Category Archives: books

Calminianism and Open Theism

In a recent post on Koinonia (HT: Peter Kirk), Craig Blomberg lays out a mediating position between traditional Calvinism and Arminianism, which he slyly calls “Calminianism” – otherwise known as “middle knowledge”: Simply put, middle knowledge affirms, with classic Arminianism, that God’s predestining activity is based on his foreknowledge of what all humans would do in [...]
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Five books on the Bible meme

Having been MIA when this meme originally made the rounds, I’ll thank John at Ancient Hebrew Poetry for including me on a “who’s still missing” list. The meme asks that we “name the five books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need [...]
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Lecher or lover: how do you live the Bible?

With a huge HT to Rick at This Lamp, I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading and have found it captivating, at least the early chapters that I’ve been through. With the title taken from John’s experience of eating the scroll in Revelation 10, Peterson’s essential premise [...]
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Neal Stephenson: Anathem

In lieu of a more formal book review, here is my capsule summary: “In response to the sudden appearance of extraterrestrial visitors, philo-math monks gather together to discuss multi-state causal consciousness models as a outflow of quantum mechanics.” Sound interesting? Anathem is a great book and I highly recommend it if you like mathematics, philosophy, Neal Stephenson, [...]
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Kindle: reading, bookmarking and PDFs

I‘ve purchased a few titles now and have been reading regularly now that I’m back in my daily “work” routine and not on holiday vacation. I typically ride the metro bus to/from work, which means at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading (or nap) time each way! Titles I’ve purchased: KJV Bible NET Bible (Noteless) Star Wars: Legacy of [...]
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The “123″ book meme

James tagged me with the “123″ book meme. He says that I am “supposed to pick up the nearest book, turn to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and post the three sentences after that.” Ironically, the closest book is in a stack that I haven’t given any attention to since I put them down by [...]
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Books I loved growing up…

My oldest boy, Samuel, is learning to read this fall. He’s a bright kid and it won’t be long before he’s got “Hop on Pop” down cold (or completely memorized!). Thinking about the grand adventure ahead of him has brought recollections of many, many, many hours of my Alaskan childhood spent either at the library [...]
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Ambiguous grasping in John 1:5

I am continuing my survey of Bible Translation books, now reading Donald Kraus’ volume, Choosing a Bible For Worship, Teaching, Study, Preaching, and Prayer. Kraus is Executive Editor for Bibles at Oxford University Press and presents a fairly even-handed review of translation philosophies, from strict interlinear to cultural paraphrase, though most of his time is [...]
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The most significant version of the Bible today

The most significant version of the Bible today is not the REB. And neither is it the KJV. Or the ESV or TNIV, or even the NLT. No, the most significant version of the Bible today is The Message by Eugene Peterson. I’ve been reading the first few chapters of Fee and Strauss’ “How to Choose [...]
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Should Christians be having babies?

In his book, In the End – The Beginning, Jürgen Moltmann notes the following consequences of Jesus fulfilling the role of Israel’s messiah and the savior of the nations: Because Jesus has come as the promised son (Isa. 9.6), there is no longer any need for religious or legal privilege to be given to fathers and [...]
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