One year ago the International Bible Society published the first editon of The Books of the Bible, a TNIV Bible that had been re-organized in a literary and canonical way and with a text void of verse numbers, comments, sidebars, fun facts, and study notes.  It is literally, the books of the Bible...that's it.

The first edition made its way onto my birthday wish list, and ever since then it has been my primary Bible for reading.  I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you on TBotB's first birthday.  The questions come from an informal questionarre I was sent by IBS staff to help them put together supplemental material for TBotB.

Hopefully, IBS will come out with a hardcover edition soon with extra wide margins and space to journal...just for me?

What new experiences have you had reading the Scriptures with The Books of The Bible?

When I read using The Books of the Bible I am able to read "complete thoughts" and understand how the passage works together as a whole.  Puncuation is incredibly important to any written work, and so it is with the Bible.  Unfortunately, for so long verses acted as foreign punctuation that compartimentalized and fragmented passages into ill-conceived snippets and phrases.  Now, as I read with TBotB, I don't read the Bible as a laundry list of presuppositions but instead as literature, as a narrative.

More importantly, I have been able to more fully experience the different genres of the Bible like I never had before.  The Psalms, devoid of verse markings, headings, and notations, are presented as the lyrics that they are.  The multi-genre books, such as some of Paul's epistles with songs and doxologies, are also clearly defined and presented as the voice of the work intended. ... more

David Opderbeck of Through A Glass Darkly and I have run out of steam on the “postmodern apologetics” series, so we’re starting a new one on “Reading the Text(s) of Scripture.” David and I both were educated in (me: Philadelphia Biblical University; he: Gordon College), and worship and fellowship in, the evangelical world, so we’re both aware of the hornet’s nest any discussion of the doctrine of scripture can stir up. We’re hoping, though, that this will not be taken as another set of broadsides in the “battle for the Bible,” or as picking fights, but rather that it will represent the reflections of two textual scholars from outside the theological guild (he: literature and literary theory; me: case law, statutes and constitutions), with a missional sensibility, on the nature of the Biblical texts.

We’ll approach this as follows: we’ll first offer a quote from a systematic theology text / book / article on the doctrine of scripture and/or Biblical hermeneutics, or a passage directly from scripture about scripture, and then we’ll offer our personal reflections on the quote.

David has come up with a mediating tone for our series: we are both very imperfect, but serious, Christians, and so we both take the Bible to be “scripture.” Whatever precise statements, definitions, qualifications, and such we each might feel comfortable with concerning the doctrine of scripture and hermeneutics, at the end of the day we both seek to submit to and be transformed by God as He speaks through scripture. If there are any elements of “deconstruction” of any of the definitions we discuss — and we're not prejudging that there necessarily will be — that is only for the purpose, we hope, of understanding more fully, expressing more articulately, and representing more faithfully and truthfully the power and majesty of the scriptures. ... more

As I was reading the passages from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week I read over Acts 17 again, the part where Paul is speaking to the Athenians.  In this passage Paul preaches that, "from one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." I have always considered this Adam when I read it before, as all the commentators I have glanced at today concerning the passage.  Yet what dawned on me as I was reading was the significance of Abraham and Noah as possible "one man" stand-ins.  Abraham was to be the father of many nations, and Noah was the father of every nation as much as Adam was.  This seems to be a re-occuring tangent in Jesus' ministry as well as the apostles', that Abraham and Noah have great eschatological significance, especially when it comes to the Gentiles.  So I find it possible that there are undertones of Abraham and Noah in the "one man" as Paul preaches to the greatest academic audience in the Gentile world. ... more

Two nights ago my wife and I were praying the evening prayer in the Glenstal prayerbook which incorporates the Magnificat into the litany.  Then this morning, as I read from the Scriptures, I had made it to the Beatitudes as I read through Luke and the perverbial light bulb went off.

The Magnificat Mary sings before Christ's birth and the Beatitudes Christ later preaches are awfully similar. ... more

David Opderbeck, who blogs at Through A Glass Darkly (which by the way, is a superb Bergman movie as well), brought up an interesting passage to discuss in a conversation: Exodus 4.24-26.

At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" So he let him alone. It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.

This passage is just plain weird.  God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and preach the exodus of God's people to the wilderness, then decides in the next few days that he is going to come down to earth and bust Moses' head open.  Luckily Moses' wife was quick-thinking.

Any insight on this passage? ... more

Seems some people keen on visualizing the narrative intersections of the Bible have linked all the different cross-refrences, metaphors, images, and stories together in a biblical mosaic of color.

The alternating grey and white at the bottom are the different books of the Bible, and the colored arcs connecting them are all the different narrative strands.

Cool!

Matthew 2:3-8, 13; Luke 2:25-38 (NIV)

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. ''In Bethlehem in Judea,'' they replied, ''for this is what the prophet has written:

'''But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'''

'''Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel'
(which means, God with us).''
-- Matthew 1:23 (ESV)

This familiar passage has been on my mind over the last few days and weeks as the Christmas holiday approaches. I have always found comfort in the name Immanuel during trying times because it provides assurance of God's presence. This morning, however, I realized how narrow my application of this concept has become.

Everyone talks about lost gospels, but here's a lost Nativity scene, from the New Testament:

Pete Lienhart makes the astute (or perplexing) observation that Eve is built like a city: