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March 2021 Archives
March 4, 2021
The Eye of the Beholder is now out!
I've been working like a beaver recently on the release of The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage. That is to say, I've been doing interviews and posting about it, trying to find out if it's available in Australia and the UK (it wasn't for a couple of days when I expected it to be), sharing content about it to social media, making videos, and so forth, while keeping life going otherwise.
I owe a lot to What's Wrong With the World for the space to publish a lot of related material in an earlier form. Here is the Gospel of John tag, if you want to read some of this for free in its beta version, as it were.
The Eye of the Beholder was released on March 1, 2021, just this past Monday. For those of you who get info. about this from this blog and/or aren't on Facebook, here are some relevant links, with apologies for making this post mostly a link dump. But believe me: There's tons of content at the links. First, how can you get the book itself? Here's the link at Amazon and here it is at Barnes & Noble. It makes no difference to my royalties or to my publisher's profits which site you buy it from. If you are in the UK, you can search Amazon, UK, for it, and the same (now) in both Australia and Canada. This is fitting, since I have endorsements from prominent scholars in all of those countries!
Of course, high-profile endorsers don't have to mean that I'm right, but at least they should mean that the book is worth a place at the table. I'm really humbly grateful to the Lord, and the endorsers, and my publisher, Nathan Ward, for the star-studded roster we got this time, including Stanley Porter, Thomas Schreiner, philosopher Bob Larmer, Paul N. Anderson, Alan Thompson, and more. Here are the endorsements in PDF. This should lay to rest various claims to the effect that my work is unworthy of attention due to my lack of such-and-such specific credentials. Nathan went out and asked for endorsements from Johannine and New Testament scholars whom I did not think of, or whom I would have expected to ignore the request due to their eminence or busyness, and he got them. (This reminds me of a collect about those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask.) Some scholars also contacted me spontaneously after the publication of The Mirror or the Mask expressing interest in supporting my work. And in a couple of cases scholars' names were suggested to me by their former students: "You should contact professor so-and-so. I think he might be interested in your work."
One thing that we can't seem to get to work for love or money at Amazon is the "see inside" function. (At least not until it comes out in Kindle, perhaps in a year, at which point you will be able to see inside the Kindle version.) Perhaps one has to have a rich uncle who is good friends with Bezos to get See Inside The Book to work, but that's okay, because I anticipated that, and I have free samples, with publisher permission, available elsewhere. Here is Chapter I. Here is the Conclusion. Here is the Table of contents.
Updates on Lisa Miller and Philip Zodhiates
Philip Zodhiates' release date is supposed to be March 26, 2021. It looks like the civil suit against him and all the others will get going full-bore in June. I wonder whether Lisa Miller's criminal case will delay this at all.
I get updates on some of these things because I get e-mails from the 419 Fund. I'm not exactly sure how one gets on their e-mail list, though I'm happy that I got on it somehow, but here is their contact form. Otherwise it can be hard to learn much. Sometimes additional entries that (I think) should be posted on Philip's prison blog are posted to the 419 Fund blog. This happened recently. Check out the February 12 entry, here. (There doesn't seem to be a way to link individual entries.)
On Lisa Miller, besides on the 419 Fund, one can find updates on this blog that I found called Ain't Complicated, here. After voluntarily turning herself in, she has been arraigned on charges of conspiracy and international parental kidnapping. She is currently in Buffalo, New York.
Her daughter, Isabella (now going on 19 years old), apparently remains in Nicaragua and has emphatically stated that she has no intention of testifying against Lisa or any of those who helped them. As an adult Isabella is hopefully safe from being forcibly (at least legally forcibly) brought to the United States. She has apparently successfully petitioned to have her name removed from the lawsuit against her mother by stating emphatically that anyone purporting to represent her in that suit is acting against her wishes.
Meanwhile, Janet Jenkins has issued the following utterly creepy and ridiculous statement via her lawyer:
The Jenkins family wants Isabella to know that they have always kept prayer lists going for her, and she has never been out of their thoughts. The family longs for Isabella’s safe return and want her to know that they still celebrate her birthday and that her childhood bedroom is ready and waiting for her.
What? I mean, come on! The couple separated when Isabella was eighteen months old. She was only back there to visit Jenkins for occasional times thereafter until she was about seven years old and has lived in Nicaragua ever since. She is now eighteen years old. Why in the world would anyone mention her "childhood bedroom" in such a message? Even if one believes that Jenkins is in the right in this whole vendetta, you'd have to know that Isabella has not the remotest interest in her "childhood bedroom" back in Vermont. Such a sympathizer (with Jenkins) would doubtless say that Isabella has been brainwashed. But even on that premise, there can be no possible point to sending her a message that her childhood bedroom is waiting for her! That is bound to disgust her and make her feel stalked. What is wrong with you people? Obviously this statement was issued for the sympathizers who are so blindly partisan that they will think it is touching. Good grief.
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March 5, 2021
The disjunctions of risk in an old-fashioned world
In a recent Facebook post set to public, Bret Laird, a pastor here in the Kalamazoo area, makes an excellent point: All the talk about the alleged Christian duty to curtail our meetings due to Covid ignores the very nature of risk in the world in which Christianity was born and spread--the whole world, in fact, up to the early 1900s at least. Pastor Laird uses the discovery of penicillin and antibiotics early in the 20th century as a starting point for his discussion.
I would like to jump off from Pastor Laird's comments and make similar comments of my own, without using his specific numbers. Just to be "generous", let's take this piece's estimate from September of about 1% infection fatality rate for Covid, noting that this is in an article that is trying to debunk an overly rosy view of the virus's harmfulness. As the piece notes, some estimates of IFR have been lower, but let's take the higher one. Of course, that rate varies greatly from one group to another. Well and good. The case fatality ratio (which involves only detected cases and hence will be higher, since it involves more symptomatic people) has been wildly differently estimated from one country to another. The WHO more or less throws up its hands and suggests trying to avoid one's biases, noting that estimates of this ratio have ranged from .1 to 25%!
Now, let's consider a world with no antibiotics and no vaccines. The world, in fact, in which Christianity came into existence. The world in which the Jewish people came into existence. The world in which God commanded multiple feasts per year (in the Old Testament) and many sacrifices, which had to be carried out in Jerusalem once Solomon built the Temple. The world in which Christians were commanded not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. The world in which 3,000 people were baptized into the new Christian faith on the day of Pentecost. The world of pilgrimages, evangelistic meetings, huge numbers receiving Communion together, the world of "greet one another with a holy kiss."
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March 22, 2021
Philip Zodhiates' last letter from prison (hopefully)
Via the 419Fund e-mail list (the blog here seems to contain all of the ones I have), I just received this last (hopefully) letter from Philip Zodhiates in prison. He will be (sort of) let out on March 26 but must report to somewhere else, where they could order him to stay or let him go to "home detention" until June 24. I'm intrigued by what he said about the difference it seems to have made to the civil suit that Isabella has made a legal motion (via her lawyer) making it absolutely clear that she is no party to the civil lawsuit against her mother and those who helped them. Philip doesn't know if this is why depositions have been once more suspended in the civil case and conjectures this may be why. I wonder if the reason, rather, is that there will now be another criminal trial (Lisa's). Previously, the judge kept delaying the civil case while the various criminal trials were going forward. Here is Philip's letter, dated March 14:
Janet Stasulli at 419Fund.com wanted me to write an update specifically for those who have followed my case on her website and graciously prayed for Kathie, my family and me as well as contributed toward my legal expenses. My family and I would like to thank especially Janet Stasulli, whom I did not even know previously, for being such a blessing and coming alongside of us – – especially Kathie – – during these past 2 1/2 years.And thank YOU, for your prayers, letters, cards, and financial support. Thank Michael Erkel for your weekly and now daily letters I can always count on, and those of you who have written monthly. Thank you lifesitenews.com, Lamplighter Publications, and Lighthouse Trails Publishing for the publicity you have provided, which has resulted in many encouraging letters.
Kathie, William, and Josiah have been so faithful and held together the home front filing taxes, enduring and beating an IRS audit, paying bills, keeping Response Unlimited going and dealing with tragedies (such as my mom‘s death), and emergencies without me by their side. Kathie especially, who has been amazingly enduring for one who hates to be alone.
It seems that next week in less than 7 days (March 26, to be exact), I’ll be walking out the front door where I self-surrendered at 2:00 PM on December 5, 2018. Kathie, William and Josiah will be picking me up and driving me to Lebanon Community Correctional Center in Lebanon, Virginia where I must check in by 2:00 PM. It will be up to those there whether I will stay, or whether I will go to home detention. Please pray!! My sentence ends completely on June 24, 2021, and then I will still be on “probation” for 1 year.
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