Recent Comments

1. about 10 hours ago on WuMo

   Nicely patronized!

   The interpretation of the passage isn’t necessarily so simple. Recently Dr. William Lane Craig has gotten himself into a lot of trouble by using the technical term “mytho-history” to describe the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It is an actual, technical term, and the people who keep barking at him never bother to look it up. They just hit the “myth-” part and stop thinking. If I were Dr. Craig, I think I’d skip the jargon and say that the chapters present historical events in mythic terms.

   Could this allow for Adam and Eve’s having evolved (and thus having been born with umbilical cords)? Technically yes, though I don’t think that’s the obvious reading. But even if they didn’t, God might have given them navels on the grounds that navels are standard equipment, and it might forestall questions when their own children were born with cords and then had navels. (“What are these little holes? Are they some kind of dangerous defect?”)

2. about 10 hours ago on WuMo

   I replied in haste and wasn’t as clear as I should have been. Three points:

   1. You have to be open to a text to understand it. This doesn’t require credulity, merely an open mind. I’m not a fan of The Book of Mormon, and when skimming it as a teenager, I found what I took to be a completely idiotic passage in it. Such passages do exist, but I was so eager to find fault I jumped to a conclusion: the passage in question actually made perfect sense when I ditched my prejudice. Can you do that? If not, you should simply abstain from the conversation.

   2. Different types of claim require different kinds of proof. Years ago, on my first flight as an adult, I sat next to my brother, who had flown to numerous conferences in various countries. I had the window seat, and we were on the wing. I noticed that the wing was flexing quite a bit during the flight, and I asked my brother about it: “I thought this was a fixed-wing craft, not an ornithopter.” He said that such flexing was normal and nothing to worry about, so I ignored it and went back to my book. He didn’t offer scientific evidence for his claim; I just knew he had relevant experience and was honest.

   In the passage you reference, the focus is on people who have had encounters with God (or anyway know others who have) and trust him as I trusted my brother.

   3. To the extent that the verse you referenced is a definition, it is a working definition for the following passage, not a general lexicographical, philosophical or theological definition. And definitions are seldom simple. The Greek word pistis can mean (among other things) “faith,” “faithfulness,” and “trust.” So again, we are looking at cases where people who had reason to trust God did so. It in no way rules out seeking proof; it’s just that they had already passed that stage in the relationship, just as I had when dealing with my brother on the plane.

3. about 12 hours ago on In the Bleachers

   It must be “Hoagie” Carmicheal.

4. about 12 hours ago on In the Bleachers

   He’s making “yum” noises: “Mmmmmm!!”

5. about 12 hours ago on FurBabies

   It was preceded by a SPLASH; see the non-panel right before it.

   SPLASH! SPLISH!

   Katie bathes with a fish….

6. about 12 hours ago on Frank and Ernest

   We do have clues. For one thing, there were languages that were closely related, such as Ugaritic, which has been described as Hebrew written left to right in cuneiform, so taking the various sources together, to say nothing of transliterations into other early languages that did indicate vowels. Also, there were consonants that sometimes represented (imperfectly) vowels, such as he for “a” (or sometimes “e”), yod for “i,” and waw for “o” or “u.”

   If you check the YT channel NativLang (one word, no “e”), there’s a playlist, “What Old Languages Sounded Like – and how we know,” that may interest you, though it doesn’t cover Hebrew.

   Still, we can be reasonably sure that the word for “king” (“mélekh” from the time of the Masoretes till now) would’ve been pronounced “málkhu” in the time of Abraham and probably just “malkh” by David’s time or thereabouts.

   We also know that the name of Moses’ sister and Jesus mother was “Maryám,” not the later “Miryám” of the Masoretic Text. (A vowel shift in early Medieval Rabbinical Hebrew changed a short “a” in a closed unaccented syllable to a short “i.” This also changed “Shamshón” to “Shimshón” in the MT and Modern Hebrew.)

7. 1 day ago on Foolish Mortals

   He’s showing off his range already with that extra-wide part.

8. 1 day ago on FurBabies

   And I commented that it was clearly the correct spelling.

9. 2 days ago on Garfield

   The is roughly what happens to Dee Wallace’s character at the end of The Howling.

10. 3 days ago on WuMo

    I get the distinct impression that you don’t understand the text. It doesn’t oppose proof; it merely commends an attitude that holds to a reasonable position in defiance of unreasonable doubt. (See C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 11—or 12; I don’t recall which, right off.) So it’s more about keeping an open mind and holding a view provisionally. So my interpretations can be disproved, and often are—usually by myself or someone who understands the relevant languages, cultures, etc. better than I do.

    There are also various types of proof: philosophical, scientific, historical, etc. The proofs for Biblical claims are mostly historical; some are unverified, but we may reasonably accept them provisionally based on the verified claims. Some of the implications can be verified (or at least legitimized) philosophically.