Book review: Christianity, How a Tiny Sect From a Despised Religion Came to Dominate the Roman Empire

by Jonathan Hill

★★★★★

Wow! This one belongs on my favorites list. I fell in love with this book before I began reading; it’s beautiful enough for the coffee table, and scholarly enough for the library.

Thankfully, the writing lives up to the presentation! Hill’s work is enjoyable, frank and immensely informative, making for a hard book to put down. I’m reminded of another book I enjoyed: J.R. Porter’s treatment of the historical Jesus ( http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/2011/02/book-review-jesus-christ-jesus-of.html ). Hill picks up where Porter left off, tracing the first four centuries of Christianity’s roots, and how it survived persecution, internal strife, and pagan and imperial competition. Along the way, you’ll meet the church fathers and the early monks, you’ll relive the struggle to define the Trinity, and you’ll get to know the emperors who left their mark upon Christianity, including, of course, the infamous Constantine. You’ll meet the Donatists, the Arians, and more. And peppered throughout the book are pictures of ruins, artifacts, maps, and Christian artwork.

I can vouch for Hill’s careful scholarship for the initial chapters, where he discusses first-century history, but I confess I’m no scholar of the next three hundred years, so I won’t guarantee the book’s historical accuracy; I can claim, however, that I learned far more about this period from this book than I have in past studies, and enjoyed the experience much more! Hill brings the characters and controversies alive. My favorite part of the book was digging inside the minds of the early apologists, such as Justin Martyr and Origen. It left me wanting more, and searching the internet for more books by Jonathan Hill.

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Matthew 25:35, the slaying of Zacharias

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

//In this verse, Jesus curses Jerusalem for stoning the prophets, and in the next, promises that the prophecies of bloodshed will come upon “this generation.” If you know your first-century history, you know Jesus was right. The Jewish historian Josephus describes this very act of slaying Zacharias, perhaps 35 years after Jesus made the proclamation: “So two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias [the son of Baruch] in the middle of the temple, and slew him.” This occurred in the court of the priests, which is between the temple proper and the altar, just as Matthew relates.

Can you imagine being poor Zacharias, hearing this prophecy? If I were him, I’d stay the heck away from the Temple for the rest of my life!

But why does Jesus make this claim in the past tense? “Whom ye slew,” rather than “whom ye will slay.” Is it because, at the time the Gospel of Matthew was written, the event had already happened? Most scholars estimate that Matthew was written around 80-85 A.D.

Which naturally begs the question: Did Jesus really utter this prophecy, or did Matthew put the words on Jesus’ lips after it had happened? As always, there are two ways to read and date the Bible; historical-critical scholars will invariably date the books of the Bible after the events they predict, and conservative believers will invariably date the books of the Bible before the events they predict. No wonder Bible scholars can never agree.

Book review: GOD: The Evidence

by Patrick Glynn

★★★★★

This is a book by a believer-turned-atheist-turned-believer. Glynn explains, “After many years of being a philosophical atheist or agnostic, I finally realized that there was in fact a God.” He then leads us on a journey through various lines of thought that eventually coalesced into what he found to be overwhelming evidence for God’s existence. Some quotes and conclusions:

·         The non-random universe: “How does one explain that the laws of physics fit so perfectly within the fifteen-billion-year project of creating life?”

·         The psychological benefits: “It is difficult to find a more consistent correlative of mental health, or a better insurance against self-destructive behaviors, than a strong religious faith.”

·         The medical benefits: “Contemporary medical research is showing that the human mind and body are ‘wired for God.’”

Glynn next dives into near-death experiences, which are conclusive enough for him to now believe that life continues after death. He touches on healing power of prayer and the unconquerable spirit of man. He reaches the conclusion that faith is not grounded in ignorance; it is where reason has been leading us all along.

Glynn is not a scientist, nor a physician, and none of these topics are presented in detail; instead, what he presents is enough frosting to make you think, to make you want to dig deeper into the evidence. I admit, I found nothing in the book directly addressing whether the God of the Bible exists, but the book struck a chord with me because I’ve also spent a number of years researching many of the same topics. I’ve shelves of books about cosmology, near-death experiences, and religious philosophy. Unfortunately, I remain a Dubious Disciple, but this book was a well-written and thought-provoking read.

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John 4:26, The I AM

Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you—I am he."

//The Messianic claim behind this verse has been lost in translation; the word “he” has been added by translators. Actually, Jesus says simply “I am.” John will drill this phrase into us seven times (4:26; 6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5), always as an expression of Jesus’s claim to be God, until finally, we relate it to the mysterious name of God given to Moses: I am that I am.

You won’t find this reference in any other Gospels—only in John—and in this Gospel, The Jews have no trouble recognizing Jesus’ claim to be God. During the Festival of Tabernacles the priests recited the divine formula “I am” from Isaiah, and at this festival, Jesus shows up and leaves no doubt of his meaning when he says, "Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!" Immediately, the Jews take up stones to stone him for blasphemy.

In John, Jesus will never admit to being the Messiah in the traditional form expected by the Jews. He is far more than a military savior. He is ... the I Am. With this divine claim fully established, John now methodically reveals the mystery of God with seven more “I am” statements:

I am the Bread—John 6:35

I am the Light—John 8:12

I am the Door—John 10:7

I am the Good Shepherd—John 10:11

I am the Resurrection and the Life—John 11:25

I am the way, the truth and the life—John 14:6

I am the true vine—John 15:1

If only we could approach this Gospel as if reading it for the first time! How exciting, how fresh and startling a revelation it is! How far beyond the first three Gospels John carries us!

Book review: The Word of Life, a Theology of John's Gospel

by Craig R. Koester

★★★★

Koester is relatively conservative; his treatment of John won’t offend traditional Christians by travelling down esoteric or Gnostic highways. Nor does he present many original ideas. This is a book that covers the basics of John’s theology from a Christian viewpoint, and does so very well. That doesn’t hide the fact that John marches to the beat of his own drum. The fourth Gospel is very different in tone from the first three, and Koester is faithful in presenting John’s unique theology. Some examples …

On the meaning of sin: John’s Gospel portrays little interest in moral failings. Instead, “sin” is almost universally tied to belief. Sin means not seeing Jesus for who his is, believing in him. This leads to …

On the meaning of belief: Unlike Mark, there is no Messianic Secret in John. Instead, from its very beginning, John embarks on a crusade to help us believe. And what we are to believe is that Jesus is the Messiah.

On the meaning of life: What does “born again” really mean? “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me … has crossed over from death to life.” John alternates between future eschatology (eternal life to come) and present eschatology (eternal life is ours now) to the point of leaving us bewildered. Koester takes the conservative stance that John meant both; we have abundant life in human form, with the promise of eternal life to come.

On the meaning of the crucifixion: Jesus planned his death from the very beginning, and all signs led up to that “hour” when he would be “lifted up in glory.” This means lifted up on the cross, and it is the climax of Jesus’ victory over Satan.

As mentioned, I don’t think you’ll find many new revelations in this book, just solid research, focusing carefully on the text of the Gospel itself. It’s a book quite worth reading.

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1 Corinthians 15:6, the Pentecost according to Paul

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

//In this curious verse, Paul mentions how the resurrected Jesus was seen by 500 people at the same time, an event mentioned in none of the other writings of the New Testament. An event, were Jesus truly spied in the flesh, we most definitely would have corroborating writings for. More likely, Jesus was “seen” in the same manner as Paul saw him: in a vision, perhaps as a light from heaven.

Could this event possibly have really happened? I’d like to call your attention to a passage in Acts, chapter 2, 50 days after Jesus resurrects:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Could this be the event, and the crowd of 500, Paul describes?

Let’s break down the Pentecost experience according to Luke. He relates back to the scripture read by the Jews each Pentecost, where Ezekiel describes a great rushing of wind and fire (see Ezekiel 1:4). Moreover, on the first ever Pentecost, at Mount Sinai, God spoke to Moses in every language of every land, seventy languages in all. Thus in Luke’s version of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit arrives with a rush of wind and fiery tongues speaking in many foreign languages, filling a room full of many nations. It’s certainly a midrashic story, and quite a creative one at that, not meant to be interpreted literally. Once we scoop the supernatural frosting off Luke’s writings, we see underneath a match to Paul’s description of Jesus appearing to 500.

What do you think?

Book review: When Jesus Became God

by Richard E. Rubenstein

★★★★

After nearly three hundred years of persecution, Christianity made a breakthrough in 324, when Constantine became emperor of Rome. Led by two charismatic priests—Arius, who preached that Jesus is subject to God, and Athanasius who argued that Jesus is God himself in human form—the debate over Jesus’ degree of divinity escalated from heated argument to violence and bloodshed. Rubenstein guides you through the power struggles of the time, concluding in the year 381, when the Council of Constantinople affirmed that Jesus Christ was…

the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, homoousios with the Father, through Whom all things came into existence.

Theodosius left no doubt about the church’s official stance by demanding,

We now order that all churches are to be handed over to the bishops who profess Father, Son and Holy Spirit of a single majesty, of the same glory, of one splendor, who establish no difference by sacrilegious separation, but [who affirm] the order of the Trinity by recognizing the Persons and uniting the Godhead.

Arianism was officially denounced, and possession of Arian writings would become crimes punishable by death. Jesus Christ was pronounced God. This book is the story of how Christianity reached this conclusion. 

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Revelation 8:8, The Eruption of Vesuvius

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth.  A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea.  A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

//Revelation describes several cataclysmic events. Most had already happened by the time John wrote his apocalypse—for example, these verses surely describe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the first century. Luckily, or perhaps not a coincidence, much of the top half of the mountain blew southwest into the sea, but the resulting mass of dead and dying marine life from the poisoned coastal waters would not easily fade from one’s memory.

Pliny the Younger wrote: The sea was sucked away and forced back by an earthquake; at any rate, it receded from the shore so that quantities of sea creatures were left stranded on dry sand.  And the waters were violently disturbed.  Of his uncle’s rescue mission with warships, he wrote: By now, ash was falling on the ships, hotter and thicker the closer they approached; then pumice and blackened stones, burnt and fractured by the fire.  He also described a cloud rushing down the flanks of the mountain and blanketing everything around it, including the surrounding sea.  Known today as a pyroclastic flow, this cloud of superheated gas, ash, and rock erupts from a volcano.  Ash from the eruption reached Africa, Syria, and Egypt, causing pestilence.

Nature’s hiccup completely devastated three hundred square kilometers around Vesuvius, the death toll unknown.  Archaeologists uncovered the remains of 1,150 people in Pompeii and 350 in Herculaneum, out of a total estimated population in the two cities of 15,000 to 30,000.  In Herculaneum, death arrived so suddenly by heat and asphyxiation (it all happened in a fraction of a second) that many bodies there froze in agonized contortions, everything buried so deep in ash that the city’s location became a mystery, a first-century Atlantis swallowed by the earth, to be found later only by a chance discovery in the early eighteenth century!

If you’d like to learn more about the true-life events behind the book of Revelation, please check out my book: http://www.thewayithappened.com/

Book review: Kissing the Leper

by Brad Jersak

★★★★

Revelation counsels, “anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”  This is a book about seeing Jesus, especially in the marginalized. The title derives from an encounter that Francis of Assisi had with Christ in a leper. In that moment, his eyes were opened to the possibility of seeing Jesus in those whom you wouldn’t expect. We naturally turn away from those we deem too sinful, too broken, too small or too poor … and when we do, we miss seeing Jesus.

There are several contributors, and maybe a couple dozen stories, finding Jesus in the most unlikely. Here’s one:

Marshall Rosenberg tells of his grandmother meeting a bearded, scraggly beggar at the door, looking for some dinner. She asked him his name. “My name is Jesus,” he replied. “Do you have a last name?” “I am Jesus the Lord.” The man didn’t have a home, didn’t know where he’d be staying. “Would you like to stay here?”

He stayed seven years.

Would you have seen Jesus in this man? Without a driving compassion to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless, few would have seen more than a filthy lunatic. In this book, you’ll meet Jesus among the sick, mentally and physically disabled, autistic, even someone with multiple personalities. Aids victims, addicts,  gays. I think you’ll meet just about everybody but a real leper.

Touching and refreshing, you’ll finish the book with a deeper compassion and an eye for Jesus … and maybe an open table.

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Luke 23:44, Jesus in Agony

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

//Scholars continue to argue about the Gnostic bent of John’s Gospel. Is John a Gnostic text or not? John’s Gospel was embraced by Gnostic strands before it ever made headway into traditional Christianity.

But even with the other Gospels, the dividing line between Gnostic and Catholic (traditional) Christianity is not so clear. Luke insists, for example, that the Kingdom of Heaven has already arrived. It is “within you.” This better jibes with Gnostic thinking than futuristic Christianity. Another feature of the Gnostic Christ is the inability to feel pain, and Luke, throughout the entire ordeal of Jesus’ death, gives no hint that Jesus is ever in agony—save today’s verse, where sweat falls to the ground like drops of blood.

Problem is, this verse is not in all variants of Luke. And worse, we don’t know which is more original: the version of Luke with agony, or the version without agony. Its addition, or subtraction, radically alters the picture of Jesus between Gnostic (where Jesus is non-corporeal, sent from heaven) and traditional (Jesus is of the flesh, able to feel pain). Which is the original flavor of Luke’s Gospel? We don’t know.

Book review: 101 Myths of the Bible

by Gary Greenberg

★★★★★

This book wasn’t quite what I expected when I bought it, but I nevertheless enjoyed reading it. In my opinion, you won’t read conclusive evidence that the stories are myths; what you’ll read are possible explanations for 101 of the Bible’s legends, for scholarship has hardly settled upon many of the conclusions Greenberg draws. But he does make you think, and that’s the purpose of my writing as well. An occasional idea for my daily blog post originates from this book; yesterday’s post combines two such ideas from Greenberg.

Greenberg’s specialty may be Egyptian mythology, because in many of the Bible’s stories, he finds Egyptian roots. This is not a new line of thought; others have proposed that Christianity, at its core, derives from even more ancient Egyptian beliefs. Perhaps this can be explained by Israel being a breakaway nation from Egypt—Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery there. Some examples may be helpful.

The Myth: God planted a tree of life and a tree of knowledge. The Reality: These two special trees symbolically represent the Egyptian deities Shu and Tefnut.

The Myth: God formed Adam from the dust of the earth. The Reality: The biblical editors confused the birth of Atum in Egyptian mythology with the birth of the first human.

The Myth: Jacob wrestled with a stranger. The Reality: The wrestling story reflects the daily struggle between Egyptian figures Horus and Set.

For each of the 101 “myths,” Greenberg provides two or three pages of explanation. The result is a fascinating peek below the surface of the Bible’s stories, making them even more interesting than you had imagined!

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Genesis 35:10, Jacob becomes Israel

God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel." So he named him Israel.

//There are two stories in the Bible of how Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. In the first, mentioned in a post a while back, Jacob wrestles with “God”, and holds tight to Him until blessed. http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/2011/02/genesis-3310.html That blessing occurred at Penuel, just before Jacob’s reunion with Esau.

Sometime after this reunion, God directed Jacob to Bethel, the place where he dreamed of a ladder. There, God blesses Jacob again, and again names him Israel. Today’s verse is this second blessing.

Why two different stories, in two different places and two different times? I can present two theories:

There may be some competitiveness between the two stories. Bethel sits at the southern border of Israel, Penuel at the northern border. King Jeroboam built a governmental center and city at Penuel, but the Shiloh priesthood remained centered in the south and associated with Bethel. Jeroboam initially had the support of the Shiloh priesthood, but ruined the relationship when he began proclaiming that a formal priesthood was unnecessary. Jeroboam felt anyone could become a priest.

Thus, Jeroboam and Penuel claimed Israel’s name and blessing for the north, and the priesthood and Bethel claimed Israel’s name and blessing for the south.

A second explanation may be that the two stories complement each other. If the stranger that Jacob wrestles with is not God, but his brother Esau, then the first blessing comes not from the mouth of God but from his brother. Esau’s blessing is, therefore, is only a prophecy of God’s blessing to come.

Book review: The Year of Living Biblically

by A. J. Jacobs

★★★★

Read any A. J. Jacobs before? This is more of the same serious humor he’s known for, this time on a topic dear to me: my Bible.

Jacobs was raised in a secular family, but decided one day to dive into the world of the Bible. What better spiritual journey could one imagine? Determined to obey every dictate of the Bible for an entire year, he vowed to follow not only the Ten Commandments, but even the less publicized rules. Love your neighbor. Be fruitful and multiply. But not both at the same time.

Some rules are easier than others. The Law says to tithe ten percent of your fruit, but nobody on the street wanted to take two slices of his orange. Nor was it easy to stone adulterers as the law commanded. Jacobs carried pebbles in his pocket for this very purpose, and one day the unthinkable happened: he met an adulterer. Problem was, the guy didn’t take kindly to being beaned with a pebble. It was a stoning that Jacobs nearly didn’t survive.

What do you wear when clothes made of mixed fibers are disallowed?  What do you eat when only unleavened bread is kosher? How do you read the newspaper without bringing graven images into your home?

This was a year Jacobs was happy to see come to an end. Both funny and enlightening, you’ll learn more about your Bible from this book than in a year of Sunday school classes.

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Luke 24:27, Moses wrote the Torah

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

//Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. The Documentary Hypothesis in one form or another is nearly undisputable, as I described a few days ago in a book review: http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/2011/03/book-review-bible-with-sources-revealed.html . Moses died three hundred years before the first verse of the Torah was written. These five books reflect multiple strands of material that were put together over a period of at least five hundred years. One of these books even contains the account of Moses’ death and burial; a remarkable thing for Moses to write about!

Yet, Jesus himself makes the traditional claim for Mosaic authorship of the Torah in several places. Here are two, each found in multiple Gospels:

Mark 1:44, "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."

Matthew 19:7-8, "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

What can we conclude? That Jesus didn’t really say these things? That Jesus was wrong about the Torah’s authorship? That Jesus knew better but found no reason to contradict popular belief? Or could current scholarship be wrong, and Moses did write the Torah?

Book review: The Sins of Scripture

by John Shelby Spong

★★★★★

The subtitle of this book is Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love. I read this book a few years back, and the reason it came to mind today is because I am feeling overwhelmed by the aggressiveness of anti-Bible crusaders. Unquestionably, there are many passages in the Bible that are not only questionable theology, but downright appalling. Unquestionably, there are “Christians” today who pounce on these texts in order to promote discrimination or oppression. But the majority of Christians do not; the majority of Christians worship a God of love, and either spiritualize or completely discard those scriptures that reveal, not God’s will, but human weakness.

Can we really worship a God who murdered all the firstborn males in every Egyptian household? How about a God who stops the sun in the sky, providing more daylight so that Joshua can slaughter more of his enemies? Would the God you worship instruct Samuel to “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”?

Is it ok to possess slaves, or sell your daughter into slavery? Should cursing or violating the Sabbath be cause for death? Is it right to stone disobedient children? Of course not, neither today or 2,500 years ago, and we know this.

How about the treatment of women as chattel? Encouragement of homophobia? Anti-Semitism? Spong guides us into a more liberal understanding of the Bible, pointing out the texts that exhibit human thinking, human fear, and comparing them to texts where the love of God shows through, and briefly touching on his vision of the Kingdom of God. It’s true that this book is one of the more negative of Spong’s works, but it sets us up for books yet to come.

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1 John 5:7-8, the Comma Johanneum

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

//This is one of the most intriguing passages in the Bible, and the source of some very heated arguments. It’s called the Comma Johanneum, and it doesn’t exist.

The above quotation comes from the King James Version. Problem is, it exists in none of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, nor was it mentioned by any of the early church fathers when they quoted this portion of scripture. (No, Cyprian of Carthage did not quote the verse with the inserted Comma in the year 250!) The center of the passage appears to have added to the Latin text of the New Testament sometime during the middle ages. Commentators are virtually unanimous that it was added to the Bible in light of Trinitarian debates. The original wording is:

For there are three that bear record, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Inserted in the middle is an explicit reference to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Had the passage been original, there appears to be no good reason for it to have later disappeared. Many current translations, such as the NIV and the NSRV, now omit it, and the Vatican appears to approve. In 1927, Pope Pius XI decreed that the Comma was open to dispute, and the updated New Vulgate, published in 1979 following the Second Vatican Council, does not include the Comma.

Yet a number of recent fundamentalist movements advocate the superiority of the King James Version, and refuse to consider the possibility that the verse is inauthentic. For many, rejecting the Comma is tantamount to claiming that God did not have a hand in the translation of the KJV.

The argument continues. Ain’t religion fun?

Book review: How the Bible Came to Be

by John Barton

★★★★

John Barton spent 15 years studying the making of the Bible. This brief booklet (less than 100 pages) presents his findings. He first gives a short synopsis of each of the 66 books of the Bible, and then dives into probable authorship and dating. From there, he discusses how the books were selected and collected into scripture, including an interesting discussion of what was considered “scripture.” Finally, he explains how the two canons (Old Testament and New) were derived.

Barton is not going to tell you Paul wrote Hebrews or that Moses wrote the Torah. His purpose is not to present traditional, conservative teachings, but to bring you up to date on current Bible scholarship, and he writes in a manner that non-technical readers can comprehend. There is no unified understanding between scholars, and some of Barton’s views are his own, yet all in all I think he does a great job of introducing the formation of the Bible.

In my opinion, the book’s greatest value is for conservative Christians! If you don’t want to spend weeks learning about biblical scholarship, but need to be aware of the thinking and conclusions of critical scholarship, this is a perfect overview. Two hours will give you the basics.

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Ezekiel 28:12-13, the location of Eden

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

//In these verses, God reminds the Son of Man that he once walked in Eden. This Eden, says God, was on his “holy mount.” Ezekiel is not alone in this: the  myths of several early civilizations located an ancient paradise atop a great mountain to the north. But nowhere else in scripture is Eden located on any mountain, and this doesn’t seem to square with Genesis 2, where Eden is situated among four rivers: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.

So where does Genesis place Eden? The Tigris and Euphrates are located in Mesopotamia. Gihon, says Genesis, flows “around the whole land of Cush,” which is Ethiopia, so perhaps Gihon is the Nile. Pishon is unknown, but strong tradition makes it the Ganges, in India. Huh?? We’re not exactly zeroing in.

What’s often missed in the Genesis story, though, is that Eden is not cradled within these four rivers but is the source of the rivers. They apparently flow from Eden over distances of thousands of miles. One might say their purpose is to water the entire known earth. In other words, everywhere is downhill from Eden!

Before splitting into four streams and tumbling down the mountain of God, the river feeds a garden. There, God walks. There, paradise waits for a better time, when God himself will again dwell with his people. There, we can imagine high above the plains, heaven and earth meet.

Book review: Carta's Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem

by Israel Ariel and Chaim Richman

★★★★★

Rabbis Ariel and Richman represent the Temple Institute, founded in 1988 to “rekindle the flame of the Holy Temple in the hearts of mankind.” It houses a team of researchers of Temple-related subjects. This oversized book is a product of the Institute.

This is a reverent and stunningly beautiful coffee-table book, containing hundreds of pictures, richly annotated. I bought this while in Jerusalem, and I absolutely love it; no other book I’ve seen so evinces such a feeling of the Temple’s original splendor and atmosphere.

The subject is, of course, Herod’s Temple, the Temple visited by Jesus. Christians seem to have mixed feelings about the Temple and its rituals, but if you want to view its place in history from a Jewish viewpoint—including the sacred stories that preceded its building upon holy land—this book is a treasure. You’ll learn about Temple services, the sacred artifacts, the roles of both men and women, and the special ceremonies of the feast days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kipper, Sukkot, the Passover, and Shavuot. (For the uninitiated, these are the festivals of the New Year, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles, the Passover, and the Feast of Weeks.)

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1 Thess 5:2-3, Christ comes as a thief

for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

//Paul’s teaching in the first letter to the Thessalonians promises that the coming of Christ is imminent, and will arrive suddenly and unexpectedly. Paul indicates that some of his audience will still be alive by the time Christ appears. But before the second letter to the Thessalonians is written, Paul seems to change his mind:

Now concerning the coming of our lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 

Many scholars believe this second letter was not written by Paul. This difference in urgency between I and II Thessalonians provides the primary reason many remain convinced of the second epistle’s pseudonymity. In the first letter, Paul insists the end is near, so the Thessalonians need to remain vigil. In the second letter, “Paul” has apparently changed his mind, now arguing the coming of Christ will be delayed, not to occur until after a number of clear-cut signs serve as a warning.

Unless Christ has come back, the first letter to the Thessalonians was simply wrong. Might the second letter have a better track record? In light of recent world disasters, I leave you with this question: have the clear-cut warnings of “Paul” been fulfilled?

Book review: Dawn Behind the Dawn

by Geoffrey Ashe

★★★

SPOILER ALERT

Seven. Seven, 7, seven. Most of the book is taken up with this mystical number, a number with little practicality to explain its lofty status. Our seven-day week, for example, derives directly from the Hebrew reverence for this number, but it’s clumsy; seven divides neatly into neither a 30-day month nor a 365-day year. Why not a five-day week?

As a scholar of Revelation, I’m certainly familiar with the number seven. Seven churches, seven seals, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven bowls of wrath, seven-headed dragons, and more. The number seven bleeds into the Gospel of John as well, with seven I AM’s and seven signs. But the mysticism of this number precedes Hebrew beliefs and is inexplicably common throughout several civilizations, dating back thousands of years.

The subtitle of Ashe’s book is “A Search for Earthly Paradise,” and while the analysis of the number seven is interesting, it isn’t worth half the book; it doesn’t bring us very close to paradise. More interesting is the author’s research into shamanism and the various myths of a northern mountain paradise, an exalted Eden.

In the end, uncovering an earthly paradise is revealed to be too lofty a goal; at best, the most the author uncovers is a distant memory of a golden age of female shamans, with implications about a cultural source or seedbed somewhere between Siberia and Mongolia, which may have been a sort of paradise of Goddess wisdom. By book’s end, even this has dissolved into a number of obscure theories about the origins of our myths and mystical numbers. I’m afraid paradise is forever lost, my friends.

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1 Thess 4:17, the Parousia

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

//Virtually all Christians picture the parousia as an event where God-fearers are lifted up to heaven, to dwell with the Lord. Artwork abounds of this glorious moment, and the picture seems to match the verse above. But is that really what Paul meant? Let’s look at the meaning of the Greek words parousia, the arrival of Christ, and his apantesis, or reception, as used by Paul in Thessalonians to describe how the Christians will meet Jesus in the air.

Picture a king arriving as a visitor to a city. A cluster of citizens, a welcoming committee, go out to meet him, and escort him into the city. This is precisely how these Greek words are used elsewhere.

Perhaps we should turn to Revelation for clarification. In the Revelation story, the parousia occurs just before Christ begins his 1,000 year reign on earth. In other words, if we are to be “with the Lord forever” from that moment on, new life will at least begin on earth, not up in the sky.

So what are we doing up in the clouds, according to Revelation? Well, the New Jerusalem is about to float down to earth, and it is referred to as the bride of Christ. The adornment of the bride, as it settles upon Mount Zion, is God’s people. Thus, we can conclude that in the parousia, we fly up to the sky, welcome Jesus to earth,  enter the New Jerusalem, and float back down inside the city of God.

Yes, I know this is very different than current Christian theology. I don’t make this stuff up!

Book review: The Bible With Sources Revealed

by Richard Elliott Friedman

★★★★

The first five books of the Bible are traditionally understood to have been written by Moses. In places, Jesus appears to confirm this. Most critical Bible scholars since the late 19^th-century, however, have recognized at least four different contributors of the books of Moses:

A text known as J was composed during the period when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were divided. J was written by an author living in the southern kingdom. It’s known as J because it refers to God by the name of YHWH (Jahwe in German).

A second text known as E was composed in the same period, by a priest living in the northern kingdom. It’s called E because it refers to God as Elohim.

A third text is known as P because it concerns the priesthood. There remains some argument about when it was composed; Friedman suggests shortly after J and E were combined into one text.

The final source is known as D because it comprises most of the book of Deuteronomy. It’s part of a longer work, including Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. It contains sources that date as early as J and E, but it was not compiled into one source until the reign of King Josiah, circa 622 BC. 

All of these sources were spliced together by a redactor to create the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Friedman discusses the evidence for this theory (called the Documentary Hypothesis), and then travels verse by verse through the Torah, color-coding the source and footnoting the setting. You’ll recognize two distinct creation stories in the Bible and two flood stories, and conflicting accounts within the Bible will suddenly make more sense, as the source and motive of the writings are revealed.

It’s best used as a reference book—I certainly haven’t read it straight through—but it’s a book I refer to often.

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Genesis 8:6-9, the Epic of Gilgamesh

After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark.

//Flood myths are numerous outside the Bible, but the Mesopotamian story is particularly fascinating when compared to Noah in the Bible. This story can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In this version, the ark builder’s name is Utnapishtim, who is warned ahead of time of the gods’ plan to flood the earth. In seven days, he built a ship with seven decks, and loaded his family and goods (including animals, of course). The weather grew frightful and rained seven days. Water covered the land. On the seventh day, the sea quieted, and the boat came to rest on Mount Nisir. (Noah’s ark rested on Mount Ararat.)

Utnapishtim then waited seven days and released a dove. The dove came back. He tried a swallow next, which also returned. Finally, Utnapishtim sent out a raven, which did not return. It had found dry land. So, Utnapishtim disembarked and, like Noah, offered sacrifice.

Fascinating, but not nearly as fascinating at this little tidbit: The Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest written story on earth, penned about 2,000 BC. Long before any of the Bible was written. It’s about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk, who reigned around 2,500 BC or a little before. The traditional Biblical dating of Noah’s flood agrees within a couple hundred years.

Book review: Socrates Meets Jesus

by Peter Kreeft

★★★★

If we were to revive Socrates, what would he think of today’s world?

This is a light-hearted—dare I say “cute” without offending Kreeft—conversation with the most famous of all philosophers. Socrates, who lived long before Jesus came on the scene, awakens in the 21^st century and enrolls in a divinity school. In typical Socratic pursuit, he aims at uncovering the truth about the Bible and this man, Jesus, who made such a profound impact on the world. Jesus, he learns, was God in the flesh. Not a God, but the God. Remarkable! Who could ever believe in a “one and only” God?

Socrates discusses Jesus with fellow students Bertha Broadmind, Tomas Keptic, and Molly Mooney, and soon takes on the professors themselves, leaving them in a bewildered state of confusion about everything they thought they understood. By the book’s end, Socrates takes on the big question—the resurrection—and comes to a startling conclusion.

An enjoyable read!

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Mark 15:34, Jesus' Final Words

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

//The first three Gospels report Jesus crying loudly from the cross before he dies. In Mark, the first Gospel written, it’s a primal scream of loneliness and despair. Matthew, the second Gospel written, agrees with Mark about the words of this final death cry, but Luke—the third Gospel—cannot imagine a Christ this human, and changes the death cry thusly:

Luke 23:46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Much better. Jesus now dies heroically, his final act a humanitarian promise to a thief beside him, his final cry welcoming the warmth of his Father’s embrace. It is the exact opposite of Mark, but precisely the image Luke portrays of Jesus throughout his Gospel.

So what does the final Gospel say? John, remember, gives hints throughout his Gospel that Jesus will be lifted up in glory. This “lifting up,” he explains at one point, refers precisely to Jesus being lifted up on the cross. So, for John, the cross is the greatest victory of all. Listen to the final words of Jesus in this Gospel:

John 19:30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John’s Jesus remains in perfect control of his surroundings, from beginning to end. John’s Jesus, you will recall, is a stranger to the earth, dispatched by his Father in heaven, with a job to do. His last act is to accept a drink of vinegar, so that every scripture will be fulfilled, and his last words indicate an earthly job completed.

Very different theologies. What do you think Jesus’ final words were?

Book review: The Ancestor's Tale

by Richard Dawkins

★★★★★

While I read different genres, I only review books with a religious content. So, if I may be excused for one of my “liberal Christian rants,” let me say this: It’s a sad day when a book about evolution earns a spot on the shelves of a religion blog. It simply astounds me that half of all Americans still do not believe in evolution. The evidence is so overwhelmingly against a young earth that if Christianity is going to survive, it must pull its head out of the sand and reinterpret the Bible’s creation story (anything but a literal interpretation!) before it alienates the coming generation, who will simply know better.

This book will help. I’m not a fan of Dawkins’ anti-religion tirades, but when he sticks to his evolutionary biology, his writing is a pure delight. It’s insightful, highly intelligent, and witty. The subtitle of the book is A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, and it’s a long journey backward in time from present-day humans to the beginnings of life four million years ago.

You’ll meet Cro-Magnon man, the Neanderthals, chimpanzees and gorillas, monkeys, rodents and rabbits, reptiles, sharks, flatworms, sponges, fungi, plants, and far more, each with their own unique role and story to tell.

Scientific understanding is, and ever will be, in a state of transition. As we learn, we shape our theories to fit the facts. It’s an exploration that never ends, an exciting quest for truth that Dawkins excels in sharing. He stops often along this journey back in time to introduce interesting life forms and their evolutionary sidebars, evoking wonder and appreciation for the real creation story that far exceeds any ancient tales. It’s such a treat that I’m almost envious of long-time creationists who can, by opening their minds and turning the cover of this book, open themselves up to a new world of wonder.

You will see the world in a different way after reading this.

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Isaiah 7:14, Born of a Virgin

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

//In this chapter, Isaiah speaks to King Ahaz, offering a sign from God. Ahaz wishes not to “put God to the test,” but Isaiah provides a sign anyhow, telling the king that God will save them from the present military threat of “two kings.” All this will happen soon; before a certain young woman’s son (presumably one who is currently pregnant) will be old enough to discern good from evil.

The identity of this young woman is undisclosed. Some scholars suggest it is Isaiah’s wife. Some take the coming child to be the crown prince, son of Ahaz. Others think it may have simply been a pregnant woman whom Isaiah noticed as he was addressing the king.

So that’s the scene of what’s going on in Ahaz’s court that day in the eighth century B.C. But the real story behind this verse comes much later. Let me first emphasize that the phrase which describes the pregnant mother, here in the NSRV and almost all other modern translations, is “young woman.” The Hebrew word ‘alma’ is neutral with regard to marital status or sexual experience. But when the Hebrew was translated into Greek six hundred years later, the phrase “young woman” inexplicably became “virgin.”

Fast forward two hundred more years, where Matthew, reading the Greek version of Isaiah, decides to apply this scripture to Jesus. Rumors of Jesus’ miraculous birth had already begun (Luke also tells a virgin-birth story, though it differs in fundamental ways), and Matthew loves to quote scripture to bolster his story.

Matthew 1:23—“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel"

Never mind the context and immediacy of Isaiah’s prophecy. Never mind that Mary never named her son Immanuel. Matthew repeated the Greek mistranslation, and the above quotation from Isaiah suddenly grew into one of the most popular verses in Christian history.

Book review: Revelation: The Way it Happened

by Lee Harmon

★★★★★

This short review of my latest book is by Midwest Book Review. Established in 1976, Midwest Book Review produces several review publications per month, with a goal of encouraging small press and increasing literacy. It selects about 450 books to review out of the 1,500 submitted each month. The organization has a focus on serving community and academic library organizations located in California, Wisconsin, and the upper Midwest.

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A well researched and thoughtful read that definitely should not be overlooked.

The book of Revelation causes a rift with some Biblical scholars. "Revelation: The Way it Happened" is a novel on the writings of the John of Revelation, writing in the first century AD, looking to provide insight into the lives of the earliest Christians and what mattered to them in a world that shunned them and the principles that Christians most held dear. Drawing on history and Revelation alike, "Revelation" is a well researched and thoughtful read that definitely should not be overlooked.

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