all of this has happened before (because of my bad memory)

We’re reaching the end of Exodus in our Sunday-morning family Bible reading. The boy gets to go play after a chapter from his children’s bible and a short sampling of the language of the King James. The missus and I follow up our reading of the Bible with a reading about the Bible, usually by Isaac Asimov or Bart Ehrman, but often Thomas Cahill for Genesis and Exodus. I was so struck, once again, by Cahill’s take on shifting cosmologies that I was going to quote a long passage here on the blog. But a quick perusal shows me that I already did so last March:

“under the sun”

So instead, I’ll share this morning’s fascinating featured article from Wikipedia, also on a semi-biblical theme:

George Went Hensley (c. 1880 – 1955) was an American Pentecostal minister. He experienced a religious conversion around 1910 and came to believe that the New Testament commanded all Christians to handle venomous snakes. Although illiterate, he was a licensed minister of the Church of God from 1915 to 1922. He was arrested on moonshine-related charges and sentenced to a term in a workhouse, from which he escaped. He then held revival services in Ohio, and established churches, known as the Church of God with Signs Following, in Tennessee and Kentucky. His services ranged from small meetings in houses to gatherings with hundreds of attendees and media attention. He was arrested for violating laws against snake handling at least twice. He claimed to have survived more than 400 snake bites, but fell ill after being bitten during a service in 1955. He refused medical attention and died the next day. Despite his personal failings—he had conflicts with his family because of his drunkenness, frequent travels, and lack of steady income—Hensley convinced many residents of rural Appalachia that snake handling was commanded by God, and his followers continued the practice after his death. (Full article…)

And back into the Exodus theme — and on the question, generally speaking, of the Bible’s historicity — I discovered this article, which appeared in the Telegraph shortly after my “under the sun” post half a year ago:

"Biblical plagues really happened say scientists"

The Biblical plagues that devastated Ancient Egypt in the Old Testament were the result of global warming and a volcanic eruption, scientists have claimed.