The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees religious liberty with two clauses: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." If asked what these two clauses mean, many Americans would respond that they mean whatever their authors meant when they wrote them. History makes plain what the founders meant. They intended for the newly-formed federal government to keep its nose out of religion within the various states, leaving the states to do just about anything they respectively wished. Ten of the original 13 … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2012
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (1)
A gracEmail subscriber has asked for my comments, as an attorney and a Christian teacher, regarding the controversy surrounding the installation of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building and the federal judge's order to remove the monument on which they are inscribed. * * * Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is much in the news lately. As a trial court judge, he hung a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in his Alabama courtroom. More recently, as the highest-ranking judge in his state, Mr. Moore had a 5,280-pound granite monument installed in the Alabama … [Read more...]
LITTLE SHERD VS. GIANT THEORY? (2)
The discovery of any potentially-important ancient writing normally triggers a period of scholarly debate, with the debate's intensity directly proportionate to the writing's significance. Translating a document has its own issues, especially when the writing is faded and some words are missing. Scholars must replace missing words and letters and translate the restored text before they even attempt to interpret the writing's significance in the broader picture. Because scholars are regular people subject to normal prejudices and passions, interpretations often involve considerable … [Read more...]
LITTLE SHERD VS. GIANT THEORY? (1)
On July 8, 2008, 17-year-old volunteer Oded Yair was digging with an archaeological team in the 3,000-year-old ruins of an ancient Jewish village called Khirbet Qeiyafa, just off Israel's Route 38 overlooking the Eila Valley (the biblical Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath). About ten o'clock that morning, Yair unearthed a six-inch near-square of broken pottery ("sherd" or "shard") and automatically dropped it into a plastic bag holding other finds from the same room. That afternoon, when the team washed their artifacts, they discovered that the sherd was an ostracon, a piece of … [Read more...]
PREACHER URGES SCIENCE/FAITH CHAT – 2
Charles Prince is not the first author with hopes of stirring discussion between scientific folks and people of faith. That was also the goal of Dr. Francis S. Collins, eminent scientist, atheist-turned-evangelical believer, now retired head of the Human Genome Project, and author of the 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press). Collins writes as a top-tier scientist who became an evangelical Christian. Prince, who in semi-retirement at age 80 still teaches advanced Bible and Koine Greek at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, writes from the … [Read more...]
PREACHER URGES SCIENCE/FAITH CHAT -1
In the Spring of 1949, Charles Prince was studying as a chemistry major at what later became Rice University, taking double-minors classes in biology and physics. He continued his schooling at Abilene Christian University and Harvard Divinity School. For several decades, he was plagued by internal struggles over what appeared to be irreconcilable truths of science and faith. Over the years, he came to see the fight, not as between science and faith at all, but rather between "some scientists" and "some preachers." Now he has written a book for intelligent lay-persons in both fields, hoping the … [Read more...]
TOMB OF JESUS?
With fanfare befitting its subject, The Discovery Channel presented its 2007 pre-Easter special titled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." The program was directed by James Cameron ("Titanic") and Simcha Jacobovici, the latter being also co-author with Charles Pellegrino of the new book The Jesus Family Tomb. This media sensation stems from the 1980 discovery during routine construction work in Jerusalem of a first-century family burial plot. Inside the tomb were bone-boxes (called "ossuaries") on which were inscribed the names "Mary," "Mariamne," "Matthew," "Jesus son of Joseph," "Joseph" and "Judah … [Read more...]
JESUS’ BROTHER’S COFFIN?
If the experts in archaeology, geology, linguistics and epigraphy (study of inscriptions) are correct, a stone box ("ossuary") which once held the bones of James the half-brother of our Lord has surfaced to become one of the earliest physical finds which mention the historical Jesus. Dr. Andre’ Lemaire of the Sorbonne in Paris, perhaps the world’s leading scholar in ancient inscriptions, was shown the box by an Israeli antiquities dealer while working at Hebrew University from April to September 2002. Inscribed on the box in Aramaic letters were the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of … [Read more...]
AGE OF THE EARTH
A gracEmail subscriber in the Northeast asks if we can discern the age of the earth from the Bible. He has heard someone teach that we can, and that Scripture puts approximately 6,000 candles on our planet's birthday cake. * * * It is easy to understand why some well-meaning Christians draw such conclusions, but it is equally clear that Scripture does not require us to do so. Even some Bibles, for example, list dates in the margins, with the Creation of humankind calculated at 4,004 B.C. Those figures are no part of the biblical text, but reflect the calculations of a … [Read more...]
FEEDBACK: CREATION ‘DAYS’
PRO -- "Your response to this issue is the most concise, accurate, and appropriately persuasive assessment and challenge I've ever seen or heard. For myself and others who will benefit from what you say here, Thank you!" CON -- "To entertain any belief other than a literal six days [of creation] is to undermine the veracity of the entire Bible; if one starts picking holes in the creation account then the entire Bible comes into question, for the creation account 'sets up' everything else in the Bible. With the creation account in doubt, God's entire plan for humanity comes into … [Read more...]