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One may not always agree with Wright but he always raises important questions, interacts with the most important literature, and engages in profound and deep biblical exegesis.
I eagerly look forward to Wright's tome on this topic in the "Christian origins" series.
The other reviews were pretty fair. As for the fellow who only gave him one star, come on cake-walker... I'm a conservative, reformed evangelical too but "you gots to give Wright his props".
Please don't dismiss Wright because he doesn't tow the party line! He's one of the handful of scholars that I believe people will still be paying apt attention to 50 years or more from now.
As for the layout of the book - Minister Kithcart opens with a letter he sent to 10 ministers "questioning" them about the tithe. He received very few responses. No wonder - the letter begins on page 12 and concludes on page 22. It expounds his point of view, and sometimes arrogantly. Following that, he gives his perspective on financing ministry today. He does print four letters he received from different ministers in response to his views. And, they are pretty weak in thier defense of tithing. However, that does not prove Minister Kithcart's point.
This is a thin book full of thin arguments on a very important Biblical teaching.
Kithcart is strong on his assertions. And he should be. After all, he masterfully backs up what he states with scripture. Especially informative are the chapters where he shares the responses of several well-known ministries when asked about how to tithe and whether it was even for today.
As expected, most of the responses were based on Old Testament law instead of New Testament doctrine, proving once again the weak basis for teaching that tithing is applicable today.
The most powerful fact that Kithcart brings out pertains to Malachi 3. Most advocates of tithing teach that a Christian is under a curse for not tithing--that we are "God-robbers."
Again Kithcart responds to this by forcefully stating that a Blood-bought child of God under a better covenant is NOT under ANY curse! And I heartily agree.
Also, Christian, ask yourself: "Have I been blessed so much that there is no room to receive it?" I defy anyone to answer "yes" to this question. Most tithers who live on one side of the street can't be distinguished from the person on the other side who does not tithe. This alone should be a powerful reminder that something is very wrong with this teaching--especially the promise in Malachi 3 that most ministers are very quick to point out. And excuses that ministers give such as "Well, you did not give it in faith", or "You've gotta' claim the blessing" etc., are excuses not reasons.
Buy it for its simple presentation but reread it for strength when the judaizers start spouting the Law instead of New Testament Grace!
Highly recommended!
Jonathan's thrust of investigation of the tithe here primarily concerns the Apostle Paul's approach to giving and how church ministry is to be financed. There are some excellent points made in this book and the examination of Scripture is honest and consistent.
Kithcart deals expressly with many of the chief questions people raise about tithing; such as, "Does Malachi apply to Christians and the Church?", "Are you really cursed if you do not tithe?", "Is tithing an Old Testament Law replaced by a new standard?", "Did Jesus receive a tithe from His followers?", "Did Jesus or His Apostles, namely Paul, teach tithing to the Church?", "What exactly does the New Testament teach about giving?", etc.
While Kithcart's book may not be the most thorough investigation of the subject of tithing, it is nonetheless very good and to the point. This book will challenge, convict, inspire, inform and get you thinking. It is very easy to read and there is nothing negatively critical in the writing. A great reading suggestion for someone who doesn't feel like they have the time or energy to devote to a lengthy book on the subject. Kithcart's book can be read in an evening and really open the reader's heart to some challenging truths. This book is also a motivator towards giving and not a retreat from it in any way.
Good stuff, great title, highly recommended. Also very highly recommended is "Should The Church Teach Tithing" by Theologian Russell Earl Kelly, PhD. and Michael and Mitchel Webb's book called, "Beyond Tithes and Offerings".
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I suggest that one who reads this book afterward also reads the following:
"Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism"
edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem
"Women and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical Feminism"
by Susan T. Foh
"The Excellent Wife: A Biblical Perspective"
by Martha Peace
"Me? Obey Him?: The Obedient Wife and God's Way of Happiness and Blessing in the Home"
by Elizabeth Rice Handford
"The Surrendered Wife : A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion, and Peace with Your Man"
by Laura Doyle
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The book is outlined in such a way that many concepts which are presented by both Jesus and Paul such as the Kingdom of God, the Christian Community, and the essentials elements of who Jesus was and claimed to be, are compared, contrasted and dissected against each other. The result is that the author demonstrates that the absurd theories about Paul being unaware of Jesus life and teachings are unfounded.
It is clear after examining the evidence that Paul was presenting the message of the Gospel, and was in fact a follower of Jesus Christ and not the founder of a new Gnostic religion. If you have heard these theories and are curious, please read this book.
A convincing argument is made that Paul was aware of far more details of Jesus' life than for which he is often credited. Wenham tries to avoid what he calls "parallelomania" which is the overzealousness of some scholars to find connections between Paul and Jesus in places where they don't actually exist. Some skeptics may find Wenham guilty of what he claims to avoid, but I believe the vast majority of his arguments are highly probable.
Wenham groups the connections between Paul and Jesus in degrees of probability. For example, the "highly probable" category includes Paul's knowledge of the Last Supper, resurrection appearances, Jesus' teaching on divorce and others. His next category is simply labelled "probable" and contains such things as Paul's awareness of the baptism of Jesus, the commissioning of Peter, and many more things. He then moves to connections which he considers to be merely "plausible", and believes Paul's awareness of the Sermon on the Mount, parables of the prodigal son and vineyard tenants, among several other items, fall into this category.
By using degrees of probability, I think Wenham safely avoids the charge of "parallelomania". He doesn't use statements such as "Paul must have known X". Instead, he uses terminology like "Paul probably knew X" or "It is very likely that Paul was aware of X". Taken as a cumulative argument, Wenham's case is highly persuasive. The one shortcoming I found with this book was that Wenham fails to adequately interact with those who would say that Paul was the founder of Christianity. Its apparent that Wenham is more than able to meet the task, so my assumption is that he wanted to focus on developing his case without constantly being sidetracked by the need to refute his opponents. If the book is ever revised, it would be great to see him address this issue. Doing so would make this an absolutely perfect book.
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But, overall I was duly impressed. Feinerg, Archer and Moo are fine conservative scholars, and each make an impressive case for their stance as to the timing of the premillenial rapture. In my opinion, Archer stands out among them, and does an excellent job of setting forth the mid-tribulational rapture.
Not a great eschatology work, but an adequate synopsis of widely held views. I agree with the other reviewers that it is not for the novice, but for someone already familiar with premillenialism and end-times prophecy. It's a read and pass-on, no permanent place on my shelf kind of book.
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His dismay is easily understood as he makes plain the way that Paul, the "Apostle to the Gentiles" was forced into the role of "Paul, critic of all that is Jewish." (my phrase) Indeed, the only regret that I had as I read his book was that he seemed unaware of the groundbreaking work of Mark Nanos' "The Mystery of Romans." Nanos' work would only have bolstered Gager's conclusions, but from a Jewish perspective.
It is no longer excusable for Christian students of the New Testament to set Paul up as an opponent of the "straw man" of Pharisaic Judaism created in the late 19th century and utterly discredited by Sanders, George Foote Moore, and Charlotte Klein. In concise form, Gager has catalogued the breaches in the dam of tradition that will, one hopes, lead to its imminent collapse. The hope, however, falters briefly when one reads critiques of Gager's book that seek to cite brief passages from Romans or Galatians once again as support for Paul's rejection of the meaningfulness of Torah for Jews of his day. Still the misrepresentations of the Judaism of that day raise their misshapen heads to perpetuate the abuses of the past.
His analysis of Romans and Galatians, while hardly exhaustive, give us an exciting taste of the benefits of real rhetorical analysis of Paul's letters, without weighing the reader down with excessive jargon. Perhaps the most wonderful bits of the whole book are the footnotes, which lead the reader from his tight digest to a variety of authors whose works explore the questions in much greater detail.
One hopes that Gager's text will become a staple in the teaching establishments of the Church. It would be a shame if any student graduated from a seminary in the next ten years without having read it.
Gager goes to great lengths to show that the debate over circumcision, or whether Gentiles needed to "become" Jewish and themselves followers of the Law, was at the center of the great controversy. Ultimately, of course, Paul said, "No." Paul believed that a spiritual Christ had arrived and could be experienced through faith as the End Time was near. This has happened as a result of God's promise to Abraham that the Gentiles will also be saved. Faith in Christ is the Gentile's way to salvation, while the Jews retain their Law and covenant with God. Paul's doctrine, in other words, is one of inclusion, not exclusion.
Gager does a solid job of proving his points and his reinventing of Paul is long overdue, but the author leaves a few loose ends. He does not go into Paul's vision of the Son and what implications this has for Christianity. If Paul held that the saving experience is "faith" in God's righteousness and justice as manifest through a spiritual Christ, and that Jews can be saved even without the belief in Christ, what does this say of the Christian belief that a living Jesus walked the earth and performed a redemptive act to save mankind? Paul obviously never believed in it! Yet, Gager is silent on these issues. A sound book, in other words, as far as it goes, but it answers only half the questions concerning Paul and his vision. But, this is an important book that needs to be read.
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In the 19th century there was a flood of genuine discoveries of ancient manuscripts containing hitherto unknown works from antiquity. This seems to have stimulated the production of numbers of bogus documents, targetted at various communities. The common motive was to get money: the intended victims of the hoaxes could be determined by the language used.
Most of these documents have vanished into history, with their target groups - 'Jesus in Tibet' enthusiasts and the like. The Archko volume is one that has not. It was first published in 1884 under the title "The Archaeological and the Historical Writings of the Sanhedrin and Talmuds of the Jews..." and repackaged, reedited and revised as "The Archko Volume" (2nd Edition) during the life of W.D.Mahan, its author (I have both a 1884 and a 1905 edition - Mahan died in 1906).
After some difficulty I procured a first edition. One document -'Eli and the Story of the Magi' has been omitted altogether from subsequent editions, without any mention of why. There is, of course, a good reason for this. Apparently the text is copied verbatim from the novel "Ben Hur" (publ. 1880). The rest of the material has been rearranged, although there is no mention of this in the preface. All copies with the title 'Archko volume' are versions of the second edition - the first does not have the preface in the same place.
I investigated the 'translators' McIntosh and Twyman, and found that they are not listed as the authors of any other volume in the US Library of Congress catalogue. There is no evidence that they ever existed.
The shelfmark given for the material by "Valleus Paterculus", as a Vatican Library shelfmark, is wrong, as this institution classifies its manuscripts by collection, not by author. Since I am interested in other Vatican MSS, I can vouch for this myself. In fact no manuscripts of any work by Velleius Paterculus exist anywhere in the world, as the sole MS of his real history was lost during the 17th century. Since he died in AD30, it naturally does not mention Christ.
A general discussion of some of these hoaxes is available:GOODSPEED, Edgar J., Strange New Gospels, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1931), v+110pp. (There is a copy on the internet). It isn't very scholarly, and some of the judgements seem biased - New Testament Scholars enjoy a low reputation among Christians, and with good reason - but I have checked a number of the facts given and they seem to be correct. The rest must be left to the judgement of the reader.
The purpose of the hoax is plain - to make money from Christians living in rural areas of the US. As far as I know, it has not circulated elsewhere. It certainly was not targetted at unbelievers, or scholars, or even persons living outside the US, none of whom were at all likely to be taken in.
So what should Christians think? I was reminded of some wise words by the ancient Christian writer, Tertullian: "Manifold are the ways in which the devil has sought to undermine the truth. He is now trying to crush it, by pretending to defend it" (Adversus Praxean 1, 1). Spiritually this is a snare - inviting Christians to put their trust in something false, in the hope of convincing them, when the fraud is revealed, that the bible too is false. Commercially it is circulated for money, since its fraudulent nature has been known for over a century. If something seems too good to be true - it is. So is this.
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I honestly have never read anything quite like this book and I can honestly say that it opened my eyes! This Satan guy is one twisted s.o.b. though not half as wired as the doomsday twins from Wackedoutville. People believe this stuff, some of them might even be able to read. Oy-oy the world is truely coming to an end. Well, hopefully for some of these nutters.