Can anyone recommend scholarship on which kinds of #Hebrew letters are most commonly mistaken for reach other? Everyone knows d/r (ד/ר) and w/y (ו/י), but I suspect n/r (נ/ר) is common as well. I looked in vain for this sort of thing in Tov's introduction, so other recommendations are welcome!
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism #BiblicalStudies

Can anyone recommend any scholarship on the textual criticism of names, whether in the Hebrew Bible or elsewhere? I am thinking that names have certain distinctive features in textual transmission that common words do not.
#textualcriticism #HebrewBible #BiblicalStudies

One of my pet peeves in #Christian spaces is the person who adamantly takes their car to the Christian Car Mechanic. I've heard it said that only a Christian can be trustworthy. But it's a load of malarkey.

If it were true than that person would also feel compelled to go to a Christian grocer, get a Christian plumber & painter, and do all their business with Christians alone. But most don't, but they do find it important that the car mechanic is.

Truly it's good that they don't do it in every avenue of life, because Christians aren't called to be siloed and isolated from the world. They're called to be in the world, winning people over to the winsomeness of Jesus.

Those that listen to the isolationist philosophies of people like Rod Dreher end up turning more people away from Christ. Because what their actions show is a Jesus that is walled off and separate from them. One that doesn't care to become their friend. But in fact, Jesus is nothing like that. Jesus left his divine kingdom to dwell with man exactly because he cares to know us and cares to be friends and even family with us. Jesus did not seek isolationism, he sought to have community with us.

And that's why we need to seek community with this world. Not to become like it, but so that we can grow a world that love Jesus more.

Unmasking hidden meanings! By considering the historical and cultural context of scripture, we can unlock deeper understanding and appreciate the original message for its intended audience. #BiblicalStudies #CriticalThinking #Faith

This is such a niche thing, but as someone trying to learn Hebrew and Greek, I wish there was a tool that would randomly spit out an OT verse in both languages so I could practice and compare.

My wife and I were talking about how involved in politics the Christian should be and we came up with this rough idea:

Politics are important to the extent that they effect morality and justice. But every day political matters that come down to preference are not matters Christians should be involved in.

I'm curious how you might adjust or amend this sentiment? The hard part in the conversation is where do we draw the line between morality/justice and matters of preference?

Some Christians are adamant that social justice warriors are not Christian and are in the wrong. But when asked about if they should get politically active about social justice issues they care about (ex abortion) they're equally adamant that they should be involved.

The fact is that Christians have a long standing tradition of getting involved in politics to correct injustices (ex many sermons written about the need to end slavery) and yet many Christians today think its wrong to get involved in these things. These people are often the same ones getting very vocal about matters of preference and disguising them as religious necessities.

I often wish I had a group of people around me that loved studying the Bible as much as I do. I wish we could get together every week or two and rotate through who chooses what topic to study.

I think it would be great fun and good for building our Christlike character to really get into the weeds on a topic. I feel like that's what Bible studies are supposed to be, but in my experience they rarely are.

What I'd like to see is someone say something like "I was thinking about what Jesus said: "Whoever calls his brother 'Raca' will be endanger before the counsel and whoever says 'you fool' will be in danger of the fire of hell." What does it mean? God says he's angry about things, so what is it ok to be angry about?"

And then instead of just spouting the thoughts on the top of our heads, we find all the verses in the Bible that talk about anger and divide them up between us. We'd read them and compile a spreadsheet together of who is angry in the verse and why. And when that's done we'd look at what gets God angry, what gets his people angry, and what gets other people angry in Scripture. What trends do we see?

From there we'd develop ideas of what's ok to be angry about (based on what gets God angry), what's not ok to get angry about, and what we're not sure about.

We'd mull all this over and come up with some principles on the matter and then come back to the original verse and see if our principles match.

Too often Bible studies are too invested in getting to a quick answer and not getting off topic to go down this kind of road.

And I think that's why Christianity in the west is so fragile, weak, and in decline.

Polycarp reportedly said it would take a day to share the whole of the Gospel with someone. But today, we've got the Gospel down to five minutes. Any longer and we fear we'll all lose interest.

Let's make our faith deeper.

I have a new video out on the origins of Leviathan and the theme of Yahweh's combat against the sea. This motif, sometimes referred to as Chaoskampf by scholars, occurs frequently in creation-related passages in the Old Testament.

https://youtu.be/J-PUxTB2hFo

Got an #indexing query that started with the line, "You were recommended by more people than I can count for doing incredible work in the field of ancient Judaism/Christianity/Biblical studies." ​​​