There have been a number of posts over the past several weeks with which I have wanted to interact. Various distractions of kept me from fulfilling this desire, however. At this point, since some of the trails are a bit cold, it seems best to lump several of these posts into a single post of my own with brief comments.
Hebrew Prepositions
Several of us had a bit of fun discussing Hebrew prepositions, how they work, and how they ought to be translated over at Daniel and Tonya’s blog. See here and here for the gist of the discussion. As Mandy pointed out in one of the comment threads, this is an excellent example of why one really ought to learn Hebrew.
Pastors and PhD
I have mentioned this topic before, but Doug Mangum brought it up again. His second post was interacting with a post by Brian (of συνεσταύρωμαι). I agree with both Doug and Brian, having more clergy with PhDs would be a wonderful thing. However, at least within conservative Evangelical circles, I’m not entirely convinced that churches are ready for this. I would love to see more pastors with PhDs, but I would also love to see professors who spend time in their local congregations not only teaching Sunday school, but teaching some kind of “course” on the Bible generally, or their specialization in particular (ie, ritual studies, wisdom literature, former prophets, Psalms, Hebrew poetry, Hebrew narrative, etc, etc, etc). Such professors might find that lay people are more interested in esoteric topics than one might expect.
Inerrancy
Art Boulet has a long running series on the topic of inerrancy. This series is well worth reading, the most recent of them can be found here. A listing of the entire series can be had here. There isn’t much more that needs saying in regards to this, other than that I think Art is right on target.
Peter Enns has also been blogging on this topic in a series of posts in which in responds to Bruce Waltke. Each post in the series is helpful and informative. The most recent may be found here. Other posts in the series are easily found on Dr. Enns’ blog.