Rachel Held Evans - Year of Biblical Womanhood

Rachel Held Evans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week I was listening to Dr James White's Dividing Line web cast and for the first time I heard of Rachel Held Evans  and her experiment for living out all the Biblical verses that deal with prescriptions for women for a year.  She has written a book based on her experience. That book has recently been publish and she has been making the round promoting the book.  She was a guest on ABC's shows The View and Good Morning America. She appeared with her husband and both shows had video clips of her while she was living out the most wooden literal interpretations of the Bible imaginable. I was intrigued to learn more. Both of her network television appearances are available online and I think that they do a disservice. There is no attempt to apply a sound hermeneutic to Scripture. To secular television, the Bible is a joke and they do not think that there is anything of value in it. Evans does not seem to want to go that far but instead wants to cherry pick the parts of it that make her feel like she is closer to God. She has no problem with that because in her view that is what everyone does any way. She does not think that there is a consistent detailed message in the Bible about what it means to be a man or a woman or what does God desire for us. I totally disagree with that. She also seems to think that the Bible's prescriptions doesn't leave room for a woman to be herself. She's wrong about that. Here are some videos that I was able to dig up. Easy to find. The first one is her announcement for the project.


The second is from her appearance on the Techology webcast. She has thirty minutes to talk about herself and the project without the limitations she had on secular network television. I really recommend this one.



The third is another  summary of the project by Evans herself.



Here is the Good Morning America clip

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

  And on the View

One of the biggest problem is that  in her appearances she really seems to get a lot in the Bible wrong for example, there is video of her sitting on the roof of her home because she understands a passage in Proverbs 21 meaning that contentious wives should be punished by being forced to be in "time-out" on the roof of the home. But look at what the passage says:




 Better to live on a corner of the roof    than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. - Proverbs 21:9

It's not saying that putting your wife on time-out on the roof when she is contentious is the thing to do! Instead it is talking about how horrible it is to live with a quarrelsome wife. It's so bad that the man feels like he would rather live on the corner of  his roof than live in the same house! This is but one example and not having read the book, I sure hope there are better hermeneutics and exegesis employed than what I have seen so far but I'm not real optimistic.

Also notice that she said that treated Proverbs 31 as a to-do list but she told the Techology webcast that in researching how Jews read Proverbs 31 and saw that they do not read it that way. I wonder why. Think she answers that question in her book?

There have been a few response materials released to answer some of these challenges.Some Response Articles

A Response to Rachel Held Evans on the Today Show
Mutuality 2012: Responding to Rachel Held Evans
What Biblical Womanhood is not

Why Al Mohler Doesn't Get Rachel Held Evans 

James White's Webcast

Rachel Held Evans' website

The Bottom line is that man and woman are ontologically equal - neither inferior nor superior to the other. But God has given men and women different roles. Both are needed and important.

Here is a link to Rachel Held Evans' book

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master"

Related articles

• Rachel Held Evans' "Biblical Womanhood" book (achristianthing.wordpress.com)
• A Year of Rachel Held Evans Womanhood (thecynicalchristian.blogspot.com)

'Terminator' arm is world's most advanced prosthetic limb - YouTube

Here is a demonstration of the most advanced prosthetic arm/hand I have ever seen.

'Terminator' arm is world's most advanced prosthetic limb - YouTube

Related articles

• 'Terminator' arm is world's most advanced prosthetic limb (gabrielcatalano.com)
• 'Terminator' arm is world's most advanced prosthetic limb (adafruit.com)
• Terminator Arm Called "Bebionic3" Unveiled, is the Most Advanced Prosthetic Limb Yet (techeblog.com)
• Beautiful Prosthetic Limbs (neatorama.com)

Is the Internet rewiring our brains?

Is the Internet rewiring our brains?

Four African Teenage Girls Create a Pee-Powered Generator | Living on GOOD

 Necessity is truly the Mother of invention!

 During the Maker Faire Africa, in Lagos, Nigeria on November 5 and 6, 14-year-olds Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and 15-year-old Bello Eniola presented their unique proposal. According to The Next Web, here's how it works:

• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which cracks the urea into nitrogen, water, and hydrogen.
• The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
• The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas.
• This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.
• 1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

Six hours of electricity for a couple quick trips to the bathroom sounds like innovation to me.

 This is such a good idea, I think they deserve scholarships and more recognition!

Four African Teenage Girls Create a Pee-Powered Generator | Living on GOOD

Dealing with Common Questions and Objections - Vintage

James White posted some answers to some common question and objections to Christianity. These are real common and seem to come up no matter how many times it gets answered. 





Dealing with Common Questions and Objections - Vintage

Answering Common Questions and Objections Part 1 - Vintage

Answering Common Questions and Objections Part 2 - Vintage

Results of 2012 Presidential Election

Here is President Obama's victory speech


Here is Governor Romney's concession speech

Political Kombat: Main Menu - YouTube

Someone has made a parody of the Mortal Kombat starring the biggest political figures of 2012. Here is the main menu below. It's an interactive menu, just click on the match you want to watch and hold on because it is funny!


Political Kombat: Main Menu - YouTube

Can a Compulsive Thinker Also Be a Believer? | Reflections

Here is a lecture by Kenneth Sampleson how you can be a Christian and not give up intellectual honesty.


Can a Compulsive Thinker Also Be a Believer? | Reflections

321 Fight: Obama Vs. Romney - YouTube

Death Battle! Ok, so not quite to the death...and not the real candidates but 8-Bit simulations of them...but still humorous! Well done, College Humor, well done.


321 Fight: Obama Vs. Romney - YouTube

Answering Muslims: Robert Spencer on ABN: The Bible and the Qur'an

Answering Muslims: Robert Spencer on ABN: The Bible and the Qur'an

Answering Muslims: Why Did Muhammad Wear Women's Clothing?

Answering Muslims: Why Did Muhammad Wear Women's Clothing?

Apologist Interview: Mary Jo Sharp - Apologetics 315

Brian Auten posted his interview with Mary Jo Sharp. She is an awesome scholar. Follow the link to hear it.


Apologist Interview: Mary Jo Sharp - Apologetics 315

The 60th Anniversary of the Barcode [Infographic]

The 60th Anniversary of the Barcode [Infographic]

J. Gresham Machen on Faith and Knowledge - Apologetics 315

I am really glad Brian Auten has posted the following quote. Today the world truly does not what the word "faith" means let alone how it relates to human intellect and knowledge. J. Gresham Machen's words are indeed timely!

"Faith is indeed intellectual; It involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you only have knowledge."



- J. Gresham Machen,

What is Faith? (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), p. 203.



J. Gresham Machen on Faith and Knowledge - Apologetics 315

Update #2 - Letters to an Anti-Theist - Vintage

Alpha Omega Ministries is going to post a series of letters between James White and Dennis McKinsey regarding a periodical Mr McKinsey edited entitled "Biblical Errancy".  I'm going to be following the series because we see a lot of the same questions and objections that keep being brought up.

The following letters were written during 1986/87. They comprise the correspondence between Mr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and Mr. Dennis McKinsey, the editor of a periodical entitled “Biblical Errancy.” As Mr. McKinsey feels free to publish letters written to him in his periodical, and as there is no copyright on "Biblical Errancy,” we have felt free to include Mr. McKinsey’s responses. Only that material relevant to the matters addressed in the debate between Mr. White and Mr. McKinsey will be reproduced here.

Letters to an Anti-Theist - Vintage


1st Letter to Mr. McKinsey from James White - Vintage

1st Reply to James White from Dennis McKinsey - Vintage
2nd Reply to James White from Dennis McKinsey
2nd Reply to Dennis McKinsey From James White
3rd Reply to James White from Mr. McKinsey - Vintage

Game of Death: Baby Edition

Patrick Boivin is a genius. A couple of years back he put his baby daughter in the Iron Man suit as Iron Baby and now he's following that up by putting his younger son in a Kung Fu action short!



Game of Death: Baby Edition

Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics

Vintage Video of Isaac Asimov explaining his proposed three laws that should be programmed into every robot.

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

At least they beat Robocop's prime directives.


Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics

The Evolution of Mormon Theology - Vintage

Dr James White has been witnessing to and debating Mormons for more than two decades now and I find that he can clearly articulate what Mormons believe and why much of their theology is not Biblical.  Check out the following two articles:

The Evolution of Mormon Theology - Vintage

100 Verses for Witnessing to Mormons - Vintage

The History Of Search [Comic]

The History Of Search [Comic]

Gravity, Thoughts, The Human Genome, Time, Atoms: An Animated Tour of the Invisible

Human genome (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It really amazes me how there is so much we have learned about that we can't detect with our 5 senses but we know are a reality and yet people reject God because they can't "see" Him. Moreover, the more we learn we don't get more answers but uncover more questions!

Gravity, Thoughts, The Human Genome, Time, Atoms: An Animated Tour of the Invisible