To My Israeli Friends

I have a number of Israeli friends, academics, colleagues, conference attending conversation partners, answerers of archaeological questions and those sorts of things and I feel for them.  Deeply.

I wish none of this was happening.  I happen to know that most of them are ardent opponents of Bibi and his policies and they are swept up in the tide of time just like we are here in the States under our own version of Bibi.

I think it is cruel and deceitful to speak and act as though ‘Israel’ were one person and that everyone in Israel is exactly that person.  I think it’s evil to lump everyone in a place together when even in the smallest of places there are people who differ from the majority around them and the minority around them too.

I am annoyed immeasurably by the people who insist that everyone in the South is an ‘Evangelical’ of the Paula White mold.  And I am equally annoyed knowing that decent people live in Tennessee, Israel, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the West Bank, and even Texas and Florida and yet the tendency of societies is to see them all through the lens of their own parochial biases.

More than anything I wish everyone in Israel could live in peace.  That we all could.  And that, while I’m at it, my Jewish friends here in America could as well.

Peace is such a difficult thing.  War is so easy.  It takes courage to wage peace and cowardice and smallness to wage war and far too many world leaders are better at being cowards than they are at being courageous.

I wish hatred would die and be cast into the fires of hell.  I wish cruelty suffered the same fate.  And not on judgment day, but on this day.  Today.

That is what I wish.

Mystics are Weirdos

@jdmccafferty – St Catherine of Siena Exchanging Her Heart with Christ by Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia, c.1460-1482 Catherine, a Dominican tertiary, was a mystic as well as minister to the poor and #plague-stricken. (Met Museum)

Weirdos.  I mean seriously, if she ripped her heart out she’d be dead before she handed it off.  It’s just so unrealistic.

The Untold Story of the Kingdom of Judah

This book was written out of a great love for the biblical text and out of an even greater curiosity about the people who wrote it.

The different chapters of the book are an invitation to a journey following those who composed the historical descriptions in the Hebrew Bible, in an attempt to find out who they were, when they wrote and where. The main questions in the book are not what the historical description is and how much it indeed reflects what really happened, but what the authors of the Biblical historiography knew about the ancient past of Israel and Judah, what they chose to include in their descriptions and what story they chose not to tell. The untold story is an important key to understanding the purpose of biblical historiography, the target audience for which it was intended and the message it carried.

The main conclusion is that biblical historiography was not written to tell what history was, but to explain the present against the background of past events, and through this to teach a lesson about the right way to behave in the present, in order to ensure a good future.

This is how Biblical historiography should be read and understood.

Oded Lipschits is one of the most gifted archaeologists working today.  His book, published originally in Hebrew, is now available to nearly all.  The table of contents is available above and is certainly worth looking at as it is extremely extensive.

The opening line of the book sets the stage:

This book was written out of great love for the biblical text and out of even greater curiosity about the people that composed it.

That simple, singular, solitary sentence is the key not only to the whole of the present volume but to the whole of Lipschits life’s work.  But it isn’t just his ‘truth’, as people are won’t to say these days.  It is the truth of every biblical scholar worthy of the name.  Love either compels us or we would not work.

But this book is more than just a work of love.  It is a scholarly work.  And its author informs us that each chapter is a self contained whole and the book should be read in this light.

Most interestingly, though, these chapters didn’t begin their lives on a computer.  They began their lives as podcasts.  The first draft of each chapter was a podcast from the University of Tel Aviv.

The chapters discuss the most important issues of biblical studies related to the Hebrew Bible.  What happened, what didn’t, and why.  Why do the authors write what they write and to what end and purpose.   After all

… the historical description [found in the Bible] is not what happened in the past.

So what is the reason for telling such a story?  The answer to that question turns out to be the reason the book is titled as it is: The Untold Story of the Kingdom of Judah is the why of the biblical text.

This is the ONE book that MUST be read in 2026.  By biblical scholars to be sure, but by those who insist, in a rather fundamentalistic way, that the Bible is a history book relating things that would have been reported in newspapers had such things existed in the ancient world.  This book brilliantly debunks that in-credible (in the sense of un-credible) notion.

It will help readers stop treating the Bible like a history book and to appreciate it for what it is.  A book (or rather a collection of them) that has to do with something far more important and interesting than history.

Jesus v His Followers

It’s a good thing Jesus wasn’t as selfish as most of his followers (nominally at best) in America. He wouldn’t have done much of anything except send along thoughts and prayers and lived only for himself.

The Anniversary of the Birth of Kurt Aland

It is the anniversary of the birth of that great Text Critic and Church Historian (yes, he wrote an extensive history of Christianity which spanned two large volumes) Kurt Aland.  He was born on 28 March, 1915 (and regrettably passed away on 13 April, 1994).

I corresponded with him a bit in the late 80’s early 90’s and he was always terribly congenial.  I regret that I never did have the chance to meet him though.  And that makes me sad.

Aland surely needs no introduction, does he?  Here’s a smattering of his impressive publications, just in case you aren’t familiar enough with him.

Here’s a tiny little interview which aired on German tv in which he explains in the briefest of terms the importance of textual criticism.

And here’s a great little explanation of the institute for textual criticism for which he was responsible.

Happy birthday, Professor. All of those who know your work, treasure it, and you.

The Difference Between Philosophy and Theology

‪A philosopher is a blind man holding an orange and describing a star. A Christian theologian is a sighted person pointing at a cross.‬

Mike Huckabee Wants to Brainwash Children, and Says So

‘Christian’ Zionists are heretics willing to corrupt young people with their ideology and to make them slaves of zionism.

Remembering Jakob Wöhrle on the Anniversary of his Death

Via Jack Sasson:

We just received the news of the death of our colleague and friend of many years, Professor Dr. Jakob Wöhrle. Jakob Wöhrle studied in Bethel, Leipzig and Münster and after his exam, he was a research assistant at the chair of Professor Dr. Rainer Albertz from 2001-2008, after which he from 2008-2012, he was head of the project “Distinction and Integration in the Foundation Deed of Israel” at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion & Politics”.  After his doctorate and habilitation in Münster, he was a Heisenberg fellow and then held the professorship for Old Testament at the University of Oldenburg. Since 2019 he was professor of Old Testament at the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen.

He has received international recognition primarily for his major research contributions to the Dodekapropheton and to the socio-historical significance of the Pentateuch. As an academic teacher, he was extremely popular and, through his friendly and attentive, and his lively and motivating way of teaching inspired numerous students to take an interest in the subject and in theology.

His death was sudden and completely unexpected. It is an immeasurable loss for all colleagues. We share in the grief of his wife, Pastor Stefanie Wöhrle, and his family.

Such a young man. So saddening. May he rest in peace and his family know peace.

The Chief Failing of the Church…

Over the last 100 years has been its refusal to confront heresy with the damnation it deserved and to loudly and publicly excommunicate the heretics within it.

This failure has allowed the world to believe that anyone who called themselves Christians were accepted by the Church as such.

The consequences of this weakness and cowardice has been the defilement of the Church and the undermining of its witness. It has given the world the twin bastard offspring ‘Christian Nationalism’ and ‘Christisn Zionism’.

Truth matters. But the Church chose to be liked rather than to be faithful. And now it is neither liked nor faithful.

Tertullian Thinks Your Sports Events Are Stupid, And You’re Mad For Being Carried Away by Them

Since, then, all passionate excitement is forbidden us, we are debarred from every kind of spectacle, and especially from the circus, where such excitement presides as in its proper element. See the people coming to it already under strong emotion, already tumultuous, already passion-blind, already agitated about their bets. The prætor is too slow for them: their eyes are ever rolling as though along with the lots in his urn; then they hang all eager on the signal; there is the united shout of a common madness. Observe how “out of themselves” they are by their foolish speeches. “He has thrown it!” they exclaim; and they announce each one to his neighbour what all have seen. I have clearest evidence of their blindness; they do not see what is really thrown.

They think it a “signal cloth,” but it is the likeness of the devil cast headlong from on high. And the result accordingly is, that they fly into rages, and passions, and discords, and all that they who are consecrated to peace ought never to indulge in. Then there are curses and reproaches, with no cause of hatred; there are cries of applause, with nothing to merit them. What are the partakers in all this—not their own masters—to obtain of it for themselves? unless, it may be, that which makes them not their own: they are saddened by another’s sorrow, they are gladdened by another’s joy. Whatever they desire on the one hand, or detest on the other, is entirely foreign to themselves. So love with them is a useless thing, and hatred is unjust.

Or is a causeless love perhaps more legitimate than a causeless hatred? God certainly forbids us to hate even with a reason for our hating; for He commands us to love our enemies. God forbids us to curse, though there be some ground for doing so, in commanding that those who curse us we are to bless. But what is more merciless than the circus, where people do not spare even their rulers and fellow-citizens? If any of its madnesses are becoming elsewhere in the saints of God, they will be seemly in the circus too; but if they are nowhere right, so neither are they there.*

__________

*Tertullian, “The Shows, or De Spectaculis,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 86.

Jeremiah Had One of These At the Entrance of the Temple…

The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ‘Stand at the gate of the Temple of Yahweh and there proclaim this message. Say, “Listen to the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah who come in by these gates to worship Yahweh. Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Amend your behaviour and your actions and I will let you stay in this place. 

Do not put your faith in delusive words, such as: This is Yahweh’s sanctuary, Yahweh’s sanctuary, Yahweh’s sanctuary! But if you really amend your behaviour and your actions, if you really treat one another fairly, if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow, if you do not shed innocent blood in this place and if you do not follow other gods, to your own ruin, then I shall let you stay in this place, in the country I gave for ever to your ancestors of old.  

Look, you are putting your faith in delusive, worthless words!  Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow other gods of whom you know nothing? –  and then come and stand before me in this Temple that bears my name, saying: Now we are safe to go on doing all these loathsome things!  Do you look on this Temple that bears my name as a den of bandits? I, at any rate, can see straight, Yahweh declares. (Jer. 7:1-11)

[Image nipped from Ken Leonard on FB]

On Those Who Spread the Plague in Geneva – Intentionally

During the ravages of the pestilence in 1545 more than twenty men and women were burnt alive for witchcraft, and a wicked conspiracy to spread the horrible disease.

Calvin himself states this fact in a letter to Myconius of Basel, March 27, 1545 (Opera, XII. 55; Bonnet, I. 428), where he says: “A conspiracy of men and women has lately been discovered, who, for the space of three years, had spread the plague through the city by what mischievous device I know not. After fifteen women have been burnt, some men have even been punished more severely, some have committed suicide in prison, and while twenty-five are still kept prisoners,—the conspirators do not cease, notwithstanding, to smear the door-locks of the dwelling-houses with their poisonous ointment. You see in the midst of what perils we are tossed about. The Lord hath hitherto preserved our dwelling, though it has more than once been attempted. It is well that we know ourselves to be under His care.”

Geneva needed rule by an iron fist.  What the citizens of that moral cesspool would have done without Calvin’s presence no one can even guess.

Remembering Sara Japhet on the Anniversary of her Death

From the SOTS Secretary this sad note on March 28, 2024:

We have heard the sad news that Professor Sara Japhet, Yehezkei Kaufmann Professor Emerita of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, died on 27 March. She had been an Honorary Member of the Society since 1999. We last reported on her distinguished career only last year, when she was awarded the British Academy’s Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies for her pioneering contribution to the study of post-exilic Hebrew literature, particularly the books of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. She was a most supportive member of the Society, and in 2023, in her own words, was ‘still teaching, lecturing, doing research and writing.’ She was known to the Society both for the papers she gave and the generous support she offered to women academics. She will be greatly missed.

Alastair G Hunter
SOTS Membership Secretary
487 Shields Road
Glasgow G41 2RG

For a list of her scholarly achievements, visit here.  A few of her many publications are here.   Her commentary on the Chronicler’s works is stunningly good. May her memory continue to be for a blessing.

Zwingli’s Narrow Escape from the Plague and his March 27, 1520 Relapse

Zwingli fell victim toward the end of September, and was very sick. By November he was able to write again. But his recovery was slow. On November 30th, he complains that the disease had left his memory weakened, his spirits reduced, so that his mind wandered when preaching, and after preaching he felt thoroughly exhausted. On December 31st, he reported himself as well again, and that the last ulcer caused by the malady had healed. But his rejoicing was premature, as on March 27, 1520, he complains that he had eaten and drunk many drugs to get rid of his fever, and still his head was weak, although he was daily growing better.*

Thankfully he recovered fully. Meritoriously, though he was urged to do so, he never abandoned the city to preserve himself as so many of the Papist clerics had. When he was completely well he wrote this song:

I. At the Beginning of the Illness

Help, Lord God, help
In this trouble!
I think, Death is at the door.
Stand before?1 me, Christ;
For Thou hast overcome him!
To Thee I cry:
If it is Thy will,
Take out the dart,
Which wounds me!
Nor lets me have an hour’s
Rest or repose!
Will’st Thou however
That Death take me
In the midst of my days,
So let it be!
Do what Thou wilt;
Me nothing lacks.
Thy vessel am I;
To make or break altogether.
For, if Thou takest away
My spirit
From this earth,
Thou dost it, that it? may not grow worse,
Nor spot
The pious lives and ways of others.

II. In the Midst of his Illness

Console me, Lord God, console me!
The illness increases,
Pain and fear seize
My soul and body.
Come to me then,
With Thy grace, O my only consolation!
It? will surely save
Everyone, who
His heart’s desire
And hope sets
On Thee, and who besides
Despises all gain and loss.
Now all is up.
My tongue is dumb,
It cannot speak a word.
My senses are all blighted.
Therefore is it time
That Thou my fight
Conductest hereafter;
Since I am not
So strong, that I
Can bravely
Make resistance
To the Devil’s wiles and treacherous hand.
Still will my spirit
Constantly abide by Thee, however he rages.

III. During Convalescence

Sound, Lord God, sound!
I think, I am
Perhaps with greater anguish,
Already coming back.
Than would now have
Yes, if it please Thee,
That no spark of sin
Since I came
Rule me longer on earth,
Then my lips must
Thy praise and teaching
The spite and boasting
Bespeak more
Of this world
Than ever before,
However it may go,
In simplicity and with no danger.
Although I must
The punishment of death
Sometime endure
Perhaps with greater anguish,
Than would now have
Happened, Lord!
Since I came
So near?;
So will I still
The spite and boasting
Of this world
Bear joyfully for the sake of the reward.
By Thy help,
Without which nothing can be perfect.

____________
*S. Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli: The Reformer of German Switzerland (1484–1531) (pp. 131–132).