The Parable of the Widow and Judge is found in Luke 18:1-8. In this case, Jesus used a traditional image depicting the feudal society of the Ancient Near East. Bailey notes that the apocryphal Wisdom of Ben Sirach (AKA Ecclesiasticus), included in the canon for Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, features this imagery. When widows…
Tag: Ancient Near East
JTMEE: Chapter 1
I’ve long complained that we have loaded down the Gospel narrative with a massive weight of nonsense mythology. Because we want to entertain children with fantasies, we make the Christmas story far more than what it actually was. Bailey takes an ax to junk. Working from Luke 2:1-20, he reminds us how the added nonsense…
A Different View of Christ
To me it looks like I’ve done these books in the right order. We are following the subject into deepening complexity. Our next book review is Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey (2008 InterVarsity Press, ISBN 13:9780830825684 paperback). Henceforth, I will abbreviate that to JTMEE. The author lived in the Middle East…
Vast Chasm of Space-Time
My mission and calling is to bring people closer to God’s ways on this earth. A major part has always been shifting from our pagan cultural background to a more biblical perspective. Writers like Pageau, Heiser, and others we will review on this blog have added a strong background to help us move in the…
Overwhelming Forces
So far, my reading in Pageau’s The Language of Genesis is consistent with what I spent five decades learning about the biblical Hebrew metaphysics. Like Heiser, he brings a stronger and broader knowledge of things I could see only in glimpses, bits and pieces through the veil of human frailty. These men were appointed by…