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The Profound Message of Leviticus: Dimming the Light
Leviticus seemed to me to be an obscure book, meant only for the Jewish audience for whom the rules were a way of life. Then I met Jacob Milgrom, a professor at Hebrew University. He lectured in the downstairs bunker that belonged to Albert Einstein on the Mount Scopus campus to a group of college students from California. Worn out from our explorations of the rabbinical tunnels, I expected the weariness to increase because the topic of the day was Leviticus. Instead, Professor Milgrom lectured long past his ninety minutes, and still, the students did not want him to leave. The first big truth to hit me about the complicated…
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What The Bible Genealogies Says about Racism
Nearly 12 years ago, I traveled to Israel to take some Old and New Testament courses under the aegis of the American Christian Trust in cooperation with Hebrew University. We met in Einstein’s bunker on the Mount Scopus campus, fifteen or so American Christians placed under the tutelage of various Orthodox professors there. Our syllabus listed “The Ancient Genealogies” as a topic, and none of us were particularly excited. The typical Christian approach to the genealogies is a pretty scientific one. Look up the biblical genealogies and you can see what I mean. Most theologians talk about them as historical evidence; others talk about how the ancient writers telescoped the…
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The Superstitious Christian: Manipulating God
When I hear the word, superstitious, I see Michael Scott from The Office, saying to the camera, “I’m not really superstitious; I’m just a little stitious.” The other image that comes to mind is a young person in 18thcentury garb anxiously bathing a toad by the light of the moon in order to rid themselves of warts. Nothing but anguish and futility in that, I imagine. Superstition takes so many forms, and not surprisingly given human nature, is still present in the current age where science is supposedly doing away with old wives’ tales and replacing them with the light of cold hard reason. But the superstition I am more…
Healing Through Art & Words
