Today, Christians celebrate Palm Sunday — the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem to great “Hosanna!” acclaim. But just exactly how did he do it? The stories disagree in a puzzling way… unless you know something about the conventions of biblical Hebrew and that the New Testament writers (Matthew, especially) often looked to the Old Testament, for ways …
Did you know that “Eli” means “my God,” in Hebrew? Yup. In one form, anyway. So, even if you’d missed all the previews, reviews, and commentary in between on the movie “The Book of Eli,” you still might guess that the book in question is the Bible. The English translation King James Version, to be precise. …
One of the most iconic images of western art is Michelangelo’s “creation of man” in the Sistine chapel. You know the one — a stirring painting depicting an impressive old man God reaching from the clouds to touch the outstretched hand of a young Adam. But just what, exactly, is that image based on? Genesis tells the creation …
I’ve just begun (re)reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Truth is, I don’t remember ever reading the whole thing through before. Snippets here and there for lit classes over the years but never from the beginning to the end. What a ride it is! And to think that Milton wrote it blind. Contemplate that, for a minute. …
Countless visual representations of the Garden of Eden creation story narrated in Genesis chaps 2-3 depict a crisp apple as the downfall of Adam and Eve. Yet the original Hebrew reads simply “fruit.” Without knowing that, we English speakers (and readers) can be excused for assuming that it was specifically an apple such as a Gala …
I just finished an interpretive translation of the biblical book of Numbers for “The Voice,” a multi-volume project to which many extraordinary Christian writers have contributed. I’m honored to be in their company. Numbers is a funny book — one minute you can be slogging through mind-numbing details of genealogies or ritual details and the next you’re …
I had the great good fortune to read a couple of new Bible translations and communicate, albeit briefly, with their creators for an article that will appear in Publishers Weekly Religion BookLine (10/28). In both cases, the translators are poets in their own right. Not only that, but both have worked for decades with these …
Anyone’s who’s read through the book of Genesis, from The Beginning to its portentous end in Egypt, knows that it’s pretty darn graphic — horny gods mate with human women, men try to rape angels, there’s fratricide and the near murder of a boy by his father (commanded by God, no less), a daughter-in-law rights wrongs by seducing her errant …
Work is underway on a new translation of the King James Version designed to correct what its authors call a “liberal bias” in modern translations. Conservapedia, which claims to be “the trustworthy encyclopedia,” has determined to correct what it sees as “three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning are, in increasing amount: lack of precision in the original …
In preparation for this weekend’s James River Writers Conference, I’ve needed to revisit my first book project on pain and the Psalms. (I have a terrible memory — what did I write, again?! sheesh.) Among the most memorable discoveries in doing that project was the mystical paradox of darkness. Here’s the first paragraph of a little essay on the topic:
