Posts from — February 2004

We were just watching a little “super millionaire”. One guy was saying how he was a missionary to… somewhere in South America, I don’t even remember where. Anyhow… Regis asked for a story, so the guy told him about a man that lived in the town they were located in this South American nation that was having a hard time with his work. He wasn’t getting as much business as he wanted. So the missionaries prayed for the man, that his business would pick up and he’d be able to provide and all… and then they learned what his job was: A hearse driver!

Another trustworthy point of view on the film, this time from Jeffrey Meyers.

A really good review/analysis of The Passion of the Christ from Jon Barlow.

Here’s an article from the upcoming Lynchburg Reformation Newsletter. It’s so stinkin’ good I thought I’d share it with blogdom…

Slow-Cooked Bacon
David Cooper

There are many ways to divide the world we live in: male and female; rich and poor; Christian and Muslim; those who microwave their bacon and those who cook it slow on the griddle. Now, I realize that this last binary may strike you as silly or insignificant. Ultimately, I agree that it is not quite as earth shattering as the first three. Even so, there is an element of living this life to the fullest that requires you to enjoy bacon cooked properly. Bacon is placed in the pan while it is still cool, the pan is heated on a medium-lowish setting and then the tasty morsels of pig stomach are allowed to sizzle in the wonderful fat that they produce until perfectly cooked. Sizzling bacon is the sound of the good life.

Do not fear the bacon splattering and therefore seek refuge in the insta-bacon plastic covered taste destroyer. Simply turn the heat down. There is much magic in the cooking of bacon. Try to cook it when the pan is hot and it curls too much. Cook it at a high heat and not only do you get blisters up and down your arms, but it can turn from deliciously cooked to charcoal in mere seconds. Bacon must be appreciated at a slower pace. When it is, the rewards are great; crispy yet flexible, juicy, salty, meaty and a touch of delightful melt-in-your-mouth fat. God’s grace imparted through breakfast. The only role the microwave should play in cooking bacon is a digital reminder of the wonderful time that has passed preparing the right kind of breakfast feast.

The insta-bacon mutation that comes out of the microwave is an almost universal sickly color of light-yellow-orange-brown. The stuff (calling it food is an insult to your pancakes) has no body or flavor. It flops on your plate and chewing it makes you wonder what kind of degenerate invented grease flavored bubblegum. This is not an appropriate pairing with French Toast and eggs over-medium. Microwaved bacon has no place in our lives. Reject the temptation to cheat yourself and your family of the glory that is bacon, cooked slow.

A family breakfast of waffles and slow-cooked bacon is a magical way to start a Lord’s Day. We can teach our children that the frenzied pace of life in 21st Century America is not necessarily the good and godly life. The heavenly alternative to our cultural frenzy is an eternal life (beginning now) without microwaves; a life of unhurried basking in the goodness of God’s gifts. Cooking bacon properly is a performative sermon about the nature of godly virtues. Virtues are cared for, watched closely, and given time to perfect. The young will taste them and want more. There are no microwaved shortcuts to godliness and good bacon only comes to those who cook it right.

“Taxonomists have described more than half a million species of beetles, but nearly alla re minimally altered Xeroxes of a single ground plan.” (Gould, Wonderful Life p. 47)

And – surprise, surprise – this is precisely what one would expect to observe if biblical creation is true (which it is…).

a few random things…

Ever wonder what e.g. and i.e. mean? (other than a general idea that they give an example?) Well, I wondered that…

e.g. – exempli gratia – for example
i.e. – id est – that is

There appears to be a different nuance with each.

Also, there’s a song by Bebo Norman called Selwood Farm, and it’s in my head right now except ‘Selwood Farm’ is being replaced with Barlow Farms.

Lately I’ve been having some discussion about whether or not the chronologies of Genesis 5 & 11 can be trusted as an accurate representation of the time lapsed between Adam and Abraham. I’ve been arguing that they can, and that we can use them to estimate the age of the Earth to be somewhere around 6,000 years. But that isn’t the real point of this post.

One of the objections brought forth is Genesis 5:32, which says, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” The reason this is an objection is because Noah’s sons are not given in chronological order. Genesis 9:20-24 says, “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.”

So we know Ham is the youngest. But who is the oldest, Shem or Japheth? Well, this is what I am writing this post about, because it’s rather interesting.

Let me first state that I don’t know two beans about the Hebrew language. I’m just going by my English Bible and its notes for all this. Maybe someone that knows Hebrew can comment on this and tell me something I’m missing.

In Genesis 10:21, we see a verse that says something about Shem and Japheth. In the NASB translation, it reads, ” Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born.” and the ESV translates it as something comparable. The NASB that I own has a note, which indicates another translation of this verse is possible. The other translation is along the lines for the KJV translation, which reads, “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.”

As you can see, they are quite different. One says that Shem is the older, the other says that Japheth is the older.

But if we go back and look carefully at some details in Genesis, we learn something. Genesis 11:10 says, ” These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:”. So, we can determine from this that at the flood, Shem was 98 years old. If we go back to Genesis 7:6, we read, ” And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” And so, roughly, Shem was born when Noah was 502 years old. See how all that works? 100-2=98, 600-98=502.

But, if we go back up to the beginning, and refer to Genesis 5:32 again, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” we see that it says Noah was 500 when he begat Shem Ham and Japheth. As I understand it, this means he was 500 when he had the first of his sons, just like in the case of Terah, who was 70 when he “begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran”. But from the other texts we determined that Noah was 502 when Shem was born, so Shem couldn’t have been born when Noah was 500. And Ham is the youngest, which means that Japheth was born when Noah was 500, and is therefore the eldest son.

Some might say that it’s just rounding. Two years isn’t a big deal, so they just rounded to the closest round number. Well, maybe? but doesn’t it seem awfully strange for the author to do that when just a few verses above he wrote, “And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech.” (v.25) and “And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:” (28). Why wouldn’t he have rounded those ages also?

And so the big question is why do the NASB and the ESV both prefer the translation of 10:21 which says Shem is the eldest son?

A co-worker just mentioned to me that, yesterday, she saw some material on Christian marriage left by the copier, and was wondering if it was mine.

It isn’t, but I’m happy to hear that she thought it might be. That she recognizes I am, at least, interested in christian things. I don’t often get an opportunity to vocalize what I believe around here. Most of the time I’m puttering about getting my little things done without any real oversight or interaction. And when I do interact, it’s usually something to do with work. And I think that is appropriate. I’m not being paid to proclaim my beliefs, and criticize much of what is taught around here (since I’m a biology lab manager at a secular college). Over the years I’ve had talks with some faculty about creation and argued with the outspoken atheist a little, or try to explain how I’m postmillennial to one Christian instructor, even though it baffles him to no end.

But those are situations that stand out as irregular. Usually I’m business as usual. And this lady that asked me about the marriage stuff isn’t one of the people I’ve really talked to about anything other than work topics. So it’s good that she knows I’m a christian, whether by seeing what I read, or hearing the music I listen to, or talking with other folks about what they’ve talked to me about… whatever. That it appears to be common knowledge around here that I’m a Christian is pretty encouraging to me.

I’ve never read anything by Stephen Jay Gould until I started this book, Wonderful Life, the other day. Even with the depressing conclusions he comes to in statements like “Thus, physics and astronomy relegated our world to a corner of the cosmos, and biology shifted our status from simulacrum of God to a naked, upright ape” or “‘Perhaps we are only an afterthought, a kind of cosmic accident, just one bauble on the Christmas tree of evolution”, I enjoy his writing. It flows, and there are plenty of references to classics. Gould knew literature, which makes his ability to write rather unsurprising.

Its a topic I care more about than heavy theology writing. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading about baptism and the covenant and other theological topics like the New Perspective… but Natural History just gets my blood pumping.

I just updated what I’m reading and what I’ve read. I’m tempted to get rid of those lists, though. This is the third year I’ve kept track of what I’ve read (sort of… I started mid2002), but now that others are doing it, I’m just embarassed at how short my lists are.

Try for a moment to imagine the status of Israel in the ancient world. In a world where famine was commonplace, God commands His people to have regular feasts every year. All around them people are starving because God has given them judgmental famines, and yet He tells Israel to have several feasts, each of which lasts at least a week. Today, we would not consider this a very “fair” arrangement. Feeling guilty because of our own prosperity and great use of resources, we would suggest sending all that extra food to the surrounding, less fortunate, pagan nations. But we fail to understand God’s purposes in Israel. He wanted to show the world that if a people serves idols, they will starve. If the people repent and come back to the living God, there will be abundance. God testified to this every year before the whole world, so that the world’s jealousy would be provoked. They too would want a god like Him � a god who fed them and did not feed “on” them. (Steve Wilkins, Face To Face)