at work preparing the family bach for sale. They have finished and it is on the market.

Part of the view from the deck

We are all sad, but need to sell it to pay for a new home outside Tauranga. Thomas and Melissa have done a superb job of renovating, so that it not only looks smart, but is also much more convenient and comfortable.

From the convenient new kitchen to the living and dining area.

They have renewed and replaced to give almost new kitchen and bathroom, as well as new wool carpet throughout and new paint, even the roof.

We wish we could buy it ourselves ;)

One of four Bedrooms.

So, if you know someone who would like to buy a beach home with superb views that simply cannot be built out as it is right on the waterfront and most of the nearer view is the Awhitu Regional Park. Just 1hr 15mins (or less depending on traffic and speed) from Central Auckland and less from the motorway, within an easy coastal walk from the beautiful beaches of the Awhitu regional park, just point them to us (http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=262830520)!

2009-10-20T09:33:00.001+13:00

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Ruth is from Moab, but Boaz is from Bethlehem

2009-09-02T21:22:00.003+12:00

After looking at Direct speech in biblical narratives and especially how the manner of speaking characterises Boaz and Naomi in the book of Ruth and a side glance at the question of whether Ruth's very arrival at Boaz' field was chance or not (in Chance or Providence?) I'd like now to suggestthat thinking more deeply about how Ruth is portrayed in chapter 2 can add a sharpness and richness to the story. There is little of direct theological significance to this exercise, but in terms of the sort of reading Scripture as a way of exploring ourselves and our world (that Julia and I have been extoling in Reading Novels, Reading the Bible and Hard Times for Bible Readers respectively) this sort of nuance can be highly significant!

The work referred to in the podcast is: Crapon de Caprona, Pierre. Ruth la Moabite : essai. Genève: Labor et Fides, 1982.

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Direct speech in biblical narratives

2009-08-24T18:38:00.003+12:00

There are many ways in which the story-tellers of the Bible ensure that their tellings are lively and engaging. One is through the way they report speech. There is usually more "direct speech" (where the words of a character are "quoted") then "indirect speech" (where the teller tells us the gist of what the character said). This direct speech is often skillfully crafted to give a lively and rich portrayal of the person. The podcast begins with cases where a group of people speak (we already heard one of these in the post Humour in the Bible: Part 2: Still Introducing Saul). Another example of this is found in Jonah 1:8 though here different emotions are expressed. The book of Ruth uses skillfully differentiated speech to help portray the characters. In this podcast we'll look at Boaz' two speeches to Ruth from chapter 2 (Ruth 2:11-12; 8-9).

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Chance or Providence?

2009-08-22T18:47:00.004+12:00

Often in biblical narrative things "just seem to happen", rather like they do in our lives ;) But are such "happenings" chance or divine providence at work? We'll try to decide, using Gen 37:12ff. (read with Gen 39) and Ruth 2 as examples.

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A Text without contexts is dumb! 2: Text without cotext is dumb

2009-08-15T11:14:00.004+12:00

For the second part of this "A text without contexts is dumb" series we'll think about cotext, the text that surrounds a text, providing context. The biblical examples come from Psalms and Ephesians. You might want to listen to Part 1 here first ;)

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Typescenes and the book of Ruth

2009-07-11T16:52:00.004+12:00

Typescene sounds like a typical technical term scholars use make Bible stories dull :( In this podcast I hope to show you it's exactly the opposite and that by spending 5 minutes learning about typescenes you can discover a livelyness you may have missed, even in a well-loved story like Ruth. (Other passage you should have ready, or look at before listening are: Genesis 24; 29 & Exodus 2:15ff..)

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Another Biblical Studies podcast series

2009-06-30T10:09:00.002+12:00

It's been a long time since I prepared a 5 Minute Bible podcast, lots of reasons, hopefully the drought will break in the next month or three as life quietens again. In the meanwhile I'll do two things. Recommend Mark Goodacre's NT podcast series, he's on number 3 now, and the one I've listened to is really good! The three podcasts so far are:

The other thing I'll do which should help remind me of some of the topics I said I'd address here ;) and so perhaps get me started again sooner :) is to repeat some of the older 'casts. The first repeat will be the next post "above".

Bible study in mother tongues

2008-11-01T11:38:00.001+13:00

Here's my idea for helping people make Bible study resources available in their mother tongues - and (of course) they are audio Bible study resources!

Bonhoeffer on Gen 3 - Conscience

2008-09-22T17:44:00.002+12:00

Bonhoeffer has some hugely stimulating ideas in his discussion of the "fall" story in Genesis 3. Probably none are more stimulating, or easy to fail to grasp as his thought about "conscience" - at least difficult for people for whom the idea that conscience is the "voice of God within" is deeply embedded, since Bonhoeffer almost reverses that idea, noticing that it is conscience that drives the first humans away from God!

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An Introduction to Gapping

2008-09-06T08:07:00.003+12:00

Gapping, where hearers have to "fill in" information that is missing in the text, is a really significant part of biblical story-telling. So, I'll need to introduce the idea to next year's Biblical Narrative class. Normally we "gap" unconsciously, and not just when reading narratives as I hope I'll show you in this podcast. We'll also begin to think about what makes gapping more - or less - legitimate. (See 2 Corinthians 11)

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Amos 7:14 presuppositions and rhetoric

2008-09-04T17:13:00.003+12:00

Amos 7:14 is a striking problem for interpreters, not least because what Amos is reported as saying to Amaziah seems to contradict what he is reported to be doing in the rest of the book. This makes it fertile ground for us to incorporate either our presuppositions or rhetoric into the text.

(I use the NIV and Grasping God's Word) as examples in this but do not intend disrespect for the translators or authors, just to suggest they are human too!
Duvall, J. Scott, and J. Daniel Hays. Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible. 2nd ed. Zondervan, 2005 is an excellent book, which we plan to use as a textbook for a course I'll teach next year :)

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Self-referentiality and openness in online biblical studies

2008-07-02T18:12:00.003+12:00

Having just posted about the (no longer MIA) Biblical Studies Carnival ל׳ I then find myself double tagged for the 11111: The Binary Biblical Studies Carnival Meme which is far too many numbers and indeed writing systems for numbers for my poor little head :( I say double tagged, since my first and real tagger Biblical Studies and Technological Tools actually tagged me on 5 Minute Bible, but I just don't have time to organise a 5 or even 4 minute podcast with cynical or entertaining post titles for other, so far untagged biblical studies bloggers, and anyway, this meme was started to make up for the "missing" carnival, or at least so David the 'pottamus Kerr claimed. So, I've found a very mathematical way out...

I hereby tag myself with the post: Self-referentiality and openness in online biblical studies.

God the exegete: 2 Sam 7: Part One

2008-06-24T09:13:00.006+12:00

This is the first part of a short series (it might only be two parts, who knows ;) on passages where God exegetes his own words.

In this part we'll look at 2 Samuel 7, where David wants to build a 'house' = temple for God, since he already has a nice 'house' = palace for himself ('house of cedar' means a palace with expensive wood panelling). I'll look at how God gives a four word speech and then explains in detail what it means. And in the process starts the punning and wordplay that lead to the superb promise to David, later in the chapter.

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Bibleref but no markup

2008-05-09T15:19:00.001+12:00

For more than a decade I've wanted an easy way to make Bible references like these: Amos 9:7; Ruth 4:7 link to the Bible or to popup the verses cited, I put a lot of work into doing that for the Amos commentary.

Now, thanks to the nice folk at Logos, who I expect will benefit from their kindness through lots of links ;-) I have been able to add this facility to this blog, and to my others,. It automatically takes most Bible references I type and uses Sean's clever Bibleref system to add the verse as a popup, and make the reference a link to the passage. My only two disappointments are

that apparently it does this without rewriting the source code for the page, so probably Google etc. will not be able to use this semantic markup :( maybe in a later implementation?
and that somehow though I asked for the version to be TNIV it shows up as New Living... maybe this is a temporary glitch, rather than a sign from heaven as to which really is the New Inspired Version to follow the NIV which followed the AV.

The Perspicuity of Scripture (i)

2008-04-18T15:28:00.004+12:00

My tradition (the Baptist part of the Nonconformist or radical Reformation) has stressed the idea that Scripture is perspicuous, that the Bible is easy to understand, and that anyone can understand it - or at least grasp its essentials - without special training or equipment. Yet there are for sure some difficult passages. There are also passages that seem to flat out contradict other parts of the Bible. How can you call a book like that "perspicuous"?

In this post I'll argue that one key mistake we make is to think of the Bible as if all its parts were also "Bible", they aren't they are merely fragments!

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Some other posts dealing with related topics include:

Or you could explore the menu on the right...

Working with what the Bible doesn't say

2008-03-08T21:29:00.003+13:00

In this post I'll start looking at how we respond to the Bible's silences, often there are questions we want to ask the Bible, which the Bible does not answer. What do we do then? Some of these questions, like the one I start with produce classic biblical puzzlers...

By the way, if the sound quality is not as good as usual, or if you hear building work or children playing in the background, that's because I recorded this post in the middle of a refugee camp! See another blog for more information.

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Twisted tales: or should the book of Judges be censored?

2007-12-13T15:00:00.000+13:00

Judges is definitely not suitable for Sunday School reading, the bits that are told are firmly censored, and few of us go back to notice what we are missing. But, if we do, what we find is a book chock full of horrid twisted tales, brutal, brutish and sadly not short. Why? Can such a nasty collection of stories be justified, or should it simply be banned?

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Text, canon, and the woman caught in adultery

2007-11-28T07:03:00.000+13:00

The pericope in John 7:53-8:11 is a fascinating test case in the interaction of text criticism and canon. Both the history of canon, and textual criticism seem dull and unexciting. Yet here they combine into a detective story or a theological conundrum that contributes to making the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy conflict with most Christian preachers' practice! In this post I won't address the detective story. But I will discuss this passage as a hint that we need a supple and flexible view of Scripture to deal "properly" with this passage.

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Note 1. The word "pericope" is transliterated from Greek, it is used in theology and biblical studies to refer to a traditional textual unit, especially one used as a unit in church or synagogue. By extension it is sometimes used as a fancy way of saying "textual unit". Here it would appear that our text was such a traditional unit in the early period, but by the time the chapter divisions were made the first verse had been attached to the "previous" unit. [_RETURN]

Note 2. For the detective story approach see e.g. A. Watson, “Jesus and the Adulteress” in Biblica 80 (1999): 100-108 [_RETURN]

Cliché Theology: Joshua 11:1-9

2007-11-24T10:53:00.000+13:00

Sometimes a good old-fashioned cliché is the best way to achieve your desired effect, and communicate your theological message. I'll illustrate this using Joshua 11:1-9. The story of how Jabin of Hazor and all his allied kings were defeated by Joshua and Israel. (With some help from their friend!)

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