minor update

I'm still here, spending most of my time reading. I've almost finished The Origin of Satan. We be giving a short book review when I'm done.

Tried starting to write the introduction to this book yesterday, not sure I'm liking it. Having trouble finding the right voice. Guess I just need to write and not worry about all that stuff until later.

Good news: I've now have access to the library at MU. Thanks Angela.

fun with words

An iteresting tidbit from The Origin of Satan.

The root of stn(satan) means "one who opposes, obstructs, or act as an adversary."
The Greek term for diabolos, traslated later as "devil" means "one who throws something across one's path."
In the book of Numbers and Job, God sent the "angel of the lord" to obstruct Baalam and to torment and test Job's faith.

Satan appears in as an agent of god, or messenger in Numbers (22:23-25). In Job, God tells satan that, "he is in your power, only spare his life."
The Hebrew term for messenger is mal'ak, translated into Greek, we get angelos, and later down the line, angel.
In Hebrew angels were often referred to as "sons of God" or bene'elohim, the higher ranking angels, God's army.

This is a very different Satan than we know today. Interesting how translation and interpretation can change the way we see and come to understand things.

Pick...what?

Last night at work I saw a kid walking out The Berg wearing this t-shirt. I found it interesting that these popular cultural images are being used to spread the "Good news." (Seriously, just goggle Jesus t-shirts and you will find many many more like this.)
It as if they're saying, our message of salvation isn't good enough anymore to stand on its own, let us a simulate ourselves into pop culture with references like these and hope that the message gets across and that someone might actually open the bible and read from Romans 10:13.
If in case you were wondering, I will save you the time; Romans 10:13 say's ...For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Acutally spreading the "good news" is from Romans 10:15; “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"
Why preach when you can say what you need to say on t-shirt, right?
Reminds me of an old Simpson's episode, where a t-shirt vendor screams, "get your t-shirt, tell everyone where you've been by wearing a t-shirt."

Reading list

These are the only ones I can remember at the moment...
Should any of you have reading suggestion, articles, etc, please let me know.
Thanks




The Lucifer Principal


A History of God


The Battle For God


Born To Believe


On Being Certain


The Cosmic Serpent


Seven Daughter of Eve

Why God Won't Go Away

Currently reading this book.

A new venture

The beginning: I awoke yesterday morning with a eureka kinda moment. For the past few months I've been tossing and turning over ideas for grad school and a future career, nothing so far has hit me with a grand amount of excitement, nothing until now.
I wanna write a book. In a nutshell, and trust me, that's all I have at the moment is a nutshell, but the topic is something I've been fascinated with for a very long time, read a lot about and even written a bit about already.
What is it you say?
Religion!!
I am fascinated with our desire to know God, to understand why we believe, and why we have such unquestionable faith and trust in a seeming distant higher power.
I want to understand why God is such a powerful muse to those who serve him and even for those who don't.
I want to delve into why we have this uncontrollable need to know that we are here on this earth for a reason and why we must have purpose in our lives.
This is what I plan to explore. I want to make it exciting, entertaining, while still touching on issues that are very important in many peoples lives. I want to do it with honesty and diligence.
Like I said, this is a beginning, as with any good creative process, the process and plan often changes with progress. I hope this is true.
I have a very lengthy research list already, a lot of which I've already read, but will be reading again. I will post the list in the next couple of days for anyone who cares or would like to make a suggestion.
That's all for now.