Posts
1. Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1899, page 42:
By encouraging the restriction of funding for developing new public roads and for maintaining existing market trails and bridges, privatization had a financial impact on the region in another obvious sense. Tolls assessed for travel cut into a farmer’s income.
Conservatives and libertarians complain about the government running things, for that costs people money in taxes. But privatization has a similar problem: it costs people money because now they have to pay for stuff. I was once talking with a woman from Brazil, and she said that she preferred for the state to run utilities rather than the private sector. The reason? When the private sector runs them, people have to pay for them, including those who don’t have much money. In short, they’re at the mercy of people who want to make a profit.
One would hope that competition would bring down prices, but how would that work with roads? As far as I know, only one company can own a particular road at a time, and, if that road is important, that company can charge high prices to those who use it, in its attempt to make a profit.
2. Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 110:
The supplicant seems to head directly for a full-fledged ritual argument with his personal God…
On her blog, Rachel Held Evans has contrasted good doubt with bad doubt. She said that a sign of bad doubt is that it leads us to stop asking God questions. I think what she’s saying is that bad doubt leads us to ditch our relationship with God. Good doubt, by contrast, is sticking with that relationship with God while asking him questions.
That’s what we see in this quote: an argument with God becomes ritualized in an act of worship.
There have been plenty of times in my life when I’ve argued with God. Lately, however, I don’t find that very constructive, for I don’t feel healthy when I rant and rave against anybody, especially the Almighty. But I haven’t experienced what the Psalmist complains about—persecutors who seek to kill him.
3. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, page 65:
From Pistis Sophia: Manda d’Hayye spoke to Anosh: Fear not and be not dismayed, and say not, They have left me alone in this world of the evil ones. For soon I will come to thee.
This stood out to me today because I had a lot of fear: fear of people, fear of not finding work because I’m afraid of people, fear of not cutting it socially with my co-workers if I find a job, etc.
Prayer helped me through that today. Whenever I feel alone, afraid, and angry, with thoughts randomly popping into my head right and left, I see a need to pray to God for an hour. That reminds me that I’m not alone, and it gives me an opportunity to sort things out.
My AA Daily Reflection had an edifying insight today: I cannot count the times when I have been angry and frustrated and said to myself, “I can’t see the forest for the trees!” I finally realized that what I needed when I was in such pain was someone who could guide me in separating the forest and the trees; who could suggest a better path to follow; who could assist me in putting out fires; and help me avoid the rocks and pitfalls.
In the course of my prayer-time, I thought about something that a person told me this morning: that, in order to get a job, I can’t just send in an Internet application, for companies get hundreds of those. Rather, I need to talk with the managers and make my presence known to them. That’s how I can stand out. And that shows them that I’m motivated enough to do the job.
That scares me to death, but I’ll have to do it at some point. Going from theory into reality is hard. I criticize evangelical Christianity because it tries to make me something that I’m not—a happy happy extrovert—but the real world demands that of me too, at some level. Yet, my criticism of evangelical Christianity still stands. I cannot believe in a God who does not love me for who I am, weaknesses and all, even as he tries to help me grow. My conception of God is that he accepts me as me. But I don’t expect that from the world, nor should I, for that matter. For the world, I have to play ball, or else.
4. Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, pages 101-102:
The principle behind the ruling is that a [chaber] is forbidden to give untithed produce to an [am ha-aretz]…
An am ha-aretz isn’t conscientious about certain laws in the Torah, whereas a chaber is part of a religious community that tries to be conscientious. A chaber is not to encourage an am ha-aretz in his neglect, however. He is to teach the am ha-aretz a better way; plus, God’s law is God’s law, so no Israelite should cause another Israelite to transgress it.
5. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, pages 32-33:
There is evidence that indicates that originally the thanksgiving offering (7:11-15) was cooked and eaten by its offerers on the sanctuary grounds…The resemblance of the thanksgiving offering to that of the priestly ordination, which was cooked and eaten within the sanctuary precincts (8:26-31), strengthens this assumption. Moreover, the same eating procedure is proscribed for the Nazarite (Num 6:18-19) and for all worshipers in Ezekiel’s futuristic Temple (Ezek 46:24). Indeed, its actual practice is recorded in the Shiloh sanctuary (1 Sam 2:13-14) and verified archaeologically by the discovery of cooked animal bones near the Lachish altar…When P insists that as long as offerers are pure they may eat their sacrifice at “any pure place” (10:14; cf. 7:19), it is clearly polemicizing against the older practice…The older practice survives in the deuteronomic regulation that sacrifices must be eaten at the sanctuary site (Deut 12:7, 12) and in the later rabbinic regulation that they must be eaten inside the city walls of Jerusalem (m. Pesa[ch] 3:8; 7:8, 9).
So the older rule said that Israelites had to eat thanksgiving offerings at the sanctuary site, whereas P said they could eat them at any clean place? Does that mean that P didn’t want them to eat at the sanctuary site, since he thought only priests could eat there?
