Last World War I Veterans

Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German emperor, was born on this day in 1859. He was the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria, and was cousin of King George V of Great Britain and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. 

After posting this on Facebook, I was curious who the last war veterans were. Erich Kästner (1900-2008) was the last German veteran. Franz, Künstler (1900-2008) was the last who fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Frank Buckles (1900-2011) was the last American veteran. Lazare Ponticelli (1897-2008) was the last French veteran. Florence Green (1901-2012), who served Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) was the last British veteran and the last known veteran from any country.  https://en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_last_surviving_World...

Of my own relatives: My first cousin three times removed, Louis Crawford (1895-1917), was the first Fayette County, IL soldier to die in the war. My great-uncle Ed Strobel (1887-1961), was also a Fayette County native. 

Bible Families: Cain

At about the time I turned 50 during the mid-’00s, I decided to deepen my Bible study. I wanted to study comparatively unfamiliar areas of the book, and I especially wanted to gain a better sense of its canonical interconnections (prophecies, allusions, historical connections, etc.). I had a then-30-year-old Bible that was a worse-for-wore hodgepodge of notes, jottings, and cross-references. I had also purchased a new NRSV. My old and new notetaking comprised both a midlife resolution and an enjoyable, renewed devotion to study. 

Eventually, I incorporated my notes into a Blogspot site, “Changing Bibles,” and three WordPress sites, “The Love of Bible Study,” “Psalm 121,” and “Bible Connections.” They are all still open, though not updated.  

Then, the notetaking evolved into my book, Walking with Jesus through the New Testament (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015). It’s the most recent of several Bible study books and articles that I’ve published, although the others were for Abingdon Press. (See my website, cleverly titled paulstroble.com, if you're interested.) 

THEN, in 2017-2018, I did another series of notetaking as an effort to study the Bible start to finish. I posted those notes on my main blog, “Journeys Home.” Once finished, I put the notes into one file (215 pages!) and posted that file onto “Journeys Home” and “Changing Bibles.” I think I also shared these notes onto my other personal blog, “Grace, Place, and the Like” on WordPress. 

My initial resolution to read the Bible as a midlife project clearly got out of hand, but in a good way. 

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Lately I’ve wanted to start a new Bible study project. I’ve been studying a wonderful book, Rabbi Barry H. Block, ed., The Social Justice Torah Commentary (New York: CCAR Press, 2021). But I didn’t take notes for blog posts. 

But I remembered that I have this poster on the back of my office door! It connects the names of Old Testament people starting (of course) with Adam and Eve. The shaded or colored sections are the twelve tribes of Israel. Judah is in the middle, leading to David and to Jesus. I saw this chart at a Bible book store years ago, regretted that I didn’t purchase it, and then ordered it from eBay.  

The genealogies aren't compelling reading, but they serve important purposes. 

* In Genesis, they frame the stories, in order to show how God is preparing for the well-being of his people over time. 

* 1 Chronicles 1-9 is comprised of a long list of names, beginning with Adam. 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah comprise a "secondary history" of the Old Testament, following the "primary history of Genesis-2 Kings. 1 Chronicles compresses pre-exilic history via this list of names, to illustrate God's providence through the generations and to pay homage to the earlier people of Israel's history. 

* Census records, like those of Numbers, list men available for military service, and also illustrates the large number of people for whom God cared during the Exodus period. 

* The genealogies of Matthew and Luke connect Jesus with the heritage of his Jewish scriptures. 

I decided to devote my next Bible study project following the Bible’ many genealogies. This will keep me busy with Bible study for several months What are some interesting things about certain persons named throughout the Old Testament?  

Genesis 4 gives us a genealogy of Cain. Genesis 5 gives us the beginning of the genealogy of Seth, which is the family with which the rest of the Old Testament is concerned. 

The first genealogy we come to is Genesis 4. I’ll use the KJV because it’s in the public domain.

Genesis 4:16  And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

21 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

23 And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.

24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

The first family genealogy in Genesis! 

My old Clark’s Commentary notes that name Enoch means “instructed, devoted, initiated.” It’s perhaps an indication that Cain devoted his son to God in some way. 

I have no answer to the perennial question, Where did all these people come from to populate the city that Cain built. 

Lamech is the first person in the Bible to have more than one wife. Clark indicates that other ancient culture assigns mythical importance to the first forgers and the first musicians. In focusing upon a single God, the Bible “demythologizes” origin stories and simply names the innovators: Tubalcain was the first artificer in brass and iron, Adam was the first nomadic shepherd and herder, and Jubal was the first musician. 

Scholars like the author of the NIB commentary note that the “mark of Cain” is not an indication of shame (as we use the phrase today) but of protection. In answering Cain’s despairing prayer, God also wants to stop the increase of violence and retribution. But in being wounded in some kind of conflict, Lamech takes vengeance into his own hands—and is happy about it! This foreshadows the increase of human violence in the years before the Flood. 

This is the extent of the genealogy of Cain's family.  When 1 Chronicles begins with lists of biblical names, it omits Cain's descendants and begins with Adam then Seth. 

Mythbusters 20

"Mythbusters" premiered twenty years ago today! I found this screen shot online of their first episode (https://mythbusters.tumblr.com/post/645720629495119872/2003-pilot). When I posted this on Facebook, a student commented, "That show shaped a generation!" 

Copied under fair use principles. 

Certainty about Providence?

The following is theologically thought-provoking. I've been studying the New England Puritans lately, and they were similarly inclined to look for divine meaning in the victories and tragedies of their lives, often at the cost of solving issues more practically and directly (though still looking to God for help). 

Thomas Jefferson "Stonewall" Jackson was born on this day in 1824. Interesting history: "Jackson, who was anything but ordinary in his military capacities, was also probably not ordinary in his profound trust in providence...Early in his adulthood, he started peppering his speech and corresopndance with phrases like ‘an all-wise Providence’ and 'the hand of an all-wise God.’ .. Jackson was almost incapable of accounting for any event or outcome during the war itself without referring it to God’s sovereign direction. After the dreadful fighting of the battle of Second Manassas, an aide observed to Jackson that the Confederates ‘have won this battle by the hardest kind of fighting.’ Jackson... would not hear of it: ‘No, no, we have won it by the blessing of Almighty God.’

"Not surprisingly, when Jackson died from wounds suffered at the battle of Chancellorsville.. . common people throughout the nation... instinctively sought the divine meaning in the passing of someone who had so consistently ascribed to God the rule over daily life. Yet what would that message be?... Some thought that Jackson’s death was a result of sin, usually ascribed to the South and only rarely to Jackson. ...[A pious Northern general] thought God was intending to bless the Union cause with victory…[and] some Southern ministers proclaimed that removing Jackson was a providential means of stripping away human props so that the glory for the South’s forthcoming victory would be given to God alone. Only a few confessed that it was entirely a mystery. After the war, and indeed after the assassination of Abrhama Lincoln had evoked a comparable flurry of assured but incompatible interpretations of God’s purposes, a few attempts were made to add nuance to earlier certainties. But as both Jackson ..and the reaction to Jackson's death demonstrated...ministers and the laity were as convinced as ...theologians that God was in control and that they could understand clearly why God was acting the way he did.” (Mark Noll, “The Civil War as a Theological Crisis,” University of North Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 85-86). 

Sir James Hall, "Father of Experimental Geology"

Sir James Hall of Dunglass, 4th Baronet, FRSE, was born January 17, 1761. He was a Scottish geologist and geophysicist, and member of Parliament. Fascinated by James Hutton's geological theories of the changes in earth's strata, Hall  conducted experiments to test and develop Hutton's ideas. Hall has been called the "father of experimental geology."

Albert Schweiter, 1875-1965

Born in the Alsace on January 14, 1875, scholar and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer certainly left a multifaceted legacy. He contributed importantly to New Testament scholarship with his books "The Quest for the Historical Jesus" and "The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle." He also contributed to philosophy with his writings on the civilization and on the "reverence for life," which he discovered in a moment of insight as a universal concept for ethics. Schweitzer was an accomplished organist and musicologist who wrote about the music of J. S. Bach. He made recordings that are now on CD. Amid some of this research and other activities, he also earned a medical degree, in order to answer Christ's call of service. Subsequently he and his wife Helene founded a hospital in French Equatorial Africa, now Gabon. Although his hospital was criticized for its sanitary conditions and for Schweitzer's paternalism, the self-funded hospital treated many thousands of patients. He continued to write books throughout his life. He wrote in German and in French. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. And he loved cats.... 

I've always thought that the last paragraph of "Quest for the Historical Jesus" is inspiring: 

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those ... who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: 'Follow thou me!' and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” 

Alfred Russel Wallace, 200 Years

British naturalist-explorer-geographer-anthropologist-biologist-illustrator Alfred Russel Wallace was born January 8, 1823, 200 years ago. I read quite a bit about him for some of my poetry books. Wallace did extensive exploration and mapping in the Amazon in 1848-1852, followed by eight years of exploration and study in Malaysia, the Indonesian islands, and New Guinea (1854-1862). He discovered thousands of species previously unknown to science. Wallace ascertained the line where the flora and fauna of Asia differs from those of Australasia. While sick with a fever in the islands, he had a flash of insight concerning natural selection as the vehicle of biological development. He realized and developed this idea independently of Charles Darwin. Darwin established priority and took the lion's share of controversy, while supporting Wallace and his work. Wallace's book, "The Malay Archipelago," was published in 1869 and became a classic, influencing many scientists and also writer Joseph Conrad and others. Wallace wrote other works of biogeography and also a few works about social justice. Not a religious person, Wallace--in his 1903 book "Worlds of Life"--developed a non-theistic idea of intelligent design that has points of similarity with religious ideas of creation and providence. He even wrote a short book, "Is Mars Habitable?" where he argued (contrary to astronomer Percival Lowell) that Mars cannot sustain life.