Category Archives: Bible and Holy Land

Googling the End of the World

Apocalypse Watch, CyberOrient, Humor and Satire, Terrorism Issue

Here is a moral teaser: is Google good or evil? Google and its browser kindred have completely transformed the way we get information. It is the cyberspatial ouija board that few people could do without. I will be using it while writing this post, for example. Yesterday morning I was reading an article posted on the LA Times website about a new study published in Science that argues how “Thinking can undermine religious faith.” In the left margin of the webpage there are two Ads by Google. Both are prime examples of what the article is saying: that a lot of what goes by the name of religion is gut level rather than thought out.

I clicked on “The End-Time is Here” Google ad and discovered a website with a free pdf of 2008 God’s Final Witness by Ronald Weinland, who gives updates on the book in his blog. My first gut level thought was how strange it was that a book about the end of the world with the date 2008 should still be touted on a Google ad. But upon further thinking, by actually reading parts of the book, I discovered that the magic date is in fact May 27, 2008, less than three weeks from today. Here is the blurb that says it all:

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind and the beginning in a countdown of the final three and one-half years of man’s self-rule that will end by May 27, 2012.

On December 14, 2008, the First Trumpet of the Seventh Seal of the Book of Revelation sounded, which announced the beginning collapse of the economy of the United States and great destruction that will follow. The next three trumpets will result in the total collapse of the United States, and once the Fifth Trumpet sounds the world will be thrust into WW III.

Silly me; the world was not supposed to end in 2008, since that was just the economic meltdown that God chose to let us all know that in a short time he would pull another Flood and this time 6 billion people would die. Bad news for Romney, I suppose, since I doubt any Mormons will be in the 144,000 elect who will then rule the earth (and unless God intervenes there will be a lot of stinking dead bodies to bury). I am not sure what or who they will rule over, since only the really good people are being saved, but then look what a terrible thing Noah’s son Ham did to his drunken, naked father. and given that curse of Ham, is it any wonder that Obama will be denied a second term? I wonder if having a socialist in the Oval Office, not to mention that God must have known that France would also just elect another socialist and the Commie Putin would sweep to victory again, was the final straw for the great God Jehovah.

Regarding this new date, pre-Mayan it would seem, both my gut and thinking part of my brain are skeptical, but it is only fair to reproduce the argument here so you as an educated reader can decide for yourself. So take a look at this:

Continue reading Googling the End of the World →

With Baldensperger in Palestine #1

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bible and Holy Land, Orientalism, Palestine, Travel


The land currently contested by Israelis and Palestinians has a long history of being contested. In the 19th century, when the area was under Ottoman control, several foreign missionaries settled in the land where Jesus walked. Philip J. Baldensperger, born in 1856, was the son of an Alsatian missionary living near Jerusalem. As a boy who grew up in Palestine, he learned first hand many of the customs and wrote his observations down. His magnum opus is The Immovable East, published in 1913, and available for free as a pdf at archive.org. I attach here the introduction to the work by the bibliophilic Frederic Lees. The pictures are well worth looking at the text, which is a fun read with banal Orientalist trimmings of an area where politics rules the day as never before.

Continue reading With Baldensperger in Palestine #1 →

Chrislam: Reinventing an Apocalyptic Neologism

Apocalypse Watch, Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia


Forget Huntington’s politically incoherent “Clash of Civilizations” and move over Eurabia and Islamofascism, there is yet another neologism in the Islamophobisphere (Okay, this is one of my own…). This is “Chrislam,” and for Christ’s sake (both the sacred and the profane uses of this phrase), no less. Among other end-timers, the expectant folks over at Rapture Ready have uncovered a diabolical (quite literally for these folks) plot to merge Christianity and Islam. It could be suspected of being Satanic for the simple fact that the plot takes place at Ivy League (and thus white-sepulchered) Yale University. Here is the post from one Joseph Chambers:

RICK WARREN, CHRISLAM AND THE YALE UNIVERSITY COVENANT

I NOW HAVE THE OFFICIAL YALE UNIVERSITY COVENANT SIGNED BY RICK WARREN. This is proof positive that he is a signed partner in promoting the Covenant between Islam and our Jehovah God as one God now named “Chrislam”. I’m simply printing for you the entire covenant and also coping his and other name from this document. Below is the exact list directly from the web page itself. Please note the underlined names mentioned here, and on the radio program: Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, Brian D. McLaren an David Yonggi Cho. Check the list for other names you might be familiar with. There are hubdreds of ministers thet may inlude your Pastor or leaders in your denominations. Check the large list of names on this offocial list from Yale. http://www.yale.edu/faith/acw/acw.htm

In the spirit of the Prophet Daniel, Mr. Chambers is tackling the end times by the horns (big and little for those who read Daniel), although I suspect Daniel’s Aramaic is more grammatical than Chamber’s English. Or is it that spell checks are also an invention of the Devil, not that Microsoft isn’t a prime candidate for the Lucifer of the moment? Continue reading Chrislam: Reinventing an Apocalyptic Neologism →

Tabsir Redux: Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #7

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Bible and Holy Land, Israel, Palestine, Photography


Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 137


Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 133

The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). As might be expected, a large part of the atlas is devoted to Jerusalem. Here are two century old pictures, one of the Dome of the Rock and the other a view of the Garden of Gethsemane looking toward an uncluttered landscape beneath the old city walls of Jerusalem.

[Tabsir Redux is a reposting of earlier posts on the blog, since memories are fickle and some things deserve a second viewing. This post was originally made on October 26, 2010.]

For the love of Jesus

Bible and Holy Land, Danish Cartoon Controversy, Ethics, Food and Drink, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Muhammad


There are a number of issues on which Christians and Muslims agree, despite the historical antagonism that Islamophobia and Sectarianophobia perpetuate. For example, boycotting the power drink “Red Bull” in South Africa. A recent ad showed Jesus walking on the water after he drank “Red Bull”, stepping gingerly on the rocks that he could see beneath his feet in the water. The only miracle was in the drink, if you follow the ad. While the advertisers did not expect people to take the ad literally, gulp down their “Red Bull” and promenade without their water skis, the premise of the ad indeed denies the miracle, a denial that many Christians accept post-Hume with little problem. As reported in The Washington Post and picked up by a number of Muslim media outlets, such as Cii, South Africa’s Roman Catholic hierarchy told the faithful to give up “Red Bull” for Lent. And then, South Africa’s Muslim Judicial Council, in solidarity, joined the boycott by saying that an affront to the Prophet Issa (Jesus) is an affront to Muslims.

From the Catholic perspective, at least one that focuses less on “turn the other cheek” and more on “Get thee behind me, Satan,” the moral outrage is understandable. Think of a possible amendment to the catechism as follows:

Question: “What would Jesus do if a television commercial made fun of his miracles?
Answer: “If you believe that Jesus walked on “Red Bull”, then render unto “Red Bull”, but if you believe Jesus walked on water, then don’t drink this whited sepulcher of a beverage during Lent. Remember that at the wedding in Cana Jesus turned the water into wine, not “Red Bull.”

Although I have not found any specific news accounts, I suspect that the Bible-believer missionaries will forego “Red Bull” as well, even if they don’t hold fast to the Lenten fast.

But the fact that a major Muslim organization in South Africa has joined in condemnation of the ad is a cautious welcome sign, no matter what you think of the ad itself. Continue reading For the love of Jesus →

The Druze, a “singular people”

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Lebanon, Travel


The current Islamophobia that sees states trying to adopt anti-sharia laws and painting Islam in the monocolored rhetoric of violent jihadism has a long history. So has the interest in converting those people in the Middle East who did not follow the kind of Christianity of the American and European missionaries. The Ottomans, who controlled much of the region up until the end of World War I, were rather tolerant in allowing Christian missionaries to operate in the Holy Land. I recently came across a little pamphlet published in 1853 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, based in Boston. This was a series that targeted young people. The first part of the issue I have is about the Druze, characterized as a “singular people” who may or may not actually have a religion. I attach the brief item here.



Worldwide Association for the Study of Religion

Anthropology/Sociology, Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Judaism, Scholars, Sufism


Whatever you think about “religion,” you must admit that “religion” is not something that can be avoided. There are countries where a person has little choice but to accept the dominant religion imposed and there are places where one can shop for religion more easily than clothes. As an anthropologist I accept the fact not only that we have evolved (even if Darwin did not start a religion) and that all members of Homo sapiens that have been encountered and studied have something that deserves to be called “religion,” even if only in the minimalist sense of Victorian Quaker Edward Tylor that religion is at bottom a belief in spirits. There are many religions out there and several important scholarly organizations devoted to the study of religion in one way or another, but add a new one to the mix.

Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci, founder of the journal Contemporary Islam, has formed the Worldwide Association for the Study of Religion (WASR perhaps for those who like acronyms) If you do not have a Facebook account, join the Wiki.

This group is open to scholars studying religion or with an interest in religion and aims to develop a worldwide association accessible to any scholar or student wherever they might live. This is a working group to develop ideas and the structure for this new association, which aims also to remove the gap between scholars working in developing countries and those in the West. This group is open to scholars studying religion or with an interest in religion and aims to develop a worldwide association accessible to any scholar or student wherever they might live. As scholars the goal of the association to study religion in all its forms and not to lobby for any particular religion or even for the absence of religion. This is a working group to develop ideas and the structure for this new association, which aims also to remove the gap between scholars working in developing countries and those in the West.

As Marranci notes, his effort is not to replace organizations like the American Academy of Religion, but to expand the network of scholars who study religion worldwide. With the Internet and Skype, scholars are no longer captive to meeting colleagues at professional meetings, important as these remain. Feel free to join today and tell your friends.

On Facebook; you can request joining (which is free) by clicking here. You can also join via the Wiki.

Tabsir Redux: With Kitto Illustrating Bible History

Bible and Holy Land, Lithographs, Orientalism, Orientalist Images

As a child I spent many inquisitive hours leafing through the books in my grandmother’s parlor bookcase. One that especially attracted my attention was John Kitto’s An Illustrated History of the Holy Bible (Social Circle, Georgia: E. Nebhut, 1871). Rev. John Kitto, recognized on the title page as author of the London Pictorial Bible, the Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, ETC, ETC, retells the entire history of the Old and New Testament, from creation to the destruction of Jerusalem. Kitto was born into poverty in 1804 in Plymouth, England and due to an unfortunate accident ate age thirteen became entirely deaf and was forced into the poor house at the age of fifteen. This is quite an inauspicious beginning for a waif who went on to be a respected theological scholar. Through the local humanitarian efforts of several men in Plymouth, Kitto became a lay missionary to Malta and then for three and a half years in Baghdad. “While residing in that city,” writes Alvan Bond in the preface to Kitto’s book, Cairo “was visited by the plague, the terrific ravages of which swept off more than one-half the inhabitants in two months. Amidst this fearful desolation he remained calm and active at his post.” Once back in England he married and produced a travel account and several pictorial histories of the Holy Land. In 1844 the University of Giessen conferred upon him the degree of D.D. His ill health forced him to seek help in the spas of Germany, where he died after a mere half century in 1854. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: With Kitto Illustrating Bible History →