Book Review: A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS

Here is tonight’s weekend nonfiction book review.

Robert F. Worth. A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS.  New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 18th 2017. 272 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

This is an incredibly insightful book on the Arab Spring and the subsequent rise of extremism and tyranny as the uprising’s aftermath.  The author is a journalist who has spent considerable time in the Middle East both before, during and after the Arab Spring which contributed to the author’s experience and knowledge of things before and after the Arab Spring.  For those who are curious about the Middle East and want to understand more of the current events in that region this book should be on the top of one’s list.

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Bible Contradiction? Who carried Jesus’ cross?

For today’s post will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Who carried Jesus’s cross?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Jesus carried his own cross

“They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, ^[a]bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.” (John 19:17)

Simon the Cyrenian carried Jesus’s cross.

“As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.” (Matthew 27:32)

“ They *pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross.” (Mark 15:21)

When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

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