Lee Harmon's Blog, page 56
June 17, 2013
Acts 15:29, Eat No Blood
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
//Most Christians interpret the New Testament as a sort of replacement for the old law. We eat all the pigs we want, we wear cotton-blend clothes, and though we may sometimes feel like stoning our children for disobedience, we quell the temptation. The old law has been replaced by Jesus, and all those weird rules don’t apply anymor...
June 16, 2013
Book review: Evil and the Justice of God
by N. T. Wright
★★★★
Wright tackles the age-old problem of evil (why does God allow evil to happen?), but with a little bit of a twist. Wright does not discuss natural evil, and there is little attempt to explain or justify personal evil. No wishy-washy explanations, such as the typical argument that God allows evil because it creates circumstances in which virtue can flourish. Rather, Wright focuses on what God is doing about evil. Remember: the prophets repeatedly promised a coming age when t...
June 15, 2013
Genesis 38:24, The Origin of the Jews
About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”
//Interesting story, no?
The Jews, you might remember, take their name from the tribe of Judah. It quickly became the dominant tribe, the home of Jerusalem, and the survivor when the Assyrians conquered and scattered the ten northern tribes. Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, is the ancestor of the Je...
June 14, 2013
Genesis 28:14, Old Testament Eternal Life
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
//An odd verse to introduce the topic of eternal life, don’t you think? Yet this is precisely the way the majority of Old Testament writers imagined living on after death: through one’s descendants.Being remembered and spoken well of was of primary importance.I uncovered this he...
June 13, 2013
Book review: Pastrix
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
★★★★★
Fantastic! So funny, so moving, with tears rolling either way. This is a raw version of Take This Bread (by Sara Miles), where the misfit lesbian atheist churchgoer is swapped out for an even funnier tattooed alcoholic-in-recovery who “swears like a truck driver” … and who this time went so far as to become a Lutheran pastor, founding her own church. When Nadia decided to become God’s bitch and embrace the whole “Jesus thing,” she changed … well, probably only her drin...
June 12, 2013
2 Samuel 5:8, No Lame and Blind in the Temple
And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
//I admit, I honestly don’t know what to make of this verse. It sounds too much like legend. Here’s the deal:
By God’s decree, the lame and blind were apparently not allowed to be priests in the temple.For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall...
June 11, 2013
Guest post: Did Jesus Exist? from Galen Watson
Galen Watson has became a friend of mine after he provided a review copy of his novel, The Psalter. It’s a five-star thriller, reviewed here so don’t miss it!
Galen recently posted a bit of his research about where scholarship stands on the issue of whether Jesus existed as a flesh-and-blood person. I often find people attracted to the shock value of mythicists claiming that Jesus is a complete fabrication, so I thought I would share Galen’s post, just to let you all know where scholarship on...
June 10, 2013
Book review: A Week in the Life of Corinth
by Ben Witherington III
★★★★★
Very informative. Witherington splices together historical fiction and scholarly commentary to produce an excellent teaching aid. The result is fiction that is too choppy and short for a captivating plot, but perfect for enjoyable learning.
The story takes place in the mid-first century, at the time Paul the Apostle was church planting. Paul plays a heavy role, but he’s not the main character. Instead, some obscure characters in the Bible are fleshed out and brought...
June 9, 2013
Mark 14:36, Take This Cup
“Abba, Father,” [Jesus] said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
//Most of us are familiar with Jesus’ prayer of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is overwhelmed by the need to die in horrible fashion, and asks God if he can “remove the cup.”
This weakness drew mockery from Celsus, a pagan critic of the second century: “Why does [Jesus] howl, lament, and pray to escape the fear of destruction?” It’s a good question. Doesn’t it...
June 8, 2013
Luke 10:18, Satan And His Stars Fall From Heaven
And [Jesus] said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
//This verse has drawn much speculation from both scholars and casual readers of the Bible. What did Jesus see? When did he see it? Consider this version of the story in Revelation,described poetically as a retelling of a popular dragon myth:
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.And his tail drew the third part of the...
