THE ASCENSION

Dienekes has sent me the following email about the Ascension which seems to be seriously meant:

1 Corinthians 15:50 states that "I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." Obviously, this passage speaks about the "kingdom of God" and not about "heaven".

Second, there is no reason to think that Jesus left his physical body when he ascended to heaven. Here is how this event is described in Luke 24: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven."

No mention of anything happening to his physical body. And here is how his return is said to be like in Acts 1:

"And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

So, the New Testament is pretty clear: Jesus ascended to heaven as he was, without any "transformation" or "shedding of the physical body", and he will come back in the same way.

There are a number of things wrongheaded things in the above but the really amusing mistake is to think that the sky is the only "Heaven". I imagine that Neanderthal man looking out of his cave might have thought that the afterlife was literally "up there" but for a sophisticated Greek (which appears to be how Dienekes sees himself) to be that simplistic is frankly amazing. That the "heaven" referred to in Luke was the sky is made perfectly clear by the fact that his followers were looking up into it. It was in short visible and the whole idea of the spirit realm is that it is not visible. So Christ's body going up into the sky may have been symbolic of his transition into the spirit realm but it could not have been anything more. And where did his body go when it went up into the sky? Presumably it vanished or was dissolved into thin air just as it did on various occasions (e.g. Luke 24:31) during his post-resurrection appearances to his followers.

And the attempt to say that the spiritual realm mentioned in 1 Corinthians is not also called Heaven is frankly to ignore the text. Read verses 47 and 48. The same Greek word meaning "sky" ("ouranos") is also used to mean the spirit realm.

It must be said that the use of the one Greek word to mean various things is pesky but that is what we are stuck with repeatedly in our reading of the NT and that is why the careful definition of what the afterlife is given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is so important. Paul himself was obviously perfectly aware of the potential ambiguities and went to great lengths to make it clear that is was a non-physical realm he was talking about. And Christ himself of course made a similar distinction between the two modes of existence in Luke 24:40.

I will comment further on this if anybody thinks anything further needs to be said.

JESUS DID EXIST

A reader has asked me whether I consider Jesus to have been a real person. I consider him to be one of the best attested people in ancient history. Given the amount we have written about him -- mostly in the various books of the NT -- if he did not exist then nobody did. To me however he was the wisest of men, not anything more than a man. I would like to see more of his teachings passed on in the churches. It pains me that they so often have pagan dross mixed in with them. I have traditional blogger advice about the NT: Read the whole thing!

I am very pleased to see that I am not the only internet writer who can see the huge gaps between modern Christendom and the Christianity of the NT. And this time it is not a wicked old atheist like me but a committed Christian (a Christadelphian). His site is here. Below is a copy of one of his pages:

Christendom Astray From the Bible


* 1--The Bible--What it is, and how to interpret it

* 2--Human Nature Essentially Mortal, as proved by Nature and Revelation

* 3--The Dead Unconscious till the Resurrection, and consequent error of popular belief in heaven and hell

* 4--Immortality a conditional gift to be bestowed at the Resurrection

* 5--Judgment to come; the dispensation of Divine awards to responsible classes at the return of Christ

* 6--God, Angels, Jesus Christ, and the Crucifixion


* 7--The Devil not a personal supernatural being, but the scriptural personification of sin in its manifestations among men

* 8--The Kingdom of God not yet in existence, but to be established visibly on the earth at a future day

* 9--The Promises made to the Fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), yet to be fulfilled in the setting up of the Kingdom of God upon earth


* 10--The Kingdom of God the Final Instrumentality in the great scheme of human redemption


* 11--Christ the Future King of the World

* 12--The Covenant made with David to be realised in the reestablishment of the Kingdom of Israel under Christ

* 13--The Second Coming of Christ the only Christian Hope


* 14--The Hope of Israel, or, the Restoration of the Jews, a part of the divine scheme, and an element of the Gospel

* 15--Coming troubles and the Second Advent

* 16--Times and Signs: or the evidence that the end is near

* 17--The Refuge from the Storm: or, "What must I do to Do Saved ?"

* 18--The Ways of Christendom inconsistent with the Commandments of Christ

* Summary

I am also pleased to see that Steve is an old conservative like me. See his article here about politics and Christianity.

For tomorrow I have an amusing email from Dienekes about the Ascension to comment on.

MORE ON THE UNRECOGNIZED JESUS

As I mentioned in my post of 7th, Jesus after his resurrection seems not to have looked anything like he was before his resurrection. He normally had to talk people into recognizing that he was the same person and even then they only recognized him by various signs, such as the wounds in his hands and the way he broke bread. And some followers never were convinced, it appears. See Matthew 28:17. And Mark, perhaps wisely, mentions no appearances at all -- which is why various extra bits [1] are occasionally added on after the final verse (16:8) of his Gospel. Why would a historian of Jesus's life leave out the most dramatic part of that life? It very much sounds like Mark was one of those who did not believe that it really was Jesus who appeared. And the obvious conclusion from all that is that the resurrected Jesus was a smart impostor enjoying the attention he got. Any competent illusionist ("Magician") could have done what the allegedly resurrected Jesus did.

Such a conclusion is of course unacceptable to a person of faith and one of my readers has attempted to do what the scriptures do not -- explain WHY Christ was normally not recognized in his post-resurrection appearances:

I address the post-resurrected Christ. I believe you are searching for something that isn't there. There is no Scripture stating what you believe, ie the temporary body. And as for an imposter, I suppose this could happen, but it does not coincide with belief in an omnipotent, omnipresent, almighty God. He has no need for imposters, or magicians! As Moses displayed, God's power being used through Moses far outshone the abilities of Pharoh's magicians. Only God has authority and power over universal law, and Jesus being unrecognizable has no real merit or importance in the message of Christ.

But, to humor you, I will suppose, as many Christians and people do, why I think Jesus was not immediately recognized. First of all, He was probably in His "glorified body," already, and who knows exactly what that is or looks like? I sure don't, for all I know is what I read, and although Paul is fairly specific on telling us when this will happen and the results of being in this new body, he does nothing to describe it to us. We only know that it is imperishable, a term not relevant to spirit, and it is incorruptable, meaning there will never be any sickness again, something else that bears no relevance concerning spirit, and it is immortal. But how we will look, that is not revealed.

However, I have heard some suggest that it was because of this, "Glorified body," they did not recognize Christ. I wish to add that they also were of the mind set that once something is dead - physically, it will remain dead, for history had proven this to them. There was no expectation of ever seeing Christ again in this life. Perhaps their minds could not comprehend something that had definitely defied the laws of physics? I think that would be the case far more than Jesus looking so differently, for Scripture also tells us that, "They will look upon Him whom they pierced and weep." These people will definitely know Jesus.

This statement of Scripture also defies the idea that Jesus is only spirit. How could one look upon a spirit and recognize scars or that it was wounded in a particular way? Also, Jesus spoke to the women He met first making a statement that they shouldn't "touch" Him, because He had not yet been to the Father. So, sometime between then and the time He had Thomas touch Him, then He had been to our heavenly Father and was cleansed, or whatever may have happened. Again, I attribute the misunderstandings here as being on our part for trying to understand that which is infinite with finite minds. As smart as we think we are, we still will never understand universal mysteries until that time comes when God so designs.

One other possibility is that Jesus was SO scarred He wasn't easily recognized, for Isaiah says that, "He was marred beyond that of any man," and that the disfigurement was considerable. If Jesus had been to hell, "hades, gehenna, sheol," and witnessed to the souls there, but not yet ascended to God, then His disfigurements would still be quite obvious, as well as fresh. After the time He ascended, then He too would have put on that immortal body, which Scripture says we will have at the time of Christ's return.

Whatever did happen, and I believe the clues are there in Scripture for us to decipher, Jesus was not at first recognizable, but He could be recognized, and after a specific time, He was immediately recognized by the disciples. I have also considered that the disciples were so afraid of suffering what Jesus did, should they have been found, that their exteme paranoia kept them hostage from the truth. I have always thought that it wasn't because they did not believe Jesus couldn't resurrect, because they had seen Jesus resurrect the dead Himself, their biggest problem with believing had to do with the fact that Jesus first appeared to the women. Since women had low social value in those days, and were even thought of as property, the disciples had to wonder why Jesus would first come to them. I think the disciples had a bigger problem with this than the fact Jesus was alive.

If that explanation saves anybody's faith I am happy with it but I see various problems in the account:

It is true that the scriptures nowhere use the word "temporary" in connection with Christ's post-resurrection body but we are also told that Christ was bound for Heaven after his appearances and 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that there is no flesh and blood in Heaven so that makes his body temporary as far as I can see.

"Glorified" body? I don't know what is being referred to there. It must be some non-scriptural reference. Christ's Heavenly body is not a flesh and blood one but the one who appeared to the disciples emphatically was flesh and blood.

The fourth paragraph above is confused. Nobody has ever argued that the post-resurrection Jesus is only spirit. He argued during his life (e.g. John 8:58) that he was a spirit inhabiting a body and nobody argues otherwise after the resurrection. The reference to "do not touch me" (John 20:17) is a mistranslation. The RSV rendering ("do not hold me") makes much more sense in the context. Read the context if you doubt it. The Greek ("apto") has the sense of "cling to" according to Abbott-Smith.

The idea that Jesus was disfigured is nowhere mentioned. Those who met him seem to have always accepted initially that he was just another ordinary person.

That his followers simply did not want to believe what they saw is not inherently unreasonable but that is not what the texts say. The texts say that on various occasions they simply did not recognize him. They did not even suspect that it was he.

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[1] I have three recensions of the Greek NT -- Nestle, Griesbach and Westcott & Hort and none of them accept anything after Mark 16: 8 as original. The two major 4th century MSS we have (Vaticanus 1209 and Codex Sinaiticus) do not have anything after 16: 8. The "long" ending first appears in 5th century MSS so was evidently added by someone in that century. The "short" ending is confined to even later MSS. The NIV sums up the matter with admirable brevity: "The most reliable early manuscripts do not have Mark 16: 9-20" but all recent translations I know have some note to that effect.

PREDESTINATION AND THE 39 "ARTICLES OF RELIGION" OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

The articles were first issued in 1571 and, up until 1865, every Anglican priest had to swear to his belief in them. Now he only has to swear "general agreement", which means precisely nothing

XVII. Of Predestination and Election.

"Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.

Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God".

This now ancient statement of faith concerns one of the great controversies in early Protestantism. Are we saved by our faith (Luther) or is there nothing we can do to ensure our salvation (Calvin)?

I have always thought that predestination is a pretty nutty doctrine despite the fact that it was a traditional belief in the Presbyterian family into which I was born. There is some scriptural justification for it in the epistles (e.g. Romans 8:29,30) but it flies in the face of everything Jesus taught. He was always telling people what they needed to DO to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Its main exponents used to be the Reformed (Europe) and Presbyterian (Britain) churches but it is now seldom preached anywhere in Christendomn as far as I can gather. It is however still very influential in Islam.

The above official Anglican statement on the doctrine did therefore labour under something of a burden. How to reconcile the various things the NT says on the question? So what we get is to me a rather fun bit of theology. Because it is theology it is very hard to understand but it boils down to saying that we are all indeed predestined to our fate (first paragraph) but it is dangerous to believe that (second paragraph) and we must follow God's law anyway (third paragraph)!

A perfect bit of Anglican compromise even way back in the early days of Anglicanism -- and making about as much sense as modern Anglican theology.

On other issues, however, the 39 articles are admirably clear and blunt. Take article 22:

XXII. Of Purgatory

The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

"Shove that up your cassock" seems to be the message there. I love it! I like plain speaking. We get more in Article 24:

XXIV. Of speaking in the Congregation in such a tongue as the people understandeth

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have publick Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people.

So those old guys were pretty straight and to the point when they were not labouring under a need for compromise between opposing viewpoints. Jolly good stuff in my opinion. If you can handle antique English, read the whole thing! You will definitely see real Protestantism at work in them, which is more than you can say about most of Anglicanism today (Sydney diocese of course excepted).

There is a site here that actually "translates" the articles into modern English but that takes away half the fun. I like the emphatic language of the original.

So is there a better way out of the predestination dilemma that the Anglican one? Possibly. I think it could be argued that the "predestinarian" texts in the epistles are really talking about God's FOREKNOWLEDGE and that knowing a thing will happen is a lot different from making it happen. I would not be prepared to argue that in detail, however. I will leave that one to the theologians.

(Note: Just for fun, I am putting this post up on Blogger News too. Rather amusingly, I seem to do most of their religion posts)

THE POST-RESURRECTION JESUS

There are a few puzzles associated with Jesus's resurrection. Why did it have to be a bodily resurrection? Why was he not always immediately recognized when he appeared to his followers? What happened to his physical body once he resumed his spirit life in heaven -- where we know from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: 50 that flesh and blood cannot go?

The best I can make out of it is that Christ's body was removed from the tomb and restored to life so that the spirit Christ could temporarily re-inhabit it and thus prove to all that he really still was alive. And once that task was accomplished he abandoned his physical body finally and returned to Heaven as a spirit. That makes reasonable sense. So what happened to the then finally abandoned body? We are simply not told. Presumably that is/was unimportant. And why was he usually hard to recognize (e.g. John 20:14) in his resurrected flesh and bone body? The obvious reason that occurs to me is that the supposedly resurrected Jesus was an impostor. If he really had been Jesus he surely would have been recognized instantly. He had to work hard at convincing people that he really was Jesus even though he did not look like Jesus.

Luke 24 however seems to suggest that Jesus's physical body could be assembled and dissassembled in an instant. After breaking bread with the women he suddenly vanished into thin air and at the meeting with the apostles he suddenly appeared out of thin air (as also in John 20:19 and 20:26) and ate some fish with them. And I am sure that both God and a clever impostor could have managed both of those impressions. But if it was divine power at work why did God keep reassembling the physical Jesus in barely recognizable forms? No explanation for that is offered. On balance, I would have to say that the evidence favours a clever impostor being at work.

While I am talking about the resurrection, I suppose I should mention Luke 23:43 where Jesus says to the criminal on the stake beside him, "Truly I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise". Lots of translations put a comma after "you" but there is no punctuation in the Greek so I put the comma after "today". That's the only way to make what Jesus said there consistent with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.

THE CROSS AGAIN

M4 Monologue has been working hard on the doubts I raised about Christ dying on a cross. He has turned up a number of extensive references on the subject which endeavour to support the conventional story. All the references do admit that the cross has a long pre-Christian history and also concede that there is a good case to be made for Christ NOT having died on a cross.

Needless to say, however, the references concerned do end up coming down in favour of the conventional story. The most thorough attempt to support the conventional story is this one and it does indeed contain a lot of information. Most of what it says however is in the form of quotations from fellow-believers which essentially proves nothing. The only novel argument I could find in it was that Christ died on a crossbar affixed to a living tree. The grounds given for this unusual theory were twofold: That Christ is said at various points to have died on a "xylon" (in Greek) and a perverse interpretation of Luke 23:31. Even the author concerned admits however that "xylon" can refer to a piece of wood as well as a living tree so the argument depends on the text in Luke, where Jesus says: "for if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" The cross-defending author claims that Jesus is here talking about the instrument on which he is shortly to die but if you read the context -- as I peskily always do -- Jesus was not remotely talking about that at all. He is talking about the times ahead and saying that his execution is merely the harbinger of worse things to come. He uses the life of a tree as a a parable for that. First you have the flourishing green tree then you have the dead wood. He is saying that the times are still at the green tree stage but the dry wood days are coming. Christ was a great user of parables and it seems that that habit remained with him until the last.

But that total misrepresentation of what Christ was talking about in Luke is symptomatic of the whole cross-defence concerned. It clutches at straws. I could go through it point by point showing that but I think I have said enough already to indicate the general low quality of the argument. If there is any particular point that any reader would like to raise with me, however, I will be happy to respond.

Just as a little exercise, the author rightly notes that Christ is said to have had "nails" (plural) driven through his hands. He says that this proves that Christ's hands were stretched out on a crossbar. Why does it prove nothing of the sort?

ARE THERE BODIES IN HEAVEN?

I have been having an email discussion with a reader stemming from my comments (on Feb. 17th.) about Luke 16: 22-25 "The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame" (RSV)

My reader seems to think that this is not a parable and that it shows that there are bodies in Heaven just like our earthly bodies, despite Paul (In 1 Corinthians 15) making it just about as clear as anyone possibly could that Heaven is a purely spiritual realm. My reader claims in fact that bodies in Heaven is an orthodox Christian doctrine, which may well be true in view of the many other unscriptural doctrines that are orthodox in so-called Christian churches. My interest, however is purely in what the original texts of scripture say so I will approach the matter from that viewpoint. The latest email I have received is a response to my pointing out what Paul says about Heaven being purely spiritual:

"purely spiritual." what does this mean to you? what do you think it meant to a first century Jew like Paul? and why use the words "spiritual body"? and why, in Luke (as in the other gospel accounts), does the resurrected Christ say: ("a ghost has not flesh and bones as you see that i have", 24:40)?

I suspect you are lapsing into an anachronism here, imposing an image of a "ghost" onto this word that is not (at least within the very Jewish Christian thought of the Paul et. al.) warranted. here's how a Cambridge-trained Duke university historian puts it:

"In Paul's view he had been transformed, changed from a 'physical' or a 'natural' body to a 'spiritual body'. Luke thought that he had flesh and could eat, but also that he had been changed. He was not obviously recognizable to people who saw him, and he could appear and disappear.

"Both authors were tyring to describe--Paul at first hand, Luke at second or third hand--an experience that does not fit a known category [i.e., neither a resuscitated corpse nor a ghost or phantasm]. What they deny is much clearer than what they affirm."

The historian is E.P. Sanders, and the reference comes from his excellent book The Historical Figure of Jesus. Just so you know that nothing I am saying is considered at all controversial among Biblical scholars, as I know because I have a master's degree in theology and took quite a few courses in the New Testament and early Christian history.

Of course, later, Greek ideas of the soul as a separate entity from the body did get introduced into the thinking of some the church fathers; but the [Catholic/Orthodox] church itself has always retained its very Jewish belief in the resurrection of the body and its eternal existence in the life of the world to come. It's only in pop spirituality and some Protestant thought that all this gets changed into the "spiritual" conceptions you seem to talk about..."

Now, as an atheist, I personally don't believe in ANYTHING spiritual but my interest here is to see what the NT writers believed and I agree that their ideas of the spirit world are primarily statements about what it is not. But, as I have previously pointed out at some length, the Greek word for "spirit" used by the New Testament writers (and variously translated as "spirit", ghost", "breath", "air" etc) is "pneuma" and that is actually something of an asset to us. Because Paul does not have any precise language available to make his concept immediately clear, he has himself to define what "pneuma" means in his usage of it and he does that at great length in verses 35-54. And the language he uses is resourceful. He says the spirit "body" (i.e. identity) is radically different from the physical body just as a plant is different from its seed; he says that earthly and heavenly bodies are different just as the sun and the moon are very different; he says that the spiritual body is imperishable and glorious and powerful and immortal just as the earthly body is none of those things and that it will be in the image of the Heavenly Jesus. And he ends: "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God".

And that conclusion conforms with what Jesus said whilst he was temporarily back in his resurrected physical body: "A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:40 RSV). And note that the NT is clear that Jesus was ALWAYS a spirit who was temporarily inhabiting a physical body -- unlike the rest of mankind who only BECOME spirits at the time of the second coming.

So I personally think that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 is about all that anyone could reasonably say about the form that resurrected man assumes. How WOULD you define a living creature that is not physical? What more COULD you say about the nature of such a creature? It is clear that to Paul a spirit body is not of flesh and blood and that it is very different from a flesh and blood body but to say more than that would require considerable flights of the imagination that Paul very wisely does not attempt. We by and large have to accept that "spirit" is defined by what it is not -- i.e. that it is starkly different from a flesh and blood body.

But why use the word "body" at all? Paul obviously had to use some word to indicate that resurrected people are as distinct from one another in Heaven as they were in their earthly life and he rightly chose the simplest word to indicate that. He was making it clear that resurrected people are not just puffs of gas or some such and that they do retain separate identities and locations. And it was precisely because this use of "body" could be misunderstood to imply that our earthly bodies somehow get transported to Heaven that he went to such great length to deny that the spiritual body was anything like the original earthly body. So Paul's teaching can be summed up as one of denial -- denial that we can know anything about our spirit afterlife other than that we will retain our identities and that it will be pretty good. And I think that is as commonsense as you are likely to get in discussions of such matters -- and it is also I think pretty much the general view among lay Christians to this day. Certainly, the idea that spirits have breasts, fingers etc would be to deny the utter difference that both Christ and Paul assert. And if a spirit being doesn't have flesh, blood or bones, how COULD it have fingers and breasts and tongues? Anything is possible in theology, I suppose, but not if you have any respect for what the texts do their best to tell us.

A remaining issue is what Paul means when in verse 53 he says that this corruptible must PUT ON incorruption. Is there something on which incorruption is put? We first need to note here that Paul is referring to those who are still alive at the second coming. So they do not need resurrection from the dead but are rather transformed immediately ("in the twinkling of an eye") from being physical creatures into being spirit (incorruptible) creatures. So the identity of the person remains but in a different form. So "put on" in this text clearly means something like "is transformed into". Any other interpretation would require us to assume that the corruption somehow remains underneath the incorruption, which I suspect is too absurd even for a theologian. And since Paul goes on to say that this mortal must put on immortality, he is clearly referring to a change of the attributes of the individual, not to an individual putting something on as he would put on a garment. Otherwise we would have an immortal mortal, which makes no sense at all!

Just how an individual's identity can be retained despite a complete change of form and nature, however, Paul wisely does not attempt to answer. To me the very idea is absurd but most of the human race seems to believe that something of that sort is possible so I am clearly the odd man out.

ECCLESIASTES

There are always disputes about who actually wrote the various book of the Bible but I am in no doubt that Ecclesiastes was in fact written by the man who claims to have written it: King Solomon the Wise. I am sure of that because the writer sounds so modern. He writes as a man who has experienced all life has to offer and has come away from it all feeling how hollow it all is. Very few people in the ancient world can have had such an easy life but it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the King of Israel would have.

I too have had a very good life so I do find in Solomon something of a kindred spirit. He is someone who speaks more as an atheist than a religious man. There are religious bits here and there -- which may have been inserted by others -- but the general tenor of the book is skeptical. When he concludes (1:14) that "all is vanity and a striving after wind" that is hardly a confession of religious purpose or conviction but it is something that atheists all have to face and deal with in some way. And in 2:24 we read some very atheist and unpuritanical words: "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil". Likewise in 3:19 "For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dieth so dieth the other... all go to one place; all are from the dust and all turn to dust again". And 7:16 "Be not righteous overmuch". And 8:15 "And I commend enjoyment; for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and enjoy himself". And 9:2 is VERY heretical: "Everything before them is vanity since one fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean... ". And 9:4 "A living dog is better than a dead lion".

But wisest of all, of course, is this comment: "A wise man's heart inclines him towards the right, but a fool's heart toward the left" (10:2). If I believed in prophecy, I would give that one top marks.

The few excerpts I have given tell only a small part of the story, of course. "Read the whole thing" was never better advice than it is in this case. But only read a chapter a night. It is concentrated stuff, deserving much thought.

By the way, I become a Christian at any time while I am listening to the great music of J.S. Bach. I feel the Heavens open up before me when I listen to his great chorales. As I write this I am listening to the great bass aria from the Matthew Passion: "Mache dich mein Herze rein" ("Make my heart pure") and it moves me to tears. Christianity will always be remembered, if only because it was the religion of Bach.


(Note: At the risk of confusing a lot of people, I have posted the above on Blogger News as well)

REVELATION

An email just received:

"This is a FRIENDLY criticism... of your commentary on Rev 20 in the scripture blog.... The last book of the New Testament is not Revelations, but Revelation, as in "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" which is the wording of the first verse. The book is not primarily about revelations of all the traditionally fascinating stuff -- seals, bowls, horsemen, apocalypse -- but about the revelation of the one who comes to claim title to earth and creation -- check out chapter 5!"

I knew someone would pick me up on that! I never can remember whether the name of that book is singular or plural and I am too lazy to check every time.

As far as chapter 5 is concerned, however, I gave up when I came to the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (verse 6). Even one horn on a lamb would have disturbed me, I think. But I note from verse 12 that one of the things that the lamb that was slain gets is "wealth" ("riches" in some translations). That seems a pretty odd thing to happen in Heaven to my literal mind (Yes. I know what Matthew 6:20 says). Interpreting visions is just not my thing, I guess. At a wild guess, however, the lamb is Jesus and the guy on the throne is God. So I guess the fact that the lamb stands before the throne and takes the scroll from the right hand of the guy who is on the throne (verses 6-8) must not be all that congenial to trinitarians. Even in Heaven the two don't seem to be all that close.

And if anybody wonders what the "worshipping" of the Lamb (verse 14) is all about, see what I said on 1st Feb. about "proskuneo" -- See if you can work my archive links.

And I guess that verse 8 is where the image of Heaven as a place for harpists comes from. Hopefully, Heavenly harps don't need tuning nearly as much as terrestrial ones do.

My favourite book of the Bible is actually Ecclesiastes. I might try to explain why tomorrow.




WHY RELIGION?

Some extracts below from an article which asks whether we are pre-programmed to be religious

"One factor in the development of religious belief was the rapid expansion of our brains as we emerged as a species, says Todd Murphy, a behavioural neuroscientist at Laurentian University in Canada. As the frontal and temporal lobes grew larger, our ability to extrapolate into the future and form memories developed. "When this happened, we acquired some very new and dramatic cognitive skills. For example, we could see a dead body and see ourselves in that position one day. We could think, 'that's going to be me'." That awareness of impending death prompted questions: why are we here? What happens when we die?

In developing societies, religious beliefs also encouraged bonding within groups, which in turn bolstered the group's chances of survival, says Pascal Boyer, an anthropologist-turned-psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.

Some believe religion was so successful in improving group survival that a tendency to believe was "positively selected" for our evolutionary history. Others maintain religious belief is too modern to have made any difference. "What I find more plausible is that rather than religion itself offering any advantage in evolutionary terms it's a byproduct of other cognitive capacities we evolved, which did have advantages," Boyer says.

Psychological tests Boyer has run on children go some way to proving our natural tendency to believe. "If you look at three- to five-year-olds, when they do something naughty, they have an intuition that everyone knows they've been naughty, regardless of whether they have seen or heard what they've done. It's a false belief, but it's good preparation for belief in an entity that is moral and knows everything," he says.

Childish belief is one thing, but religious belief is embraced by people of all ages and is by no means the preserve of the uneducated. Boyer says the persistence of belief into adulthood is at least partly due to a presumption. "When you're in a belief system, it's not that you stop asking questions, it's that they become irrelevant," he says. "Why don't you ask yourself about the existence of gravity? It's because a lot of the stuff you do every day presupposes it and it seems to work, so where's the motivation to question it?"

While some continue to tease out the reasons for the emergence of religion and its persistent appeal, others are delving into the neuroscience of belief in the hope of finding a biological basis for religious experience. As a starting point, many studies focused on people with particular neural conditions that made them prone to experiences so intense they considered them to be visions of God.

At the University of California in San Diego, the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran noticed that a disproportionate number of patients - about a quarter - with a condition called temporal lobe epilepsy reported having deeply moving religious experiences. "They'd tell me they felt a presence or suddenly felt they got the meaning of the whole cosmos. And these could be life-changing experiences," Ramachandran says. The feelings always came during seizures, even if the seizures were so mild they could only be detected by sensitive electroencephalograms (EEGs). Between seizures, some patients became preoccupied with thoughts about God.

Ramachandran developed three explanations he thought might explain why the patients with epilepsy seemed so spiritual: 1). He considered that the upwelling of emotion caused by the seizure might simply overwhelm, and patients made sense of it by believing that something extremely spiritual was going on. 2). The seizure might prompt the left hemisphere of the brain to make up stories to account for seemingly inexplicable emotions. The ability of the left hemisphere to "confabulate" like this is well known to neuroscientists. 3). He wondered whether seizures disrupted the function of part of the brain called the amygdala which, among other tasks, helps us focus on what is significant while allowing us to ignore the trivial.

Ramachandran tested a couple of patients using what is called galvanic skin response. Two electrodes are used to measure tiny changes in the skin's electrical conductivity, an indirect measure of sweating. In most people, conductivity goes up when they are shown violent or sexual pictures, or similarly loaded words. In the test, Ramachandran found that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy responded very differently from others. Violent words such as "beat" and sexual words produced no reaction, but religious icons and the word "God" evoked a big response.

With only two patients involved in the study, Ramachandran says it is impossible to draw any conclusions, but if the results stand up to future testing, it might indicate that seizures in the temporal lobe strengthen certain neural pathways connected to the amygdala, meaning we attribute significance to banal objects and occurrences. "If those pathways all strengthen indiscriminately, everything and anything acquires a deep significance, and when that happens, it starts resembling a religious experience. And if we can selectively enhance religious sentiments, then that seems to imply there is neural circuitry whose activity is conducive to religious belief. It's not that we have some God module in our brains, but we may have specialised circuits for belief."

At the University of Pennsylvania, Andrew Newberg, a radiologist, has cast a wider net to scan the brains of people performing spiritual activities. By injecting radioactive tracers into the veins of nuns, Buddhists and others, he has constructed brain maps that show how different practices affect neural processing. "What comes out is there's a complex network in the brain and, depending on what you do, it is activated in different ways," Newberg says. "If someone does Tibetan Buddhist mediation they'll activate certain parts of their brain, but if you have a nun praying they'll activate slightly different parts, with someone doing transcendental meditation activating other areas again."

Newberg uncovered the neural processing behind the religious experience of "oneness" with the universe. Blood flow drops off in the parietal lobe, a brain structure that helps us orient ourselves by giving us a sense of ourselves. "What seems to be happening is that as you block sensory information getting into the parietal lobe, it keeps trying to give you a sense of self, but it no longer has the information to do so. If that happens completely, you might get this absolute feeling of oneness."

Newberg has been criticised for his investigations into the essence of spiritual experience, with the most vehement attacks coming from atheists. "Some people want me to say whether God is there or not, but these experiments can't answer that. If I scan a nun and she has the experience of being in the presence of God, I can tell you what's going on in her brain, but I can't tell you whether or not God is there," he says. Religious groups point out that there is more to religion than extreme experiences. It is a criticism Newberg acknowledges. "The problem is, the people who have these experiences are so much easier to study."

More here

CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS

I recently noted that I am no expert on the many Christian sects. One of my readers has offered some hints:

Your posting "IS THERE ANY TRUE CHRISTIANITY LEFT IN CHRISTENDOM?" is great. Quite recently I discovered an exotic and rare species of Christian on the internet. Their habitat seems to be both in Israel and in the USA. They may be part of (but not the same as) a larger movement of Evangelicals that are loosely termed "Christian Zionists".

The theology of this rare species is very different from that of the Evangelicals. So although Jerry Falwell is a Christian Zionist, these tiny flocks hold a completely different set of beliefs. Their beliefs are very interesting:

1. They reject "substitution/replacement theology" as rank heresy.
2. That means they consider Israel/the Jews as the chosen of God and consider themselves the servants of Israel
3. They seem to genuinely love & adore the nation of Israel with all their hearts

Now, here's the FUN part! On the one hand, they have absolutely blood-curdling, flesh-crawling apocalyptic prophecies that would appeal to all fans of Gothic horror movies & music, whilst on the other hand seem to be quite compassionate, even towards the heathen Ragheads. They seem to be quite confident of Israel's survival, believing that the times of the oppression of the Jews is coming to an end. If you have time, check them out here and here and here and here. An article from one of their sites follows. Note the Jewish way of writing "G-d" and the Hebrew names of the books of the Bible:




Auschwitz and the UN: Smokescreen and Nihilism

by Kim Johnson

Finding Nemo, a delightful family movie, contains a scene that parallels the UN hosting a “Auschwitz—“Never Again” Remembrance Day” in a most fitting way. The scene starts off with Nemo’s father (Dad) and his newly found friend Dory searching for Nemo, the lost son. In their search, they meet a few Sharks who persuade them to be guests at their first annual “Fish Are Friends Day.” All goes well until the lead shark starts to smell blood coming from Dory’s nose (she was hit by a scuba diving mask). The smell of the blood causes him to lose all sense of composure, intent and purpose. Dad and Dory have now become “shark bait” and find themselves escaping a menagerie of obstacles to save their lives.

From 1955-1992, the UN issued 65 resolutions against Israel; from 1993-1995 over 20 resolutions were issued; and from 1992-2001 the US vetoed 14 resolutions condemning Israel. And now the leaders of the U.N. are joining voices with the Jews and announcing "Never again"?

When my mind linked the above movie and the history of the UN, I wanted to say to the Jewish community at large beware of "Jews Are Friends Day" in Europe--especially anything hosted by the UN

But using the Holocaust as a means of building peaceful relations between the UN, Israel, and Jews is far more problematic than one may realize. The UN’s compliance with ‘remembering Auschwitz’ is nothing more than a smokescreen created in an attempt to appease its seared conscience towards the Jews, while knowingly conspiring with Arab leaders for Israel’s complete demise.

Thankfully, we do have men and women who have worked tirelessly to keep the Holocaust before us, as it is a time in history that should never be forgotten. But the Holocaust has become much more than a point and time in history to be remembered. It has become a mystery that the world spends endless time trying to solve, as well as a moral plumb line of justice in Europe and America.

All plumb lines have to be fixed by some type of weight. Using any event in history as a moral plumb line is utilizing a plumb line that is not fixed, because the interpretation of that event changes, reflecting the viewpoints of world rulers, opinions, and perceptions as time changes. Therefore, linking the Holocaust to establish a moral consciousness or plumb line is not possible. On the contrary, it was an unfixed moral plumb line that caused the Holocaust.

The link between the Holocaust and Europes perception of morality is noteworthy. G-dless societies steeped in unrighteousness use the injustice toward the Jews in the Holocaust to determine whether they are on one side or the other of morality. More than once, I have encountered strong feedback against the horrors of the Holocaust from people I have met around the world. They wouldn’t blink an eye at homosexuality, abortion, cannibalism, etc. but, the Holocaust is another story--and as the single most horrific example of immorality, it should be.

Yet, the subject of morality plays a huge underlying role in determining why there ever was a Holocaust.

The existence of morality is not a humanitarian issue, but a G-d issue. It came with the makeup and conscience given to man when G-d created him in His own image. The covenant G-d made with Abraham was based on the sole premise that he and his seed would walk “wholehearted” or “with moral integrity” before Him. The sign of Abraham’s agreement with G-d to produce a moral people was, and still is, the Covenant of Circumcision. This covenant includes two parts of inheritance--the land of Israel and the seed of Israel.

It also includes the destiny of Israel, “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Shemot (Exodus) 19:5

G-d then gave the children of Israel the Ten Commandments as guidelines of holiness for social and civil government by which he would establish His people and their nation, Israel. These commandments, with their accompanying statutes and judgments, formed the ethical structure of the Jewish people. In Devarim 4:6, G-d said to Israel “if you will keep my commandments and obey my voice I will make you a wise and an understanding nation in the sight of all nations.”

And true Christianity is rooted in the same covenant and Torah teachings. The Ten Commandments are as much the plumb line of Christian ethics as of Jewish ethics. Such ethics establish a true moral plumb line as they are fixed in something that is established forever--the Word of G-d. "Forever O L-RD Thy Word is settled in heaven." King David in Tehillim 119:89

Therefore, when the Ten Commandments are the moral plumb line of the Jews, Christians and mankind, then G-d is the driving force behind the moral integrity of man and the nations. But, when the Ten Commandments are no longer the moral plumb line, another driving force takes over. That driving force is “Nihilism.” “Nihilism” is a spiritual condition of being completely separated from G-d, void of G-d, atheism, hell, and a development in Christian Europe on a huge scope.

Wherever there is “Nihilism,” something has to fill the void it creates. Melek David said, “The nation that forgets G-d will be turned into hell.” That something will always be a value system that replaces the commandments of G-d, whether it is an individual value system, a humanitarian value system, an idolatrous value system or another religious value system such as Islam.

Therefore it is understandable that when Nihilism became the driving force of Europe in the twentieth century (as it is yet today) that something or someone’s ideology had to fill it. That someone and his ideology was Hitler. But before Hitler could create an Aryan race and government to fill the “void-ness of G-d” in Europe, he had to remove that which stood in his way—the Jews.

What’s shocking is that it wasn’t Christianity he needed to remove, although it was considered to be the entity through which G-d existed in Europe, but Jewry and Judaism. Why? Because spiritual forces behind Hitler knew something that neither Jewry nor most Christians understood: that Jewry holds all that pertains to G-d. Romans 9:4 states that “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants (including the New Covenant), and the giving of the Torah, and the service of G-d, and the promises” all belong to the Israelites.

Salvation history belongs to the house of Israel. One of the greatest errors the Church ever made is that it "fostered the illusion that it had any truth apart from the house of Israel.” Therefore, if you remove the foundation, or the people that possess the foundation to establish G-d’s moral plumline in the earth, everything that is built upon it will automatically collapse, including Christianity. In other words, Jewry was the only entity standing between Hitler and his vision for an Aryan race, superior to G-d Himself.

HIATUS?

How much I post on this blog from now on will depend on what I get in my email (I started it in response to a flow of emails originally!). I have now covered to my own satisfaction all the matters I wanted to cover but I could well be the only person who IS satisfied with what I have said so far! Anyway, I will be guided by mail from readers in what more I post. If anybody wants me to comment on any particular scripture I will be delighted to do so.

This does mean that I may not post regularly on this blog from now on but I will continue my practice of letting readers know I have posted something via a note at the bottom of my day's postings on Dissecting Leftism. Meanwhile, below is an email just received that I rather liked:

Re your post on true Christians. I whole heartedly agree with your premise that Constantine has a lot to answer for. It has long been my belief that Christianity's downfall was brought about by the Church being turned into an instrument of state authority, (give or take a few power struggles here and there). Given the simple message and plain delivery of that message, in totally unambiguous terms, (assuming the 4 gospels of the NT to be factual or at least approximately so), it always amazes me how and why people have allowed so much theology to attach itself to 'the word of Christ'. It would appear to me that this has been nothing more than an exercise in the ongoing justification of and for 'jobs for the boys', and a means of instituting the controlling hand of authority.

While I fully understand your position in holding to the belief of the non existence of God, indeed your comments regarding the afterlife as being no more than our mortal remains returning to dust, holds an almost inevitable inescapable truth, at least to my mind, I am still drawn to a belief in the divine purpose of the cosmos. As you stated elsewhere, any true nature of the Divine would by necessity be beyond our comprehension, given our limited knowledge; Socrates was right on this one - that the only true thing a wise man could be sure of, was how little that he actually knew.

In our daily existence, we are constantly bombarded by conflicting messages postulated by our so called religious leaders, many of whom seem to hold to an almost childish view of God, all the while missing a very central issue to the whole argument, namely how would a truly loving God show true love to his creation, for if he were to take an active role in it's daily existence, then surely that would in effect be defacto, a tyranny, no matter how benign the hand of control. It appears to me that true love, would allow us our failings as we seek to attain understanding and enlightenment, while we tread the stony paths to our reconnection to our humanity and our souls. Anything else would be to lead a child by the hand, to a place where the soul would still be that of a child, having learned little or nothing. My faith leads me to believe that our purpose here is to find ourselves, to become one with our humanity and our divine nature, even though, at the end we may indeed simply return to dust.

The core message of both the OT and the NT is one of Divine blessings addressed to us as individuals...'here is a pathway to your salvation, seek it and follow it, and you shall attain that goal which you seek'. For such a simple message, what need is there of bishops and prelates, of cannons and holy men, none that I see!

There, that's my take on things, of course it could all be bunk, only death will tell. You on the other hand have your beliefs, which is as it should be. Learning true tolerance is part of the path to enlightenment, and it's godchild is respect.

IS THERE ANY TRUE CHRISTIANITY LEFT IN CHRISTENDOM?

If there are any believers in the Bible among those who have been reading this blog, I would hope that they will be seriously disturbed at my demonstration of the way the churches have misrepresented core Bible teachings. Martin Luther got rid of the centrality of the Pope but he was after all an Augustinian monk and there was an awful lot of Roman doctrine that he did not get rid of. And not much has changed since among alleged Christians.

No doubt, however, the largely pagan teachings of Christendom today are psychologically satisfying to a lot of people and that satisfaction will always be what matters most. The appeal of the churches will not be diminished just because people become aware that the foundations of their faith are not as advertised. People believe what they believe and that it it.

I imagine, however, that somebody will want to ask me at some stage whether there is a church that still relies on the Bible for its teachings. Broadly, the answer to that is that the smaller sects do take the Bible more seriously and some of them do take note of at least parts of what they read there. I am no expert on fundamentalist sects but the best-known such sects are Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. But the SDAs are rather illogical about how you determine what the 7th. day is and Jehovah's Witnesses try to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to the conflicting OT and NT versions of the afterlife.

If I were religious myself, I think I would become a Jew. Everything about Christendom would then fall into place: Christendom makes perfect sense as the Devil's version of Judaism: A false and deeply offensive view of God, a false hope for the afterlife, a false Messiah who achieved nothing that the real Messiah would have achieved, high holy days (Christmas and Easter) that are undisputably pagan in origin, symbolism and timing and, to top it all, a pre-eminent symbol of the faith (the cross) that is borrowed directly from the fertility religions that the prophets all struggled against. Given such a view of Christendom, it is no wonder that it tried so hard for so long to exterminate the real people of God!

Still, it seems a pity that the original Christianity was one of the many ancient religions to die out. It was in its day a faith of great power. By all accounts, the early Christians even followed Christ's teaching: "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39). And they survived and flourished in a harsh world for hundreds of years despite following that "impractical" teaching. In the end it was not external attack that destroyed the original Christianity but the corruption from within that came with respectability and power. Constantine has a lot to answer for.

1 Corinthians 15

I have just noticed a few interesting points about 1 Corinthians 15. From verse 12 we see that Paul actually wrote his diatribe about the spiritual nature of the resurrectuion IN RESPONSE TO other early Christians who DENIED the resurrection. In other words, the pagan immortal soul doctrine was influential in the early church more or less from the word go. And if you are an immortal soul you don't need resurrection. So the fact that both Paul and John stressed the centrality of the resurrection shows that there was a fight between the Hebrew and pagan views from the beginning -- with the NT writers clinging to a version of the Hebrew view. In both the OT and the NT, the view is that eternal life is ACQUIRED, not inherent. It is attained through resurrection from death at the end of days. You are not immortal from the beginning.

That view is even expressed in what is probably the favourite evangelical scripture -- John 3: 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." This scripture could hardly be clearer in saying that you have to DO something (i.e. believe) in order to get eternal life. Otherwise you just perish. Or as it says in 1 Corinthians 15: 53 "this mortal nature must put on immortality". So how anybody claiming to be a Christian can believe we are born with an immortal soul is quite beyond me. It flies in the face of all scripture.

And 1 Corinthians 15:28 is also completely fatal to the Trinity doctrine. Paul says that after the resurrection, "When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone". If the Son is subjected to the Father, how can the Father and the Son be equal -- as the Trinity doctrine requires?

Verses 44 and 50 however mark the departure of Christianity from Judaism: "It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body" .... "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God". The resurrection is an entirely spiritual one.

Well, maybe my mission here is complete now. I think I have shown beyond reasonable doubt that the teachings of the Bible are radically different from (and in my view a lot simpler and more sensible than) the largely-pagan teachings that mostly pass for Christianity these days. Let him who will, hear.





OK FOR COLOURED ANGLICANS TO BE "HOMOPHOBIC"

The man who dreams of “a world without gays”, Archbishop Vercoe, is representing New Zealand at an Anglican Church crisis meeting in Ireland to determine the fate of gay clergy.

The meeting has ended in division, with the Episcopal Church in America and the Anglican Church of Canada being voluntarily thrown out of the Anglican Consultative Council until 2008 until they reconsider their decision to accept openly gay clergy.

New Zealand’s Anglican Church will fall into line. Bishop of Auckland John Paterson says the church welcomes homosexuals, but does not permit them to hold leadership roles, such as that of bishop.

Archbishop Vercoe, the leader of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, caused a storm last year when he told the Herald he dreamed of a new moral uprising that would rid the world of gays. The Maori bishop’s comments were defended as culturally sound by liberal Pakeha church leaders, despite condemnation from prominent figures within Maoridom.

Following a public outcry, Vercoe backtracked slightly on the comments and claimed he never dreamed of a world without gays. His semi-retraction was made in a written statement released through the Anglican National Office. Vercoe has not given any interviews to the media since.

Source

THE CROSS

Did Christ die on a cross? It seems unlikely. The two words used in the Greek NT to refer to the cross are "stauros" and "xylon". "Xylon" simply means "wood" and "stauros" simply means "stake". Because of Christian convictions about the cross, however, all Lexicons do give "cross" as one of the meanings of "stauros". But in classical (pre-Christian) Greek, "stauros" seems always to have meant simply "stake". So Christ probably died with his hands pinned ABOVE his head. Why would the Romans go to the trouble of adding a crossbar just for the purpose of executing a criminal when a stake with no crossbar would do the job equally well?

So why do Christians venerate the cross? Simple. It is another of the many compromises the early church made with paganism. The cross is probably the most ubiquitous religious symbol there is. It long predates Christianity and is found all over -- from ancient Egypt, through Babylon to India. Even the pagan Norsemen used it.

{And the Indians particularly liked (and like to this day) their hooked cross -- the Swastika. Though the Indian swastika and the Nazi symbol are actually mirror-images of one-another. See here. So strictly speaking the Nazi symbol is NOT a Swastika -- and the Nazis didn't call it one either. They called it simply a "Hakenkreuz" (hooked cross)}.

Why was the cross so popular? Because many ancient religions -- such as the worship of Baal of Peor that the Hebrew prophets battled so valiantly -- were what are politely called "fertility" religions: Sex worship in plain terms. And the cross is a stylized picture of sexual intercourse. So it is sad and ironic that the fertility religions that the Bible so fiercely opposes have injected one of their great symbols into the centre of Christian practice.

The earliest symbol of Christianity -- as found in the Roman catacombs etc -- was of course a fish-shape rather than a cross. And the fish shape was simply a slightly disguised "Chi" -- the first letter of the name "Christ" in Greek -- shaped very much like a capital X in our alphabet. And I won't even try to say how it is pronounced.

The soul is mortal; Christ didn't die on the cross; the Nazis didn't use a swastika -- where will it all end? Am I the craziest man on the internet? If you think so, just check up for yourself on anything I say. But don't rely on dictionaries and encyclopaedias and summaries. They will just give you the conventional story. You have to get a lot closer to original sources than that. Most dictionaries even tell you that conservatives support the status quo -- and few claims could be more laughable than that. Every conservative I know would like to see a HEAP of things changed!





STILL SOME LOYALTY TO THE SCRIPTURES AMONG ANGLICANS

The Anglican Church stood on the brink of schism last night after the US and Canadian Churches were told to “voluntarily withdraw” from the Communion’s central governing body in a bitter row over homosexuality. The two Churches were told by leaders of the worldwide Church to “consider their place in the Anglican Communion” before the next Lambeth Conference in 2008. The concluding statement of the week-long Primates’ meeting in Armagh represents a conservative success in forcing the liberals in North America to consider whether their stance over gays is compatible with membership of the Anglican Communion.

The United States Church is effectively facing an agreed withdrawal from the Communion over its consecration of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson to the New Hampshire Diocese if it does not fall in with the demands of the Windsor Report, which called for statements of regret over gay consecrations and same-sex blessings and a moratorium on similar actions. The Canadian Church is facing similar conditions over its authorisation of same-sex blessings in 2003. The communiqué also commits the Communion to “pastoral support and care of homosexual people” and acknowledges that Canada and the US acted within their constitutions. But it is nevertheless expected to precipitate further crises in the liberal churches of the West, including the Church of England. Thousands of lesbian and gay Christians and their supporters are threatening to leave if the US and Canada Churches are sidelined.

The Primates’ response to the crisis is set out in a statement that was due to be published today but was hurriedly released last night after leaks from the closed meeting indicating that the liberals were to be penalised. Conservatives, mainly from the “Global South” churches in Africa and Asia, had wanted the suspension and then expulsion of the Episcopal Church of the US and the Anglican Church of Canada if they failed to repent. But canon lawyers, who have been heavily involved in the Primates’ meeting at the Dromantine Roman Catholic retreat centre, advised that there was no legal process by which any of the 38 provinces can be suspended from the 77-million strong Communion. They were instead asked to voluntarily withdraw for at least three years.

The US Church, with more than two million members, is one of the smallest but is also the wealthiest, financing communications systems in many of the provinces that object most to its liberalism. At least one African province has refused to accept any more cash.

Thirty-five of the Anglican Communion’s 38 Primates have been closeted in guarded quarters at the retreat centre. The bulk of the work towards the end of the meeting was done by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canturbury, Dr Peter Akinola, the Primate of Nigeria, and Bishop Frank Griswold, the US Primate, in consultation with John Rees, the Church of England canon lawyer. They were said to be exhausted when they emerged with the completed draft, early yesterday evening.

Although the communiqué represents a victory for the conservatives, a senior source said it was not correct to speak in terms of suspension or of measures being taken against the US Church. The correct language, he said, was “withdrawal”. He continued: “The churches of the US and Canada have got to follow their own constitutional processes. The whole thing has to be done properly. They have to go and consider their position. They are the ones who have to tell us what they want.” The two Churches, which sparked the crisis with the consecration of a practising gay bishop and the authorisation of same-sex blessings, have until the 2008 Lambeth Conference to meet the demands of the Windsor Report, which called on them to regret their actions, impose a moratorium on future similar actions and come up with theological justifications for what they have done.

Source

Revelations 20

A reader has asked me to comment on this text (Verses 12-15):

"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire".

One has to be cautious about taking texts from Revelations literally but what this text says does in fact accord well with Paul's account of the Day of Judgement as given in Romans 2 and discussed by me two days ago. The imagery used is vivid ("lake of fire") but the writer makes sure we do not misinterpret it by himself giving the interpretation of it ("this is the second death").

So once again we see a resurrection of both the goodies and baddies with the baddies being consigned to a "second death" immediately after being judged. There is of course no mention of eternal torment for the baddies -- only death -- as in the whole of the rest of the OT and NT. And note that we again find no mention of immortal souls. If everybody was still alive they would not need resurrecting. The idea of resurrecting people only to kill them again (the second death) seems bizarre to me but that is what the book says happens to the baddies, like it or not.

The text "Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire" may seem puzzling at first but once we move beyond the vivid imagery and remember what the word "hades" refers to in the NT (and the Septuagint) it is perfectly straightforward. It is saying that from then on there will be no more dying -- hence no more graves (hades) and no more death.

SPIRIT

I suppose I should say a bit more about the Bible's use of the word "spirit" ("ruach" in Hebrew and "pneuma" in Greek}. The usage of "soul" ("nephesh", "psyche") is confusing enough but it can be more or less translated as something like "this particular individual" but our translation job is quite a bit harder with "spirit". As I have already pointed out, its basic meaning is "breath" but a whole host of figurative usages follow on from there. In Luke 4 we find Jesus with the power of God's spirit on him and that he then drove out the spirit of a demon. So both God and demons can HAVE spirits as well as BEING spirit entities! I guess "spirit" equates to "influence" in those cases.

So various mentions of people as having a spirit cannot be taken as showing the existence of an immortal soul. There will always be various interpretations possible. As I mentioned earlier, "life" is often a good translation.

Ecclesiastes 3:21 is sometimes taken as implying that man has a spirit that goes "upward" on death whereas beasts have a spirit that goes downwards on death but Solomon is actually ridiculing that belief if you look at the context. (And even in the KJ, the verse does end with a question mark!). Most translations do however muddle the meaning of the context rather badly by rendering the word "ruach" as "breath" in verse 19 (where both men and beasts are said to have the SAME "ruach") and rendering "ruach" as "spirit" in verse 21. Which at least shows that "ruach" does give translators a lot of problems, I guess. Oddly enough, the Douay, of all translations, makes it clearest that v. 21 is a mocking question. The Douay (the original Catholic translation) is normally known for its lack of clarity. It reads: "Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downwards?" As the Douay is primarily a translation of the Vulgate, I guess Jerome must have expressed it clearly.

Well, I think that wraps up what I want to say until I get more emails arguing with me so if I post nothing tomorrow, blame yourself for not challenging me more! I am sure most of my readers think I have got a awful lot wrong but I am still waiting for someone to show me where! I do have one persistent correspondent who thinks that his personal experience with God is authoritative but my interest is in what the Bible says, I am afraid.

ROMANS 1 & 2

Chapters 1 and 2 of Romans are interesting, being mainly a condemnation of various sorts of sin. Both male and female homosexuality are condemned as earning death but it specifically says that we are not to make that judgement. Only God can.

What is of greatest interest, however, concerns the day of judgment. In chapter 2, the wicked are said (v. 5) to be treasuring up for themselves a DAY of judgment. In verse 7 we read that the good guys get everlating life and in verse 8 and 9 we learn that the wicked guys get wrath and fury which will be experienced by them as "tribulation and distress" (RSV).

So it looks as though the evildoers get resurrected too, but only for one day, so God can tell them what he thinks of them. That is what it says, anyway, and who am I to argue with what it says? Others can interpret it away if they like but my interest is in what it actually says.

Note that it is only the good guys who are said to get anything everlasting. All the evildoers get is a day, after which they "perish" (v. 12). I suppose that makes some sort of sense. God is often presented in the Bible as someone with fairly human emotions (he seems to have a great need for praise) so I suppose he can feel a need to blow off steam too.

Note that the tribulation is said to be experienced by the wicked "soul" in the KJ but by the wicked "human being" in the RSV. That reflects what I have already said about the Greek word "psyche" in my post of 20th. Translating it as "soul" is misleading.





Moral Equivalency: The Religious Left Gets It Wrong

“Failure makes you reassess.” So says Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, and he ought to know. A number of Democratic Party members are looking to Wallis right now to help with their own political reassessment. Wallis is what the New York Times calls a “leader of [the] religious left,” and as he says, “The Democratic Party has increasingly had a problem as being perceived as secular fundamentalists.”

So now Wallis is much in demand among Democratic leaders who want to learn “to be much more forceful and clear in communicating their faith and values to the electorate.” Wallis’s favorite argument, as reported in the Times and elsewhere, is that the Bible makes more than three thousand references to poverty—far more than abortion or homosexuality—and yet religious conservatives, in his opinion, are obsessed with the abortion issue. So, says Wallis, the religious left is more in tune with the Bible than are conservatives.

This argument was popular during the presidential campaign, repeated even by some conservatives. You may remember my commentary on historian and author Mark Noll. I admire Noll greatly, but I was disappointed by his decision not to vote because he thought neither party was right about the issues that concerned him most, including poverty. It is a perfectionist attitude that fails to take into account the fallen world we live in. Even the magazine to which I’ve been a contributing editor for more than twenty years wrote an editorial suggesting that Christian voters might have to choose between the sanctity of life and social justice.

The implications of this argument are clear: that is, all moral issues are equivalent. So, pick and choose among them; as long as you get seven or eight right answers, you’re okay.

Frankly, I find that thinking muddled, at best. We oppose abortion because we respect the fact that all humans are made in the image of God. How can you be genuinely sympathetic to the poor and the downtrodden if you don’t respect their most fundamental right? I would go so far as to say that unless you’re consistently pro-life, you’re not going to be a reliable defender of the poor.

Why do you suppose that in this ministry we have been going into the prisons for the past three decades? Why do we help people dying of AIDS? Why do we—and so many other Christians—visit the most dangerous places in America? Because the people there are our brothers and sisters, created, like us, in the image of God.

Why help the poor if we don’t believe all lives are equal in God’s sight? If you support ending the life of a child because it will be born into poverty, how can you logically call yourself an advocate for the poor?

The religious left is trying to tell us that you can take away the reason for doing something and still expect people to do it. Nobody’s going to win the allegiance of serious evangelical or Catholic voters by offering handouts to the poor with one hand while taking away their human dignity with the other. Sorry, Jim Wallis, all issues are not morally equivalent. The first one, the right to life, is non-negotiable. It undergirds all others: Take it away, and the whole house of cards collapses.

Source

THE HOLY GHOST

I tend to assume a fairly high level of exegetical knowledge among readers of this blog but I guess I go too far at times. The following email exchange with a valued reader gave me a bit of a laugh. The reader asked me was I going to say anything about the Holy Ghost and I replied:

"Not really. If Christ is not God that rather knocks out the holy ghost too. But I might get around to mentioning it as a matter of interest in its own right eventually. Is it coterminous with the paraclete, for instance?"

My reader replied:

"That had me doing a quick Google search. Yes, that and the more general question of what is meant by the term holy ghost. In a sense, Christ was tangible (a fact Thomas took advantage of), but the holy ghost is of a different nature."

To save other readers a Google search, the Paraclete is the "comforter" or "helper" Jesus said he would send in John 14:16 ("Paraclytos" in the Greek).

The only point I want to make today, however, concerns Jesus being tangible at the time of his apparition to doubting Thomas. I think 1 Corinthians 15:50-56 makes it pretty clear that Heaven is a spiritual realm and Jesus was clearly not in heaven at the time of his post-crucifixion apparitions. So I think we have to conclude that the Bible teaching is that Jesus is now a spiritual being but that there was a special effort made in the immediate post-crucifixion era to have him re-inhabit his earthly body for the purpose of encouraging his followers. I don't think there is any warrant for concluding that he is still inhabiting his earthly body now that he is back in Heaven. So I would disagree that the Holy Ghost and Jesus differ in one being spiritual and the other not.

My own personal interpretation of what the Holy Spirit ("Ghost" is an old term -- "pneuma" in Greek) is would simply be that it is a form of divine inspiration or support -- i.e. not a person in any sense but a form of special assistance from God to holy people. But I have no firm views on the matter. Note however that when Jesus died (Luke 23:46), he said that he entrusted his "spirit" ("pneuma") to God. And also note that the literal meaning of "pneuma" is "breath" or "air" (hence our word "pneumatic" for things filled with air) so any interpretaion we put on it beyond "breath" is figurative. But it seems safe to say that "pneuma" is not a person, whether holy or not. "Life" would probably be the most generally useful translation of its figurative uses.






BIBLE CHRISTIANITY UNACCEPTABLE TO THE CoE

"The Anglican Primate has moved to expel from the Australian communion a conservative cleric who plans to act as a flying bishop for parishes opposed to the ordination of women. Peter Carnley declared unacceptable yesterday the consecration of Queensland priest David Chislett as a bishop by a conservative offshoot of the US Episcopal Church. Father Chislett, rector of All Saints Wickham Terrace in central Brisbane, was consecrated by the Traditional Anglican Communion in Rosemount, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. "It seems that the Reverend David Chislett has left the Anglican Church of Australia to join the TAC," Dr Carnley said in a statement.

Dr Carnley, the liberal who defied canon law more than a decade ago to ordain women as priests, said the Anglican Church was not in communion with the TAC and there was no constitutional provision for licensing someone consecrated by it.

Father Chislett, vice-chairman of the conservative Forward in Faith movement and a vocal critic of the 1992 decision to allow the ordination of women, plans to travel around Australia pastoring to parishes who refuse to accept the ministrations of women priests. Bishop of The Murray Ross Davies has licensed him as a bishop in his diocese. "We need a flying bishop and now we have one," Bishop Davies said.

In a fiery sermon at Father Chislett's consecration, TAC primate John Hepworth said: "Your ministry is partly unknown but it is a ministry to communities that are broken and altars that are cracked."

Dr Carnley said he was disappointed with Father Chislett's move. The soon-to-retire Primate warned conservative Anglicans leaning towards the Catholic Church to take note of Father Chislett's status. "The purported consecration of a bishop without an office within which to function may be little more than shadow boxing," he said.

More here

Matthew 25:46

"And they will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life" (RSV)

I discussed this scripture on 12th. but I want to revert to it here because I received emails that were skeptical of my comment about verse 41 -- where sinners are consigned to "eternal fire". I pointed out in my usual inconvenient way that it was the FIRE that was eternal, not any sort of suffering by those cast into it. But it is not unreasonable to ask whether being cast into a fire and destroyed is a fair interpretation of "eternal punishment". Doesn't the expression "eternal punishment" suggest something ongoing, something that keeps on happening without letup? Indeed it does -- in English. But the Greek word so translated above is not about that at all. As I have mentioned, the word is the adjectival form of "aion" -- quite a vague word in Greek but which baasically means an "age". So "of an age" would be the most literal translation of "aionion" but the age concerned is not clearly specified -- though in context it could of course be taken to mean all time. Funnily enough, however, there is a near synonym to "eternal" in English that distorts the meaning of the Greek word less -- "everlasting". "Everlasting" does not suggest some ongoing process, just as the Greek "aionion" does not.

So with all that behind us, what is meant by "everlasting punishment"? The text itself really answers that very clearly. The everlasting punishment is contrasted with everlasting life so it is clear that, as in other scriptures, the fate of the sinner is death, not torment. And, as I mentioned before, the Greek word for "punishment" used here had as its original meaning "lopping off" so that makes the point clearer again. But why everlasting death (or lopping off)? Why death for all time? Because it is a death from which there will be no resurrection. Resurrection is only for the good guys. And the life gained at resurrection by the good guys is for all time just as the death of the bad guys is for all time. And in the NT the resurrection is not into a flesh and blood body but into a spirit form. 1 Corinthians 15:50-56 is pretty clear about that. Note that verse 56 again specifies that death, not torment, is the outcome of sin.

I think I have just about covered most of the stuff I wanted to cover now so what I post from now on will I think depend on what emails I get about the issues I have raised. There are a few texts in Revelations which seem to be about hellfire etc but, like the rest of Revelations, they are of course visions with a symbolical meaning so I will not go into any of that unless someone particularly wants me to do so. Interpreting visions is definitely not my strong point, however.

THE SOUL

The idea of an immortal soul inhabiting each of our earthly bodies is a pagan (mainly Greek) one. Let us look at some occurrences of the word "soul" in the KJ. The Hebrew word usually translated as "soul" is "nephesh" and the Greek is "psyche" but the translators play fast and loose and sometimes translate the same word in different ways.

In Genesis 2:7 we read that at the time of creation "man became a living soul (nephesh)". Note: "BECAME", not "received". So man IS a soul, he does not have one in him. And 1 Corinthians 15:45 quotes that Genesis text approvingly, using "psyche" as a translation of "nephesh". In 1 Peter 3:20 we read that in Noah's day, "eight souls (psyche)were saved" so again souls are persons rather than part of a person. And in Genesis 9:5 we read that souls have blood: "your blood of your lives (nephesh) will I require". And you can hit souls with swords in Joshua 11:11: "and they smote all the souls (nephesh)... with the edge of the sword. And in Genesis 1: 20 (RSV) we read that animals are souls too: "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures (nephesh)". And in Leviticus 24:17,18 we read that souls can be killed: "He that killeth any man (nephesh) shall be put to death". And in Ezekiel 18:4 we read that the souls of sinners will die: "The soul (nephesh) that sinneth, it shall die". Acts 3:23 "every soul (psyche)... shall be destroyed". Ezekiel 22:27: "to shed blood and to destroy souls (nephesh)" ..... And I could go on.

So where is your immortal soul in all that? Whatever the soul is, it sure aint immortal according to both the OT and the NT. It is pesky when you read what the Bible actually says isn't it? The original Jewish and Christian hope is for resurrection. You don't have a bit in you that is immortal anyway. It is truly amazing that almost all allegedly Christian churches preach the Greek doctrine rather than the Biblical one. And it is the pagan element that is mystical and absurd. The Bible is much more down to earth (in more ways than one). I personally think that the Bible is a great book. If only more Christians read it ....