Hello Berean 2017 Members!

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 29

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 12, 2017 0:26:57 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Admin on Feb 12, 2017 0:26:57 GMT -5

Dear Bereans, noble seekers of divine truth and debunkers of theological cobwebs,

STUDY TO TEACH: We shall examine the works of scholars who spend their lifetimes studying these various collections of scriptures we loosely call the Bible. I will be your guide. This course is designed for followers of Jesus who wish to know the inside story about the Bible and teach the Bible at church, school, home or workplace with integrity.

A THEOLOGICAL SAFE SPACE: The Berean Study of the Bible (Berean) is a theological safe space (TSS), so I expect hard-charging questions but also respect for those who do not share your opinion. All your beliefs are essentially opinions. Do not fool yourself into the delusion that you and you alone just received a call from heaven. Please do not squander this opportunity to study at close quarters in a small group with a professional interdisciplinary theologian. It is rare, so rare that I have never heard of it. But the issues about God are too important to leave ONLY to the professionals. Each of us make up the Church and we are responsible for its well being. The information belongs to anyone who is willing to invest time and resources to it.

INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY: In the next 8 weeks, each of you will embark on a temporary career as an interdisciplinary biblical theologian engaging in archaeology, history, philology, philosophy and the natural sciences. You will enter MY professional world, with all the joys, heartbreaks and hazards. You will experience great intensities of emotions because this means a great deal to you, otherwise you would not part with your hard-earned money to pay for a course that deliberately does not go all out to get as many students as possible. You will note how muted the marketing for this course is.

COMMUNITY OF FAITH: Get to know each other, to learn to trust your colleagues in a way you never do in your polite church life. Learn to intelligently discuss issues that are the third rails of Christianity with integrity. Be part of a thoughtful community of faith and worship. Your colleagues here are your closest spiritual sounding boards.

SOUL-SEARCHING: Your assumptions, beliefs and inherited convictions will be severely tested. But if you survive, you will emerge a stronger believer in God– but if you don’t survive…we’ll, its been nice knowing you.
PREPARATION: Set aside an average of 60 minutes a day for auditors and at least 90 minutes a day for those of you seeking examination, especially if you wish to be ACT-certified.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: A very warm welcome to those of you participating online. After each session, you will be sent an email to access the recorded video recording of the entire sessions. Use this dedicated forum page for Berean to interact with both the other Online and Live participants.

GODSPEED: It leaves me now to wish you Godspeed and thank you for helping to fund my research with your registration fees. All proceeds go towards the ministry and no tutor is paid for their services. I would like to end by introducing Mr Danny Lee who serves as my understudy and will assist me. But he has a day job so no emails to him please.

- Ron

Last Edit: Feb 13, 2017 0:31:22 GMT -5 by Admin

bryanwallick
New Member

Posts: 9

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 17, 2017 14:53:59 GMT -5

Quote

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:53:59 GMT -5

I've got a few general questions to suggest to the group:

We are receiving mountains of hard material facts in this course, and many of us will struggle just to digest the facts, let alone make intelligible interpretations of them. I think we are generally going to be playing with arguments between the Christian conservative positions as compared with the more liberal stances from secular institutions. I’m asking if Ron would perhaps comment a little bit on the nature of how bigger institutions “govern” the interpretation of facts (places like Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody, Gordon Conwell vs. Princeton, Harvard, Oxford…) My gut feeling is that we need to learn how to judge the educational pedigrees of the authors we read, and that we need to know perhaps a bit more about each author’s geohistorical perspective, and how this relates to the reactionary forces which exist in the world of (biblical) scholarship. It seems that a lot of information out there is based more on reactions to the other sides view point instead of looking at a particular topic without bias (if this is even possible..?) Maybe you can explain why the Princeton approach (which has become part of your geohistory now) perhaps offers a more neutral explanation of the facts (or interpretations rather). Why should we listen to you?? 

bryanwallick
New Member

Posts: 9

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 17, 2017 14:55:04 GMT -5

Quote

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:55:04 GMT -5

I think there must be some parallels in the world of politics to what we are doing here in the course. In this new world of Love/Hate Trump, it would be nice to find some ways that we can use our newly acquired knowledge to make better decisions on what to say or support politically. I’m not sure if this is a good analogy, but it seems there are quite a few similarities in the way the political right fights the left compared to the way conservative Christianity fights the agnostic/atheistic liberal stances. Does anyone know of a “Ron Choong” of politics who can similarly guide us to fresh perspectives on political stances in the way we all hope he can guide us through the conservative/liberal battle grounds in theology? I’m desperately seeking an alternative to CNN and FoxNews.

bryanwallick
New Member

Posts: 9

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 17, 2017 14:55:31 GMT -5 Admin likes this

Quote

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:55:31 GMT -5

There is an assumption in many texts I’ve looked at over the last few years that these old stories of the patriarchs are completely mythological. Harari in Sapiens fully assumes this, McCulloch alludes to it, the religious specials on National Geographic all assume it, etc… After just re-reading Gen 12-25 its easily understandable why they make this assumption. Do we think its necessary for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph to have literally existed for our Christianity to be validated? McCulloch makes the point that some of the major prophets don’t even reference these major patriarchs, and that could these stories could have been edited and summarized after the Exile when it seems many things were more organized. My provisional answer is that I’m trying to work through explanations of these events to validate our faith even if we find these stories to be completely fabricated. It seems there could be elements of truth in these stories, the people may have existed, but the events and statements ascribed to them may be serious exaggerations or even total fabrications, perhaps for a “good and moral” cause of teaching theological truth which need not necessarily be based on a scientifically accurate story. Did the parables happen? No. Are they true? To a certain extent.

howard
New Member

Posts: 5

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 25, 2017 21:59:28 GMT -5

Quote

Post by howard on Feb 25, 2017 21:59:28 GMT -5

Welcome to the forum Bryan.

Let's try to get some of these topics

Alternative to CNN FoxNews are each other. You should always alternate so they balance each other, as if you're watching 2 different realities at the same time.
Best person I know for this is the Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams who saw this political thing coming.

Paradoxically experts in a field are the least credible. They may know the best, but lay people aren't intelligent enough to be able to tell who's credible and not.
Problem is experts have an incentive to be biased due to financial reasons and more importantly ego.

I agree there may be an "ultimate" truth over literal such as McCulloch wrote that Shakespeare seems more true than what he himself just ate that morning for breakfast.

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 29

Hello Berean 2017 Members! Feb 27, 2017 3:01:09 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Admin on Feb 27, 2017 3:01:09 GMT -5

Bryan,

First of all, my geohistorical interdisciplinary approach has nothing to do with Princeton or Yale. Neither school taught me this. If anything, it came from my own personal quest as I ventured out to many archaeological sites to do boots-on-the-ground reporting, as it were. I gathered my knowledge of different religions, different fields of inquiry and my own life's experiences of living in different cultures.

Second, read the PDFs I sent on how Confessional and Critical scholarship on ANE comparative studies developed and evolved.

Third, reputable academic institutions do not control what an academic believes and writes on. Other institutions such as Moody, Regent, Gordon-Conwell, Westminster and perhaps Dallas are primarily clergy-training schools supported by denominational churches. They have a different mandate and their first task is to train pastors and preachers to articulate denominational interpretations. The first 3 do not have PhD programs and the latter 2 have very specific PhD programs that are mandated to toe a strict doctrinal line. There is no academic freedom to speak of. Some would argue that Fuller is close to this group. The UK schools enjoy full academic freedom because they are public institutions supported by taxpayers. In the US, the top 5 schools, Princeton, Yale, Chicago, Duke and Harvard all enjoy academic freedom because all of them have competitive PhD programs. None of us had to sign away any right to publish our work - the system of doctoral defense will see to it that any indefensible dissertation will fail. They have different mandates. I dont think one is necessarily better than the other. If you are convinced that your denomination is right for you and you want to serve as a pastor, go for it. If you wish to expose yourself to a wider ranf=ge of thought and risk being punished by denominational courts, then select one of the major research institutions.

Fourth, the historicity of any biblical character can never to confirmed because we have no means to determine whether an Abraham actually existed. This is why their historicity must never be a litmus test of faith. The illusion that we can verify or validate our faith distorts the nature of faith. What science and history can do best is to exposed falsities such as dates and locations, but they cannot prove theological statements. Whether Abraham or Moses existed as single persons make no difference to whether God exists. By the 4th century, the person of Jesus as a single historical person became a central matter of belief.

Post by Admin on Feb 12, 2017 0:26:57 GMT -5

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:53:59 GMT -5

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:55:04 GMT -5

Post by bryanwallick on Feb 17, 2017 14:55:31 GMT -5

Post by howard on Feb 25, 2017 21:59:28 GMT -5

Post by Admin on Feb 27, 2017 3:01:09 GMT -5

Quick Reply