Bible Review, 1998
Features
Cain and Abel: The first two brothers of the first family in history. The only brothers in the world. The saddest, the most tragic. Why do they hold such an important place in our collective memory, which the Bible represents for so many of us? Mean, ugly, immoral, oppressive—their story disturbs and frightens. It […]
Joshua, the perfect disciple. Obedient and humble. The man whose devotion to his master can serve as an example to all. God’s chosen, just as Moses had been. The servant become leader, whom God and Moses do not cease to encourage—so much so that we wonder why he had such a need. Is it […]
At the risk of shocking my reader, I feel compelled to reveal my sympathy for a character that the Bible seems to treat rather badly. I am talking about Esau, the elder brother of Jacob. I feel sorry for him. I imagine him alone, always alone, bitter and unhappy. Except for his old father, […]
In commenting on the story of Jacob and Esau, Elie Wiesel refers in passing to “the traditional teaching that portrays Esau as Jacob’s implacable enemy for all time” (“Supporting Roles: Esau,” BR 14:02). The relevant verse in Genesis is 27:41, which comes just after Jacob has defrauded his brother of his inheritance: Wayyistom ‘esaw […]
I have a problem with Aaron, number two in the great and glorious epic that recounts the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. He is a man of peace. He succeeds at everything. Everyone admires, even loves him. Whether great or small, they need him, his understanding and his mediation. Whatever […]
On first reading the biblical text, Jethro seems a simple person, almost monolithic, someone who impresses us most as a family man. When he meets a young refugee, Moses, whom he believes to be Egyptian, he thinks immediately of his daughter Zipporah, who is not yet married (Exodus 2:20–21). Later, when Moses, who is […]
Shivering, an aged King David lay on his deathbed, suffering from cold. But “although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm” (1 Kings 1:1). One telling detail in the biblical account of David’s death accentuates the irreversible decline of the king, whose empire has dissolved around him, whose family has betrayed […]
I first heard the word “lucifer” when I was a small child. My grandfather was warning me about the dangers of those long wooden matches tipped with antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate. He called them “lucifers.” Needless to say, at that time I had no idea that “lucifer” was a word of Latin derivation […]
Enigmatic references to unknown books are scattered throughout the Bible. We read of the Book of Jashar and the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, but we cannot read the books themselves, for no copies are known to exist. What is surprising, however, is not how many but how few references to such […]
029Jerusalem was under siege.
Most people think that the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible are two names for the same thing. Actually, they are quite different, as I shall show—even though all of the books of the Hebrew Bible are indeed included in the Old Testament: Protestant Bibles contain all the same books as the Hebrew Bible; […]
The scene has stimulated the imagination of great painters. The light of a full moon accentuates the shadows in a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives. A lonely figure prays in anguish. Deep in careless sleep, his companions ignore his agony. The swords of the approaching soldiers appear on the […]
I always believed that the world portrayed in the Bible was very different from the one that I inhabit in 20th-century western Canada, with my career, computer and cross-country skis. But recently my attitude has changed somewhat. After comparing the insights on cross-gender communication expressed in such popular books as John Gray’s Men […]
Films recreate the past and make it come alive. For many people movies are their first and most memorable encounter with history. Movies can also reflect a society’s changing values, as well as its attempts to come to terms with its past and draw lessons for its future. This is especially true of movies […]
The Transfiguration—the moment when Jesus is mystically transformed by divine power in the company of Moses and Elijah—offers a uniquely Christian message. At this moment Jesus’ divinity is revealed to his disciples. Yet the roots of this complex story, so critical to Christian theology, are deeply embedded in Jewish tradition. The story of the […]
Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard is one of the most vivid and precise poetic passages in the Bible. In seven verses (Isaiah 5:1–7; see the sidebar to this article), the prophet presents a sustained metaphor for God’s care for his people, by portraying the deity as a meticulous, attentive vintner and his people as […]
Paul: A Critical Life Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (New York and Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) xv1 + 416 pp., $35 Paul: The Mind of the Apostle A.N. Wilson (New York and London: Norton, 1977) xiii + 274 pp., $25 What Saint Paul Really SaidWas Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Tom Wright (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, […]
The impulse to engage with the Bible is, at its roots, a religious—that is to say, a theological—one. So it has been for thousands of years, for both Jews and Christians. This changed, in the 18th century, with what we call the Enlightenment. I do not mean to discredit the Enlightenment. It shaped the […]
It was the end of 1842, and Julia Smith expected the end of the world. A believer in the apocalyptic prophecies of the Baptist preacher William Miller, Smith had allowed the plants in the conservatory of her Connecticut home to go unwatered and die. She had even prepared her Ascension robe, to be worn […]
Dusty skeletons in burial niches once lined the narrow passageways that lead into the Catacomb of Callistus, the earliest official cemetery of the Christian community in Rome. Deep underground, in the oldest part of the catacomb, the austere passageways open onto a number of subterranean burial chambers, including six elaborate cubicles whose whitewashed walls […]
If we look at Paul’s letters, it is not difficult to pull out what on the surface appear to be directly opposing views, anti- and pro-Israel: I. Anti-Israel: • “All who rely on works of the law are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10). • “No one is justified before God by the law” (Galatians […]
Bible scholars, as BR readers know all too well, spend a lot of time quibbling over what the Bible says. Many of the disagreements arise because we do not have a single original text to work from. For the New Testament, the earliest manuscripts date to around 200 C.E., but they are only a […]
Why was Moses condemned to die in the wilderness?
Dreams in the Joseph story—both those he dreamed himself and those he interpreted for others—have long mesmerized us. His arrogant boasting of his dreams to his brothers almost cost him his life. His gifts as a dream interpreter won his release from prison and slavery and allowed him to become a prince in Egypt. […]
A spectacular sound and light show greeted the Israelites when the new nation encountered God for the first time at Mt. Sinai.1 The awesome display of divine presence and power so terrified the Children of Israel that they begged God not to appear to them again in person (Exodus 20:15). God’s initial appearance—a theophany—was […]
The ancient Near Eastern roots of American Yuletide customs are manifold and fascinating. I will concentrate here on just two major points: that the Christmas tree was originally a symbol of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and that Santa Claus is an avatar of Asherah’s consort, the high god ‘El, who is equivalent to the […]