Apologia Report: Surveying New Resources in Christian Apologetics
– a weekly e-mail briefing in worldview news and study designed
to help bring understanding to an age-old arena of conflict

Volume 16: Number 11 (1,061)
March 31, 2011

In this issue:

BIBLICAL HEBREW – a comparative review of the modern, critical, and
electronic editions

CHRISTOLOGY – still more top-flight conservative scholarship on the
deity of Jesus

ISLAM – the history and practice of subjugating non-believers

ORIGINS – a concise, current explanation of the unending debate over
the Big Bang

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This edition of Apologia Report is sponsored in part by:

** The Centers for Apologetics Research, an international ministry
network with outreaches to the former Soviet Union, Africa and
Latin America. P.O. Box 1196, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693 USA;
(949) 496-2000, fax (949) 496-2244, <www.TheCenters.org>,
<[email protected]>

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Apologia Report

ISSN: 1088-1107

Publisher: Apologia

<www.apologia.org>

Editor: Rich Poll

Contributing Editor: Paul Carden

Member: Evangelical Ministries to New Religions
<www.emnr.org>

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Copyright 2011 by Apologia <www.apologia.org>. All rights reserved.
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If you have questions about what you read in Apologia Report, and
for even more apologetics resources and online interaction with
other Apologia Report readers, check out the discussion at AR-talk:
<www.apologia.org/html/ar_talk.html>

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Apologia Report 16:11 (1,061)
March 31, 2011

BIBLICAL HEBREW
“Which Hebrew Bible?” by David L. Baker — the abstract reads:
“Three major critical editions of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament are
in preparation at present: Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), the Hebrew
University Bible (HUB), and the Oxford Hebrew Bible (OHB). This
article is a comparative review of these three editions, followed by
a briefer review of six other modern editions: British and Foreign
Bible Society (BFBS), NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament,
Jewish Publication Society (JPS), Jerusalem Crown (JC), Biblia
Hebraica Leningradensia (BHL), and the Reader’s Hebrew Bible (RHB).
Finally, there is a brief discussion of implicit editions and
electronic editions, followed by concluding remarks on the
usefulness of the various editions.” Tyndale Bulletin, 61:2 – 2010,
p209ff. [6]

—

CHRISTOLOGY
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence,
by James D. G. Dunn [1]; Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified
and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine
Identity, by Richard Bauckham [2] — Glenn B. Siniscalchi opens his
joint review: “Generally speaking, biblical scholarship for more
than a century … has supposed that a ‘high Christology’ emerged
well after the New Testament texts had been written, even though
seeds of that later development can be seen in, for example, the
Gospel of John. A fascinating alternative has been emerging in some
scholarly circles, represented by these two books by Richard
Bauckham and James Dunn.”
Bauckham’s “basic contention … can be stated as: ‘When New
Testament Christology is read with this [strictly monotheistic]
Jewish theological context in mind, it becomes clear that, from the
earliest post-Easter beginnings of Christology onwards, early
Christians included Jesus, precisely and unambiguously, within the
unique identity of the one true God of Israel. …
“One of the best features of Bauckham’s book is that it seeks to
undermine evolutionary understandings of Jesus in earliest
Christianity. His thesis coincides with the church’s traditional
beliefs about Christ. …
“Dunn’s newest book should be read alongside not only Richard
Bauckham’s but also the work of Larry Hurtado on the origins of the
earliest devotion to Jesus. Dunn’s major concern here is to clarify
what he believes are some of the indistinct features of the picture
painted by his interlocutors on the nature of the earliest Christian
worship by discussing neglected passages of the New Testament. ‘I
make bold to enter the discussion,’ he writes, ‘not because I
particularly disagree with Hurtado and Bauckham – our agreement on
the great majority of the texts and issues discussed is substantial
– but rather because I am concerned to ensure that the *whole*
picture is brought into view….” (Gotta love them perfectionist
scholars!) Anglican Theological Review, 93:1 2010, pp157-163. [4]

—

ISLAM
The Third Choice, by Mark Durie [3] — reviewer Mark T. Coppenger
leaves readers with a confusing summary of the three options offered
by fundamentalist Islam. However, as Osama bin Laden sees it, you
convert to Islam, forfeit your life, or pay the piper.
“Pastor-scholar Mark Durie focuses on Islamic subjugation
[dhimmitude] in this book. …
“Lest one imagine that Bin Ladin’s [sic] three-part standard is
the product of extremist fantasy, Durie demonstrates that it is
classic Islam. …
“The premise is that … non-Muslims are the enemy, allowed to
exist only on the condition that they accept demeaning and
debilitating strictures. When the dhimma collapses because rulers
find the non-Muslim populace too ‘uppity,’ jihad resumes” culling
troublemakers.
“Durie grants that maximum dhimmitude is not, at present, the
official policy of any predominantly-Muslim nation, for history has
not been kind to unbridled Islam…. But gradations are everywhere
to be found where elements of sharia (Qur’an-based) law are
entrenched or ascendant….”
Durie “makes his case eloquently, and with grace, as he laments
the way in which Muslim cultures have injured themselves by
suppressing the contribution of non-Muslims (and, of course, Muslim
women). His basic introduction to Mohammed and Islam, the first half
of the book, is unblinking and worth alone the price of the book.
Above all, one could want no better commentary on the splendor of
the Bible’s instructions concerning ‘non-believers’….” Southern
Baptist Journal of Theology, 14:2 – 2010, pp88-89. [5]

—

ORIGINS
The April 2011 cover of Scientific American has a tabloid sense to
it. “Quantum Gaps in Big Bang Theory: Why our best explanation of
how the universe evolved must be fixed – or replaced” (pp36-43) is
authored by Paul J. Steinhardt (Albert Einstein Professor of
Science, Princeton University). The dispute centers on the work of
“surprisingly few” who question inflationary theory about the
universe’s “early growth spurt” and which Steinhardt summarizes.
If you think the non-locality of particle influence in quantum
physics is difficult to understand, Steinhardt will take your mind
to an equivalently distant dimension of incomprehension. Still, for
a concise explanation of current scientific thought regarding the
unending debate over the Big Bang, here you go.
“Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as
established fact” (reminiscent of other origin theory, is it not? –
RP). However, Steinhardt reports that the theory of cosmic inflation
“has developed cracks … in its logical foundations. Highly
improbable conditions are required to start inflation. Worse,
inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so
the theory makes no firm observational predictions.” Science is left
with a deepening void regarding how the universe began and has
developed since. <www.j.mp/hMlByK>

——-

SOURCES: Monographs

1 – Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament
Evidence, by James D. G. Dunn (W John Knox, 2010, paperback, 176
pages) <www.j.mp/gQSryk>

2 – Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on
the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity, by Richard
Bauckham (Eerdmans, 2008, paperback: 285 pages) <www.j.mp/hSS2si>

3 – The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, by Mark Durie
(Deror, 2010, paperback, 288 pages) <www.j.mp/ecUdck>

——–

SOURCES: Periodicals

4 – Anglican Theological Review, <www.anglicantheologicalreview.org>

5 – Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, <www.j.mp/hbJSui>

6 – Tyndale Bulletin, <www.j.mp/esKHxp>

—- End, Apologia Report 16:11 —-

Copyright 2011 by Apologia, all rights reserved.

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