About "The" Book, Part Seven

 

Earlier this year, a lifelong friend of mine commented on Facebook that "the Bible is meant to be studied, not read."

Being acutely aware that brevity is not my strength, I felt a bit jealous that she was able to summarize such a profound truth in so few words!

And this month I was reminded of her comment while reading (yes, only reading) the Gospel of Luke.

*     *     *     *     *

The books of the Bible contain many passages that seem odd, counter-intuitive, and headache-inducing when you're reading them in English and wondering exactly what point the author was trying to make to his original audience. Luke 16 offers up a sterling example with the parable of the dishonest manager (or as it is sometimes called, with a dash more poetry, the parable of the unjust steward).

If you're not familiar with the parable, the gist is that a rich man is told that a manager who works for him is "wasting his possessions," so he fires him and tells him to "turn in the account of your management." With unemployment looming and him being too weak "to dig" and too proud "to beg," the manager devises a scheme to get into people's good graces so that they might "receive" him in his hour of need -- specifically, he conspires with each of his master's debtors and cooks the books to make it appear that they owe far less than they really do.

As stories go, that is straightforward. But some of the words Jesus speaks immediately after telling it are puzzling, starting with his statement that "the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness." While that makes sense from the perspective of grudging admiration, it seems more than a little strange to hear Jesus talk about a "dishonest manager" being "commended" for a specific dishonesty and not talk about him suffering any consequences for it.

As he continues, he says "I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings."

Come again? To modern ears, this sounds like the savior of the world is telling us to engage in underhanded behavior in order to be rewarded in Heaven. But if you are even modestly familiar with his overall teachings, you instinctively know he can't be telling us that. So what gives?

It could be that "unrighteous wealth" (which is sometimes rendered as "worldly wealth") was a contemporaneous term for any assets that were material rather than spiritual. Since material assets are what get used in human commerce, Jesus might be telling us to use them to create relationships that can be cultivated to seek God and achieve something greater.

Or as explained here, it could be that "unrighteous wealth" (mammona adikia in the original Greek) really was intended to mean assets unfairly obtained -- with Jesus wanting us to make things right by giving those assets away (if possible, to those from whom they were taken) with the understanding that we will be honored with heavenly rewards.

Or, it could be that "unrighteous wealth" was at that time intended to mean something else I haven't thought of.

The thing is, most people have no (or little) experience reading the Bible and little knowledge of actual Christian teaching, so if they were to read this passage they might come away thinking it means the very opposite of what it means -- and you can be confident that opponents of the Christian faith will use this passage to claim that God condones immoral behavior.

*     *     *     *     *

The same gospel serves up another seemingly unclear sequence a bit later, in chapters 22 and 23.

After Jesus is arrested, he gets taken before the Jewish religious leaders and Luke 22:70 tells us: And they all said, "Are you the Son of God, then?" And he said to them, 'You say that I am." To our ears that answer is neither yes nor no... but to their first century Jewish ears it was an unambiguous "yes," so they hauled him off to be tried by Pontius Pilate.

Then Luke 23:3 tells us: And Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And he answered him, "You have said so." Once again, to our ears Jesus is giving an answer that is neither yes nor no... but to Pilate's first century Roman ears, it was a "no."

So the Jews and Pilate listened to the same approximate phrase coming from the exact same lips and interpreted it oppositely. The "chief priests and scribes" heard it as a confession to a capital crime, whereas Pilate heard it and, according to Luke 23:4, "said to the chief priests and the crowds, 'I find no guilt in this man.'"

Although most Americans know that Jesus's arrest and trial resulted in him being executed, most of them haven't actually read the Gospel of Luke. So if they were to open it up and peruse it for the first time, they would probably think something along the lines of "What? I don't get it, that doesn't make any sense" -- and you can be confident that opponents of the Christian faith will use those verses to claim that biblical stories don't add up.

After reading Luke 23:3, most Americans probably wouldn't spend much time pondering why Pilate interpreted Jesus's words as a non-confession to a crime that doesn't seem to warrant execution anyway. But after reading Luke 22:70, most of them probably would wonder why the religious leaders interpreted Jesus saying "you say that I am" identically to him saying "yes I am."

The answer lies in the fact that Jesus was a rabbi who in Luke 22:70 was speaking to rabbis. Therefore he responded to them in the rabbinic style, by which, according to these pulpit commentaries at biblehub.com, "such an answer (means) the one interrogated accepts as his own affirmation the question put to him in its entirety."

But to learn that you must (gasp!) look outside of the Bible, and this is just one drop in a sea full of examples that require you to look outside of its text to understand what is being communicated inside its text.

*     *     *     *     *

So, yes, the Bible is meant to be studied not read.

And unless you're some kind of prodigy, studying it is going to involve looking beyond its pages.

This is why I think telling people to "read the Bible" is not always good advice.

To be continued...

If you care to read the previous installments in this post, they are here: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.

A Christmas Miracle

 I published this post 13 years ago and it feels right to do it  again:

My grandfather passed away two months ago.  

I have wanted to write a post about him ever since, and there are a thousand things I want to say in that post, yet it remains unwritten for one very unmovable reason:  I have no idea where or how to start saying those thousand things.  When a man lives 81 years, has 39 direct descendants, and impacts not only his family but countless other people as well, how can you sum up his life in a handful of paragraphs?  You can’t. 

But I do not have that problem when it comes to writing about Granddaddy and Christmas, after the way they converged three years ago. 

Granddaddy’s love of God, family, and country; his zeal when talking about those things to anybody with whom he came into contact; his faith in the perfectibility of man; his irrepressible Scotch-Irish mischief; his unsurpassed diligence in everything to which he set his mind or his hands – those qualities will all be written about in time, but for the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that in the last few years of his life they were cruelly stolen by Alzheimer’s disease. 

His mental sharpness started to dull about five years ago.  In 2005 his memory faded as well, and the fading was fast.  He carried on conversations with Nana without realizing it was her.  Remembering how she looked in their youth but not in the here and now, he said things like “I wonder when Peggy’s going to come home” while looking into her very eyes. 

When he and Nana arrived at our family’s 2005 Christmas Eve party, nobody expected to be recognized by him.  Because I did not want to confuse him by addressing him in a way that would suggest he was speaking to his grandson, and because I knew his recollections of battling the Nazis remained vivid, that night I simply called him “Corporal.” 

He asked if I was in the Army like he had been, and I told him I was not because of my diabetes. I told him that we nonetheless had some similarities, because just like him, my last name was Stanton and my blood carried Scotch-Irish genes.  He nodded and said it was good to meet me.  He said I should come around again sometime. 

Everyone at the party walked a tightrope, balancing holiday cheer on one hand with the sadness of loss on the other.  The man we loved, who had known each of us by name just a year earlier, had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist. 

But as the night started to grow long, something sparked inside Granddaddy’s mind.  When most of us were assembled in and around the kitchen, he “addressed the room” and said it was great that we were there.  He did not specifically acknowledge that we were all family; however, when he looked at my Aunt Sharon, the third of his five children, a glint appeared in his eyes and he spoke the word “daughter.” 

He and Nana stood on the driveway as the party wound down.  I stood there too, as did several others, hoping to give Nana some sense of normalcy.  But it turned out that our presence was not needed, for while Venus shone brightly like the Star of Bethlehem, Granddaddy came back as if by magic.  Looking up at the Milky Way, he spoke to Nana by name and said:  “Peggy, I’m trying to remember the night we got married.”  Some minutes later, when he said goodbye to each of us, his face bore a look of recognition and for that moment it no longer seemed that there was a stranger trapped in his body. 

As his wife of 59 years drove him back to the house they had called home for 53 years, they talked about their life and their family and it was as if the dementia had never been.  After finishing that 45-mile excursion from rural Hernando County to urban Tampa, they sat up late into the night conversing and reminiscing and sharing life’s small but inimitable joys.  They lay down in bed like they had done so many times through the years, and for that one holy night Granddaddy was Granddaddy again:  John Stanton, Jr., child of the Great Depression, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, pastor, proud but humble, flawed but good.

When the sun rose, the dementia was back and my grandmother's husband, as she knew him, never returned.  But they had gotten that one last night together on Christmas Eve, and had gotten it after everyone assumed it was not possible.  As Nana said:  “That was my Christmas miracle.”

A Carol Born

When it comes to carols, I have always found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to be especially poignant (if you're not familiar with it, you can listen to it here.)

It did not begin as a song, but as a poem written on Christmas morning by America’s greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, more than 150 Christmases ago. At that moment in time America was torn apart and battling itself in the Civil War – a war that still stands as the one in which more Americans died than in any other.

When dawn broke that morning, Longfellow was despondent. During the war his son Charles had been horrifically wounded when a bullet passed through part of his spine, leading to a long and excruciating recovery. And as if that wasn’t dark enough, his wife Frances had died as a result of burns sustained when her clothes were set on fire by dripping sealing wax, which she was melting with the intention of using it to preserve some of their daughter’s trimmed curls.

But despite that sorrowful backdrop, as Longfellow sat in his Massachusetts home on Christmas and heard the ringing of local church bells, his faith in divine promise started to stir and he was moved to put pen to paper. The resulting poem was transformed into a hymn nine years later, when John Baptiste Calkin composed the music to which it was set.

The poem’s words absolutely speak for themselves. Since some of them are excluded from the carol we normally hear this time of year, here they are in their entirety:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The Real Saint Nick

History provides many examples of actual people who have, over time, become so melded into the popular imagination that we tend to forget they were real. Saint Nicholas is one of them.

Born sometime around 280 A.D. in the town of Patara, in what was then part of Greece but is now part of Turkey, Nicholas was the son of wealthy parents who died when he was young. Having been raised as a devoted Christian, he spent his life using his inheritance to help those in need, and in addition to his charity he became known for harboring great concern for children and sailors.

Down through history, one particular story about his generosity has persisted. In those days, women whose families could not pay a dowry were more likely to die as spinsters than to get married. It is said that when Nicholas learned of a poor man who was worried about his daughters’ fates because he lacked money for their dowries, Nicholas surreptitiously tossed gold into the man’s home through an open window, and the gold landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. Much later, this 1,700-year-old story inspired the modern tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney to receive gifts from Santa on Christmas Eve.

Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions carried out by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Based on the stories of his life, Catholic tradition considers him a patron saint of children, orphans, sailors, travelers, the wrongly imprisoned, and many other categories of people. Churches were constructed in his honor as early as the sixth century A.D. Today, his remains are buried in Bari, Italy.

For generations now, kids and adults alike have used the names Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nick interchangeably, without giving it a second thought. But there was an actual Saint Nicholas, a decent man who is obscured by commercial renderings of Christmas. We should not allow that fact to be forgotten, regardless of whether or not we are Catholic (and for the record, I am not).

Winter Solstice

Here are some thoughts about the year’s coldest season on this, its first day:

I love how it begins with evergreen boughs on mantles, lighted trees in village squares, carols on the radio, and people knowing that life’s greatest joys come from giving rather than receiving.

I love its chilly mornings when fog clings to the surfaces of ponds.

I love sitting outside on those mornings drinking hot black coffee.

I love watching Sarah try to catch snowflakes on her tongue during our winter vacation.

I love driving across California’s High Sierra between snow drifts so deep they soar above cars and turn roadways into tunnels of white.

I love walking through Appalachian forests that are barren of leaves but laden with snow, and therefore have the appearance of black-and-white photos come to life.

And finally, I love that I can spend a whole day outside in Florida without feeling the need to shower every hour.

So for those who curse the cold: Remember that every season brings beauty, so long as we stop to notice it.

About "The" Book, Part Six

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:1-2)

When you look at those two verses, you will see that they are contained within what is really just one sentence -- a sentence that evokes some of the largest and most important mysteries in all of history.

We are accustomed to nativity scenes showing the Magi as three wise men positioned near Mary and Joseph, gazing down upon the infant Jesus. A famous carol describes them in the first person: "We three kings of Orient are / bearing gifts we traverse afar / field and fountain, moor and mountain / following yonder star."

But nowhere in the Bible does it say there were three of them. What it says is that when the Magi arrived where Jesus was, they "presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh." This mention of three gifts apparently gave rise to the notion that they must have been three men.

The image of the Magi seeing Jesus as an infant is almost certainly wrong, for the Bible says "the star went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was." (emphasis mine)

A fair reading of the biblical text is that the Star of Bethlehem, whatever is was, appeared in the sky when Mary gave birth to Jesus; that some men in "the east" saw it and were aware of what it signified; that they then traveled a great distance, using the star as a kind of celestial guidepost; and they finally arrived to see Jesus after so much time had passed that the word "baby" no longer applied.

However, the specific number of Magi and specific age of the young Jesus are but piddling curiosities compared to the larger mysteries.

*     *     *     *     *

Who were the Magi and where did they come from?

They were obviously wise, for they knew the meaning of the star. But how did they know it?

They were evidently not Jewish, so why did they grasp the meaning of the star and actual Jews did not?

Was the star even visible to anyone else, or was it revealed only to the eyes of the Magi? And if it was revealed only to them, we are back to asking: Why them?

And where exactly in "the east" were the Magi's homes, for it seems like they came not from just on the other side of the Dead Sea, but from way to the east. Many scholars believe the Magi hailed from Persia (approximately 850 miles away) and many believe that at least one of them hailed from Piravom, India (more than 4,000 miles away). Doesn't this make the question loom even larger: How did they know what the Star of Bethlehem was, and why were they looking for it?

And by the way, what exactly was the Star of Bethlehem? Was it a comet? A supernova? An alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, or Jupiter and Venus? None of the above?

I get the impression that most people think it was some sort of heavenly body whose position in the sky shifted somewhat from night to night -- as is the case with all heavenly bodies other than the North Star -- however my take is different. To my ears, a "star" appearing at an appointed time and going "ahead" of the Magi to guide them sounds like a carbon copy (if not an outright recurrence) of the pillar of fire from Exodus 13:21, which had previously led the Hebrews by night during their long journey from Egypt 1,300 years before. I am shocked that I never hear this speculated about, but surely I'm not the only person to notice the parallel.

*     *     *     *     *

Judaism and Christianity both hold that the god of the Bible, aka the god of Israel, is the one true god. His name was revealed to Moses as four ancient Hebrew consonants, YHWH, and its pronunciation/spelling in English has been handed down as Yahweh.

Belief in a Messiah flows from multiple Old Testament verses. Intriguingly, a similar belief is also visible if you glimpse through the lenses of Hinduism (which talks of a final avatar descending to the material world) and Buddhism (which talks of various bodhisattvahs opting to reincarnate in the material world until they have accomplished their goal of helping others attain nirvana).

Christianity holds that Yahweh is a trinity, meaning he is one deity who acts through three distinct personas: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son is manifested by Yahweh entering the material world in human form, which he did 2,000 years ago when he took the name Jesus and presented himself as the promised Messiah.

Christianity further claims that Jesus's appearance as the Messiah cemented God's offer of salvation to all of humankind, and that Jesus will return again at some point in the future.

Christianity affirms that Jesus's divinity was proved by him accepting the most excruciating punishment imaginable, that of death by scourging and crucifixion -- the very word "excruciating" is derived from "cruc," which is Latin for cross -- and coming back to life in the same human body three days later.

*     *     *     *     *

Based on reason combined with historical evidence, I believe that the resurrection of Jesus did take place. But opining about that topic is not the purpose of this post, so for right now I am simply going to toss out the name Dennis Prager and then turn to some interesting passages from the Bible.

Prager is a devout Jew. Although he does not believe in the divinity of Jesus, he is a big fan of Christianity and describes it as "a divinely inspired religion to lead people to the god of Israel." I am an American mutt who does believe in the divinity of Jesus, and I wholeheartedly agree with Prager's assessment of my faith.

It is true that, in Deuteronomy, God tells the Hebrews they are "chosen" by him from among "all the peoples on the face of the earth." 

It is also true that in Genesis, when speaking to Noah, God refers to "the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth." Also in Genesis, he tells Abraham that "all peoples on earth will be blessed." (emphasis mine)

Much later in history, in Isaiah, God tells the Hebrews that they are to be "a light for the Gentiles" and that "my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."

Although the Egyptians enslave the Hebrews, that does not stop God from assisting the Egyptians in Genesis by warning Pharaoh of the coming famine, so that they can prepare for it during the preceding years of plenty. Nor does it stop God, in Isaiah, from calling the Egyptians "my people" and vowing to "bless" them.

God refers to Cyrus II, the pagan king of Persia, as his "anointed."

The Assyrians of Nineveh were behaving wickedly, and God was so concerned for them that he ordered Jonah to travel there and minister to them.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples: "I am the good shepherd...I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen."

And that passage about different sheep from different pens seems all the more tantalizing when you consider another account, one which appears in the gospels of both Mark and Luke. In that account, the disciples are troubled to see a stranger performing exorcisms in Jesus's name. That must have seemed sacrilegious to them, so they attempted to stop him; but when they reported this to Jesus himself, they were surprised to hear him respond by saying "do not stop him." Jesus proceeded to explain that "whoever is not against us is for us," and "anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will surely not lose their reward."

*     *     *     *     *

No, God is not an ethnocentrist. He is not some petty bureaucrat dispensing benefits based on demographic bean-counting. He does not bestow favors on any group(s) of humans at the expense of any other group(s) of humans.

God's hand is always outstretched to all, waiting for us to accept it by extending our own and putting our fears aside.

Many twenty-first century ears automatically and unthinkingly misinterpret such terms as "chosen," "saved," and "damned." They misinterpret them by filtering them though the cracked prism of contemporary Western culture. That prism is blemished by suffocating self-focus and superficial identity politics. It fails to place words in the proper contexts of when they were written and spoken, and to whom they were immediately addressed. Filtering everything through this cracked prism is, shall we say, not always a positive.

Christmas is a season of hope and promise for everybody. That is just as true in 2021 -- when so many people remain addled by anxiety over politics and Covid, whether rightly or wrongly -- as it has been ever since Jesus was born in Bethlehem two millennia ago.

My prayer is that we reflect on the true meaning and basis for this season and that do it openly and lovingly, with neither embarrassment nor shame.

Merry Christmas.

Note: While I am publishing this post today because it fits right into my "About 'The' Book" series that I started in August, I must admit that it is a tweaked and very slightly revised copy-and-paste of one I published last year under the headline "Yuletide Wonderings." Lately I have had very little time to write, but the "About 'The' Book" series will resume soon, probably in January. If you have any interest in reading it, the first five posts are here, here, here, here, and here, respectively.

Never Forget

Today is the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, so let us all pause and recall what happened eight decades ago.

The day after the bombing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on December 8, 1941, to request a formal declaration of war. His speech was simulcast to the country at large via the radio. In it, he said:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack…

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island…

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves…

Always will be remembered the character of this onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was where the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet was headquartered. The bombing, which killed more than 2,400 people, began shortly before 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

Five of our eight battleships were sunk, the other three were badly damaged, and multiple other naval vessels were destroyed.

The majority of the American war planes based in Hawaii were destroyed as they sat on the ground.

In addition, most of the American air forces based in the Philippines were destroyed during the nighttime attack on that nation, which FDR also mentioned in his speech.

By crippling our Pacific defenses, the December 7th attack left us extremely vulnerable in the face of an aggressive enemy to our West – an enemy that had signaled its intent to rule the entire Pacific basin by subjugating other nations to its will.

This came at a time when we had not responded to the fact that Nazi Germany to our East had already declared war against us, had already brought most of Europe under its thumb, and had signaled its own intention to rule the world by way of an Aryan resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

Such circumstances would have spelled doom for the vast majority of countries throughout the course of history. With their foundations based on the accidents of ethnicity and geography, most countries would have simply surrendered; or, in a distinction without a difference, entered into “peace” negotiations under which they would have to accept the aggressor’s terms and after which the lives of their citizens would most certainly change for the worst.

But the United States is a nation based on ideals. Our foundation springs from the knowledge that there are things greater than us, things which are greater than the transient circumstances which exist on any given day. We have always found strength in the conviction that our nation exists to support and advance those greater things, to the benefit of people all over the world, and this sets the United States apart from all other nations in all other times.

Taking heed from FDR’s appeal to “righteous might,” reflecting what Abraham Lincoln earlier referred to as the “faith that right makes might,” the American people of 1941 summoned the invincible courage to rebuild and fight at the same time they were under fearsome siege. They did this despite the fact they were still suffering through an unprecedented economic depression that had started more than a decade before.

Let us pray that those qualities – that will to power and that unwavering belief in the sanctity of human freedom – have not been lost as new generations of Americans take the baton from the great ones which came before. For as has been said, those who forget the past will be forced to repeat it.

It would be shameful if history were to record that we squandered what was handed down to us by people like Larry Perry, and as a result we failed to transfer freedom’s blessings to our descendants... And since you probably don't know who Larry Perry is, I recommend you look here and find out. 

About "The" Book, Part Five

All of us who have kids have told them over and over again, and then over and over yet again, how important it is for them to be truthful even when the truth hurts. We try our hardest to impress on them that they should live by truth and not by lies. We remember our parents saying these things to us when we were kids.

So it should go without saying that the Bible -- aka the Good Book, heavenly guidebook, word of God, last word, holy writ, et al -- speaks highly of the truth.

I love history and have always been into quotes and aphorisms. A couple decades ago, when thinking more in terms of quotes from history than from the Bible, one of the lines I came across that immediately left an impression was straight from the New Testament, specifically 3 John 1:4: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth."

Just about everybody has heard the phrase "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," but most people don't realize it comes from the Gospel of John.

Proverbs 12 says "truthful lips endure forever," while warning that "lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."

In 1 Corinthians, Paul famously penned a lengthy explanation of love in which he declared that it "rejoices with the truth."

*     *     *     *     *

But the Bible goes way beyond quotes like those... way, way beyond... for in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to a fretful Thomas and affirms "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

Note that he does not say "tell the truth," he says "I am the truth." That casts things in an entirely different light and makes me think of 2 Thessalonians, which, when talking about "those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus," says "they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Therein lies the biblical basis for the common belief that Hell means separation from God.

And seeing as how I'm something of a history buff and quotes geek, these lines prompt my brain to fast-forward 17 centuries to one of America's Founding Fathers: John Adams. When he defended redcoats (!) who acted in self-defense during the Boston Massacre, Adams tapped into something previously written by French novelist Alain-René Lesage and stressed that, popular sentiment be damned, "facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

*     *     *     *     *

There is a sense right now, at least here in the Western world, that "the culture" has gone insane and is rapidly pushing civilization to the edge of a cliff, eager to hurl it over and watch it shatter on the rocks.

One needn't be Christian or conservative to get this sense, as there are atheists (e.g. Charles C. W. Cooke) and prominent liberals (e.g. Jonathan Chait) who get it and are bloody well disturbed by it.

The culture is defined as that which monopolizes entertainment and mainstream media and thereby wields outsize power in public discourse: Namely political correctness and its steroidal offspring that aims to "cancel" whoever and whatever it has decided to dislike in the last three seconds. Denial of truth is the common denominator from one end of the culture to the other.

The most prominent denial of truth at this instant involves gender. We are being told (not asked) to believe (not merely pretend) that human beings come in genders other than male and female, and can literally hop from one to another based on however he or she feels -- although I might get in trouble for saying "he or she," since the culture is currently advising that we replace those words with "they" until we get clarification from whoever we're talking about.

We are being told (not asked) to believe (not merely pretend) that a man is a woman if he (sorry, they) claims to "identify as" a woman, never mind the genitalia, testosterone, pelvic structure, muscle mass, and other (ahem) scientific facts. If he/they says he/they is a female, we must refer to he/they as either "she" or "they" and never consider uttering the abhorrent pronoun "he" unless we are granted permission.

Apparently we are also supposed to ignore the fact that "they" is plural and thus cannot be used to refer to individuals. Because after all, what are facts? Facts are proof that truth exists regardless of what we want, outside of what John Adams referred to as wishes and inclinations and passions. But the culture will not tolerate the idea of anything, including truth, declining to obey its commands.

We are being told non-satirically that men must be permitted to participate in women's sports if they "identify as" women... which triggers obviously satirical headlines, like one from the obviously satirical Babylon Bee that read "Female Weightlifter Suffers Tragic Testicle Injury Just Weeks Before Tokyo Olympics"... which in turn trigger respected voices from the culture to non-satirically publish fact-checks of the satire in order to "disprove" it, as if it was ever meant to be taken as anything other than satire.

Snopes has literally (not figuratively) published more than 30 fact-checks of Babylon Bee articles, including one that was headlined "California Considering a Tax on Breathing." In 2018, Facebook, citing these fact-checks by Snopes, threatened to de-platform and de-monetize the Bee, and this March an article in the New York Times described the Bee not as the satirical site it obviously is but rather as a "far-right misinformation site."

Attacks like these are not outliers. They are common, they are deliberate, they have become the norm, and no, they are not limited to just one wing of our political divide.

Do you think it's coincidence that this kind of truthless poppycock has come to dominate Western culture right as Western culture races drifts farther away from biblical precepts than it ever dreamed of in the past?

*     *     *     *     *

The denial of God/truth has not happened suddenly, however. It is the logical continuation of a trend that has been ongoing throughout my life. It's worth noting that I am 50 years old and much of the foundation for our denial was poured 48 years ago, in 1973, when the Big Lie was officiously stamped onto American law by a Supreme Court that twisted itself like a circus balloon to avoid acknowleding the obvious.

The Big Lie was delivered in the package of a federal case officially called Jane Doe, et. al. v. Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas, and better known simply as Roe v. Wade. If I begin to go into the lies legal absurdities that were invoked in that case, this post will last forever -- so in order to try to stay on point, I'll just say that the Big Lie itself was the claim that a human being is not a human being.

That claim is what the culture needed to sell in order for abortion to gain just enough support -- and attract little enough outrage -- for Roe to be decided in such a way that abortion became sacrosanct and its victims became afterthoughts. 

15 years after Roe, when I was in my teens, it was still common to hear supposed authorities (who knew they were lying) claim that a human fetus or embryo is "just a clump of cells" or "not yet human." The culture amplified those lies and caricatured anybody who dared dissent.

The culture got its way by burrowing into young minds, averting young eyes from the preciousness of life, and painting a propagandized portrait of parenthood as being droll and oppressive. Under the sway of the culture infants were often talked about as impediments rather than fulfillments, and teenagers who became pregnant were often described as "ruining" or "jeopardizing" their futures.

By the time it became patently absurd to continue denying that life is human as soon as a human sperm fertilizes a human egg, the culture had already inoculated itself against reason by elevating the word "choice" to the level of religious sacrament.

When a favored figure of the culture publicly proclaims his or her devotion to "the right to choose," you can rest assured that he or she is not talking about your right to choose to build something on your own property; or your right to choose where your children go to school; or your right to choose to draw a picture of Mohammad; or your right to choose to protect your family by using your own money to purchase a gun to defend against attackers who are 50 pounds heavier and 20 years younger than you (despite the fact that the right of "the people" to own guns, unlike the right to procure an abortion, actually is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution).

Nope. When favored figures of the culture publicly proclaim their devotion to "choice," they are talking about one thing and one thing only, and they go out of their way to avoid describing that thing or even saying its name. Usually they allude to it by way of euphemism and obfuscation.

*     *     *     *     *

In every fundamental way, the culture's fierce commitment to The Choice is a commitment to untruth. It is a commitment that places one's self (as long as one is female [even if one does not "identify as" female]) in the role of God. The mindset fueling this commitment to The Choice devalues life in the abstract; and inexorably, the actual lives of every person who is persuaded to make The Choice winds up being damaged by it.

The culture says it wants to protect women, and it claims that before 1973 women often died in "back alley abortions," yet the culture does not want abortion clinics to be subject to health and safety regulations.

The culture says it wants women to make "fully informed decisions," yet it opposes any requirements that women considering an abortion be provided with any information about any alternatives.

The culture says those who disagree with it about abortion are "men making laws governing women's bodies," yet it never bothers to acknowledge: 1) that women oppose abortion in far greater numbers than men, 2) that women have authored much of the anti-abortion legislation the culture hates, and 3) that, most importantly, the bodies in question are not the women's but rather the babies'.

And it has to be stressed that while the culture supports a mother's absolute right to end a baby's life for any reason she chooses, at any stage of pregnancy right up to delivery, it does not support giving that baby's very own father any right to take any legal action that might save the baby's life. 

It's hard to imagine anything more onerous that what I've already said, but consider this: Although the culture claims it wants to protect women and girls, it protests whenever a person who disagrees with it about abortion attempts to actually protect women and girls by talking to them about the emotional trauma they might experience as a result of having an abortion.

And later, when a woman or girl has had an abortion and is looking back on it feeling depressed and lonely and insecure, the only first people to reach out to her with love and support and understanding are the same ones who speak out against abortion. Almost without exception, they are people who believe biblical precepts and strive to follow them rather than mock them. 

*     *     *     *     *

This post is about the Bible, not abortion. When I started typing it I did not anticipate the latter being so prominent, but sometimes pieces of writing reveal themselves to the author as they are being written.

Abortion does belong here and I'm not done quite yet.

I feel compelled to say that I know women who have had abortions, most of whom were young and terrified when they made The Choice. They are friends of mine, some are even closer than friends, and one is somebody I treasure in ways that words cannot describe.

I also know a man who talked his girlfriend into having an abortion when they were young.

Those people were all harmed by The Choice, not helped by it. The effect it had on their lives was not the effect they sought.

I do not believe any of those people purchased a one-way ticket to Hell when they made their decision. Because I know God's love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness are theirs for the taking, if they are willing to accept it.

Perhaps you're thinking I should point to the Bible for some evidence of that, since this post is about the Bible? Well, Psalm 103 says of God that "as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us," and 1 John 1:9 asserts "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Hebrews 8:12 quotes Jesus himself saying "I will remember their sins no more."

Right now I am thinking of a woman I do not know but once saw in the flesh. She is one one of my favorite singers and has been in the public eye as long as I can recall. I am thinking of Stevie Nicks.

Nicks wrote and of course sang the song "Sara," which was released in 1979 and went Top 10 and gets played almost as much now as it did then. Nicks has acknowledged that "Sara" is, in part, about her aborted daughter, which makes the lyrics especially haunting: "Wait a minute baby / Stay with me a while ... Sara, you're the poet in my heart ... Now it's gone ... There's a heartbeat / And it never really died."

I do not know what thoughts go through Stevie Nicks's mind, what feelings ripple through her heart, or whether she has any relationship with God... but she has spoken several times about her choice (choices actually, for she's had more than one abortion) and when she speaks about it she never seems like a person who is at peace.

Nicks is in her 74th year and I can't shake the feeling that her soul is lost somewhere in that wasteland of "spiritual but not religious" confusion, not seeing the open and welcoming hand of God that is right in front her.

She is a denizen of the culture, one of its own, and I can't shake the feeling that the culture doesn't really care what will become of her soul after her days on Earth run out.

Maybe I'm reading her wrong. Hopefully she isn't lost. She doesn't need to be. And neither do we, no matter what we are struggling with or afflicted by. For as it says in Isaiah: "He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you."

To be continued...

If you want to read the previous installments in this series, here they are: Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.

About "The" Book, Part Four

This planet has been rotating on its axis and orbiting the sun for a very long time, during which Lower Egypt really has experienced devastating swarms of frogs and locusts, and really has seen its livestock eradicated by pestilence.

Cities really have been incinerated by volcanic eruptions (fire) suffused with sulfur (aka brimstone).

A layer of archaeological ruin beneath modern Jerusalem provides overwhelming evidence that there really was a major earthquake there in the eighth century B.C., which really was when Uzziah was king.

Every September the sun passes through Virgo (which means "virgin" and is the only constellation that represents a woman) on the elipitical line.

3 B.C. was right within that narrow window of years that historians say Jesus was born, and at that time astrology was the rage across many cultures, very much including Jewish culture. On one particular September night in that one particular year, everything across the universe's vastness of space and time really was aligned in just such a way that, for a period of about 80 minutes, someone gazing up at Virgo from Earth would have seen: 1) twelve bright stars above its head; 2) the moon near its feet; 3) the two constellations we now call Scorpius and Libra below it, though in ancient times the latter was considered to be part of the former and in combination they were sometimes referred to as a dragon; 4) the constellation Leo (aka lion) above Virgo; and 5) within Leo, a conjunction of Jupiter (aka the king planet) and Regulus (aka the king star).

The Book of Revelation was composed after Jesus died and its twelfth chapter is in the past tense, self-evidently referring back to something that took place before John of Patmos ever put pen to papyrus. It states that a "great sign appeared in heaven" (stock language for the sky) as "a woman clothed with the sun" (stock astrology verbiage for times when the sun passes through a constellation on the eliptical line)... and it describes the woman as having "the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"... and it says "the dragon stood before" her "so that when she bore her child he might devour it."

And it's tantalizing to remember that: 1) Jesus was born in Judah, a nation whose symbol was a lion; and 2) one of the celestial signs visible above Virgo during that 80-minute sliver of time in 3 B.C. was a conjunction of the king planet and king star -- inside the constellation that represents a lion.

*     *     *     *     *

In other words, when talking with somebody who denies or doubts the Bible's veracity, it's often valid to defend it by citing proven natural phenomena.

It's also valid to cite things that are accepted as true from the historical record. If you ask historians, even those who are ardent atheists acknowledge that Jesus was real; that he was crucified and buried in a tomb; that claims of him rising from the dead were made soon after the crucifixion; that those making the claims were so sincere in their belief that their behavior was radically and permanently altered; and that the authorities never brought Jesus's corpse out from the tomb to disprove the rumors, despite their keen desire to keep the fledgling church from spreading and threatening to overturn their apple cart.

But it is important to remember that X corroborating or being consistent with Y is not the same thing as X proving Y. Not in the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" way that many cynics skeptics like to demand.

Some people who question the Bible's veracity want to believe it, but struggle with rational doubts. Others are simply indifferent and don't care. Then there are those who do not want to believe, and therefore will not believe no matter what.

People from the latter camp often claim that lack of evidence is the reason for their unbelief, but that's a bluff. They say that because they fancy themselves among the smart set (don't we all?) and know it sounds better to say "there's no evidence" than to say "I won't consider that evidence."

Like the example of atheist historians and Jesus's crucifixion illustrates, people are supremely capable of ignoring evidence when it points in a direction they're not comfortable with. It has been almost 2,000 years since the crucifixion, and so far nobody (literally nobody) has offered a single explanation (not even one) besides resurrection that can explain all of the accepted facts from the historical record.

Regardless of what they say, those who deny the resurrection don't do so because there is no evidence. They do so because their worldview precludes the supernatural and thus prompts them to dismiss supernatural explanations out of hand -- or because they have an intense philosophical disagreement with their perception of Christianity, and that disagreement compels them to dig in their heels and refuse to concede an inch even on non-philosophical matters.

*     *     *     *     *

While writing this post I came to a fork in the road, and so far have tried to take both of them even though I know better.

The previous section saw me motoring down an apologetics path but this series is supposed to be primarily about the Bible itself, so pardon me while I turn the steering wheel and try to cut across to the path I should be on.

Where was I going when I started? Okay, I remember: Citing the natural record is good but acting as if it can always provide proof of specific ancient events is not, for that puts eggs in baskets where they don't belong.

The Bible is primarily about the supernatural, not the natural, and while the former can leave physical marks on the latter, it does not have to. By definition, it often won't. When we seek physical marks in the natural world, we must not forget that the natural world is neither permanent nor stagnant. Erosion, decomposition, desertification, forestation, drifting continents, rising and falling water levels, etc. Tiny needles in immense hay stacks are occasionally found, but sometimes those needles disappear because animals swallow them while burrowing through and gobbling up insects.

Putting eggs in the wrong baskets can falsely weaken faith if people come to feel that there must be physical confirmation for most of what is described in the Bible's 66/73 books. Note what happened in 2014, when Ken Ham wavered (!) during Q&A after the over-hyped debate with Bill Nye. He was asked: "Hypothetically, if evidence existed that caused you to have to admit that the universe was older than 10,000 years and creation did not occur over six days, would you still believe in God, and the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and that Jesus was the son of God?" The always cocksure Ham responded by talking for more than a minute and a half without saying "yes" (if you care to watch that exchange, it is here at the 2:18:00 mark).

I find it striking that Ham could not would not bring himself to admit that Christians who aren't him might be right when they interpret Genesis less hyper-literally than him... or when they point out that perhaps we should remember Genesis wasn't written in modern English to an audience of Western Civ kindergarteners, so perhaps there is more depth to it than what gets talked about in Sunday School.

*     *     *     *     *

The Bible refers multiple times to three specific creatures that sound like they come straight from J. K. Rowling's Potterverse guide book Fantastic Beasts.

I am talking, of course, about dragons, Leviathan, and Behemoth, and for some reason I think I need to say that none of these appear in Genesis.

There are variances in translations, but without even doing all that deep a dive I can tell you that the Bible explicitly mentions dragons no less than 25 times across eight different books (Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, Revelation); depicts Leviathan in a trio of books (Job, Psalms, Isaiah); and offers up a detailed description of Behemoth in Job 40.

Nobody living today knows exactly what the authors were writing about when they used those terms, but it's fun to speculate and there has been lots of intelligent and logical speculation about it over the years.

You can find strong cases being made that Behemoth was referring to the hippopotamus or elephant, and Leviathan to the crocodile or whale.

Some people (Ken Ham being one of them) argue that the words Behemoth, Leviathan, and dragon were all referring to dinosaurs. They specifically claim that Behemoth was a sauropod dinosaur, seeing as how sauropods had long tails and Job 40:17 says Behemoth "makes his tail stiff like a cedar." Cedar trees, you see, are very big.

However the hippo/elephant crowd makes sure to point out that Job 40:17 does not say Behemoth's tail was "big like a cedar," but rather that Behemoth "makes his tail stiff like a cedar" -- and the elephant half of the hippo/elephant crowd is quick to point out that elephants hold their tails stiff and erect when they're on alert.

Everybody agrees that at least some of the Bible's many uses of the word dragon are metaphoric references to Satan. The dinosaur crowd also believes that some uses of the word dragon are literal references to dinosaurs and/or pterodactyls.

People suggest that Job's description of Leviathan is hyperbolic and not meant to be taken at face value, seeing as how it says "His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth," to which other people retort that there's no reason to doubt whether an animal species might have been able to breathe fire. Those who make that retort invariably (and accurately) note that bombardier beetles right now defend themselves by spewing acid whose temperature is the boiling point of water.

Who knows? Nobody does! I am not in the dinosaur crowd, but I'm man enough to admit that those who are in that crowd do make their point.

*     *     *     *     *

I think it's obvious that some uses of dragon, especially in Revelation, are referring to the devil, and I believe others uses of it are referring to other demonic spirits.

I strongly suspect that Behemoth and Leviathan refer to supernatural entities, not to animals from the natural world. And I suspect they refer to individual entities, seeing as how they are used in the singular and capitalized, but again I don't know.

I do find it odd that so many Bible-believers are bent on giving naturalistic explanations for the appearance of these three words in Scripture. Why strip the supernatural out?

Dragons. Leviathan. Behemoth. For me, the first word that springs to mind when I hear those words is "mythological." I think many Christians are afraid to use that word when discussing the Bible because in their minds "myth" is synonymous with "fake" -- but that ain't exactly so, especially when you look back at how the word was used earlier in history.

Since I speak English and I presume you do too, I just hopped east across the Atlantic (over the web, of course) to consult dictionaries from England itself. And I see that even today, in anno Domini 2021, Cambridge defines myth as "an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts," while Oxford Reference defines it as "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."

Note that neither of them says "fictitious" or "false" or "made up" or anything of the sort, even if there's often an inference or implication that such terms apply.

I think we should reflect on what C.S. Lewis wrote in 1931: "Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myths..." 

If you believe God created the material world but resides in another, that he cast his spiritual enemies out of one realm and into this one, that he consigns the souls of the dead either to eternal torment in Hell or eternal paradise in Heaven, that he is omnipresent and exists outside of time, that he made a donkey talk, that he parted the sea, that he caused the deaf to hear and the paralyzed to walk, that he brought Lazarus back from the dead, that he willingly trapped himself inside a mortal human body that died a gruesome death and then came back to life three days later... how far-fetched does it sound to say that dragons, Behemoth, and Leviathan might be something other than hippos, elephants, crocodiles, velociraptors, and brontosauruses?

To be continued...

The first three posts in this series can be read here, here, and here, respectively.

If the astronomical and astrological coincidences of September 11, 3 B.C. sound interesting to you, you can read all about them in a book by Ernest L. Martin. It's available in paperback for a cool 250 bucks on Amazon, or, hey, you can read it online for free by going here! Or you can just watch Michael Heiser discuss the topic on this episode of SkyWatch TV.

Autumn Equinox

  

Some thoughts about autumn on this, its first day:

I love stepping outside on that first morning that fall’s nip is in the air.

I love how changing leaves turn Appalachian mountainsides into fiery palettes of orange, red, and gold.

I love driving winding roads through those mountains, catching glimpse after glimpse of falling leaves as they twirl their way to the ground.

I love cold nights marked by the scent of campfire and the sound of wind in the trees.

I love watching my kids skip through the pumpkin patch looking for the perfect one to bring home.

I love walking behind them as they trick-or-treat on Halloween night.

I love pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day, and how it sets the ideal tone to start the Christmas season.

I love watching flocks of birds land in Florida at the end of their migration, while others keep flying to points further south.

And last but not least, I love football, especially college games at which the fans are loud and the bands are blaring...and most of all, college games in which Auburn is winning and the song you keep hearing begins with the line: War Eagle, fly down the field / ever to conquer, never to yield!

About "The" Book, Part Three

Whether they admit it or not, all humans have certain beliefs and assumptions that affect how they think, and they have self-centric reference points -- their experiences, the culture in which they live, the way words are defined during their lifetimes -- that also affect how they think.

This opens the door to misconstruing things that are written even by our own contemporaries. The door opens even wider when we read things that were written by people in different times, especially if they came from different cultures than ours and spoke different languages than ours.

Which brings me back to the collection of books we refer to as the Bible. And before I get started on anything it says within its own pages, I feel compelled to say that the way we believers often talk about it must be maddening to people who have honest doubts.

We refer to the Bible as "the word of God," which clearly suggests it was written by God, yet everybody knows it was written by people.

How do you think it appears to others when the only explanations we offer for that "word of God" phrase are to breezily say the authors were either "inspired" by God or received "revelations" from him?

If you were to make that claim to people, wouldn't it be fair for them to respond by asking what you mean by that and why you believe it? If they asked you those questions, how would you answer?

When discussing the Bible, if we fail to show humility and fail to acknowledge the human limits of our understanding, we deserve to be dismissed by our audience. Sadly, we often fail on these counts even when talking amongst ourselves.

*     *     *     *     *

It does not take long for us to have different takes on what the Bible is telling us. In fact, we start splitting into different camps right from the beginning, when Genesis opens with the actual words: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Ancient Hebrew had no word for universe, so it depicted what we now call "the universe" by using the stock phrase "heavens and the earth." Keep that in mind because right after telling us "God created the heavens and the earth," Genesis informs us that the latter was "without form and void" and "the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters" while "darkness was over the face of the deep." It says not a word about how long any of that took.

Then, and only then -- following a paragraph break, and in an entirely new verse -- does Genesis mention those "days" that people have been quarreling about for as long as I can recall.

From where I sit, it is 100% reasonable to read Genesis as saying that an undefined period of time passed between: 1) when God started crafting the universe, and 2) when he started crafting our planet, and 3) when he prepped our planet for various forms of life.

Nevertheless, most people (believers and unbelievers alike) leap straight to the conclusion that the subsequently described "days" are said to have happened concurrently with the broad brushstrokes depicted in verses 1 and 2. Those people could be right, but then again they could be wrong, because both interpretations make sense and we are talking about something that was written down more than 3,000 years ago.

If reading the Bible was like hiking the Appalachian Trail (which, come to think of it, it kinda is) at this point you would have only lifted your foot to take the first step. And before you could lower it to complete that step, your ears would fill with the battle cries of the deliciously combative dispute about how the author of Genesis intended for the Hebrew word yom (which we see rendered as "day" in our English translations) to be understood.

One could spend an entire, degree-laden career duking it out in that pit, so for now I will merely say that it's not a given that yom was supposed to mean "24 hours" in the creation account.

*     *     *     *     *

In my opinion, there are some people who can be fairly described as "Genesis hyper-literalists."

Their passion for the faith is sincere and their ability to memorize Scripture is impressive, but their obsession with focus on Genesis is so intense that they seem to forget that the Bible's other 65 (or 72!) books are not subservient to it.

Their insistence that Genesis was written without grandiloquence or metaphor -- and that it was intended to later serve as some sort of science manual for modern English-speakers, despite being composed at the beginning of the Bronze Age by Hebrew-speakers -- puzzles me.

Try suggesting that the word "day" in the creation account might refer to a long epoch in time rather that a 24-hour blink. The voltage of their response will instantly transform the discussion into something like a Friday night fight club between the Hatfields and McCoys. Their attention will be so fixated on repeating "day means day, and if you don't believe that you don't trust God's word and are trying to accommodate the evolutionists and atheists," that you won't get a chance to ask them if they believe Genesis 7:11-12 (which states "...the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights") means there are giant dormers and jalousies atop the firmament and God opened them to allow water to come through and drown everyone except Noah and his kin.

Many of these people believe humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and Genesis hyper-literalism forms the basis of that belief, albeit in a roundabout way. They begin by noting (correctly) that Genesis says humans were the last living creatures created by God, and thereby they deduce (again correctly) that dinosaurs were created before humans. Then they leap way outside of Genesis, all the way forward to Paul's letter to the Romans, for the verse that supposedly circles back to Genesis with proof of human-dinosaur coexistence.

That verse, Romans 5:12, states that "sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a hyper-literalist cite Romans 5:12 as proof that nothing could have perished or gone extinct prior to Adam and Eve because "death didn't enter the world until Adam and Eve ate the fruit." But trust me, I've seen that argument be made many times. 

Someday, maybe, just maybe, I'll ask one of these hyper-literalists if they noticed a particular word in Romans 5:12. Namely "men," where it says "death spread to all men because all sinned." But so far I have not asked them, unless this blog post happens to count. Sometimes it's easier better to walk away and save your energy for another day.

I realize I am sounding uncharitable now, to put it politely. Uncharitable enough that I may be rightfully accused of "acting un-Christian." So I guess I had better move on.

*     *     *     *     *

Before I move on from Romans 5:12, however, let me ask: Did you notice how it blames Adam, not Eve, for the entry of sin into human affairs?

I didn't notice that until a few minutes ago, when I was typing the section above, and it smacked me in the face because it's right up the alley of something I wrote more than 16 months ago.

In this post from April of last year I remarked: "The dude was standing there the whole time, watching a serpent tell his wife to eat something he (Adam) had been told would cause death, and Adam did nothing to intervene...it was he who had been warned that the fruit would cause death, for God told him that before Eve was created. So who really committed the first sin? Was it Eve for eating the fruit, or was it Adam for standing by eunuch-like and not lifting a finger to stop her?"

It's almost like the Bible tonight is confirming my take on it from last spring!

But I better shut up because I am not exhibiting any of that humility I talked about in the first section of this post.

I am starting to sound prideful, and I think somewhere in the Bible it says pride will cause you to fall. I've been there and done that before, and don't want to go there and do that again, so I think I'll call it a night.

I intended to spend more time tonight on books other than Genesis. I guess I'll do that next time. Until then, take care.

To be continued...

Also, if you're interested, the first two posts in this series can be read here and here respectively.

And finally, while I have much for which to thank John Lennox, that great and joyful apologist from Northern Ireland by way of Oxford, I want to especially thank him for pointing out the obvious yet overlooked fact that the word "men" in Romans 5:12 stares right at us in black and white.

About "The" Book, Part Two

About nine minutes into this lecture in 2013, Peter Kreeft mentioned one of his favorite Bible passages and said: "Paul goes through all of his worldly prestigious plusses...all of this compared with knowing Jesus Christ, he says, is skybolan. Most of our politically correct Bible translations translate this as refuse, or garbage. It's the S word."

The passage he was talking about is from the third chapter of Philippians. Being unfamiliar with it when I heard Kreeft's lecture, I have since flipped to Philippians in my "go-to Bible," the ESV -- which by the way is not politically correct -- and sure enough, this is how it renders Verse 8 of Chapter 3: Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...

So I opened to the same verse in my NIV and read: What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ...

My daughter's first Bible was an NLT, and although its print is microscopic I am able to see that it says:  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ...

Although I'm Protestant, I have on my shelf a Catholic Bible, specifically the New American Bible Revised Edition, and it reads thus: More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ...

Four Bibles in, I had two rubbishes and two garbages. Not a single shit, nor crap, nor even excrement.

I have pointedly mocked criticized the King James Only movement a number of times. If anybody from that movement has heard me do that, they are sure to be smugly self-satisfied happy to hear that when it comes to the Greek work skybolan, 'twas not until I perused the yellowing pages of my old KJV that I found a proper rendering in English: Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ...

*     *     *     *     *

When it comes to problems with biblical translations, this example is obviously a misdemeanor.

Swapping out poop and replacing it with garbage does not change the core message Paul was trying to convey to the church at Philippi; namely, that prestige, power, and material possessions mean squat compared to spiritual salvation through Jesus.

But the oomph, the true depth of disdain that he expressed, is certainly lost. In his own words, Paul stressed that his once-lofty social status, which most people lusted for, turned out to be worse than the foulest, smelliest, most repulsive substance anybody can think of. His once-lofty position was in fact worse than something people scrape off the bottoms of their shoes while gagging if they happen to step in it.

People typically don't think of garbage, rubbish, refuse, etc. as being anywhere near as bad as what Paul had in mind. Garbage, rubbish, refuse, etc. can be crumpled-up napkins, or bottles of expired condiments, or lemons that are starting to look shriveled. It can be any number of things that aren't even necessarily offensive.

From our perspective, garbage is stuff we don't like or just don't want to keep around, so we seal it inside a Hefty bag and place the bag inside a can at the side of the street, then somebody else comes along and whisks it away.

I cannot think of a single good reason for this particular mistranslation to have occurred -- especially since there is no escaping the conclusion that it's probably intentional, seeing as how there's no mystery or nuance about the word in question.

Although I first learned of this curiosity from Peter Kreeft's lecture (in which he mentioned it almost in passing) last week I happened upon another reference to it while reading Michael Heiser's book The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms. On page 194, after quoting one of the Bible translations that uses the English word "rubbish," Heiser remarks that "(t)he verse might sound straightforward, but the translator has softened what was likely its intended force. The Greek word translated 'rubbish' is skybolan; while the term appears only here in the New Testament, it is found in classical Greek literature as a word for human excrement or manure."

But why "soften the force" at all? Especially for a word that isn't even vulgar to begin with? The Bible is filled with deep, complex subject matter for grown-ups. With all the killing, adultery, incest, and demonic treachery it deals with, the Bible is far from G-rated.

People sometimes act as if it is supposed to be a collection of feel-good lessons for kids, and that seems to be what a bizarrely large number of people had in mind when they converted Philippians 3:8 from Greek to English. It's like they were more concerned with keeping 8-year-olds from snickering in the back row than with communicating the fullness of Paul's thoughts.

*     *     *     *     *

Again, the needless sanitizing of this verse is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

When I published Part One in this series of blog posts, I anticipated that Part Two would be about something more intriguing, like: Who were the Nephilim? What exactly was Eden, since Ezekiel refers to it as both the "garden of God" and "holy mountain of God" but Genesis merely says "God planted a garden in Eden [emphasis added]"? Speaking of Genesis, what exactly is it talking about when it says "the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them"? Why do so many pastors casually mention "the heavenly host" but never say what it is? Why are so many of my fellow Protestants so certain (sneak preview: they shouldn't be) that 66 books rather than 73 belong in the Bible?

But tomorrow night I am hightailing it to the mountains and I wanted to get a post written before I leave, and frankly this one was easy to crank out without spending a bunch of time engaged in borderline-obsessive research and proofreading.

And while the needless sanitizing of Philippians 3:8 may not be "a big deal in the grand scheme of things," I do think it illustrates how prevalent "translation issues" are when it comes to the Bible -- before we even get to the matter of interpretation.

To be continued...

And, many thanks to my cousin Sarah (not to be confused my daughter Sarah!) for letting me know about Peter Kreeft.