My ten most memorable reads of 2022, fiction and nonfiction, out of my 42 first-time reads: 1. The Book of Job -- Robert Alter's translation “Oh, let that night be barren, let it have no song of joy.Let the day-cursers hex it, those ready to rouse Leviathan.Let its twilight stars go dark.Let it hope for … Continue reading Favorite reads of 2022
Huck Finn's dilemma: send his friend Jim back to slavery as he has been taught he must do, or go against his church's teaching by helping Jim to escape, and then go to eternal hell as punishment I've started reading David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation." It is … Continue reading That All Shall Be Saved
The Two Testaments finished its podcast-tour through the Book of Job recently with a discussion focused on Job's concluding words and the epilogue: Job 42 (Job's Response and Epilogue) with Carol Newsom. The podcast is hosted at The Two Testaments, and it's available at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmfpbCSEQc Carol Newsom is the author of The Book of … Continue reading Carol Newsom podcast on the Book of Job
In the beginning, God said, "Let there be light." Or, in translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roqGqhX6_-U "The four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric second rank tensor equals zero". That is the formula for light. In physics, light is defined as a form of electromagnetic radiation. If I understand correctly, what we have in the video above is James Clerk … Continue reading Let there be electromagnetism
In my last post I reviewed a book by William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation, that read God's speeches in the Book of Job as a creation story. This was a very new perspective for me. It made me take a look back at my little journey through Job in recent months. I've … Continue reading William P. Brown podcast about Job
I am at the moment still studying the Book of Job, but I wanted to make a quick note on an insight I picked up concerning Proverbs. Proverbs is sometimes thought to offer simplistic morality, in which the righteous are rewarded for their faith in God and the wicked are reliably punished. When I read … Continue reading Robert Alter’s reading of Proverbs
Tom McLeish's blog, Faith and Wisdom In Science, offers a scientist's perspective on the Book of Job. As a believer and scientist, McLeish argues that there is no necessary conflict between religion and science, which is a welcome message in these times. He has a lot of material on the Book of Job. He writes … Continue reading Tom McLeish on Science and the Book of Job
I just finished reading the Book of Job for the second time in two months, and this time I read it in a single day, which produced a new experience for me with this very old friend of a poem. Reading Robert Alter's translation this time, I skipped his footnotes and read them only at … Continue reading Reading Job in a day
"The Fellowship of the Ring" came out in theaters twenty years ago, almost to the day. Below is an essay that I wrote in the days after I saw it -- an essay that, besides being a bit of a time portal, covers a ton of subjects about books, movies, history, religion, dead white males, … Continue reading The Fellowship of the Ring
Maria didn't believe in hell. If there was a hell it came to you in life."Streets of Laredo," chapter 8 “Streets of Laredo”, the sequel to "Lonesome Dove," is so filled with cruelty and death that paradoxically, it doesn’t feel ultra-realistic; it feels theological and moral – and the environment feels otherworldly. Larry McMurtry once … Continue reading Theology and morality in Laredo
