Saint Jerome's House

The early Church had many scholars, but none so learned or prolific as Jerome. Born around 345 C.E. near modern day Rijeka, Croatia to Christian parents, he was given a fine classical education. In his late 20's Jerome made a pilgrimage to Antioch, where he learned Greek and pursued Biblical studies.

Jerome was ordained a priest, and at the age of 37 he became secretary to Pope Damasus. Damasus selected Jerome to make a new Latin translation of the Greek New Testament which was badly needed (Jerome later expanded his assignment to include the Old Testament, which he translated from the Hebrew). Jerome eventually moved to Bethlehem, where he studied Hebrew under Jewish scholars.

Jerome was a meticulous scholar, familiarizing himself with both the Greek and Hebrew Texts. Jerome spoke out decidedly for the Hebrew canon, declaring unreservedly that books that were outside the canon should be classed as "apocryphal" anticipating by 1000 years the reformers. The causes for which Jerome fought were three:

The legacy of Jerome is staggering, but his most lasting monument was the first comprehensive Latin Bible, which came to be known as the Vulgate. Jerome with his passionate temperament, was quick to criticize fault and blind most often to his own, was quick to take offense, full of egotism and so had enemies, but for the most part their reports were unpublished (perhaps in hope of avoiding his seldom controlled acid tongue)

"until Jerome was too dead. It would have gone near to crush Jerome's heart...the blindworm judgment of posterity sometimes struggles towards the light,...[the] vision of Jerome assuaged, a Jerome who had added to knowledge, patience, and to patience brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love."(The Desert Fathers).

Jerome, who lived most his life in poor health, died in 420 at the age of 75. JEROME:His life, writings and controversies by J.N.D. Kelly has just recently been re-released, and is a wonderfully comprehensive biography for those wish to learn more about this remarkable saint. And so in the spirit of Jerome I dedicate this page to Biblical studies and hopefully to promoting understanding, kindness, and love.

Truth never looks at me crookedly but always straight on. Sometimes in my small humanness I try to turn my gaze. Truth maybe too bright, too garish, without pity. Sometimes truth seems to be not beautiful. But more and more with the passage of years I find that I can turn my gaze directly into the face of truth. And more and more I perceive with quaint surprise that the truth I thought to be ugly is more beautiful than the lie that I feared was true.
----Charles Doss

The Truth of God's gracious Love is wondrous, and I would like you to know the Love of God.

For Christians the World Wide Web is wondrous place, with so much to see and read. One can visit a monastery (Christ in the Desert's Martyrology is always an inspiring read) or other spirital communities like Tazié and even read devotional magazines like, "The Upper Room", or original web devotions like WhoSoEver. There are pages devoted to Progressive Christian thought (although remember that thee are only one set of opinion, do not be afraid to let the Holy Spirt lead you to a different one) & Christian Mysticism.

I feel all Christians who have strong feeling against homosexuality should take the time to read Michael Ingham's (Bishop of New Westminster) sermon "For God So Loved the World" and Sexuality and the Scripture, which you may not agree with, I do agree with it, and the article is based on sound Biblical scholarship. Here is a page with some of my thoughts (with articles from three leading Bible dictionary's).

My translation of choice is either the New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, or Revised English Bible. The NJB is the latest revision of the Jerusalem Bible, and is a fresh translation of the Bible produced by post-Vatican II Roman Catholic scholars. It also uses "Yahweh" as the divine name in the Old Testament. And has one of the nicest flows for modern English translation. The NRSV is gender inclusive, more literal, ecumenical and used by a wide range of denominations. And the REB is a beautiful and masterful revision of the New English Bible

(To quote one reader Compared to the other "serious" bible versions, the REB does not have the specific agenda (some say bias) of the NIV. Plus I find it is an easier read than the NRSV; which I also find very good. and another reader says The text of this bible is the best ever, since the Authorised Version, as far as dignity and readability are concerned).

Bible studycan be added greatly using the computer. The computer Bible I recommend most (for the Macintosh anyway) are:

Online Bible. It is fast, flexible, powerful, and best of all, it's FREE (although some modules can be purchased).
Accordance: This is a powerful program that is also surprisingly fast requiring little resources. It has avaible most of the works you will want to access and has recenetly come to windows. It also has a very nice iOS APP,
Logos Has over 5000 volumes, and a powerful yet simple interface this is a welcome resource but needs a fast computer to work well. It has powerful iOS and Android APPs too, but a major flaw in it is it's dependance on the internet to do original language study and more complex Bible study functions.
WordSearch Bible also should not be overlooked either seeing that it runs well under WINE in Unix The mac version is basicly just a WINE compatibiltiy layer on the windows version too. They have iOS and Android APPs but my expereince have found it to be less than desireable in performace but it shows great potential. WSB are currently the only ones with the New Oxford Annotated Bible.
Olivetree's Bible Readeris the best mobile Bible out there with extremly powerful iOS/Android APPs, with great resource guides and is very fast and flexable, but the Mac/PC the APPs are very bare bones (compared to Accordance/Logos/WordSearch) but still usable.

For those of you with limited hard disk space or just wanting to read on the web there is the ever growing Crosswalk Bible Study Tools. Then there is the oremus Bible Browseris a dynamic Bible search engine, that will allow you to search the entire Bible including the apocryphal books (including both the standard and Anglicized Edition of New Revised Standard Version). The Christian Classics Ethereal Library is a huge repository of Public Doman works. Finally there is Computer-Assisted Theology: Internet Resources indexing many other great resources. And for "off the web" reading Christian Book Distributors and Amazon.com are great places to make book buying (and finding) easy and fast.

I have listed only a very few resources here, but I hope this page has help you find something to help your spiritual growth.

Homosexual affection may of course be an emotion which some find aesthetically disgusting, but one cannot base Christian morality on a capacity for disgust. Neither are we happy with the thought all homosexual behavior is sinful: motive and circumstances degrade or ennoble any act, and we feel that to list sexual acts as sins is to follow the letter rather than the spirit, to kill rather than give life.--Towards a Quaker View of Sex (1963).

About me...My name is who I am: God is my judge (Daniel), therefore I will be a strong defender (William)of God's faith, and in God I am free (Francis).I live with my husband on our farm located east of Milo (Alberta, Canada) a beautiful little community 115 km south east of Calgary. I try to spend much of my time as a contemplative (in reading-meditation- prayer). I worship in St. Stephen's Anglican whenever I am in Calgary (but I have worshiped as a server, in the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Redeemer ) as well as the Church of my youth Hope Lutheran in Milo.
I have Autosomal Dominant Centronuclear Myopathy (complicated by Fibromyalgia) and find a lot of my energy is spent dealing with that. I am online at FaceBook where I try to post an insight or two from my prayer/devotional times each day. I would also like to mention a couple of Canuck media sites, CANOE and The Loop, they have links to many magazines, news papers, and other items of interest. For a more local look I go to the Vulcan Advocate. A couple of the most helpful Gay resources I found are the Queer Resources Directory and more locally GayCalgary. On a lighter note:Let's also look at Computing in the 'good old days' and enjoy some funny Cat pictures.

I would appreciate your E-MAIL on my home page, its contents or you can pass along any prayer requests: DWFrancis@aol.com.

Welcome to Saint Jerome's House

`Home Page Of Daniel William Francis`

`Saint Jerome`