2007-09-30

Dysfunctional fundamentalist families (3): Power and Control

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Quiz:

What is wrong with the following maxim?

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Answer:

It’s not true. At least, the second part does not does not necessarily — and sometimes it will never — follow from the first part.

Parents are vain egocentric creatures who are so quick to believe they have far more power over their children than they really do. (I speak as a parent.) On the other hand, when parents attempt to enforce the power they believe they ought to have, or do have by divine fiat, they can too easily influence the children’s development, yes, but not in the way they intend.

Continuing here notes and comments from the work introduced earlier. Continue reading “Dysfunctional fundamentalist families (3): Power and Control”


Demonocratic Iran — threat to the Free(-oil) world

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

There’s an excellent radio series now available online (mp3 podcast, live-stream or transcript) that some may find enlightening. At least the first of a two part series is currently available. Continue reading “Demonocratic Iran — threat to the Free(-oil) world”


Ananias and Sapphira: tradition or borrowing?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

It can be said that the author of Acts knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira as “a piece of floating tradition” and so added it to his novelistic history of the church. But we have no evidence for any such “floating tradition” — this is an assumption based on particular model or hypothesis about the origins of the canonical texts.

It can also be said that the author of Acts got the idea for the story from 1 Corinthians and shaped it to be like a similar story in Joshua. If there is textual evidence for a such a relationship between these accounts, then we have a more economical and preferable explanation for the origin of this story in Acts than the one that assumes a “floating tradition”.

The following is (again) from Pervo: Continue reading “Ananias and Sapphira: tradition or borrowing?”