Bible Review, 1996
Features
Why did Jesus go back to preach in Galilee? The question may seem a silly one. After all, he was a native of Nazareth in Galilee, and it was natural that he should preach to his own people. The prophet Amos, however, came from Tekoa (Amos 1:1), a village that differed little from […]
In 0 C.E. Roman legions destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, Judaism’s holiest structure and the “dwelling place of God’s name.” Despite this loss, Judaism was to survive and prosper. In the following centuries, the synagogue itself came to be seen as a “holy place.” Does this mean, as some people suppose, that the synagogue as […]
The quest for the historical Jesus began as a protest against traditional Christian dogma. But when the supposedly “neutral” historians peered into the well, all they saw was a featureless Jesus. Even when these scholars decided that everybody else—John the Baptist, the evangelists, Paul, the Q peoplea and so on—was at home in a […]
When the remote Roman fortress of Dura-Europos, overlooking the Euphrates, came under attack in the mid-third century C.E., the residents hastily fortified the city’s vulnerable western wall. They piled up a massive dry-fill buttress that covered the numerous buildings directly inside the wall, including a house-church and a synagogue. But their desperate efforts were […]
Many BR readers will by now have a copy of the Contemporary English Version of the Bible (CEV), published last year by the American Bible Society. They may even be using it for teaching or preaching. It is being actively sponsored by the American Interfaith Institute and is recommended by the chairman of the […]
Few figures in biblical literature provoke as many questions as King Saul. Was he a man of noble aspirations brought down by some tragic flaw (impulsiveness, ineptitude, irresolution?) or an arrogant tyrant infatuated with power? Was he a pitiable pantywaist, easily swayed by the dictates of others, or a hero, dignified by his struggle […]
Forty-seven years after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 B.C.E. and deported many of the people to exile in Babylon, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who had conquered the Babylonians and ruled most of the then-known world, allowed the Jews to return to their ancient homeland. They returned in waves. […]
A friend recently sent me an ad that had been prominently displayed in the April 7th issue of the New York Times Book Review. It proclaimed that the book Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence About the Origin of the Gospels (New York: Doubleday, 1996) held “material proof…of a discovery that rivals […]
Reading an introduction to biblical criticism, a beginning student might well think he or she is peering into a bowl of alphabet soup—or perhaps perusing a catalogue of foundations and corporations. Letters are all over the place, especially J, E, P, D, H and R. Occasionally there is even a K, L, N, Q […]
Who is the “son of man”? And who is the “one like a son of man”? And who is “the Son of Man” (in capital letters)? What’s the difference in meaning from one phrase to the other? And how do these terms apply to Jesus? Until quite recently, it was widely agreed that the […]
Our intent in the CEV translation was a faithful rendering of the intent of the Greek text. Nothing more, nothing less. As with the inclusive gender language in the CEV, concerns over Jewish sensitivities were a by-product of our work, not our motivation. I am thoroughly convinced that it was never the intention of […]
The Law was given at Sinai. But what was the situation before Sinai? Was there no law then? Were the patriarchs free to do what they pleased, free from the constraints of law? More than 2,000 years ago, perhaps just as the ink used to write the Torah was drying, the first interpreters of […]
In different Bibles, the Book of Ruth is put in different places. In Christian Bibles it is slipped in between Judges and Samuel, among the historical books. In the Hebrew Bible it’s in an entirely different place, in the third section, known as the Writings. It does not seem to fit neatly into the […]
On April 1, 1987, over 2,000 denizens of the art, rock and film worlds, the international jet set, and a throng of anonymous New Yorkers climbed the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to attend memorial services for Andy Warhol, the “Pope of Pop,” whose Campbell’s Soup cans became more real than those on our […]
30 Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature by Dorothée Sölle, Joe H. Kirchberger and Herbert Haag (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 295 pp., $75.00 “Great! Women of the Bible in Art and Literature” is my emended reading of this title. There are 25 of them here, beginning with Eve and her […]
The Latin words Via Dolorosa mean the “Sorrowful Way.” They were first used by the Franciscan Boniface of Ragusa in the second half of the 16th century as the name of the devotional walk through the streets of Jerusalem that retraced the route followed by Jesus as he carried his cross to Golgotha. It […]
It is a commonplace that every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Actually, this is true only if you count Ezra-Nehemiah as one book—as, indeed, it is so regarded in Jewish tradition—since only a fragment of Ezra, but not Nehemiah, has been identified. But […]
Luke Timothy Johnson’s recent article in BR and the book on which it is based raise a question of profound importance for Christian faith and theology. The question is immediately clear from their titles. The book is called The Real Jesus and subtitled The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth […]
King Josiah of Judah instituted a religious reform in 622 B.C.E. that scholars refer to simply as Josiah’s Reform. It might well be called the Deuteronomic Reform. Israelite religion would never be the same.
The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration ed. by Pierluigi De Vecchi (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 271 pp., 312 illus., $75.00 Spanning a void, two index fingers stretch toward each other, not yet touching, yet implying in the space between them God’s creative power. Incontestably the most famous image in Christian art, Michelangelo’s […]
Albert Schweitzer, after reviewing the 19th century’s quest for the historical Jesus, believed that honest scholars must choose between two alternatives, between what he called thoroughgoing eschatologya and thoroughgoing skepticism. By this he meant that either Jesus lived in the same imaginative world as early Jewish apocalypses,b like 1 Enoch and 2 Baruch, or […]