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Catholic

2016-03-21T13:44:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Is the falsifiability of Christian claims a conclusive argument for Christianity?

Last updated on: March 21, 2016 at 1:44 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

This article argues that it is, but I think the argument is pretty much bunk. Christians do indeed make specific historical claims, but that’s only proof of Christianity if you start with the premise that religions should do that. It isn’t true that Buddhism is non-falsifiable. Buddhism claims to be a means leading to peace of mind and freedom from the inner suffering that arises from selfish desire. If you practice the Buddhist way for a period of time and... Read more

apologetics

Christianity

world religions

2016-03-20T21:42:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Further thoughts on Isaiah

Last updated on: March 20, 2016 at 9:42 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I have now finished reading through Isaiah in Hebrew (I did this quite a while ago, actually, and have been making heavy work of Jeremiah so far, what with more goats to milk and the garden picking up and articles to write for Christian History). In my earlier post I wrote about the language of creation and chaos in “Second” Isaiah and how it connects to the book’s critique of Babylonian idolatry. But there’s another cluster of language that struck... Read more

Bible

Christianity

2016-03-12T16:14:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Shaped by a Tangle of Stories

Last updated on: March 12, 2016 at 4:14 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been working on articles on the Reformation for the next Christian History issue, among other things. Here is a piece I wrote the other day on religion and myth for the Public Square at Patheos. Read more

Uncategorized

2016-01-29T13:46:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

James Payton, Part 2

Last updated on: January 29, 2016 at 1:46 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Chapter 7 of Payton’s Getting the Reformation Wrong focuses on the Anabaptists and other radical groups. His main point here seems to be to establish the diversity of 16th-century Anabaptism and to explain why both Catholics and mainstream Protestants found them so threatening. Payton’s emphasis on diversity is in keeping with scholarship in the past 50 years, and is certainly something non-specialists need to hear, but he carries it too far. Menno Simons and what would become mainstream Anabaptism get only... Read more

Christianity

Reformation

2016-01-23T12:46:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Review of James Payton, Getting the Reformation Wrong, part 1

Last updated on: January 23, 2016 at 12:46 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

James Payton’s 2010 book Getting the Reformation Wrong has a provocative title (one I would love to have used myself). Much of the book, in fact, is simply a summary of modern scholarship on the Reformation, but as the title indicates, one major reason Payton wrote the book is to address what he regards as common misunderstandings about the Reformation. Payton’s list isn’t quite the same as mine, and there are places where I disagree with his take on the Reformation... Read more

Christianity

Reformation

2025-06-24T15:16:55-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Letter of Melanchthon to Brenz, May 1531

Last updated on: June 24, 2025 at 3:16 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I translated this letter some years ago for Dave Armstrong, who had cited parts of it from Hartmann Grisar. This led to a debate between me and Dave on whether Dave and Grisar were overstating its implications for Protestant appeals to patristic authority and the question of how respectful the Protestant Reformers were of the Church Fathers. Dave posted the letter on his site, together with responses by him to some of my criticisms of his original use of the... Read more

Christianity

Reformation

2016-01-20T16:57:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Isaiah, chaos, and idolatry (with a concluding peroration about Muslims)

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 4:57 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I’ve been reading through the Bible in Hebrew for many years now, and I’m just over half way through. In the Jewish ordering of the canon, that means that I’m getting toward the end of Isaiah. I’ve made my way through the marvelous chapters 40-55 and am now up to chap. 60. One of the things I enjoy about reading Hebrew is the rich word play that the authors engage in, particularly in poetic texts such as Isaiah (though there’s... Read more

2016-01-02T16:48:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Progressive revelation in the OT: A response to Jonathan Huddleston

Last updated on: January 2, 2016 at 4:48 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Jonathan Huddleston, an old and dear friend of mine who is an OT scholar, has challenged the picture of OT revelation that I gave (somewhat tangentially) in my last post. Here are his comments as posted on Facebook (reproduced with his permission), followed by my response: In what was almost a tangent from his main point, Edwin took some time to portray a thumbnail sketch of the OT revelation that simply doesn’t agree with what I learned during my OT... Read more

Bible

Christianity

2016-01-01T11:48:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why the Incarnation requires us to believe that Muslims worship the true God

Last updated on: January 1, 2016 at 11:48 am By Edwin Woodruff Tait

So the Internet has been buzzing these past few weeks–my corner of it at least–with discussion of Larycia Hawkins, the Wheaton College political science professor who has been “placed on administrative leave” for reasons Wheaton has not clearly explained but which have something to do with her claim that Muslims and Christians “worship the same God.” Practically everyone who blogs about Christian stuff has now weighed in on this in one way or the other. The negative position is primarily... Read more

Christianity

Islam

world religions

2015-12-17T15:03:00-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In memoriam magistri Latomi dilecti

Last updated on: December 17, 2015 at 3:03 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I first met David Steinmetz in April 1995, more than twenty years ago. I was not quite 21; he was nearly 59. (It is sobering to realize that I am now, at 41, closer to the age he was then than to the age I was then.) Craig Farmer, who taught church history at my alma mater, Milligan College, had strongly encouraged me to attend grad school at Duke to study with Steinmetz. I had read several of his books... Read more

Christianity

personal

Reformation

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