Bible Review, October 1999
Special Section
Seth
The ancestor of us all
Adam fathered not only Cain and Abel but, in his old age, a third son. What lessons can we draw from the life of this youngest child, who became the ancestor of us all?Read more ›
Introduction
A remarkable child, his birth hailed by visitors from afar, grows into a miracle worker who spreads a faith of love and compassion. Jesus? Yes, but also Buddha. Our authors explore the uncanny parallels in their lives and whether there are any connections.Read more ›
Part I
I. For more than 1,800 years, the mirrorlike natures of the Buddha and Jesus remained buried in the ancient texts of each religion. Then scholars examining these holy books began to detect remarkable patterns. Hardly anything was known in the West about Buddhism or the Buddha until...Read more ›
Part II
II. If Jesus did not travel to India, if the Buddha’s teachings did not enter Palestine via the Silk Road, then how can their similarities be explained? In the following essay, Marcus Borg contemplates the possibility that they derive not from cultural borrowing but from shared experiences...Read more ›
Features
Wish Upon a Stone
Discovering the idolatry of the even maskit
Leviticus bans the Israelites from bowing upon a maskit stone. But what is a maskit? A recently deciphered Assyrian inscription may hold the key to identifying this mysterious prohibited object.Read more ›
“Thus Far the Words of Jeremiah”
But who gets the last word?
A brief aside in the prophet’s book opens up a world of multiple authors, editors and textual strands within the Bible and provides a portrait of both Jeremiah and his faithful scribe.Read more ›