Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Scot McKnight commentary on Philemon: cooler than the new phone book

This is such good news that I feel like doing this:

McKnight  inaugurated the release with a  helpful post:



Here's a random reason that rocks (Click to see the rest):

9: An example of how to read a book in the Bible.
Philemon can be used to help people learn how to read a whole Bible book. Move then to a letter of John or to Jude or then to a shorter book like Philippians or Galatians then finally to Romans and Corinthians. Perhaps then on to a Gospel.
Reading each line in light of the whole book is possible for Philemon and it’s a good starting point for inductive Bible study methods. Also for historical context (study Roman slavery) and also for Paul’s house church movement of how they learned to live as Christians in an old institution: the house, the home, the family.  link

Bonus: video of him at Asbury (amazing school, my MDiv)
"The Challenge to Philemon" - Dr. Scot McKnight from B.L. Fisher Library on Vimeo.

Also here's a video (audio, actually):

Thursday, October 19, 2017

"the mystique of superiority that came as a consolation prize"

Image Credit: Lonely Planet

"I believed myself above him simply on the basis of my Upper East Side address; like most New Yorkers,  I had bought into
the mystique of superiority that came as a consolation prize for life in a lonely and harsh metropolis"
-Deborah Feldman, Exodus, p. 201

From the  Amazon blurb on this book:
The author of the explosive New York Times-bestselling memoir Unorthodox chronicles her continuing journey as a single mother, an independent woman, and a religious refugee.
 

In 2009, at the age of twenty-three, Deborah Feldman walked away from the rampant oppression, abuse, and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to forge a better life for herself and her young son.  Since leaving, Feldman has
navigated remarkable experiences: raising her son in the “real” world, finding solace and solitude in a writing career, and searching for love. Culminating in an unforgettable trip across Europe to retrace her grandmother’s life during the Holocaust, Exodus is a deeply moving exploration of the mysterious bonds that tie us to family and religion, the bonds we must sometimes break to find our true selves. link

Related NYC  links:

signs of Kingdom life in Godhaunted NYC? please add comments



Wednesday, October 11, 2017

violins with a jewel-shaped heart

Source: WIRED . Link below
One way to look at string theory is that everything is made of  vibrating strings/ music.

And now...what if  we found that a jewel was at the heart of it all?
  
"The amplituhedron looks like an intricate, multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions."


See:

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER A JEWEL AT THE HEART OF QUANTUM PHYSICS

I hope U2 is not in a "finishing mood"

U2 apologizes too often that they needed more time to finish the "Pop" album.
                              But they needed less time, not more.

 Some of the best  U2stuff floating around the interwebs are early demos/versions before they got too polished/"finished."

I wish they would take some advice from their friend Charlie,
who sang "I'm not in a finishing mood." (I'm glad Charlie never "finished" that song).

On the atu2 forum,"an tha" says, "I am 100% certain in my belief that the minute and half or so of mofo on that video {first video below} is the greatest bit of recorded u2 available anywhere ever!"

Wookie Warrior said:

  I've always wondered what exactly U2 meant when they were talking about finishing Pop. Like Larry saying, "If we had two or three more months to work, we would have had a very different record. I would like someday to rework those songs and give them the attention and time that they deserve." How different would Pop have sounded if the band had been given another couple of months to "finish" things? I don't see why U2 looks down on this fantastic record so much, it's easily one of their very best albums and it certainly is one of the greatest I've ever listened to. Perhaps it's because of poor sales and the mixed reception, so the band claims that the finished product is... Not finished.
     If you read up on it, that claim could be justified as being true. The album was being worked on until the very last moment. According to Wikipedia, the chorus to Last Night On Earth wasn't even written until the night before the album's release. Edge was also still recording back-up vocals, Howie B. was still adding effects to Discotheque, and there was no definitive version of Mofo. Additionally, Larry's back was injured for months, forcing the band to work on the songs without his assistance. Maybe U2 did work on a tight schedule, but Paul McGuiness still believes that there was plenty of time to finish Pop. First it was scheduled for a late-1996 release before being pushed back until March 1997, giving plenty of extra time to finalize things. From mid-1995 (when the band first began working on Pop) until March 1997, U2 had around 20 months to create the album. It seems like time was not the issue.
     It seems as if U2 had plenty of time to record, produce, mix, master, and release Pop. I do believe claims that the album was unfinished are just excuses to answer why it was so heavily criticized. But maybe they really do believe the record isn't finished. Read what Bono said about If God Will Send His Angels: "Bono originally thought the song was too soft and asked to 'f*** it up,' saying, I thought, this is, like, pure. Now drop acid onto that.'"
     That doesn't sound at all like the Bono we know now, does it? Interesting that of all people, Bono would be the one to call out a song as being "too soft." Keep in mind, this man wrote songs like Beautiful Day like a couple of years later... Anyway, do I agree? Absolutely. Although the track does give off this, mysterious, eery feeling when featured on an LP with numbers like Discotheque and Mofo on it, If You Wear That Velvet Dress serves the same purpose (and does it better). I'm Not Your Baby or Holy Joe could have easily taken its place on the record and made a great album even better... But now I'm getting sidetracked. Bono obviously pushed for a darker album, which explains the second side of it. I remember him once saying something like, "the album begins at a party and ends at a funeral." Very insightful comment.
     Had U2 been given just three more months to work on Pop, how different would the record have sounded? Maybe the album would feel even darker, delving even deeper into their experimentation. What does everyone else think?  link
Click this if first video doesn’t work :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LI5GrL5iJNc#