Book review: In That Day Teachings

by Robert Burke

★★★

Once in a while, I agree to review a book which turns out to be a bit more pointed than I expected, and doesn’t really jell with the universalistic atmosphere of my blog. My response is usually to provide a “non-rating” of three stars, make it clear to readers that I avoid endorsing any particular set of beliefs, and offer a short description of the product without taking a stance. Such is the case with Robert Burke’s collections of In That Day poetry and essays.

Robert has amassed an impressive collection of nine books that read a bit like a writer’s journal. He has obviously poured his heart into this work. Book one is a preliminary introduction; book two contains “heavy doctrine and sharp criticism of the current dysfunction worldwide church;” and books three through nine are inspirational and instructive poetry. I was given books one and three for review.

Best, perhaps, to let Robert describe his poetry in his own words:

What is In That Day? It’s God’s biblical time of uplifting denouement. It’s His period on the end of His sentence. No, it is not the end-of-days. Nor is it that crazy notion some call rapture. It is simply His day when he can tolerate stupefied Christians no more! He wants a greater mind-meld with us, His creation. And by God, He will get what He wants!

Job 2:7, Was Job Unrighteous?

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

//You know the story. God brags about his servant Job’s righteousness, and Satan (the accuser) sneers that if God took away all the things he gave to Job, Job wouldn’t be so darn righteous. So God gives Satan free reign to torture Job.

Satan takes everything away, and when that doesn’t do the trick, Satan smites Job with boils from toe to head.

The most fascinating thing about this story is that Job suffers precisely what Moses said would happen to the unrighteous.

Deuteronomy 28:35, The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

This is unlikely to be coincidence; both passages use the same Hebrew word for “afflict” (nakah) and the description of the boils is nearly identical. Either Job’s affliction draws directly from the book of Deuteronomy, or else Deuteronomy draws from Job. I’m guessing the former, though scholars continue to disagree on when Job was written, and how it came to be integrated into the Hebrew Bible. If my guess is correct, then Job is directly contradicting Moses’ statement that such evils are God’s punishment for unrighteousness; Job insists that bad things happen even to good people, and suggests in story that perhaps the powers in heaven are playing games with us humans.

Exodus 20:5, A Jealous God

[Y]ou shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God (rsv)

//Is God really jealous? Follow me on this one:

1 Corinthians 13:4, Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful.

1 John 4:8, for God is love.

One of these three verses is clearly in error, right? There are no trick phrases in these straight-forward claims. So, which verse do we discard?

For me, it’s an easy choice.

Book Review: Revelation: The Way it Happened

by Lee Harmon

I apologize for copying a lengthy article in its entirety, but I’ve come to respect Henry’s approach to Biblical studies. A few months back, he read and commented on my book, Revelation: The Way it Happened. Here are his thoughts on John’s Apocalypse and my historical approach.

(A review by Henry Neufeld of Henry’s Threads, http://henrysthreads.com/ )

When I encountered Lee Harmon in cyberspace, or more precisely he encountered me, and I learned that he’d written a book about Revelation, I was immediately hooked. Besides, Revelation – The Way it Happened is such an interesting and suggestive title. Let me warn you that, as usual, this will be less a review and more thoughts and notes on the book and on the topic.

I grew up on Revelation. Well, Daniel and Revelation. As a young Seventh-day Adventist I would hear a new series of evangelistic sermons on the topic at least once a year. We’d all go, because we obviously didn’t want to have the venue (often a tent) be empty.

And each year I heard an updated message. Revelation meant something just a bit different as all the charts and events were rearranged to suit the current news, and the evangelist would explain how precisely current events fit the right moment in the prophecy.

It took me a few years, but I began to notice the problem. When I decided to leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church, eschatology was one of the key issues, along with the doctrine of the remnant which in turn derives from SDA eschatology.

There are four major streams of interpretation of Revelation: preterism, historicism, futurism, and allegorical. Preterism holds that all or most of Revelation was fulfilled at the time (or failed of fulfillment). Historicism sees long periods of history represented by the main portions of the book (churches, seals, and trumpets especially). Futurism hold that most or all of the book remains to be fulfilled. The allegorical view comes in a variety of forms, but generally holds that the symbols in Revelation may be used to represent events at many times and places, but are not predictive of specific times and events for the most part.

SDAs keep historicism alive. The problem is that when the scheme used was first produced, it led nicely through history up to that time (the “great disappointment of 1844), with a relatively short “time of the end” coming immediately afterward. Even after the great disappointment, when SDAs took the position that they had been wrong to set a date and time, but still assumed that the end would come very soon. (To get a more detailed rundown on this issue, in fact a very detailed one, see Edward W. H. Vick, The Adventists’ Dilemma.)

A similar issue is present for futurists, in that the various players and the details of end time events change as time moves forward, even though they don’t have the problem of a timeline that stretches from the 1st century to the present, and must in turn be stretched further to accommodate continuing history. Futurists nonetheless have to contend that John the Revelator (whoever that was) had a vision of far future events which was attached to a short letter about current events written to contemporary churches, and that there was a gap of at least a couple of millenia between the two. Though Revelation 10:6 proclaims “no more delay” this interpretation proposes a great deal of delay indeed. Of course, once one places the declaration that there will be no further delay into the context of a much delayed prophecy chart, one can avoid the contradiction, provided one is flexible enough.

So that leaves us with preterism, which has most of the book refer to events contemporary to its author, and the allegorical view, which often doesn’t attach the material to much of anything.

My own bias is in favor of an allegorical view, but one that is rooted in 1st century events. Thus I see Revelation 12 as an excellent depiction of spiritual (and political) conflict no matter when it happened, but I also accept a historical grounding in the birth of Jesus and the church.

Having rambled thus far, let’s get to the book. I usually list strengths first and then weaknesses, but so I can get on with the fun, I’m going to list weaknesses first.

If you pick up this book thinking you’re going to get a scholarly dissertation, complete with full examination of all the views and plenty of footnotes, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a presentation of its author’s interpretation with a few references to other views, and very little in the way of footnotes. There’s a good extra reading section, though I’ll confess it doesn’t match what I’d recommend in many cases. It’s still a good listing. There are many books on Revelation, and it would be shocking if two lists coincided completely.

On the other hand, if you pick up the book thinking you’re going to be carried gently into understanding the book via light fiction, you’ll also be disappointed. There are multiple threads, one of them a contemporary story within a story (a father telling his son a story), interspersed with commentary and some historical narration. Font and style indicators guide you through all of this, but you’ll probably feel a little bit scattered in the early stages.

Having said all of that, let’s get to the strengths. The writing is clear and direct. It’s really easy to follow the story lines once you get them straight in your head, and despite my note about a lack of footnotes, there is no lack of references to biblical and other literature from the time.

One of the great errors Bible students make is that they expect to be able to go read Revelation on its own and come to some sort of understanding. The book is filled with quotations and allusions, some very close, some more distant. But there are very few words in the book that don’t connect somewhere. Harmon does a good job of referencing much of this material.

I was especially gratified to see the extensive use of the connections with Ezekiel, which often don’t get enough attention from modern futurist commentators. Of course Daniel is also important as is Zechariah but so are many other books. Getting a feel for the symbolism also requires use of other apocalyptic literature, and Harmon provides quite a number of references.

I have been attracted to the 70s or 80s dating that Harmon uses myself, but I remain unconvinced. I think it’s a possible dating, but my main criticism of the interpretation provided may be an excessively close tie between the imagery and real world events. It’s possible, but I think it is a bit of a stretch.

Overall, I’d say that while I find several specific theses in the book questionable, it’s a good read and it provides enough references to primary literature to help set you on your way to some rewarding study. My hope would be that readers of this book will turn to those primary sources and help change the way Christians speak about Revelation.

The fact is that we’ve been proclaiming “soon,” in the sense of “just around the corner” for so long, that it no longer sounds very convincing. If people did this in any field other than religion, we’d call them liars. There’s a way to understand “soon,” but this isn’t it. If the futurist interpretation of Revelation is correct, one would have to suppose that God lied to those who first heard the words. We need to rethink the way we teach prophecy, and do it less as prediction and more as admonition.

The purpose of apocalyptic is encouragement at a time of trouble. There is encouragement there that can apply at any time and place. There is also an ultimate hope. But the reason to carry out our mission as Christians, Christ’s body in the world, is not that Jesus may come and end it all at any moment, but rather that Jesus is already near and our own end is always near. And because Jesus is near we can face our own hardships and ultimate passing from this world with hope.

I believe in the “resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” as the creed says. But I don’t believe that the passage of time is the main issue. Whatever the length of time until the end, God is present.

In the meantime, you could do much worse with your time than read this book and let it challenge you to further study.

Matthew 1:18, Joseph, Jesus' Father

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

//Bishop John Shelby Spong's new book, Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, pointed out three interesting parallels between Joseph, the father of Jesus, and Joseph, the most-beloved son of Jacob in the Old Testament. This comparison comes from the book of Matthew, and in fact, Matthew was the first book written to identify the father of Jesus as Joseph. Did Matthew borrow his story from the Old Testament?

Here are the startling comparisons:

[1] Both Josephs had a father named Jacob

[2] God spoke to both Josephs in dreams

[3] Both saved their family by taking them down to Egypt.

Coincidence, foreshadowing, or creative license on Matthew's part?

Romans 8:28-30, Predestination

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

//While this is far too great a topic for a short Dubious Disciple post, and while I consider myself by no stretch of the imagination a theologian, I thought it might be interesting to list a few verses that contribute to the Free Will vs. Predestination debate, and see if they generate any argument.

The above is the primary verse quoted by those who believe God predestined some to be redeemed, others to be lost. But if that isn't clear enough, here's a few more New Testament verses:

Ephesians 1:4-5, For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Romans 9:15: For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.  

Acts 13:48, When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

But what about the other side? How about if we'd rather believe we have some semblance of a choice in the matter? Before delving back into the New Testament, let's start with God's expectation of obedience throughout the Old Testament, which is easily summarized in this one passage:

Deuteronomy 11:26-28, See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse--the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God.

Will this simple matter of us choosing our own destiny carry forward into the New Testament? Are we in command of our own will? There, it's not so clear:

Galatians 5:1, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

1 Corinthians 7:37, But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing.

Revelation 22:17, The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

While these verses are encouraging, they only provide hints of free will. None of them directly address the issue of  whether or not we are masters of our own destiny. Did God give up on his Free Will experiment after the Old Testament, where his people seemingly couldn't learn to behave?

Book Review: The Case Against Evangelical Christianity

by Dr. Rick Herrick

★★★★

Rick Herrick’s book is a friendly, easy-to-read argument against “Evangelical Christianity.” Rick is a self-proclaimed Christian, but is unable to promote the Bible as a history book to be read literally. Welcome to the club, right? The back cover promises a “hard-hitting attack against Christian fundamentalism,” but I really didn’t get that feeling. Instead, Rick presents common sense reason after reason for replacing fundamentalism with Jesus’ dream of a “Kingdom of God.” Rick never does precisely nail down his own vision for the Kingdom, but love plays a pivotal role.

Rick’s views are down to earth and should strike a chord with most any thinking person. From a scholarly viewpoint, I didn’t read anything terribly profound or original. Any Bible scholar is aware of the Bible’s more talked-about contradictions and disproven claims, and Rick doesn’t delve much deeper than this. But Herrick knows his Bible, he knows Israel’s history, and he has a knack for writing simply, presenting commonplace arguments that should convince any Bible reader of its errancy. It’s a pretty quick read, but Herrick doesn’t need deep research or complex theological arguments to make his point; fundamentalism just simply doesn’t hold up under even a cursory examination.

This is a book for any Christian who has read too much of the Bible to embrace its portrayal of God, yet shares an appreciation for their Christian heritage and an awe for the mystery of love.

2 Corinthians 6:14, Be not unequally yoked

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

//Long ago, a minister asked me to explain this verse. Many have used this verse to discourage interfaith marriage or marriage to an unbeliever. I was no minister, so I felt a bit proud to be asked my opinion, but I didn’t have much to say. I think I muttered something about how two people sharing a yoke needed to be working equally hard, or one would hold back the other.

Actually, Paul was referring to the law. Deuteronomy 22:10 reads, Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Why? Because sharing a yoke together would cause both animals discomfort in plowing. It was not that they couldn’t or wouldn’t share the same yoke, but that it would be painful.

Paul’s advice, it seems to me, is not to shun unbelievers as potential partners but to be aware that “plowing the field” together will be a painful process. Doesn’t matter whether you’re the ox or the ass.

Book review: The Devil Wears Nada

by Tripp York

★★★★★

TRIPP! Tripp, I’m beggin’ ya man, please keep me on your list of reviewers for future books! I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. Needless to say, I got absolutely nothing done yesterday.

Tripp’s quest to find God by first finding the devil may be as serious as it is bizarre, but it’s just so doggone funny. Tripp confesses that you can’t find God through philosophical argument, but then proceeds to search for Satan in precisely that logical manner, scheduling interviews with a number of religious (and anti-religious) figures. Along the way, Tripp finds Satan in a malfunctioning microphone, a cranky kitty, and a buncha God-robbin’ poor people who think it’s more important to eat than tithe. In fact, Satan hides just about everywhere—except around those darn Satanists—but each interview just adds to Tripp’s frustration in not being able to get a tangible hold on the slippery critter’s pointy tail.

Tripp can’t handle incongruity, by the way. He starts getting about as cranky as Cindy Jacobs’ possessed cat, and then has a hard time harnessing his cynicism, which leaves a lot of bewildered interviewees in his wake.  His research steers inexorably and frustratingly to an anticlimax, a Devil wearing nada, until, finally, trooper that Tripp is, he decides to go all in. He agrees to sell his soul to the Devil. No big deal, he figures: His belief in the soul has been dashed. He prepares a devilish concoction of soundtracks to hold him for several long lonely hours, locates a suitable “dirt crossroads,” sketches out a devils trap in the dirt, and waits to see if his offer will entice the old dragon. Hey, this is suddenly turning scary, because beneath Tripp’s now-nervous humor lies an undercurrent of serious flirting with the occult. It’s now or never. And what happens next is …

… aw, I can’t tell you. But my smile disappeared in the final pages, as a philosophical answer to Tripp’s search for Satan and God bubbled up from the underworld.

Joshua 10:12-14 The Sun Stands Still, part II of II

On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since ...

//Today’s passage is a repeat of yesterday, quoted in a different version for a little variety, and with the story’s addendum: Never has there been a day like this, before or since! Indeed, much ado has been made about this one passage in Joshua. We all know the sun doesn't rotate about the earth, as described here, but the earth rotates around the sun.

This verse will forever live in infamy, because it was cited by the Vatican in its condemnation of Galileo and his "heresy" that the earth was not really the center of the universe. Church leaders used this passage in Joshua as a proof text that the sun rotated around the earth, not vice versa. Galileo was found guilty of heresy and charged, condemned to be burned at the stake. (Don't worry, his sentence was later reduced ... he was forced only to recant his heresy and promise never again to publish his weird ideas.)

This interference of the Church into the affairs of science is considered by many to be the starting point in a four-century war between science and religion. It was not until 1991 that the Vatican issued a public announcement that the Catholic Church had been proven wrong, and Galileo was right.

Joshua 10:12-13, The Sun Stands Still, Part I of II

Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: "Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

//We all know that in antiquity, the common belief was that the earth was flat and fixed, while the sun and moon rode through the sky. But for some reason, it troubles some readers to imagine that the Bible espouses this belief. Why does this surprise people? How could anyone in antiquity, writing down the words that would become our Bible, describe something they didn't believe to be true? That the earth was spherical and spun on an axis, providing the illusion of the sun rotating around it?

Rather, the most common understanding in the Mediterranean world was that the earth was flat, covered by a dome of sorts, and that the sun and moon rode tracks daily across the underside of the dome. You'll find this description of the creation in Genesis, chapter 1.

A number of other verses also support this idea that the sun can simply be held back on its track, or even made to reverse course:

Habakkuk 3:11, The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;

Job 9:7, He commands the sun, and it does not rise;

2 Kings 20:11, So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.

Isaiah 38:8, "Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward." So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.

More about this topic tomorrow.

Book review: Off Target, 18 bull's-eye exposés

by John Noe, Ph.D

★★★★

Yikes! Noe comes out of his corner with fists swinging in this one. If we wanna save the world, we better listen up. Noe gives us 18 short, passionate exposés highlighting his psuedo-preterist interpretation of scripture.

Most of them are a little too feisty for me, so I didn’t connect quite so strongly with this book as I did with Hell Yes / Hell No, my first book by Noe. This time around, Noe has bypassed the balanced approach of presenting both sides of his arguments, and resorted to straight talk. He’s frustrated at the way Christian beliefs in the last couple centuries have shifted from postmillennial to dispensational premillennial views—with its teaching that the world is supposed to get worse and worse before Christ returns—and bemoans how this change “perfectly coincides and statistically correlates with the withdrawal of Christians from societal involvement, the rise of godless rule, and the decline of morality and public life here in America.” Noe believes our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, with Christianity once the moral influencer in our society. He complains about the recent exodus of our youth from today’s churches, blaming improper teachings of what to believe.

All this can be set right by jettisoning our “dumbed-down Christianity” and reading the scriptures for what they say. When Jesus promises the new age will arrive “within a generation” (40 years), we need to take him at his word, and recognize the role that the war of 70 AD played in Christian history. Let it be known that, while I’m no preterist, I do sympathize with Noe’s view. You cannot lift the New Testament out from the shadow of that horrendous war. We do the Bible a disservice by pretending its writers prophesied a time in their distant future.

Noe has some legitimate arguments, but so does the other side. He points out, for example, that in the final verses of Matthew Jesus promises to never go away again, and concludes that Jesus won’t be coming back because he never left in the first place. Of course, the book of Acts says just the opposite, that, as Jesus ascended, he promised to be right back. So, Noe compromises by explaining that Christ comes and goes as he pleases. It’s true that Hebrews says Jesus “will appear a second time,” but Noe points out that this doesn’t confine Jesus’ comings to only two.

My purpose is not to argue with Noe (his staunch belief in the Bible as everywhere true would leave us with little common basis for debate) but to point out that there are at least two sides to every argument, so believers who consider the Bible inerrant will be forever squabbling because of the varying beliefs of its writers. Noe is at his best in arguing the urgency of the first century Christian message and its dream of a Kingdom, but I couldn’t share his analysis and admiration for the Book of Revelation as the highlight of that Kingdom. Revelation, he says, is “the only source that unveils and reveals Jesus in his present-day, pertinent, and full exalted, glorified, transformed, transfigured, and transcendent reality. … This is the Jesus each of us, today, needs to meet, know, and take seriously.”

Ugh, not me. Frankly, Revelation is a literary masterpiece, my favorite book in the Bible (I published a book about it a year ago: www.thewayithappened.com), but its Jesus is ugly and icky. Revelation’s vengeful pipedreams could have derailed Christianity; thankfully, the Johannine Community out of which it sprang discovered it was better off leaning on John’s Gospel … the gospel of love.

So, okay, it turns out that Noe and I have our differences. Yet I must admit, his book and its 18 theses are well worth reading. His research is deep and relevant. More than anything else, Noe’s new argumentative book does indeed highlight how the Bible should not be “dumbed down,” how it deserves to be read carefully and thoughtfully. By the time Noe reaches his 18^th exposé, he has circled around to where he and I, even with our vastly different Christianities, are in harmony. In his final chapter, titled Your Worldview, Noe discusses Jesus’ paradigm and the Kingdom of God. This is what Christianity is all about! When will we stop “futurizing” the Kingdom and start living it? While I can’t quite walk Noe’s pathway of staunch preterism and inerrant scripture, I applaud its destination, and dream of the day when all Christians share Jesus’ vision of a Kingdom. If Noe’s pathway leads us there, we could do far worse.

Habakkuk 1:13, Does God Hate Evil?

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.

//Is this verse true, or does it reflect only the author's romantic picture of God? If God can't tolerate evil, where did evil come from?

The Psalms promise, "The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made." Lamentations 3:33 agrees, "For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men."

But other scripture seems to differ in opinion. Who made the Serpent of Eden, if not God? And can Satan really take all the blame for evil? Job's "brethen" recognized that God had brought evil upon Job. (Job 42:11)

Says Isaiah 45:7, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil." Jeremiah 18:11 reads, "Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you." Judges 9:23 tells how "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem;" Amos 3:6 asks, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”

The problem of evil is one of the most troubling aspects for many believers. Many simply can't comprehend that God could be omniscient and omnipotent while still allowing evil to exist. It just doesn't jibe with our fervent wish that, above all else, God is good.

Today's verses prove that this topic troubled believers 2,500 years ago just as much as today.

1 Samuel 25:22, Please don't pee on my wall!

So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

//What on earth is this all about? David appears to be miffed at people peeing on the wall, and promises to go after them, leaving none of them alive by morning. Is it really that serious a crime?

While this verse may be interpreted in today’s vernacular as a warning about posting pissy sayings on one’s facebook wall, in Bible days it was a common euphemism. One who “pisseth against the wall” is merely anyone who pees standing up. That is, a male. The phrase actually occurs six times in the King James version, though its bawdiness is covered up in more delicate translations.

So why resort to graphic language? Why not just say “male”?

It’s poetry, guys, which would probably be appreciated if we hadn’t become so Victorian! The Jewish Talmud quotes Rabbi Johanan sharply criticizing “anyone who reads the scripture without tunefulness.” The Hebrew Bible is a literary achievement, meant to be read in a rhythmic, melodic chant. “Wall,” or beqir, sounds very much like “morning,” or boqer. Read the verse aloud in your best Hebrew to hear the alliteration: ad ha-boqer mashtin beqir.

Book review: Tim Tebow, Through My Eyes

by Tim Tebow, with Nathan Whitaker

★★★★★

Well, it’s Sunday, and there’s no football. The Superbowl is over. Desperately clinging to another passion (NFL football) and hoping to excuse it as religious reading, I picked up Tim Tebow’s book. Tim, the latest God-fearing sports sensation.

Don’t let me fool you: This is a football book, not a book about religion. More than anything else, you’ll be reading about Tebow’s football experiences, including his remarkable college career. Tebow’s success in football boils down to one thing: an obsessive drive. He simply cannot slack off. “When we think we can do less than our best, when we think others are not watching, we’re cheating ourselves and the God who created us.” But it’s more than wanting to do right by God. Tebow just can’t accept losing. His mantra: “Somewhere he is out there, training while I am not. One day, when we meet, he will win.”

Here’s the deal: Much as I wince at athletes who praise God after every touchdown, I wound up really liking this Tebow fella! Yes, Tim feels the need to evangelize, given the special opportunity he has been given in life, but his religion is grounded. He may print Bible verses under his eyes when he plays, hoping for a camera close-up, but  he doesn’t consider himself God’s answer to the world. A couple typical Tebow quotes:

“I know it sounds dumb to be praying over a football game … I’m not sure God is into who wins or loses .. But since my parents raised me to pray about anything that’s on my heart, I pray—even if some of those things are trivial in the overall scheme of things.”

“People often seem to think that when you’re following the Lord and trying to do His will, your path will always be clear, the decisions smooth and easy, and life will be lived happily ever after and all that. Sometimes that may be true, but I’ve found that more often, it’s not. The muddled decisions still seem muddled, bad things still happen to believers, and great things can happen to nonbelievers.”

Yeah, the season is over, and Tim Tebow, the unlikely master of miraculous comebacks, couldn’t pull a rabbit out of the hat when it really mattered this year. His faith in God notwithstanding, we now head into the off-season wondering if he’ll even remain the Anointed One in Denver. Tebow never lost his trust in God, but has he lost the trust of his coaching staff?

As Tim says, “I don’t know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.”

Acts 16:19, "They" becomes "we"

And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew [them] into the marketplace unto the rulers

//If you've read the books of Acts cover-to-cover, you know it contains some mighty hard-to-believe stories. This tends to hurt the book's credibility in the eyes of many scholars. But there is a fascinating turning point in Acts, where scholars suddenly perk up.

Today's verse is a pivot point in Acts; a point where the pronoun "they" changes suddenly to "we," and remains "we" for quite some time. You probably won't notice this in your chosen version, because care is taken by most interpreters to make the story read cohesively. See the word [them], bracketed purposefully by the online Blue Letter Bible I copied from? It isn't really there, not in the original Greek. Instead, the text suddenly switches from third-person to first-person. It is as if the author of Acts lifted a story, presumably written by Paul himself, and placed it within his own narrative. These portions describe the exploits and journeys of Paul, and coincide well with authentic Pauline writings elsewhere in the Bible. This change to a personal pronoun increases scholars' confidence in at least this portion of the book of Acts.

Revelation 9:11, The Angel of the Abyss

They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

//In this verse, John of Patmos finds a corny play on Greek words to make a point. He describes a fearsome army of locusts the size of horses arising from the smoke of the Abyss. (The Abyss was thought to be a cavern within the underworld.) The job of these locusts is to torment people for five months. John calls the king of this fearsome army the “the angel of the Abyss,” and names him Apollyon, or Abaddon.

Apollyon, like Abaddon, means "destroyer," and John's clever play on words seems to be saying that the Greek god Apollo reigns over Sheol. Abaddon is another name for Sheol, the realm of the dead.

In an earlier post about Revelation, I described how the pose of twenty four elders around the throne of God mocked the Greek god Apollo. Now, here is Apollo again, as the angel of Sheol. It's no coincidence that the locust symbolizes Apollo, the god of pestilence and plague.

Why does John seem to have it in for this particular god? Because Nero Caesar, the Roman emperor who tortured so many Christians and ordered the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, claimed to be Apollo. Coins were minted with Nero's portrait appearing as Apollo, Nero's statue was erected in an ancient temple of Apollo, and a building in Athens was dedicated to All powerful Nero Caesar Sebastos, a new Apollo. Meet the original angel of the Abyss: Nero Caesar.

More about Nero Caesar and his dastardly role in the book of Revelation can be found in my book, Revelation: The Way it Happened.

Book review: The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town

by Paul Louis Metzger

★★★

Not a bad book, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Other reviews built up my hopes for a deep exegesis, but this wasn’t the focus. Metzger is more interested in encouraging us in our walk with God.

Example: The book opens, as expected, with the Logos prologue to John’s Gospel. After a short discussion, Metzger writes, “One could easily get lost in deep theological and Trinitarian reflection on the divine Word of John 1, and how the Word is with God and is God from all eternity.” Yes, please! Let’s! But we didn’t. A bit later, in the same chapter, Metzger writes off the topic: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. That computes far better than e=mc2 or any mathematical formula any day, don’t you think? Now, won’t you experience?”

I purchased this book on my own (rather than it being sent to us for review), so I felt no obligation to finish. I read about a third of it, scanned the rest to see if the focus would change, and settled upon a non-rating of three stars. Certainly well-written, but not very helpful from a scholarly perspective.

Psalms 95:3, the Council of Gods

For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods. 

//Yesterday, I introduced the council of gods in heaven. The Hebrew God, Yahweh, was apparently believed to be the head of the council:

Psalms 82:1, God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.

Yahweh apparently became the big cheese because of his might:

Psalms 89:6, For who in the skies above can compare with the LORD? Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings?

This "council of gods" in heaven was a common Mediterranean belief where Israel settled, and each community held loyal to their own chosen local representative on the council. Israel's chosen god was particularly jealous, requiring strict devotion to him alone:

Exodus 34:14, For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God

In fact, he didn't even want his humans talking about other gods:

Exodus 23:13, "And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth." 

In time, of course, Judaism evolved away from the idea of multiple gods. Instead, they began to claim that all the other gods were either make-believe or were demons. We’ve come full circle back to yesterday’s verse and Paul’s claim in the New Testament:

1 Corinthians 8:4, ... there is no other God but one.

1 Corinthians 8:4, Only one God?

 ... there is no other God but one.

//Pretty clear, huh? On December 9, 2011, I discussed whether or not Israel was originally polytheistic ... believing in multiple gods. For some reason, it seems to rankle people to imagine that religious beliefs evolved over time. But the existence of other gods was originally taken for granted in the Bible. Here's an example:

Exodus 22:28, Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people. As Judaism developed, they came to believe in only one God, but even the Bible supports scholars' conclusion that polytheism was originally common. The creation story gives plenty of hints:

Genesis 1:26, Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness." Who is it that was creating the universe alongside God? A bit later, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, God says, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil." Then comes the tower of Babel, and God says, "Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." You can find other examples. There existed a "we" in heaven. Christians tend to think of a triune God, a "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" speaking among themselves, but the doctrine of the Trinity hardly existed when these words were penned.

Genesis 14:22, But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth. Here we have a more common explanation of the "we" up in heaven. Abraham's God is not alone, but he is the Most High god, the big cheese. There existed a council of gods, and the Hebrew God ruled over the council. More about this council tomorrow.

Book review: Bad Acts of the Apostles

by John Henson

★★★★★

I loved this book!! It's original, fun to read, and thought-provoking. And that last one is, above all else, the primary determinant in how I rate a book ... how much it makes me think. 

I do confess this: You need to know your Bible before reading this one. There's just too much cram-packed into these 200 pages for Henson to take time to describe the setting of every topic. He assumes you know the Bible stories, and he assumes you've had some exposure to Biblical criticism. The result is no wasted words, and I wound up savoring it very slowly.

Henson’s point seems to be that nobody, not even Jesus' closest followers, measure up to Christ. Given the opportunity to lead on their own, the apostles’ floundering attempts in the book of Acts sometimes seem to steer the boat off course, away from the compassionate message of their founder. Henson relays the stories in Acts with wry insight, and here I should confess something else: Once in a while, Henson's opinionated directness overshadows his humor. He comes down particularly hard on "Rocky" (Peter) and  Paul (who "loved to give advice" even on non-theological matters, and wasn't above the occasional "I told you so" afterward.) Hey, turns out these guys were human after all! None of this is cause to despise these early Christians, we just love them all the more in their character flaws, marveling all the more at how Christianity survived its first bumbling attempts. In other words, Henson's direct approach works.

Definitely worth reading!

Genesis 7:23, Did the Flood Destroy All Life?

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

//This verse seems pretty clear on the matter. But since scientific study continues to insist there has been no worldwide flood, a number of Bible readers consider the flood story to be a local event. They point to other locations in scripture where "the whole world" appears to mean only the surrounding area of the writer.

The flood story, however, carries an unmistakable moral lesson: Life on earth would not have survived were it not for Noah's faithfulness. Life was preserved only because Noah brought animals into the ark, to preserve these species on earth. That's the entire point of the flood myth, isn’t it? God wiped out his creation and started over.

But not only does external evidence undermine this interpretation, the Bible itself does! If you believe all life on earth was destroyed, consider the following:

Genesis 6:4, The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

This verse is provided to bolster the wickedness of mankind before the flood. The story reads as if God wished to destroy the Nephilim (giants) by the flood. But then comes this verse, long after the flood, describing the fearsome people inhabiting the promised land:

Numbers 13:33, We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Perhaps the Nephilim were so tall that they were able to keep their heads above water?

Jonah 1:1-2, The Message of Jonah

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

//The book of Jonah is a wonderful, humanitarian story about universal love. You know the story: God says to Jonah, "go, preach to Nineveh." Jonah balks, for who could be sympathetic toward the hated Assyrians and their capital city of Nineveh? Jonah runs the other way. He winds up on a boat tossed by a powerful storm, is heaved overboard by the sailors when he is discovered to be the cause for God's wrath, and is swallowed by a big fish. When the fish coughs him up three days later, Jonah has had enough. He repents and does what God commands, preaching to Nineveh.

The whole city of Nineveh repents (Jonah must have been one heckuva preacher) and Jonah is miffed because God decides to pardon them. Jonah goes and sulks under a big "gourd" to escape the hot sun and contemplate the unfairness of life. Before the next day dawns, however, God creates a little worm who eats the gourd. Jonah is miffed all the more. God explains his lesson: Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

This tale might be considered no more than a fun bedtime story, were it not for its timing. Scholars date the writing of this book precisely to a period in time when Jerusalem was undergoing a severe ethnic cleansing, shortly after a wave of Jews returned from captivity in Babylon. In an attempt to purify God's race, all non-Jews were being banished outside the walls of Jerusalem, even though it meant breaking up marriages and families.

Enter the anonymous book of Jonah, a bit of protest literature, with its plea for tolerance for all nations. The man Jonah, readers would recognize, is a portrayal of the Jews' own bigotry.

Book review: Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide?

by Karen Spears Zacharias

★★★★

Karen’s new book is a collection of short introductions, mostly anonymous personas such as “The Bookseller” or “The Grill Man.” Some are inspirational in the way they spread kindness with their lives and/or money, while others are downright sickening in their greed or coercion through a prosperity gospel. Think TV evangelists who promise that if you send your $100 now, today, God will bless you by returning far more. The book is sometimes heartwarming, sometimes disturbing.

Karen writes with wit and passion. She’s opinionated and direct, and she gets on her high horse a bit as she exposes The Secret as utter hogwash, money-grubbing TV evangelism as downright fraud, and Bernie Madoff as the embodiment of evil. But she’s serious about learning from the example of Jesus, and I dare say she has Jesus on her side. That is, if Jesus' teachings about money and its use are to be taken seriously.

Worth reading!