| 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. SUBJECT: Proverbs 30:7-9 SITE PAGE: Passages - Old Testament [TEXT] Like many with Christian parents, mine had given me a special Bible. My Dad liked the ASV; my Mom liked the KJV, and so the gift was an ASV. Later when my Mom died, I was lucky to receive her Bible ... an NKJV. She never gave the KJV up ... and my Dad still has his ASV. I generally don't put notes in my Bibles, since I shift from version to version. But the one from my parents, I had highlighted this passage. Like most teens, I thought I could manage my future and this was the future I wished to have. Now, it's 40+ years later. After entering a seminary, I had walked away from the church. I didn't think they were honest with their belief (nor me with mine). And I pursued a career that promised neither riches nor poverty. Now, I'm retired and I have come to an accomodation with honesty and God. I guess it really can't be achieved. And in a way, I imagine Him chuckling, as if I too could be a god. But He did indeed give me what I asked for, 40 years ago. And so, I bumble along with Him, imagining Him saying 'Don't you EVER learn ANYTHING?!'. EXTRA CREDIT: Per many commentaries, Proverbs 30 et al. aren't from Solomon. These proverbs include aramaic words, which of course we know Solomon didn't know. I always wondered, though, how Solomon talked to his Egyptian wife. Hmmm. Syntactically, these proverbs have a closest match with the hebrew in Hosea. Well, anyway, the philosophy of Proverbs 30 almost seems like SedonaChristian.com in its tone, with the author admitting not being too wise. I especially like his warning ... 'Add not to His (God's) words, lest He reason with thee,and thou hast been found false.' (v6 YLT). I don't think most pastors are too concerned with this ancient caution. Definitely not Saul aka Paul. SUBJECT: 2 Peter 3:8 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] This is the one-day-equals-a-thousand-years passage. Most cross-referencing Bibles cite Psa 90:4 as what the writer was refering to ('For a thousand years in Thine eyes are as yesterday ...' YLT). The big problem was that the apostles (and Jesus, if you think Mark was 'inspired') had promised the End-Time in their lifetime ('generation'). By the time of 2 Peter 3, obviously some had noticed that nothing had happened. And so the writer provides an explanation ... God's calendar is different from man's. Today, two thousand years later, this little tidbit might seem obvious. But at the time, I seriously doubt so many early Christians would have ever risked life-and-limb for the 'Coming' THOUSANDS of years later! 2 Peter 3 seems a little disingenuous. Earlier this year, I finished 'dating' the greek syntax patterns, stretching from the LXX, through the apocrypha, pseudepigraphia, the NT and into the 'Ancient Fathers'. Interestingly enough, there is indeed a slow transition in the greek syntax patterns that allows sorting the writings and approximating their dates of 'final' composition. What was surprising was that the Epistle of Barnabas (as well as Hermas the Shepherd) sorted at about the same time as Philippians (i.e. much earlier than what scholars assign). And so, I went back through Barnabas, and indeed it does read very similar to early-Acts. Maybe 'Barnabas' was for real? The early Christian leaders thought so. Most interestingly, Barnabas also has the God-time dating, though not as an apology for No-End-Time-Yet. Barnabas mentions the calculation, with presumably 4,000 years before Jesus, 2,000 years after Jesus, and then 'the End' (though the LXX would have indicated only 500 years more, after Jesus). The NT problem was a little different from 2 Peter's; various writers had to explain why the End-Time would be EARLY! And so you can find references to the time being shortened (Mat 24:22, Mar 13:20, Rom 9:28, 1Co 7:29). But with no end-time, the 2 Peter 3 writer re-introduced God-time as an obvious piece of logic ('6,000 THOUSAND years, guys, remember?'). Sooooo ... hmmmm .... 2,000 years AFTER Jesus? That would be maybe year 2030 or so? I'll still be alive by then (in theory anyway). SUBJECT: PROTECTING GOD SITE PAGE: Theology I was with a Christian friend, driving up to Flagstaff up through Oak Creek Canyon. We were chatting on this and that, and she asked about our internet sites. I noted that the tourist internet site-visits were down (and indeed throughout Sedona), but that our 'black site' was going well. 'Black site?!', she asked. So, I explained that the site design was meant to discourage Christians from reading it; it was meant for those who had 'walked away'. As we swung around another tight curve in the highway switchbacks, she swung HER head around and asked 'Oh, so you're protecting God from Christianity?' Well, that sounded like an odd conclusion, though I suppose in the literal sense, maybe so? Obviously, God doesn't need any protecting. But folks' view of God and their relationship to Him does (I think). The more Christians get wound up with their beliefs, the more they demand their view of God for others. And so, I do believe 'protecting God' is something you have to do, to survive among the Christians. They really do want to take 'your God' away from you, . . . . and give you theirs. How can you detect this? It's easy. Whenever they begin to talk with certainty about 'God this' and 'God that', start listening closely. Why? Because they're human like you. How would they know that? The most they could 'know' is what you could know (i.e. the Bible, early Christian practices, etc). That's it. Ah, but there's a little 'ace card' up their sleaves. The Holy Spirit. That trumps 3000 years of human struggles with 'knowing God'. In an instant in time, your Christian friend has more than even the disciples who walked with Jesus (or Jesus himself!). And so, that is why you must 'protect God'. Too many Christians want to own God. Including yours. SUBJECT: Luke 13:1-5 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Gospels [TEXT] This is one of those odd NT passages that kind of leaves you wondering. Only Luke mentions it. Jesus responds to two events that jews at the time presumably assigned to God. Some Galileans has been ignomously killed by Pilate with their blood 'mixed with sacrifices'. And eighteen people had been killed, when the Siloam tower collapsed in Jerusalem. The assumption seems to have been, that both groups were more sinful than their respective compatriots. Jesus says 'nay', and then suggests the same punishment for his listeners, should they not repent. I accidentally mentioned this passage to a God-does-everything-for-the-best Christian. Before I had gotten to Jesus' response, my friend had made the disciples' assumption concerning God's involvement in the two events, but with a twist. Instead of the galileans or crushed Jerusalem-ites being extra sinful, he assumed the more modern 'God-does-everything-for-the-best' rationale. This assumption surprised me. First, although he was a life-time Christian, he wasn't that familiar with the details of Jesus' teachings (nor I). And second, the passage 'seems' to match the bumper-sticker saying 'S__t happens' (i.e. no divine or personal payback). Jesus does, however, jump the A<>B but B=A logic-rules, suggesting that 's__t' WILL happen, absent repentence. Interestingly, the idea of 'suffering' seems to be the main theological issue these days. I never really thought Jesus might lean on the side of the random event. For God, falling towers and nasty rulers are essentially 'all in an earthly day' ... but personal repentence is the REAL issue. EXTRA CREDIT: If you track Jesus' teaching, he seems to have moved from the 'Repent or die!!' theology (as if they could avoid death at the end-time), to the 'Father-Knows-Best' theology (worry not; be a flower!). And so today, you have your pastors-from-hell group, versus your pastors-trust-the-Father group. Our pastor seems to be in the latter group. But sometimes I wonder if instead, there might have been literally TWO Jesus-teachers (meaning, one of the accounts of Jesus either might not have happened or represented a radically different perspective). The 'repent' teaching mainly tracks back to the OT prophets, along with the eminent end-time. The 'Father-Knows-Best' theology tracks to the Psalms, along with the pseudepigraphia just before Jesus' time. I wouldn't be surprised if, at the time, one represented the influential John-the-Baptist group (fire and brimstone and nothing less!), versus the Jerusalem-based apostles (who seemed to include a LOT of pseudepigraphia concepts)? Of course, then you have 'Paul' (who ignored 'both'). SUBJECT: GODS (the earthly kind) SITE PAGE: Theology I recently got a copy of the greek interlinear of the 'Ancient Fathers' (actually 3!). The period followed the 'apostolic age' (the one where the apostle-promised end-time didn't happen). The 'new age' seemed to be characterized by 'bishops' doing their level-headed best to get in charge of the whole kaboodle. Clement clearly was a 'softie', arguing that bishops were kind of like apostles. Ignatus, though, didn't waste time (his time being limited by his trip to Rome for a meeting with some lions). He said bishops were the earthly version of God, and the elders the equivalent of the apostles (Magnesians 6.1). That's pretty impressive, since the last of the apostles was barely in his grave (John?). Fast-forward to today. Here in Sedona Arizona, our little congregation has never known a 'bishop'. Our pastor quotes Clement, but only if the quote supports pre-Clement ideas. And as the winter snow softly falls outside, he intones 'What does God think about .... ?' and deftly fills in the blanks with the latest political hot-topic. I suspect the guys that see their future with lions are more up front about climbing into the shoes of God. But without lions in your future, you just let everyone 'in' on what God REALLY thinks. In Ignatus's time, some of the believers didn't quite go for the logic (and thus his visit with the lions). But today, as long as you agree, why not? For sure, if 'what God's thinks' doesn't sound right, you can easily enough choose another of the 'Ignatus-gods' down the street. Of course the pastors down the street don't see it that way (and certainly not ours). But I do have to wonder why they desperately NEED to 'speak for God'. If they wanted, they could just read their Bibles. Wow! SUBJECT: CHURCH (the word) SITE PAGE: Theology I got to looking at the word 'church' (ekklesia in greek), when I accidentally noticed it included 'gathering' as one of its meanings. That's when I became a little suspicious. The apocalyptic restoration of Israel was also to be a 'gathering' of the jews from far and wide. Could the term 'church' be connected? An even stronger meaning of 'church' (and the word's root) was 'the chosen' or 'elect'. The 'elect righteous ones' or the 'hagios' (again to be found in the Apocrypha/Pseudepigraphia). Hmmm. Among the greeks, 'church' would have been just a specific group with a defined membership (e.g. the Elks Club or a legislative body). So, on the surface, 'church' COULD be a generic usage for the new believers, right? A problem occurs, however. The NT usage is quite early, almost immediately after Pentecost and among the jews themselves; not the later gentile believers. What would the term have meant to jewish believers who often met in neighborhood synogogues, at the temple, and in their homes? In reality, the early jewish Jesus-followers were basically a sect of the jewish people (Acts 15:5, and as explained by Paul in Acts 24:14). Thus, 'church' as just one more 'club' doesn't work at all (even today). Indeed the NT usage of 'church' clearly PRECEEDED the word 'Christians' (first used in Antioch; Acts 11:26). A meaning of 'the elect' or a unique 'gathering' appears MUCH more likely. That brings us to Mat 16:18/Luk 9:20, where Peter pins the title 'the Annointed One' or 'messiah' on Jesus. Quite pleased, Jesus replies that on that 'rock' (presumably foundation), he would 'build my church'. Peter, though, was speaking of the restoration of Israel (Acts 1:6). What was Jesus' 'church' in reference to? I think the only possible meaning that the disciples would have understood was THE GATHERING as prophesied in the OT (or the 'Kingdom of God' as in the next verses). And so, the $100 dollar question. Was Jesus indeed speaking of the eminent gathering of the elect? The people of 'the Way of Righteousness'? The 'hagios'? EXTRA CREDIT: The jewish diaspora primarily used the Septuagent (LXX) or greek OT for its readings. If you search the LXX for the greek form of 'church', what do you find? Quite interesting. It was the special holy meetings of the congregation, mainly in Leviticus and Numbers. Consider that. Remember that Jesus wasn't likely speeking 'greek'. So, a greek word was selected that best fit what Jesus said in aramaic/hebrew. A more generic greek word existed for 'assembly' or 'meeting' but wasn't selected. EXTRA CREDIT II: What about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Also interesting. 'All those who submit freely to his truth will convey all their knowledge, their energies, and their riches to the Community of God in order to refine their knowledge in the truth of God’s decrees and marshal their energies in accordance with his perfect paths, and all their riches in accordance with his just counsel.' (1QS 1.11-13). Qumran's 'Community of God' vs Jesus' 'Kingdom of God' and then his 'Elect of God'? One of these died in the desert 2,000 years ago. But the other, the Assembly of God, is over off Dry Creek Road in West Sedona. That's amazing. SUBJECT: BIBLE-BASED SITE PAGE: Theology Our church is 'Bible-based' and we're darn-well proud of that bit of information. We happily re-assure each other of our conformance with 'God's Holy Word'. But last Sunday, a pastor (nearby church) got carried away and said 'tithing' wasn't in the NT (but that we should do it anyway). I'll give him credit; he's certainly an honest man. But that got me to thinking ... just HOW MUCH of what you see on Sunday is in fact in 'God's Holy Word'? First off, ALL of the NT 'giving' examples are for the poor. And all the 'support' examples are for the traveling preachers/ambassadors (later on, also the teaching-elders). But then our elders don't get paid. Well, ok, we'll keep going. We DO have a nice church building, examples of which didn't show up until two or three centuries after Jesus died. We spend a lot of money on it, and only periodic money on the poor. Oh well. Our in-house pastor has a salary; some churches even have 'parsonages'. By the third century, you begin to see a little of that (the local rabbis instead had to work). What about instrumental music? Again, it was over a century before a bishop finally OK'd harps, but NOT flutes. Huh? Then, there's our crackers and grape juice communion every four weeks. I'd of guessed the early communions would be similar to passover meals (real food, though probably not once a year). But we do use those cute little cups and pre-broken matzos. Our pastor sometimes gets a little long-winded and talks well past his allocated 40 minutes. From the NT, early meetings and sermons could go well into the night (with at least one person falling out the window). Early Christians burrowed into the scriptures to make sure Paul was on the level. We pretty much just keep an eye on the overhead projector, and have a tired frown for anyone who wants to 'question' the pastor. Should I stop? We could talk about 'love', 'divisions', 'enemies' and on and on. In fact, I really have to pose the question ... exactly WHAT do we do that IS in 'God's Holy Word'? Reflecting a little, I sure hope God doesn't 'adjust' his promises the way we happily do his 'Holy Word'. That'd be a real DISASTER. He could say He only committed to His 'doctrine' or 'creed'! Ours, of course. SUBJECT: SLEEPING SITE PAGE: Theology What does 'sleeping' have to do with theology?? Well, bear with me. Start with the question, 'Where did Jesus sleep at night?' You probably never wondered, did you? With thousands of sermons, famous paintings, and now block-buster Jesus movies, WHERE did Jesus go at night? He just seemed to disappear when the sun went down, only to re-appear in the morning with one more interesting sermon or cutting argument with the evil Pharisees. As far as I can tell, we have only three clues. First, Jesus compared himself to a fox without a hole (Mat 8:20/Luk 9:58; someone proposed to 'follow Jesus' and he was pointing out a practicality of discipleship). So as a minimum, Jesus probably didn't stay overnight in one place too long. The second clue is at Mary and Martha's house, where Jesus was having dinner. Mary and Martha (and Lazarus) were likely financial supporters of Jesus (Luk 10:38, Joh 11:5). And so, Jesus probably stayed overnight with believers such as them. Kind of neat; the Son of God sleeping in your bedroom. The third and final clue was his instructions to his disciples, when he sent them out in pairs to teach in the villages (Mat 10:10/Mar 6:8). He demanded they not take money, instead taking advantage of the villagers (presumably the ones that also believed, or at least wanted to argue some more). Note Jesus' recommended response, if the villagers DIDN'T help out. Ouch! Well, that was easy. Of course if Jesus WAS a rabbi, he'd of been expected to have a job and not mooch off others (only priests and the poor could do legal mooching, along with a HOST of rules). OK, Jesus was from God. But what about the disciples? Scholars say they were probably teenagers as disciples of a rabbi. And there's twelve of them (plus other followers and so forth). Where did they sleep? Peter was married ... did he stay in Galilee overnight with his wife? Plus she was caring for her mother (Mat 8:14/Mar 1:30). Where'd Peter get the money? Obviously the disciples HAD money, since they went into Samaria to buy lunch (Joh 4:8), and Judas was the (sneaky) money-man (Joh 13:29). This is starting to get complicated. After Jesus died, the picture became a little simpler, with the early church sharing their wealth (Act 4:34), and traveling teachers literally working (Paul: 1Co 9:6,14). When the NT discussed 'giving', it was ALWAYS for the less fortunate believers (and traveling teachers). And when God invited the gentiles into the Kingdom, James' main concern was the on-going care for the poor (Gal 2:10). Do you begin to see the pattern? Believers had to be caring for Jesus at night. And believers were later on caring for each other. Read Mat 25:43 where Jesus describes the opposite: 'A stranger I was, and ye did not receive me; naked, and ye put not around me; infirm, and in prison, and ye did not look after me' (YLT). And so, 'sleeping', for Jesus anyway, was intensely theological. SUBJECT: 1 Kings 13:18 SITE PAGE: Passages - Old Testament [TEXT] When you're in church on Sunday, this verse is a good one to remember. As background, Jereboam the evil king is down at BETHEL sacrificing to a god (not in righteous Jerusalem, and he's mainly 'perfuming'). A 'man of God' (sound familiar?) came and prophesied to him that the Bethel alter would be split in two, as a sign from God (along with predicting another king). Jereboam got really ticked off and tried to grab the man of God, but lost his hand (literally, along with the alter splitting in two). You'd think 'there's a clue!' Fast thinking, Jereboam asked the man of God to ask 'his' God to return his hand (which God did). The man of God then refused to eat with evil Jereboam (per God's instructions) and dutifully headed back to Jerusalem. Here, the story gets really good. ANOTHER prophet (from Bethel) heard about it, rode his donkey after the man of God, and caught up. He told the man of God that God speaks to him TOO. 'Let's eat together!' Uh ooooooh. The man of God believed him! (big mistake). And therein lies the lesson to be remembered each and every Sunday morning. There's two kinds of 'men of God'. Be VERY careful. EXTRA: So what happened next? Well, the donkey-prophet got a (real) message from God telling the man of God that he was indeed in big trouble; the man of God had ignored God (this gets complicated). Next, a lion killed the man of God (but didn't eat him). What happened to Jereboam? He kept 'perfuming' at Bethel (fixed the alter, but didn't seem to be too impressed with YHWH). What is the important take-away? On Sundays, check for any lions around your church (or odd perfume-y smells). Yep. SUBJECT: COMPUTER-CHRISTIANS SITE PAGE: Theology When you think you have a pretty good handle on Christianity, you're slammed in the face with one more angle. 'Computer-Christians'. These are the ones you meet on the internet, instead of at church or at the grocery store. If you spend much time with them, it can really be mind-expanding. You probably thought you were supposed to be 'loving', 'humble', or 'forebearing'. Boy, did you miss the boat! Toss that old ragged Bible of yours OUT. Computer-Christians don't need all that 'stuff'. Yes, just sign on, for example, to a Bible software forum (not a theology forum where it's even worse). Then write something that's innocent but not to the Computer-Christians' liking. Whoa, stand back. If you've spent much time with mathematical modeling, the ascerbic comments ratio (to put it nicely) follows a geometrically increasing curve upwards, each new entry out-doing the former. I'm not sure why, but after so many ascerbic comments are reached (equistasis), it then curves back downwards quickly, reaching zero. The commenters have gone off to some other barbeque, to roast another poor victim. It's really fascinating to observe. Some victims go ahead and tell their future tormentors to 'have at it' and then quickly sign off. No guts! Ah, today's Christianity is so much more fun than when Jesus was here, right? EXTRA: You probably thought this whole site was one big ascerbic comment. Probably so, probably so. SUBJECT: ANGELS SITE PAGE: Theology Christians are well aware of the angels, since they see them each year at their local Christmas pagaent. Some Christians, however, probably don't know just much hard work angels really do. Here's a quick run-down from the gospels. (1) They were the ones that gave the law to Moses (Acts 7:53; presumably after his sunburn from facing God). (2) They have the primary job of protecting Jesus, but only when He wants protection (Mat 4:6). If the going gets a little rough, he can call God to send 12 legends of (aggressive?) angels (Mat 26:53; just enough to battle Judas and the temple guards in Jerusalem). (3) Angels also keep an eye on children. If anything bad happens to the children, their angels talk to God. (Mat 18:10) (4) They help out at your death (only if you're good). They carry good dead people up to Abraham's side. (Luke 16:22) (5) At the end-time, they're the famous 'grim reapers' (Mat 13:39). They reap what the devil has sown! (6) Basically, they'll gather everything from the Kingdom that causes sin (Mat 13:41; also lawbreakers). They'll be separating the evil ones from the righteous. (Mat 13:49) (7) In addition to their separating duties, they also carry trumpets and will make a 'loud trumpet blast' and then gather 'his elect' from the four winds. (Mat 24:31) This group is presumably not the same as the 'righteous', and reside among the 'four winds'. (8) Unfortunately, some of the angels work for the devil. An eternal fire has been prepared for this group, along with their boss the devil (Mat 25:41) (9) If you confess Jesus, he'll confess you to God's angels (Luke 12:8; the same angels who have grim-reaper duties). But if you deny Jesus, you will be denied to God's angels (Luke 12:9; who again have grim-reaper duties). (10) The grim-reaper angels are not mean though. They literally celebrate in front of God when a sinner repents (Luke 15:10). That could be you! OK, SORT OF FORGET SOME OF THE ABOVE: That mainly came from Jesus. Apparently, a little of what He said wasn't quite right. Let's go over the 'real spiel' from Paul and his fellow letter writers, who knew a WHOLE lot more: (1) The angels didn't just give Moses the law. They had to administer it until Jesus arrived (Gal 3:19). (2) About the bad angels. They were sexual perverts similar to Sodom and Gomorrah (Jude 1:7). Plus they're ALREADY in prison bound in chains awaiting judgement (2 Pe 2:4 / Jude 1:6). And just WHO will be judging the angels? Us! (1 Cor 6:3). (3) Not sure whether this is about good angels or nasty angels, but angels 'really' like women without a hair covering (I guess in a not-good way; 1Cor 11:10). (4) Sometimes angels can eat at your house, so you need to invite people over just in case (Heb 13:2). (5) It's actually feasible to speak 'angel-language' just like the angels (maybe even the ones you invite over; 1 Cor 13:1). (6) If you need to use the divine to swear with, include the angels, not the Holy Spirit (1 Tim 5:21). (7) Don't worship the angels, especially if you're 'puffed up' (Col 2:8). (8) If you're REALLY good (a 'glorious one'), the angels will be reluctant to bring a slanderous word about you before God (2 Peter 2:11; maybe they bring 'slanderous' words against you, if you're NOT 'glorious'). (9) At the end, one or more angels with a trumpet will come with Jesus, but remain up in the clouds. So you can forget the 'grim-reaper' stuff separating 'evil ones', or gathering 'four-wind-electees'. The choreography on the previous-righteous-dead-carried-to-heaven but later be-resurrected-at-Jesus-coming remains to be worked out. (10) And lastly, are you in luck or what?! The angels won't be in charge of the future world (Heb 2:5). I'd assume that suggests why the current world is such a mess! Darn those angels (i.e. it wasn't all God's doing). SUBJECT: 1 John 5:16 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] Check your commentaries on this verse. Most of mine get busy on the 'sin to death', and jump over the 'ask and He (God) will give him (the brother) life' part. Indeed most commentaries quickly discuss 'sin to death' and Ananias / Sapphira, which few churches (any?) these days take literally (and, for that matter, death resulting from 'not discerning the body of Christ'; 1st Cor). The first phrase in the verse, though, is interesting ... praying and thereby saving a brother. The commentaries that do take this one on, quickly start rationalizing, and rationalizing HARD. 1st-John-writer REALLY meant .... what? Of course, also in 1st Cor, you have your baptisms for the dead, so who knows? Maybe you too can save a LOT of people! But only the ones God pre-destined, of course; be careful. SUBJECT: 1 John 4:20 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] On our 'Theology' page we discuss 'Love' and the variation between 'conservative' versus 'liberal' Christians. The verse here really illustrates the issue, and is fun to listen to, when a pastor really winds-up. Without a doubt, he'll be stressing the 'love' part, making a flying-leap over the 'brother' part. But significantly, the whole concept falls apart in defining 'brother'. In 1st John, it's clearly not 'mankind' (unlike Jesus). Most likely it's the fellow believers that agree with the 1st John writer (versus the nasty anti-Christ guys). If you're in doubt, the easy way to illustrate this is to ask the pastor who he considers to be his 'brothers'? Ah, there's the rub. Chances are, he'll eventually have to roll out his denomination's creed, after stumbling through some really obvious questions. But even if you get that far, you still have to define 'love'. Christians love to say 'agapeo' love (versus phileo/brotherly), not realizing that at the time, 'agapeo' was also used sometimes in sexually specific environments (to put it nicely, and outside the NT of course). But again, ignoring the details, today's 'Christian love' is quite frankly not a whole lot different than just being a nice person (and often not even that; just ask group campground operators in Oak Creek Canyon near here). Returning to our friendly pastor, my guess is that he KNOWS what 'love' is, but can't demand TOO much from his little flock of human beings (and still keep his job). SUBJECT: Judges 1:8,21 SITE PAGE: Passages - Old Testament [TEXT] This is one of the 'classifier' passages in the Bible. You use it to see what kind of commentary you have! In v8, the men of JUDAH smite'd Jerusalem. With the sword. Not only that, but they burned it down. Done! Then in v21, same chapter, the Jebusites lived in Jerusalem and were NOT dispossessed by the men of BENJAMIN ... 'till this day' (whenever that was). Huh? To me, this verse combo gives you a lot of clues about how the OT was slowly written. Even when there were conflicts, the 'redactors' quite often gritted their collective teeth and kept the conflicting descriptions. When we use our Hebrew syntactical analysis, a possible answer emerges. First, Judges 1 is clearly NOT similar to the rest of Judges, and has a lot of 'IS1' patterns (Isaiah 1-39). The section containing Judah slaying Jerusalem is in the IS1 pattern of chapter 1; the Jebusite/Benjamin section is in the Judges pattern (along with most of Judges). The question then arises, which is earlier? Best I can figure, Judges and 1st Kings are a close match (with possibly 2 Samuel). My guess is that the underlying histories were assembled in the early years of the split-kingdom. IS1 is VERY similar to DEU, Hosea and Amos, appearing to be later when the northern kingdom was conquoured by Assyria. In theory, the differences in Judges 1 represent a shift from Benjamin 'ownership' of Jerusalem to Judah. Unfortunately, there's a third verse, Joshua 15:63. This one completely contradicts Judges 1:8, matching Judges 1:21 but Judah instead! So where does IT 'date'? Well, it's a section strongly matching post-excilic syntax. Gee, that really messes the picture up. What EXACTLY were the writers/redactors thinking?? You'd have to figure the later 'Joshua team' (around the time of Nehemiah) weren't talking to the earlier 'Judges team'! Not at all. SUBJECT: Rom 15:8-9 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Epistles [TEXT] Sometimes I feel really guilty for criticizing Paul so much. But for goodness sakes, after our gifted logic-master squeezes the gentiles into the Abraham-fold (even making the jews into Ismaelites/Arabs), he comes along with these verses. Paul?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Actually ... the greek-syntax for much of Romans is likely well AFTER when Paul was supposed to have joined Jesus (or began laying in a buried box, still waiting for a physical resurrection). So, maybe I should apologize. But wait just a gosh-darn minute. I'm a gentile. The writer seems to be saying Jesus came for the jews, just to meet God's prior commitments. And the gentiles? 'A kindness to glorify God'. Whatever happened to the sacrificial lamb-thing? Or destroying the unbelievably evil 'evil-one'? No prior commitments for the gentiles? No prophesies, type-casts, anything?? EXTRA: You'd be hard pressed to find 'someone' that thinks Romans isn't 'Paul'. I suspect the reason is that most define Paul using Romans, and then work outward, eventually running into trouble with Hebrews, the Pastorals, and Ephesians in that order. SUBJECT: Joh 16:13 SITE PAGE: Passages - New Testament Gospels [TEXT] In a nutshell, my main problem with the NT is the failed prophesies (an immediate apocalypse). I can handle miracles and even a virgin birth. But God in the OT clearly says prophets who aren't right, are wrong (and not from God). Then you're reading along, and you run into THIS verse. The main issue here is the last phrase ... 'and the coming things He will tell you'. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples. Earlier in the passage, Jesus said he'd need to leave so the 'Comforter' could come (v7). Plus Jesus said He wouldn't be back (v10; he re-cants a few verses later, presumably having a little fun). The problem I have here is that the Comforter was SUPPOSED to tell them about the future. But each prophesy they made, turned out to be grossly wrong (except for 2PE-writer who operates in 'God-years'; he's still being monitored with 1,900+ years and counting). Now, to be clear, I'm not pointing fingers at the Comforter. I think the main issue here is a writer whose name in spanish is 'Juan'. Of course the book of John might not have been written by 'Juan'. Aah. |
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