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Biblical Scholarship & Controversies

Perspicuity: Protestantism’s Achilles’ Heel
June 2023Within the Reformed tradition, the most famous articulation of perspicuity, or clarity, is found in the mid-17th-century Westminster Confession of Faith.
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A New Look at the Old Testament
October 2022Short-selling the Old Testament is regrettable. The Church of Rome has always been clear that the New Testament doesn’t supersede the Old.
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Is America Rooted in Exodus?
May 2022Kass describes three key components in the formation of the Israelite nation: their deliverance from slavery, the covenant and Law, and the Tabernacle.
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The Gospels of Peter & Mary
December 2021Peter was almost certainly looking over the shoulder of Mark during the writing of the second Gospel, and Jesus’ own mother had enormous influence on Luke.
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The Ancient Game of Guilt Abatement
September 2020Pew-sitters and religious leaders have come up with their own formulas to lessen the pain of guilt, all of them at odds with Scripture.
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The Resurrection: A Case of Collective Hallucination?
April 2020The scientific community holds a bias against the supernatural that is more censorial than any bias religion could have against science.
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Love of God & Love of Neighbor: One Commandment or Two?
January-February 2020Carinal Kasper grounds mercy in New Testament revelation and the Fathers of the Church. But his sources often do not say what he claims they say.
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Who Determines Scripture's "Plain Meaning"?
July-August 2018The "I'm too catholic to be Catholic" line of argumentation falls to a subjectivity or "lowest common denominator" critique.
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Which Church Is the Real 'Bible Church'?
June 2018The completeness of Catholic conformity to the biblical blueprint is nothing less than astounding.
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If God Is Love, Why Does He Command the Annihilation of Entire Peoples?
June 2018We draw spiritual lessons from the Bible's 'herem' passages; we can interpret them in a manner that resolves the difficulties they pose.
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The Crisis in Biblical Scholarship
December 2014Just as historians crank out “revisionist” history, theologians remake the image of Jesus in order to reshape everything from doctrine to architecture.
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Garry Wills's Assault on Christian Faith
December 2013A review of Why Priests?: A Failed Tradition
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Discerning the Spirits of Deception
September 2013The presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church has difficulty distinguishing the work of the Lord from that of the spirits of deception.
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Mysteries of Christ's Early Life
September 2013A review of Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives
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Understanding the Biblical Basis of the Mass
November 2012A review of A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do in the Liturgy
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The "Big" Little Papyrus Fragment
November 2012The recent find of a small papyrus piece that quotes Jesus saying "my wife" is the latest to make a temporary media sensation before fading into obscurity like other, similar discoveries.
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What Does It Mean to 'Serve Mammon'?
October 2012The ideal of the New Testament is not the wealthy man but the man who abandons all for the Kingdom of God, he who does not look back even to bury his dead.
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In the Beginning Was "Power"?
May 2012Anne Barbeau Gardiner takes on an author who has "made a career of treating the Bible sacrilegiously" and sees power, not Logos, as the ultimate reality.
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When Prophets Don't Pass the Test
July-August 2011That there will be an end of this world is unquestionably sound Christian doctrine, but when that end will come is another question altogether.
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An Army of Locusts Arises From the Smoke
June 2010Abraham Woodhead interpreted Apocalypse 9 as predicting a sudden invasion of Christendom by a horde of violent and unnaturally lustful insects.
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The Primeval Struggle
July-August 2009The forces that promote the Culture of Death have chosen their reward: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!"
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At the Close of the Year of St. Paul
June 2009Paul seems to suggest that the apostolic ministry is an invitation to live an unsolvable riddle: "treated as impostors, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known" (2 Cor. 6:8-9).
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Pope & Rabbi Square Off Over the Teachings of Jesus
May 2009The Torah expressly indicates that God's saving revelation was not complete in what had already been announced.
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Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body
March 2009The grace of marriage allows the parties to become one flesh and calls forth from them the same love Christ has for His Church.
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What Rapturists Miss About Rapture Theology
May 2008How can the Christian suffer as Christ suffered if he is airlifted off the face of the earth before he can undergo the most severe kind of suffering (the "tribulation")?
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Whatever Became of Hell?
January 2008Jesus spoke of the evildoer as being in the netherworld, separated from the just by an impassable chasm, and tormented in flames.
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The Heretics’ Gnostic Gospel of Choice
November 2007Ever since The Da Vinci Code became a bestseller, the interest in "alternative gospels" and Gnostic writings has spiked among modern readers.
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A Catholic Response to Sola Fide
September 2007Though "justification by faith alone" is widely popular, it is alien and contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture viewed in its entirety.
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Balthasar, Christ’s Descent & the Empty Hell
July-August 2007Review of Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell
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Apocalypse Now (and Then)
May 2007Kirsch's absorbing personality profile of the scrupulous, dogmatic, and uncompromising John portrays him as a man in great distress in a pagan culture.
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Dives the Tax-Evader
June 2006Around the world, the struggle continues against economic theories that generate and tolerate excessive inequalities.
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Homosexuality Is Bad? But Where's That in the Lectionary?
June 2006The Liturgy of the Word, which is a part of every Mass, would be one logical place for Catholics to look for divine guidance.
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Jewish Light on the Risen Lord
April 2006The intellectual integrity of Flavius Josephus remains a model, not only for Jews, but for all who strive to enrich the world of scholarship.
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The Parable of the Wheat & the Weeds: A Magna Carta for Dissent & Heresy?
November 2004Can some sense be made of the Pope's inaction?
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A Clever Translation of the Bible
September 2004is a Bible with "extraordinary power" - extraordinary satanic power.
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The Broad & Comfortable Road to Lukewarm Christianity & Destruction
July/August 2004If our Lord could use "narrow gate" imagery to spur His listeners to repentance, then so can we.
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A Groundbreaking Book
June 2004Jews of Old Testament times had to insulate themselves totally against the Gentiles because the pagan gods were demonic spirits.
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"For Fear of the Jews" (If Only)
June 2004Bishop Patrick McGrath is not fit to be a bishop.
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The Gender of the Holy Trinity
May 2003The Church is the true spiritual mother -- women are her symbol. We must also appreciate the true Fatherhood of God -- earthly fatherhood is the symbol of Him.
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When the "Shorter Form" Is The Politically Correct Form
January 2003Scripture is censored in the Parable of the Talents, where the "wicked, lazy servant" is sent "where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
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Debt Relief the Cyrenian Way
June 2002The Cyrenian approach to debt relief is personal: he lends a debtor money out of his own pocket at an unbeatable interest rate — nothing.
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Designer Bibles
December 2001Zondervan, publisher of the NIV, planned a so-called inclusive-language version of the NIV that would eventually replace it, but was pressured to stop.
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Jesus Found Guilty of Hate Speech
November 2001America magazine bellyaches about how Catholicism has historically expelled "heretical Christians" from its midst.
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If Everyone Is Saved...
January 2001If no one goes to Hell, then all the talk about Hell in the Bible — and from the Church — is utterly cruel, needlessly cruel, maybe sadistic.
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From Sola Scriptura to Social Chaos
December 2000The many rents in Christianity brought about by the heresy of sola Scriptura have as their cause that same sin of Adam and Eve.
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Sola Scriptura, an Impossible Theory
December 2000A syllogism: (1) Whatever is not contained in Scripture is not to be believed; (2) Sola Scriptura is not contained in Scripture; (3) Sola Scriptura is not to be believed.
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The Jesus Seminar: Making Uncomplicated Things Complicated
November 2000Those who spin theories opposing John’s authorship are doing a great injustice to truth and the cause of Christ.
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The Failures of the New Lectionary
June 2000It entirely translates and edits out the Bible’s teaching on fornication, and renders the doctrine of Hell if not invisible, then opaque.
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How to Find a "Total Bible Church"
February 2000Look for one that explicitly reminds you of what St. Paul said was first in importance, Christ’s death, and for one that celebrates Communion frequently.
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Zorro & Bathsheba
September 1999My, the difficulties of inclusivity are well-nigh preternatural
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The Dumbbell Feminese Dialect
July/August 1999"Maximum possible fidelity to the sacred Scriptures"?
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Was Our Lord a Fundamentalist?
April 1999Jesus confidently cites the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and refers to Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the whale.
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Is Hell Closed Up & Boarded Over?
February 1999Where eternal rewards and punishments are concerned, are we more tenderhearted and clear-eyed than our forebears in faith -- than God Himself?
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Bejesus Seminar Discovers New Gospel in Desert, Common Sand & Call to Faction Supporters Jubilant
March 1998 VIEW ARTICLE

Lessons to Be Learned From the Ecclesiastical Battle Over "Inclusive Language"
February 1998 VIEW ARTICLE











The Words of God
December 1989American hymnals and Bible translations must retain the authority that only memory, accuracy, and tradition bring, yet also be modern enough.
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The Danger of Riches
May 1989That our Lord meant to speak of riches as being in some sense a calamity to the Christian is plain from His praises and recommendation of poverty.
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The Limits of a Secular Exodus
October 1985A political understanding of the power of the Exodus story is eviscerated if its religious meaning is obscured.
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Inter-testamental Judaism
October 1984Scores of extra-canonical Jewish and Jewish-Christian writings were composed during the period between 300 B.C. and A.D. 200.
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The Complete Samaritan
June 1984Justice is an essential ingredient of love; love is not complete unless — to switch the metaphor — it is built on a foundation for social justice.
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Overkill
April 1984Biblical scholars may follow the first two steps of scientific procedure (formulation of hypothesis and accumulation of evidence) but cannot proceed to the third (verification).
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