Tag Archives: worldview

Creation, Violence, and the God of the Old Testament (Google Hangout Interview)

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On May 13, I will be participating in a Google Hangout interview on the topic of “Creation, Violence, and the God of the Old Testament.”

Matthew Lynch of the Westminster Theological Center in the UK will interview both me and  William Brown (Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary) on our previous writings on creation. Brown is an excellent biblical scholar who has published numerous books on aspects of OT creation theology and most recently has written Wisdom’s Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible’s Wisdom Literature (Eerdmans, 2014). I expect that the interview will interact with my book The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos, 2005).

This is how the Westminster Theological Center describes the interview on their website:

In this event, Matt will discuss this subject with two of his favourite OT scholars, J. Richard Middleton and William P. Brown. Creation and the question of violence occupy an important place in the work of these OT gurus. Plus, they’ve both just come out with some fantastic new books that you’ll want to read to help you navigate these topics and open up new worlds. Middleton’s book is A New Heaven and A New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker, 2014) and Brown’s is Wisdom’s Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible’s Wisdom Literature (Eerdmans, 2014).

The time frame for the interview is 3:00 – 4:00 PM EST (8:00 – 9:00 PM UK time) and you can watch the interview online as it happens or you can watch it later on You Tube.

You can even send in your own questions for either interviewee by Twitter or by emailing Matt Lynch in advance (deanofstudies@wtctheology.org.uk).

Plus, the organizers (the Westminster Theological Center) have stated that you can enter to win a copy of either my eschatology book A New Heaven and a New Earth or William Brown’s book Wisdom’s Wonder by retweeting their original tweet about the interview.

Genesis Recast: The War with Science is Over

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The end of the semester has been particularly busy, so it’s been a while since my last blog post. I’m planning on doing a number of posts in June, but until then I can announce some upcoming events.

Conference in Western New York on Evolution and the Bible

The event I want to focus on here is a major conference being planned for western New York state addressing how the biblical accounts of creation might be compatible with contemporary evolutionary accounts of the cosmos and humanity.

The conference, entitled “Genesis Recast: The War with Science is Over,” is scheduled for September 18-19, 2015 (Friday evening and Saturday) at The Chapel at Crosspoint in Getzville, NY.

Jim Walton of The Third Choice

The conference is organized by Jim Walton (brother of Old Testament scholar John Walton); he will host the conference and introduce the speakers. After having been involved in pastoral ministry in Buffalo, NY for over twenty years, Jim became Founder/ President of The 3rd Choice, an apologetics/ evangelistic/ discipleship website designed to engage people in conversation about matters of faith.

The rationale for the conference is that Genesis 1-2 is a huge obstacle to faith in our country right now. Millions of students are turning away from faith because of “science,” and they think that the early chapters of Genesis have been proven to be fictional. Millions of Christian students are struggling to reconcile Genesis 1-2 with contemporary science, and it’s an unnecessary tension. This conference intends to help change the conversation.

Keynote Speaker John Walton

The keynote speaker is Dr. John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He will give two talks, Friday night and Saturday morning, which will focus on the material from his books The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP Academic, 2009) and The Lost World of Adam and Eve (IVP Academic, 2015).

John Walton’s interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is informed by contemporary biblical studies and how creation accounts functioned in the ancient Near East. His approach has been immensely significant in helping evangelical Christians understand Genesis 1 and 2 better, which does not predispose us either for or against evolutionary science; that needs to be studied on its own merits. Walton has just completed a world lecture tour, to a very positive response on the part of the attendees.

Other Speakers on the New Testament, Science, and the Church

Walton’s presentation on Saturday morning will be followed by Dr. Craig Evans (a well-respected New Testament scholar from Acadia Divinity College, in Nova Scotia), Dr. Steve Schaffner (a scientist working in the area of genetics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT), and Skye Jethani (a pastor, consultant, and executive editor of Leadership Journal).

You can find short Bios of the speakers here and longer bios here.

This is the tentative schedule for the conference.

Conference Sponsors and Registration

The event is being co-sponsored by The Chapel at Crosspoint, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Ambassadors at the University of Buffalo, and the Biologos Foundation.

Because the organizers/ sponsors are very excited about the conference and its potential for raising awareness of the compatibility of biblical faith and contemporary science in the entire Western NY area and possibly beyond (Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio), they are keeping the cost of attendance ridiculously low for an event of this caliber, in the hope that many students, professors, pastors, and others can attend.

The cost for registration is $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and only $10 for students.

I will post information on how to register as it becomes available.

Tell your friends about this event, and let’s pack the auditorium.

See a follow-up post on the conference here.

The Meaning of “Paradise” in the Bible

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My fourth and final blog post in the weekly series “Beyond the Book” was just posted by Baker Academic. Each of my four posts during March have focused on some point of interest that I learned about eschatology while working on A New Heaven and a New Earth. The latest post, called The Meaning of “Paradise” in the Bible, explains that this term is not equivalent to “heaven,” contrary to the assumption of many Christians.

Baker is giving away three copies of A New Heaven and a New Earth. You can sign up for a copy here, until midnight tonight (March 30, 2015).

If you want to read the four posts in order, here are the other three:

My first post, Preparation in Heaven for Revelation on Earth – The “Apocalyptic” Pattern, focused on the underlying pattern I came to discern in many “heaven” passages in the New Testament that seem to be associated with the Christian hope.

My second post, The Meaning of “Heaven” in the Bible, explained that “heaven” is not thought of in the Bible as an immaterial, uncreated realm, but rather as the cosmos beyond the earth, which can stand symbolically for the realm inhabited by God and the angelic host (and angels are often identified with stars in the Bible).

My third post, The Stars Will Fall From Heaven, discusses the origin of this image in extra-biblical literature and its meaning, which has to do with judgment on corrupt angelic powers and not the literal destruction of the cosmos.