I just read a synopsis of Song of Solomon in a fat Bible Commentary to better understand what I had just read. The commentary told me it is the 21st book of the standard Old Testament used by Hebrews and most Potestants. Catholics and others have additional books labled as apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha which they also include in their Bibles. I don’t plan to read these anytime soon as part of my goal of getting the Bible read from cover to cover.
One of the challenges given to good little Sunday School students of the past was that of memorizing the books of the Bible in order. I had no more interest, as a ten-year old, of doing that than I did of slaughtering, dressing and cooking a cow. But let’s see how well I can do with the 21 OT books I’ve read so far:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1st Samuel
2nd Samuel
1st Kings
2nd Kings
1st Chronicles
2nd Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalms
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Whew I did it. A few minutes ago I forgot Psalms. Remembering their sequence (which is a tad artificial) isn’t really my goal. I just want to look at every tree in the wood lot. I can’t recall what the Book Esther is about off hand and I have 17 more books to read just to get through the Old Testament. They are mostly books of the prophets starting with Isaiah. I’m not sure I’ll be done with my cover to cover reading by the end of January 2017 which was my goal when I began this journey last January after returning from Israel and Palestine. I’ll be close.
This is just one of the goals I’ve set for myself to complete. I’ve long wanted a fairly intimite knowledge of US History from beginning to end. The two books by Chris DeRose are helping with that task. When a morning meeting I’d set up with a local “gender fluid” politician fell through I read Chapter 7 of DeRose Book, Founding Rivals.
It fit in nicely with the universe of subjects I’ve been concentrating on this year. I often grouse about how the Republican Party has styled itself the Party of God in recent decades. My Grandfather was about as rock ribbed a Republican as anyone could ever have been. Born years before the Pledge of Allegience was written by a Presybeterian minister George Robb was 66 before the United State’s Congress added the words “under God” to it. I’ll be sixty-six before the year is out and its entirely likely that folks calling themselves evangelicals will get their wish and elect a true 666 to the Presidency. The original 666 (referred to in Revelations as a code to prevent anyone from getting crucified by the Romans) was the Emperor Nero. I can’t think of a better exemplar of the first 666 than our man from Trumpville.
BTW – the word “evangalize” means to convert folks especially to Christianity. It seems that a majority of the folks in the US today who identify as evangelicals don’t bother with church even as they cling to “God’s Own Party.” That’s more than a little ironic.
The chapter I just read in Rivals was about Mr. Madison’s triumph as a member of the Virginia State Legislature. He managed to kill a proposal to make the Episcopal Church the official Church of Virginia but then topped it off by succeeding where Thomas Jefferson had failed two years earlier. He got the Statute of Religious Freedom passed that would protect the religious liberties of all Virginians from Atheist to Jew.
Incidentally, this statute was one of the most successful arguments in favor of the American Revolution. From Founding Rivals: “The Statute of Religious Freedom was celebrated throughout Europe, hailed and envied as a tremendous achievement in the story of mankind. Jefferson later noted that only this act stood to counter arguments in Europe that America was backward and divided.”
How fortunate that the non-church attending “evangelicals” and Donald Trump want to put a religious test back into practice in the United States. A few disordered middle eastern kids with pocket knives and pressure cookers might help them overturn two centuries of the best thing our Nation ever accomplished.
I haven’t finished the previous post about Mr. Robot yet. I yeilded to temptation last night after returning home from my daughter’s house and a satisfying Viking win over the Pack and opted for a good night’s sleep over finishing a blog post. I’ll get to it. But first I’m going to attack the heaps of paper strewn about my office. I want to vacumum the floor and give myself the illusion of being organized. I might even wait to finish it until after my scheduled meeting with one of our principals this afternoon.
Until then let me share the picture taken yesterday after church by my six year old grandson with an ap he put on his mother’s cell phone.
It makes me look like that cartoon super hero “Megamind.” If you’ve got grandkids you probably know who I mean. I should add that not only was he really, really smart he was a villian. Appropos, methinks!
