Latest adventures in reading.
This month was incredibly busy, so my reading took a hit. Nevertheless, I managed to finish one really good title. The Dead Sea Scrolls by Gary A. Rendsburg Preparations for my Old Testament Survey class led me to this series of lectures. I found it to be a veritable gold mine of information, useful not…
Here’s what I read in July. Not as long a list this time, but some really substantial material. The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: Where Archaeology and the Bible Intersect by William G. Dever I found this book it to be very informative, and a worthwhile read for anybody interested in Old Testament…
The Story Luke Tells: Luke’s Unique Witness to the Gospel by Justo Gonzalez Church historian Justo Gonzalez looks at Luke’s writings. I liked his overall approach and he had some good insights. The author’s soft spot for Liberation Theology is kept to a minimum. Worthwhile if you are studying Luke or Acts. The First American…
I am reviving the book reviews I used to do here, with a little change in the format. In stead of occasional “drive-by book reviews”, I’ll be sharing my reading at the end of every month. So to begin, here are some of the books I have read in May. I hope you find this…
In going through my recent blog posts, I realized it has been a while since I have posted any book reviews. One should not derive from that fact the notion that I have not been reading. Quite to the contrary, as the following list attests. Empires of Dirt by Douglas Wilson After I successfully navigated…
A while back some may have noticed an announcement about an upcoming message preached at the Ebenézer congregation entitled “The Gospel According to the Philistines”. Some have asked for a summary of that message, which I might just do sometime…just not now. Rather, I want to quickly review two books that were very helpful as…
There is no denying that the Western Civilization we currently inhabit is fundamentally different from the one inhabited by our parents and grandparents. A good part of this massive shift has to do with what is called today the “marriage equality movement”. In his book We Cannot be Silent (2015, Nelson Books), scholar, author, college…
In the face of increasing opposition, it is easy for Western Christians to become discouraged, and, like Elijah, feel that we are the only ones left to stem an ever-rising tide of evil. God encouraged that Old Testament prophet with the knowledge that there were still 7,000 who had “not bended the knee to Ba’al”. In…
Here are my evaluations of my latest reading adventures: The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy about what would happen if the Western Hemisphere had cut itself off completely from the rest of the world. In short, Europe is a shambles, dominated and enslaved by an African civilization, and in the…
History is much more than dates and names. It is people, events, lives. Many history books tend to lean too far one way or another–either they get lost in facts and figures, or they get so caught up in the “personal aspect” that they lose the big picture. In his book December, 1941–31 Days that…