Category Archives: Bible and Holy Land

Discounting on Apocalypse

Apocalypse Watch, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Luke R. E. Publican


There is the real world which we see nightly on the news, even if filtered through journalistic hubris in which people are killed, maimed, maligned and the gamut of human interaction. Then there are the “prophets” who keep cropping (usually crapping) up with visions of impending doom. The recent prayer event that Rick Perry attended was organized by some of the most bizarre religionists in our country. As noted on yesterday’s Fresh Aire, some individuals are crusading a brand of “spiritual warfare” that comes close to the real thing. These include what most normal people, including the vast majority of Evangelical Christians, would call nut cases: charismatic preachers who claim visions from God, but somehow need more money to get the vision across.

I visited one of these “prophet” sites of a fellow named Sid Roth. He looks like the kind of guy who you would meet at a Jewish Community Center and his site is all about Jews, that is all about how to convert Jews to his version of Christianity. You have to wonder about a flashy website that has a banner declaring “It’s supernatural!” as a registered trademark. There is also that “Messianic Vision”, which is blind to what most Christians believe and certainly to just about everything rational in the world today. One thing that is all over the site is the “Donate Now” prompt. However, I do find it ironic that one of the DVDs for sale at a discount is entitled “Will America Survive 2011?” Is it being discounted so more people will buy and view it (which I somehow doubt as a financial move) or because thus far it is surviving and probably will, so why not try to unload the DVDs now. Indeed there are people stupid enough in our land that will buy this DVD after 2011, just as those who predict the end of the world (or think it already ended) always keep a few followers.

A short surf of some of the sites on the network of media prophets came up not only with Sid (I do wish he were a professional comedian with that first name) but with a Faisal Malick, a Muslim who converted to Christianity and now tries to convert Muslims with slick media programs. Continue reading Discounting on Apocalypse →

Be careful what you pray for

Anthropology/Sociology, Bible and Holy Land, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity


Today’s New York Times contains a commentary by Timothy Egan on “Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers.” Perry, who today is declaring his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, has been governor of Texas since his predecessor George W. Bush left that office to become president. Despite the fact that both Bush and Perry wear religion on their sleeve, the front of their chest, indeed on just about every bit of clothing (I am not sure about tattoos), both seem to have a poor record of getting their God to do their bidding. Unless this God west of the Pecos has a wicked sense of humor, I think the debacle of the Iraq War is an answer only to the prayers of arms dealers and Blackwater International. But Perry has no problem putting the ball (like the economy or the drought in Texas) in Jehovah’s court. Last April he declared a three-day prayer for rain. Not a drop has fallen since. Now he thinks the time is ripe for another Texas governor to run for president. Let us all hope he does not have a prayer.

I mention this goobernatorial prayer fiasco as a contrast to an istisqā’ (Islamic prayer for rain) that I witnessed in the highlands of Yemen in the spring of 1979. At that time, when I was conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a highland valley full of tribesmen and women (with nary a terrorist in sight, as is the case today), the usual spring rains were late in coming. There is within Islam a specific prayer that the community can offer up to Allah in times of drought. I have no way of knowing whether Allah has a better track record of sending rain than Jehovah does in Texas, but here is my own experience. Continue reading Be careful what you pray for →

Lithographica Biblica

Bible and Holy Land, Lithographs

In the latter part of the 19th century there were many illustrated Bibles. One of these was a 35-part series (25 cents each) called The Child’s Bible with 220 New and Original Illustrations and published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin of New York in the 1870s. A fuller version of the illustrations was sold as a single book and parts of that are documented online. My grandmother ended up with several of the series and I reproduce above and below two of the illustrations.

Tabsir Redux: The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus?

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Lithographs, Palestine, Travel


Jaffa from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”

Almost 150 years ago one of the most popular travel accounts of the Holy Land was penned by an American missionary named William M. Thomson. Born in Ohio, my own home state, the 28-year old Thomson and his young bride arrived in Lebanon in 1834 as Protestant missionaries. This was a mere 15 or so years after the first American missionaries had made the Holy Land a mission field. At once an entertaining travel account and Sunday School commentary on the places and people of the Bible, this may have been one the most widely read books ever written by a Protestant missionary.

Reading Thomson is like reading one of the early English novels. The language is less familiar, although still thoroughly Yankee and the devotional tone has long since disappeared for a readership buying out The Da Vinci Code as soon as it hit the bookstores. The biblical exegesis, literalist yet frankly pragmatic at times, is intertwined with astute and at times humorous accounts of the people Thomson met along the way. But the style is not at all dry or discouragingly didactic. From the start Thomson engages in a dialogue with the reader, making the text (which stretches over 700 pages in the 1901 version) a rhetorical trip in itself.

Here is one of the forgotten books of a couple generations back. Easily dismissed as an Orientalist book, in the sense propounded and confounded by Edward Said, it is nevertheless a very good read. With this post I begin a series to sample the anecdotes and local color presented by Rev. Thomson. The times have indeed changed, but such textual forays into the night reading of a previous generation of Americans are well worth the effort. Let’s begin with the author’s own invitation. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus? →

dilly dally, ya Ali

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Bible and Holy Land, Yemen


Rembrandt’s ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ (1635)

Mene mene tekal upharsin. Some two and a half millennia ago it did not take King Belshazzar of Babylon too long to get this Aramaic message. Here is the gist, as recorded in the biblical book of Daniel (5:25-28):

And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

The ink on this populist uprising, with over 100 days of signs held aloft in Yemeni protests saying “irhal ya Ali”, has long since dried and Ali Abdullah Salih has been dilly dallying all along. The latest deal, brokered by the GCC with the U.S. and E.U. seals of approval, was signed yesterday by the opposition parties and Salih was supposed to sign today. Continue reading dilly dally, ya Ali →

Are you ready for May 22, 2011?

Apocalypse Watch, Luke R. E. Publican


If you are reading this post today, one of two things may happen in the next day (May 21, 2011): (A) the Rapture will occur and you will not be chosen, or (B) the Rapture will be miscalculated yet again. I suppose the Rapture could happen and no one will be chosen; things are rather evil these days so maybe this time the Godhead will be totally pissed off and we are all on our way to hellfire and brimstone.

So let’s assume, for insanity’s sake, that it is option B. Move over Bishop Ussher, the alpha and the omega have been revised again. Bishop Ussher was the Irish prelate who in 1654 published a tract that calculated the creation of the world commencing October 23, 4004 BCE. This was the date that became embedded in many editions of the KJV, although there were other counts of the biblical begats that came up with different dates. You would think that a loving God would at least give his creation an exact time rather than this “one day is as a thousand years” nonsense. Bishop Ussher sure thought that.

Now one of the current daze of judgment scenarios making the rounds among bibliolaters of this age is for May 21, 2011, tomorrow by my reckoning, but I do hope God is using the Gregorian and not the Julian calendar. The folks at ebiblefellowship.com have pushed creation back to 11,013 BC, bumped the birth of Jesus back to 7 BC, initiated the “great tribulation” back in 1988 (the year the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was released) and now predict the rapture for May 21, 2011. I, for one, will be checking their website on May 22 to see what I might have missed, since I do not have reservations myself for the Last Trump (and I do not mean the Donald). I can’t even get Broadway tickets for “The Book of Mormon” before mid-June. Continue reading Are you ready for May 22, 2011? →

Darwinism (but not a woman’s body) exposed in France

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Turkey


[Webshaykh’s Note: The pseudoscientific nonsense of Harun Yahya has upended the recent burqa controversy. It is one thing to cover one’s body from head to toe, and quite another to cover one’s mind from the consensus of all contemporary science. In a sense arguing that only atheists accept “evolution” is not unlike those who insist that a woman’s body must be totally taken out of view. Both do a disservice to Islam by only encouraging the negative stereotyping so prevalent against Muslims in the West.]

Muslim creationists tour France denouncing Darwin
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor, Reuters, May 16, 2011

AUBERVILLIERS, France (Reuters) – Four years after they first frightened France, Muslim creationists are back touring the country preaching against evolution and claiming the Koran predicted many modern scientific discoveries.

Followers of Harun Yahya, a well-financed Turkish publisher of popular Islamic books, held four conferences at Muslim centers in the Paris area at the weekend with more scheduled in six other cities.

At a Muslim junior high school in this north Paris suburb, about 100 pupils — boys seated on the right, girls on the left — listened as two Turks from Harun Yahya’s headquarters in Istanbul denounced evolution as a theory Muslims should shun.

“We didn’t descend from the apes,” lecturer Ali Sadun told the giggling youngsters. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he said, was “the scientific basis to defend atheism.” Continue reading Darwinism (but not a woman’s body) exposed in France →

Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat

Apocalypse Watch, Islam and Christianity

Most people find it hard to take cartoons seriously, apart from political satire and that can become a deadly issue, depending on the target. Given the recent Danish cartoon controversy it would seem that comics and religion do not mix well or at least settle well for the believers who see themselves as the target. But what about comic relief for the political struggle between Israel and the Palestinians? Fundamentalist tract artist Jack Chick, whose comic empire is dedicated to winning souls for Christ by drawing on God’s hate, has been using his pen to spread a rather nasty version of the Gospel for over 40 years. One of his more recent offerings is called “The Squatters” and it provides a virtual roadmap to apocalypse. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat →