Good For the Bishops

USA Today is reporting

The nation’s Catholic bishops are expected to issue a statement Wednesday pledging cooperation with president-elect Barack Obama on numerous social issues but vowing all-out opposition to any law or executive order he may sign advocating abortion rights.

If I were a Bishop, I’d sign it too.  Murder for the sake of convenience and laziness and self centered-ness in  the name of ‘choice’ is barbarism.  You go, Bishops.

A New and Noteworthy Web Resource

Which I’ll be adding straightaway to Biblical Studies Resources, is Biblical Hebrew Poetry, the website of the SBL section of the same name.  With thanks to John Hobbins for pointing it out.  It might be a good time to mention that it would be a great thing if each SBL section did the same.

This is why The Press Can’t Be Trusted in Archaeological Matters

This Is Why.

A gold earring dating back to the life and times of Jesus Christ? Yes, a precious gold earring that is believed to have been existed during the historical Christ era has been discovered in Jerusalem.

Um, no. As Robert Deutsch and others have noted, it’s most likely closer to the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE.  9 times out of 9, if you read something about ‘biblical archaeology’ in the press, you will have read a bungled mass of gunk and goo.

The Brawl Heard Around the World

Punching priests and brawling bearded old men feature prominently in this now well known and widely distributed video from the BBC.  What I’d like to draw your attention to, besides the video, are the links to the right of it.  You see, peaceful soul, this sort of thing happens all the time!  The shocking thing isn’t that they fought like this; the shocking thing is that they fight like this all the time.

It’s funny in a sad way.  Like wedding’s gone wrong are funny and sad.  Oh you crazy Armenians…  Did you learn those punches from Jesus?

Another Forthcoming Volume

And this one falls right down my main interest these days.

Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie (JBTh), Bd.23 : Heiliges Land: Bd 23. von Ingo Baldermann, Ernst Dassmann, Ottmar Fuchs.

Thanks to Niels Peter Lemche for telling me of it.

The Dumbest Book Ever Written: More Dilettantism

No, I’m not talking about any wrightianist stuff or one of Simcha’s but a volume titled How To Profit from the Coming Rapture: Getting Ahead When You’re Left Behind.

Here’s the nonsensical blurb

For those who are not as expertly versed in the Book of Revelation, Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman, authors of the bestselling Yiddish with Dick and Jane, helpfully offer both illumination and advice: What exactly is the Rapture, anyway? How is it different from the Tribulation? Who are the Antichrist, the Four Horsemen, and the 144,000 male virgins, and what do they want? And, most important, how can I make money during the 7 years of societal breakdown before Armaggedon?Taking the familiar form of a how-to investment guide, HOW TO PROFIT FROM THE COMING RAPTURE instructs those readers who will certainly be left behind (Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, less ardent Protestants, and many more) on how to exploit the inevitable demise of the world in order to make a tidy profit. Sure, the rivers and seas will run with blood, locusts will swarm, mountains will move all over the place, and famine will strike. But for the five billion of us left behind, the post-Rapture world will be a time of even more unique investment opportunities.

Talk about unversed in the book of Revelation!  That text doesn’nt even so much as hint at something like a ‘rapture’ and the Church never knew of such a monstrous misconception until the rise of Dispensationalism, that most ridiculous of systems.

There’s plenty of tripe out there; but this one takes the prize.  Thanks to Joe Zias for the tip.

Happy Armistice Day

To one and all.  May peace finally find a home, all battles cease, and swords be turned into plowshares and spears into pruing hooks and guns into paper weights on this day.