Welcomes
New Testament Resources Blog – from the makers of AKMA

Cults
Kabbalah is in the news.

New details about life inside the sect favoured by Madonna and Guy Ritchie are revealed today. An undercover investigation into the controversial Kabbalah Centre movement found a series of questionable claims by its leaders.

“Healing” spring water sold to followers for nearly £4 a bottle comes from a Canadian bottling plant.
One cancer sufferer was told Kabbalah water would help to cure his disease and was advised to buy a batch worth £550.

Cash raised by donors for the Asian tsunami victims is being spent on distributing Kabbalah Centre products in the devastated region.

A leading figure at the centre believes Jews killed in the Holocaust brought their downfall on themselves.

Ouch. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a Kabbalist, where they blew up at me about Kabbalism NOT being a cult. Heh.

Interesting
Joe Carter is talking about Intelligent Design.

Paul – the Musical?

Charles Myricks Jr. estimates it has taken him five years to write the songs for Paul, the musical that premieres in Akron this week.

Accumulating the personal and industry experience to take this ambitious stab at popular success has taken his whole life.

Just spend a few minutes in Myricks’ orbit one night at the Arlington Church of God, watching as the versatile songwriter/producer sings a line to demonstrate, then takes his place at the piano with the rest of the band. Talk with him and it’s quickly apparent that his experience in sales, marketing and management plays as important a role in this show as his musical expertise and his theological degree.

Myricks hopes that Paul, running at Greystone Hall from Friday through Sunday, will move out into a national market. “Jesus Christ Superstar has been out for 30-odd years and nothing’s come up behind it in the same way. I think Paul can come up behind it. You take the same production values of Superstar and put those production values with Paul and, bang! Paul is like Superstar, if it had been written now, in an African-American idiom.”

Just as a tip, Mr. Myricks – using “Jesus Christ, Superstar” as your “lead-in” wasn’t entirely bright.

Interesting? Yes. Smart? We’ll see.

News and Commentary
It seems that The Society of Biblical Literature just called “values voters” “homophobic”. How’s that for a shocker?

The Society of Biblical Literature, which is the largest international, professional association of teachers and scholars of the Bible, calls attention to the fact that the values so prominently and divisively raised in this 2004 U.S. election are not major concerns in the Bible, and in fact are not even directly addressed in the Bible. Rather, they tend to reflect the underlying problems of homophobia, misogyny, control of reproductive rights, and restraint of expression (including scientific research) in U.S. society today.

Ralph takes them to the woodshed. (Good job!)

(Just for the curious… here’s a little taste of the “mood” over there.)

Conservatives had their historical fantasy last spring in the theaters. Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was a great example of the same mesmerizing formula, the other side of this two-headed coin. Remember how he looked Diane Sawyer in the eye and told her, “I know how it really went down.” Here, the ideology — anti-Semitism — achieves its transcendent status in the age-old weave of Jewish recalcitrance in the face of God’s offer of eternal salvation. But here was Gibson’s genius: Aramaic. Just a little pinch of history to make it all really real. “It was just like you were there, seeing the events as they really happened!” a young viewer gushes. “But Mel, you’re making this up. These things aren’t even in the Bible!” Artistic license. But, “I know how it really went down.” Wink.

Link to the full article.
Barf. I’m not very surprised at the survey Ralph mentions, now. Double friggin barf. THIS is the largest example of Biblical scholars and teachers of the Bible?

See, friends – THIS is why I’m so “on fire” about Apologetics. We need apologetics – to counter CRAP like the spew above. Yes, Virginia – I do have my name for a reason. I tend to be… cutting.

Or, for the following reason:

according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can’t be bothered to read what he has to say.

HT: Biblical Theology – from an LA times article.

Found Today
A blog called Hypotyposeis. Interesting blog.