Blue Cord

I am currently en route from Boston to East Tennessee. I had a chance on the train to listen to some more Bible-related podcasts, so while I have a layover in the Charlotte airport I thought I would take the time to write up reviews of these podcasts.

The first is A Word from the Word, a two minute podcast that describes itself as “[m]uch more than a devotional - it’s a Bible-based truth revealed through credible, reliable study.” It is produced by the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. The podcast features Dan Hayden, who has a master’s of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a D.Min. from Baptist Bible Seminary.

The episode I heard focused on 2 Timothy 3:1-4. He focuses on those things that people will love in the last days, and singles out love of self, love of money, and love of pleasure. He says that these are all combinations with the Greek word philos, which he says is the Greek word for emotional love. There are other characteristics of people in the last times in these verses, but these are the only ones combined with philos. Hayden talks about a particular lure that he likes to use when fishing, a rotating three hook lure that always has one of its hooks pointing up. He says Satan uses such a lure, with love of self, money, and pleasure as the hook.

This podcast is a fairly standard devotion, meaning it takes a particular passage and then offers a devotional that is vaguely related to the passage. Satan, of course, is not mentioned in this passage, and in fact is not mentioned in 2 Timothy at all. This is an idea that Hayden is pulling into the passage.

The second podcast I heard was The BreadCast, listed on iTunes as “[a] reflection on the Sunday Readings and Solemnities of the Roman Catholic Church.” It is done by James Kurt and is based on his book Our Daily Bread: Exposition of the Readings of Catholic Mass. His book’s website gives the following biographical information:

James Kurt lives much as a hermit in the city in Jersey City, New Jersey. He spends about six hours a day in prayer, including Catholic Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, full Rosary, Stations of the Cross, meditation on Scripture and the writings of the saints, and silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. He works another five or six hours on his writing.

The podcast is read in a rather breathy voice, beginning with a chanted song. The content is somewhat scattered. In the episode I heard, I wasn’t sure what passage he was discussing. He seems to be starting with the Gospel, but quickly moved to talking about Paul. It could be that knowing which texts were being used would make the podcast clearer, but the texts are not even listed on the website.

Finally, I listened to one called The Bible Study Podcast. Of these three, this is definitely the best, although I would still not call it a great Bible study. The podcast usually focuses on particular passages, with the authors working their way through books of the Bible (Romans and the Gospel of John in particular), although they also do topical studies sometimes. I could not find any biographical information about the guys who produce the podcast (Justin, Toby, and MattB), but a doctrinal statement on their website is Calvinistic and espouses inerrancy.

The episode I sampled was a fifteen-minute episode on John 1:14-18. The podcaster simply walks people through the verses and explains what they mean. It is not exactly a deep study, but it does stick to the text for the most part. The host does not seem to have training in the Bible beyond what you would receive in a local congregation, but it is difficult to draw a definite conclusion based on one podcast.

One suggestion I would have for the host concerns the prayer requests he gives out at the beginning of the podcasts. While I realize his father will appreciate the prayers, I am not sure he would want the audience to be told so much about his rash. I know as a listener that I would have preferred the prayer request to be for a general medical condition without details.

Because this podcast is produced by several different hosts, I decided to sample one of the other hosts. I chose Matt’s discussion of biblical inerrancy, which is the first (and so far only) podcast in their “Contradictions in the Bible” series.

Matt focused on several passages where he says Jesus discussed the Bible. The first one, the temptation narrative, merely establishes that Jesus accepted the authority of the OT, since he quotes it against Satan. He then examines Matthew 22:23ff., where Jesus debates the Sadducees. Matt says Jesus corrects their error with Scripture that he saw as inerrant, which means that we should accept inerrancy as well. Of course, this is an incredible leap of logic that misses several steps in the syllogism. Nothing that Jesus says in this passage can be construed as supporting inerrancy.

Thinking he has firmly established the truth of inerrancy, Matt goes on to address some of the contradictions. He sets up several straw men, such as the supposed objection that the word inerrancy never occurs in the Bible. This he addresses by claiming that, like the concept of the Trinity, inerrancy is taught implicitly instead of explicitly. He also addresses the idea that the Bible is inerrancy in spiritual matters but not historical or scientific. He rejects this idea, and points out that Jesus accepted the historical accuracy of the Bible. Nothing he says is a particularly strong argument for inerrancy.

He goes on apply inerrancy to how we should approach contradictions. Since inerrancy is an a priori proposition for him, he says that we should assume that we simply don’t understand the passage. He says we should assume Scripture to be innocent until proven guilty, but if something proves the Bible guilty, it should be set aside by assuming that the Bible is still innocent but we don’t understand how.

All in all, The Bible Study Podcast seems to be a much better podcast when it sticks to reading the text and not when it jumps into bad theology.

A few days ago, someone forwarded the following message to me with the picture to the right attached:

Cara Winship sent this out it is called: God’s hands.

I took this picture on Hwy 30, traveling to London City, KY. It has given me strength in the times of trouble. I feel I should share it with the rest of the world. I hope it is an inspiration to you. It just goes to show what we already know…. We have a God and he’s watching over us.

I e-mailed this picture to News Chanel [sic] 36. I was contacted by Meteorologist John James. He said that this picture of the sky is
showing up, in all states, around the world. He wanted to know where I was from and where I took it. He saw a similar picture taken in Texas He said this is amazing to him!

The picture is obviously faked, of course. It would be quite easy to do in Photoshop or GIMP. In fact, someone on the Urban Legends Reference Pages claims to have done it. And although hoaxes such as this usually don’t contain references to actual people’s names, the fact that there is no London City, KY, should be a clue as well.¹ But I didn’t want to focus on the picture or the hoax. Instead, I want to focus on the interpretation.

If one of us were to see such a vision in the clouds, we would be inclined to interpret it the way the forwarded e-mail does. Here are God’s hands reaching out to help us or comfort us.

But why should we immediately interpret it that way? Other interpretations are possible. Perhaps it is a sign that God is angry with us and is reaching down to punish us. The hands are here to crush us. It could be that the hands are holding a bowl of God’s wrath as in Revelation 16. When such a bowl is poured it, it certainly will not bring comfort.

I am not offering these interpretations because I am a pessimist. Instead, I am trying to follow the pattern set forth in the Bible. When prophets saw signs, they were just as likely — and perhaps more likely — to be signs of punishment than signs of promise. Think of Amos 7:7-9, where God showed Amos a plumb line. Amos could have looked at it an piously interpreted it as God’s building tool that indicated God was going to build something wonderful for Israel. Instead, it was a sign of judgment. Israel was found to be off-plumb, and therefore God was going to make Israel desolate.

Or take Jeremiah 1:13-19. When Jeremiah saw a boiling pot tipping over from the north, he could have interpreted it as a sign that God was providing food for his people. Surely a cooking pot has something to do with food! But God told him that the pot was a sign that God was going to bring an enemy against Judah from the north.

Certainly, there are signs of promise as well. I don’t mean to imply that those are not found in the Bible. But it seems to me that before we go interpreting something as a sign from God, we better take into account the fact that signs are just as likely to be negative. If we take everything as a sign of God’s love and comfort, all we are doing is stroking our spiritual egos.

1. There is a London, KY, but no London City. Highway 30 does run near London, and Lexington, KY, does have a Channel 36, although I could not find a John James on staff. This particular incarnation of this hoax appears to be tailored to a particular region. [back]

According to Awilum, who got it from the Agade listserv, Mary Douglas passed away yesterday.  Douglas was a social anthropologist who is best know to biblical scholars through her work Purity and Danger, where she argued that purity laws in the OT are best understand as maintaining boundaries.  She also wrote two others books of interest to OT scholars: Leviticus as Literature and In The Wilderness.

Douglas studied under E. Evan-Pritchard.  She taught at University College London and Northwestern University.  She was invested as a Dame of the Order of the British Empire a week before she died.

Before moving away from podcasts that provide readings from sections of Scripture, I wanted to mention that Tim Buckeley of SansBlogue has pointed out one other podcast. This is the PodBible Audio Bible Broadcast, which reads a chapter from the CEV translation each day. The readings are done with no background music, and each daily reading ends with a short section on Think . . . Pray . . . Do that provides some points to ponder and put into action. The podcast is done by Carey Baptist College, so you get a nice New Zealand accent to go with your readings.

The next podcast is the Understanding the Scriptures podcast at CatholicBoard.com. The podcast is a recording of a Wednesday night Bible study at Saint Mary, Immaculate Conception Parish in Brenham, Texas. The Bible study was based on Scott Hahn’s book Understanding the Scriptures: A Complete Course on Bible Study, with each session covering one of the thirty chapters in the book. The sessions are eighty minutes long, so this podcast is not for the faint of heart.

The sessions are led by Carson Weber, who has an M.A. in Theology and Christian Ministry from Franciscan University of Steubenville. While at Franciscan University, Weber studied under Scott Hahn, the author of the textbook he uses for the series. Weber also worked for Hahn at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, which Hahn founded. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hahn, he is a somewhat controversial figure.  Hahn, who used to be Presbyterian and rabidly anti-catholic, became a Roman Catholic in 1986. He earned his doctorate from Marquette University with a dissertation on the Bible and covenant theology. He is often described as an apologist and has sometimes been called “Luther in Reverse.”

The reason I mention this is not to criticize Hahn or this podcast. I merely point it out as information. Some people are drawn to controversial figures — e.g., Bishop Spong within the ECUSA — while other prefer to avoid them. I also mention it because it gives you an idea of the perspective from which Weber is teaching.

Because all thirty episodes in this series have been recorded, I was free to choose which of the episodes I wanted to hear. I decided to go with the second chapter, which focuses on the Old Testament. This chapter in the book provides a summary of the OT, ending with a discussion of typology. Weber focuses on the idea of typology, which he says is necessary for understanding the Bible. He begins with a review of the idea of the covenant, which the class had discussed the week before. Covenant, according to Hahn’s theology, is the idea that provides the unity to the Bible.

A critique of Weber’s content would have to center mostly on the topic of covenant theology. A discussion of covenant theology is far beyond the scope of this review of podcasts, but suffice it to say that I am reticent at best to accept such a theology as a way to read the Scriptures. The idea that the covenant is the unifying theme for a theology of the Old Testament was put forth and gained widespread acceptance through the work of Walther Eichrodt. It has not not held up particularly well, in large part because of its inability to deal with wisdom literature under the rubric of covenant.

Weber says that the primary way that the OT speaks of Christ is through typology. He introduces typology by referring to the Roman Catholic catechism, section 1094, which says:

It is on this harmony of the two Testaments that the Paschal catechesis of the Lord is built, and then, that of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church. This catechesis unveils what lay hidden under the letter of the Old Testament: the mystery of Christ. It is called “typological” because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the “figures” (types) which announce him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled. Thus the flood and Noah’s ark prefigured salvation by Baptism, as did the cloud and the crossing of the Red Sea. Water from the rock was the figure of the spiritual gifts of Christ, and manna in the desert prefigured the Eucharist, “the true bread from heaven.”

He spends a great deal of the time focusing on how the OT typologically symbolizes Christ. While this can be a good approach, it puts the cart somewhat before the horse. One needs to learn to read the text in and of itself first. Only then can you come back and read it typologically.  The catechism recognizes this, which is why it refers to typology as a “re-reading.”  Considering this is the second lesson in the series, I find it odd that Weber would discuss this subject here. It leads him to spend more time reading NT texts that mention the OT than he does reading OT texts, which is odd for a session on the OT. This lesson is less about understanding the OT and more about reading the OT typologically.

One problem with the podcast from a technical standpoint is that it is difficult to hear people other than Weber on the podcast. Sometime, people who are attending the session will ask questions that can’t readily be heard, although it is often possible to figure out what the question was by Weber’s response. This problem may have been fixed in later episodes.

Finally, one thing this podcast does well is show what biblical studies within the parish can look like when done strictly within a framework stipulated by Catholic doctrine and the catechism.  Hahn’s method pays close attention to the patristic tradition, although he certainly infuses it with a particular evangelical spirit.

Charles Halton at Awilum points to an interesting quiz that tries to peg people on the basis of their accent.¹ I took the test and found the results to be a little odd. Here they are:

I am originally from the south. I was born in North Carolina and raised in Tennessee. I lived in Tennessee until I went to seminary in Connecticut. This explains why my rating for the South and the Northeast are both so high. I often pick up on some elements of the accent in the place where I live. For example, I am living in the Boston area right now and have found myself inadvertently pronouncing things with a Boston-ish accent. This drives me crazy, because to me the Boston accent sounds like a colicky baby being scraped down a chalkboard.²

What is weird is the fact that I rate highest for the Midland, a place where I have never lived. I suspect Midland is what you get when you consciously try to speak with a standard American accent, as I do. I work on trying to change my pronunciation of a number of words, and I often succeed. It doesn’t always work, and my wife will be pleased to know that I did check the box to indicate that ‘pin’ and ‘pen’ are pronounced the same way.

There is nothing wrong with a Southern accent. People often think that some accents are better than others, but there is no such thing as a standard accent.³ But people do tend to judge you by it when they hear a Southern accent come out of your mouth. So, in academic circles, I tend to use what is (wrongly) considered a “standard American accent.” It is the usual accent you heard on TV, unless somewhat is trying to play a character from a particular area. People take you more seriously that way. I also find that it helps my students to understand me better, especially when I was teaching in Eastern Europe.

I will admit, however, to playing the redneck game sometimes. I enjoying having people judge me on the basis of my accent and then surprising them with the fact that I have a Ph.D. I hope it helps to bust a few stereotypes.

And please don’t ask me why I spell archaeology the British way. I have no idea.

1. By the way, if you are from my home state, the first syllable of ‘accent’ is pronounced like ‘ache’. [back]
2. Hat tip to my brother for that phrase. [back]
3. For those who think there is, I should point out that the version of English spoken in the mountains of North Carolina is closer to Victorian English than even British English is today. Change and development in language is a constant, and changes in language and pronunciation are neither positive or negative. [back]