Benjamin the Scribe
First off, go listen to my old podcast here where I talk about David, Goliath, and the Philistines. (more…) Read more
First off, go listen to my old podcast here where I talk about David, Goliath, and the Philistines. (more…) Read more
Today, we’re focusing entirely on Ruth, and then just on a small section of Ruth. (I’d really like to write a long article for Ruth as I did for Judah and Tamar, but my list of projects is long.) Ruth is a short and masterful novella. If you haven’t read it yet, give it a quick read. It’s four chapters, minimal characters. I’ll assume you know the story for the rest of this post. I do have a podcast on Ruth... Read more
First, here is my podcast for this lesson. Now, as we move into books like Samuel and Kings that are more historical in nature, we need to discuss just what that means. How should we read and understand these? (more…) Read more
The Book of Judges begins with the death of Joshua, and is arranged in very distinct and obvious cycles: Israel prospers, forgets God and embraces idolatry, is allowed to be enslaved/captured by its neighbors until it repents, and then God raises up a charismatic military leader or “judge” who delivers Israel from captivity. Wash, rinse, repeat. (more…) Read more
We are now out of the Pentateuch, into what’s called the Deuteronomistic History, or DH. This refers to the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. (more…) Read more
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Mat 22:36-40 KJV) I begin with this familiar passage because it bears directly on... Read more
I’ve finally had time to update some Old Testament posts, and run into some technical issues. Patheos is looking into it, and I hope to be caught-up soon. In the meantime, I had opportunity to record a podcast with LDS Missioncast. Although aimed at missionaries and pre-missionaries, I hope what I had to say will have some insight for everyone. We talked about the problem of proof-texting, or using a verse out of context to prove a point, and why... Read more
It was the last week of the semester, we got sick, and some other distracting things happened this week (see #3). Fortunately, if you missed my updated posts, thanks to #1, you can find my old ones easily. First, I’ve gone back and tagged a lot of my previous posts, so they can be accessed in groups. That is, scroll down to the bottom of a post, and you’ll see “select category” next to “select month.” Now that I’ve tagged many... Read more
These chapters are all about Balaam, Balaam’s talking donkey, God’s power, blessing and cursing. The manual chooses as subtitle “I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord” and describes its purpose as “to encourage class members to submit to God’s will without hesitation.” First off, I think without any parsing, that’s a dangerously overstated thing to say. And secondly, even when carefully parsed… I think it’s dangerously overstated. Why? (more…) Read more
The Book of Numbers takes its English name from the Greek Septuagint title, a description of the census-taking in its first four chapters. The Hebrew title is a bit more descriptive, bemidbar sinai, “in the wilderness of Sinai.” Note the time in 1:1. Two years have passed. In 14:29-33, God decrees that that generation, everyone over 20 will die in the wilderness and their children will suffer because of their unfaithfulness. (more…) Read more
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