Bully's Blog

Daniel Harrell tries to marry chalk and cheese by positing that Adam and Eve were real people, just not the first real people. They were the first people with whom God entered into a Covenant relationship.[1] The Rev. Harrell is sitting on the fence, an extremely pointy fence.

For many Christians, the biblical characters Adam and Eve can present a significant challenge to accepting evolutionary theory—that is, when they are cast as historical figures who are also the biological progenitors of the human race. …the Rev. Daniel Harrell discusses how there may be some “middle ground” in the way that Christians understand Adam and Eve. Harrell points out that the historicity of Adam and Eve does not necessarily conflict with science.  Rather, the claim that conflicts with science is the idea that Adam and Eve were the first humans, who were the only original biological ancestors of all humans today.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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When it was pointed out to a Southern Baptist pastor at one of those (now quaint) prophecy conferences they still insist on holding, that there were more than ten European nations in the EEC, he replied that however many there may be now, there will be exactly ten when the Antichrist comes to power.

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or Why Idolatry is Adultery

“So [Abraham] lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground…” Genesis 18:2

“Then Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth.” Genesis 23:7

I’ve finally gotten around to doing the post that was to follow Stuff Is Good.

In his little torpedo of a book, The Liturgy Trap, James Jordan gives a definition of idolatry that is worth the price of the book. Firstly, it is natural that the de-eschatologised churches, (the ones that think they need no death-and-resurrections) contain icons. A church that has already arrived [1] must be able to present the unseen as already-seen:

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Pedigree Papers The Wolf and the Lamb The Greatest Tribulation

Jeremiah was a Bullfrog The Go-Betweens Feasts in Mark 3

My erudite friend Bryce Cassin posted a review on Amazon. (The pic above is not Bryce.)

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or There Is No Last Supper

A quote from N. T. Wright on Pentecost (pilfered from Uri’s blog):

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From Bible Matrix:

The Bible is a very strange book to modern minds. Even the passages we know very well contain a great number of oddities and we allow them to grow familiar without gaining an understanding of why they are there.

Those brave enough to regularly read the Old Testament often find themselves wondering what on earth is going on. “Just keep reading your Bible” our pastors tell us. Do you ever get the feeling they don’t have a big grip on it either? “Just stick to the basics. The rest doesn’t matter.”

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A Totus Christus review*

Finally. Mike Bull has done it. Finally. Totus Christus is a tour de force of Biblical Theology. Here we have a book that believes the Bible is the Word of God and is not ashamed of any part of it. Bull believes in Biblical History all the way down to the talking serpent in the garden. Here we have a faithful exposition of the Symbolic, Typological and Poetic theology of the Bible that does not sacrifice faith in the Literal and Historical.

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Bible Matrix is now available on amazon in both paperback and hardcover. Bit late to worry about typos now, I guess. Thanks to everyone who encouraged and proofed and edited and especially to Dr Leithart whose uncommon accessibility shows where his heart is.

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or The Real Hebel

James Jordan was asked whereabouts in the Bible is the best place to start reading it:

We should start in Genesis. What we should really do is pass a law that for five years you may only read Genesis through Joshua over and over again. So you get the foundation… When the Psalms and Ecclesiastes were written, they were written for people who were steeped in the earlier Scriptures. Ecclesiastes is not some mysterious book of philosophy. Ecclesiastes is all about the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is literally the Feast of “Clouds.” That’s what sukkoth means. You get branches down out of a tree to make a little lean-to. Those branches up on that tree are a cloud. When you make a tree-house down here out of those branches, you’ve got your own little cloud. After a week it disintegrates. But God in His cloud, in His Tabernacle, goes on and on.

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