On The Other Hand, Maybe It Won’t Be So Bad After All…

I realize that I’m really waffling on the “Bible’s Buried Secrets” PBS special.  Indeed, I have moved from hopeful optimism about it to rank skepticism.  But now, I’m moving back towards more hopeful optimism because, as the Christian Post reports, the American Family Association is protesting it because it maintains that

• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.
• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn’t exist.
• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.
• Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.

Well, yes.  Hello.  So if AFA doesn’t like it, who am I to dislike it?  By the way, there’s now a trailer on YouTube of the special, set to air on November 18. Enjoy!

Big Talk, From the … French?!?!?!

The French 400 meter relay team spewed a bit of big talk yesterday before their meeting with the US team. Chris Brady’s brother hit the nail on the head when he said

It is good to see the French finally fighting for something. Too bad they lost, eh?

Eh indeed! Oh French folk… if you’re going to talk big you’re obliged to deliver. Read the whole of Chris’s post. Fun stuff!

Real Christians In China

The Washington Post reports

Hua Huilin said his brother Hua Huiqi hoped to be able to tell President Bush the people praying with him [on Sunday while he was at worship] were not real Christians. Hua Huiqi is an underground pastor who has been arrested several times because of his religious activities. Bush has been criticized for attending a state-sanctioned church instead of the private so-called “house” churches even as he has put pressure on China for greater religious freedom. … The brothers were cycling to the Kuan Jie Protestant Church at around dawn Sunday when he they were stopped by men in black cars. They were put in two separate cars and their bikes, mobile phones and Bibles were take away. Hua Huilin said he was released around 2:00 p.m. and the bikes and phones were returned to him but not the Bibles. Later that night, he got a call from the police asking if his brother Hua Huiqi was back home. The police said Hua Huiqi had escaped while they were sleeping, Hua Huilin said.

Chinese officials would prefer such stories not be told. Christianity is not as tolerated in China as state officials would like the west to believe.

The Newly Discovered Roman Temple At Sepphoris

There’s a newly found Roman Temple at Sepphoris (via Antonio Lombatti) . It’s a neat essay (and here’s a direct link to the Science Daily page with photo via Joseph Lauer). Enjoy.

Quote of the Day

If the end of election is holiness of life, it ought to arouse and stimulate us strenuously to aspire to it, instead of serving as a pretext for sloth.  — John Calvin

This Letter To The Editor Says It All…

All, that is, that can be said about everything that’s wrong with the entire ‘apologetic’ enterprise. Brief as it is, it is completely filled, every word of it, with misinformation. It demonstrates, once and for all, why some folk shouldn’t be allowed near the bible at all.