Category: Bible

I taught Old Testament in Institute last semester, but we only did Genesis. I’ll try to post some thoughts on that at a later time. We’re continuing with the OT, and adding something new and spicy; students who come 30 minutes early will also be learning some Biblical Hebrew. Continue reading “Some Notes on Reading Hebrew (and Greek)”

Some of you may have heard that the LDS Church has undertaken a massive project of providing a Spanish edition of the Bible that is similar in scope to the English LDS Bible, including cross-references to Restoration scriptures, a Bible Dictionary, and explanatory footnotes. They have received copyright permission for one of the influential Spanish translations of the Bible and are using this as the basis for the new edition. I do not have all the details to the endeavor (I would love more information if any of our readers have some), but from one source who is close to the project, the Church has employed Hebrew and Greek scholars to “retranslate” the Spanish edition when relevant to a particularly LDS view, or for the sake of clarity (I do not have any information on the quality of these people’s Greek, Hebrew, or Spanish, let alone their skills with textual criticism, so don’t ask me!). Such changes do not appear in the footnotes from what I understand, but in the text itself. From this source, I was told that such modifications have been made on practically every page!
Continue reading “The New Spanish LDS Bible”

AHLDuke summarizes the SBL conference on his blog. I hear it was a good time.

Across town from SBL, JP Moreland at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting accuses Evangelicals of bibliolatry, in his address entitled “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It.” As this summary post puts it, “to accuse evangelicals of over-commitment to the Bible at ETS would be like accusing environmentalists of talking too much about climate change at a Sierra Club meeting. But Moreland, who has gained some prominence as a philosopher and apologist, wasn’t pulling any punches.” No kidding.

Another  blogger answers the question, is Christian academic an oxymoron? Though his (and most of the comments’ as well) perspective is conservative Evangelical and thus has some different concerns and assumptions, the conversation in the comments sounds familiar, as it dances around some issues that LDS scholars face as well.

Two quick notes:

Non-LDS scholar Peter Flint gave a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls the other day at BYU. You can watch it or listen to the audio at Aquinas’ blog. (Hat tip to, uh, Aquinas.)

And Logos is doing it to me again. They’ve got two new databases, wheat amongst the chaff on the prepublication list, which means a reduced price is available before Logos finishes building the databases. (This link explains how the prepublication process works.)

The first database is a morphologically-tagged text of the Biblical Dead Sea Scroll texts. The sectarian texts have been around for a while in multiple electronic formats, but not the Biblical texts, which are useful for textual criticism, among other things.

The second database consists of the 16 volume Writings of the Ancient World series by the Society of Biblical Literature, whose conference rapidly approaches. (BYU has given money to some promising undergrads to attend this year.) This is a very good series of books, with different genres (legal texts, epistolary texts, ritual texts, etc.) and different groups (Ugaritic, Hittite, Mesopotamian, etc.) represented. I’ve used a few for classwork and research.

While they’re in prepublication status, the DSS go for $79, and the SBL volumes for $306. Clearly, I need more funding 🙂

Five or so…

First, a good Bible or two, meant for understanding and personal study. Given only one choice, I’d recommend the Jewish Study Bible. The JPS translation is dynamic (thought-for-thought),the commentary is useful, and the essays included in the back are excellent. If I were to add a second Bible, I’d recommend the NIV Study Bible. It’s Evangelical and conservative, but I find it’s OT notes useful, the translation quite readable.

Continue reading “Five Recommended books for Understanding the Old Testament”

The annual Society of Biblical Literature conference will be held next month in San Diego, in combination with the American Academy of Religion or AAR. ( The American School of Oriental Research or ASOR used to hold theirs concurrently as well.) SBL is probably the largest conference of its kind, lasting several days, with several thousand people in attendance. The best parts are the socializing and networking, and the Bookanalia, in which hundreds of academic book and software publishers set up booths and offer their wares at serious discount.  I guess there are lectures to attend, too.

Numerous LDS presenters  are on the list, a paper copy of which is sent to all registered to attend. Some are students or recently graduated, some participate in the bloggernaccle, and some are on faculty at BYU.

There is also a relatively new section, the “LDS and the Bible Consultation” (S19-72), which appears to have mostly LDS presenters, exceptions being Margaret Barker and  Alden Thompson.

In short, it should be a good interesting conference.

Which among you will be in attendance? Roll call.