Act and Consequence as a Creational Principle that Pervades the Old Testament
This essay is a re-statement of H.H. Schmid’s essay on “Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation” in Bernhard Anderson’s, Creation in the Old Testament.
What the Creation Stories Can Say About Global Warming
Why aren’t people more frightened by climate change? Why is humanity so slow in taking steps to avert a coming catastrophe? One explanation is the idea that climate change is too big for our brains to hold. Humans have never faced an overheated world. We see a Garter Snake in the flower bed, and we …
Exile, Land, and Religious Nationalism: Review of Shaul Magid’s THE NECESSITY OF EXILE
This is a review of Rabbi Shaul Magid’s book, The Necessity of Exile. Magid has written a deeply revealing book on the situation in Israel and Americans concerned about Christian Nationalism in this country will benefit from his insights.
Book Review: A History of Florida Through Black Eyes
I’d describe Marvin Dunn’s A History of Florida Through Black Eyes as two books comingled. The first book is history and sets up the reading of the second, which is the author’s personal memoir. In the memoir section are three chapters on lynching, a historical phenomenon that Dunn sees as unfinished business that he aims …
The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis
Bible readers are usually alarmed when they discover that stories like the Great Flood and creation from chaos were commonplace in the ancient Middle East. This post suggests that Bible students simply read ancient mythology that has influenced the development of the Old Testament. To do this is to discover that mythological materials have been profoundly reworked by biblical editors and pose no threat to faith.
From Chaos to Satan: The Story of Evil in the Bible, Part 1
The inspiration for this two-part post comes from Bernhard Anderson’s brilliant study Creation Versus Chaos, written in 1965. The decade of the 60s was a time when scholars were beginning to realize that Christianity needed to re-consider the Old Testament’s creation texts and the role of creation in Christian faith. Creation is much more than …
