David R. Larson

By Unedited Google AI About June 15, 2026 The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) rituals in Leviticus 16, specifically the dual-goat rite, reflect a widespread Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) concept of "elimination rituals". By utilizing a sacrificial animal to appease the deity and a "scapegoat" to physically banish impurity and sin, ancient Israel adapted shared regional practices. Key Regional Parallels Hittite Rituals (Anatolia): The closest and most well-documented parallels come from Hittite texts. Hittite purification rituals regularly feature driving a live animal (such as a sheep, bull, or even a substitute human) into the wilderness or enemy territory to carry away impurities, plagues, or curses. Similar to Leviticus 16, these texts often involve the High Priest transferring the physical uncleanness onto the animal via physical touch and incantation. Mesopotamian Practices (Babylon & Assyria): Mesopotamian rituals utilized a "substitute" mechanism. ...

David R. Larson May 30, 2026 Leviticus 16 in the Bible pictures a priest in ancient Israel placing his hands on a living goat's head in order to ceremoniously "transfer" to it the sins of the people.  It was then led into the wilderness and abandoned.   Many Christians have pictured the "scapegoat" as a symbol of Jesus Christ and others have seen it as a symbol of Satan  Many Seventh-day Adventists are among those have symbolized it as Satan. It is important to note that the denomination's official "Twenty-eight Fundamental Beliefs" do not say a single word about this issue.  Also, the suggestion that this view is widespread among Seventh-day Adventists all around the world is based upon local anecdotal evidence rather than global stastistcal evidence. Saying that SDAs believe that the scapegoat symbolizes Satan is a bit of a stretch.  

David R. Larson May 27, 2026 1. Unlike the an cient Greeks such as Plato and Aristotle, the ancient Hebrews did not write plays and treatises, T hey expressed their views in stories, poems, witticisms and the words and deeds of prophets. This is why people call what they said and wrote "narrative theology." 2. They did not say and write these things to entertain. They did so to address issues people were experiencing in their everyday lives. 3. We can make an educated guess as to what issue a story addresses even if we aren't specialists in Biblical scholarship by asking a simple question: "If this is the solution, what is the problem?" 4. We should not approach the story with our issue in mind. We should approach it with their issue in mind. It is always the case, though, that their issue turns out to be an issue for us as well even though it might be a different issue for us than the one we anticipated. 5. The stories they told typically had one mess...

 For each of the pairs of statements below, select the statement which you believe is most correct, in line with your understanding. Then tabulate your selections on the next page. 1 (a) God gives a man right standing with Himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous. (b) God gives a man right standing with Himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous person. 2 (a) God gives a man right standing with Himself by placing Christ’s goodness and virtue to his credit. (b) God gives a man right standing with Himself by putting Christ’s goodness and virtue into his heart. 3 (a) God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ. (b) God makes the believer acceptable by infusing Christ’s moral excellence into his life. 4 (a) If a Christian becomes “born again” (regenerate, transformed in character), he will achieve right standing with God. (b) If the sinner accepts right standing with God by faith in Christ’s sinless life and atoning...

[This little paper contributed to a lasting differene in the dialogue between process theolgy and openness of of God theology. This difference has subsquently been most fully developed in Thomas J. Oord's "Essential Kenosis." DRL /20/2025] Process Theology and Openness of God Theology:  Necessarily, Essentially, Neither or Both:  How Does God Love the World? A Presentation by David R. Larson at the  November 2004 meetings of the American Academy of Religion  meetings in San Antonio, Texas “There is in God both supreme necessity and supreme contingency.” Karl Barth  God’s “conceptuality at once exemplifies  and establishes the categoreal conditions.”  Alfred North Whitehead  “God’s sociality cannot be satisfied by God’s self;   God’s love requires an object that is not God, namely, a world.”  Donna Bowman  [This little paper contributed to a lasting difference the dialogue between process theolgy and openness of of God...

There now are three primary and overlapping schools of theological thought each of which has several versions, among Seventh-day Adventist in the local congregations of North America. All of them blame the delay of the second coming of Jesus on human failure. Although they differ in what they say this human failure is, they all say that it is the culprit. Last Generation Theology. Those in this group say that the Second Coming of Jesus has been delayed because not enough of us are perfectly reproducing the character of Christ. They are confident. They believe that there is only one true version of the Gospel and they know what it is. All others are counterfeits. They sometimes divide families, congregations, campuses by insisting that everybody must agree with them. They are theological exclusivists. They are swift to call other views "heresy" and those who hold them "heretics." They think in either/or terms. Either we are members of their group and see th...

More than  seven thousand religion scholars of all faiths and no faith at all convene each year at some city in the United States the weekend before the nation's Thanksgiving holiday for the joint annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).  They begin at noon on Saturday and continue through noon on Tuesday. The meetings of the AAR and SBL are usually integrated.They meet in the same hotels and convention centers.  Scholars may belong to either society or both.  They have the same schedules.  They print the sequence of their hundreds of sessions in the same thick 81/2 x 11 catalogue that also features many advertisements for new books and other things. When the catalogue is open, the times and places of the AAR sessions are often presented on the left page and those of the SBL are often presented on the right page.  Both societies host large plenary sessions in the evenings.  Even if they the...