Word: testament
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Numbers 35:11: "...then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there." Activists cite this as a kind of ancient model for their movement. Various verses in the Old Testament describe "cities of refuge," where someone guilty of causing accidental death can escape the dead man's bloodthirsty relatives. Says New Sanctuary Movement co-founder Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, "This is so relevant to the question of aliens: They have committed a crime, but is the punishment [deportation, and the corresponding disruption of productive lives...
...Hebrews 13:2: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." This New Testament passage is probably a reference back to Abraham in the Old Testament, who, approached by three strangers, threw them a feast, only to find that they were supernatural. Paul Lim, an Evangelical Christian and Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt Theological Seminary finds special meaning in the fact that the original Greek word for "hospitality" in this verse, "philoxenia," is actually stronger. It means "the love of strangers." Or, as he points out, the opposite of xenophobia...
Some of this receptivity may reflect biblical viability. On immigration (as opposed to, say, gay marriage) it is liberals who get to cite specific verses to sanction their cause, while anti-immigration conservatives must fall back on a "sense" of Scripture. "In the Old Testament, God speaks of being the God of the aliens about 103 times. That's a lot," says Paul Lim, a Vanderbilt University Divinity School professor writing a book on the theology of immigration. The New Testament, he notes, features not just Jesus' famous criterion for the saved--"I was a stranger, and you welcomed...
...time it takes to utter two words - "suspended sentence" - Israel's Attorney General Menahem Mazuz went from being the country's most respected lawman to a reviled and misunderstood figure. For months, Mazuz, a workaholic of Old Testament rigor, had gathered testimony alleging that Israel's President Moshe Katsav was a serial sex offender. Now Mazuz is under fire for seeking a plea bargain for Israel's ceremonial head of state instead of attempting to prosecute him for allegedly committing rape. On June 30, 20,000 people gathered in a Tel Aviv square to demand the resignation of Mazuz, with...
...rain came in such abundance that cable news anchors and soggy correspondents in the field were compelled to call it "biblical" and, for those of us living in Texas, it is beginning to feel like Old Testament times. For the last few weeks a stalled low pressure system, trapped by two ridges of high pressure, has hung over Texas producing day after day of rain, as much as 11 inches in three hours just northwest of Austin...