Meshach Browning western Maryland folkways and early settlement life. Meshach Browning was born in Damascus, Montgomery County, Maryland. Meshach Browning's father was an English soldier who escaped from Braddock's massacre (1755), deserted and settled in the highlands of Western Maryland. This community was a wholly self-subsistent one in which the men wore deer skins procured by their own rifles and dressed and tailored by themselves. The women spun and wove flax and wool. The only commodities upon which they were dependent on outsiders was gunpowder and lead for shot. Meshach Browning married Mary McMullen (1781–1839) on April 13, 1799 at Blooming Rose,
Old Testament who is the source of all goodness. The problem of evil plays a large part in the Old Testament. The problem the Old Testament authors faced was that a good God must have had just reason for bringing disaster (meaning notably, but not only, the Babylonian exile) upon his people. The theme is played out, with many variations, in books as different as the histories of Kings and Chronicles, the prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and in the wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes. The process by which scriptures became canons and Bibles was a long one, and its complexities