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OK, I have to admit something to start. I can't help but get a chuckle out of a recent reader request that we received to look into this fellow named Bob Hill. A chuckle because, when I worked for the prison system, the inmate who worked longest under my supervision was also named Bob Hill. The two men could not be less alike, but I'll always have this in the back of my mind. Best get it out now.

This Bob Hill's acts are not in any sense criminal, but I did find them a wee bit misguided. This Bob Hill seems wedded to open theism of some sort. Take for example an article, "God Makes Some Promises that He Doesn't Keep." What are these? It was all so familar I thought I was back in time. It's all like the Land Promise issue. (Hill also cites Tyre as unfulfilled promises, but on that matter he is plain wrong, and does cite some passages on human freedom which we do not disagree with; see here.) But Hill admits: "Because there is free will, many of God's promises to Israel are conditional. The following Scripture lists promises God made that were not fulfilled because Israel did not do what God told them to do." Yes...we agree. How is that "making promises God didn't keep"? If the promises had conditions from the beginning -- as we show in the essay, this is how any promise or covenant would have been understood, as something requiring conditions -- then whence the conception that God "doesn't keep" the promises? Perhaps Hill would roundabout to the idea that well, God should have made it clear from the start that he knew Israel would fail -- which is what certain Skeptics we know do say. But if you are offered something from the start and are told right away that you will fail, will you not act differently than if you were not told? Wherever Hill might take this -- which in the article referenced, he doesn't -- it would not support an open theist view unless you stayed in one dimension.

So that's one place where Hill seems to be over the hill; here's one other. In an item titled, "Water Baptism, What Is Its Place Today?" Hill insists that baptism is necessary for salvation -- no, no new cites here; we see John 3:5, Acts 2:38, and Mark 16:16 cited. The twist Hill pulls is that the necessity of baptism changed when Paul was saved, so that AFTER Paul, baptism became unnecessary for salvation! Skeptic James Buckner once commented about how dispensationalists just add new dispensations as needed to explain problems, but this is the first time I have seen this actually happen! In fact, Hill proposes a number of changing dispensations to explain things:

Well then, we can see that the gospel message started out with one baptism, water. This was necessary for salvation. It progressed to two: water first, then, Holy Spirit baptism. The water baptism was still necessary for salvation. Finally, in this dispensation, it returned to one, Holy Spirit, which is now necessary for salvation. After the rapture of the body of Christ, the circumcision gospel will be in place again. Water baptism will become necessary for salvation again (1 Pet 3:18-22).

What a wild ride this is! The much simpler and contextually more respectable solution than this flopping down of dispensations lies in the Semitic Totality Concept -- something I regret to say Hill missed in the 50,000+ hours of Bible study he claims to have done.

In conclusion for now: While this Bob Hill isn't as bad as the Bob Hill I once knew, they both have this in common: They did lack the foundation of serious contextual study needed to grasp the texts of Scripture. Although in the inmate's case, I can't really blame him.