Lark > Recent Status Updates

What’s frustrating about a work like this is how can you examine it critically as a book? It feels so intensely personal at times, any engagement with this book beyond support for its values and ideals feels fraught. I have things i want to address but is it not my place??? I may belong to the disability community in some way, but I am not involved enough to feel like part of the conversation at certain points

FUCK I love this book and it’s upsetting that it all feels a bit cheapened by knowing Lewis so well and seeing him just trying to illustrate a real theological point he holds.
It’s like having a great conversation with someone only to discover they wanted you to go to their church

Ugh this man will always hold a special place in my heart, and projects like this are why.
I hope I see some growth here in how Lewis writes women, how he relates to them!

Hot damn does this book hit different in 2025
I need to learn more about this man so I can speak to the history of this book with more certainty because you KNOOOOW I’ve got things to say!

Okay the Enuma Elish absolutely fucks

Call me Ut-Napishtim the way I stay above it all 😤😤😤 #grindset

This dude! “It would be ridiculous if Israelites believed Foreskin Hill was made of heaped foreskins”! HA!

Oh brother this guy STINKS

Quite honestly love Gilgamesh’s boyfriend Enkidu 💙

H*ck yeah

I know my special interest is showing but I truly think this information could be so well transmitted to modern church-goers if only it were delivered the right way

Truly in the coming decade i think it is important to save books like these – foundational critical commentaries of the Bible. This book is 30 years old and still provides the best evidence-based info I can find on a book of the Bible that carries a lot of the genocidal weight in strands of Christianity and Judaism

The treatment of the Rahab story is INCREDIBLE! Especially for a book written in the 90s?? Especially for a HIGH STATUS Biblical commentary?? I liked it so much I sent it to my parents
I hope in the 30 years of scholarship since that Rahab's tradition at the core of Joshua 2 has held up!

What can I say I’m a slut for my little commentaries but only if they’re good ones (this one is)

I’m enjoying re-reading this now with a better grasp of the language

RIP Friar Lawrence you would have loved Mandated Reporting

Oh brother this guy STINKS
This book reeks of Christian apologetics
“well despite all this data it’s still possible this was written by Joshua’s nephew or whatever🥺”
Do I have to read the rest of this Lee Strobel bullshit! (I’m going to try)

Wow HORRIBLE novelization of one of my fav Baz Luhrmann movies. S M H!

I never won’t be a Dan McClellan fan. This book is an amazing distillation of Dan’s entire social media presence - accessibility, humor, interrogation of bias, and sheer breadth of data-based knowledge.

Okay love this one Bill

The only way to ever actually be not bored reading Numbers is by following along with critical scholarship that helps bring out the editing process, tries to get in the heads of whatever editor seems to be operating at the time
See how knowledgeable I sound?? Thanks, book!

AMAZING stuff great stuff really
Taught me the word "pleonastic" which came in handy right away because that's exactly how I'd describe this writing style

I’m floored by how researched this is while being so accessible
I’d been reading a lot about cognitive images of the self (selves) and the partibility of it, but in the context of the cognitive science of religion
Every once in a while I will read a book from the library that begs me to buy it so I can annotate it for myself
This going to be one of those books that I’m excited to add to my shelf

Every once in a while a book comes along that compels me to take physical notes somewhere I can easily access them
This is one of those books. Already seen some turn around from the basic precepts alone ❤️

There is a coterie of Biblical scholars that I just have so much faith in, and Stavrakapoulou is one of them
I’m so impressed by the depth of research she did (and the breadth!). There is so much more about the Bible and God as seen in their original contexts, so much information that clarifies passages that people glide over because it isn’t coherent to them
Gonna have to put this in my review too

Honestly more than anything I am so impressed by the sheer BREADTH of research and knowledge that went into this book. The bibliography is DIVERSE and EXTENSIVE. The look at the gender schema given to ancient Israelites and Jews is profound and really helps you understand the Bible in brand new ways