Since this is our last year to excavate in the Elah valley in Israel, I made a short, up-close video of David’s battlefield with Goliath. You can “be there” as we go over the events of 1 Samuel 17.
Project #1: Archaeological Dig at Ashkelon, Israel
Trent and Rebekah reporting on the archaeological excavations at Ashkelon in Israel
Praying Atheists – Washington Post
Praying Atheists – Washington Post
Praying Atheists – Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein — 24 June 2013
Some excerpts:
New research on atheists by the Pew Research Center shows a range of beliefs. Eighteen percent of atheists say religion has some importance in their life, 26 percent say they are spiritual or religious and 14 percent believe in “God or a universal spirit.” Of all Americans who say they don’t believe in God — not all call themselves “atheists” — 12 percent say they pray.
………….
Atheists deny religion’s claim of a supernatural god but are starting to look more closely at the “very real effect” that practices such as going to church, prayer and observance of a Sabbath have on the lives of the religious, said Paul Fidalgo, a spokesman for the secular advocacy group the Center for Inquiry. “That’s a big hole in atheist life,” he said. “Some atheists are saying, ‘Let’s fill it.’ Others are saying, ‘Let’s not.’ ”
…..
Gordon Melton, a historian of new American religions, said that it’s only been in the past decade that atheists have become organized and the range of their views has therefore become more known. Sociologists have also just begun asking more complex questions about faith to a wider range of respondents.
Stanley Cup winning ‘Hawks pile on praise for Crawford
Corey Crawford is a class act! Really tired of hearing about how all the other teams’ goalies are (were) so much better.
Rask in disbelief after ‘shocking’ Chicago comeback
Well-deserved — really tired of hearing about how the other guys’ goalies are so much better.
Facebook site for Tell el-Amarna
Some archaeological projects have Facebook pages. Check out this one on the Egyptian site of Tell el-Amarna here.
This letter dates to the reign of Amenophis III (1391-1353 B.C.).
Can you be a lady without being modest?
Read this!
I saw a girl over my lunch break the other day that was wearing a teeny-tiny little dress. It was a strapless dress that she kept tugging to stay up, and it barely covered her bottom when she sat down. With summer upon us, I think it is an excellent time to talk about modesty. Last summer I was at a baseball game on the 4th of July in Kansas City and it was HOT. It was so hot and humid and miserable that I wanted to strip down to my underwear and run through a sprinkler. But I do know even though it is difficult and takes effort, it is possible to dress modestly even on the hottest days.
(striped top from shabby apple, white dress from etsy, green dress from shabby apple vest outfit from a pretty penny)
“But I tell you that anyone…
View original post 797 more words
A HYMN FOR TODAY – Ah, Holy Jesus
A HYMN FOR TODAY
Ah, holy Jesus, how have You offended,
That mortal judgment has on You descended?
By foes derided, by Your own rejected,
O most afflicted.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon You?
It is my treason, Lord, that has undone You.
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied You;
I crucified You.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
The slave has sinned, and yet the Son has suffered
For my atonement, though I nothing heeded,
God interceded.
For me, kind Jesus, was Your incarnation,
Your mortal sorrow and Your life’s oblation,
Your death of anguish and Your bitter passion,
For my salvation.
Therefore, dear Jesus, since I cannot pay You,
I do adore You, and will ever pray You,
Think on Your pity and Your love unswerving,
Not my deserving.
11.11.11.5 – Johann Heermann, 1630 trans. Robert S. Bridges, 1899 Tune: HERZLIEBSTER JESU – Johann Crueger, 1640 #228 in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, 2012
Ashkelon excavation underway
‘Tis the season for archaeological digs. At Ashkelon, the Leon Levy Expedition runs from June 8 – July 19 this year. It is sponsored by Harvard’s Semitic Museum, Boston College, Wheaton College, and Troy University.
I have two young friends, Trent and Rebekah, who are working in the dig. They will not be writing up any marvelous new discoveries that might be made. This is always reserved for the directors of a dig to announce, and then later to publish. My friends are sharing some general information about their participation in the dig as time permits. They are there as part of Dr. Daniel Master’s team from Wheaton College.
Trent has allowed me to use one of his photos of Grid 51. This is the Grid he has been working in during the past week. He informs me that this is about 1/4 mile southwest of the Canaanite Gate…
View original post 104 more words
Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note on Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy III
Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note
On this Father’s Day of 2013, I am thinking of course of my father, James H. Wolfgang, now nearing his 91st birthday. His only trip to Europe occurred at age 21 – via Omaha Beach. His unit, the 654th Engineering Battalion, was responsible for producing the millions of maps with which Steven Ambrose, fifteen years ago, opened his book Citizen Soldiers.
Today I began reading the most recent version of the war in the European theatre, Rick Atkinson’s third volume of his Liberation Trilogy. A testament to the engineers who translated hard-won intelligence-gathering information into usable maps and models, Atkinson’s Prologue includes an account of the mammoth plaster-cast model of the beaches of Normandy, constructed under armed guard by the 654th Engineering Battalion in a small village in the Cotswalds during the spring of 1944, and then transported to London. The massive model is featured in the orientation film at the D-Day Museum in the old Higgins Boat factory in New Orleans. Here part of Atkinson’s Prologue:
“Nowhere were the uniforms more impressive on Monday morning, May 15, than along Hammersmith Row in west London. Here the greatest Anglo-American military conclave of World War II gathered the 1,720th day of the war to rehearse the death blow intended to destroy Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Admirals, generals, field marshals, logisticians, and staff wizards by the score climbed from their limousines and marched … into the Model room … [formerly an auditorium] at St. Paul’s School … Top secret charts and maps now lined the Model Room …Behind [Eisenhower] in the cockpit of the Model Room lay an immense plaster relief map of the Normandy coast where the River Seine spilled into the Atlantic. Thirty feet wide and set on a tilted platform…[it] depicted, in bright colors and a scale six inches to the mile, the rivers, villages, beaches and uplands of what would become the world’s most famous battlefield.”
Early in his life, my father was a part of that vast enterprise by the millions of “the greatest generation” who played various roles, in ending oppressively tyrannical regimes across the globe, remaking the world (for good – or ill – in varying circumstances), and indirectly allowing the gospel to be heard in many new places around the globe. Returning home to marry his high school sweetheart, he raised his family to obey God, honor their country, and be of service to others. From his Bible class on Romans I (and others) first learned the foundational gospel truths anchored in the concept of “justification by faith,” and through him I developed my earliest love for hymns by observing him develop his abilities in leading hymns for public worship, thus enabling other Christians to worship God in song. And that is merely the beginning of the “short list” of important things he taught and modeled.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad – and thanks for all those things you did, in war and peace – and still do! I love you!
Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note Rick Atkinson, The Guns At Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (New York Henry Holt and Company, 2013), Kindle edition, Locations 157, 172, 223.
ἐκλεκτικός 