Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 2067 When we speak of God knowing the future, we naturally reach for spatial metaphors: God “looks ahead,” he “foresees” events, he “knows in advance” what will happen. These metaphors are comfortable, but they may be more misleading than helpful. The question of how God’s relationship to time shapes our understanding of prophecy is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 01173 Few questions in biblical studies generate more heat in certain Christian circles than the debate between the Textus Receptus and the modern critical Greek New Testament. Some regard this as an arcane academic dispute that ordinary believers need not trouble themselves with. It is anything but. The text of the Greek New Testament…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 01176 For anyone who wants to understand how modern Bible translations are produced, or why a translation like the ESV sometimes differs from the King James Bible at particular points, the answer almost always involves the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament. This is the standard scholarly edition of the Greek New Testament in widespread academic…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 60094 The account of Noah and the flood in Genesis 6–9 is one of the most contested passages in all of Scripture. At stake is not merely a point of ancient geography but the character of the biblical text itself, the integrity of Jesus’ teaching, the theological significance of the event, and the coherence…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 60095 The word “firmament” appears in the King James Version of Genesis 1 and has generated considerable discussion ever since, particularly as critics of the biblical account have claimed it reveals a primitive, pre-scientific cosmology in which the ancient Israelites believed the sky was a solid dome. That claim is worth examining on its…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 01200 Scripture is frequently quoted and frequently misunderstood, sometimes because a quotation has been removed from its context, sometimes because a popular rendering has hardened into assumed meaning that the original never carried, and sometimes because the verse is genuinely addressing a different situation from the one it is being applied to. The consequences…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 01205 Anyone who reads John’s Gospel and then turns to Revelation notices something immediately. The Gospel and the epistles flow in relatively polished, elegant Greek. Revelation does not. Sentences break grammatical rules. Case endings that should follow standard Greek convention do not. Scholars have catalogued dozens of what are technically called solecisms — violations…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09114 “Touch not my anointed” is quoted with surprising frequency in certain church circles as a warning against criticising or questioning Christian leaders, pastors, or prominent figures. The appeal is almost invariably a misuse of the text, and understanding what the passage actually says is important both for good biblical interpretation and for healthy…
Reading Time: 8 minutesQuestion 4105 When Philip the evangelist preached Christ in Samaria, the response was extraordinary. People believed, were baptised, and the city was filled with great joy (Acts 8:8). Yet something unusual happened — or rather, something unusual did not happen. The Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them (Acts 8:16). They had…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 4061 Of all the biblical arguments marshalled in support of cessationism — the view that certain spiritual gifts have ceased with the apostolic age — the most frequently cited is 1 Corinthians 13:10: “when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” The cessationist reading identifies “the perfect” as the completed New Testament canon….