Biblical Scholarship Quotes

The ongoing suspicion that scientific discoveries or rigorous biblical scholarship will undermine faith is a tacit admission that faith is threatened by knowledge, because it is ultimately constructed on weak or faulty assumptions and, like the proverbial house of cards, needs to be "protected" from collapsing. (p. 21) ~ Robin R. Meyers

In itself this Christian education is partly the product of the retreat of biblical scholarship from the faith community to the academy. In removing themselves to the academy biblical scholars have ceased to engage with the people of the issues of the contemporary faith context. ~ Janet Lees (p. 84). In Reading Other-Wise ~ Gerald O. West

Anybody who has read any biblical scholarship knows that every scholar struggles over completely intractable problems with the original texts, or what they have to work from. It's one of the great, powerful, mysterious objects that have come down through history. This does not translate into literal interpretation for me. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality. The two were intimately tied together in their spiritual experience. That is to say, they were less interested in what actually happened, than in what it meant. It would have been perfectly normal, indeed expected, for a writer in the ancient world, to tell tales of gods and heroes, whose fundamental facts would have been recognized as false, but whose underlying message would have been seen as true. ~ Reza Aslan

Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of the Christ just might be the best short introduction to Biblical scholarship yet. ~ David Bergland

Anyone who has worked within biblical scholarship knows, or ought to know, that we biblical scholars come to the text with just as many interpretative strategies and expectations as anyone else, and that integrity consists not of having no presuppositions but of being aware of what one's presuppositions are and of the obligation to listen to and interact with those who have different ones. ~ N. T. Wright

But perhaps the most compelling benefit for doing biblical theology is that it deepens our understanding of and facility with the gospel. ~ Thabiti M. Anyabwile

There's a biblical story where Jesus says we can build our house on sand or we can build it on rock. Our house is our emotional stability. When it is built on sand, then the winds and rain can tear it down. One disappointing phone call and we crumble; one storm and the house falls down. When our house is built on rock, then it is sturdy and strong and the storms can't destroy it. ~ Marianne Williamson

And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek. ~ Anthony Burgess

The real evidence is not practically speaking in scholarship but in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practising Christians. Their lives are the proofs of their beliefs. ~ Lionel Blue

The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study. ~ J.I. Packer

Protestant Christianity, whether in its liberal or conservative garb, finds itself waking up each morning in bed with a deteriorating modern culture, between sheets with a raunchy sexual reductionism, despairing scientism, morally normless cultural relativism, and self-assertive individualism. We remain resident aliens, OF the world but not profoundly in it, dining at the banquet table of waning modernity without a whisper of table grace. We all wear biblical name tags (Joseph, David, and Sarah), but have forgotten what our Christian names mean. ~ Thomas C. Oden

I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. ~ John Quincy Adams

I began to read for myself and realised that here was somebody who could teach me profound biblical theology, get inside my heart with his spiritual analysis, and help me to become a minister of the gospel, which is what I wanted to be. ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

How could he have been so stupid, so blind? David pictured after Goliath could be no one but the biblical David, a special individual. He was not content to portray one man; he was seeking universal man, Everyman, all of whom,from the beginning of time,
had faced a decision to strike for freedom ~ Irving Stone

When you lack the courage to publicly defend biblical truth, it is a clear testimony that you lack the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a gift of no fear. ~ Felix Wantang

In the history of the prophetic biblical canon that starts with Genesis, the Koran is by far the most tolerant of the views of other religions. ~ Reza Aslan

Shepherd further argues while conjuring the spirit of Alice Walker, "We need to reexamine the things we have been taught, the things we've been told are biblical, the terminologies we've had defined for us as sexual beings. We need to 'peel the old white man from our eyeballs before we can see clearly, see ourselves and G ~ d. ~ Candi Dugas

[...] it is safer to wander without a guide through an unmapped country than to trust completely a map traced by men who came only as tourists and often with biased judgement. ~ Marie-Louise Sjoestedt

God is the driver of my life and decider of my future. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

In the biblical worldview, the purpose of all creation is to benefit man. This anthropocentric view of nature, and indeed of the whole universe, is completely at odds with the current secular idealization of nature. This secular view posits that nature has its own intrinsic meaning and purpose, independent of man. ~ Dennis Prager

The biblical God lets us make our own history, and goes with us on the more or less unheard-of adventures we concoct. ~ Jacques Ellul

I tried to explain what I thought I was seeing: that the four gospels had, as it were, fallen off the front of the canon of the New Testament as far as many Christians were concerned. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were used to support points you might get out of Paul, but their actual message had not been glimpsed, let alone integrated into the larger biblical theology in which they claimed to belong. This, I remember saying, was heavily ironic in a tradition (to which he and I both belonged) that prided itself on being "biblical." As far as I could see, that word was being used, in an entire Christian tradition, to mean "Pauline." And even there I had questioned whether Paul was really being allowed to speak. That's another story. ~ N. T. Wright

Crossan also gives credence to what he calls the Cross Gospel. "Does that fare any better?" I asked. "No, most scholars don't give it credibility, because it includes such outlandishly legendary material. For instance, Jesus comes out of his tomb and he's huge - he goes up beyond the sky - and the cross comes out of the tomb and actually talks! Obviously, the much more sober gospels are more reliable than anything found in this account. It fits better with later apocryphal writings. In fact, it's dependent on biblical material, so it should be dated later. ~ Lee Strobel

When you're on a football scholarship, you get a stipend that's supposed to cover your rent and a few incidentals. It was $360 a month. This was the late 1980s, and the NCAA has an interesting rule where you're not allowed to supplement your income with a part-time job. ~ Jason Chaffetz

we need to think through issues in terms of the Bible's big story - a biblical worldview. Our social involvement should be set in the framework of a biblical worldview shaped by the story of redemption. We should explore issues by looking at them in the light of creation, humanity's fall into sin, God's redemption - promised in the Old Testament and accomplished through Christ - and the return of Christ and the transformation of all things. Being biblical, then, means ensuring that our actions are related to our biblical framework rather than appending isolated biblical texts to each action. ~ Tim Chester

The greatest writers in the world have stolen the greatest Story ever told, time and time again. Christians should recognize this Story and seize the opportunity presented by this towering influence. ~ Gene C. Fant Jr.

Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist. ~ Oswald J. Smith

The biblical word for personal change is repentance. ~ Rick Warren

What I believe to be one of the major tragedies in the Church today. Namely, that evangelicals are biblical, but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary but not biblical, and almost nobody is building bridges and relating the biblical text to the modern context ~ John Stott

Biblical literacy and theological expertise are not, therefore, the end of the Word but a God-ordained means to an end, and the end is a radically transformed life because the worship at the center of that life has been reclaimed. ~ Paul David Tripp

Biblical interpretation is not a passive matter. It requires our own active negotiation. When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature. ~ Timothy Beal

To preach biblically means much more than to preach the truth of the Bible accurately. It also means to present that truth the way the biblical writers and speakers presented it. ~ Zack Eswine

Here was the shattering of the second wall: I had read the Bible many times through, and I saw for myself that it had a holy Author; I saw for myself that it was a canonized collection of sixty-six books with a unified biblical revelation. I heard for myself that when the words "this is mine" came out of my mouth in congregational singing, I was attesting to this one, simple truth: that the line of communication that God ordained for his people required this wrestling with Scripture, and that I truly wanted both to hear God's voice breathed in my life, and I wanted God to hear my pleas. The fog burned away. The whole Bible, each jot and tittle, was my open highway to a holy God. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home. ~ Quincy Jones

If, in full conversation with the biblical and extrabiblical evidence, we can adjust our expectations about how the Bible should behave, we can begin to move beyond the impasse of the liberal/conservative debates of the last several generations. ~ Peter Enns

God's word is like a mirror, it constantly allows us to see whether we're on the right track or not. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa