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The Pattern of Judges
As I said, I mis-clicked on Monday and thought there was no Old Testament reading. But, there actually was one – Judges 2.11-19. Here we find the predominant pattern of the Book of Judges. The people sin (vs. 11-13) – The cycle starts with the people sinning. Usually this sin is the sin of idolatry,…
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Oh Man! I Missed a Judges Reading – What's a Biblical Judge Anyway?
Yesterday I reported that there was no Old Testament lectionary reading. I was actually incorrect. I had clicked the wrong Monday on the lectionary calendar. We actually do get some readings from Judges before the lectionary sells its soul by leaving out the Old Testament in favor of the likes of Revelation and 1 Thessalonians. …
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He is a Jealous God who will not Forgive your Transgressions or your Sins
Today’s lectionary reading is again from the end of Joshua and contains one of those sayings that well-meaning people like to hang up on the walls of their homes. They may have it crocheted or artistically represented in some other manner. And, it reads something like “As for me and my house, we will serve…
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Free Course Guide – Eric Cline History of Ancient Israel
Today’s lectionary reading was on the ark of the Lord being brought to Jerusalem. And, it reminded me of an audio lecture by Eric Cline dealing with modern speculation about the current location of the ark. It is a very interesting lecture in which professor Cline laments the fact that such endeavors waste research efforts…
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Interesting Post on God's "Jealousy"
HERE is a link to an interesting post on Hebrew and Greek reader about YHWH’s “jealousy” in the Hebrew Bible. It demonstrates a shift in the use of the Hebrew word underlying many occurrences of “jealousy” in English translations. And, it is a clear illustration that when interpreting a given passage it is important to…
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Thoughts on Psalm 136
Today’s response is Psalm 136. Our Sunday night music group plays a song based on this Psalm with some regularity, but I must admit that this is one of the texts that I struggle with a great deal. The refrain is “His love endures forever.” If you have been around the field of Biblical Studies…
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Tim Bulkeley on Different Tools for Different Tasks
HERE is a post in which Tim Bulkeley discusses the use of Bible dictionaries and Bible commentaries. He gives some very good advice, which has served me well when interpreting given passages. “So on the whole avoid consulting commentaries as long as you can. The more you work at a text before reading one the…
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Joshua the Prophet
Now that I have gotten over the shock of the fact that the lectionary skips over almost the entire Book of Joshua, I can make a few comments on the reading for today (Jos. 24.1-13). Here we have Joshua functioning like a prophet. We found out in Deut. 34.10 that Moses was a prophet. A…
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Skipping the Book of Joshua
Wow! The lectionary readings skip way ahead today. Yesterday was Joshua 3 and now we are at Joshua 24. I can somewhat understand this since I’m not a huge fan of conquest narratives myself. But, this caused me to step back a bit to check on how much of the Book of Joshua is actually…
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John Anderson – Outlines on Research Pertaining to The Composition of the Pentateuch
John Anderson over at hesed we’emet has put together what looks like two nice resources concerning research on the composition of the Pentateuch. He has provided two outlines that he created in preparation for his PhD comps. Considering the thoroughness of the outlines it is no wonder that he passed. Thanks to him for making…