It seems like I won’t hear of any archaeological discoveries that shed light on the time surrounding Jesus and then all of the sudden, there will be a whole slew of them at once. Here are four that have been in the news in the past couple of weeks.
Giant Roman Shipwreck Yields "Fishy" Treasure from National Geographic
Ancient astronomical device thrills scholars from CNN.com
Archimedes Palimpsest Discovered from The New York Times
1,600-year-old Roman coffin unearthed in London from CNN.com
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
#69 Pruning Hooks and Ploughshares
Here is an interesting parallel (or should I say perpendicular) that I found in J. Gordon McConville’s A Guide to the Prophets which is volume 4 in Inter-Varsity Press’ fantastic Exploring the Old Testament series. Incidentally, IVP was voted Christian publisher of the year in the year this volume came out and every year since.
In Isa. 2:4 we read:
“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks.”
But in Joel 3:10 [4:10]:
“Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.”
In Isa. 2:4 we read:
“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks.”
But in Joel 3:10 [4:10]:
“Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.”
Thursday, November 09, 2006
#68 The Truth About Israel and the Palestinians
It’s amazing how little, as Americans we really know about Israel and the Palestinians. We simply don’t get the story in our media, whether liberal or conservative, our history books, or most sadly our churches. This is nothing short of black mark on history taking place right before our eyes. The problem is that people tend to take the simplified answer that most are given. To try and rectify the situation we find ourselves in, I am offering links to the resources below as a primer on the issue.
First, read Whose Land? Whose Promise?: What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians by Gary Burge. This Wheaton New Testament scholar was the first to open my eyes to the picture when he came and spoke at my college. This page-turning account includes a history, theological analysis, and a cry for justice specifically directed at Christians. What it really is a comprehensive snapshot, so if you want a one-stop primer, this is it.
Then, visit The Electronic Intifada for first-rate journalism on the current situation. This is a very well done website that tells the current stories from a Palestinian point of view. If you want a balance picture of current events, please read this along with what drips into your head from the mainstream media.
For a quick glance at the statistics see If Americans Knew and scroll down their main page. One that would have surprised me before learning all that has gone is that “Israel has been targeted by 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none.”
If you don’t feel like putting the effort into reading an entire book, check out the comprehensive Mennonite presentation at this link: http://www.mennonitecc.ca/us/washington/bridges/paper.pdf This gives you something similar to Burge’s book, yet more straight forward facts and less of a theological plea to Christians.
Once you’ve gone through that, then I’d say pick up The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by University of Haifa (Israeli) Jewish scholar Ilan Pappe. Amazon.com offers this description: “Since the Holocaust, it has been almost impossible to hide large-scale crimes against humanity. In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.”
Then I would recommend you check out the War Crimes Report submitted to the Secretary of the Army last year by the survivors and surviving family of the U.S.S. Liberty at http://www.ussliberty.org/report/report.pdf One of my grandfather’s high school classmates had a brother that died on this ship and the only time I ever met him (he’s now deceased) he thought it important that I should know about the cover-up that took place in the years after the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by the Israeli Defense forces in 1967. As with the Palestinians, justice has yet to be done for these Americans.
Then, after checking out all these links, tell your friends to do the same.
First, read Whose Land? Whose Promise?: What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians by Gary Burge. This Wheaton New Testament scholar was the first to open my eyes to the picture when he came and spoke at my college. This page-turning account includes a history, theological analysis, and a cry for justice specifically directed at Christians. What it really is a comprehensive snapshot, so if you want a one-stop primer, this is it.
Then, visit The Electronic Intifada for first-rate journalism on the current situation. This is a very well done website that tells the current stories from a Palestinian point of view. If you want a balance picture of current events, please read this along with what drips into your head from the mainstream media.
For a quick glance at the statistics see If Americans Knew and scroll down their main page. One that would have surprised me before learning all that has gone is that “Israel has been targeted by 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none.”
If you don’t feel like putting the effort into reading an entire book, check out the comprehensive Mennonite presentation at this link: http://www.mennonitecc.ca/us/washington/bridges/paper.pdf This gives you something similar to Burge’s book, yet more straight forward facts and less of a theological plea to Christians.
Once you’ve gone through that, then I’d say pick up The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by University of Haifa (Israeli) Jewish scholar Ilan Pappe. Amazon.com offers this description: “Since the Holocaust, it has been almost impossible to hide large-scale crimes against humanity. In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.”
Then I would recommend you check out the War Crimes Report submitted to the Secretary of the Army last year by the survivors and surviving family of the U.S.S. Liberty at http://www.ussliberty.org/report/report.pdf One of my grandfather’s high school classmates had a brother that died on this ship and the only time I ever met him (he’s now deceased) he thought it important that I should know about the cover-up that took place in the years after the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by the Israeli Defense forces in 1967. As with the Palestinians, justice has yet to be done for these Americans.
Then, after checking out all these links, tell your friends to do the same.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
#67 Voting as a Message
It may be a bit early but I have started suggesting that if you are a pro-life Republican and Rudy Giuliani receives the Republican nomination in 2008, then please, vote for Hillary. I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out. Here’s the basic outline of what I see happening if we don’t follow this path.
Let’s assume that the 2008 election pits a pro-choice Hillary Clinton against a pro-choice Rudy Giuliani, thus leaving pro-life Republicans with no option when it comes to the abortion issue. My assumption based on conversations I’ve had with other pro-lifers is that they would still vote for Giuliani even if he were pro-life because at least he’s Republican and at least he’s not Hillary. Based on that assumption, Giuliani loses none of the Republican base that Bush or other pro-life politicians before him had, because they will vote Republican no matter what, but gains hundreds of thousands to possibly millions of moderate to pro-choice voters. What happens then?
Giuliani wins in a landslide and the Republican Party learns a valuable lesson. The lesson is that by moving to the left on the issue of abortion, the party has nothing to lose and guaranteed wins (i.e. everything) to gain, simply because of the fact that their base will vote for them anyway and they can only gain more votes by moving to the left. After that, the Republican party would never be dumb enough to become the pro-life party again. Outlawing abortion would be wiped from the political map and our chance and ending the massacre would completely disappear.
Please, don’t allow the Republican Party to get away with this. We’ve got to keep them honest. If we constantly just vote a straight Republican ticket they are never held accountable when they do poorly and are never really positively reinforced when they do well. Our votes become meaningless as they are taken for granted. Well, I say, if the Republican Party dare make this move, we teach them a lesson. How do we do this? In a way that may not seem at first glace obvious: Vote for Hillary. After she has won and the GOP strategists are left scratching their heads, they will look at the statistics from the vote and see that millions of Republicans voted for her. As they conduct research, the cause for their misfortune will become blindingly obvious to them. From there on out, the Republican party will never dare to abandon this great tragedy ever again.
So, you don’t buy it? You think it sounds far-fetched, silly, and without precedent. Think again. A couple of examples from history prove otherwise. The first is from Andrew Sullivan author of The Conservative Soul.
“In 1974, Britain's Conservative Party lost. Disillusioned Tory voters failed to turn out and more than a few, tired of Edward Heath, decided what the hell, and voted Labor. In the aftermath, small groups of Tories, both in and out of government, sat down and thought. In think tanks, and party clubs, through pamphlets and speeches and arguments and chats over tea, they set out to define what it meant to be a Conservative. The answers - lower taxation, rolling back the state from the private economy, a reassertion of British confidence - brought the Tories four straight wins.”
That is exactly what I picture happening in the aftermath of 2008 if we truly make a stand and don’t just vote based on party affiliation but rather with our heads on a shoulders and a concern for the long-term direction of the party, and not just whether it wins or loses one single election. Sullivan goes on, “All of us who think or have thought of ourselves on the right need a break from power to figure out what we want power for. We're lost right now. Terribly, incontrovertibly lost.”
Another example is from the 1892 presidential election. The Populist Party (otherwise known as the People's Party) achieved massive success by U.S. third party standards, picking up 22 electoral votes and 8.6 percent of the popular vote. After the 1892 election the Democratic Party adopted many of the Populist Party's positions, so many in fact, that the Populist Party nominated the same candidate as the Democrats in the 1896 presidential election (essentially marking the end of the Populists as a separate party).due to the fact that a large block of voters who chose to break ranks with their party, due to its losing its way, voted for the third.
That second example may be even more relevant due to the fact that these voters ended up losing the election or, as we would say today “wasted their vote” This was a temporary failure, but it was a long-term success in that by express their opinion through their vote, they achieved lasting policy changes. In that sense, a vote for a third-party candidate has been called a “delayed vote for change” and as we can see from the history of both Britain and the U.S., it has worked.
Now, when it comes to most issues I think a vote for the third party is a strong enough way to send a message that we are not impressed. However, when it comes to abortion, considering what is at stake, we’ve got to ensure that the Republican think tanks understand that political victory cannot be achieved without a strong pro-life stance. Not voting for them may not be enough. We’ve got to ensure a loss by voting against them. A temporary loss may be a bitter pill, but the medicine will be for their, our, and our unborn children’s own good.
For further related reading...
Article: Where the Right Went Wrong from CNN.com
Book: The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back by Andrew Sullivan
Let’s assume that the 2008 election pits a pro-choice Hillary Clinton against a pro-choice Rudy Giuliani, thus leaving pro-life Republicans with no option when it comes to the abortion issue. My assumption based on conversations I’ve had with other pro-lifers is that they would still vote for Giuliani even if he were pro-life because at least he’s Republican and at least he’s not Hillary. Based on that assumption, Giuliani loses none of the Republican base that Bush or other pro-life politicians before him had, because they will vote Republican no matter what, but gains hundreds of thousands to possibly millions of moderate to pro-choice voters. What happens then?
Giuliani wins in a landslide and the Republican Party learns a valuable lesson. The lesson is that by moving to the left on the issue of abortion, the party has nothing to lose and guaranteed wins (i.e. everything) to gain, simply because of the fact that their base will vote for them anyway and they can only gain more votes by moving to the left. After that, the Republican party would never be dumb enough to become the pro-life party again. Outlawing abortion would be wiped from the political map and our chance and ending the massacre would completely disappear.
Please, don’t allow the Republican Party to get away with this. We’ve got to keep them honest. If we constantly just vote a straight Republican ticket they are never held accountable when they do poorly and are never really positively reinforced when they do well. Our votes become meaningless as they are taken for granted. Well, I say, if the Republican Party dare make this move, we teach them a lesson. How do we do this? In a way that may not seem at first glace obvious: Vote for Hillary. After she has won and the GOP strategists are left scratching their heads, they will look at the statistics from the vote and see that millions of Republicans voted for her. As they conduct research, the cause for their misfortune will become blindingly obvious to them. From there on out, the Republican party will never dare to abandon this great tragedy ever again.
So, you don’t buy it? You think it sounds far-fetched, silly, and without precedent. Think again. A couple of examples from history prove otherwise. The first is from Andrew Sullivan author of The Conservative Soul.
“In 1974, Britain's Conservative Party lost. Disillusioned Tory voters failed to turn out and more than a few, tired of Edward Heath, decided what the hell, and voted Labor. In the aftermath, small groups of Tories, both in and out of government, sat down and thought. In think tanks, and party clubs, through pamphlets and speeches and arguments and chats over tea, they set out to define what it meant to be a Conservative. The answers - lower taxation, rolling back the state from the private economy, a reassertion of British confidence - brought the Tories four straight wins.”
That is exactly what I picture happening in the aftermath of 2008 if we truly make a stand and don’t just vote based on party affiliation but rather with our heads on a shoulders and a concern for the long-term direction of the party, and not just whether it wins or loses one single election. Sullivan goes on, “All of us who think or have thought of ourselves on the right need a break from power to figure out what we want power for. We're lost right now. Terribly, incontrovertibly lost.”
Another example is from the 1892 presidential election. The Populist Party (otherwise known as the People's Party) achieved massive success by U.S. third party standards, picking up 22 electoral votes and 8.6 percent of the popular vote. After the 1892 election the Democratic Party adopted many of the Populist Party's positions, so many in fact, that the Populist Party nominated the same candidate as the Democrats in the 1896 presidential election (essentially marking the end of the Populists as a separate party).due to the fact that a large block of voters who chose to break ranks with their party, due to its losing its way, voted for the third.
That second example may be even more relevant due to the fact that these voters ended up losing the election or, as we would say today “wasted their vote” This was a temporary failure, but it was a long-term success in that by express their opinion through their vote, they achieved lasting policy changes. In that sense, a vote for a third-party candidate has been called a “delayed vote for change” and as we can see from the history of both Britain and the U.S., it has worked.
Now, when it comes to most issues I think a vote for the third party is a strong enough way to send a message that we are not impressed. However, when it comes to abortion, considering what is at stake, we’ve got to ensure that the Republican think tanks understand that political victory cannot be achieved without a strong pro-life stance. Not voting for them may not be enough. We’ve got to ensure a loss by voting against them. A temporary loss may be a bitter pill, but the medicine will be for their, our, and our unborn children’s own good.
For further related reading...
Article: Where the Right Went Wrong from CNN.com
Book: The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back by Andrew Sullivan
Thursday, November 02, 2006
#66 Quotes I
A quote from Marilynne Robinson’s (Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead) responding to Richard Dawkins new book The God Delusion...
“The nineteenth-century abolitionist, feminist, essayist, and ordained minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson made the always timely point that, in comparing religions, great care must be taken to consider the best elements of one with the best of the other, and the worst with the worst, to avoid the usual practice of comparing, let us say, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the Golden Rule. The same principle might be applied in the comparison of religion and science. To set the declared hopes of one against the real-world record of the other is clearly not useful, no matter which of them is flattered by the comparison.”
Speaking of Marilynne Robinson, here is a quote from an atheist reviewer on Amazon about Gilead...
“It is another example of what the English language is capable of. The prose is spare, as the subject demands. But it quickly becomes a meditation on how even the simplest life can be touched by grace and wonder. I am not a Christian. In fact, I am an atheist. But this book communicated to me the nurture that can be derived from heartfelt, clear minded, prosaic Christianity.”
“The nineteenth-century abolitionist, feminist, essayist, and ordained minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson made the always timely point that, in comparing religions, great care must be taken to consider the best elements of one with the best of the other, and the worst with the worst, to avoid the usual practice of comparing, let us say, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the Golden Rule. The same principle might be applied in the comparison of religion and science. To set the declared hopes of one against the real-world record of the other is clearly not useful, no matter which of them is flattered by the comparison.”
Speaking of Marilynne Robinson, here is a quote from an atheist reviewer on Amazon about Gilead...
“It is another example of what the English language is capable of. The prose is spare, as the subject demands. But it quickly becomes a meditation on how even the simplest life can be touched by grace and wonder. I am not a Christian. In fact, I am an atheist. But this book communicated to me the nurture that can be derived from heartfelt, clear minded, prosaic Christianity.”
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