This morning, a tweet from Fuz Rana got under my skin. I should begin by saying that he seems like a nice chap and Reasons to Believe is less bad than Answers in Genesis. However, being nice and less-bad cannot save one from the fundamental error of treating the Bible as a confirmatory textbook for […]
hermeneutics
Creating People and Universes: On reading premodern theologians in light of modern science
If conservative Christian theologians think it makes sense to cite premodern theologians on the scientific creation of the universe, they should also cite premodern theologians on the scientific creation of the human fetus. So you better revise your “life begins at conception” nonsense. Rather, the male body is ensouled forty days after conception, the female […]
How to Respond to Ken Ham in About a Minute
How (Not) to Read Like a Christian Fundamentalist
What the Bible Says About Dogs (and why it matters)
Many Christians think the Bible is a handbook for all of life. In this video, I test that idea by considering what the Bible says about dogs. (Spoiler: it ain’t good.) So, must we choose between the Bible and our dogs?
Fundamentalist Biblical Interpretation: A Critique
Millions of conservative Protestant Christians (fundamentalists and evangelicals) believe that the Bible should be interpreted “literally where possible”. But is this a defensible interpretive principle? Does it even make sense? In this short lecture, I offer four objections to the Literal Where Possible Principle.
When conservative Christians confuse their interpretation of the Bible with the Bible
Yesterday, I tweeted the following observation: Many Christian conservatives profess to defend the inerrancy of Scripture when, in fact, they are defending the inerrancy of their interpretation of Scripture. In order to appreciate the reasoning of the conservative Christian, we should begin by unpacking the assumption that there is a commonsense way to interpret a […]
The Imprecatory Pretzel: Why it doesn’t work to use the Psalms to curse your enemies
Many Christians think that the imprecatory psalms provide models for how to curse one’s enemies. The hermeneutical assumption seems to be that the imprecatory psalmist’s declarations of hatred for his enemies and his desire that they be destroyed are sanctified and wholly correct statements and wishes. However, ask a person who takes that view when […]
What’s Wrong with Young Earth Creationism?
A few weeks I appeared on the Skeptics and Seekers Podcast to debate young earth creationism. In preparation for the debate, I was asked to provide a written statement in response to a statement by co-host David Johnson. I have decided to repost my statement here. I thank David for the invitation to discuss young […]
Are young earth creationists the most faithful Bible readers?
This is the question I debated with David Johnson of the Skeptics and Seekers Podcast. Johnson, an atheist, argued that young-earth creationists are most faithful to the biblical text. I argued quite to the contrary. Which of us is correct? You can find out by reading our two articles and listening to the podcast. It […]
A street apologist puts me in my place
Here is a video by a self-described street apologist who critiques my critique of William Lane Craig on biblical atrocities. It was just uploaded in the last couple of days. I have viewed the first ten or so minutes to this point, and hope to listen to the rest later. Let me know what you […]
Four (or more) Steps to Making Sense of Biblical Violence
I was recently asked on Twitter how I deal with the problem of biblical violence, that is, the problem of God appearing to command and commend violent actions that appear to be evil. I responded with four points and while regular readers of this blog will likely recognize all four in my past writing, I […]
Taking the Bible Seriously (But not Literally) Word for Word
The Bible should be taken seriously word for word. That does not mean it should be taken literally word for word. In fact, not only are these two claims different from one another. They are fundamentally inconsistent with one another. In the Bible, we are dealing with a library of ancient texts written in three foreign […]
Why belief in divine inspiration commits the reader to wrestling with Scripture
We begin with a tweet from Brian Zahnd: “Biblical inerrancy” is an empty signifier. Why? Because an inerrant text still has to be interpreted. Then you run into the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism (to borrow a phrase from Christian Smith). Plenty of people agree on inerrancy and disagree on everything else!” Next, we have a […]
