12 July 2009
An Excerpt from Benedict XVI on the Granting of the Divine Name
16/07/09 15:55
I wanted to post this earlier but was unable. I hope
that it will still prove useful for some. This is an
excerpt from Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI's
Introduction to Christianity in which he
deals with today's Old Testament lectionary reading
from Exodus 3. It is one of my favorite passages in
the book: Read
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The God of Your Father
15/07/09 09:15
In todays' reading, Moses encounters the Lord in a
burning bush that is not consumed. The Lord
identifies himself by saying "I am the God of your
father..." In the phrase "God of your father," we
find what Albrecht Alt identified as one of the
distinctive elements of the faith of Ancient Israel.
There is a certain level of complexity to this issue
that I do not want to go into here, but to get a good
summary you might check out this link to a limited preview of the text
In Search of God in Google Books (scroll down a
little). What I mainly wanted to point out in
relation to Alt's work is that having a "God of
the fathers (i.e. ancestors)" was a distinctive
element of Israel's faith because many of the
deities in surrounding areas of the Ancient Near
East were gods of "places." In other words,
these gods were tied to particular sites, such
as Assyria, Babylon, Persia, etc. Read
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My Favorite Old Testament Parallel
14/07/09 09:12
Today's Old Testament lectionary reading provides one
of my favorite parallels between the Old Testament
and other writings from the Ancient Near East. I am
not sure why this one stands out to me in particular
when there are a lot of other interesting parallels
out there. I think that maybe it has to do with the
fact that it is one of the more transparent
parallels. The lectionary reading is the story of the
Egyptian pharaoh seeking to kill the male children of
the Israelites, particularly about how Moses escapes
this fate by being placed in a basket/ark, which is
then placed in a river. For this story, there is an
Ancient Near Eastern parallel in the Legend of
Sargon. For those unfamiliar with this text, you
would do very well to read it. There is a free online translation of
the text here. Read
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The Pharaoh of the Exodus and Other Matters Related to the Historicity of the Exodus
13/07/09 08:30
The lectionary reading for today comes from Exodus 1.
In this passage, a "new pharaoh" reigns over Egypt
who does not know Joseph. To say that there has been
a significant amount of debate over the years about
who this pharaoh was and about the historicity of the
Exodus would be perhaps the understatement of the
century. With that said, the purpose of this post is
to introduce the my readers to this debate, and as
such the primary link in this post will present
information that may be "old hat" to some
professional academics (though depending on one's
area of specialization it could also be very helpful
for academics like myself as well). For an
introduction to the debate about the identity of the
"new pharaoh" as well as the broader issues related
to the historicity and dating of the Exodus, I would
suggest that you begin with this set of posts on Higgaion, the blog of Dr. Chris Heard
(begin reading from the bottom and see
explicitly Part 2 of the Extended Review for the
issue of the Pharaoh of the Exodus). Read
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Amos - The Outsider
12/07/09 10:10
Today's lectionary reading from the Old Testament is
Amos 7.12-15. It is one of the more revealing
passages in the book bearing his name because it
shows several obstacles to the people listening to
his message. I will look briefly at three:
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