One of the things I’ve learned about debate is that you can present powerful, yet, utterly false arguments for almost any position you choose to take. Debate is not about being right, it’s about convincing people… and if you can humiliate your opponent at the same time, Kudos!...
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April 20, 2018 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Old Testament Studies
One of my great-uncles, a true good-ol’boy from west Texas, once said to my great-grandmother, “Mamma, it’s hard to find a good woman like you out there.” She replied, “There are plenty of good women like me out there. They just don’t hang out in the places you...
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March 28, 2018 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, Old Testament Studies
There is little doubt in my mind that there is a constancy to human nature that maintains a vital unity and relevance for human experience from age to age and culture to culture. Documents rooted in principle are not invalidated by changes in the external elements in society,...
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March 19, 2018 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, Society
Being that few of my friends and neighbors have names that really mean something to us, (Other than Marsha Mello, Amanda Lynne, and Justin Case Yelle). I am intrigued about the psychological impact of living in a culture that makes you feel like you stumbled into a mafia...
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March 16, 2018 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, Old Testament Studies, Text Criticism Issues
After discussing, in my recent blog post, “Hallelujah is a Sentence,” that the biblical “term” Hallelujah has grammar and that we should both be aware of that grammar and use the phrase accordingly in our worship songs, I received two types of criticism. Let’s call them sniveling and...
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March 12, 2018 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
Today we have a guest Blogger. John Donnelly, Biblical Literacy Ministries Educator, Church Planter, Part-year missionary to India. Several years ago I was in Iguaçu Falls Brazil, planting churches with a group of North Americans, Brazilian nationals and a group of translators. We had a bus and a...
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March 2, 2018 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Communication
In my previous post “The Inanity of Nain,” I introduced the importance of the physical association of Jesus’ raising of the widow’s son with Elisha’s wondrous raising of the Shunammite’s. (2 Kings 4:36-37) Nain and Shunem, not two full miles apart, share the western edge of the hill...
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January 3, 2018 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
Geography is part of historical context. Yaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!! No! Not just maps and boring stuff, but real places and the experience of living and moving and having one’s being there. Like the wise one said, “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”~ Mark Twain… ooops wrong quote…...
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December 29, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
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One of the problems with being a biblical theologian is the discomfort I suffer whenever someone’s question crosses lines between biblical and “Christian” categories. We have our way of talking. Biblical authors had their ways of talking. A simple question like, “Were the Hebrew prophets monotheists or henotheists?”[1]...
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December 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, Theology
Words for Holiness in Greek, Hebrew & Aramaic appear over 1000x in Scripture. Issues of holiness were important to those in the biblical era. Almost every aspect of life was impacted by shared and contended ideas of The Holy. Yet, nowhere in Scripture is holiness clearly explained; it...
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December 11, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, Theology
Read my blog long enough and you will find that I frequently bring up the frustration I feel as a right brained individual being often under the biblical studies thumb of the left brained. I read brilliant analyses of biblical era language issues by people whose final categories...
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December 6, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, Society
In my previous blog, “What’s in a Name?” I started a discussion on the importance of paying attention to the meaning of names in the Bible. Sometimes what comes out of these names can be shocking. The truth is, people tend to take their own names pretty seriously,...
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December 4, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, Intertestamental History & Literature, Old Testament Studies
I am not insensible to the rage many women feel over the modern misconception that the plight of women in the world is almost solely the result of a grand conspiracy by men to hold women down. Abuse of power, wherever it is found, against whomever it is...
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November 29, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Theology, Intertestamental History & Literature, Society, Theology
In our own western culture the connection between names and meaning is rather slight. I know this, in part, because I am one of those annoying, but well meaning, people who goes about attempting to engage others in witty conversation, only to discover 7 times out of 10...
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August 14, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Uncategorized
Doing biblical theology requires one to lay aside even precious biases in order to hear the message of Scripture speaking from foreign lands in foreign tongues out of foreign cultures. The Phenomenological method, so vital to biblical theology, demands that we listen to each text as believers wholly...
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August 9, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Theology
One of the advantages, or disadvantages as the case may be, of being a biblical theologian, in which my phenomenological (i.e. believer’s) approach to the text within a historical grammatical and literary context through inductive method holds sway, is that I am excused within my heart from having...
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August 4, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies, Theology
In considering the meaning of a simple word like concubine one finds an excellent example of the challenges that face modern attempts to represent many biblical terms. Sometimes we not only lack the words to properly translate, but we also lack the mental categories to emotionally understand. Technical...
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August 2, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
To those who mainly regard the Bible as a source for answering their every question about God and the world, biblical theologians can be a real pill, and biblical theology can feel more than a little threatening… I get that. We are, however, worth getting to know. Thus,...
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July 26, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies, Theology
I’d like to draw your attention to artifact communication—the use of things to affect the understanding of another. Things have shared meaning within a community. Like a band of gold worn specifically on the “ring finger” of the left hand. Like a read dot in the middle of...
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July 24, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Communication
Today I want to consider the 5th of seven paths of investigation that a person should take in an attempt to understand a New Testament author’s USE of an Old Testament text. Some falsely imagine that texts like Matthew 2:15—in which an historical comment in Hosea 11:1 is...
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May 1, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
