The Authoritativeness of Scriptures in Ancient Judaism

Via Jack Sasson, word of this conference:

The Qumran Institute intends to organize biennial conferences in Groningen to enable Qumran studies to interact with other fields of study. The first conference takes place April 28–29 2008. The next one is planned for 2010. The Authoritativeness of Scriptures in Ancient Judaism: The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Date: 28-29 April 2008 – Place: Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Oude Boteringestraat, 38, the Court Hall.

Adam Won Big Brother?

Appalling. Not only was he manipulative and deceptive as all get out- his wretched speech made me want to shove a cork in his mouth. Alas… his jury was a dimwitted as OJ’s.

My Heavens

This one clearly falls well within the bounds of Total Depravity. AFP reports

Austrian police on Sunday arrested a 73-year-old man accused of locking up his daughter in his cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her. A prosecution spokesman said Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, had accused her father, Josef, of “massive crimes”. DNA tests are being conducted on the woman and six surviving children. It is the third time in recent years that Austria has been stunned by tales of children locked away by parents or adults they know. According to police, Elisabeth Fritzl told investigators her father put her to sleep with an anaesthetic on August 28, 1984, handcuffing her in a locked basement. Officially, she was declared a missing person, with Interpol opening an investigation. A letter was sent to her parents asking that they stop searching for her and local authorities concluded she had been seized by a religious sect. She told police that she spent years imprisoned in an underground chamber beneath the family home near the eastern town of Amstetten. Elisabeth Fritzl told detectives she was “regularly abused” by her father and their incestuous relationship produced seven children.

Interesting, isn’t it, aside from the pure barbarity of the act, is the fact that the default position of the police is that she must have been taken by a religious cult. I can’t fathom what must go through the mind of such a bestial person to justify or rationalize doing what he did to his own daughter. I have a daughter and if anyone hurt her I’d be sore tempted to let fly rage unseen since the burning of Servetus. I hope, somehow or other, by the grace of God, she and her children are able to assume some sort of actual lives, while her vile father rots in a stink filled dungeon as dung beetles feast on his rotting and festering flesh. [I'll probably think more charitably of him later. Perhaps].

You Can’t Be Serious…

Ruth writes

I didn’t go to church this morning—one reason: my hair. My stylist has cut back her hours and her openings conflict with my schedule. A STYLIST? You have a stylist? Surely that would be the question for anyone who knows me. But without one, the honest truth is I would normally look a lot worse than I actually do. Now, this is not an issue of a low self image. I’m a realist. I know my strengths. For example, I have good teeth and a good smile. But bad hair always trumps good teeth.

Then she rightly asks

But why shortchange the Lord by not going to church just became of bad hair? (I wish my church had a confessional. I’d go to a priest and pour out my heart.)

And then she wrongly answered

A few months ago, a man at church, who has made friendly jabs at me regarding my Calvin Seminary situation, poked fun of my hair. He laughed at me. That did it. I stay home for bad hair. There are many people at my church who I’m sure think of me as an uppity woman for exposing the seminary. I can deal with that—any day. I’ll answer any question, show any document. But I’m guilty when it comes to my hair. Had the seminary cast me out due to bad hair, they would have been entirely justified.

Then she shows a photo- and writes

Here is the evidence for why I stayed home this morning. Here is the hair that actually went to church.

Ok that’s confusing. Did she go or didn’t she? And, if she didn’t go, her hair has become her idol and she has become more concerned about how she ‘looks’ than the Lord she’s supposed to be worshipping.

True, if she stayed home (and I can’t tell if she did or not because of her confusing closing sentences), lots of other people probably had lamer excuses for doing so. But bad hair? That’s pretty lame. I’ve heard more than my fair share of lame excuses… but this one wins the prize.

Finally, I really like what commentator Chuck wrote:

I will confess I didn’t see much humor in this post. Today at church
I witnessed a woman in a wheelchair, with a bag of urine attached to
it, while she sang hymns and listened to the preaching of the Word. I
saw a man sit through two-hours of church with his cell phone held in
the air, so his wife who is hospitalized with a stroke could “attend”
church, by phone, from her hospital bed. I can only surmise that they did not know how foolish they looked.

I didn’t find it humorous either, and I have a decidedly refined sense of what’s funny.

UPDATE: Speaking of not funny, David Ker has just sent up a similar ‘I hate Church and everything it stands for’ post- which makes me wonder- are David and Ruth really the same person blogging at two sites under different names? Like Michael and Latoya Jackson- they are never seen together…. Hmmm….

I Despise ‘Split’ Baptisteries

A baptistery is a place where we Baptists immerse (in good biblical fashion) persons being baptized. It has become customary for some Churches to install split baptisteries- monstrosities of theological impurity springing from the very depths of hell itself.

Can you imagine John the Baptist being so worried about his Armani suit and not desiring to get it wet that he stood in an isolation booth safe from the harmful Jordan River? Blah. Such devices are putrefying and ‘being neither hot nor cold’, make me want to vomit.

Come on Padre, if the water’s good enough for the kid, it’s good enough for you.

[n.b.- Preacher's that wear waders are in the same category for me as the one's who won't deign to dampen themselves]

Stop the Presses! Hobbins and I Agree!

John’s done a great job of offering a very short review of the rightly widely admired Neue Zürcher Bibel. His analysis is right on the mark. He and I agree. It’s a red letter day (or a sign of the Apocalypse). John (and others) will want to keep their eyes peeled for the companion commentary (running 3 volumes) due out in June (as I mentioned in March).

Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy

Is available for free. Via Aren Maeir.

Zwingli’s Friend In Berne

Berchtold Haller was a grand supporter of Zwingli in Berne, a true friend and colleague. As G.R. Potter remarks, “Without Haller as his friend and ally, Zwingli might never have had a real following in Berne- their correspondence is among the most revealing of the surviving letters.” And again, “He was not a notable scholar, but he was entirely honest, expressed his feelings with conviction, and was popular in Berne. In later life he grew so fat that a door in the Chancel had to be widened for him.”

You know you’re loved when the Church is willing to widen a doorway to accommodate you.

Oswald Myconius is the one who introduced the two- and they immediately became fast friends. They began corresponding on the 28th of January in 1522 and Zwingli’s last letter was sent just a few months before his death, on the 28th of July 1531.

Here’s Haller (in his younger, thinner days) and Myconius:

I don’t think it a mere coincidence, by the way, that I have a fleshy friend too… He is my Berchtold Haller.  But he doesn’t live quite so far to the south as Haller did…