One new review looks interesting (to me) -
Jill Middlemas
The Templeless Age: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the Exile, Reviewed by Lester L. Grabbe
It’s a show on the Biography channel. It’s pretty good. But every day it airs and I have a chance to watch it I notice that someone or other is bumped from a flight because they’ve been drinking. Fair enough. Who wants a sloppy drunk vomiting on them in a drunken besotted stupor?
But, and here’s the wry twist- they have bars in airports- but they don’t want people drunk on flights. They serve liquor on airlines, but they don’t want people drunk on flights. Does anyone else see the inherent contradiction here and the self-evident hypocrisy of the airlines?
If you don’t want drunks on flights, don’t serve booze at airports and don’t serve booze on planes and lo and behold, the problem will be greatly reduced.
Are there no people of sense anymore in charge of airports or airlines?
Doug Chaplin, James Crossley, James Spinti, Nick Norelli, and Antonio Lombatti- the final five in Biblioblogger’s Big Brother will compete today for Head of Household. This is a critical moment in BBB life since the HOH will guarantee himself a spot in the final four- and if he plays his cards right, he can assure his presence in the final two!
This Week’s competition will be a bit different because it requires that our contestants preach a sermon which begins
‘The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer operative in the Church because…’
Nick Norelli: Well that’s just nonsense- everyone knows that the gifts of tongues, healing, and miracles are as operative today as they were in Paul’s day. How can I preach something that I don’t believe is true? Do these crackpots expect me to lie just to win a contest? I won’t do it.
Doug Chaplin: Rot. I’d rather preach on the importance of baldness for proper ministerial appearance or something equally irrelevent. I am, after all, Anglican.
James Spinti: What, me, preach? They are out of their ever loving minds.
Antonio Lombatti: Finally, a contest I can win! And I can do them one better- all the gifts of the Spirit have ceased because they never existed in the first place.
James Crossley: What, me, preach? They are out of their ever loving minds. I’d rather have to listen to 5 sermons by NT Wright and write an essay on my agreement with him than preach a sermon. I’d rather have lunch with William Craig Lane. I’d rather attend a meeting of the Holiness Church, USA. At least that would be funny.
Houseguests, it’s time to begin. And we have a treat and a surprise for you all! You won’t believe a drop in guest we have here at BBB!!! He will serve as our judge today and he alone will determine, because of the largeness of his head and the impressiveness of his thousands of books, who the winner is! Let’s all give it up for none less than….. [drumroll] Bishop N.T. Wright!!!!!
Bishop Wright: I’d first like to express my heartfelt gratitude for being allowed to judge what I alone of all humanity am best equipped to judge- exposition of Scripture. As you’ll doubtless know, in my 812th book, page 1190, I wrote, “And one day it will happen, won’t it, that all will cower at my effulgent brilliance and one and all will recognize my right to be both judge and jury of all biblical exposition”. Before the contest begins may I say just a word about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit… [deleted- the Bishop rambled for 18 hours and by the time he finished speaking even the camera crew and directors had nodded off and none was left to hear him except diehard fans watching BBB After Dark].
[The next evening]
Well thank you, Bishop, for that extremely lengthy diversion. We apologize to our viewers that we were unable to carry the Bishop’s speech in its entirety. Now, to our HOH competition!
Nick Norelli: What were we supposed to talk about? I’ve forgotten. Oh right, the cessation of the Spirit’s gifts. Well I won’t do it. I am not that interested in HOH. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go pray in tongues. 起 初 ， 神 创 造 天 地 。地 是 空 虚 混 沌 ， 渊 面 黑 暗 ； 神 的 灵 运 行 在 水 面 上 。
James Crossley: Well I can only say that I would simply agree with Bishop Wright – as he so profoundly put it in his 14th hour of his 18 hour exposition. To save time I simply refer you to that.
Professor Crossley that’s not exactly what we had in mind with this contest. You aren’t allowed to ‘phone it in’.
Crossley: Well its already been perfectly said. I wouldn’t even dare to say it otherwise than its been said.
Well then we are sorry to have to tell you that you are out of the HOH competition.
Crossley: Dreck!
James Spinti: ‘The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer operative in the Church because…’ [And on he went, citing Assyrian and Akkadian sources for 12 minutes].
Antonio Lombatti: ‘The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer operative in the Church because the were never operative in the first place. Thank you for your kind attention.’
Doug Chaplin: ‘The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer operative in the Church because balding men in the United Kingdom make the best Vicars. Without hair they are nearer, in mind, to heaven because there’s nothing to block the heavenly thought pulses which reach down to them whilst they are on the train from Manchester to Sheffield. Further… [for 3 hours Doug spelled out in great detail the importance of being bald and the advantages of Vicarage thereof.]
Well, that was all, um, quite interesting. Bishop Wright- what say ye?
Bishop Wright: Well I have to be honest and say that I’ve never heard more rubbish since my 3rd book. I’ve taken quite extensive notes on each of the sermons you’ve forced me to hear. Here’s what I think… [and so he expostulated for 11 hours further].
Whew. Well. Who is the winner- if there was one?
Bishop Wright: There was no winner per se, but the least horrifying is that of James Spinti- since he did actually address the issue he was assigned. I give him the palm.
There you have it! Tune in next time, if you dare and haven’t hung yourself because of this horrific episode, to see who the HOH puts up for eviction!
The Israel Antiquities Authority reports today
A unique and impressive complex for producing oil that dates to the Byzantine period, which is also one of the largest uncovered in the country so far, was discovered recently during trial excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Moshav Ahihud, in the Western Galilee. The excavations are being carried out as part of a development plan to enlarge the village.
Read the rest (photos included). [via Joseph Lauer]
The hate-mongers of the so called ‘Westboro Baptist Church’ are planning to make pilgrimage north to spread their filthy bile there.
Seven members of the a small, Kansas-based fundamentalist sect led by Fred Phelps are threatening to cross the border and picket the play on opening night tomorrow, just like they have picketed the funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq and little girls who have died in bus crashes. Their justification? According to the group’s Web site, the play is “a tacky bit of filthy sodomite propaganda, with no literary merit and zero redeeming social value, masquerading as legitimate theater. It is of the fags, by the fags and for the fags – designed only to mock the word of God and the servants of God.”
May I gently remind folk that Westboro Baptist Church is not Baptist, is not a Church, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity. In fact, WBC is to Christianity what Osama bin Laden is to Islam- a grotesque and malformed cancerous growth on the body religious which neither rightly nor accurately nor fairly represents the views of true adherents of faith. And Fred Phelps is nothing else but an American Osama bin Laden.
A band of atheists warring with Christians over advertising space on London’s traditional red buses have lost their fight–although more through a lack of financial pledges rather than via any divine intervention. A month long campaign led by British political activist and self-proclaimed atheist Jon Worth was triggered by fury over religious ads posted on the buses by a Christian-oriented group known as Proclaiming Truth in London. Particularly irksome to the atheists was one of the Christians’ ads that read: “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
That’s from Ethics Daily. Oddly, the report doesn’t give the name of the atheist band so here are a few suggestions they might want to consider:
Hector and the Atheist Avolians
Ehrmanianity
Damned and Loving It
Hell Ain’t Got No Flame To Purge My Corrupt Heart
Whining Cuz We Ain’t Got Our Way
The Underhands
Several others come to mind. But they aren’t fit for public consumption, and I’m no swearing Brit.
