March 2nd, 2010

Confession: Tiger Woods and Everyone

by Clinton Chisholm

Any adult person who cannot, at least, identify with Tiger Woods in his ongoing sex saga is abnormal, too old, too forgetful or ‘too lie’ (untruthful). I say this because even if one has never committed adultery—and remember there is physical as well as emotional adultery—one can still identify with the saga of desire for another to whom one does not belong.
Another dimension of this issue that is oft forgotten is that some of…

January 13th, 2010

Haiti’s Hour of Need

by Clinton Chisholm

In the wake of yesterday’s natural disaster in Haiti two instinctive responses are likely. All, I hope, will seek to find ways of helping to alleviate the suffering of our Haitian friends. Some Christians may begin to wonder about the devastating earthquake as a ‘sign’ or judgment from God. Let’s resist this second response and remember how Jesus countered a similar line of sloppy thinking re two incidents in Lk.13.1-5. The first incident: when he…

January 7th, 2010

The Documentary Hypothesis

by Clinton Chisholm

What was the nature of the academic landscape when the German scholar Julius Wellhausen proposed his late-date 4-source theory to explain how the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) came to be written/edited?  Was the hypothesis grounded in and informed by the related disciplines of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) studies?
Veteran specialist in ANE archaeology and literatures, Kenneth Kitchen thinks not and points out the absence of material to work with in the late 19th century and…

December 22nd, 2009

Genealogies in the Bible: The Basics

by Clinton Chisholm

Those who desire to read the Bible responsibly must understand that they are  reading an ancient book and not one written according to the conventions of the 21st century AD.
A biblical genealogy is “a list of names indicating the ancestors or descendants of an individual or individuals, or simply a registration of the names of people concerned in some situation…” [New Bible Dictionary, 1962, 456, hereafter NBD].
The names in such a list serve…

December 22nd, 2009

Reading Revelation, Meaningfully – Part 2

by Clinton Chisholm

THE BEAST’S NAME, In the revelation from the angel (17.9-10) there is a double-edge to the beast’s identity. v. 9 “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. v. 10 the KJV reading is unfortunate ‘and there are’ instead of ‘and they are’ or ‘they are also’. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue…