Resources
Introduction to the old testament part 5
We can read the Bible with fresh and appreciative eyes only if we first acknowledge and set aside some of our presuppositions about the Bible. It's really impossible, in fact, that you not have some opinions about this work, because it's an intimate part of our culture. So even if you've never opened it or read it yourself, I bet you can cite me a line or two--"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and I bet you don't really know what it means. "The poor will always be with you": I'm sure you don't really know what that means. These are things and phrases that we hear and they create within us a certain impression of the biblical text and how it functions. Verses are quoted, they're alluded to, whether to be championed and valorized or whether to be lampooned and pilloried.
By Guerline Lorzema11 days ago in Writers
Introduction to the old testament part 6
The priestly texts in Leviticus and Numbers emphasize the sanctity of all life and the ideal of holiness and ethical and ritual purity. There are odes to human reason and learning and endeavor in the wisdom book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes reads like an existentialist writing from the twentieth century. It scoffs at the vanity of all things, including wisdom, and espouses a kind of positive existentialism.
By Guerline Lorzema11 days ago in Writers
Introduction to the old testament part 4
In fact, in some ways it's the dissimilarity that is remarkably important to us, the biblical transformation of a common Near Eastern heritage in light of its radically new conceptions of God and the world and humankind.
By Guerline Lorzema11 days ago in Writers
Introduction to the old testament part 3
We're not going to read every bit of it word for word. We will read certain chunks of it quite carefully and from others we will choose selections, but you will get a very good sense and a good sampling of the contents of the Bible. A second goal is to introduce you to a number of approaches to the study of the Bible, different methodological approaches that have been advanced by modern scholars but some of which are in fact quite old. At times, we will play the historian, at times we will be literary critics. "How does this work as literature?" At times we will be religious and cultural critics.
By Guerline Lorzema11 days ago in Writers
The Paper Bag Chronicles: How My Driveway Became a Museum Exhibit for Britain's Declining Competence. Top Story - September 2026.
Take a moment to gaze at my chosen image from 'Unsplash,' and what does it tell you? No, it isn't that the toilet rolls are a grim portent of another incoming COVID outbreak, and it's not that he's about to break out into an enthusiastic attempt at juggling either; that carton of eggs at the very top wouldn't stand a chance of making it home. No.
By Jonathan Townend12 days ago in Writers
Introduction to the old testament part 2
Despite the demise of their national political base in 586, the Israelites alone, really, among the many peoples who have figured in Ancient Near Eastern history--the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Phoenicians, the Hurrians, the Canaanites--they emerged after the death of their state, producing a community and a culture that can be traced through various twists and turns and vicissitudes of history right down into the modern period. That's a pretty unique claim.
By Guerline Lorzema12 days ago in Writers
Introduction to the old testament part 1
You don't need me to tell you that human civilization is very, very old. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the earliest stages of human civilization was quite limited for many centuries. That is, until the great archaeological discoveries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which unearthed for us the great civilizations of the Ancient Near East, of which I have drawn a remarkably life-like map here on the board: Mediterranean, I always start with the Mediterranean Ocean, the Nile River, the Tigris and the Euphrates.
By Guerline Lorzema12 days ago in Writers
The Worry.. Content Warning.
I didn’t mean to write thirty‑seven stories. It just… happened. One minute I was sitting there on September eighth thinking, “Hey, I’ll enter this challenge,” and the next thing I knew, I was knee‑deep in plot ideas, caffeine, and whatever leftover brain cells my kids hadn’t stolen from me. I blinked, and suddenly I had a whole damn library of stories published.
By Syl De'Vil17 days ago in Writers
Why Your Paralysis Is Lying to You
Let me paint you a picture. You're standing at the edge of something - a new career, a difficult conversation, a gym membership you've had since January that's been collecting more dust than results. And instead of moving, you freeze. You overthink. You scroll. You convince yourself that the "right moment" is just around the corner.
By Narghiza Ergashova17 days ago in Writers
Remote Work Resorts
Let me be brutally honest: the traditional office is dying a slow, painful death, and frankly, it's about time. After spending the better part of two decades watching corporate Australia cling to outdated work models like a security blanket, I've witnessed something extraordinary unfold over the past few years. The pandemic didn't just force us to work from home - it exposed the glaring absurdity of forcing talented people into sterile cubicles for eight hours a day, five days a week.
By Narghiza Ergashova28 days ago in Writers
