| Latest Additions |
| Latest Additions |
| MOST RECENT ADDITIONS TO THIS SITE Some of this site's readership repeat their visits, I presume for any new material. My thoughts certainly don't merit reading more than once! Anyway, I'll use this page to put my latest additions, along with a tag to jump to the page involved. Please keep in mind, it's not that 'unusual' that I have to backtrack when I notice some illogic or incorrect information. Nah! Articles are sorted with the 'lastest' at the top of the page. HOLY SPIRIT SITE PAGE: Theology On this site, we always caution concerning the Holy Spirit. According to Jesus (all 3 synoptics), you can question Jesus and even God, but the Holy Spirit is a different matter entirely (Mar 3:29 etc). So that said, let's continue. I grew up in a denomination where the Holy Spirit's function was 'inspiration'. Twenty-seven books and he was done (plus the thirty-nine that he previously produced). Any problems in those 66 books could be layed at the 'feet' of the Holy Spirit, and who wanted to do THAT? In my later years, I switched to a 'Holy-Spirit-led' church. Essentially, that meant they believed that the Holy Spirit was still quite busy, certainly approving our take on the Bible (and presumably not approving everyone else's, since they're obviously 'wrong'). One day, I asked our pastor where did the Holy Spirit come from? Without too much 'research', the Holy Spirit (technically 'she') is nowhere to be found in the OT (maybe 2-3 verses at best). But in the NT, 'he' was suddenly chatting with Mary about having babies without sex, helping with later baptisms, and well, being an all-around good-spirit for Jesus' ministry. After Jesus died, he was back to help out with language translation, 'gifts', and eventually writing the NT. Again, where did he come from? Matthew only mentions him for birthing Jesus, Jesus-baptisms (which John says Jesus didn't do), warning about bad-mouthing the Holy Spirit, and then his last verse for the baptism ritual. I'd say Matthew seems to be on the sidelines here. Mark seems to treat the Holy Spirit as the source of divine revelation (OT, plus later disciples), but recognizes Jesus-baptisms and not bad-mouthing the Holy Spirit. He's not entirely sure either. Luke seems to be the real expert. For example, John the Baptist was 'full of the Holy Spirit' even in his mother's womb. Think about THAT. Yes, in Luke, the Holy Spirit was pretty much a full partner to Jesus and his disciples. Next, John (as usual) confuses mattters completely. You're never quite sure if the Holy Spirit was there and when ... with the disciples or not ... or what his role was. That's before we even get started with 'the Comforter' (the same or different?). In the NT epistles, there's lots of 'spirits'. You have your gifts, 'powers', laying on hands, and frequent 'in the spirit' phrases. It was quite obvious, 'the Holy Spirit' wasn't just for Jesus and the apostles. Following the lead of Joel the prophet, 'everyone' had the spirit! Early on, the church recognized an obvious problem: if 'I' have 'the Spirit' and 'you' have 'the Spirit', whose 'spirit' takes precedence? In 1st Corinthians, Paul assigned a pecking order of 'gifts'. In 2nd Corinthians, they compared signs-making-ability (specifically Paul's)! But logically, if 'I' have the 'spirit', don't my 'speakings' have 'authority'? We ARE talking about the Holy Spirit, who should NOT be bad-mouthed. Of course, today, we know how they solved the logic: only 'apostolic' writings had authority. How'd they figure that out, since Joel said 'everybody'? That's easy ... the early bishops claimed to have 'the Holy Spirit'! Back at our Holy-Spirit-led church, the pastor recently taught on 'authority' (his, the elders, 'men' and slave owners/employers). Naturally, he knew very well the prophesy of Joel, that even slaves and 'women' would receive God's spirit. How did he solve the problem of 'authority'? He did it the same way the early bishops did. 'Hey ... only the NT is authoritative'. You mean the book that literally generated a theological industry, and thousands of 'churches' (each their own Holy Spirit)? In the end, my guess is that 'the Holy Spirit' is none other than 'I am right ... you are not.' Why? Because the NT is pretty much amenable to any belief you would like. And indeed, everyone receives 'the Spirit', remember. EXTRA I: Matt 10:24-25 is an interesting passage. 'A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his lord; sufficient to the disciple that he may be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord ...' (YLT). Matthew uses it relative to Satan, but it had a more obvious meaning. Who had greater authority: Jesus or the later apostles? Interestingly John 15:20 provided the correct answer: both! I'd assume they were wondering how the apostles took precedence over the-divine-come-down-to-earth. EXTRA II: Actually, the 'Holy Spirit' didn't just pop into the NT. It's quite frequent in the 2nd Temple judaic writings. Philo examines the Holy Spirit several places. In Virtues/Nobility he writes (Yong) 'the Holy Spirit, which, being breathed into [Moses] from above, took up its lodging in his soul, clothing his body with extraordinary beauty, and investing his words with persuasiveness at the same time that it endowed his hearers with understanding.' Compare this to Mark 13:11 and Luke 12:12. BAPTISM SITE PAGE: Theology Baptism is one of the keystones of Christianity that seems to defy rational explanation. In the opening accounts of the gospels, John the Baptist was busily baptizing repent-ers. Assuming 'John the B' was indeed his identifier (John the Immerser), then baptism must not have previously been a 'post-repentance' activity. However, it WAS a portion of the jewish proselyte's conversion (circumcision, baptism, sacrifices). And purification pools were quite common at the time (Jerusalem Temple entry, Qumran, etc). Returning to JohnB, Josephus the historian, almost 70 years later, was arguing that John the Baptist's baptism was to literally 'take a bath'. Why would Josephus even care or remember? But the mystery deepened with Jesus' baptism. It's logical that if Jesus was sin-free, then he had no need to repent and certainly no need to be baptized (unless of course, he needed a bath). But all four gospels included Jesus' baptism, with Matthew giving a glib reason why: 'fulfilling all righteousness' (Mat 3:13+). The gospel of John had a more basic reason: it was so JohnB could identify who the Holy-Spirit-baptizer was (Joh 1:33). However, the gospel of John then proceeded to confuse the matter more by pointing out that Jesus baptized his disciples (or didn't, depending on how you see Joh 4:1-2). By Pentecost, Peter was demanding repentance and baptism, and gave the reason why: in order to receive the Holy Spirit. Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul was angry concerning the divisions in Corinth. The problem was 'baptism'. The converts were lining up behind the apostle that had baptized them (1 Cor 1:13). Later, Paul confirmed the essential function for baptisms: 'in one Spirit we were all baptized' (1 Cor 12:13). The baptism-sequence didn't end there. Paul, in 1 Cor 15:29, referenced 'baptism for the dead' as a logical proof-text for the resurrection. Most commentaries blush and suggest that 'Paul' didn't really believe in baptism for the dead. But that ignores Corinth as being one of Paul's planted churches: 'who' taught them that? Whatever the source, you do have to figure that the Holy Spirit was being 'back-dwelled' onto the dead . . . by the living. I'd assume visiting apostles were doing the 'deadly baptisms', ... and 'baptizing' (dead or alive) was a critical issue for them. This is strictly my opinion, but I suspect Jesus' original baptism was the EVENT that separated Jesus as a common everyday religious jew, and Jesus the miracle-worker who could forgive sins through healing (thus obviously having the Spirit of God). Jesus' disciples were similarly given that ability, and were indeed baptized. On Pentecost, Peter demanded repentence/baptism in order to receive the Holy Spirit. And at Corinth, the 'baptizer' was perceived as significant, presumably for the strength of gifts that the Holy Spirit would provide. Later Paul would chide Timothy for not using 'the gift' that Paul had provided (2 Tim 1:6; compare to 1 Tim 4:14). Today, at our conservative Bible church, the pastor is adament that baptism is 'interesting' but not required. Only 'belief' is needed. However, he and the elders periodically 'lay' their hands on the sick (and each other). As they do this, everyone kind of quietly 'watches', not being totally convinced anything is supposed to actually happen (Holy-Spirit-power without baptism??). EXTRA: My 'theory' obviously views Jesus' virgin-birth and the Holy Spirit's participation with Mary as a great story. And indeed, I do suspect that as the Holy Spirit took on a greater and greater role in the 1st century church, it soon became obvious that the 'Holy Spirit' was far more important than Jesus himself. And so, in the 'late' NT writings, Jesus was introduced as being from 'before creation', intentionally sacrificed himself to the same God that he was ('bi-inity'), and was birthed and assisted on planet Earth by the Holy Spirit. Essentially, the OT's 'Spirit of God' had been demoted into an earthly human 'midwife' role. And Jesus was then happily promoted to Co-God. Later in the second and third centuries, Christianity promoted the Holy Spirit too. And so today, we have the well known 'Tri-nity'. MINIMUM SANCTIFICATION REQUIREMENT (MSR) SITE PAGE: Theology What's the minimum number of believers in a family, for the whole family to be 'sanctified'? You don't know? Well, it's one (1 Cor 7:14). The believer can be either the husband or the wife (but not one of the children, as far as we know). At our church recently, an older gentleman died. His wife was an enthusiastic believer, but he was unconvinced. In the funeral service at the church, what do you think the pastor concluded? Did he apply the MSR, thanking the wife for her foresight? I'll let you guess that one. Now, there's actually some exceptions that apply here. Normally, the wife need not bother herself with 'Jesus' or his 'saving grace'; as long as her husband believes and she has children, she's already saved (1 Tim 2:15). However, as you probably noticed, in this case, the husband who recently died did not believe. Therefore, even though the wife had children, she did not qualify for the believing-husband+children rule. She, herself, had to believe in Jesus (and so, save herself, plus her husband). These are key rules that all Christian families need to be concerned with. Let's say a 'who-cares-about-Jesus' wife has a believing husband, plus children. She's sanctified, by definition. Now, what if her husband begins to have doubts about Jesus. Well, she now is in risk of being de-sanctified. So, even though she, herself, may not believe in Jesus, she still needs to make sure her husband doesn't backslide. This is even more critical, since if the believing-husband were to backslide, that would leave no qualifying sanctifiers for the children. The whole family would become de-sanctified (and thus of course be sent to hell). Finally, some couples will certainly ask 'According to God's Inspired Word, which of us would it be best to be 'the believer' in order to insure family-sanctification?' That's an excellent question, showing grace and love in the marriage. Here, we have to appeal to the principle of 'progressive revelation' (later inspiration trumps previous inspiration). The book of Timothy was likely written later than Corinthians. Therefore Timothy's added requirement for the woman to 'have babies' must be respected (the Eve-sinned-first rule). Since some couples may not yet have any babies, it's probably best for the husband to be 'the believer'. This has practical advantages. At church, males have the preferred plumbing. And of course when there are children, staying home is a definite convenience. EXTRA I: What's not immediately obvious in the two 'marriage' rules above, is that the 'church' in the 1st century was considered to be the equivalent of 'Israel' and the new recipient of God's covenantal promise. Participation in the real Israel was achieved through either the jewish husband (with a gentile wife), or a jewish wife (with a gentile husband). Either could then have 'clean' children. So when the 'church' theologically replaced Israel, the same rules were applied! Today, we don't view the 'church' as an Israel-replacement, and so, we demand each person 'believe'. But that's not a 'Biblical' view, as you can easily see. EXTRA II: Some pastors have become concerned, when it's pointed out that mothers are not under the 'fallen-sinful-man' theology, and thus don't really need Jesus to be saved. This is why wise pastors insure that church events are women-friendly: good music, good sermons, child-care, and of course a limit on after-church dinners. Unwise pastors don't 'read the tea leaves': women outlive their husbands (and thus 'have the money'). SUBJECT: HISTORICAL JESUS 'REVEALED' SITE PAGE: Historical Jesus The nasty scholarly liberals are constantly trying to deny Jesus' saving grace. When they're not denying miracles, they're chopping the gospel accounts up into little pieces. Goodness. But, the gospel accounts of Jesus DO present some problems. Is it possible to straighten the accounts out, and still believe in Jesus? Join us in our new section, and see if you agree! GRACE SITE PAGE: Theology If you say a person is 'full of grace', do you think 'Christian'? Maybe ... 'grace' is largely a Christian word (in addition to its other 'graceful' meaning). Now for the REALLY big question ... can you name a major Christian leader TODAY that's 'full of grace'. Maybe Billie Graham? The pope? You kind of have to think about it, don't you? But 'grace' is supposed to be at the heart of Christianity. Frankly, I suspect 'grace' is simply the solution-side to the claim that everyone is 'sinful'. Yes, you're so BAD, that you need 'grace' from God in order to un-do the damage. The odd thing about this, is that social scientists can't statistically distinguish between 'graced' people (Christians) and 'un-graced' people. They both continue sinning at statistically the same rate. So clearly, God's 'grace' doesn't alter the actual practice of 'sin'. What exactly is it good for, then? I'd suspect 'grace' has something to do with humans wanting gods to take care of them. Logically, gods really have no particular need to help humans out. Indeed, if gods acted like humans, they'd be busy torturing the humans! But gods are supposed to better than us. And so, by us being 'good' or alternatively burning our animals (more torture), the gods will help us out. In the OT, 'grace' meant YHWH choosing to help out Abraham and his progeny. He made a 'covenant' that if they'd be 'good', He'd help them out. But like today's social scientists, YHWH quickly noticed the Israelites didn't alter their behavior very much. Kind of ticked Him off ... a LOT. But that was the OT. In the NT, YHWH came up with a new covenant. If the humans would just say they like YHWH ('believe'), then He'll help them out (grace). I suppose He noticed the humans were going to 'sin' no matter what He did. And so today, Christians attend church, get some 'grace', and proceed to act like everyone else. That YHWH is such a good God. EXTRA I: You'd think maybe a 'few' Christians might get a little suspicious of 'grace'. It looks too much like a human idea for humans, and thus 'by' humans. Note that Jesus DID say you had to be 'good' to be saved, else unbelievable punishment. But the apostle Paul had a MUCH better deal: 'grace'. We like Paul. He's our real god (his 'Holy Spirit' anyway). EXTRA II: The same social scientists above did locate one group of Christians that altered their behavior: the ones who feared YHWH's punishment. Hmmmm ..... that doesn't sound like 'grace' to me. TRANSLATIONS SITE PAGE: Theology Today, when theological discussions start to become a bit 'sleepy', someone brings up the 'KJV'. Everyone wakes up for another rousing round of boiling hot arguments. Imagine, if you will, introducing a new english translation today, and 500 years from now, they're arguing about it! That would have to be a pretty interesting translation. But our subject here isn't 'english' translations. No, it's the greek translation(s) of the hebrew Old Testament (as we Christians call it). It's common name is the Septuagint or the abbreviation 'LXX'. Scholars are now moving toward the 'OG' or 'Old Greek', which supposedly tries to be the 'original' greek translation (vs various updates). Whichever you prefer, the translation and its use have several interesting features: - Hebrew is a semitic language while greek is structurally (and culturally) far different. Although one might prefer a one-to-one translation, it's just not possible. The two languages are too far apart, thereby requiring and introducing a considerable amount of interpretation (e.g. 'changes'). - The LXX was translated during a period when judism was moving 'away' from YHWH. Or maybe more accurately, YHWH was being moved away from 'humans'. And so, as the LXX translators moved along, whenever YHWH seemed actively involved in the action, 'angels' soon appeared to take His place (later jewish Christian authors introduced Jesus as managing the angels). In a similar vein, YHWH lost his name, instead being given 'the Lord'. I'm not sure if that idea was YHWH's, since it was He that 'gave' it to Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. - When the jewish Christian authors came along (the NT), it was the LXX that was most often quoted; not the hebrew version. That would be expected, since the authors were writing greek and their readers read greek. The problem occurs, however, that the CONTENT and LOGIC of the discussion required that they were using the greek version; it wouldn't make sense using the hebrew version. By implication, then, Jesus and other palestinian jews had to have done their teaching in greek (if indeed the accounts were correct). - Matthew is even MORE interesting. His 'Jesus' quotes used the LXX version (and even demanded it, again to support Jesus' logic), while Matthew's editorial quotes used the hebrew version. This strongly SUGGESTS that accounts of Jesus' teachings were solidly 'greek' long before Matthew wrote. But the above is not the most interesting. No, the most curious feature of the apostolically approved (and Jesus approved!) LXX is it's being 'dumped on' by todays Christian leaders. That's not really fair. Actually Jerome, almost four centuries after Jesus, decided the hebrew OT was more accurate than the LXX. I personally don't care for the LXX, but I am amazed that Jerome 'over-ruled' both the apostles (or at least the NT writers) and even Jesus himself (again, per the NT writers). EXTRA I: All was fine with dumping the LXX, until the Dead Sea Scrolls came along at Qumran. Then it became eminiently obvious that the hebrew version might NOT reflect the original. What to do? Ah .... such are the problems in writing down the words of YHWH (and Jesus too). EXTRA II: If you write down the hebrew/greek word pairs (translations), you'd be amazed by how much of post-Jesus Christian theology is based on the greek translational words. Or to put it more clearly, you'd be impressed at how little of post-Jesus theology can be traced to the literal hebrew OT. Most Christians don't get worried about that, since the NT is more authoritative than the OT. So much for YHWH (or at least the angels, anyway). SUBJECT: 1 Cor 11:3 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] One of the interesting things about both hebrew and greek, is that neither use 'husband' or 'wife', instead 'man' or 'woman'. The context is thus critical for determining 'which'. The verse here is unique, since the context doesn't spell out whether 'men' are head of 'women' or 'husbands' are heads of 'wives'. We like the former at our church, since it allows ordering the pastor's wife around by all the men. It's really great (though she gets exhausted at times, but what can the pastor say .... his wife IS a woman and must submit). Of course, the latter isn't really true ... there's not a pastor that would allow THAT! (Nor early NT Christian husbands, for that matter.) But if you look at the various english translations, you quickly see that the translators can't quite 'nail it down'. If they put husband/wife, they're not translating .... they're interpreting the scripture. On the other hand, it's very unlikely Paul would let all the men manage all the wives. Hmmm. What to do? But even more importantly, it illustrates the problem conservative churches face in getting the women not to 'run things' by quoting scripture. Unavoidably, to get the principle to work, you have to put the church men over the pastor's wife. Or accept the real truth ... that male testosterone is what counts in today's conservative churches. SLAVES SITE PAGE: Theology Today, we have a hard time even imagining 'slaves'. But in the 'Western' world, it hasn't been that long ago, you could buy a couple. If they had children, you'd have even more. The OT law was somewhat unique in limiting who could be a 'real' slave ... no fellow Israelites. For the most part, slaves seemed to be an extension of war ... prisoners became slaves. But the issue here, is the 'defining-point' at which Christians encountered Christian slaves. In theory, they logically would have to equate them to being 'free'. First, Jesus taught 'the first shall be last' and placing your neighbor either equal to you or even ahead of you. That's pretty hard to do with your believing-slave (or any slave). Secondly, early Christian leaders taught that the 'church' was the functional equivalent of the older nation of Israel. Ispo-facto, Christians shouldn't 'own' other Christians. But as you well know, at least four of the late-NT books demanded that slaves remain as slaves. I Tim 6:1-2 is the most interesting, where slaves are cautioned to be really GOOD slaves. Even more interesting, is that apparently, the Christian slaves had some sort of expectation their believing-masters should be 'different'. The Pastoral-writer said 'noooooo ... you still have to be a really good slave'. We include this discussion, not concerning 'slaves' per se, but rather the immense ability to forego Jesus' teaching in favor of our culture. It was those SAME four NT books that demanded wives also remain 'subjected'. And so today, our pastor teaches 'authority', implying the wives 'take their medicine' and 'obey' (Eve was first, you know). Actually, he's a bit slippery ... he uses the textual word 'women', kind of implying even non-wives need to buckle-down too. When you ask him about 'Jesus', he pops right back into those late-NT books. 'He' really has no choice ... it's part of his culture. EXTRA I: Following the demise of the apostolic age, the Christian teaching moved on to the argument that slaves were en-slaved due to their unusual sinfulnesss (most coming from non-Christianized areas). Today, Christian leaders have kind of flip-flopped, bragging that the 18th century churches tried to 'free' the slaves. I guess, they decided slaves weren't so 'sinful'. EXTRA II: In the United States, a sizable percentage of Christians' parenthood were former slaves. And in the south, a sizable percent of the parentage were former owners. Today, you really have to wonder how both of these groups accomodate these same four late-NT books. PASTORS SITE PAGE: Theology The word 'pastor' is the latin version of 'shepherd' in the NT (just as 'priest' is the latin version of 'elder'). After Jesus came back from the dead, Peter was assigned as Pastor #1, with the 'sheep' belonging to Jesus (John 21:16). Oddly, none of the other 'eleven' seemed to qualify (age maybe). However apostle-wanna-be Saul/Paul later defended his 'right' to milk his followers saying 'Who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?' (1 Cor 9:7; NASB). So at church next Sunday when they 'pass the plate', think about being 'milked'! At least you get to keep your 'coat'; see Acts 20:23. Being a 'shepherd' does appear to be an actual position in the NT church. Eph 4:11 has 'And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as PASTORS and teachers' (NASB). So in the church-y pecking order (which Jesus had previously discouraged), 'pastors' were one step below 'evangelists'. But wait ... what about 'elders'? They were to shepherd too (1 Peter 5:1-2; Act 20:17). Plus in the pastorals, 'full-time' elders were officially given milking rights too. This is getting good. Sooooo ... what were pastors/shepherds supposed to actually 'do' (besides collect the 'milk')? One big clue comes from Jeremiah 3:15 'Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.' Where the 'rub' comes in, is what 'kind' of knowledge and understanding? As you probably know, there's a large number of versions of 'knowledge and understanding' (ergo 'denominations'). Well, as it turns out, pastors are classified by their 'version'. And you 'buy' your pastor, by the 'version' that he (or she sometimes) offers the flock in return for the 'milk'. It's a great business deal. For wealthy flocks, you DO need to demand more, in return for your 'milk'. The pastor needs to at least be a Ph.d or Th.d. And his presentations need to be 'silky smooth' and tickle your ears! Only then, should you give him 'the milk'. Yep. Pastors, in order to get their 'milk', usually go to whichever college is appropriate for their 'version'. Very quickly, they're taught that the 'shepherds' are NOT the same as the 'sheep'. Sheep have the title 'laity'. And in just a blink of an eye, newby-shepherds see themselves as functional 'priests'. They mediate the flock relative to God. They knooooooow what God REEEEEALLY wants. Ah yes. Like their flock can't 'read' too? EXTRA 1: I've never heard of milking 'sheep'. Usually it's the goats, isn't it? Actually the issue of 'milking the flock' arose, because the jewish synogogues didn't have the same practice of 'pay for play'. EXTRA 2: When the Church of Christ came along, apparently 'pastors' was not an 'ok' title. They instead chose 'ministers' ('servants', but which religious leader wants the title 'servant'??). The COC ministers can alternatively choose the title 'evangelist' (which is one step ABOVE pastors). Smart! CREATION & FLOODING SITE PAGE: Theology If you read the creation account (#1, if you're counting), you'll notice 'water' seems to be a major player. At the start, there's 'darkness' over the 'roaring deep', plus the Spirit of Elohim 'brooding' over the water (v2). Indeed there's so much 'water' that it eventually has to be 'divided', using an 'expanse' (sky; v6-8). Finally, there was STILL too much 'water', so Elohim gathered the lower 'water' together in order to achieve 'land' (v9-10). Whew. The whole place must have been soaked! Most people aren't aware there's STILL a whole bunch of water above the sky. Yep. Later, when YHWH and Elohim got REALLY frustrated, He seems to have reversed the whole process: turned on the 'fountains of the deep', and opened the 'floodgates of the sky'. It was only later that He promised to stop messing around with the 'water': He even said a poem to Himself (Gen 8:21-22 which Moses later copied down). Most people don't know there's a divine poem in the Bible. Of course, there's more than a few curiosities with the Creation and Flooding accounts (ignoring not a few inconsistencies): (1) When Elohim was calling light 'day' and darkness 'night', with night and day marking days (this was BEFORE there was a sun, mind you), 'where' on earth would He/They have been standing? Of course, back then the earth was flat, so no problem, right? (2) In the 'equality wars', a major point is that Adam was created first (1 Cor 11). Indeed men are the 'image of God' (women aren't; compare 1 Cor 11:7 and Gen 1:26-27). And since animals were created earlier than Adam, that would make them even MORE godlike, right? Actually the sequence in Gen 1 is just the opposite ... the last is closest to Elohim. In the 1800s, feminists observed Adam came from dirt; Eve was God's final and most perfect work of art. Ah yes. And so today, little boys play in the dirt. And mothers sweep out the dirt. (3) Elohim / YHWH didn't give up on 'water' as a punishment device. Later on, a reluctant preacher attempted to escape the divine. It didn't work and he found himself 'in the deep'. Ironically, the same account was an intensional mirror to another later preacher. But in the new account, the 'deep' turned out to be death. And the Flood a mirror the Lord's final 'visitation'. Yes, that would be Jonah, Jesus, and the End-Time. All neatly connected. SUBJECT: Rev 2:22 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] Here, we have a good example of 'theological translation'. The issue is whether 'Jesus' is going to 'rape Jezebel' (literally put her into 'bed'). You start the 'challenge-match' with Charles' commentary on Revelations from the early 1900s (International Critical Commentary). He says it's a 'bed of sickness', citing 1 Macc 1.5 and Judith 8.3. He further claims that if you back-translate it from the greek to the hebrew, it's hebrew idiom 'to take to ones bed' (citing Exodus 21:18, where a 'smitten' man 'falls on his bed'). He even expresses surprise that previous commentators have missed this (though recognizing they indeed went with 'bed of sickness'). Next, you move to modern semi-conservative commentaries like Word Biblical Commentary (WBC), where the author simply substitutes 'bed of sickness' for 'bed'. How? They cite Charles above, but DO bring in an additional quote from a jewish Egyptian magical amulet. Good catch!! The NET translation goes with 'bed of violent illness' as 'an idiom for severe illness'. How is the sickness 'violent'? They cite Louw & Nida 23.152. Where does L/N get 'that' definition? From Rev 2:22! ESV just goes with 'sickbed' and moves on. So, why are the commentators and translators squirming around, literally changing the text from the common greek 'bed'? That's easy. 'Jesus' is going to 'rape Jezebel' (and kill her 'children' in the next verse). We certainly can't have THAT! It's certainly easy to see ... the previous phrase references her 'whoredom' and the next phrase references 'adultery'. What's a normal reader to think?? Actually, I suspect 'sickbed' IS the intended meaning, but not because of Charles, 'hebrew idioms' or Egyptian amulets. Much of Revelations 'dates' back to the middle-1st century CE (syntactically matching other pseudepigrapha in mid-1st century). And unlike 'Paul' and the gospel of John, Revelations has a whole lot of repentence in it. Repentence was connected to sins, illness (punishment), and healing. See James 5:15, and of course several instances in Mark, where Jesus equates 'healing' with 'forgiving sins'. Jezebel's sin would naturally be sickness. Not being raped by Jesus. Whew. EXTRA I: WBC is kind of funny. In v23, Jezebel's children will be killed. But WBC simply substitutes 'kill her children with plague'. Where'd they get THAT? Well, they did just like Charles ... it became a 'hebrew aramism'. Personally, I think you could probably re-write both the NT (and OT) just by digging into other writings and substituting (of course, taking the chance of being a called a 'liberal'). But maybe it's ok ... if you're protecting Jesus from being charged with 'rape'. EXTRA II: As you read the YLT version (here cited), you can't help but think 'casting couch'. MISSIONARIES SITE PAGE: Theology I'm personally impressed with the missionary movement that seemed to have followed the 'Restoration' period of the mid-1800s. Revivals, along Methodist 'riders' were spreading the gospel far and wide! Later, missionaries expanded significantly into Africa and Asia in the early 1900s. Today, Christianity is measureably increasing in the 'mission fields' (and kind of dieing everywhere else). Why 'spread the gospel'? On the plus side, Jesus commanded it at the end of Matthew. In Acts, the early disciples seemed to interpret 'all the world' as 'Jerusalem', later expanding the definition to Judea/Samaria and eventually Antioch. The church in Antioch really seems to be the 'true' source of the missionary movement, sending out pairs of 'apostles' or literally 'ambassadors'. Again, the initial interpretation was for 'jews', but Paul went kind of nutty and expanded it to gentiles (per his dream from Jesus). Being a 'missionary' seems logical: if the 'good news' is great for you, shouldn't you share? And not just with your neighbor but 'everyone'? The problem, though, is at the heart of the God/human interface. The gospel simply has not gone to everyone, and probably never will. At each stage of Christianity, a major portion of humanity has never even heard about it ... and then died. What do you do with that? Paul apparently thought the 'end' would come as soon as all the gentiles had heard the good news. He never imagined that the 'cosmos' far exceeded his imagination. And then he died too. There have been various theological attempts to deal with this problem. You're only 'guilty' if you heard the gospel and rejected it ... which of course is the opposite of Jesus' teaching. Repent!! In his teaching, the rejectors got extra punishment (Capernium being the real bad-boy). Personally, I've never even heard of an adaquate explanation, since the whole concept depends on a human-to-human interface, which by definition is 'human' (error-prone, compared to a God-to-human interface). If we were thinking logically (human-y?), a direct God-to-human interface would work considerably better! And indeed, you do wonder why across thousands of generations, humans seem to have a common definition of 'goodness' ... and almost always some form of god. Yes, it does make you wonder. SUBJECT: Mark 1:17 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Gospels [TEXT] (Matthew 4:19 has a similar passage.) The 'issue' here is 'fishers of men'. The curiosity is how the commentaries explain the concept, since it was not a common usage at the time (nor now, for that matter). - The scholarly group point out that 'fishermen', especially as used in Jer 16:16, matches Semitic usage as a role or formal position in the military (a la Vietnam war lingo). Assuming this, Jesus views his new disciples, not as little rabbinical book-worms, but as more similar to 'soldiers' to be sent out. Hmmm. That matches Jesus later sending out his disciples in pairs to warn Israel. - Then you have your liberal commentaries. They point out the parallelism with Hellenistic stories of the day, in which one 'fished' for men (usually women doing the fishing). I suppose the point here is that many (most?) of the Jesus-stories originated from other Hellenistic literature of the time. Typical liberals. - The more middle-of-the-road commentaries see the OT's fishermen usage as too negative, and completely reject the Hellenistic parallels as utterly unfounded. And so, they are left with the early disciples being fishermen and let it go at that. In John 21, you see an interesting replay of fishing for fish (Jesus having been killed) vs his resurrection and barbequeing the fish, followed by saving mankind. - And finally the conservative or evangelical commentaries don't want to even THINK about military fishermen or 'fishy' women, instead launching into a beautiful vision of Jesus' disciples putting their little fishing poles out for sinful mankind. And their 'bait' was .... what? Personally, I'm impressed with the first one ... Jesus' personal army to warn Israel of their impending doom. It didn't work, and Israel was destroyed. But with Jesus' resurrection, the disciples re-directed their efforts to mankind in general. And so later, Saul aka Paul was busily using the military mofiff as well (and no fishing poles). EXTRA I: The more I read of Jesus, the more I'm convinced that he was quite smart. Most Christians today get a little nervous with that view. I don't know why ... Jesus WAS human at the time. And like if you're divine, you can't be 'smart'? EXTRA II: A Jesus-cult in the 1970s used the concept of 'flirty fishing'. I 'guess' they quickly figured out what kind of 'bait' worked best. But it does go to show you how 'flexible' the Christian faith seems to be. EGALITARIANISM SITE PAGE: Theology This word is the 'nice' word for evangelical feminism. Nuff said? Thought so. Yes, we can NOT understand WHY feminists have to get so excited over God's 'complementary' plan for Christian women. It's wise, has worked for centuries, and there's no good reason to change it now. Plus men like it; that's a good reason by itself. But there's more ... unfortunately. We were working on our section 'Was Jesus a False-Prophet?' and were matching up the OT prophesies to the NT teachings (and finding Jesus didn't likely predict an immediate end to planet earth). One of the key prophesies was from Joel 2:28-32 where YHWH promised that those who 'called on His name' would be saved. And so, at Pentecost, Peter quoted this passage almost in full (Acts 2:16-21), with the proof being the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So far so good. But if you read the passage, the promise was 'egalitarian' ... sons/daughters, young/old men, male/female slaves ... everyone who calls on the name of YHWH. And indeed, as you watch Jesus during his ministry, he repeatedly emphasized respect for children, the poor, the sick, jews + gentiles, and BOTH his male and female disciples. Later, the early Christians shared their wealth, and helped the widows, with one couple getting killed for dishonesty in sharing. When we read from Paul's letters, the believers in Corinth were actively exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit as described in Joel. In Rome, both men AND women were teaching and spreading the gospel. It was the proof, along with Jesus' resurrection, that the Kingdom of God had come as promised by Jesus himself. But that was BEFORE Ephesians, Colossians, 1st Peter and the Pastorals ... coincidentally being all late writings. Ephesians and Colossians reversed many of Paul's teachings, instead being peppered with Enochian concepts. Today, you're hard-pressed to find scholars who are willing to admit to Paul's authorship, the theology is so different. 1st Peter was included in the group of epistles NOT accepted among many of the assemblies (and thus not included in some of the early canonical lists). Similarly the Pastorals were sometimes not included, and indeed were not quoted, for almost a century after they were theoretical written. What is interesting about the 'late' writings is that they effectively qualified YHWH's promises found in Joel and quoted at Pentecost. Previously women, along with the young and slaves, received the gifts of prophesy. Young men and old saw dreams and visions. But the update was different ... women, children and slaves were all ordered to submit (Eph 5:22-6:8, Col 3:18-25; also 1 Peter 2:18-3:6). And to finalize the situation, women were tagged to 'keep quiet in the church' (1 Tim 2:11-12, margin note inserted 1 Cor 14:34-35). What in heaven's name happened?? Well, the answer was pretty obvious. Israel, and most importantly Jerusalem, had been destroyed. Joel's end-time expectations had failed. 'Joel' was put back in the closet - YHWH's Kingdom didn't happen. And so today in evangelical churches, men (properly) do the teaching, serve the Lord's Supper and collect the contributions. The quietness of the young and the women demonstrate the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit that had literally disintegrated. The proof was in the quietness. EXTRA I: Apparently, Galatians 3:28 is one of the key passages supporting the argument for 'egalitarianism' (neither jew/gentile, slave/free, men/women). But most commentaries, whether supporting or battling the concept, fail to connect Paul's comment to the Joel 2:28-32 prophesy. And similarly most commentaries don't connect the later 'submit' lists (women, children, slaves) to the Joel prophesy (same three groups). Instead, they connect it to Roman/Greek 'household rules'. Diaspora jews probably didn't read the OT, right? EXTRA II: Technically adult women are not included in the Joel prophesy ... you have your maidens and female slaves ... but you don't have the adult free women or the widows. Paul included 'free' and 'women' in the Gal 3:28 passage, but maybe not the combination. EXTRA III: On Sunday mornings, I sometimes ask the men WHEN are they planning to 'dream dreams' (older men) or 'view visions' (younger men). It's a valid question, I think. I don't actually ask them; they're probably not even sure why 'the men' have to serve 'the women'. EXTRA IV: My impression is that most 'evangelicals' don't like the 'Pentecostals'. It's true the early church was quite animated in exercising their gifts. But evangelicals STILL don't like them. There's just too many noisy women. Hello. EXTRA V: The same passage that demands women keep quiet, also suggests that women can get saved just by having babies ... as long as the hubby goes to church, that is. Her 'first sin' was offset by childbirth ... not by Jesus! EXTRA VI: In the early years of the church, slaves were indistinguishable from freemen ... they were 'both in Christ'. But it wasn't too long before the church decided slaves were being punished by God for their iniquity (like Israel during the captivity). Theology is so ironic. Centuries later, the Christians were taking credit for 'freeing the slaves'. Ah yes, what's next, do you think? SUBJECT: Genesis 3 SITE PAGE: Passages - Old Testament This chapter describes the 'talking snake', Adam and Eve's sin, and finally ejection from the Garden of Eden by God (plural, however translated). You can read it in several ways. There's explanations for snake-avoidance, child-birth pains, heavy-handed husbands, clothes, and why agriculture doesn't just 'happen'. All of these essentially describe why humans are different from 'earthly creatures'. The center-piece is the 'Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil' (hereafter TOKOGAE). Taken in a secular way, it would be the 'consciousness' of being human ... feelings of rightness/wrongness and knowledge of your eventual fate. Again, it's what separates humans from animals. Of course, the 'other' explanation is a theological one and that is the source of 'sin'. To cut to the chase, there's several problems with this before you really get started: (1) Satan: The OT describes a talking snake. Even 2 Cor 11:3 is willing to go with a serpent. Most commentaries kind of struggle with this, since the OT doesn't include 'Satan' ... only an adversary who appears to argue with YHWH quite a bit over human loyalties. But the proof of the pudding WAS when YHWH punished the snake by taking away his legs. 'Eat dust, dude!'. Obviously a literal snake was the problem. (2) Death: YHWH promises sure death to anyone eating from TOKOGAE. But when Eve and then Adam chow down, the punishment is not death. Indeed the punishment only impacts married women and farmers. Ever thought about that? Yes, if you follow the flow, non-death is not assumed in the story ... you have to actively eat from the Tree of Life, which apparently Eve and Adam didn't. So at least at the point of time in the story, Eve and Adam were fated to die, regardless of the TOKOGAE. And it's not clear the Tree of Life was really 'up for grabs'. (3) Eternal Sin: The NT weaves a web of logic, essentially saying Eve (or Adam, depending on the writer) 'caused' sin for humans for the rest of eternity ... hell included! I'm not sure exactly 'what' the TOKOGAE actually was, but judging from the after-effects, it either had to do with 'sex' or the concept of 'shame', 'guilt', and 'wrongness'. And this effect was dealt out for a single fruit-eating act, caused by ANOTHER of YHWH's creations. By a woman, no less. OK, Adam chimed in. Even Egypt's Pharoah got more chances than that. Indeed, name any of the 'sinning' participants in the OT, where YHWH's punishment was eternally final for a single act. It doesn't fit the image or description of YHWH. The OT's YHWH was always loosing patience, remember? And the NT's Father even loves his human creation, not wishing any to die. (4) Garden of Eden: Lastly, Eve and Adam were literally 'driven' out of the garden. Cherubim 'camped out' at the entrance, with flaming swords. Now was Genesis 3 a 'myth' or for real? If it was for real, then you have to assume somewhere in the Middle East even today, there's a garden with a couple of sword-weilding cherubs. I'd think, similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, a wandering shepherd would have stumbled over it, or as a minimum Google maps, right? Now, the objective here isn't to criticize Moses. Sure, it was hot in the Sinai desert and maybe he got a little mixed up with the story. No, the problem is with the NT writers. Actually, it's the 'late' NT writers ... the ones who wrote after the apostles headed on up to heaven. 'Adam and Eve' provided the core logic for Jesus 'saving' humans from their 'sins'. One man HAD to die! Like the rest didn't? YHWH had to be appeased! Like He hadn't already punished Eve and Adam thousands of years earlier? Plus there's the drive to 'put women under the wheels of the bus'. Eve sinned first! So men get to be obnoxious or what? I'm not disagreeing with the need to please YHWH. Nor am I questioning Jesus and his teachings. I'm just saying 'sin' was there from the start. And 'death' was similarly there from the start. There's nothing different from the day Eve chatted with the talking snake and today, other than 'guilt', nasty husbands, and farms that require labor. And that is a problem enough, without all the convoluted logic that the late-NT writers dreamed up. EXTRA I: I sometimes wonder how the NT writers got the Adam/Eve story to even work, since just reading it, you can tell it doesn't work. Two-thousand years of churchmen have been happy to ignore the details, though. But I suspect the late-NT writers were not even using the OT account. It's obvious they used such writings as the book of Enoch and Assumption of Moses. It's fairly clear Paul got much of his teaching from the Wisdom of Solomon. But the most critical book was the Book(s) of Adam and Eve, which included quite a number of late-NT concepts. Most importantly here, it included Adam's lament upon his death for his sin and his irresponsible wife Eve. Yep. That's where you find the NT logic that 'works'. EXTRA II: A big clue that the late-NT writers were 'winging it' big time is 1st Timothy 2:14-15. This is where Eve brought sin into the world and 'will be saved through child-bearing' (as long as the couple remains faithful that is). So there you go ... Jesus wasted his time for women ... they've been getting saved the whole time, by getting pregnant! EXTRA III: If you accept 1 Tim 2:14, Eve was 'deceived' but Adam wasn't. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd conclude Eve should be 'let off the hook'. Adam was unbelievably guilty. Adam chomped with full knowledge .... it was Adam who got direct orders from YHWH, right? But then maybe Adam was just plain 'stupid'. That was the conclusion of later 2nd Temple writers (ok, to be nice, Adam was very 'influence-able'). The male writers sure didn't want to let Eve off the hook! SUBJECT: Luke 22:31-32 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Gospels [TEXT] This passage in Luke is during the 'Last Supper' after Satan returned to enter Judas. Jesus told his disciples of his near-future demise, plus twelve kingdoms for his disciples (one each). Peter appeared to be NOT on-board, and so this passage. It sounds a lot like Mark 8:32-33 and Mat 16:22-23, where previously Jesus warned of his demise and Peter got a little miffed. Luke didn't use that account, and so, maybe uses it here. There's several 'problem' phrases here: (1) 'That your faith may not fail' The greek verb here is actually closer to 'dribble out', and is best seen in Luke 23:45, where the sun is essentially 'ecclipsed' (and indeed the greek word). The implication is that Peter's confidence in Jesus is ebbing away slowly: it's not a sudden problem. (2) 'When you've completed 'turning' ...' The greek here is literally 'turning' and if you read Acts 3:19, you'll see its parallel use with 'repent'. And indeed, in the OT, 'turning' was the equivalent word for 'repenting'. So as a minimum, Peter is probably quite a bit distant from where he's supposed to be. (3) 'Strengthen your brothers ...' This sounds pretty innocent ... except that at the 'Last Supper', ALMOST HALF of the disciples were likely NOT on-board. First, there's Judas. He's easy. Then there's Peter here. John describes Thomas as doubting. Plus in Mat 28:17 prior to Jesus' departure, 'some' (disciples) doubted. That's plural (and AFTER seeing a resurrected Jesus!). So in total there's at least five doubters. At Jesus' arrest, nine of them ran. I'd guess Jesus probably knew this, and needed some LEADERSHIP. John-writer emphasized this in John 21:15-17. But here's the question. What issue places Peter so far afield from Jesus, just hours before his trials and then execution? Sure, Peter didn't want Jesus to die, but that's not unusual. And defending Jesus (with a sword no less) is pretty macho ... not meriting Jesus arguing with Satan. I'd say that it is a disagreement with what was supposed to happen next. Peter clearly was expecting a messiah to save Israel. Remember the disciple-pairs teaching the villages of the coming disaster? A dead-Jesus would mean the whole three years had been one big waste AND a destroyed-Israel too. Indeed, Acts 1:6 shows that the disciples were looking for the restoration (and their thrones). But I think Peter was looking for much more. In Acts 2:14, Peter launched into an explanation of the receiving of God's spirit, as prophesied in Joel 2:28-32. Peter was strongly expecting the prophesied end-time (which the in-dwelling demanded). And that was NOT what Jesus was telling them. Peter must have been livid. But that's NOT the most interesting part. No, the most interesting part is that Luke likely connected Peter's end-time expectations with Satan! Luke IS better known for trying to put apocalysm to bed. EXTRA I: Jesus promised each of his disciples a 'kingdom' following his death. Note that he DIDN'T promise a kingdom for Paul. Maybe Paul was supposed to get the kingdom promised to Judas? But in the Luke account, Judas is promised a kingdom. And Jesus KNEW what Judas was up to. I don't think Paul got a kingdom or even heard Jesus was giving them out before his death. EXTRA II: In most denominations, they make SURE anyone participating in 'communion'/'eucharist' is some sort of Christian (i.e. a believer, usually having owned up to a specific creed-checklist). The irony is that at Jesus' Last Supper, a sizable portion of 'the Twelve' would have been asked to step outside, before Jesus said the blessings. 'Do this in my memory.' I really suspect churchmen assume a faith that Jesus recognized could not be always be maintained. |
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