The faithful dead are dressed in white and gold
and like the sun, they circumscribe the throne;
in duty and in service manifold
these priests and kings their sacred praise intone.
From the throne comes a roar and lightning blast -
the elders there cast down their coronets;
the one who is, and was both first and last,
is hailed as Lord of all the elements.
And here on Earth, now and every hour,
we give to him glory, honor, power.
Hurray and Huzzah! It is time to shout. My book – There Once Was a Prophet from Judah:
Biblical Limericks for Fun and Prophet – is now ready for you to purchase.
Yes. Yes. After what seems like months and months of waiting (seems like months
and months because it has been months and months) the book is really, and truly
in print.
And you can order your very own copy. Or you can order your very own seven or
eight copies. I won’t stop you. Retail price is $23.00. For that price you are
getting a collection of limericks spanning both the Old and New Testaments, as
well as that mostly unread stuff in the Apocrypha, and a number of slightly
not-so-biblical limericks. That’s several hundred limericks. But Wait! There’s
more! You’ll also get the preface, written by my good friend, Joel Watts – who also has a couple of books available from Wipf and Stock. (And his book, Praying in God’s Theater, has an afterword written by me. Just
sayin’…)
I should warn you, though, the limericks in There Once Was a Prophet from Judah are limericks and that means they tend to be
… somewhat uncouth. Rough around the edges. They deal with unmentionable
things. And in this, they are very much like the Bible, from which they have
been drawn. Prepare to be stung, provoked, and irritated. Fair warning.
If, after all that, you’re still eager to purchase a copy (or seven or eight) the
following will be helpful:
Immediately, starting today (02/20/2018), you can order it from the Wipf and
Stock Customer Service line at 541-344-1528.
Welcome, welcome welcome to the Biblioblog Carnival for May 2017, a round up of, if not the best of biblical studies on the world wide web of information, then at least the stuff I thought was interesting. Here at the carnival there are rides and games of chance, performers and daredevils (and regular devils, too). The bearded woman's here (she's Calvanist, obviously). There are thrills and spills and delights around every new corner. Take your time. Stroll down the midway and enjoy the sights.
The story of Moses doesn’t just show up in the Bible. In the
ancient world, nearly every culture had their own version of what happened. The
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans all had their own way of explaining why
thousands of people left Egypt to live in Jerusalem. The Moses you know, who
performed miracles and freed the Jewish slaves from Egypt, is just one version
of the story. There are others – and they paint a completely different picture
from the one you’ve heard
Our discussion is all about the mystery of Israel’s origins.
And it is a mystery. The exodus and conquest of Canaan (Exodus through Joshua)
are central to Israel’s identity, and are certainly informed by old traditions
and authentic historical memory—but they not historical accounts in the modern
sense. How and when, historically speaking, Israel stepped out onto the world
stage is a huge mystery, though we have some clues to piece together a
compelling picture.
…the first story in 1 Kings has many incredible elements. This did not incline
me to reject the existence of Solomon as a historical person (as it did some),
but it suggested that much of what we find in the Bible about Solomon is not
history.
Saying this in non-musical language is nearly impossible. My
overall thesis is that the use of the accents defines poetic structure (and
prose also) beyond the scope of the line and beyond the scope of the verse. As
I have noted elsewhere, this thesis contradicts claims made over the past 1000
years in the literature on the accents, notably from Wickes in his treatises
from the 19th century. Two excellent examples are Psalm 96, where the accents
define the scope of the stanzas so clearly, and from the prose books, the
lament of David over the death of Saul and Jonathan. I can only illustrate
these with the music, which to a musician is so much clearer than any list of
accents would tell us.
Thus, Jewish priestly
education inherited from the Babylonian lexical lists some numerical schemes
based on the sexagesimal counting system (i.e., a numerical system with sixty
as its base), and the Levitical author presented it as part of priestly
knowledge. Once Levi learns how to prepare the holocaust offering and
accompanying meal offering together with the fraction notations (14–61), then
in his wisdom poem (82–98) he instructs his children/students not to neglect
the study of scribal craft (88, 90, 98). The priestly education system is
characterized as belonging to the scribal type of knowledge, which indicates a
strong Babylonian background and a clear link with the pseudepigraphic book of 1
Enoch
In this volume of collected articles—most of them published
previously in a variety of scholarly venues, though updated here—Loren
Stuckenbruck of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, takes the reader on
a detailed exploration of the birth and early history of this legend as
attested in ancient Judaism and earliest Christianity. There are few, if any,
as capable of guiding this tour, and though these individual studies were not
originally intended to be read as part of a comprehensive account, readers of this
book will come away with a rich understanding of the myth of the fallen,
rebellious angels and their offspring as understood in ancient Judaism and
Christianity.
NT Jesus Never Saidby Scott Fritzsche at Unsettled Christianity:
An argument from silence is a rhetorical device designed to
be a convincing argument in a simple and straight forward way. It often, on the
surface, is. There are numerous inherent flaws in an argument form silence
however. This becomes important in theology as arguments from silence are, and
have been, used to try and form persuasive arguments as well as having become
part of the basis for theological stances.
I love this line on Galatians: “The best way to comprehend
Galatians is to read it out aloud, shouting in an angry voice at the
appropriate points” (475).
The chapter begins with a very
brief run through the rhetorical structure of Philippians with a view to
possible sacrificial metaphors. Patterson's claim is that these sacrificial
metaphors are more than "rhetorical flourishes" but are "a tool
of active thought" (113). She wishes to show that "the shelamim sacrifices
(sacrifices of thanksgiving) constitute a pattern of offering that Paul applies
metaphorically and imaginatively as a guide for the actions of the
Philippians" (86).
In some discussions of a Christian view of creation much has
been made of the phrase “it was good” in Genesis 1 repeated in verses
3,9,12,18,21. In verse 31 we have the summary: God saw all that he had
made, and it was very good. One can, of course, take the position that the
image of the sea as chaos and the denizens of the deep as creatures of terror
are a result of the fall. Prior to Genesis 3 they were “good” in an
idyllic sense. If there had been no fall, they’d be good and tame yet. But
we still have a problem in scripture – at least if we take a literal
approach as preferred and assume a motif of creation, fall, redemption, and
restoration. Revelation does not really depict a restoration of an idyllic
primeval garden or the reestablished perfect creation of Genesis 1.
Kevin McKissick, M.Div student at Grand Rapids Theological
Seminary, reviews The Apostle Paul and the Christian Life, edited by Scot
McKnight and Joseph B. Modica.
Wait. What? … We don’t need to blacken Simon’s character,
but it’s totally cool to call the woman a whore even if there’s no evidence of
it in the text? We can construct an entire narrative around her life as a
prostitute, and her expensive oil that could only have been purchased through
her elicit [sic] activity, but let’s make sure we don’t disparage the man in
the room — the one who is totally missing the message of Jesus, who is over
there looking down on this woman in his heart, playing at the pretense of
hospitality with no real love behind it, withholding the lavishness of his love
and worship while this woman lets it all out?
Here’s the big picture: Those educated today in typical
schools learn to think in what is called the historical-critical method. That
is, students in theology and Bible are taught to think like a historian, to
think critically over against the received traditions, and to base their
theology on the evidence (the Bible). The goal, then, is to determine the
intent of the author. They are taught not so much to say What does God say in
Matthew 5:17-20 but instead, What does the author of Matthew intend to communicate
with this text in his historical (Jewish) context?
That form of interpretation is not 1st Century and derives
from developments following the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and,
ironically enough, the interplay of tradition and history in the orthodox-fundamentalist
vs. the who-cares-about-the-orthodox and modernist stream of thinking.
Jesus, the apostles and the early church did not read the
Bible in the historical-critical method.
The Date of Thomas – by Jonathan Bernier at Critical Realism
and the New Testament:
Now, let me be clear: I'm not arguing that Thomas' Gospel
should be dated c. 60. The above is a hypothesis, one which at this point I
neither affirm nor reject. I have not yet thought through the issue
sufficiently to reach a final judgment. But one who would undertake to argue
that many of the texts of the New Testament canon are notably earlier than
typically supposed cannot in principle exclude the possibility that the same is
the case for some of the New Testament apocrypha. It is thus incumbent upon me
to explore such possibilities, considering and vetting hypotheses for such
earlier dates. Any other procedure would run the risk of special pleading.
What the Gemara does not point out, but struck
me as remarkable, is that the Torah portion that lays out the rule for levirate
marriage comes in Deuteronomy, while the story of Zelophehad’s daughters is in
Numbers, which of course precedes Deuteronomy in the Five Books of Moses. In
other words, the rabbis envision Moses possessing a complete Torah while the
events the Torah recounts are still taking place. While he is wandering the
wilderness, in Numbers, he can consult the law code he will not actually
deliver to the Israelites until years later, in Deuteronomy.
The Apocalypse of Elijah is not strictly speaking an
apocalypse. It is strongly influenced by the book of Revelation, especially
11:1-12 (the appearance of two witnesses in Jerusalem). There are dozens of
possible ways to interpret the two witnesses, from literal people (Elijah and
Moses, Elijah and Enoch) to figurative (the Old and New Testament, two
volcanoes, etc.) The book does not contain any of the sorts of things we expect
in a true apocalypse: heavenly journeys, thinly veiled reviews of history,
revelation of mysterious secret knowledge, or angelic guides. Coptic
translations of a Greek original of the Apocalypse date to the fourth century.
The book is clearly dependent on Revelation and appears to quote 1 John 2:18. A
date of the mid-second century seems probable (OTP 1:730). If the book was a
Christian re-working of a Jewish original, then some material may be still
older (There is a Hebrew Apocalypse of Elijah which may stand in the background
of the book, but no one has systematically studied the possibility of a Hebrew
to Greek to Coptic translation). The book may reflect an Egyptian Christianity,
but this is far from clear.
Reports came last week that President Donald Trump would
avoid visiting the ancient site of Masada in the Judaean desert during his trip
to the Middle East because his helicopter was not allowed to land on the sacred
ground there. Here is why the site is important and why President Trump should
have walked or taken the cable car to the top--just like everyone else.
Numismatic Report – by David Hendin – at The Ancient Near
East Today:
Readers of Israeli newspapers and archaeology blogs for the
last few years have seen a notable uptick in the number of coin finds reported
by “good Samaritans” (both Israelis and tourists) and turned into the Israel
Antiquities Authority (IAA), as well as some newsworthy numismatic finds at
licensed excavations. This led The Ancient Near East Today to ask me to
look into the finds and their importance, as well as other numismatic
discoveries in or related to Israel. I recently returned from Israel, where I
talked with numismatic scholars, officials of the Israel Antiquities Authority,
licensed antiquity dealers, and collectors. Here is my report.
In light of the recent day-session on “Coins and the Bible”
here, I want to note two recent books.
Coins were a regular medium for kings and administrators to promote
themselves and their regimes. Coins were
also sometimes minted to celebrate military victories. Coinage is one important part of the
“material culture” of the ancient world.
The metals used, the use of images and writing, the places where coins
were minted, all these things and more contribute to historical understanding
of the period in which they were minted.
Thousands of artifacts are being stolen every year and
making their way into Jewish hands, yet the Israeli division responsible for
theft prevention has just one inspector to cover 2,600 sites
Behaviour is deeply embedded within individual cultural
psyches, reinforced by the social groups. As children we are taught to say
please and thank you, or to refer to our elders with special terminology to
infer respect. In British society, certain behaviour is encouraged and
considered polite - eating with a knife and fork, keeping your elbows off the
table - standard parental ways to help children understand what is expected of
them socially.
We Evangelicals have a 500-year history of dividing over all
sorts of issues ranging from modes of baptism to the color of the carpets in
our sanctuary – even (maybe even especially!) with our fellow Protestants.
While there is a pastoral responsibility to inquire with love about a leaver’s
spiritual health, what happens if you discover that the one moving to another
faith tradition is doing so because their faith is growing, and that growth has
shifted their faith out of your particular stream?
… his progressive views have garnered no shortage of
controversy. Conservative pastor Tim Keller has gone so far as to say that he’s
not sure whether George MacDonald was even a Christian. However, despite all
the accusations brought against him, I’ve never heard anyone call George
MacDonald an open theist. Of course that would technically be anachronistic, as
the term open theism didn’t come into use until the late twentieth century, but
my point is that I’ve not heard his beliefs compared to what open theists
believe about God and the settledness of the future.
It is rare that archival research makes the national
news. Jeffrey Alan Miller’s
identification of a draft of a portion of the King James Bible hit the
headlines in October 2015: not only was it the earliest known draft, but was
uniquely a draft written by the hand of one of the translators, who was known
by name. The notebook in which Miller
found this work – Sidney Sussex College, MS Ward B – had belonged to Samuel
Ward (1572-1643), Master of the College from 1610 until his death. Eighteen months after the discovery, the
notebook has been digitised in full and published on the Cambridge Digital
Library, in the latest instance of an ongoing collaboration between the
University Library and the Cambridge Colleges to make archival and manuscript
material available online.
Augustine’s reading is what many Christians believe Paul
actually said, and which is why Augustine’s notion of “original sin” is
defended with such uncompromising vehemence as the “biblical” teaching. But
neither Romans nor Genesis or the Old Testament supports the idea.
Matthew Bates’ book Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and
the Gospel of Jesus the King is just one straw in a strong wind blowing out of
biblical studies, driving us away from theological towards narrative
constructions of Christian identity and purpose. In my view, this is an
exhilarating and necessary development, but Matthew’s book, for all its merits,
has highlighted a fundamental shortcoming. Because evangelicals naturally want
to retain the direct practical application of the “gospel”, evangelical
narrative theologies exhibit a consistent tendency to leapfrog history.
Jesus said, "I am the #Covfefe of life. All who cov and fefe in me shall have eternal life."
— Unvirtuous Abbey (@UnvirtuousAbbey) May 31, 2017
How odd then, that the man who believed in spiritual
perfection of the saints as one full of grace would remove this article? Odd or
completely in line with Wesley’s thinking? I think Wesley got tired of the
elevation of bishops clearly undeserving of blessing the sacrament. It was a
new world, with no episcopal jurisdictions, yet, Wesley was laying the ground
for a kingdom of priests, without sin.
"It has never been good for anyone—including (and
particularly) Martin Luther—to look too frequently or lengthily or seriously or
systematically at demons (who for Luther were usually compressed into the
single figure of the Devil.) It does not make the slightest impression on the
demons if we do so, and there is the imminent danger that in so doing we
ourselves might become just a little or more than a little demonic."
My basic thesis is that inerrancy may only be used as a
secondary criterion for the original reading. It cannot be used to overturn
strong external support or to support conjecture.
Recently, Andrew Wilson shared an impressive critique of
open theism called: “Responding To Open Theism In Fourteen Words.” Andrew’s
article didn’t persuade me, but it did challenge me (seriously!). Below I will
respond to each of the words Andrew presents. But first I will add one word of
my own (if Andrew gets 14 words, I should get at least 1, right?). The word I
want to add to the discussion is “Holy.”
Taking inspiration from grim Hollywood reboots like Man of
Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, B&H Kids announced Tuesday
that it would be relaunching the Bibleman series of superhero stories in a dark
and gritty resurrection of the purple-and-gold caped crusader.
Jim Bakker says Colbert Is Provoking Anti Trump Violence -
KimKierkegaard:
Enjoy how you look now because you're not getting any younger. The most painful state of living is remembering the future.
— KimKierkegaardashian (@KimKierkegaard) May 13, 2017
At the end of the day, no one had come up with a Grand Unified Theory about how
Joseph Smith translated, but we had raised some important issues that show the
inadequacies of the old model (Smith translating from one language to another
without any of his own input, or what Skousen called the “tight control”
model).
The Book of Mormon is a wholly American Scripture. It is the
sacred text for the 15 million-strong Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. It’s the calling card for thousands of missionaries, and part of the
inspiration for a Tony award-winning Broadway musical. But rarely has the book,
on its own merits, been considered a genuine work of art. That’s changing, as
American literary scholars embrace it as worthy of attention. In 2012, during
the waning days of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the nation’s
so-called “Mormon moment,” literature professors were on the cusp of their own
“Book of Mormon moment.” For the first time, studies of the Book of Mormon’s
literary qualities were appearing in major journals of American literary
studies. Literature courses that prominently featured the Book of Mormon
started to appear with more frequency in secular university course catalogues.
Now the text, first published in 1830 and once derided as “a fiction of
hob-goblins and bugbears,” is being parsed by non-Mormon students across the
country, with literature scholars breaking more than a century of professional
silence on the book.
St.
Athanasius:
“The world is against you, Athanasius!”
”Then I am against the world." + St Athanasius (commemorated May 2) pic.twitter.com/uxSKTOUP3J
Stephan Huller spent hours compiling all the bad things that
scholars have observed about Epiphanius's reliability as a historical witness.
"But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, but don't make it too good cause, you know..." Luke 14:13 https://t.co/hj334dvuNX
Today is the feast of Gregory of Nazianzus. Of Christ's full humanity, he said "that which He has not assumed He has not healed." pic.twitter.com/4hoRHzCPIE
Oh, and by-the-by, Jim West is hosting his own so-called "Avignonian Carnival." You can visit there if you like, but don't feel like you have to, or anything. I mean, if you do you're likely to see him wearing plaids - two different plaids. How uncouth.
FUTURE CARNIVALS
If you would like to host the Biblioblog Carnival in the near future (and I recommend that you do) contact Phil Long:
Greetings and Salutations! Welcome to the Biblioblog Carnival roundup for April 2016 - a collection of blog posts, videos, podcasts and tweets relevant to the broad field of biblical studies posted last month. These may not have been the BEST of ALL possible blog posts, videos, podcasts and tweets, but they are ones that caught my eye and captured my interest. I've hosted the biblioblog in the past, and now as then, I've utilized a more-is-more, throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks kind of approach. Jim West at Zwinglius Redivivus will, no doubt, be much more selective in his own version of the Carnival.
To be merciful means to grow in a love which is courageous, generous and real.
It seems as though God’s voice – the lion’s roar – may be a
much more central theme in the book than I had initially thought. The cutting
of the lines of communication comes up again and again as both Israel and God
do it. It is this cutting of contact that warrants Israel’s punishment, and it
is also the punishment itself. Amos’s role as intercessor in Amos 7 becomes so
much more important, because it is through the prophets that Israel might “seek
the Lord and live. As we move through the book, we find that God’s voice is
linked to sin, punishment, and even salvation.
… although in the recent past (e.g., just a few decades ago) violence against
women was not the subject of international attention or concern, it has now
“come to be recognized as a legitimate human rights issue and as a significant
threat to women’s health and well-being.” The fact that there is now much more focus
on gender-based violence is such a good thing, so right, so important. Of
course, the witness of Scripture (and this is one of the reasons for recounting
Dinah’s story here) is that gender-based violence is a very old problem.
The strength of the article lies in its identification of
the extent of literacy in far-flung reaches of Judea, among various ranking
members of the military and military administration. It would be not too rash
to say that, given the literacy levels in the military establishment, we would
expect that scribal literacy would be competent to produce more literary works
of the forms which we find in the Hebrew Bible/Tanach. Indeed, the Tell Deir
‘Alla plaster inscription, written in a Hebrew dialect and located bang in the
middle of Israelite territory during the period of its hegemony in the region,
dates some two centuries before this. So scribes would be capable of the
literary forms found in the Hebrew Bible. This doesn’t really tell us about the
general literacy in the wider population, as the article implies it does. But
more important is the question of literacy among the elites, which the article
provides reasonable evidence for.
The Odes cast a
spell. Something beautiful is happening here. It has a literary integrity I
think that’s very important. The Odes are very unusual in the different imagery
that they come up with. But that imagery is used again and again. One place
where the Odes seem to have mined this imagery is the Book of Psalms. And Rendel Harris, the great scholar who really brought the
Odes to the attention of the modern world, refers to these Odes as Psalm
pendants. It’s as though the congregation might have sung a particular Psalm,
and then, the Odes would’ve been sung as a response to it. And so many of the
Odes when one reads through them one realizes that the imagery of Psalm 45 is
being used or Psalm 63 is being used. And that’s one of the beautiful things
about these Odes is that they’re so close to scripture.
Although the
Testament of Moses is cut off half-way through the manuscript, it is
nonetheless helpful in reconstructing ideologies and worldviews from the Levant
in the 1st century C.E., and even earlier if we assume the text had previous
written and oral traditions preceding it’s composition. The testament claims to
be “the prophecy which was made by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy”; however,
while it takes up a similar tone, the testament incorporates material relevant
to the Maccabean Period, indicative of the late date of the text.
Based on the
previous information, it is evident that we should read the Testament of Moses
as its own piece of literary work, self-sustaining and independent. What we
will consider today is Moses’ role as a divinator in the Testament of Moses.
*James McGrath is trying to find a balance between naive
credulity and extreme skepticism with respect to the Gospels and other early
Christian sources in description of Jesus’ death in Philippians 2: 6 – 11. Philippians 2 and the Historical Jesus It is striking to turn in light of this to Philippians
2:6-11. If Paul is there quoting a hymn, then this might be our earliest source
of information about the death of Jesus, as well as about how Christians
understood it. In that passage, Jesus’ death is nothing else but the
culmination of his obedience, leading to his exaltation.
That's what upsets me about crowds cheering and thrilling to
calls to bomb ISIS, so-called "Christians" who are viewing violence triumphalistically rather than tragically. Because Jesus said "put
your sword away" Christians can never cheer violence. We must only grieve
it.
...if Jesus silenced confession of him as Messiah how
much more would have silenced for strategical reasons any suggestions of his
deity. I find the logic solid, if not compelling.
Revelation 4-5 is built first on the foundation of the
Hebrew Bible. There are several texts which describe God as enthroned, such as
Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1-2. In both of these passages the prophet sees a vision
of God enthroned in heaven surrounded by otherworldly angelic creatures
(seraphim in Isaiah, cherubim in Ezekiel). In both cases the prophet is stunned
by the vision and eventually commissioned to a prophetic office. In Revelation
4 there is a central throne, angelic beings, but John is not a prophet as much
as an observer of the impending judgment contained in the scroll given to the
Lamb to open.
I had the privilege of attending last night’s debate on “Did Jesus Exist?”
between two well-versed debaters – Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Richard Carrier.
When I learned of this debate, I wanted to take advantage of listening to
Carrier, who is probably the world’s foremost mythicist scholar. In other
words, I felt that this debate would expose me to the best arguments scholars
could put forth suggesting Jesus was simply made up in history. Now I took
plenty of apologetic classes in my undergraduate and graduate studies to become
convinced of the overwhelming evidence regarding Jesus’ existence, but I could
not pass up the chance to listen to Richard Carrier live. So I piled up my car
with a few of my bright students and we took off to witness the debate. Here are some of my observations of last night’s event:
I know that might not seem very reverent, especially since Romans is often
thought of as the primo example of Paul at his difficult yet nevertheless
logically consistent best, where he once and for all lays out the basics of the
gospel for all to hear and for all time. Not that Romans is a jumbled mess—may it never be (see what I did
there?)—but to me Romans reads more like Paul is in creative-problem-solving
mode for Roman Christians facing a pressing problem (how Jews and Gentiles make
up one people of God) than Paul sitting in his study writing a theological
treatise intended for wider publication.
Is there a vast international conspiracy to convince you that Jesus was a real
person? Well, not really. It’s a game of probabilities. Scholars say that,
given the evidence we have, it’s more likely than not that there was an actual
dude named Jesus walking around in the desert 2000 years ago. Of course, you
are free to draw your own conclusions, and a belief in Gnosticism certainly
does not need to include a belief in a historical Jesus.
Too often, Christian writers and
commentators assume (or do not question) an equivalency between femininity and
the female; therefore, the mere presence of female bodies within a church’s
congregation is believed to engender an effeminate style of Christianity. Evangelicalism’s
enduring phobia of “liberal” feminism is largely to blame, and has made its
members ignorant of even the most innocuous principles of basic gender theory:
namely, that there is a distinction between biological sex and gender identity,
that humans are responsible for creating culturally contingent gender roles
(not God), and that both men and women hardly ever conform completely to their
prescribed roles.
If you are heterosexual, married, divorced, and remarried
with an understanding parish priest, you have reason to be hopeful that your
“irregular situation” can be fixed. If you use most forms of effective birth
control, have an abortion, or are a sexually active LGBTIQ Catholic, you might
as well read Dante and/or seek another denomination if you expect to be treated
with equality, dignity, and respect. ... The “Joy Love Club” is members-only.
Too often the 'just war theory' has been used to
endorse rather than prevent or limit war," they continue. "Suggesting
that a 'just war' is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop
tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict…We need a new
framework that is consistent with Gospel nonviolence," say the
participants, noting that Francis and his four predecessors have all spoken out
against war often. "We propose that the Catholic Church develop and
consider shifting to a Just Peace approach based on Gospel nonviolence.
Of course, even if Christians did engage in
contextualization—expressing their message and worship in the language or forms
of the local people—that in no way implies doctrinal compromise. Christians
around the world have sought to redeem the local culture for Christ while
purging it of practices antithetical to biblical norms. After all, Christians
speak of "Good Friday," but they are in no way honoring the worship
of the Norse/Germanic queen of the gods Freya by doing so.
But, in fact, in the case of Easter the evidence suggests
otherwise: that neither the commemoration of Christ's death and resurrection
nor its name are derived from paganism.
Today, America seems divided between those who engage with some version of the
prosperity gospel and those who smugly dismiss it as fraudulent and puerile.
While there are a number of problems with the gospel, it’s important to look at
why this strand of religious thinking evolved in the first place, and why it
persists.
I believe salvation is not from hell but to good works (Eph.
2.8-10). Salvation is not a momentary conversion, but a process of ontological
importance. It is found in the Creed, but never defined. However, Protestantism
usually sees it in terms of avoidance of hell. You’ll here mentioned “we
deserved hell” and “we aren’t worthy.” Yet, Scripture never declares these
things as well as the Reformers did. For Scripture, and Orthodoxy (and
Wesleyanism), Salvation begins with the love of God, ending in the positive,
rather than the negative.
It was assumed back in the 1970s that these bones were
buried and no longer available for analysis–but it turns out this is not the
case. What is even more intriguing, the victim was arguably none other than
Matitiyahu Antigonus–the last of the Hashmonean kings–who was both beheaded and
crucified by Marc Anthony. in 37 BCE. And even more significant, Greg Doudna
has persuasively argued that this Antigonus is none other than the famed
“Teacher of Righteousness” in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
*Archaeology News Network - Reported that construction workers in Gaza have discovered ancient ruins
that archaeologists say may be part of a Byzantine church dating from around
1,500 years ago, The findings include segments of marble pillars with ornate Corinthian
capitals, one nearly three meters (yards) long, and a 90 cm (35 inch)
foundation stone bearing a Greek symbol for Christ. Fifteen pieces have been
uncovered, with excavations continuing.
According to Dina Avshalom-Gorni, the project’s chief
archaeologist on behalf of the IAA, “the incense shovel that was found is one
of ten others that are known in the country from the Second Temple period. From
early research in the world it was thought that the incense shovel was only
used for ritual purposes, to care for the embers and incense that were burnt in
ritual ceremonies. Over the years, after incense shovels were discovered in a
non-cultic context, it appears they were also used as tools for daily tasks.
The incense shovel and jug found in our excavation were exposed lying next to
each other on the floor in one of the rooms, at the late Second Temple period
storehouses that is located adjacent to the dock of the large Jewish
settlement, on the shore of Sea of Galilee. These implements might have been
saved in the storeroom as heirlooms by a Jewish family living at Migdal, or
they may have been used for daily work as well.”
“I think that people need to worship and believe in GOD regardless of their belief. This is a free country.” pic.twitter.com/VM8sY6dmlt
Given that I have sat on both sides of the interview
table–as both candidate looking for a post, and as President or Academic Dean
looking to fill a post–I thought I might offer a few reflections on the
interview process. In particular, I want
to help candidates know what we are really looking for in a potential
professor. I say “really” because I think candidates often misunderstand what
we are looking for. And, due to that misunderstanding, sometimes candidates are
simply heading down an unhelpful path in the interview process.And when I say
“we” I am thinking particularly of those leaders in the world of evangelical
seminaries. Those in university
settings, or those who are not evangelical, are unlikely to offer the same
advice.
It’s like they’re ripping off the plot of Miracle on 34th Street. Only this
time, it’s set in Arkansas at the state capitol. And instead of trying to
establish whether or not Santa Claus is real, now they are trying to determine
if Jesus was real. Because that would totally happen in real life in a court of
law. And it’s totally relevant to the case at hand.
This may be the most important book in Christology to appear
in recent years. Written in an era when it has become increasingly popular to
insist that Jesus is already depicted as a pre-existent figure in the Synoptic
Gospels, one who is absorbed into the “divine identity,” Daniel Kirk makes a
persuasive case for viewing the depiction of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke
as one of idealized humanity. Unlike many other proposals, this category, and
this volume in which it is proposed, does good justice to the evidence, and is
likely to stand the test of time.
And even when the NT writers were transforming the OT text in creative ways,
for example as Paul does in Gal. 4, these improvisations presuppose a stable
text to which one can return again and again, and use in a variety of ways. I
would use the analogy of say John Coltrane’s famous version of the Sound of
Music song ‘My Favorite Things’. ‘Trane was not trying to faithfully ‘exegete’
that song, he was rather using it as a taking off point for a creative
improvisation, but at the same time he was well aware of what playing the tune
straight amounted to and sounded like, and he presupposed that his audience did
as well (they could look at a copy of the original sheet music or put on the
recording of the Sound of Music), so they could appreciate where he was, so to
speak, playing outside the lines on the staff paper. I think, in other words,
that figural interpretation was only one of the tools in the hermeneutical
toolbox of the Gospel writers, and it was not one they always used, certainly
not to the exclusion of other ways of using the OT.
I am not trying to make the case that no music is sacred. On
the contrary, I am more inclined to make the opposite case and argue that all
music is sacred. Music takes vibrations in the physical world and combines them
in ways that we perceive as beautiful. And so music by definition points
towards transcendence, towards the fact that there is more to life that what
one perspective can do justice to. And since music is a pointer towards God, it
makes sense to use music – any music – as an opportunity to talk about one’s
faith and the things that are important to us.
Ruben Zimmermann’s Puzzling the Parables of Jesus:
Methods and Interpretations is a very fine work. One value of the book is
that it consciously seeks to bring together current German and American
research on the parables. Another important feature is that Zimmermann applies
recent research on historiography and memory to the interpretation of the
parables. This post will highlight a third contribution of the book, namely
Zimmermann’s perceptive discussion of the genre of parable and his convincing
suggestion that there are, in fact, parables in John. In Memoriam
“Dan was one of the great Catholics of our time, a champion
of social justice and a tireless promoter of peace…His influence on the peace movement,
particularly during the Vietnam War, cannot be overstated, but his aim was not
simply peace in Indochina, but peace everywhere.” Berrigan was one of seven
Catholic priests who used napalm to burn draft cards in 1968 in protest against
the Vietnam War, according to the National Catholic Reporter. As a result, he
was sentenced to three years in prison.
The great Daniel Berrigan, SJ, Jesuit priest, activist, poet and peacemaker, died today. May he rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/SYcdaF2Zqq
*Poet and Prophet A literary giant in his own right, Berrigan was
best known for his dramatic acts of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War
and nuclear weapons. He burned draft files with homemade napalm and later
hammered on nuclear weapons to enact the Isaiah prophecy to “beat swords into
plowshares.” His actions challenged Americans and Catholics to reexamine their
relationship with the state and reject militarism. He constantly asked himself
and others: What does the Gospel demand of us?
June 2016 (July 1) – Kris Lyle at Old School Script, @KristopherLyle
After that there's nothing - unless you act now. Phil Long at Reading Acts, who organizes these events, would love for you to volunteer as host for upcoming biblioblog carnivals. Contact him PLEASE! (via Twitter @plong42 ) if you're interested.
The testing of faith brings endurance.
Now, if I were asked my preference,
I would say fortitude
is a fine attitude,
but what I really want is hot-pants.
#4–Over One Billion Reasons–A defense of,
and apology for McDonald’s.
#5–Greisbach Hypothesis Is Best Hypothesis-written
expressly to irritate my friend, Joel.
#6–The Big Book of Christian Internet Memes–Click
and Share if you feel guilty about Jesus.
#7–The Ezekiel Diet–SPOILERS! It’s mostly
dense bread baked over dung.
#8–The Life of Saint Helveticus: Volume 2 –
Baptism through Fire-The second of a five volume work on the life of Saint Helveticus, covering the years between 1673 -1873.
And here is one book that I did write: Muted Hosannas-a collection of poetry
and photography.
The Aeneid
by the Roman poet, Virgil, is another of those books – “the classics” – that for
a long
time intimidated me. Their reputation
and their antiquity caused me to hesitate whenever I thought about perhaps
reading them. But no more. This year I have been reading those classics
of western civilization. I started with
Homer’s Iliadand The Odyssey, and now I have finished The Aeneid.
Of the three Virgil’s been my favorite so far.
Mostly because his language is so energetic, so vibrant.
I read The Iliad as translated by
Stephen Mitchel and The Odyssey
translated by Robert Fagles. I noted
then that the translation of The Odyssey
by Fagles seemed less lively, less vigorous than The Iliad as translated by Mitchell, but I also think it was a matter of the story telling itself. The Iliad was very immediate, in the
gory visceral present while in The
Odyssey much of the action is recounted for us second hand. We don’t get to experience the siren’s song,
or the strange lethargy of the Lotus eaters.
We don’t see Scylla or Charybdis.
Homer has Odysseus tells us about them – and briefly at that. It breaks the first rule of storytelling:
show – don’t tell.
Having read Fagles’ translation of The Aeneid I’m more convinced of that
opinion. Fagles is able to make clear
distinction between the poetic stylings of Homer and Virgil. And Virgil’s poetry is not at all dull or
stodgy. Though the story is told as something happening in the distant past, much
of the epic poem is written in the present tense:
“…But all of a sudden, watch,
with a ghastly swoop from the hills the Harpies swarm us -
ruffling, clattering wingbeats – ripping our food to bits,
polluting it all with their foul, corrupting claws,
their obscene shrieks, bursting from the stench.” (3. 271 -275)
It is immediate. Visceral. Effective.
Virgil (at least Virgil as translated by Fagles) also alternates between long
complex phrases and short bullet like sentence fragments. Rhythmic.
Like a heartbeat, racing at times, and calm at others.
Structurally, The Aeneid is the
reverse of Homer’s two volumes. In the Iliad we read about the war for a great
city – a war begun because a Trojan (Paris) stole a Greek king’s wife (Helen). In The
Odyssey we read of Ulysses long circuitous journey to get back home after
the end of the Trojan War. Virgil holds
up a Roman mirror to Greek Homer’s story.
In the first part of Virgil’s work Aeneus wanders across the Mediterranean
Sea (repeatedly blown off course by the vengeful goddess, Juno.) In the second, we read of a war for a newly
founded great city – a war begun because a Trojan (Aeneus) is given a wife
(Lavinia) that was assumed to be promised to another.
There are other similarities as well.
Both Ulysses and Aeneus make a dangerous journey down into the
Underworld. And Aeneus, like Achilles, is given a shield made by the god Hephaestus
/ Vulcan.
There are differences as well; Virgil was no mere imitator of Homer. One major difference in theme is
notable. In Homer’s work, the Greek
heroes are motivated by honor – and by honor besmirched. Agamemnon launches a thousand ships against
Troy when his honor is insulted by Paris (his wife leaving him seems almost
secondary…) Achilles sulks in his tent while his compatriots die on the
battlefield when his honor is offended.
Ulysses deals harshly with the men who were attempting to woo his wife
during his long absence because they did not treat her or his son with the appropriate
respect and honor. But in the Roman
Virgil’s epic, it is not honor that motivates his hero. It is duty.
Aeneus is described repeatedly as a pious man – which Bernard Knox notes in his
introductory comments to this particular volume refers “to devotion and duty to
the Divine… but the words pius and pietas have in Latin a wider
meaning. Perhaps the best English
equivalent is something like ‘dutiful,’ ‘mindful of one’s duty’ – not only to
the gods but also to one’s family and to one’s country. (13)”
This is especially important during Aeneus’ affair with Queen Dido in the city
of Carthage. The two have a passionate
relationship, but when he is reminded of his obligations, Aeneus chooses duty
over love.
The Aeneid
was composed by Virgil (but never fully finished; he died before feeling that
it was polished to his satisfaction, and left instructions that it should be
destroyed upon his death. Fortunately
for us, this instruction was ignored) as a bit of propaganda. In the epic poem he describes the legendary
journey of Aeneus – who escaped from Troy, wandered across the Mediterranean having
strange and dangerous encounters, before settling in Italy and becoming the
ancestors of all great Romans. And
Virgil links heroic Aeneus to his patron Caesar Octavius Augustus – the grandnephew
and adopted son (and heir) of Julius Caesar.
Virgil seemed quite enamored of Augustus. During Aeneus’ journey into Hades, he is
given a glimpse into the future of Rome.
Virgil writes of his patron:
“Here is the man, he’s here! Time and again
you’ve heard his coming promised – Caesar Augustus!
Son of a god, he will bring back the Age of Gold
to the Latian fields where Saturn once held sway,
expand his empire pas the Garamants and the Indians
to a land beyond the stars, beyond the wheel of the year,
the course of the sun itself, where Atlas bears the skies
and turns on his shoulder the heavens studded with flaming stars.” (6. 913 –
920)
During this same parade of the future (to Aeneus) greats of Rome, Virgil writes
about Julius Caesar as well:
“But you see that pair of spirits? Gleaming in equal armor,
equals now at peace, while darkness pins them down,
but if they should reach the light of life, what war
they’ll rouse between them! Battles, massacres - Caesar,
the bride’s father, marching down from his Alpine ramparts,
Fortress Monaco, Pompey her husband set to oppose him
with the armies of the East.
“No,
my sons, never inure
yourselves to civil war, never turn your sturdy
power
against your country’s heart. You,
Caesar, you
be first in mercy – you trace your line from Olympus -
born of my blood, throw down your weapons now!” (6.951 – 961)
This refers to the bloody civil war between Julius
Caesar and his son-in-law, and friend, General Pompey - which is the subject of the next book I’ll be
reading – Pharsalia by Lucan (also
sometimes known as Civil War). You can expect a number of posts on that one;
my friend, Joel Watts, and I are going to be collaborating on it for a
while. Joel believes that an appreciation of Lucan will give one a better understanding of the Gospel of Mark.
It may seem intimidating. It may appear
daunting, but I would encourage you to read the Aeneid. It is powerful work with
action, and adventure, and monsters, and epic battles, and love and loss and
tragedy, and hope… With all that, it’s a bit surprising that that Hollywood
hasn’t tried to ruin it yet.
Apparently this is going to be the year that I
read (or in a few cases, re-read) the classics of western civilization. Earlier this year I read, for the first time,
Homer’s Iliad. This prompted me to then pick up Homer’s
sequel to it, The Odyssey at the public
library along with the Roman poet, Virgil’s sequel The Aeneid. And now as I’m
just halfway through The Odyssey I
realize I’m going to have to re-read Milton too.
The realization came to me when I read Achilles’ words to Odysseus in Hades:
“By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man -
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive -
than rule down here over all the breathless dead.” (The Odyssey 11. 556 -558)
and I recognized Milton’s reflection of those
words put into the mouth of Satan in Paradise
Lost:
“…Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” (Paradise Lost 1.258-63)
And then I compared the opening lines of The Iliad with the opening lines of Paradise Lost:
The rage of Achilles—sing it now, goddess, sing through me
the deadly rage that caused the Achaeans such
grief
and hurled down to Hades the souls of so many
fighters,
leaving their naked flesh to be eaten by dogs
and carrion birds, as the will of Zeus was
accomplished. (The Iliad 1. 1 – 5)
"Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of
that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought
death into the World, and all our woe, With
loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore
us, and regain the blissful seat
Sing,
Heavenly Muse…(Paradise Lost 1. 1 –
6)
What
has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
Apparently a lot more than Tertullian was willing to allow.
After that? Who knows – perhaps some Sophocles, Oedipus the King, or Antigone
(which I’ve seen performed on the stage, but haven’t read…) Maybe some
Aristophanes – The Frogs (Brekekekèx-koà x-koáx...)
and Lysistrata, maybe? Dare I try
Dante again? I’ve started The Inferno three times…
