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This morning, I was researching some of the claims that were made in the 2015 documentary, Patterns of Evidence,
which argues that the biblical Exodus occurred during the time of
Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. I would like to talk about two issues: the
abandonment of Kahun, and the Egyptian historian Manetho’s reference to
God striking the Egyptians.
A. The documentary argues that the abandonment of the city of Kahun
may be a piece of evidence for the historicity of the biblical Exodus.
Kahun had slaves, and suddenly it was abandoned. The documentary refers
to Rosalie David’s statement that the departure from Kahun was “sudden
and unpremeditated.” Goods were left in the streets and in houses.
According to the documentary, this marked the departure of the Israelite
slaves from Egypt.
I was interested in alternative and mainstream interpretations of the
abandonment of Kahun. I read things online about Kahun, including
brief passages from Rosalie David’s The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt. The Encyclopedia Britannica
says about Kahun: “It was erected for the overseers and workmen
employed in constructing the nearby pyramid of Al-Lāhūn, built by
Sesostris II (reigned 1844–37 bce), and it was abandoned when the
pyramid was completed.” That is one view of why it was abandoned:
slaves were temporarily at the city to build a pyramid, and they left
when their job was done.
Rosalie David, however, does not buy that. My impression is that she
is skeptical of this argument because of her belief that the
abandonment was “sudden and unpremeditated.” In the passage of the book
to which the documentary was referring, David states: “The quantity,
range and type of articles of everyday use that were left behind in the
houses may indeed suggest that the departure was sudden and
unpremeditated” (page 199) If the inhabitants were simply leaving
because their job was done, why would they leave so many things behind,
rather than taking some of the stuff with them?
To what does Rosalie David attribute the abandonment of Kahun? I
could not find her own opinion, but she did refer to possibilities that
scholars have proposed. She states on page 199: “There are different
opinions about how this first period of occupation of Kahun drew to a
close. Declining local economic conditions, or foreign infiltration and
harassment, may have driven them from their homes.” For David, this was
a time when Asiatics were making more incursions into Egypt. David
also refers to the view that Kahun may not have even been abandoned, but
that its “population declined and dwindled until, by the New Kingdom,
only a token occupation of some of the houses remained.”
In watching the documentary, I have wondered about alternative
interpretations of the “evidence” it offers for the Exodus. I think of
what Dr. Zaius said in Planet of the Apes in defending ape
creationism: he said that he could come up with an alternative
explanation for the “evidence” to which Taylor was appealing in arguing
that apes evolved from men. A question that may remain, however, is
whether the Exodus is at least a plausible way to account for the data.
B. In the documentary, David Rohl referred to a statement by the
third century B.C.E. Egyptian priest and historian Manetho. According
to Rohl, Manetho said that, in the reign of a king called Dudimose, whom
Rohl says was one of the last kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty, God
smote the Egyptians, then invaders came from the north, the Hyksos (I
draw some here from the words that Rohl used in the documentary). Rohl
thinks it is interesting that Manetho here says “God” rather than “the
gods,” and Rohl believes that Manetho is referring to the Exodus.
Rohl does not explicitly cite the source in the documentary, but the source is Josephus’ Against Apion
1:75, where Josephus quotes Manetho. Rohl’s view is that the Exodus
occurred and that weakened Egypt significantly, such that the Hyksos
could invade and easily conquer Egypt. Josephus, however, appears to
equate the Hyksos with the Israelites in Egypt.
The passage states: “There was a king of ours, whose name was Timaus.
Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us,
and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of
the eastern parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into
our country, and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our
hazarding a battle with them” (Whiston’s translation).
Just looking at the passage itself, I do not think that it
necessarily refers to the Exodus. It could be saying that the Hyksos
invasion WAS God’s affliction of the Egyptians, not that God afflicted
the Egyptions prior to the Hyksos’ invasion. Is it significant that
Manetho refers to God in the singular, as Rohl says? Well, I did a
search on Perseus, and there are numerous examples in which Greek
polytheistic works refer to “God” in the singular (see here
to sort through the results). Maybe they mean Zeus, or providence, or
the gods acting as one (I do not know), but they occasionally refer to
God in the singular. Is it therefore remarkable that Manetho, who lived
in Ptolemaic Egypt, would refer to God in the singular? I have my
doubts.
There are other things that deserve consideration. Russell Gmirkin refers to some of these on page 173 of Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus.
Some claim that the Exodus story could be a response to Manetho; others
say Manetho may be responding to the Exodus story. There is also the
question of whether Manetho is correct that there was a Hyksos invasion:
the Hyksos may not have forcibly invaded. Something else to note is
that, according to Josephus in Against Apion 1:265, Manetho did refer to
Moses: Manetho said that Osarsiph, an Egyptian priest who allies with
the Hyksos and leads lepers against the Pharaoh, changed his name to
Moses.
A significant question is: How reliable is Manetho, in terms of
understanding what occurred during the time of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom?
To what extent is he communicating real history, and in what ways may he
be influenced by his own times (the third century B.C.E.)?
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Book Write-Up: What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About (Second Edition)
Kenneth Berding and Matt Williams, ed. What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Their Writings. Second edition. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2015. See here to purchase the book.
What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About is an introductory textbook for undergraduates. The goal of this book is to highlight the concerns of the New Testament authors, as they are laid out in their writings. Fifteen New Testament scholars contributed to this book.
The first chapter of the book lays out the historical background and context of the New Testament. It narrates the experience of the Jews from the exile up to and including the first century C.E. It also defines the Jewish groups and movements that existed in the first century C.E., including the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Qumran community. The final chapter of the book concerns the canonization of the New Testament. It discusses the development of Christian tradition from an oral stage to a written stage, as well as the attempts by certain church fathers to identify books as inspired and authoritative. The chapter plausibly maintains that the desire on the part of early Christians to set up a canon may have proceeded from controversies—-with Marcionites, Gnostics, and Montanists.
The chapters in between the first and the last chapter are about the New Testament books themselves. A page introduces each book, and the page discusses ideas about authorship, date, the locations of the author and the audience, and the purpose of the writing. Overall, the pages are conservative. They rely on patristic tradition in identifying the authors of the books. In contrast with a number of critical scholars, they believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels that bear their names, that the apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, and that Paul wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and the pastoral epistles. They tend to date the New Testament writings rather early, as in prior to 70 C.E., even though the Revelation chapter accepts a date for the Book of Revelation in the 90s. At times, these pages briefly mention liberal scholarly views and interact with them, or they mention debates within scholarship, such as the debate over whether Paul wrote to Northern Galatians or Southern Galatians, or the debate about what Papias meant when he said that Matthew wrote a Hebrew source.
In the chapters themselves, there are occasional references to scholarly debates. One of the chapters about Paul, for example, succinctly differentiates the Old Perspective on Paul from the New Perspective. The main focus of this book, however, is on the religious themes that are in the New Testament books themselves. Some chapters delve more deeply into the historical context than other chapters. The chapter on the Book of Revelation discusses Emperor Domitian and the belief that Nero would return. The chapter on Philippians states that ancient Greeks and Romans did not value humility in their honor-shame culture, as the apostle Paul did (I did some reading on this, and I find that to be partly true). Overall, however, the chapters focus on the content of the books themselves. Some books on the New Testament that attempt to do this can be pretty boring, in that they regurgitate the details in the text and fail to offer any fresh insight. I did not find this particular book to be boring, however, because it did attempt to clarify the text: the chapter on Mark offers possible reasons that Jesus wanted to keep his Messiahship a secret; this chapter also explained details of Mark 13 (e.g., why Jesus said that false prophets, wars, famines, and earthquakes do not indicate that the end is yet); the chapter on John interprets Jesus’ changing of water into wine in light of what Old Testament prophecies say about wine in the eschaton.
What concerns me is what students will not learn from this book. Students will not learn about Q, the source that Matthew and Luke supposedly used. Students will not learn that many scholars believe that Jesus expected the end of the world to come soon. More than one chapter says that the early Christians taught that Christians should always be ready for the end because it could come soon, but that is different from saying that Jesus had an imminent eschatology. There is nothing about contradictions between the Gospels. The book mentions that there are scholars who doubt the historicity of certain things in the New Testament, but, overall, it does not wrestle with that issue. I am not suggesting that the book should have a liberal perspective. What I am saying is that, at the very least, a student should leave an introductory New Testament class knowing about Q, since that will enable him or her to understand New Testament scholarship better.
When I first took an introductory New Testament class, I heard and read that the Gospels were diverse in their portrayal of Jesus. How did this particular textbook handle this? It did so fairly well. It was not as heavy-handed about New Testament diversity as were the more liberal New Testament classes that I took as an undergraduate. But it did not try to force a high Christology (i.e., one that sees Jesus as God) onto the synoptic Gospels. It highlighted the particular themes in each Gospel, such as the Gospel of Luke’s emphasis on prayer. It said that the Gospel of John had a realized eschatology—-one that believed that the blessings of the Kingdom exist now—-and yet it did not preclude John from also having a futurist eschatology. The chapter on John did say that John’s Gospel had the concept of a new covenant, which is not a term explicitly mentioned in that Gospel, and that did disturb me somewhat; plus, I wish that the chapter on Matthew explicitly highlighted the scholarly view that the Gospel of Matthew was a Jewish-Christian Gospel, since that would make sense of so much of what the chapter said. I suspect that the book was trying to present the New Testament writings as diverse yet not contradictory, and that probably influenced the extent to which it was willing to acknowledge diversity within the New Testament. Overall, however, the book was not that bad in its treatment of New Testament diversity.
I give this book four stars because I did enjoy it. I did learn things from the book, and there were parts of it that religiously edified me. In terms of whether I recommend this book for undergraduates, I do think that undergraduates will learn something in reading it, but not enough to prepare them for more advanced studies in the New Testament.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Kregel Academic, in exchange for an honest review.
What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About is an introductory textbook for undergraduates. The goal of this book is to highlight the concerns of the New Testament authors, as they are laid out in their writings. Fifteen New Testament scholars contributed to this book.
The first chapter of the book lays out the historical background and context of the New Testament. It narrates the experience of the Jews from the exile up to and including the first century C.E. It also defines the Jewish groups and movements that existed in the first century C.E., including the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Qumran community. The final chapter of the book concerns the canonization of the New Testament. It discusses the development of Christian tradition from an oral stage to a written stage, as well as the attempts by certain church fathers to identify books as inspired and authoritative. The chapter plausibly maintains that the desire on the part of early Christians to set up a canon may have proceeded from controversies—-with Marcionites, Gnostics, and Montanists.
The chapters in between the first and the last chapter are about the New Testament books themselves. A page introduces each book, and the page discusses ideas about authorship, date, the locations of the author and the audience, and the purpose of the writing. Overall, the pages are conservative. They rely on patristic tradition in identifying the authors of the books. In contrast with a number of critical scholars, they believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels that bear their names, that the apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, and that Paul wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and the pastoral epistles. They tend to date the New Testament writings rather early, as in prior to 70 C.E., even though the Revelation chapter accepts a date for the Book of Revelation in the 90s. At times, these pages briefly mention liberal scholarly views and interact with them, or they mention debates within scholarship, such as the debate over whether Paul wrote to Northern Galatians or Southern Galatians, or the debate about what Papias meant when he said that Matthew wrote a Hebrew source.
In the chapters themselves, there are occasional references to scholarly debates. One of the chapters about Paul, for example, succinctly differentiates the Old Perspective on Paul from the New Perspective. The main focus of this book, however, is on the religious themes that are in the New Testament books themselves. Some chapters delve more deeply into the historical context than other chapters. The chapter on the Book of Revelation discusses Emperor Domitian and the belief that Nero would return. The chapter on Philippians states that ancient Greeks and Romans did not value humility in their honor-shame culture, as the apostle Paul did (I did some reading on this, and I find that to be partly true). Overall, however, the chapters focus on the content of the books themselves. Some books on the New Testament that attempt to do this can be pretty boring, in that they regurgitate the details in the text and fail to offer any fresh insight. I did not find this particular book to be boring, however, because it did attempt to clarify the text: the chapter on Mark offers possible reasons that Jesus wanted to keep his Messiahship a secret; this chapter also explained details of Mark 13 (e.g., why Jesus said that false prophets, wars, famines, and earthquakes do not indicate that the end is yet); the chapter on John interprets Jesus’ changing of water into wine in light of what Old Testament prophecies say about wine in the eschaton.
What concerns me is what students will not learn from this book. Students will not learn about Q, the source that Matthew and Luke supposedly used. Students will not learn that many scholars believe that Jesus expected the end of the world to come soon. More than one chapter says that the early Christians taught that Christians should always be ready for the end because it could come soon, but that is different from saying that Jesus had an imminent eschatology. There is nothing about contradictions between the Gospels. The book mentions that there are scholars who doubt the historicity of certain things in the New Testament, but, overall, it does not wrestle with that issue. I am not suggesting that the book should have a liberal perspective. What I am saying is that, at the very least, a student should leave an introductory New Testament class knowing about Q, since that will enable him or her to understand New Testament scholarship better.
When I first took an introductory New Testament class, I heard and read that the Gospels were diverse in their portrayal of Jesus. How did this particular textbook handle this? It did so fairly well. It was not as heavy-handed about New Testament diversity as were the more liberal New Testament classes that I took as an undergraduate. But it did not try to force a high Christology (i.e., one that sees Jesus as God) onto the synoptic Gospels. It highlighted the particular themes in each Gospel, such as the Gospel of Luke’s emphasis on prayer. It said that the Gospel of John had a realized eschatology—-one that believed that the blessings of the Kingdom exist now—-and yet it did not preclude John from also having a futurist eschatology. The chapter on John did say that John’s Gospel had the concept of a new covenant, which is not a term explicitly mentioned in that Gospel, and that did disturb me somewhat; plus, I wish that the chapter on Matthew explicitly highlighted the scholarly view that the Gospel of Matthew was a Jewish-Christian Gospel, since that would make sense of so much of what the chapter said. I suspect that the book was trying to present the New Testament writings as diverse yet not contradictory, and that probably influenced the extent to which it was willing to acknowledge diversity within the New Testament. Overall, however, the book was not that bad in its treatment of New Testament diversity.
I give this book four stars because I did enjoy it. I did learn things from the book, and there were parts of it that religiously edified me. In terms of whether I recommend this book for undergraduates, I do think that undergraduates will learn something in reading it, but not enough to prepare them for more advanced studies in the New Testament.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Kregel Academic, in exchange for an honest review.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Book Write-Up: The Shock of Night, by Patrick W. Carr
Patrick W. Carr. The Shock of Night. Bloomington, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 2015. See here to buy the book.
The Shock of Night is a Christian fantasy book. It is technically the first book of The Darkwater Saga, but Patrick W. Carr did write a prequel entitled By Divine Right.
In The Shock of the Night, a priest named Elwyn is wounded in the Darkwater Forest, and his protector Robin is murdered. Before dying, Elwyn gives Willet Reeve the ability to read people’s minds and memories. Willet Reeve works for the king and is called upon to investigate the crime. In the course of the book, he comes across the Vigil, a group of people with the same sort of gift that he has. The Vigil is suspicious of Willet because Willet spent time in the Darkwater Forest, a place that corrupts those who go there.
The plot does sound interesting. Patrick W. Carr is to be commended for creating an intriguing world, one in which some people have gifts and can give their gifts to others. There were aspects of the book that I actually liked. Carr mentions two characters, a librarian and the reluctant leader of the Vigil, who were more comfortable with books than with people. I could identify with that, and thus I was pleased that Carr had characters who were like that. Carr describes how the Vigil’s giftedness tended to alienate it from the broader world, and he portrayed Willet’s attempts to hold on to his own personality when he was filled with the memories and thoughts of others. The mechanics of giftedness and the transmission of gifts was also interesting: passing on half of a gift could dilute the gift, for example. The question of how Willet could have gotten corrupted in the Darkwater Forest is brief, yet noteworthy. There is a poignant scene in which Willet questions whether the equivalent to Jesus in that world can truly understand what he is going through, or what certain human beings go through. The last scene of the book had the potential to be great: Willet must decide whether to kill a key character whose ambition had been negatively amplified by the Darkwater Forest, or rather to show mercy on her.
I am giving the book two stars, however, because, overall, I did not care for the book. I will explain why shortly, but let me make some things clear before I do so. First of all, I acknowledge that my reaction is subjective. As you can see from the Amazon and Goodreads reviews of this book and other books by Carr, Carr has received high marks for his work. He has even been a Christy Award finalist. I am not saying that the book is inherently bad, but I am simply stating my subjective reaction to it as a reader. Amazon is asking me whether I “like” or “dislike” a book, and that can entail me sharing whether the book and I had a chemistry. I recall a person saying that reading is an interaction between a book and a reader. Many readers may enjoy this book; I, based on where I am right now, did not so much. Second, I do respect Carr for writing this book, and other books. Third, I am not suggesting that I can write a fantasy novel with prose that I find more compelling than what is in The Shock of Night. Some may read my review and say, “Well, can you do better?” My answer to that is, “Probably not.”
What did I not like about this book? The prose followed the rules of grammar, and, on the surface, it appears rather simple: Carr used no big words, and his sentences were of reasonable length. But I just found the prose to be dry and overly formal. All of his characters sounded alike to me in terms of how they talked. Some may say that such prose effectively conveyed a medieval tone that they find endearing; I, however, would have preferred for the prose to be more vivid, compelling, or engaging.
The prose could also be rather elliptical. I would be reading a conversation, and I had difficulty understanding how what a person said in response to another person was actually responding to what the other person had said. Sometimes, the book was from Willet’s perspective, and sometimes he was referred to in the third person. I do not mind a book using different perspectives, but I do wish that it would tell readers explicitly what it is doing and who is speaking. Otherwise, people like me get confused. The book’s plot was also rather difficult to follow. I do not know if Willet even solved the mystery. Willet somewhere in the book appeared to entertain the possibility that Robin, Elwyn’s protector, may have wounded Elwyn to prevent Elwyn from being impacted negatively by the Darkwater Forest, or from misusing the gift, but my impression is that Willet abandoned this idea.
A lot of times, when reviewers critique a fiction book, they say that a good book shows rather than tells. I am a bit conflicted on how this relates to my assessment of The Shock of Night. On the one hand, there were times when I thought that Carr should have followed the “show not tell” rule, when he should have constructed vivid scenes of Willet struggling with his gift, when he should not have told us what people were thinking. On the other hand, Willet’s telling is what enabled me to understand the book to the extent that I did, to have some inkling of what was going on. Moreover, there were times when I wished that Carr was more explicit than he was. Maybe my problem is that I am not used to fantasy, but I find that being thrown into the middle of a world and figuring out its rules can be a challenge for me as a reader. I think that Carr could have made things a little easier. Perhaps a glossary of characters and terms (“gifts,” “Vigil”) would have helped.
I am hesitant to read more books by Carr, but people who are used to fantasy may have a different desire.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers, in exchange for an honest review.
The Shock of Night is a Christian fantasy book. It is technically the first book of The Darkwater Saga, but Patrick W. Carr did write a prequel entitled By Divine Right.
In The Shock of the Night, a priest named Elwyn is wounded in the Darkwater Forest, and his protector Robin is murdered. Before dying, Elwyn gives Willet Reeve the ability to read people’s minds and memories. Willet Reeve works for the king and is called upon to investigate the crime. In the course of the book, he comes across the Vigil, a group of people with the same sort of gift that he has. The Vigil is suspicious of Willet because Willet spent time in the Darkwater Forest, a place that corrupts those who go there.
The plot does sound interesting. Patrick W. Carr is to be commended for creating an intriguing world, one in which some people have gifts and can give their gifts to others. There were aspects of the book that I actually liked. Carr mentions two characters, a librarian and the reluctant leader of the Vigil, who were more comfortable with books than with people. I could identify with that, and thus I was pleased that Carr had characters who were like that. Carr describes how the Vigil’s giftedness tended to alienate it from the broader world, and he portrayed Willet’s attempts to hold on to his own personality when he was filled with the memories and thoughts of others. The mechanics of giftedness and the transmission of gifts was also interesting: passing on half of a gift could dilute the gift, for example. The question of how Willet could have gotten corrupted in the Darkwater Forest is brief, yet noteworthy. There is a poignant scene in which Willet questions whether the equivalent to Jesus in that world can truly understand what he is going through, or what certain human beings go through. The last scene of the book had the potential to be great: Willet must decide whether to kill a key character whose ambition had been negatively amplified by the Darkwater Forest, or rather to show mercy on her.
I am giving the book two stars, however, because, overall, I did not care for the book. I will explain why shortly, but let me make some things clear before I do so. First of all, I acknowledge that my reaction is subjective. As you can see from the Amazon and Goodreads reviews of this book and other books by Carr, Carr has received high marks for his work. He has even been a Christy Award finalist. I am not saying that the book is inherently bad, but I am simply stating my subjective reaction to it as a reader. Amazon is asking me whether I “like” or “dislike” a book, and that can entail me sharing whether the book and I had a chemistry. I recall a person saying that reading is an interaction between a book and a reader. Many readers may enjoy this book; I, based on where I am right now, did not so much. Second, I do respect Carr for writing this book, and other books. Third, I am not suggesting that I can write a fantasy novel with prose that I find more compelling than what is in The Shock of Night. Some may read my review and say, “Well, can you do better?” My answer to that is, “Probably not.”
What did I not like about this book? The prose followed the rules of grammar, and, on the surface, it appears rather simple: Carr used no big words, and his sentences were of reasonable length. But I just found the prose to be dry and overly formal. All of his characters sounded alike to me in terms of how they talked. Some may say that such prose effectively conveyed a medieval tone that they find endearing; I, however, would have preferred for the prose to be more vivid, compelling, or engaging.
The prose could also be rather elliptical. I would be reading a conversation, and I had difficulty understanding how what a person said in response to another person was actually responding to what the other person had said. Sometimes, the book was from Willet’s perspective, and sometimes he was referred to in the third person. I do not mind a book using different perspectives, but I do wish that it would tell readers explicitly what it is doing and who is speaking. Otherwise, people like me get confused. The book’s plot was also rather difficult to follow. I do not know if Willet even solved the mystery. Willet somewhere in the book appeared to entertain the possibility that Robin, Elwyn’s protector, may have wounded Elwyn to prevent Elwyn from being impacted negatively by the Darkwater Forest, or from misusing the gift, but my impression is that Willet abandoned this idea.
A lot of times, when reviewers critique a fiction book, they say that a good book shows rather than tells. I am a bit conflicted on how this relates to my assessment of The Shock of Night. On the one hand, there were times when I thought that Carr should have followed the “show not tell” rule, when he should have constructed vivid scenes of Willet struggling with his gift, when he should not have told us what people were thinking. On the other hand, Willet’s telling is what enabled me to understand the book to the extent that I did, to have some inkling of what was going on. Moreover, there were times when I wished that Carr was more explicit than he was. Maybe my problem is that I am not used to fantasy, but I find that being thrown into the middle of a world and figuring out its rules can be a challenge for me as a reader. I think that Carr could have made things a little easier. Perhaps a glossary of characters and terms (“gifts,” “Vigil”) would have helped.
I am hesitant to read more books by Carr, but people who are used to fantasy may have a different desire.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers, in exchange for an honest review.
AP: Ben Carson Sometimes Deviates From GOP Health Care Thought
https://www.yahoo.com/health/ben-carson-sometimes-deviates-from-gop-health-care-144459046.html
Hopefully, he’ll continue being an independent thinker, rather than giving into the right wing.
Hopefully, he’ll continue being an independent thinker, rather than giving into the right wing.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Having Salt, Being Salt
The text for this morning’s church service was Matthew 5:13: “Ye are
the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith
shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast
out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (KJV).
In light of this Thanksgiving season, the pastor was talking about turkeys. You put a turkey in salt to bring out the good flavor of the turkey. The turkey, however, is resistant to tasting good because it does not want to be eaten, and so it has evolved the ability to dump its tasty juices into a small place inside of it, such that most of its meat dries up.
I do not know if this is scientifically accurate, but I liked the pastor’s allegorization of this. We are the salt of the earth. We are supposed to bring out the good that is already in the world. The pastor may believe that people are good, in the sense that they bear God’s image, yet they are broken. He said, however, that the Gospel assures us that there is good in the world because God is there.
The pastor was talking about how those who have much for which to give thanks have an obligation to give back, to share some of what they have with others. The pastor was also talking about how we each have something to contribute to the world: the world can benefit from what we have to offer. This theme overlapped with the children’s part of the service. The pastor was asking the kids how they can help, and who in their life helps them. When the pastor asked the congregation how these kids help, some responded that the kids help just by being themselves—-by smiling, by being happy, by making people laugh, by being there for people to mentor.
In his sermon, the pastor said that we may feel like the turkey: we are resistant to tasting good because we do not want to be eaten. I guess that he was likening this part of the analogy to people being broken and not feeling that they can be salt of the earth, that they can contribute positively to the world. The pastor said that, if this is the case, then we can benefit from the salt of God’s grace. God’s grace can bring out the good that is in us. We were made in God’s image, after all, and Jesus went to the effort of coming and dying for us.
The pastor did not mention this passage, but Mark 9:50 came to my mind: “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (KJV). In Mark 9:50’s version, salt is something that we have inside of ourselves, and it contributes to peace. That overlaps with the pastor’s point about not just being salt, but receiving salt from God.
Ordinarily, when I hear sermons about obligations that I have as a Christian, I feel as if I am being told to climb Mount Everest—-either being told to do something that I cannot do that well, or being told to do something that I do not want to do. I did not feel that way after listening to the sermon this morning. I can think of ways that I already contribute to the world, bringing who I am and what I do to help bring good out of people, or at least to make life a little more comfortable to them. And I am encouraged by this morning’s sermon to do that more: to let God bring out the good that is already in me, and to be a positive influence on the world—-by writing to bring people closer to God (while being honest about my doubts and avoiding inaccurate or pat-answer apologetics), by sharing my faith journey, by being friendly to people, and by doing work that can take a load off of other people’s minds.
Today, I am being salt by sharing my pastor’s message with you.
In light of this Thanksgiving season, the pastor was talking about turkeys. You put a turkey in salt to bring out the good flavor of the turkey. The turkey, however, is resistant to tasting good because it does not want to be eaten, and so it has evolved the ability to dump its tasty juices into a small place inside of it, such that most of its meat dries up.
I do not know if this is scientifically accurate, but I liked the pastor’s allegorization of this. We are the salt of the earth. We are supposed to bring out the good that is already in the world. The pastor may believe that people are good, in the sense that they bear God’s image, yet they are broken. He said, however, that the Gospel assures us that there is good in the world because God is there.
The pastor was talking about how those who have much for which to give thanks have an obligation to give back, to share some of what they have with others. The pastor was also talking about how we each have something to contribute to the world: the world can benefit from what we have to offer. This theme overlapped with the children’s part of the service. The pastor was asking the kids how they can help, and who in their life helps them. When the pastor asked the congregation how these kids help, some responded that the kids help just by being themselves—-by smiling, by being happy, by making people laugh, by being there for people to mentor.
In his sermon, the pastor said that we may feel like the turkey: we are resistant to tasting good because we do not want to be eaten. I guess that he was likening this part of the analogy to people being broken and not feeling that they can be salt of the earth, that they can contribute positively to the world. The pastor said that, if this is the case, then we can benefit from the salt of God’s grace. God’s grace can bring out the good that is in us. We were made in God’s image, after all, and Jesus went to the effort of coming and dying for us.
The pastor did not mention this passage, but Mark 9:50 came to my mind: “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (KJV). In Mark 9:50’s version, salt is something that we have inside of ourselves, and it contributes to peace. That overlaps with the pastor’s point about not just being salt, but receiving salt from God.
Ordinarily, when I hear sermons about obligations that I have as a Christian, I feel as if I am being told to climb Mount Everest—-either being told to do something that I cannot do that well, or being told to do something that I do not want to do. I did not feel that way after listening to the sermon this morning. I can think of ways that I already contribute to the world, bringing who I am and what I do to help bring good out of people, or at least to make life a little more comfortable to them. And I am encouraged by this morning’s sermon to do that more: to let God bring out the good that is already in me, and to be a positive influence on the world—-by writing to bring people closer to God (while being honest about my doubts and avoiding inaccurate or pat-answer apologetics), by sharing my faith journey, by being friendly to people, and by doing work that can take a load off of other people’s minds.
Today, I am being salt by sharing my pastor’s message with you.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Was Jack Kemp More Courageous Than Ronald Reagan in Mississippi?
I was reading Russell Moore’s “What I’m Reading” this morning. One of the books that Moore listed was Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America, which was written by Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes (the Beltway Boys).
Jack Kemp was a football player for the Buffalo Bills, a Republican
Congressman from New York, a 1988 candidate for the Republican
nomination for U.S. President, and the Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development in George H.W. Bush’s Administration. He is known for his
support of supply-side economics, or tax cuts, but he is also known for
his concern for the poor and his sensitivity to racial issues.
What caught my eye in Moore’s brief description of the book was the following: “One anecdote I found particularly inspiring takes place when Kemp is running for president in 1988 and speaks at a fundraiser in my home state of Mississippi. Kemp is warned to avoid references to Lincoln and race, given the crowd in the room. As can be expected, Kemp spent the entire speech calling for a convictional embrace of civil rights and Lincoln’s ideas.”
That is amazing! Jack Kemp goes to Mississippi and speaks in favor of Lincoln and civil rights. I thought about when Ronald Reagan as a Republican candidate for President in 1980 spoke in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and declared his support for states’ rights, including in education (see my post here). Reagan’s speech was not entirely bad, for Reagan said in that speech that many welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare, and that is in contrast with the “welfare queen” rhetoric that he used. But Reagan endorsed states’ rights in education, in a state where a significant issue involving states’ rights in education was segregation. If what Kondracke and Barnes say about Kemp is true, then Kemp was more courageous and trailblazing than Reagan!
I have to respect Kemp’s courage and conviction.
What caught my eye in Moore’s brief description of the book was the following: “One anecdote I found particularly inspiring takes place when Kemp is running for president in 1988 and speaks at a fundraiser in my home state of Mississippi. Kemp is warned to avoid references to Lincoln and race, given the crowd in the room. As can be expected, Kemp spent the entire speech calling for a convictional embrace of civil rights and Lincoln’s ideas.”
That is amazing! Jack Kemp goes to Mississippi and speaks in favor of Lincoln and civil rights. I thought about when Ronald Reagan as a Republican candidate for President in 1980 spoke in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and declared his support for states’ rights, including in education (see my post here). Reagan’s speech was not entirely bad, for Reagan said in that speech that many welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare, and that is in contrast with the “welfare queen” rhetoric that he used. But Reagan endorsed states’ rights in education, in a state where a significant issue involving states’ rights in education was segregation. If what Kondracke and Barnes say about Kemp is true, then Kemp was more courageous and trailblazing than Reagan!
I have to respect Kemp’s courage and conviction.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Last Night's Big Bang Theory; God's Not Dead 2
A. I read an article today about last night’s episode of The Big Bang Theory.
Unfortunately, I cannot find the article. I did bookmark it, but
apparently my bookmarks are not listed according to the order in which I
bookmarked them, but rather according to another order (whatever that
is).
Essentially, the article was saying that Sheldon is not yet ready to get back into a relationship with Amy. Sheldon is still obnoxious and insensitive. He said that he would like to get back into a relationship with Amy so that he could resume diving into his work and ignoring her, as he did in the past. And Sheldon, with the help of Howard and Raj, developed a Craig’s List ad that invited interested women to solve a series of complex puzzles, and their prize would be Sheldon! Well, an attractive woman did complete the puzzles, but Sheldon rejected her because she was late, and also because she found a certain branch of physics to be boring. That was not very considerate on his part, considering she went to all that trouble solving those puzzles.
All of this should be obvious. These things did not dawn on me when I was watching the show, however, and the reason is that I expect for Sheldon to be obnoxious, or to go right when most people would go left (or vice versa). That’s what makes the show funny.
The article got me thinking, though: Does Sheldon love Amy? I always assumed that he did. After reading that post, I would say that he has affection for her in the sense that likes having her around. He enjoys her company and appreciates her love. But he wants for relationships to be on his terms and to cater to him. Amy eventually ran out of patience with that. For the relationship to work, Sheldon has to learn how to love and to give.
Many of you reading this will probably say, “Duh! Isn’t that obvious?” Yeah, it is. But we realize, learn, and articulate things at our own speeds!
B. The Christian movie God’s Not Dead has a sequel. I read about this on the blog, “Unfundamentalist Christians” (see the post here). You can watch the trailer for God’s Not Dead 2 here.
It was interesting to see who is on this movie. Apparently, this was Fred Thompson’s final role before he passed on. Fred Thompson, as you may remember, was a Republican politician and an actor (particularly on Law and Order). Jesse Metcalfe, who played on Desperate Housewives and was Christopher Ewing on the recent resurrection of Dallas, plays a Christian attorney. Robin Givens, whom you may remember as Mike Tyson’s ex-wife and from the 1980’s TV show Head of the Class, plays a school principal. It is not surprising to me that she is in the movie, since she has been on Christian movies before. Melissa Joan Hart, who has played Sabrina the Teenage Witch and is on the show Melissa and Joey (which I have not seen), plays a public school teacher who gets in trouble for mentioning Jesus in class. Pat Boone is also in the movie, and that is not overly surprising to me, since he is a right-wing Christian.
The movie has some people from the previous movie. David A.R. White, who is making the movie, reprises his role as Pastor Dave. Paul Kwo, who played the student from People’s Republic of China in the previous movie, is also in the sequel.
The movie also has J. Warner Wallace, the homicide detective and Christian apologist. His presence in the movie is not too surprising to me, since a key element of the movie is defending the truth of Christianity in the courtroom. I will not be surprised if some of his arguments are used.
It is nice to see old and new faces in a Christian movie. While I do plan to see it, I probably will not gobble it up like a lot of evangelical Christians I have known. Essentially, the movie is about a teacher whose job is on the line because she mentioned Jesus in answering a student’s question about non-violence. I doubt that would even be illegal, since Jesus was a historical voice for non-violence; what is illegal is proselytizing and pressuring people to embrace a certain faith. The ACLU is demonized as anti-Christian, when it is not opposed to Christianity but rather the promotion of religion by the state. Christians demonstrate and get arrested. I admit that I should do more service work, but I wonder if Christianity should be about fighting the world, or serving the world; the latter makes more sense to me.
I wish I could see a fair depiction of church-state controversies, as opposed to one-sided movies! But I should not be surprised: God’s Not Dead 1 did not exactly do a good job fairly representing the atheist position, so maybe I should not expect fairness, nuance, and authentic debate in its sequel.
Essentially, the article was saying that Sheldon is not yet ready to get back into a relationship with Amy. Sheldon is still obnoxious and insensitive. He said that he would like to get back into a relationship with Amy so that he could resume diving into his work and ignoring her, as he did in the past. And Sheldon, with the help of Howard and Raj, developed a Craig’s List ad that invited interested women to solve a series of complex puzzles, and their prize would be Sheldon! Well, an attractive woman did complete the puzzles, but Sheldon rejected her because she was late, and also because she found a certain branch of physics to be boring. That was not very considerate on his part, considering she went to all that trouble solving those puzzles.
All of this should be obvious. These things did not dawn on me when I was watching the show, however, and the reason is that I expect for Sheldon to be obnoxious, or to go right when most people would go left (or vice versa). That’s what makes the show funny.
The article got me thinking, though: Does Sheldon love Amy? I always assumed that he did. After reading that post, I would say that he has affection for her in the sense that likes having her around. He enjoys her company and appreciates her love. But he wants for relationships to be on his terms and to cater to him. Amy eventually ran out of patience with that. For the relationship to work, Sheldon has to learn how to love and to give.
Many of you reading this will probably say, “Duh! Isn’t that obvious?” Yeah, it is. But we realize, learn, and articulate things at our own speeds!
B. The Christian movie God’s Not Dead has a sequel. I read about this on the blog, “Unfundamentalist Christians” (see the post here). You can watch the trailer for God’s Not Dead 2 here.
It was interesting to see who is on this movie. Apparently, this was Fred Thompson’s final role before he passed on. Fred Thompson, as you may remember, was a Republican politician and an actor (particularly on Law and Order). Jesse Metcalfe, who played on Desperate Housewives and was Christopher Ewing on the recent resurrection of Dallas, plays a Christian attorney. Robin Givens, whom you may remember as Mike Tyson’s ex-wife and from the 1980’s TV show Head of the Class, plays a school principal. It is not surprising to me that she is in the movie, since she has been on Christian movies before. Melissa Joan Hart, who has played Sabrina the Teenage Witch and is on the show Melissa and Joey (which I have not seen), plays a public school teacher who gets in trouble for mentioning Jesus in class. Pat Boone is also in the movie, and that is not overly surprising to me, since he is a right-wing Christian.
The movie has some people from the previous movie. David A.R. White, who is making the movie, reprises his role as Pastor Dave. Paul Kwo, who played the student from People’s Republic of China in the previous movie, is also in the sequel.
The movie also has J. Warner Wallace, the homicide detective and Christian apologist. His presence in the movie is not too surprising to me, since a key element of the movie is defending the truth of Christianity in the courtroom. I will not be surprised if some of his arguments are used.
It is nice to see old and new faces in a Christian movie. While I do plan to see it, I probably will not gobble it up like a lot of evangelical Christians I have known. Essentially, the movie is about a teacher whose job is on the line because she mentioned Jesus in answering a student’s question about non-violence. I doubt that would even be illegal, since Jesus was a historical voice for non-violence; what is illegal is proselytizing and pressuring people to embrace a certain faith. The ACLU is demonized as anti-Christian, when it is not opposed to Christianity but rather the promotion of religion by the state. Christians demonstrate and get arrested. I admit that I should do more service work, but I wonder if Christianity should be about fighting the world, or serving the world; the latter makes more sense to me.
I wish I could see a fair depiction of church-state controversies, as opposed to one-sided movies! But I should not be surprised: God’s Not Dead 1 did not exactly do a good job fairly representing the atheist position, so maybe I should not expect fairness, nuance, and authentic debate in its sequel.
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