| Holy Spirit for a Day! |
| Holy Spirit for a Day! |
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Want to Be Holy Spirit for a Day? WARNING: Please read Mt 12:31-32, Mk 3:28, or Luk 12:10 before proceeding (that's the warning from 'Q' and Mark that no one understands, but everyone fears). John forgot to include it. 2ND AND FINAL WARNING: The discussion that follows Is NOT about the Holy Spirit. It's about CLAIMS about the Holy Spirit. Let's be clear here. Let's Do It!! Ok, now that we've got the necessary theological boilerplate over with, let's discuss your day as the Holy Spirit (one day = 1,000 years in God-time). Background Briefing: (1) Jesus is just back from planet Earth, after a 1-3 year stay trying to teach the judeans about the new 'Kingdom of God'. He got mixed results. (2) You need to go down and try to keep the God-message on target, to include not just the judeans, but all the non-judeans. Probably have them write something down this time? (3) You can go by several names as needed: Spirit, Spirit of God, Holy Spirit and also one that Jesus came up with: 'paraclete'. Also feel free to mix upper- and lower-case (spirit or Spirit) to confuse later translators (yes, greek doesn't mix the two, but try). (4) Lastly, keep the most important information away from humankind until LAST. So, if the judeans are expecting a 'Davidic' messiah, don't mention Jesus' birth/geneology until LAST. Why? It's just part of who you are. INSPIRATION TARGET: 'Q' So there you go. You have your marching orders. You head down to The Planet, and select 'Q' as your first writer to convey 'the word of God'. You're careful not to divulge 'Q's identity, since then readers could judge his veracity. Got it? Include the Jesus sayings but NOT the crucifiction/resurrection account (an important detail to be delayed). Plus have 'Q' write in that squiggly aramaic so none of the non-judeans can read it. (Hopefully 'Q' can remember 1-3 years worth of Jesus-chatting, boiling it down into a fairly small set of papyri.) INSPIRATION TARGET: Mark Well ... apparently a writing no one can read outside judea, and by a writer no one remembers isn't working out well. Plus people ARE wondering about the crucifiction/resurrection. Let's move to plan-B. Few of the disciples apparently can write, so have Mark try to remember what Peter preached over a 30 year period and boil it down into a small digest. Oh, and by the way, DON'T include anything 'Q' wrote! How else will future german scholars deduce 'Q'?? Plus toss in some quotes that Jesus will return BEFORE they die. That'll wind 'em up nicely. INSPIRATION TARGET: Saul (he also calls himself Paul) Have Saul/Paul write some letters. Confirm an immediate end-time, talk about baptism for dead people (to be resurrected), eliminate the Jesus-works demand, and also have Saul/Paul really yank the apostles chains (the ones Jesus didn't have much success with). Be very careful not to have Paul repeat much of the Jesus-message. Why? "It's just the way you are." INSPIRATION TARGET: James Now that you had Saul/Paul write all those letters, have James say almost the opposite. Why? Again, "it's just the way you are". Oh, and have James quote 'Q' (but NOT Mark). That'll work great. INSPIRATION TARGET: Matthew Goodness, this 'word of God' thing is turning out to be harder than it seems. That darn Mark lost the last chapter of his inspired writing. Have Matthew try and paste together 'Q' and Mark (with a new and more impressive ending). Oh, and by the way, maybe now's the time (40 years after Jesus' non-death) to mention that Jesus had a strange birth, AND was of the house of David. Also, Judeans like numerology, so have Matthew skip a few generations so that Jesus can fit in at just the perfect time. Who'll notice? Plus, go easy on the rich. The new church needs MONEY. INSPIRATION TARGET: Luke Time to get SERIOUS about your mission. This is one of the MOST important lessons to learn when you're Holy Spirit. Have someone write ANOTHER version of Mark, 'Q', birth, generations and more, but CHANGE all the details! And, go one better. Include speeches by Saul/Paul that don't even remotely agree with Saul/Paul's letters. Make it easy for the readers to find all the changes by simple comparison. There's a reason for this ("it's who you are"). Oh, also make Luke's account favor the women and the poor. Not sure why, but the new church has lots of them. INSPIRATION TARGET: Jude The Christians are 'starting' to get comfortable with the God-message. Talk to Jude. Who's he? Not sure. Anyway have him quote from strange ancient writings the judeans don't accept at all. Let's see. You inspired 'Enoch', right? This will come in handy later for defining what the bishops will call 'The Holy Book'. INSPIRATION TARGET: John Whew. For a while there, it didn't look like the 'inspiration' thing was going to work. At this point, most of the apostles are dead, along with Saul/Paul. Now, it's time to let everyone know Jesus was equal to God (and you). Plus have John repeat all those detailed Jesus-conversations from 60 years ago that everyone else missed. John's only 80 years old; no problem. Also, you can now THROW OUT the odd birth story, generations, 'Q' quotes, and almost all of whatever Mark remembered from Peter. Oh, and just for humor, have John include TWO endings to his book. Why? One more time! "It's just the way you are." INSPIRATION TARGET: Peter Yes, he's already dead. Anyway, have Peter explain why Jesus didn't make it back. Something about God-years, or there's more non-judeans than we thought. You'll also have to have Peter mumble a little about how Saul/Paul got the timing wrong (his 'sophia-ness' was so confusing?). INSPIRATION TARGET: Bishops I know, I know. Bishops are another LATE detail to include for humankind. Are they questioning the idea? We previously said 'elders'? OK, have the bishops claim that you're talking to them, NOT the elders. And for goodness sake, get a hold on which inspired works are inspired. The crazy bishops gathered up all your writings together. Got some problems. Tell the bishops you inspired them all! If you can find a bishop that's comfortable with 'truthiness', he can rationalize the whole thing. How about Eusebius? INSPIRATION TARGET: Jerome Who'd have ever guessed at the problems communicating the God-message! Now, the copyists are making all kinds of errors. Can't just make a whole bunch of copies FOR them?! Oh, and the 'latin' copies now don't even agree the 'greek' copies. Don't know WHAT happened to the aramaic copies. Talk to Jerome. He'll also need to figure out what to do with the 'Old Testament'. The judeans now say the older God-message (the real one) was in 'hebrew' and dumped the aramaic-based writings that the apostles were using. Gosh darn those judeans (hmmm, now 'diasporians'). Maybe put the non-hebrew stuff between the hebrew stuff and the greek stuff? I don't know. This whole thing is getting out of hand. When's Jesus coming back, anyway? INSPIRATION TARGET: Border's Book Store (Of course just seconds later in God-time.) Whew, the going was pretty rough for a while there. Germans WILL be Germans. Wanted 'average' people to read the God-message. Okaaay. As long as they don't dump the bishops (except the funny one with the pointy-hat in Rome). Look at the pretty copies of 'God's Word' back there on the Border's bookshelves? Even on 'the internet' too! A-ma-zon. It only took TWO THOUSAND (human) YEARS, but the trick, it turned out, was to package the whole kaboodle as a 'book'. Pretty leather covers with gold stamping. Multi-colored writing. 'God's Holy Book'. Done. Holy Spirit Day Completed. Good job! Ok, your Holy Spirit day is over. Back to being human. As you can see, being the Holy Spirit is NOT easy. Humankind just seems to go in twenty different directions, given the chance. That's why it it is DESPERATELY IMPORTANT to not question 'the Holy Bible'. You really DON'T want the Holy Spirit to have to start all over, do you? Special Notes: (1) If this all sounds positively insane (and bordering on blasphemy), maybe, just maybe, you might want to query those 2nd/3rd century bishops claim of 'inspiration'. Ever wonder if the early Christians might have been right ... questioning the bishop's authority? Nah, what would the early Christians know? (2) Today's Christians love to assign all the oddities of the Bible to the Holy Spirit, as if he (upper-case He?) can't quite figure out how to communicate reliably. With Moses, God didn't have ANY problem. Tablet-solid! Simple too. Gee, the Holy Spirit isn't as smart as God? Or ... maybe many of the NT writings weren't 'inspired' in the first place? Need to apologize to the Holy Spirit? Or apologize to God? (3) Lastly, what do you really MEAN by the Holy Spirit inspiring the NT writers? As above, directing the writers? Making sure everything is correct? At least insuring the 'general idea'? Christians think by just claiming 'something', they need not be specific or exhibit personal integrity. To me, it sounds like just 'using' God. Good luck on that. Want to move to Phoenix AZ, and learn about 'HOT'? |
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