How do we make sense of difficult passages in the Bible? What about the violence or apparent contradictions? Peter Enns addresses these concerns in his book The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. Enns is concerned that instead of honest engagement with Scripture some Christian thinkers make […]

Numerous books have been published in recent years addressing challenging passages in the Old Testament. Many of them have focused on the Israelite conquest of Canaan, while others discuss a palette of “problems.” In this post I review three books that engage these challenges. I especially consider how they handle violence in the Old Testament.

One of my research interests, and one I am currently writing on for publication for Eerdmans, is the origins, nature, and useful interpretation of Scripture. Well, I guess that is more like three research interests! But I like to contemplate them together, as they intertwine. Origins helps us to know what the Bible is and

John Webster provides a helpful contribution to the discussion on the inspiration of the Bible in Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch. He provides a much needed look at the role of the Holy Spirit (pneumatology) that is missing in some of the discussions on the nature of Scripture. Webster roots his views of Scripture in

In his book, Sacred Word Broken Word, Kenton Sparks proposes an “adoptionist” model for understanding how God speaks to us in Scripture. He writes, “Scripture is God’s Word because God providentially adopted ancient human beings, like Paul, as his spokespersons. In doing so God ‘set apart’ or ‘sanctified’ their words for use in his redemptive

The foremost scholar on ethics in ancient Israel recently published a book on the topic entitled (unsurprisingly) Ethics in Ancient Israel. John Barton has been working in the realm of ethics and the Old Testament since his dissertation days in the 1970s. His latest book is a much needed and valuable contribution to biblical studies.