Philip Chia

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | SBTS

Modern translations are influenced by the debatable ending of יו‎ or ה‎ of Proverbs 30:19. German Bible translations such as – Zürcher Bibel, the German Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift, the German Elberfelder Bibel revidierte Fassung 1993, the German Darby Unrevidierte Elberfelder 1905, and Textbibel von Kautzsch und Weizsäcker – have Frau...

Who is the husband of Zion in Isaiah 62:5? English modern translations are divided into three different primary readings: ‘your builder’ or ‘God’, ‘your builders’ or ‘foreigners’, and ‘your sons’. This article will weigh on each translation with textual criticism as its tool to seek out this answer.

Issues around Christology are never ending. Both from within and outside Christianity the existence of Jesus as God continues to be discussed. From within the ranks of Christians who systematically deny the Divinity of Jesus are Jehovah's Witnesses. Their spirit of visiting from house to house is commendable and it doesn't matter if Christians are...

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most famous scientists in the United States. In particular, Tyson has expertise as an astrophysicist and hehas written several books and received extraordinary awards as an Astrophysician. Tyson is not only a scientist, he also recognizes himself as an agnostic. Tyson’s disbelief in the existence of God by seeing v...

The syntax of 2 John 1: 5 is problematic. Six manuscripts, Ψ 5. 81. 642*. 1852 l, try to solve this difficulty by emending the participle ‘γράφων’ to the indicative verb ‘γράφω’. Culy and Leedy on Greek NT diagrams, on the other hand, understand the participle ‘γράφων’ to modify ‘ἐρωτάω’. In the latter approach, the participle ‘γράφων’ serves to mo...

In 2021, Drew Longacre applied a stylistic paleographic analysis to thirty-five Dead Sea scrolls to propose conventional usage registers for different types and levels of scripts. His article has been published by Vetus Testamentum. Longacre’s research, however, has not included hodayot manuscripts. Hodayot manuscripts are the collection of approxi...

Education is an important matter in Indonesia and also globally. This importance of education is ingrained in the Indonesian Law Constitution in 1945 (Undang-Undang Dasar 1945), chapter 31 where it states that: every Indonesian citizen deserves to receive education, and is obliged to attend basic education and the government is obliged to pay for...

The large number of church members who do not have a commitment to the local church will certainly have an impact on the congregation's spiritual growth. Having a church means having a rule of serving one another and growing one another in all of its activities. Congregations or Christians who frequently change churches will not be involved in all...

The Chinese-Christian ethnicity is a group that is called a double minority in the Indonesian community because the Chinese are a minority ethnic grouping, and Christians are also a minority religion in the country. However, this group gave birth to the most successful conglomerates, businessmen and workers. More than 50% of the top 10 richest peop...

There are various ways to teach people to be able to hope and rely on God. Behold, LORD, who among the gods is like you? Who is like you, wonderful in holiness? Who can work miracles and mighty acts like yours? This article argues that the song of Moses teaches the faith lesson. The miracle of God brings healing and comfort. Therefore, God’s delive...

Throughout history, the holy scripture has been translated into different languages. One of the purposes of Bible translation is to give readers who do not have knowledge of Hebrew or Greek access to the biblical text. Translators of the Bible are often faced with problems of interpretation, especially when there are Hebrew words that are used only...

The Hebrew word מִכְתָּם creates a problem because its meaning is controversial. The Hebrew lexicon, BDB (1906) and TWOT lexicon (2003) confirm this difficulty, saying, »the meaning of this word is unknown«. PONS Kompaktwörterbuch Althebräisch (2015) states that this word is untranslated, while other sources translate it as song, prayer, or epigram...

This article has a few goals. The first goal is to discover the development of Semitic pointing systems such as Babylonian Hebrew (both simple and complex), Tiberian Hebrew, Palestinian Hebrew, Samaritan Hebrew, Syriac (both Western [Jacobite] and Eastern [Nestorian]) and Arabic. The second goal is to propose the possible development because of the...

Two major views attempt to solve the problem of predestination and human free will: a ‘predestinarian view’ and a ‘deterministic perspective’. The first view emphasizes on God’s direct intervention in the creation of existents. The second view is based on Aristotelian idea which states that destiny (qadar) and the determination of all existents are...

One of the challenges that students face is how to remember and preserve information from their teachers accurately over an extended period. Shedding a light on memory retention – both accuracy and longevity – is the Old Testament, which emphasizes the effectiveness of repetition as a learning process. This approach to learning by repetition involv...

Studying the books in the Old Testament which were originally in Hebrew, then studied through the Greek edition with the Septuagint will broaden horizons in Biblical studies. There are various editions of the Septuagint. In this study, it will use Rahlfs' edition. This edition is the most widely spread edition of the Septuagint. Alfred Rahlfs editi...

The pressures of life that cause suffering are real things in life. The same thing happened to the psalmist recorded in Psalm 130:1-8. There are two big possibilities when someone faces a problem, they will move away from God or draw closer to God. In the narrative of Psalm 130:1-8, the psalmist draws closer to God. When the psalmist trusting God’s...

The study of God is never finished, because it can only be investigated through the data that has been revealed in the Bible. All is in the form of approaches with arguments which of course will continue to be debated. However, ideas are still needed to formulate a position between knowledge and God's determination. In the Old Testament, the prophe...

Every age, God will raise up certain people who will become church leaders in their day, to be witnesses of God through the truth of God's word. Their presence did not only appear suddenly, but also through a long process of life and education. In this article, we will explore about The Background of Calvin’s Thoughts, whose influence has revealed...

In Isaiah 62:5, there are three major translations of who will marry ‘you’ or ‘Zion’ based on the immediate context (Is 62:1). Firstly, the most common reading is ‘your sons’ (Amplified Bible [AB], American Standard Version [ASV], Berean Study Bible [BSB], Catholic Public Domain Version [CPDV], Douay-Rheims Bible [DRB], English Standard Version [ES...

Zechariah 1:1-6 summarizes a speech to the people that reports the failure of the previous generations to heed the message of the prophets who God has sent while successfully challenging the current generation to turn to YHWH. The eight visions of the second block (1:7-6:15) share common compositional elements, but they also show evidence of later...

The doctrine of salvation will have implications in the life of the believer. The implications are not only concerning each individual believer but also fellow believers. The doctrine of salvation should make a person have a biblical practical life. Not only that, the Biblical concept of salvation will also help lead every believer intothe world of...

1 Peter 3:1–5 is a paraenesis to wives concerning their identity, as Christ’s followers, to offer up glory to God with their status as wives. In Graeco-Roman marriage, being Christians held the potential for serious problems because of their belief and relationship with the society. In the midst of these challenges, Peter does not admonish wives to...

This article argues that prayer does not only offer hope of restoration in the future but also presents a restoration of the supplicants. Isaiah 62:6–7 will be presented as a case study. The psychology of religion will be used as the methodology to achieve this goal: present restoration of the prayers in Isaiah 62:6–7. Intradisciplinary and/or int...

The history of civilization has its own uniqueness. There is an era in which all forms of knowledge must be memorized. However, after the advent of the printing press, many books circulated that could be a source of knowledge. And after this post-modern era arrives, all knowledge is available at hand via smart-phone at any time.According to histori...

Zechariah 1:1-6 summarizes a speech to the people that reports the failure of the previous generations to heed the message of the prophets who God has sent while successfully challenging the current generation to turn to YHWH. The eight visions of the second block (1:7-6:15) share common compositional elements, but they also show evidence of later...

The term ‘double predestination’ simply means that, just as God predestines some, but not all, to eternal salvation, so he predestines others to eternal punishment; this second part of ‘double predestination’, God's appointment of all but the elect unto eternal destruction, is sometimes called ‘reprobation’; and those who are not the elect are thus...

Business ethics is part of special ethics (applied), which initially developed in the United States, where it highlights various moral aspects of human behavior that have professions in business and management. Studying business ethics can help people who are in the business world to be able to formulate and apply ethical principles in the economic...

The purposes of this research are to argue that the Gospel of Matthew uses the term ekklēsia with spiritual and physical meanings and that this term is based on God’s invitation through Jesus to all people to come into this assembly. The implication is that this ekklēsia will be filled with all people with different ethnicities, nations, languages,...

There are 7 letters written by Ignatius from Antioch, while traveling to Rome. One of them is the church at Ephesus which consists of 21 chapters. In this letter, Ignatius urges these Christians to be in unity with their bishop, because the Docetists were denying the true humanity of Christ. We also find here the unique emphasis on Jesus Christ as...

The use of the suffix ια is interesting to study. According to Buck and Petersen combined words in -ια, Ion. -ιη, and those in -ιӑ in the same list because of practical convenience and their interrelations in Greek. On the other side there are uses that actually have their own peculiarities. There are many substantives without connections with adje...

In the Zechariah, there are various visions and prophecies that are so difficult to be understood today. And this can be biased if every Bible’s learner interprets it as he pleases. In this research, which uses the Lexical Analysis approach, will discuss about the meaning of the words בָּרֹד and מֵֽהִתְיַצֵּ֖ב of In Zechariah 6:3-5. With in-depth o...

There are various choices in understanding the Bible to become dogma in a church. Whether it was built based on a guide from the Bible and the traditions of the apostles or church fathers, to those who only focus on the Bible. Those based only on the Bible also have their own uniqueness. Amillennialism believes that the church is in the entire Old...

Many doubt the effectiveness of Jesus’ teaching that was intended to be preserved in his disciples’ memory. The Gospels were written long after the Resurrection, and humans are prone to forgetfulness. These reasons alone suffice to arouse suspicion about the reliability of the disciples’ memory and the record of Jesus’ teaching in modern scholarshi...

The book of Isaiah is really interesting to explore. Many conflicts occurred there, both in relation to God and with other nations. In this study, spiritual, social-ethic and political background will be scrutinized to assist to understand Isaiah chapter 62 comprehensively. Spiritual life of God’s people is declined in the book of Isaiah because of...

The issue of the relationship between faith and knowledge is very interesting to be studied from the contemporary times. Each period of life is unique in understanding the issues of faith and knowledge. Likewise, John Hick's opinion in his book ‘Faith and Knowledge’ is very interesting to be researched.In this brief paper, the writer limits the def...

The Bible is the word of God that needs to be understood by all those who already have Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. This is called a Christian. It is different from people who are Christians as a 'religion'. Christians are obliged to study the Bible as a basic truth in order to know God's will from time to time. On the other hand, Bible...

In this study, spiritual, social-ethic and political background will be scrutinized to assist to understand Isaiah chapter 62 comprehensively. Spiritual life of God’s people is declined in the book of Isaiah because of idolatries and nations. Hebrew people make idols out of trees and worship pagan wooden idols (40:18-20; 44:9-20). Isaiah employs pr...

Hodayot, in Hebrew means thanksgiving Psalms, is a collection of approximately thirty poems that give thanks to God. Hodayot is an important resource for understanding the piety and religious devotion of those who composed and recited them.In reconstructing of the original scroll, uses direct joins method, vertical alignment of material, horizontal...

This research presents a methodology and example of doing both a textual criticism and a word study or a lexical analysis of the Hebrew word. The textual external evidence strongly favors the consonantal text of reading one because all the ancient versions support it. The internal evidence, though it is not as strong as external evidence, has endor...

There are many discussions, OT exposition and Hebrew exegesis about marriage based on Genesis 2:21-24. It is interesting, however, to analyze how Latin Vulgate interprets and translates Genesis 2:21-24. Latin Vulgate seems to follow the word order of the Hebrew Bible and employ the literal translation of the Hebrew Bible. Although the translator us...

This paper has a few goals. First is to discover if the Greek translator of Leviticus uses literal (consistent) and / or free (inconsistent) translation technique. Then, this paper will list and group the evidences of the consistency of the Greek translator in this book. If there are any examples that show the inconsistency to the MT or looseness o...

There are some ancient sacred texts for Christianity such as Hebrew Bible, Syriac Peshitta, Septuagint, Aramaic Targum and Latin Vulgate. However, the translation of these ancient texts is not always having the same nuance or literal meaning. Zechariah 6:3 and 6:7 are one example. The word “אֲמֻצִּים” or strong has been translated diversely in our...