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Frankly, I find 'theology' a little odd, at least from a Christian standpoint. On the one hand, Jesus advocated simplicity, humbleness, helping the poor, and seeking the kingdom of God. There's just not a whole lot of 'theology' in that (true, a little). But surprisingly, Christianity is just chock-full of theologies and there seems to be even more in the making. What happened???

Well, what is so interesting is that the 'odder' the theology, the later the book references. In other words, Mark and Paul's early letters have fairly simple concepts. But as you move to the late letters, especially Romans, Ephesians, and the pastorals, you start getting the obstruse theologies. This is easy to see if you pick up a theology dictionary, and just jot down the key citings for various articles.

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF BIBICAL THEOLOGY (in alphabetic-order):

ABRAHAM AND THE GENTILE LOGIC I don't know why I was checking ... I guess because Paul & Co. use a lot of 'Abraham' to connect YHWH with the gentiles. But, if you do a search, outside of the OT pentateuch, (1) you'll find little interest in 'Abraham' (FAR greater in 'egypt') and (2) almost all references are in the Isaiah period of writings, and later. The pattern gets even stranger. If you also search on 'covenant', you'll see a similar pattern. In fact, most of the 'covenanting' prior to the Isaiah period connects to God's rescue from egypt. So, why did the Abraham covenant suddenly become important during the assyrian period? I'd guess there was concern about their land disappearing, along with the people. But it does make you wonder, given the later 'Paulian' logic and dependence on 'Abraham'. Of course there's Philo. He connected Abraham to the gentiles too. Also, the jews had a strong proselytizing effort in the first century (which Jesus makes light of). Abraham was clearly 'the gentile connector'.

SPECIAL NOTE: Most NT readers don't realize Paul didn't actually introduce the discussion of the demise of the jews relative to the gentiles. No, he was holding the coats of those stoning the one who did ... see Acts 7.

ANGELS 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).

ANTI-CHRIST It's interesting how popular the sound of 'anti-Christ' is. It doesn't sound so neat, if you say 'anti-messiah' or 'anti-annointed one', does it? For something so popular, only the Johnine letter-writer uses it. [*] And it's during the last 'hour' (1 Jo 2:18). That's not the 'latter days', not the 'last hours' ... the last HOUR(YLT)! Plus ... there's a bunch of them. Who ARE all these anti-christs???? Well, that's easy ... they deny Jesus Christ 'in the flesh'. That would be 1 John 4:3 and 2 John 1:7. Plus they've already been here (see 1 John 4:3). Soooo, what's all this on TV about an 'anti-christ' coming in the future? Well, you ninny, you've got the wrong guys. What you're thinking of is the 'man of sin' (aka 'the son of destruction'). [*] 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 goes into quite a bit of detail about him, suggesting he won't show until or about the same time as 'the falling away'. Now, you also have your 'false-Christs' [*]. These are different group ... they have fake signs to trick the believers. It's just after the believers have been tricked, that the tribulation begins.

What is interesting is the probable timing of each of these writings. Mark's quote of Jesus' warning of 'false-Christs' is probably around the time of Paul (eg 55-60 ce), who Matthew subsequently copies into his version (maybe 85 ce?). Next comes John's 'anti-Christ' guys probably around 85 ce or so (at least well after Mark). Finally you have your 'man of sin' and he's somewhere between the writing of the pastorals and the petrine letters (90-100 ce?). None of these, of course, connect to Revelation, which is an entirely different proposition. The 'route 666' beast (Rev 13:18) and 'false-prophets' in Rev chapter 19 have a dating-syntax that matches the Matthew copy. Isn't that interesting? So, to summarize everyone: (1) False-Christs, (2) Beasts & False prophets, (3) Anti-Christs, and (4) Man of Sin.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : What impresses me so much is the absolute certainty with which current Christians can figure all of this out. I don't think any of this is clear at all. I'm willing to just wait, be patient, and find out.

APOSTLES You could probably more accurately say 'ambassadors' from the greek. If we're talking about 'the twelve', we'd be saying 'the disciples' in pre-pentecost times (with Jesus gone, and if 'disciples', they'd of needed another 'ra-bo-ni'). But apparently, there were MORE than 12 apostles. There's Paul, plus allusions to more in Paul's letters ... even a woman (Rom 16:7; a man if you ignore the greek). It's not exactly clear what kind of apostle Paul was, but at least he thought he was as good or better than 'the twelve' (Gal 2:6-9).

There's three curious issues about 'the twelve'. First, at least 11 of them were likely young, if typical of most disciples of the period (the exception being Peter; see Mat 17:24). So, WHY would the teens/fishermen (literally, along with a mom) argue over where they'd sit relative to Jesus' throne. And after Jesus dies, why would they query him about ruling Israel. WHO gave the kids either of those two ideas, as if it was so obvious?

Secondly, Christian apocalysm (Paul and then the synoptic gospels) seems to have survived the destruction of Jerusalem. But later, 2nd-Peter shifts the end-time to thousand-year days, and John completely walks away from apocalysm, plus adds a mysterious Jesus-quote about the beloved disciple not-not-dying (thus, dieing). You get the impression that the 'twelve' gave the early church its 'last possible date' for the Coming. Then they all died.

Lastly, it's not clear the 'twelve' wrote anything down for the generations to follow. Or, at least none of them overtly claimed to. Church tradition later on tried to assign authors to the gospels (obviously confusing Papias and Origin).

So, when the Bible says 'the twelve', what do you think the twelve actually believed (the ones that sold Jesus, doubted Jesus, hid and went fishing after Jesus' death, and on Jesus' resurrection, didn't believe it)? The synoptic gospels had trouble remembering their names (John didn't even try). Plus the church didn't document what ever happened to ANY of the apostles (including the wanna-be, Paul). Plus, the canonical inspiration-rules finally had to rule out 'an apostle' (James, Jude, etc). Who WERE these guys?

ASCENSION (of Jesus) I personally don't doubt Jesus could 'ascend' into the heavens. If you could appear on earth, you could certainly 'ascend' back. However, there's something odd about the stories, and I'll list them in 'order':
Mark Has 'received up' in chapter 16. However, you're probably aware that chapter 16 was likely added later (since it's not in some of the early manuscripts). Greek syntax-wise, it actually matches the timing of early Mark, but is more similar to the Lukian vocabulary mix.
Matthew I know you won't believe this, but Mat doesn't describe an ascension. He does have Jesus meeting with the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where he appointed them.
Luke This is pretty much you're only 'ascension' writer (almost). Luke 24:51 has Jesus saying 'goodbye' at Bethany, and then being 'carried' up to heaven. However, some of the early manuscripts don't include the 'carried up' part, making the 'subsequent' Acts ascension suspect. Acts starts off with a Luke reprise (Acts 1:2), but then 'starts over' with a second story. The 'first' one 'sort' of begins in Jerusalem (Acts 1:4), then 'sort' of begins one more time (Acts 1:6), with the disciples 'gazing upward' as Jesus is taken up. By v12, they're returning to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, even describing the distance to Jerusalem.
'Paul' He earlier used Jesus' raising as his primary proof of his ministry and risking his life. The lone mention of a 'Paul' ascension is in Eph 4:9-10, where the Ephesian writer tries to connect it to Jesus going down to 'the lower parts of the earth'. This ascension takes Jesus 'above all the heavens'. (The 1Co 15:5 Jesus-reappearance only has re-appearances and no ascension.)
John Even though John quotes Jesus' discussing an ascension (John 6:63), John's book ends up having TWO possible (but missing) ascensions (chap 20 and chap21). Ending-1 (the late-one per the syntax), has Jesus popping into a Jerusalem meeting of the 10 disciples, where he breaths on them to receive the Holy Spirit (Joh 20:22, which COMPLETELY contradicts 'Luke' and the apostles at Pentecost). Unfortunately, Thomas wasn't there, doesn't believe Jesus showed up, and so, seven days later, Jesus meets them AGAIN so Thomas can 'feel' Jesus (no 2nd breathing). At this point Jesus just 'disappears' (I guess, anyway). Ending-2 in chapter 21 (which is likely earlier per the syntax), has Jesus showing up in Galilee, but on the shore, having a fish-barbeque. He chats with several of the disciples, straightens out (or creates) confusion about disciple-deaths, and then .... disappears again! Wow. Now, let's further complicate the picture. Read Joh 3:13 'and no one hath gone up to the heaven, except he who out of the heaven came down -- the Son of Man who is in the heaven.' In fact, try to track John chap 3 and exactly who's speaking!

That's it! First, none of the accounts match on where Jesus re-appeared. The John 21:14 account tries to say there were 3 appearances ... let's see Jerusalem (garden & secret room), road to Emmeus, Galilee mountain, Bethany/mount of Olives, shore of Galilee ... yep, that's 3. Second, only Luke seems to come up with an ascension, to do something with Jesus. Matthew and John just seem to leave Jesus at the mountain/room/shore. Paul doesn't really care, though oddly, he says Jesus' resurrected body wasn't the same as his original one. Now, that certainly fits.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : This is why I don't think they knew where Jesus went (physically). I'd guess, with the gnostics breathing down their backs, that they had to have Jesus' body go somewhere!

SPECIAL NOTE: Ever thought about Paul's version? Going 'down' to battle satan must have been pretty crispy for Jesus?

ATONEMENT I'd be willing to bet (not really) that most Christians couldn't tell you what 'atonement' was. I couldn't. But, 'we' shouldn't worry too much, because if you read the early church writings, the early Christains were not at all sure either. The earliest popular explanation for Jesus' death was to pay Satan off, but tricking him, since Jesus only stayed three days (thus the reference to Jonah?). Art-wise, this metamorphized into catching mice and fish (thus the fish symbol; I'd hate to have the mouse symbol on my car!). Surprisingly, 'paying off the devil' stuck around a thousand years, before 'sacrificial lamb' became the preference.

'Atonement' comes from the Old Testament, with the best quote in Lev 17:11 [*]. 'Hebrew' atonement is a covering (protection) or appeasement, presumably from an angry God. Angry about all those sins! Surprisingly, 'atonement' doesn't show up in the New Testament. Odd? But you do see NT references to Jesus being an 'offering', a 'sacrifice', 'blood of the lamb' and so forth. Now, what is interesting, is that only one of the 'offering' verses is fairly 'early': I Cor 5:7 [*]. There are several interesting things about this verse. First overall, the syntax 'dates' to the time of John's gospel; not Paul. But if you look at it word-by-word, Paul matches the first part, but definitely not the second part. And that '- Christ' ... definitely not his favorite name for Jesus. My guess: the latter portion of the verse is around John's time. Most (all?) of the remainder of the 'sacrificial' references are John-Ephesians-Hebrews-Revelations ... all 'dating' to about the same period. All the earlier syntax-datable verses speak in term of 'reconciliation' of anger (remember the angry God?). Plus Mark 10:45 [*] (also Mat 20:28 and 1st Tim 2:6) talks about 'ransom' or price ... remember the Satan part? Fits the 'fish/mice' concept.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I think you can safely connect Jesus' death with humankind's sinfulness (Adam), God being pretty mad about it, the devil taking ownership of the sinners, and Jesus 'stepping in' (purchasing/reconciliation). The rest appears to be a John/Ephesus rationale.

BELIEFS (see also FAITH below). Northern Arizona is just south of Utah and the center of the Mormons. Recently I was reading a book on a mormon emigrant from England in the 1800s. She was a widow, spiritually driven and saw the future in the Latter Day Saints and the end of time. Being fairly wealthy, she came to Utah with her children, eventually 'consecrating' her wealth to the church. And then loosing her beliefs (and wealth). In a way, I felt sad for her, but I was REALLY impressed with her belief. She illustrates the 'problem' of belief. It is ENTIRELY possible to believe, and learn that you're wrong! And you wonder how and why? We're all smart intelligent people. How can we be wrong? Apparently, it's not hard at all. Family, friends, traditions, and great preachers. You really have to be careful about 'belief'. Nail it down. In the end, it is all that you are. True.

BIBLE-BASED 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.

BISHOPS When you read about the New Testament 'canon' and its creation, you read about various 2-4thC 'bishops' making the decisions. Conservatives shrug that off, saying either the Holy Spirit was guiding them, or the bishops were following the lead of the earliest Christians. I think that sounds pretty good, right? But the same conservatives kind of skip over those 'earliest Christians'. They left a record. Huh? Yes, read the pastorals (Timiothy and Titus). Both describe the 'office' of the overseer or bishop. Most importantly is exercizing the function of the bishop in Titus 1:5. [*] First, notice Titus was supposed to appoint 'elders', not 'overseers' (Titus was the 'overseer'). Also notice Titus is to appoint the elders, in each city (vs assembly?). Quite obviously Titus (and Timothy?) were bishops (overseers). Now, conservatives, when presented with that, argue 'overseers' were 'elders'. And the elders are to be appointed by .....who? At this point, they dump the pastorals ... the correct decision in the first place!

Actually, bishops were more likely. By the early 2ndC (10-20 years later?), Ignatius was being drug off to Rome as a 'bishop'. Somebody turned him in. I don't think they suddenly almost all had 'bishops' by accident.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : With the demise of the apostles and Jerusalem, 'somebody' had to be in charge. 'Somebody' had to decide on which writings were acceptable for use in the assemblies (especially when each had a different set). 'Paul' certainly didn't do that. Nor the apostles. That leaves ... the bishops (who later added the Holy Spirit to seal the deal).

Whoa there, Skippy! What about when Clement, from Rome, wrote to Corinth in the late 1stC to encourage the Corinth church to 'un-fire' their elders. Why not just chat with their 'bishop'? Rome was in charge of Corinth? Or ... Rome was late getting their very own bishop, and didn't have much influence? Didn't buy the pastorals?

CANON See 'BISHOPS' above! When I was a child, they taught us about 'inspiration'. Essentially, that meant the Bible was from God, not King James. The problem for our teachers was figuring out how God communicated which were the right books (or words). We were smart little kids ... we asked when did God stop inspiring books? The broken-record answer was ... the Bible books were the last ones. When we got a little older, the answer expanded to 'the apostles were inspired'. Yep, right there in Acts, see it?! By college (getting smarter and smarter!), we noticed 'James' and 'Jude' ... they were not apostles. How'd they get 'approved'? Well, the 'early Christians' 'accepted' them. I like that word 'accepted' them. [*] Accepted them from who? The issue we're talking about was not just for the little kids. Scholars and church men (not church ladies) were debating the same issue (with quite fancy names) all the way back to Constantine.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : The basic problem they were having is best known as 'honesty'. Truth was, the bishops picked the canon. Done. It wasn't obvious 'inspiration'. No 'apostles'. The names of the gospels were 'assigned' (2 of which weren't even apostles). The whole thing was 'tradition'. Inspired NT? Their (and our) belief. The NT doesn't even make the claim to inspiration. Nor needs to.

CHURCH (the word) 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.

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 'names' died in the desert 2,000 years ago. But the other, the Church of God, is over off Dry Creek Road in West Sedona. That's amazing.

EXTRA CREDIT III: In Jesus' response to Peter, he says 'on this rock'. The easy meaning is 'on this foundation'. But there IS another connection (as usual!). If you search 'rock' in the OT, you'll run into Moses striking the 'rock' for water (and getting in trouble with YHWH). But more frequently, you'll find the 'rock' as referring to YHWH and Israel (e.g. 'the rock of Israel'). Jesus was an expert on the 'Law and the Prophets'. Hmmmm.

CHURCHES (ownership) We have another article on this site that discusses the real problem of how many bodies did Christ have (eg denominations; Jesus mentioned only one). But here, we're talking about the smaller version ... what from greek would be translated an 'assembly'. In NT times, they were likely most similar to 'synogogues' from whense many of their new members came. At the time, synogogues were independent, and most likely 'assemblies' as well. If you read 1st Cor 5:4, you see how Paul has to muster a 'spell' from Jesus to toss out a bad member (vs just order him out). Later on in the pastorals, and maybe James in Jerusalem, you see the beginnings of centralized control (theology) of the assemblies.

Today, some of Jesus' bodies still hark back to the NT example of independence, managing their theology either with 'elders' or the pastor himself. In effect, they're miniature versions of larger denominations, which 'vote' on their favorite theology.

The interesting issue for these independent churches is when the elders 'decide' on a specific issue. Presumably they 'search the scriptures', pray to Jesus, and then hash it out. But let's say, the issue is not entirely clear from the scriptures. You can read it several ways. 'Women wearing hats?' 'Wine or grape juice?' 'One cup of grape juice or many?' 'Leavened bread, or matsos?' And, 'Who should 'break' the matsos? (gosh, that's a toughy; Jesus always did it!) These are critical questions that independent assemblies have to address.

Now, let's say the 'elders' made their decision, and members see it differently. Now, you have a REAL PROBLEM. The elders hopefully were 'led' by the Spirit, or at least thought they were. They can't exactly waffle around on their decision, right? And the differing members have the same problem as well. If Jesus said 'THE cup', that sure sounds like ONE CUP! So the differing members trudge off to some other assembly, where the 'theology' is closer to their liking (at the Holy Spirit's leading of course).

Soon, whoever is left in the 'assembly' is in general agreement with the elders (or doesn't care, which is more likely!). But, here's the thought. Who's 'assembly' is it now? That's obvious ... it's the one belonging to the elders or pastor. That's why for these type of churches (and denominations in general), a church belonging to 'Jesus' is mainly an interesting theory. At least until you die, anyway.

EXTRA: Many years ago, my Dad was a preacher at a conservative Church of Christ in Prescott AZ. One morning, he was chatting with one of the members, who happened to mention that my Dad had been literally fired! Apparently the elders had not had the strength to tell him. It was easy enough to determine why. Un-scriptural divorce! The church had many re-married members, whose previous divorces didn't meet the Jesus-guidelines. As a preacher's family, we moved around a lot!

COMMENTARIES I feel like sometimes I'm a 'collector' of commentaries. But, seeing what's actually available now and in the past, I'm not remotely close! I do consult both 'conservative' commentaries (essentially dogma-based), as well as 'liberal' versions (also dogma-based). I'm convinced the purpose of commentaries is to provide support for whatever you believe. I recognize that's a little cynical? I just feel that after 2,000 years, you'd have a little better documentation of what you're actually looking at. 'Facts'! When you research Abe Lincoln, you want to learn about Abe Lincoln ... not the author's favorite theory. I think I'd be happy if you had a commentary that periodically admits that it has no idea what the answer is. Surprisingly, sometimes a few do just that.

My favorite commentaries: (1) New Jerome (catholic, much critical detail, and most funny in struggling with catholic dogma), (2) Oxford (theology-free, holding onto belief by a mere thread), (3) Anchor (authors paid by the pound, but much detail and unaffordable), (4) Greek Textual on Greek NT (Metzger), (5) UBS Handbooks(OT/NT), and (6) IVP background series (periodically bouncing out of fundamentalism accidentally).
My favorite dictionaries: (1) Anchor (absolutely fascinating), and (2) Theological Dictionary of the NT (Kittel).

COMMUNION This is also known as the eucharist or mass. It's described by Matthew (26:26-29), Mark (14:22-25) Luke (22:19-20) and Paul (1st Cor 11:24-29; also 1st Cor 10:16-21). To quickly summarize the issues, in the order of author 'dating':

Mark: Has the essential bread/cup/blessing, plus the promise of no more wine till new wine in the reign of God.
Paul:
- 1st Corinthians 11:24-29: Paul says he got it from Jesus (as if they're not sure its validity, though 11 or 12 apostles were there). He then repeats the Luke 2nd version (LUKE-B below). We'll call this 'PAUL-A'. The passage then launches into a circular repetitive discussion of the judgement due those who drink 'unworthily'. We'll call this 'PAUL-B'.
- 1st Cor 10:16-21: This follows Paul's discussion of idolatry. It has three oddities. First, the vocabulary is most similar to James (time period of Mark), and its syntax doesn't match any NT samples. Secondly, notice the phrases 'cup of (the) blessing' and 'table of the Lord'. The blessing was the jewish last drink of the meal. The table was in contrast to the greek/roman idol's table. Third, the section repeats 1st Cor 6:12-13, and alters Paul's idolatry discussion into a idol-food-eating discussion. Just coincidentally John's Revelations (about the same time) was haranging the churches for .... idol-food-eating in Rev 2:14 [*] !
Outside of these two references in 1st Corinthians, a bread/cup combination is never mentioned again in any of the NT epistles.
Matthew: Pretty much copies Mark, adding remission of sins, eliminating 'new' wine, and substituting 'my Father' for God.
Luke: Quite odd; has TWO versions, with the second being an abbreviated Mark/Mat version, which was used by Paul above (we'll call this LUKE-B). Luke's first version: (1) Jesus introduces the purpose of the meal, (2) says no more meal until 'it' will be fulfilled(?) with the reign of God, (3) cup-of-something/thanks/take-divide-something, and (4) will not drink wine until the reign of God (we'll call this LUKE-A).
John (chap 13): ignores it all, even though he includes substantial discussion during the passover meal. He does include washing feet, and loving 'each other', emphasizing the latter as a key Jesus-follower attribute.

Whew! WHAT is going on here? Oddly, ALL of the Jesus-communion passages (Mark/Luke/Matt/Paul) 'date' to the period of the Mat/Luke/John (even Mark, who overall is MUCH earlier). The Paul-punishment verses ALSO 'date' to the Mat/Luke/John period, EXCEPT for 1st Cor 11:29, which repeats verse 27 but has syntax 'dating' to 1st Peter's time. That's verse 29, talking about Jesus' physical body (versus the evil gnostics).

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : The only thing I can figure (I realize this is 'not good'), is that Luke-A was probably the earliest (garbled) core story, there's a regular meal on the first day of the week (Acts), with the Mark/Mat/Luke-B/Paul-A coming in later as a liturgical description, adding to Paul's meal-eating (love-feasts?) complaints. And all of this is at odds with John's take on it. Instead John likely has the love-each-other dinner with foot-washing (Jude's love-feasts). Plus John's none too happy about Paul's idol-food-eating.

Now, I know ... you're probably having a heart-attack, right? But you do have to admit John's not including such an important rite is pretty odd, Acts only describing eating, no non-gospel mention outside of 1st Corinthians, along with Luke's two versions with 'something' to be fulfilled, and Jude's much-later remarks on love-feasts. The whole thing is NOT entirely obvious.

BY THE WAY: If you take a look at Luke 24:42, Jesus was back from his very recent death-experience, and boy was He hungry! They served Him BBQ-fish and honeycomb. Mmmm. But darn those commentaries ... apparently the 'honeycomb' was not in many of the early manuscripts. Why would it be 'added'? It seems early eucharists included honeycomb. No kidding? Like John the B?

I've sometimes wondered why BBQ-fish wasn't in the communion (presuming the formal litergy was later). If you read John's account of Jesus' re-appearance, Jesus was on the shore having BBQ-fish (John 21:7). I guess He loved it!

COMPUTER CHRISTIANS 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.

CRITICISM (Bibical) That's a 'technical' word, as opposed to its english equivalent of 'ANALYSIS' or something similar. Now, you also have your 'high' criticism versus your 'low'. All of this is in support of whatever your opinion might be of some Bibical text. There's also 'rules' of criticism, but that's not the subject here. Instead, I offer some simple principles to use, when you're doubtful about a Bibical or Christian claim.

(1) Always keep your eye on the likely listener or reader; not the speaker/writer. The speaker can not go for long without the audience either agreeing or dumping him. So, in Romans, as Paul created ever more contorted logic, ask yourself 'who would be listening to him?'. Even today?!

(2) When a speaker/writer comes up with something truly strange, and the audiance seems to be 'on board', check where the audience (not the speaker) got the concept. So, if John-the-B is preaching repentance, and the crowds are 'repenting', ask yourself 'why the crowds?' You can always surmise about 'John' dreaming it up, but not the crowds. Ditto on Agrippa joking about Paul's teaching.

(3) When there's a difference between writings, first assume it 'might' be valid and research the surrounding culture. Absent that, assume one or both authors may have an agenda (with at least one obviously not inspired). Here, a good example is Matthew's versus Luke's generations list. They differ completely, plus one can't add. So at least one author likely has an agenda. Ditto on the 'Jerusalem Conference', with Acts/Luke versus Galatians/Paul.

(4) Don't assume a 'book' is completely the author's writing, especially in the NT. For example, text within the pastorals 'could' come from Paul (matching greek syntax patterns and theology), even if the whole writing likely didn't. Ditto on Hebrews. I've seen many lengthy arguments that assume a writer did / did-not write the complete book, when clearly the greek syntax is different within.

(5) Be suspicious of 'broken' writings. You don't notice how common this is in the NT, until you start looking (less so, in the OT). Mark is missing an ending (or the great Inspirer had a fun sense of humor). Acts similarly cuts off suddenly (right when James gets killed in Jerusalem). Galatians' ending is screwed up, and Romans' ending bounces around in the manuscripts. 2nd Corinthians is likely a composite, and on and on. The issue here is (a) 'who' is doing the cutting and/or pasting, and (b) did the original author know about it?

(6) When you see a really odd sequence, there's likely a really interesting story behind it! So, when a pastor starts a theological discussion and the story seems a bit odd, check it out! Here's one for you. In the 'last supper', Judas is close enough to Jesus to have Jesus dip the bread. Normally that would mean Judas was well regarded and 'high' in the pecking order. Why?

CRUCIFIXION (nailing) Of all the events in the NT, Jesus' crucifixion appears to be very likely. At the time, crucifixion was not something you'd brag about for your leader (Deu 21:23 'anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse; NIV). Most telling, Jesus' followers didn't even attend (except John or James?). If I were Jesus' mother, I'd REALLY be wondering about my son's choice of followers, especially that 'Peter'! The issue here is being 'nailed' to the cross. First, 'nailing' was not likely the norm (no Ace Hardware for large nails; they actually retrieved the nails afterwards!). Instead most evil doers were probably 'tied' or 'hung' on the cross. Second, (and I'm not a 'nailing' expert), nails through the hands won't hold a body up ... it needs to be through the wrists. So they say, anyway. I haven't tried it.

What about Jesus? (1) None of the gospels describe crucifixion details (eg hanging or nailing). (2) Most of Luke's accounts use 'hanging' (Acts 5:30, Acts 10:39, and Luke 23:39). The most 'telling' is Luke 23:39 'one of the evil-doers who were hanged'. Paul even used the Deu 21:23 reference above (Gal 3:13; 'tree-hanging'). What about 'nailing'? Acts 2:23 tells you a lot about translators. It uses the greek 'prospegnymi' or 'affix' (not 'stauro' or impale). Translations that use 'crucify': ASV, DNT, KJV, WEB and YLT. Translations that substitute 'nail': NIV, NAS, and NLT. Why translate as 'nail'?? Col 2:14 and Joh 20:25 are the only true 'nail' passages. Col uses 'nailed' it to the cross, but it's not clear whether it's the message (similar to the 'King of the Jews' message), or a body. Theologians like the latter. In John 20:25, you have 'Unless I see the wounds from the nails in his hands ...'. This reference is quite interesting. John has 'two' endings, with most scholars assigning chap 21 as the later one. The greek syntax for chap 20, however, is actually the later one(!); chap 21 greek is similar to the earlier portions of John. Additionally, I'd assume 'nailing' would cause blood loss, obviating the need for 'swording' (Joh 19:34).

Finally, Luke 24:39-40 refers to Jesus' hands and feet as evidence of his physicality. You 'could' read into it evidence of his crucifixion as well. However, it doesn't mention any 'holes' or other damage, which is consistent with Luke's other descriptions of 'hanging'. Luke has Jesus walking along afterward, appartently without a limp. On the other hand Luke has Jesus 'pop-in' to the room, kind of obviating the assumption of physicality? But, goodness was he hungry! Had the same body and no food for 3 days.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I'd suspect the idea of 'nailing' is from Ephesus (John/Colossians) and the new concept of a 'sacrifice' (after Jerusalem fell and no end-time). I conclude that originally, the method wasn't significant ... unmentioned by any of the synoptic accounts. The primary side references use 'hanging'. And from a roman standpoint, 'hanging' was the most likely. So, why 'nail'? I'd assume the reason was the increasing belief that Jesus wasn't 'human'? Or didn't die on the cross? Sacrifices need some 'blood'? Or consider Psalms 22:16, depending on how you'd like to translate the hebrew/greek ('pierce', 'Lion', or ... 'who knows'; compare the translations!).

EXTRA NOTES: (1) If you ever seriously think NT translation is 'theology'-free, Psalms 22:16 and Acts 2:23 are good places to start. (2) The early church used the sign of the fish as the main symbol; not the crucifix. The latter was much later. (3) You'll remember Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead on the first day. This makes complete sense, if he was 'hung' from the cross. At that point, piercing his side makes sense, and it posed a valid question to roman leadership (Pilate), whether to 'take him down' so early. (4) Oddly, the Shroud of Turin has 'blood-wounds' in the wrists; not the hands. Carbon-14 dating has placed it in the middle-ages along with paint (not blood). But, they DID know about crucifixions! and lastly (5) If you read any of the crucifixion research, you'll soon throw up your hands (or wrists if you wish). Not a WHOLE lot of sure knowledge but a WHOLE lot of certainty!

DEATH Back in my irreverent days (irreverent relative to Christians), I was impressed with the inherent theory of being a Christian ... selfishness. Although Christians promoted self-lessness, the whole idea was to save themselves. In fact, it's very much like the Titanic, except an endless supply of lifeboats. Would you risk your life to help another into a life boat? Maybe. But, how many Christians would risk their own soul for another person's soul? Zippo. That's my point.

So, you're at a funeral. You're looking at a dead body, and you're a Christian. There's tears in your eyes. Why? Do you prefer the person remain on earth, rather than be with God? Like God wouldn't be as good as you?? Or heaven's not quite 'there'? If you think heaven's so good, why aren't Christian funerals endless celebrations? Yahoo, another dead Christian!! Sound strange? Think about it.

Lastly, you have your 'resurrected bodies'. The concept seemed to start in Ezekiel with his dry bones being re-constituted. Matthew was certainly on-board, when Jesus died, there were mass resurrected bodies in Jerusalem (Mat 27:52-53). Apparently the 'revived' were viewed with complete equanimity by the jews at the time (and ignored by Pentecost-Pete). Where the problem comes in, is the body itself. Our pastor mentioned the clear problem of sharks eating sailors (who presumably would then be eaten by whales, and then by sushi lovers, followed by worms I guess). A recent article in the mass press mentioned the problem of whether you even 'want' your body back! Some of us are not exactly visually appealing. But, Paul was kind (1st Cor 15:44). He assured his followers that the dead indeed would rise, but ... the rising body would be 'different'. Whew!

DENOMINATIONS Every time there's a 'restoration', there's more 'denominations'. Ever noticed that? Paul's 'divisions' in 1st Corinthians were probably the first, followed later by the Johnine warnings of a new group (Jesus as spirit). The universal problem is coming up with new names. One option is to use the name of the leader, which apparently worked for Paul's competition (Cephas, Apollos, etc). More recently, there's been the 'Luther'-ans and 'Wesley'-ians. Sometimes the new name describes the new theology (eg 'Bapt'-ists, 'Method'-ists, 'Pure-itans'), the worship method ('Quakers'), and the authority ('Episcapal'ians and 'Presbyter'ians). When the Disciples of Christ split off from the Episcapalians (essentially dumping the 'Episcapals' part), they soon needed ANOTHER split. The new group became the 'Church of Christ', trying to out-name everyone else before them. That worked well, until this group again needed a split. Being unwilling to give up their great name, you soon had the conservative vs liberal Church of Christ (in addition to the single-cuppers, and so forth).

You'd think with all of the splits and combinations starting almost immediately after Jesus' death, there'd be an awareness that the Christian theology isn't exactly 'stable'. But, no mind. Each teaches as if they represent 'God', and threaten dumping you if per-chance, you change your 'belief-combination'.

Here in Sedona, one of the complaints of the pastors is members' 'church-hopping'. Apparently the believers aren't too impressed with all the different combinations, instead opting for the quality of instruction, music, and/or social amenities. Some of the pastors seem to agree, reducing the belief-combinations, periodically combining their services, and confusing everyone (especially at communion time)!

Personally, I see the latter in a pleasant way, since if you agree with God originating the NT writings, he must have also foreseen the confusion (else a more clear series of writings). My only complaint is when denominations place themselves as representing God, and then demand compliance with their take on the NT. It eliminates argument, but I'm not sure God truly appreciates their helpfulness!

ECONOMICS (of religion) Of course Jesus wasn't too thrilled with wealth, nor James for that matter. Indeed, the early church in Acts seemed to share their wealth, waiting for 'the coming'. Most fascinating is when Jesus sent his disciples out two by two, they were NOT to carry money, instead relying on hospitality. But then, turn the clock forward maybe twenty years, and all the sudden you've got your itinerant preachers and maybe even bishops happily collecting bucks for 'the Lord's work'. Oh yes! Inexplicably the 'early church' died out, but not the preachers and bishops!

'Those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel!' said Paul (1 Cor 7:14). The Pastoral writer enthusiastically adds the 'elders' (though NOT the bishops; 1 Tim 5:17-18). Both oddly rationalize it using oxen, workmen, temple sacrificers, and only LASTLY as 'oh yeh, the Lord too'. I really suspect Paul's primary (most significant?) contribution to Christianity was that simple statement 'from the Lord'. It introduced the institution of a paid clergy (e.g. Paul!). Think about it a little. Was Jesus' gospel really THAT complicated? Apparently the two-by-two'ers could handle it. Did the joy of eternal life require a professional staff of marketers? Now true ... Paul's gospel DID require an army of master theologians!

The reason I include 'economics' here, is the old 'saw' .... follow the money. When you can't understand why 2,000 years of Christian leadership accepted so many problems in the New Testament and developed such obstruse theology ... follow the money! A priest or preacher is indebted to his church. And his church is indebted to its past. Money seals the traditions of rationalization. IF ... you preach what I know ... I'll give you money week after week. Else you're out of here.

Don't quite agree? Ok imagine, if you will, a team of evangelists who DON'T live off regular collections. Essentially each individual teacher lives off the hospitality of the listeners. Now, the listeners become 'picky'. Can't just tell them anything. Value for value.

That's why I suspect the economics of 'Paul' were not the economics of Jesus ... a clergy without regular support is a very UNCOMFORTABLE clergy! Had to BELIEVE.

BY THE WAY: Rabbis in the first century were not compensated. This would probably explain Paul's problem. Compounding his desire for 'bucks' would be the Christians' assurance of 'no charge' for being a believer (as opposed to greek temples). 'Jesus', as a source for compensation, would likely work for itinerant preachers / ambassadors (apostles). But I doubt the logic would stretch to in-house teachers (thus the 'new' pastoral instructions).

END TIMES I was in our Thursday afternoon Bible class. The leader in-toned with complete seriousness, 'I believe we are now in the end-times'. I cleared my throat and asked 'what?!' My goodness, Jesus said it would be unexpected. No one told me 'unexpected' meant 'now'! (I keep making the mistake of taking Jesus literally!). What is so interesting is the sincerity of the leader (and all the other 'end-timers'). Even more interesting, though, is that the leader, that autumn afternoon, would very likely 'go to be with the angels' in the next decade or so (maybe even me!). Why is the 'end-time' so attractive, when your death is even more likely? And neither the 'end-time' or your 'demise' seem to impact your behavior as a Christian?

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I think as a human, guessing the future is MUCH more fun than living the present.

BY THE WAY: Have you ever noticed that 'end-time' people tend to be older (mainly 40s and later)? I'm not sure it's a residual of traditional Christianity, or just a part of 'getting old'! (Gosh darn those young whipper-snappers. God will smite them all!)

ETERNITY There is a predictability to man's quest for a 'beginning' ... as if in finding it, there was nothing before that? Ironically, man assumes 'time' but still seeks a beginning. Even more ironic, is that man assumes no 'end'. He assumes 'no end' until death's realization that "it's over", bud. So, we seek eternity ... no end. And God is our savior from our 'end'. He deals rewards (as in hebrew 'pay'). With a good earthly life, you are dealt 'heaven'. The ironies continue. Heaven? The one in the Bible is full of ancient symbols of wealth. Gold, ivory, thrones and things that destroy the environment (imagine all the dead elephants in heaven). Maybe instead, a mercedes, judging from wealthy Christians?

So, how long is eternity? For Christians, I would say that it is as long as your patience with another Christian's faith! For most Christians, that's probably somewhere between one and two minutes. You get more time, if you're not a Christian. Much of this impatience, I think comes from 'Paul'. Paul lived in a black and white world. The end was eminent and he had no patience. But, Jesus was eternal. He spent hours parying with the pharasees, and teaching the poor. I think Jesus had a different perspective ... a knowledge of eternity.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : Christians need more 'time' for other Christians. Jesus had time. He knew how long eternity was.

EVIDENCE ISSUES (My personal 'Top-10') This is just a quick list of the 'problems' that are hard to overcome in a detailed reading of the NT:

#10. The NT accounts 'look' like the role of Jesus shifted with each failed NT end-time (for sure two, and likely four different end-times promised, not including the 2PE any-time-end-time). Indeed all the NT 'I got it from God' writers predicted a failed end-time. What a coincidence.

#9. The multiplicity of Christian creeds beginning immediately after Jesus' departure demonstrates an obvious confusion (and disinterest) in the Jesus-message. Jesus taught something specific??

#8. A number of expressed theologies clearly conflict with each other, among the NT writers (John vs the synoptics, Paul vs James, Paul vs Timothy/Titus, and of course Hebrews-guy and Revelations-guy).

#7. Early church practices do not match beliefs only decades later (e.g. gifts, prophets, shared wealth, avoiding marriage, treatment of women, etc).

#6. What ever happened to 'the poor', and the first shall be last? Or that God literally HATES what humans like?

#5. The OT prophesies don't match the NT messiah (OT_king <> NT_messiah, OT_messiah <> NT_miracles, OT_messiah <> NT_death-penalty, OT_prophet <> NT_doesn't happen, etc).

#4. The core of the NT pops out of the 'blue' (a literal 'Son of God', a personified Holy Spirit, 'saved by grace', 'baptism', 'spiritual life' as ???, a God/man being sacrificed for another God who is actually the same God as the sacrificed God, not counting the third God (who of course is the same God as the sacrificed God and the sacrificee God, all three being the same God).

#3. Many important details of Jesus' and Paul's lives are inconsistent among the 'every-word-inspired' accounts. Inspired by whom?

#2. Paul's resurrection (bodies from the grave at an eminent end-time) doesn't match Jesus' concept of a resurrection (hades or heaven at death, though Jesus periodically wanders in the direction of Paul's version). Plus .... Matthew's literal grave-popping saints.

#1. 'Paul and the Apostles' seem to know almost nothing of 'Jesus' (birth, teachings, the poor/unclean, the kingdom, and so forth). The only consistent connect seems to be Jesus' bodily disappearance.

But taken as a whole, the NT seems to be pret-ty be-liev-able (at least the Jesus-part; VERY believable).

EVOLUTION It's interesting just how 'driven' conservative Christians (like me) are concerning this subject. It's also interesting how un-interested the Bible is on this SAME subject. Both the Old and New Testaments are quite clear on the origin of the world (God!). But, absent Genesis 1, the issue almost never comes up. Only recently with 'geology' and 'evolution', is there such excitement ... almost more excitement than 'Jesus'! Why?

Remember the 'four-corners' / 'the earth is flat' times? You're not that old? They were excited too. So excited they wanted to kill someone. That's pretty excited! Christians don't take any responsibility for that, as they board their airplanes for around-the-world tours. But the logic and emotions 'then' were no different then our emotions 'now'.

The issue is all tied to two hebrew words: 'day' and 'kind' (as in species). In 'theory', both hebrew words are ancient and are from Moses-time (if you're conservative). That translates to about the late-bronze age. Now, here's the obvious question: what did those two words 'mean' in the late-bronze age?

'Day' or hebrew 'yom' (vs geology) varies in meaning from 'daylight' to '24-hours' to a 'general' time-period. Indeed, take a quick look at Gen 2:7, which is thought to be written about the same period as Gen 1. Do you think 'day' there was '24-hours', or the equivalent to 'when'? You 'could' hang your hat on the sabbath/'day of rest' logic (post-exilic hebrew), but now you're stretching a bit. Truth be told, choosing the meaning is a translator's judgment, using hebrew similarities and later jewish traditions. Personally, if I had to choose between looking out the door at God's creation (Sedona!) and the translator's judgment, I'd choose the obvious ... God's creation! Much like Christian passengers confidently flying around God's green earth.

'Kind' or hebrew 'min' (vs evolution) is a lot more clear in Old Testament use. It's always a 'contrast', and used in reference to taxonomy. If you grew up on the farm, it's what's 'breedable' vs not! So, now you have to take a close look at 'evolution'. Here the operant issue is 'theory' vs 'fact'. Quite a few scientists (most?) want to move 'theory' into 'fact' by virtue of 'strong likelihood' and 'high consistency'.

Here, truthfulness might have value. The 'creationists' (us), and the 'evolutionists' (them?) both don't 'know' the explanations of the long-ago past. Both 'believe'.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I periodically run 'genetic algorithm' software I wrote, to optimize something (neural net evaluators). It uses the 'theory of evolution' for slow optimization. Very counter-intuitive, but it works. Indeed the process of 'software genetics' looks quite similar to evidence from science. Curious? When I make presentations to executives, I 'never' describe the process in literal terms . They'd never understand. Instead I say 'a period' for this or that, since computer-time is infinitesimal. And, think about the bronge-age hebrews ... do we 'really' think they would understand the mystery of God's hand any more than today's executives?

FAITH I discuss this elsewhere on the site ... 'cloudy faith'. One of the curiosities is that the 'belief' of Jesus has the same greek root as the 'faith' of Paul. Both involve the concept of being convinced. But, there's a difference between Jesus and Paul, and thus this article.

Jesus is adament about the importance of 'confidence' throughout his ministry. Nazareth had little belief/confidence, and thus few miracles. And there are multiple instances of Jesus' healing that depend on belief. Read Mar 10:15 'verily I say to you, whoever may not receive the reign of God, as a child -- he may not enter into it' (YLT). Why 'as a child'? Interestingly, on the hebrew side 'faith' and 'belief' are also linked to confidence, through the word 'amen/amon' (same as Jesus' verily, verily, or amen, amen). In the hebrew, amon had the underlying concept of 'support' or a parent holding a child ... thus Jesus' comparison.

Paul also uses the concept, but with a different flavor. He uses 'faith' (in greek, convinced), but then equates the idea with a replacement of 'the law'. He achieves this through the concept of 'righteousness' and Hab 2:4, 'And the righteous by his stedfastness liveth.' (YLT). Plus, Paul is quick to notice that Abraham got his promise from YHWH BEFORE he had his painful surgery (thus explaining why non-jew men don't need circumcision). Females work either way. OK, so far, so good.

Next, do a search on 'faith' and 'hope'. One is 'completely confident' ... the other is 'not completely confident' ... hopeful. Of course, you know Paul uses both in the same sentence many times. My favorite is Gal 5:5 'for we by the Spirit, by faith, a hope of righteousness do wait for' (YLT). The combination here is important, since it largely explains Paul's concept. 'Hope' was related to 'waiting'. You can see this in the one time 'hope' is used in the gospels (Mat 12:21 'and in his name shall nations hope.'(YLT), which Matthew quotes directly from Isa 42:4. Indeed, the hebrew 'wait' or 'tarry' is also the word for 'hope'. Again, so far so good. Christians are confident ... they just don't know 'when'.

However, let's return to the gospels. All (most?) of the gospels post-date Paul's confident waiting. And indeed, if you go through Acts, you'll find the connection between 'hope' and 'waiting'. Acts 23:6 is especially instructive since it presumes not just the Christians are hoping/waiting ... also the jews! But, backing into the gospels themselves, you won't find the concept (except Mat's quote above). Why? The pharasees and Christians are both 'hoping/waiting'. But not Jesus. Instead, he tells them that they will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud in glory and power. Huh?

FASHIONS FOR THE SAVED
If you ever have a feeling something's not quite right with 'Paul' (1 Co 11) and 'Timothy' (2 Ti 2), the discussions about female 'styles' and males being the 'image of God' are certainly right up there. These days, at best 'modesty' (female only) is the by-word, especially for the every-word-inspired folks. So, here's a little levity.

Sunday morning, and you're thinking 'What to wear?'. No problem. It's in your Bible!!. Now hold on there, and be careful. As Paul confided to the elders of Ephesus '... garments of no one did I covet' (Acts 20:33). That's one of the things elders worry about, so that's where to start ... what they called a 'coat'. For example, Peter, one of the apostolic leaders, made sure he was wearing an outer coat, when Jesus re-appeared (Joh 21:7). Jesus, on the other hand, was emphatic to his disciples not to wear TWO coats: 'Ye may NOT put on two coats' (Mar 6:9). Plus, Paul also recommended not wearing 'garments of great price' (1 Ti 2:9). Allowing for inflation, I'd say keep it under $200 or so. OK, let's go over the 'coat' rules: (1) Wear at least an outer coat, (2) not two coats, (3), anything under $200, and (4) don't covet the elders' coats.

What about underwear? Was there any guidance on that? Yes, surprisingly there was. Girdles should be all fabric; no metal. `Provide not gold, nor silver, nor brass in your girdles.' (Jesus: Mat 10:9). However, a 'girdle' was actually a money-belt at the time. So, when you bring your money to church, don't put it in your 'girdle'. Probably a purse would be fine (except for the disciples; Jesus was again emphatic).

How about accessorizing? What were the best fashion accents? Well, luckily one of Paul's REAL talents, was helping women to dress right. The principle is easy to remember in just two words: no GOLD and no PEARLS (1 Tim 2:9). Apparently he preferred muted silver, or maybe some fun colors for accenting the ladies' wardrobes. And that is really good advice any time; not just 'at the assembly'.

Your hair is ALWAYS a problem! What to do? Luckily the 'saved' received inspired advice here too (again from that fashion-maven Paul). First, no braiding (1 Ti 2:9). Personally, I agree completely. Braiding is something for young girls; not mature women. But to be honest, I don't know if he was discussing braiding for the greek women (white-lady styles), or all the ladies. You'll have to use some judgment here. Secondly, it needs to be long: 'if she have long hair, a glory it is to her, because the hair instead of a covering hath been given to her' (1 Co 11:15). In this last passage, I think Paul is also trying to hint 'no hats'. And that makes a lot of sense, women's hair being so pretty (or as Paul loved to say 'a glory'!).

Lastly, shoes. As you know, they need to coordinate well with your 'coat' and 'girdle'. But should it be sandals or heels? Here, the Bible seems to provide confusing advice. In Mar 6:9, Jesus appears to go with sandals. But in Luk 9:3 and Mat 10:10, sandals are clearly 'out'. This is one of those places where you wonder if the early disciples couldn't agree! Well, maybe using your own judgment here is again appropriate.

Oh, and DON'T FORGET. Tell your hubby 'NO long hair'. Paul (and presumably the Holy Spirit?) hated it, and for good reason. It's against 'nature' (1 Co 11:14). Males are the glory of God (v7) ... God seems to appreciate good fashion taste for the men too!

So, there you have it ... 'coats', belts, jewelry, hair, hats, AND shoes! Perfectly accessorized for that wonderful Sunday morning worship service.

GODS (the earthly kind) 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!

EXTRA CREDIT: If you read Didache 4:1, it kind of joins the chorus too; 'remember the one who preaches God’s word to you, and honor him as though he were the Lord'. OK, maybe a little step short of 'God'.

GRACE Every time I hear of 'grace', I really wonder. The KJV translators were going to use 'charity' but that didn't sound very good, especially for the richie-riches (though 'favor' or 'give joy' is closest to the 1st century meaning). Having discussed 'faith' above (by the believers), now we talk about the 'grace' of God. Where'd THAT come from? (Not to suggest, of course, God can't have any grace.) Popping open our host of commentaries, most of them essentially say God is really, really 'nice'. His human creations are the worst of the worst, but somehow, God is going to ignore that ..... as long as you 'believe'. Huh? Now, I certainly welcome you to 'search the scriptures' and try to come to your own conclusions. But, my suspicion is maybe a little unique.

WHAT IT 'MIGHT' MEAN : I 'suspect' that God's 'grace' had two meanings in the 1st century. One was derived from the OT, where the graciousness of God was juxtaposed against the stupidity of Israel (constantly ignoring the graciousness of God). And so, as a good Israelite, you could wish the 'grace' of the Lord towards a friend of yours. Paul even extended this to non-jewish new Christians as well. So far so good.

But the second meaning was obviously apocalyptic. Read Joel 2:32 [TEXT], and then Act 2:21. As a good 'apocalyst', you COULD argue that being 'good' will be really important for the end-time (as both John-the-B and Jesus did). Or ... you could just 'call on the name of the Lord' as Peter suggested in the Acts passage. I get the feeling the early church couldn't quite decide 'which' it was (I guess it couldn't be BOTH).

And so, here at our once-saved-always-saved and grace-not-works church, a 'works' retired pastor has recently appeared. Our self-appointed theologians are now strongly concerned 'which' he will be! Should he be allowed to preach 'works'?? Never mind that both 'grace' and 'works' are sitting right there in the NT. And oddly enough, Jesus espoused both ('believe in me', and 'average' works are NOT enough). Ah, that Jesus was such a kidder!

By the Way: Read this quote and guess its origen: 'When I waver, God’s acts of grace are my salvation forever. When I stumble through the sin of my flesh, my justification through God’s righteousness abides forever. When He looses my affliction, His grace lets me draw nigh. By His grace my justification comes; in His true righteousness He directs me. In the plenitude of His goodness He atones all my sins and by His righteousness He cleanses me.' Yep, you guessed it right ... Rule of the Community and Qumran (1QS 11:12-14). Hmmm. Now, just take this, add some 'Jesus' as 'blood/sacrifice' (not Jesus' teachings, mind you), and you've got yourself a Pauline souffle! Paul did spend time in 'Arabia' near 'King Aretas'. Think about it.

HONESTY (DIVINE & HUMAN) If you have your Bible, read Exo 3:18 and then Exo 5:1. Both refer to a short religious pilgrimage into the desert to worship YHWH. In the first reference, the elders seem to be explaining the need for the pilgrimage, while the second reference is a direct quote from YHWH. In both instances, YHWH, the elders, Moses and Aaron clearly intend to not return to Egypt. Indeed in Exo 3:22 are special jewelry-theft instructions direct from YHWH; jewelry for what? At the Mt Sinai pawn shop? Well, OK, maybe so. Now if you're not quite sure, check the actual hebrew in Exo 5:1 ... the base for the word 'pilgrimage' is the arabic 'haj' ... the same as today's 'hajira' and indeed its common use in the OT.

Now, here's the question for you. Did (and can) God (YHWH) lie? If my son said he'd like to take a quick 3-day holiday from his college work (forced-slavery), but actually intended to quit school and head for the Baja, I'd say he was not being honest with me (thereby allowing me to request back my monetary funding). And if he even planned on 'stealing' my car as well, I might even be a bit incensed. But that's exactly what YHWH advocated. We all smile ... it was YHWH! Sure, why not?!

Now later on in the NT, the advocates of the messiah said God couldn't lie (indeed, that was one of Jesus' arguments). What God said, God delivered. Hmmm, we're starting to get on thin ice here, aren't we? Does God only lie to Pharoahs (who were lower-case-gods)? Or like today's politics, is honesty relative? For me, I prefer a hard look at the original Exodus account ... I'd suspect the honesty of the human writer a whole lot sooner than YHWH (God). And for very obvious reasons.

EXTRA CREDIT: The subject of gold and silver here is interesting. First, in the EXO 3:22 version, it's 'vessels' of gold and silver (hebrew = utility objects). And it's from their FEMALE neighbors (both Egyptian and not). Wow. Even my 'wealthy' neighbors don't have gold and silver vessels (mainly bronze, here in Sedona). Clearly, the Israelites lived in an upscale neighborhood (as servants/slaves). It's also interesting that not just the Egyptian neighbors were relieved of their wealth; presumably anyone sticking around and not going on the 'haj'. And lastly, where did the booty end up? That would be the neato golden calf, after Moses disappeared on the mount. But, read the passage carefully (Exo 32:2); the calf-gold came from the women's and teenager earrings (and so appropriate too). That left the 'vessels' for the tabernacle later (Exo 25 and then 36+)? Think about this: the Commaches in the late 1800s, raided the Texas gulf coast, 'spoiling' the fair citizens of Victoria Texas. Returning north, they were wearing the various european fashions of the time. Just like the Israelites leaving Egypt!

HISTORICAL JESUS Some say "Jesus was just a good man." 'Yeshua' was a fairly common name back then ... you can find it in 'Josephus' quite a bit. So, to better understand 'Yeshua', let's say his name was really 'Billy', which is a fairly common name today (in the south!). Plus, let's now talk about the 'historical Billy'. Do you find this uncomfortable? What I am trying to illustrate is that 'Billy', absent his unusual abilities and impact, is no more than plain ole Billy. Why would you want to know about Billy? His dad Joe-Bob? His mom, Mary Lu? His brother, Jimmy? It's obvious to me, that if you are interested in 'the historical Billy', you have to be interested in the unusual Billy; else you wouldn't care.

The other issue is the writing of the story of 'Billy'. Mark likely wrote, about the time of Paul. Matthew and Luke picked it up maybe 20-25 years later. As you read Mark's version, how can you logically separate 'the man' from 'the unusual'? It's the same Mark the writer. And if you do separate the two, then you also admit 'Billy's' unusualness ... else Mark wouldn't have written about him 20 years after he died.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : If you truly accept the 27-book canon as inspired, I think the 'historical Jesus' has little meaning to you. The reason is the Holy Spirit didn't see much reason to include many details of Jesus' life, so why should you? But, if you think the Jesus accounts have been 'beefed up' a bit (a lot?), then you do want more. More 'Jesus' and less of the 'beefing up part'. But, that's awfully hard to achieve, isn't it?

LOVE One of the peculiarities of Christian-hood, is that 'love' is interpreted inversely to being a conservative Christian. In other words, the more conservative you are, the less likely you will interpret 'love' broadly. Oddly enough, there's a reason for this (there always is). If you have a computer(!), search for 'love' in the earlier gospels .... Mark, Matthew and Luke. Here, Jesus tends to use 'love' relative to the quotes in the law ... Lev 19:18 (neighbor) and Deu 6:5 (God). Mark 12:28-34, probably the earliest, has a good sequence to read. 'Q', a theoretical common source of Matthew and Luke, takes the concept further, quoting Jesus as to love ones enemies (Mat 5:44,46 / Luk 6:27,32). Plus, he 'suggests' that loving people that love you isn't a major accomplishment.

So, how do conservatives arrive at the more limiting 'love each other' (i.e. love other believers that believe whatever you believe, and are nice to you too)? That's easy! Enter 'John'. If you again do your search, you'll first notice there's a whole lot of 'God loves ...'. By and large, it's 'agape' love, but a couple of times 'phileo' love slips in (Joh 5:20 being the most interesting). But, there's several important principles. First, 'neighbor' has disappeared completely. Instead, you now have the 'command' to 'love each other' (Joh 13:34-35,15:10-17). And of course, there's the famous 'Simon do you love me?' sequence in Joh 21:15-17) where Peter dutifully answers 3 times. More importantly, John is the writer who has Jesus commanding 'love me' so often (none in the other 3 gospels). Obviously, the other 3 gospels completely forgot THAT command!

Oh, but there's more! By the 'time' you get to 1st John, there's a riot of love ... more even than John's gospel. Here you have the best-est quote 'We know that we have crossed over from death to life because we love our fellow Christians. The one who does not love remains in death.' Plus, there's even more 'love each other' quotes as well.

What about Paul? He kind of waffles around a bit. In his early writings, he's pretty inclusive (1Th 3:12 'And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we do for you'). But, as he continues, he both increases the emphasis on 'love' but toward fellow believers. Whew! I thought for a minute there, Paul might love his enemies! That would be anyone not agreeing with him ('the dogs').

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : So, which is it ... (1) love everybody (neighbors, enemies) or (2) just your fellow 'believe like you do' Christians?? Well, duh! If you're a 'liberal' Christian, you need to do the 'neighbors/enemies' thing. And if you're conservative, you need to concentrate on only the believers that closely match you. Done!

Now, there's just one (!) more wrinkle. Who's your 'neighbor'? In english, it would be pretty-much anyone. But for the jews (the law), it was other jews. Take a look at Mat 5:47 [*]. Jesus just didn't miss any angles.

MARRIAGE In the 'Christianity' section of this site, we have a discussion of 'divorce'. That's not the issue here. What IS the curiousity here, is the absence of marriage as a significant feature of the early believers. Surprisingly, you can go through 50 years of 'Christian-ship' and miss the oddness of almost none of the players in the gospels being married! In Mark you have Peter's mother-in-law (thus implying a wife!). And in early Acts, you do have an evil couple who stole from the Holy Spirit (Peter). But then you have Paul. First, no one's sure just 'what' he was, since by the time of his ministry he was well beyond a marriageable age (ditto Jesus). So, you have to wonder 'what?'. And in Paul's letters, he seems to view marriage as an obstruction (Jesus also had a similar defense of 'eunuchs' and the Kingdom of God). Paul DID, however, mention that the traveling apostles brought their wives. Whew!! But, Paul does seem SOOOO ambivalent, cautioning married believers not to willy-nilly dump their mates prior to the impending end-time. Being a married 'end-timer' IS so risky!

What is so humorous in this discussion, is that as you trace Jesus' ministry, at each 'stop', there's a possibility for a married couple, but each just 'slips away'. I think the woman-at-the-well is the funniest (and 'telling'). Another is Jesus with Mary, Martha and Lazarus (NONE of them married??).

Then, there's the 'parents'. You have your 'sons of Zebedee', but it's the mother that was lining up the chairs in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, you have a lot of 'mothers' (often named Mary). The only dual parents, were for Jesus (birth story and the couple at the temple), and John-the-B (birth story). All three instances were from fairly 'late' writings.

Ah, but the accounts get even stranger. Since the time of Adam and the last 4,000 years (or billions of years, depending), husbands ALWAYS precede their wives. Duh. But in the early church, the wife is often listed first. Huh? Those of the female-persuasion would like to think the wife is the more spiritual, and thus the sequence. Yeh, right. By comparison, apparently the Essenes (Qumran) didn't appreciate marriage, though there is some evidence of some wives/children in the nearby cemetary.

Then there's the issue of your wife. You DO take Jesus seriously, right? So if you don't dump your wife and follow Jesus, you can't be a Jesus-follower. (Luke 14:26, Luk 18:29). Yep, that's what he said. Sorry about that, wives (and children no less). I'd assume, however, that's only for non-believing wives, children, etc. Dump them.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : So, why is marriage so un-critical to the early Christians? My guess is that the end-time was so close, marriage wasn't significant (e.g. Paul). You remember the trick question concerning a woman married to seven brothers (Mat 22:28; Mk 12:23;Luk 20:33); whose wife would she be in the resurrection? Jesus was surprised they didn't know the obvious answer. 'You dummies ... in the resurrection, you'll be as angels and sons of God. You can't GET married and you can't BE married!' That is SOOO obvious.

MESSIAH The greek form of 'messiah' is 'Christ' ... thus 'Christians' and 'Christianity'. 'Messiah' itself is transliterated hebrew, meaning an annointed one (e.g. king). The Old Testament has a number of prophesies concerning the restoration of Israel and a David-like 'annointed one' as savior. So, how did Jesus' disciples make 'the connection' between Jesus of Nazareth (who spent the bulk of his time criticising Jerusalem, and carousing with the sinners), versus someone like King David? Bet you never thought about that, did you? Certainly, Jesus did a lot of miracles (per Mark, secret miracles!). So, King David did miracles? Actually, Jesus was more similar to the promised 'prophet', Elijah or Elisha.

Jesus, however, mainly went by the title 'Son of Man', harking back mostly to Daniel (and Ezekiel, if you view Jesus as a prophet). And, if you read Daniel 7:13 [*] or Daniel 8:17 [*], the coming of the 'son of man' was 'the time of the end' (Daniel also had the prediction of 70 weeks, with the jews converting that to 490 years, or a mid-1st century 'coming'). The jews also connected a 'resurrection' with the messiah (Enoch), and the final judgment (IV Esdras, about the same time as 2nd Peter). So following Jesus' resurrection, his disciples asked him about the obvious restoration of Israel (Acts 1:6).

What is of main interest here, though, is that Jesus makes so few quotes from the 'scriptures' proving himself (per Mark and 'Q' writings). He does spend quite a bit of time on OT commandments / guidance, and was even called a rabbi. But his only 'messiah'-like quotes were his son-of-man title, the "builder's stone", David's Lord sitting on the right hand of YHWH, and his message to John the Baptist (poor have the good news proclaimed ... year of our lord). Now, he did use some additional passages related to his arrest/killing ... strike the shepherd, suffering (Isa 53) for our trangressions, and suffering of the son of man (Ps 22). Plus he used Daniel's prediction of the collapse of the temple.

What about early 'Paul', or the early Jerusalem leaders (Peter, James, Jude)?
PAUL (early writings): Mainly uses 'hints' from Psalms, but little else. He certainly doesn't appear to be aware of all of Matthew's and Luke's great quotes. Romans, a later writing, is where you find most of the Jesus = Messiah passages.
PETER: Builder's stone, plus the 'suffering' passages. Most of his OT quotes are simply teaching good behavior.
JAMES: He uses 'good behavior' quotes from the OT, plus Abraham's righteousness.
JUDE: No quotes

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : Surprised? I was. Personally, I think at the time, a resurrected guy just meant the 'end-time'. Enough said! Later, however, Luke describes Jesus walking along on the road to Emmeus, teaching all the great OT stuff about himself (Luke 24:27)! Of course, that was likely written after the end-time didn't happen. They (we) needed more 'proof'.

MESSIANIC WHIPS I was reading a good article in the Journal of Bibical Literature (Fall 2009) on John 2:15 and Jesus' use of a corded whip to drive the merchants out of the Jerusalem temple. The English translations strongly suggest that Jesus used the whip (and thus violence) against the merchants. Luckily, by careful interpretation of the greek, it becomes apparent that Jesus' whip was likely used on the animals, with their surprised owners in hot pursuit. Whew.

But the passage IS interesting, because Jesus clearly planned the whole event. Why the conclusion? He made the whip himself (his dad was a craftsman, and probably even Jesus also). Now, anyone that's dealt with moving animals needs to be familiar with their nature, and presumably Jesus knew the oxen definitely would need motivating; not sure about the sheep. But why design a whip similar to a 'flagellum'? This was a small Roman tool (thus the latin loan-word), whose sole design was intended to inflict pain (on people). I'd assume Jesus knew the oxen had strong hides (and sheep wooly coverings), so maybe it didn't hurt too much. But living out here in the American west and reading about 1800s oxen-pulling wagon trains, a flagellum? Well, ok, Jesus wasn't sitting high up on a wagon. Plus, he was in close quarters too. You have to admit, Jesus probably had REALLY thought this whole thing out, right?

EXTRA CREDIT: Apparently, the reason sheep, oxen, doves and money-changers were in the temple courts, was that the Chief Priest Caiaphas recently arranged for them to be there. This was in contrast to the visiting humans, who (1) had to take a bath before entering and (2) couldn't even bring in a staff (thus Jesus with a hidden whip?). Certainly the new policy represented greater convenience for sacrificers, and surely the cash-flow could more easily be managed. I get the feeling later on, that Caiphas was really gunning for Jesus over more than his messianic claims.

EXTRA CREDIT II: On our Theology page, we have an entry on 'the Temple' and its odd involvement in the new messianic movement. This section (and the synoptics account before passover) seems as opposing the symbolic failure of the temple (and Moses law). Indeed, you'd think Jesus clearly wanted everyone to (physically) visit the Temple PROPERLY. Well, ok.

MIRACLES, SIGNS AND WONDERS If something is 'believable', can it be a miracle? A miracle is 'UN-believable', is it not? And if you are describing something that has no 'natural' equivalent (like being divine), could the proof be something natural/normal? And visa versa?

The point I am making here is that there is no logical way to refute 'miracles'. Similarly there is no logical way to prove them. You either have to have 'been there' or have a whole bunch of 'believable witnesses'. That's it.

So, what about Jesus? Obviously none of us was there! Soooo, what about the whole bunch of witnesses? Here, there's four essential problems:
(1) Jesus' signs and wonders didn't even make a dent in the world of the jews, greeks and romans. Indeed, the New Testament laments this. Plus, none of our surviving histories of the period mention Jesus in terms of his powers (or the apostle-signs for that matter).
(2) Jesus actually seems to get angry that the jews seem to keep seeking proof. 'A generation, evil and adulterous, doth seek a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet' (Mark 8:12, Mat 12:39, Mat 16:04, Luke 11:29). Interestingly Mark, as the earliest writer, simply says there'll be no sign, period. Matthew adds the Jonah part ... plus copies it in twice (how's that for enthusiasm?). Luke copies Matthew, but only once and drops the prophet (alexandrian; not as enthused).
(3) Jesus warns of false messiah's who have signs just like Jesus has. 'For there shall rise false Christs and false prophets, and they shall give signs and wonders, to seduce, if possible, also the chosen.' (Mark 13:22, Mat 24:24, Luke ignores).
(4) After Jesus is killed, his disciples 'head for the hills'. Hide in 'secret' rooms. Seem surprised that he returned from the dead. These are the same disciples who also did signs! They even complained when their 'sign-making-abilities' didn't match Jesus' sign-making-ability.

But there is a curious 'wrinkle'. Rabbi's of the time were viewed as capable of performing miracles in their own right. Surprised? So Jesus doing miracles wasn't 'over-whelmingly' impressive. Actually, there were 3 miracles that the rabbi's couldn't pull off: (1) Healing a blind persion from birth, (2) Casting out demons who couldn't identify themselves (muteness), and (3) raising someone from the dead after three days. So, that explains a lot of John's testimony.

What about John? Signs seem especially important to him. Some scholars believe there was an early 'signs' gospel. My software doesn't see any significant difference in the theoretical signs-gospel syntax patterns ... possibly the early gospel was in aramaic, not greek? In any event, John included the signs in his full gospel, so they must have been important to him.

But, going back to the original point, could you logically have a messiah without signs? Or have signs without a divine messenger?

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I don't really have a good one. We're looking at signs that overall were unconvincing. On the other hand, Jesus himself predicted convincing signs of false-Christs. For the actual believers (the chosen), the signs appear to be absolutely critical. These are the same believers that were risking their lives, spreading the news!

NATIVE RELIGIONS We live in 'Sedona' which seems to be the crossroads of nutty religions (including this site?!). And so, Sedona pastors dutifully harangue New Age'rs and their unbelievably evil thoughts (confident they're not at church). But they leave out the Buddhists, the Hopi and the Navajo. Why? These religions look suspiciously similar. My sister, who is a '3-gold-stars' conservative Christian, is ecstatic to receive an invitation to one of the Hopi dances. Where in the old days, priests might protect themselves from the satanic beliefs with a cross, my sister brings PLENTY of sunscreen and water! Gee.

Sooooo ... what gives? Well, first, the New Age'rs routinely attack the Christian beliefs, so they're evil by definition. That's Pastorship 101. Secondly, native beliefs look a lot like collectable kachinas and pottery. The Hopi can't SERIOUSLY think rain gods live just above the Snow Bowl ski-lift (though it does rain an awful lot up there). And Tony Hillerman's Navajo tribal policeman is definitely SO SINCERE. And oh so cute (not sure about his trailer).

Yes, us Sedona Christians live in quiet harmony with native religions, periodically sending some bucks to native preachers, and our teens to do some 'reality Christian-izing' during summer VBS's. You see, some religions are 'REAL' (they attack us), and some aren't (the rest). That's the key. However ... that Tony Hillerman DID jab at the Christian missionaries EVERY chance he could. Tony recently died, but still, I'll have to mention that to our pastor.

AN EXTRA: Growing up in the Church of Christ, I was ESPECIALLY incensed when Tony Hillerman put a failed Church of Christ right next to the trading post at Short Mountain on the Navajo Nation. Even worse, Tony just 'made up' the location. That sounds PRETTY LOW. But if you check the internet, you'll find that a West Texas group of Church of Christs indeed sponsored a series of churches on the Navajo Nation in the 1970s. Sounds like about the time satan found Tony. Just joking. Really.

AN EXTRA #2: Back in 1984, the government literally did a study on cloud formation around the San Francisco Peaks, trying to understand the unusual process. Should have gone to the Hopi dances, obviously.

the 'PLAN' Pastors/preachers love to talk about 'the plan'. Of course, we're talking about 'the plan of salvation'. Now, you won't find that phrase in the NT, but as the NT writings progress, the 'plan' expands exponentially (see 'Pre-destination' next). More and more prophesies in the OT are quoted. Allegories are applied. And type-casts are identified. Adam (not Eve??) is connected up with Jesus. And John's apocalypse caps the whole thing off (within the canon, anyway). The jews at the time were a little 'pieved' at the extended use of the OT. But their hearts were hardened. Obviously.

Actually, when you have God, any 'plan' is possible. Even a hundred! Ironically, 'men' probably need 'plans' much more than God likely does. You'd hate to think 'the plan' was just a micro-second in God's mind. We're important, darn it!

PRAY-TIME Like most (all?) Christians, I grew up with prayer. You have your meal prayers, your worship-time prayers, and then any events that suggest more prayers. If you want to truly learn about 'prayer', next time in a public Christian setting, don't pray and then see what happens. You're with your Christian friends about to tear into a great meal, and they bow their heads to pray. You don't. Uh, huh. What has been violated? Because something definitely has.

In the NT, prayer is interesting. In the synoptics (Mat/Mar/Luk), it's the normal greek word for prayer. But in John, the translated word always comes from the greek word 'ask'. What is so interesting about Jesus, is that he spent a whole lot of time trying to get his disciples to 'ask'. He told them that with enough belief, they could even move mountains. That's one of the reasons Palestine today is one mess of jumbled up real estate! But you do have to wonder what the disciples thought about mountain-moving. Did they try it? Maybe the point was that believers needed a little more confidence in talking with God.

Growing up with a pastor-father where prayers were 'what you do', and then leaving Christianity for thirty years, my return was marked by refusing to pray except alone. There had been too many prayers that had meant nothing in my early years. But in not publicly praying, I began to notice that other Christians seemed quite uncomfortable. It's pray-time!

PRE-DESTINATION This one is curious, since it's a logical conundrum. God is 'all-knowing' and is from the 'beginning of time' (humans always need a 'beginning'). He knows the past and the future. So, logically, he knows what you'll do regarding him, and has known 'from the beginning of time'. You get the feeling "what's the point?" Interestingly, most of the 'predestination' passages are only in two books: Romans 8 and 9, and Ephesians. Plus, John (the gospel) has hints of predestination ('the word'). But, these passages don't just stop with 'knowledge'. They use the greek word meaning predetermine, or 'foreordain' [*]. I'm not a greek scholar, but I'm surprised they had a word for this. See Acts 4:28 [*], where it includes a decision and a following act. That doesn't leave a lot room for just 'knowledge'! Now, here's the interesting part, after you 'date' the passages. The 'first' passage is probably Acts 4:28 where it is simply an explanation. The 'next' passage in time is 1st Corinthians 2:7 [*], where it is the 'mystery' or 'wisdom'. So far, so good. Then, all of the sudden, in Romans 8:29-30 [*] (the 'next' in time), there is a big jump to 'decide your future'. And finally in 'time', you get your Ephesian passages cited above. Both the Romans and Ephesians passages 'date' to around the time of the gospel John. Indeed, Ephesians as a book, has a lot of 'John' syntax (dating) patterns. 'After' that, there's no more mention of the concept. Zippo.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : (1) First, Ephesians was not likely written 'to' the Ephesians; it was more likely written 'from' Ephesus to the surrounding communities around the time of John using Paul material, (2) Ephesus was the center of the 'word/preordain' concepts with the Johnine community and (3) It made it's way into Romans, which I suspect is a series of Paul sermons/discussions pasted together later by the Rome church in the 80s or so. What does it actually mean? I've no idea. But it is interesting what some Christians believe about 'predestination'. If you accept God, anything is certainly feasible, but having robot humans does seem a little odd. Was Eve a little pre-destined apple-eater? Was Adam/'men' pre-destined to follow women? Hmmmm.

PROTECTING GOD 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.

REPENTENCE If you have a computer-based Bible, search for 'repent' or 'repentence' (especially the greek equivalents). Read the lengthy verses in the gospel of John, where John the Baptist preaches repentence. Done? Shouldn't have taken you long ... the gospel of John never mentions repentence. Surprised? Try 'Paul' ... except for a lone reference in Romans, another in 2TI, and a few verses in 2CO, you're out of luck. Well, OK ... how about James? Nope. 1st Peter? Nope. 2nd Peter has one ... the passage where the writer explains how God-years are longer than man-years (which apparently escaped Jesus, Paul and just about everyone else).

Soooo, who did the Holy Spirit put in charge of 'repentence'? That would be mainly Mark and 'Q' (Matthew, Luke), Acts, Hebrews and Revelations. Now what is so interesting, is that except for 'Q'/Mark, these writings (Mat/Luke/Acts/Heb/Rev) all 'group' in the same syntactical period, essentially long after Paul/James, but prior to John/Pastorals. Why?

While you have you computer on, search for 'repent' or its hebrew/aramaic equivalent in the OT. There's a few 'repents'/turning, almost equally distributed between YHWH and the Israelites (of course the latter misbehaving). So, where did John-the-B get his 'repent!!'? If you were jewish and lived in the years prior to and after Jesus, you'd have an easy answer. ENOCH! There's LOTS of repentence in there! It's so similar to the NT, that early scholars just assumed Enoch was written AFTER the NT ... not before. But then the Qumranians had 'Enoch' (along with Jude), so ....?

I don't know the answer, but I'd be willing to 'bet' that 'repentence' was for the nation of Israel, associated with preparing for the coming messiah (Enoch), and the restoration of Israel. Why didn't Paul and John pick up on it? I'd assume their 'grace' had taken its place (and baptism of the Holy Spirit). Interestingly, the subsequent 'Church' stuck with 'repent'/confess idea. Only when Luther et. al. showed up, was 'grace' back in business. Thank you Martin!

RESURRECTION OF BELIEVERS I'd bet you never wondered why the Jesus followers expected to be resurrected. Am I right? A resurrection for the messiah is pretty easy to track down (see next). But, what about the Jesus followers?

Here's a really odd pattern. There's NO mention of a believer 'resurrection of the dead' (or equivalent) in the early NT writings (those likely written before Paul's second journey). It's most obvious in Acts, where the early chapters are likely from Mark/Peter and only discuss Jesus' resurrection. Only when you get to the 'Paul' chapters in Acts, do you see a general resurrection introduced.

Now, slow down there. If you're thinking Mark 12:23 (woman with seven husbands vs resurrection), I said a 'believer' resurrection. Tricky, aren't I? Of course this passage is even odder, since the seven husbands become similar to angels in the heavens. Matthew has the same passage, but now the husbands become 'angels of God'. Luke (much later) sees the problem that I mention here ... review his additions at Luke 20:35.

I mention Paul's second journey, since that's the one where (apparently) Paul forgets to mention to the Thesselonians what happens if you die BEFORE the end-time. As if, no one has died??? Many a commentator has had 'fun' with that.

Then, there's Matthew's odd resurrection of 'the saints' (Mat 27:52-53). Read carefully ... they 'arose' right after Jesus' death but didn't come out of their tombs until AFTER Jesus' rising. Whew. Luckily their tombs were opened. Have you ever wondered 'who' the saints were? Couldn't be Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. First, they weren't buried in Jerusalem. And, second, Jesus said they were already 'up there' (going over details like just how hot is hot?). Maybe David? Solomon probably wasn't a saint, nor his nutty son Rehoboam. Hmmm.

It's clear that apocalyptic jews of the period expected a resurrection (eg Caiphus, and the pharisees Paul talked with at his trial). Daniel 12 has an 'escape' by those 'written in the book'. Also, 'many' of the dead will wake up for everlasting life OR contempt (thus Matthew's holy ones?). The jewish pseudepigraphia discussed it quite a bit and thus the early Christians' appreciation for Enoch.

Plus, you have the strange pattern of burials ONLY in the first century. Rich families put their loved ones bones in special boxes in the tombs. For what?? An Ezekiel-like resurrection?

But back to Acts, HOW could you go for 20 years after Jesus' death and not ONCE mention that Jesus-believers might be resurrected?? My guess is that up till the foreseeable destruction of Jerusalem, the resurrection of Jesus was simply the 'end-time' arrival. Belief in 'Him' was a belief in repentence and God's righteous judgement. Even Israel's restoration, I guess. But something 'moved' the theology to a Jesus-believer resurrection. It was Paul's BIG SELLING POINT.

If you track down Paul's defense of personal resurrection, what was it? Jesus' promises? Daniel 12? Nope. Paul uses the logic of 'boy would we be stupid if we won't be resurrected'! What kind of hair-brained logic is that?

Then there's James 1:12 (bless his straw-y heart). He seems to use the Daniel 12:2 prophesy, combined with a pseudepigraphical writing (Wisdom of Solomon). In the verse, the 'He' is 'God', judging from the surrounding verses.

So, what is the answer? I'm still working on this one (along with Jesus being one of many resurrectees; see next).

RESURRECTION OF JESUS If you read various of the gospels, 'three days' is important. Although Jonah kind of set the 'death-defying' record, three days was the presumed limit for coming back to life without a miracle. Three days was the point your body irreversably began decaying. Three days described a miracle that none of the other rabbi's had achieved (two days??).

Throughout my Christian lifetime, 'three days' sounded pretty impressive ... the ultimate prooftext of Jesus' divinity! But (of course), the NT never really demonstrates that Jesus was dead 'three days'. It only witnesses an empty tomb AFTER three days. Actually, that's not quite correct. Matthew (alone) introduces the posted roman soldiers during the whole period. Now, Matthew could have been demonstrating that the body wasn't stolen (though Jesus did re-appear later, thus disproving someone had stolen himself). No ... I suspect the problem for the soldiers is the 'three days' ... Mary & Co. showing up three days later didn't demonstrate Jesus was even there after the first five minutes. Thus those roman soldiers were absolutely essential. Hooo-raah! Go (Roman) Army! Clearly Mark, Matthew and John hadn't noticed the problem. Tomb-defending probably wasn't well understood at the time.

To illustrate why Luke was not as 'swift' as Matthew, consider the heavy sealed door. At the time, tombs (rich people only) didn't get 'sealed' until after three days, after the final burial preparation (sound familiar?). Mary & Co. showed up for the final burial preparation on the third day (one day plus pieces of two days?). Obviously, they never dreamed the door would be closed. Right? Think about that. Luckily, 'an angel' was back to rescue the account (though Matthew did forget there were TWO angels, not one). Thank you Luke for that little detail! This is why you need multiple resurrection accounts.

Side note to you geologists: Palestine was earthquake-prone, host to the 'Great Rift'. Housing back then was unreinforced rock and mud-brick. So what would happen in a city, where two earthquakes occurred in quick succession?

Side note to you 'resurrection-ologists': If even Peter and Paul could raise the dead (along with two Jesus miracles), was Jesus' resurrection that significant? Keep in mind, both times that Jesus raised the dead, they preceded Jesus' own resurrection. Was the significance that 'God' raised Jesus? Even that is a little shaky, since several of the passages in greek have Jesus raising himself. Maybe it was a resurrection from being 'killed'. On the other hand ... Matthew's 'saintly' resurrect-ees were probably jewish martyrs. The ONLY difference seems to be 'life everlasting'. All the other resurrectees (in the NT) were forced to die AGAIN.

Side note to you 'necro-ologists': Jews at the time apparently believed that the spirit stuck around the tomb for three days prior to 'giving up'. That's why a 'physical' resurrection was significant; a spiritual one was assumed. Interestingly in the Navajo culture, the spirit doesn't give up!

SIN The subject of 'sin' is so obvious, you wonder what's to say? Don't do it. Done.

I got to looking at 'sin' for two reasons. Reading in 1st John, the writer seemed to be obsessed with telling his readers not to sin. He never really defined it, so we're not sure it's sinning relative to the jewish 'law', or relative to one of the 'sin-lists' in the NT. Secondly , both John-the-B and Jesus spent a lot of time discussing repenting from their 'sins'. For John-the-B, the 'time' was at hand. For Jesus, entry into 'the Kingdom of Heaven' was the criticality. But what sins were both speakers referring to? What were 1st-John-writer, John-the-B and Jesus so interested in?

If you query the OT, there's certainly a lot of 'sins'. You have everything from killing your brother (Cain), building really tall towers (Babel-onians) to sleeping with a temple-prostitute/daughter-in-law (Judah). And that's before you even get started with 'THE LAW'. In fact, you really wonder if the jews (no offense) are really the role models you should be using for your own personal life. Maybe the point was 'don't be like them' (again, no offense).

By the time you get to the NT, I guess everyone's on board with what it means to 'sin'. Most of Jesus' teaching seems to be to narrow down the definition (eg sabbath-behaviors, stoning-adulteresses, and general uncleanness sins). Jesus also expanded the definition (looking-at-women, being-rich, dumping-your-wife sins). In fact his new sins were so strict, his disciples didn't think anyone could be 'saved'. From what I can determine, by the time Jesus was headed for 'the cross', I'm not sure exactly WHAT the disciples at the time were supposed to be doing (or not doing).

But, that's only because they didn't have 'Paul'. You'd really be surprised at how many 'sin-lists' there are in the NT epistles (20 lists, or 40 verses in total). Clearly, when they dumped 'the law' for the gentiles, they had to come up with 'something' for their new 'freedom'. Else they wouldn't have any 'sin' (which Paul concluded was the main problem with the law ...huh?). Now, it's easy enough to take the 'sin-lists' and just enumerate all the sins. "Don't do these." So, for example, if you're gay, think 'SINFUL'; plan on a toasty time in hell (look in your toaster for a fairly accurate preview). It's in the sin-lists ... how simple for you.

So, what's the problem? I'd say 'grace'. When the post-Jesus writers dumped 'the law', their logic was 'grace' (eg Joel 2:32; see subject GRACE above). But then they had an obvious problem ... their followers suddenly had 'liberty' and 'freedom', and 'apparently' were going crazy in their individual behaviors. Solution: SIN-LISTS! But how do you reconcile 'grace' with 'sin-lists'? Even Paul was struggling with that (almost HALF of the references to 'sin' are in Romans/ Hebrews, followed by the Johnines; all 'late' writings). That's why it's best to just stick with a SIN-LIST and tell your believers 'not these'.

EXTRA: Of course, the whole discussion above doesn't even touch on sin relative to God and his kingdom. That seems to be the whole point of the OT, and Jesus too. But that's completely different, right?

SLEEPING 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). 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.

SUFFERING Recently one of my favorite Bible professors (Bart Ehrman, though I always think 'Bart Simpson') released a new book on 'suffering' as a basis for his rejecting the Bible and/or God (if I got that right; he describes himself as an agnostic). I like his writing because it's refreshingly honest, or at least as honest as I've seen. What you do with his logic, of course, is your own challenge. But one of his most interesting points is that 'he' has dispensed with the Bible, but 'his wife' (who is also a highly educated educator) is just the opposite. And they both observe the same evidence of 'suffering'. How is that possible? Strictly my own guess, but I suspect one represents 'earth' as the main point of reference ('Black' Bart), while the other represents 'heaven' as the point of reference (his lovely and very intelligent wife).

If you see the earthly evidence of human experience driving the evolution of religion (specifically Bibical writers), then obviously 'God' isn't accomplishing much (humans are still suffering). On the other hand, if you see the human experience as some sort of divine playground (creation, free-will, and even God already knowing the end-scores), the suffering is simply part of the game (with Bibical writers on the sidelines). If your earth-living-score is high enough (e.g. Abraham, Lazarus, or you 'believe'), you get to be with God. Else 'suffering' is just a hint of your future for eternity. Personally, I don't think you can 'prove' either choice, since the logic for both works quite well (and thus the necessity of 'belief'). But one of the choices has the unfortunate risk of being wrong. Hmmmm.

AN ODD THOUGHT: Without suffering and death, what would be the attraction for 'God'? Earth would be its own paradise. Oh, that sneaky Bart. 'Duh'. Actually, I think Genesis 3 (tree of life and protective cherubim) and John's story of Lazarus (Jesus purposely letting him die) both discuss this whole issue. Read it, Bart!

But then you have 'Haiti' .... where words can not express.

TEMPLE THEOLOGY OK, it's your turn. What's the deal on 'the temple'? I'll give you the clues, and then you give 'me' the answer (which I don't know!):
(1) Some commentaries suggest that Solomon's temple (#1) was NOT a take-off of the Tabernacle (the dimensions are too close, and Gen-Exo-Num were written later). That's arguable, judging from the hebrew syntax patterns. But God being thrilled with a temple from Solomon does seem like a stretch (the same guy that had an Egyptian wife that didn't like YHWH, etc).
(2) The Solomonic temple seems theologically suspicious. Prophets around the time of Isaiah reported that YHWH was none too happy with the sacrifices there. Wanted a 'clean heart'. I can't tell if YHWH was actually IN the temple or not (Holy of Holies), since the Egyptians theoretically stole his Ark of the Covenant after Solomon died. Then, 100 years later, Jeremiah confirmed that the temple had major problems. Isaiah and Jeremiah: who else do you need??
(3) After Temple #1 was destroyed (there's a clue), the returning exiled jews quickly built a replacement temple (#2), only to have the greeks put Zeus in it. I don't think you've probably ever imagined, that if YHWH was in the Holy of Holies, what must have happened when Zeus showed up. In any event, a MAJOR THEOLOGICAL CLEANING was required after Zeus was ejected. Dirty boy.
(4) Herod the Great shows up. Now here's where the mystery begins. Herod-the-G decides to MASSIVELY expand the temple to 'perfect' his religion (#3; along with quite a number of other projects). But unlike the other projects, Herod's expansion apparently FAR EXCEEDS anything else religious at the time in the Roman Empire. If you believe Matthew, Herod is also concerned about a soon-to-appear king of the Jews (annointed one or 'messiah') He even calculates when his replacement will arrive (all the while, continuing to expand the messiah's new landing zone).
(5) Herod-the-G dies, but not to worry. The temple expansion CONTINUES, using 11,000 laborers (Josephus) over a 46 year period. 'Who' is behind it now? I assume it would be the 'high priests' and Saduccees (certainly not the mad-dog Pilate). Where is the money coming from?? Yes, temple taxes were demanded (with Pilate taking some), but I'd have to assume Jesus' complaints about the tax-collectors isn't just the Roman tax-collectors. Pilate sure doesn't seem to be aware of his financing of the temple!
(6) Apparently the Qumran-ians (Essenes?) were angry about the Jerusalem leadership, and so moved eastward to await the messiah (not sure about 'the Teacher of Righteousness'). In any event, they didn't see any reason to waste their time with 'the temple' or sacrifices, taking lots of baths instead.
(7) Jesus shows up and promptly accompanies (I guess) Satan to the high point of temple #3 to potentially jump off of. For whatever reason, Satan thinks this is a real temptation! (But not Jesus; jumping would tempt God.) Then, depending on which gospel you read, Jesus clears out the temple courtyard of merchants, while 'teaching daily in the temple' (and then clearing it out again).
(8) Later on, Jesus is examining how much people give to the temple (Mark 12:41; Luke 21:2; not Mat.) He's not impressed with the rich dumping in lots of money, but he does discuss the widow who gives all she has. In my way of thinking, thousands of widows giving all they had wouldn't finance the temple. So, we can presume Jesus isn't too worried about that aspect.
(9) Only in Matthew, Jesus makes a point to discuss paying the temple tax with Peter (Mat 17:24). He literally argues that being 'the son', he shouldn't have to! But he performs a miracle and pulls the tax out of a fish, to avoid a problem. Additionally, no one ever mentions Jesus sacrificing (eg buying lambs, etc). At best, he 'goes up to Jerusalem' for the feasts. Jesus had no sin, of course, but I'd assume someone would question that logic?
(10) Eventually, Jesus gets arrested. It's not absolutely clear, but the initial charge seems to be his threat to destroy the temple. In 3 days, no less. Now 'why' would someone want to 'destroy the temple'? (Hmmm ... maybe some essenes per chance?). But the charge didn't work, so now they are forced to substitute what I guess is a lesser charge (being the messiah). As naive as Pilate might be, I'd have to assume he's just a little incredulous about the jews themselves.
(11) No sooner than Jesus is out of the picture (shocking his disciples in the process), his disciples then head for the temple to pray there daily (Acts). Huh? Pray for what? Why at the temple? Like the jewish leadership didn't pose a risk?
(12) Not so surprising, the new church soon suffers its first martyr (Stephen). What's the charge? Guess what ... threatening the temple! (Plus apparently questioning Moses' guidance.) And Saul/Paul helping out, no less.
(13) Lastly, Paul is warned by the elders of the asian churches NOT to go to Jerusalem. But you know Paul. He's heads for Jerusalem and you guessed it ... goes straight for the temple (apparently with some un-circumcised gentiles and thus un-converted gentiles). Apparently this is so serious, that even after being arrested by the Romans, the jews hire assasins to kill Paul! Wow, where was THAT in the Law?

OK, there you have the clues. What's the deal with the temple and the people from 'the Way'?

By the Way(!): Josephus later points out that James (the Just) daily spent time praying in the temple, ending up with knobby knees. So, what happened to James the Just? He got tossed off almost the same place Satan thought Jesus would be tempted to jump from! Temple-tossing followed by stoning was the blasphemers punishment; Jesus could demonstrate otherwise with some accomodating angels. Actually, Jesus' village tried their own brand of 'temple-tossing' on Jesus, but he slipped away.

TRINITY I've discussed the 'trinity' elsewhere, but to summarize ... (1) it doesn't makes sense to (most) human beings (especially Thomas Jefferson), and (2) it's not in the Bible. Well, there you go.

Now, I know ... you want it to be in the Bible. The Latins sure did ... they stuck it in their version. Looks great! But you won't find it in early greek manuscripts. You will find discussions of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You'll find baptism relative to all three (Mat 28:19) [*] Of course, this phrase is missing from some of the early manuscripts. You'll even find Jesus listed before God [*] I do not know how that happened, but I'd guess God and the Holy Spirit started out as margin notes. I've read several theology dictionaries. They so much want 'something' to say 'trinity'. You can just feel it, as they grasp at different verses. But which dictionary would say 'not there'? Not many.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I think when you have a 'son of God', and a 'Spirit of God' turned into a 'Holy Spirit', you have natural problems trying to keep everything 'lined up'. I think you have a similar problem with Jesus' arrival on earth, what with a 'virgin mother', 'adoption' and so forth. The gospel writers had even more challenges trying to describe the post-crucifixion sequence, and his ascension. In fact the whole diety-become-human concept had major problems in its description at each step of the way. Personally, I'm not sure how any of the God-Become-Man-And-Back could be adaquately described, since it has no natural equivalent. But, the early writers still tried hard. They had observed 'something' that over-reached their language. Like the 'three-in-one' concept.

TRADITIONS For you conservatives (like me), tradition plays a much larger role in your belief, than you would like to believe. It was 'tradition' that selected the books of both the Old and New Testaments. Read Eusebius versus the Gnostics. You probably say 'the Holy Spirit' picked them, but that is a tradition as well. What about the divinity of the Holy Spirit? Another of your traditions.(No, I didn't 'deny' the Holy Spirit ... I'm careful.) Personally, I don't have too much trouble with 'traditions', since they largely represent the summation of believers through the ages.

No, what I have a real problem with, are the Christian 'behavioral' traditions ... what is 'OK' and what is not. It's 'ok' to be discourteous as a Christian. That's a LONG tradition. Jesus never said 'specifically', you had to be courteous, did he? Also, you can't 'lie' but you can avoid the 'truth'. That's pretty traditional. Plus in business, 'normal' business behavior is ok for Christians, right? Ever get those misleading mailings that try to induce you to open them? Probably not from Christian businesses?

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I think many of the Christian behavioral traditions are an admission of what Christians are not. I always wonder 'who' is actually in Jesus' kingdom of the heavens?

TRUTH ('the Truth', 'Spirit of Truth' etc) You'd think this one is a little innoculous? The truth?? 2,000 years ago, it 'meant' something and 2,000 years later, again it 'means' something. Today, conservatives try to define it in absolute terms, depending on the current 'issues of the day' (abortion, gays, and so forth). Liberals zoom off in the opposite direction towards 'shades of grey' and 'personal' truth. What's the bibical meaning (or need we bother?!)

Ok, get out your NT, and do a search on 'the truth'. First, you won't find the concept in the synoptic gospels (eg neither Mark or 'Q'). Indeed, the 'earliest' solid examples are from Paul in Galatians (Gal 2:5,14 and 3:1/5:7). Here, you see the pattern of 'the truth of the good news' (from good tidings of salvation and the reign of God; Isa 52:7), thereafter shortened to 'the truth'. You'll find James again using the shortened version in James 3:14 and especially 5:19.

Among the 'next' writings, Colossians expands the phrase to 'the word of the truth of the good news' (Col 1:5) and 2Pe 2:2 with 'the way of the truth'. 2Co uses it quite a bit as well, especially in 2Co 11:10 with 'the truth of Christ'. Ephesians 1:13 further expands on Col, with 'the word of the truth -- the good news of your salvation', and Heb 10:26 with the 'full knowledge of the truth'.

It's only in the 'later' writings, does 'the truth' reach its zenith. Romans frequently uses the 'shorthand' version, while the johnines notch it up, moving into 'the spirit of truth' literally being 'the comfortor'. 2Thes 2:13 adds foreordination with 'God did choose you from the beginning to salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth'. The pastoral writer uses the term even more often, with the well known 'rightly dividing the word of the truth;'.

Overall, (and in general!), 'the truth' mainly referred to the promise of salvation (Isaiah's original prophesy). Even with the johnines and pastorals, it hadn't grown 'too' much further.

So today, how do we get to the liberals' 'personal truths', and the conservatives' politicizing issues as 'truth'? Oh, wait a minute ... they're not talking about 'the' truth, are they?

UNITY Of Christianity? No, not in this lifetime! 'Unity of the scriptures'. This relates to 'CANON' and 'BISHOPS' above, but at a much later time (today!). When you sit in church listening to the pastor, and he quotes from Romans, then bounces to 2Jo, that's 'unity of the scriptures' in action! I grew up in the Church of Christ, and no one holds a candle to a COC preacher moving across scriptures, weaving a theme! Stand back!! Most listeners don't even think about its significance. You take a little theology from one writer, mix it with another and then 'stir'. Of course the assumption is that it's all from God and the Holy Spirit, so 'no problem'. After you 'pass' the concept of unity, then a whole host of ever more complex theologies are feasible. Combining multiple writers frees you from the meaning and literalness of a single writer.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : Unfortunately, 'unity of the scriptures' is a modern (post-1stC) creation (along with 'inspiration of the NT'). I personally don't 'mind' the unity principle, but it acts to avoid the obviousness of issues within the NT. Normally, you'd use one writer's statements to validate another writer, and determine who's Jesus-based. That's pretty obvious. But with 'unity', you just 'slide' over all the problems as if they don't exist. If Paul promises the 'end-time' in his lifetime and it doesn't happen, you just 'slide' over to 2PE for an explanation. Question Paul's validity? Not in your dreams! Paul is inspired! (even if colossally wrong). Obvious differences between the gospel writers and Jesus' ascension (like 'where')? No problem. Just ignore it, since it's all inspired. That's what unity of the scriptures is.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS part 2: We started this discussion with 'Unity of Christianity'. Actually, much (most?) of the differences among denominations, theologians and believers has to do with 'unity of the scriptures'. There's so many conflicts and unanswered questions in the NT, readers will arrive at differing conclusions. It's guaranteed. So, if you want 'proof' that the NT canon (as a whole) couldn't possibly be inspired, the wild variation in interpretations just 'might' be a clue. Am I questioning God? Nope. Just questioning you.

VIRGIN BIRTH (of Jesus) Both Matthew and Luke include geneologies, plus virgin births for Jesus' origin. Mark and John don't, nor does Paul or any other NT writer mention Jesus having an odd start in life. The pastoral writer (Timothy?) references endless geneologies (Luke?!) and old women's fables (1Ti 1:4, 2Ti 4:4, Tit 1:14). The petrine writer (2Pe 1:16) also mentions 'skillfully devised fables'. What's so interesting about the latter references (pastoral/petrine) is that they both 'date' after the appearance of Mat/Luke. And the pastoral writer is emphatic that they detract from the faith ... 'Such things promote useless speculations rather than God's redemptive plan that operates by faith.'

I assume you're familiar with the OT discussion, where the 'virgin' birth is prophesied ... Isaiah 7:14. The hebrew is 'almah' or 'young woman' ... the LXX greek is 'parthenos' or 'virgin'. The NT writers almost all read greek or the LXX, and thus a 'virgin'. The jews at the time argued the hebrew reading (what would they know?).

WHAT IT ALL MEANS : I personally doubt the stories. First, Mat and Luke are likely written well after the apostles (except John?), and thus don't have verifiable witnesses (nor for that matter even authorship). John, if by the apostle, is likely later than Mat/Luke, and doesn't include the stories (see Joh 7:41; matching Mark and the pastoral comments). Second, both geneology and birth stories don't even remotely agree, providing a fairly obvious clue 'something' might not be right. The various conservative commentaries wishy-wash around on 'recording the verbal stories', I guess suggesting the Holy Spirit couldn't remember? (or more likely suggesting the Holy Spirit wasn't involved).

There's even more. Search for 'Joseph' in the NT. You won't find him, or a mention of a father of Jesus in the earlier writings (Mark,'Q',Paul,James,etc). Only in ... Mat and Luke. In fact, when Luke uses one of Mark's stories involving Jesus' mother and brothers, he substitutes Jesus' father Joseph. Curious.

And even more! The NT references to Jesus as a son or seed of David are mainly 'late' references, apparently showing up after the Jesus geneologies. One lone early reference in Mar 10:47-48 has a blind man referring to the 'Son of David', but it's not clear if it's messiah-related, since later the blind man uses 'rabboni' in his final address to Jesus.

WOMEN (in assemblies) The involvement of women in the NT is impressive, even by today's standards. We're talking about a fairly ancient cultural environment (jewish), that was, for the most part, by men and for men. But with early Christianity, women certainly seem prominent. You have wife/husband teams of evangelists ... heavy involvement by female 'deacons' ... and considerable female financial support for the missionaries and assemblies. In fact, in today's tradition(!), if you list out the commented supporters of the early church, you'll find a high mix to be women. By the time you get to the 'life of Jesus' writings (Matthew/Luke plus Acts), women are even more prominent, being mentioned as supporting Jesus' ministry and meriting discussion with Jesus at various times (the Samaritan woman being the most surprising, if you were jewish). By the time of the crucifixion, the disciples are portrayed as 'loosers' (they ran) and the women supporters as being the mainstay. Indeed, Mary Magdelene discovered Jesus missing from the tomb.

However, by the time you arrive at the pastorals (likely post-apostolic?), the women are to keep quiet (wives at least), and the assembly leaders to be (married) men (elders/overseers). If you keep reading, the management of widows and 'talky' younger women gets a little nasty, suggesting the writer definitely didn't like women. By the second century, the orthodox church had pretty much removed women completely, and the gnostics questioned whether women even had adaquate minds (Thomas). On the other hand, there's the story of Paul and Thecla, so obviously 'someone' wasn't convinced about the downward trend.

What would be women's involvement, if you removed the 'late-Paul' writings (likely post-apostolic)? That's hard to say, since you're mainly looking at Mark, the early chapters of Acts (early church), and maybe Paul's early journeys. In these, you have the primary mention of women's participation in the assemblies, prophesying, being mentioned first in wife/husband combinations, and so forth.

On the other hand, you have your 'boy' disciples. Your 'who'?? Yep ... Jesus' twelve disciples were likely in their teens, except maybe Peter (Mat 17:25-26). Or, at least that would be the norm for a rabbi at the time. When you add James' and John's mother, Mary, Martha and maybe Mary Magdalene, it's hard to figure exactly what 'role' the 'disciples' played.

The 'catholic' church assumes a male requirement for church leadership (though it ignores the 'boy' part except ... well, let's skip that part). And elders (male) were appointed in the early assemblies. On the other hand, I, at least, get the impression that most of Jesus' followers during his ministry were women, as well as the early church. It is pretty obvious, that by the likely post-apostolic times, large numbers of women needed 'calming down' ... a lot! So, this issue wasn't a minor one.

The second century leaders and thereafter, plus the gnostics, were especially appalling. I just 'started' making a list of all the anti-female comments and was amazed at the frequency (Tertullian being the most obnoxious). I wondered why the strident anti-female nature of the 2nd century and there after. Remember the pope and his Mary Magdalene as a prostitute?! The only reason I can figure is essentially the need to put Jesus and equality of persons 'to bed' ... by males, of course.

As a last note, take a look at Acts and 'Saul', who heads up to Damascus to arrest members of 'the Way'. I think it is SO interesting who he plans to arrest.

Copyright ©, 2010, dmbarnhart
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