Mary Brodd
exhaustive description of all the ways that different versions of manuscripts can exist, and the way that researchers can figure out where an individual MS fits in the grand scheme of things. Even more makes me wonder how people can claim that there is JUST ONE ONLY ONE INERRANT WORD OF GOD, when this idea flies in the face of the facts. (I have read also an earlier edition of this book, one that wasn't co-authored by Bart Erhman, and while I do like this edition I think it's been, um, “dumbed down” just a bit)
This continent populated much earlier than 12,000 years ago. Earliest European contacts record post-epidemic population levels; North and South America had millions of people before earliest visitors from Europe brought pigs and diseases. North American populations had less diverse genetic ability to fight disease, so more died in epidemics than Europeans would have done.
Berengia land bridge - theory that Siberians crossed while chasing mastodons is questionable given gatherer nature of other people from similar era.
“Mother cultures” (Olmecs) of middle American weren't - “sister” cultures may have developed in parallel.
p. 311 (conclusion) “Faced with an ecological problem, the Indians fixed it. Rather than adapt to nature, they created it. They were in the midst of terra-forming the Amazon when Columbus showed up and ruined everything.”
Early occupants adopted agricultural methods that would work in the environment. Fruit cultivators and breeding not recognized as “farming” by Europeans but it was. Yanomami can survive “in the wild” because their ancestors created the landscape around them.
Huge numbers of e.g. bison and passenger pigeons resulted from predators (Indians) dying from European diseases - they did not exist in such disproportionate numbers before 1491.
“Virgin forest” created in 18th century when Indians who controlled the growth died and growth was no longer planned and controlled.
changing climates favored bigger-brained, more adaptable hominidsclimate change more abrupt than originally thought
THC - thermohaline circulation - as water evaporates, it becomes saltier, therefore heavier, so it SINKS, pulling the current behind it. Happens ONLY in the North Atlantic (Gulf Stream)cycles exist from 100,000 years down to 20 years (El Nino) - we are at the intersection of lots of cycles
*Human activities both increase risk of severe climate change and minimize earth's ability to cope with such changes (deforestation, mangrove depletion, etc).
We're doomed.
(suggested reading - “Late Victorian Holocausts” by Mike Davis)
Author concluded that, because God did not preserve texts of New Testament, even though He could have, they therefore are not divinely inspired.
Errors were made as a result of accieent - wrong word, skipped lines, etc.
Changes made deliberately to emphasize point being made by individual authors.
I had never thought of the books in the Bible as either literary or political texts before - e.g. why do the four Gospels have different versions of the Passion - depends on what each author wanted to emphasize. “Duh” moment for me.
“Genealogy” of individual manuscripts is traceable through common errors.
King James Version of the Bible is complete crap.
(Recommended reading: Living Text of the Gospels by David C. Parker 1997 Columbia Univ. Press)
1906 a terrible year seismically - earthquakes everywhereonce the sticking point gave away, the plates moved at TWO MILES PER SECOND past each other!
scientists of the time ignored or didn't understand seismographical data (seismographs were very primitive) and mislabeled the epicenter for many years.only 3-10% of damage to buildings was actually due to the earthquake; the fire did the rest
*Pentecostal movement got an initial boost (San Francisco suffering the WRATH OF GOD for its SINFUL WAYS!) from which it has never looked back.
I remember reading this book probably fifteen years ago and being absolutely amazed - “you mean, there's a reason the batter bunts in a particular situation?” “there's a reason he's pitching like that?” “there's a reason (this person) is doing (that thing)?” This book is a mesmerizing combination of history, philosophy, kinesiology, social commentary, business analysis... If you have any interest in baseball at all, you will not be able to put this book down.