Archives for December 2007

Merry Christmas and congratulations to Melissa Markham. You have won the Library Giveaway worth more than $500. I took several months off from blogging so the collection of new books did not grow quite as large as I had intended, but $500 in free books is nothing to sneeze at. Attached is a picture of the collection or you can CLICK HERE for a description of the titles included.

Melissa linked to the contest from Melissa’s Idea Garden.

Thanks to all of you who participated. I will be running a similar Library Giveaway contest in 2008 over at Building A Theological Library so please check there in a few days for new contest details. The first book to be included in that giveaway collection is an autographed copy of The Wit & Wisdom of Pastor Joe Brumbelow which was donated by the author.

Melissa, you can find my email address at the top of this page. Drop me a line with your mailing address and I will get the books boxed up and shipped out to you sometime after the first of the year.

May all of you who participated in the contest be blessed by great books in they coming year. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If you don’t already use BiblicalTraining.org to learn and grow, you need to start doing so. The offer, free of charge, excellent seminary level classes taught by some of the best very best teachers. I received the following email from them today about a new class they are offering:

* * *

Dear Kevin,

We have released the new Foundations course on Biblical Theology. We are starting with the section on Old Testament Theology by Dr. Miles Van Pelt, and the sections on the Gospels and Paul are soon to follow.

Many of you have written, asking for our recommendations on books. We are well into this project and will announce its availability in January.

We are also making good progress on finishing the Foundations curriculum for the LAMP3 project, providing a quality (and free) education to the poorest of people in the majority world. We need only $14,000 to complete the project, which is due for distribution in February, 2008. Would you consider an end-of-year gift to help make these peoples’ dreams a reality?

Thank you,

Your friends at BiblicalTraining

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
~ Thomas Carlyle

If adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. The one deceives, the other instructs; the one is miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and commend it in their precepts.
~ Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy

One man has never married, and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.
~ Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy

All the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.
~ Richard De Bury, in Philobiblion

It is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing in life, excepis excipiendis, should be the most fatal corrupter of music, literature, painting and all the arts. As soon as any art is pursued with a view of money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.
~ Samuel Butler

“Let there be light!” said God,
and there was light.
“Let there be blood!” said man,
and there’s a sea.
~ Lord Byron

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call tragedy.
~ Thomas Carlyle

The amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry, no idol more debasing.
~ Andrew Carnegie

Without that Resurrection, which prefigures our own resurrection and life everlasting, one might as well turn again to the gods of the Greeks, or to Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. The Resurrection is critical both to my personal faith and to the whole elaborate edifice called Christianity. It is now more rationally possible to believe in the Resurrection than it was in Saint Paul’s time.
~ Russell Kirk, quoted in Nearer, My God by William F. Buckley, Jr. (NY: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 124.

I savor Fr. Neuhaus’s formulation. We concede that Jesus-the-Christ — Jesus-the-Savior — isn’t something you submit for validation to the Bureau of Weights and Measures. We therefore think of him, as all Christians must, “proleptically,” i.e., in anticipation of a comprehensive acknowledgment of him, as Him. And this gives additional romance to Christian belief, as is fitting for those who sit waiting, forever and ever, yet confident that the third act will be transporting.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr. in Nearer, My God (NY: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 113.

Frustrate frustration by declining to divine divine purpose.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr. in Nearer, My God (NY: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 163.

Suffer women once to arrive at an equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors.
~ Marcus Porcius Cato

1. Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic – Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and…..

6. Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy – can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells , Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…

Some information for my Dallas/Fort Worth readers:

U.S. ‘Bible Belt’ gets Rare exhibit of early Christian art

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (ANS) — The Kimbell Art Museum, located in Fort Worth, Texas, right in the heart of the American “Bible Belt,” has announced, “Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art,” a landmark exhibition of the earliest works of art illustrating the Old and New Testaments which are on view from November 18, 2007, to March 30, 2008.

Developed and organized by the Kimbell (its exclusive venue), and guest-curated by Dr. Jeffrey Spier of the University of Arizona, this highly important exhibition draws upon recent research and new discoveries to tell the story of how the earliest Christians first gave visual expression to their religious beliefs.

A spectacular display of many of the greatest treasures of early Christianity from around the world, “Picturing the Bible” includes major loans from the Vatican, the Bargello and the Laurentian Library in Florence, the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a number of other international institutions.

“A landmark event both for scholarship on the Early Christian era and for the broader appreciation of this crucial period in world history, this exhibition is the first major review of third-to sixth-century Christian art since The Age of Spirituality at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977,” said the announcement on the Kimbell Art Museum web site (www.kimbellart.org).

“There have been many important advances in scholarship since then, as well as a considerable number of new archaeological discoveries, all of which this exhibition fully reassesses.”

Commented Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum: “The origins of Christianity have been a very active area of research in recent years from a variety of perspectives—historical, theological, and artistic. But there has never been an exhibition that brings this new evidence together, allowing visitors to see in the works of art themselves how and why a distinctively Christian visual artistic culture emerged.

“In ‘Picturing the Bible’ we see how the early Christians drew upon pagan and Old Testament motifs to express their new faith; we witness the interplay between the earliest artistic representations of biblical themes and the doctrinal debates among early Church Fathers over the correct interpretation of scripture; and in the process come face to face with many of the finest and most treasured images that have survived from the tumultuous centuries when Christianity emerged from persecution to become the state religion of the Roman Empire.

“Assembling so many of the most important masterpieces of early Christian art has been a major challenge—especially the fragile early Bibles, ivories, and gold glass—and presents a spectacle of early Christian life that is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetime.”

The web site said that no Christian images are known to date before the beginning of the third century A.D., and it seems unlikely that the small Christian community created distinctive works of art illustrating or expressing their beliefs before that date. By the early third century, however, Christians had begun to borrow Old Testament motifs that were regarded as having special Christian significance, such as images of Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, and Daniel, as well as symbolic images, including the Good Shepherd and the fish, the latter an allusion to Jesus (“ichthys”, “fish” in Greek, being an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior”). Although very rare in the third century, pictorial scenes from the life of Jesus were evidently being developed, and by the fourth century, extensive illustrations of the New Testament were being created in a variety of media, including catacomb paintings, mosaics, sarcophagi, ivories, and no doubt Bibles, although none survives till the following century. By the sixth century, many of these early, innovative images had been replaced by conventional depictions of the life and miracles of Jesus.

“Picturing the Bible” brings together a wide range of material in an attempt to help clarify the questions of how Christians in the Greco-Roman period illustrated their religious beliefs, including frescoes, marble sculpture and sarcophagi, silver vessels and reliquaries, carved ivories, engraved gold glass, bronze sculpture, seals in semiprecious stones, illustrated Bibles, and decorated crosses.

The web site went on to say, “Among the highly important treasures in the exhibition are several that have never or rarely been lent before, such as the spectacular, gem-encrusted gold cross presented by the emperor Justin II to Pope John III in the late sixth century, on loan from the Treasury of Saint Peter’s in Vatican City. This cross functioned as a reliquary, containing a piece of the True Cross. Another important reliquary comes from the Museo Diocesano of Milan.

“An extremely rare silver reliquary, the “Capsella” of San Nazaro was discovered in 1578, when Saint Carlo Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, ordered the exploration of the area beneath the high altar of the church of San Nazaro (the fourth-century Basilica Apostolorum). One of the largest silver reliquaries of the Early Christian period, this box from San Nazaro combines sacred Christian imagery from the Old and New Testaments with imperial iconography. The Roman chiton and short, fringed hair worn by Christ while teaching, and the scene of the enthroned Virgin holding the Christ Child, recall the classicizing tradition of the imperial court.

“Also crafted in silver are two plates depicting scenes from the life of David, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part of a series of nine plates, these fine silver objects were discovered in a hoard in Cyprus in 1902. Decorated in relief, the Byzantine fashion of the figures and the five official stamps on the underside of each plate, applied to only the highest quality Byzantine silver, reveal the plates’ origins and date them securely to the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–41). Most likely they were intended as imperial gifts.

“Carved sculpture, both in stone and in ivory, also form an integral part of the exhibition. From the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence is the ivory diptych of Adam Naming the Animals and the Miracles of St. Paul, one of the masterpieces of their collection. Imposing sarcophagi with scenes of the life and ministry of Christ as well as depictions of Daniel, Jonah, and other figures of both the Old and New Testaments on loan from the Vatican Museums, Trier, Arles, and Algeria are also part of the exhibition.

“Illustrated manuscripts are among the rarest and most treasured objects in the exhibition. Only a handful of illustrated Bibles from the sixth century have survived, and an unprecedented three of these are included in the exhibition. The Rabbula Gospels, on loan from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, were inscribed by a monk named Rabbula in a Syrian monastery, who in 586 A.D. recorded the moment when he had finished the manuscript. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is lending an illustrated folio—only five of which are extant—from the fragmentary Greek Sinope Gospels, the entire text of which is written in gold on purple-dyed vellum. On loan from the British Library are several fragments of the Cotton Genesis, a Greek manuscript probably produced in Egypt. Although the manuscript was tragically reduced to fragments in 1731 during a fire in the Cotton Library, several fragments survived.”

Admission prices for the exhibition are $14 for adults, $12 for seniors age 60 and over and students with ID, and $10 for children between 6 and 11. Children under 6 are free, as are Museum Members. An Acoustiguide audio tour is included in the ticket price. Members may purchase an audio tour for $3. Admission prices are half-off on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. (not applicable for Member audio tours).

Hi David,

I have responded to each of your emails, but it appears that they are not getting through to you. You might want to check the spam filter on your email client.

I would be glad to include your book in my contest/giveaway.

I hope we can make contact.

Kevin

We are drawing near the end of my contest to give away a library. In just 15 days I will be drawing the name of the person who will be awarded a library of books. I took several months off from blogging this year so the library did not grow nearly as large as I expected but it is presently worth more than $500. If you have not yet entered the contest, do so now. All it takes is a link back to the main contest page from a blog or forum.

And here is today’s addition to the collection that will be given away.

+ + +

The Master Plan Of Evangelism by Robert Coleman.

Billy Graham: “Few books have had as great an impact on the cause of world evangelism in our generation as this book.”

Bill Bright: “This book is must reading for everyone who desires to be a disciple of Lord Jesus Christ.”

Dick Eastman: “I recommend it to all believers with great delight.”

Luis Palau: “I join with the thousands of Christian leaders who have recommended it, used it, and seen the fruit of this New Testament master plan from the Master himself.”

John Perkins: “This book as been, to me, second only to the Bible in terms ofhow it has affected my life.”

Chuck Swindoll: “All who are interested in evangelism and the importance of mentoring will find this book insightful, useful, and helpful.”