Simon Says ...

A Sermon for Evensong Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 ; 1 Peter 1.3-12   The book of Ecclesiastes is an insidious book, a rebel within the canon of Scripture.   It claims to be written by Solomon, the great king of the golden age of Israel.   It recalls the time when Israel and Judah were one people, before the rebellious schism that happened under Solomon’s son.   This was the time when the riches of the kingdom were countless.   Gold, precious stones, cedars, spices, garments, weaponry, ships, ivory, apes and peacocks are all recounted as among the wonders of the age ( 1 Kings 10 ).   This was the time when the Queen of Sheba came to see the great wisdom of Solomon, and marvelled at the wisdom of the king, and the opulence of his palaces.   This was the king with at least a thousand women in his harem ( 1 Kings11.3 ).   This was the king who built the Temple of the Lord, and a palace for himself to match.   And to all ...

Review of Steve Jones, The Serpent’s Promise: The Bible Retold as Science (Little, Brown, 2013). This must surely qualify as one of the worst books I read last year.   That I managed to finish reading it is itself something of a feat. Jones purports to be writing something different to the “Polemical works for and against the power of belief” (p. 4).   But this book is nothing if not polemical. There is a (seriously held) view that science and religion have much that is complementary and that each can illuminate the other.   Jones has dismissed this by page 5.   What is more interesting is the reason why Jones junks this understanding.   There is no exploration of the view, let alone a philosophical account of why it does not hold water.   Rather Jones simply states “the view that science and doctrine occupy separate, or even complementary, universes and that each provides an equally valid insight into the world seems to...