★★★★★

As a teenager, I was enthralled with wargaming. Though I outgrew the tendency of boys to glorify battle, I never did outgrow my interest in military strategy. Well, here is a book for battle aficionados, with a Biblical setting.

I picked this book up from the bargain shelf at a Barnes and Noble, and really, it’s a fun read. It covers battles in Palestine from 1400 BC to 73 AD. Some are in the Christian Bible and some are not. For example, the Seleucid wars will be found only in the Catholic Bible, which includes the deuterocanonical books about the Maccabees, and the fall of Jerusalem is predicted by Jesus but happens after the time frame of the Bible.

The authors researched the battles from multiple sources, and do not give the Biblical accounts more credence than are warranted. Biblical exaggerations are toned down in many places. However, it was still a challenge for the authors, as it’s very difficult to know how much to trust each historical source. The battle description of Masada, for example, includes Josephus’s story of mass suicide, and the battles in the time of Joshua presume a very large invading army from the exodus of Egypt.

Twenty different battles are narrated, and each battle highlights the who, what, when, where and why, before presenting the full story, accompanied by an easy-to-read battle diagram.

Whether you use this book as a coffee table conversation piece (it’s very beautiful, with full-color pictures), as a reference book, or read it all the way through as a military history of Palestine, the way I did, I’m sure you’ll be satisfied.

//I recently came across an absolutely fascinating discovery in the Gospel of Mark, provided by Ched Myers (Binding the Strong Man, 1988, pp 390-392). Mark, in presenting the evidence of Jesus’ God-given authority, repeats five themes three times, during what may be considered the three most important events in the life of Jesus. This little chart is worth studying, I promise!

//The doctrine of the Ascension is fascinating to me. Before we get to this verse in Acts, let’s review what the earlier Gospels have to say on the topic.

Mark tells us that some women went to the Tomb on Sunday and found it empty. They ran away afraid, and told no one. That is how the original Gospel ends (verses 16:9 through the end of the book are not original to the Gospel, and were added later). So where did he go?

Matthew tells us that Jesus was seen by several people after he resurrected, but makes it clear that he doesn’t go anywhere. Jesus says, in the last verse of the book, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Indeed, that is the promise the Jews held dear of their coming Messiah: that he would stay and rule the earth “forever” (meaning, as long as the age of God’s rule).

But Jesus did seem to go missing! So, Luke reasons, Jesus had to leave at some point. In typical fashion, Luke the historian cannot leave this as a mystery. He dates the departure of Jesus to 40 days after the resurrection, and presents a visible ascension to make it clear that Jesus is no longer a historical figure. Luke’s theology, remember, is that “the kingdom is neither here nor there, but within you.” So, Jesus is free to take his leave.

And from this writer we get our doctrine of ascension!

//It’s clear from the context of John’s prologue that the “Word” in today’s verse refers to Jesus. John explicitly claims something extraordinary: Jesus is God.

What makes John think this is so, when this claim differs so much from the Synoptic Gospels, which all present Jesus and God as two distinct beings? Well, here is some wild speculation for you.

In my latest book, I suggest that the Beloved Disciple of John’s Gospel and Lazarus are the same person. Lazarus is also spoken of as the one Jesus loves. This is no new revelation; Ben Witherington III, for example, has long argued that Lazarus is the Beloved Disciple, and that the Beloved Disciple wrote John’s Gospel.

Which leads to the wild speculation part. Lazarus, you recall, was raised by Jesus from the dead. This was no mere resuscitation, mind you; Lazarus had been dead for four days, and his body stank. In Jewish tradition, the spirit departs the body after three days, finally resigned to the fact that the body cannot be revived. Thus Lazarus was dead as a doornail, the spirit long gone, when Jesus shows up to resurrect him … and John’s Gospel makes a point of proving this.

So … perhaps the author of John’s Gospel, having died and met with God, had a bit of insider knowledge about who Jesus really was?

Ya never know.

★★★

As we transitioned from a premodern to modern world, as the Enlightenment opened our eyes, and as more and more atheists came out of the closet, Christian apologetics thrived. In this new world, we Christians feel it is our inherent responsibility to prove the truth of our Christian worldview. We feel the need to justify our beliefs. But, when it comes to spreading the Gospel, has apologetics become more hostile than helpful? Does it edify, or does it tear down?

Penner wonders if apologetics is not the single biggest threat to genuine Christian faith. Who do we think we are, trying to bring the Truth (capital T) of God down to our human reasoning level, and strip it down to bite-size truths (little T) that we can nail into our opponents? There’s a difference between knowing something is true and showing it to be true.

Penner feels it’s time to take the next step to postmodernity in our approach to apologetics. The modern Enlightenment worldview is just one way of viewing the world, and may not be the most appropriate way for Christian witness. An apologetic approach that doesn’t respect the identity of our listeners, or that doesn’t highlight the role of Love (for, at it’s most basic level, the Truth of God is about Love), does an injustice to the Gospel. If the Gospel we present isn’t good news, it isn’t true. And truth, says Penner, is something you live, not something you own.

He compares experts to prophets in his discussion of proper, postmodern apologetics. The prophets are preferable; we cling to our experts and trust them to present the facts, but it’s the prophets who deliver a higher truth. Bible prophets cared little about proving the truth of their message. What utter silliness would that be, to question a message from God? Instead, they lived the message.

All of this sounds intuitive and wonderful, yet somehow, the book didn’t inspire a change in me. Too dry, perhaps, or too few real-world examples. I found it intellectual and mildly stimulating, yet ultimately unsatisfying. The philosophical presentation stayed on an intellectual level through the whole book, and never broke through to the heart where it could make a difference.

This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

//Jesus, says the Gospel of Luke, was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria. But there’s a problem with this: Quirinius didn’t become governor until 6 AD, and Luke also claims that Herod the Great was still alive (see Luke 1:5). Herod died in 4 BC.

I got into a heated discussion about this on a forum, and though this sort of first-century history is a bit dry to most of you, I decided to set the record straight on my blog. Yes, Luke erred, pure and simple.

The Christian Think Tank at http://christianthinktank.com/quirinius.html takes several stabs at reconciling this problem. They propose that Quirinius performed a different census ten years earlier, while Herod still lived. They conjecture that:

1. Maybe Rome DID have a reason for taking a census of Judea before rule passed from Herod to Rome.

2. Maybe Herod DID cooperate with a Syrian governor for such a census, through some unlikely agreement, though he certainly wouldn’t have felt required to.

3. Therefore, maybe a census WAS ordered and completed by Augustus in the final years of Herod’s life, for which we have no record. Evidence is presented by the think tank for a similar census by Caesar Augustus in 2-3 BC, but if this census was of Judea, this just makes another census a year or two earlier (while Herod lived) even more unlikely.

4a. Maybe Quirinius was governer of Syria once earlier, and the appointment in 6 AD was his second governorship. This is remotely possible, and the think tank presents an obscure letter indicating that somebody served as governor of Syria twice. Maybe it was Quirinius, who knows. Thus, when Luke refers to the “first census” in today’s verse, he would be referring to one before the known census of 6 AD.

4b. Or, perhaps every common translation of the Bible is wrong, and when Luke says “while Quirinius was governor” he meant “before Quirinius was governor.” My grasp of Greek is not strong enough to argue one way or the other, but I tend to side with the majority against this idea. For one thing, if Luke is talking about a census in 4 BC or earlier, why include this trivia about the appointment of Quirinius over Syria ten years later? This one simply makes no sense.

What we have is a series of compounded unlikely maybe’s. 1, 2, 3 and 4a or 4b must all be true. There remains a very slim chance that Luke wasn’t in error, but responsible historians do not recognize this sort of speculation as legitimate scholarship.

Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

//Mammon means money, and this is Jesus speaking, calling money unrighteous.

What’s wrong with money? It’s a good question. So reliant are we upon money that we can’t imagine Jesus preaching against it. We take that verse in Timothy about the love of money being the root of all evil, and overemphasize the words “love of;” thus it’s not money that’s evil, but our love of it that’s evil. I guess it’s fine if you have money, so long as you hate it, eh?

Like so many other teachings, this one just doesn’t make much sense unless you read it in the context of first-century Jewry. In a society skilled in surviving by the barter system, money had limited purpose. It was used to pay taxes, tolls, and tribute. It served as propaganda, being stamped with the image of the emperor—a horrid thing to devout Jews, who were taught that graven images were wrong. When Jesus was asked whether it was proper to pay tribute to Caesar, notice that he didn’t even have a coin on him … he had to ask for one. Judas, who was asked to carry the money bag for Jesus’ entourage, wasn’t being given a place of prominence … he was given a necessary evil.

In this light, you can see how most every connotation of money to urban Jews was negative. It represented political and religious control, in direct contrast to the prophets’ dream of a world where everyone shared in God’s earth and had plenty to eat and drink.