In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

//Just shortly after their miraculous escape from Egypt, and immediately after a joyful celebration of their deliverance, the children of Israel began to grumble that they were hungry. Odd: When they left Egypt, they took with them “large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.” So why didn’t they stop grumbling and just kill a cow?

Perhaps the cow had become a sacred symbol to them. Perhaps they saw these cattle as “gods,” the very ones they had worshipped during their stay in Egypt. Recall that it wouldn’t be long before they constructed a golden calf.

But that doesn’t answer the question of why Moses didn’t just demand that they shut up and eat the food they brought. More likely, their raucous victory celebration, when the Egyptian army all died in the Red Sea, resulted in a feast to end all feasts, and they ate all their cattle right off the bat.

Good vacation planning, guys.

For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

//Jeremiah, quoting the commandment of God, seems to say “quit cutting down my trees and adorning them with jewels.” As I write this, I’m sitting six feet from my own Christmas tree. Have I joined the ranks of the heathen?

I see this verse trotted out every other year by someone criticizing the Christmas tree tradition, but they fail to read the context of the verse. Puritans wishing to avoid all semblance of pagan influence on their celebration of Christ’s birth may indeed have their arguments against Christmas trees, but the Bible isn’t one of them.

Jeremiah’s concern was not with the tree, but with what the nations around Israel were making out of them. They were chiseling them into gods and overlaying them with gold and silver. They were nailing them down so they didn’t topple over while they worshipped them.

Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.

//Do you really want to know how to heal a leper?

★★★★★

Separation of church and state in America—fact or fiction? What did our founding fathers really intend? Rosman, a “Jew by heritage, atheist by belief, and Unitarian by affiliation,” steps us through the evidence he collected from proponents of both sides of the debate. He starts out with a lengthy discussion of the “guys in wigs,” and the religious beliefs they espoused. Then he methodically considers the primary founding papers, including:

The Treaty of Tripoli

Do these documents and more betray a Christian underpinning? Or do they encourage religious tolerance? Is the constitution really based on the Ten Commandments? When did God find His way into the Star Spangled Banner, and how did “In God We Trust” turn into our national motto, even adorning our coins? Rosman’s controversial finding: We became a nation “under God” in the 1950’s, when cold war propaganda necessitated our uniting against those godless commies in the USSR.

Rosman’s analysis is very well-organized and actually quite balanced, even when he exposes America’s cold war strategy. His research leads to the expected conclusion: Our nation was NOT founded on Christian beliefs. Although a few early individuals did make efforts to merge religion and government, most of those efforts were met by reason and properly rejected.

It turns out our founding fathers shared a diverse collection of beliefs. Many were Christians, many were Deists, many were careful to give no indication. The settlers who founded our nation may have known their Bible, having come from nations where Christianity was the primary religion, but America was founded on religious freedom. We can’t describe these men in wide brushstrokes, collectively categorizing them all as Christians or Deists or Atheists. That’s as nonsensical as pretending all the writers of the New Testament were Trinitarians or Adoptionists. Different people hold different religious views—whether 2,000 years ago, 250 years ago, or today. And toleration of these differences forms the strength of our nation.

I enjoyed the book and learned a ton, but two annoyances keep me from giving it a five-star review: A bit of a slow start, and an inordinate number of editing errors. I don’t usually let errors influence my ranking, but this one definitely needed a better editor. 

★★★★★

If you’ve read other books in the Baker Exegetical series, you know pretty much what to expect here: Deep analysis with appreciation for multiple scholarly viewpoints, and every effort made to provide a precise interpretation. Often, this means resorting to the original New Testament Greek, which does make the text difficult to read … especially if you don’t know any Greek! You don’t have to, but if you know just enough Greek to be dangerous, without being a scholar of Biblical languages, this book will be perfect for you.

This approach, with liberal references back to the Old Testament, is particularly appropriate for one book of the Bible: Revelation. Its deep symbolism makes it a daunting book for most Bible readers.

In my own book about Revelation (http://www.thewayithappened.com) I discuss primarily the historical setting of which John of Patmos wrote. I believe the only way to truly understand Revelation is to first immerse yourself into the beliefs and struggles of first-century Christianity in Asia Minor (where the seven churches of Revelation reside). But when you’re ready to dig deeper into the Apocalypse’s Hebrew roots and symbolism, this is a great book … whether read as a  complete study or used as a reference. Osborne doesn’t neglect the historical essentials, he just delves much deeper and takes a much more scholarly approach. It must have taken forever to compile. 869 pages with plenty of ink on each.

Five stars for Osborne’s vast, no-nonsense research, a necessity for every Revelation scholar.

For his anger endureth but a moment.

★★★★

Crossan is one of the premier Jesus scholars of today, and this book is quintessential Crossan. It’s a condensed, recently reprinted, more readable version of his 1994 masterpiece, The Historical Jesus.

Crossan’s research is controversial, more focused on the real life of a first-century sage (Jesus) than in the messianic God-man Christianity turned him into. I believe Crossan’s most irritating position (to conservative Christians) is his insistence that Jesus never rose from the tomb … because he was never entombed in the first place. Jesus’ body was probably pulled from the cross and eaten by dogs, with his remains dumped in a shallow grave, like the majority of other Roman crucifixion victims. Nevertheless, Crossan’s portrayal of Jesus is warm and powerful.

This little 200-page book is for people who want a quick introduction to Crossan’s research without tomes or tangents.