Biblical Scholarship Quotes & Sayings

From the least parochial perspectives available to us, people are the most significant entities in the cosmic scheme of things. They are not 'supported' by their environments, but support themselves by creating knowledge. Once they have suitable knowledge (essentially, the knowledge of the Enlightenment), they are capable of sparking unlimited further progress. — David Deutsch

Lemberger's stories are marvelous compounds of scholarship, imagination and empathy. Brought to life with rich historical detail, these biblical women, sidelined and silenced for centuries, prove to be audacious, utterly relatable, and spellbinding companions. — Michelle Huneven

A proactive person needs no pressure to perform and an ineffective person offloads his pressure onto others to deform the positive work culture of the system. So practically, a progressive organization knows that no pressure environment plays a pivotal role to increase the productivity or proficiency of its workforce. — Anuj

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

scholarship together with down-to-earth writing, Tabletalk helps you understand the Bible and apply it to daily living. Trusted theological resource - Tabletalk avoids trends, shallow doctrine and popular movements to present biblical truth simply and clearly. Thought-provoking topics - each issue contains challenging, stimulating articles on a wide variety of topics related to theology and Christian living. — R.C. Sproul

It is astonishing that centuries of biblical scholarship have miscast these words as an appeal by Jesus to put aside "the things of this world" - taxes and tributes - and focus one's heart instead on the only things that matter: worship and obedience to God. Such an interpretation perfectly accommodates the perception of Jesus as a detached, celestial spirit wholly unconcerned with material matters, a curious assertion about a man who not only lived in one of the most politically charged periods in Israel's history, but who claimed to be the promised messiah sent to liberate the Jews from Roman occupation. — Reza Aslan

One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances are that a relatively mild tyranny stimulates creativeness. — Eric Hoffer

From the period of development to the present, Reformed theologians have debated the finer points (particularly the relation of the Sinai covenant to the covenant of grace). Nevertheless, a consensus emerged (evident, for example, in the Westminster Confession) affirming the three covenants I have mentioned: the eternal covenant of redemption; the covenant of works; and the covenant of grace. With these last two covenants, Reformed theology affirmed (with Lutheranism) the crucial distinction between law and gospel, but within a more concrete biblical-historical framework ... Ironically, just at the moment when so much Protestant biblical scholarship is rejecting a sharp distinction between law and gospel, Ancient Near Eastern scholars from Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions have demonstrated the accuracy of that seminal distinction between covenant of law and covenants of promise. P.13 — Michael S. Horton

Management is formal authority given from above. Leadership is moral authority given from below and all around. — Stephen Covey

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

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

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

The task of all Christian scholarship - not just biblical studies - is to study reality as a manifestation of God's glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it, and to make it serve the good of man. It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God's glory is not scholarship but insurrection. — John Piper

The Keswick, "higher-life" movement ... also contributed to a reduction of interest in biblical theology and deeper scholarship. No Christian in his right mind will desire anything other than true holiness and righteousness in the church of God. But Keswick had isolated one doctrine, holiness, and altered it by the false simplicity contained in the slogan, "Give up, let go and let God." If you want to be holy and righteous, we are told, the intellect is dangerous and it is thought generally unlikely that a good theologian is likely to be a holy person ... You asked me to diagnose the reasons for the present weakness and I am doing it ... If you teach that sanctification consists of "letting go" and letting the Holy Spirit do all the work, then don't blame me if you have no scholars!171 — Mark A. Noll

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

In general, it should be noted, biblical law is evolutionary, not revolutionary... — Joseph Telushkin

Preface WITH THE ADVENT OF multiple modern English translations of the Bible being published over the last fifty years, Christians have come to realize that there can be a wide range of meanings and renderings of various words from the Bible in the original language. As a Hebrew teacher and student of ancient languages one of the most common questions I get is, "What is the best translation?" This is usually followed by the question, "Which translation is the closest to the original Biblical language?" The answer I give to both questions is, "All of them." With few exceptions, every translation and paraphrase of the Bible is done with much scholarship and prayer by the translators. Every translator is convinced that he or she has presented the best renderings for each word and firmly believes they have given the rendering that is closest to the original language. So we now ask the question as to why there are — Chaim Bentorah

Try to look less conspicuous," he instructed.
A dog barked, rushed to the end of its lead, and bared its teeth. Gregori turned his head and hissed, exposing white fangs. The dog stopped its aggression instantly, yelped in alarm, and retreated whining.
"What are you doing?" Savannah demanded, outraged.
"Getting a feel for the place," he said absently, his mind clearly on other matters, his senses tuned to the world around him. "Everyone is crazy here, Savannah. You are going to fit right in." He ruffled her hair affectionately. — Christine Feehan

Bauer's 'Criticism of the Gospel History' is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found. — Albert Schweitzer

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

Biblical higher criticism is preserved in the particular enclave of academic Christian scholarship and is thought to be too unfruitful to share with the average pew-sitter, for it raises more questions than the church can adequately answer. So the leaders of the church would protect the simple believers from concepts they were not trained to understand. In this way that ever-widening gap between academic Christians and the average pew-sitter made its first appearance. — John Shelby Spong

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders. — John Steinbeck

Working against a restriction - for me - often produces greater things than getting rid of all boundaries. — Jon Lord

You remind me of everything that followed. — Jhumpa Lahiri

In my qualified opinion as a Biblical scholar, there is 'massive' and overwhelming historical evidence that the New Testament manuscripts are in fact reliable."


~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that minority set-aside programs in municipal contracts were unconstitutional. The court wondered if there were proof that people of color even want to receive municipal contracts. — Karen DeCrow

When a wound is rotten, almost everybody
is suffering.
Petra Hermans — Petra Hermans

I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do. — Oscar Wilde

Thought-habits can harden into character. So watch your thoughts. — Gautama Buddha