In Greek (the language in which the New Testament was written), “Jesus Christ” is “Ἰησοῦς Χριστός” (Iēsous Khrīstos). The initial letters (Ι & Χ) are transcribed in the Roman alphabet as I X. Together those letters represent the number 9. In Chinese, the number 9 (九, jiǔ) represents both “eternal” (the homophone 久, jiǔ) and,…
How are we to respond to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden eating forbidden fruit having been tempted by a serpent? That the mess we are in is the result of a single choice that a couple of our ancestors made a long time ago and therefore not really our…
Pentecost (meaning “50” [days]) is an ancient Jewish festival celebrated 7 weeks after Passover. It was one of 3 times in the year that Jewish people in ancient times were required to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Pentecost was a celebration of both the wheat harvest and of the giving of the Torah, which laid…
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by RF Kuang debuted at the first spot on The New York Times Best Seller list, and won Blackwell’s Books of the Year for Fiction in 2022 and the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is a work of historical fiction that revolves around four translators from different…
Two years ago I wrote about the Southern Chinese New Year tradition, “Lo Hei!” As we went through those reflections again with friends this year, further thoughts came out. The tradition is also called “Yusheng” (魚生) meaning “raw fish,” which is the key ingredient that is lifted up (“Lo Hei” 捞起) in the festivities. 魚…
This is the third in a series of 3 posts about a trip to the Holy Land. In my first post, I wrote: “My strongest initial impressions from this trip might be summarised with the words ordinary, familiar and radical.” The ordinariness and familiarity of the land serve to highlight all the more the utterly…