Pastoral Bible Institute News

New Cover for The Herald

The look of The Herald has changed over the years, but one thing has never changed: the Table of Contents has always been on the cover. Beginning with this issue, it moves inside. Moving the Table of Contents makes it possible to display a photo that illustrates the theme of the issue. We intend to use a different photo for each issue for the foreseeable future. This will make it easy to distinguish one issue from another which is of value in display boxes and for convention tables.

Letters

(This letter came from an American who has lived in Israel for a number of years. We asked for her impressions of life in Israel since the outbreak of heavy fighting there.)

Though wide-awake, Israelis are living as in an unpleasant dream. Young people take to the streets in defiance with acts of violence, while their elders attend to their duties listening intently to nearby radios or televisions giving credence to the surrealist atmosphere. The reality is: bold words and bloody, frenzied actions by Palestinians ready for battle; Israeli Arabs polarizing themselves by openly identifying with the Palestinians; Jews, politically, Right or Left, fusing under attack; and neighboring nations rushing to form alliances in preparation for a confrontation. Returning to the relative calm of pre-Rosh Hashanah seems an impossibility. Has the Lord stirred up the pot now to deter Prime Minister Barak’s plans for a "cultural revolution" aimed at stripping Israel of its Jewish and Zionistic content, thereby making it less "racist" to the world? It is a strong possibility!

The Lord’s people occupy largely the position of spectators in respect to the course of this world, but Israel is a type and her warfare experiences against her enemies were written for our admonition. We know that God has a great surprise in mind for the land of Canaan which will not be carried out until the expulsion of these enemies, or their destruction. Having failed to obey in this regard the first time, will they heed the command now in this "faith-demanding" trial? Though some Israelis will leave (they had returned to their land, but not unto their God), those from the Diaspora, with circumcised hearts, will surely come to add their faith (of Abraham) and their strength (as of the Lord) to the cause (Hosea 6:1-3).

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

—Connie Campbell, Israel

World News

Religious

Fearful that years of ecumenism and church switching among baby boomers have chewed away at what makes them unique, many Protestant groups are moving to reassert their religious identities. Some congregations are casting off generic texts and hymns. Others are requiring denominational training for children for the first time in years. The United Methodist Church, the faith’s main U.S. bloc, plans to launch a $20 million media campaign, its largest such effort ever, in January 2001 to raise denominational awareness, says spokesman Steve Horswill-Johnston. The reassertion of sectarian beliefs began in the early 1990s but has lately grown stronger. Some clerics say that years of smorgasbord services have left their members feeling disconnected. Many churches hope that establishing a stronger brand identity will lure people back to the pews, says Daniel Aleshire, director of the 243-member Association of Theological Schools in the U.S. and Canada.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/24/2000

Witchcraft is enjoying a revival in the U.S. Witches’ Voice, one of the oldest trade groups of sorceresses, says there are about a million witches in the U.S. and three million worldwide. Academic experts put the U.S. witch population at 500,000, but that’s up roughly tenfold from a decade ago. Witches consider anyone who learns about the 13th century religion Wicca to be one of them. Most groups, called covens, practice invoking spirits and cast spells as a means of directing energy to a desired end. But the image of an evil, cackling cut-up with a wretched face is misleading, modern witches say.

—Wall Street Journal, 10/31/2000

The secretive organization behind India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has launched a campaign to make Indian Christians cut all links to churches abroad. The move came as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) the mother organization of the Hindu revivalist party, celebrated its 75th anniversary. The RSS chief has called for the "politically motivated, anti-national activities of the foreign churches" to be replaced by a national church. The call, in a little-noticed speech, has been repeated at length in the RSS newspaper distributed to the rally. It has outraged Christian leaders.

—Financial Times, 10/16/2000

Pope John Paul tried to calm a dispute with other religious leaders following publication of a highly controversial document that rejected the concept that other religions could be equal to Roman Catholicism. Protestant and Anglican leaders, theologians and Jews reacted with dismay and disdain to the document, which was published on September 5 by the Vatican’s doctrinal department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The 80-year-old Pope was clearly concerned about the effect the document’s reception has had on inter-religious dialogue. After the Vatican’s doctrinal department published the complex document, there was general concern among non-Catholic leaders that it could hurt inter-religious dialogue that has advanced greatly since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council. The bitterness appeared to be felt most by other Christian religions, which the document implied were second-rate because of "defects," including their refusal to recognize papal primacy. The document repeated Catholic Church teachings that non-Christians were in a "gravely deficient situation" regarding salvation.

—Reuters, 10/1/2000

Social

A new report says nearly 40 percent of the world’s land used for agriculture is "seriously degraded," which bodes ill for future productivity on that land. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research released the report in September. It finds evidence that soil degradation has already reduced food production on about 16% of the world’s cropland. In some areas, the damage is much greater. Almost 75% of farmland in Central America is seriously degraded, as is 20% of the land in Africa, the researchers say. Reasons for degradation differ by region, says Phil Padey, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, one of 16 research centers within the consultative group. It occurs because of erosion from flooding; chemical effects; and damage from waterlogging or compaction of soil to the point where nothing can grow. "Some combination of those effects is occurring across the globe," Padey says. The need for food is ballooning along with world population, the study notes. Currently, world cereal production is 1.8 billion tons. By 2020 the world will need 40% more. "Not all soil degradation is irreversible," Padey says.

—USA Today, 9/22/2000

Almost anywhere crops, plants or trees are expected to grow despite difficult climates or conditions, [soil specialist] Ron Helland is respected as a quasi-doctor of dirt. With 30 years of experience, this bluejean-clad crusader for a sort of practical organics travels the West Coast and Mexico, consulting on the importance of soil biology. The soil-nurturing mix produced by Helland’s Biologically Integrated Organics Inc. [has] won praise from a disciminating crowd. Farmers are using it. Farmers are generally frugal. They will not spend a nickel unless it’s going to benefit their crops. Helland believes the biological approach to farming will revolutionize agriculture in the next few decades—restoring land now fallow and preventing other acres from being taken out of production because of overuse and chemical abuse.

—Los Angeles Times, 11/1/2000

Financial

The US Congress has urged the Interior Department to settle a multibillion-dollar class-action suit brought by Blackfeet Indian Tribe member Eouise Cobell in 1996 for damages arising from the government’s mismanagement of the Indian trust fund. Lawyers estimate that some 500,000 Indians, most of whom live in Oklahoma and Montana, are owed anywhere from $20 billion to $40 billion. That would be the most the government has to pay on a claim since the $160 billion bailout of the savings and loan industry. Indians living in reservations are supposed to be paid by the government for oil, timber, and minerals taken from their lands by private companies. Cobell, who began questioning the government’s handling of the trust fund program in the 1970s, alleged that the government short-changed the Indians through gross mismanagement of the accounts. Figuring out how much the Indians are owed is a problem because 90 percent of the government’s records are missing. The government destroyed many of the records while the lawsuit was in progress.

—Barron’s, 10/16/2000

International bank branches in London played a keyrole in enabling former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha to launder more than $4 billion looted from the country during his four and a half year rule, according to investigators employed by its civilian president. The trail has led to accounts at London offices of 15 banks. General Abacha died in June 1998 and the Nigerian military regime has since been replaced by an elected government. The Nigerian government believes much more of the money plundered by the late General Abacha during his five-year rule passed through London, which still has close financial links with the former British colony.

—Financial Times, 10/20/2000

Civil

Sudan, through which winds the mighty Nile River, is the source of a flood of some 500,000 refugees and a watershed moral decision. Africa’s largest country was nominated to fill a seat on the United Nations’ most powerful body, its Security Council. The council often makes some of the world’s most important multinational decisions. However, Sudan lost its bid to the tiny Indian Ocean island of Mauritius after tense and extended balloting in the General Assembly. Sudan embodies every evil that the United Nations was founded to fight: war, famine, genocide, dictatorship, religious persecutions, human slavery, forced starvation and repression of women. Civil war has raged for 34 of 44 years since the end of British rule. More than 2 million people have been killed since 1983 and another 4 million made homeless. Thousands have been starved in a government-made famine. Mauritius won the necessary two-thirds only on the fourth ballot with 113 votes over Sudan’s 55. The U.S. had campaigned hard against Sudan. The council has ultimate political power in the UN system to make all major decisions concerning peace and security in the world.

—Wall Street Journal editorial, 10/10/2000

Zimbabweans protesting against rising food and fuel prices ran riot in the suburbs of the capital Harare. The rioting is the latest sign of growing discontent. The collapse of law and order has undermined President Robert Mugabe’s 20 years of power. Domestic debt is rising inexorably, some state companies have failed to pay workers’ salaries and the Grain Marketing Board has been unable to pay farmers for their corn. Exports of products have been disrupted by government-organized attacks on white-owned commercial farms. The government has chosen to spend what little money it has on a war in the Congo, leaving Zimbabwe so short of fuel and other imports that many companies have been forced to curtail their operations. With unemployment at more than 50 percent and inflation estimated at 70 percent, ordinary Zimbabweans find it increasingly difficult to survive.

—Financial Times, 10/17/2000

The US government, prompted by fears of bio-terrorist attack, has awarded Peptide Therapeutics, a small UK biotechnology company, a contract to produce 40 million doses of vaccine against smallpox. Babara Reynolds of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said, "There is increasing concern about bio-terrorism. Even though there may only be a low probability of it occurring, if it did occur it would be catastrophic." US defense officials have long feared that laboratory samples of smallpox might have fallen into the hands of potential terrorists or rogue states. Peptide Therapeutics will make a stockpile of smallpox vaccine to be used on civilians if the virus is ever released. Peptide plans to market the vaccine to other governments, including Israel.

—Financial Times, 9/21/2000

Israel

Buried in the rubble [of the Middle East violence] was not just the peace process, it was also our dreamy view of what the world was becoming. Confronted again with pictures of flag-draped coffins and mutilated bodies, with the sounds of random gunfire and angry chants, the world had to readjust to the fact that not every problem is solvable, that the global tide of peace is not inexorable, and that progress does not inevitably make civilizations more civilized.

—Time, 10/23/2000

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said in a speech read on his behalf on Sunday that his people would continue their Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli forces on occupied land. "Our people have proven that they are able to continue the confrontation for years," Arafat said in a speech read for him by Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, general secretary of the Palestinian presidency. "We say to them: We are not afraid of your warnings and the blessed Intifada of our people will continue," he said. "Our people will remain steadfast until a boy or girl holds the Palestinian flag over Jerusalem, the capital of our Palestinian state," Arafat told reporters earlier after dedicating a new hospital in Gaza City.

—Reuters, 10/30/2000

Leaders of Jewish communities in America are going to bat for Israel in an effort to attain more balanced coverage of the Middle East crisis in the press generally and on television in particular. Barry Shrage, leader of a delegation from Boston’s Jewish community on a two-day solidarity visit to Haifa, with which Boston has a long-standing twin-city accord, said huge resources would be needed to achieve this end. "The American Jewish community is going to have to put enormous and very serious resources into dealing with this [unbalanced coverage], but even then it is going to be extremely hard," Shrage said Sunday. "Even if the media [are] not intentionally malevolent, it is allowing the pictures to create the context—pictures of primarily Palestinians being killed—but little or no other context is being provided." Shrage is heading a nine-member delegation from Boston on what is one of the first solidarity visits to Israel by a local Jewish community. He said one of the first tasks of the delegates on their return would be to meet with the editorial boards of local and national newspapers in order to provide accurate and more detailed information about the Palestinian-initiated violence.

—Jerusalem Post 10/24/2000

Immigration to Israel is expected to stay relatively unchanged despite the current crisis, because of the impact of the recent spate of anti-Semitism attacks worldwide, Jewish Agency aliya committee chairman Aryeh Azoulay said Thursday. "We are in the heart of two conflicts, one here and one with the anti-Semitism around the world, so my feeling is that at least in the first stage, aliya will balance out," Azoulay said. Recent aliya statistics indicate that immigration has indeed remained consistent, based mainly on aliya from the former Soviet Union and Falash Mura from Ethiopia, which is not expected to be affected by the conflict here. "I don’t think they watch TV in Ethiopia and anyway, compared to life there, Israel is heaven," Azoulay said. In the last week, some 1,000 immigrants arrived from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, compared with 140 from the rest of the world, half of which comes from France and Argentina, which both suffer from anti-Semitism.

—Jerusalem Post, 10/29/2000

Book Review

Pharoahs and Kings, A Biblical Quest, David M. Rohl, New York, Crown Publishers, 1995. 405 pages.

Originally titled A Test of Time, The Bible From Myth to History, this book is an important piece in the development of the Bible chronology. Rohl is both an historian and Egyptologist. This presentation of his research challenges many modern skeptics’ view of Old Testament history. He explores the times and environments surrounding the lives of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon. He has even discovered a statue in ancient Egypt which he proposes is that of Joseph.

This research should be viewed as a valuable supplement to the chronology of volume 2 of Studies in the Scriptures where the period of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah are not satisfactorily reconciled. Extensive charts, pictures, and tables illustrate Rohl’s discoveries and research.

While it would be difficult to read this treatise without supplemental study in the Scriptures, it provides an extremely useful exploration through many obscure passages of biblical history.

Particularly useful are the "Conclusions" that Rohl highlights throughout the book. I found it useful to first read these and then go back and develop the support. For example, one of Rohl’s strong supports is for the conquest of David in 2 Samuel 5:7, "And David conquered the stronghold of Zion which is the City of David." Conclusion Seventeen (p. 227) supports this Scripture thusly: "The situation described in several of the Amarna Letters from Palestine reflects the activities of David during his seven years as king of Hebron prior to the capture of Jerusalem. The stronghold of the Habiru enemy from the mountains mentioned in the late Amarna letters EA 298, 284 and 306—there named Tianna—is to be identified with the ‘fortress of Zion’ (Hebrew Tsiyon) captured by David in his eighth regnal year—in other words Jerusalem.

At a time when the territory of Israel is in such dispute (Rohl has a section on the Tomb of Joseph in Egypt), Pharoahs and Kings, along with Thiele’s The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, provide important links in the chain of history and chronology that link Israel as a rightful claimant to Canaan and the middle East.

—Len Griehs