Acts 28:11, Castor and Pollux
After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island—it was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux.
//Some of Paul’s adventures in the Bible are fascinating. After one shipwreck, he tells of next boarding a vessel with the figurehead of the Twin Gods. These gods were popular with navigators in the ancient world, so perhaps Paul chose this vessel to prevent another shipwreck. Could be, I guess … it’s hard to know why he thought to mention this little detail.
Anyway, the brothers Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioskouri, were worshiped by Romans and Greeks both. There were temples to the twins in Athens and Rome, and a number of shrines in other locations. They are sons of Zeus, proficient in horsemanship and hunting, usually depicted with their horses.
Today, Castor and Pollux have been demoted to a brand of organic puppy food. Nevertheless, they have outlived most of their Olympian peers.
Genesis 4:20, Cain Learns His Lesson
Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock.
//Remember the fight between Cain and Abel, the first people born on the earth? Cain is a farmer, and brings the fruit of the ground to God as an offering. Abel is a shepherd, and brings one of his flock. God likes Abel’s effort, and doesn’t like Cain’s. So Cain kills Abel.
God isn’t too happy about that. He sends Cain away from the land of his parents, to be a vagabond on the earth. Cain cries that his punishment is too great to bear, but God is unrelenting.
Immediately Cain finds a wife (God only knows where) and starts having children. A few generations later, along comes a descendant named Jabal. Jabal becomes known as the father of all who dwell in tents and amidst herds—shades of Abel.
It takes a while, but it appears that Cain and his descendants finally learn how to live the “Abel” way.
Acts 8:9, Magic in the Bible
But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great
//Sometimes it’s fascinating to step back just a little and consider how different the world was to the folks who wrote the Bible. For one thing, they believed unquestionably in magic, and condemned it as Satanic. There are four instances in the book of Acts that involve the use of magic.
1. Today’s verse tells about a magician named Simon, who was baptized as a Christian, but really just wanted to know how the apostles were dispensing the Holy Spirit through laying on hands. He wanted to be able to do the same trick.
2. Acts 13 tells of a man named Elymas the sorcerer, who attempted to sway another man from believing in Jesus. Paul called him a son of the devil, and cursed him with blindness.
3. Acts 16 tells of a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and who made lots of money for her masters with this magic. The magic spirit revealed to her that Paul and Timothy were servants of the “Most High God.” Paul performed an exorcism on the spot, driving away the spirit, and this infuriated her masters.
4. Acts 19 tells of many people who were practitioners of magic, who brought their spell books together and burned them. The total value of the books was fifty thousand pieces of silver. A nice-sized bonfire, I’d imagine. I can’t even guess how much these books would be worth to historians today; their burning was a horrific loss that would have helped us better understand the world of the first Christians.
Book review: The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality
by Andre Comte-Sponville
★★★★★
Surprisingly, this book provides precisely what the title promises. It’s in three parts:
I. Can we do without religion?
II. Does God exist?
III. Can there be an atheist spirituality?
In Part I, Andre argues that humanity survives on the same moral, spiritual, and cultural values that religion cultivates, but that religion itself is unnecessary. Religion doesn’t provide the basis for our morals, but rather our morals provide the basis for religion. We do have a foundational need for our spiritual well-being, but Andre shows these basic needs to be communion, fidelity, and love … of which atheists can partake without entering a church building.
Part II you may skip with no feelings of regret. It’s a rehash of various arguments against God, and refutations of the common arguments for God, and there is not enough depth nor originality here to bother with.
Part III makes up for the lazy part II, by exposing both the smallness and the awesomeness of our being. Just staring at the stars is a religious experience. Sensing nature in all its immensity helps the spirit break free, at least partially, of the tiny prison of the self. What a relief, when the ego is driven away and nothing remains but the All, the enormous thereness of being!
Why would you need a God? The universe suffices. Why would you need a church? The world suffices. Why would you need faith? Experience suffices. Says Andre, “the certainty that you cannot fall out of the universe, the sense of being at one with the All … never have I experienced anything more powerful, more delightful, more overwhelming and more soothing.”
It turns out that atheist spirituality is as experiential and meaningful as promised, but the training course may be more cerebral than fulfilling. You have to dive below the surface or get trapped in a head bubble, trying to “oppose sophistry with rationalism and nihilism with humanism” or some such similar commandment. I suppose that’s a struggle with any worthwhile philosophy.
Fun book, written with wit and intelligence, and which does indeed titillate your spiritual side without looking to God.
Book Excerpt: Revelation: The Way It Happened
Inside these pages lives a love story gone awry.
You’re about to read the Revelation story the way it would have been understood by its audience in the early years after Christ. “Revelation” means “apocalypse,” an unveiling of earthly events from the perspective of the gods in heaven. It’s one of only two apocalyptic books in our Christian Bible, along with Daniel. If you have grown up interpreting Revelation from a futuristic viewpoint—by assuming that most, if not all, of the vision will yet unreel when Christ returns to redeem His own—then my book’s viewpoint may seem foreign to you. The world looked very different to Christians in the first century.
The book of Revelation sports a storied history, hated by some church fathers but grudgingly accepted by others because of its presumed authorship by one of the original twelve apostles: John, the son of Zebedee. As late as the fourth century in the West and the seventh century in the East, Bible-builders still bickered over the question of whether Revelation ought to be included in Christian scripture. Popularity did not matter when building the “canon,” our chosen scriptures. Church fathers rejected the Shepherd of Hermas, greatly loved in the second century, because its author confessed he was not an original disciple of Jesus. They eventually accepted Revelation, with its bizarre images and tone of revenge so contrary to the Gospels, because of two words in the book: I, John.
Thus, Bible compilers preserved our map of the end times. For every generation since the death of Christ on the cross, Christian thinkers have pointed to the signs and predicted Christ’s imminent return. Religions have been founded on this prediction. Surely no generation in history has been more able to lay claim to the approaching end times than our current generation … right? We look at the restoration of the Jewish city-state, the threat of a nuclear Armageddon, the spreading of the gospel to nearly every nation in the world, and of course, these evil, immoral times (for surely no generation before this could act so ungodly) to justify this belief. Yes, it seems clear that we flirt with the final days!
But this is not the case. The first generation before and after the holy war of 66 through 70 CE, with Jerusalem ransacked and the Temple destroyed, fits the apocalyptic message of Revelation far better than any other time in history.
–Revelation: The Way It Happened, 2010, pp 7-8, by Lee Harmon
Amos 9:11-12, Why We Needn’t Circumcise, part II of II
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.
//Yesterday, I pointed out how James, the head of the church in Jerusalem, referenced this passage in the book of Amos to justify his decision that Gentiles need not be circumcised.
But James isn’t reading the same words you are! Not even close. He is reading not the original Hebrew, but the Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament. (Let’s ignore for now the question of whether the author of Acts correctly represents James, who probably would have preferred Hebrew scriptures over the Greek version used in the Diaspora.) There are two critical differences between what you see and what James sees:
1. The word Edom became Adam. Thus James interprets the saying to refer to all men, descendants of Adam, presumably excluding the Jews. He thus relates this saying to Gentiles in general, not just to the Edomites … the enemies of Israel.
2. The word “possessing” isn’t in the Septuagint at all. It’s replaced with a clause about Gentiles being able to seek the Lord.
So, Amos wrote about a coming conquering Messiah, when Israel would possess the land belonging to their enemies (Edomites) in the south. Somehow, Amos’s message became completely distorted, and James uses it to say that Gentiles may seek the Lord without respecting the laws of the Jews.
Hence, today we Gentiles need not be circumcised. Thank goodness for the Septuagint.
Acts 15:16-17, Why We Needn’t Circumcise, part I of II
And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: … After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
//This topic will require a little introduction. The book of Acts tells how Paul argued before the heads of the church that Gentiles need not be circumcised like Jews in order to be accepted as Christians. James, the head of the Jerusalem church, agrees. He stands up and offers this argument: God selected a people (the Jews) out from among all the nations, and gave them special circumstances that didn’t relate to the gentiles.
Thus the course of Christianity is drastically altered, allowing Gentiles to enter the fold without living up to the law of the Jews regarding issues like circumcision. It’s hard to imagine a more important decision in the course of Christianity.
In presenting his argument, James directly quotes the prophet Amos. Note the similarity between what he says and what is written in the book of Amos:
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this. –Amos 9:11-12
Amos is talking about the coming Day of the Lord, when God would send a Messiah to rescue the Jews and set the world right. First-century Christians argued that that day was upon them; the long-awaited Messiah had arrived. Thus, says James, the time has come and Gentiles can finally be accepted as they are.
But don’t read the verses in Amos too carefully, or you’ll see the problem. More tomorrow.
Proverbs 15:17, A Valentines Day Observation
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. –KJV
//Need a cute verse to write inside your valentines day card? Here’s one, if you can make any sense of it. Why is a dinner of herbs compared to a furious ox stuck in the mud? This verse highlights the oddness of attempting a direct translation. Let’s look at a different translation:
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it. –RSV
Ah! So it’s an angry fat ox! I guess that’s why he’s stalled. But who wants a fat ox? Let’s try again:
Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. –NIV
A fattened calf! Now it makes sense, given that we all know that phrase. It’s a calf that has been prepared on the best grain for slaughter. The calf is for eating, not plowing. I think we’re ready for the final translation to bring it into today’s world:
A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate. –NLT
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Book review: Augustine for Armchair Theologians
Augustine for
Armchair Theologians
by Stephen Cooper, illustrations by Ron Hill
★★★★★
I doubt anybody needs an introduction to Saint Augustine, the 4th century Bishop of Hippo. Augustine preached for perhaps 30 years and authored over 100 titles. But if you want a quick overview of his life and spiritual growth, without getting bogged down in theological discussion, this is a friendly little book. This is my first Armchair Theologians book, and I’m impressed.
Cooper follows the lead of Augustine’s most famous work, Confessions, most of which is autobiographical, to tell the story of his life. Augustine’s other most famous work, his massive City of God, gets a brief nod in the final chapter. I found that Cooper provided a proper balance to the influences and motivations of Augustine’s life: his closeness with his mother, his relationships and later determined abstinence, his foray into Manicheism, and his resultant theology of grace. A proper perspective helps overcome the shallow perception that Augustine was wracked with guilt over what he considered a terribly sinful life. Augustine did indeed condemn his youthful actions, but they hardly ranked very high on the sin scale, and he comes across in this book as much more reasonable, merely cognizant of his shortcomings.
This is not to say his denunciation of Manicheism and acceptance of Christianity was an easy one. He quickly grasped the untruths of astrology and other competing life views, and saw Christianity as the one true way, but was unwilling. One day, before feeling any strong conviction toward Christianity and feeling unfulfilled, he picked up a Bible and it opened to this passage:
Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in chambering and shamelessness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh” –Romans 13:13–14
He needed to read no further. His past ways were put behind him, and he found the strength to overcome his sinful nature—most of which amounted to a youthful lust for women. Augustine’s reputation as one who condemned the evils of sex (that whole “original sin” thing, you know) is somewhat deserved, but to be fair he was a product of his Christian times. The connection between Christianity and a preference for the virginal or celibate life was not something he or his generation manufactured. Christian asceticism traces its origins to the practices of Jesus and Paul, who were themselves both celibates. By Augustine’s time, this strain of religiosity was in full bloom, and he strove to overcome his “slavery to lust.”
The majority of Cooper’s book, then, is of the formative years of Augustine’s journey, with little attention given to his time as Bishop of Hippo. Fun and engrossing, this is an easy book to recommend.
Genesis 24:64, The Camel That Wasn’t
Then Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from her camel;
//As a recent study in Israel shows, camels were not domesticated in Israel before the time of King David:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/camels-had-no-business-in-genesis.html
So what is Rebekah doing riding a camel in today’s verse? I did a quick search, and found camels listed in 20 more verses in Genesis. Why are they there?
It actually should come as no surprise. Once the camel was properly domesticated, it became a staple of life. One could hardly imagine life without camels. So, the folks who put the Bible in writing—this would have been after the time of King David—naturally assumed camels to have been a convenient mode of transportation a thousand years beforehand, clear back to the time of the Patriarchs.
There is no deception going on, here. As the ancient stories were passed down, they were naturally retold in a way that made sense to their current audience, a thousand years later.
Fantasy Football, Anyone?
Put on the whole uniform of the Team, that ye may be able to stand against the blitz of oncoming linebackers. Don the hip pads of truth, the shoulder pads of righteousness, the cleats of preparation. Don’t forget the facemask of faith and the helmet of salvation. Then clutch the pigskin with much Spirit, for that is what the Play Book of your Coach in Heaven demands.The River of Life
Twice before Lee Harmon has written about Christian topics, once on the gospel of John and once on the book of Revelation. But the question people keep asking him is this: As a liberal Christian, why do you care so much about the Bible? Others wonder whether he is truly a Christian at all.
The Way It Happened
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| Revelation: A love story gone awry. | The Gospel: A love story set aright. |
What really happened 2,000 years ago? How did a persecuted minority of end-time believers known as Christians, with their dreams of Armageddon and a conquering Messiah named Jesus, evolve into the largest religion in the world? Author Lee Harmon explores the period in which the New Testament was written in his books about John's Gospel and Revelation.
(Bloggers: you may be eligible for a free review copy! Just contact us.)
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The God Show
Lee Harmon interviewed on The God Show about the History Channel's miniseries The Bible and Lee's latest book, John's Gospel: The Way It Happened.
About Lee
Hello! I'm an author, historical Jesus scholar, book reviewer, and liberal Christian, which means I appreciate and attempt to exercise the humanitarian teachings of Jesus without getting hung up on any particular supernatural or religious beliefs.
The Bible is a magnificent book that has inspired and spiritually fed generations for thousands of years, and each new century seems to bring a deeper understanding of life’s purpose. This is true of not only Christianity; through the years, our age-old religions are slowly transforming from superstitious rituals into humanitarian philosophies. In short, we are growing up, and I am thrilled to be riding the wave.
I avidly read all thought-provoking religion titles. New authors: I'd love to read and review your book!
Contact me here.
About Leslie
Hi! While Lee writes the articles and reviews the books, I edit, organize, and maintain the blog. The views expressed here are Lee's but I'm his biggest supporter! :-)
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