Just a couple of unrelated articles on recent developments in the world of Biblical archeology.

The first is the story of how two pieces of a single Exodus scroll from the 7th century were reunited for the first time in centuries recently.  Amazing what technology can do nowadays, isn't it?

The second was interesting to me as I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code.  A nail has been found in a tomb from a castle once held by Templar knights, who are of course the historical group that Dan Brown builds much of his book around.  Because of the place the nail was found - in a tomb that may include at least one Templar knight - and because of the good condition of the nail, there are some who speculate that it must have been believed to be one of the nails from Jesus' cross. 

Did I mention that the nail dates to the first or second century?  Jesus was crucified in either 30 or 33 CE/AD of the first century.

Of course, this would not be the only nail reputed to be from the cross of the Christ.  At least one historical account presumes to describe the recovery of the nails by Constantine's mother, who allegedly fashioned them into various purposes.  I'm not personally too concerned about the speculations, as I believe they are only that, speculations.  I thought it interesting that a Muslim news site ran a slightly abbreviated version of the story.  Considering the Muslims don't believe that Jesus was crucified, this struck me as curious. 

I'm not sure completely how I feel about this, other than that I have a lot of misgivings.

A friend of mine shared this article talking about a desired shift in how high school is handled.  The upshot is that high school graduation would not be tied to seat hours based on accumulated credit hours, but rather on subject matter as is the case in some other countries.  I understand that there are students who could be done with high school in less than four years.  This sort of program would be ideal for them.  Perhaps.

Because the issue which this change doesn't address would be the readiness of, say, a 10th grader to move on to community college (or university) at the age of 15.  Not academically or intellectually, but socially, emotionally - spiritually even.  It seems to me that a great deal will need to change in earlier education processes and techniques if we hope to have kids who are not merely smart enough to be done with high school, but smart enough to be ready for whatever it is that they envision themselves doing afterwards. 

We'd be doing our kids a grave disservice to push them into "careers, to higher ed and technical colleges and the workplace, sooner rather than later", if we don't simultaneously and intentionally prepare to deal with these environments in other-than-intellectual/academic ways.

This has gotten some press attention, tragically.  It seems designed to do little else.

A group of atheists at the University of Texas San Antonio have offered to give pornography to anyone who gives them a Bible,  alleging that porn isn't any worse than the 'smut' in the Bible. 

As a Christian, this seems at best laughable and sophomoric, a weak attempt to gain attention without offering any sort of intellectual or moral justification beyond nobody can stop us.

If I were an atheist, I'd be disappointed in how pathetic this effort is.  You don't like the Bible.  Gotcha.  Is this your best alternative?  Is this your best substitute?  One of the most enduring moral systems on the planet, the undergirding for most of Western Civilization morality & ethics, and your best alternative is a Playboy magazine?  Really?  Is that the best the atheist world-view has to offer?

Sophomoric, literally.  They'll get their 15 minutes of fame.  Then maybe they can get back to something more useful.  Once they figure out what that might be, I guess.

...but that might be enough to get you arrested and imprisoned for a year. At least in Great Britain.

At what point are the sacrifices of personal liberty no longer worth the safety they are allegedly buying?  When does the photographing of a public servant in public warrant detention and possible criminal charges?  How is this sort of legislation likely to be used to prevent terrorist activities, which is the ostensible intent?

I did my undergraduate work at Arizona State University - heralded for many years as one of the premier party schools in the nation, if not the world.  Not being a party animal, I missed out on the party aspect of ASU, but I trust that it did - and does - exist in all it's storied glory.  The problem being, of course, that many of the folks doing the partying are not legally old enough to drink.  Arizona's drinking age is 21, and that hasn't changed in quite a while, and isn't likely to.  But that doesn't stop plenty of younger folks from enjoying alcohol on and around campus. 

Colleges across the country are struggling with how best to deal with this reality.  A growing  trend is to inform parents anytime their underage son or daughter is caught with alcohol.  I favor this approach - probably because I wasn't a party animal.  But partly because I think our culture has a very peculiar split personality in regards to underage drinking.

On the one hand, data overwhelmingly seems to support the idea that the less drinking that underage people do, the safer they are.  Look here, or here, or here.  The article cited above references the fatalities that can occur on or around campus from drinking too much, or drinking related accidents. 

On the other hand, alcohol is viewed by many as a relatively harmless rite of passage.  It's an expected part of the college experience - perhaps in part because many parents have fond (or hazy)  memories of their own adventures in drinking during college.  The article above cites concerns about how students are to develop their independence if their parents can be called in for alcohol violations.

So when are we going to culturally make up our minds?  Now that raucous spring break traditions extend to high school and not just college?  Now that the assumption seems to be all too often that this is just part of the college experience.  Let's not deny them a little fun?   Are there situations where informing parents of a student's drinking infraction would seem pointless, unreasonable, or counter-productive?

I found this little tirade against monotheistic conceptions of divinity a while back.  It's not particularly well-thought out, though it is vitriolic enough to satisfy a certain blood-lust from those convinced of the erroneousness of any brand of religion, but particularly those brands that posit a personal deity that interacts personally with humanity. 

The author's basic assertion is correct - that a religion that justifies inequality on the basis of a personal God dictating the ins and outs of human economics and interactions is disgusting and dangerous.  That's true.  Unfortunately, he extends his tirade against any religion that acknowledges an "omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent gods or supreme beings", which includes Biblical Christianity.  The problem is that he hasn't apparently read the Bible.

The Bible is - among other things - a long, sustained cry against the marginalization of those around us, our neighbors, whom Jesus identified - rather inconveniently for legalists - as being everyone around us.  The constant indictment against God's people was their abandonment of serving their God, manifest in both their polytheism as well as their mistreatment or ignoring of those around them least able to care for or defend themselves.  The poor and the marginalized are prominent in Biblical calls for justice, care and love for our neighbor. 

This doesn't mean that many Christians don't understand this.

Secular humanists wish to scrap religion as an archaic and dangerous thing.  But frankly, religion - and particularly Christianity - is the only thing that protects the marginalized in our culture.  It's Christianity that stays the hand of capitalism and insists that the poor and marginalized must be cared for, that they must be educated and not left behind.  It's Christianity with it's insistence on the sacredness of all life that stays the hand of the natural selectionist and insists that even those who seem to be deficient in body or mind compared to the majority must be cared for, must be treated with dignity, must be protected.  If the author of this article balks at what he sees as the ease with which many modern Christians write off and ignore the world that suffers in part so that they can enjoy their mochas and designer clothing, he would no doubt find it hard to justify defending the downtrodden without Christianity.  He would no doubt find it hard to say why the developing world ought to be propped up and protected, rather than simply exploited for the benefit of the dominant genetics of Western Europeans.   

This author is right - if we have fooled ourselves into thinking that the order of this world is strictly ordained by God, with the rich to enjoy their wealth and the poor to suffer in silence, we are grossly mistaken, and need to go back to Scripture to hear God's very clear Word about how we are to treat those less fortunate.  But the author is very wrong in his assumption that the existence of a personal, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God is rendered impossible simply because of our own evilness. 

Who do you let your young children play with?  On what grounds would you demand that your young child quit playing with another child - at least in terms of out-of-school play dates?

Some people apparently aren't comfortable letting their young children play with children who are not part of an actively Christian family.

This is interesting to me on several levels.  As a parent, I have young children that I am entrusted with for the purpose of raising them to be responsible Christian adults.  As a pastor, I'm intent on helping people live their faith out in all aspects of their lives, not simply on Sunday mornings.  As someone interested in community, I'm interested in what people will do in order to be accepted - and conversely, what people expect from others to accept them.

As a parent, this issue of demanding faith as a ticket for socialization seems rather severe.  We dialog with our children (ages almost-eight, five, and almost-four) about our faith every day.  We spend time learning Bible stories.  Our oldest reads these stories on his own with Arch Books.  They're currently memorizing the Ten Commandments.  We relate our faith to the decisions we make, the attitudes we hold, and the way we live our lives in every way we can think of.  As such, I'm not worried about my young children associating with children of different (or no) faith.  I hope for it, because I know my children are sure enough in their age-appropriate understanding of their faith that meeting someone who believes differently will not destroy my children's faith, but will rather serve as a discussion topic at home.  It's an opportunity for us all to learn better how to not fear other people's beliefs, but see opportunities for sharing our beliefs. 

As a pastor, it's disappointing to think that people are shunning their neighbors because they don't believe the same things.  These are precisely the people that we ought to be grateful for opportunities to hang out with.  If we really understand the core of our faith, we realize that these are opportunities for us to love these people and to share our beliefs, just as much as it might be a time for them to share their beliefs.  I want my people to be equipped to seek out these opportunities rather than run from them.  We have such an amazing message, such powerful Truth!  Why do we automatically assume that it can't stand up against someone with doubts or denials?  Why would we choose to live in fear - hurting other people in the process - instead of proactively strengthening our faith and understanding in ourselves and our children so that they can share with their friends?  Why would Jesus be the pretext for refusing to love someone else, rather than a driving motivation to show them love?

Culturally speaking, there are certainly boundaries that can't be crossed if we expect to relate to others in a healthy way.  People who flaunt core values of our culture (Christian or otherwise) are not folks that we necessarily ought to be having our kids hang around.  Some boundaries are healthy.  We rightly protect our children from those who blatantly flaunt the law - engaging in illicit or illegal behavior such as drug use, theft, etc.  We also need to protect our children appropriately from those who have discarded notions of propriety and decency - those who insist on swearing and cursing around children, and those who engage in behaviors that are unhealthy or dangerous, such as excessive drinking around children, violent behavior, etc. 

These people still need and warrant our love, mind you.  The decision not to expose our children to a potentially dangerous situation or person is different from our Christian imperative to seek the lost and to love even those most difficult or resistant to love.  And we need to keep teaching our children about those who engage in behaviors that are inappropriate for children to be exposed to (or adults to be exposed to, for that matter!).  We need to keep preparing our children because  at some point in their lives, they're going to be making their own choices about who to befriend, who to hang out with, and who to emulate.  They need to have some good, wise counsel to guide those decisions, and that counsel starts as young as possible.

I'm not sure what this means, but it's interesting all the same.

A graphical representation of survey results on income levels by religious belief. 

Thoughts? 

The Bible is a pretty challenging book.  It makes assertions about the origins and nature of our universe, as well as our proper place within it.  These assertions are pretty mind-boggling in some ways, and many people do not accept them.

The Bible also purports to record the history of a critical part of our world.  It describes one very large family and their wanderings and eventual development into an entire nation of people.  This historical account sounds a great deal like other historical accounts.  It includes place names, descriptions of areas and people, relates the outcome of specific events such as battles as well as transitions of power on a national level. 

And it asserts the presence of a powerful nation known usually by the name Israel, that had as it's capital the city of Jerusalem.  The Bible describes some fairly massive building projects around the 10th century CE (BC).  Some scholars have been inclined to view these assertions of a powerful nation with a centralized government as purely mythical.  As mythical as the God that the Bible reveals.  As mythical as the divinity of a man named Jesus that the Bible describes.

More often than not, though, the evidence we keep uncovering points more and more to the accuracy of the Biblical historical witness.  I wrote a few weeks ago about  a discovery that apparently contradicts some scholars' claims that the Bible couldn't have been written until roughly 600 CE (BC) because the Hebrew script was not developed before then.  The discovery of a small text fragment dates roughly 400 years earlier than this cut-off - to roughly the 10th century BC (CE).  It makes it harder for scholars to deny that the prophecies of the Bible must be discounted on the basis of the Hebrew script not being available to write them down. 

Now there are archaeological assertions that attempt to support the idea that not only did the Biblical Davidic dynasty exist, it was as powerful as the Bible describes.  This would deprive some nay-sayers of one line of argument against the Biblical text, by supporting at least the possibility if not the probability that there existed a central government in Jerusalem strong enough to carry out large-scale building projects.  Just like the Bible describes.

This isn't proof of the Bible's claims about God, but it does continue to demonstrate that the Bible is accurate in many ways as a historical document.  Accurate history does not automatically correlate to theological accuracy.  But it does demonstrate that the Bible isn't purely a contrived book of fairy tales.

It's been a crazy last couple of weeks, but things will hopefully be leveling out in a rather odd definition of that term.  Time to get back in the writing saddle!

I read this article a couple of weeks ago, but it was brought back to mind having just come into Phoenix on Sunday.  The story details the controversy generated by Phoenix's extensive use of photo radar units to deter speeders on the freeways in and around town.  Coming in to Phoenix Sunday, there were two portable, van-based systems stationed a good 15+ miles out of the outer limits of town.  Then, as we entered the western suburbs of Phoenix proper, there were intermittent speeding cameras.  In all cases, drivers were warned of the upcoming photo-radar installations by not one - but two - large yellow signs, the first about 1/2 a mile before the actual cameras, and the second about 300 feet from the cameras.

I was snagged by one of these a year ago, shortly after they were installed.  I didn't know what they were - or more accurately, what they looked like.  Coming in late they got a nice picture of me driving over the speed limit on I-10.  I paid the fine by mail.  As the article indicates, the ticket doesn't count against my driving points for insurance purposes.  It's simply a financial transaction. 

Response to the cameras in Phoenix has been generally unpleasant, despite the lowest freeway collision fatality levels in 15 years. 

Objections seem to center on the possible errors and abuses of such a system.  "How do you know that is my car?"  "Do you know if I'm the registered driver?" the article quotes one defendant as asking the judge as she attempted to fight the ticket.  "Were you driving, yes or no?" the judge responds.  "Were you speeding, yes or no?  It's pretty simple."  The defendant ended up paying the fine. 

I tend to side with the judge.

I speed.  I'm also very observant.  Often times I spot police cruisers or motorcycles tucked off the sides of the roads in plenty of time to slow down.  Despite consistent speeding - though at gradually reduced speeds as I age - I've only had three or four speeding tickets in my life. 

I know that the speed limits are the law.  I know that I often exceed the legal limits by some amount, and therefore, if and when a police officer pulls me over, I don't have any bitterness about being cited.  I might be angry at myself for not seeing them, and I don't voluntarily hang myself for them, but if they see fit to write me a ticket, and there aren't any mitigating or unusual circumstances, I figure I deserve it.  I pay it.  I move on with life.

Are photo radar installations a violation of our personal liberties?  Is the fact that the state installed these to generate revenue in any way a factor that should nullify a citation I'm given if I'm actually speeding?  Remember, there are plenty of warnings about the radar installations, so it's not as though they should surprise anyone.  The speed limits are pretty clearly posted shortly before the photo-radars, so you know what speed you should be doing.  The cameras allegedly only go off if you're going more than 11 miles over the posted speed limit (which in Phoenix on most freeways is 65mph). 

I can't see why people would be upset about this.  Can you?