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The Emerging LGBT Initiative Against Christian Colleges
Read more: The Emerging LGBT Initiative Against Christian Colleges**UPDATE, June 9, 2016. The California Senate Appropriations Committee struck down SB-1888 (proposed by Assemblyman Evan Low), which was the primary legislative bill focused in the article below. However, SB-1146 has been approved by the Appropriations Committee and is moving forward for a vote in the California Senate. SB-1146 was authored by Assemblyman Ricardo Lara (D-Bell…
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Review of The Many Faces of Herod the Great by Adam Kolman Marshak
Read more: Review of The Many Faces of Herod the Great by Adam Kolman MarshakAdam Kolman Marshak. The Many Faces of Herod the Great. Eerdmans, 2015. 400 pgs. $35 (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-8028-6605-9. In The Many Faces of Herod the Great, Adam Kolman Marshak offers a fresh and compelling historiographical account of one of the more misunderstood figures in antiquity. While he agrees that Herod does, at times, play the…
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The Gospel on Screen in 2015
Read more: The Gospel on Screen in 20152015 was a strange year for the world. Historic court decisions in the US, riots and political uprisings throughout the world, Wars, terrorism, political civil wars, and terrible tragedies. It seems that the world as we know is crumbling around us. The new year didn’t bring anything that new, but simply a pause to our…
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Review of Apocalypse against Empire by Anathea E. Portier-Young
Read more: Review of Apocalypse against Empire by Anathea E. Portier-YoungAnathea E. Portier-Young. Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism. Eerdmans, 2014. 462 pgs. $35 (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-8028-7083-4. Anathea E. Portier-Young’s Apocalypse against Empire (originally release in 2011) comprises, to quote John Collins from the book’s foreword, “an important contribution to the study of Judea under Seleucid rule and to the social context…
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Who’s in charge here?
Read more: Who’s in charge here?Growing up my hometown was, and still is, very conservative. Most everyone identifies as a Christian and a Republican, and to me those two terms were nearly synonymous. I was taught that America was the greatest nation on the planet and that we were in fact a Christian nation, to suggest anything different would be…
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Review of John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel By Richard Horsley & Tom Thatcher
Read more: Review of John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel By Richard Horsley & Tom ThatcherHorsley, Richard and Tom Thatcher John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 2013. 207 pages. Paperback. $20.00. In John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel, Thatcher and Horsley argue for a fresh reading of John’s Gospel. They contend that John presented Jesus as one whose ministry enacted Israel’s renewal in opposition to the Judean establishment…
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Review of Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks by Walter Brueggemann
Read more: Review of Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks by Walter BrueggemannBrueggemann, Walter. Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2014. 165 pages. Softcover. Retail: $15.00. In Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks, Walter Brueggemann suggests that the ancient Israelite ideological crisis caused by the destruction of Jerusalem can act as an analogy for the modern American ideological crisis caused by…
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Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (by Aaron Koller)
Read more: Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (by Aaron Koller)I just had the privilege of reading Aaron Koller’s new book on Esther which came out just a few weeks before mine (Esther and Her Elusive God). I would have liked to engage him in my book, but this brief review will have to suffice (for now). Aaron Koller, who is Associate Professor of Near Eastern and…
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Death by Natural Causes
Read more: Death by Natural Causes“Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted governments. If Sparta and Rome have perished, what state can hope to endure for ever? If we wish to form a durable constitution, let us, then, not dream of making it eternal. In order to succeed we must not attempt the impossible, nor flatter…
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What Is the Basis for Authority? Part 2
Read more: What Is the Basis for Authority? Part 2In my last post I went through the cultural developments that led to the basis of our modern understanding of authority detailing the historical shift in religious and political viewpoints. Eventually we have come to understand in the modern context a delegated authority that tends to come from the will of the majority of individuals…