Review of Biblical Literature – 11/21/2008

Hector Avalos
Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence
Reviewed by J. Harold Ellens

Bob Becking
From David to Gedaliah: The Book of Kings as Story and History
Reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney

Jason Beduhn and Paul Mirecki, eds.
Frontiers of Faith: The Christian Encounter with Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Roland Boer, ed.
Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies
Reviewed by Timothy J. Sandoval

Susan Brayford
Genesis
Reviewed by Jan Joosten

Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch
Studying the Old Testament: A Companion
Reviewed by Steed Vernyl Davidson

Stephen K. Catto
Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research
Reviewed by Birger Olsson
Reviewed by Jonathan Bernier

Nicola Denzey
The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women
Reviewed by Paul Dilley

Deborah L. Ellens
Women in the Sex Texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy: A Comparative Conceptual Analysis
Reviewed by Naomi Steinberg

Richard A. Horsley
Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea
Reviewed by Lester L. Grabbe

Paul Joyce
Ezekiel: A Commentary
Reviewed by Corrine Carvalho
Reviewed by Steven S. Tuell

Adriane B. Leveen
Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers
Reviewed by James W. Watts

David R. Nienhuis
Not by Paul Alone: The Formation of the Catholic Epistle Collection and the Christian Canon
Reviewed by Patrick J. Hartin

Matthew B. Schwartz and Kalman J. Kaplan
The Fruit of Her Hands: A Psychology of Biblical Woman
Reviewed by Corinne Blackmer

Jan G. van der Watt, ed.
Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament
Reviewed by H. H. Drake Williams III

Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, eds.
The Book of Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology (Papers of the Second International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 9-11 June, 2005)
Reviewed by Pierre Keith

Culture News: Gay anarchist ‘action’ hits church

Gay anarchist ‘action’ hits church
Gay anarchist group infiltrates, protests outside Eaton County church
Tuesday, November 11,2008
by Nathan Harris

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A gay anarchist group infiltrated the Mt. Hope Church in Eaton County Sunday morning, disrupting a service by pulling a fire alarm, dropping leaflets and yelling at parishioners, a pastor said.

The group, Bash Back, was simultaneously picketing outside the church, beating on buckets and using a megaphone to shout “Jesus was a homo” and other slogans as confused churchgoers continued to enter the building.

Members of Bash Back issued a press release Tuesday saying that it targeted Mt. Hope, a church that claims a flock of around 5,000, because it is “complicit in the repression of queers in Michigan and beyond.”

According to the Myspace.com page of the Lansing chapter, the network initially sprung up with the intent of increasing homosexual visibility within the anarchist community.

The “action” began early Sunday morning at the Northstar Center on Lathrop Street in Lansing where a group of around 20 protesters gathered. Pink bandanas, signs, a rainbow-colored “Bash Back!” flag and a pink, wooden cross were distributed among about half the group — the “outside team.” The rest — “inside team” — were dressed in conservative clothes and carried Bibles and stacks of fliers, intending to blend in to the church‘s 11:30 a.m. “contemporary-laid back service.”

City Pulse was alerted to the Bash Back event through a press release and had no prior knowledge of where the “action” would take place or what it would entail.

“We’re having an action today,” one of the organizers told this reporter at the Northstar Center. “You’re in for a treat.” [Continue Reading…]

Culture News: Bush Gives Control of Economy to European Union

Well, I cannot say that this surprises me completely… given that I know Bush has always been a big government fan. But I really didn’t want this day to come so quickly. We don’t need to ask whether Obama will govern from the left anymore… Bush has already done it for him by preparing him a fine dinner in the name of socialism. Read the story below, since it just unfolded yesterday during the G-20 summit:

Dick Morris’ Political Insider
Bush Hands Over Reins of U.S. Economy to EU
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:28 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

=========================================

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy.

In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in total, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation, and excessive government regulation.

Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merging with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.

According to The Washington Post, it would “examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks’ operations.”

All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of responding to the global financial crisis.

Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn’t even our government!

The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.

Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn’t have to.

George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union.

In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe.

Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge?

How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, whose population is 50 percent greater?

It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper.

Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush — not Obama — Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.

The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?

[Read the whole story here]

Culture News: CA Court Urged to Review Gay Marriage Ban

California Court Urged to Review Gay Marriage Ban
Monday, November 17, 2008 11:25 PM
SAN FRANCISCO

==============================

California’s Attorney General on Monday urged the state Supreme Court to consider whether a gay marriage ban passed by voters this month was legal.

The state’s top lawyer, former governor Jerry Brown, said the court should keep the ban in place while it considers the issue — and it should rule quickly.

California’s ban marked a major reversal for same-sex couples, who had won state Supreme Court approval to marry in the trend-setting state in May.

Only a handful of states, provinces and European countries recognize same-sex marriage and gay marriage advocates have demonstrated vocally around the country since the November 4 vote.

Gay marriage advocates have argued in court that the ban vote was improper, since it was passed in an amendment process requiring majority approval — the ban won 52 percent support.

A measure which takes away rights already granted to a minority needs to follow a more substantial process, called a revision, gay marriage advocates said.

Gay marriage opponents say the process was constitutional and the losers are tying to overturn the will of the people, but on Monday they agreed California’s highest court should hear the challenge to the measure, called Proposition 8.

“Other courts addressing similar revision/amendment arguments under closely analogous constitutional provisions have rejected them,” a ProtectMarriage.com statement said.

“Proposition 8 is simple, narrow, and targeted to a single issue.”

Brown said that allowing same-sex marriage during the review process would increase uncertainty and urged the court to act promptly.

“The public interest would be best served not by issuing a temporary stay (on the ban), but by an expedited resolution of the important issues raised,” he said in a review requested by the court, which is expected to decide as early as this week whether to hear the matter.

Culture News: ‘Gay’ bishop in private meetings with Obama

Barack Obama asked gay bishop Gene
Robinson what it was like to be ‘first’

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
Times Online, November 6, 2008

================================

Barack Obama sought out controversial gay bishop Gene Robinson not just once but three times during his campaign to become President of the United States, The Times can reveal.

Bishop Robinson, the 80-million strong Anglican Communion’s only openly gay bishop whose consecration in 2003 has left the Anglican Communion on the brink of schism, was sought out

by Mr Obama to discuss what it feels like to be “first”.

Bishop Robinson, who received death threats after his election as Bishop of New Hampshire and was advised by police to wear a bullet-proof vest at his consecration, also discussed with Mr Obama the risks incumbent upon being a high-profile leader in a country such as the US.

Bishop Robinson said: “At the end of the day you have to decide whether or not you are going to be paralyzed by threats and by violent possibilities or whether you just move on and do what you feel called to do despite the risks. [Continue…]

Review of Biblical Literature – 11/15/2008

Ward Blanton
Displacing Christian Origins: Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament
Reviewed by Clare K. Rothschild

Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem
 Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg

Katherine J. Dell
Opening the Old Testament
Reviewed by Bill T. Arnold
Reviewed by George Heider

Brad E. Kelle and Megan Bishop Moore
Israel’s Prophets and Israel’s Past: Essays on the Relationship of Prophetic
Texts and Israelite History in Honor of John H. Hayes

Reviewed by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

Jens Kreinath, Jan Snoek, and Michael Stausberg, eds.
Theorizing Rituals: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts, Annotated Bibliography
Reviewed by Brian B. Schmidt

Daniel A. Smith
The Post-Mortem Vindication of Jesus in the Sayings Gospel Q
Reviewed by William Arnal

Fred Strickert
Rachel Weeping: Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the Fortress Tomb
Reviewed by Samuel Thomas

Emily Teeter and Douglas J. Brewer
Egypt and the Egyptians
Reviewed by Roxana Flammini

Ben Zion Wacholder
The New Damascus Document: The Midrash on the Eschatological Torah of
the Dead Sea Scrolls: Reconstruction, Translation and Commentary

Reviewed by Gregory L. Doudna

Jürgen Zangenberg, Harold W. Attridge, and Dale B. Martin, eds.
Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition
Reviewed by Christoph Stenschke

Culture News: Islamic Fundamentalists Cheer Obama Win

Indonesian Islamic fundamentalists cheer Obama win
Jakarta, 5 Nov. (AKI)

===============================

Representatives of some of Indonesia’s fundamentalist Islamic groups on Wednesday celebrated United States President-elect Barack Obama’s sweeping victory in Tuesday’s presidential polls, claiming the win will be good for interracial relations and world peace.

Obama, the Democratic Party candidate, took 51.9 percent of votes, earning him 349 seats in the Electoral College, compared with 46.8 percent for Republican Party candidate John McCain (who won 162 seats in the Electoral College).

Many parts of the US recorded a record turnout in what observers have termed an historic election. Obama will be the first African American president of the United States.

The Democrats also registered a clear victory over their Republican opponents in voting for both houses of the US Congress. The party captured at least five Senate seats from their rivals, increasing their majority in the 100-seat chamber. With results still due from some states, the Democrats have already won the 218 seats needed for a majority in the 435-seat legislature, the House of Representatives.

Muhammad Nidzom Hidayatullah, general secretary of the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) East Java branch, told Adnkronos International that Obama’s election was the result of democracy and this showed that the US has begun to open up to different races.

“Everyone should cherish this because it is likely that it will lead to improvements to race relations all over the world,” he said.

The MUI is the country’s top state-endorsed Muslim organisation. It is considered rather conservative and out of sync with most of the country’s 200 million Muslims, who profess a liberal and moderate version of Islam.

Achmad Sobry Lubis, secretary general of the militant, anti-American Front Pambela Islam (FPI) said that he “praised Allah for Obama’s win.”

“This is what we all wanted and we are now very hopeful that he can restore peace in the world,” he told AKI. [Continue…]

Barack Obama – “Redistribution of Wealth”

Change? Can I get a, “yes we can”???

Ugh… One things for sure… I don’t want this change, even though I know it’s going to try to be implemented soon. It is truly a sad day when a man like this has been elected President of the US and people barely even heard about this audio before the election day. Well, the people wanted a king… so God gave them one.

Welcome to The Neo-American Union

Culture News: Islam triples in Europe

From Cross to Crescent:
Islam triples in Europe

Posted on Nov 4, 2008 | by Don Graham

Droves of faithful Muslims — including a few French converts — partake in Friday prayers outside a Paris mosque, this one located just minutes from Notre Dame. Africans and Turks comprise the bulk of France’s Islamic population. Photo courtesy of the IMB.

As dusk falls in Paris, an illuminated Eiffel Tower stands watch over the city. Nearby, construction workers cast a spiritual shadow over a suburb as they raise an image of Islam’s growing appeal — the dome and minarets of a new mosque.  Photo courtesy of the IMB.

=============================

PARIS (BP)–It’s a sight that would shatter most Americans’ romanticized image of Paris.

Just a 15-minute metro ride from the trendy shops and quaint cafés of the Champs-Elysees, a virtual sea of North and West African Muslims spills out the gates of a neighborhood mosque. Like waves breaking on a beach, their bodies bend in unison as hundreds of men prostrate themselves before Allah. Their prayers are guided by an imam’s Arabic incantations.

The crowd’s prayer rugs cover a city block’s worth of sidewalk. Tourists point and take pictures. Some French pedestrians are visibly uncomfortable as they negotiate their way around the assembly.

But the scene isn’t an aberration. Instead, it’s evidence of a trend that’s changing the way Southern Baptists view the international mission field: Islam is expanding across Europe.

FROM CROSS TO CRESCENT

Fueled by immigration and high birthrates, the number of Muslims on the continent has tripled in the past 30 years, making Islam Europe’s fastest growing religion. While European Muslims build mosques and win converts, European Christians (excluding evangelicals) are witnessing what’s been called a near free-fall decline in church attendance.

Tourists make up the overwhelming majority of those crowding Notre Dame in Paris, snapping photos during Mass as if the cathedral was more museum than place of worship. Even more alarming are statistics that only 5 percent of the French own a Bible and 80 percent have never even touched one. The shift is so dramatic that many demographers now believe more people in Europe practice Islam than Christianity.

No one knows exactly how many Muslims call Europe home since most European nations don’t track ethnicity or religious affiliation in census data. Guesses put the number around 20 million.

France accounts for the highest concentration of Muslims in the European Union — 5 to 6 million, or about 8 percent of the population. Many entered the country as immigrants in guest-worker programs following World War II, but untold numbers have flooded France and other European nations illegally. [Continue…]

Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

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