Interpreting the Bible is always a controversy. I’m curious what sort of frameworks you guys read scripture in light of. To give an example, most evangelical sermons will emphasize the reader response aspect, “what does this mean to me” and it often restricts the fullness of scripture. Even Christocentric models can do the same. It seems that there are these basic aspects of authorial intent, textual meaning, original audience intepretation, christological fulfillment, typological interpretation, allegorical intepretation, and reader response. How do we rank these different aspects of interpreting scripture in order to have the “loveliest” explanation of scripture?

The most common reply to arguments for a high Christology is an appeal to divine delegation, or agency. A Christian might say something like, "Jesus calmed the storm in Mark, who but God can do that?" The dissenter replies, "That's because Jesus was given divinely authorized power, just as Moses was when he split the Red Sea. You wouldn't call Moses God, would you?" At first glance, the symmetry seems accurate. But look beneath the surface, and a serious problem emerges. What the dissenter is really doing is anchoring their interpretive framework to adjacent Jewish agency texts, passages featuring mediatorial figures such as prophets, angels, and messengers, or even inanimate objects like the ark of the covenant. The goal is to draw a parallel between Jesus and figures who mediated the presence of YHWH without ever being YHWH. The trouble is that no such parallel actually works in totality. Now you might be thinking, "But doesn't Jesus carry out divine prerogatives, just as those other figures did?" Yes, He does, but that's a distraction from the real point of contention. The real issue is what I'll call the overextension problem. The overextension problem: Agency-only models use Jewish agency parallels to explain more than those parallels can bear. They can account for how an authorized agent represents YHWH, but they cannot, on their own, explain why Christ personally occupies the YHWH-only subject-position. That subject-position turns on something I'll call identity-emphasis. Identity-emphasis: the way a text signals which figure is being made the focal bearer of divine significance in a given passage. How do we know this is the crux? Simple: in every proposed parallel, whatever mediates YHWH's presence and authority never retains an identity of its own, it functions purely as a channel for YHWH's speech and action. So here's the logic of the agency-only model: YHWH commands → the human agent obeys and signifies the act → YHWH completes it. Take Moses at the sea. He stretches out his hand, but it is YHWH who drives the waters back:

Was debating some Tik Tok Muslims on the Trinity and they admittedly stumped me with a couple questions. They asked if Jesus was God? I clarified that he is not God by identity (ie nominally). After some time and back and forth of them being confused, they eventually invited a friend up who asked the following: 1) Is Jesus the nominal God? When you worship Jesus, do you worship the nominal God? (My instinct was to say no. But that makes it sound like Jesus is a different God than the Father. If I said yes, it would've sounded like I was contradicting myself. What do you guys think? ) 2) He also read the following to show that I am apparently in contradiction with the church fathers that Jesus is not God by identity: “Orations Against the Arians Book I, Chapter 12, Section 49. "For if the Word were a creature, He would not be worshipped... but if He be the Son of the Father's substance and His offspring by nature, then He is God, and of the same identity as the Father." Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), Series 2, Vol. 4.“ What do yall think? Am I in contradiction or is Athanasius referring to identity in a completely different context?

Recently, Alex O’Connor had a debate with Trent Horn over the resurrection of Jesus. Alex is known for bringing up the Book of Mormon witnesses in objection to the resurrection witnesses. He also brought up the eight witness account, the apparent martyrs and persecution of Mormon witnesses, as well as the transfiguration story of Brigham Young. I might respond to those in later posts, haven’t researched those as much. I will give some short points addressing some of the three witness account claims by O’Connor below. If we as Christians, accept as supporting evidence the witnesses of the resurrection, why not similarly with the gold plates brought forth by the Angel Moroni? Besides immediate theological objections you may want to bring up, such as the need for a restoration or the claim of the Father having a corporeal body(foundational LDS claims), let’s examine the historical basis for the three witnesses and what Alex missed or maybe doesn’t know about. The claim is that three men, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, said they saw gold plates revealed by the Angel Moroni just as Paul and other early Christian’s claimed they saw Jesus. One of O’Connors first questions, not verbatim but implied, was how do you account between the corroboration of the witness statements between Harris and the others, given Harris’ vision was away from the other two? First, I’d want to clarify what exactly he meant. Joseph’s own History of the Church provides us with the details of Harris withdrawing from the group. The other account he had originally mentioned before was the testimony of the three witnesses that was written by Oliver Cowdery, likely by command of Joseph, and was apparently signed by the other two. We only have a printers manuscript of Cowdery’s writing of the account with him signing for the other two witnesses. A prepared affidavit that presents the original experience as a group experience contrary to Joseph’s account in the church history, does not constitute a relevant type of corroboration. Joseph was the one who knew the account before it happened and decided whether Cowdery and the other two were in or not as he “received revelation” there was going to be three witnesses, inquired of God if they were to be the witnesses, and “recieved revelation” that the three were to be the witnesses (History of the Church Vol. 1 Chapter 6).

In GodLogic’s discussion with Mohammad Hijab, Hijab asked GL this question. And to many people this seemed like a slam dunk on GL. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Wanted to do a temperature check on your guys’ intuitions and thoughts here. What do you guys think?