The Bible and Culture

Sometimes a museum is as impressive as the contents of the museum, and such is the case with the Getty Villa Museum, the dream child of oil man J. Paul Getty, though he never lived to see it built (the art and artifacts were previously housed in the Getty home itself).   This museum is built on the plan of a very large Roman villa from the NT period or thereafter.  As such, it is worth seeing all by itself. It includes a triclinium, an impluvium, various fountains, a peristyle and all the rest o … [Read more...]

THE INNOCENCE PROJECTAnyone who has read John Grisham’s fine non-fiction book entitled,  An Innocent Man will have run into something called  ‘The Innocence Project’.    What is the Innocence Project?  It is the efforts of a group of lawyers and others to rectify the all too numerous mistakes made by our criminal justice system, especially before the era of DNA evidence.   The website to learn more about this righteous effort and the people involved in it is----http:// … [Read more...]

In  a move that reflects the sign of the times (and the digitizing of all things in print)  my friends at Abingdon have now sent me the following press release. See what you think.------NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Diane Morrow dmorrow@tbbmedia.com or 800.927.1517 Complete Common English Bible Released Digitally Before Print NASHVILLE, TN (June 15, 2011) – In a nod to the revolutionary changes occurring in publishing, the new complete Common Eng … [Read more...]

So I go to Pepperdine for the Christian scholars conference and I run into this other alumnus from my period at Carolina---- Francis Collins.  I'm sure you've heard of him.  Turns out he became a Christian while he was there, and in fact so did I.  So picture us singing the UNC fight song at the science and faith conference.   Anyway,  he presented an awesome powerpoint lecture on genetic research and its ability to help us cure diseases, and he also talked about creation and evolution in a helpf … [Read more...]

One of the main reasons to read a whole series of novels by a good writer is to watch how not only the characters develop, but also how the author ups his game.   By my count, The Demon Archer is the 11th in the series of Hugh Corbett medieval murder mysteries, and we see the author in full stride here, his powers of description keen.   Most all of Doherty's novels have some sort of historical core or kernel to them, and this novel is no different. Only this time the historical kernel is in the b … [Read more...]

One of the questions I get most frequently, in many forms is--- "When are you going to do another lecture tour to the Lands of the Bible?'  And now I can tell you,  it will be next May.  Below you will find the itinerary and cost and some explanation.  To that explanation I will add that if things get too 'warm' in the political sense in Egypt (Jordan and Israel are fine) then we will do Turkey instead.   Please note that the person to contact about this is the tour organizer, Levent Oral. … [Read more...]

I have now read 13 of the 16-17 Paul Doherty Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries.  Doherty began this series early in his career as a novelist, and the earliest novels reflect works in progress.   But there are also signs of the future skilled novelist.  The best of these early novels is 'Murder Wears a Cowl (1992).   In some ways this is the perfect summer beach reading, as it is a novel that is less than 250 pages, and the plot moves along rapidly.  In this novel not only Hugh Corbett but his trust … [Read more...]

There is an interesting article in a recent issue of the NY Times about the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/us/10prayer.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23For the record, I also have some reservations about the teaching of Mike Bickle.  My observation is that he himself needs more theological education than he has had.  His eschatology is not fully Biblical,  and he is given to making pronouncements about the return of Christ and its ti … [Read more...]

As John Dickson, one of the most difficult concepts to get across to late Western students is the concept of an ancient honor and shame culture, a culture where not truth nor life is the top value in the hierarchy of values, but rather obtaining honor is.  The Greek word is philotimia literally the love of honor, and it dominated the matrix of values in the Greco-Roman world, in particular the male part of that world tasked with obtaining, maintaining and sustaining the honor of his family and … [Read more...]