In Iran, an eye really is taken for an eye …

LaShawn Barber applauds the verdict reached in the case of Ameneh Bahrami, whose attacker blinded and disfigured her by throwing acid in her face. Now the man, Majid Movahedi, will be punished by having sulfuric acid poured into both of his eyes.

“Our country has developed a system of punishment in which execution methods like drawing and quartering, burning alive, disemboweling, and other methods I mentioned are considered ‘cruel and unusual,’ even if the criminal killed his victim(s) that way. Too bad.”

Washington Post story.

LaShawn Barber’s post.

Trueman on the infamous Newsweek article

At reformation21, church historian and theologian Carl Trueman reflects on Newsweek’s recent article defending gay marriage, by Lisa Miller:

“The piece is prophetic because, in a week where a high-ranking member of the NAE had to resign because he was `shifting’ on gay unions, at a time when the full weight of the opinion forming social media is behind the normalisation of homosexuality as acceptable, challenges such as this are clearly going to be coming thick and fast …”

Read the full post.

“The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already”

Adam Walker Cleaveland suggests that Christians who use verses like Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27 to condemn homosexuality are missing the point.

When was Christmas, really?

New Testament scholar Darrell Bock has the skinny:

“The most we can get for the biblical data is a range of years.”

Top five commentaries on Ephesians

A list by Keith Mathison at Ligonier Ministries.

“Why I am not a Charismatic”

The first in a series of posts by Michael Patton is up at Parchment and Pen:

“I used to walk through Christian book stores and choose my books based on whether or not the author was a charismatic. I would pick up a commentary and turn immediately to 1 Cor. 12 (the section on spiritual gifts). If the author believed that the spiritual gifts were for today, I would put it back on the shelf in disbelief that the store would carry such misleading material. … I am not a charismatic, and I have my reasons, but I do not feel the same way today as I used to …”

What does it mean to read the Bible literally?

Jan Lynn attempts to clear up some misconceptions at the view from her:

“Ask me if I take the Bible literally, and I’ll ask you, ‘Well, do you take the newspaper literally?’ The answer is probably yes, because of course, the newspaper is filled with news, written by professional journalists and is nothing like the Bible. Duh.
 
That would mean headlines like, ‘Tigers Eat Indians’ would be literal, right?”

[Photo >> Life With A Bible]

Puns in the New Testament

There are some. Greek scholar Bill Mounce describes a few at Koinonia, and talks about what is gained and lost when puns are preserved in translation.

Weekend Walkabout: December 6, 2008

26 posts from the week that escaped mention (almost!):

• Afterlife in the Old Testament: The Scholarly Consensus? - Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
• Bible Memorization Worksheet 2009 - Triablogue
• Converging the Web and Desktop - ChurchCrunch
• Different Isn’t Wrong … - Justin Wise
• Encouragement for Trans-Racial Adoption Anxiety - Vitamin Z
• Fox News Conservative? - Russell Moore
• Grand Duke Henri’s Last Stand - Rod Dreher
• Hate Your Enemy? - Greg Gilbert, Church Matters
• Innocent Suffering - DesiringGod blog
• J.K. Rowling’s Fairy Tales for Wizards (and Muggles) - Sherry Huang, Idol Chatter
• Korea - 1 Day Left - Let’s Start Right - Human3rror
• Lay Worship - The Sacred Sandwich
• My Two Cents #123 - Osama Bin Lego and other Islamic fare - Daniel G. two or three
• No Food, Drink or Levity Allowed in the Sanctuary - Motte Brown, Boundless
• Our Problem with the Old Testament - Justin Taylor
• Pithy Pre-pastorate Pastoral Pointers - Dan Phillips
• Quantum of Follies - Dayo Olopade, Culture11
• Russian Patriarch Dies - Susan Wunderink, Christianity Today liveblog
• Short Saturdays - Who needs our money? - Stuff Christians Like
• Things we should be doing - Amy Scott
• Ultimate 80’s Medley - Denny Burk
• Video of My Sermon on the Bible - Adrian Warnock
• Wanted: Kindness - Carla Rolfe
• 20 EXcellent Free Rich-Text Editors - Webdesigner Depot
• Yes, the terrorists targeted Jews - Daniel Pulliam, GetReligion
• Zacharius Ursinus - Theopedia article (Z’s are always hard to find … but it will be worth your while to learn something about Ursinus, a contemporary of Martin Luther)

Baptism for the dead in 1 Cor. 15:29

The Triablogue’s Steve Hays takes a shot at interpreting this difficult passage:

“Keep in mind that no one really knows what it means, least of all the Mormons. It’s one of those parenthetical remarks which would make sense to the original audience. It presupposes a certain amount of background knowledge on the part of the original reader, which is lost to the modern reader.”

(The passage reads: “Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?”)

‘Should Christians circumcise their sons?’

Adrian Warnock writes on the topic, in the third in a series of posts on multiculturalism:

“Should Christians circumcise their sons? If you’re looking for a legalistic answer, I’m not at all sorry that I have to disappoint …”

On assurance of salvation

Fred Sanders shares a paper he read at the recent Evangelical Theological Society conference:

“To state the doctrine too objectively is to leave the believer as an onlooker to a redemptive spectacle which assures him with absolute confidence that somebody is saved, but leaves open, disturbingly open, the question whether he is that somebody. To state the doctrine too subjectively, however, directs the believer’s attention to phenomena of his own biography, experience, and consciousness, where the ground of salvation cannot be seen. A well-ordered doctrine of assurance must underwrite the confident confession that even though I am condemned if considered in myself, I am not in fact in myself but in Christ, where I, truly I, am saved.”

Read all of “How Assurance of Salvation Works.”

‘Mur-dah’ in the Sermon on the Mount

Joe Blackmon unpacks Matthew 5:24-27 at the Hear God Speak blog:

“Christ teaches us that the prohibition against murder goes much deeper than the physical act of taking another person’s life …”

Review: Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism

By Nick Norelli:

“I have to admit that textual criticism has never been my greatest interest; in all honesty I find it terribly boring.  But the fact remains that there are times in my study (and presumably the study of others) when it is a necessary evil.  Comfort’s work here has not changed my mind or opinion about textual criticism but it has made the subject more accessible for those times when I have no choice but to engage in it …”

Video: “The Reliability of the New Testament Text”

James White shares at a church in Durham, North Carolina. (You might want to wait until you’ve got some free time this Thanksgiving weekend — this is an hour long):

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