Lee Harmon's Blog, page 5
February 24, 2015
Genesis 11:31, Did God Tell Abraham To Sacrifice Isaac? Part II of III
And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.
//Yesterday I introduced the Documentary Hypothesis, and how it assumes two different Biblical authors contributed to the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. This assumption stems from the use of Elohim as a name for God by one author, an...
February 23, 2015
Genesis 22:2, Did God Tell Abraham To Sacrifice Isaac? Part I of III
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
//This story disturbs an awful lot of Bible readers. God tests Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his only son as a burnt offering. Abraham does what God demands, taking his son up a mountain, building an altar, and binding him on the altar. As he reaches for the knife to slay his son, God fin...
February 20, 2015
Book review: Flipped
by Doug Pagitt
★★★★★
Don’t miss this one. Pagitt has the interesting writing style, fresh Bible interpretations, and anecdotal stories to keep you turning pages while he presents his Progressive Christian outlook. He even throws in a little Einstein as he explains what it means to be the light of the world.
Flipped is about turning everything over and seeing it fresh. Your concept of God will be turned on its head. Here’s a clue: Pagitt’s favorite phrase may come from the book of Acts: “In God w...
February 19, 2015
Book Excerpt: Revelation: The Way It Happened
“And so ends the Jewish nation,” Matthew pronounced, wagging his head appropriately.
Samuel smiled wryly at his son’s language, probably a phrase he had heard from his teacher. He sounded so grown up! “Yes, so ends the Jewish nation, a time of great darkness for the people of God. Did not the prophet Amos tell us these events would signal the end of times? God said, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”
“Imagine if that really happened, Father! Children wo...
February 18, 2015
Acts 10:28, Quoting Ancient Poets
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said
//These words are spoken by Paul in the book of Acts. Are you curious who he is quoting?
It’s credited to Epimenides, who lived six centuries before Paul. Here is another quote, supposedly written by Paul:
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. –Titus 1:12
These quotes both originate from the same “poem,” known as Cretica addressing...
February 17, 2015
Mark 5:5, Legion and the Roman Armies
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
//This verse describes a man who lived among the graves and was possessed by a “legion” of devils. He was untameable, self-destructive, unhelped and known only as “Legion.”
Whatever the purpose of this story, and whatever its historicity, it serves well as a parable of the Jewish nation under Roman suppression. The name Legion would have been easily recognized as a reference to the Rom...
February 16, 2015
Luke 16:31, The Warning From Hell
“But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”
//This line comes from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. After life is over, Lazarus and the rich man both find themselves in Hades, separated by a chasm. Lazarus is stationed in a pleasant place, in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man, not so much. The rich man is in such torment that he asks Abraham to let Lazarus go up to the living world and warn his broth...
February 14, 2015
Matthew 26:50, The Friend of Jesus
But Jesus said to him, “Friend, why have you come?” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him.
//Can you guess who Jesus is talking to? It’s his betrayer, Judas. Judas has just delivered Jesus into the hands of his enemies, and Jesus calls him friend.
Often, much is made of this statement, as if Jesus was still considering Judas a true friend. But this ignores the literary reference to earlier in the book of Matthew. Here is an earlier reference to a friend:
But when the king came in t...
February 13, 2015
Book review: Resurrection City
by Peter Goodwin Heltzel
★★★★
In the book of Revelation, a heavenly city descends to earth, and God takes up residence there to govern the earth in godly justice. This city is a metaphor for the place of God’s presence, a place where God’s resurrection power is fully manifest.
Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of a beloved city was driven by an idealism that another world was genuinely possible. King dreamed of its citizens working together in love to end poverty and war.
Heltzel posits that this dre...
February 12, 2015
Matthew 21:13, The Den of Robbers
“It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
//These words were spoken by Jesus to the money changers and vendors in the temple courtyard. I’ve always assumed Jesus was just a bit miffed about the temple system and the way it extracted money from visiting pilgrims for high-priced sacrifices. This understanding stems primarily from John’s Gospel. There, Jesus says nothing about a “den of robbers” and instead shouts, “...
