Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

The Value of the Apocrypha

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This morning a friend emailed me a thoughtful question in response to reading my post last night about the contest between King Darius’ three bodyguards.

I just read your post on 1 Esdras. Very enjoyable to read! I don’t think I have ever read much of the Apocrypha before, but this has piqued my curiosity. Are there any redeeming reasons for reading it? If there are, I would like to know them so I can be aware of them as I read.

Yes, I think that there are redeeming reasons for reading the Apocrypha. Even though Protestants reject its canonical status, the Apocrypha continued to be included between the covers of most English Bibles as late as the nineteenth century, and even the King James Version of 1611 included it. Although many English translations printed a small disclaimer that the Apocrypha was not on par with the Old and New Testaments, it was nonetheless between the same covers with sacred Scripture. The 1599 edition of the Geneva Bible was the first English Bible printed without the Apocrypha. So what was the Apocrypha doing in all those English Bible? Christians believed that it possesses spiritual value. How so? I’d suggest at least three ways that the Apocrypha is valuable: [Read more…] about The Value of the Apocrypha

“Forgiving oneself is, quite frankly, incoherent.”

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And what biblical warrant is there for this easy way many have of talking about “forgiving myself”? In the domain of pop psych, we all know, more or less, what we mean. But in the matrix of Wright’s discussion of what forgiveness is and entails, you have to have two parties to talk about forgiveness: the offender and the offended. Forgiving oneself is, quite frankly, incoherent. One can accept God’s forgiveness, and the forgiveness of others, and press on in various ways. But talk of forgiving oneself merely has the effect of muddying the crispness of the earlier discussion.

-D. A. Carson, review of N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, RBL (April 23, 2007): 7-8 (emphasis added).

What Is the Strongest? The Contest Between King Darius’ Three Bodyguards

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Earlier this semester I read through the OT Apocrypha. I had read many parts of it before, but a good bit of it was fresh. One of my favorite stories that I had not heard before is the contest between King Darius’ three bodyguards. It’s witty and enjoyable. (And it would serve nicely as an illustration of “truth” in a sermon or lecture.)

Here’s the story from 1 Esdras 3:1–4:42 (NRSV). [Read more…] about What Is the Strongest? The Contest Between King Darius’ Three Bodyguards

Doug Moo on Justification in Romans

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In Douglas J. Moo’s concise article on Romans in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, he highlights “six aspects of justification in Romans”:

  1. “God justifies people through faith and not through ‘works of the law,’” which “refer to obedience to the OT law, the Torah” and “exclude all works.”
  2. “Justification is available for all human beings, Jew and Gentile, on the same basis of faith.”
  3. “God justifies people by a completely free act of his will: in a word, by ‘grace.’”
  4. “Justification by faith is rooted in the OT.”
  5. “Justification is the product, or extension, of ‘the righteousness of God,’” which “refers to an activity of God: his acting to put people in right relationship to himself.”
  6. “Justification by faith is based in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. . . . In a bold metaphor, Paul claims, in effect, that Christ is now the final, eschatological ‘mercy seat,’ the place where God draws near to human beings for their redemption.”

Moo concludes,

While not the centre of Romans, justification by faith is nevertheless a critical component of Paul’s presentation of the gospel in Romans. The doctrine expresses, in the sphere of anthropology, a crucial element in Paul’s understanding of God’s work in Christ: its entirely gracious character. Not only, then, does justification by faith guard against the Jewish attempt to make works of the law basic for salvation in Paul’s day; it expresses the resolute resistance of Paul, and the NT authors, to the constant human tendency to make what people do decisive for salvation.

I can’t wait to sing about this tomorrow morning with my church!

Ossified Orthodoxy

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Although I think it extremely dangerous to pursue a second blessing attested by tongues, I think it no less dangerous not to pant after God at all, and to be satisfied with a merely creedal Christianity that is kosher but complacent, orthodox but ossified, sound but soundly asleep.

-D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 160.

D. A. Carson on Logical Fallacies

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D. A. Carson opens his chapter entitled “Logical Fallacies” in Exegetical Fallacies (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996; pp. 87–123) with this:

Why Are Fire Engines Red?

They have four wheels and eight men;
four plus eight is twelve;
twelve inches make a ruler;
a ruler is Queen Elizabeth;
Queen Elizabeth sails the seven seas;
the seven seas have fish;
the fish have fins;
the Finns hate the Russians;
the Russians are red;
fire engines are always rushin’;
so they’re red.

I do not remember where I learned this little gem, but it raises in an extreme form the subject of logic. We see the argument is ridiculous; but why is it ridiculous? What is the nature of the breaches as we move from line to line, or even within one line? Why should we not accept this argument as a valid answer to the question, “Why are fire engines red?”

Carson proceeds to discuss “The Nature and Universality of Logic” followed by “A Select List of Logical Fallacies” (with explanations and illustrations):

  1. False disjunctions: an improper appeal to the law of the excluded middle
  2. Failure to recognize distinctions
  3. Appeal to selective evidence
  4. Improperly handled syllogisms
  5. Negative inferences
  6. World–view confusion
  7. Fallacies of question–framing
  8. Unwarranted confusion of truth and precision
  9. Purely emotive appeals
  10. Unwarranted generalization and overspecification
  11. Unwarranted associative jumps
  12. False statements
  13. The non sequitur
  14. Cavalier dismissal
  15. Fallacies based on equivocal argumentation
  16. Inadequate analogies
  17. Abuse of “obviously” and similar expressions
  18. Simplistic appeals to authority

Carson concludes,

These are certainly not the only logical fallacies than can trip up those of us who are intimately involved in the exegesis of the Bible; but they are among the most common. All of us will fall afoul of one or more of these fallacies at some time or another; but alert awareness of their prevalence and nature may help us escape their clutches more frequently than would otherwise be the case.

Like the other chapters of this book, this one is more negative than positive; but if it results in interpreters who are marginally more self–critical in their handling of Scripture, and in readers who are somewhat more discerning when they devour commentaries, expositions, and other studies, this sustained critique will be amply rewarded (p. 123).