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There are basically two ways to celebrate “western civilization,” the cultural heritage that gave rise to Europe, Russia, the Middle East, parts of North, Central, and South America, Africa, Australia, and the United States of America.
One tactic is Iowa congressman Steve King’s approach, which seeks “homogeny” by encouraging the “restoration” of “our culture and demographics,” railing against immigration arguing, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” and declaring that white people have made more “contributions” to civilization than “any other subgroup of people.” This is the type of approach that causes the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, to tweet, “GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!!”
The other approach is to invest in the study of the humanities—history; social sciences; anthropology; ancient languages like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic; modern languages like French, Spanish, Italian, German and English; music and art history—and to understand that America’s strength comes from its cultural and racial heterogeneity—from its adoption and incorporation of the best of the world’s discoveries, inventions, theories, philosophies, and contributions—into the grand experiment we call America.
To be sure, we must invest in science and education. Research and technological development allow us to solve problems and cure diseases that give us every advantage as a nation, and which bring us respect and gratitude from other nations who benefit from our capacity to afford and accomplish such innovative achievement and progress.
But we must also invest in the humanities—the study of those cultural histories from around the world that formed and shaped our own American culture.
One cannot rail against the demise of western civilization and then vote to cut funding for education and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
We must invest in art programs and music programs and language programs that allow Americans to learn America’s true history and strength—that we are a nation of immigrants and of religious and philosophical plurality. No one race defines us. No single language defines us. No sole religion defines us. No lone philosophy or political party defines us. America’s strength is in its diversity—of ideas, of beliefs, and yes, of its people—and not its religious, ideological, or racial homogeneity.
We must fund the NEH. We must fund humanities education.
That is, unless you want everyone in America to think, believe, and look like Steve King.
Today is the day. The long-awaited arrival of THE CITIES THAT BUILT THE BIBLE has come and the book is on sale today in fine bookstores everywhere.
PREORDERED BOOK DELIVERY
For those of you who preordered the book, your copy should arrive today.
READ A FREE PREVIEW
A free preview is available to read online here.
(RE-)TWEETING THE BOOK
You are welcome to tweet pictures of you with your copy of THE CITIES THAT BUILT THE BIBLE to @xkv8r and I’ll retweet them.
FREE VIRTUAL TOURS
You can also download the free Google Earth virtual tours of the cities discussed in the book as well as other ancient cites pertaining to the Bible at the book’s digital page. The virtual tours are absolutely free, whether you buy the book or not.
BOOK TOUR
I’ll be lecturing about the book, reading selections from it, and signing copies around the country over the next few months. My schedule of events is available at bobcargill.com.
THANK YOU
Again, thank you for buying the book. In it, I tell the story of how we got the Bible we have today by telling the stories of the cities that contributed directly and indirectly to its composition and canonization. And the stories of these cities are woven into stories of my sometimes humorous and sometimes highly emotional adventures in the Holy Land.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT CITIES You can read what people are saying about CITIES at the book’s website.
DIGITAL MEDIA You can find more select quotes from the book like those below at the media site or at the CITIES Pinterest site.
I am honored to have been invited to give the faculty address, but I only have a few minutes to speak. And since most faculty speeches say the same thing, that is, “Congratulations”, “We’re proud of you”, “Good luck”, etc., I thought I’d use my time instead to give you something a bit more memorable.
Not only is this graduation ceremony being streamed live, but because my speech has to be so short, and because I’m also a professor working in the digital humanities, I’m going to be live tweeting my speech as I speak.
And I’m going to start with some pictures, but I need your help. I need you to take some pictures with me. And then you can tweet your photos using the hashtag #UIGrad2014 while the other students’ names are being read.
And you can re-tweet this speech and my photos available at my Twitter account: Robert Cargill, which is @XKV8R, that’s at X-K-V-8-R, as well.
So listen to the speeches, and then re-tweet during the reading of the names. Got It?
OK. Let’s start out with the ultimate “Class of 2014” graduation picture. Parents and friends up in the stands, you can play along too. We’ll all take pictures together.
Ready? What’s that? No, I will not take a picture with your camera.
OK, ready? Please, please…do not flash the graduation speaker.
And finally, find a student you don’t know, or never really talked to, and say, “Hi”, and give them a hug. # Guys, This Is Your Last Chance. # I’m Trying To Help.
Don’t miss episode 6 of the six-part series “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History.
The final installment, entitled “Sex and the Scriptures“, debuts today, January 23, 2014 at noon/11 c. (And fair warning: it pulled a TV14 S-D rating.)
The episode explores:
“Millions of people around the world look to the Bible for moral guidance about marriage, faith and family. But could the Bible contain contradictions, or hidden meanings, that challenge our beliefs about what is right–and what is wrong–when it comes to human sexuality?”
And send your questions to Bible History Daily, where I’ll be answering some of them and providing more in depth explanations of the material covered in the show.
Posted on December 18, 2013 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Don’t miss episode 5 of the six-part series “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History.
The fifth installment, entitled “Mysterious Prophecies“, debuts Wednesday, Dec 18, 2013 at 10/9c .
The episode explores:
“Biblical prophecies are said to be messages and warnings sent from God, but what do they really foretell? Can they be decoded and used to predict mankind’s future?”
(The answer to the last part is, of course, no, but we’ll look at the nature of biblical prophecy and why misconceptions of prophecy are so prevalent in society.)
This will be followed by an encore airing of episode 4, “The Forbidden Scriptures”, at 11/10c.
And as a special Christmas gift: I’m pleased to announce that History has scheduled a Bible Secrets Revealed marathon for Christmas Day, Dec. 25. History will replay each of the episodes in order beginning with “Lost in Translation” at 5pm/4c, and the marathon will climax with the premier of episode 6 “Sex and the Scriptures” at 10/9c. The entire series will then re-air beginning at 11p/10c and continuing overnight in case you missed one of the episodes.
The Christmas Day #BibleSecretsRevealed marathon @HISTORY begins @ 5/4c & climaxes w/ the premier of Ep. 6 "Sex and the Scriptures" @ 10/9c.
(This has become a lot of fun, as many of the show’s participants (and critics) are live tweeting the episodes, and the many clever tweets have proven to be quite fun. Don’t miss out on your chance to ask questions and make comments with the over 1.3 million people who watch the show each Wednesday night.)
And send your questions to Bible History Daily, where I’ll be answering some of them and providing more in depth explanations of the material covered in the show.
Don’t miss episode 4 of the six-part series “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History.
The fourth installment, entitled “The Real Jesus“, debuts Wednesday, Dec 4, 2013 at 10/9c .
The episode explores:
“For billions of people around the world he is known as “The Son of God” — the Messiah — whose teachings have inspired one of the most powerful and influential religions in the world. Nearly everything we know about the life of Jesus comes from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But just how accurate are these sacred texts?”
(This has become a lot of fun, as many of the show’s participants are live tweeting the episodes. Don’t miss out on your chance to ask questions and make comments with the over 1.3 million people who watch the show each Wednesday night.)
And send your questions to Bible History Daily, where I’ll be answering some of them and providing more in depth explanations of the material covered in the show.
Posted on November 27, 2013 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Don’t miss episode 3 of the six-part series “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History.
The third installment, entitled “The Forbidden Scriptures“, debuts Wednesday, Nov 27, 2013 at 10/9c .
The episode explores:
“The books, gospels and epistles found in the Holy Bible are writings considered to be divinely inspired. But are there chapters of the Bible that are missing? Have stories been censored and characters deleted? And if so, just who decides what is included–and what is forbidden?
I invite everyone to watch History on Monday, Nov 11 at 10/9c and each of the next six Mondays thereafter to view a documentary, “Bible Secrets Revealed“, that analyzes many of the difficult claims made in the Bible. (You can get a sneak peek here.)
Those who have attended seminary or have ever taken a critical religious studies course on the Bible may be familiar with some of the issues addressed in this six-episode series. But this documentary is attempting to bring to a wide audience those issues in the Bible that may not be so simple, or even obvious, to most readers.
Conservative or progressive, Catholic or Protestant, Shi’a or Sunni, Reform Jew or Orthodox, theist or atheist, ardent believer or agnostic – this documentary is tailored to examine the Bible from all angles. It allows the viewer to wrestle with the information and encourages discussion both of the biblical claims and of the scholarly claims made in each episode. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all addressed as each faith assumes a knowledge of the Bible and the stories contained therein.
The documentary has assembled a cast of some of the world’s best scholars, who walk the viewer through different views on many of the Bible’s more difficult texts, including those texts that didn’t make it into the Bible.
So please watch “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History on Monday, Nov 11 at 10/9c. And feel free to live tweet your comments at #BibleSecretsRevealed, or you may leave your comments here.
Question: What’s the difference between Mark Driscoll and Westboro Baptist Church? Answer: Westboro makes signs.
Other than that, neofundamentalist Mark Driscoll and Westboro Baptist are theologically about the same when it comes to the sectarian nature of their soteriological claims.
Here’s what “Pastor Mark” tweeted today:
Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.
In case he deletes it, here is a screencap of the tweet:
Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church tweeted the following on January 21, 2013 just before President Barack Obama’s second inauguration: “Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”
And here’s a transcription of what he wrote:
“Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”
…and apparently President Obama too, but he’s “praying for him“, so it’s not disingenuous or condescending or self-righteous or otherwise dickish in any way.
(and for the record, here was Westboro Baptist’s tweet for the day. Like I said, Westboro Baptist makes signs, but it’s the same sentiment as Driscoll toward gays.)
That's a lot of happy Westboro picketers on Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the Capitol of Fag Marriage. #obamapic.twitter.com/BYt8nONK
Twitter: Because when reason, logic, common sense, facts, evidence, and scholars all say “No,” you can always appeal to faith and beg the public to keep the story alive.
