Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Blaze of Light is an account of Green Beret Medic Medal of Honor recipient Gary Beikirch. He earned his Medal of Honor in Vietnam. I've honestly been dreading having to write this review because…well, I didn't like the book. And I feel horrible about saying that I don't like a book about a Medal of Honor recipient! It's not that it isn't interesting, it is. But it's depressing. The book is written well in that , while following Mr. Beikirch through his  life you see, even feel along with him, his depression, lack of purpose in life.  Joining the Green Beret's gave him more of something to aim at.  That was actually the most interesting part of the book to me, it was fascinating to hear about the amazingly tough training they went through to become  Green Berets, and even tougher training to become a Green Beret Medic.  His time in Vietnam was intriguing as well.  Especially his actions that earned him the Medal of Honor, and they truly are...

"…our society is strongly individualistic and 'me-centered.'  We have a tendency to 'look out for number one' and often have less regard for others.  Whereas in many of our organizations and structures individuality is encouraged, there is little place for it in the body of Christ.  Can you imagine an arm proclaiming its independence from the rest of the body?  Not only would the arm become gangrenous and rot away, but the body would be damaged by its absence.  While the world tends to teach us to be self-focused, as believers we must endeavor to be others-focused.  This is expressed in Jesus's command to deny ourselves....... Many believers today envision the Christian faith as more of a picnic or a walk in the park than a bloody sacrifice of the self, but the former is not the biblical portrait."  Ten Things I Wish Jesus Never Said  by Victor Kuligin See more quotes on my quote collection blog:  https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

I was quite excited when I saw that a new English translation of the Septuagint was coming out. I'm always interested in new Septuagint resources.  The Septuagint is an old, Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Some (or all?) of the manuscripts of the Septuagint that we have today are much older than the Hebrew manuscripts on which most of our English Old Testaments are based so it can be pretty useful in textual criticism and Bible study as well (Some quotations that the Apostles made, from the Septuagint, are significantly different than our current Hebrew Old Testament text).   If an English speaking person says they're quoting from "the Bible", we don't associate "the Bible" as only referring to one particular translation (unless you're KJV only). When we talk about the "Septuagint", it's sort of like saying   "the Greek translation of the Old Testament", it's just a shorter way of saying it.   Th...