Bible Review, June 1999
Features
The Bible’s portrayal of the Chosen People preserves the good and the bad.
What sorts of men were Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John—crude, ignorant laborers or savvy and practical men of the world? The reliability of much of the Gospels rides on the answer.
Cats can have nine lives, not people. But the case of Dead Sea Scroll specialist Geza Vermes will make you wonder. His remarkable life is now encapsulated in an autobiography, reviewed herein.
We like to think of Holy Writ as unchanging, but the ancients didn’t. A study of the Dead Sea Scrolls reveals that texts could exist in different forms—even be consciously modified—without losing their sanctity.
We expect to learn from the lives of great people, not from their deaths. But in the case of Miriam, Aaron and Moses, their deaths reflect their lives.