Books

Posts about books that I’ve read.

Peter J. Williams, “Can We Trust the Gospels?”

This is another book I read thanks to its endorsement in Ross Douthat’s Believe.  It’s excellent!  And more good news (so to speak):  The whole book is available online here:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64c13fbd86667f166b3c5901/t/6605a833f6068e6a27855728/1711646775902/Can%2BWe%2BTrust%2BThe%2BGospels.pdf The book is fairly recent (2018), short (140 pages of text), and with good footnotes (and both a general and a Scripture index).   There’s … [Read more…]

Lydia McGrew, “Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts”

This book was recommended by Ross Douthat in his recent book, and an excellent recommendation it was! *** I’ll begin with an overview of the book, starting with the author’s definition of the eponymous “undesigned coincidence” (12): An undesigned coincidence is a notable connection between two or more accounts or texts that doesn’t seem to … [Read more…]

A Couple of Short Items To Start the Month

I’ve discussed here on this blogsite my suggestion that the Lord’s Prayer is structured as a chiasm, including an argument that the center of the Prayer (promising that we will forgive others) is especially important, as is characteristic of chiasms.  So I wanted to note that I recently discovered that it is commonly noted that … [Read more…]

Richard Swinburne, “Is There a God?” and “Was Jesus God?”

Is There a God? I have some good news for you, gentle reader:  I can recommend to you a wonderful apologetics book by a distinguished Oxford philosophy professor, it’s only 123 pages long, and you can read it right now for free since the whole book is online here [link: https://ia801904.us.archive.org/13/items/RichardSwinburne/RichardSwinburne-IsThereAGod.pdf ]. I was led … [Read more…]

Paul’s Library at Troas

The last letter that the apostle Paul wrote was likely Second Timothy, and on the last page of the current issue of Touchstone magazine there is a thoughtful column about it (Patrick Henry Reardon, “As It Is Written …:  The Library Left Behind,” Touchstone, July/August 2024, at 56; here’s the link).  The column focuses, in … [Read more…]

William Lane Craig, “The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom” and William Hasker, “God, Time, and Knowledge”

These two books were cited in one of the extensive (and valuable) endnotes in the excellent Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald T. Tacelli.  Since the two were mentioned together and cover similar subject matter, but with each taking — as Kreeft and Tacelli put it — “a very different view,” I thought … [Read more…]

Douglas Bond, “The Mighty Weakness of John Knox”

John Knox (c. 1514-1572) was a Scottish minister and Reformed theologian, who was a leader in his country’s Reformation and, indeed, the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.  This book is one of the “Long Line of Godly Men Profile” series, other titles of which I’ve also reviewed on this blogsite.  The idea of … [Read more…]