More about the Two Cuneiform Tablets

The Jerusalem Post has a good article that provides additional information about the two cuneiform tablets dated from around the time of Abraham. The tablets were found at Hazor and contain words similar to words found in the Code of Hammurabi.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The newly discovered fragments were written in Akkadian cuneiform script and refer to issues of personal injury law relating to slaves and masters. They are reminiscent of similar laws in the famous Babylonian Hammurabi Code of the 18th century BCE that were found 109 years ago in what is now Iran. The new fragments were found by chance in the palace area.

The researchers said that the laws also reflected to a certain extent a number of biblical laws such as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth.” Jewish sages have regarded this verse from Leviticus, Exodus and Deuteronomy as an order not to actually remove the eye or tooth of someone who causes another person to lose one, but to require financial compensation equal to its value. So far, among the words that have been deciphered are “master,” “slave” and a word referring to bodily parts, apparently the word for “tooth.”

Horowitz said the text style was similar to that of the Hammurabi Code, which was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, and consists of 282 laws with scaled punishments, adjusting “an eye for an eye” as graded depending on social status, such as whether a slave or a free man was involved. The Hammurabi Code limited even the king’s powers, but did not constitute a Western-style constitution, scholars say.

Read the article in its entirety by visiting The Jerusalem Post online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Hazor, Code of Hammurabi, Cuneiform Tablets

The Waters of the Jordan Are Safe for Baptism

In a previous post, I mentioned a report published in Israel that the waters of the Jordan River had become too polluted for bathing and for baptism.

However, a new report published by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority says that the waters of the Jordan River are safe for baptism. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Bacteriological tests at a baptism site in the lower Jordan River indicate that the water is safe for the Christian holy rite.

The tests conducted Sunday by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority at the Qasr el Yahud site came after allegations that the water was too polluted to be safe for human bathing.

Read the full report here.

This information is good news for people who want to be baptized in the Jordan River. Baptism in the Jordan River is a symbolic commitment Christians make to follow Jesus' example. Baptism in the Jordan River becomes a spiritual experience for many and I am glad that Christians who desire to go through with this act will be able to do so again.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Jordan River, Baptism

The Site of Jesus’ Baptism Now a Cesspool

From Israel Today:

As an indication of how severe Israel's water crisis is becoming, the site along the lower portion of the Jordan River where Jesus was likely baptized by John the Baptist may soon be declared off-limits due to pollution.

The baptismal site welcomes more than 100,000 Christian pilgrims who wish to also be baptized there every year. Though it sits right on the border between Israel and Jordan in a closed military zone, coordination between the Israeli army and Jordanian authorities has kept the site open to tourists.

But the ongoing regional drought has largely dried up the once-mighty Jordan River. The only thing flowing into the lower Jordan today is raw sewage from the nearby Palestinian town of Jericho, which has badly contaminated the baptismal site that lies just a mile or so downstream.

According to a report by The Media Line, Israeli officials are considering erecting signs at the site that read: "Polluted Waters. Entry Forbidden."

The situation facing the Jordan River today is a tragedy. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to baptize several people at the baptismal site where people believe Jesus was baptized. It was a great experience for me as a pastor and a tremendous experience for those who went through the waters of baptism. But now the place is polluted and soon will be closed to the public.

Since one of the reasons for this situation is the severe drought affecting the region, maybe people of faith need to pray for rain, for God is the one who “gives rain to the earth, pours water down on the fields” (Job 5:10).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

UPDATE

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority says that the waters of the Jordan River are safe for baptism.

More information here.

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Tags: Archaeology, Jesus’ Baptism, Jordan River

To Pray or Not to Pray

Many years ago, when I was the pastor of a church in California, I received a call from one of my deacons asking me to visit a woman who was very sick, afflicted with cancer. When I arrived at her house, I discovered that she was a Jehovah’s Witness.

She was at an advanced stage in her cancer and she badly needed a blood transfusion. Since she was a Jehovah’s Witness and this religious group does not believe in blood transfusion, she did not know what to do and she needed my opinion.

I explained to her how the Jehovah’s Witnesses misinterpret the Bible on this issue and that there is no Biblical mandate on blood transfusion. After a long conversation about faith, the Bible, and Jesus Christ, the woman accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and decided to go ahead with the transfusion.

That saved her life, but the cancer did not go away. The woman was baptized in the church and began to attend the church regularly, as her illness allowed her to drive. A few months later her doctor told her that the cancer had advanced to a critical level and that she needed immediate surgery.

The woman was a divorced mother with two children. The doctor told her that she did not have long to live. Desperate to provide for her children after death, she asked a couple in my church to care for the children after her death. The couple told her they would care for the two boys.

Our church had been praying for this woman. After the doctor told her that she needed surgery and that she did not have long to live, my deacons and I went to her house to pray for her. Following the Biblical injunction (James 5:14-15), we prayed for her, asking God’s will to be done in her life.

Finally, the day of the surgery arrived. When the doctor prepared to remove the cancerous organ, he discovered that there was no cancer. The cancer was all gone. Miracles still happen.

Several months later, in a cancer survival meeting, the doctor was invited to speak to the group. He said that the woman had cancer before the surgery and that when she went to surgery there was no cancer. The doctor just said that he could not explain what happened.

The woman was so grateful for the miracle God performed in her life, that she went back to school, became a nurse, and began to work with people with cancer. This woman’s life and her survival from cancer are evidence that God answers prayer.

Last year I went to Brazil to visit my aunt who was dying with cancer. My sister called me from Brazil regularly to keep me informed about her health. My aunt went for treatments but her health was not improving. My sister urged me to go home to visit our aunt, since she was our favorite aunt, one who took care of us when we were small children.

When I heard that my aunt had cancer, I asked my church in Chicago to pray for her. In addition, another sister in Brazil whose ministry is to work with the sick and visit them in the hospital, formed a prayer group to pray for our aunt.

When I went to Brazil, I visited my aunt and spent several days with her. One thing we wanted to do was to visit the rest of the family while I was in Brazil. During my visit, my aunt asked me several times to pray for her, which I did.

A few months ago, my sister called me and said that my aunt had gone to the doctor and the doctor said that she was cancer free. Her cancer had reached some vital organs and no one expected my aunt to live very long. Yet, she is alive because God answers prayer.

A few days ago, I wrote a post reviewing Peter Hitchens’s book The Rage against God. Peter Hitchens is the brother of Christopher Hitchens, a man who has made a name for himself by proclaiming that there is no God, that God is not great, and by making ridicule of religion, the Bible, and prayer.

At the time I wrote my post, I did not know that Christopher Hitchens had announced that he has cancer of the esophagus. According to Hitchwatch, Christopher Hitchens’s cancer had reached stage IIB or possibly stage III and for this reason he may not have many more years to live. Once a person reaches stage III, the chances of surviving five years is 15%.

In an article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Carlin Romano wrote about Hitchens’s situation:

If God occasionally intervenes in the world to shoot down an atheist—to show who's boss, or simply to vent—it makes sense for Him to target the esophagus.

As organs go, it's long and conveniently placed, stretching from throat to stomach, making a good target for an elderly yet determined deity with possibly shaky hands. Its importance to speech heightens the symbolic force intended. And its connection to swallowing suggests the irony some believers think God enjoys too much: You can't swallow me? You won't swallow anything!

Christopher’s Hitchens’s cancer has provoked a debate on the Internet: should people pray for an atheist when that person does not believe in God and does not believe in prayer? The reaction has been mixed, but both Jews and Christians believe that it is appropriate to pray for an atheist while most atheists say that people should not pray for Hitchens.

The prospect of death and the implications of what comes after death frightens even atheists. When confronted with the reality of death, atheists seek a loophole in their argument for the nonexistence of God. A good example of this is Richard Dawkins.

In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins developed a spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God. In this spectrum, there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God. Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist.

I do not know at what level Hitchens places himself. But from his writings, it seems that he places himself at level 7. If this is so, Hitchens does not accept that there is a God and since there is no God, it is futile to pray.

As for me, I have already prayed for Christopher Hitchens. He may not accept my prayers, but maybe the fact that he is about to meet his maker may open a door for him to rediscover God. After all, it was the fear of the final judgment that led his brother to discover faith and return to God.

Some day, sooner or later, Christopher Hitchens will die, in the same way I and everybody else will die. As the Bible says: “It is appointed for human beings to die once, and after that comes the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

And when people die, they must give an account to the Creator for what they have done: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done” (Revelation 20:12).

Cancer is a devastating and painful experience for believers and non-believers alike. This is the reason I believe people of faith should pray for Christopher Hitchens.

To Christopher Hitchens I have this word of advice: “Prepare to meet your God” (Amos 4:12).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Atheists, Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Hitchens, Cancer, Prayer

“Hazor, the head of all those kingdoms”

Image: Baal Mask Found at Hazor



In a previous post I mentioned that archaeologists digging at Hazor have found two fragments of a cuneiform tablet that contain what has been described as portions of a law code. It has been reported that these fragments contain laws similar to laws found in the Code of Hammurabi. Archaeologists are continuing their work, excavating a monumental structure dated to the Bronze Age, where more tablets are expected to be found.

When Joshua and the army of Israel began their campaign to conquer the northern part of Canaan (Joshua 11:1-15), he encountered a confederation of Canaanite kings, led by Jabin, king of Hazor. These kings were aware of what Israel had already done in the southern part of Canaan, and although the Canaanite kings were not friendly with each other, they realized that Israel posed a great threat to their survival.

According to the Biblical text, the size of the Canaanite army was impressive: “And they went out, they and all their armies with them, a great people, in number like the sand on the seaside, with horses and war-carriages in great number” (Joshua 11:4).

According to Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote a history of Israel in the first century A.D., the Canaanites had mustered 300,000 infantry soldiers, 10,000 calvary troops, and 20,000 chariots.

The Canaanite kings joined forces, gathered their armies, and encamped at the waters of Merom in their preparation to fight against Israel. But Joshua surprised them. Instead of waiting to be attacked by the Canaanites, Joshua surprised Jabin and his army by the waters of Merom, striking them and pursuing them until the Canaanite army was defeated.

Joshua and the army of Israel then invaded the Canaanite cities and captured them. However, of all of the Canaanite cities conquered, only Hazor was burned: “And Joshua turned back at that time and captured Hazor and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting them to destruction; there was none left that breathed. And he burned Hazor with fire” (Joshua 11:10-11).

The reason Hazor was burned was because “Hazor was the head of all those kingdoms.” This means that Hazor was a strong and well-fortified city. That Jabin, the king of Hazor, was able to muster a coalition to fight against Israel shows the influence of the city among the other Canaanite city-states.

By the time of the judges, during the days of Deborah and Barak, the Canaanites were able to regain some strength and reconquer some of the territory they had lost to Israel. As a result, they were able to rebuild Hazor and establish a new king on the throne, identified as “Jabin, king of Canaan” (Judges 4:2). It is possible that Jabin was a dynastic name of the kings of Hazor.

Led by Deborah and Barak, the Israelites fought against Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, conquered the Canaanites, and took possession of Hazor, which became an Israelite city settled by the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 19:32, 36).

During the time of the monarchy, Solomon fortified Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer and established these cities as centers of defense against possible attacks by enemies from the north. Hazor was one of the cities conquered by Tiglath-pileser III during his war against the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Arameans in 734 B.C. (2 Kings 15:29).

In antiquity, Hazor was an important city. The name of the city appears in the Execration Texts from Egypt (19th century B.C.), in the Mari Tablets (18th century B.C.), in the list of conquered cities from the times of Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, and Seti I, as well as in four Amarna Letters.

Hazor was first excavated by John Garstang in 1928. However, the major excavation of the tell was done by Yigael Yadin, who discovered twenty-two levels of occupation. Among the discoveries at Hazor were a Hyksos city, several Canaanite temples, and many religious artifacts.

As I mentioned above, archaeologists have found two fragments of a cuneiform tablet at Hazor. However, this discovery is not unique. In 1962, an American tourist found a cuneiform tablet on the surface of the tell. That tablet, written in Akkadian, described a lawsuit adjudicated by the king of Hazor. According to archaeologists, the tablet was dated to the 17th century B.C.

A cursory reading of the Bible does not reveal the greatness of the city of Hazor at the height of its power. During the Middle and Late Bronze ages, Hazor probably rivaled other great cities in the Ancient Near East, both in size and in influence.

Archaeology has provided extremely important evidence that Hazor was a great city in antiquity. Let us hope that the excavation of the tell will provide additional evidence of the greatness of “Hazor, the head of all those kingdoms.”

Read also: More about the Two Cuneiform Tablets


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Archaeology, Hazor, Jabin, Joshua, Conquest

Cuneiform Tablet from Hazor

There is a report being made public that archaeologists digging at Hazor have found two fragments of a cuneiform tablet that contain what has been described as portions of a law code.

According to the report, the fragments contain laws similar to laws found in the Code of Hammurabi. At the present, archaeologists are working their way down towards a monumental structure dating to the Bronze Age, where more tablets are expected to be found.

Seth L. Sanders’s blog has more details on this amazing discovery.

More on the cuneiform documents:

“Hazor, the head of all those kingdoms”

More about the Two Cuneiform Tablets


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Hazor, Cuneiform, Code of Hammurabi

Translating Ugarit With A Computer

In an article published in National Geographic, a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that they have developed a program that translates Ugarit by comparing written Ugarit with Hebrew.

The following is an excerpt from the article that appeared in National Geographic:

A new computer program has quickly deciphered a written language last used in Biblical times—possibly opening the door to "resurrecting" ancient texts that are no longer understood, scientists announced last week.

Created by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the program automatically translates written Ugaritic, which consists of dots and wedge-shaped stylus marks on clay tablets. The script was last used around 1200 B.C. in western Syria.

Written examples of this "lost language" were discovered by archaeologists excavating the port city of Ugarit in the late 1920s. It took until 1932 for language specialists to decode the writing. Since then, the script has helped shed light on ancient Israelite culture and Biblical texts.

Using no more computing power than that of a high-end laptop, the new program compared symbol and word frequencies and patterns in Ugaritic with those of a known language, in this case, the closely related Hebrew.

Through repeated analysis, the program linked letters and words to map nearly all Ugaritic symbols to their Hebrew equivalents in a matter of hours.

The program also correctly identified Ugaritic and Hebrew words with shared roots 60 percent of the time.

Read the article in its entirety by visiting National Geographic online.

This development is good news for scholars. The article says that the program can be adapted to translate other ancient languages. Those scholars who work with ancient languages soon will have a tool that will be invaluable in their study of ancient texts.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Ugaritic, Translation, Ancient Texts

A Special Note for Pastors

Erik Stanley, Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel has written an article that all pastors must read. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision recently that demonstrates why churches should be updating their by-laws to protect against potential litigation that can threaten the constitutional right of the church to select its ministers free from government interference. The case was called Skrzypczak v. Diocese of Tulsa. In the case, the Diocese hired Ms. Skrzypczak to work as the Director of the Department of Religious Formation for the Diocese. She also had a supervisory role over the Diocese’s Pastoral Studies Institute and taught some religious courses at the Institute. After working for several years for the Diocese in this capacity, Ms. Skrzypczak was terminated. She filed suit against the Diocese alleging age and sex discrimination.

The issue in the case was whether Ms. Skrzypczak was considered a minister for purposes of the “ministerial exception” to Title VII which is the law that prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of, among other things, race, religion, age, and sex. Title VII usually prohibits discrimination unless the employee is considered a minister of a religious organization. If the employee is a minister, then Title VII does not apply and the courts will not hear claims of discrimination in employment. I should also note that a church is allowed by Title VII to make employment decisions on the basis of religion even with non-minister employees.

The Court’s holding enabled the Diocese to avoid a costly protracted lawsuit and demonstrates the need for churches to update their by-laws to include job descriptions for each position in their church specifically describing how those positions contribute to the spiritual and pastoral mission of the church. Having such job descriptions for each position at the church will make it easier for a church to bring itself into the ministerial exception if a lawsuit arises as a result of an employment decision by the church.

I urge pastors to read the article in its entirety and then take steps to update the by-laws of their churches, if they have not already done so.

Click here to read the article.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Church Conflict

An Akkadian Document from Jerusalem

Photo: The Akkadian Fragment from Jerusalem






Archaeologists have discovered a small fragment of the oldest known written document found in Jerusalem. The document in question is a clay document written in Akkadian, the lingua franca of diplomacy in the Late Bronze Age. The tiny clay fragment is dated to the 14th century B.C.

According to archaeologists, the fragment was part of a royal archive from one of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem during the Amarna Age. The following are excerpts from an article that appeared in ScienceDaily:

A tiny clay fragment -- dating from the 14th century B.C.E. -- that was found in excavations outside Jerusalem's Old City walls contains the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The find, believed to be part of a tablet from a royal archives, further testifies to the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the Late Bronze Age, long before its conquest by King David, they say.

The clay fragment was uncovered recently during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century B.C.E. tower dating from the period of King Solomon in the Ophel area, located between the southern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem and the City of David to its south.

The fragment found at the Ophel is believed to be contemporary with the some 380 tablets discovered in the 19th century at Amarna in Egypt in the archives of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who lived in the 14th century B.C.E. The archives include tablets sent to Akhenaten by the kings who were subservient to him in Canaan and Syria and include details about the complex relationships between them, covering many facets of governance and society. Among these tablets are six that are addressed from Abdi-Heba, the Canaanite ruler of Jerusalem. The tablet fragment in Jerusalem is most likely part of a message that would have been sent from the king of Jerusalem, possibly Abdi-Heba, back to Egypt, said Mazar [Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology has been leading the excavations in the Ophel].

Cuneiform writing was commonly used in diplomatic and official documents in the Ancient Near East. If this Akkadian document is a fragment of a letter between the royal court in Jerusalem and the royal court in Egypt, then this discovery reveals the importance of Jerusalem as a city-state a few centuries before David conquered the city.

In the article cited above, Eilat Mazar emphasizes the significance of this discovery:

Mazar says this new discovery, providing solid evidence of the importance of Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age (the second half of the second century B.C.E.), acts as a counterpoint to some who have used the lack of substantial archeological findings from that period until now to argue that Jerusalem was not a major center during that period. It also lends weight to the importance that accrued to the city in later times, leading up to its conquest by King David in the 10th century B.C.E.

Again, if this fragment was part of a royal archive, it is possible that, with additional excavations at the site, many other documents will be found. Such a discovery would then provide important information on the history of ancient Jerusalem.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Eilat Mazar, Akkadian Fragment, Jerusalem

The Rage Against God

I am back to work again. After a few days away from work, after a few days of rest and relaxation, today I am back in my office to complete an academic marathon I have set for myself to finish this summer. This marathon includes a lot of reading and a lot of writing.

A personal note about my vacation. Many years ago, I set out to visit all 50 states. As of last week, I had visited 46 states and I was four short to complete my tour of the United States. Last week I visited the 47th state. Now, I have only three states which I have yet to visit: Alaska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. So, my goal is to visit these last three states next summer.

During my visit to Minnesota (the 47th state on my list), I had the opportunity to read a very interesting book. The book, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) was written by Peter Hitchens.

The name Hitchens should be familiar to readers of my blog. Peter is the brother of Christopher Hitchens, the author of god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Although I have never reviewed Christopher Hitchens’s book, I have mentioned him several times in different posts in which I discussed atheism.

The Hitchens brothers were devout and militant atheists who tried to convince people everywhere that religion was destructive and faith in God was something that should be rejected and abandoned. And yet, in their deep involvement in promoting atheism, Peter became a believer and his brother Christopher continues to proclaim that there is no God.

It is amazing how atheism works in the lives of people. When people deny the existence of God and try to live a secular life devoid of God and of a compass that can guide them in life’s most important decisions, they accept their own view of reality as the basis upon which to make moral decisions and criticize those who accept God as the foundation of ultimate authority.

Peter’s book begins by describing his descent toward atheism and his involvement with communism. He then describes what brought him back from the edge of the abyss into a life of faith in which God became an important factor in his new life. He then addresses the three failed arguments of atheism. It is this second part of the book that was of great interest to me.

However, an issue that all readers of the book want to know is the answer to what Peter said in the subtitle of his book: “how atheism led me to faith.” Before I mention how Peter came to faith, let me say a few words about his journey to atheism.

When Peter was fifteen years old, he set fire to his Bible to demonstrate his break with religion and his rage against God. This is how Peter described that event:

“At that moment I knew–absolutely knew–that it was the enemy’s book, the keystone of the arch I wished to bring down. I knew that there was no God, that the Old Testament was a gruesome series of atrocity stories and fairy tales, while the gospels were a laughable invention used to defraud the simple” (p. 18).

To Peter, to be free from the demands of the Bible was to be free from absolute rules, to be free to do anything he wanted to do, to be happy, to be himself. As an unbeliever, his conscience would dictate what was right and what was wrong. As he wrote: “Enlightened self-interest was the evolutionary foundation of good behavior” (p. 20).

But notwithstanding his effort to declare that he was an unbeliever, that there was no God, one thing Peter could never completely remove from his life was the awareness that all people will die someday and that maybe, just maybe, death is not the end of everything. Whenever he saw a church, he recognized the unsettling message it brought to his life: “the inevitability and certainty of my own death” (p. 101).

It was when visiting the Hotel-Dieu in Beaune and contemplating The Last Judgment, a religious painting by Rogier van der Weyden, that his rediscovery of faith began. In that painting Peter saw the realities of the afterlife: the reality of judgment, the consequences of unbelief, and the final destination of the ungodly.

Confronted with the reality that people will be judged for their actions, Peter feared and trembled “for the things of which my conscience was afraid (and is afraid)” (p. 104).

Peter’s experience with the reality of death and the afterlife reminded me of the words of Robert Ingersoll, the great atheist, on the occasion of the death of his brother. On two previous posts (here and here), I wrote what Ingersoll said when confronted with the death of his brother (read Ingersoll’s words by reading the two posts above).

It is in the reality of death that we can see a crack in the walls of atheism. The reality of death and the awareness that there is life here and life beyond becomes a faint light that begins to shine in the dark hearts of atheists.

After recounting his descent into atheism and his rediscovery of faith, Peter addressed the “three failed arguments of atheism.” These three arguments are presented in the form of three questions:

1. “Are conflicts fought in the name of religion conflicts about religion?”

2. “Is it possible to determine what is right and what is wrong without God?”

3. “Are atheist states not actually atheist?”

I am not discussing each of these questions today. However, I want to make a few comments on question two. Peter said that one of the biggest problems of atheism is the inability to concede that “to be effectively absolute, a moral code needs to be beyond human power to alter.”

The fact is, that when left to themselves, human beings can justify the destruction of cities, the slaughter and starvation of inconvenient people, “and the mass murder of the unborn” (p. 141). He wrote: “In their attempt to argue that effective and binding codes can be developed without the deity, atheism often mistakes inferior codes of ‘common decency’ for absolute moral systems.”

I enjoyed reading this book because it offers hope to people who are struggling with the problems of faith and religion. Peter’s descent into atheism and his rediscovery of faith clearly shows that there is hope for people who live apart from Christ, people who do not know the promises God has made, who live in this world without God and without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

Peter concludes his book with a few words about his relationship with his brother Christopher. He said that his brother “has bricked himself up high in his atheist tower” shooting arrows at the faithful, finding it “rather hard to climb down out of it” (p. 217). Peter’s hope for his brother is that “he might one day arrive at some sort of acceptance that belief in God is not necessarily a character fault–and that religion does not poison everything.”

If Peter was able to come out of darkness into God’s wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9), if he was able to ascend from the depths of atheism into the realm of faith, then we know that there is hope for Christopher Hitchens and for every atheist who is willing to open heart and mind to the light that is shining in the darkness of their atheism (John 1:9).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Atheists, Atheism, Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens

Publications

I have been away from the blog for a while now. After I returned from my conference in Michigan, at the Acton Institute, I took a few days off to relax and to write.

Summer is the time when most professors take time to read and write. I am no exception. I had to write several articles with deadlines in June and July. Since the end of classes in the first week in June, I finished writing two articles and several brief entries for a study Bible. I still have two more articles to write this summer and at least five books I must read before the beginning of classes in September.

After spending most of the past month reading and writing, I need a break. Before I spend the rest of my summer reading and writing (again), I will take a few days off in order to relax and retool for another heavy dose of scholarship. I hope you will understand my absence from blogging. Several things have happened in June and July that deserve a post or two, but these items will have to wait until I return.

In the past few weeks, I had several items published. Here is a list of my publications so far this summer:

1. “William Foxwell Albright,” The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Vol. 1 (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010), 170-171.

2. “Walter Brueggemann,” The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Vol. 1 (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010), 225-226.

3. “Norman K. Gottwald,” The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Vol. 1 (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010), 340-341.

4. “Julius Wellhausen,” The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Vol. 1 (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010), 636-637.

5. “Swords: Their Development and Use,” Biblical Illustrator 37 (Fall 2010), 51-54.

I leave today (Tuesday) for a few days of rest and relaxation. I will return to regular blogging on Monday, July 19. Until then, thank you for visiting my blog.

Have a nice summer.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Blogging, Publications