Thursday, March 14, 2024

The David Bentley Hart New Testament on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: David Bentley Hart's "The New Testament - A Translation", was released on this day in 2017. 

Bing gave me this description of his New Testament: "David Bentley Hart is a theologian who has translated the New Testament into English. His translation is 'pitilessly literal' and 'not shaped by later theological and doctrinal history.'"

That's not entirely true. He capitalizes the I AM in John 8 is if it has some mystical value and relationship to the words at Exodus 3:14. This is a notion that is "shaped by later theological and doctrinal history" and any relationship between John 8 and Exodus 3 falls apart after closer examination.*

However, Hart's translation is still better than most. I personally have always had a singular fascination with John 1:1.

David Bentley Hart's New Testament 2017 reads at John 1:1 "In the origin there was the Logos, and the Logos was present with GOD, and the Logos was god." (Notice the word "god" in small letters in the last clause.)

However, I discovered in his earlier work, "Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies" he actually writes:

"As a general rule, the 'articular' form ho Theos—literally, 'the God'—was a title reserved for God Most High or God the Father, while only the 'inarticular' form theos was used to designate this secondary divinity. This distinction, in fact, was preserved in the prologue to John, whose first verse could justly be translated as: 'In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was a god.'"

It's unfortunate that DBH felt the need to tone it down for his New Testament translation.

However, Hart's second edition to his New Testament has some surprising updates when it comes to the anarthrous theos (god). 

His John 10:33 now reads: "We stone not on account of a good work, but rather on account of blasphemy, and you who are a man make yourself out to be a god." 

The first edition had "make yourself out to be God." Few other modern Bibles are brave enough for this rendering (The New English Bible comes immediately to mind). 

He made a similar change at Philippians 2:6 where he has: “who, subsisting in a god’s form, did not deem existing in the manner of a god a thing to be grasped.” QEOUtheou should be taken as indefinite here, such as in “form of a god.” This would highlight a parallel that is overlooked by most, the parallel between "the form of a god" and "the form of a slave." (Verse 7)

Let me know in the comments section of any other verses you may want to share from this New Testament translation.


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

The Briley Brothers Rampage of Violence on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day (March 12) in 1979, three brothers — Linwood, James and Anthony Briley — began a series of random home invasions and murders that terrorized the city of Richmond, Virginia and its suburbs over a period of more than seven months, starting with their attempt to burn a married couple to death. On March 21, they would kill the first of 11 victims, a vending machine salesman.

The following is a description from _The Briley Brothers: The True Story of The Slaying Brothers: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers_:

"As reported in this book, the Briley gang were responsible for the killing of 11 people (among these, a 5-year-old boy and his pregnant mother), but possibly as many as 20. Unlike most criminals, however, the Briley gang's break-ins and robberies were purely incidental—mere excuses for rape and vicious thrill-kills. When authorities (aided by plea-bargaining Duncan Meekins) discovered the whole truth, even their tough skins crawled. Nothing in Virginian history approached the depravities, many of which were committed within miles of the Briley home, where single father James Sr. padlocked himself into his bedroom every night. But this true crime story did not end with the arrests and murder convictions of the Briley gang. Linwood, younger brother James, and 6 other Mecklenburg death-row inmates, hatched an incredible plan of trickery and manipulation—and escaped from the “state-of-the-art” facility on May 31, 1984. The biggest death-row break-out in American history."


Saturday, March 9, 2024

Crime Novelist Mickey Spillane on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: Crime novelist Mickey Spillane was born on this day in 1918. Spillane's stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer and more than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. 

Spillane joined the United States Army Air Corps on December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the mid-1940s he was stationed as a flight instructor in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he met and married Mary Ann Pearce in 1945. The couple wanted to buy a country house in the town of Newburgh, New York, 60 miles north of New York City, so Spillane decided to boost his bank account by writing a novel. He wrote I, the Jury in just 9 days. At the suggestion of Ray Gill, he sent it to E. P. Dutton.

With the combined total of the 1947 hardcover and the Signet paperback (December 1948), I, the Jury sold 6-1/2 million copies in the United States alone. I, the Jury introduced Spillane's most famous character, hardboiled detective Mike Hammer. Although tame by some standards, his novels featured more sex than competing titles, and the violence was more overt than the usual detective story. Covers tended to feature scantily dressed women or women who appeared as if they were about to undress. In the beginning, Mike Hammer's chief nemeses consisted of gangsters, but by the early '50s, this broadened to communists and deviants.

Critics were hard on his style of writing, but he gained a big fan in Ayn Rand. In fact, they became friends. She considered him an underrated if uneven stylist and found congenial the black-and-white morality of the Hammer stories. Spillane's thoroughly enjoyed Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Both authors were fervently anti-Communist.

Spillane became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1950's and even became a Ministerial Servant. However, one wonders if his style of writing clashed with the Witnesses sense of morality, as he was disfellowshipped several times only to be reinstated later on.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Walter Cronkite on This Day in History

 

This day in history: After 19 years as the anchorman of the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time on this day in 1981. Cronkite had anchored the show since April 16, 1962.

Cronkite was considered “the most trusted man in America” but don't be deceived, he was a pro-Communist Leftist who wanted a democratic federal world government and was willing to sit on the "right hand of Satan" to get it.

The difference with Walter Cronkite and the MSM today was that he hid it better. From Cronkite and the Fourth Estate:

"With the death of their paragon Walter Cronkite, the true collective face of the Establishment media is exposed once and for all.  It is not the noble visage of an intrepid crusader for truth, but a sagging countenance, oily and obsequent by decades of lying and servility to their masters.  But of course this is not how the press perceive themselves.  They are not like you or me.  They are a special class of beings.  They are the Fourth Estate, an imaginary extension of the rigid class structure of pre-Revolutionary France from the Estates General. In the Ancien Regime there was the clergy, the nobility, and lastly, the bourgeoisie and commoners.  The Fourth Estate see themselves on an equal par with the first two elevated classes, and above the third.  It is the aristocratic notion that gentlemen and ladies of the press serve a vaunted 'public interest,' and do not soil themselves with activities of a rank and sordid commercialism.  Such endeavors would be a violation of their hoary journalistic ethics.  They have a public trust to enlighten the masses in their duties to their betters, those who compose the state and their adjunct servitors in the kept press.  With the passing of Cronkite the stark reality is all too apparent, even to these lumbering dinosaurs." 

"However nice a person he may have been, Walter Cronkite was, more importantly, a model voice for liberal-progressives’ brand of socialism. His lack of understanding about the nature of the Constitution and about the founding ethos of the United States allowed him to warp the minds of millions of Americans with the historicism that characterizes liberal-progressivism." -- Thomas E. Brewton


The Gospel According to St Paul - 100 Books to Download about the Apostle Paul

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Country Singer Patsy Cline on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day in 1963 in Camden, Tennessee, 30-year-old country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) was killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Harold "Hawkshaw" Hawkins, 41, and Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas, 49, and their manager, Randy Hughes, who was piloting the Piper Comanche airplane. The four were returning to Nashville from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas, for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call and had taken off in bad weather after refueling at Dyersburg, Tennessee.

Patsy Cline was an American singer. She is considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and was one of the first country music artists to cross over into pop music. Cline had several major hits during her eight-year recording career, including two number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart.

Cline has been cited in both country and pop music as of one of the greatest vocalists of all time. Her voice has also been called "haunting", "powerful", and "emotional". Cline has been a major influence on various music artists including Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn, LeAnn Rimes, k.d. lang, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, Sara Evans, Dottie West, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Cyndi Lauper, Trixie Mattel and Brandi Carlile.





Monday, March 4, 2024

The Deadliest School Disaster on this Day in History

 

This day in history: The Collinwood school fire (also known as the Lake View School fire) was a major disaster that occurred on this day in 1908 at the Lake View School in Collinwood, Ohio, when a fire erupted, killing 172 students, two teachers and one rescuer. It is one of the deadliest school disasters in United States history.

"About nine o'clock in the morning on March 4, 1908, nine-year-old Niles Thompson jumped out of a window at Lakeview Elementary to escape a fire that had started in the basement of his school. Nearly two hundred children who had also been lucky enough to escape watched as flames engulfed the Collinwood school. Niles frantically ran among his schoolmates, searching for his little brother, Thomas. Once Niles realized his brother was not one of the safe children, he ran back into the school to save Thomas. Neither of the two Thompson boys walked out of their school again." Source

The origin of the fire remains uncertain, although numerous explanations abound. Newspapers circulated many possibilities, sometimes blaming the building's janitor Fritz Hirter for inattentiveness and for running the boiler too hot. Another theory held that the fire was caused by girls smoking in a basement closet near flammable materials. A quickly completed coroner's inquest concluded that heating pipes running next to exposed wooden joists ignited the building. The coroner blamed the fire on "conditions" and held no one legally accountable for it. Many parents condemned the speed of the inquest and objected to its refusal to hold the school board, the architects, Hirter or anyone else responsible. J.H. Morgan, Ohio's chief inspector of public buildings, explained the problem in his annual report to the governor and citizens: "The cause of the fire cannot be determined. Many believe it originated from the heating system or boilers, but proof has been offered to the contrary."

A memorial plaque placed at the site by the state of Ohio in 2003 asserts that the fire was of "unknown origin."

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The Whiskey Rebellion on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day in 1791, Congress passed a federal excise tax on whiskey, which led to the Whiskey Rebellion. 

"Following the Revolutionary War, to pay off its hefty war debt, the federal government passed a tax on spirits that led to a full-scale revolt known as the Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794). The rebellion saw several tax collectors tarred and feathered after its passage in 1791. Violence steadily escalated until George Washington, riding at the head of 13,000 militiamen, peacefully put down the rebellion in 1794. (Though a couple dozen ringleaders were arrested, all were acquitted or pardoned.)" Source

George Washington's actions were the biggest black mark against his presidency.

"The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was not a revolt to overthrow the government but merely an anti-tax protest. Although no one was killed and Washington pardoned the rioters, he violated the Constitution by suppressing the rebellion, using military force even though the governor of Pennsylvania thought the issue could be settled in the courts. The Constitution requires that states have the discretion to call for federal intervention when domestic unrest occurs. Washington’s action also set the bad precedent that the president — not the Congress, as implied in the Constitution — could approve the suppression of threats against domestic tranquility and the constitutional order. In a 1795 law, the Congress unconstitutionally formalized this alteration in the checks and balances system by delegating to the president its enumerated power of calling
up the militia in emergencies." Recarving Rushmore