The Bible and The Question

 The Bible

Have you been watching History Channel’s “The Bible”?  I guess HC is teaming up with Hollywood to produce both The Bible and the Viking series.  Hopefully HC can supply a Bible since they couldn’t find one in Hollywood. Something non-historians aren’t aware of is that a fad of explaining all history as economic took over in the 1950’s.  While there were good aspects of this—for too long history had neglected economic effects—it warps what is taught in public schools.  For example, the reason cited behind the American Revolutionary War of Independence is “no taxation without representation.”  But in reality, that was just one of many grievances of the colonists.  And a minor one at that.  Most of the reasons cited in the Declaration of Independence were what we would call abuses of power. The result of this bias of historians is that you can’t find a historian who is conversant in faith.  Read some of the old timers like Will Durant and you’ll be amazed at how much he understood the faith/piety/church issues of say, the Reformation.

The Bible has some pretty cool Hollywood effects. When Moses puts his staff in the Red Sea and it parts, this is the best special effect you have ever seen.  The swordfights are realistic. The acting is first class. And some of the ways they short-circuit stories to get them shoehorned into time allowed is plumb clever, like Noah explaining creation while the ark rocks over the waves.   But there is little noteworthy of the real faith that propelled the people involved.  We get Abraham rescuing Lot but not Abraham’s Covenant.  Nowhere is Grace.  Nowhere is forgiveness.  The Bible purports that what we believe is more like an allegiance to God. And a few characters have mysterious voices in their heads.  The undeserved kindness of God in saving Israel from slavery or saving Rahab from her own paganism isn’t addressed. 

And then most curiously, Sodom and Gomorrah are given Act III but the part about the Sodomites wanting homosexual rape of Lot’s guests, the angels, is not mentioned whatsoever.  They were right there with the story but left out the modus operandi, the punch line, the reason for why Sodom was considered vile, and the root word of “Sodomy”.  Maybe Hollywood just thought Sodom only wanted gay marriage, eh?

 

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz

Three cheers for Senator Rand Paul for filibustering Brennan over the administration’s lack of committment over drone killings.  And three more for Sen. Ted Cruz for buttonholing Holder until he got an answer to that question.  If a US Citizen poses no imminent threat, can they be killed by a drone without due process of trial?  Seems like a no-brainer to say NO.  Most of us would say that.  If you say yes, you might make note that to deny trial without jury is not only a violation of the Constitution, it goes back to the Magna Carta’s guarantees of human rights.  Why anybody would hesitate seems mysterious—unless they plan a dictatorial move.  So then if a suspect is in his mountain cabin yet poses “no imminent threat” can the government drone him without trial?  Holder finally said it was unconstitutional but still didn’t say if our government would or would not attempt it.  

            And concerning the guts of Paul and Cruz, I stand with Rand.  We're led by Ted.