The God of the Old Testament? Not the God the New Atheists say He is!
When God wanted to speak to Moses the first time, He made a bush appear to be burning and yet not burn up. Moses was in charge of a big flock, but he took the time to investigate this oddity and discovered, to his amazement, that God was present and wanted to talk to him! When Moses asked God how he might be described to the Children of Israel, God replied, "I AM THAT I AM." The Jews would pronounce this as Jahweh. Since God had said this, no good Jew would ever say "I am" but rather would simply say that "I a carpenter" but never "I am a carpenter." The language of a people was changed because of one statement of God. No Jew would dare to say the phrase, as it would be equating himself with God. This then is why the Jews sought to stone Jesus when Christ said, "...before Abraham was, I AM."
During the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), I attended a meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. The theme for the conference was: “Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?” As I mentioned in a previous post, that meeting was probably the best one I attended while I was in Atlanta. The following papers were presented in that session:
Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University, spoke on slavery in the Old Testament.
Matthew Flannagan, Bethlehem Tertiary Institute, spoke on the genocide of the Canaanites.
Randal Rasuser, Taylor Seminary, spoke on child sacrifice, with emphasis on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.
Richard Hess, Denver Seminary, spoke on the wars of Yahweh.
In this post I want to summarize Hess’s paper. In a coming post I will summarize Copan’s paper. The reason I want to call attention to these papers is because they deal with an aspect of the character of God that has been highly debated in scholarly circles.
All four papers presented at this session deal with some aspect of divine behavior. During the session I met Eric A. Seibert, the author of Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009). In his book Seibert seeks to address some of the passages where God’s behavior seemingly contradicts other passages in the Bible where God is presented as a loving and forgiving God. I told Seibert that I had read his book and that in January I would write a series of posts in order to discuss whether or not God’s disturbing actions can be defended.
The relevance of Hess’s presentation is that he addressed one of the issues raised in Seibert’s book: the wars of Yahweh. As a pacifist, Seibert would probably say that war is never acceptable in a civilized society. I agree with him, but we do not live in a perfect society, nor did Israel. Wars exist in the world in which we live and the results of war are not pretty.
The issue raised by Seibert and addressed by Hess is genocide, that is, God’s order to the people of Israel to kill both the men, women, and children of the conquered cities (1 Samuel 15:3). One good example of God’s order is found in the instructions for Holy War in Deuteronomy 20:
“But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them -- the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites -- just as the LORD your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18 NRSV).
Hess’s paper dealt with several passages in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the wars of conquest and whether archaeology proves or does not prove the reality of genocide in the wars of conquest. Hess noticed that in the rules of Holy War in Deuteronomy 20, the Israelites were commanded to conquer the cities (“towns” in the NRSV) that belonged to the inhabitants of the land.
In his presentation, Hess demonstrated that the Hebrew word for city, ‘îr (עיר), means either a city, a village, a fortified place in a citadel where the king lived, or a fort. Most people in Canaan lived in unwalled villages. A fortified place was composed primarily of soldiers. Thus, the people living in the cities were not civilians, but military people employed to defend the citadel.
Thus, when the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanite cities, they were not commanded to destroy the villages where civilians lived, but they were commanded to kill the armed people (soldiers) who were defending the city.
Hess also showed that the translation “men, women, and children” is not a good translation of the Hebrew words in the text. Literally, the Hebrew words mean “from men to women,” meaning everyone who were in those fortified locations. In the wars of conquest, the text never mentions Israel conquering the villages or the places where the non-combatant population lived.
In fact, the Old Testament clearly says that most of the Canaanite population were not conquered. This is clearly seen in the books of Joshua and Judges. Below, I give a few verses where the Bible says that many of the population of Canaan were alive after the wars of conquest ended:
Joshua 13:1: “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years; and the LORD said to him, "You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land still remains to be possessed.”
The text then goes on to list all the places not conquered. These lands include the land of the Philistines, those of the Geshurites, several territories that belonged to the Canaanites, and the land belonging to the Amorites.
Judges 1:21 says that the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem. Judges 1:27 says that Manasseh did not drive out the Canaanites who lived at Beth-shean, at Taanach, at Dor, at Ibleam, and at Megiddo.
The text also emphasizes that none of the population of the many Canaanite villages were conquered: “Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; but the Canaanites continued to live in that land” (Judges 1:27).
Judges 1:29 says that Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. Judges 1:30 says that Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol. Judges 1:31 says that Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor the inhabitants of Ahlab, nor the inhabitants of many other Canaanite cities.
These texts and many others clearly show that there was no genocide. In wars people die, both combatants and non-combatants. Whether people approve of fighting wars or not is another matter, but the fact remains that although people died in Israel’s wars of conquest, there was no genocide of the Canaanite population.
Yahweh is not a moral monster.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
~~~~~~~~
Christian, if you study your scripture and the history of Biblical times you will not fall prey to the New Atheists ploys. They will make false charges against the God of the Old Testament, confident that you will not know enough about the Old Testament books or the culture of the times and place to have an answer. A new Christian will not be able to read the entire Bible in a few weeks. It takes years of study to really comprehend all the connections between books, the significance of the prophecies and the acts of progenitors, the various covenants made between God and man and the kinds of language used in prophecy as opposed to history.
It would be unfair to expect the average Christian to have an answer to every question, therefore it is important to keep studying and to find resources to help you answer questions for yourself. I would say that the questions you ask yourself are usually more significant than the questions others ask you about your faith. If you do not have answers, time to begin studying that Bible and reading good books and accessing apologetics sites to get the background information you need to really understand your Bible. Tekton Ministries is one of the really good resources out there, let me give you a sample:
The Role of the OT Law for the Christian
by J P Holding
This is indeed the substance of Skeptical objections I have seen, but behind it lies a valid question: What is the role of the Law in the life of the Christian today? Do we need to trash our polyester? If we are true believers, do we need to execute witches? And finally, is the covenant still "good" with Israel today?
To answer these questions we need to establish some frameworks, and to do this I will draw from some previous and related essays. Our primary framework has to do with the categories of the law.
This leads to our next passage:
Indeed he has. And this is where another concept skeptics living in the 20th century know nothing about comes into play: the Semitic Totality Concept. And now we plagiarize our own work again to explain our meaning, The Semitic Totality Concept means that "a man's thoughts form one totality with their results in action so that 'thoughts' that result in no action are 'vain'." [Dahl, Resurrection of the Body, 60] To put it another way, man does not have a body; man is a body, and what we regard as constituent elements of spirit and body were looked upon by the Hebrews as a fundamental unity.
Applied to the role of works following faith, this means that there can be no decision without corresponding action, for the total person will inevitably reflect a choice that is made. Thought and action are so linked under the Semitic Totality paradigm that Clark warns us [An Approach to the Theology of the Sacraments, 10]:
Hence also Paul's admonition here:
"But didn't Paul say in Galatians somewhere that the law is useless?"
Not exactly. Gal. 2:16 says, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Some may read this and other passages in Romans (7:4) and Galatians (3:13) as referring to the law as ineffectual, or as something to be avoided, but it actually means we are ineffectual, and that is why the law is a "curse" and it is necessary for Christ to make us "dead" to it.
"No flesh shall be justified" by the law because none of us can obey it fully. Paul is stating a condition of fact, not making a statement about the veracity of the law.
"So that means that Christians would have us go out executing witches and homosexuals if they ever got in charge?"
Could we? No -- let's keep something in mind about the Law. Deuteronomy is laid out in the form of an ancient treaty between a king and his vassals. It is in essence a contract between God and Israel. They "signed on" and agreed to enforce the penalties.
What's the equivalent now? We now have a new covenant or contract between Christ and the individual and the believer. The sins are paid for by Christ's blood, and he takes on the punihsment for the trangression of those who break God's law and accept his payment. The old covenant and our enmity with it is now abolished (Eph. 2:15). The non-believer, the witch, et al. aren't covered by this, but nor does our new contract contain specifications of enforcement -- that is now God's domain, with regard to each individual, on the basis of the new covenant terms.
It also suggests that those who wanted to can remain under the Old Covenant, which was never officially revoked -- and suggests in turn that modern Jews can make a case of sorts for still having "rights" to the land.
What of verses that say the law is "for ever"? The word used in the Hebrew is 'olam and means, not exactly forever, but "in perpetuity." It is used to describe as well the term of a slave (Ex. 21:6//Deut. 15:17). Unless one thinks that this means that the master would dig the slave out of his grave and put him to work, this clearly does not mean "forever" in the sense that covenant would always be kept, but implies that the Jews would keep these feasts and such as long as they maintained the covenant agreement and didn't break it. At the same time, it hardly indicates that God cannot sign a new covenant/contract with others on different terms.
If one then happens to ask, "On what basis do you then continue to say that these laws are still valid morally?" -- beyond the "all agree" level of things like murder, and in the category of things like homosexuality and adultery -- the answer is that when a superior writes a contract, even if you are not a party to it, the contract will still give you an idea what values the superior holds to. We no longer enforce the penalties, but we still know what actions displease God.
"Well, then, why aren't Christians out sacrificing animals and eating kosher?"
The reason is simple for this one: All of the ceremonial laws has been superseded by Christ. (Hebrews is the NT book that lays this out the best, though see Matt. 26:28.) They pointed towards Christ and the unified body. Thus also there is no need for the laws of diet and not wearing two types of fabric woven together (the latter of which may have been related to magical practice, but may also have been a symbol of purity and separation) -- there is no longer a case of a certain people reserved to God, for the new covenant is open to all.
Discussion may of course continue over what laws in the OT belong in what category. But it is clear that the law retains a certain application today, even if not in the same way for us, and even if the critics don't have the tools to grasp it.
Glenn Miller has a related article here.
-JPH
The self-existent God Who created the world ex nihilo is the Creator of all time and all space and all energy and all intelligence and all information. Everything. Yet people who will not even concede that He is The God will dare to question His morality? I saw a commenter left this behind and thought I should share it:
Monday, November 29, 2010
Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?
Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University, spoke on slavery in the Old Testament.
Matthew Flannagan, Bethlehem Tertiary Institute, spoke on the genocide of the Canaanites.
Randal Rasuser, Taylor Seminary, spoke on child sacrifice, with emphasis on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.
Richard Hess, Denver Seminary, spoke on the wars of Yahweh.
In this post I want to summarize Hess’s paper. In a coming post I will summarize Copan’s paper. The reason I want to call attention to these papers is because they deal with an aspect of the character of God that has been highly debated in scholarly circles.
All four papers presented at this session deal with some aspect of divine behavior. During the session I met Eric A. Seibert, the author of Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009). In his book Seibert seeks to address some of the passages where God’s behavior seemingly contradicts other passages in the Bible where God is presented as a loving and forgiving God. I told Seibert that I had read his book and that in January I would write a series of posts in order to discuss whether or not God’s disturbing actions can be defended.
The relevance of Hess’s presentation is that he addressed one of the issues raised in Seibert’s book: the wars of Yahweh. As a pacifist, Seibert would probably say that war is never acceptable in a civilized society. I agree with him, but we do not live in a perfect society, nor did Israel. Wars exist in the world in which we live and the results of war are not pretty.
The issue raised by Seibert and addressed by Hess is genocide, that is, God’s order to the people of Israel to kill both the men, women, and children of the conquered cities (1 Samuel 15:3). One good example of God’s order is found in the instructions for Holy War in Deuteronomy 20:
“But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them -- the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites -- just as the LORD your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18 NRSV).
Hess’s paper dealt with several passages in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the wars of conquest and whether archaeology proves or does not prove the reality of genocide in the wars of conquest. Hess noticed that in the rules of Holy War in Deuteronomy 20, the Israelites were commanded to conquer the cities (“towns” in the NRSV) that belonged to the inhabitants of the land.
In his presentation, Hess demonstrated that the Hebrew word for city, ‘îr (עיר), means either a city, a village, a fortified place in a citadel where the king lived, or a fort. Most people in Canaan lived in unwalled villages. A fortified place was composed primarily of soldiers. Thus, the people living in the cities were not civilians, but military people employed to defend the citadel.
Thus, when the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanite cities, they were not commanded to destroy the villages where civilians lived, but they were commanded to kill the armed people (soldiers) who were defending the city.
Hess also showed that the translation “men, women, and children” is not a good translation of the Hebrew words in the text. Literally, the Hebrew words mean “from men to women,” meaning everyone who were in those fortified locations. In the wars of conquest, the text never mentions Israel conquering the villages or the places where the non-combatant population lived.
In fact, the Old Testament clearly says that most of the Canaanite population were not conquered. This is clearly seen in the books of Joshua and Judges. Below, I give a few verses where the Bible says that many of the population of Canaan were alive after the wars of conquest ended:
Joshua 13:1: “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years; and the LORD said to him, "You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land still remains to be possessed.”
The text then goes on to list all the places not conquered. These lands include the land of the Philistines, those of the Geshurites, several territories that belonged to the Canaanites, and the land belonging to the Amorites.
Judges 1:21 says that the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem. Judges 1:27 says that Manasseh did not drive out the Canaanites who lived at Beth-shean, at Taanach, at Dor, at Ibleam, and at Megiddo.
The text also emphasizes that none of the population of the many Canaanite villages were conquered: “Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; but the Canaanites continued to live in that land” (Judges 1:27).
Judges 1:29 says that Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. Judges 1:30 says that Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol. Judges 1:31 says that Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor the inhabitants of Ahlab, nor the inhabitants of many other Canaanite cities.
These texts and many others clearly show that there was no genocide. In wars people die, both combatants and non-combatants. Whether people approve of fighting wars or not is another matter, but the fact remains that although people died in Israel’s wars of conquest, there was no genocide of the Canaanite population.
Yahweh is not a moral monster.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
~~~~~~~~
Christian, if you study your scripture and the history of Biblical times you will not fall prey to the New Atheists ploys. They will make false charges against the God of the Old Testament, confident that you will not know enough about the Old Testament books or the culture of the times and place to have an answer. A new Christian will not be able to read the entire Bible in a few weeks. It takes years of study to really comprehend all the connections between books, the significance of the prophecies and the acts of progenitors, the various covenants made between God and man and the kinds of language used in prophecy as opposed to history.
It would be unfair to expect the average Christian to have an answer to every question, therefore it is important to keep studying and to find resources to help you answer questions for yourself. I would say that the questions you ask yourself are usually more significant than the questions others ask you about your faith. If you do not have answers, time to begin studying that Bible and reading good books and accessing apologetics sites to get the background information you need to really understand your Bible. Tekton Ministries is one of the really good resources out there, let me give you a sample:
The Role of the OT Law for the Christian
by J P Holding
Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.(cf. Luke 16:17)"If this is true, why are you violating the law by eating pork and wearing polyester suits?"
This is indeed the substance of Skeptical objections I have seen, but behind it lies a valid question: What is the role of the Law in the life of the Christian today? Do we need to trash our polyester? If we are true believers, do we need to execute witches? And finally, is the covenant still "good" with Israel today?
To answer these questions we need to establish some frameworks, and to do this I will draw from some previous and related essays. Our primary framework has to do with the categories of the law.
- First, some laws are universal moral laws. This includes do not steal, do not kill, and others. There is no disagreement that these laws should indeed be continued to be obeyed today, so we need not discuss them further.
- Second, some laws are cultural universals. By this I mean laws geared to Israel's culture that have a universal moral law behind them. As an example, some have suggested the prohibition on trimming your beard [Lev. 19:27] relates to pagan practices that cut facial hair for magical purposes. So the universal behind this cultural would be, don't do the occult. But here is my favorite example, from Deut. 22:8-9:
When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
One Skeptic says, "One would be hard-pressed to find home builders" who follow this rule. But actually they do follow the modern equivalent. In ancient Israel, the flat roof of a house would be used for many purposes, such as sleeping, household chores, and entertaining. These chores included drying and storage of produce; even today the roof is used for such things in modern Arab nations.
We don't use our roof the same way -- the modern equivalent is a balcony. Our builders certainly do make sure that they follow the point of this rule to the letter. At any rate, it would also be agreed that the universals behind these cultural applications should continue to be followed.
- Finally, there are ceremonial laws. Instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant, for example, are definitely in this, as are sacrificial laws. What else belongs in here? Most likely the dietary laws belong here, as their purpose was to make the Jews "different" and to serve as a testimony to their difference in the most intimate ancient setting, that of meal fellowship.
Matthew 5:17-18 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.One Skeptic objects that "the Law of Moses is nothing to be 'fulfilled' in any way....one cannot fulfill the law. One can only obey it." The skeptic is wrong, because he does not understand what "fulfill" means and is "fulfilling" it with his own meaning. To fulfill God's law was to confirm it by obedience; whereas to "annul" the law was to treat it as void.
This leads to our next passage:
Romans 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."But wait," the critic says. "Hasn't Paul just said that 'Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law' (v. 28)?"
Indeed he has. And this is where another concept skeptics living in the 20th century know nothing about comes into play: the Semitic Totality Concept. And now we plagiarize our own work again to explain our meaning, The Semitic Totality Concept means that "a man's thoughts form one totality with their results in action so that 'thoughts' that result in no action are 'vain'." [Dahl, Resurrection of the Body, 60] To put it another way, man does not have a body; man is a body, and what we regard as constituent elements of spirit and body were looked upon by the Hebrews as a fundamental unity.
Applied to the role of works following faith, this means that there can be no decision without corresponding action, for the total person will inevitably reflect a choice that is made. Thought and action are so linked under the Semitic Totality paradigm that Clark warns us [An Approach to the Theology of the Sacraments, 10]:
The Hebraic view of man as an animated body and its refusal to make any clear-cut division into soul and body militates against the making of so radical a distinction between material and spiritual, ceremonial and ethical effects.Thus, what we would consider separate actions of conversion, confession, and obedience in the form of works would be considered by the Hebrews to be an act in totality. "Both the act and the meaning of the act mattered -- the two formed for the first Christians an indivisible unity." [Flemington, New Testament Doctrine of Baptism, 111] And thus when Paul tells his readers that we "establish" (obey) the law by faith, he is saying no more than that it is our faith that prompts us to follow the law. And hence, a person who finds faith, but dies a moment later having done no works, is not condemned -- if such a theoretical possibility ever came to pass!
Hence also Paul's admonition here:
Rom. 6:15-16 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?A believer in Jesus will indeed follow the dictates of the law -- the universal morals, of course, not the cultural particulars -- because of obedience to Christ.
"But didn't Paul say in Galatians somewhere that the law is useless?"
Not exactly. Gal. 2:16 says, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Some may read this and other passages in Romans (7:4) and Galatians (3:13) as referring to the law as ineffectual, or as something to be avoided, but it actually means we are ineffectual, and that is why the law is a "curse" and it is necessary for Christ to make us "dead" to it.
"No flesh shall be justified" by the law because none of us can obey it fully. Paul is stating a condition of fact, not making a statement about the veracity of the law.
"So that means that Christians would have us go out executing witches and homosexuals if they ever got in charge?"
Could we? No -- let's keep something in mind about the Law. Deuteronomy is laid out in the form of an ancient treaty between a king and his vassals. It is in essence a contract between God and Israel. They "signed on" and agreed to enforce the penalties.
What's the equivalent now? We now have a new covenant or contract between Christ and the individual and the believer. The sins are paid for by Christ's blood, and he takes on the punihsment for the trangression of those who break God's law and accept his payment. The old covenant and our enmity with it is now abolished (Eph. 2:15). The non-believer, the witch, et al. aren't covered by this, but nor does our new contract contain specifications of enforcement -- that is now God's domain, with regard to each individual, on the basis of the new covenant terms.
It also suggests that those who wanted to can remain under the Old Covenant, which was never officially revoked -- and suggests in turn that modern Jews can make a case of sorts for still having "rights" to the land.
What of verses that say the law is "for ever"? The word used in the Hebrew is 'olam and means, not exactly forever, but "in perpetuity." It is used to describe as well the term of a slave (Ex. 21:6//Deut. 15:17). Unless one thinks that this means that the master would dig the slave out of his grave and put him to work, this clearly does not mean "forever" in the sense that covenant would always be kept, but implies that the Jews would keep these feasts and such as long as they maintained the covenant agreement and didn't break it. At the same time, it hardly indicates that God cannot sign a new covenant/contract with others on different terms.
If one then happens to ask, "On what basis do you then continue to say that these laws are still valid morally?" -- beyond the "all agree" level of things like murder, and in the category of things like homosexuality and adultery -- the answer is that when a superior writes a contract, even if you are not a party to it, the contract will still give you an idea what values the superior holds to. We no longer enforce the penalties, but we still know what actions displease God.
"Well, then, why aren't Christians out sacrificing animals and eating kosher?"
The reason is simple for this one: All of the ceremonial laws has been superseded by Christ. (Hebrews is the NT book that lays this out the best, though see Matt. 26:28.) They pointed towards Christ and the unified body. Thus also there is no need for the laws of diet and not wearing two types of fabric woven together (the latter of which may have been related to magical practice, but may also have been a symbol of purity and separation) -- there is no longer a case of a certain people reserved to God, for the new covenant is open to all.
Discussion may of course continue over what laws in the OT belong in what category. But it is clear that the law retains a certain application today, even if not in the same way for us, and even if the critics don't have the tools to grasp it.
Glenn Miller has a related article here.
-JPH