Bible

More than 31,000 Americans will have a hand in publishing a new edition of the Bible. Zondervan Corp. is starting a 90-city, 15,000-mile cross-country tour to mark the 30th anniversary of its new translation of the book. The tour will stop at special events, churches, landmarks and other places to allow people to write out Bible verses. The collection of handwritten verses will be published and sold after the tour ends in San Diego on Feb. 12. Most will come from regular people, but the publisher also hopes to get verses from President Bush, the Rev. Billy Graham and other luminaries.

Israeli archaeologists digging near the city of Jerusalem have discovered an ancient clay bulla, about 2,700 years old, bearing the name Bethlehem. The artifact is the only known ancient reference to the city of Jesus' birth found outside the Bible, experts said. The find shows not only that the city existed, but that it probably also had a thriving commercial trade. A bulla is a piece of clay used to make an impression in wax, sealing a document.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

The Arizona Legislature has never been shy about weighing in on hot-button issues. (Exhibit A: SB 1070 , the state's illegal immigration law.) The latest such move: a vote to allow public and charter schools to teach students about the Bible. The Arizona House this week voted to allow high schools to offer a class called “The Bible and Its Influence on Western Culture,” which would focus on how the Old and New Testaments have influenced everything from law to literature.  According to the Arizona Republic, five states already provide similar classes: Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina and Oklahoma.  The Arizona bill's opponents don't dispute that the Bible is a ripe topic for academic study.

Inasmuch, however, as the kingdom of Gyges did not extend to the areas of Meshech and Tubal, as is implied by Ezekiel 38:2 with respect to the kingdom of Gog, there is a problem with assuming that Gog is identical with Gyges, the similarity of the names notwithstanding.

At a time when the words of the late British novelist, scholar and lay theologian C.S. Lewis are reaching more people than ever, a newly published Bible bearing his name has excited fans and provoked debate over whether Lewis would have approved. "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," the third film created from Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series, has earned more than $400 million since its December release. Next month, Lewis' translation of Virgil's Aeneid will be published. A stage adaptation of "The Screwtape Letters" is on national tour.

Ever since Jesus Christ said that only God knows the hour or day of the Second Coming, preachers and self-appointed doomsayers have been trying to predict when it will happen -- and watching the sun rise on yet another generation. Even those who chastise date-setters often say, "God's final judgment is coming soon -- probably in our lifetime -- so get ready." In recent weeks, prophecy interpreters have been citing a new reason they believe the end is coming: the impending U.S. war against Iraq.

Sophisticated computer calculations indicate that the biblical parting of the Red Sea, said to have allowed Moses and the Israelites to escape from bondage in Egypt, could have occurred precisely as the Bible describes it.

The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House, as was the practice during the Bush administration. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.

One passage plucked from the New Testament's Epistle to the Ephesians instructs believers to "put on the full armor of God." An excerpt from the Old Testament's Isaiah directs them to "open the gates that the righteous nation may enter." As American troops fought in Iraq in 2003, these biblical verses and others reportedly prefaced intelligence reports approved by then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Rick Santorum's near-miss in Iowa provides a reminder that, for many Republican voters (and not a few candidates), religion and politics overlap. If you need another reminder, though, consider this: recently, the Smithsonian has restored and put on display a weird and fantastic 19th century book known as "The Jefferson Bible. " That's Jefferson as in Thomas, and this private, personal document offers a useful case study in how politics and Christianity have mixed it up in American history, right up to today.

When Hera, wife of Zeus, lays into Artemis, the sister of Apollo, in Stephen Mitchell's new translation of the "Iliad," it sounds more likeMTV's"Jersey Shore"than Mt. Olympus. "How dare you oppose me, you sniveling little …" Hera roars. You can fill in that blank, can't you? Mitchell's updating has resulted in a livelier, more contemporary feel for this epic of world literature - something Mitchell has done before in popularizing other classics including the Book of Job, Tao Te Ching and Gilgamesh.

The J. Paul Getty Trust failed Thursday to derail a lawsuit by the Armenian Orthodox Church that accuses the museum of harboring stolen illuminated medieval manuscripts — 755-year-old works that are masterpieces and, to the church, spiritually and historically sacred. After a brief hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Abraham Khan denied the Getty's motion to dismiss the claim. The museum's attorneys argued that the deadline for filing the suit had passed decades ago under the statute of limitations.

A computer technician who was arrested on charges of taking photographs of naked women via webcam is facing charges involving at least six victims, some of whom are students at a Christian college he attended. Trevor Harwell, 20, who posted $50,000 bond Wednesday, may have victimized dozens of people, police said Friday. Investigators said a search of his computers revealed hundreds of thousands of images of women, mostly 18 to 25 years old, in various states of undress. The women are believed to be from Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Behold, the man who brought you "Survivor," "The Voice" and "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" has found religion. Executive producer Mark Burnett is bringing the docudrama "The Bible" to the History channel, the network announced Tuesday. The five-part, 10-hour series is planned for 2013 and will cover the Good Book from Genesis to Revelation, using CGI to re-create famous stories, including Noah's ark and the Resurrection of Jesus. The cable channel also said that Kevin Costner will star in "The Hatfields and McCoys," a miniseries for next year about the feuding families from the late 19th century American South.

The Chukchi Bible Yuri Rytkheu, translated from the Russian by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse Archipelago: 354 pp., $17 paper "My genealogy, like the tundra root we call the golden root, is enmeshed with its native soil. It does not spread very far below ground, as the permafrost is too near. And yet no hurricane could tear it from its native soil, no frost could wither it…. " These stories, written by the son of the last shaman of the Chukchi people, whose villages once lined the shores of the Bering Sea, are so clear, surefooted, vivid and confident that it's hard to believe the people who passed them on so faithfully could ever be threatened by mere commerce.

When the new New International Version of the Bible is unveiled in 2011, don't look for androgynous vocabulary that had rankled some evangelicals. In fact, as soon as the latest version is published, the gender-neutral Today's New International Version will vanish. "If we want to maintain the NIV as a Bible that English speakers around the world can understand, we have to listen to and respect the vocabulary they are using today," said Keith Danby, president of Biblica. New Testament scholar and author Bart Ehrman doubts the revision has as much to do with the evolution of the English language as the orthodox trends in evangelical thought.

I have one simple request for Michael McGough on his article "What the Bible really says about gays" (Opinion, July 18) and student Justin Cannon, who is trying to justify homosexuality using the Bible. Give us one, just one, Bible verse that encourages homosexuality. P.S. You'd better pack a huge lunch! Matt Stankus Temecula

At a time when the words of the late British novelist, scholar and lay theologian C.S. Lewis are reaching more people than ever, a newly published Bible bearing his name has excited fans and provoked debate over whether Lewis would have approved. "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," the third film created from Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series, has earned more than $400 million since its December release. Next month, Lewis' translation of Virgil's Aeneid will be published. A stage adaptation of "The Screwtape Letters" is on national tour.

Despite the anti-Semitic ranting of Mel Gibson, the public gulf between Roman Catholics and Jews has narrowed during recent decades. It started with overtures from Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 2000, during which time he visited Auschwitz and Jerusalem. After following his predecessor to Auschwitz in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI slammed Holocaust deniers in 2009, then set off on an Israel trip. And this year, at Rome's Ardeatine Caves, the pope commemorated the 1944 Nazi reprisal massacre of more than 300 Italians, including several dozen unimplicated Jews.