Religion, Writing

When Is a Biblical Quotation Not a Quote from the Bible?

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This afternoon, my good wife asked me a simple question. “Where does it say God is a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow?” As I was sitting at the computer, tethered to that fount of all knowledge, the InterWeb, I looked it up. “A father to the fatherless” comes from Psalm 68:5, but the phrase that follows is either a judge or defender of the widow depending on your translation. Looking up the Hebrew word in question, I see that judge, advocate, and defender are the ideas at hand, close to but not actually a husband. A couple verses in Deuteronomy speak of God the Father’s intent to protect widows and bring justice to those who would harm them. Where is the phrase “husband to the widow?” It doesn’t appear to be in the Bible, unless it came from an old translation which is no longer in use.

More irritating than not finding a quotation you felt strongly about is finding a couple articles which claim to have read the verse. A couple writers said, “I came across a verse that said that God is a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless.” No reference, of course, but how can people write so carelessly that they don’t double check or reference their biblical quotations?

Or did I just not find the right verse? Any idea where this phrase “husband to the window” came from?

Religion

Herding Norwegians

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Some days a blog topic leaps out at me and takes me by the proverbial throat. Other days I’m like a wallflower at a dance, watching all the topics foxtrot past; everyone else in a couple and me the odd man out.

Not that I ever went to a dance.

So I shall free-associate. The thing I heard today that impressed me most was something a pastor said at the meeting of the board of the Georg Sverdrup Society, which I attended in my capacity as Journal Editor.

He was talking about the history of Scandinavian Lutherans in America.

In general, he said, there were two kinds of Swedes in America—those who belonged to the One Lutheran Church (called the Augustana Synod), and those who left Lutheranism altogether and became Baptists or Evangelical Free Church or nothing at all.

And among the Danes there were also two sorts—those who belonged to the One Lutheran Church (called, I think, the Danish Synod), and those who left Lutheranism altogether and became Baptists or Pentecostals or Salvation Army (for instance) or nothing at all. (My mother, who was half Norwegian, half Danish, was raised a Methodist, and some of her family were Baptists). Continue reading Herding Norwegians →

Authors, The Press

More Horror: Books and Salt!

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Over 100 writers are begging the Washington Post to keep Book World in print. You must, you must, you must, they said. If you don’t print, we won’t be read.

The Post said it needs to cut costs, so the stand-alone book section must go. Current circulation for its Sunday edition is 866,057; daily editions are read by 622,714 (Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX Report – 9/30/2008). I wonder what ideas they bandied about. Scott Karp has a good marketing idea:

“It’s Sunday, time to unplug, shut off the Blackberry, and take a break.

Relax, kick back, and catch up with The Washington Post Sunday Edition”

I wonder if WaPo thought of cutting the gossip/tabloidish stuff. Or the reverse idea, adding gossip to the books section. “PHOTO ESSAY: Skinny Celebrities, how revealing can you get when you don’t have anything to reveal? And Journalist Megan Basham’s new book argues that women would rather stay at home than join the work force.”

And now, more horrific news: New York leadership is murmuring against the perceived excess of salt, suggesting that restaurants volunteer today to use less salt or they may be forced to volunteer tomorrow. Scott Stein says, “If I wrote that, readers would recognize it as satire, an exaggeration of government bullying, and maybe even accuse me of being unsubtle.” (via Books, Inq.)

Uncategorized

The Friday Fight: Hold the Line

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Let’s return to the fight, this time from our sideline camera. I wish we could bring you the action close up, but our close up camera was axed in a manner of speaking–not due to budget cuts. This is a longer fight than we had for a few weeks, and it’s a fascinating display of tactics.

Fiction

The horror! The horror!

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Our friend Loren Eaton writes about the horror genre today over at his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall. He argues that conservatives ought to embrace the genre, quoting Stephen King saying that horror is intrinsically conservative. He also embeds a trailer for a horror film that seems to have a pro-life message (it appears to have been out since August last. Has anyone heard of it? Did it go straight to DVD, as one would expect would happen to a conservative flick?).

Now, as you know, I don’t care for horror at all myself, largely because I’m a fraidy-cat. Life is already scarier than I like; why should I pay somebody to make me afraid?

But you folks out there; normal people–what do you think about horror?

Goofing

I’ve got it!

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For some time I’ve been dealing with the problem of controlling my weight.

Now, inspired by Pres. Obama (peace be upon him) and our legislators, I have seen the way to weight loss success!

Why do people get overweight? Because they take in more calories than they spend, of course.

Why don’t they spend enough calories? Because they’re inactive.

What do you need to become more active? Energy.

Where does energy come from? From food.

Therefore I shall eat more, in order to lose weight.

I call it my Weight Loss Stimulus Plan.

The Press

Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny

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Terry Teachout notes The Washington Post will continue book coverage only online and reminds us of this prediction. “It is the destiny of serious arts journalism to migrate to the Web.” I can’t foresee any counter-argument to this.

Uncategorized

For a few dollars more

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Today was about money, at least as I experienced it.

First of all, I paid the bookstore’s taxes. Deadline is Feb. 5, but I dread the experience so much I figured I’d just go ahead and file. One more week won’t make a lot of difference. Since most of our sales volume is textbooks for our school, exempt from sales tax in this state, we don’t really have to cough up a whole lot. It hardly seems worth the trouble. Not that I have any plans to skip it some year and see whether anybody notices.

I recall an old episode of “Death Valley Days” (why am I thinking about old TV westerns this week?). I think it was in the Ronald Reagan years or later (although for me “The Old Ranger” [Stanley Andrews] was always the proper host. When they replaced him with Ronald Reagan, I just assumed he’d died, but according to Wikipedia they simply fired him on account of his age. I guess nobody’d ever noticed before that The Old Ranger was… you know, old. So they brought in Reagan, who [this may surprise younger readers] was not always ancient. Then came Robert Taylor and Dale Robertson). Continue reading For a few dollars more →

Book Reviews, Creative Culture