AAR/SBL

Yes, already! It is looming closer by the day!

I have been working on what books to bring and how many. This is a time consuming and, ultimately, futile task. It never works out right, we always run short on some titles and have too many of others. You need to let me know what and how many you are going to buy :)

So far I have 111 titles for our distribution partners—not including Carta or Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht—and 94 Eisenbrauns titles. Harrassowitz will also be in our booth this year, so that means more titles still. Isreal Antiquities Authority is also sending us all IAA Reports to sell at a 30% discount for all you archaeologists out there (Joe, are you listening?). We also will have the 3 latest 'Atiqot volumes–50-52, also at 30%.

How's that for teasers? More later...

Three years!

No, that is not how long I have been blogging, nor my emotional maturity level. Three years ago today, I started working at Eisenbrauns.

I had been planning to start October first, but the truck rental company didn't deliver on time. In fact, I ended up driving to the north side of St. Paul to get an available truck (an extra 60 miles and two days later). We loaded up the truck, cleaned the townhouse and started on the long road to Indiana from Chaska, Minnesota...

October sale at Eisenbrauns

October's monthly sale offers you all available volumes of the highly acclaimed Göttingen Septuagint project for 20% off. Several of the volumes have recently been reprinted after being unavailable for some time.
All the details here.

Additionally, we are offering a used book special: during the month of October, purchase $500 worth of used books in a single order, and we'll give them to you at 10% off. Want more used books for a better price? Spend $1000 for a 15% discount, or $1500 to receive 20% off the used book total on your order.

Blogger beta

<idle musing>
I just can't resist beta software; I have to give it a whirl. So, this morning I made the change to Blogger Beta. I like the tags, that is something that Wordpress definitely does right. I don't like that I can't edit the template as directly, but have to input it. I also don't like that now I am logged in with a Google account. Now they have even more data on my searchs and stuff, but it is a tradeoff...

I still haven't figured out the supposed comment section improvements. If anybody has, please let me know—in the comment section :)
</idle musing>

New Testament versus now

There is an interesting comparison between the modern church and the New Testament Church on the Milpitas Bible Fellowship site. I would reproduce part of it here, but I can't get Blogger to do the tables correctly, so you will have to go there to see it. I disagree with their take on tithing, but otherwise I would pretty much agree with them. Hat tip to ekklesia.

New 10 day sale at Eisenbrauns

Eisenbrauns is offering a new 10-day sale. This time we are offering a selection of AOAT titles for 20% off. See the whole list here. But, here are a few of the titles:

"Kult, Konflikt und Versoehnung: Beitrage zur kultischen Suhne
in religiosen, sozialen und politischen Auseinandersetzungen
des antiken Mittelmeerraumes"
by Rainer Albertz
Alter Orient und Altes Testament - AOAT 285
Ugarit-Verlag, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3934628087
List Price: $69.00 Your Price: $55.20

"Sima milka: Induktion und Reception der mittelbabylonischen
Dichtung von Ugarit, Emar und Tell el-Amarna"
by Thomas R. Kammerer
Alter Orient und Altes Testament - AOAT 251
Ugarit-Verlag, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3927120472
List Price: $62.50 Your Price: $50.00

"Untersuchungen zu den lokalen Panthea Sud-und
Mittelbabyloniens in altbabylonischer Zeit"
by Thomas Richter
Alter Orient und Altes Testament - AOAT 257
Ugarit-Verlag, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3927120642
List Price: $88.00 Your Price: $70.40

Let's read Greek and Hebrew!

For all who are interested—and live within commuting distance of Eisenbrauns—every Thursday morning at 7:00 some of us are getting together to read a little Greek or Hebrew (alternating weeks). No preparation allowed! Sight reading, interacting with the text and making absolute fools of ourselves :)

We've been doing it for 3 weeks now and having a blast. Only requirement is you have to be able to stumble through the language of the week. Next week is Hebrew. Come one, come all and join us as we stumble our way through Ruth!

New employee

<idle musing>
We began employing a high school student from the local co-op program named Jessica. She is very good and we have enjoyed having her assistance. She helps out around the office and in the warehouse.

Well, the other day I was in the warehouse, looking at the boxes of books that had arrived that day—a normal occurrence. I saw a box from a European publisher and got all excited because it was a book I had been waiting to see for a while. She looked at me a bit strangely, but didn’t say anything. The next day, I was doing my normal routine and saw a few boxes from different publishers that contained new releases. I started exclaiming about how neat it was that these books had finally been released. This time she looked at me and said, “You’re funny. Why do you get so excited about books?”

How do you answer that??? Well, Cindy, our main warehouse worker, came to my rescue. She said, “Well, he spent a good part of his life studying this stuff, so he gets excited when he sees a new book come in.” Jessica asked me how long I had been in school. Now, how do you answer that one? I told her I was in school longer than she had been alive. She looked at me even stranger. I could just see her thinking I must be some kind of alien. She’s a senior in high school, looking forward to finishing and here is this guy telling her that he spent 13 years in college, after finishing 12 years in public school...he’s got to be a nutcase, 25 years in school.

So, yesterday I was in the warehouse and got all excited again about some books—isn’t that a normal reaction? Anyway, she just shook her head and kept on working…
</idle musing>

Chainsaw art

As I was walking to work yesterday, I saw that a dead tree had become a 10 foot tall violin. Pretty amazing stuff, but our webmaster, Andy, was way ahead of me. He just started blogging and has two posts on it. One, showing it before any work was done on it is here. The other one, showing it in progress and the final product is here. Maybe I'll take some pictures later today, too.

Quote of the day

"To many a Christian, Jesus is still but a dead Christ or at least a historic Christ, but not a living and present reality. The meaning of Easter is that Jesus is alive and is the Living Head of Christianity and the personal and intimate Friend of every true disciple, to whom He becomes revealed as his indwelling life and the source of all his strength and victory."—A.B. Simpson

Lukan tidbit

<idle musing>
I was reading in Luke yesterday, when a phrase in 24.3 jumped out at me, “They did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” I thought to myself, “That seems to be the first time I have seen Lord Jesus together in Luke.” So, I pulled out my handy Moulton & Geden, and, sure enough, that is the first and only time that word combination occurs in the gospel of Luke. Now, lest you think that it isn’t a Lukan phrase, I checked Acts, and it occurs 17 times in Acts. So, for Luke, anyway, the phrase Lord Jesus is a phrase that refers to the resurrected Jesus.

Then, using the only electronic Bible software I have, I pulled up the RSV to do a cut and paste. Guess what? The RSV & NRSV both omit the entire phrase “Lord Jesus.” So, out comes my NA 28 large print to check the apparatus. Hmmm…the only manuscripts that omit it are it and D. In other words, the western text as evidenced in Bezae and the Old Latin. So, out comes Metzger’s Textual Commentary. Ah, yes a “western non-interpolation.” That explains why they dropped it. I have always liked the RSV, but in this case I think they are wrong, but that is another subject for another day.

But, this whole process just illustrates how easily I get sidetracked. Here I was getting blessed by an observation about Luke's portrayal of Jesus and the next thing you know, I'm knee deep in reference works and missing the whole point. So, what is the point? That I have all these wonderful tools — or that Luke seems to be saying that Jesus confirms his Lordship by the resurrection? Duh...
</idle musing>

Idle musings on money (long)

I was thinking about the prosperity thing some more yesterday as I was riding. John Wesley wrote a few sermons on finances. Here are some excerpts.

From On the Danger of Increasing Riches (Sermon 126) This was preached near the end of his life.

Section II.

1. But O! Who can convince a rich man that he sets his heart upon riches? For considerably above half a century I have spoken on this head, with all the plainness that was in my power. But with how little effect! I doubt whether I have, in all that time, convinced fifty misers of covetousness. When the lover of money was described ever so clearly, and painted in the strongest colours, who applied it to himself? To whom did God, and all that knew him, say, "Thou art the man!" If he speaks to any of you that are present, O do not stop your ears! Rather say, with Zaccheus, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have done any wrong to any man, I restore fourfold." He did not mean that he had done this in time past; but that he determined to do so for the time to come. I charge thee before God, thou lover of money, to "go and do likewise!"

2. I have a message from God unto thee, O rich man! whether thou wilt hear, or whether thou wilt forbear. Riches have increased with thee; at the peril of thy soul, "set not thine heart upon them!" Be thankful to Him that gave thee such a talent, so much power of doing good. Yet dare not to rejoice over them, but with fear and trembling. Cave ne inhaereas, says pious Kempis, ne capiaris et pereas: "Beware thou cleave not unto them, lest thou be entangled and perish." Do not make them thy end, thy chief delight, thy happiness, thy God! See that thou expect not happiness in money, nor anything that is purchasable thereby; in gratifying either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, or the pride of life.

3. But let us descend to particulars; and see that each of you deal faithfully with his own soul. If any of you have now twice, thrice, or four times as much substance as when you first saw my face, faithfully examine yourselves, and see if you do not set your hearts, if not directly on money or riches themselves, yet on some of the things that are purchasable thereby; which comes to the same thing. All those the Apostle John includes under that general name, the world; and the desire of them, or to seek happiness in them, under that form, "the love of the world." This he divides into three branches, "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life." Fairly examine yourselves with regard to these. And, First, as to "the desire of the flesh." I believe this means the seeking of happiness in the things that gratify the senses. To instance in one: Do not you seek your happiness in enlarging the pleasure of tasting. To be more particular: Do you not eat more plentifully, or more delicately, than you did ten or twenty years ago? Do not you use more drink, or drink of a more costly kind, than you did then? Do you sleep on as hard a bed as you did once, suppose your health will bear it? To touch on one point more: do you fast as often, now you are rich, as you did when you was poor? Ought you not, in all reason, to do this rather more often than more seldom? I am afraid your own heart condemns you. You are not clear in this matter.

From The Danger of Riches (Sermon 87)

"They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition." —1 Timothy 6:9

1. How innumerable are the ill consequences which have followed from men's not knowing, or not considering, this great truth! And how few are there even in the Christian world, that either know or duly consider it! Yea, how small is the number of those, even among real Christians, who understand and lay it to heart! Most of these too pass it very lightly over, scarce remembering there is such a text in the Bible. And many put such a construction upon it, as makes it of no manner of effect. "They that will be rich," say they, "that is, will be rich at all events, who Will be rich right or wrong; that are resolved to carry their point, to compass this end, whatever means they use to attain it; they 'fall into temptation," and into all the evils enumerated by the Apostle." But truly if this were all the meaning of the text, it might as well have been out of the Bible.

2. This is so far from being the whole meaning of the text, that it is no part of its meaning. The Apostle does not here speak of gaining riches unjustly, but of quite another thing: His words are to be taken in their plain obvious sense, without any restriction or qualification whatsoever. St. Paul does not say, "They that will be rich by evil means, by theft, robbery, oppression, or extortion; they that will be rich by fraud or dishonest art; but simply, "they that will be rich:" These, allowing, supposing the means they use to be ever so innocent, "fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition."

3. But who believes that? Who receives it as the truth of God? Who is deeply convinced of it? Who preaches this? Great is the company of preachers at this day, regular and irregular; but who of them all openly and explicitly, preaches this strange doctrine? It is the keen observation of a great man, "The pulpit is a fearful preacher's strong-hold." But who even in his strong-hold, has the courage to declare so unfashionable a truth? I do not remember that in threescore years I have heard one sermon preached upon this subject. And what author, within the same term, has declared it from the press? At least, in the English tongue? I do not know one. I have neither seen nor heard of any such author...

To explain the words of the Apostle.

1. And, First, let us consider, what it is to be rich. What does the Apostle mean by this expression?

The preceding verse fixes the meaning of that: "Having food and raiment," (literally coverings; for the word includes lodging as well as clothes) "let us be therewith content." "But they that will be rich;" that is, who will have more than these; more than food and coverings. It plainly follows, whatever is more than these is, in the sense of the Apostle, riches; whatever is above the plain necessaries, or at most conveniences, of life. Whoever has sufficient food to eat, and raiment to put on, with a place where to lay his head, and something over, is rich.

2. Let us consider, Secondly, What is implied in that expression, "They that will be rich?" And does not this imply, First, they that desire to be rich, to have more than food and coverings; they that seriously and deliberately desire more than food to eat, and raiment to put on, and a place where to lay their head, more than the plain necessaries and conveniences of life? All, at least, who allow themselves in this desire, who see no harm in it, desire to be rich.

3. And so do, Secondly, all those that calmly, deliberately, and of set purpose endeavour after more than food and coverings; that aim at and endeavour after, not only so much worldly substance as will procure them the necessaries and conveniences of life, but more than this, whether to lay it up, or lay it out in superfluities. All these undeniably prove their "desire to be rich" by their endeavours after it.

4. Must we not, Thirdly, rank among those that desire to be rich, all that, in fact "lay up treasures on earth?" a thing as expressly and clearly forbidden by our Lord as either adultery or murder...

It gets better, read the whole thing, you owe it to yourself.

There is a story (true) told of Wesley. During the American Revolutionary War, the British government was taking an inventory of the silver owned by wealthy British citizens. They came to Mr. Wesley and asked him how much silver he had. His answer should shame all prosperity preachers: "I have two silver forks, one in London and one in Bristol, and I shall own no more as long as there is a hungry person in Britain." Is there any wonder that God was able to use him so powerfully among the disenfranchised?

After you have digested those two sermons, here are a few other sermons on money:
On the Sermon on the Mount (IX) (Sermon 29) —on Matthew 6:24-34
The Use of Money (Sermon 50)
The Good Steward (Sermon 51)
On Riches Sermon 108

Original Sin?

This seems to sum up the view we have of ourselves:

Shedding light into why Edward Forbes Smiley III stole 98 of the world's most precious maps over seven years, papers filed in Connecticut's U.S. District Court said he initially acted because he felt he had been wronged and slighted.

"He explained that his initial thefts were acting out of resentment towards persons at certain institutions that he believed had wronged him, individuals who he believed had slighted him or used certain of his research without accreditation," prosecutors wrote.

"Other thefts he explained resulted from some misguided sense of entitlement to the maps because he had, through collectors, provided better versions of the same map to the institution. He also acknowledged that stealing and selling the maps was profitable and he had mounting debts."

See the full story here.

<idle musing>
Hmmm...by those standards, I should be entitled to a percentage of all of your libraries. After all, I supply you with catalogs listing the books, BookNews e-mails with great sales, RSS feeds announcing new books and newly available used books. So, I am going to start visiting you unannounced and walking off with what I feel is my fair share of your library. What do you think? After all, I'm entitled to it!

If ever anyone doubts that Genesis 3 accurately describes the human condition...
</idle musing>

What I'm reading

Periodically I read a book by A.W. Tozer. It is good for stimulation. If you are comfortable in your Christianity, don't read Tozer; you won't like him. You should read him, because he will jar you into reality, but you won't like him. I have between 12-18 of his books, all of which I have read, except for the one I am reading right now. Most of his books were published posthumously and are collection from his sermons and editorials.

Whenever I am reading a book, I mark parts I want to share with Debbie with a "sticky note." Some books have 1-3 notes in them, but when I start a Tozer book, you should take out stock in 3M :) The book becomes a porcupine with sticky notes all along the side. More than once Debbie has said, "Why don't you just read the whole book to me?"

So, if you are looking for conviction and stimulation from boring christianity, if you want to walk on the wild side, if you want to have your faith challenged, read Tozer. If not, avoid him like the plague. But, your spiritual life will be the weaker for it.

Quote for the day

"Remember this: the human heart by nature is filled with unbelief. Unbelief, not disobedience, was the first sin. While disobedience was the first recorded sin, behind the act of disobedience was the sin of unbelief, else the act of disobedience would not have taken place." — A.W. Tozer

Two new Eisenbrauns books published

Eisenbrauns has just published two new books:

From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah
Collected Studies on the Restoration Period
EIS - Eisenbrauns
by Sara Japhet
Eisenbrauns,2006
x + 469 pp.,English
Cloth,6 x 9 inches
ISBN: 1575061214
List Price: $49.50
Your Price: $44.55
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~JAPFROMTH

And

Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah
A Reappraisal
EIS - Eisenbrauns
by Peter T. Vogt
Eisenbrauns,2006
xii + 242,English
Cloth
ISBN: 1575061074
List Price: $37.50
Your Price: $33.75
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~VOGDEUTER

Andy, the person who designed the covers on these, has this to say about cover design in general, and these books in particular:

Cover design for Eisenbrauns titles is a bit of a challenge. Unlike other academic publishers who just print an unrelated design or simply stamp the title into the cloth, we try to give each book a cover that reflects the contents, a cover that makes you want to pick up the book and find out more—which sounds easy until you consider just how very esoteric many of these books are.

You have to get very creative. Archaelology books seem like the easiest ones at first blush, but there's only so many times you can put a krater on a cover. It's tempting to use Hebrew text as a mere background on language titles. The easy covers have already been done, for the most part—the longer you keep at this, the more creative you have to get. You have to make abstract ideas concrete, concrete ideas abstract, and most of the time, you have to do it using only two inks!

When I'm talking with the authors and editors, I'm constantly looking for visual language: hooks that I can hang a picture on. The recent Japhet book was easy; the very title had the image built in. The colors readily leaped to mind. The Vogt cover was a bit more difficult; I had to talk with the editor for quite a while on that one. The resulting image is actually a bit more Exodus than Deuteronomy; it's the people of Israel surrounding the pillar of fire at night. I imagined how that must have looked from the sky, a great pillar, with the shadows of the surrounding peoples gathered, streaking away into the darkness of the desert. That's the basis for this cover.

What happened to Joe Cathey?

Yesterday afternoon, I got a weird message in my RSS reader. Under Joe's blog, there was a strange title. When I clicked on it to go to his blog, it came up empty. I figured blogger was down, but just to be sure, I checked another site. It came up. "Strange," I thought. So, before I went home last night I sent Joe an e-mail telling him that his site was gone, thinking that blogger had perhaps lost his stuff (it happens).

This morning, his site was still missing. I started wondering if maybe he had been abducted by Copenhageners, or maybe aliens, or maybe his presidential run was serious—ok none of those are true, but I did wonder what was happening. Of course, I hadn't waded through my Inbox yet, so I didn't see his response right away.

Seems Joe is trying to do a bit too much right now, he is:
Working on an MLS
Working on an MA in Levantine Archaeology
Finishing up two articles
Writing a book
Expanding the Archive and Special Collections at their library
Being a dad with a new baby
Trying to run a blog

Something had to go, and it wasn't going to be the baby! So, down goes the blog.

Farewell, Joe. I will miss interacting with you, even/especially when we don't agree.

Quote for the day

"Why should believing Christians want everything pre-cooked, pre-digested, sliced and salted and expect that God must come and hold the food to their baby lips while they pound the table and splash? And we think that is Christianity! It is not. Such a degenerate, illegitimate breed have no right to be called Christians."—A.W. Tozer

Eisenbrauns weekly sale

For the next 10 days, Eisenbrauns will be offering all published volumes of the Abingdon Old and New Testament Commentary series at 40% off retail price.

To see the complete list, go to the web page, but here is a partial list:

"Deuteronomy"
by Walter Brueggemann
Abingdon Old Testament Commentary - AOTC
Abingdon, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0687084717
List Price: $34.00 Your Price: $20.40

"I and II Chronicles"
by Steven L. McKenzie
Abingdon Old Testament Commentary - AOTC
Abingdon, Paper. English.
ISBN: 068700750X
List Price: $36.00 Your Price: $21.60

"Matthew"
by Donald W. Senior
Abingdon New Testament Commentary - ANTC
Abingdon, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0687057663
List Price: $25.00 Your Price: $15.00

"1 Corinthians"
by Richard A. Horsley
Abingdon New Testament Commentary - ANTC
Abingdon, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0687058384
List Price: $21.00 Your Price: $12.60

The big "I"

Thanks to Dr. Conrad on the B-Greek list for this. From the blog laudator temporis acti

Robert Frost, Iota Subscript:

Seek not in me the big I capital,
Not yet the little dotted in me seek.
If I have in me any I at all,
'Tis the iota subscript of the Greek.

So small am I as an attention beggar.
The letter you will find me subscript to
Is neither alpha, eta, nor omega,
But upsilon which is the Greek for you.

Iota subscript does not appear beneath upsilon (υ) in Greek, only beneath alpha (ᾳ), eta (ῃ), and omega (ῳ).

<idle musing>
How appropriate.
</idle musing>

Prosperity central

I am not trying to become the central repository for things prosperity, but here is a quick run down of what I’ve seen:

Jim West referred to this, which referred to this site

Scott McKnight mentions the original Time article

Ben Witherington lists 20 reasons why it is wrong in his post.

Ted Gossard references Witherington’s post, but also has his own thoughts, referring to Bonhoeffer.

And then there is this

Of course, I can’t keep my mouth shut and in a post that should have been two, put in my two cents. And, as if that weren’t enough, I also have this.

Please feel free to add any other references you may find. I’m happy that universally it has been blasted.

Quote for the day

"We have wondered why our Christian lives seem to be ceaseless, toilsome effort. The answer is, we have not clearly understood that the life of earth can never grow into the spiritual and that the 'flesh' can never be improved or changed, but must be crucified.
"We have obtained the forgiveness of our sins as we have believed God's Word that 'One died for all,' and we shall obtain deliverance from the life after the flesh just so far as we see that the sinner himself was crucified with the Savior, for 'all died in Him." —Jessie Penn-Lewis (italics hers)

Centrality of the cross

Our text for today:

"Who would want to get in on something where you're miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven?...I believe God wants to give us nice things." —Joyce Meyer

<idle musing>
John Fischer wrote a book in the early 1990’s and revised it in 2001 or so entitled On a Hill too Far Away. In it he notes that the cross is rarely mentioned in Evangelical churches anymore. It is too bloody, a stumbling block to belief, so we dispose of it. After all, we want to be relevant and fill the building.

Michael Card noted in his book of meditations on the cross that people tell him he dwells too much on the cross. It is a stumbling block to people; he should sing about happy things. After all, he wants people to listen to him, doesn’t he?

I rarely hear about the cross in any popular songs; it doesn’t sell well. It is even more rarely mentioned by the prosperity people. Why? It is a stumbling block; it doesn’t attract the crowds. We want to pack heaven, don’t we? After all, our job is to get as many people into heaven as possible, isn’t it? And if we manage to put a few pieces of silver in our own pocket along the way, well that’s the American way, right?

Well, I submit to you that it is God’s job to get people into heaven, not ours. It is God’s business whether something sells or not. It is God’s business whether we are popular or not. We are called to one thing—obedience. If the message of the cross isn’t popular, why should we be surprised? Paul already knew that: “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” I Corinthians 1:23-24 RSV.

As I read through the New Testament, I note that the cross is central to everything Christ did. Once he was resurrected and taken up into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit. Did that change anything? No, the apostles still preach the cross (and get a whipping for it!). The cross retains its centrality throughout the book of Acts, the epistles and on into Revelation, where it is the “lamb who was slain” that is the center of worship.

We are to look “to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 RSV) It will never be a popular theme, it will always be a stumbling block, but to us it is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Bonhoeffer summed it up well, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Any other gospel isn’t a gospel at all, but a candy coated pill that contains a deadly poison, killing the soul to the things of God. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.” I John 2:15-17 RSV
</idle musing>

Love one another

<idle musing>
As I read claims and counter claims across the blogosphere and I look at Time magazine's cover article, I am reminded of a few things. One that keeps coming to mind is an old (OK, not too old, about 1976) song by John Michael Talbot from his first album (yes, an album, you know, 12" vinyl disks...)

Sometimes, in the cool of the evenin'
Truth comes like a Lover in the wind
Sometimes, when my thoughts have gone misleadin'
She asks that same old question once again...

Chorus:
Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him..., my religious friend?
Would you crucify Him..., talking 'bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He'd walk right here among you once again?

She's askin', How many times have you looked down to the harlot
Lookin' through her tears, pretendin' you don't know?
For once you were just like her, how can you be now so self righteous
When in the name of the Lord you throw the first stone

So now I turn to you through your years of your robes and stained-glass windows
Do you vainly echo your prayers "to please the Lord?"
Profess the Marriage with your tongue, while your mind dreams like the harlot
But if the Judge looks to your thoughts can't you guess your reward?

Yet how many times have you quoted from your Bible
To justify your eye for your eye and your tooth for your tooth?
You say that He didn't mean what He was plainly sayin'
But like the Pharisee, my friend, you're an educated fool!

The second thing that comes to mind is Jesus statement in the upper room, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35 RSV. I notice it doesn't say by our correct moral standards, important though they are. It also doesn't say by your church attendance/involvement. It doesn't say by your correct stand on political issues or Israel or by your self-righteous anathemata. It says by your love.

Now, either I don't understand what love is, or some other people don't. But, sending people willy-nilly to hell because you don't like their stand or lifestyle doesn't strike me as love. Good thing the John 8 pericope about the adulterous woman is textually doubtful, eh? Convenient to be able to cast the first stone, provided you cast the pericope out first.

A very relevant verse for Christians to take to heart is one that was addressed to Jews by Paul, but today should cause every Christian to think twice about how they act and what they say:
“The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Romans 2:24 RSV

This week's Time magazine with its cover article on "God wants you rich" should make all Christians fall on their knees before God in repentance. To think that God wants us to become so comfortable in this transient world and ignore the poverty of others is unjustifiable in the scriptures. It takes the very things Christ stands for and turns them on their head. Christ preached death to self, we preach life to self and death to Christ! Christ preached deny yourself, love your neighbor, we preach love yourself and deny your neighbor! And we call ourselves Christians? By that definition, the devil himself is the best christian around! Nobody loves themself better that he does.
</idle musing>

Quote for the day

If the great Luther, with his stirring message of justification by faith, had with Paul moved on from Romans 5 to Romans 6 with its amazing declarations concerning the now justified sinner’s position of identification with the crucified Lord, would not a stifled Protestantism be on higher ground today? Might it not be free from its ulcerous fleshliness? — F.J.Huegel

New alphabet wall chart

I just couldn't resist this one; I had to put it on my office wall. It just arrived yesterday from Carta: Alphabets Ancient and Modern by Ada Yardeni.

The screen shot on our website doesn't do it justice, the "Beyond the cover" is a little better:



But, it still doesn't give you a good idea. The columns across the top are Proto-Canaanite, South Semitic, Aramaic (?)—Tel Fakhariya, Greek, Latin, Phoenician, Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic, "Jewish," Nabatean, Classical Arabic, and Syriac. As you can guess, some of these have 2-3 columns under the heading with different time frames. Around the outside, forming a border is an assortment of graphics of the various inscriptions such as the Mesha Stele, Gezer Calendar, a Lachish letter, the Siloam inscription, etc.

If you get a chance, drop by Eisenbrauns' booth at AAR/SBL or ASOR and take a look at it. Or, better yet, buy one now for your office wall and impress your students, parishioners, kids, whatever :)

Theology versus Praxis?

Joe came back from the birth of his son with both barrels blasting. His latest post on Does Theology Make A Difference? is direct and to the point:

I feel that in our profession that we can become enamored with learning about God but fail to meet him in the way. I remember once studying for a private pilot’s license – memorizing many charts, facts, and numbers. Yet when it came time to actually fly the plane I was quite unprepared. Can it be that we have become as Festus said of Paul, “While he was thus defending himself Festus burst out, "You are raving, Paul! All your learning has driven you mad!” (Acts 26:24)?

It could be that we don’t hear about theological praxis because it does not attract visitors to our blogs. Maybe we don’t want to share what we are doing simply because we would seem to be bragging. Yet I somehow do not think that is the case. I know from past experiences that words have been exchanged on numerous blogs which we would have been recalcitrant to exchange on the Lord’s Day – in the presence of our Brethren. Can the same tongue curse men and love God? I think not.

Is it any wonder that people want to be elsewhere on church days if all of our theological learning cannot evoke empathy for our fellow man/woman even within the blogsphere? I was told by my systematic theology professor, Millard Erickson, that Barth took almost every Saturday to minister somehow to those in less fortunate circumstances than himself. Could that be true? Could it be true that his theology drove him to minister to the “least of these my brothers and sisters?”

<idle musing>

There is a grave disconnect in many ways. The problem, as I see it, is that we have disconnected two vital aspects of Christianity: the experiential and the intellectual/theological. So, we end up with either a "spiritual experience" with no sound foundations or a dry intellectual assent with no power to transform lives. The first results in cults, do-it-yourself spirituality or emotionalism. Experience for the sake of experience. No change in lives, no holiness, just experience for the sake of a thrill.

The second results in doubt that there really is a loving, just and personal (as in personality versus inanimate power) God. We then justify our lack of power by theologizing and cessationizing (is that a word?) scripture. After all, if we don't experience it, it must be gone or never was, right? Don't see people healed? Must be because it doesn't happen anymore, or never did. We are the measure by which we judge everything—and the serpent slithers up beside us and whispers, "You are gods." And we joyfully believe it. Paul says in I Corinthians that when he comes he will see the power of those who are big talkers, not what they can say.

I had a theology professor who used to say that his goal was to make every pastor a theologian and every theologian a soul winner. Noble goal, but only possible if there is an experiential connection with the theological reflection. That is one reason I like the Wesleyan tradition, the Wesleys were both strong on experiencing God, but they built a strong intellectual and theological framework within which they placed that experience.

<idle musing>

Dr. Seuss Learns Greek

You've got to read this. Tyler Williams posted earlier on Abbot and Costello learning Hebrew, but this is much better; maybe because I hadn't heard it before:

"Do you like to study Greek?

I do not like to study Greek
Whoever does becomes a geek.

Will you study here? or there?

I will not study here or there
I will not study anywhere.

Would you study in your room?

Not in my room
Not in a tomb
Not here or there
Not anywhere
I do not want to study Greek
I do not want to be a geek.

Would you study at a table?
Would you, would you, if you’re able?...

It goes on...read it at Tyler's blog.

Christianity Today's Augustine article online

CT has posted the article on Augustine and 9/11 here. I mentioned the article here. Well worth the read. Thanks to Rick Mansfield for the tip.

New baby

Be sure to wander over to Joe Cathey's site and see that new baby!

Being a grandfather, I'm a sucker for babies. Of course, I can give them back when I'm done spoiling them :)

May your quiver be full, Joe!

Authority

Ran across this over the weekend at Better Bible Blog about the TNIV controversy:

On some blogs there is extensive discussion about post-modernism, and whether the shift from modernism to post-modernism has any positive aspects for the Christian faith. But the issue we are dealing with here seems rather to be whether to accept the shift from pre-modernism to modernism. Modernism is based on believing what one sees, and what logically follows from that, rather than the pre-modernist or mediaeval approach of accepting what one is told by traditional authorities.

This shift from pre-modernist to modernist thinking started with the Renaissance, which rejected the mediaeval reliance on ancient authorities like Plato and Aristotle, and on contemporary ones like the church of Rome. And this modernist thinking was continued by the great Reformers, who rejected the authority of the church in favour of their own interpretations of the Bible. The same pattern of thinking was followed by the early scientists, who observed and experimented rather than relying on classical writers. Later, during the Enlightenment, the authority of the Bible was also rejected by many, and deism and atheism became common. So I am by no means claiming that modernism is necessarily more Christian than pre-modernism, or than post-modernism. But modernism was certainly the approach of the Reformers.

Yet it seems rather ironic that in the United States of America, a nation which was founded on the modernist rejection of traditional authorities and on the principles of the Enlightenment, there should currently be such a strong revival of pre-modernist, even mediaeval, ways of thinking. I see this in certain strands of theology, especially those which treat as authorities certain Reformers, or for that matter the King James Version. This reliance on authorities from centuries in the past is an essentially mediaeval world view. The irony is that if these people truly accepted the authority of the Reformers, they would also accept their world view which would cause them no longer to accept them as authorities!

<idle musing>
Interesting insight. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. It helps me understand where some people are coming from. I suspect the reason they rely on authority is because otherwise the world seems too scary. Personally, I prefer to rely on God, he seems to have a better track record than any of the other authorities out there :)
</idle musing>

Skunk!

Yesterday afternoon Debbie and I went for a bike ride. Nothing unusual in that, we try to ride at least one day together on the weekend. What was unusual was that a skunk walked out right in front of Debbie. It was no more than 10 feet in front of her, just moseying out onto the road. She swerved out into the lane to go around it, as did I. The skunk panicked and increased its speed. Debbie was past it, but I ended up going into the oncoming traffic lane to avoid the crazy thing. It turned around in the middle of the road and ran back into the ditch.

I have never come that close to hitting a skunk, or any animal for that matter, on my bicycle. No wonder there are so many dead skunks along the road. You would think they would learn. As Debbie said, "Don't they read the Skunk Daily News and the obituaries in it?"

<idle musing>
Sort of like us, isn't it? We see the things people do and how they shipwreck, but we still think we can do the same thing and not get burned—after all, we're different. We won't get stuck or caught or addicted or whatever. Right! Sorry to disappoint you, but chances are pretty good that we will reap what we sow, only multiplied. We sow the wind, we reap the whirlwind as a wise person wrote in the scriptures.
</idle musing>

More RSS delights

Well, it took longer than we thought. About a week longer, in fact. But, in our defense, the website was down for two of those days because of a router problem that Sprint had to fix.

So, here is the straight scoop. We have 3 new feeds:

Just announced: Books that have just been announced and are available for ordering.

To subscribe to that feed enter this into your reader: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/RSS/JUSTANNOUNCED.XML

Just arrived: Books that have just been received at Eisenbrauns and are in stock.

This information will be added to the New and Noteworthy feed, so if you already subscribe to that one, you will get it automatically. Here's the info, just in case you need it: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/RSS/NEWNOTES.XML

Newly arrived used books: These are used books that we have just entered into the system.

Subscribe to this feed and you can be the first to jump on that hard to find book :) If you already subscribed to the Used Book feed, which showed updates to the featured used books, then you will be getting the information. Here's the link to enter: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/RSS/USEDBOOKS.XML

None of the information in these 3 new feeds is included in the Ancient News feed, so to get all the information we publish, you will need to subscribe to 4 different feeds. In light of that, we have changed the RSS data at the top of each page at Eisenbrauns to show all four feeds.

Just so you know, the fourth feed, Ancient News, is available here: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/RSS/UBER.XML

The reading public?

I read a scary statistic yesterday that doesn't bode well for booksellers—over half of Americans read less than one book per year. Can you imagine that?

So, the next time you finish a book, remember that you are a statistic breaker—unless it took you over a year to do it :)

I don't even know how many books I read in a year, but it is a lot more than one! I suspect it is in the neighborhood of 25-50. If I still read fiction, it would be a lot higher.

Quote for the day

“When Christians fail to abide in Christ, they assert their own independence. Sin came into the world when Adam and Eve chose to assert their independence from God by their disobedience. Christians who are not abiding in Him are walking in a state of continuous sin, regardless of their actions. This attitude of independence will eventually give birth to specific sins, which are the fruit of abiding in self. For that reason, it should come as no surprise that Christians sin when they don’t abide in Christ. What else could possibly happen?”—Steve McVey in Grace Walk, page 100-101.

Quote for the day

"Thus those who gaze at a computer screen by day and a television by night may well feel awkwardly obsolete in church if there is not another screen on which to gaze. The demands of efficiency, and the rational, impersonal workings of bureaucracy, are so much a part of who we have become that many of us also want our churches to have the feel of a smoothly run corporation. Our capitalism has been so virile and abundant, filling our lives with goods in quantities unknown in any previous age, that it seems only natural—at least in middle class, white churches—to expect the same range of choice in programs and services as we experience in the commercial world. The norms of the workplace so easily and so unknowingly become our own internalized norms."
Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World by David Wells, pages 22-23

Yes, we're alive again!

The website finally decided to come back. Well, actually, Sprint/Embarq finally got the line fixed. We are open for business on the web again.

Eisenbrauns website update

Well, no website this morning. But, the good news (I hope) is that a Sprint/Embarq technician is now on site messing around with stuff. Either he'll fix it, or it will be broken so thoroughly that they will have to send more people out to fix it :)

I didn't realize how much I depend on accessing our site until now when I can't...

Eisenbrauns website

OK, computer problems move from my laptop to our website. That is not a good thing...

It appears that sometime yesterday around 7:00 PM our connection with the Internet went down. Embarq/Sprint is looking into it, but we have no estimated time of recovery. This is not a good thing! If you have orders that just can't wait (I hope you do!) then e-mail them to us. We have separate connections for e-mail and the web site—theoretically that makes our web site more stable. Didn't work this time, did it?

But, we are still alive and shipping product; in fact Jim just sent another book to press today. I'd tell you what it is, but I can't get the web link because the site is down :(

Sunglasses

I would love a nice pair of sunglasses with interchangeable lens. They are great for bicycling; but, I lose sunglasses at the rate of about 1-2 pair per year. I thought I was getting better—I hadn't lost a pair all summer. That's got to be a record. I thought maybe I could justify spending the big dollars for a good pair (not Oakley's, they are ridiculous!). Until Friday, when I lost another pair. They were there in my pack when I went to breakfast, but when I needed them at lunch, they were gone.

So, off to Wal-mart (the anti-Christ—just kidding) for a cheap pair of $8.00 sunglasses and back to pipedreams about a good pair :(

Disagreements

Ted Gossard over at the Jesus Community has a good observation today:

What about those Christian bloggers who blast those who don't see eye to eye with them on theology or on the culture war, or various other issues? I think we need to let them know that our blog or conversation will not allow for that kind of exchange. Hard words of disagreeing are okay, if done in a way that is respectful. Out of that can come an exchange that could result in change, or better understanding. But otherwise, there is nothing left but the smoke from heat, not warmth and vision from light.

<idle musing>
Well said. As Christians, we should be showing the world how to lovingly disagree.
</idle musing>

RSS revisited

I had some people ask how to get the RSS feeds, so here is the link to the master page:

http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~~~RSSFEEDS

The direct XML link for the Überfeed is:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/RSS/UBER.XML. Just plug that in your RSS reader and you are good to go :)

What I'm reading

The book I am reading right now, Jesus and the Father, surprised me. I thought it would be a fast overview of trinitarian theology. It's not. It is an in-depth examination of what scripture, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Augustine, Calvin, Rahner, Pannenberg, and Barth think about the ordering of the trinity, i.e., is it hierarchical. I certainly didn't expect this kind of book from Zonder–Purpose-driven–van. This is the kind of book that Eerdmans or Baker Academic (or Fortress before KC left) would publish, not Zonder–Purpose-driven–van!

He takes on the trinitarian views of some Evangelicals, such as fellow Zondervan author Wayne Grudem, who are arguing for the eternal submission of women by arguing that it follows the ordering of the trinity. The Son is eternally subordinated to the Father, the Spirit is eternally subordinated to the Son, therefore the wife/woman is eternally under the husband. The Father commands, the Son obeys, just as in earthly relations. In other words, the incarnated Son is to be read back into the eternal Godhead.

Giles shows that this was the view of the Arians in the 4th century against which the pro-Nicean bishops and fathers were fighting. Further, it is a view that Calvin was fighting in the Reformation era. A very interesting, and I think, convincing argument. Using Philippians 2 as his starting point, just as Athanasius, the Cappadocians and Augustine did, he goes through the biblical passages that seem to argue for subordination and shows that they relate to the incarnational Son, not the eternal Godhead. From there he brings in the writings of the church fathers and shows how they agree with him.

This book is slow reading for me, since my trinitarian theology is just a light overview in seminary. Sure I read the Cappadocians, about a paragraphs worth! I was in seminary just as the modern interest in the trinity was beginning, so my reading list was light on it. I'm just a philologist trying to read theology :) But, I find this book moe than repaying the effort of reading it.

Jesus and the Father
Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity
by Kevin Giles
Zondervan Publishing Company,2006
320 pages,English
Paper,6 x 9
ISBN: 0310266645
List Price: $24.99
Your Price: $21.24
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~GILJESUSA

Thought for the last week

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
and his ears toward their cry.
The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous;
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
Psalm 34:15-20 RSV

Laptop update

Yes! I have a functioning laptop again. The tech left, I ran diagnostics for an hour or so. No problems, everything is functioning. Life is good :)

No, life is good whether or not the laptop is alive. Life is good because of Jesus, but an added blessing is a functioning computer.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Augustine and terror

Christianity Today has an interesting article in this month's edition. Well, there seems to be an unusual number of good ones, but the one I was thinking of was this one:

Theology for an Age of Terror: Augustine's words after the 'barbarian' destruction of Rome have a remarkably contemporary ring by Timothy George.

He compares City of God with the 9/11 attacks. A very nice analogy, would that the church would have responded as well as Augustine did :(

If you don't normally read CT, this one might be worth a trip to the library for. There are some other interesting ones.

Scot McKnight interacts with the article on Calvinism in a post entitled Why I Kissed Calvinism Good-bye. Very good, as usual.

Crash, crash, crash

Yes, the computer still goes crash :(

Turns out that the motherboard they sent me was defective. The technician replaced that (again) and the computer came back up very nicely. But...Dell didn't send a replacement LCD; they said it wasn't damaged enough. In a sense they are right, it was just etching on the screen from the spacebar.

Well, in the process of replacing the cracked top cover, the LCD was damaged. Now, the bottom 2/3 of the screen is intermittently gray and the thing locks up at random intervals. Of course, you can keep that from happening if you apply direct pressure to the bottom right side of the screen—real practical for typing. I was told I could use it on the docking station without a problem...that's why I have a laptop, right?

So, I was told that they would send out a new LCD. Of course, they said it was too late for an overnight for Friday. Would I mind it they came out Monday, forgetting that Monday was Labor Day. So, I went home last night expecting not to have a laptop for the long weekend, which is some ways is a blessing :)

This morning, unexpectedly, I got a phone call from a Dell service technician in South Bend. He said, "I have an LCD here that needs to be installed. I can be there in a little over an hour, would that be OK?" YOu can guess my response.

So, it looks like I will have a laptop for the weekend after all. Far more important, I will be able to access everything and actually get more work done.

September sale at Eisenbrauns

For the month of September Eisenbrauns is offering selected Brill titles at an unprecedented discount of 50% off retail price; over 30 titles available. Don't miss these savings: Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia only $14.50; selected Neusner titles for less than $25.00; Porter's "Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament" only $34.50. The list goes on, be sure to check out all the savings

RSS live!

Eisenbrauns RSS feeds are now live, finally! You can subscribe to the ones that interest you, or an Überfeed. Andy (our webmaster) creatively describes the Überfeed as One feed to rule them all—but hopefully not "in the darkness bind them." :)

Coming soon, probably tomorrow, are three more feeds. These feeds will update twice daily:
1. Newly added used books. This feed will show the used titles that have been added that day. Some days there won't be any; other days you could have a whole list of them. Of course, its first come, first served on used books, since usually there is only one copy.

2. Newly added titles, available for ordering, which will primarily consist of newly announced and not yet published titles that can be ordered.

3. Just arrived. This feed is for titles that have just arrived. It will list newly published books and books that have been out of stock at the publisher or other titles that have a high profile.

Just arrived is not intended to replace BookNews "New and Noteworthy," but supplement it. I can only announce 10 books at a time in New and Noteworthy. Right now I have a backlog of over 50 titles. Obviously, some of them never make it to the BookNews listing.

Laptop update

I know you are all hanging on the edge of your seats waiting for the next update in my laptop saga :)

Well, the memory was sent to the technician, not me, which is fine. But, the other parts that the technician had ordered—new keyboard (my arrow keys are sticking), LCD screen (there is a scratch in the middle of the screen) and a backup motherboard (in case the new board is bad)—didn't arrive.

We decided (Dave & I) that it wasn't worthwhile for the tech to come out and only do half the job. So, I am still working from the commandeered desktop and waiting for my laptop. I'm just glad it isn't closer to AAR/SBL time!

Computers...

OK, the technician came and put a new motherboard in the laptop. He started up diagnostics and told me to let them run for an hour. I went to lunch. About 20 minutes into it, Dave came and said that the laptop was dead again.

I came back to my office; sure enough, it was dead. Well, we figured the battery might have died, so we plugged the AC adapter in and restarted diagnostics. This time I sat at my desk reading while diagnostics ran. About 2/3 of the way through the memory test, it died again. Completely, ded, no power, nothing. Ouch. So, I called Dell and got a very pleasant customer service person. She didn't read a script, she actually interacted with me as a human being! Amazing.

Well, we tried a bunch of stuff and nothing got anywhere. Since it was a new motherboard, she figured (and I agreed) that it must be bad memory that the motherboard had damaged when it died. So, I am now awaiting 2 DIMMs of memory to arrive tomorrow.

Meantime, Dave stole me a desktop that I am using, so I now have e-mail. The hard drive in the laptop is good and we recovered all my files, so I can access those.

Considering what it could have been, this is nothing. But, I would have preferred it didn't happen at all :)

Back to School sale on Hebrew and Ugaritic

We're moving on to the next set of languages.

For the next 10 days Eisenbrauns will be featuring selected reference works on Hebrew and Ugaritic from 7-70% off. Details are available here

Arrgghh!

That scream you heard Saturday night about 8:00 EDT was I. My laptop did a serious hardware crash. It won't even get me to a BIOS screen anymore...

I have discovered once again that there are 11 kinds of people when it comes to computers:
1. Those who have lost files they desperately need
10. Those who will
11. Those who lie :)

I am hoping that the harddrive is salvageable enough to copy my unbacked up files off of.

Moral of story: listen to that still small voice that is nudging you to make backups of your important files. I didn't :( Hopefully grace extends to recovering files.

Update:
Well, the files are recovered. But, the laptop is toast. At least it is under extended warranty, but I'm wandering around from computer to computer trying to get work done :(

RSS equals frustration

We are messing around with RSS feeds here at Eisenbrauns. We are trying to set them up for the various bookstore pages—ANE, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, etc. RSS is supposed to stand for "Really Simple Syndication." Right! Really simple to whom?

I now have 4 RSS readers running on my machine, trying to figure out what makes things tick. We have read the specs at W3 about mandatory tags, optional tags, etc. By our reckoning everything is supposed to be running right. But, it still doesn't seem to feed right. Frustrating. We have spent the better part of the last 3 days on it and intermittently before that for a few weeks.

Every one of the readers catches the feed at a different time. I even force an update and sometimes it catches it and sometimes it doesn't. We aren't sure if it is our database or if it is our firewall or if it is the readers. I tend to think it is at least partially the readers, since I also subscribed them to different feeds and the same things occur...

Update: 4:30 PM We think we found the problem. Seems a field in one of our databases wasn't getting updated correctly. We'll see on Monday! Hang on to your hats, it could get crazy :)

Neo-Fundamentalism

Scot McKnight is at it again. This time he noticed a scary trend, The Rise of Neo-Fundamentalism. I quote in part:

There is a conviction among Neo-Fundamentalists that one can’t err if one gets too conservative, but that is the sin of what I called “zealotry.”

What I can’t understand is why people want to go there: its history is predictable. Though I’m no prophet, this is what I think might occur:
It will become insular and separatistic,
it will become divisive and accusatory from within,
it will lack grace,
it will create Christians who are not free in the Spirit but who will be rigid and intolerant,
it will become socially withdrawn,
it will lose a prophetic voice because it will lose contact with culture,
it will attract angry, defensive, and mean-spirited individuals… I could go on.

<idle musing>
Lord, deliver us. May it not be true of us that "on account of you the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles."
</idle musing>

Eisenbrauns book wins award

Eisenbrauns is pleased to announce that Isaac Kalimi’s book The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles was awarded the 2006 R. B. Y. Scott Award by the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. This award is offered annually by the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies in recognition of an outstanding book in the areas of Hebrew Bible and/or the Ancient Near East written by a member of the CSBS and published during the previous two years. The Award is determined by a panel of judges drawn from members of the Society with a publishing record in at least one of the areas covered by the Award.

You can see all the details on how the award is chosen, plus a list of previous winners here. The last three winners are Eisenbrauns authors, although the other two are not for books we published.

Early church

Recently, Jim West posted on women teaching in the early church. I don't intend to interact with that post. But, in it he makes the following statement:

Part one is easily enough explained when one recalls that in the first century church, women and men sat apart from one another. If women sitting across the room asked their husbands what this or that meant as the speaker spoke, nothing but mayhem would ensue. So, women are advised (as they are in Corinthians) to listen quietly. In Corinthians they are further admonished to wait until they got home to ask their husbands questions. In sum, v 11 is a practical bit unconnected to what follows. It is erroneously linked to what comes after instead of what comes before.

This is not the first time I have heard the assertion that women and men sat apart from one another in the early church. I have heard it several times in the last year. My question is: Where is the evidence that this was so? It seems to me that this is reading later practices back into the 1st & 2nd century church. According to Winter in Roman Wives, Roman Widows, one of the problems for the early church was the emancipation of women being taken too far. I understood that to include non-separation of women and men.

We should not assume that the early church was like our current mainline denominational churches or megachurches, where everyone files in nice and quiet and watches a carefully scripted show from their seats/pews. Nor should we assume it is like a charismatic/pentecostal one with a greater degree of interaction. The texts related to the church in the New Testament seem to imply that there was a good deal of chaos with too many people trying to get their say in, too much drinking and eating, too many people speaking in tongues, too many prophecies, too much of everything except order! I just don't see this fitting the description that Jim describes above. They met in homes, probably of the wealthier members so that there would be enough room, not in "churches." The building wasn't called a "church" until much later. In fact, the earliest church to date, found last year at Megiddo, has been renamed a "prayer hall," see A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar `Othnay (Legio). It is time we drop our eisegesis and start doing some exegesis instead.

So, I repeat my question: Where is the evidence that men and women sat in different sections of the building during the church meeting?

For all you linguists

From a post on Classics-L:

BBC 8/23/06:

Cows also have regional accents

Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have
confirmed.

They decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had
slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from.

John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said
regional twangs had been seen before in birds.

More here

Pacifism, yet again

Joe Cathey has another post against pacifism. I promise I won't keep answering each post he makes, really. I don't want it to appear that he and I are in a shouting (or shooting?) match. We aren't. We have different opinions, but respect each other's opinions.

Joe mentions that he has lived in places where he felt the need to carry a weapon to defend himself and his family. I also have lived in less than pleasant surroundings. While I was a student at the University of Chicago, our car was broken into each year. Our next door neighbor was held up at gunpoint. Debbie (my wife) saw (and reported) a car theft in broad daylight.

During that time, I walked back and forth to school on the same path as my neighbor (a law school student, incidentally). I carried a laptop computer (this was in the mid '80s, a rarity then) with me in plain sight. We went for walks as a family in the evening. We went for bike rides around the neighborhood and along the lake shore. We were never once bothered. I will not venture to guess why my neighbor was held up and I wasn't. Perhaps it was because I didn't dress in anything other than bluejeans and a t-shirt. Perhaps it was the way I walked. I prefer to think that it was God. Now, if I had been held up, would that mean God failed? Absolutely not! When we go where God puts us, we are His responsibility.

My daughter was with YWAM and spent 3 months in Kyrgyzstan. This was in 2000, before 9/11. The next year, a family member said something to the effect of "you wouldn't go now, would you?" Her answer made me proud. She said, "Well, if that is where God sent me and I didn't go, then I would be disobeying, wouldn't I."

I don't want to be responsible for sending someone to hell. We are called to be salt and light. Can you see Peter or Paul with a gun? OK, a sword? We know Peter knew how to use one, not well, but he tried. But, did he after Pentecost? I doubt it. Paul walked on some pretty nasty roads during his missionary journeys. He says "in danger on the road" in 2 Cor. (The roads in the rural Roman Empire were havens for robbers; you traveled in large groups for safety.) Where was their protection? The same place as Ezra's (see Ezra 8). In God.

The bottom line is always the same. Do you depend on God to protect you where He sends you, or do you use man's tools to accomplish divine purposes? I John 4:4 says, "Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." (RSV) I don't think John was referring to weapons...

Politics and the church

Wow! Somebody "important" finally had the nerve to say something. This was on AOL News (thanks to Ben Myers for the tip):

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul -- packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals -- was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

“Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”

Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

<idle musing>
There is a strong danger of diluting the Christian gospel with a patriotic slant that reflects what a culture is, rather than what God is. This takes the euangelion and turns it into a kakangelion, capable of saving no one and eliminating the transformational nature of the gospel.

No culture is free from it, the church fell into the same trap in the Roman Empire. Throughout history the church has wrestled with how to relate to government.

A strict separation is no more realistic than a melding of the two. You can't separate a person's religious stance from his political stance—they are intertwined with who a person is. That is not what I am fighting against. My fear is that a particular political viewpoint gets equated with Christianity. It doesn't matter if it is my viewpoint (somewhat left of center), or Joe Cathey's view (somewhat right of center), or Boyd's view (probably a bit left of center), or Bush's view (right of center). The point is that different political viewpoints do not have a special "in" with the gospel.
</idle musing>

New 10 Day Sale

I forgot to post this last Thursday! Don't miss the continuing "Back-to-School" sales, this one, for Aramaic, Coptic and Hittite, is good through August 27:

The complete listing is here:

Aramaic
"An Introduction to Aramaic, Second Edition"
by Frederick E. Greenspahn
Resources for Biblical Study - RBS 46
Society of Biblical Literature - SBL, Paper. English.
ISBN: 1589830598
List Price: $47.95 Your Price: $35.96

"A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic"
by Alger F. Johns
Andrews University Press, Paper. English.
ISBN: 094387274X
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49

"A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic: An Annotated Answer Key"
by James N. Jumper
Andrews University Press, Paper. English.
ISBN: 1883925436
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49

"Biblical Aramaic"
by Elisha Qimron
Biblical Encyclopaedia Library - BEL 10
Bialik Institute, Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 9653426141
List Price: $41.00 Your Price: $32.80

"A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic"
by Franz Rosenthal
Porta Linguarum Orientalium - PLO 5
Harrassowitz Verlag, Paper. English.
ISBN: 3447052511
List Price: $38.00 Your Price: $33.44

"Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramaischen"
by Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander
Georg Olms Verlag, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3487002582
List Price: $86.00 Your Price: $77.40

"Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli,
Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature"
by Marcus Jastrow
Judaica Press, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1932443207
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $27.96

This has a bit larger print than the preceding one:
"A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli
and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature"
by Marcus Jastrow
Hendrickson Publishers, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1565638603
List Price: $49.95 Your Price: $29.97

"Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt,
Volume 1: Letters"
Edited by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt - TADAE
Hebrew University, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9652220752
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $39.20

"Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt,
Volume 2: Contracts"
Edited by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt - TADAE 2
Hebrew University, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9653500031
List Price: $78.00 Your Price: $62.40

"Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt,
Volume 3: Literature, Accounts, Lists"
Edited by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt - TADAE 3
Hebrew University, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9653500147
List Price: $84.00 Your Price: $67.20

"Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt,
Volume 4: Ostraca and Assorted Inscriptions"
Edited by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt - TADAE 4
Hebrew University, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9653500899
List Price: $80.00 Your Price: $64.00

"Textbook of Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabataean Documentary
Texts from the Judaean Desert and Related Material"
by Ada Yardeni
Hebrew University, Cloth. Hebrew and English.
ISBN: 965350083X
List Price: $170.00 Your Price: $136.00

"Textbook of Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabataean Documentary
Texts from the Judaean Desert and Related Material: Volume 2 only"
by Ada Yardeni
Hebrew University, Cloth. Hebrew and English.
ISBN:
List Price: $90.00 Your Price: $72.00

Coptic:
"A Simplified Coptic Dictionary (Sahidic Dialect)"
by Joaquim Azevedo
Centro de Pesquisa de Literatura Biblica Publication Series:
Tools for Exegesis - CePLiB 1
Seminario Adventista Latino-Americano de Teologia, Paper. English.
ISBN: 8588818019
List Price: $40.00 Your Price: $24.00

"Coptic Dictionary"
Edited by Walter E. Crum
Wipf and Stock, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0198644043
List Price: $135.00 Your Price: $101.25

"Coptic Grammatical Categories: Structural Studies
in the Syntax of Shenoutean Sahidic"
by A. Shisha-Halevy
Analecta Orientalia - AO 53
Biblical Institute Press / Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico,
Paper. English.
ISBN: 8876532552
List Price: $78.00 Your Price: $70.20

"Coptic Grammatical Chrestomathy: A Course for
Academic and Private Study"
Edited by A. Shisha-Halevy
Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta - OLA 30
Peeters Publishers, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9068311395
List Price: $55.00 Your Price: $46.75

"Introduction to Sahidic Coptic"
by Thomas O. Lambdin
Mercer University Press, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0865540489
List Price: $45.00 Your Price: $36.00

"A Coptic Grammar: With Chrestomathy and Glossary-Sahidic Dialect"
by Bentley Layton
Porta Linguarum Orientalium - PLO 20
Harrassowitz Verlag, Paper. English.
ISBN: 3447042400
List Price: $119.00 Your Price: $101.15

Hittite:
"Beginning Hittite"
by Warren H. Held, William R. Schmalstieg, and Janet E. Gertz
Slavica Publishers, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0893571849
List Price: $19.95 Your Price: $17.96

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary: L-N fascicle 1 (la- to ma -)"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock and Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD fascicle 1
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0918986273
List Price: $15.00 Your Price: $13.50

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary: L-N fascicle 2 (-ma to miyahuwant-)"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock and H. A. Hoffner
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD fascicle 2
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0918986389
List Price: $20.00 Your Price: $18.00

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary: L-N fascicle 3 (miyahuwant- to nai-)"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock and Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD fascicle 3
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0918986486
List Price: $25.00 Your Price: $22.50

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary: L-N fascicle 4 (nai- to nutarnu-)"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock and Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD fascicle 4
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 0918986583
List Price: $30.00 Your Price: $27.00

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary, Volume P"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock and Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD P
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1885923082
List Price: $120.00 Your Price: $108.00

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary, Volume S, Fascicle 1: sa to saptamenzu"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock, Harry A. Hoffner Jr.,
and Theo P. J. van den Hout
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD S/1
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 1885923201
List Price: $40.00 Your Price: $36.00

"Chicago Hittite Dictionary, Volume S, Fascicle 2: saptamenzu to Z"
Edited by Hans G. Guterbock, Harry A. Hoffner Jr.,
and Theo P. J. van den Hout
Chicago Hittite Dictionary - CHD S/2
Oriental Institute-Chicago, Paper. English.
ISBN: 1885923376
List Price: $25.00 Your Price: $22.50

"Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon: Inventar und Interpretation
der Keilschriftzeichen aus den Bogazkoy-Texten"
by Christel Ruster and Erich Neu
Harrassowitz Verlag, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3447027940
List Price: $109.00 Your Price: $98.10

"Hieroglyphic Luwian"
by Annick Payne
Edited by Reinhard G. Lehmann
Elementa Linguarum Orientis - ELO 3
Harrassowitz Verlag, Paper. English.
ISBN: 3447050268
List Price: $47.00 Your Price: $42.30

"Hittite Exercise Book"
by Susanne Zeilfelder
Translated by Esther-Miriam Wagner
Dresdener Beitrage zur Hethitologie - DBH 17
Harrassowitz Verlag, Paper. English.
ISBN: 3447052066
List Price: $43.50 Your Price: $39.15

What about the just war theory?

The just war theory is frequently used to justify war. While a popular argument, it is based on a faulty assumption. It was formulated by Augustine in the 5th century, after the Roman Empire had become “Christian.” The argument assumes that the state is the instrument of God, similar to the way that Israel was the chosen nation of God. This is problematic; there never has been and never will be a “Christian” nation. God primary instrument in the New Testament is the Church, just as His primary instrument in the Hebrew bible was Israel.

The assumption that a certain nation of point of view is the one ordained by God in a conflict is especially prominent in the United States. Our history is filled with people who believed that the New World was a new starting point ordained by God to become “His chosen” in the world.

In actuality, Hebrews 11 points out that as Christians this world is just a waypoint on the path to a real home:

These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Further, the scriptures repeatedly state, “`Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ saith the LORD.” How can that be true if we don’t give Him a chance? We are called to be salt, but if the salt is the same as the unsalted in actions, what do we have to conclude about the salt?

A friend of mine loves to ask the rhetorical question, “Does a fish know it is wet?” Good point. Do we know we are part of the current culture? That requires a commitment to hear what God is saying, even—especially—when it runs counter to what the culture around us is saying.

Just some idle musings on a Monday morning.

Does the Hebrew Bible endorse pacifism? (long)

While it would be a stretch to make the statement that the Hebrew bible endorses pacifism, I believe there is an incipient pacifism which is developed more fully in the New Testament. Here is a list of passages that point in that direction (all taken from RSV). There are others, but these jumped into my mind.

1. Exodus 14:13-14, 24-25
The people of Israel have just left Egypt and are being pursued by the Egyptian army. They are trapped in front of Yam Suph:

And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still.” … And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down upon the host of the Egyptians, and discomfited the host of the Egyptians, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily; and the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel; for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”

2. Joshua 5:13-15
The Israelites are about to take on Jericho:

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood before him with his drawn sword in his hand; and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, and said to him, “What does my lord bid his servant?” And the commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Put off your shoes from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.

A word of warning to any who think God is on their side!

3. Judges 7:2
Gideon has called the people to arms and too many responded:

The LORD said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’

The subsequent battle shows that it is the hand of YHWH who does the fighting, scaring the Midianites out of their wits with a few torches and jars

4. I Samuel 7:10
Samuel is offering a sacrifice to YHWH before the Israelites attack the Philistines:

As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel; but the LORD thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion; and they were routed before Israel.

5. 2 Kings 6:15-23
Elisha is supposed to be captured by the Arameans:

When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed, and said, “O LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

The story goes on to relate that as a result of this, the Arameans no longer raided Israel. Not because they were defeated in battle, but because the king of Israel fed them and sent them home!

6. 2 Chronicles 20
The Moabites and Ammonites are after Judah:

And the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly. And he said, “Hearken, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Fear not, and be not dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God’s.Tomorrow go down against them; behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz; you will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Fear not, and be not dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.”… And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy array, as they went before the army, and say, “Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures for ever.” And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.

7. Daniel 4:17
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream predicting insanity because of his hubris

The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will, and sets over it the lowliest of men.’

As you can see, there is much here to chew on. YHWH himself fights on behalf of his chosen ones and arranges history to His ends. Repeatedly the people are told to let YHWH fight on their behalf.

I believe that this would happen more often if we would stop trying to manipulate God and circumstances to our advantage.

More thoughts on Pacifism

Well, it took a little longer than I expected...

The standard objection I get to pacifism is the right to defend oneself or loved ones. This objection is very problematic for several reasons:

1. By killing the person who is assaulting, you are almost sure to be sending them directly to hell. How is that loving? You are condemning a person to an eternity without God. Why? In many cases it has nothing to do with protecting individuals, but rather protecting material goods—that are all going to burn in the end anyway!

2. The right to defend oneself, or loved ones, although sacrosanct in U.S. culture, is not a biblical right. This is the major stumbling block for many. We are so acclimatized to culture that we assume it is right. As Christians, we have no rights. We are slaves of Christ, He is our master. He commands us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us. Culture says, defend what is yours, kill if necessary.

3. The scenario omits the most important character—God. By taking the situation into our own hands, we are removing the divine defender. Romans 8:28 says that God is working, not as an after thought running around trying to fix everything, but actively working. Scripture repeatedly says that vengeance belongs to the Lord. Scripture also says that the death of His saints is precious in His sight.

4. We value life more than obedience in our culture. We obey if we understand or can explain it. God doesn't ask our permission or opinion. He's been running the world a lot longer than you or I have been around and has proven over and over to be wise and loving and altogether good.

I'm running out of time, so these last two are just mentioned:

5. Our god is too small. Yes, the lower case is intentional.

6. We undervalue the power of prayer. We pay lip service to it, but don't stake our lives on it.

Hopefully I will be able to flesh these last two out...

Pacifism

My good friend and brother, Joe Cathey, has published a series of posts on pacifism: here, here, here, and here. I have been interacting with him in the comment section, but thought it would be good to create a full blown post.

First, let's be clear about one thing: Christians have disagreed about this issue for centuries. Disagreement should not break communion; disagreement should be from an attitude of love and respect for the other person. Joe and I had lunch together at AAR/SBL last November and we are planning another one this November. I like Joe and respect him, but I disagree with his stand on war.

Second, a definition is in order. Pacifism is from two Latin words: pacem facere. Translated: To make peace. It isn't related to passive, it is active.

Third, Peace in biblical language is not just the absence of war! Shalom in Hebrew has a much wider meaning than that. The root $LM in the intensive (piel) has the meaning of paying ones debts. It has to do with a wholeness, even a sense of justice. That is the goal of pacifism. To accomplish biblical justice and wholeness.

Yikes! I have to get to work. More later...