From the desk of Liesl St. James

Dearest readers,

I am most apologetic for not returning to our biblical adventures sooner. I had to take a lengthy vacay! I went on a tour of creationist museums and biblical theme parks, largely in the southern part of the US. But now that I’ve returned, I hope you will enjoy our next biblical adventure. We had left off at the beginning of the book of Chronicles. We’re going to skip Chronicles because it just rehashes the previous couple books in a more positive light.

Our next book is the book of Ezra. Ezra is a small book that is easily summarized.

Cyrus, feeling all the warm and fuzzies of God in his heart, decides to let the Israelites rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem which was destroyed back in Joshua when he yelled really loud. So they set to work doing just that. And he gives them back some golden urns or something like that which had been previously stolen. Some captives that were in Babylon are returned to Palestine – total number? 42,360 plus 7,337 servants and a 200 person choir. Because you’ve got to have some singing whilst you work. You’ll note that today…about two thousand years later, this temple in Jerusalem is STILL under debate and contention. You want to start a fight in a bar in Israel? Turn to the guy on the next stool and say “So…about that temple…” and you’ll get punched.

Anyway, the book of Ezra chronicles the building of the temple. First the alter is built, then the foundation for the temple is laid and there is great rejoicing. Then there is a contract dispute and some really big guy in flannel named Bo says that he’ll be done in a week or two and 3 months later, you still can’t use your oven. You know how construction projects go. Only instead of Bo it was the Samaritans and instead of 3 months it was more like 3 years.

It’s a pretty boring and worthless book. Oh, they find out that all the forty thousand people who came back weren’t really married to their wives so those guys had to make offerings to make all their married sinfulness ok with God.

While we’re here, we’ll quickly cover the next book – Nehemiah. The walls of Jerusalem are rebuilt because they fell down previously when some guy yelled at them. And then they list off the census of the adult males (chicks don’t count). There, that covers Nehemiah, too.

Next book is Esther. It involves a beauty pageant and beheadings. So I PROMISE things are going to get more interesting.