Monthly Archives: December 2013

December 3, 2013

Bible Secrets Revealed via the History Channel?

By Clarke Morledge
God took Enoch (Genesis 5:24). From Figures de la Bible, Gerald Hoet and others, 1728.

God took Enoch (Genesis 5:24). From Figures de la Bible, Gerald Hoet and others, 1728.

As I do not have cable TV, I never really get to watch the History Channel. But when some friends suggested that I check out the new History Channel series on the Bible Secrets Revealed, I thought I should investigate a little.

As it turns out, the History Channel does allow you to watch some of the previous episodes online fairly easily, at least for a limited time. I missed the window to see the first episode, “Lost in Translation“. However, I was able to view the next two episodes, “The Promised Land” and “The Forbidden Scriptures“. I will not attempt to give a full review but just offer some brief general observations and pointers to some resources for further study.

I like Bible documentaries because I always learn something from them, such as in this History Channel series, and it encourages me to dig deeper in the data even more for myself, even if I do not agree with everything presented. But what bothers me about some Bible documentaries is in the style of presentation and the overall narrative that the producers of the film are trying to convey. Genuine efforts to present views even handedly get unwittingly sidetracked by unexamined biases held by these documentary makers. Unfortunately, the History Channel’s latest film on this topic is no exception.
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December 1, 2013

The First Thanksgiving

By Clarke Morledge

I had a great Thanksgiving. How about you?

The turkey I ate was wonderful, just like what the Pilgrims ate….. or was it? Did they even have turkey to eat in 1621?

The study of American history is a tough thing to deal with for Christians. We are annoyed and quite accustomed to revisionists who want to exorcise Christianity out of America’s past. On the other hand, a lot of ideas about history that have been passed down to us over the generations do not always line up with the facts. Is there a responsible Christian way to approach our nation’s past?

Robert Tracy McKenzie, an historian at Wheaton College, has written a new book, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History, that attempts to set the record straight (with a measure of humility with respect to the challenges to doing history) and still show us the Biblical and historical lessons that we can learn from our nation’s forebears.

Here is the book’s trailer and then a brief interview with the author addressing a question that many evangelical Christians merely assume to be true, “Were the Pilgrims just like us?”:

More discussion is available here at the Patheos Book Club.

Audio podcast with Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Society, interviewing McKenzie here.

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