I want to ask you a favor. Please send me difficult questions about the Old Testament, those questions that everyone thinks about but are afraid to ask. I want to compile a list of maybe 10 questions that we can seek to answer together. The Top Ten list will be the questions that are most pastorally relevant. You can post them in a comment below or email me at mark -at- catholicbiblestudent.com.

So what kind of questions am I looking for?

Here are some examples:

• Why did God command the Israelites to kill children in the conquest of Canaan–is that right and how do we explain it? (Deut 2:24; 20:16-18; Josh 6:21)
• Are we really supposed to “hate with a perfect hatred”? (Ps 139:21-22)

I want to find good answers for hard questions, answers that can be easily summed up and delivered to people who ask the hard questions to their pastors and teachers. It is very easy to gloss over difficult problems like these when what people need to satisfy their intellectual honesty is a good, well-thought-out answer. Let’s work through these together!

Oh and in terms of pastoral relevance, check out this article by Dr. Peter Williamson on the topic called Biblical Scholarship with a Pastoral Purpose.

I found this great quote today. It’s a summary of St. John Chrysostom’s thoughts on 1 Tim 6:11-16 in the Ancient Christian Commentary, NT vol.IX, p.216. Here it is:

“The life of the believer is directed toward future rewards, not present pleasures. For such a person rejects the love of money, stands fast in the profession of faith, refuses to be intimidated by earthly powers and places all hope in God who is incomprehensible in his majesty.”

I found a poignant example of Paul alluding to Divine Providence in Philemon 15. There’s no chapter numbers because the book is so short. Paul is talking about why Onesimus (the slave) was away from Philemon (the owner) for so long. Onenismus had escaped, but that’s not our concern here. The point is that Paul says, “Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother.” (Phil 15-16) Why do I think this is a big deal? Paul is making a really transparent allusion to the fact that he thinks God himself caused Onesimus to be away from Philemon. God was involved in the situation. The circumstances have a meaning and a purpose behind and beneath them. God was at work to change Philemon’s life for the better.

I think it’s really easy to see tons of circumstances and situations and never connect them to the fact that God is actually working in this world. (Aslan is on the move!) He’s changing things and people. He’s converting people and blessing people, healing and teaching people. God himself is bringing the world to himself through his Son Jesus. Yet much of the time, we cannot see God’s hand at work until after the fact. We look back on an event or a circumstance and realize that he was working and changing things and people without us even noticing in the process. Our God does not sit up in the cosmos and ignore what goes on down here. He is present and ready in every situation to bring grace and help and blessing where there is none.

Today I came across a great article by physicist Michael Disney of Cardiff University in England. (He was one of the scientists who helped design cameras for the Hubble Telescope.) He points out the key weaknesses of current cosmological theories. As a student of the Bible, the issues surrounding creation, age of the earth and cosmology are huge. Many biblical scholars and theologians dismiss the importance of how we interpret Genesis 1-2 assuming that the cosmologists know what they’re up to. I think biblical thinkers should probe the cosmological questions hard because if God really did create the universe, then our scientific observations of the universe should allow for that if not prove it.

Many people are intimidated by the complex mathematics involved in cosmology, so they never bother reading about, assuming that Einstein and his intellectual descendants are all right. But Disney challenges that easy assumption to the core. He explains the basics of current cosmological theory in simple language and shows the faulty, weak basis of the discipline.

People want ultimate answers to ultimate questions and if they do not have an admittedly religious worldview, they will concoct a philosophy of life. Disney explains the theoretical Band-Aids and pseudo-science notions that have been sewn into the fabric of cosmological theory like dark matter, cold dark matter and dark energy. Disney doesn’t offer a new direction for cosmology, but we need revolutionary thinkers like Einstein that will break the mold of current theory and develop observations that actually help us place the data that we have. We don’t need people to feed us more science fiction as fact.

A few important (and differing) books on cosmology:
Albert Einstein’s Relativity
Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time
Hugh Ross’ Creation and Time
D. Russel Humphreys’ Starlight and Time

I’ve been away from the blog for a couple weeks because life has been a little hectic. But I think I will finish up the “Who Wrote What?” chart below before moving on to newer and newer posts. Nailing down the three different perspectives in summary form will be very helpful for all of us.

Rather than arguing for particular authors for each book of the Bible, I think it’s interesting to present three contrasting views: 1.)What the Bible says about itself, 2.) the so-called “traditional” view and 3.)the contemporary critical view. While it is literally impossible to obtain unanimity in either of the second two categories, I’m going to do my best to present a chart showing each biblical book with the author proposed by each of the 3 views.

The Bible doesn’t talk about itself a whole lot, but I’ll assume that if a book is named after somebody or explicitly says it was written by a certain person, then that’s the Bible’s own take on the issue. I’ll be updating the list over the next few weeks, but I think it will make for a fascinating comparison. (I’ll keep the updates in this post.) If I make any mistakes, please comment to let me know and I’ll be happy to correct the oversight.

It is important to remember that when I list any of the three views as calling a certain person an “author” that doesn’t mean that their hand was the last to shape the book. Especially in the case of the Wisdom and Prophetic literature, many editors and compilers were included in the process of codification of the texts. But that does not make the editors the authors of the books. The editors did not write the books, but organized them or inserted headings or collected works together.

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I found this photo on my friend Thomas’ blog and just had to post it.

The Vatican City State launched its own website recently. It has a lot of good content and really detailed information about the buildings, gardens and even the government structure. You can get Vatican stamps and coins by calling the number on the website. Also, you can find the phone number for the Vatican pharmacy and a link to the Vatican observatory.

But the coolest thing is the webcam page. It’s only viewable with MS Explorer. It has five webcam views: St. Peter’s Square, the basilica’s facade, the Governorate building and the tomb of John Paul II. It’s a really cool supplement to the Vatican’s website. So, check it out!

I have hauled sand
I have carried salt
But nothing is heavier than debt.
-Ahiqar

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend.
-Shakespeare

The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender
-Proverbs 22:7 (ESV)

Painful to a sensitive man
are abuse at home and insults
from his creditors.
-Sirach 29:28 (NAB)

Debt is the slavery of the free.
-Publius Syrus

Update! 9/21/07
Ok, so this quote isn’t ancient, but it’s really good:

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of
debt, and has a clear conscience?
– Adam Smith (1723-1790)