Indonesian Catholics Put To Death

This post is a follow-up to my post of September 19, 2006 about the three Indonesian Catholics who were accused of inciting violence between Muslims and Christians in 2000.

The Baptist Press in its edition of September 22 is reporting that the three Indonesian Catholics accused of causing riots between Muslims and Christians we put to death by firing squad amid doubts of guilt.

The following is an excerpt of the news report published by the Baptist Press:


PALU, Indonesia (BP)--Three Catholics accused of masterminding a 2000 riot between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia were executed by firing squad at an undisclosed location in the island nation's Central Sulawesi province Sept. 22, the Jakarta Post reported.

Government sources said Fabnianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu had admitted their roles in religious violence, but doubt has surfaced in both Christian and Muslim circles about their guilt. Even Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, called for a stay of execution the day before the death sentences were carried out, the newspaper reported.

Wahid said the executions were "against Islam," but that Attorney General Abdurrahman Saleh insisted on moving forward with the executions "because he doesn't understand religion."

"In hadis (Muslim tradition), if there is doubt, in this case if the prosecutor has any doubt, don't do it," Wahid said. "It's just that the attorney general did not pay attention to religion."

The men, called "Christian militants" by the paper, were the only individuals executed in a long-term conflict that ran from 1998 to 2002 between Muslims and Christians in the volatile Poso area of the Sulawesi province. Government sources previously cited the number of Muslim dead in the 2000 riot the men allegedly caused at near 1,000, but AsiaNews and the Jakarta Post put the number between 70 and 200.

In addition to claiming that Tibo, da Silva and Riwu did not organize the violence against Muslims, advocates for the men protested the fact that few Muslims were charged with any offenses during the fighting that took place between the two groups from '98-'02. More than 10,000 Christians in Indonesia died at the hands of Muslims during the conflict, according to International Christian Concern, a Christian human rights organization based in Washington, D.C.

To read the news report in its entirety, click here.

This is a sad story.  As Christians, we must pray for Christians around the world who are being oppressed and persecuted.

They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They [were] persecuted and mistreated–the world was not worthy of them (Hebrews 11:37-38).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Free Old Testament Course at Yale

Yale University is announcing that it will offer a free Old Testament course on line.

In a report by Reuters and published in The Washington Post on Wednesday, September 20, 2006, Yale University announced that it will be offering a series of lectures on the Old Testament for free on the Internet.  

The following is the report published in The Washington Post:

Yale University said on Wednesday it will offer digital videos of some courses on the Internet for free, along with transcripts in several languages, in an effort to make the elite private school more accessible.

While Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others already offer course material online without charge, Yale is the first to focus on free video lectures, the New Haven, Connecticut-based school said.

The 18-month pilot project will provide videos, syllabi and transcripts for seven courses beginning in the 2007 academic year.  The courses cannot be counted toward a Yale degree, and educators say they are no substitute for actual teaching.

Among the courses being offered on the Internet, one is an “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and another is an “Introduction to Political Philosophy.”

This is good news.  People who love the Old Testament will be able to enrich their knowledge of the Old Testament by taking this course on line.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

The Pope and the Muslims

The words of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, 2006 have caused much controversy and have offended the sensibility of the Muslims around the world.

As a result of the Pope’s speech, Muslims leaders called for the death of the Pope, a nun was shot dead in Somalia by Islamic gunmen and two West Bank Christian churches were hit by firebombs.

The Muslim world has protested widely against the Pope’s speech. In London, a group of Muslims carried placards attacking the Pope with words such as "Pope go to Hell." Others protested outside a Roman Catholic Church waving slogans aimed at offending the sentiments of Christians such as "Jesus is the slave of Allah.”

Even in American, some people have criticized the Pope and condemned the God of Christianity for being a violent God. Some have even asked for an apology from the Pope.

What is the most amazing thing in all this reaction against the Pope’s speech is that most of the people criticizing the Pope have never actually read the Pope’s speech. Most of what they know about the speech is what they have heard from others or what they have seen on television.

Below is an excerpt of the Pope’s speech and the section that has offended the sensibility of the Muslim world. Read the text of the Pope’s speech and judge carefully what the Pope said.

That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor.

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an.

It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation [text unclear] edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion".

According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident.

But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

When the Pope’s words are read in the context of the complete text of his speech, the words are not offensive. What do you think?

To read the complete text of the speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, 2006, click here or here.

To read the statement of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey supporting the Pope on Islam and violence, click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Pope, Pope’s Speech , Muslims, Islam

Obesity, Religion, and the Baptists

Baptists are obese!

This is the conclusion of a new report by Purdue University sociologist Ken Ferraro, the director of the Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue. The results of his study were published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. According to his study, churches are promoting gluttony and contributing to the obesity of their members.

According to an article published in the Chicago Tribune, Ferraro said: We're not saying all religions are the same or all religions are hazardous to one's health, but some elements of religious life are associated with higher levels of obesity.

The article in the Chicago Tribune says:

Baptists (including Southern Baptist, North American and fundamentalist) suffered from the highest rate of obesity, even after controlling for geography. One possible explanation is that alcohol and tobacco use is discouraged, so parishioners turn to the last acceptable vice: food.

Education and race are thought to be key parts of the explanation.

People with limited education are more likely to be obese and are more likely to be affiliated with Baptist or fundamentalist religious groups, according to the study.

Too, African-Americans are more likely to be obese and also more likely to be affiliated with those groups. But it doesn't explain the whole picture. Ferraro said they found black and white women use religious media in similar ways. "You can't just dismiss it solely due to class and race," Ferraro said. "The same relationship exists for low- and higher-status women."

In his report Ferraro studied the problem of obesity in different religious traditions and in different denominations in America. According to Ferraro’s study, this is how different religious traditions and denominations fared in percentage of members found to be obese:

Baptist, 30 percent

Fundamentalist Protestant (including Church of Christ, Pentecostal/Assembly of God, Church of God), 22 percent

Pietistic Protestant (including Methodist, Christian Church, African Methodist Episcopal), 19 percent

Catholic, 17 percent

Reformation-Era Protestant, 9 percent

No religion, 7 percent

Non-denominational Protestant, 5 percent

Non-traditionalist (including Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon, Seventh-day Adventists and Christian Scientist), 3 percent

Jewish, 1 percent

Other non-Christian (including Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists), 0.7 percent

Read the Chicago Tribune’s article in its entirety by clicking here.

These numbers are revealing. First, this study shows what most of us already know: that obesity is a growing concern in our society that has taken the characteristics of becoming an epidemic.

Second, since Christians believe that their body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” then the church can also teach about the healthy eating choices that members should make for themselves.

Pastors and church leaders have a role to play in helping congregations become communities that support and encourage members to make healthy choices for themselves and their families.

In an article titled “Slimming Down the Body of Christ,” published in ChristianityToday.com, Randy Robison wrote:

A new movement of Christian health experts says the church's witness is compromised when it forgets the importance of physical fitness.

He also wrote:

One of the biggest health crises in the U.S. these days is what has been dubbed "the obesity epidemic." According to the Center for Disease Control, two out of three American adults (about 65 percent) are overweight, and a quick inventory of the bodies in the pews and pulpits of America reveals that the church is far from exempt.

If churches are contributing to the obesity epidemic among its members, maybe it is time to curtail the amount of fried chicken and baked beans served at the church potluck, and stop serving doughnuts, pastries, and sweets after Sunday services.

The Bible says that Eglon, the king of Moab, was a very fat man (Judges 3:17). And so was the wicked, whose face is covered with fat and whose waist bulges with flesh (Job 15:27). But Christians don’t have to be that fat.

Dr. Cris Enriquez, medical director of the Rapha Health Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wrote:
As temples of the Holy Spirit, to neglect the health of our bodies is to disobey God. [God] desires us to care for our health-spirit, soul, and body.

Christians should teach and practice healthy living. They also should exercise one of the most beautiful gifts of the Spirit: the gift of self-control (Galatians 5:23)

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Obesity, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Eglon, Ken Ferraro, Randy Robison

Three Christians to Be Executed in Indonesian on Thursday

The Baptist Press, in its September 19, 2006 edition, is reporting that three Catholic men in Indonesia are scheduled to be executed on Thursday. According to the report,

The men were accused of inciting violence between Muslims and Christians in 2000 that led to the deaths of some 1,000 people in the Poso port region of Sulawesi island.

According to an earlier news release from ICC, Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva admitted their role in the violence, but were the only three persons charged in a five-year-long conflict between Muslims and Christians on the island nation.

All three were convicted and sentenced to die Aug. 12 by firing squad, but the Vatican, ICC and other human rights organizations and the European Union protested the convictions. ICC, for example, targeted inequities in the Indonesian justice system between Muslims and Christians.

Attorney General Mohammad Yahya Sibe stayed the executions in August because of the international pressure, but he and the area police chief both were relieved of their duties after the decision. Tibo, Riwu and da Silva recently appealed their conviction and sentencing once more, but that appeal, which should have taken months to process, has fallen on deaf ears.

ICC spokesman Jeremy Sewell said the three Catholics are being sent to their deaths to placate radical Muslims in Indonesia who are upset over the conviction and scheduled execution of three Islamic militants in connection with the Bali bombings in October 2002. In all, the bombing claimed 202 lives and injured another 209 people from 22 different countries. Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical group with ties to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack that killed seven Americans.

“The Indonesian government is sacrificing true justice to provide ‘balance’ by executing these three Christians,” Sewell, an ICC policy analyst, said. “This is not justice. This is deception, cover-up and appeasement.”

Read the complete report by clicking here.

The execution of these three men will exacerbate the situation between Christians and Muslims. Recent criticisms against the Pope and the call by Muslim radicals for the Pope’s death have widened the chasm that divides the two religious groups.

Unless Muslim clerics intervene and contain the violence among radical Muslims, the struggle between Islam and Christianity will continue. This confrontation may lead to what a writer recently called “the new war between Christianity and Islam.”

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Persecution, Muslims, Pope

The Irish Book of Psalms

Martin McNamara has written an extensive article describing the discovery of the Irish Book of Psalms found in an Irish bog and its significance to the early Irish church. The article was published in the SBL Forum and is available on line. The following is an introduction to McNamara’s article.

Initial Report of the Find

On 25th July 2006 the National Museum of Ireland issued a press release on a "Significant Discovery of Ancient Manuscript" made on July 20. Points made in the press release were: "One of the most significant discoveries in decades and one unique in European and World archaeology has just been reported to the National Museum of Ireland. In discovery terms this . . . is being hailed by the Museum's experts as the greatest find ever from a European bog. Fragments of what appear to be an ancient Psalter or Book of Psalms were uncovered by a bulldozer in a bog in the south Midlands. It is impossible to say how the manuscript ended up in the bog. It may have been lost in transit or dumped after a raid, possibly more than a thousand to twelve hundred years ago." The Director of the National Museum of Ireland, Dr. Pat Wallace, commented that "it is not so much the fragments themselves, but what they represent, that is of such staggering importance. In my wildest hopes, I could only have dreamed of a discovery as fragile and rare as this. It testifies to the incredible richness of the Early Christian civilization of this island and to the greatness of ancient Ireland." The find has even been compared with that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The pages recovered appear to be those of a slim, large format book with a wraparound vellum or leather cover from which the book block has slipped. Raghnall Ó. Floinn, Head of Collections at the Museum, estimates that there are about forty-five letters per line and a maximum of forty lines per page. While part of Ps 83 is legible, the extent to which other Psalms or additional texts are preserved will only be determined by painstaking work by a team of invited experts probably operating over a long time in the Museum laboratory. Dr Bernard Meehan, Head of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, has seen the discovery and has been invited to advise on the context and background of the manuscript, its production, and its time. He reckons that this is the first discovery of an Irish Early Medieval manuscript in two centuries. Initial impressions place the composition date of the manuscript at about 800 AD. How soon after this date it was lost we may never know.

The Ps 83 intended in the press release was that of the Vulgate numbering, not of the Hebrew Text or modern translations. This led to a certain misunderstanding as the psalm was understood in some press reports as dealing with "wiping out of Israel" (Ps 83 in Hebrew numbering). A later Museum press release on 27th July clarified the matter.

Another Museum report, published in the Irish national press on Saturday 5th August, gave further information on the find. More fragments of an ancient manuscript concealed in a Co. Tipperary bog over one thousand years ago with a view to later recovery, have been found by the National Museum of Ireland. The discoveries also include a fine leather pouch in which the manuscript was originally kept. Museum experts have excavated the site [now more precisely identified as] at Faddan More, in north Tipperary (near the town of Birr, in Co. Offaly), since the discovery of the manuscript in July. The report also said archaeologists and conservators had completed excavation of the area where the ancient manuscript was found. The site was excavated over seven days by archaeologists and conservators from the National Museum of Ireland. "Part of a fine leather pouch in which the book was kept originally was recovered as well as other small fragments of the manuscript and its cover. The investigation results suggest the owner concealed the book deliberately, perhaps with a view to its later recovery," the statement noted. All the excavated material is now being conserved and analysed in the National Museum of Ireland and samples of the peat surrounding the find spot have been sent for specialist analysis. The report noted that the area around Faddan More bog is rich in medieval history. Of particular relevance are important monastic foundations such as Lorrha and Terryglass in Co. Tipperary and Birr and Seirkieran in Co. Offaly, which are located nearby. A leather satchel was found in the same bog six years ago and has been radiocarbon dated to between the seventh and ninth centuries AD.

In the remainder of his article, McNamara discusses the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and the significance of the Psalms in the early Irish church. This is a very informative article that provides valuable information on this important finding.

To read the entire article, visit the SBL Forum by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Psalms, Irish Psalms

Sight: A Wonderful Gift from God

After a few days off for our annual Faculty retreat and for my cataract surgery, I am back to my regular schedule. Our classes begin next Monday, a week from today. It is good to be back again on a regular schedule.

While I was preparing to have eye surgery, and even after my surgery, I thought about the story of the man born blind, narrated in John 9. It is amazing how we take the gift of sight for granted. To a person born blind, the gift of sight is an extraordinary gift that cannot even be imagined.

Those who are blind do not know the beauty of God’s world except in their thoughts; all they know comes by touch, by what they hear, and by the use of their other senses. How sad it is for those deprived of sight never to have been able to see the blue heaven when the sun is shining in the sky. To them the blue heaven is like something that could almost be touched by hands and yet they may never be able to understand how distant it is.

How can we explain to a blind person the twinkling of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, the white clouds in the skies, the majesty of the rainbow, the flash of lightning, and the multicolored butterflies?

How can one conceive in one’s mind the shape of people’s faces, the snail crawling on the ground, or a bird flying in the sky? How can one explain to people born blind the difference between night and day, light and darkness when their days are always nights and their light always darkness?

Those who have never seen clouds in the sky, trees with all their green leaves, flowers in all their colors, the innocent smile of a baby, the dew of early morning, the full moon shining in the skies cannot fully grasp what a wonderful gift the gift of sight is.

Old age, little by little, weakens our eyes to the beauty of God’s creation. How fortunate is the person, who like Moses, can live to be seventy or eighty years of age and still have good eyesight. When Moses died, he was a hundred and twenty years old; his eyes were not weak and his eyesight was clear and strong (Deuteronomy 34:7).

In ancient days, many people lost their eyesight because of age or diseases. In his old age, Isaac’s eyes were so weak that he could no longer see (Genesis 27:1). And the same thing happened with Eli, the priest in the days of Samuel. When Eli was ninety-eight years old, his eyes were so weak that he could not see (1 Samuel 4:15).

Modern medicine and specialized treatments have conquered many diseases and have helped us preserve our eyesight until the end of our old age. And this is a gift from God. As the wise man wrote:

Give the physician his place, for the Lord created him. There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians, for they too will pray to the Lord that he should grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.

A tragic event in the Old Testament was the way Zedekiah, king of Judah lost his eyesight: They [the Babylonians] slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in chains and took him to Babylon (2 Kings 25:7).

It was customary in the Ancient Near East for the victor to punish their conquered enemies by blinding them. The Philistines blinded Samson (Judges 16:21). Sargon, in one of his sculptures, is seen blinding a prisoner with a spear.

Zedekiah was a young man, probably no more than thirty-two years of age at the time of his captivity, therefore his sons must have been minors at the time he lost his eyesight. Zedekiah saw his own sons slain before his eyes and this was the last thing in life he ever saw.

Life for Zedekiah ended tragically. The death of his sons would be a torment in his heart, greater even than the pain of the iron which pierced his eyes. With the death of his sons and the loss of his sight, the joy of life was now lost to him, like the darkness which had now fallen forever on his lightless world.

The unhappy living death of the prison was all that was left to him. Now, without his eyes, Zedekiah would see in his mind, over and over again, the savage manner by which his sons were killed.

The loss of our spiritual eyesight can also deprive us from seeing God’s wonderful work. One good example is found at the time when the Arameans were fighting against Israel. Elisha’s servant was afraid because the King of Aram had a strong army. Elisha’s servant cried to his master: Alas, my master! What shall we do? (2 Kings 6:15).

Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17).

When the eyes of the young man were opened, he saw God at work on behalf of Israel. Because his spiritual eyes were closed, the young man did not see the horses and chariots of fire that were all around Elisha. He did not realize that salvation was at hand. Many times, we also are blind to the power of God available to us, blind to the providence of God in providing for the needs of his people.

We too, need to open our eyes to see God’s amazing work in the world:

Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready, my God, Thy will to see;
Open my eyes,
illumine me, Spirit Divine!

When we reach the end of the story of the man born blind, we can understand his joy when his eyesight was restored to him. His shout of joy was: I was blind, and now I can see! (John 9:25).

It is true: the gift of sight is a wonderful gift from God.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blind, Blindness, Sight, John 9, Zedekiah

Welcome Back - Goodbye Again: A Note to Readers

Welcome Back

It has been several days since I posted an entry to the blog. My wife and I were on vacation and we just came back from the Virgin Islands where we went to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. It was a great time of fun and relaxation. But, it is good to be back home again.

During this time of vacation and relaxation, I was able to read five books and only one was somewhat related to the Old Testament. In a future post I will make reference to a novel I read that has some relation to the Old Testament. It was a good novel with an interesting plot.

While on vacation I did not write any post for the blog, except a brief post to note the death of Tikva Frymer-Kensky, an author whose writing was always very informative.

My last post was the puzzle on the hidden books of the Bible. The response to the post was overwhelming. I received many emails with the proposed solution. There were 32 hidden names of biblical books in that paragraph. Several readers found all 32 books while many others came close but fell short of finding all 32 books.

I will respond to everyone who sent me an email with the solution to the puzzle, even to those who had the right answer. However, it will take me some time to respond to every email. Please, be patient; I promise that sooner or later I will be in contact with you to give you the names of all 32 books and to thank you for participating in the solution to the puzzle.

I also received an email from a pastor requesting my permission to print the puzzle in his church newsletter. Any pastor who desires the print the puzzle in a church publication is free to do so. They are also free to print any article that appears in the blog. I would appreciate a mention of where the information was found.

I have also received several emails from readers with questions and requests. I will also answer all these emails as soon as possible. However, it will take me some time to answer your questions and requests, but I promise that every email will be answered.

Goodbye Again

Even though I have just come back from vacation, I will be away again for several days. Tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday I will be in Wisconsin for our annual Faculty Retreat. Every year the members of the Faculty at Northern Seminary gather for a time of prayer, planning, and fellowship in preparation for the new academic year, which for us, begins at the end of September.

Then, on Thursday, I will have cataract surgery, which will put me out of commission for two or three days. For this reason, I will be unable to post until Monday, September 18. At that time I hope to post on a regular basis. At that time, I will also begin to answer your emails and hopefully catch up with my correspondence.

It has been a busy summer. As I begin a new academic year, much will be required of me, not only as a professor, but also as the Chair of the Self-Study Committee for Northern Seminary. Those who are in academic life understand the demands of Self-Study work.

I want to thank you, the reader, for your patience and for your support. If the many emails I receive every day is any indication, the content of my blog is meeting a need. I consider you a partner in this venture.

Before I go, I have two requests from you:

First, if you have a question or an Old Testament topic you would like to see addressed in a future post, send me an email. Many of the topics I address in my blog come from suggestions sent by readers.

Second, in the next few weeks I will be updating the links to my blog. If you have linked my blog to your blog or if you want to have a reciprocal link, please let me know. I will be glad to link your blog to my blog.

Goodbye again. I will be back on Monday, September 18, 2006.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Puzzle, Blog

Tikva Frymer-Kensky: 1943 - 2006

In its September 8, 2006 edition, the Chicago Tribune is reporting the death of Tikva Frymer-Kensky.

Trevor Jensen, a Chicago Tribune staff reporter, wrote:
Tikva Frymer-Kensky was a University of Chicago professor and Hebrew Bible scholar who studied texts in the ancient languages of Sumerian and Akkadian.

Dr. Frymer-Kensky, 62, died Thursday, Aug. 31, in her Wilmette home following a lengthy bout with breast cancer, said her husband, Allan Kensky, a rabbi who serves at Beth Hillel Congregation Bnai Emunah in Wilmette.

"She loved fantasy," her husband said, adding that his wife also was fascinated by comic books. "Her mind spanned so many areas."

A professor at U. of C.'s Divinity School since 1995, Dr. Frymer-Kensky's scholarship focused on how the Hebrew Bible, which includes much of the Old Testament, related to cultures of the Near East, including those in Egypt and Mesopotamia, said David Tracy, a professor at the Divinity School.

Dr. Frymer-Kensky's biblical scholarship also delved into women's role in religion.

To read the complete obituary, click here.

Frymer-Kensky was a prolific writer. Below is a small bibliography of the books and articles she wrote:

Reading the Women of the Bible. New York: Schocken, 2002

In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Free Press, 1992.

“Religions and violence: an analytical synthesis,” Ecumenical Review 55 no 2 Ap 2003, p 164-167.

“On feminine God-talk,” Reconstructionist 59 no 1 Spr 1994, p 48-55.

“Law and philosophy: the case of sex in the Bible,” Semeia no 45 1989, p 89-102.

“The strange case of the suspected sotah (Numbers 5:11-31),” Vetus Testamentum 34 no 1 Ja 1984, p 11-26.

“Patriarchal family relationships and Near Eastern law,” Biblical Archaeologist 44 Fall 1981, p 209-214.

“Atrahasis epic and its significance for our understanding of Genesis 1-9,” Biblical Archaeologist 40 D 1977, p 147-155.

“Dabru emet: a Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity,” Pro Ecclesia 11 no 1 Win 2002, p 5-7.

“A Jewish look at Isaiah 2:2-4,” Criterion 41 no 3 Aut 2002, p 20-25.

“Unwrapping the Torah: Making a symbol real again,” Bible Review 18 no 5 O 2002, p 26-31,60,62.

“Biblical voices on chosenness,” In Covenant and Chosenness in Judaism and Mormonism. Pp 23-32. Madison; Teaneck:Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; London: Associated University Presses, 2001.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky will be greatly missed.

R.I.P.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Frymer-Kensky, Tikva