by Wendell Willis | Sep 25, 2019 | Bible interpretation, Translations
First, I want to acknowledge that not all questions of biblical interpretation can be settled based on grammar—in fact, some arguments are based on grammar (such as the “faith of Christ” vs. “faith in Christ” argument of recent decades). But some mistaken readings of...
by Wendell Willis | Oct 4, 2018 | Bible interpretation, Translations
Grace Faith, hope, and… We have already discussed faith and hope. My guess is that most readers assume they know the third word—love. But that word has been so often discussed and most people today recognize that the biblical meaning of love is not so much about...
by Wendell Willis | Sep 28, 2018 | Bible interpretation, Translations
Faith Mark 9:14-29 is one of the longer healing stories in the Gospels. It tells a tragic story about a self-destructive boy and his worried father. From childhood the boy had been driven by a demon to kill himself. In desperation the father brings him to Jesus and...
by Wendell Willis | Sep 22, 2018 | Bible interpretation, Translations
My occupation for almost fifty years was teaching—talking for a living. It is not genuine work. So I have lived by words and in the next few posts I want to reflect on some important Christian words we find in the Bible. Of course, words do not have meaning by...
by Curt Niccum | Nov 13, 2017 | Manuscripts as textual objects
Biblical manuscripts are not just depositories of texts, they are testaments to history. Each document has a story to tell, from the artisans who contributed the various components (pages of vellum or papyrus, decorations and art, book covers, cover designs, and...
by Jeff Childers | Aug 14, 2017 | Events & News
The Word of God is living and active, and it has been so for millennia. The rich heritage we have from our predecessors in the faith, from manuscripts to art and from reflection to action, can be a profound source of spiritual strength today. On Monday 18 September...
by Jeff Childers | Apr 4, 2017 | Ancient scholarship
Most people know about the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS): hundreds of ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts that came to light in 1946 in the Judaean wilderness. Hidden for centuries in eleven different caves, the scrolls were first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in the...
by David Kneip | Feb 8, 2017 | Manuscripts & digital humanities
In the year 2000, I was introduced to the discipline of New Testament textual criticism. As a graduate student who had just begun learning Greek but who had enjoyed a long personal history with the Bible, I was thrilled at the opportunity to study not just the...
by Jeff Childers | Jan 4, 2017 | Translations
What does it mean to philosophize? OUP’s Online Oxford Dictionary gives this definition: “speculate or theorize about fundamental or serious issues, especially in a tedious or pompous way.” If that’s what it means, most of us probably know...
by Jeff Childers | Nov 16, 2016 | Manuscripts as textual objects
Some time during the late sixth or early seventh century, somewhere in Roman Syria, a scribe named Gewargis sat down to copy a book. It was the Bible, or more precisely, a part of the Bible: the Gospel of John. The language was Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic and a major...
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