Hugh Hewitt is a friend. I met him when we were both lawyers in the Reagan administration; since then he has continued to practice and teach law, but is better known as a political columnist and as a television and radio show host. He’s also written over a dozen books. And he’s a Christian. This … [Read more…]
If Jesus is the Son of God, it is significant, is it not, that He did not debunk the notion of Scripture generally or the Old Testament in particular? And the significance of Scripture is that it is Truth, and the most reliable guide there is to our relationship with God, apart from perhaps personal … [Read more…]
In order to understand the Bible, one needs to know something of the time and culture in which it was written, and so to understand the New Testament in particular, one needs to know something of the Hellenistic age. That’s why, after reading a favorable review of this book in the Wall Street Journal — … [Read more…]
The author, an Australian, is an Anglican bishop. I sought his book out because it was listed among the “[g]ood defenses of the historical reliability of the Gospels” for further reading by Richard Bauckham in Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, and I had been impressed by Bauckham (Barnett, in turn, has a brief citation of … [Read more…]
How unified is the Bible text? At one extreme, you could argue that, since the whole text is inspired by God and since He knew from the beginning what text He would inspire and how it would and should be arranged, then the whole Bible — including every book, Old and New Testament alike — … [Read more…]
This short (only 114 pages of text) book is part of a series on a wide variety of topics published by Oxford University Press. I sought it out because I was impressed by the author’s much longer Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (discussed elsewhere on this blogsite), which I found valuable but daunting in its length … [Read more…]
Years ago I had clipped and saved a description of this book, and recently I finally bought a used copy online (I’m not sure it’s easily available any other way; I’ll note that the copy I got had quite a few typos in it). I’m glad I did. Peter Kreeft, who is a philosophy professor … [Read more…]
This short post makes a slight variant of a point that has been made famously elsewhere (see, for example, here), but since I do a lot of speaking and writing — and am around people who have spoken and written a lot more than I have and been greatly honored, often for how prolific they’ve … [Read more…]
The worst Bible couple, of course, was Jezebel and Ahab. But which was the best? It’s an interesting question to consider even if, at the end of the day, the answer turns out to have been pretty obvious. I’m looking for two things. First, both husband and wife should have strong and good character; a … [Read more…]
The secondary title is, “An Introduction: From the Apostolic Fathers to the 21st Century,” and the author is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Oxford (and, to his credit, he quotes Oxfordian C.S. Lewis a lot). It’s a very useful and engaging book. The chapters are: the apostolic fathers, Justin … [Read more…]