john paraphrased at the end of a recent mon apr post alastair thomson offers the following paraphrase of john god loved the world so much that he gave us his son to die in our place so that we may have eternal life the to die in our place bothers me since it inserts into the verse a doctrine not found in the original moreover i suspect that the poster intends to affirm not merely substitution but forensic or penal substitution i maintain that the scriptures in speaking of the atonement teach a doctrine of substitution but not one of forensic substitution those interested in pursuing the matter are invited to send for my essays on genesis either thru on this question or through with lead in the n th essay can be obtained by sending to listserv asuacad bitnet or to listserv asuvm inre asu edu the message get gen n ruff yours james kiefer any theologian worth his salt can put anything he wants to say in the form of a commentary on the book of genesis walter kaufman
