exploring mormon culture, thought and texts
Anthropopatheia is the name of the figure used to describe the ascription of human passions, actions, or attributes to God. Interestingly enough, at the time Bullinger was writing his Figures, another term for this was Condescension. Readers of the BoM will be familiar with the idea. Anyway, consider Gen 22:7
Continue reading “Classical Figures in the Creation and Fall Narratives”
One of the interesting things about reading the last half of the NT is seeing how each author seems to “open up” OT language about God in order to include Christ. Since this is Creation Week at FPR, I thought I’d contribute a little something on the way the NT talks about Christ and creation.
Although the majority of our information about the historical Jesus comes from the Gospels, these sources cannot be used without care. They do not agree among themselves on matters important to the historian, large or small. How, then, shall we make our decisions?
The expression “for Christ’s sake” occurs four times in the Authorized Version of the New Testament. Three instances occur in the authentic Pauline letters (Rom 15:30-31, 1 Cor 4:10, and 2 Cor 12:10), while one is in Eph 4:32. Very similar expressions such as “for Jesus’ sake,” or “for his name’s sake,” or “for the gospel’s sake” may also be found. For the moment, let’s look at the expression in Romans:
One way to approach the hard historical and theological questions about the reality and significance of Jesus is through a construct called the “historical Jesus.” Since there are few other sources, most of our information comes from the Gospels. How do the they stack up?
Ol’ Sam was a little amazed to note that the lesson for this week included no biblical passages on the preexistence of Jesus. Sounds like a natural opportunity to complement the existing lesson, so here we go…
Continue reading “Secular Sam’s Guide to the Old Testament: Preexistence”
From Yahoo News — Original title “Did Jesus Exist? Italian Court to Decide”
Forget the U.S. debate over intelligent design versus evolution.
An Italian court is tackling Jesus — and whether the Roman Catholic Church may be breaking the law by teaching that he existed 2,000 years ago.
One way to better appreciate the impact of biblical prose is through attention to the so-called classical figures. The “standard” reference work for biblical figures is E.W. Bullinger’s Figures of Speech Used in the Bible. Bullinger’s work, originally published in 1898 and since reprinted, contains sections on 217 different figures, some with more than 30 variations.
Since the Enlightenment, folks have been asking hard historical and theological questions about the reality and significance of Jesus. One of the means by which those questions are dealt with to the standards of a post-Enlightenment world is a construct called “the historical Jesus.” The activity behind this is usually called “the quest for the historical Jesus,” or simply “the quest.”
Yesterday I noticed that the map “Jerusalem in Jesus’ Time,” bound as Map 17 in my LDS Bible, shows two locations for the crucifixion of Jesus. I don’t know if the folks who included this map knew what they were doing, but in keeping with the Easter themes that have distinguished FPR during this Christmas season, I thought I’d have a say.