Roots and Beginnings
As I type this I am watching The Return of the King and the title of this introduction suggested itself.
This blog will be an investigation and discussion of the relationship between the observable universe and the written Word. The assumption and point of departure will be that the author of both is the same – the LORD God of Israel. He created what we see and he wrote what we read.
Interestingly, the genesis of this has one person as its author, Cathy Madden, my wife of fourty-six years.
For those who don’t know her, she is a bit of an outspoken lass. Those who do know her will confirm this observation. When we started dating we would have discussion in religion as we were from two different camps, as it were. When queried on a belief my response was, “this is what I was taught”; her’s was, “but the Bible says this.” I had not been a great reader of Scripture before those discussions and they caused me to pick up my parent’s Bible (which they got on the day of my birth) and investigate what she was saying. That began my love and fascination with what God has had written to us in Holy Writ. Side, note – it did say what she said it did!
Cathy, I have learned, has an uncanny sense of what I would like. Not necessarily what I had been wanting, say, for a birthday or father’s day, but what I would like. She at one time bought me a BBQ/smoker for father’s day one year. I had not thought of one nor had it ever been suggested that I would want one. But she got me one and as soon as I saw it I loved it! We lived in North Carolina at the time. One of the very major differences between North Carolina and Texas is BBQ. North Carolina thinks (erroneously) that it pertains to pigs when everyone knows that cows are the key. This was amply demonstrated when, having fired the smoker up, starting with that next 4th of July (3rd really – those who were there understand) and going for the next 12+ years, we held an annual smoked brisket meal while we watched fireworks from our cul-de-sac. We would go through 70lbs. of brisket in those nights.
The other item that she got me as she thought I might like it was a telescope from The Talented Child Store in Dallas. It was a very simple 4” reflector housed in a red plastic bubble. Easy to point and shoot and I loved what I saw through it. I traded it in for a more sophisticated 4” reflector with an equatorial mount. With that one I scoped out the moon, Jupiter, and the sun, which I projected on the back wall of my garage in Richardson, Texas. It was utterly fascinating!
At about that time I had begun studies for graduate degrees in the Bible and related topics and spent twenty years teaching Hebrew and Old Testament at a fairly large seminary. While teaching at the seminary, Cathy and I started a Sunday school class at the church we attended in Raleigh that we named The Theological Roundtable with the intent of having serious, in depth discussions of what God’s Word said. We taught that class for over fifteen years and it has continued since we left about five years ago. We did have in depth discussions, some of which covered creation and origins and which touched on the relationship between Special Revelation as found in the Bible and General Revelation as found in Nature. Again, we approached that discussion from the view that they shared the same author and so what we would find in one would be reflected in the other and that neither would contradict the other. That topical discussion was one of many. This blog will be one more directed to the relationship of God’s two great works and will use the Bible for part of the discussion and a telescope for the other part. To that end I have a Celestron 8” on the way and I have been going over YouTube videoes on how to do astrophotography as it is my intent that this blog include in depth Bible discussion (read references to Hebrew and Greek) and displays of what I will be photographing through my telescope.
Come, join me on the journey and let’s explore some great and interesting topics!
The Text and the Telescope 