Lamentations is a book of five poems, each a chapter and the first four of which are acrostics (a typical form of poetry in Hebrew — see also Psalms 37, 119, and 145, and Proverbs 31:10-31). The author is Jeremiah: Having unsuccessfully warned his people in the book of Jeremiah to turn back to God … [Read more…]
Overview: Solomon — the king with great wisdom who also wrote two other Wisdom books, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs — is the principal author. Indeed, he wrote every chapter of Proverbs except the last two, which were written by Ajur and Lemuel, respectively. I’ll note at the outset that Psalms and Proverbs are … [Read more…]
Overview: Here’s a bare-bones outline of the book: It begins with a quick sketch of Job and his idyllic life as a good and very blessed man, with a big happy family and great wealth. In the next scene, God is meeting with his angels, and God brings up to Satan (!) the subject of … [Read more…]
As Robert Lamberton writes in his introduction to this translation, “The Theogony and Works and Days stand alongside the Iliad and Odyssey at the beginning of the European literary tradition.” And there are instances in which each prompts some comparison with the Bible. For Works and Days: In his introduction, Lamberton notes that this poem … [Read more…]
Three of the Wisdom books — Ecclesiastes, Job, and Psalms — share a common theme: It’s permissible, even expected, that we should kvetch to God about the hardships we face, but this complaining and questioning should be accompanied by faith and trust and a recognition that God knows what He is doing, so that the … [Read more…]
I read this 1912 novel after reading Michael Dirda’s somewhat tardy but glowing review of it 106 years later in the March 29 Washington Post (“G.K. Chesterton, our guardian angel of foolery and faith”). Dirda noted that April Fool’s Day and Easter fell on the same day this year, making it appropriate to write about Chesterton, … [Read more…]
Happy Easter! He is risen! Since I’m writing something about every other book of the New Testament, it would be odd to skip the Gospels. On the other hand, one always worries that it is presumptuous at best to try to boil down God’s word, and that is especially so with the Gospels. What’s more, … [Read more…]
Except for the Creation narrative in Genesis and the End Times discussion in Revelation, no book of the Bible can match the historical and geographical sweep of Acts. It stretches from Spain to Arabia over a period of thirty to forty years, telling the story of the early days of the spread of Christianity. And … [Read more…]
Here’s what we’re saying when we pray the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father — We acknowledge God: His existence, power, benevolence and love (and our love for Him), and universality. On the last point, note that throughout this prayer the first person plural is used — our, we, us — underscoring not only the universality of God … [Read more…]
That is, lessons from the book of Revelation. The book is divided into two parts: The first and shorter is the text of letters that John sends to seven churches in Asia Minor, and the second and longer is John’s apocalyptic vision of the end times. The church letters are report cards, telling each church … [Read more…]