Nathan Kitchen
@laychristian.com
Navigating Christianity from laity as an amateur Bible nerd with no relevant qualifications 🇬🇧 Married Dad to 3 ☕️ Drinker of hot beverages 💡https://www.laychristian.com
This year, Santa brought me @jrdkirk.bsky.social’s “A Man Attested By God”, which I’m enjoying immensely. Kirk articulates a paradigm I think was taught in my church community as “God manifestation”. It’s nice to have a solid academic treatment of this to chew over. Definitely #forbiblenerds.
Finally getting around to this, just the sort of thing for the beach on a sunny day 🏖️ Reads clear and concise, feels more like a honed explanation than others in the series. May post some quotes later.
New Explorations in Genesis 1, by John Walton… Honestly forgot I’d preordered this, apparently it’s shipping! It was an insta-buy as the latest in the series, so I had no particular expectations. Format appears to be FAQs grouped by topic; you prob have to read the original first : ) #forbiblenerds
Every time I hear about making things great again (this time through tariffs, apparently) I can’t help but think of Ecc 7:10: “Do not say,’Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.”
#forbiblenerds - on preorder on Amazon in the UK, release date of the 29th April. Catch the background on the Bible For Normal People podcast, episode 293 with @savannahlocke.bsky.social and @bethallisonbarr.bsky.social. Looking forward to this one.
Brazos Press@brazospress.bsky.social · last yr.Happy Release Day! 🎉 Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry by @bethallisonbarr.bsky.social We are so excited for this book to finally be hitting bookstore shelves! Get your copy here: bakerbookhouse.com/products/598...
Reading the prophetic and apocalyptic literature in the Bible as if they predicted “tomorrow’s news today” is a gross failure of genre recognition, which has let to fanciful ideas such as an alliance of English-speaking nations against Russia, an idea looking quite fanciful. /1
#forbiblenerds, sub to the feed here if you’re interested in Bible adjacent publications with an academic focus. bsky.app/profile/layc...
Alexi Chantziantoniou@alexichantz.bsky.social · 2y agoPUBLICATION DAY! well, sorta. i forgot to post when my JSJ article was published, but it's now available online (open access). i'm really proud of this one. it's my best attempt to show why εἴδωλον shouldn't be transliterated "idol" but translated "image" in early jewish texts, incl. LXX and NT.
Interesting comparison of post engagement across social media platforms: tl;dr? X trending down, BlueSky trending up, not *quite* passed each other. Also X is a troll-fest.
Katharine Hayhoe@katharinehayhoe.com · 2y agoThese are the key facts everyone needs to know about climate change, according to @yaleclimatecomm.bsky.social. I shared this post across 7 different social media platforms, including FB, LI, Mastodon, Threads, X and Twitter both pre-and post-Musk. Here's how their engagement stacked up. 🧵
Realised that my literary diet has been formed of quite dry academic papers of late. This book by @johnhendrix.bsky.social has been a poignant read and visual delight over the Christmas break, and encouraged me to suggest better (i.e., more esoteric) names for the niche communities I start/join.
Welcome along @biblefeed.bsky.social, good to see you in the sky 😎 I’ve added you to my starter pack (go.bsky.app/T6BCfgN), daresay there will be a few names you recognise in here.
You know the algorithm is working when the memes it shows you are a) funny and b) sum up the headache of Biblical authority and interpretation for Lay Christian communities.
Joshua Alfaro@joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 2y ago
Woken up by my wife this Sunday morning to discuss the ethics of cancelling house church because our village has a power cut (it’s a Sunday School prize-giving and we’re hosting) Today’s ecclesiastical quandary was brought to you by Storm Darragh 🥱
An unusual topic #forbiblenerds: the contemporary application of apocalypse. Use code 15PRE for a discount on this revised edition.
David Dark@daviddark.bsky.social · 2y agoAnother rewrite. Not just an update. It's a completely different book. Tell your friends. www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/978082650797...
So here’s the thing…even IF there wasn’t a parable *explicitly* undermining this narrow idea of neighbor, Jesus also said “love your enemies.” There’s simply no escaping the fact that Jesus calls us to radically expand our concepts of love and hospitality.
Picked up a few good follows from this list.
Christadelphian Answers@christadelphian.bsky.social · 2y agoI guess it’s time for a starter pack.
The Late Great Planet Earth was a hugely influential work, and not one I’m a fan of. While I was deconstructing from a similar eschatological perspective I wrote a little on what I’d learned about the nature of the prophetic voice: livingfaith.blog/2017/10/11/p...
Prophet Model: A War of Words
Building a foundation for understanding the message of the prophets
livingfaith.blog
Some time ago I moved from a fundamentalist “global flood” understanding of Noah’s Ark to one which appreciates it as ancient literature with a historical core. This article from @ncse.bsky.social was formative for my understanding of problems taking the narrative literally: ncse.ngo/impossible-v...
The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark | National Center for Science Education
Building the Ark Accommodating All Those Animals Leaving Some Things Behind Sizing Up the Load
ncse.ngo
"Investigate everything you believe: if it is the truth, it cannot be injured thereby; -if error, the sooner it is corrected the better" - J Foreman, 1859. Words I fell in love with some years ago, which carried me through a long deconstruction and reconstruction loop, and are still my North Star.
@joelduff.bsky.social I’ve added you to my Lay Christianity Starter Pack here: go.bsky.app/T6BCfgN h/t: @kengilmore.bsky.social for the recommend.
What was John’s apocalyptic literature calling the people of God to in their recognition of the pattern of the anti-Christ? open.substack.com/pub/waitingf...
On Trump as Anti-Christ
The Biblical Pattern of Oppressive Nations and their Leaders.
open.substack.com
I was blessed to be brought up in a lay community which didn’t follow ECT. As an outsider it’s sad to see the harm done to the broader Jesus community in terms of fear, ridicule, and somehow making Jesus a thing that people have to recover from.
Leslie Baynes@lesliebaynes.bsky.social · 2y agoFun fact: the idea of hell, defined as eternal conscious torment, was invented by humans as a power play. You don’t have to believe in it, even if you’re an orthodox Christian.
The Holy Well at St Cubert’s Cave: a thread. I’m blessed to live close to Holywell Bay in Cornwall (UK) which is so named due to the holy well in a cave at the north end. It’s only accessible at low tide, and today happens to be very low so I was able to pop in. /1
Genesis 14 is odd, but how odd? What if Melchizedek was a literary creation? The implications for interpreting Hebrews are not trivial.
Melchizedek: How a Literary Phantom Became an Eternal Priest and Savior of Israel
Note: This article is based on updated research and is intended to replace my old article on Melchizedek, written several years ago. It has also been produced as a documentary at the MythVision You…
isthatinthebible.wordpress.com
Happy to be part of Issue 22 of the Press On Journal, sharing some thoughts on the value of consistent interpretation in a lay community. This will also be the thought at house church tomorrow, because it’s good to recycle. www.pressonjournal.org/article/a-ma...
A Matter of Interpretation — Press On Journal
Biblical interpretation can face challenges in understanding aspects of the text such as genre and context. Christadelphian community bible study could benefit from improved hermeneutics, engagement w...
pressonjournal.org
