From the late Jacob Milgrom’s 3 volume Anchor Bible Commentary on Leviticus, specifically on Leviticus 4:1-35, Purification Offering: The Priestly doctrine of collective responsibility yields yet another corollary. The “good” people who perish with the evildoers are not innocent. For allowing the evildoers to flourish, to pollute the sanctuary beyond repair, they share the blame….
Tacky title, eh? I don’t apologize. I had fun constructing it. The other day someone asked me whether there were any scriptures I liked to go to when I was having problems. I gave the answer immediately and then explained, but I’m going to do the opposite here. I’m going to explain and then tell…
I’ve appreciated the work of Brevard Childs since I first encountered him via his Isaiah volume in the Old Testament Library series.I just finished with the first section in his Exodus volume (see below), and I have to say that I find it even better. Childs takes note of source and redactional issues, but subordinates…
Before I get to the article I’m linking from them today, I want to emphasize something important. I like numbers, yes, but you have to be careful. The reason for this is that you have to understand how the numbers you’re liking were produced.
I got this letter in the mail. If you look at the reply envelope, you’ll see that there is no identification of the company that is sending this e-mail out. Look to the right, where I’ve let a bit of the outer envelope show. It shows a quite correct statement of penalties for obstructing…
Our pastor at Chumuckla Community Church started a sermon series on the book of James. This provoked me to look again at Bruce Epperly’s little book Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James. Here’s a sample: Despite Martin Luther’s misguided dismissal of James as “an epistle of straw,” due to James’ emphasis…
… even to this Air Force vet’s ears.
With a tip of my hat to James McGrath, I would like to call attention to this post by Jonathan Bernier. I think it brings up some rather important points. This is not an answer to your questions, but rather a bit of guidance in how one answers questions accurately. To quote: The critical historian is…
Brooke Borel of FiveThirtyEight.com published an article recently titled Fact-Checking Won’t Save Us from Fake News. Headline readers will not be led too far astray by that headline, though they will miss some interesting reasoning on the topic. I agree with Borel that fact-checking won’t save us. It’s useful, but it’s just one element. A…
