they call it wisdom literature

During the Iraq War, an officer in the Pentagon was a little too fond of placing Bible verses on the cover of intelligence reports.

Strangely, he never included Ecclesiastes 9:11.

the Bible as a magazine

A fascinating project by Sweden's Dag Soderberg: the Bible in magazine form. It reminds me of the 1970s-era "Living Bible," except more sophisticated in its construction: the gospel according to Wired.

[via BoingBoing]

Homer the divine

To be divinely inspired, a book must be historically accurate; after fall, if its credibility cannot be established on the basis of known events, it certainly cannot be relied upon as an adequate guide in matters beyond our ability to check. On the other hand, if we can demonstrate that such a book is correct in historical matters, to an extent unknown among human writings, then we have strong evidence that the authors were inspired by Zeus. This is true of The Odyssey and The Iliad.

In his influential book, "Troy and Homer," German classicist Joachim Latacz argues that the identification of Hisarlik as the site of Homer's Troy is all but proven. Latacz's case is based not only on archeology, but also on fascinating reassessments of cuneiform tablets from the Hittite imperial archives. The tablets, which are dated to the period when the Late Bronze Age city at Hisarlik was destroyed, tell a story of a western people harassing a Hittite client state on the coast of Asia Minor. The Hittite name for the invading foreigners is very close to Homer's name for his Greeks - Achaians - and the Hittite names for their harassed ally are very close to "Troy" and "Ilios," Homer's names for the city.

"At the very core of the tale," Latacz argues, "Homer's 'Iliad' has shed the mantle of fiction commonly attributed to it."

Down through the centuries, enemies of these works have attacked its historical accuracy. Time after time, they have been thus questioned, only later to be shown correct by archaeology. Archaeology is a study of relics, monuments, tombs, artifacts, etc., of ancient civilizations. Peoples and events, known before only in Homer's accounts, have been brought to light by the excavations of ancient cities. Always, Homer has been proven right.

You got me: the above is parody. But barely.

Psalm 139:13-16, the Albert Mohler translation

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I suppose you could consider yourself largely responsible
for the way I would've turned out
had no one intervened.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your basic blueprint, plus a little medical tinkering.
Your works are wonderful,
mostly.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was woven together in the secret place.
After I was stitched up in the operating room,
your eyes saw my reformed body.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be--

but I guess my parents tore out a few pages.






[Inspired by Jason Kuznicki. For those lacking the satire gene, Albert Mohler did not write this. He wrote something else.]

divorced from context?

A while back, my brother linked, without comment, to this Christianity Today piece on divorce by David Instone-Brewer. The author addresses Jesus's and Paul's teachings on one of the most contentious of theological issues, focusing in particular on Matthew 19:3-12, where Jesus seems to flatly condemn divorce except in cases of "marital unfaithfulness." Instone-Brewer describes an ivory-tower epiphany:

But does the literal text mean what we think it does? While doing doctoral studies at Cambridge, I likely read every surviving writing of the rabbis of Jesus' time. I "got inside their heads" enough to begin to understand them. When I began working as a pastor and was confronted almost immediately with divorced men and women who wanted to remarry, my first response was to re-read the Bible. I'd read the biblical texts on divorce many times in the past, but I found something strange as I did so again. They now said something I hadn't heard before I read the rabbis!

The texts hadn't changed, but my knowledge of the language and culture in which they were written had. I was now reading them like a first-century Jew would have read them, and this time those confusing passages made more sense.

Instone-Brewer's article is worth reading in full, not only for its fascinating and defense of a liberal view of divorce, but because it brings to light a hermeneutic crisis.

Look at Instone-Brewer's summary of his thought process:

Reading the Bible and ancient Jewish documents side-by-side helped me understand much more of the Bible's teaching about divorce and marriage, not all of which I can summarize here. Dusty scraps of parchment rescued from synagogue rubbish rooms, desert caves, and neglected scholarly collections shone fresh light on the New Testament. Theologians who have long felt that divorce should be allowed for abuse and abandonment may be vindicated. And, more importantly, victims of broken marriages can see that God's law is both practical and loving.

And compare some of his readers' responses:

Alain Maashe
[W]hat David Instone-Brewer proposes goes beyond illumination of the text and turns into an exercise of reading between the line and mind reading well beyond what is revealed by the text itself. He lacks internal evidences to cast the exchange that Jesus had with his audience against the proposed background. Even if one grants the distinction between "divorce for 'any cause,'" and "divorce for any cause" that he proposes, his reading of the text still does not account the very negative reaction of the disciples in Matthew 19:10 "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry." (a passage conveniently ignored).The response of Christ also confirms the difficulty of the teaching and the fact that only few will accept it. Why would the disciples react like that if there still remained a variety of reasons to divorce?

L. James Tieszen
The exegetical technique used here is dreadful. Non-biblical ancient documents should be used to help us understand the words of the text. But, non-biblical ancient documents must not be used to change what the text actually says. Jesus allowed only adultery to be used as as a legitimate reason for divorce. To make decisions about how Jesus was interacting with the customs of his day is an attempt at mind reading and results in guesswork. How dare we reframe the meaning of Jesus' words with guesswork.

Eric
Following Mark Galli's 9/7 piece "A Hidden Treasure" about how "there's a divine reason" that the church mirrors our culture's depravity, this furthers CT's sad trend toward unbiblical "scholarship" masquerading as Truth. First, I'm confused how the man-made opinions of rabbis in Jesus' day are relevant to the question of what the BIBLE teaches about divorce! Clearly, Ex 21:1-11 has no bearing at all on modern divorce/remarriage and in no way justifies the author's "abuse and neglect" exemption. Moreover, 1 Cor 7:10-11 says "the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried ... and that the husband should not divorce his wife." Paul goes on to write that if one has an unbelieving husband/wife who "consents to live with" him/her, then he/she cannot initiate a divorce. Where are the supposed exceptions? "What therefore God has joined together, let no MAN separate" (Matt 19:6). This is another misguided attempt to rend Scripture to suit the culture.

John
God hates divorce is a good and clear statement and all christian couples need to obey this command. Finding clauses to excuse one's behaviour is a cop out. God is the final judge.

Eric P.
It is a real shame that people continue to twist the word of God into supporting their own man-made theories. What do you mean the early Church "forgot" what Jesus' teaching were on divorce? I take this to be a denial of the Holy Spirit working in the early church.

jkish
You haven't really let the text speak for itself within the whole of Scripture. (Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18.) Certainly separation is necessary for anyone whose safety is in danger--divorce and remarriage are difficult, I would say impossible, to justify with the Lord's words.

Anonymous
Don't want to be unfair, but it does seem the Rev. Instone-Brewer is parsing the words of Jesus in the same way he says the Hillelites were parsing the words of Moses. His argument is an evasion of what Christians have generally understood is the plain meaning of Christ's teaching on marriage. That the early Christians forgot the true teaching of Christ on something as central to life as marriage, and that this was finally cleared up two thousand years later by a scholar "doing doctoral studies at Cambridge" is a cause for wonder. The social chaos in today's society is clearly tied to the breakup of the family. As sincere as Rev. Instone-Brewer is in attempting to reaffirm marriage, his effort falls short.

Tomas
I suppose that I should not be so frequently astounded when "scholars" discover (by means of the most obscure sources) that the Bible "teaches" exactly that which the contemporary world wants to hear.

RichH
Thanks for pointing out the continuity of Bible/OT-NT! The Bible really is it's own interpreter.

Lance E
The Author needs to do some praying and more studying. While a person may at anytime and for any reason get a secular divorce, they remain married until death or sexual infidelity. But, one won't know this without spiritual revelation. (It is in the scriptures)

The diversity of critiques is fascinating. Instone-Brewer is attacked from all angles: mind-reading, cherry-picking, context-ripping, missing "plain meaning," echoing the wider culture, daring to use outside sources, and, perhaps most pointedly, failing to pray enough.


So: who's right, if anyone? Do we have to put ourselves in a 1st-century mindset to properly understand the Bible? Is that practical, or even feasible?







Sidebar: Ever since words first stained a page, humans have pored over texts for authoritative answers to life's big questions. Now that the tyranny of texts is waning, and the power of Google is waxing, what will be the first Internet-based religion? (And no, a parody like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism doesn't count.)

biological warfare... of the ancients!

Tularemia, choice weapon of archaeoterrorists.

A decade later, the Hittites to the north attacked the weakened area around Simyra. "The Hittites were able to steal booty, including animals, and brought the animals home," along with the tularemia the livestock harboured, Trevisanato explains. Not too long after, the Hittites themselves apparently began to suffer from an epidemic of tularemia.

History seems to have repeated itself a few years afterwards when another ancient people, the Arzawans from western Anatolia, saw the weakened Hittites to their east and decided to strike. "They thought, if we attack now, we can push the border back to where we want," Trevisanato says.

But strangely, during this period of warfare between 1320 and 1318 BC, records indicate that rams mysteriously began appearing on roads in Arzawans.

The Arzawans took the sheep to their villages and used them for livestock breeding. Soon after, though, they began to suspect a link between the appearance of the animals and the terrible disease ravaging their communities.

"They started wondering 'Why do these rams start showing up on the road?'" says Trevisanato. He believes that among the Hittites, "somebody must have had the bright idea" to send diseased rams over to their Arzawan enemies.

Ultimately, the Arzawans were so weakened that their attempt to conquer the Hittites failed.

Bad pun, choice weapon of science writers:

Still, in order to consider the rams as a true biological weapon, evidence is needed to clearly prove that the Hittites understood the full ramifications of these animals towards their enemies, says Mark Wheelis, at the University of California, Davis.

The theory has a surfeit of charm to make up for its moderate level of plausibility. Still, it doesn't take the germ theory of disease to connect "sick ram makes us sick" to "sick ram will wipe out our enemies."

My favorite Bible story seems to square with the theory, too.

The LORD's hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. [a] 7 When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, "The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god." 8 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, "What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?"
They answered, "Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath." So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.

9 But after they had moved it, the LORD's hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. [b]

Footnote [b] helpfully adds, "Or with tumors in the groin (see Septuagint)."

the prayer of a self-righteous man

Kent Hovind might be a weasely tax dodger, but he's got nothin' on this pastor:

Wiley S. Drake, a Buena Park pastor and a former national leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, called on his followers to pray for the deaths of two leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The request was in response to the liberal group's urging the IRS on Tuesday to investigate Drake's church's nonprofit status because Drake endorsed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president on church letterhead and during a church-affiliated Internet radio show.

Drake said Wednesday he was "simply doing what God told me to do" by targeting Americans United officials Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, whom he calls the "enemies of God."

"God says to pray imprecatory prayer against people who attack God's church," he said. "The Bible says that if anybody attacks God's people, David said this is what will happen to them.... Children will become orphans and wives will become widows."

Apparently Drake has never seen the difference between what one prays for and what one gets.


[via Obscure Store and PZ]

what does God say about kickbacks?

"A greedy man brings trouble to his family, but he who hates bribes will live."
--Proverbs 15:27

"A bribe is a charm to the one who gives it; wherever he turns, he succeeds."
--Proverbs 17:8

"A wicked man accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the course of justice."
--Proverbs 17:23

"A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath."
--Proverbs 21:14

You gotta play it by ear. Examine the situation. Sort things out. Check the lay of the land. See how it lies. Weigh the costs and benefits. Think it through.

Overall, though, let one principle guide you: whenever you bribe, lie, cheat, or steal, make sure it's for the greater good. (The greater good.)




[144th in a series]

"hot ice" proves that Shakespeare is divinely inspired

If "paths of the sea" is proof that the Bible is the Word of God, then certainly this...

Although the parent star is much cooler than the Sun, the planet orbits 13 times closer to the star than Mercury's orbit around the Sun. That means the surface must be a blazing hot 300° C or more, keeping water in its atmosphere in vapour form.

But the high pressures in the planet's interior would compress the water so much that it would stay solid even at hundreds of degrees Celsius – the expected temperatures inside the planet. There are a variety of exotic 'hot ice' states possible in such conditions, with names like 'Ice VII' and 'Ice X'.

...makes this...

That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.

...obviously divine.

how to remember the names of the twelve disciples

The easiest way to remember things is to create an acrostic. The colors of the rainbow are "ROY G. BIV." The notes on a staff go "Every Good Boy Does Fine." (Proponents of the "Deserves Fruit" acrostic sometimes protest, but to be quite honest, every good boy does not deserve fruit.)

Still, even an acrostic isn't enough. The essence of memory is repetition. You must repeat the acrostic at least seven times in order for it to stick.

Without further ado, then: how to remember the names of the twelve disciples.

SPAJJPBTJTSJ

Simply Put, As Jesus enJoys Peanut Butter, Thus Jesus' Throng Should Joyously.

Simon Peter
Andrew
James
John
Philip
Bartholomew
Thomas
James Alphaeus
Thaddeus
Simon the Cananean
Judas Iscariot


Be careful, though, since repetition is also the essence of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Remember what happened to Philip Glass?




[141st in a series]

which disciple was mean to Jesus?

[From Matthew 12:46-50, Recently Revised Version]

Jesus taught the multitude as his family waited outside, growing impatient as the minutes dragged on. Someone finally spoke up. "Hey Jesus," she said, "your mom and brothers are outside. They left a message and are wondering why you haven't called."

"Mom and brothers? Who are they?" Jesus replied. The joke was met with blank stares, so he tried a different tack. "There are my mom and brothers," he said, gesturing at his disciples, who were loitering in the corner of the room near the snacks. "Especially Peter. If he's not bugging me to clean my room, he's hogging the Wii and stealing my potato chips."

There was a small ripple of laughter. Peter shot Jesus a dirty look, and then, egged on by the other disciples, rushed the stage and tackled him, trying to pin his arm behind his back. Jesus wriggled free and tossed Peter into the audience, which crowdsurfed him out the door. Jesus shouted platitudes over the confusion.

Peter collapsed in the dust outside. "We'll see who gets the last laugh," he muttered, brushing himself off and spying Mary, James and Jude. Peter called over to them. "He pretended not to know you. He said something about his real mother and brothers being the people who do God's will."

"Oh, did he?" Mary said. "Well, no lasagna for dinner, then." She grabbed James and Jude by the elbow and the three marched away.

Peter smiled.





[139th in a series]

limbo no longer in limbo

So saith the Vatican. Which means this is no longer necessary. But I'll repost it anyway.

Every little boy and girl
Stuck down in a limbo world
In between is gonna stay
'Til the Pope decides to say.
Every dude and every chick
Has to wait for Benedict.
All around the limbo clock
Hey, let's do the limbo rock.


Six, five, four now,
Three, two, one now,
How low will he go?


Is a fetus on the list?
How about a blastocyst?
What of embryos on ice?
Is there room in Paradise?
Foreign folks who never heard,
For nobody brought the Word?
I sure hope they meet the test,
'Cause my conscience needs some rest.


Zygote, embryo, fetus now,
Aborigine, autochthon now,
Please, Your Grace: is there space?


If you're under seventeen,
And your slate is pretty clean,
Keep on floating in your hope,
'Cause it's now up to the Pope.
If you want to go to heaven,
Gotta wait until '07.
So enjoy the edge of bliss
Stuck in a "hypothesis."


Pope please move that limbo bar,
You'll be a limbo star.
How low will you go?

This time, no apologies to anyone.

ninny's tomb raiding

Haven't followed the (probably spurious) "Jesus tomb found!" story much, but one particular quote is too good to pass up.

pride goeth before destruction

Via PZ, in taking my annual quiz, I learn that...

You know the Bible 100%!

 

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Also, the pedant in me is angry that a question about Biblical poetry pits Ecclesiastes against the Psalms, but you can pick only one. (I went with the Psalms.) Both are poetry. Bad quiz.

Emerson everywhere

In his original "read a book of the Bible for twenty days" challenge, Joe Carter quotes James M. Gray, who writes,

The first practical help I ever received in the mastery of the English Bible was from a layman.... He had gone into the country to spend the Sabbath with his family on one occasion, taking with him a pocket copy of Ephesians, and in the afternoon, going out into the woods and lying down under a tree, he began to read it; he read it through at a single reading, and finding his interest aroused, read it through again in the same way, and, his interest increasing, again and again. I think he added that he read it some twelve or fifteen times, “and when I arose to go into the house,” said he, “I was in possession of Ephesians, or better yet, it was in possession of me, and I had been ‘lifted up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus’ in an experimental sense in which that had not been true in me before, and will never cease to be true in me again.”

"It was in possession of me," says Gray's friend, and it's a fitting way to describe what happens when you read a text--any meaningful text--for twenty days straight.

Consider how "Self-Reliance" currently dominates my thinking. I watch a Sopranos episode where Carmela visits Paris, all the while remembering Emerson's observation, "Traveling is a fool's paradise... [the tourist] carries ruins to ruins."

I read Pseudo-Polymath on the lack of modern wisdom, all the while thinking, "Society never advances." After all,

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind.

I pass the panhandler in the Santa hat, and wonder if he is my poor. I doubt that I can absolve me to myself. I worry that my goodness has no edge to it, and that I am false in all particulars. (I have not yet dreamed of Emerson, or in Emersonian, but I imagine such dreams are not far off.)

In short, I have become "like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors," and my tutor is Emerson.

a Mosaic minefield: teaching Bible as Literature

When you attempt--or, should I say, should you attempt--to teach "Bible as Literature," be aware that, for younger students, severe discomfort may lie ahead.

Non-Christian, on-the-fence, agnostic, or atheistic students will start to suspect you're out to convert them, as if reading the first book of Genesis and analyzing its literary merits is just the cheese in a trap.

Christian students will likely dominate the discussion; after all, they generally know the most. You may have to steer some ambitious ones away from proselytizing.

Some Christian students may wonder if your "balanced" perspective is going to undermine their confidence in Scripture, even if they grant that you are completely fair in your presentation.

So, before launching into a unit, ask yourself:

1. Are my students emotionally mature enough for this?
2. Am I ready to talk with parents about it?
3. Am I ready to answer some really sticky questions?
4. Am I able to be nonpartisan, and enforce nonpartisanity?
5. Do I know enough about the Bible to do succeed in #s 2-4?
6. Am I willing to be open about my beliefs, so students know where my biases are, and what to watch out for?

If you answer "no" to even one question, don't do it.

benign brainwashing: reading obsessively to change your life

Joe Carter writes,

For the one or two people who will find this useful, the four steps that will transform your worldview are:

1. Choose a book of the Bible.
2. Read it in its entirety.
3. Repeat #2 twenty times.
4. Repeat this process for all 66 books of the Bible.

I wouldn't be surprised if absorption in any sort of motivational text would change your way of thinking, and maybe even change your life. Neuronally, when you read and re-read, you're establishing patterns of activity that will quite literally reshape connections in your brain--which, in the glorious feedback loop of behavior, will reshape your responses in the future.

So, I'm taking up Carter's challenge, and reading and re-reading (and re-reading) Emerson's "Self-Reliance" for twenty days straight. I'll report back when I'm finished.

cryptic Bible joke

Jesus and Peter sat in Peter's 78 Olds Toronado outside Matthew's house, waiting for him to finish shaving. Peter impatiently revved the engine, and the car shuddered and shook. "Blessed are the auto makers," said Jesus, "for they will see the tunnel at the end of the light."

Peter turned, puzzled. "What's that?"

"Nothing," said Jesus. "Just thinking out loud."



(More Bible jokes here.)






[124th in a series]

setting the bar: the Pope stalls on Limbo reform

[apologies to Chubby Checker]


Every little boy and girl
Stuck down in a limbo world
In between is gonna stay
'Til the Pope decides to say.
Every dude and every chick
Has to wait for Benedict.
All around the limbo clock
Hey, let's do the limbo rock.


Six, five, four now,
Three, two, one now,
How low will he go?


Is a fetus on the list?
How about a blastocyst?
What of embryos on ice?
Is there room in Paradise?
Foreign folks who never heard,
For nobody brought the Word?
I sure hope they meet the test,
'Cause my conscience needs some rest.


Zygote, embryo, fetus now,
Aborigine, autochthon now,
Please, Your Grace: is there space?


If you're under seventeen,
And your slate is pretty clean,
Keep on floating in your hope,
'Cause it's now up to the Pope.
If you want to go to heaven,
Gotta wait until '07.
So enjoy the edge of bliss
Stuck in a "hypothesis."


Pope please move that limbo bar,
You'll be a limbo star.
How low will you go?

nothing new under the sun

I can't get away from a discussion of the intersection of--or the gaps between--morality, rationality, and theology. As I was typing, I remembered a similar three-blog discussion from a couple years ago, among Ed Brayton, Rusty Lopez, and Matt Powell.

In case you find this all very fascinating, here are some of Ed's posts (with links to the others), in chronological order.

The WorldNutDaily on Morality (the one that started it all)
Rusty Lopez on Morality
Another Response to Rusty on Biblical Morality
An Odd Response (wherein Matt Powell enters the conversation)
2nd Response to Matt Powell on Biblical Morality