Recent Text Critical Innovations

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Alan Kurschner has posted an article running down new software tools to make evaluating New Testament Greek texts more easily than ever before. Here is what he wrote:

Everyday we are introduced to new applications of technology in many scholarly fields. But I cannot become blasé about the recent technological innovations in text critical studies. The most well-known innovation is the Codex Sinaiticus project. Just last year one had to travel to four different libraries around the world just to view different parts of the manuscript. Now you can not only view it from the comfort of your home—for free!—but you can utilize its search and transcription features.

Then there is The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Daniel Wallace is the Executive Director, and their primary mission is to make "digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts so that such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, and accessed by scholars doing textual research."

Another is the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room. Its web-based search and collation features are unprecedented. Previous generations of text critical scholars were limited to libraries that only carried big, expensive text-critical books—in other words, before the real textual critical analysis could even begin, there were the logistics of accessing the material to work with. Not that every text-critical datum is at our finger tips right now, but we are witnessing the vanguard to this goal.

The latest innovation is by Daniel Wallace, which is a Textual Critical Chart Time Saver. I can envision this program becoming a very sophisticated tool in the near future when they add more textual data such as dates, character, and more manuscripts. A program that converts textual data into chart format is amazing, since we all take the time to do it now either in our head or on paper when working on a particular variant.

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3545

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Father Alberto's wife talks about their scandal

 I wrote about this story before.  A famous Catholic priest was caught a few months ago on a date, kissing his girlfriend in public. The truth is the media is reporting that Father Alberto Cutié broke his vow of celibacy but I have never heard him say that. What is news to me now is that he has married this woman and he is now serving in the Episcopal church. This article I have linked has excerpts from an interview with the woman, named Ruhama Canellis. I agree that forbidding priests to marry is unbiblical and not right. However the Anglican church is accepting homosexuality which is also unbiblical. She said in the article that people should read their Bibles, but you can't just point a finger at the Catholic church and accuse them of heresy while practicing it yourself. I wish the couple only the best, but all Christians should follow the Bible and not cherry-pick what they will and will not follow.

Father Alberto's wife talks about their scandal

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An Exegesis of 1 Timothy 4:10 "...who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe."

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Alan Kurschner has written a great article on 1 Timothy 4:10.  It is often used as a proof text for Arminians who believe that Jesus died for every single human being  and a person is lost only by the exercise of their free will in rejecting Jesus. Calvinists believe that Jesus died only for those people who have been chosen to belong to God.  The scripture reads:

“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” (1 Tim 4:10).

I've had a problem with this verse for years now because it seems to say that Jesus is the savior of all  people, not the elect. Both sides have offered various interpretations. One thing I am sure of is that it is not teaching that every person is saved regardless of what they believe. I have thought about it and realized the problem was is that it may seem to be saying that those who believe are a subset of those who Jesus is the savior of. Until now, I just thought it was saying that Jesus is the savior of all people because it is only through him we can be saved. I'm just not happy with that interpretation. Something is missing.

 Instead, I really like the exegesis Alan goes through in his post. He advances an interpretation that I have never seen before. He suggests that the verse has been mistranslated. He wrote:

The term for "especially" is malista. George W. Knight III argues that this term here should be rendered, "that is," thereby functioning as an explanation or further clarification of the preceding statement. The translation would be as follows: "who is the Savior of all people, that is, of those who believe." So this interpretation does not view "those who believe" as a subset of "all people"; instead, "those who believe" identifies who the "all people" are.

I think this is viable and would fit with the rest of scripture. Only those who believe are saved.





http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3523

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