Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Saving the Bible From Ourselves by Glenn R. Pauuw is a book about people's misuse of the Bible, how it has  come to be used as a book that is a collection of isolated propositional statements that are written specifically for me and for my special encouragement.  Overall this book is argument against those views of the Bible (it critiques  other views as well) and I believe it is a rather good argument.  I mainly listed those two things because they are the things that captivated me most in this book. Then I will give my critique. First, Pauuw does an excellent job at attacking the rather modern approach to the Bible that takes the form of hunting for individual verses that seem relevant to us, "…find the fragments you need at the moment.  If you are looking for your daily inspiration, then find a devotional fragment.  If you are arguing with the local heretic, find a doctrinal fragment.  If you are facing an ethical question, find a moral fra...

How defensible are Old Testament prophecies of Christ?   If someone came up to you and declares that, in the Hebrew manuscripts of the OT, Psalm 22:16 does not read, "they pierced my hands and my feet," rather, when it is accurately translated it reads, "like a lion are my hands and feet." What would your answer be?   And what if they say that Isaiah 53 was not speaking of a Messiah, but rather of Israel as a suffering servant?   Nowadays, too many Christians believe that many, if not all, of the prophecies of the Messiah are only indirect prophecies, not direct prophecies.   And many Christians might say that these prophecies are allegorically fulfilled, or that it is perfectly alright for the Holy Spirit , in His inspiration of the Apostles, to change His own prophecies.   Others say that many prophecies have a 'double fulfillment', that these prophecies were fulfilled historically, in the prophets' life-time, and that they were fulfilled spiritual...

Chapter 2 - The Scriptural Basis of Christianity                                                                                You may view chapter 1  here John is sitting in the full lecture room a few minutes before the lecture is supposed to start.   He sits looking down at the Bible in his hands (opened to the Old Testament) but is listening intently to a conversation from the row behind him.   "Yes, I agree that this Septuagint theory is very interesting, but I looked up more information on the Septuagint last night, and its origin sounds rather nonsensical.   Apparent...