Review of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary

Tyndale publishes the NLTse bible. The cornerstone is a commentary series designed for a verse for verse walk through.

As they put it
The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary provides students, pastors, and laypeople with up-to-date, evangelical scholarship on the Old and New Testaments. It’s designed to equip pastors and Christian leaders with exegetical and theological knowledge to better understand and apply God’s word by presenting the message of each passage as well as an overview of other issues surrounding the text.

The book studies open up with a long introduction, an expanded version of what you would find in a good study bible. The bulk of the books consist of a small passage from the bible (about 5 verses) then a long series of translation notes followed by an exegetical commentary. The closets analogy I can think of is Zondervan's Expositor's Commentary for the NIV.

Really as I see it, this series consists of two books woven together. The translation commentary gives an "official" translation explaining the NLTse. Where they stood on various translation issues, why they translated the way they did. What is nice about it is that while it address the Greek it doesn't assume Greek. It is clearly designed to explain reasons choices were made assuming the reader isn't aware of those choices. It explains shades of meaning the translation couldn't capture because of the inevitable choices made in translation. For a church leader of a church which uses the NLT as their bible this makes the series an absolute no brainer purchase. I should point out though there is very little discussion of manuscripts or how the underlying Greek was choosen. The translation commentery will not replace a more serious original languages commentery like NIGTC. But unlike NIGTC the average Christian reader can read Cornerstone comfortably.

The second bulk of the book is commentery on the content. This definitely is theologically narrow in the sense it works strictly from a modern evangelical protestant viewpoint. The tone is "the passage means" where the meaning is what one would find in a good evangelical commentery or sermon. Alternate views of passages are not covered. Scholarly views are not covered. The introductions frequently assume all sorts of points. For example the introduction to the Pastoral Epistles mentions counter arguments to Paul's authorship in a sentence and then gives a one paragraph apologetic in response. Which is all to say that Cornerstone is a very good evangelical study bible but I can't call it a work of scholarship. What it does do though is alert the reader to where there is scholarship on various issues. Where I think Cornerstond works really well, would be for church bible study groups, and self directed study. Again since the average knowledgeable Christian can read cornerstone well they can get a great deal more depth without having to dig into various manuscripts or 30 footnotes on obscure academic papers. It also might be very useful for preparation for expository preaching, yet another reason for a church leader in an NLTse congregation to buy it. The intent is to hit the major points from an evangelical perspective, not to explicate the major points in the secondary and academic literature like Baker's or NIGTC would which is what a pastor is going to be looking for.

When I first agreed to do this review I had expected to contrast Cornerstone with Anchor. I had briefly looked at Cornerstone and the mix of mostly English theology with a light discussion of Greek, felt like the mix from Anchor. Since they included Hebrews a contrast with Buchanan's To the Hebrews, was what I had in mind, a terrific liberal vs. conservative treatment review. But as I started to write the contrast I found I really couldn't do that review. Cornerstone is a very comfortable read: pick a text, specify an important issue bring it to resolution all in 30 seconds. Anchor is much much more detailed and the conversation is happening at a higher level: text --> issue --> concepts about the issue --> further works on those concepts;  with no clear resolution the goal is knowledge not answers. I can't imagine using Anchor as the basis for a small group bible study. In the same way I can't imagine myself actually using Cornerstone as a primary commentary. I was constantly frustrated both in its historical analysis and its textual commentary by how it brushed off key alternate viewpoints. Anchor is all about the non-obvious, Cornerstone is all about making sure the reader gets the key points, NIGTC is all about the debate.

The fair comparison and the most applicable is with the Expositors commentary, as I mentioned above. Cornerstone plays the same role for the NLT that Expositors does the NIV. In terms of history I have to say Expositors is more detailed. In terms of theology and exposition Cornerstone is more detailed. But the real advantages of Cornerstone are in two areas. First the form factor, Expositors are oversized books while Cornerstone are slightly smaller than average hardcover. For use in a small group bible study I think this is major advantage. The second is the underlying translation. The NLTse is a better translation and does a better job in capturing nuance than the NIV does. Moreover the Expositors is still reacting to the debates of the 1970s in terms of replacing the KJV while for Cornerstone those are long passed, so the notes on the translation are dealing with contemporary issues.

In short what Cornerstone is really is a great expansion of the NLT Study Bible. A series of 8500 pages of discussion of scripture readable and most likely extremely useful by any interested Christian, lay leaders or a pastor. The availability of a set like this provides another good reason for a church that is looking for a translation to pick the NLT. The commentary is translation specific and viewpoint specific and makes good use of that specificity to remain focused on what the bible says. Where I can't recommend it is for someone with less applied goals.

In many ways the Tyndale's NLT lineup is a fantastically strong lineup. They have a teen bible, which is tasteful and usable a really nice collection of study and devotional bibles (upcoming post) aimed at adults and a commentery which is useful for pastors and small group church study. They also have the best NT interlinear on the market. For an evangelical church it is getting hard to see why one would pick another publisher's lineup. Zondervan is still splitting itself between the NIV and the TNIV while Tyndale is unified behind a single product. The NRSV offers this sort of breadth (and more) for the 7 sisters, but most evangelical churchs wouldn't be comfortable with those works.

Apple used to run commercials "the computers people actually use", Cornerstone could use the phrase, "the commentary people actually read".

The Brick Testament

Found a fun site called the Brick Testament, which has the bible stories illustrated by Legos. It is not the most reverential bible but I suspect my readers might get quite a kick. Enjoy.

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See also:

• Playmobile theology
  

Open challenge on presuppositional apologietic

I don't think the presuppositional apologetic will hold up to a simple empiricist argument. Are there any advocates out there that would like to try and run one through about a dozen back and fourths to give it a shot? If so post (non anonymously please).

10 reasons men should not be pastors

1. A man’s place is in the army.
2. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.
3. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.
4. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
5. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.
6. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.
7. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
8. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
9. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.
10. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.

Taken from Serving Bread blog

Postmodernism, how do we know a text means?

There was a request for a follow up where we can have an actual conversation.

This reply came from Jugulum. It was censored on Team Pyro:

CD-Host,

You said,
"The meaning doesn't reside in the comments themselves, but rather in the shared culture which allows me to predict the meaning you and they are likely to assign."

OK... I can sort of accept that there is no "inherent" meaning in the particular combination of shapes that make up the content of these comments. Nor is there inherent meaning in the sounds that they map to, if we speak the comments aloud. For communication to work--or, for me to be able to predict what meaning you will assign to my words--there has to be some "shared culture", in your terminology. At the very least, we must all be English-speakers. (But that's not all there is to it. There are other degrees of "shared culture". For instance, an isolated hill-billy will misunderstand a Brit's comment about carrying a torch onto a lift. i.e., there's lingo, jargon, slang, regional dialects, etc.)

I get that much. As far as that goes, I see merit in what you're saying.

But...

Can't we still say that my comments have an inherent meaning, based on the context of my culture? Or if you don't like that phrasing: That there is a meaning which I intend--a meaning that is graspable by anyone with access to my culture? A predictable understanding, in your terminology? That there is an authorial intent, accessible to others? (I'm not claiming that anyone will necessarily perfectly understand that intent. Our horizons of cultural understanding will never perfectly coincide. But we can approach each other.)

In fact, we could say this: Any time we try to read or hear someone else's words, we should seek to understand their culture/language. When I speak, I assume that there is a shared culture. And I expect that my listeners will pay attention to that. That they'll seek authorial intent.

If you insist that there isn't inherent meaning in the collection of symbols I put together--isn't there inherent meaning in, "Those symbols, put together by Jugulum, a 21st-century American native English-speaker"?

All of this translates to, "We should seek to use an authorial-intent hermeneutic. The better we exercise such a hermeneutic, the better we will understand. (i.e., The better we achieve shared culture, the better we will be able to predict the intended or received meaning.)"

The hope for this thread is to have an open ended discussion on this. All are welcome.

Censorship and dishonesty in evangelical Christianity

So I'm coming off a debate on TeamPyro blog where bunch of my comments are being deleted to effectively shift what I'm saying. That is to say that Dan Phillips is deliberately misrepresenting me, lying in other words.

Now he is a well respected guy, and he was cavalier about it so I assume he does this sort of nonsense on a regular basis. What's interesting is not the dishonesty, but the pattern I've seen on these blogs. I have to wonder why is it that so many conservative Protestants do not consider dishonesty to be sinful in practice? This approach of casual misrepresenting what the other side has to say is considered perfectly acceptable on most conservative Christian blogs. I was just yesterday reading a review of the Voice translation which was quite good, but there was an underlying untruthfulness throughout the review. I've posted many times on the issues with the ESV supporters lying about the TNIV.

The patriarchy people have certainly done it as documented a zillion times here. Of course the various Christian cults do it. You don't see this among liberal Christians or atheists, they are generally upset if they have misrepresented someone's view, and quick to correct. You see it much more rarely among Catholics. I don't have a good theory as to why this is. So I'll open the floor up. What is your feeling about Christians blogs and integrity? Do think it is lower for conservative protestants? Is so any idea why this is? Does it come from Calvin's influence?

Principium Unitatis

A blog that I thought was interesting has come back from the dead. The blog's name is Principium Unitatis. This is ostensibly an ecumenicism blog but it is really in tone and discussion and catholic apologetic board with a focus on addressing the legitimacy of the reformation. What makes this blog worth reading is the degree of detail and quality of the argument of the case for the authority of the church. The argument is often made in catholic apologetics but the details aren't argued just asserted. Not the case here the argument is fully expounded on the blog. In summarize it:

1. There is no qualitative difference between the types of questions that were raised about the church during the reformation and those that were raised earlier in church history.
2. Thus the reformers were schismatics in the classic sense.
3. Modern protestants have developed a theology totally alien to traditional Christianity, and this theology essentially undermines the legitimacy of all ecumenical councils and the entire faith tradition.
   
4. Protestantism will continue to fragment into more and more smaller and smaller specialized religious subgroups primarily based on what is currently theologically fashionable.
5. So real ecumenicism requires that Protestants return to Rome and resolve any disputes they have with The church through the mechanisms of The Church.

I'll notify Bryan, the host and author of Principium Unitatis about this thread and I'm sure he'll to qualify this quick summary but it works well enough for our purposes.

Well there are of course to my mind at least several possible holes in this argument.

The first point of weakness is the assumption of authority rather than social construction. That is that the church has an authority independent of its membership, essentially the argument for monarchy. The standard argument for democracy works here. That is if one believes in Christianity as a social construction among the Christian community then all the ecumenical councils are equal. I tried this, and it was entertaining. I saw in this argument was the belief that a Protestant would shy away from attacking early ecumenical councils as being a social construction and not binding. I think the fact that this argument wasn't covered was a matter of politics as much as theology. The people on the blog are politically conservative and didn't think they really needed to address democratic theories. That is liberal Christianity as a counter point, just didn't occur to him.

The way this argument shapes is an attack on something that is assumed to derive from "authority" and a defense based on popular consensus. In the particular case I would need to defend as "binding" like the choice of books for the bible. Simply holding the social construction line worked. One can defend the bible and the creeds quite effectively from a purely social construction theory of Christian authority. So this apologetic doesn't seem likely to be effective against liberal Christianity. (see for example this thread where we discuss the bible)

The other point was an attack on historicity. This type of theology has a strong collection of historical claims, which means it is objectively disprovable. That is what happened in what order matters. The faith is based on the theory that Christianity developed in the manner described in acts, as a matter of historical reality not just faith. That is Christianity developed
Jesus -> apostles -> disciples -> historical Christian community
and from that authority derives:
Jesus -> apostles -> magisterium.
Being a follower of the Walter Bauer, Birger Pearson school I happen to believe that the actual origins were more like:
Primitive Judaism -> Hellenistic Judaism -> Jewish Gnosticism -> Christian Gnosticism -> Orthodox Christianity.

Challenge that assumption, that is simply utilize the objective historical record and all the arguments on the blog about "original authority" would run in reverse. I couldn't quite test that theory since that would get into a whole debate on atheism. I was able to test the variant by simply continuing to point out the document record showed the exact opposite of the historical claims. In other words I could argue that there was no evidence (and in fact lots of counter evidence) for Orthodox Christianity existing before or being a mainstream theology during the early church relative to various shades of gnosticism. There wasn't any ability to dispute this. The primary counter theory seemed to be that the Christian message spread earlier than the ecclesiology with no evidence nor any plausible theory as to how that happened. This was nice because I got to argue from what I had believed in my 20s when I still was Christian.

So the primary case:
1) the original family of churches was led by Peter
2) that church has some sort of unique claim to authority
3) the Orthodox Church & RCC is the continuation of that church
Thus: Reunity comes from submission to this leadership

My counter was typical Bauer:
1) There was no original family of churches
2) There never was authoritative leadership that was respected by all until the Catholic church established authority through state violence in the 4th century
3) Virtually all churches today are continuations of the 15th century church they are just evolving along different paths.
Thus: Reunity comes from resolving the underlying issues that led to the break in the 16th century

The third counter argument was one I hadn't anticipated. The early church fathers in their original construction of the authority of the church (1st and 2nd century) are unbelievably shoddy in their use of the bible. They simply pull analogies out of context and quotes out of context. Where this was important was on the role and authority that God granted priests. They asserted all sorts of things about the sacrificial system and the role of priests in Judaism that were not just false, but in fact were the exact opposite of what they asserted. Simply dead wrong on the facts.
That would be troubling but Christians are often weak on the old testament. However, the Book of Hebrews is essentially a discourse on what the Jewish priestly system meant and how to translate that into the Christian system. Hebrews spends 2 full chapters discussing Jesus as "a priest after the order of Melchizedek", as contrasted with "a priest after the order of Aaron." If one understands this concept then there is no excuse for the casual confusion between the office priest, governing authority and religious authority that exists in the discourse of the fathers. And in reading their discussions, I simply don't believe the 1st and 2nd century church fathers understood Hebrews. So the problem is not limited to the old testament.
Now, I know how incredibly arrogant that sounds. I wish I could think of some way to present it that didn't sound this strident. Given there is no reason to believe me on a claim this strong I'm not sure what to say other than look for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I hadn't expected this, but frankly the effect of this debate was to reduce my opinion of Church fathers substantially. I think one can point to the ancient church fathers defense of church authority to disprove the infallibility of the church.


So given this harsh criticism my reader might wonder why recommend the blog. And I'll repeat what I said in the introduction. While I think Bryan's argument has genuine fundamental holes he has presented the case in a detailed and thoughtful manner. It is truly excellent apologetic to someone who takes a conservative Christian opinion. The fact is most Protestants do believe that something interesting or unique or different happened just prior to the Reformation and there is some profound difference between the church of the 15th century and the church of the 5th century in terms of doctrine. They do believe that the church developed like acts and that the "heretics" only came later. And for them this website by putting the question clearly back at the 1st and 2nd century Church forces a confrontation. Bryan argues very effectively that is one is going to reject the Catholic position, one is forced to stand along side gnostics. A valid and very well argued point and relatively unique to this blog. It is great to see it expounded upon.

The second thing worth reading it for is that the debating or discussing things with intelligent Catholics is a relief in terms of history. Catholics genuinely know church history. Frequently when discussing things with conservative Protestants I have had a hard time because they seem to fail to appreciate there is as much historical distance between Paul and the Council of Chalcedon as between Barack Obama's stimulus bill and the Pilgrim treaty with the Wampanoags. 100 years took just as long back then. Intellectually Protestants tend to treat the entire ancient world as it all happened within a few decades. Knowing the details of church history makes this viewpooint go away. That's why people who know some American history understand how much different the country of Abraham Lincoin was than that of George Washinton even if they fail to appreciate the difference between the early pilgrims of 1620 and those of 1710. There is not a hint of that historical compression in Principium Unitatis, and I should comment I generally don't find it among knowledgeable Catholics in general. This is a delight.

I should also make a quick apology on the people on Principium Unitatis regarding the "Colin" issue. Originally there was some sort for demand my name, denomination,.... as my readers know I don't generally discuss this on religious forums. I like debates to avoid ad-hominum and as much as possible, and I believe that religious debates are so frequently dominated by ad-hominum that cutting off any avenue for that to happen is the best way. So in answer to a request for my name I answered sarcastically that CD-Host stood for Colin D Host (CD actually stands for Church Discipline the name of the blog, which I did link to). This wasn't taken as sarcasm but as an actual answer and I let the answer stand. That was dishonest of me and I owe Bryan an apology for that.

Shunning maintaining connectedness

Terrific little YouTube video by a woman who left the Jehova's Witnesses explaining calmly and rationally how shunning (a ban on social intercourse) creates an ongoing connectedness. "The Jehovah's witnesses have essentially kidnapped my family". Many of the people who argue for discipline would assert this is the point. Discipline is supposed to prevent people from not being confronted. But of course by creating this life long negative relationship churches are going to come for criticism. They prevent people from moving on in their lives. This is a short video but I think this woman is extremely articulate and authentic in presenting her case for why she is involved in the anti Jehovah's Witnesses movement. And while she sees her problems as specific to the church it would really apply to any church with community that was closed, has a strong tradition of discipline and enforced the ban on casual social intercourse between members and the excommunicated.

Your philosophy

I took an interesting quiz the what is your world view quiz. I had a tough time answering some of the questions. But the categories are interesting. Takes about 2 minutes. Here are my results.

Materialist

100%

Existentialist

81%

Postmodernist

81%

Modernist

63%

Cultural Creative

50%

Fundamentalist

38%

Romanticist

38%

Idealist

25%

Am I still a virgin if I've had anal/oral sex?

Dan Savage is trying to define the word "saddleback" in a way that embarrass Rick Warren (Chief pastor of Saddleback church). The definition that seems to be sticking is:

'Saddlebacking' should be the term for the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities. 'After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she's saving herself for marriage.' Please, please adopt this definition!"(dedicated site)

Of course the problem is the kids are right. The people who think they are wrong are confusing chastity (purity of soul) with virginity (purity of body). Augustine (De Virgin. viii) "virginity is continence whereby integrity of the flesh is vowed, consecrated and observed in honor of the Creator of both soul and flesh." In other words as long as the integrity of the flesh is maintained virginity is maintained. The church has a notion of "virgins in the flesh but not in the spirit" which is a violation of chastity, not a violation of virginity. (example Jerome's letters to Eustochium) and that IMHO is the correct status for kids that engage in non vaginal sex acts but have never engaged in vaginal penetration. They lack chastity but not virginity.

Now what's interesting is this is a rising phenomenon. While at some point I'll do my upcoming series "Sex and Fundamentalism" which discusses virginity pledges, it does appear these sorts of pledges cuts the age for first anal sex by several years (to below the level of first vaginal sex for kids whose parents are liberal about sex). So this is a big issue.

On a related topic some kids think they are virgins if they have had vaginal sex but not ejaculated. And again loss of virginity is loss of integrity of the flesh. Once penetration happens virginity is lost.