While this is on a “rationalist” blog, it is also excellent Biblical scholarship which fundamentalists really need to take seriously — indeed anyone interested in history or theology.
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Tag Archives: Bible
The literary genre of Acts. 1: Ancient Prologues
Against certainty
Julie Galambush interview. (If that doesn’t work… or here.)
Allow me to recommend a book as a Top Read of 2007 even if only three people in Australia have read it. 
The Reluctant Parting by Julie Galambush (Harper Collins 2006) is one of the clearer and more authoritative accounts of the context and origins of the New Testament that I have read. It does not venture too much into the speculative and fanciful, as some in this area do. Galambush has good judgement as an historian. An even greater blessing is that she is readable!
PC not, but in a healthy way
I so bridle at the term “political correctness” that I resolved at the beginning of this year to avoid it. One reason for that is that the term often becomes a fall-back position for those who want to justify their prejudices, to do or say something that probably deserves to be “unspeakable”, or wish to beat up on folk with even mildly progressive thoughts in their heads, asserting as “common sense” the most reactionary attitudes and propositions. On the other hand, Nicholas Hudson pretty much gets it right in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Australian Usage (2ed 1997).
Book of Job revisited
I mentioned The Book of Job back on the 26th of August and promised a snippet from the old Catholic Knox version. You have to be careful with snippets from Job as it is best read as a whole work rather than in verses. However, here is my sample. I just like the English of this. One thing though; the Knox version prints all the poetic sections as prose. I remember reading somewhere this was an economy measure — prose takes up less space.
Book of Job
My eccentric following of the US Book of Common Prayer Lectionary has moved on from the mixed blessings of Judges to one of those books everyone should read at some time in their lives: The Book of Job. There are many wonderful translations: J R R Tolkien had a hand in the Jerusalem Bible version, but I am reading mainly in the odd but powerful mid 20th century Catholic version of Ronald Knox, a truly inspiring work of English, especially in this book which reads like something out of the Arabian Nights. It is I am sure a work of fiction, but none the worse for that. It stands beside King Lear and Oedipus Rex as literature and has famously inspired many, such as William Blake. I will share some snippets of the Knox version later.
I found the following art work on Jasongraphix. (His Principles of Beautiful Web Design would appear to be well worth looking into; he certainly practises what he preaches.)
Wet Sunday, slow start — reading homilies!
The word “homily” does have, deservedly sometimes, negative associations. It is certainly not a genre that most people rush to read, unless rebadged as in today’s Sunday Telegraph, a topic for my Journalspace blog, as an editorial by Glenn Milne.
Last Sunday I published a good example of the genre from South Sydney Uniting Church. In another note that day I wrote: “Afterwards Sirdan and I had lunch at Chinese Whisper in Surry Hills, and then I went to PK’s for the afternoon.” Today’s lunch will be at The Shakespeare — cheap and nourishing — and I am being a slacker about church this morning. However, I am getting my Sunday homily, or a whole host of homilies, from a book PK lent me last week.
One of the many eccentricities of my old friend PK is his devotion to St Francis of Assisi, Paddington, Sydney.
