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Bloody Crimes, A Book About Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis at the end of the Civil War

Finished Bloody Crimes, http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Crimes-Jefferson-Pageant-Lincolns/dp/0061233781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310434681&sr=8-1, by James Swanson, who has written a number of books related to Lincoln’s assassination. This book tells parallel stories about what happened to Lincoln’s body after his assassination as it was taken… Bloody Crimes, A Book About Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis at the end of the Civil War

Our Annual Passover Seder

For a number of years now we have a Passover Seder at our house on the first night of Passover.

We have between 15 and 25 people (I recognize that is a bit of a range) including family, friends, guests from various sources, Jews and non-Jews.

Each year we try and focus on a few themes to focus the more general topic of the Exodus and its implications to us today.

The following is what we are sending out to the participants this year. In addition to the readings we do, we put quotes that at least loosely tie to the themes we are focusing on, on 3 x 5 cards. During the course of the Seder we ask participants to read the quotes and comment on them. Tomorrow, if I remember, I’ll post the quotes we are using.

Our Annual Passover Seder

Gettysburg – Everyone Has A Backstory

This weekend my wife, Ellen, and I decided to spend the weekend at a B&B in Gettysburg, swinging through Antietam on the way home Sunday. She had never visited and I hadn’t been in a long time.

The area is really beautiful this time of year, the B&B is very nice (out of town so pretty quiet), we enjoyed walking around a bit late this afternoon and early evening and plan to be battlefield tourists the next two days.

One side note, the ice cream at Kirwin’s, which I am happy to report was started before I was born, an increasingly unlikely situation, and which evidently is a chain, was very good.

We noticed that in the sort-of-farm next door there were two chickens and a horse. It turns out that the two chickens belonged to the neighbor’s first wife and thus we learned the backstory here, in the outskirts of Gettysburg.

Gettysburg – Everyone Has A Backstory

The Edict of Milan

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As those who know me know, I have become very interested in the archaeology of the Bible. By Bible, I mean the Hebrew Bible.

My personal opinion is that faith is just that, faith. To me, faith does not have to be ‘proven’ by the historicity of religious texts or disproven by the lack of same. My interest has pretty much nothing to do with my Jewish beliefs, but rather curiosity as to whether the historic record is consistent or inconsistent, or has any evidence at all, related to the Bible as history. There has been a lot of new information collected over the last twenty years and the ability to interpret the material already collected has increased enormously. Thus there is lots to read and think about.

Over time, my interests stray a bit from that original focus and have moved to early Christianity and on to the middle ages and Islam, covering what I call the three major Abrahamic religions. When I talk about, and I guess write about, these thoughts I do find myself more cautious when discussing Christianity or Islam, since as a Jew I sometimes feel how my thoughts will be taken, which I try to always disassociate with faith and belief, may be misinterpreted.

A discussion about the Edict of Milan after the jump …

The Edict of Milan