Category Archives: religion

A brief note about John the Baptist

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The sermon at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church was given by Bob Shoemake. He preached on the appointed Gospel John 1:29-42. This passage is about Jesus and John the Baptist. One thing Bob said was that, unlike in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), there is no baptism of Jesus by John. Why the Gospel of John Depicted John the Baptist So Differently suggests that is because John (the Evangelist) has a different, “higher” Christology.

Mining Our Biblical Matriarchs

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A workshop on Friday, September 2, 2022 at Chicon 8, presented by Sally Wiener Grotta

The women of the Bible (Eve, Esther, Miriam, etc.) have been amongst the West’s most enduring female archetypes. As lush and varied as any mythology, their stories have been reinterpreted by every generation’s artists, clerics, and political leaders, according to how they expected women to be. However, these archetypes have been largely overlooked by modern spec fic authors. In this workshop, we’ll have fun challenging and toppling common preconceptions about various women of the Bible, as we mine this rich mother lode for SF&F story ideas.

The following are my notes and amplifications. I am solely responsible for their content and any mistakes.
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Return to St. Luke’s

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My wife Mia and I left Windycon about 9AM Sunday, missing the con events of that day. It took nearly an hour, in perfect traffic conditions, to reach the east side of Evanston. Our objective there was St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. We were members of it from 1977 until 1997, and were married there in 1978. The church went through a difficult period in the late 1990’s, but has since recovered and seems to be thriving again. The liturgy is still excellent. Some people from our day are still members, and we were able to talk to a couple of them, including our old EFM mentor. There was quite a crowd for an ordinary Sunday in November, especially in the age of Covid. We introduced ourselves to the new Rector and told her how happy we were at how the parish is doing under her leadership.

A Copper Mine in Ancient Israel

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I wrote in The Archaeology of Armageddon:

The site was occupied almost continuously from about 3500 BCE until about 586 BCE, but a direct connection to King Solomon has yet to be found. What were thought to be Solomon’s stables now seem to date from the reign of Ahab, about 870-850 BCE. Ahab and his father Omri get a terrible press in the Biblical book of 1 Kings, but unlike their predecessors in both Israel and Judah, they are mentioned in contemporary Moabite and Assyrian records. We do not yet have such a verification of the Biblical account for David and Solomon
However, somebody at that time was operating a large copper mine in what is now Israel with fortifications. Continue reading →