Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Let’s get some Jewish and historical balance to my notes on Paul’s shipwreck. Paul was not the only Jew sailing to Rome who suffered shipwreck. Compare historian Josephus’s description of his own voyage, from his Vita (Life): Continue reading “The shipwrecks of Josephus and Paul (Part 3)”
Why does the Christian author of Acts bother to tell readers (in 28.11) that Paul’s ship had the figurehead of two pagan gods?
Why does the author of Acts use words that are only elsewhere found in fictional shipwreck stories in Homer?
Is there anything truly distinctive about Paul’s shipwreck to set it apart from fiction? Is Paul’s adventure at sea anything other than stereotypical? Continue reading “Acts 27-28 an eyewitness account? (Part 2)”
My childhood memories of school Anzac services are still very strong. I have never forgotten the grim tones of dark-suited men standing beside canon and soldier-statues in the park opposite our school warn us of the horrors of war. Their message was “Lest We Forget” but what was not to be forgotten was the horror of the battles that had brought us together that day.
It is not the same today. Or maybe my childhood experience or memory was limited. Today the government invests huge budgets in funding Anzac memorial services. The message is “Lest We Forget” but there has been a slight detour of direction. Today we are admonished never to forget the sacrifices that bought us our freedoms. Today, the message is that war is a necessary sacrifice to maintain our freedoms. In this way Anzac Day is used to justify with political spin the government’s current wars.
Anzac Day is being used to perpetuate and even increase national lies. No-one died at Gallipoli to protect our freedoms. No-one died in Vietnam to protect our way of life either. Wars have mostly been part of imperial ventures, not desperate acts to save our nation.
Is this also why there is so much emphasis now on “character”, “mateship”, “heroism”? Is this focus meant to ameliorate the horror of the reality? To justify war as an everpresent necessary act of government policy?
I can’t think of a better time than Anzac Day to ask Why our governments sent anyone to their murderous deaths and maimings. That, of course, would be sacriligious in today’s climate. But it would also surely do a lot more for reminding the nation to put a break on their government’s war policies whitewashed by their political spin.
Beside the wreaths and medals on the monuments, let’s start to place images of severed limbs and heads with their brains and eyesockets falling out and bring out for “show” some living victims from the less public institutions. “Lest We Forget”.
Some years ago (around the time I seized the opportunity to personally thank Bishop Spong for helping me on my way to atheism 😉 ) I asked a well respected anglican cleric what his response would be if it could be reasonably established that Christianity did not begin with a real historical Jesus. My query was via email so he had a little time to think before responding. His words in effect were: Continue reading “Would it really be a problem if there were no historical Jesus?”
Passing on here notice of an article currently being discussed on the iidb site. Continue reading “faith based “scholarship””
This post is in response to a lengthy citation from a work by Loveday Alexander arguing reasons for believing that the sea travel story of Acts 27 was an eyewitness account. Against that one point the following demonstrates that Alexander’s reason is relatively weak when balanced against the weight of other literary factors worthy of consideration in this chapter. Continue reading “The sea adventure of Acts 27 an eyewitness account?”
Births can be messy things and it appears to have been no different with the gospels.
One speculation to suggest why the authors of the canonical gospels did not attach their names to them is that the gospel story was so commonly well known at the time that there was no need for such authentication.
To take just one facet of this argument here: Continue reading “messy gospel births”
We have 5 literary sources for the life of Alexander the Great (late 4th century bce):
Is it fair to accept these as evidence for an historical Alexander while not accepting the canonical gospels as sources for an historical Jesus? I think so for three reasons: Continue reading “Comparing the sources for Alexander and Jesus”
What if a second century attempt to allegorize the Christian holy books had succeeded in the way early Christians allegorized the Jewish scriptures? Continue reading “The two-edged sword of Christian allegorizing”
One of the historical giants of biblical scholarship, Adolf von Harnack, from 1908 argued for the Book of Acts being composed possibly as early as the 60s ce, in the lifetime of the apostle Paul. His reasons: Continue reading “On an early date for Acts — and its problems”
Duh . . . so Big Brother News Voice says Europe has now agreed to allow US to build a missile shield around much (not all) of that continent, to guard against the threat, of course, of ‘rogue states’ like Iran. (For ‘rogue state’ read state who does not submit to the will and whim of the U.S. and who has yet to pay the price for daring oppose the Boss of the Whole World back in President Jimmy Carter days.)
And why would European states now at this time finally agree to go along with the Missile Shield? Why no threat perceived before now? Well, one does wonder about how the U.S. usually goes about getting support for its projects — economic bribes and threats. So that’s why News reports sound so Orwellian — they make it sound like Europe has now seen ‘eye to eye’ with the U.S. More likely, as common sense and experience would tell us, they now see more clearly and in focus nice fresh American dollars.
And a Missile Shield for “defence”? So what wasn’t needed to defend againt the Soviet Union is now needed to defend against Iran who doesn’t even have a nuclear missile?
The threat of guaranteed total annihilation in retaliation for any nuclear strike is not enough?? This sort of fear-mongering is all from the same Monty Python cloth as Saddam threatening to launch missiles on the U.S. mainland!
Of course to any rational person the intent of the Missile Shield is clear. It is to position the U.S. to be able to threaten and attack any country without substantially reduced risk of their target being able to retaliate in any way at all. But you don’t get rational or two-sided reporting on the News bytes.
America has without question successfully exported their way of life to the Emerald City in the Middle East, Baghdad, enjoying as it does the equivalent of 2 Virginia Techs every day!
Never suspected I’d be putting up a link to this but here we are (only because I have some respect for interviewer Rachel Kohn’s judgment on what’s intellectual and fair despite/beneath marketing requirements) . . . .
Check out ABC Radio National’s The Ark, a 15 minute podcast — but it’s only in podcast and online for 4 weeks. More parts to follow — check the website to see the more critical interviewees in store. . . . Continue reading “The Jesus Tomb Part 1 — interview with Simcha Jacobovici”
Amazing. Conquer a country and then select the loyal and the willing, the politically correct, often the youth with no experience, to run the country, flick off with scorn anyone with real knowledge or skills relevant to the country, — then set up your new ruling body in a sealed off area that is a little america, where once a year they have a cultural evening of entertainment to show what the culture is like on the outside — that’s how Rajiv Chandrasekaran discovered the US has misruled Iraq from the “green zone” in Baghdad! He discussed his experiences in “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone” (2007). Haven’t read it, but listened to a lengthy interview with him on Late Night Live last night.
Among the highlights:
A young man less than a year out of college with no experience in the stock market was put in charge of getting Iraq’s stock exchange up and running again. Result: he had it shut down for a year despite many locals willing and able to get it going immediately.
At the time of massive unemployment Bremer’s first task as he saw it was not to create jobs but to sit down and re-write the TAX laws.
Americans are so fearful of being poisoned that they import all their food into the Green Zone from outside Iraq. This includes pork and ham which of course is offensive to local Muslim workers in that zone.
Many employees in the Green Zone demonstrate not the slightest interest in life or the country outside concrete walls of the Green Zone.
But one thing not in the book, the comment on the recent bombing inside the Iraqi parliament — now that could well be a turninng point, as the bombing of the Shia mosque was that triggered the sectarian war. Without the most basic security able to be given the (supposed) rulers . . . .
And despite all the hype at the time on how hard it would have been to get past the security to blow themselves up, Rajiv explained it was not difficult at all. The only places where one goes through endless security checks is the entries to American areas. The parliament was being guarded by Iraqis with minimal checks.