Koinonia

Extra-Curricular Activities 05/26/12

Mason Slater — Sat, 26 May 2012 08:11:59 -0400

Peter Leithart - Too catholic to be Catholic

Scot McKnight - Youth Trips: Helping that Hurts?

Justin Taylor – D.A. Carson, What’s Up with Melchizedek?

Trevin Wax - A Theologian You Should Know: George Eldon Ladd

Peter Enns - What Biblical Scholars Do

Kevin DeYoung - How to Start at Your New Church

Tim Gombis - Laptops in the Classroom

Phil Long - On Using Commentaries

The Gospel Coalition - 4 Ways to Fight Clean Over Doctrine

Michelle Kerns - The 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time

A Theology of Luke and Acts - A Pastoral Review

Mason Slater — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:57:29 -0400

Darrell Bock’s highly anticipated A Theology of Luke and Acts isn’t in stores (yet!), but a few early review copies have gone out and posts are starting to go up, including this review from Grace for Sinners.

Check it out!

“Zondervan is offering a new series, Biblical Theology of the New Testament. Its aim is to contribute a holistic study of introductory materials, biblical themes, and interpretative guides for pastors and theologians. Needless to say I was intimidated upon receiving this voluminous book. However, what I found was that my dust covered memories from seminary New Testament book classes were resurrected to new life. Bock has done a wonderful service for pastors and theologians.

…I would highly recommend this book for pastors wanting to ramp into a sermon series. Bock does a thorough job looking at Lucan themes which would be hugely beneficial in developing the structure of your preaching series. My copy is littered with underlines, highlights, and notes. As a matter of fact, after reading Bock you might decide it would be beneficial to preach through Luke and Acts together.”

And the winners are...?

Mason Slater — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:19:41 -0400

Congrats to Harold and Keith, who each won a copy of An A-to-Z Guide to Biblical Prophecy and the End Times.

I was quite pleased to see how much all of you agreed on, despite representing a wide range of eschatological positions.

Such willingness to hear out the other side and focus on the big picture is what Scott Duvall, Daniel Hays, and C. Marvin Pate offer in this book as well. An important feature of their work that can be seen even in articles like this one on the Abomination of Desolation.

The “abomination of desolation,” “abomination that causes desolation,” or “desolating sacrifice” is a phrase that refers to the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple. The description occurs or is alluded to in the following texts: Daniel 8:11; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20; and 2 Thessalonians 2:4, as well as in the noncanonical (apocryphal) book 1 Maccabees 1:54 – 64. These passages seem to attest to two or three stages of fulfillment of the prophecy.

(1) Daniel 8:11; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; and 1 Maccabees 1:54 – 64 clearly speak of the actions of the Syrian ruler Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) against the Jerusalem Temple in 167 b.c., who decreed that Temple sacrifices and offerings should cease. To add insult to injury, he profaned the Most Holy Place by placing in it a statue to Zeus (the chief Greek god) and then sacrificing a pig to Zeus on the altar (described in Dan. 9:27 as the winged or horned altar). This terrible action is referred to as the abomination of desolation ...

(2) Daniel’s prophecy apparently was not completely fulfilled with Antiochus, for Luke 21:20 labels the Roman assault on Jerusalem in a.d. 70 as the “desolation.” In fact, the Roman destruction of the Holy City and its Temple was an intensification of the reality of the Old Testament prediction.

(3) Some interpreters extend the application of the prophecy of the abomination of desolation into the distant future. These scholars contend that the ultimate fulfillment of Daniel’s prediction will occur in connection with the end-time Temple to be built by Israel, which the Antichrist will desecrate. This view- point appeals to Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; and 2 Thessalonians 2:4 in support of its perspective (cf. Rev. 11).

But those who identify only two stages of fulfillment for Daniel’s prophecy understand Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 to pertain not to a future end-time Temple, but to the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70...

You can read the full excerpt here, and you can find An A-to-Z Guide to Biblical Prophecy and the End Times here or through your favorite bookseller.

Wednesday Giveaway - An A-to-Z Guide to Biblical Prophecy and the End Times

Mason Slater — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:59:22 -0400

What is the Abomination of Desolation?

How have different Christians understood the Millennium?

Who or what do the beasts in Revelation represent?

When studying the end times, many of us have had similar questions. And, while acknowledging that there are few easy answers, Scott Duvall, Daniel Hays, and C. Marvin Pate have come together to provide an excellent book for pastors, teachers, and students of the Scriptures who are asking such questions about prophesy and eschatology.

That book, An A-to-Z Guide to Biblical Prophecy and the End Times (previously published as the Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times), is this week’s giveaway.

In its pages you will find a comprehensive reference tool designed to assist everyday people in understanding biblical prophecy. Based on solid evangelical scholarship, it contains clear and readable entries on a broad sweep of topics, and provides insight to complicated subjects in a balanced fashion.

To enter this week’s giveaway, comment below with your answer to this question: With all the disagreements among Christians about the end times, what do you think is most important for us to find agreement on?

Also, a bonus entry is available if you comment a second time letting us know that you shared a link to this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog.

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*If you are reading this via Facebook, email, or RSS, please visit the blog to enter. Two winners will be determined by Random Integer Generator. Giveaway ends Thursday at midnight*

Loving God, Others, and Ourselves (Monday with Mounce 145)

Mason Slater — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:20:55 -0400

I received two questions a while back and I thought I would answer them.

The first was that the comment that there is no imperative in the Greatest Commandment, just a future. “You shall love (ἀγαπήσεις) the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matt 22:37). So how could this be a command, other than the previous question uses the word “commandment.” “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment (ἐντολὴ) in the law?”

First of all, if all you had was ἐντολή, that would be enough. One person asks about a commandment; the answer is the commandment. Remember that language is nuanced, and there are many ways to say the same thing. You don't have to use an imperative to state a commandment.

Secondly, a common use of the future in Greek (and in English) is to state a command. So the future ἀγαπήσεις is a future indicative used as an imperative, as shown by the context. If you want more context, go to the Hebrew that is being cited, the Shema. Moses writes, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love ( וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ ) the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command ( מְצַוְּךָ֛ ) you today shall be on your heart” (Deut 6:4-6, ESV). Clearly a command. In fact, in the LXX the translator uses ἀγαπήσεις (“you shall love”) and ἐντέλλομαί (“I command”).

The second question as to do with the next sentence, Matt 22:38. “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν).” The question is whether an imperatival idea could be connected with the “as yourself.” Something like, “you must love yourself, so you can also love your neighbor.”

From a strictly grammatical point of view, the answer is not immediately apparent since the second half of the verse appears to be presuming a verb that Jesus leaves out. Does Jesus mean, “Love you neighbor in the same way that you must love yourself? Or does Jesus mean, “Love you neighbor in the same way that you do love yourself? Having said that, I would be shocked if Jesus were commanding us to love ourselves. I would think that he is presuming this to be true. I am not a counselor and so I don’t have any training in this whole issue of whether, for example, a highly dysfunctional person does or does not love himself. But if I were to argue grammatically, I would go to the meaning of the conjunction ὡς. BDAG cites these three meanings first:

a comparative particle, marking the manner in which someth. proceeds, as, like
a conjunction marking a point of comparison, as
a marker introducing the perspective from which a pers., thing, or activity is viewed or understood as to character, function, or role, as

There is nothing in ὡς to suggest anything other than a comparison of our love for ourselves with our love for others. It also fits into the OT context of the verse being cited (Leviticus 19:18). There would have to be some major contextual clue that Jesus were commanding self-love, an idea that as far as I can recollect does not occur in the Bible. With this understanding, the omited verb would be ἀγαπᾷς.

Bill

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek, and is the general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation, and is currently on theCommittee for Bible Translation for the NIV. Learn more about Bill atBillMounce.com, and visit his other blog on spiritual growth, Life is a Journey, at BiblicalTraining.org.

Extra-Curricular Activities 05/19/12

Mason Slater — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:58:38 -0400

Justin Taylor - Alan Jacobs on How to Read a Book

Reformation 21 - An Interview with Dr. Packer

Kevin DeYoung - Inerrancy Means Freedom

Marc Cortez - Is Learning Greek and Hebrew Really Worth It?

Ben Witherington - The NT and the LXX

Larry Hurtado - The Quest for the Mark “Community”

Peter Enns - What’s the REAL Problem with No Historical Adam, Really?

Andrea Palpant Dilley - How to Smartly Engage with the Young Doubters in Your Midst

Hannah - Culture Wars, Millenial Angst, and a Dose of Perspective

Tim Tennent - Robust Christianity in a Post-Christendom World

Mike Bird - Behind Every Writer...

And the winner is...?

Mason Slater — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:35:18 -0400

Congrats to Dwight Gingrich, who won this week’s giveaway and will receive a copy of the third edition of Grasping God’s Word.

Dwight’s question centered on how the Bible interprets itself, and specifically, "Do we have authority to interpret the OT as the NT writers did, or did they have unique authority to do so?”

This issue of the New Testament use of the Old Testament was brought up by many of you, and in Grasping God’s Word Hays and Duvall take each Old Testament genre and work step by step to demonstrate how the Church can responsibly read those texts and apply their message to our contemporary situations.

Though the Old Testament may hold additional interpretive challenges, with the right tools, and a thoughtful hermeneutical approach, we can bring its ancient message to our congregations, classrooms, and personal study.

You can read an excerpt of Grasping God’s Word here, and it is available here or at your favorite bookseller.

Wednesday Giveaway - "Grasping God's Word" 3rd Edition

Mason Slater — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:34:33 -0400

Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays’ classic work on hermeneutics, Grasping God’s Word, is now being released in a revised third edition, and this week you have a chance to win a copy!

The core of the work, which has been embraced by students and teachers around the world, remains the same, but the new edition provides needed updates on the second edition which was published in 2005.

Changes in the third edition include updated cultural references, discussions of recent theological developments, the inclusion of a call to “cross into the rest of Scripture” as an additional step in the Interpretive Journey that emphasizes the Bible’s redemptive arc, and a rearrangement of the text for clarity.

One such rearrangement was the decision to move discussion of Bible translations up to the front of the book, as a way to set the stage for studying how we then go about interpreting the text.

“We have a chapter on Bible translations because translation itself is unavoidable. God has revealed himself and has asked his people to make that communication known to others. Unless everyone wants to learn Hebrew and Greek (the Bible’s original languages), we will need a translation. Translation is nothing more than transferring the message of one language into another language. We should not think of translation as a bad thing, since through translations we are able to hear what God has said. In other words, translations are necessary for people who speak a language other than Greek or Hebrew to understand what God is saying through his Word.”

To enter this week’s giveaway, comment below with your answer to this question: What hermeneutical/interpretive question would you hope to find answers for in a book like Grasping God’s Word?

Also, a bonus entry is available if you comment a second time letting us know that you shared a link to this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog.

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*If you are reading this via Facebook, email, or RSS, please visit the blog to enter. One winner will be determined by Random Integer Generator. Giveaway ends Thursday at midnight*

Longman and Dillard on the book of Samuel in the Septuagint and Masoretic Text

Mason Slater — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:48:42 -0400

How different is the book of Samuel in the Septuagint compared to the Masoretic Text? Turns out, they are quite different indeed – and Louis at Baker Church Connection has been studying these differences with the help of Longman and Dillard’s An Introduction to the Old Testament.

There is a great discussion of this in An Introduction to the Old Testament by Tremper Longman III and Raymond Dillard from Zondervan. The following is taken from them along with the charts provided.

“Scholars have long suspected that the Masoretic Text of Samuel, though comparatively intact, is nevertheless among the least well transmitted books of the Bible. At many places there are significant divergences from the Hebrew text that was used by the translators of the Septuagint, and when the writer of Chronicles quotes Samuel, he also often appears to follow a text of Samuel different from the Masoretic Text (MT). For generations scholars debated the merits of these variant readings. Was the Chronicler theologically editing the earlier text or following some independent source? Were the Septuagint translators incorporating their own theology, embellishing, or being careless—or were they carefully following a Hebrew text that differed from the MT?”

“With the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts and fragments, this debate was largely settled.”

You can read the rest of the post here.

Spiritual “Gifts” or “Things” - 1 Cor 12:1 (Monday with Mounce 144)

Mason Slater — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:15:27 -0400

Usually adjectives used substantivally (i.e., as nouns) are pretty easy to figure out. Between the meaning of the adjective and the context of the passage, the translator can figure out how to treat the word. But every once in a while things can confuse the picture, and one of those things are headings in modern Bibles.

The most notorious heading is the one before Eph 5:22 and I have already blogged on that, but another bothersome heading is the one at 1 Cor 12:1. The NIV has “Concerning Spiritual Gifts” and then starts with, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.” “Spiritual gifts” is a translation of the adjective πνευματικῶν, a masculine or neuter plural adjective from πνευματικός, meaning “spiritual.” But spiritual what?

By the time you get to verse 4, you can see Paul is speaking about Spiritual gifts, but nothing in vv 1-3 is necessarily about gifts. But because Bibles put a heading before v 1, the assumption by many is that the entire chapter is about the gifts of the Spirit. “After all,” many would respond, “the Bible says, ‘Concerning Spiritual Gifts.’”

The ESV alerts us to an issue here. Their footnote on “gifts” reads, “Or spiritual persons,” reading πνευματικῶν as a masculine and not a neuter. The fact is that πνευματικῶν is an adjective used substantivally, and it is a matter of interpretation as to whether Paul is speaking of gifts of the Spirit 9 (cf. 1 Cor 14:1) or spiritual people (cf. 1 Cor 2:15; 3:1; 14:37).

Gordon Fee has long championed a third view, that Paul is talking about the “things of the Spirit,” almost a blending of the two views. He writes, “When the emphasis is on the manifestation, the ‘gift’ as such, Paul speaks of charismata; when the emphasis is on the Spirit, he speaks of pneumatika, and then concludes by translating, “the things of the Spirit” (note the capital “S”).

Wherever you settle on this question, be sure to ignore headings as much as possible. In fact, the best exegesis experience I ever had in the gospel of Mark was using a text without headings, paragraphs, or verses. Just 40 pages of a block of text with page and line numbers. A wonderful teaching tool I used for years and highly recommend.

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek, and is the general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation, and is currently on the Committee for Bible Translation for the NIV. Learn more about Bill at BillMounce.com, and visit his other blog on spiritual growth, Life is a Journey, at BiblicalTraining.org.