Let me say right off the top that this post isn’t so much about the movie Exodus as it is about God… and story. Still, I should probably warn, “spoiler alert.” But the two biggies below that might preempt one’s enjoyment of the drama hardly qualify as spoilers, and they bear immediately on the whole …
It was only when I began revising an essay that I discovered what it was about. I had thought the piece would be a simple meditation on what I’d learned about Cyrus the Great over these past few years – the sexy “messiah” byline, author of the first declaration of human rights, all that… and …
Some things one might expect to find in the Bible aren’t there at all; while sometimes what we do find is downright surprising. Take Hanukkah, for instance — not there! Ironically, not in the Jewish bible, but it is in the Orthodox Christian bible (in part — 1 Maccabees, if you’re looking). Meanwhile, the Christian …
Cyrus’ daughter Atossa has captivated me for all sorts of reasons, not least: she may be the first woman to have had a mastectomy and survived. Whether she did or didn’t is a matter of some debate. Only a brief note by Herodotus informs us of her condition and treatment. The author of Bathsheba’s Breast, …
Ai yai yai. A new series looking to biblical women for role models. Between that and Michele Bachmann’s latest: presidential hopeful who is submissively obedient to husband in all things, well,… Scott Bailey’s blog post can get you started: http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/epic-fail-real-housewives-of-the-bible/
“The mother of all living,” a slave-mother who despairs of saving her son, a mother who unapologetically favors one son over the other, a mother-in-law more beloved than her daughter-in-law’s own people, old mothers, young mothers, and a mother who conceives by the Holy Spirit — for as little as we know about them, the Bible’s …
Mothers of Old and Mothers Today, Happy Mothers’ Day! Read More »
Translating the book of Numbers, I came across a curious story that I’ve never paid much attention to before (Num 25:1-18). The setting is the infamous sin at Peor — of Israelites hooking up with Midianite women and taking part in their religious practices. One gets the impression that the Israelites were bored out of their …
Cozbi, the murdered Midianite… and a woman, at that Read More »
