biblical writers were children of their age. St Paul was a first-century Jew. (And, of course, all this is true.) But then the conclusion is drawn that we cannot therefore expect the biblical authors to give us any useful information for our very different world. Such a despairing view also fails to take the Bible seriously enough. It fails to recognize the sense in which the Bible comes to us as revelation from God. It fails to recognize that many ancient texts convey wisdom about the nature of
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