UPDATE: The topic of this post has taken on added urgency in light of the San Bernardino shootings of Dec. 2. It is ever more important to be vigilant, and to protect religious liberty. I have made my views of Donald Trump well known – he’s dangerous and inane, and normally does not stick to any one position for long, except perhaps for xenophobia. Since the Paris terrorist attacks, he has been making ominous statements about how we’re going to... Read more
Does the Bible speak? If so, how? An oft-told tale of the Spanish conquest of the Americas tells of the Inca ruler Atahualpa. When he met the conquistadors in 1532, some Catholic priests reputedly gave him a Bible, telling him it contained the word of God. Atahualpa put the book to his ear, but hearing nothing, he threw it to the floor in disgust and bafflement that it would not talk to him. The perceived insult to Christianity helped escalate... Read more
Last time, I described the Book of the Giants. Probably written in the third or second centuries BC, this text is closely related to the Book of 1 Enoch and its story of fallen angels begetting monstrous offspring on human women. The book probably originated and circulated in the Jewish world, probably in the sectarian traditions we call “Enochic.” It was known at Qumran, and Aramaic fragments have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Never, though, was it approved... Read more
The Mayflower pilgrims anchored at what is now Provincetown Harbor on the south side of the Cape Cod hook on November 11, 1620 (November 20 by our calendar). When a party waded ashore, William Bradford wrote some years later: they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries therof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable... Read more
Turkey might be traditional fare at Thanksgiving, but it’s probably not historical. Read more
A couple of years ago at Christianity Today, I reviewed Robert Tracy McKenzie’s excellent book The First Thanksgiving. Here’s a sample: In 1623, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford proclaimed the first Thanksgiving. “The great Father,” he declared, “has given us this year an abundant harvest…and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.” He directed the Pilgrims to gather that November, “the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor... Read more
Though Thanksgiving is rooted in real historical events, intentional misremembering of those events is a big part of our holiday observance. In his new documentary about the Pilgrims, Ric Burns rues the way we “forget almost everything actual about the Pilgrims when we sit down to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.” What we honor as authentic traditions are much more nineteenth-century inventions, an annual national tradition far from, even at odds with 1620s Plymouth. Tracy McKenzie argues that a regularized date... Read more
No, whatever the title suggests, that is not the name of a forthcoming novel from Neil Gaiman. The Book of the Giants is an ancient Jewish text, part of the pseudepigrapha, the “falsely titled” writings usually attributed to some ancient sage or prophet. Although it is not well known by non-specialists, the Book of the Giants actually tells us a great deal about ancient literary cultures, and the emergence of the spiritual universe that we see in Christianity, Gnosticism, Manicheanism... Read more
“God has given Christianity a masculine feel.” I remember when John Piper said this at a pastor’s conference in Minneapolis, 31 January 2012. I wasn’t there. But I read the statement as quoted by the press; I read the elaboration on the Desiring God website; and I read the continued responses throughout social media. And all I could think about was medieval sermons. Now, I understand that everyone who has grown up with the Hollywood version of the medieval church,... Read more
The jihadist attacks in Paris have grieved and frightened the world again with the reality of Muslims committing violence in the name of Islam. Again we face the question – is Islam inherently violent? Are Muslims required to commit violence as a religious obligation? There is no doubt that unsettling numbers of Muslims would not only answer ‘yes,’ but follow through on the jihadist, terroristic mandate. Islam has a unique problem with terrorism and violence, among all the world’s religions.... Read more
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