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    <description>Santa Post covers religion, books &amp; spiritual reading, including Reading, Culture and Essays, with clear reporting, context, and practical guides.</description>
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      <title>Where to Start With Thomas Merton</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/reading/where-to-start-with-thomas-merton-3/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Begin with The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), then New Seeds of Contemplation (1962) — the reading order, the editions to check, and the honest cautions the journals documented.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:57:09 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Reading</category>
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      <title>Marilynne Robinson Took On Genesis, and the Reviews Argued About What She Found</title>
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      <description><![CDATA[Reading Genesis (FSG, March 2024) read the Bible's first book as coherent theological literature — and the reviews split on whether the coherence is the text's or the novelist's. Literary news, briefly.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:57:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Clara Bennett</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?</title>
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      <description><![CDATA[A primer on the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts found near Qumran, what they contain, and why they still matter to anyone reading the Hebrew Bible.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 23 Aug 2026 08:49:50 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Clara Bennett</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>What Did the Dead Sea Scrolls Actually Change About the Bible?</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/reading/what-did-the-dead-sea-scrolls-actually-change-about-the-bible/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[A 1947 find near Qumran pushed the oldest known Hebrew Bible manuscripts back a thousand years — here is what the scrolls do, and do not, tell readers about the text's history.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 21 Aug 2026 08:49:49 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Reading</category>
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      <title>Robert Alter: The Hebrew Bible</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/art-news/robert-alter-the-hebrew-bible/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[A single scholar's twenty-year translation argues that the Hebrew Bible was written by poets first, and that English versions since the King James have muted the music to make room for doctrine.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:49:48 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Clara Bennett</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>AI Dating Pushes Some Dead Sea Scrolls a Century Older</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/faith-news/ai-dating-pushes-some-dead-sea-scrolls-a-century-older/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[A new radiocarbon-and-machine-learning study puts several biblical manuscripts from Qumran closer to their authors' own lifetimes than paleography ever allowed.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Aug 2026 08:49:47 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Faith News</category>
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      <title>Where to Start With Thomas Merton</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/faith-news/where-to-start-with-thomas-merton-859d96fc/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[A Trappist monk who wrote more than seventy books left no obvious entry point. Here is one, in order.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 08:49:46 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Faith News</category>
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      <title>The Scroll That Closed a Thousand-Year Gap</title>
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      <description><![CDATA[The Great Isaiah Scroll, found in a Qumran cave in 1947, let readers hold a Hebrew Bible text a millennium older than any known before it — and trace, jar to vault, how that survival was verified.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:49:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Kara Williams</dc:creator>
      <category>Essays</category>
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      <title>How Is the Talmud Structured? A Reader&apos;s Primer</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/culture/how-is-the-talmud-structured-a-reader-s-primer/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[The Mishnah, the Gemara, six orders, two versions, and a page layout unchanged since a sixteenth-century Venice printer — plus where to start reading it, free, in translation.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:49:44 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Amara Okonkwo</dc:creator>
      <category>Culture</category>
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    <item>
      <title>Where to Start With the Bhagavad Gita</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/faith-news/where-to-start-with-the-bhagavad-gita/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[A first-reader's guide to the Sanskrit dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna — which translation to open first, which edition gives you the Sanskrit, and why no two editions agree on the chapter titles.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:49:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Faith News</category>
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      <title>Notre-Dame Opens a €130 Million Drive for Its Final Restoration Phase</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/art-news/notre-dame-final-phase-130-million-campaign/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Notre-Dame’s final restoration phase (2027–2033) needs €150 million; €20 million is secured and a €130 million donation campaign has opened.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Deshawn Carter</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>Comparing Translations of the Tao Te Ching</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/art-news/comparing-tao-te-ching-translations-3/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Lau's scholarly plainness, Mitchell's open paraphrase, Le Guin's poet's rendition — the Guodian and Mawangdui manuscripts behind them, and which version fits which reader.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:57:07 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Clara Bennett</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>The Business Behind the Christy Awards</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/art-news/the-business-behind-the-christy-awards/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Christian fiction's top industry prize returns to Nashville in November — a reminder of how a niche publishing market keeps itself visible to itself.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:49:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Clara Bennett</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>Latter-day Saints Add Ten Hymns, Including Watts and Wesley-Era Classics</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/faith-news/lds-church-releases-new-hymns-july-2026/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[The LDS church added ten hymns on July 23, 2026, including classics by Watts and Crosby, bringing its new hymnal to eighty-two songs.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Faith News</category>
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      <title>What We Mean by Spiritual Reading</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/essays/what-we-mean-by-spiritual-reading/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Spiritual reading is lectio divina — Guigo II’s four rungs of reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation — slow, receptive, unlike study or self-help.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Javier Hughes</dc:creator>
      <category>Essays</category>
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      <title>Why the Hindu Epics Keep Being Retold</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/culture/hindu-epics-modern-retellings/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Why the Ramayana and Mahabharata are retold in every era, from Kamban and Tulsidas to Narayan's Ramayana (1972) and Brook's Mahabharata (1985).]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Javier Hughes</dc:creator>
      <category>Culture</category>
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      <title>Where to Start With Annie Dillard</title>
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      <description><![CDATA[Where to start with Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek first, then Holy the Firm, Teaching a Stone to Talk, and For the Time Being.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Reading</category>
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      <title>Christie’s London Books and Manuscripts Sale Sets a Record</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/art-news/christies-london-books-manuscripts-record-2026/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Christie’s London Books and Manuscripts sale of July 8, 2026 set a various-owner record at £12.7 million, led by the Re Artù manuscript.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 18 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Deshawn Carter</dc:creator>
      <category>Art News</category>
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      <title>Romanian Holy Synod Elects New Metropolitan of Bessarabia</title>
      <link>https://santapost.org/faith-news/romanian-synod-elects-metropolitan-bessarabia-antonie/</link>
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      <description><![CDATA[Bishop Antonie of Bălți was elected Metropolitan of Bessarabia in Bucharest on July 2, 2026, filling a contested Orthodox see in Moldova.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Valentina Rossi-Moretti</dc:creator>
      <category>Faith News</category>
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      <title>The Bible in the Drawer</title>
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      <description><![CDATA[Gideons International began placing Bibles in hotel rooms in 1908; by its own count two billion copies — the bedside drawer as the quietest library.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>Javier Hughes</dc:creator>
      <category>Essays</category>
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