theLAB

The Logos Academic Blog

Demons, DSS, and Jesus: Psalm 91 and the Need for Text Critical Pastors

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by Donald McIntyre

Textual criticism is a hot topic among biblical scholars. The views on the discipline’s profitability span the extremes of being of crucial importance for serious scholarship and the opposing view of being hostile towards the revered doctrines of inerrancy and the sufficiency of Scripture.

Textual criticism of the Old Testament is perhaps a greater challenge than that of the New Testament due to the distance between the manuscripts extant and the proposed dates of authorship. However, this article seeks to show why text criticism is important for biblical scholars and exegetes of all persuasions.

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Karl Barth Doctrine of the Word of God: Part 1 of 3

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by Justin Eimers

One of the most challenging areas to speak about earnestly is our treatment of the Holy Scriptures. Within the Evangelical community, words like inerrancy and infallibility have been weaponized to intimidate and silence people who are asking simple questions of the text and the Christian community for its adherence to it.

Many Christians know little about these words or their meaning, and even fewer understand how a believer and a non-believer can read the same text and yet come away with entirely different understandings of it. For this, I think it is essential that we look to one of the most formidable theologians in the church’s long history named Karl Barth.

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Exclusive Interview with “The Chosen” Producers

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Leading up to Easter, my family was looking for something to watch. Our typical Easter plans were ruined by the quarantine, and we hoped to find a digital experience that would help to fill that void. My wife suggested The Chosen, which she’d heard about from the late Ravi Zacharias. I am not really a fan of media attempts to capture gospel stories. I was more interested in finding a lecture by a theologian. I was outvoted, however, and we settled on the chosen. I opened my laptop to absentmindedly peruse Facebook. There’s no way this show is any good. 

I was wrong.

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Design Showcase: Crossway’s Catechism, To Be A Christian

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The latest Design Showcase instalment features an interview with the Rev Dr Joel Scandrett, the Executive Editor of “To Be A Christian,” in which we talk catechisms, Anglicanism, J. I. Packer, and the design elements of this exciting new resource for the church (and not just Anglicans).

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Two Paid NT PhD Posts in Switzerland

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Image source: Wikipedia Commons

We were just made aware of two new paid positions at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in New Testament. These are well-funded posts, see details below:

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20% off the Word Biblical Themes Collection

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One of the most useful commentaries for my research during the long and strenuous days of writing up a PhD was Jimmy Dunn’s 2-volume commentary on Romans. There is such a depth of insight and intensity of focus in the Word series that each page encourages working harder to grasp every nuance of the text as it presents itself in Scripture.

I’ve used Word Commentaries in other contexts as well, including preaching. But there is another excellent resource from Word that you should consider investing in: the 15-volume Word Biblical Themes Collection.

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Get the Most Out of Your Research Trip: Advice for First-Time Archive Researchers

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Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Ryan Griffith  | Indianapolis Theological Seminary

Although library archives are most often the domain of historians and other students of the humanities, research interests will take seminary faculty into the archives from time to time. Even biblical scholarship can unexpectedly require archival research—whether to investigate a rare manuscript or to access a theologian’s unpublished correspondence. Whatever the occasion, digging around in university archives can be an inspiring experience. If you don’t plan well, however, it will be inefficient and frustrating—particularly if you are traveling to a university far away from home.

A measure of advance planning will make a research trip more enjoyable and productive—and potentially save you or your students from having to make a costly trip to a distant archive more than once. Unfortunately, graduate-level research courses sometimes neglect practical guidance on archival research. If you teach and supervise graduate (especially doctoral) students, consider including a guide to archival research as part of your regular instruction.1

Here are some tips for getting the most out of a research trip.

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Why You Should Read the Apocrypha

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Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. Source: Wikipedia

Did you know that Athanasius, Cogent of the Trinity, recommended reading the Apocrypha? In his 39th Festal Letter, after giving us one of the earliest canon lists, he writes the following: 

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Radical Decision Making: A Christian-College Response to Covid-19

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Let me give you a quick a snapshot of what happened during the most difficult season of leadership I have ever experienced as a leader in higher education:

  • 25% loss of our operating budget in 30 days
  • Enrolment swung from 15% growth to 10% drop (25% swing)
  • We had to lay off 30% of our staff
  • Our Financial reserves had been exhausted
  • With the remaining staff we were as much as 9 weeks behind on payroll at one point

Surprisingly, this was not a result of the recent pandemic, this was 10 years ago! God had entrusted us with a significant season of affliction; it was painful, it was hard, and it forced us to ask some really difficult questions that God used to refine us through an incredibly difficult season. These are questions that are just as significant now as the world of higher education is in a state of serious disruption and refinement. 

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