What are you currently reading?

That sounds very interesting! I’ll have to check it out.

 

The Bible Today by C.H. Dodd. Dodd was fascinated by the narrative aspect of Scripture.

 

Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, Fr. Robert Barron

I just finished the first chapter and enjoyed it immensely.

 

The Imitation of Christ.

 

Ancient Christian Worship by Andrew B. McGowan is what I'm currently (slowly) reading for a bit of study.

 

I am reading
Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril [Kindle Edition]
By: Elizabeth A. Johnson

I am only reading it because it is part of a theology class and it is just ok. I haven't read a lot yet and we read it in bits and pieces and then talk about it, comparing it with scripture etc, so it will take a long time to get through it all, I think. If it hadn't been required reading, I wouldn't be reading it - so not much of a recommendation I know.

 

I'm currently reading The Heritage of Anglican Theology by Packer. Folks who enjoy history would probably like this book.

 

I read that recently myself. Highly recommended.

 

I’m currently reading Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith, and am finding it to be a much more rewarding exercise than I even expected.

 

Now reading The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, by Vishal Mangalwadi (a Christian philosopher from India).

 

I am also reading that book. I am only about 60 pages or so into it. Maybe 80

 

I'm reading Tim Shipman's "Fall Out, a year of political mayhem" It's about British politics in the year following Brexit and a follow on book to (All out War) about the Brexit campaign. It may sound dry but I find it fascinating and amusing. You may have the knowledge that politicians are just like the "idiot" who lives next door to you, but with greater responsibilities but these books give you the "understanding" that it is so. I often found myself laughing aloud. An example is when Boris was at a meeting for European foreign ministers when he was foreign minister. They all had an informal meet and greet afterwards, and someone was talking to Boris about Trump's inauguration, and said "there were crowds there". Boris misheard him and thought he said there were Krauts there. So he said "were there Krauts there" The person corrected him by saying "Crowds" Boris then says why were the "crowds of Krauts there?" The next moments were taken up with explaining they meant crowds not krauts and to stop mentioning Krauts in a room full of European foreign ministers.

 

Orthodox Christianity: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
A. Edward Siecienski

This is a title in the Oxford University Press Collection 'A Very Short Introduction'.
I found it helpful and informative. Many Western Christians seem to forget Eastern Christians. I found Chapter 6 especially helpful, as in a really well-discussed passage it talks about the Eastern approach to theology.

___________________

The U.S. Constitution: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
David J. Bodenhamer

This is a title in the Oxford University Press Collection 'A Very Short Introduction'.
I found this a really good read. It shares some really good foundational insight as to what the US Constitution is about. One of the reasons this was very good for me is that I can then reflect more profitably on the nature of the Australian Constitution, and understand why they are different. Of course, both documents have a depth of history and context, and a long tradition of being honoured and ignored while either the Supreme Court (in our case The High Court) have interpreted and reinterpreted them in ways that have effectively changed the meaning without changing the words, an act which is probably unconstitutional in itself. Anyway, it was a good read.

 

My parents came down a couple of weeks ago and we went antiquing and flea marketing along the National Road (US 40) among other things. I found most of a case of old books I wanted and didn't spend more than $2 for any one volume. I've been perusing a 1957 printing of Lamsa's Peshitta. This was the canonical Bible of the Church of the East. The introductory notes are hyperbolic and somewhat mythical but there are also some fair points made that have largely been eschewed by modern textual critics.

 

What a great find! Can you give an example or two of the points made in the introductory notes?

 

Yeah what points?

 

I'll try to divide the affirmations that stuck out to me into two categories: plausible and mythical.
Lamsa insinuates that the Assyrian people, the several hundred thousand of them who had survived after WWI, were the descendants of the ten 'lost' tribes. I cringe anytime I see this lost tribe motif. It's the underpinning of British Israelism as well. Also, an important influence in LDS theology. I suppose modern genetic research is on the verge of clearing this issue up but I haven't read enough of the literature to know where it points.

I don't know how much y'all have read of Coptic theology but they have a tendency of taking any passage that speaks about the Egyptians in less than apocalyptically negative terms and appropriating it for their church. Lamsa employed this same proclivity with any text speaking of the Assyrians.

Plausible: He points out that the language of the Peshitta is a sister dialect of the language commonly spoken by the Jews in Jesus' day. Thus, the Peshitta should be preferred to the sometimes garbled renderings of the LXX. However, he asserts Jesus and the disciples did not know nor could write or converse in Greek.

He argues that the Peshitta is free from both Masoretic and Monophysite influence. He argues that, had the King James translators had access to Syriac manuscripts and the Peshitta, and the skill to understand them, the Bible they produced would have been better.

He then devotes several pages to words which are false friends or near cognates, but which are actually quite confused in the prevailing English versions of yesteryear.

 

The real question is why were you up at 3 in the morning.

 

It was 4 Eastern