In this book they seek to make a biblical case for same-sex relationships and marriage.

Ending the conservative Christian love affair

"We advocate for full inclusion of believers with differing sexual orientations not because we reject the authority of the Bible," the pair write.

"Far from it: We have come to advocate their inclusion precisely because we affirm the force and authority of the Bible's ongoing story of God's mercy."

Two respected Christian thinkers making a biblical argument for LGBTQ+ relationships and inclusion would have been newsworthy just a decade or two ago; in recent years, many scholars, pastors and lay thinkers have published books drawing similar conclusions.

So while the Hayses add their voices to the chorus and strike some new notes, they are a bit late to the concert.

But the most remarkable thing about this book is not its arguments, interesting and important as they are, but rather Richard Hays' name on its cover.

For the last quarter-century, conservative Christians have been citing Hays to argue against same-sex relationships and marriage.

His 1996 book "The Moral Vision of the New Testament" argued that the Bible explicitly prohibits LGBTQ+ marriage. Homosexuality, he wrote, "is one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God's loving purpose."

Since news of the current book broke, the conservative Christian love affair with Hays has ended.

The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has lamented Hays' change of mind as "a cause of grief and sadness."

The Gospel Coalition has declared that the Hayses are "deceiving people when it comes to God's offer" of salvation, and Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary called the book "heresy…. A full doctrinal revolt."

Repentance

One might wonder why Hays, 76-years-old and battling pancreatic cancer, would choose to publish a provocative book years after retiring from Duke Divinity School.

Hays' answer is simple: This book is an effort to engage in an ancient Christian practice that he has taught about in classrooms for years: repentance.

In a video interview, Hays described the book to me as a metanoia, an ancient Greek word meaning "change of mind" and translated as "repentance" in English versions of the New Testament, where it appears 20 times; the verb "repent" appears an additional 27 times.

A recurrent theme in the teachings of Jesus, it's also a fixture in the prophetic cries of John the Baptiser and a main message of the Apostle Paul, who taught that living according to God's will means to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Hays says metanoia denotes more than feeling or saying you are sorry; it means taking action to demonstrate one's new perspective. "The Widening of God's Mercy" is his effort to do just that.

"The present book is, for me, an effort to offer contrition and to set the record straight on where I now stand … I am deeply sorry. The present book can't undo past damage, but I pray that it may be of some help," Hays told me.

Those harmed by Hays' previous work may reply that even the most magisterial volume of repentance won't undo the damage caused by his previous work.

It's impossible to repay the generation that has been psychologically tortured by conservative pastors and parents armed with Hays' "moral vision" for their lives.

However impactful his new book, Hays can't make up for the years of sanity lost to depression, the sense of rejection by one's creator, countless prayers pleading to be changed that went unanswered. No book can pay such a debt.

At the same time, repentance requires us to attempt to seek forgiveness and make repair, no matter how delayed. It takes uncommon courage to make amends for past mistakes in the twilight of one's life, and it's a step that Hays frankly did not have to take.

It has already cost him the respect and accolades of an influential swath of Christianity.

If Christians are nothing else, they are people who know how to change their minds.

Today, however, some types of Christians have come to regard changing one's mind as a sign of spiritual weakness, as if it can only be the fruit of cultural capitulation or compromise.

I've heard pastors and theologians like Mohler brag about believing exactly the same things today as they did when they were mere youths.

They may be models of consistency, but they seem to know very little about the practice of repentance beyond the moment of Christian conversion. By definition, consistency and repentance are forces at odds. To repent is literally to forfeit one's consistency.

The late Christian writer Frederick Buechner said, "To repent is to come to your senses." And, Buechner added, it's not so much something you do as it is something that happens to you. For Hays, at least, this is how it began.

Thinking challenged

Hays goes directly at his critics on this point. In the years after the publication of "A Moral Vision of the New Testament," Hays said in our interview, he began to feel "deeply troubled by the way my chapter has been appropriated as ammunition by some individuals and groups taking the uncompromising ‘conservative' position."

When he penned his book in 1996, he said, he considered the chapter on homosexuality to be "proposals about how to best discern the New Testament's relevance for difficult and contested questions in our time" that could "start a conversation rather than end one."

As conservatives seized upon his words and used them "as a cover for exclusionary attitudes and practices wrapped in more ‘compassionate' packaging," Hays realised he had been naïve.

Hays' thinking was also challenged by the spiritual fidelity of the gay and lesbian people in his life.

He describes his Church as "a grace-filled Church community where gay and lesbian Christians participate fully as members and as leaders, without making it into a Church-defining issue."

The more he considered the many LGBTQ+ students in his classroom who were "both excellent students and gracious, compassionate people," the harder it became "to say that they should have the door slammed on them in terms of admittance to the full range of the Church's sacraments."

If these sexual minorities existed outside of God's good graces, then why was Hays witnessing so much undeniable spiritual fruit in their lives?

It all came to a head at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hays had watched with dismay as Christopher's employer, Fuller Theological Seminary, began expelling homosexuals and allies from their community.

"I was not proud of what had happened at this school where I worked," Christopher told me.

"And I had a hunch, too, that my Dad didn't feel comfortable with what had come of what he'd written, and that his heart was in a different place, too, but we had never really talked it out."

Mercy

Father and son entered into a period of intentional conversations as the pandemic went along, and they wrote out what they had come to believe.

The result was a picture of a God who changes his mind in response to human pain and seeking, and who is always expanding the reach of his mercy.

Through this process Richard Hays realised that in his previous work, he had been "more concerned about my own intellectual project than about the pain of gay and lesbian people inside and outside the Church, including those driven out of the Church by unloving condemnation."

He decided, along with Christopher, to write a book arguing for full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people into the life of faith that includes an epilogue written by Richard in which he profusely apologises for the harm his previous work has caused.

"The Widening of God's Mercy" is a prestigious New Testament scholar's attempt to demonstrate that he has come to his senses.

What remains to be seen, but will soon become apparent, is whether those Christians who are still unconvinced about the faithfulness of sexual minorities will join him.

• First published by Religion News Service
• Jonathan Merritt is senior columnist for Religion News Service

She's brilliant, well-educated, charming, and loaded with experience in all aspects of her profession.

The problem is her emotional state, which, even with therapy and medication, is always one meltdown away from another pink slip.

Another friend who went to school with me passed all the same exams I did. Yet she hasn't worked in 20 years.

Depression keeps her at home, struggling to get out of bed each morning and to fill the days with meaning. Shame at her apparent failure paralyses her efforts.

A third friend has worked at the same job for decades but finds no joy in it — or in anything, to be honest.

He'd like to retire and is eligible to do so. Yet a dark cloud sits over his ability to make decisions.

He keeps hoping the choice to leave his job will be taken out of his hands by forces outside of his control.

Chances are we all know people who suffer from poor mental health of one kind or another.

Mental health and resilience

The World Health Organisation defines mental health as more than the absence of mental disorders.

Mental wellness is the state of being able to cope with life stressors, to learn and to work well, and to contribute to family and community in a way that provides a certain amount of fulfillment.

To be sure, not all of us tap dance to work on Monday morning. And in some seasons of life, our circumstances may be far from carefree.

I've had jobs I heartily disliked, bosses I couldn't please, relationships fraught with conflict, financial precarity that filled the nights with anxiety.

I've endured low periods that kept me in emotional or career stasis for longer than was good for anyone concerned.

But given enough time and support, I managed to squirm out of difficulty and back into the sunshine. Being able to find safe passage through dark times is a feature of mental well-being and resilience.

For a variety of reasons, that resilience doesn't function adequately for everyone — or perhaps for anyone under the wrong circumstances.

Genetics, grief, displacement from home, disability, substance abuse, and trauma are just a few of the factors that can make mental resilience nearly impossible.

There's little encouragement in being browbeaten by religious messages that tell us our job is to share good news with confidence, to exhibit joy without a hint of fear.

Biblical examples

Does the Bible have any examples of people who struggle with mental darkness?

Job instantly springs to mind, crying out on his dung heap in losses without consolation.

The priest Ezekiel, in exile in Babylon, demonstrates symptoms of a troubled mental state, including catatonia, paralysis, and what might be described as hallucinations — unless you prefer to call them visions.

Jeremiah suffers profound melancholy at the needless destruction of his community and rejection by his allies. We might call Jeremiah paranoid too, if his enemies weren't really out to get him.

Many psalm writers compose lamentations that give poignant voice to a community-wide sense of desolation and loss of hope.

Mary Magdalene, we're told, was possessed of seven demons before she met Jesus.

And plenty of other folks in her generation suffered similar excruciating afflictions, bound up in disordered mental states that tormented them and likewise robbed them of communal support.

Doubtless there were others, though scripture doesn't linger on their stories. Jacob's lone daughter, Dinah, for example.

After being sexually assaulted by the prince of Shechem and becoming her brothers' excuse to wreak vengeance on the entire community, Dinah never marries or bears children, as we learn later in the catalogue of descendants.

We can imagine her young trauma, followed by years of scandal, shame, and isolation, made trust and recovery difficult. It's likely the rest of Dinah's story was as unhappy as the part we know.

Or consider Hagar, Sarah's maid.

Hagar was a foreign woman enslaved in a wandering Aramean tent community. She was presented to Abraham, the head of his tribe, as a sort of parting gift by her people.

Handed once more to Abraham by Sarah as a means to an end—bearing an heir in Sarah's stead — this young woman is obliged to have relations with a very old man who hopes for a son.

After Hagar bears one, she's subsequently beaten and abused by a jealous Sarah.

Later, when Sarah finally bears her own child, Hagar and her son, Ishmael, are both driven from the community into the wilderness.

Isn't it likely that Hagar wrestled through some darkness? Wouldn't her son, rejected by his father, impoverished, and raised in the wild, carry his own mental scarring?

It's Job, of course, whose depression is most celebrated — if you can use the word celebrate in the same sentence as depression.

Job endures sleepless nights, during which all the monsters of his tragedy come out to haunt him. Read more

• Alice Camille is the author of Working Toward Sainthood (Twenty-Third Publications) and other titles available at www.alicecamille.com.

The guide seeks to present Holy Scripture in an engaging manner to younger individuals who may not typically engage with the Bible.

The guide, a brainchild of the Bible Society of New Zealand, is a unique response to the Synod on Youth that was held in 2018.

The Bible Society describes Identity:Identified as "unique" and a practical tool to help everyone, especially young people, follow Jesus as they navigate life's challenges and trust him as a true friend and companion.

Beyond featuring hundreds of inspiring and uplifting Biblical passages, Identity:Identified offers 96 pages of curated content across 24 inserts, each addressing key challenges facing today's youth.

Among the topics included are

• navigating loneliness
• peer pressure
• living in a highly sexualised society
• coping with online bullying, and
• understanding life's deeper meaning

Adding a modern touch, the guide features 32 QR codes linking to video testimonials on the transformative power of Scripture in life. An accompanying app enhances the utility of the guide by offering access to insert materials, videos and daily readings.

The New Zealand Bishops have expressed their unequivocal support for Identity:Identified.

They believe the guide will be a powerful reminder to young people of God's enduring love and unfailing support, especially during their most challenging times.

They are optimistic that this innovative approach to spiritual guidance will resonate with young individuals navigating the modern world.

Among the contributors of the Catholic teaching materials are Bishop Steve Lowe, Emeritus Cardinal John Dew, Bishop Michael Dooley and Australia's Archbishop Mark Coleridge, alongside other prominent Catholic figures from Asia-Pacific such as the late Cardinal Sim from Borneo, Archbishop Simon Poh from Malaysia and Bishop Broderick Pabillo from the Philippines.

Source

• Supplied - Bible Society

The 1631 "Wicked" Bible, as it has become known, omits the word "not" from its seventh commandment, informing readers "thou shalt commit adultery" Read more

The post features a photo of Pope Francis and a screenshot of an article from April 2018, which is headlined: "Pope Francis cancels The Bible and proposes to create a new book." Continue reading

The 'most popular' claim is made by the creators of Bible App, YouVersion.

YouVersion's statistics show that worldwide 400 million users shared, bookmarked and highlighted Philippians 4:6 during 2019.

The Philippians verse reads: 'Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.'

Along with the most popular verse, YouVersion also announced that the Bible App experienced a 30 percent increase in users when compared to the previous 12 months.

Overall in 2019 BibleApp recorded users

• read 35.6billion Bible chapters;
• listened to 5.6billion chapters;
• made 2billion highlights, notes and bookmarks, and
• shared 478million verses.

The app was also said to have been installed by 50 million new users outside the United States this year.

"Our desire is to help people grow in their relationship with God by encouraging them to read the Bible and seek Him every day," said YouVersion Founder Bobby Gruenewald.

"We're encouraged to see so many people turning to the Bible in response to their worries, remembering what God has done in their lives, and choosing to trust in His faithfulness."

Gruenwald says YouVersion is excited to see an increasing global engagement in the Bible.

He says the company is "humbled" by the opportunity to see lives changed in every country in the world.

Gruenwald says that right now, the Bible App offers more than 2,000 Bible versions in more than 1,350 languages.

"However, over a billion people globally don't have access to a complete Bible in their native language," he counters.

He says YouVersion is working to give more people the Bible translated in their native language, and that YouVersion's goal is that by 2033, 95 percent of the world's population will have a complete Bible in their language and 99.9 percent will have a complete New Testament and 100 percent will have at least some portion of Scripture available through YouVersion.

Source

• Supplied: YouVersion

Dr Dirk Obbink, 62, an associate professor at Oxford University's classics faculty, has been accused of selling without permission fragments belonging to the vast Oxyrhynchus collection.

Dr Obbink has denied any wrongdoing but is now under investigation by Oxford University, which continues to employ him while inquiries are ongoing. Read more

Mass readings are also delivered every day, thanks to a partnership with the Marist Messenger.

The site delivers inspirational stories through video and word from Catholics for whom the Bible is an important part of their faith. Among those sharing their thoughts are the Catholic Bishops.

New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference President, Bishop Patrick Dunn, says "Scripture is so much a part of my life I feel I would be pretty empty without this daily time spent reflecting on the Word of God."

Cardinal Dew says that the Scriptures keep him going even in difficult times, they comfort and motivate him. "The Scriptures have certainly changed me and are a focus for my life."

"The site is all about addressing some of the barriers people might have to reading the Bible, including some of the hard questions," Stephen Opie, Bible Society Programme Director says. "We want to help provide easy access to Sacred Scripture and provide Catholics with the tools and inspiration they need to make the Bible an important part of their daily life."

One of many features on the website is that of Catholic leaders answering timeless questions such as: "Can I find answers to life's questions in the Bible?"

One of the many contributors says in the video response, "I will find answers. It may not be the answer I wanted to hear, it might be something different. I read the Bible not just with my brain, but with my heart and with my faith. And when you use those three things together, then God will really reach out and give you answers."

The Word website has been developed by Bible Society New Zealand as a tool to help Catholics in their daily reading and reflection on the Holy Scriptures and is already drawing the attention of other Bible Societies around the world.

To date, 21 Bishops and Priests have been interviewed, and new videos and stories have been uploaded onto the site regularly.

Look at the website

Source

• Supplied: New Zealand Bible Society
• Image: lifeteen.com

"People come into my office, and many aren't religious, but they are all going through things", says the Principal Defence Force Chaplain Ants Hawes.

"I say to them, 'Look I know you are going through a hard time, things are absolutely bleak but I need to tell you - I have a verse from a favourite Psalm which says ‘tears come at night but laughter comes in the morning.' I want to assure you, as dark as it is now, better days will come."

It's amazing how often the Word of God will bring comfort, even to those who may not believe.

The Word of God is a truth and a strength and a hope for all of our chaplains, and will continue to be so" Hawes said.

Hawes said he would like to thank Bible Society New Zealand's partners. "We don't take for granted the people who gave donations to make these Bibles a reality.

"We will treasure these Bibles and use them," he said.

The Bibles were individually tailored to members of the NZDF, Airforce, Navy and Army.

Each of the three different editions of the NZDF Bible includes messages from the Governor General along with NZDF photographs, the National Anthem and the relevant prayer for each of the Forces.

Most of the Bibles will be given to new NZDF recruits who can choose to attest on the Bible at their swearing-in ceremony.

"They are then asked if they would like to keep the Bible," Hawes says.

"These Bibles will be used week by week and month by month, they will not sit and gather dust. The Word of God is our foundation, it really is.

"We stand on the truth of God and I am constantly using the Bible to minister to and support people."

Bible Society New Zealand has a long history - going back to WW1 - of supplying New Zealand Defence Force chaplains with Bibles.

Source

Supplied: New Zealand Bible Society

SanTO is a foot-and-a-half tall robot resembles the sort of altar or figurine a Catholic may use to decorate their home.

But it's equipped with software it uses to listen to people, scan their faces for signs of specific emotions, and select religious texts that may be relevant to their troubles, heralding a new marriage of religion and technology. Read more

Especially for those who had never read it before, the scripture could be intimidating and dense — and at more than 1,000 pages long, they often didn't know where to start.

"We would give out Bibles to people who were interested, and I remember seeing someone who didn't grow up Christian open the Bible, flip through the first couple pages and sort of give up," said Chung, 30. "They put the Bible back into their backpack."

This inspired Chung and his friend Bryan Chung, both artists (and unrelated, despite their nearly identical names), to re-design portions of the Holy Book with original photography and a sleek layout to better appeal to a millennial aesthetic.

Their company, Alabaster — which started as a 2016 Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $60,000 and formally launched in 2018 — now sells seven books of the Bible, created to look like specialty indie magazines such as Kinfolk, Drift and Cereal.

The company has sold 16,000 copies of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, Psalms and Proverbs so far and is aiming to produce a version of Genesis later this year.

Softcover copies of the books cost up to $38 each, while hardcover copies cost $70.

"We really take in visual media more than any other type of media," Bryan Chung, 24, said of millennials and Generation Z.

"We respond to websites and books based on how they're designed. Our culture is becoming increasingly visual. We wanted, instead of shying away from that, to think about how we could do that in a faith-based space."

While Alabaster's products may be innovative, the concept is nothing new, said Jeffrey Siker, professor of New Testament at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

"There have been editions of the Bible, typically the whole Bible, that have tried to find niche audiences for a long time," said Siker, also author of "Liquid Scripture: The Bible in a Digital World." "There are a gazillion editions of the Bible, and here's another one."

Scrolling through the Bible section on Amazon, he said, proves the point. There's the

• "Jesus Storybook Bible,"
• "My Creative Bible,"
• "Adventure Bible for Early Readers,"
• "Celebrate Recovery Study Bible,"
• "Boys Bible,"
• "Bible for Teen Girls,"
• "Beautiful Word Coloring Bible,"
• "Every Man's Bible,"
• "Life Application Study Bible" and the "Woman's Study Bible."

"It's still the single bestselling book every year, bar none," Siker said of the Bible. "It's still being produced endlessly. So the question is, what form should it take?" Continue reading

The new version - published by Ascension Press - has been prepared because Catholics often know less of biblical teachings compared to Lutherans and other Protestants, its general editor Mary Healey says.

Called the "Great Adventure Catholic Bible", it presents the "big picture of salvation history" and shows how everything ties together.

The text will be familiar to Catholics who read the bible as it uses the text of the Revised Standard Version—Second Catholic Edition.

It also includes a range of images to make reading it easier and more appealing for readers, such as a timeline of 70 key events in the Bible in chronological order, colour-coding, maps, timelines, articles and charts.

One of the key aims of the new publication is to make Catholics more Bible-literate.

"Many Catholics who I meet feel that scripture is kind of inaccessible to them.

"They don't feel like scripture is something they can pick up every day and read and have a conversation with God through it," Healy says.

"As Catholics, we've not had a culture of studying the Bible.

"Many Catholics were brought up with the idea that reading the Bible is something more Protestant.

"That's actually a tremendous distortion that would have horrified St Augustine or St Thomas Aquinas, any of the fathers of our church or theologians of our history, who recognized scripture as the word of God and the soul of theology."

The "Great Adventure Catholic Bible" was developed by Jeff Cavins, who has already published "The Great Adventure Bible Studies."

Source

• La Croix
• Aleteia
• Image: Amazon.com

Bake for Bibles is a new fundraising initiative recently launched by Bible Society New Zealand where volunteers bake Noah's Ark animal cookies, ice them and sell them to friends and family.

Sophie says, "I think it's a really fun and accessible way to get the kids involved in a baking project.

"The animal theme is very relatable and Noah's Ark is a familiar and popular story, whether you've grown up in a household of faith or not.

"So you can invite the neighbours' kids in to help bake the cookies and tell the Noah's Ark story and talk about what's going to happen to the money being raised."

Sophie also believes Bake for Bibles is a great inter-generational activity for grandparents, aunts, uncles and Godparents.

She thinks they may have more patience than parents when icing gets sloshed around the kitchen by little children. "Instead they will just enjoy the moment and the connection."

This year every cookie sold at two dollars each provides the paper to print one Bible in China.

Click here to register to take part.

Participants are given a free Bake for Bibles pack which contains cookie cutters, a Noah's Ark presentation box, cookie packets, a booklet (including the recipe), a poster and a colouring-in sheet.

Talking about the fundraising aspect of Bake for Bibles, Sophie says, "Selling baking for money is a time-honoured tradition in the Western World - from bake-sales to cake-stalls."

A Christian since primary school, Sophie likes the idea of getting the Bible to people who need it. "I feel the Bible is almost a symbol of freedom.

"And the freedom to know God and explore faith isn't something that's accessible to everyone in the world."

Supplied: Bible Society New Zealand

Sessions is quoting St Paul's letter to the Romans, Chapter 13, saying it is a "clear and wise command ...to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders endorses Sessions' view, saying: "It is very biblical to enforce the law."

Christian leaders of various denominations have other views on this.

"While protecting our borders is important, we can and must do better as a government, and as a society, to find other ways to ensure that safety," Cardinal Daniel Nicholas DiNardo says.

DiNardo, who is the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, says: "Separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral."

Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the late Rev. Billy Graham and a supporter of President Donald Trump, says he cannot support Sessions' actions in ripping families apart, which he finds "disgraceful."

Matthew Schlimm, a professor of the Old Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa, says Sessions has taken the passage from Romans 13 completely out of context.

"Immediately beforehand and afterwards, Paul urges readers to love others, including their enemies. Anyone with half an ounce of moral conviction knows that tearing children away from parents has nothing to do with love."

He says the same passage Sessions cited has been used to justify slavery and Nazism to tear children away from their parents.

"Sessions follows the pattern of history," he says.

"What's chilling is to think that we again live in such morally deranged times."

Sessions, who is a Methodist, does not have his church's support in his views.

"Tearing children away from parents who have made a dangerous journey to provide a safe and sufficient life for them is unnecessarily cruel and detrimental to the well-being of parents and children," says Bishop Kenneth Carter, president of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church.

Source

• New York Times
• USA Today
• Huffington Post
• Image: Buzz Feed

Colin Humphreys, a physicist at England's University of Cambridge, and his colleague astrophysicist Graeme Waddington, say a reference in the Book of Joshua refers to a solar eclipse.

Leading the Israelites into battle in Canaan, Joshua said: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.

"And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies." (Joshua Chapter 10, verses 12-14.)

Humphreys and Waddington have published their research in a scientific journal "Astrophysics and Geosciences"

The scientists began their investigation by translating the Hebrew word "dôm."

In English versions of the Bible, it's usually translated as "stopped," as in the sun "stopped moving."

He discussed the word with Alan Millard, a professor of Hebrew and ancient Semitic languages.

Humphreys wondered if it meant the sun "stopped shining".

If so, he thought it might have been referring to an eclipse.

Humphreys then looked for corroboration that the Israelites were in Canaan during the time of a supposed eclipse.

He cross-referenced the Old Testament with an Egyptian text: the Merneptah Stele.

This is a stone inscription produced under the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah.

Scholars think the final few lines of hieroglyphics refer to a battle with the Israelites in Canaan.

Humphreys' next task was to calculate the exact timing of the eclipse.

He says the Earth was rotating faster than it is now, so this involved calculating its reducing speed.

The three main factors involved tidal friction (resistance from water moving around the planet), the Earth's distance from the moon - as it's getting further away from Earth, and the shape of the Earth.

"When ice sheets stretched across the northern hemisphere, Earth was a different shape, so it spun differently.

"All of these variables have to be factored into any equation that attempts to predict a past eclipse," he says.

He anticipates some pushback - but he's keen to continue investigating.

"In ancient writings, the Bible or Egyptian writing, you do get records of strange events in the sky.

"The first thing to do is assume these are genuine records and study them," he says.

"You shouldn't jump to saying it's a myth without first looking into it."

Source

• A&G
• Smithsonian.com
• Image: Twitter.com

Researchers in the U.K. have developed the "5-D" digital data discs.

Two of the documents they have printed using the new technology are the Bible and the Magna Carta. Read more

It started with oral history that was passed on to each generation and then this history was written down by inspired authors and brought together to form various "books."

Then during the 4th century AD the need arose to officially codify the Bible, which by this point was already starting to come together.

The approval of which books to include started with the Council of Laodicea in 363, was continued when Pope Damasus I commissioned St. Jerome to translate the Scriptures into Latin in 382, and was settled definitely during the Synods of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397).

The goal of this process was to dismiss all erroneous works that were circulating and to instruct the local Churches which books could be read at Mass.

The Church firmly believes that the Holy Spirit was guiding this process and continues to accept all those books that were approved at these councils.

However, when Martin Luther approached the Bible he saw an apparent discrepancy. He noticed how certain books from the Christian Old Testament were not the same as the Hebrew Bible that was generally accepted by European Jews.

Luther thought that meant Jesus was not familiar with these texts and they were not inspired by God and only added on by the Church. These texts included Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, I and II Maccabees and sections of Esther and Daniel.

These books became known in Protestant circles as the "apocrypha" and were eventually omitted from every Protestant Bible. This is evident when browsing the shelf of Bible versions, as some will say "includes apocrypha."

In reality the Hebrew canon of scripture that Luther was referring to was not developed until the 2nd century. Before that there was debate among Hebrew scholars, but most Greek-speaking Jews of the 1st century preferred the listing of books in the Septuagint translation.

This translation was developed about 200 years before the birth of Jesus and was widely accepted as a legitimate translation.

Tradition relates how King Ptolemy II of Egypt ordered a translation and invited Jewish elders from Jerusalem to prepare the Greek text. Seventy-two elders, six from each of the 12 tribes, arrived in Egypt to fulfill the request.

The Septuagint included all the books of the Old Testament, including those that Protestants currently refer to as the apocrypha. Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia article by staff writer Philip Kosloski.
• Image: Amazon