by Carl Howard | Apr 19, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
My last post about the obligation to execute genocide on Amalek reminded me of my school days when a friend would make fun of the original passage. Here is the text (from Deuteronomy 25): You shall remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you went out of...
by Carl Howard | Apr 13, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
When we left Saul last, he was campaigning against the Philistines. Now he has a much easier task, direct from YHWH as reported by Samuel: that of attacking the nation of Amalek and killing all the men, women, children and livestock. Easy, right? Amalek is the most...
by Carl Howard | Apr 7, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Atrocities and Oppression, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
After a brief hiatus thanks to holidays and conferences about nothing, regular blogging should be back. I’ve yet to catch up on the blogging-the-Bible posts but I was spurred to write about the Bible and terrorism thanks to this recent post by Keren Tuch The Jewish...
by Carl Howard | Feb 5, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
Just Who Was Ruling Over Israel? The book of Samuel now takes an interesting turn and sorta pulls the rug out from under you. Chapters 1-12 depict a relatively independent Israel that has just chosen Saul for itself as king. Now, it turns out that all this time, the...
by Carl Howard | Feb 1, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
Classic texts are often portrayed as timeless, as something that can be related to beyond the specific context their author wrote them in. Shakespeare is the best example, with many an English teacher swearing that the portrayals of, say, despair, grief and betrayal...
by Carl Howard | Jan 18, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible
–[continued from previous post] choose the first king of Israel. This is the unfortunate (as we’ll learn later) lad called Saul, the precursor to the book’s main protagonist. The story of Saul becoming king is very well written, reminding me of the story of Samuel’s...
