CNN published an essay I wrote but with edits that got it wrong. Unintentionally, I’m sure, but it says exactly what I’ve been arguing against. I disagree with both the title and the final sentence, arguably the most powerful parts. Neither of them are mine. Nevertheless, the essay concludes with the mandatory disclaimer that “The […]
“My Take” on CNN Not My Take Read More »
“Did you know,” a bright-eyed young woman breathlessly exclaimed to me, “that when King James wrote the Bible, he didn’t actually put everything in?!” I was riding the DC Metro a few weeks ago when she sat down beside me with this information. Since people don’t normally talk on the train (unless it’s a first
Cut the Cake, the KJV is 400 Read More »
Had a great time at Chop Suey Tuey bookstore in Richmond’s Carytown yesterday for Bible Babel‘s paperback debut. In the midst of the excitement of VCU’s big basketball game (on to the Final Four! wow) and the ever-amazing French Film Festival at the historic Byrd Theater, just across the street from Chop Suey Tuey, we filled the
Bible Babel on a Sunday Afternoon Read More »
“What does your book say about evil?,” an attendee posed to panelists at the VA Fest of the Book event that I moderated. It was a lively event, not least because the composition of the panel led inevitably to passionate disagreement. As the psychiatrist who wrote of religion as a product purely of human physiology
Babylon, bab-ilu, Babel, “Gate of the gods” was the Big Apple of its day. Yet we get “the whore of Babylon” and the “Tower of Babel,” Bob Marley’s Babylon site of oppression and reputation for excess. The biblical view of Babylon is no less real in its critique than the grandeur that we know Babylon
The Many Faces of Babylon Read More »
Stephen Dunn, poet extraordinaire. Among my favorites, a riff on the Leviticus scapegoat. It’s a prose poem in which God sympathizes with the goat and calls this method of atonement yet another human sin. I’d love to write it out for you here but haven’t asked permission. Do check it out yourself (I bought What Goes On,
AWP Surprise Highlight Read More »
I love the movie Groundhog Day. It’s such a great story about redemption, and I for one, an accomplished bumbler, would love a few do-overs to get things right. Besides, the film’s hilarious. I might have guessed that it would have some sort of religious theme to it, but until recently, I didn’t imagine that Punxsutawney Phil and
Jesus and Groundhog Day Read More »
When Republicans opened the 112th Congress with a reading of the Constitution, they faced a challenge that threatened to undermine the whole purpose of the reading, to demonstrate adherence to the original document. The trouble, you see, is that the times they’ve gone a-changing… For one thing, blacks actually count today not as three-fifths of a person
Flexibility in What Is Fixed — Constitution and the Bible Read More »
This is the first I’ve heard: the rising problem of bullying linked to the biblical Goliath. But it must be true, I read in my birth-town paper. Or at least I read that an expert on the topic made such a connection in his Duluth, MN presentation. Walter Roberts, who’s worked for years with kids
Bullying in the Bible? Read More »
That Sarah sure does have a way with words. Palin’s latest, not an “oops” moment but actually something she posted online, upped the righteous hackles of a lot of people and left others going, “huh?” So, what is it? In short: “blood libel” is an accusation originally and historically used as a means of inciting hatred
The Whole “Blood Libel” Thing Read More »
