Amorites, Ammonites, Jebusites, Edomites, blah-blah-ites. What’s with all these -ites in the Bible? Sometimes the most confusing thing about reading the Bible is all of the names. Because the early translators used a sort of English shorthand for lots of different idioms, it gets overwhelming and redundant to have all these -ites and not know… Read More »
As David is fleeing east from Jerusalem because of his son Absalom’s betrayal, he meets an old friend Ittai the Gittite. Ittai is planning to come with David, and the following conversation occurs: DAVID: Why would you come with us? Go back and stay with Absalom. You’re a guest here. You just got here yesterday.… Read More »
Apparently, Fred Phelps (the pastor of that bastion of hope and encouragement, Westboro Baptist Church) has some tremendous insight into the Scriptures. In the video below, Phelps pinpoints the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to the year 1898 BC. This is tremendous news to me since until now I have wondered endlessly how to date the… Read More »
When Ruth returns from the fields with an ephah of barley, Naomi is surprised. And why wouldn’t she be surprised? Ruth gleaned the equivalent of a day’s work for someone who was supposed to be harvesting in the field. It is clear that someone noticed her and provided for her.
If you’re wondering where I get a lot of the information that I share about the Late Bronze Age and Israel, it is from William Dever. Dr. Dever was the professor of Near East Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming College in… Read More »
וַיָּמָת אֱלִימֶלֶךְ אִישׁ נָעֳמִי וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הִיא וּשְׁנֵי בָנֶיהָ׃ וַיִּשְׂאוּ לָהֶם נָשִׁים מֹאֲבִיּוֹת שֵׁם הָאַחַת עָרְפָּה וְשֵׁם הַשֵּׁנִית רוּת וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם כְּעֶשֶׂר שָׁנִים׃ וַיָּמוּתוּ גַם־שְׁנֵיהֶם מַחְלוֹן וְכִלְיוֹן וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הָאִשָּׁה מִשְּׁנֵי יְלָדֶיהָ וּמֵאִישָׁהּ׃ But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one… Read More »
Western cultures love a good epic that explains things. We really do. It all really starts with the Greeks and their fixation with Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey. Of course, the Greeks saw themselves as the descendants (spiritually if not physically) of Odysseus and Achilles. They were living out that heroic tradition. When the Romans needed to connect their own… Read More »
The Palace of Susa The book of Esther gives us a glimpse into the palaces of Susa, the residence of the Kshatriya Kshatriyanamah – the King of Kings. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Persian empire was organized in such a way that regional governors were often the legitimate kings and rulers of… Read More »
In 586 BCE, the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar (Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, “the firstborn son of Nabu”) had had enough of the small client kingdom of Judah. His armies laid siege to their capital Jerusalem and when the city fell, he razed it to the ground. Over the previous two decades, he had systematically removed the higher classes of… Read More »
This morning, I thought I would follow up with some posts about the book of Esther, beginning with the king Ahasuerus who figures so prominently in the story. The name Ahasuerus appears in only two places outside of the book of Esther, and it is completely absent from contemporary history. This is surprising because of… Read More »
