Faith is a huge force in American life, and it's common to hear the Bible cited to bolster political and moral positions, especially against same-sex marriage and abortion.
These days, he said, while it is rare to hear the Bible cited as a basis for negative statements about "the Jews," a broader problem exists in that many Christians possess "a much more subtle and intractable disregard" for Judaism as a vital faith in its own right.
With a foot in both camps he draws on a vast array of sources from local myths to the Bible, citing Genesis as, "the key text that identifies the condition of farmers and explains aggressive, restless agriculture".
The US trade bible cites an anonymous, widely circulated essay titled Entertainment Capitalism, which alleges that cinemas screening The Hundred Regiments Offensive were offered up to 100% of revenues received for the film, tax free, provided they reported hitting specific box-office targets.
Instead, they advocated a literal reading of the Bible, citing the Bible's long history as evidence of its authority.
Interestingly enough, the Bible cites adultery as the only acceptable reason for getting divorced.
Some even claim that vampires were featured in the Bible, citing either Lazarus (raised from the dead by Jesus) or Cain (condemned by God to forever to wander the Earth).
For those of you familiar with the Bible (the only book cited as more influential than Atlas Shrugged in a Library of Congress survey) there is a quote from Matthew 7 12 that reads, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you".
Sitting in the Zondervan suite during the Christian Booksellers Associationn show, Paul Caminiti, the head of the company's Bible division, cited an appropriately Biblical parallel, a story from the Book of Acts about Philip the Evangelist and a man known as the Ethiopian eunuch.
But what convinced me that the film diminished itself needlessly was in its depiction of Christianity simply as a hypocritical instrument of suppression, the Bible routinely cited as justification for enslavement in sermons to the enslaved.
Some of Ibn Gabirol's allegorical readings of the Bible are cited by Ibn Ezra indeed, he is our only source for them.
