CMI - The Lost World of John Walton

John H. Walton taught theology at Moody Bible Institute for 20 years, and is now Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, Illinois, USA. Recently, he has been busy publishing a string of paperback books, titled The Lost World series. To date, Walton has published The Lost World of Genesis One (2009); The Lost World of Scripture (2014); The Lost World of Adam and Eve (2015); The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest (2017); The Lost World of the Flood (2018); and most recently The Lost World of the Torah (2019). Walton is suggesting, by his series titles, something has been ‘lost’, but what exactly?...keep reading

What Happened in the Garden

My review of the book "What Happened in the Garden."

From the back cover:

Evangelicals are no strangers to the creation versus evolution debate. Now the argument has spread beyond the contents of the creation account in Genesis 1 and into Genesis 2-3, with speculation about the historicity of Adam and Eve and the Fall. But does it matter which position one holds? Is anything really at stake?

Read the review HERE

Hip & Thigh - Dispensationalism & Typology

Fred Butler talks about Hal Lindsey, Revelation helicopters, dispensationalism, typology and more...

I particularly liked these observations (there were too many others to note without actually copying the article in full):

Notice that Lindsey says that the Cobra helicopter idea may just be conjecture, but most importantly, given what we outlined above regarding types and symbols, he didn’t even come close to a typological interpretation. He is just conjecturing, not claiming the locust are Cobra helicopters!

As much as non-Dispensational haters wish it were so, Lindsey’s amusing anecdote about Cobra helicopters is not the employment of a typological hermeneutic that is so prevalent in Reformed camps. It certainly is not the one I am particularly alarmed about.

And this:

Reformed proponents have often argued that there are key, overarching theological themes that override the details of the exegesis and the natural reading of the text in question. But is that how we are to ready and study Scripture? The absolute worst instance currently with so-called theological themes overriding the details of exegesis is the trend to reimagine the creation account of Genesis.

John Walton, for example, in his, The Lost World, sees the creation as a picture telling theological truths about mankind, the world, and ultimately redemption. God is not telling us how he formed the world as he is providing a picture, or type, of how the narrative is to function theologically in the remainder of Scripture. G.K. Beale in his book, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, likens the garden of Eden to a cosmological temple that is patterned in the tabernacle in Exodus, another illustration of how theology trumps the details of the text.

Read the rest HERE