In this podcast I’ll suggest that noticing the importance of why we read Scripture can help clarify at least the theological question about the genocide of the Canaanites. Listen to my previous two posts for more on how knowing why we read matters: Why do you read? Or: Was God married? Are you an idolater? [&hellip...
In some Bible passages, as atheists and others who want to avoid the claims of God are quick to point out, God sounds like a Dalek. Deut 7:2 is a typical case. When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties [&hellip...
In this post we’ll discover some humour from below. The humour of the oppressed often pokes fun at the oppressor. Those who subjugate others fear them, and this fear generates feelings of inferiority that in Exodus some oppressed women manipulate delightfully. Please open your Bibles at Exodus 1-2. The original audio only version of this [&hellip...
What does it mean to “believe”? Can Alice in Wonderland help us avoid a common Evangelical error? And does “it’s in the Bible” end conversation about the “Canaanite genocide”? (( The scare quotes round Canaanite genocide indicate my question, still as far as I am concerned unanswered whether such an “event” occurred, or even was [&hellip...
In this post we’ll discover some humour from below. The humour of the oppressed often pokes fun at the oppressor. Those who subjugate others fear them, and this fear generates feelings of inferiority that in Exodus some oppressed women manipulate delightfully. Please open your Bibles at Exodus 1-2. So, here’s the link to [&hellip...
This passage was probably chosen because it contains two famous “Bible stories”, the Golden Calf (in which a priest does what the people want, and becomes so successful that drunkenness, idolatry and other stupidity reigns) and the time Moses got to see God’s backside. But more troublingly it is another passage where God commands and [&hellip...
I’m torn two ways on how to respond to this reading: on one side, a great opportunity to explain Passover, the great festival that celebrates God as liberator, saviour and enimy of powerful oppressors on the other, when I read (the Bible or the News…) I tend to sympathise with those who suffer, and while [&hellip...
