24 February 2007

My Thesis has Begun

So on Wednesday night I got most of the first chapter of my Thesis completed. It was an amazing feeling to get 10 solid pages out, and work out the formatting of all that geeky stuff that goes into a Old Testament Masters thesis: Abbreviations Page, Table of Contents, Bibliography. It really gave me a good feelinging - like I will be able to actually write a 50-80 page paper by April 1st.

Well, incase you are wondering, my thesis is on the 31st chapter of Job:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job%2031&version=47

So I am comparing the ethical issues that Job speaks about in this chapter with the way other Old Testament writers talk about ethics, and then looking at the Gospel of Matthew and what Jesus says about ethics there. 40 to 70 pages left.

Vacation

So Lauren and I are going on our first real vacation since our honey moon - one that lasts more than 2 nights.

Here is the view from our Pelapa:


There are some more pictures here:
http://www.palapainyelapa.com/pages/lbds.html

Any ways - it is a remote village near Puerta Vallarta - only accessible by boat. We are leaving right after my thesis is due. I can't wait. 7 nights in a tropical paradise. Ahhh is all I can say.

19 February 2007

Scripture and Tradition

So what is the difference between scripture and tradition?

I am asking it, because it has come up in my own mind in my "Comparative Confessions" class.

The Bible wasn't the Bible until 324 AD, at the earliest. That is when the
canon was decided on by the early church fathers. Books were in, and books were out.

This group of books was unchanged until the 15th Century - when Luther said
that the Apocrypha was not part of the Bible. Calvin, and other reformers
accepted this move. So Calvin, and Luther demoted/threw out a few books of the Bible, after they had been part of the canon for almost 1200 years. How come they get to do that?

This article on Wikipedia on the Apocrypha is very interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha
It talks about how Origen believed that Song of Songs should be tossed out of the canon.

My main question is, isn't it tradition (inspired by the Holy Spirit) that created the canon as we had it in 324? How can we throw out 14 books and fragments of books that have been part of our cannon for 1150 years and say that we are "Sola Scriptura"?

Seems that scripture came out of (Holy Spirit lead) tradition. We say that the early church fathers lead us, but we don't even read the same Bible. Any move to change the current scripture would be thrown out by fundamentalists who have in their hands the truncated Bible. Some might say that the "dubious origin" of the Apocryphal books justifies the removal, but many modern scholars would point to the dubious origin of many of Paul's letters (1&2 Timothy, Titus, etc.)

At the end of the day, I don't understand why people can throw out a good portion of the Bible and still say that they live by scripture alone - without tradion.

09 February 2007

Not much Theology

I know I have been doing a lot of video posts lately, and haven't babbled on and on about theology. Don't know if any one misses that, but I have been conversing with a friend of a bit more SBC persuasion about a video on the web of my church, Solomon's Porch. If you are thirsting for something a little more heavy and insightful, take a look:

http://caneday.blogspot.com/2007/02/solomons-porch-video.html

The video is right there on his sight, it was done by Allen Keating-Moore, a member of the community - and it looks like he talked to a bunch of people in our congregation about why they are part of our "holistic, missional, Christian community", and not a more traditional church.

08 February 2007

Mr Deity

This is funny stuff. Found it on Doug's Blog, and I finally watched it.

They have their own website also:
http://www.mrdeity.com/

Here are some of my favorite episodes:







Hope you get a laugh out of it...