Have you noticed the rise in psychic “hotlines” and TV shows nowadays? Five years ago, it would have been difficult to find even a psychic commercial on TV. Now, there are several half-hour infomercials, aired almost round the clock.

Have you also noticed New Age music cropping up here and there, not to mention the infiltration of Eastern Mysticism into the West, and increased UFO sightings (not to mention TV programs about them)? How about the rise of “what’s in it for me” attitudes, a morality of convenience, and a market-driven society (i.e., making a living as an end in itself)? While we’re at it, we could add the increasing denial of absolute truth by most Americans–even though a large proportion claim to be evangelical Christians, the prioritizing of relevance over truth, of pragmatics over knowledge, of feelings over beliefs. Al Franken, of Saturday Night Live fame, some years ago epitomized what we are seeing with his self-serving commentary (he humorously suggested that this decade should be labeled the “Al Franken” decade).

A New Kind of Charismatic

Part and parcel of this phenomenon is the rising popularity of charismatic Christianity–especially among those who had never been attracted to the charismatic movement before. Specifically, the Pentecostal/charismatic movement historically has roots in Wesleyan theology and practice. In other words, it has historically been associated with Arminian theology. The reason for this is not immediately obvious, but can be seen through a variety of connections. Arminianism teaches, among other things, that a person once saved can lose his salvation. Hence, Arminians put a strong emphasis on moral duty, as well as spiritual experiences, as the continued confirmation that one is still saved. It is a natural extension from this stance that the test by which a person knows he is saved is various manifestations of the Spirit. Thus the craving for supernatural experiences is both endemic to the charismatic mindset and necessary as continued confirmation of salvation.

But this craving for confirmation is not the motivation of many who have become charismatics in the last few years. Indeed, what is unusual about the current popularity of the charismatic movement, principally the Vineyard form, is that has attracted many Calvinists as well as many well-trained scholars. Every year at the Evangelical Theological Society meetings¹ I learn of a few more professors of theology who have joined the ranks of the Vineyard movement. Often, the response of colleagues when they find out about one these theologians is one of astonishment: “No! Not him! I never would have expected him to become a charismatic!”

Cognitive Christianity and the Impoverished Soul

Why are scholars suddenly becoming charismatics? What has happened in the last few years to attract the intelligentsia to this group?

We can give both a short answer and a long one. The short answer is that many Christian scholars have for a long time embraced a Christianity that is almost exclusively “from the neck up.” That is, theirs is a cognitive faith, one where reason reigns supreme. They are usually fine exegetes and theologians, able to defend the faith and articulate their views in a coherent, biblical, profound, and logical way. But (without naming names) many of these savants have lost their love for Christ. They love the Bible and know it inside and out. But their soul has become impoverished. They love God with their mind only; that is the extent of their spiritual obligation as they see it. In fact, for them, personal experience–especially of a charismatic sort–is anathema. It has no place in the Christian life. Study of the Bible so that they can control the text is what the Christian life is all about.

But when crisis comes–such as the death of a loved one, a teenage daughter’s pregnancy, or some major upheaval in their church ministries–their answers appear shallow and contrived, both to others and themselves. They have the inability to hurt with the hurting, though they know all the right verses on suffering! They begin to search for answers themselves, answers of an entirely different sort. Often, in the crucible of the crisis, they attend a charismatic meeting. And there, a “prophet” reveals something about their life. They are both amazed at the prophecy and deeply touched at the perception into their own condition. (Of course, cognitive types almost always marvel when other, more sensitive people, intuitively recognize traits and characteristics, internal workings and struggles in others.) Their souls get drenched with an emotional infusion that had been quenched for too long. It doesn’t take long before they hold hands with those whom they used to oppose, even to the point of now leading charismatic groups. They in fact become the theologians of a new breed of charismatic, giving a rather sophisticated rationale for charismata. In the process, they have gone through a paradigm shift: their final authority is no longer reasoning about the Scriptures; now it is personal experience. Continue Reading »

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, an earthquake that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale did unspeakable damage to Haiti, leaving at least one and a half million people homeless and tens of thousands dead. The total numbers at this writing are unknown.

On Wednesday, January 13, Pat Robertson declared that this devastating earthquake was God’s judgment on Haiti for being in league with Satan:

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and the people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French—uh, you know, Napoleon the Third or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.” True story. And so, the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” And so they kicked the French out of, you know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. The island of Hispanola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is…is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty—same island! Uh, they need to have (and we need to pray for them) a great turning to God.”

The media have jumped all over Robertson for this statement, calling it stupid and insensitive. Even if this were a ‘true story,’ as he claims, it would have been something that occurred two hundred years ago. Robertson didn’t explain either the who (all  Haitians?) or the why (some rationale for this alleged pact with the devil affecting several generations). Further, he didn’t check his facts; he simply pronounced ‘true story’ as though by fiat he could make it so. But when he said this rebellion occurred under “Napoleon the Third or whatever,” he was off by a mile. Napoleon the Third was born four years after Haiti gained its independence from France! What confidence should we have in this ‘true story’ if a part of it is demonstrably not true? And when the rest turns out to be merely rumor with no substance, Robertson’s credibility sinks to new lows. Continue Reading »

Last October I learned about a manuscript narrating Jesus’ life that was purportedly written by Joseph of Jerusalem, a first-century follower of Jesus. Although the claims were fantastic, I wondered if the manuscript that came with the cover letter could be at least an uncatalogued Gospels manuscript, perhaps of Matthew or Luke. 

In December 2009, a team from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts was privileged to visit Christ for the Nations, a college in Dallas, to examine this peculiar manuscript. The team members included Dr. Jeff Hargis, Ms. Dana Cooper, Mr. Peter Gurry, and me. Immediately we recognized that the manuscript was not a first-century document, but was produced many centuries later. The text was written on parchment—a very fine grade of parchment—and was no earlier than the ninth century. The ink was so faint that it was virtually unreadable without UV light. CSNTM photographed the manuscript, then we studied it, and came to discover that…

OK, so that was a terrible tease! But you can read the whole story at CSNTM’s website. Just click here to read it. Peter Gurry also wrote a narrative about the manuscript at Friends of CSNTM.

In a video that’s posted on Youtube and is making the rounds in popular Christian circles, an Arab Christian claims that there are three Arabic words in Revelation 13.18, the passage that speaks about the number of the beast.

Here’s the link to the video: Walid Shoebat – Mark of the Beast

Walid Shoebat claims in this video that the mark of the beast is Islam itself. Certainly, Christians can recognize that Islam denies the deity of Christ, vicarious atonement, and bodily resurrection; for this reason, Islam is a false religion. We can also recognize that there are small groups of Muslims who are radical and would like to destroy Israel and America. But does this make Islam the Antichrist? That’s rather doubtful.

Shoebat’s basis is this: “When I first saw the Codex Vaticanus, I was literally shocked because I could read the text. It was Arabic!  … ‘In the name of Allah.’”

But Shoebat did not read Codex Vaticanus. This codex is the famous fourth-century Greek New Testament (and Old Testament) manuscript that ends at Hebrews 9.13. The material added after Heb 9.13 is all in a much later hand. According to the authoritative Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, 2^nd edition (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994), the supplement (known as codex 1957) was written in the 15^th century. What Shoebat saw was not technically Codex Vaticanus but Codex 1957, a text written over a thousand years after Vaticanus.

In his video, he explains how the three Greek letters χξς in Revelation 13.18 are not really Greek at all, but Arabic. On top of the stretch to make the Arabic words fit, there are other severe problems with Shoebat’s claims. As much as some Christians would like for Shoebat’s interpretation to be correct, it fails at many levels. Let’s examine Shoebat’s claims.

1.         Rev 13.18 specifically introduces this symbol as the number of the beast. The word ‘number’ is used three times in this verse. We are thus expecting a number, not a foreign word, to be introduced. Shoebat offers no explanation how ‘number’ can mean anything other than number here.

All he says is that “God is not the author of mysteries… His yoke is easy. God is not interested in gematria. Gematria is a process that was used in witchcraft.” These statements are self-serving, contradictory, and incorrect. To say that God is not the author of mysteries is stunningly naïve. Of course he’s the author of mysteries. “Mystery” is a word that occurs 28 times in the NT. Almost every time it is used in collocation with a positive word: ‘the mystery of godliness,’ ‘the mystery of the gospel,’ ‘the mystery of faith,’ etc. Jesus’ parables were a form of mystery (something that was unknown to the listeners until revelation about the parables was given). Furthermore, if there is Arabic in Rev 13.18, why wouldn’t that qualify as a mystery for most readers? And if no one until Walid Shoebat had properly understood the meaning here, then the text has obviously been a mystery for 1900 years. To say that “[God’s] yoke is easy” is to wrench out of context what Jesus said about what it means to follow him in Matthew 11.29–30: his yoke is easy because it does not burden someone down with legalism. The text has nothing to do with interpretation. Judging by the disparate interpretations of scripture for the several millennia, if an easy yoke means that the interpretation of the text is plain and straightforward at all points, then scripture has created a brutally hard yoke for us. Continue Reading »

Last week nearly 10,000 people invaded the French Quarter of New Orleans for a three-day conference. It wasn’t a convention of Mardi Gras mask-makers, a congregation of Bourbon Street miscreants, or an assembly of Hustler devotees. No, this was the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. This is a collective of the world’s religious scholars. SBL is the largest society of biblical scholars on the planet. The program of lectures and meetings is the size of a phone book for a mid-sized city. Too many choices! So many great biblical scholars were there: N. T. Wright, Jon Dominic Crossan, D. A. Carson, Bart Ehrman, Stanley Porter, Frederick Danker, Alan Culpepper, Craig Evans, Robert Stein, Joel Marcus, April Deconick, Elaine Pagels, John Kloppenborg, R. B. Hays, Peter Enns, Buist Fanning, Harold Attridge, Luke Timothy Johnson, Peter Davids, Craig Keener, Ben Witherington, Rikki Watts, Robert Gundry, Emanuel Tov, Walter Brueggemann, Eric Myers, Eugene Boring, J. K. Elliott—that’s just a small sampling of the names. Liberals and evangelicals, theists and atheists, those who are open and those who are hostile to the Christian faith—all were there.

Overall, the Society of Biblical Literature is comprised of professors who teach religion, humanities, biblical studies, history, ethics, English literature, and theology at virtually all the schools in the nation that offer such subjects. Not just the United States, but a multitude of other countries are represented (although because of the long distances and short conference, many scholars did not come). Private schools, public schools, elite schools, and unknown schools—all were represented. Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Tübingen, Chicago, Duke, Dallas Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Seminary, Princeton, Yale, Biola, Claremont, Manchester, Durham, St Andrews, Westminster Seminary, Wheaton, Gordon-Conwell, Emory, TCU’s Brite Divinity School, SMU, University of Texas, Northwestern University, Rice, Brandeis, London School of Theology, Münster University, Notre Dame, community colleges, even unaccredited schools were represented.

As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead. The post-lecture discussions are often spirited, and occasionally get downright nasty.

The annual SBL conference is a place where young scholars can present their papers, meet senior scholars, and talk to publishers about book projects. Great opportunities are at SBL! Master’s students meet with professors whom they’d like to study with for their PhDs. They make appointments, go out for coffee, or just happen to bump into them at the conference. Continue Reading »

As of today (November 15, 2009), there’s a Christmas sale at New Testament Textual Criticism (www.nttextualcriticism.com). Video DVDs are going for $7.50 each or 2 for $10 through the end of the year (a 25% to 33% savings), and the lifetime subscription to the TC Chart Timesaver has dropped from $40 to $30, also through the end of the year.

The video DVDs are both of Dr. Daniel B. Wallace. One is called, “Is What We Have Now What They Wrote Then?” and the other is “Challenges in New Testament Textual Criticism for the 21st Century.” The first one is a great introduction for a general audience on the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts as witnesses to the original text. It’s suitable for Christians and non-Christians alike.

Go here to place your order.

Andy Schlafly is political conservative advocate Phyllis Schlafly’s son. He’s a graduate of Princeton University (major in electrical engineering), and Harvard Law School. Schlafly is founder of the website Conservapedia.com, which boast more than 100 million page views, offers a full-blown conservative viewpoint on politics. Conservapedia.com is sponsoring a new Bible translation called the Conservative Bible Project. The project involves open-source editing, which has been an open source of woe or comic relief, depending on your perspective. The Tennesean.com reports that Gen 1.1 was changed by fans of Stephen Colbert as follows: “In the beginning, Stephen Colbert created the heavens and the earth”! The text was later fixed. Al Gore may have invented the Internet, but Colbert did not create the universe. Elsewhere, someone changed ‘Pharisee’ to ‘liberal’ to show that liberals were responsible for Jesus’ death. Schlafly changed it back to Pharisee but admitted to the Tennesean.com, “The possibility that Pharisees, which is a term that’s not familiar to most of us, could be better translated as liberal is intriguing. But we haven’t gone with that yet.”

Apart from using the best currently available Greek text which tags the long ending of Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery (Mark 16.9–20 and John 7.53–8.11) as inauthentic, there is very little to commend in this translation. But even in following the critical Nestle-Aland text, the editors often argue that the changes to the text were made with liberal motives.

What is most remarkable about this new translation is not that it lacks almost total credibility (which is true), but that political ideology is so strong that it overrides everything else. New Testament professor Douglas Moo, Wheaton Graduate School, and chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation which oversees the NIV and TNIV, did not mince words about the Conservative Bible Project. “Silly is probably as kind as I could be about it,” Moo told the Tennesean.com. Schlafly responded by saying that the TNIV was motivated by a liberal agenda, especially with regard to gender inclusiveness. This, frankly, is an uninformed argument. Moo wrote the first full-blown exegesis of 1 Tim 2.11–15, published originally in Trinity Journal, taking a conservative position on the role of women in the church. Moo also was for some time a member of the conservative Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. And Zondervan, the publisher of the NIV/TNIV, is one of the more conservative Christian publishers out there.

From all that I can tell, Schlafly is mixing theological ‘liberal’ with political ‘liberal’ in his understanding. His ten rules for a conservative Bible translation show this clearly. But this reveals that he has no clue what a theological liberal is if he’s going to place anyone on the TNIV translation team under the rubric ‘liberal.’

My friend and former intern, Brittany Burnette, pointed out how they translated Mark 2.22: “And no man puts fresh grape juice into old bottles. The fresh juice will burst the bottles, spilling the juice and damaging the bottles. Fresh juice must be put into new bottles.” But without fermentation how could grape juice burst the bottles? The Conservative Bible Project notes that “the Greek word oinos…actually meant ‘fruit of the vine’ and was not fermented.” Although there are some conservative Christians who take this view, it is rather indefensible. See my essay “The Bible and Alcohol” for a discussion.

The agenda of this translation boggles the mind, and gives conservatives (both political and theological) a bad name.

[N.B. - For a more in-depth treatment of Dr Wallace's views on this subject, see "The Righteousness of God and N.T. Wright."]

N. T. Wright has written another important book, this time on justification in Paul. The book, Justification: Gods Plan and Paul’s Vision, was co-published earlier this year by SPCK in London and InterVarsity Press in Downers Grove, Illinois. It is both a response to John Piper’s The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007)—which itself was a response to Wright’s treatment on justification that he had articulated over the years—and an epistle-by-epistle definition of his view of the matter. Wright is one of the leading NT scholars to have embraced the New Perspective on Paul, a view that got its major impetus from E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).

I picked up Wright’s latest offering just before I left for Germany last May, the month it came out. I originally wanted to write a review of the whole book, but since I am, once again, teaching Romans at Dallas Seminary this year, I thought I would start with a review of Wright’s treatment of ‘the righteousness of God’ in Romans. But that paper ended up being nearly 10,000 words long—in itself too long even for a standard theological journal submission (they usually limit manuscripts to 8500 words). I dreaded how long a piece on all that Wright had to say in his book would be! So, I had to leave it at this one exceedingly important and programmatic phrase.

I have posted the review article at bible.org; the exact link is here. It was too long for a blog post at Parchment & Pen, but the articles at bible.org don’t have the format for comments there. So, I’m doing a rather unconventional thing of asking you to read the article there and comment on it here.

If you don’t know Greek, this blog post is not for you. Stop reading now.

If you do know Greek and are studying the New Testament, then this may be a lifesaver. OK, not a lifesaver, but at least a great timesaver. In fact, that’s part of the name, so it must be true!

TC Chart Timesaver (TCCT) converts text-data in the Nestle-Aland apparatus into a usable text-critical chart. It is available at www.nttextualcriticism.com. This current release (version 1.2), a web-based application for increased compatibility, works exclusively with “gothic M” manuscripts. (Later releases will expand on the manuscripts to be charted.) Deciphering and categorizing gothic M manuscripts has always been a time-consuming task for anyone working with the Nestle apparatus. To do it properly, one has to look at the front of the Nestle text and note which manuscripts belong to gothic M for the particular genre being studied (gospels, Paul, Acts, catholic letters, Revelation). These witnesses will only be cited explicitly when they disagree with gothic M. (Many don’t realize that not all the manuscripts under the gothic M umbrella are Byzantine manuscripts. Placing all these manuscripts under gothic M is simply a convenient way to list the manuscripts without swelling the apparatus. Clarity and cost are sacrificed to concision; it’s a good trade-off, but has created some time-consuming activities for those working with the text of the NT.) Continue Reading »

More than one Christian friend has suggested to me, in all seriousness, that President Obama is the Antichrist. I haven’t taken such suggestions too seriously, but recently a video has shown up on Youtube that seems to claim that Jesus identified Obama as the Antichrist. Some Christians have been startled by this (and the video is wildly popular) and believe that the evidence is compelling. The video is found here.

The anonymous narrator introduces his provocative four-minute video by asking if Jesus identified the name of the Antichrist, then says, “I will report the facts; you can decide” (reminiscent of Greta Van Susteren’s tagline on her show on Fox News). The narrator then notes that in Luke 10.18, Jesus says, “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan falling from the heavens.”

He then begins to link several hypotheses together. First, he claims that Luke 10.18 was written originally in Greek, but that Jesus spoke these words in Aramaic, “which is the most ancient form of Hebrew.” Second, he observes that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and claims that the Aramaic that Jesus spoke would have been quite similar to the Hebrew that is spoken today and, presumably, similar to the Hebrew of the Old Testament. Third, he then says that Jesus spoke these words in Hebrew, and retranslates the text as follows: “I saw Satan falling as lightning from the heights, or from the heavens.” Fourth, he discusses the Hebrew words for ‘lightning’ and ‘heights.’ He notes that the word for ‘lightning’ is baraq. Fifth, he claims that Isaiah is the source of the Christian understanding of Satan or ‘Lucifer’ (Isa 14.12 in the KJV). Sixth, Isa 14.14 has Satan say, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” Seventh, the Hebrew word in Isa 14.14 for ‘heights’ is bamaw, and this is surely what ‘heavens’ means in Luke 10.18. Eighth, the Hebrew letter waw is sometimes transliterated as a u or o. Ninth, the waw is used in Hebrew as a conjunction. Tenth, in Hebrew poetry baraq obamah literally is translated “lightning and the heights” or “lightning from the heights.” Eleventh, if Jesus’ words in Luke 10.18 were spoken in Hebrew by a Jewish Rabbi today he would say, “And I saw Satan as baraq ubamah.” He concludes his narration by asking, “Did Jesus reveal the name of the Antichrist? I report; you decide.” There is a disclaimer at the end of the video that simply says the correlation is striking, but not that the narrator is claiming that the President is the Antichrist.

This video was followed up by another by the same narrator. You can see it here.

It essentially argues the same point, but changes a couple of points (without warrant). Continue Reading »