Dead Sea Scrolls: Apocryphal Texts
by James Duguid | August 3, 2026
Congregants in the Presbyterian circles I run in tend to view apocryphal texts with fascination, suspicion, or a mixture of both. We are aware that other branches of Christianity accept books we do not, and that there are even more books beyond that which no major branch of Christianity accepts as authoritative, which are nevertheless out there. I find a couple of insights helpful here: First, a book might be helpful even if it is not canonical or authoritative (a point made by Article 6 of the 39 Articles). Second, we can think of many of these apocryphal works as commentaries – an analogy that comes from Greg Beale. They tell us how Jews of the time were thinking about the Bible, and they can even give us insightful interpretations of Scriptures we consider canonical. Such texts are in any case indispensable for understanding how Jews thought at the time of Jesus. They let us know how Jews at this time were reading the Bible, and they are often a helpful background for understanding the New Testament, especially for eliciting assumptions that lie behind arguments made by the apostles.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Isaiah and Phylacteries
by James Duguid | August 2, 2026
The final rotation of Dead Sea Scrolls is on exhibit at the Museum of the Bible in DC. This blog post will cover the biblical material that is here this time: a copy of Isaiah, and a phylactery. For an introduction to the topic, see my first post here.
Commentary Roundup: Psalm 29:9b
by James Duguid | July 4, 2026
When the King James Version comes to the first colon of Psalm 29:9, it translates: “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.” The Scottish Psalter follows suit with “God’s voice doth make the hinds to calve.” This is certainly an awkward image to conjure up when praising the Lord on a Sunday, but singers of modern psalters may not have this same experience. The Sing Psalms psalter reads the text quite differently as “The LORD causes oaks of the forest to quake,” while others soften the expression, as with the 1912 Psalter's “wild beasts are affrighted.” However, while the Trinity Psalter Hymnal retains the 1912 version, it supplements it with a second version containing “the voice of the LORD makes the deer to give birth.” And the Covenanters stay on the old paths, as the Book of Psalms for Singing has “The voice of the LORD makes the deer twist in labor,” while the Book of Psalms for Worship has “The Lord's voice induces the deer to give birth.”
Other Gods? In My Monotheistic Bible?
by James Duguid | May 17, 2026
Recently I have had some discussions on social media about the language of other “gods” in Deuteronomy 32. This was spurred by an essay by Rick Wadholm Jr. analyzing and critiquing Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm. At the same time, I was due to work through Heiser’s paper on monotheism.Heiser, “Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 18.1 (2008), pp. 1–30 In light of these discussions, it seemed good to me to try to clarify some of my thoughts around “monotheism” in Deuteronomy and Isaiah 40-48. The short story here is that I find Heiser’s argument a lot more compelling for Deuteronomy than I do for Isaiah 40-48. The long story is this rather long blogpost below. I’m still working my way through the vast literature on the problem of “monotheism” in the Bible as part of my ongoing research on ontological language in Isaiah 40-66, but what follows is an attempt to crystallize some of my thoughts so far.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Psalms, Lamentations, Numbers
by James Duguid | April 17, 2026
There is a new rotation of scrolls on exhibit at the Museum of the Bible in DC. I thought I’d put together a new post about the biblical manuscripts in particular, looking at interesting text critical readings. For an introduction to the topic, see my first post here. To see all my posts so far, click here.