Rants and Raves

Elijah or El-Aja? Voodoo meets Judaism

2011-05-16T09:22:00.012+10:00

I've been studying the history of Voodoo and its founders, the Aja people, and came across this legend about one of their gods:

"In ancient times, LISA sent a Messenger (LEGBA) to earth daily to travel from sunrise to sunset. He did this all the time every year. One day, while on His errands, He reached Aja land and it was already night. He could go no more and so He went into a house. There was a man who was also on the road. As night fell, he, too, went into this house. They gave them a place in the same house, the two strangers together.

LISA's Messenger asked the other, '”here are you going?”

He said, “I am going where the sun sets.”

Good, LISA's Messenger said, “It is life that gives a companion. I myself am going to the same place.”

The following morning, at first cockcrow, in a house beside theirs, was a sick child sleeping, and the parents were crying.

LISA's Messenger went to ask them, “Why haven't you slept all night?”

They said, “We have a child here who is very sick.”

Now, LISA's Messenger had a sack in which He carried some powder. He gave some of the powder to a man to give to the sick child.

And He went back quickly to the man who was sleeping in his house, and said, “Wake up! Wake up! We are leaving.”

They took but a few steps away from the house, when all at once the people in the house began to shout, Where is the stranger? Where is the stranger?' The child was dead.

So they went away (LEGBA and His companion). They went until they came to Savalou (another village). There in Savalou they spent the night. They took shelter in a house beside the road. At first cockcrow, LISA's Messenger took some flint and made a fire. And this fire He put to the straw of the house where He had slept. He said, now, to the other man, “Wake up! Wake up! We are going.” After they left, the house took fire. The people asked, 'Where are the strangers? Where are the strangers?' But they were gone.

They ran away and continued their journey. As LISA's Messenger did that, his companion, who was a human being, was astonished. He did not know that the other was a Vudu (God). So they reached Badahwedji where the sun sets. That is, they were almost there.

Now, there was a river that separated Badahwedji from where the two travelers were. In order to cross the river, one must put down a raft and pass on it. There was an old man from Badahwedji who was in the habit of coming to the river bank for leaves. He gathered them and went back. Now he was crossing the river for the second time. So LISA's Messenger came behind him and pushed him, so that he fell into the water.

When He did this, the man who came with LISA's Messenger ran away. LISA's Messenger saw him run and He called him back. "Come, come here,” He said, “That's not where you are going. You are going. You are going to this place. Here it is.”

The other said, “What I saw on the road here is too much. I am running away from it.”

LISA's Messenger said, “Now, I'm not a man. I know you are astonished at all I did. But I'm not a human being. In the house where I killed the child, if that child had not died, its mother and father would have died when it took its first step. It is LISA who sent me to destroy that child.' He said, 'In that house this mother and father have borne many children, and this one child could not be allowed to spoil their lives.”

He said, “The family where I burned the house has rich relatives among them. But they buried all their money and their children are poor. So I burned the house, so that when they break the walls to make them a new and begin to dig the foundation, they will find the money.”

He said, "I had the man fall into the river, because the King of Badahwedji is dead. To replace this king, a younger man should be named. If that old man were alive, a young man could not be named. That is why Lisa sent me to throw him into the water. The people still think the old man will be their King. But if that man became King, there would be no more goats, no more cattle, no more children in that Kingdom. SAGBATA would come to their Kingdom and kill them, because MAWU had ordained that one could not be king. With a young king, they will have goats, pigs and children also.”

Then, He said, “I, I look into the hearts of men, and LISA sends me to look at things. You must not be astonished. Year after year, if I do not change into a man, I changed into a headache and kill men. I change into serpents and burn houses. And when, in the course of life, you see such things, you will know that is MAWU-LISA Who sends them."

Mawu-Lisa is their Creator God, Legba, the messenger, is their god of wisdom.

Now compare this to a Jewish legend about Elijah:

Joshua once asked Elijah to take him along on his journeys through the world. To this the prophet yielded on condition that Joshua should never question him concerning the causes of his actions, strange as they might appear; should this condition be violated, the prophet would be obliged to part from him.Both set out upon their journey.

The first halt was at the house of a poor man who owned only a cow, but who, with his wife, received the strangers most kindly, and entertained them to the best of his ability. Before they continued their journey next morning, the rabbi heard Elijah pray that God might destroy the poor man's cow, and before they had left the hospitable house the cow was dead.

Joshua could not contain himself, but in great excitement said to Elijah: "Is this the reward which the poor man receives for his hospitality toward us?" The prophet reminded him of the condition upon which they had undertaken the journey, and silently they continued on their way.

Toward evening they came to the house of a rich man who did not even look at them, so that they had to pass the night without food and drink. In the morning when they left the inhospitable house, Joshua heard Elijah pray that God would build up a wall which had fallen in one of the rich man's houses. At once the wall stood erect.

This increased the agitation of the rabbi still more; but remembering the condition which had been imposed upon him, he kept silent.

On the next evening they came to a synagogue adorned with silver and gold, none of whose rich members showed any concern for the poor travelers, but dismissed them with bread and water. Upon leaving the place Joshua heard Elijah pray that God would make them all leaders ("heads"). Joshua was about to break his promise, but forced himself to go on in silence again.

In the next city they met very generous people who vied with one another in performing acts of kindness toward the strangers. Great, then, was the surprise of Joshua when, upon leaving the place, he heard the prophet pray that God might give them only "one head”.

Joshua could not refrain any longer, and asked Elijah to explain to him his strange actions, although he knew that by asking he would forfeit the prophet's companionship.

Elijah answered: "The poor but generous man lost his cow because of my prayer, for I knew that his wife was about to die, and I asked God to take the life of the cow instead of that of the wife. My prayer for the heartless rich man was because under the fallen wall was a great treasure which would have come into the hands of this unworthy man had he undertaken to rebuild it. It was also no blessing which I pronounced upon the unfriendly synagogue, for a 'place which has many heads will not be of long duration'; on the other hand, I wished for the others, the good people, 'one head,' that union and peace may always be among them."

These stories are so similar it is obvious that they came from the same source. But who borrowed from whom? Is the story about Elijah, or is it about El-Aja (God of the Aja)? Hebrew has no vowels, so they would be spelled the same in that language.

Next post I try and figure it out.

Does Pell Do Pagan Rites?

2011-04-28T13:19:00.018+10:00

Deltoid just posted a link to a site that says:

“George Pell [Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Australia] recently suggested that young fit Australians who voted Green were indulging in a pagan ritual”.

The words “Pagan Ritual” conjure up an image of people in long robes chanting words in an obscure language. Maybe there's a human sacrifice involved to meet the requirements of an ancient god, which is later celebrated by eating the victim's flesh and drinking his blood.

Does Pell think only his kind of people should be allowed to do such things? I wonder if he wishes for the good old days when pagans were tortured and killed to please this angry god?

What does Genesis have to say about man's place in the world? Gen 1:26 (NIV) says:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals[a], and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

With rulership comes obligations. Genesis 2:15(NIV) says:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

That's what Pagans and Greenies are really about- trying to take care of the world. So whose side is God really on, Cardinal Pell?
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[a]. the earth. [This is the] Probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see Syriac); Masoretic Text

Bible Quotes from BibleGateway New International Version, ©2011 (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica

Happy Easter!

2011-04-23T20:38:00.012+10:00

Every year I make up an original puzzle for my youngest to solve so he can find his Easter treats. He just turned 19 so I have to make them challenging. I figured I'd share the one I just made, in case someone else would like to try it. It's in a form that I invented myself.

There are 5 shapes in 7 different colours with letters on them. You place them into the blanks to make words and sentences. The shapes and colours are in repeating patterns. ie if there were only 2 colours, they'd alternate. If there were only three shapes, they'd go diamond, cross, star, diamond, cross, star for example.

Here are the blanks typed out. Except for the last line, each line has one word. The "," are commas, not apostophe's. The solution is a cryptic clue.

_ _ _,
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _, _ _ ?

You can print it out by accessing this file:
Fill in the blanks.

The shapes are here:

You do get 4 hints to get you started:

The green triangle with the letter Y on it is the 3rd letter.
The yellow egg with the letter Y is the 19th letter,
The red square with the H on it is the 30th letter,
and the blue triangle with the Y on it is the 53rd letter.
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So Happy Easter from me, my family and my dog Silas and my favourite plant!

I Promise to Love, Cherish, & Wash Your Feet?

2011-04-21T17:11:00.018+10:00

When Jesus was washing his disciple's feet at the last supper, was he referencing a loving relationship between a woman and her husband?

In Jesus time a marriage contract outlined what the husband and the wife had to do for each other. Jewishencyclopedia says:

The husband's duties to the wife are set forth in detail under Ketubah [marriage contract] . In the body of that instrument he binds himself to work for her, and to honor, support, and maintain her. The wife, if she brings no dowry, is bound to do such housework for the husband as grinding, baking, washing, cooking, suckling her child, spreading the bed, and working in wool (spinning, knitting, and the like). If she brings one slave woman, or the means to buy one, she need not grind, bake, nor wash clothes; if two, she need not cook, nor suckle her child; if three, she need not spread the bed nor work in wool; if four, she may "sit still in her chair". She must, however, do certain small services for her husband which it would be improper for any but the wife to perform, such as washing his hands and face.

This was a legally binding contract . Note how a woman could get a slave to perform most of her duties for her except for filling his cup, make his bed and wash his hands, face and feet. This is something she couldn't get out of, even if she made a vow not to in order to serve God.

The relevant passages in the Talmud are:

Mas. Kethuboth 61a:

IF FOUR, SHE MAY LOUNGE IN AN EASY CHAIR. R. Isaac b. Hanania stated in the name of R. Huna: Although it has been said, SHE MAY LOUNGE IN AN EASY CHAIR she should nevertheless fill for him his cup, make ready his bed and wash his face, hands and feet. 28

(28) Such personal services are calculated to nurse a husband's affections (Rash. l.c.).

Mas. Nedarim 81b:

E.g., if she vows, Konam be fruit unto me? he can annul: Konam that I prepare nought for my father, for your brother, for your father, for my brother, or that I place no straw before your cattle, or, water before your herds, he cannot annul. [Konam] that I may not paint or rouge or cohabit, he can annul as a matter affecting their mutual relationship; that I do not make your bed, or, prepare you drink, or, wash your hands or feet, he need not annul. 5

(5) Such vows are automatically invalid, since she is under an obligation to do these things.

Let's look at Genesis 2:24 (NIV):

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

.
Now read John 13:6-9 (NIV):

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

In a marriage, the two become one- so each is a part of the other. Maybe Jesus was saying he wanted his disciples to be so close that they are part of him and part of each other. And that they are to take the subservient role in this relationship. So like a wife, they were supposed to wash the other's feet to symbolize this deep love, bonding and humility? This would be backed up by the beginning of the account where it says in John 13 :1 (NIV):

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

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Bible Quotes from BibleGateway New International Version, ©2011 (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica

Germs Prove Jesus Isn't God

2011-02-19T15:35:00.011+11:00

Matthew 15:1-2,7-9 (NIV)

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"

You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

"'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"

His instruction to ignore this rule of the elders made his followers sick:

1 Timothy 5:23

Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

Of course everyone knows you have to wash your hands before you eat or the germs on your hands will make you sick. But surely the elders didn't know about germs?

Here's some info on Shibta by John Lightfoot (1602-1675). He said:

To these most rigid canons they added also bugbears and ghosts to affright them.

It was the business of Shibta. Where the Gloss is, "Shibta was one of the demons who hurt them that wash not their hands before meat." The Aruch writes thus, "Shibta is an evil spirit which sits upon men's hands in the night: and if any touch his food with unwashen hands, that spirit sits upon that food, and there is danger from it."

Note, John Lightfoot quoted this about 200 years before germ theory was first stated, so, he could laugh but if you were explaining to a child why they had to wash their hands, what would you say?

“Well, there are these invisible creatures that are on your hands and that can make you sick if you don't wash them off before you touch food that's going to go into your mouth.”

Sounds a lot like a Shibta doesn't it?

But Jesus didn't believe in Shibta and didn't know about germs so he could not possibly be God.

To be fair, I don't think he ever said he was.
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All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

I've previously posted on this in two other articles:

Demons and Personal Hygiene

Elders and the Spirit of the Unwashed Hands

but they are pretty technical and not so easy to read.

How A Fanatic Thinks

2011-02-16T22:06:00.003+11:00

How to Deal With a Non-Believer:

Do everything you can to share your religion with them. It is your privilege, it is your obligation to save them.

When someone disagrees with you, however, remember, they are disagreeing with the person who taught you. If they disagree with the person who taught you, then they are disagreeing with your Holy Books, if they disagree with your Holy Books then they're disagreeing with your prophets and if they disagree with them then they are disagreeing with God Himself and must be made to repent!

So when asked a question that suggests you might be wrong about something, don't check your facts, because by checking them that means you have doubts about what you believe, and if you have doubts about what you believe, you might start to doubt what you were taught, and if you doubt what you were taught , you might start doubting your Holy books and if you start doubting those you'll start doubting your religion and then you'll be a heretic which is exactly what the question is meant to achieve!

...........................................................
Of course this is false reasoning, but there is a reason fanatics think this way. Most are newbies to the religion and start teaching others before they have finished learning the basics themselves. They probably haven't read the entire Old Testament/Tanach, for example. Furthermore, they are the type of people who don't question what they are taught- they swallow it whole, so they don't ask questions, so their teachers can't tell if they got it right. Also people aren't taught what their Holy Books actually say. There's a huge disconnect there. Furthermore, what the prophets actually said and what was recorded that they said is also different. Reporter bias comes into play. Then of course there's the case where the prophets get it wrong. For instance, Jesus got it wrong when he said that his followers shouldn't wash their hands before they eat. That's just an example from Christianity but this applies to prophets of all religions from what I have seen.

Of course if someone studied their Holy books and did the research they would no longer be a fanatic, but until they do, their faith is so fragile that every question threatens to destroy it, which is why they fight you so hard when you question a statement. If the fanatic has settled in with a like minded group of people, they will be disinclined and discouraged from studying because if they did they might start thinking different from the group and no longer belong.

Fanatics are in the religion to feel good. They're happy because they are surrounded by others who love and accept and agree with them. Fighting with others against the outside world is a bonding experience that makes them feel good too. Also, their religion gives them purpose and meaning and a mission. Something that's very valuable and was probably missing from their lives before they became an adherent to their religion. Their priority is to feel good about what they are doing and teaching, not to get to the truth.

So don't bother arguing with fanatics- they have too much to lose if they change their minds. They just won't do it.

Even Banking Can Be Spiritual?

2011-01-08T09:49:00.009+11:00

Last post I mentioned something strange that happened to me and wondered what the Universe was trying to tell me. It's not the first time I've asked that question.

For instance, one day last September I decided to change my research to some kind of science, because I was fed up with religion and wanted nothing to do with spiritual things any more.

That day I received a letter from my mother, who lives in Canada. It included an international money order to be paid out to me, and papers authorizing me to take control of her Australian bank account. She had it for when she came to visit us in Australia, but because she isn't well enough to travel any more, she decided to close it. She wanted me to have the money that was in it.

So, that's fine. I was happy because the money would help me pay off the mortgage faster and I could use some of it for physiotherapy and exercise classes.

The next day I went to the bank. The first thing I did was go to a teller and give him the money order and my bank card and told him to put the money into my chequeing account. He said "No problem."

He swiped the card into the machine, typed something, then handed me a receipt. Done.

Then I went to the help desk with the legal papers to close my mother's account. They got me to wait about 20 minutes until I could talk to a customer service rep.

He looked at the papers, checked out my mothers signature, checked my ID and said everything was in order. He then took me to another teller to close the account and transfer her money over to my account.

There he discovered that the money order from the first transaction had been put into my mother's account, not mine. This weirded out both the bank teller and the Customer service rep- they couldn't understand how it could possibly have happened, since her account hadn't been signed over to me until 30 minutes later. My mother and I have totally different last names, the first teller couldn't have known she had an account there, and he couldn't have known what her account number was. The first transaction went quickly- half a minute or so, so it's not like the first teller had been looking anything up. Besides, the receipt I got had said it was put into my account. He had no idea I was going to do any other transactions either.

Weird, eh?

I'm still trying to think why this might have happened. I've got two
explanations,

1. I sometimes fritz out machines, so this may just be another example of that.

or

2. Maybe it's a message saying that even if I'm doing something as boring and as straightforward and non-spiritual as depositing a cheque in a bank, I'm still going to have the spiritual with me.

Of course there's always the explanation that it was some weird coincidence, but if so, it must have been really unlikely or the bank employees wouldn't have been so freaked out.

How a Backhoe Broke my New Year's Resolution

2011-01-07T18:27:00.007+11:00

Hi

Hope you all had a great holiday!

We were away, so I didn't get to make a New Year's resolution until last night. I was thinking about how many things worried me and I decided that this year I wasn't going to be afraid of anything any more.

I was quite happy with this decision, and felt much better once I'd
made it. I then started to plan how I could make it come about.

Cue to this morning. I'm walking my dog at a huge park which is only a block away from my house. It has a swimming pool, many football fields, tennis courts, a dune area and a bicycle path that winds around a couple of its small hills. Currently they are upgrading it so there are a lot of tractors, trucks and backhoes driving around the place.

Anyway, I'm walking my dog behind the swimming pool complex and cut across a couple of unmowed fields to get to an area behind the tennis courts. I notice that one of the backhoes is coming up behind me. It looks like it's heading straight for me.

I decide to go around a hill to hide from the driver, but I can see by looking at the shovel which is poking up above the hill that he's turned to follow me. There is a row of bushes next to the path I'm on, so I quickly take dog behind them and reverse my direction.

He passes me by a few hundred feet, but then must have seen me, because he reverses so he's following me again. At this point I come to a clearing where there are two other people walking their dogs and letting them run free.

I join this group and I point to the backhoe and say- "I could swear that thing is following me!"

After I pointed at the machine, the backhoe takes off to the direction it came from and starts digging, exactly where it was before.

I've been followed by cars before, but never a backhoe! I wonder what the universe is trying to tell me. :)

Feynman and Fire

2010-11-28T23:50:00.008+11:00

Today I tackle fire.

Feymman's book “Six Easy Pieces” is a primer on everything in physics, so I decided to read it. Last time I got stuck on page 7 and found something wrong, this time I got stuck on page 16. I'm not saying he got this wrong too, I'm just saying I don't understand it. Here's what he said:

Now, for example, one of the oxygen molecules can come over to the carbon, and each atom can pick up a carbon atom and go flying off in a new combination-- “carbon-oxygen”-- which is a molecule of the gas called carbon monoxide. It is given the chemical name CO. It is very simple: the letters “CO” are practically a picture of that molecule. But carbon attracts oxygen much more than oxygen attracts oxygen or carbon attracts carbon. Therefore in this process the oxygen may arrive with only a little energy, but the oxygen and carbon will snap together with a tremendous vengeance and commotion, and everything near them will pick up energy. A large amount of motion energy, kinetic energy, is thus generated. This of course is called burning; we are getting heat from the combination of oxygen and carbon. The heat is ordinarily in the form of the molecular motion of the hot gas, but in certain circumstances it can be so enormous that it generates light. That is how one gets flames.

He's explaining chemical reactions and how you get fire. He says that you get light and flame when carbon and oxygen atoms smash together to form a new molecule. He says this agitates the molecules around them and that causes heat. But I don't see how.

I could see it if say, fire was caused by atoms flying OFF a molecule. They could hit molecules around them with great force, which would make those hit others which in turn hit more. Fast moving molecules cause heat. Lots of heat is one of the things you need to make fire.

But atoms imploding? I don't get that. Maybe it's like two people seeing each other across a crowded room? Only instead of walking through the crowd, they run, smashing into everyone that's in the way? But he said the others don't get agitated until after the carbon and oxygen meet.

Again, I could see it if the collision had pieces break off, flying everywhere with such force that these pieces bumped the molecules around them, but that doesn't happen at the molecular level, so I just couldn't get it.

So I decided to check into it.

I looked up fire, burning, combustion, exothermic reactions, endothermic reactions and numerous other things and got nowhere nearer finding an answer to the question, so I asked my husband.

He said that when two things collide, you have two principles involved, the conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum. Let's say you have 2 atoms that are the same weight and size which are going in the same direction. One is going 3 meters per second and it hits the other one which is going at 1 meter per second. What happens if they stick together once they've hit? The law of conservation of momentum says one would slow down and the other one would speed up and they'd end up going the average of their two speeds. This change in speed would change the amount of energy stored in the atoms. (The amount of energy stored in something is called kinetic energy).

So at first you have 1 squared units of kinetic energy (which is 1x1=1) and 3 squared units of kinetic energy (which is 3x3=9). Add them together, you get 10.

But after the collision, they are both going two meters a second so 2 units of kinetic energy squared (2x2=4) plus 2 kinetic energy squared (2x2=4) you get 8.

So you went from 10 energy to 8 energy which is less. Having less energy would mean things get colder, not hotter, which you need for a flame. If the atoms hit head on, things would be even worse because they would slow down even more. Which backs up what I said.

So obviously something is wrong with the model. Earlier in the paragraph Feynman says that the carbon came off a solid crystal such as graphite or diamond. Maybe that makes a difference?

I'll try and figure it out for the next post.
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Six Easy Pieces by Richard P Feynman, Penguin Goup, Copyright California Istitute of Technology 1963,1989,1995 Quote is on page 16.

Feynman: What Was He Thinking?

2010-11-25T20:50:00.019+11:00

In his book “Six Easy Pieces" Richard P Feynman said this:

“In figure 1-2 we have a picture of steam. This picture of steam fails in one respect: at ordinary atmospheric pressure there might be only a few molecules in a whole room ....”

Last post I showed how actually, there'd be about 143,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them in that 40 foot square lecture room.

Feynman was too great a physicist to make an error of that magnitude- so I'm guessing there is some kind of a misunderstanding.

Earlier in the book he said you'd have to increase the size of a drop of water a billion times before you could see the water molecules in it. According to Wiki Answers a water molecule is about .0000000003 m big, so each molecule would be 30 cm. big (about a foot).

So think of a magnifying glass looking at a thousands of dots on a page. With each magnification, the dots are bigger, but you see less of them. Eventually you magnify it so much you can only see a couple of the dots at a time. So maybe that's what he meant.

So what if you shrunk that room so it got smaller and smaller. At half the volume, it would only hold half the molecules, at a quarter it would only hold one quarter of the molecules, so at a billionth volume it would only hold one billionth of the molecules. What you are doing is the same as with the magnifying glass, only in 3 dimensions, not just 2.

So let's divide the number of steam molecules in the room by 1 American billion. To do this you'd take the 143,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and knock off 9 zeroes from the end. But that's just shrinking it down a billion times lengthwise. You also want to shrink it down 1 billionth of its height and 1 billionth of its width. So move the decimal point another 18 places to the left. Doing that you get .143 molecules in that room. Put another way, you'd only have a molecule in there about 1/6 of the time.

So it still doesn't agree with Feynman. Of course I might have got the height of the ceiling in the lecture room wrong, so let's double it. That's .286 molecules.

Maybe he meant that when the air is fully saturated. Wikipedia says that the most you can get is 30 grams of water in a square meter of air. I was calculating it with 12. Two and a half times 12 is 30 so let's multiply the number of molecules in the shrunken room by two and a half.

You get .715 molecules. Meaning you'd get a molecule in there about 70% of the time. It's still not what Feynman said. So I think he got it wrong. My husband who understands physics very well (and has an Honours degree in Mathematics) agrees with me.
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Six Easy Pieces by Richard P Feynman, Penguin Goup, Copyright California Istitute of Technology 1963,1989,1995 Quote is on page 7.

I Tackle Feynman

2010-11-22T17:16:00.033+11:00

In my previous blog post I took on Steven Holtzner, the author of Physics Workbook for Dummies. I've found four mistakes now, the earliest being on page 10. When I told my 18 year old son about them, he gave me a bunch of other, better physics books to read, one being Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman. This is a series of lectures he did for first and second year college kids at Caltech in 1961-62. These lectures were written down, then carefully edited for publication.

In his obituary, Richard Feynman was described by the New York times as “arguably the most brilliant, iconoclastic and influential of the postwar generation of theoretical physicists.” He won a Nobel prize for his work on quantum electrodynamic theory. Referring to this book, Feynman said “ I tried very hard to make all the statements as accurate as possible.”

So surely there wouldn't be any errors in HIS book.

Yet I found one. On page 7! There he says:

“In figure 1-2 we have a picture of steam.

This picture of steam fails in one respect: at ordinary atmospheric pressure there might be only a few [water] molecules in a whole room ....”

To me that's blatantly wrong. You can SEE steam. In order to see it, there must be a huge number of water molecules in it, thus the statement must be false. So I decided to find out how many molecules of steam there really are in a room.

First of all, what IS steam? Wikipedia says it is water molecules in the air, commonly known as water vapour.

To make things simple, I figured I'd first work out how many grams of water there'd be in a cubic meter of air and work from there. For those who don't know metric, a meter is about a yard, and a gram is about .04 ounces.

Wikipedia says:

If all the water in one cubic meter of air were condensed into a container, the mass of the water in the container could be measured with a scale to determine absolute humidity.... Absolute humidity on a volume basis is the quantity of water in a particular volume of air.

That's exactly what I'm trying to work out.

So, how to you find out what this number is?

Well, it depends on the temperature and the relative humidity of the air, as you can see from this chart.

At the moment, my room is at 21 degrees C and the relative humidity is 68%. Caltech is in Pasadena California, so this would have been normal for them in the first weeks of October 1961 when Feynman would have given this lecture. So, using this chart, making the temperature to be 20 degrees and the humidity to be 70%, you get that the absolute humidity is about 12 g/m3. So in every cubic meter of air in my room there are 12 grams of water.

So how many water molecules are there in a gram of water? Yahoo Answers says:

If you have 1 g of water, you therefore have 1/18 of a mole, or 3.34E22 molecules.

E just means “times ten to the power of” . To make things simple, let's call 10 to the power of 22 a muvillion (a word I made up).

So, you have 3.34 muvillion molecules in a gram of water. But I have 12 grams in a cubic meter of air, so that makes 12 x 3.34 which equals 40.08 muvillion molecules in a cubic meter of air.

Now Feynman said on a previous page that the average [lecture?] room was 40 feet by 40 feet. He didn't say how high the ceiling was, so I'll say it's the height of our ceiling, which is 2.4 meters. 1 Foot = 0.3048 Meters, so 40 feet is 12.192 meters, so the calculations can begin.

12.192 m (length of room) x 12.192 m (width of the room) x 2.4 m (height of the room)= 356.75 cubic meters in a room that size. Now multiply that by the 40.08 muvillion molecules in a cubic meter of air and you have the number of water molecules in a room that size.

The answer comes to 14298.5 muvillion. Written out and rounded off that comes to 143,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 steam molecules in that room. That's a heck of a lot more than three!

So what was Feynman thinking? That's my next post.

.................................................................

Physics Workbook for Dummies, by Steven Holtzner, Wiley Publishing Inc 2007

Six Easy Pieces by Richard P Feynman, Penguin Group, Copyright California Institute of Technology 1963,1989,1995 The quote is on Page xxiv.

chart: http://www.tis-gdv.de/tis_e/misc/klima.htm

I Tackle Physics

2010-11-20T21:25:00.001+11:00

I haven't posted for a while, and in that time I decided to ditch the study of religion in favour of studying science, specifically, physics.

I gave up on religion because whatever religion you are checking out, its followers expect you to accept whatever they say as truth. On further investigation you find out that what they say doesn't agree with their own Holy Books because most of them haven't even read them. And yet they teach.

Surely the study of science is going to be way less frustrating. So I went and bought myself Physics Workbook for Dummies, by Steven Holzner, PhD because I figured that way I could start right from the beginning and work my way up.

First section is measurements and conversions. Straight forward right? No way you could disagree with the stuff that's at the most basic beginning right?

Well, I was wrong. I've only gotten to page 15 and I've already found 3 errors. Heaven knows how many there are going to be when I get to the more advanced section.

For instance, on page 12 it says that 1 meter is 39.37 inches. But when they calculate how many inches in two meters, they tell you the answer is 78.6. So obviously they rounded it down to 39.3, though any 4rth grader could tell you that you should round up if the last digit is a 7. Besides, they never said you should round. That's in the next lesson. So the correct answer, is 78.74, not 78.6 which they said. But hey, that's a minor thing compared to this question:

Question 15. How many centimeters in a kilometer? For those of you who aren't metric, there are 100 cm in a meter and a thousand meters in a kilometer, so the answer should be 100,000, or 1.0 x 10 to the power of 5. However, the answer they give is 1.0 to 10 to the power of -5, or 0.00001. Hey, they are only wrong by a factor of 10,000,000,000!

One Gang of Scammers

2010-06-06T10:12:00.060+10:00

What do all these people have in common?

Their pictures have all been stolen by scammers to use for Romance Scams on singles sites.

Who they claim to be and what site they are on:

A Mark Leon from Bayard Iowa on Person.com
B Shevi from El Paso Texas on FreeDate 24/7
C Andre Francis from North America on Trust Cupid
D Dorah from California on Mingles
E Julius from El Paso Texas on Friendster
F Daniel Baker from Colorado on Tagged and DateMeFree
G Thomas From El Paso Texas on Mingles
H Grace from Sinn el Fil Lebanon on DateAid International
I Andre from Costa Mesa US on EnableRomance (disability site)
J Andre from London England on TrustCupid.com
K Rob from El Paso Texas on Dating-today.net
and Golah from El Paso Texas on the same site
L Marisa from Ohio on myspace
M John from Baltimore US on Syl.com
N Andre Francis from Costa Mesa on Bebo
O Charles from Ghana on MyDailyFlog
P Osaka from Nigeria on Tubely
Q Anderson from New York on Lovecity.com

Of the above, Grace and Daniel Baker have been identified as scammers on anti-scammer sites.

Another thing these people have in common is that they all have one or more of the following paragraphs in their write-ups:

to love each other each day as if it will be our last day on earth, to get to know each other better each day of our life. I want us to be spiritually close to each other and to feel each other Quite the opposite, I.d like us to be different and have different interests so we could complement one another, I could learn from you and you could learn from me.

Speaking about my character, I am not a typical man, but just like any human being, I.m always different depending on the situation and environment. I can be quiet, shy and reserved in a new environment. I prefer to observe and listen to people before voicing my opinion. With friends and people that are close and dear for me, I.m open, outgoing and joyful. I like to make jokes and laugh with people who know me. I have a great sense of humor and a life that other people tell me makes them feel good to be near me.

I love people and I am always kind and friendly. I would like to tell you about my likes and dislikes. I like nature and animals. I like going to the country, to enjoy fresh air and I like to hear all of the music. I like to camp, I like the smell and the sounds that a campfire makes at night, I like to walk on the beach and to be with that special woman that I will love for the rest of my life. I enjoy watching movies, television and reading books as each time they make me see the world in a brand new way.

Some use all three. There are many many more. They are on networking sites, gay sites, S&M sites, Muscular dystrophy sites, deaf sites, straight sites and religious sites. They claim to be everything from artists to a missionary working in an orphanage.

So who are the scammers and what do they look like? I say scammers plural because someone I know fell for one of these guys and she said it sounded like it wasn't always the same person she was talking to.

By searching for key words in the above paragraphs I came up with a person called Monday from Lagos Nigeria:

He has all of the above paragraphs, but unlike the others, he has lots of photos on his page. There are 99 in all, meanwhile the most you get on any other of these sites is 4. Another thing that is different is the comments- they have advice on how to scam people. So I'd say it's a safe bet that he is one of the scammers. Some of his photos have pictures of his friends and family. Possibly they are in on it too. My friend talked to someone who claimed to be his son.

The scammers would have a lot more trouble doing their trade if sites would allow outsiders to report them, but most don't. You have to be a member to send them a message. So, for instance, the three women who are besotted with Daniel Baker on Tagged, will never know. They would assume that if he was a scammer then he would have been shut down. Because he hasn't been despite numerous comments saying he was, they will end up sending him money.

Though maybe they would gladly do that even if they found out. After all, he is giving them romance and excitement and when you are a 45+ woman that is really hard to find. A person I know kept up the friendship even after she found out. She did eventually dump him, but he's still trying to win her back.

There are more pictures of what other scammers look like here.

Jesus and the Talmud on Dealing with Bullies

2010-06-01T08:28:00.006+10:00

Jesus taught that you should submit to bullies and be humble:

Luke 6:27-35 (NIV)

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Matthew 23:12 (NIV)

For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

This is in keeping with the teachings of the Rabbis. For instance look at Numbers 21:18-20 (NIV):

Then they went from the desert to Mattanah, from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth, and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the wasteland.

In the Talmud one Rabbi asks another to explain the hidden message of this passage:

Talmud - Mas. Eiruvin 54a

Do not sit down upon your legs, 64 R. Joseph said to him [Raba son of R. Joseph b.Hama], before you have explained to me these verses. What is the purport of the Scriptural text: And from the wilderness to Mattanah, and front Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth, and front Bamoth to the valley? If, the other replied: a man allows himself to be treated as the wilderness upon which everybody treads, the Torah will be given to him as a gift; and so soon as it is given to him as a gift, he will be the inheritance of God as it says: And from Mattanah to Nahaliel; and as soon as he is the inheritance of God, he rises to greatness, since it says: And from Nahaliel to Bamoth. But if he is haughty, the Holy One, blessed be He, humbles him, as it says: And from Bamoth to the valley. If, however, he repents, the Holy One, blessed be He, raises him, as it says: Every valley shall be lifted up.70

It is very likely that Jesus knew of these teachings and was handing them to his students in a way that they could understand.

Personally I disagree with these teachings. I'd say that you should stand up to bullies because it's the only way to get them to stop tormenting you. The rage and fear you feel are very damaging, and can result in violent behaviour later on.

Do you hear of a nice guy next door who loses it and kills his wife and kids? Almost certainly he was the long suffering victim of a bully. So if you really do want to be the loving person that Jesus asked you to be, stop a bully before he changes you into a monster. Then you can pray and be good to him.
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All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Talmud passages are from The Soncino Talmud (©1973 Judaica Press, Inc. and ©1965, 1967, 1977, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, & 1990 Soncino Press, Ltd.)

The Evolution of the Story of a Shipwreck

2010-04-16T21:40:00.013+10:00

Here are excerpts from a series of newspaper articles about an event that happened to one of my husband's ancestors in 1874. His name was Patrick Humphries. It is interesting to see how the
accounts differ. Here's a map to give you an idea of where in Sydney Australia this happened:

Now here are some basic facts to compare the stories to:

-A fishing boat called the Mermaid left Watson's Bay on Feb 8, 1874.

-There were 4 passengers on board.

-A storm hit shortly after 2PM when they were a couple of miles off Dee Why.

-The boat sank beneath their feet.

-There were 3 oars for 4 people.

-One of those who had an oar didn't make it.

-Of the 3 that made it, 2 had an oar to cling to, the other man didn't.

-The 3 landed at Curl Curl, where they hid in the bushes until a policeman brought them brandy and clothes from Manly.

..............................

1. Here's a newspaper report with information from a signaling station:

THE SYDNEY EVENING NEWS FEB. 9, 1874

STORM AND LOSS OF LIFE. The following memorandum was received this morning by Inspector Ferris from the signal station on the South Head:-"The fishing boat Mermaid was capsized and sank off Deewy yesterday. One man, named Manuel Jocento, was drowned; the other three men swam ashore."

2. The article continues with information from a police report:

From Senior-constable Carton, stationed at Manly Beach, we were enabled to gather the following additional particulars this morning:-"Shortly after 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon a very fierce squall came up from the north-east and broke over the Heads and Manly Beach suddenly, and with terrific violence. It continued for over a quarter of an hour, during which time it did a great amount of damage to the timber at Manly, sweeping down the trees and scattering them in all directions. The windows of the station house and other houses were threatened to be broken by the heavy fall of hail, combined with the terrific force of the wind.

During this storm-which seems to have been confined to the locality of the Heads and Manly, -the Mermaid, fishing boat, was running home when she was caught in the squall, capsized, and sank about a mile from the shore off Deewy.

The occupants of the boat were residents of Watson's Bay, named Patrick Humphries, Henry Bowman, John Blanket (a Maori, a servant of the Hon. John Robertson), and Manuel Jocento. When they were thrown into the water, they divested themselves of all their clothes except their shirts, and struck out for the shore. There was a tremendous sea running at the time, and the men found themselves making very little headway, and drifting fast round the North Head. Jocento became exhausted and sank, but the other men buffeting with the waves for over an hour, were finally enabled to reach the land at Curl Curl.

The men hid in the bush, until some boys who were passing by discovered them in then- unhappy plight, and gave information to Senior-constable Carton, who immediately procured some clothes and a bottle of brandy from the lodgers at Lambourne's Hotel, and took them down to the men.

They were much exhausted, so much so that they were all convinced that had they been in the water ten minutes longer they must have given up and sank. When they were sufficiently recovered, Carton put them into a waterman's boat, and they were taken across to Watson's Bay.
.....................................................

3. The Sydney Morning Herald TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1874.

FATAL BOAT ACCIDENT OUTSIDE THE HEADS. At 11 a.m., on Sunday, four men named Patrick Humphries, Henry Bowman, John Blanket (a Maori), and Emanuel Jacinto, left Watson's Bay in a fishing boat and proceeded outside the Heads under sail. Off Long Reef, at between 2 and 3 p.m., and when the boat was about three miles from the shore, she was suddenly struck by a cyclonic squall, which fairly lifted her out of the water and capsized her, leaving the crew struggling in the waves. Having ballast on board, she immediately sank.

The men being all excellent swimmers at once struck out for the shore. Humphries, Bowman, and Blanket succeeded in effecting a landing at Curl Curl, after being over two hours in the water, but, Jacinto unfortunately was drowned. Tho survivors' state that they saw a shark swimming near them shortly after the boat went down, and it is supposed that Jacinto was seized by it.

On reaching Manly Beach the men were kindly received by Mr. John Woods, who supplied them with brandy and tea. Messrs. Lambourne and Barcett also provided them with dry clothing, after which they were sent over to Watson's Bay by senior-constable Carton in one of Mr. B. Skinner's boats.
….....................................................................................

4.This is a letter to the editor. Patrick Humphries says this is an accurate account:

Sydney Morning Herald Wednesday, March 4 1874 and republished Monday 26 May 1890 at Humphries' request:

THE LATE FATAL BOAT ACCIDENT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

The 8th February last commenced with as lovely a morning as ever brightened our coast, and having had for some days previously exceedingly unpleasant weather, the people of Watson's Bay rejoiced at the change, and many boats that had been long laid up were put in requisition.

A fisherman, named Henry Bornan, a Dutchman, determined to try for the first time the first-class fishing boat Mermaid, which he had lately rented, and with him there went forth to sea Emanuel Jesson, otherwise Jacinto, a Portuguese ; John Blanket, a Maori ; and Patrick Humphries, an Australian, and native of Watson's Bay.

They proceeded to the northward along the coast several miles, and anchored off the headland called D. Y., but had not been there very long before appearances to the northward warned them of a change of weather. They therefore got their boat underway, with the intention of coming home, but when about one mile and three-quarters from the shore, in a line with D. Y. Head, Bluefish Head, and North Head, the severest northerly gale known on our coast since the settlement of the colony overtook them, and completely swamped their boat, which from the weight of the stone ballast she carried sunk from under their feet to the bottom.

I shall not attempt to describe the terrible position of the four unfortunate men ! Nearly two miles from shore, their boat gone, and the sea raging mountains high ! They were good swimmers, all of them, and instead of desponding they bravely determined to battle to the last for dear life. They had but three oars, two of which having floated near to Jesson and Bornan respectively, were seized by them as some slight means of aid in their calamity. The other oar reached at the same time the hands of both Humphries and Blanket ; whilst to only one of them could it be of the slightest use.

Then, in that boiling sea, those two men acted towards each other with such bravery and generosity as has never been surpassed, if indeed equaled, in any age or country. Blanket said to Humphries, ' Pat, you take the oar ; you have a wife and little children, I have no wife, no children, am an old man, never mind me.'

To which Humphries replied, 'No, Blanket ; you are old and weak, I am young and strong ; you keep the oar.' Humphries remained with the oar the shortest possible time necessary to enable him to get his clothes off, and then darted away, leaving it with Blanket.

Nothing but their glorious heroism had those two men in common. One an aboriginal native of New Zealand, between 60 and 70 years of age ; the other a young Australian, of European parentage, of but 29 years.

After three hours battling with the sea, Humphries landed about three or four miles north of North Head. Bornan landed about 20 minutes after Humphries, and Blanket 15 minutes after Bornan, all near the same place ; but, alas! poor old Jesson was never seen more.

JOHN ROBERTSON.
….............................................................

5. Here's a letter written 16 years later:

Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 19 May 1890

WATSON'S BAY.
TO THE EDITOR OT THE HERALD.

Several years ago he [Blanket] was capsized in a fishing boat some distance outside Sydney Heads, the only other occupant being a well-known Fisherman of Watson's Bay, whose name I forget.

When the boat sank from under them, leaving the two men floating, Blanket secured an oar, but his comrade was not fortunate enough to find any support, then Blanket performed a grandly heroic deed. He went to his friend and made him take his oar, saying " You got wife and children, Bill, I got nobody," and then struck out for the shore without any support.

Both men were saved or the heroic incident would never have been known. I relate this from memory as I heard it at the time. I shall be glad if someone who remembers the circumstances better than I do will give them to you more completely. They are worth recording in letters of gold.

May 17. HENRY T. FOX.
….................................................................................

6.This is written by the same guy who wrote the account which Humphries said was accurate. Notice how he gets some details wrong:

Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 22 May 1890

EASTERN SUBURBS-" BLANKET" AND WATSON'S BAY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

What happened was this. Three boatmen-Jacinto, Humphries, and Blanket-were out fishing four or five miles north of Watson's Bay, and about two miles from the coast, when a terrific gust of wind upset their boat. Blanket, a New Zealand native, got possession of an oar, and seeing his friend, Patrick Humphries, getting the worst of it with the waves, made his way to him and handed him the oar, saying, "'You take it, Pat you have a young wife and little children, save your life; I have no wife, no children, it don't matter about me."

In the attempt to reach the shore-two miles of a swim-they lost sight of each other, and each thought the other drowned. However, Humphries got on shore, and so did Blanket, a mile or more apart but poor Jacinto was seen no more.

May 21. JOHN ROBERTSON.
…...................................................................................

7. Humphries writes to the paper to correct the previous letters to the editor:

Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 26 May 1890

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

Mr. Fox is very much " at sea " though (as I suppose he ought to be), in his narration of what he "remembers" as the particulars of a capsize which occurred about 16 years ago, and in which "Blanket" played a heroic part. Now, as I am the Bill referred to, I will, instead of narrating the circumstances of this sad affair, as requested by Mr. Fox, forward you the enclosed letter from Sir John Robertson, which states the actual facts correctly, and which is taken from an issue of the Herald of February, 1874, immediately after the occurrence took place. Of a truth it is simply marvelous how the particulars of an incident which occurred but 16 years ago, and which attracted so much attention at the time, should become so twisted and contorted, as also in the case of the Dunbar wreck. No wonder that people doubt supposed historical and biographical facts, and disbelieve that Homer and Shakespeare ever existed.

PATRICK HUMPHRIES, alias "Bill."
Watson's Bay, May 23.

The paper then reprinted the letter to the editor, #4 above. This series of articles shows you how quickly the details of an event are forgotten. On the other hand memorable words are preserved quite well.
................................................................

My computer is busted and I'm using an old one to type this so I'm just going to give the websites of these articles instead of giving in-line citations:

1 and 2: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5881595
3: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13331323?searchTerm=blanket+%22fishing+boat%22
4: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13770592
5.http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13784604
6:http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13780669
7:http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13770594

The map is from Google Earth @2010 MapData Sciences Pty Ltd PSMA

Beware of the Yeast!

2010-04-12T20:53:00.008+10:00

Yeast is often used as a metaphor in the New Testament:

Matthew 16:6 (NIV):

"Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

For us this command is puzzling. Why would anyone think yeast is bad? If he'd said poison, sure- we'd get that, but by saying yeast he even confused his own followers. A Rabbi on the other hand, would have understood:

The Rabbis, in speaking of the evil desire ("yeẓer ha-ra'"), called it "the leaven that is in the dough"

As in the following passage:

1 Corinthians 5:8 (NIV):

Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

To us yeast is something we buy in a packet so the full meaning of this is lost on us. So let's look into it. Jewishencyclopedia says:

The ordinary bread consisted of dough mixed with fermented dough, which raised the mass into soured bread, while in the kneading trough.

What is fermented dough? Wikipedia says:

Researchers speculate that a mixture of flour meal and water was left longer than usual on a warm day and the yeasts that occur in natural contaminants of the flour caused it to ferment before baking.

This is confirmed by a passage in the Talmud:

Talmud - *Mas. Menachoth 52b footnote 17:

a little flour is taken from the meal-offering, is mixed with water and is allowed to stand for some time until it becomes leavened, and this serves as yeast for leavening the rest of the meal-offering.

So people would have been able to see the difference between dough which hadn't risen, and dough that had. Yeast was an impurity that made bread rise and impurity is what causes people to sin. That's how yeast and sin came to be associated with each other. So let's look at the following passages in that light:

Matthew 16:12 (NIV):

Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

So what he meant was the false teachings that were not originally part of Judaism.

Luke 12:1 (NIV):

Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

So their good teachings were combined with them being a bad example, which ruined the whole lesson.

1 Corinthians 5:6-7 (NIV):

Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are.

If you boast, others will too and in the end everyone will be puffed up.This is bad. Look at yourself honestly and see that you don't really have a reason to boast.

So why were Jesus followers confused by the metaphor? Well, maybe such things just went over their heads or maybe it was that, being single men, they just did what we do- buy our bread from the store:

Mark 6:37 (NIV):

But he answered, "You give them something to eat." They said to him, "That would take eight months of a man's wages ! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"

Hence our mutual confusion.

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* Starred passages are from the Talmud. They are from The Soncino Talmud (©1973 Judaica Press, Inc. and ©1965, 1967, 1977, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, & 1990 Soncino Press, Ltd.)

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

HAPPY EASTER!

2010-04-03T21:07:00.002+11:00

.....................................
Illustrations by Gerti Mauser-Lichtl
to a story written by Ida Qualtinger
from an Easter Book called "Mein Hasen-Buch"
copyright 1962

The Four Footed Angel

2010-03-31T20:31:00.010+11:00

A friend of mine and her partner were at his family holiday home in
Wyong Australia. It's in a residential area but across the street from a nature reserve. They took the English Staffordshire Terrier they were dog sitting with them.

The boyfriend took the dog for a walk in the afternoon. The path they were on had broken glass on it. Normally he would guide the dog around the glass but this time he lifted him up to protect his paws. He'd never done this before because the dog is so heavy. When they got home the boyfriend wanted to take a nap in the double bed, but he chose to sleep on the lounge room floor because he had some dog fur on his T-Shirt and didn't want it or the doggy smells in his bed.

My friend also wanted to take a nap that afternoon, but the dog began growling & howling when she approached the bedroom door, so she turned back and sat down to comfort him and pat him and ended up falling asleep next to him on the lounge.

About 6:30 that evening my friend got ready to pack to return to Sydney. She pulled back the bed cover on the bed to tidy it up with her right hand. She was wearing a cotton glove because she had recently had a flare up of dermatitis . She grabbed what appeared to be a bit of black fluff. When she tried to get rid of the fluff it suddenly had legs. As it unfurled she could see it was actually a spider! She screamed loudly and shook it off her glove and it dropped to the floor. Her boyfriend freaked because he recognized what it was- a male funnel-web spider!

These are one of the three deadliest kinds of spiders in the world. They give you a nasty bite which releases toxins into the bloodstream that cause tingling around the mouth and tongue, twitching facial muscles, nausea, vomiting, sweating, salivation, and shortness of breath which leads to agitation, confusion and coma if not treated with antivenom. These spiders usually sleep during the day and she discovered the spider when it was still light out so he was probably in the bed in the afternoon, just when they had planned to take their naps. If it wasn't for the dog, they probably would have gotten bitten. The funny thing is, the dog minding just came up at the last minute.

As my friend says:

I think last Sunday the events leading up to finding the spider all seemed to definitely work together - the last minute dog sit ( we had planned to go up together without any dogs), even me having dermatitis! (obviously the spider still thought it was in the sheets or something as the glove is so soft so didn't attack me!) to the broken bottle on the footpath which made my boyfriend pick up the dog who is so heavy and it was such a hot day! You cant say its all coincidence. It just proves to me that something / an all knowing being is definitely watching us and is able to manipulate us when he feels like it! We tend to call it God!
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The picture was taken from this website: http://www.thakurgaon.com/images/sydney_funnel_web_spider.jpg

Manna- Not Special Enough?

2010-03-27T21:14:00.006+11:00

While researching manna on Wikipedia I came across this passage:

Until they reached Canaan, the Israelites are implied by some passages in the Bible to have eaten only manna during their desert sojourn, despite the availability of milk and meat from the livestock with which they traveled, and the references to provisions of fine flour, oil, and meat, in parts of the journey's narrative.

As a natural food substance, manna would produce waste products; but in classical rabbinical literature, as a supernatural substance, it was held that manna produced no waste, resulting in no defecation among the Israelites until several decades later, when the manna had ceased to fall. Modern medical science suggests the lack of defecation over such a long period of time would cause severe bowel problems, especially when other food later began to be consumed again. Classical rabbinical writers say that the Israelites complained about the lack of defecation, and were concerned about potential bowel problems.
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Interesting, but not true. Look at what Moses said in a speech after having brought down the second set of Stone Tablets from Mt Sinai:

Deuteronomy 23:9,12-14 (NIV)

When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure.

Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

The manna came down 2 months and 15 days after they had come out of Egypt, the speech was given a couple of months later. So not only did they defecate, there were special rules as to where they should defecate. Why add to the story? Was manna not impressive enough the way it was?

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All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

People Are Weird

2010-03-25T20:00:00.002+11:00

A woman once told me about something that happened to her when she was 10 years old.

It was school holidays and her family had booked a flight to go from her home town of Amsterdam to New York. She was so excited about going. Unfortunately, two days before departure her mother developed a severe ear infection, meaning she couldn't fly. As a result, they cancelled their trip. Magda was very angry at her parents for this.

On the day they were supposed to fly, the plane that they were supposed to be on crashed leaving no survivors. You'd think that the woman would have been grateful, after all, her mother's ear infection had saved her life, but to this day she is angry at her mother for having ruined her holiday.

Weird, eh?

Unlikely Allies: Your Scammer and Your Friends

2010-03-23T16:01:00.013+11:00

If your friends found out you were being taken in by an internet scammer, and they had a way to prove it, would they tell you? You'd probably say "Of course!"

Unfortunately that's not how people work. For instance I know of a case where a woman is totally obsessed with this guy she met on an internet dating site. He's saying he's going to prove how much he trusts her by sending her thousands of dollars, which she should then send back, just to prove than he can trust her too. This is a Romance Scam combined with a Fake Cheque Scam. Obvious to anyone, except the victim of course, who has never heard of either. Her friend is suspicious and told her not to have any financial dealings with this guy, and she promised she wouldn't, but of course if she doesn't the romance is over so she'll probably end up doing it anyway.

The woman's friend doesn't want to take the next step which is to prove that he IS a scammer. She can do this two ways- she can get the guy's photo forwarded to her and check it against known scammers on this site, or get his e-mail address and check it against known scammers on this site. But she doesn't want to do this because she herself doesn't want it to be true. She doesn't even want to warn her friend because her friend will hate her for it. After all, people who are in love don't want to hear anything bad about their lover right? And even if the woman believes her, well it's going break her heart.

So the easy way out is to just leave the poor woman in her deluded state, wait until she's been taken and listen sympathetically to her while she suffers the heartbreak that was always going to happen, and the humiliation of having been cheated out of money that she couldn't afford to lose. The woman will think her friend is a wonderful person for being so supportive. So that's the option her friend is probably going to take. That's human nature.

Worst thing is, the woman met this guy through a Christian dating site. When her friend warned her not to give the guy money she replied that she was sure God would look out for her. God did. He sent her someone who could prove to her she was being scammed. If her friend doesn't do it however then the woman will believe God let her down. Which He didn't. I'm trying to convince her friend to tell her (I don't even know her name), but if I push too hard, I will lose a friend too. And so it goes. So the strongest allies to a scammer turn out to be the victim's best friends, who won't tell even if they know about it.

Lovely isn't it?
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http://www.romancescam.com/album/ has some of the most common photos used, http://www.romancescam.com/ has more ways you can tell if you are dealing with a scammer.
A high percentage of the listings on dating sites are put there by scammers, so look out!

Research Diary 3: What Made Moses Glow?

2010-03-21T20:55:00.004+11:00

Not much luck today. Cronus looks like the Seraphs mentioned in Ezekiel but he's associated with the Greeks, not the Assyrians who were causing trouble in that particular time. Interestingly he was closely associated with El, so much so that I often find the hyphenated name El/Cronus when doing my research. El is of course one of the names of the God of Israel, but he was also the god of the Phonecians. If this is a reference to that it is interesting, because under the Phonecian beliefs, YHWH is a son of El, yet here he is being worshipped by El. Weird.

As for the volcanoes. I'm looking for one that is near a desert. Trying to narrow it down a bit I re-read the passage and found the passage where Moses face is glowing after he came down. Made me think of uranium and radioactivity so I checked that out, and checked out if there could be phosphor in the area too. Turns out there is both, so I have to look into that some more.

Eventually I'm going to check where others think Mt Sinai was, but for now I'm trying to get it from scratch.

Also found out there was a Roman volcano god Vulcan. The mythology doesn't at all match YHWH and the dates are wrong, so that's a dead end. Maybe tomorrow I'll have better luck.

Research Diary 2- Olympus, Atlantis and Garden of Eden

2010-03-18T21:42:00.004+11:00

Been looking at articles about volcanoes in the middle East. Came across one site that said
there was a volcano in the Garden of Eden:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Eden

Another that said that Mount Olympus was a volcano in Māzandarān

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Damavand

Yet another said that Atlantis could have been a real place sunk by the force of a Volcano 70 miles from Crete that was 120 times more powerful than Mount St Helens.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2006-08-27-ancient-volcano_x.htm

Also found 55 or so volcanoes in the Middle East region- now I have to go find out more about volcanoes because what I'm looking for is a volcano that hadn't necessarily erupted- just one that was smouldering and shooting the occasional boulder of hot lava out.Apparently the region's volcanoes are mild and don't tend to explode with much force.

Meant to research more today but my friend's friend has been caught up in a romance scam which we were trying to investigate.

Hint- If someone wants to send you money from South Africa and then wants you to send it back, THAT is a scam. Check their photo at this site:

http://www.romancescam.com/forum/portal.php

I can't believe how cruel people can be- taking their money, well, that's one thing. but breaking their hearts as well? The woman refuses to believe she is being taken in. Let's hope this site will convince her.

Research Diary 1

2010-03-17T18:42:00.002+11:00

I've decided to try something new on my blog- a research diary. Usually I don't publish until I've done a whole pile of research but the process itself is interesting too- it's like you are a detective trying to find out the truth by following the clues. There are lots of dead ends and quirky discoveries which I think would make interesting reading.

Anyway,the topic I am now investigating is where Mount Sinai/Nount Horeb is. This is the place that the Old Testament says Moses went up to get the Ten Commandments. It says that there was smoke and fire at the top. Praying about it, it occurred to me that this sounds like a volcano. I don't even know if there were active volcanoes in the region at the time but I'm going to check it out.

My first guess is that maybe it was near Sodom and Gomorrah- seeing as that was destroyed by fire and brimstone and sulphur but that theory looks unlikely now, as the most likely site for these cities (the Dead Sea) hasn't had any volcanic eruptions in the past 4000 years. Still, no one's certain where they were exactly, so I'm going to chase that up some more as well.

Also, from my previous research on the gods of the ancient world I noticed a distinct similarity between the Titan god Cronus and the seraph angels mentioned in Isaiah. I'm guessing Cronus is the god of some people mentioned there. It's another thing I want to chase up because it should make a quick post that I can publish soon.

A Polytheistic Chariot for a Monotheistic God

2010-03-15T21:21:00.035+11:00

The book of Ezekiel is all about God's condemnation of Israel's worship of foreign gods. It mentions that they worshiped the gods of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans and more and God would punish them for it.

The interesting thing is that when Ezekiel has visions, they are full of the imagery of these foreign gods. For instance let's start with this one:

Ezekiel 9:3-6 (NIV):

Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it."

As I listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark.

Compare that to the description of the Babylonian god that Nebuchadnezzar was named after:

Nabu is accorded the office of patron of the scribes, taking over from the Sumerian goddess Nisaba. His symbols are the clay writing tablet with the writing stylus.His power over human existence is immense, because Nabu engraves the destiny of each person, as the Gods have decided, on the tablets of sacred record. Thus, he has the power to increase or diminish, at will, the length of human life.

In this vision Nabu is used to represent Nebuchadnezzar to show how God would punish Israel and the surrounding nations. He chose this king because

Ezekiel 29:20 (NIV):

I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts because he and his army did it for me, declares the Sovereign LORD.

Interesting. Maybe this king worshiped the God of Israel as well as his own gods? That makes sense in a mix and match polytheist society.

Of course this isn't the only vision of angels Ezekiel had. There's also the vision of the Chariot of God which is full of the symbols of other gods:

Ezekiel 1:4-18, 22-28 (NIV):

I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.

Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome. Under the expanse their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body. When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.

Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

Let's break it down to its components, in the order given:

Windstorm, flashes of lightning, sounds of thunder

Four creatures each with the body of a man, with hands, 4 wings, 4 faces and the feet of a calf

Intersecting whirling wheels beside them , with their rims covered in eyes

An expanse

A throne

A man – from the waist up he looked like glowing hot metal,from the waist down, fire

Brilliant light

Rainbow

It said in Ezekiel 1:28 (NIV):

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.

So the chariot is an attribute of God, not God Himself.

So what does this vision signify? Could it really be an amalgamation of gods of the ancient world? Let's go with this theory and see what turns up.

First there's the windstorm, lightning and thunder. There were many storm gods in the ancient world, one of which was Baal. Wikipedia says this about him:

The word Baal (pronounced ba-al) meant "lord" in Phoenician and was the term used in the Old Testament to refer to any Canaanite god. (The Canaanites were cousins of the Hebrews and of the Phoenicians). The name Baal originally referred to several local deities, but by the 14th century B.C. was taken to mean the lord of the universe, according to the Ugarit tablets. Baal (also known as El) had a number of other titles such as "the son of Dagan". Baal also bears the titles "Rider of the Clouds," "Almighty," and "Lord of the Earth." He was the god of the thunderstorm, the most vigorous and aggressive of the gods, the one on whom mortals most immediately depend. Baal (Hadad to Phoenicians, Hammon to Carthaginians) was believed to reside on Mount Zaphon, north of Ugarit in Phoenicia, and is usually depicted holding a thunderbolt.

Baal is mentioned throughout the Bible, so it could very well signify him. Other candidates are the Roman gods Jupiter or Summanus or the Greek god Zeus.

Now to the difficult matter of the creatures. The gods were often symbolized by animals. Here lion, eagle and ox are mentioned. What is an ox? It's a castrated bull. Thus their heads would look alike.

My first thought was that it could be symbolic of the heads of the gods different countries. For instance:

Man =Marduk supreme god of the Babylonians

lion-Maahes protector god of Egypt associated with the pharaohs

bull= Ashur ruling bull of heaven of Assyria

eagle=Zeus head of Greek gods and/or Jupiter head of Roman gods

Of course they could represent other gods. For instance:

The lion could represent the Egyptian gods Sekhmet, or Bastet, or Nergal, the head of the Babylonian netherworld gods.

The bull could also be the Egyptian god Apis, the Greek god Dionysus , who also appeared as a calf, and even the supreme Canaanite god Eli/Il.

The eagle could be Nisroch the Assyrian god of agriculture mentioned in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isa. 37:38.

The man's face could belong to the Greek god Adonis, or any number of gods who didn't have an animal representation.

The vision mentions and expanse, which I'm guessing might mean sky, seeing as that is how Genesis defines the word. There were many sky gods:

Ouranos/Uranus and Zeus/Jupiter (Greek/Roman mythology)

Shu, Nut, Horus (Egyptian mythology)

the Phoenician Ēl's father was called sky.

It could be any one of these but if you look at Zeus , he has many symbols that match the vision.Wikipedia says:

He is the King of the Gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak.

So I'm thinking this is definitely him.

There are other gods who have multiple symbols as well.

Beelshamên, or Baal-Shamin (Syrian Semitic), was a supreme deity and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria. His attributes are the eagle and the lightning bolt. "Beel" is also equivalent to the Semitic Baal and Bel, meaning "Lord", and was an ancient name for Enlil and Marduk.

Sandan was the Anatolian (Hittite) lion god during the Classical period. He used to be represented in association with a horned lion, and often resided inside a pyre surmounted by an eagle.

Zu, also known as Anzu and Imdugud, in Persian and Sumerian, is a lesser divinity of Akkadian mythology. Both Zu and Siris are seen as massive birds who can breathe fire and water, although Zu is alternately seen as a lion-headed eagle (cf: The Griffin).

Then there is Chronus:

In Greek mythology, Chronos in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. Chronos was imagined as an incorporeal god. Serpentine in form, with three heads—that of a man, a bull, and a lion. He was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning the Zodiac Wheel.

Which might explain the wheel next to each creature. But it mentions a wheel intersecting another wheel. The only other wheel associated with a god that I could find is the wheel of Fortune, belonging to Fortuna, a Roman deity who personified luck and fate. Those two do go together quite well. Unfortunately the earliest reference to this is only 55 BC so maybe there is another ancient wheel out there that I don't know about.

So let's move on to the throne:

Ezekiel 1:26 (NIV):

Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire.

Believe it or not, there is an Egyptian goddess who was the personification of a throne:

Isis (also spelled Aset) - goddess of magical power and healing, "She of the Throne" who was represented as the throne, also later as the wife of Osiris and as the protector of the dead.

Then there's the image of a man:

Ezekiel 1:26-27 (NIV):

high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire;

Compare that to Talos, an ancient Greek god:

In the Cretan tales incorporated into Greek mythology, Tálos (Greek Τάλως; Latin Talus) or Tálon (Greek Τάλων) was a giant man of bronze. In the Byzantine encyclopedia The Suda, Talos is said, when the Sardinians did not wish to release him to Minos, to have heated himself red-hot by jumping into a fire and to have clasped them in his embrace.

The similarity is striking.

Then comes the brilliant light which must be a representation of a sun god. Ra was an Egyptian sun god who was too important to have been left out. It must have been him.

Finally, there is the rainbow, which was personified by the Greek goddess Iris. She was a messenger god who linked gods to humanity.

So altogether we have an amalgamation of dozens of symbols of gods all put together in one vision. Possibly all these symbols represent types of gods- ie the Chariot represents all bull gods, all lion gods, all thunder gods, all sky gods, all sun gods, and all gods made of metal forged by fire. Or maybe it is meant generally to represent all the gods of the ancient world- with the eagle covering all bird gods, the bull representing all domesticated animal gods, the lion representing all wild animal gods etc. It was literally meant to be a Chariot of the gods.

So why might a God against polytheism choose to present Himself to Ezekiel this way? Well, the gods I mentioned above generally have titles. For instance

Marduk is normally referred to as Bel "Lord", also bel rabim "great lord", bêl bêlim "lord of lords", ab-kal ilâni bêl terêti "leader of the gods", aklu bêl terieti "the wise, lord of oracles", muballit mîte "reviver of the dead", etc.

Ashur: Epithets include bêlu rabû "great lord", ab ilâni "father of gods", šadû rabû "great mountain"

Baal, El, the Ruler of the Universe, Son of Dagan, Rider of the Clouds, Almighty, Lord of the Earth (similar to Greek Zeus or Roman Jupiter)

God Himself is mentioned as the rider of the clouds in Psalm 68:4 (NIV):

Sing to God, sing praise to his name,
       extol him who rides on the clouds —
       his name is the LORD—
       and rejoice before him.

So maybe the chariot was just referencing the titles of the gods that everyone knew about, and saying that God was all of these and more. Remember the vision was of God's Glory. These titles glorify God. So that makes sense.

Judaism is well aware of the many names of God in the Old Testament. Among them you'll find the names of other gods. For instance:

El
"might, strength, power" "strong Controller" or Sovereign
Ugaritic term for god
The word El appears in other northwest Semitic languages such as Phoenician and Aramaic.

Adonai
Lord, master, or owner
The singular form is Adoni, "my lord".This was used by the Phoenicians for the god Tammuz and is the origin of the Greek name Adonis.

Elohim
"He is the Power (singular) over powers (plural)",
The word is identical to the usual plural of el meaning gods or magistrates, and is cognate to the 'lhm found in Ugaritic, where it is used for the pantheon of Canaanite Gods, the children of El.

Elyon
Supreme, Most High
The Phoenicians used what appears to be a similar name for God.

Shaddai
Fruitfulness, or mountain dweller or the destroyer or from an Amorite city called Shaddai
These have been tentatively identified with the ŝedim of Deuteronomy 34:17 and Psalm 106:37-38, who are Canaanite deities.

YHWH Tzevaot/Sabaoth
"the God of Hosts”
The Latin spelling Sabaoth combined with the large, golden vine motif over the door on the Herodian Temple (built by the Idumean Herod the Great) led to identification by Romans with the god Sabazius.
The name Sabaoth is also associated with a demi-god in the gnostic Nag Hammadi Text; he is the son of Yaltabaoth.

And so on.

So the theory isn't that far fetched. Of course there's the popular notion that maybe it was a spacecraft that Ezekiel saw. The wheels do seem to be mechanical. I would like to buy this theory, except the creatures mentioned are described as living things. Living things wouldn't survive very long in space. Also, would you waste time talking to the natives if the guy in the cockpit was on fire? That alone convinces me that this was no spaceship.
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I got the picture from http://namesake.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ezekiel-vs.jpg

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Human Sacrifice and the Founding of Israel

2010-02-24T01:04:00.015+11:00

Most people don't know that God asked for human sacrifices in the Old Testament and that these played an important role in the founding of Israel. They don't even know there were any, so let's start with the passage that people do know about: where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son:

Genesis 22:1-2 (NIV):

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

Of course in this case it was just a test and Isaac was let go. But not all children were so lucky. For instance, look at Judges 11: 29-39 (NIV):

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Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."

"You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed.
..................

In this case God could control who or what came out. He chose the child, maybe to punish the father for making such a vow in the first place. Maybe Jephthah was expecting his dog to greet him, or his servant or wife.

Both these cases were to be burnt offerings. The person or animal was killed, then cut up and the pieces were burnt on the altar. If it was an animal it would be skinned first.

But individuals weren't the only burnt offerings- sometimes whole towns were sacrificed. For instance in Deuteronomy 13:12-17 (NIV):

If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, [a] both its people and its livestock. Gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt. None of those condemned things shall be found in your hands, so that the LORD will turn from his fierce anger; he will show you mercy, have compassion on you, and increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your forefathers,

The footnote says:

[a] The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them.

The term is “herem”. Leviticus mentions it here:

Leviticus 27:28-29 (NIV):

"But nothing that a man owns and devotes to the LORD -whether man or animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the LORD." 'No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

It didn't just apply to Israelites. For instance, look at the genocide at Jericho:

Joshua 6:17-21,24 (NIV):
.................
The city and all that is in it are to be devoted [a] to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury."

When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house.
.........................

In fact, all the people living in the promised land were meant to be sacrificed:

Deuteronomy 20:16-18 (NIV):
...................
However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy [a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
................

It did start out that way, for instance:

Deuteronomy 2:32-34 (NIV):

When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed [a] them—men, women and children. We left no survivors.

Deuteronomy 3:1-6, 8-11 (NIV):

Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon."

So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed [a] them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying [a] every city—men, women and children.

So at that time we took from these two kings of the Amorites the territory east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge as far as Mount Hermon. (Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.) We took all the towns on the plateau, and all Gilead, and all Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og's kingdom in Bashan. (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites.)

Joshua 8:24-26 (NIV):

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed [a] all who lived in Ai.

There are many more examples. But then the Israelites ran into problems.

Joshua 9:22-26 (NIV):

Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, "Why did you deceive us by saying, 'We live a long way from you,' while actually you live near us? You are now under a curse: You will never cease to serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God."

They answered Joshua, "Your servants were clearly told how the LORD your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you the whole land and to wipe out all its inhabitants from before you. So we feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this. We are now in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you."

So Joshua saved them from the Israelites, and they did not kill them.

Judges 1:21, 27-35 (NIV):

The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely. Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them. Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them; but they did subject them to forced labor. Nor did Asher drive out those living in Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Aczib or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob, and because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, and those living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced laborers for them. The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon and Shaalbim, but when the power of the house of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor.

Judges 3:5 (NIV):

The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

The reason given for their lack of success was given as:

Judges 3:1-4 (NIV):

These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.

The price for not sacrificing everyone was high:

Joshua 7:12 (NIV):

That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Psalms 106:34-41 (NIV):

They did not destroy the peoples
as the LORD had commanded them,
but they mingled with the nations
and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was desecrated by their blood.
They defiled themselves by what they did;
by their deeds they prostituted themselves.
Therefore the LORD was angry with his people
and abhorred his inheritance.
He handed them over to the nations,
and their foes ruled over them.

To this day three of the 613 commandments to the Jewish people involve finishing off this work:

601 Not to keep alive any individual of the seven Canaanite nations (Deut. 20:16)

602 To exterminate the seven Canaanite nations from the land of Israel (Deut. 20:17).

613 To destroy the seed of Amalek (Deut. 25:19)

Of course these cultures no longer exist so the commands cannot be carried out, but I read somewhere that some believe in the end times the descendants (seeds) of the Amaleks will be revealed so at least that commandment can be carried out.

Let's hope that never happens. Human sacrifice belongs in the past.

................................................

[a] The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Monckton the Saviour?

2010-02-13T19:15:00.011+11:00

My husband debated Christopher Monckton at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney yesterday. It was two hours and in that time I noticed some of the debating tricks the Viscount used. I thought it would be fun to pass these on.

How to Debate Climate Change Monckton Style

When it is your turn to speak, walk forward to center stage in a deliberate manner, plant your feet far apart and thrust out your belly, leaning forward as much as possible. This will give you the air of pomposity that will remind people that you are nobility and your views should not be challenged. Further this by using an internationally recognized symbol on all your work to impress people:

Start your presentation with something emotional- starving people in Africa is a good topic. Makes it look like you are doing it for them, not for your own bank account and the attention you crave.

Next relate the problem to how it affects your audience. Scare tactics work well here. People will believe anything you say.and won't notice that you are using your right to free speech to tell people they don't have any. Global conspiracy? Sure! Show them they will be the victims and that they need a lord to be their saviour.

Then go to the topic of the discussion. Here you are at a terrible disadvantage because any graph you put up is going to show, even to the least scientific member of the audience that temperatures are rising. So use distractions and big words and terms the audience has never heard of before. It will reinforce that you are a genius and they couldn't ever hope to understand the topic let alone trust what their own eyes are telling them. They will feel dumb and helpless and dependent on you.

Know facts and figures, be well read and have a photographic memory so you can pull any figure out of the air that you need. If you don't know, guess, but say it promptly with authority so no one will know.

Always make it sound like you've spoken with the experts or that you know them personally and that they are on your side.

Answer a question, but let the other side answer first. That makes you look gracious. Then, say “Well no, that's not quite right”. People won't notice when the rest of what you say agrees with the opponent- all they will remember is that you said it was wrong.

Take every opportunity to answer questions. Use these questions to slide right into a speech of a related topic that you have already prepared.

Always compliment the question, even if just to say it is interesting. They'll be thrilled to hear that from someone who is as important as you.

If the opponent makes a good point, give the shortest possible answer to it and go directly into a question and topic that is as far related to it as possible. That will confuse he opponent and kill the impact of your opponent's argument.

When you are making your concluding remarks, remember that the audience is there so you can comfort them. They don't want global warming to be true- who does? What they want is someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about to reassure them that everything's going to be all right and they will fight anyone who says otherwise.

In the end that's all you have to do.

...................................................
I photoshopped the Jughead picture which comes from here, and joined it to another picture I photoshopped using one of Monckton's slides and his publicity shot from here.

The top photo comes from here.

Awesome Secret Sea Caves

2010-02-03T21:56:00.018+11:00

There's a park between Newcastle and Sydney Australia that has some really impressive sea caves in it, but you can't find it on the net or on the Park's brochures, nor is it marked on any sign. It's at Timber Beach, in the Munmorah State Conservation Area. It's 41 km north of Gosford via Elizabeth Bay Drive off the Pacific Highway. You can get to this beach by going to the second lookout going up the hill from Snapper Point. It's only a ten minute walk down.

Here are some pictures from within the caves:

This is the first sea cave you get to. You can go into this one even when the tide is higher.

This is the second one.

This is the third one which is just around the corner from the second one. This is the passage you have to climb through to get to the fourth cave.

Here's a video of the fourth and biggest cave. There are other passages going off it if you are brave enough to check them out.

There are more pictures here and here.

Note: There are also caves at the next beach over called Ghosties but they aren't as impressive as the ones at Timber beach.

If you do go, bring a strong torch (flashlight) as there are many passages that you can't go into without one. You can only see these caves during extremely low tide (0.2 meters or less) so check the tide tables before you go. Also be careful not to be caught by the incoming tide or you could get trapped in there. I'm guessing this is why the caves aren't publicised. I wouldn't recommend this if you have young children. They might slip or run off into some unknown passage and get themselves lost. Teens on the other hand would love these.

To check the tides go to Ghosties tides.

Jesus and the Tax Collectors

2010-01-27T22:45:00.008+11:00

Jesus had a special relationship with tax collectors. Matthew was one. So was Levi. Many others ate and drank with him. Nowadays we can't imagine how shocking this was because we don't know why they were so hated. Once you understand that a whole series of Jesus' sayings can be linked together to reveal why he targeted them especially. So let's start with the calling of Matthew:

Matthew 9:9-13 (NIV)

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth.

"Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

So why were the tax collectors so despised?

The New Testament quotes John the Baptist saying:

Luke 3:12-13 (NIV)

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

So that implies it was common for tax collectors to collect more than people owed and pocket the extra money. This is substantiated by Jewishencylopedia which says this:

The Romans left to the governors or procurators the collection of the regular taxes, such as the land-tax and poll-tax, but leased the customs duties, the market tolls, and similar special imposts. The lessees were generally Roman knights; but there were among them Jews also. The fact that they were helping the Romans in the exaction of the heavy taxes imposed upon the Jews, combined with the rapacity of some tax-collectors who, taking advantage of the indefiniteness of the tariffs, overcharged the taxpayer, rendered this class of officials hateful to the people. Hence the stringent Jewish legislation which classified the tax-collectors with robbers. Thus, for instance, it was forbidden to take payment in coin from the treasury of the tax-gatherer or to receive alms from it, because the money had been gained by robbery. The tax-gatherer was ineligible to serve as judge or even as a witness. If one member of a family was a tax-gatherer, all its members were liable to be considered as such for the purposes of testimony, because they would be likely to shield him.

And this:

Local tax-farmer; the office existed among the Jews under the Roman dominion. The Romans were accustomed to farm out, generally for five years, the customs dues on exports. These taxes were mainly ad valorem, and therefore, as the value placed upon goods varied, lent themselves to extortion; hence the unpopularity of the publicans, especially when, as under the Romans, they were Jews exploiting their fellow Jews. Echoes of this ill repute are found in the New Testament, where publicans are coupled with sinners (Matt. ix. 10; Luke v. 30, vii. 34), and even with the most degraded persons (Matt. Xxi. 31).

That wasn't the only reason they were hated though. Jewishencyclopedia also says the had a reputation for cruelty. This is born out by the writings of Philo of Alexandria. He was a Jewish scholar who lived in the time of Jesus. He said this about tax collectors in THE SPECIAL LAWS II: 92-95:

Moreover let the governors of cities cease to oppress them with continual and excessive taxes and tributes, filling their own stores with money, and in preserving as a treasure the illiberal vices which defile their whole lives; for they do, on purpose, select as collectors of their revenues the most pitiless of men, persons full of all kinds of inhumanity, giving them abundant opportunity for the exercise of their covetousness; and they, in addition to their own innate severity of temper, receiving free license from the commands of their masters, and having determined to do everything so as to please them, practice all the harshest measures which they can imagine, having no notion of gentleness or humanity, not even in their dreams; therefore they throw everything into disorder and confusion, levying their exactions, not only on the possessions of the citizens, but also on their persons, with insults and violence, and the invention of new and unprecedented torture. And before now I have heard of some persons who, in their ferocity and unequalled fury, have not spared even the dead; but have been so brutal as even to venture to beat the dead corpses with goads; and when some one blamed their brutality, in that not even death, that relief and real end of all miseries, could prevent their victims from being insulted by them, but that, instead of a grave and the customary funeral rites, they were exposed to continued insult, they made a defence worse even than the accusation brought against them, saying that they were insulting the dead, not for the sake of abusing the dumb and senseless dust, for there was no advantage in that, but for the sake of making those who through ties of blood or of friendship were nearly connected with them feel compassion for them, and so inducing them to pay a ransom for their bodies, thus doing them the last service in their power.

Yet Jesus would party with them:

Luke 7:34 (NIV)

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."

But Jesus didn't think they were a lost cause:

Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Jesus even said:

Matthew 21:32 (NIV)

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

which nicely ties up with his original mission:

Matthew 15:24 (NIV)

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

Why?

Luke 15:3-7 (NIV)

Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

So Jesus was offering salvation to Matthew and Levi and Zacchaeus and all the other tax collectors who listened to him. And if they could repent and be saved then so could everyone else.
.............................................

Note, maybe these particular tax collectors weren't vicious, but if they were we'll never find out.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Want to Start a New Religion?

2010-01-19T18:47:00.004+11:00

Want to start a new religion? Here's how to do it:

1. Pick a name for your group-to-be.

2. Invent cool beliefs and rituals to differentiate yourself from any other group.

3. Come up with a set of classes teaching these beliefs. The beginning classes should be all full of goodness and light. Gradually ease into the dark side of it so when students get to the advanced levels they won't be surprised or shocked at all when they are told to sacrifice to fish or drink pig's urine or carry around dead people's thumbs.

4. Target mostly young wealthy women with time on their hands- they will form the social and financial base you'll need to sustain your organization.

5. Use your charisma to hypnotize them into thinking you are special. Act holy when they are around.

6. Tell them they are special too, which is why you chose them.

7. Tell them because they are special you want to teach them the supernatural secrets you know.

8. Get them to take the classes and enroll others before they are even half way through the first set themselves.

9. Teach that poverty and charity are virtues so they'll give you lots of money.

10. Swear them to secrecy on your more advanced teachings.

11. Let them feel that they have a special relationship with you and that it is a privilege for them to speak to you.

12. Give earlier members the power to teach later ones and keep them in line. Get them to spread the word that you are some kind of a prophet or messiah.

13. Make sure the new members are surrounded by other members of the group at all times and tell them that outsiders are inferior and associating with them will make them impure and stunt their spiritual growth. Once they are established they'll believe all outsiders are evil.

14.To minimize exposure to other influences encourage all members to marry within the group.

15. Set up schools for their children so they won't hear anything that goes against your teachings.

16. If someone expresses doubt, act hurt and call it heresy.

17. Get your elders to tell members that if they leave they will lose their friends and their families and will be abandoned by God Himself. Hell is always a good threat though not very original.

18. Get your group to terrorize anyone who does leave. If you have enough power, terrorize anyone who doesn't join.

Bingo- you have a new religion. You could be worshiped for thousands of years and have millions of people die for slandering your name. Of course with time your teachings will be hijacked by others and hideously distorted, but you won't be around so who cares, right?

Anger

2010-01-15T11:56:00.013+11:00

Jesus says anger is so evil it will send you to hell:

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Why would he say this? Me, I think anger isn't all bad. Sure, anger which comes out of frustration is bad. We all know how scary road rage can be. But there is another kind of anger that comes from injustice and that anger causes people to take actions to make the world a better place. Anger makes people fight for regulations that protect people in the workforce. Anger causes protests that change societies ideas on what is right and what is wrong. Anger brings things to our attention that we normally wouldn't know anything about. Anger causes the downfall of cruel governments. It changes history. If we all followed the policies that Jesus said of never getting angry, the thieves and the bullies and the murderers and the cheats of this world would never be punished, never be reigned in.

Of course anger also gets people hurt and killed. I get that. What I'm saying is that all anger is not the same. To condemn it no matter what kind it is is like condemning knives no matter what they are used for.

This comes at a cost of course. It is anger that gives you the energy to get you to do something about a bad situation, but at the same time if you don't it eats you up inside. That can lead to health problems, or psychological ones, where, if you can't express your anger then you turn it towards yourself because your inner child is hurting and you didn't stand up for yourself and defend it. That's why turning the other cheek and being meek is so wrong.

Still, that's what I do. Whenever someone is mean to me I swallow it- I let it pass. But because I didn't deal with it, the incident is filed under “Unfinished Business” in my brain. Until I do something about it I feel angry about it inside.

Note, I don't hold a grudge against everyone who hurts me. If they apologize or if I tried to protect myself that's OK- I'm angry but I get over it. Otherwise I don't. Which can lead to some inconsistencies sometimes. For instance I've been raped and once I was kidnapped, but I don't hold a grudge against the people who did it because I fought back, or I was in such danger that being raped was getting off easy- I could have been killed. But when I tell people about it I sometimes hold a grudge against them for their reactions. One nun told me I was blameless only if I called out for help when it was happening. She was quoting the Bible, but for one thing there was no one to hear and for another, it would have been a dangerous thing to do. So I hold a grudge against her for asking me to risk my life to follow a formula. Especially in those situations, everything depends.

Another person I have a grudge against is the psychologist who said that rape was bad because it invades your personal space. What an IDIOT! Rape is bad because it HURTS! How could he not know that?

Another guy, who had obviously been watching too much porn said that because sex was a good thing, rape couldn't be bad.

I'm angry at all these people and I wish I'd said something at the time. But I didn't so now I stew. Yet to the rapists, well, I did something so that's OK- I took action, one guy apologized and the other even offered me a job in his retail business. So that's OK. But when I didn't take action, well, it's unfinished business and until I confront those people it's not settled.

So I would say that if you want to avoid anger stand up for yourself right away. If you have a grudge, try to settle it nicely .That way your inner child will be satisfied and you will have inner peace.

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All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Holy Behaviour

2010-01-12T21:14:00.005+11:00

The Talmud says this about how to behave:

Mas. Shabbath 105a

R. Nahman b. Isaac quoted, What shall we speak7 or how shall we clear ourselves (before God):11 We are honest, we are righteous, we are pure, we are submissive, we are holy.

I believe this is what Jesus and Paul wanted their followers to be like even with their enemies.

In Romans 12:20 Paul quotes Proverbs 25:21-22. It says:

Proverbs 25:21-22 (NIV)

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the LORD will reward you.

So you are supposed to help all people who are in need, not just those you like. This will please God, because it's hard to be nice to someone who is mean to you. It will also make them feel ashamed so maybe they'll repent.

But Jesus goes further than that.

He says in Matthew 5:38-41 (NIV)

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

So here the situation is different. These people are not in need. Someone has hit you, or stolen something from you, or forced you to do something against your will. That's bullying. Jesus said that you should not only be submissive to a bully, but let them bully you even more than they originally intended.

Now in certain situations turning the other cheek can be effective. Once a woman humiliated me infront of a whole conference room of people because of my appearance and I was pleasant to her afterwards as if nothing happened. After that she was too ashamed to face me. I doubt she'll ever do that again.

But from personal experience, I know that most bullies don't feel guilty so submitting to them is a mistake. If you don't react to their provocation, they'll just scale up the attacks until you do. Also, if they get away with it with you they will be even bolder with the next person. So stand your ground and stop them from hurting anyone else. It's in your interest, it is in society's interest.

By doing something you are making the world a fairer, more just place, and even bullies want that. For instance, my son went to a school where bullying was out of control. I remember walking past a group of students sitting in silence, obviously upset. I wondered what had happened. One girl said to another “I can't believe the principal let us get away with that.” They were in shock.

Isaiah 61:8 (NIV) says:

"For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and iniquity."

So it's up to us to bring justice to the world and sometimes we have to fight back to make it happen. That also is holy behaviour.

.......................................................

Talmud Passages are from http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html
Note the numbers in the text are not passage numbers, they are footnote numbers- I left them in so the passages would be easier to find.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Be Careful What you Say

2010-01-04T20:25:00.005+11:00

I've had a health scare lately- high blood pressure means I'm in danger of having a stroke, high cholesterol means I might have a heart attack, also my kidneys aren't working too well so I've been thinking a lot about the after-life.

My husband's aunt says I'm going to hell because I'm not a Christian. I defend myself by saying I'm a good person who believes in God. She replied:

James 2:19 (NIV)
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

This made me angry. What a mean thing to say! But Jesus said anger can send you to hell:

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

I want to call her a “bitch”, but Jesus said:

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)
But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Well, I wouldn't feel so angry if I could retaliate, but Jesus said:

Luke 6:29 (NIV)
If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.

I've tried but I can't forgive her for what she said. But Jesus said:

Matthew 18:34-35 (NIV)
In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

So even if I wasn't originally going to be sentenced to go to hell, what she said to me almost guaranteed I would be. So people, watch what you say.

Matthew 12:35-37 (NIV)
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

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All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com.

Are the Names of the Colours in the Bible Special?

2009-12-28T16:24:00.035+11:00

Recently someone told me about a paper written by Prof. Haim Shore, a tenured professor in engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. It proposes that there is a direct correlation between the Hebrew names for a colour in the Bible and their wave frequency.

If you look at the paper page 15 you get a nice table and graph to go with it that seems to bear out what he says. So I decided to look into it.

The first thing I noticed was there seemed to be some colours missing. Surely there were other colours in the Old Testament other than red, green, yellow, magenta and blue. So I went to Biblegateway and did a search. Turns out there are no orange or pink mentioned in the Bible, but I did come up with black, white, silver, gold, crimson, scarlet, purple,and brown that were.

Now you could say that black and white aren't colours. and that gold and silver aren't either, because they need to be shiny to exist or they just turn into grey or greenish yellow, so I can see why they wouldn't be included in the chart. I was also told that because scarlet and crimson are just shades of red, they are included in the chart under red. In the same way, purple is included in magenta, because the purple in the Bible is more reddish purple than bluish purple. As for brown, it isn't a colour of the rainbow, so it doesn't have a frequency. So that explains that.

Next I went and showed the chart and the graph to my husband. He teaches computer graphics at UNSW so he knows all about colours. What struck him right away was that magenta was in the chart. He says magenta isn't in the rainbow. This chart shows you where the different colors lie- you can see that magenta lies around the bottom of the graph near reddish purple. The colours there have no frequencies.

But the chart says that the frequency of magenta is 546. If it isn't magenta, then what colour is it?

Looking at this chart you can see it is a green. That's nothing like purple. If you wanted a purple-like colour that does have a frequency, the author should have used violet. But the frequency of violet is 668–789 THz which would throw Shore's chart right off. If he wanted to be accurate, he shouldn't have included purple at all, because reddish purple isn't a spectral colour. However that would leave 4 points and 4 points don't give you a significant result. If you look at the graph without that point it looks like this:

Hardly something you could draw a straight line through.

So the moral of the story is, just because someone works for a University, it doesn't mean you can rely on their findings, especially if they writing about emotional issues such as religion or climate change. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NIV):

Test everything. Hold on to the good.

...............................................
All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

PS The paper also deals with the relationship between the words for the earth, moon and sun and their size. But he left out Venus, which is referred to as the morning star.

Another thing he does is try and find a relationship between the Hebrew words for the day, month and year and their length. This graph comes out to be really impressive but he left out the word for week, which I suspect would mess everything up.

The Spirit of Christmas

2009-12-24T14:50:00.003+11:00

Apologies about not posting for so long. My kids were off to Canada which gave us an opportunity to do some house repairs and then I had a health scare. Hopefully all will settle down soon and I can go back to my research.

Meanwhile I am busy preparing for Christmas. It isn't all work though, last night we went out and looked at the Christmas lights. Whole neighbourhoods were lit up and decorated with Santas and candy canes and snowmen and stars. People of all cultures were out getting into the spirit of it.

But what exactly is the spirit of Christmas? Well, I googled it and I can tell you what it's not:

Spirit Of Christmas for Sale
22 Spirit Of Christmas Available
Find Deals on New and Used Items
www.eBay.com.au

So what is? Well I think Colossians says it best:

Colossians 3:8-14 (NIV)

But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

I believe these words apply to all people of all religions, no matter who they think the Christ is. Following these principles will lead us all closer to

Matthew 6:10 (NIV)

your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

May we ever get closer to this ideal!

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas Cards 2009

2009-12-06T17:08:00.005+11:00

These are the Christmas Cards I designed this year. The pictures were taken in our back yard. I usually get the pictures printed, then stick them to the front of cards from a $1 shop. They come out looking gorgeous!

Jesus, Spit and Magic

2009-11-26T13:35:00.010+11:00

The New Testament says that Jesus sometimes spit to heal people:

Mark 7:31-35 (NIV)

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
......................................................................................
Mark 8:22-25 (NIV)

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"

He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
........................................................................................

So spitting was part of the healing process. Was he the only one doing this?

Wikipedia says:

As told in Mark 8:22-26, Jesus put saliva on the eyes of a blind man and laid his hands on him to restore his sight. The Roman Emperor Vespasian is said to have performed a similar healing of a blind man using his saliva. Pliny the Elder in his Natural History reported that a fasting woman's saliva is an effective cure for bloodshot eyes.

But does spit have any healing powers at all?

In the same article Wikipedia says:

Saliva contains many compounds that are antibacterial or promote healing. The enzymes lysozyme and peroxidase, lactoferrin, defensins, cystatins and an antibody, IgA, are all antibacterial. Thrombospondin and some other components are antiviral. A protease inhibitor, secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor, is present in saliva and is both antibacterial and antiviral, and a promoter of wound healing. Nitrates that are naturally found in saliva break down into nitric oxide on contact with skin, which will inhibit bacterial growth. Saliva contains growth factors such as epidermal growth factor, VEGF, TGF-β1, leptin, IGF-I, lysophosphatidic acid, hyaluronan and NGF, which all promote healing, although levels of EGF and NGF in humans are much lower than those in rats. In humans, histatins may play a larger role. As well as being growth factors, IGF-I and TGF-α induce antimicrobial peptides. Saliva also contains an analgesic, opiorphin. Licking will also tend to debride the wound and remove gross contamination from the affected area.

On the other hand, Wikipedia also says this:

There are potential health hazards in wound licking due to infection risk, especially in immunocompromised patients. Human saliva contains a wide variety of bacteria that are harmless in the mouth, but that may cause significant infection if introduced into a wound. A notable case was a diabetic man who licked his bleeding thumb following a minor bicycle accident, and subsequently had to have the thumb amputated after it became infected with Eikenella corrodens from his saliva.

But saliva can't help someone that's deaf or mute or born blind, that would take a miracle. Like the one mentioned in John:
..........................

John 9:1-34 (NIV)

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" Some claimed that he was. Others said, "No, he only looks like him." But he himself insisted, "I am the man."

"How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.

He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see."

"Where is this man?" they asked him.

"I don't know," he said.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see."

Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."

But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided.

Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened."

The man replied, "He is a prophet."

The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?"

"We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God, " they said. "We know this man is a sinner."

He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."

The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.
..................................................................................................

So what was all the fuss about? Why did they keep asking him what procedure Jesus used?

I believe they were worried he had used magic. The Talmud says

Talmud - Mas. Sanhedrin 90a

THE FOLLOWING HAVE NO PORTION THEREIN {of the World to Come}: HE WHO MAINTAINS THAT RESURRECTION IS NOT A BIBLICAL DOCTRINE,31 THE TORAH WAS NOT DIVINELY REVEALED, AND AN EPIKOROS.32 R. AKIBA ADDED: ONE WHO READS UNCANONICAL BOOKS.33 ALSO ONE WHO WHISPERS [A CHARM] OVER A WOUND AND SAYS, I WILL BRING NONE OF THESE DISEASES UPON THEE WHICH I BROUGHT UPON THE EGYPTIANS: FOR I AM THE LORD THAT HEALETH THEE. {Exodus 15:26}

Talmud - Mas. Sanhedrin 101a

ALSO ONE WHO WHISPERS OVER A WOUND etc. R. Johanan said: But only if he expectorates in doing so because the Divine Name may not be expressed in conjunction with expectoration.

The footnote to this says:

In uttering a charm one generally expectorated, the charm itself being usually a Biblical verse containing the Name of God. Thus the actual enchantment was done by means of the Biblical verse; a similar kind of enchantment was practised by the Essenes. In the opinion of some scholars, expectoration was the essential part of the charm, and L. Blau maintains that eeuru (expectorates) belongs to the original text of the Mishnah.

It has been said, Rab declared: Even [the verse]:

{ Leviticus 13:9 (NIV)

"When anyone has an infectious skin disease, he must be brought to the priest;}

The footnote says:

though not containing the Divine Name its use as a magical formula is forbidden.

R. Hanina said: Even,[the verse]

{ Leviticus 1:1 (NIV)

The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.}

The footnote says:

Though this contains no mention of illness or disease, and is whispered only that one may be saved from illness through the merit of reading the Torah, it is still forbidden.

So R. Johanan said that was OK to whisper a Bible passage over a wound as long as you didn't spit after saying God's name, the other Rabies disagreed and said you weren't allowed to do it no matter what verse from the Bible you were using.

So the Rabbis were interrogating the blind man to see if indeed this is what Jesus had done. But that was not in the blind man's account so there was nothing they could do to Jesus especially since the spit of first born children was considered to be healing, and Jesus was a first born son:

Baba Bathra 126b

A certain [person once] came before R. Hanina [and] said to him, 'I am certain that this [man] is firstborn'. He said to him, 'Whence do you know [this]?' — [The other] replied to him: 'Because when [people] came to his father,38 he used to say to them: Go to my son Shikhath, Who is firstborn and his spittle heals'. — Might he not have been the firstborn of his mother [only]? — There is a tradition that the spittle of the firstborn of a father is healing, but that of the firstborn of a mother is not healing.

No wonder the Pharisees were so frustrated!
......................................

My comments are in italics in braces:{ }. Notes in square brackets [ ] were put in by the editor of the Talmud.

Talmud Passages are from http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html
Note the numbers in the text are not passage numbers, they are footnote numbers- I left them in so the passages would be easier to find.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The Elders and the Spirit of the Unwashed Hands

2009-11-09T21:20:00.014+11:00

I want to go back to the passage where the Pharisees criticize Jesus and his followers for not washing their hands before they eat:

Matthew 15:1-2,7-9 (NIV)

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

"'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"

Ok, so which men?

Some said it was Hillel and Shammai:

Shabbath 14b:10-16

'And the hands'. Did then the disciples of Shammai and Hillel decree this: Shammai and Hillel decreed it! For it was taught, Jose b. Jo'ezer of Zeredah and Jose b. Johanan of Jerusalem decreed uncleanness in respect of the country of the heathens and glassware. Simeon b. Shetah instituted the woman's marriage settlement and imposed uncleanness upon metal utensils. Shammai and Hillel decreed uncleanness for the hands.

Others said that they just revived it:

The washing of hands and the plunging of them is appointed by the words of the scribes: but by whom, and when, it is doubted. Some ascribe the institution of this rite to Hillel and Shammai, others carry it back to ages before them: "Hillel and Shammai decreed concerning the washing of hands. R. Josi Ben Rabbi Bon, in the name of R. Levi, saith, 'That tradition was given before, but they had forgotten it': these second stand forth, and appoint according to the mind of the former."

So if it wasn't them, who else could it have been?

Talmud - Mas. Eiruvin 21b:24-28*

Rab Judah stated in the name of Samuel: When Solomon ordained the laws of erub and the washing of the hands a bath kol issued and proclaimed: My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart will be glad and, furthermore, it is said in Scripture: My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that taunts me.

What is a bath kol ?

BATH KOL

(Lit., 'daughter of a voice'); (a) a reverberating sound; (b) a voice descending from heaven (cf. Dan. IV, 28) to offer guidance in human affairs, and regarded as a lower grade of prophecy.

Now King Solomon lived about 10th century BC but Hillel and Shammai lived at the same time as Jesus did. Wikipedia says this:

.................

Shammai (50 BCE–30 CE, Hebrew: שמאי) was a Jewish scholar of the 1st century, and an important figure in Judaism's core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah.

Shammai was the most eminent contemporary and the halakhic opponent of Hillel, and is almost invariably mentioned along with him.

Shammai's school of thought became known as the House of Shammai (Hebrew: Beit Shammai‎), as Hillel's was known as the House of Hillel (Beit Hillel). After Menahem the Essene had resigned the office of Av Beit Din (or vice-president) of the Sanhedrin, Shammai was elected to it, Hillel being at the time president. After Hillel died, circa 20 CE, Shammai took his place as president but no vice-president from the minority was elected so that the school of Shammai attained complete ascendancy.

..............

So before Hillel died, in 20 AD, he was the president and Shammai was the vice president of the Sanhedrin, afterward, Shammai became president, and his rules became law. While they were both alive, one could follow the rules of either. Once Hillel died, you had to follow Shammai's rules. After the fall of the temple though, Hillel's rules won out and Shammai's rulings were overturned, apparently because of another voice from heaven. Wikipedia says:

Hillel's grandson Gamaliel succeeded to the position of president after Shammai in the year 30, but the Sanhedrin would remain dominated by the house of Shammai until around 70 (see Council of Jamnia). A "voice from heaven" is said to have nullified the legality of the rulings of the house of Shammai (Yerushalmi Berakhot, 1:7), which is why Rabbinical Judaism follows Hillel.

So at the time Jesus was teaching, Shammai's rules were still in effect. Here are both their opinions on washing:

Berakoth 51b: 13-16

MISHNAH. THESE ARE THE POINTS [OF DIFFERENCE] BETWEEN BETH SHAMMAI AND BETH HILLEL IN RELATION TO A MEAL. BETH SHAMMAI SAY THAT WASHING THE HANDS PRECEDES THE FILLING OF THE CUP, WHILE BETH HILLEL SAY THAT THE FILLING OF THE CUP PRECEDES THE WASHING OF THE HANDS. BETH SHAMMAI SAY THAT AFTER WIPING HIS HANDS WITH A NAPKIN THE DINER PLACES IT ON THE TABLE, WHILE BETH HILLEL SAY THAT HE PLACES IT ON THE CUSHION. BETH SHAMMAI SAY THAT [AFTER THE MEAL] THE FLOOR IS SWEPT BEFORE THE WASHING OF THE HANDS, WHILE BETH HILLEL SAY THAT [THE DINERS] WASH THEIR HANDS AND THEN THE FLOOR IS SWEPT.

Is there a reason given for the washing of the hands? Look at this passage:

Talmud - Mas. Yoma 77b: 4-8*

Our Rabbis taught: It is forbidden to wash part of the body [on the Day of Atonement], as [it is forbidden to wash] the whole body. But if one was soiled with mud or excrement, he may wash in his usual way without any fear. It is forbidden to anoint part of the body [as it is forbidden to anoint] the whole body. If, however, one was sick or had scabs on his head, he may anoint himself in his usual way without any fear. The School of R. Menasseh taught: R. Simeon b. Gamaliel said: A woman may wash one of her hands in water to give bread to an infant without any fear. It was reported about the older Shammai6 that he would not [hand food] to be eaten even with one hand, whereupon the Rabbis decreed that he must do so with both hands. Why that? Abaye said: Because of Shibta.

What is Shibta? The footnote* says:

An evil spirit, or odour, that endangers the health of those that eat food touched with unwashed hands.

So why did the Rabbis make him wash both hands before feeding his child? The footnote says*:

Shammai did not wish to allow himself the concession made by the Rabbis, since he always took the severer view for himself, when two interpretations of ritual obligations were involved. But the Rabbis decided that their permission to wash one's hand was a matter of safeguarding the child's health, and Shammai's unwillingness to accept their rule was unjustified. To emphasize that they imposed upon him the obligation to wash both his hands before handing food to his infant.

Here's some more info on Shibta by John Lightfoot (1602-1675). He said:

To these most rigid canons they added also bugbears and ghosts to affright them.

It was the business of Shibta. Where the Gloss is, "Shibta was one of the demons who hurt them that wash not their hands before meat." The Aruch writes thus, "Shibta is an evil spirit which sits upon men's hands in the night: and if any touch his food with unwashen hands, that spirit sits upon that food, and there is danger from it."

Note, John Lightfoot quoted this about 200 years before germ theory was first stated, so, he could laugh but if you were explaining to a child why they had to wash their hands, what would you say?

“Well, there's these invisible creatures that are on your hands and that can make you sick if you don't wash them off before you touch food that's going to go into your mouth.”

Sounds a lot like a Shibta doesn't it?
............................

Talmud Passages are from http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html
Note the numbers given are not passage numbers, they are footnote numbers- I put them in so the passage would be easier to find.

* Starred passages are from the Talmud, but not available on the above site. They are from The Soncino Talmud (©1973 Judaica Press, Inc. and ©1965, 1967, 1977, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, & 1990 Soncino Press, Ltd.)

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Could Ear Candling be 2000 Years Old?

2009-11-02T14:09:00.008+11:00

Wikipedia says this about ear candling:
............................
Ear candling, also called ear coning or thermal-auricular therapy, is an alternative medicine practice claimed to improve general health and well-being by lighting one end of a hollow candle and placing the other end in the ear canal.

One end of a cylinder or cone of waxed cloth is lit, and the other placed into the subject's ear. Its proponents claim that the flame creates negative pressure, drawing wax and debris out of the ear canal, which appears as a dark residue.

Origin
Although Biosun, a manufacturer of ear candles, refers to them as "Hopi" ear candles, there is no such treatment within traditional Hopi healing practices. Vanessa Charles, public relations officer for the Hopi Tribal Council, has stated that ear candling "is not and has never been a practice conducted by the Hopi tribe or the Hopi people."The Hopi tribe has repeatedly asked Biosun, the manufacturer of 'Hopi Ear Candles' to stop using the Hopi name. Biosun has not complied with this request and continues to claim that ear candles originated within the Hopi tribe.
.......................................

Well, if it the idea didn't come from the Hopi tribe, maybe it came from here:

‘Abodah Zarah 28b

Or else, the ear should be filled with oil, then seven wicks should be made out of green blades of wheat-stalks at the one end of which dry garlic ends and some white thread should be set alight while the other end is placed within the ear, the ear should be exposed to the light but care should be taken that no spark falls on it, each wick [when done with] should be replaced by another. Another version is: One should prepare seven wicks of white thread and dip them in oil of balsam-wood setting light to the one end and placing the other end in the ear, each one, when done with, should be replaced by another, care being taken to avoid any sparks.

This is from the Talmud which records the teachings and practices of the Jewish people from over two thousand years ago. It's still widely read today. I'm guessing this is where Biosun got its idea from but of course I can't be sure.

Oh, by the way, the ear candling doesn't work and is dangerous. Wikipedia says:

The Spokane Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic conducted a research study in 1996 which concluded that ear candling does not produce negative pressure and was ineffective in removing wax from the ear canal. Several studies have shown that ear candles produce the same residue when burnt without ear insertion and that the residue is simply candle wax and soot.

In a report, Health Canada states "There is no scientific proof to support claims that ear candling provides medical benefits. ... However, there is plenty of proof that ear candling is dangerous."

A 2007 paper in American Family Physician said: Primary care physicians may see complications from ear candling including candle wax occlusion, local burns, and tympanic membrane perforation."

So please don't try it.

..............................................
The Talmud quote comes from http://www.come-and-hear.com/zarah/zarah_28.html

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T16:57:00.002+11:00

What a happy building this is!

It's a local crematorium. And there's an open house there today. How appropriate!

Who Taught Jesus? The Pharisees?

2009-10-26T15:44:00.025+11:00

Was Jesus taught by Pharisees?

At first the answer to this question seems trivial. Jesus hated them so obviously he wasn't one of them. But that doesn't mean he couldn't at some time have been studying under them especially since they controlled the education system in Israel in his time, right from the elementary schools to the Academy of Sages. As I stated in the previous post, money wasn't an object, because Mary was probably rich,and even if she wasn't she had at least one rich relative who would have wanted to help her out.

Jewish legend says a Jesus of Nazareth studied under a Rabbi but they had a falling out because of an offhand remark Jesus made to him. The Rabbi exclaimed how beautiful an Inn was, Jesus misunderstood and thought he was referring to the Innkeeper and protested that her eyes were too narrow. The Rabbi took offence and excommunicated him. Jesus apologized many times, but the Rabbi refused to take him back so Jesus gave up and started teaching on his own. When the Rabbi later wanted to take him back, Jesus said it was too late.

Could this legend be referring to the Jesus of Nazareth of Christianity?

Well, offhand we could say no. The legend is set in the time of King Jannaeus, who reigned about 103-76 B.C.E. before Jesus was even born. However, the Talmud does have a habit of referring to Jesus in code (He's often called Balaam for instance) and they may have changed the year of the incident to disguise the real name of the Rabbi.

If it was the Jesus of the New Testament that would explain why he was so hard on people who wouldn't forgive:

Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 18:32-35 (NIV)

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

It would also explain his severe hatred of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. If you read some of his diatribes against them with this perspective, you could almost see how he could have had a single person in mind. For instance, look at this speech:

..........

Matthew 23:1-7, 13-33 (NIV)

Seven Woes

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
............

Even if this particular Jesus was different to Jesus of Christianity, the Jesus of the New Testament could still have been taught by the Pharisees. He certainly seemed to know some of their teachings:

Matthew 23:16 (NIV)

"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.'

Matthew 15:4-6 (NIV)

For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

We can also say he knew the Old Testament quite well, because he knew that the law about washing hands and dishes did not come from the Old Testament.
........
Mark 7:1-8 (NIV)

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
..........

If you think about it, all three of these things are pretty obscure and not something an ordinary person would know about.

But those aren't all the teachings he mentions. He's taken a lot of the teachings of the Pharisees, (which weren't written down at that time) and passed them down to his disciples. We know this because this Oral Law of the Pharisees was written down in the Talmud after the destruction of the Temple.

For instance:

‘Abodah Zarah Folio 19a:7-9

That delighteth greatly in His commandments, was explained by R. Eleazar thus: 'In His commandments,' but not in the reward of His commandments. This is just what we have learnt. 'He used to say, Be not like servants who serve the master on the condition of receiving a reward; but be like servants who serve the master without the condition of receiving a reward.'

Compare that to

Luke 17:7-10 (NIV)

"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "

Yebamoth 63b: 64-65

Do not worry about to-morrow's trouble, for thou knowest not what the day may beget. To-morrow may come and thou wilt be no more and so thou hast worried about a world which is not thine.

Luke 12:25 (NIV)

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?

Baba Bathra 10b: 7-8

A similar remark was made by Joseph the son of R. Joshua. He had been ill and fell in a trance. [After he recovered], his father said to him: 'What vision did you have?' He replied, 'I saw a world upside down, the upper below and the lower above.' He said to him: 'You saw a well regulated world.'

Luke 16:25 (NIV)

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.

Matthew 19:29-30 (NIV)

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

Baba Bathra 11a: 3-8

Our Rabbis taught: It is related of King Monobaz that he dissipated all his own hoards and the hoards of his fathers in years of scarcity. His brothers and his father's household came in a deputation to him and said to him, 'Your father saved money and added to the treasures of his fathers, and you are squandering them.' He replied: 'My fathers stored up below and I am storing above, as it says, Truth springeth out of the earth and righteousness looketh down from heaven. My fathers stored in a place which can be tampered with, but I have stored in a place which cannot be tampered with, as it says, Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne. My fathers stored something which produces no fruits, but I have stored something which does produce fruits, as it is written, Say ye of the righteous [zaddik] that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings. My fathers gathered treasures of money, but I have gathered treasures of souls, as it is written, The fruit of the righteous [zaddik] is a tree of life, and he that is wise winneth souls. My fathers gathered for others and I have gathered for myself, as it says, And for thee it shall be righteousness [zedakah]. My fathers gathered for this world, but I have gathered for the future world, as it says, Thy righteousness [zedakah] shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.'

Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV)

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Nedarim 22a: 6-7

He who speaketh [a vow] is worthy of being pierced by the sword, but that the tongue of the wise [i.e., absolution] health. Nor do we suggest the following, viz., what was taught, R. Nathan said: One who vows is as though he built a high place, and he who fulfils it is as though he sacrificed thereon.

Matthew 5:34-37 (NIV)

But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Nedarim 22a: 12-14

R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: He who loses his temper is exposed to all the torments of Gehenna, for it is written, Therefore remove anger from thy heart,' thus wilt thou put away evil from thy flesh. Now 'evil' can only mean Gehenna, as it is written, The Lord hath made all things for himself yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

There are many many more examples.

Now in the time of Jesus there were two different kinds of Pharisees- those who followed the School of Hillel and those who followed the School of Shemaiah.If Jesus WAS taught by one of these, which would it have been?

Well,they did have different entrance requirements. Jewishencyclopedia says:

The first bet ha-midrash [High School] of which there is authentic record is the one in which Shemaiah (Sameas) and Abtalion (Pollion) taught, and which Hillel, when a youth, could attend only after having paid admission-fee to the janitor. Whether or not this charge of a fee, so contradictory to the maxim of the men of the Great Synagogue, "Raise many disciples," was a political measure of the time, it seemingly stands in connection with a principle pronounced by the Shammaites, that "only those who are wise, humble, and of goodly, well-to-do parentage should be taught the Law." On the other hand, the Hillelites insisted that "all, without exception, should partake of the privilege, inasmuch as many transgressors in Israel, when brought nigh to the Law, brought forth righteous, pious, and perfect men.

So on that basis, chances are that Jesus would have gone to the School of Hillel. The probability is even higher if you look at the character of the founders of the Schools and what their Schools' philosophies were. Jewishencyclopedia says:
.....
The "School (literally, "house") of Hillel" and the "School of Shammai" are names by which are designated the most famous antagonistic schools that flourished in Palestine during the first century, and which more than others contributed to the development of the oral law.

The Hillelites were, like the founder of their school, quiet, peace-loving men, accommodating themselves to circumstances and times, and being determined only upon fostering the Law and bringing man nearer to his God and to his neighbor. The Shammaites, on the other hand, stern and unbending like the originator of their school, emulated and even exceeded his severity. To them it seemed impossible to be sufficiently stringent in religious prohibitions. The disciples of Hillel, "the pious and gentle follower of Ezra", evinced in all their public dealings the peacefulness, gentleness, and conciliatory spirit which had distinguished their great master; and by the same characteristic qualities they were guided during the political storms which convulsed their country. The Shammaites, on the contrary, were intensely patriotic, and would not bow to foreign rule. They advocated the interdiction of any and all intercourse with those who either were Romans or in any way contributed toward the furtherance of Roman power or influences.
............

So the Philistine that tried to trap Jesus on the matter of taxation was probably a Shammaite:
.........
Matthew 22:15-21 (NIV)

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
...........

So Jesus seemed to agree with the teachings of the school of Hillel on this matter as well as others. This can be seen if you look at the teachings of Hillel. Jewishencyclopedia says:
.........
The saying of Hillel which introduces the collection of his maxims in the Mishnaic treatise Abot mentions Aaron as the great model to be imitated in his love of peace, in his love of man, and in his leading mankind to a knowledge of the Law. In mentioning these characteristics, which the Haggadah then already ascribed to Moses' brother, Hillel mentions his own most prominent virtues. Love of man was considered by Hillel as the kernel of the entire Jewish teaching. When a heathen who wished to become a Jew asked him for a summary of the Jewish religion in the most concise terms, Hillel said: "What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary". With these words Hillel recognized as the fundamental principle of the Jewish moral law the Biblical precept of brotherly love. Almost the same thing was taught by Paul, a pupil of Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel; and more broadly by Jesus when he declared the love of one's neighbor to be the second great commandment beside the love of God, the first. It may be assumed without argument that Hillel's answer to the proselyte, which is extant in a narrative in the Babylonian Talmud, was generally known in Palestine, and that it was not without its effect on the founder of Christianity.

It has been remarked that Hillel did not, like Jesus, state the love of God to be the principal commandment of the Jewish teaching; but it must not be forgotten that Jesus gave his answer to a scribe, whereas Hillel answered the question of a prospective proselyte, to whom it was necessary first of all to show how the teachings of Judaism are to be practised by him who wishes to accept them. That the love of God had also a central position in Hillel's conception of religion needs not to be proved; this position had long been assigned to it in Judaism—since the Scripture passage in which this precept is joined immediately to the confession of the unity of God had been made the principal portion of the daily prayer. Moreover, the Pharisaic scribes who approved of Jesus' answer evidently belonged to Hillel's school. Hillel seems to have connected the precept of brotherly love with the Biblical teaching of man's likeness to God, on which account he calls the love of man "love of creatures"; and it is worthy of note that the term "creatures" for men was then already the common property of the language.
........................

So you can see the similarity between what Jesus taught and what Hillel taught and it is not unreasonable to assume that he could have learned these teaching in the School of Hillel and then passed these teachings to his disciples. It's what a Rabbi would do, and his disciples did call him a Rabbi sometimes.

Mark 11:21(NIV)

Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

So for the most part, it wasn't the teachings he was hostile to, it was the teachers. You can see this from

Matthew 23:1-3 (NIV)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

So he could very well have been taught by a Rabbi in the school of Hillel who he disapproved of. Which Rabbi? I'll try and find out for my next post.

Of course maybe he wasn't taught by Pharisees at all, maybe he was taught by Essenes. That will be another post as well.
...............................................................

First Post in this series: Who Taught Jesus? A Priest?

Talmud Passages are from http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html
Note the numbers given are not passage numbers, they are footnote numbers- I put them in so the passage would be easier to find.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Jewishencyclopedia passages are from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/

Treasure Hunt Clues Without Answers

2009-10-18T12:46:00.008+11:00

Treasure Hunt Clues

I like to make treasure hunts for my kids on their birthdays, Easter and Halloween. Halloween is coming up so I thought I'd post this now. The hardest part is making up the clues. I figured I'd pass on some I've used so others can use them to make their own. First pick eight clues, then put them in the right order so each clue is found as far as possible from the next one. Then write on the back of each where that clue will be found.

For example, say you want the kids to go from the fridge to the washing machine to the mailbox.
The clue for the washing machine would be in the fridge, and the clue for the mailbox would be in the washing machine. If you write on the back of each clue where it's supposed to be hidden, then you won't get confused.

After you've done this and hidden the clues, do a dry run, just to make sure everything is in the right place and that you don't skip any clues. You can tell the kids which rooms are off limits and whether all the clues are inside, for instance. If it's done at a party, then have an adult lead each group so that everyone gets to hear (or see) the clues. Don't give hints unless they've taken more than fifteen minutes to get the answer.

Some of these clues seem easy, but that's OK- it's best if they aren't too hard- even adults enjoy these. I know because I've done treasure hunts for them too.

Clues:

Broken pictures

I know where everyone in the city lives.

If you throw things down here they will get clean instead of dirty.

Ask Mike for the next clue.

Boxes of hard water.

under a sea plus hair (hint: say it aloud)

I've got 4 legs and get plenty of food but I never eat any of it.

People are always feeding me junk.

No one can sneak up behind you if you are looking at me.

Unlike Mars, it's got channels.

You push my buttons.

I'm like a cloud that hides the sun, only I'm indoors.

I want to go for a walk!

I'm purrfect.

I look like a square spider web- but only clean things stick to me.

I'm nothing but a long string that people use over and over.

I've been framed!

Picture Clues:

Answers are here.

If you can suggest other clues, even if it's for the same locations, I'd love to hear them!

Treasure Hunt Clues With Answers

2009-10-18T12:33:00.006+11:00

Treasure Hunt Clues

I like to make treasure hunts for my kids on their birthdays, Easter and Halloween. The hardest part is making up the clues. I figured I'd pass on some I've used so others can use them to make their own. Just pick eight clues, put them in the right order so each clue is found as far as possible from the next one, then write on the back of each where that clue is going to be hidden- that way you won't get confused. Finally, do a trial run before the kids do it just so you know it works.

Some of these clues seem easy, but that's OK- it's best if they aren't too hard- even adults enjoy these. I know because I've done treasure hunts for them too.

If you want to try out the clues without the answers go here.

Clues:

Broken pictures: jigsaw puzzle

I know where everyone in the city lives: phone book

If you throw things down here they will get clean instead of dirty: washing machine

Ask Mike for the next clue: microwave

Boxes of hard water: ice cube tray

under a sea plus hair: under a chair

I've got 4 legs and get plenty of food but I never eat any of it: dining room or kitchen table

People are always feeding me junk: Mailbox

No one can sneak up behind you if you are looking at me: Mirror

Unlike Mars, it's got channels: television

You push my buttons.: phone

I'm like a cloud that hides the sun, only I'm indoors: lampshade

I want to go for a walk!: dog (stick the next clue on their dogtag)

I'm purrfect.: cat (stick the next message to their tag)

I look like a square spider web- but only clean things stick to me.: hill's hoist

I'm nothing but a long string that people use over and over.: washline

I've been framed!: picture, painting

Bluebottle: Leads to a perfume bottle or wine bottle that's blue.

Key + board: Computer keyboard

If you have any other suggestions for clues, I'd love to hear them.

Who Taught Jesus? A Priest? Part 1

2009-10-14T17:21:00.007+11:00

In the following series I am going to explore who might have taught Jesus. Of course Bible Scholars say that his teachings are closest to that of the Essenes, but I want to start from scratch, looking at every possibility. I'm hoping I can get to the point where I could actually name his teacher. It is taking me ages to do this research, so I'll just give updates as I do it.

........................

In the New Testament it says that Jesus could read. We know this from

Luke 4:16-21 (NIV)

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Some scholars believe that in those days only the very richest 10% of the population could read so how could Jesus have afforded an education?

Well,Jewish legend has it that Mary was born into rich family but had a thing for working class men (Sanh 106a):

R. Papa observed: This is what men say, 'She who was the descendant of princes and governors, played the harlot with carpenters

Now if this is true, she may have had money of her own to pay for it. Is there any evidence in the New Testament that Jesus was born into a rich family? Why, yes!

2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV)

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

OK, so if this is true he could afford an education. Even if he couldn't though, the Oral Torah, which was explanations of the Old Testament taught in the time of Jesus says this (B.M. 85a):

He who teaches Torah to his neighbor's son will be privileged to sit in the Heavenly Academy, for it is written, If thou [sc. Jeremiah] wilt cause [Israel] to repent, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me.22 And he who teaches Torah to the son of an 'am ha-arez,23 even if the Holy One, blessed be He, makes a decree, He annuls it for his sake, as it is written, and if thou shalt take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth.
(An am ha-arez is an uneducated person).

This says that if you had a person who was immoral or if he was of questionable parentage or ignorant, you could redeem him by teaching him Torah. Remember, that even if Jesus was the literal son of God, while he was growing up people would have thought he was an illegitimate child. And the Old Testament is really harsh when it comes to bastards:

Deuteronomy 23:2 (King James Version)

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

So teaching him Torah would lift this decree. You'd do this for a neighbor or a relative or a friend. So was there anyone who fit this category who could have taught Jesus?

Well, obviously we don't know who his neighbors were, but we do know that Mary was related to the wife of a priest. We know she was close to this family because she spent 3 months with this woman when she was pregnant. This woman was Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.

Luke 1:5-6 (NIV)

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly.

Luke 1:36 (NIV)

Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.

Luke 1:56 (NIV)

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Elizabeth was John the Baptist's mother, and his father was a priest of the Temple, so you could see how they might want to help Mary out, and it suggests Jesus and John would have known each other growing up.

But if his mother did come from the ruling class and if he really was rich and he was educated by a priest you'd expect him to be a Sadducee. But he wasn't. Sadducee didn't believe in resurrection and Jesus did, so it is unlikely that he was taught by a priest. Also, Jesus knew some of the teachings of the Pharisees, so maybe he'd been taught by them? Jewish legend said he was. I explore that in my next post.
...................
Next Post in the Series: Who Taught Jesus? The Pharisees?

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The King James version comes from the same site but is Public Domain.

List of My Posts on Religion

2009-10-04T14:06:00.004+11:00

The Two Hells
the Son Of Man
Not Peace but a Sword
In the Beginning There Was the Oath
The Importance of 1 Enoch to Christianity
1 Enoch Summary Part 1: Angels on the Prowl
1 Enoch Summary Part 2: Angels Make a Living
1 Enoch Summary Part 3: Punishment of Angels, Birth of Demons
The Chosen Ones
Followers of the Way
Demons and Personal Hygiene
Will All Believers Be Saved?
The Moonies and Me
A Parable About Christianity
Is the Second Coming Late?
Why Did Jesus Want People To Drink His Blood?
The Two Messiahs
Does Revelations say Jesus is Lucifer?
What's Wrong With An Angry God?
The Covenant of Paul: Series Part 1 of 3
The Covenant of Jesus: Series Part 2 of 3
The REAL New Covenant: Series Part 3 of 3
What Was Jesus' Relationship With His Mother?
Was Jesus the ONLY Son of God?
The Best of Christianity
The Worst of Christianity
Jesus, the perfect sacrifice? Yes, but not in the Way You Think
Prophecy and Divine Intervention
Relgion's Role in Society
The Book of Daniel: Going against Science is Going against God?
Keeping the Sabbath
The Brainwashing of Kindergarten Christians
The Olt Testament God vs the New Testament God
Window into another world- Pagan Full Moon Ritual
Lamb Sacrifices in the Temple Jesus Attended
Window into Another Culture
Great Fudges in Religion
A Request To Religious Instructors
The First Christmas Revisited
Garden of Eden revisited
Did the Old Testament really prophesy about Jesus?

The Two Hells Mentioned in NT and 1 Enoch

2009-10-02T23:25:00.014+10:00

Did you know there are two hells mentioned in the New Testament? Luke tells of a rich man who is caught in one kind:

............

Luke 16:19-31 (Young's Literal Translation)

`And -- a certain man was rich, and was clothed in purple and fine linen, making merry sumptuously every day, and there was a certain poor man, by name Lazarus, who was laid at his porch, full of sores,and desiring to be filled from the crumbs that are falling from the table of the rich man; yea, also the dogs, coming, were licking his sores.

`And it came to pass, that the poor man died, and that he was carried away by the messengers to the bosom of Abraham -- and the rich man also died, and was buried;

and in the hades having lifted up his eyes, being in torments, he doth see Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and having cried, he said, Father Abraham, deal kindly with me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and may cool my tongue, because I am distressed in this flame.

`And Abraham said, Child, remember that thou did receive -- thou -- thy good things in thy life, and Lazarus in like manner the evil things, and now he is comforted, and thou art distressed;
and besides all these things, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that they who are willing to go over from hence unto you are not able, nor do they from thence to us pass through.

`And he said, I pray thee, then, father, that thou mayest send him to the house of my father,
for I have five brothers, so that he may thoroughly testify to them, that they also may not come to this place of torment.

`Abraham saith to him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them;

and he said, No, father Abraham, but if any one from the dead may go unto them, they will reform.

And he said to him, If Moses and the prophets they do not hear, neither if one may rise out of the dead will they be persuaded.'

........

But the rich man is only there temporarily until Judgment Day. We know this because the parable mentions that Lazarus is nearby in the Bosom of Abraham. What does this term mean?

Wikipedia says:

The phrase "Bosom of Abraham" refers to the place of comfort in sheol (Greek: hades) where the Jews said the righteous dead awaited Judgment Day. The phrase "Bosom of Abraham" occurs in the Bible only in the New Testament in Luke 16:22-23 in Jesus' story of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

The Old Testament doesn't refer to this, but according to Wikipedia 1 Enoch does:

Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch (ca. 160 BCE) purportedly records Enoch's vision of the cosmos. The author describes Sheol as divided into four sections: one where the faithful saints blissfully await Judgment Day (see Bosom of Abraham), one where the moderately good await their reward, one where the wicked are punished and await their Judgment at the resurrection (see Gehenna), and the last where the wicked who don't even warrant resurrection are tormented.

Here's the passage it is talking about:

............

1 Enoch CHAPTER XXII: 1-13

And thence I went to another place, and he showed me in the west ⌈another⌉ great and high mountain [and] of hard rock.

And there were †four† hollow places in it, deep and very smooth: †three† of them were dark and one bright; and there was a fountain of water in its midst. And I said: '†How† smooth are these hollow places, and deep and dark to view.'

Then Raphael answered, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'These hollow places have been created for this very purpose, that the spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble therein, yea that all the souls of the children of men should assemble here. And these places have been made to receive them till the day of their judgement and till their appointed period ⌈till the period appointed⌉, till the great judgement (comes) upon them.'

I saw the spirits of the children of men who were dead, and their voice went forth to heaven and made suit. Then I asked Raphael the angel who was with me, and I said unto him: 'This spirit--whose is it whose voice goeth forth and maketh suit?'

And he answered me saying: 'This is the spirit which went forth from Abel, whom his brother Cain slew, and he makes his suit against him till his seed is destroyed from the face of the earth, and his seed is annihilated from amongst the seed of men.'

Then I asked regarding all the hollow places: 'Why is one separated from the other?'

And he answered me saying: 'These three have been made that the spirits of the dead might be separated. And this division has been made for the spirits of the righteous, in which there is the bright spring of water. And this has been made for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth and judgement has not been executed upon them in their lifetime. Here their spirits shall be set apart in this great pain, till the great day of judgement, scourgings, and torments of the accursed for ever, so that (there maybe) retribution for their spirits. There He shall bind them for ever. And this division has been made for the spirits of those who make their suit, who make disclosures concerning their destruction, when they were slain in the days of the sinners. And this has been made for the spirits of men who shall not be righteous but sinners, who are godless, and of the lawless they shall be companions: but their spirits shall not be punished in the day of judgement nor shall they be raised from thence.

................

So in Jesus time they believed that after you died you could suffer in torment in the temporary hell, (a section of Hades) then, after Judgment Day, you'd be physically resurrected and your body (as well as your soul) could suffer permanently in Gehenna.

Matthew 10:28 (Young's Literal Translation)

`And be not afraid of those killing the body, and are not able to kill the soul, but fear rather Him who is able both soul and body to destroy in gehenna.

Wikipedia says this about it:

The New Testament thus seems to draw a distinction between Sheol and "Gehinnom" or Gehenna. The former is regarded as a place where the dead go temporarily to await resurrection (according to some traditions, including Jesus himself), while the latter is the place of eternal punishment for the damned.

You can see the two contrasted in Revelation 20:13-15 (NIV):

The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

This lake is also described in 1 Enoch CHAPTER LXVII: 4-13

..........

And He will imprison those angels, who have shown unrighteousness, in that burning valley which my grandfather Enoch had formerly shown to me in the west among the mountains of gold and silver and iron and soft metal and tin. And I saw that valley in which there was a great convulsion and a convulsion of the waters. And when all this took place, from that fiery molten metal and from the convulsion thereof in that place, there was produced a smell of sulphur, and it was connected with those waters, and that valley of the angels who had led astray (mankind) burned beneath that land. And through its valleys proceed streams of fire, where these angels are punished who had led astray those who dwell upon the earth.

But those waters shall in those days serve for the kings and the mighty and the exalted, and those who dwell on the earth, for the healing of the body, but for the punishment of the spirit; now their spirit is full of lust, that they may be punished in their body, for they have denied the Lord of Spirits and see their punishment daily, and yet believe not in His name. And in proportion as the burning of their bodies becomes severe, a corresponding change shall take place in their spirit for ever and ever; for before the Lord of Spirits none shall utter an idle word. For the judgement shall come upon them, because they believe in the lust of their body and deny the Spirit of the Lord. And those same waters will undergo a change in those days; for when those angels are punished in these waters, these water-springs shall change their temperature, and when the angels ascend, this water of the springs shall change and become cold. And I heard Michael answering and saying: 'This judgement wherewith the angels are judged is a testimony for the kings and the mighty who possess the earth.' Because these waters of judgement minister to the healing of the body of the kings and the lust of their body; therefore they will not see and will not believe that those waters will change and become a fire which burns for ever.

................

Jesus said the Judgment Day was going to happen soon and people should do all they could to avoid going to Gehenna. He said to avoid it, they had to leave their families behind and give up all their wealth and possessions and give them to the poor. They had to repent and acknowledge him as Christ. They had to to be diligent in following the Law. They had to love God, and love all people as well, even if they were mean.

In the Sermon on the Mount he said they had to be be meek, humble pure of heart, full of faith, merciful and be peacemakers. They had to be servants to one another and to others without expecting a reward. They should do to others what they would want others to do for them, forgive people with all their heart no matter how often they got hurt, secretly pray and fast,and give to the poor and do other good deeds such as helping strangers in need.

They shouldn't divorce, remarry, or marry a divorced woman, They shouldn't swear oaths, They shouldn't call themselves Rabbi, Father or teacher.They shouldn't judge or condemn anyone, They shouldn't cause anyone to sin. They shouldn't be mean. They shouldn't lust. They shouldn't be angry. They shouldn't defend themselves or retaliate when someone's mean to them, and shouldn't hold grudges.

Their actions words and their thoughts had to be perfect. Jesus said that then their names would be written in heaven.

The Teachers of the Law also believed in Judgment day and this Lake of Fire in Gehenna and they also wanted to protect people from it. We know this because they had an Oral Law which was written down about the same time as the Gospels were. It's interesting to notice the similarities of their advice. Jewish Encyclopedia jewishencyclopedia.com says this:

...............

It is frequently said that certain sins will lead man into Gehenna. The name "Gehenna" itself is explained to mean that unchastity will lead to gehenna so also will adultery, idolatry, pride, mockery, hypocrisy, anger, etc. (Soṭah 4b, 41b; Ta'an. 5a; B. B. 10b, 78b; 'Ab. Zarah 18b; Ned. 22a). Hell awaits one who indulges in unseemly speech (Shab. 33a; Enoch, xxvii.); who always follows the advice of his wife (B. M. 59a); who instructs an unworthy pupil (Ḥul. 133b); who turns away from the Torah (B. B. 79a; comp. Yoma 72b). For further details see 'Er. 18b, 101a; Sanh. 109b; Ḳid. 81a; Ned. 39b; B. M. 19a.

On the other hand, there are merits that preserve man from going to hell; e.g., philanthropy, fasting, visiting the sick, reading the Shema' and Hallel, and eating the three meals on the Sabbath (Giṭ. 7a; B. B. 10a; B. M. 85a; Ned. 40a; Ber. 15b; Pes. 118a; Shab. 118a). Israelites in general are less endangered (Ber. 10a) than heretics, or, according to B. B. 10a, than the heathen. Scholars (Ḥag. 27a; comp. Men. 99b and Yoma 87a), the poor, and the pious (Yeb. 102b) are especially protected. Three classes of men do not see the face of hell: those that live in penury, those suffering with intestinal catarrh, and those that are pressed by their creditors ('Er. 41b). It would seem that the expressions "doomed to hell" and "to be saved from hell" must be interpreted hyperbolically. A bad woman is compared to Gehenna in Yeb. 63b.

The sinners in Gehenna will be filled with pain when God puts back the souls into the dead bodies on the Day of Judgment, according to Isa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).

.................................

Interesting! So could Jesus have gotten his teachings from the Oral Law?

That's my next post.

...................
1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The Importance of 1 Enoch to Christianity.

1 Enoch on the Son Of Man

2009-09-26T12:19:00.016+10:00

There is only one reference to the Messianic Son of Man in the Old Testament and that is:

Daniel 7:13-14 (NIV)

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Others may say this passage may also refers to him:

Psalm 8:4-6 (NIV)

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [a]
and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:

Though I think this is referring to people, not him. In 1 Enoch however, there is a wealth of information about him. I've copied all the references to the Son of Man (also called the Elect One and the Anointed one) in 1 Enoch. It would make the post too long and lessen the impact of these writings if I gave the New Testament equivalents, but I did put significant parallels in bold.

1 ENOCH

CHAPTER XXXIX: 4,5,6a,7a,6b

And there I saw another vision, the dwelling-places of the holy,
And the resting-places of the righteous.

Here mine eyes saw their dwellings with His righteous angels,
And their resting-places with the holy.

And in that place mine eyes saw the Elect One of righteousness and of faith,
And I saw his dwelling-place under the wings of the Lord of Spirits.
And righteousness shall prevail in his days,
And the righteous and elect shall be without number before Him for ever and ever.

CHAPTER XLV: 1-6

And this is the Second Parable concerning those who deny the name of the dwelling of the holy ones and the Lord of Spirits.

And into the heaven they shall not ascend,
And on the earth they shall not come:
Such shall be the lot of the sinners
Who have denied the name of the Lord of Spirits,
Who are thus preserved for the day of suffering and tribulation.

On that day Mine Elect One shall sit on the throne of glory
And shall try their works,
And their places of rest shall be innumerable.

And their souls shall grow strong within them when they see Mine Elect Ones,
And those who have called upon My glorious name:
Then will I cause Mine Elect One to dwell among them.

And I will transform the heaven and make it an eternal blessing and light
And I will transform the earth and make it a blessing:

And I will cause Mine elect ones to dwell upon it:
But the sinners and evil-doers shall not set foot thereon.

For I have provided and satisfied with peace My righteous ones
And have caused them to dwell before Me:

But for the sinners there is judgement impending with Me,
So that I shall destroy them from the face of the earth.

CHAPTER XLVI: 1-8

And there I saw One who had a head of days,
And His head was white like wool,
And with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man,
And his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels.

And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, (and)
why he went with the Head of Days? And he answered and said unto me:

This is the son of Man who hath righteousness,
With whom dwelleth righteousness,
And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden,

Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him,
And whose lot hath the pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness for ever.

And this Son of Man whom thou hast seen
Shall †raise up† the kings and the mighty from their seats,
[And the strong from their thrones]

And shall loosen the reins of the strong,
And break the teeth of the sinners.

[And he shall put down the kings from their thrones and kingdoms]
Because they do not extol and praise Him,
Nor humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was bestowed upon them.
And he shall put down the countenance of the strong,
And shall fill them with shame.

And darkness shall be their dwelling,
And worms shall be their bed,
And they shall have no hope of rising from their beds,
Because they do not extol the name of the Lord of Spirits.

And these are they who †judge† the stars of heaven,
[And raise their hands against the Most High],
†And tread upon the earth and dwell upon it†.

And all their deeds manifest unrighteousness,
And their power rests upon their riches,
And their faith is in the †gods† which they have made with their hands,
And they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits,

And they persecute the houses of His congregations,
And the faithful who hang upon the name of the Lord of Spirits.

CHAPTER XLVIII: 1-10

And in that place I saw the fountain of righteousness
Which was inexhaustible:
And around it were many fountains of wisdom;

And all the thirsty drank of them,
And were filled with wisdom,
And their dwellings were with the righteous and holy and elect.
And at that hour that Son of Man was named In the presence of the Lord of Spirits,
And his name before the Head of Days.

Yea, before the sun and the signs were created,
Before the stars of the heaven were made,
His name was named before the Lord of Spirits.

He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall,
And he shall be the light of the Gentiles,
And the hope of those who are troubled of heart.

All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him,
And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits.

And for this reason hath he been chosen and hidden before Him,
Before the creation of the world and for evermore.

And the wisdom of the Lord of Spirits hath revealed him to the holy and righteous;
For he hath preserved the lot of the righteous,
Because they have hated and despised this world of unrighteousness,
And have hated all its works and ways in the name of the Lord of Spirits:
For in his name they are saved,
And according to his good pleasure hath it been in regard to their life.

In these days downcast in countenance shall the kings of the earth have become,
And the strong who possess the land because of the works of their hands;

For on the day of their anguish and affliction they shall not (be able to) save themselves.
And I will give them over into the hands of Mine elect:

As straw in the fire so shall they burn before the face of the holy:
As lead in the water shall they sink before the face of the righteous,
And no trace of them shall any more be found.

And on the day of their affliction there shall be rest on the earth,
And before them they shall fall and not rise again:

And there shall be no one to take them with his hands and raise them:
For they have denied the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed.
The name of the Lord of Spirits be blessed.

CHAPTER XLIX: 1-4

For wisdom is poured out like water,
And glory faileth not before him for evermore.

For he is mighty in all the secrets of righteousness,
And unrighteousness shall disappear as a shadow,
And have no continuance;
Because the Elect One standeth before the Lord of Spirits,
And his glory is for ever and ever,
And his might unto all generations.

And in him dwells the spirit of wisdom,
And the spirit which gives insight,
And the spirit of understanding and of might,
And the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in righteousness.

And he shall judge the secret things,
And none shall be able to utter a lying word before him;
For he is the Elect One before the Lord of Spirits according to His good pleasure.

CHAPTER LI: 1, 5a, 3-4, 5b-d

And in those days shall the earth also give back that which has been entrusted to it,
And Sheol also shall give back that which it has received,
And hell shall give back that which it owes.

For in those days the Elect One shall arise,
And he shall choose the righteous and holy from among them:
For the day has drawn nigh that they should be saved.

And the Elect One shall in those days sit on My throne,
And his mouth shall pour forth all the secrets of wisdom and counsel:
For the Lord of Spirits hath given (them) to him and hath glorified him.

And in those days shall the mountains leap like rams,
And the hills also shall skip like lambs satisfied with milk,
And the faces of ⌈all⌉ the angels in heaven shall be lighted up with joy.

And the earth shall rejoice,
And the righteous shall dwell upon it,
And the elect shall walk thereon.

CHAPTER LII: 3-9

And I asked the angel who went with me, saying, 'What things are these which I have seen in secret?' And he said unto me: 'All these things which thou hast seen shall serve the dominion of His Anointed that he may be potent and mighty on the earth.'

And that angel of peace answered, saying unto me: 'Wait a little, and there shall be revealed unto thee all the secret things which surround the Lord of Spirits.

And these mountains which thine eyes have seen,
The mountain of iron, and the mountain of copper, and the mountain of silver,
And the mountain of gold, and the mountain of soft metal, and the mountain of lead,
All these shall be in the presence of the Elect One
As wax: before the fire,
And like the water which streams down from above [upon those mountains],
And they shall become powerless before his feet.

And it shall come to pass in those days that none shall be saved,
Either by gold or by silver,
And none be able to escape.

And there shall be no iron for war,
Nor shall one clothe oneself with a breastplate.
Bronze shall be of no service,
And tin [shall be of no service and] shall not be esteemed,
And lead shall not be desired.

And all these things shall be [denied and] destroyed from the surface of the earth,
When the Elect One shall appear before the face of the Lord of Spirits.'

CHAPTER LIII: 1-7

There mine eyes saw a deep valley with open mouths, and all who dwell on the earth and sea and islands shall bring to him gifts and presents and tokens of homage, but that deep valley shall not become full.

And their hands commit lawless deeds,
And the sinners devour all whom they lawlessly oppress:
Yet the sinners shall be destroyed before the face of the Lord of Spirits,
And they shall be banished from off the face of His earth,
And they shall perish for ever and ever.

For I saw all the angels of punishment abiding (there) and preparing all the instruments of Satan. And I asked the angel of peace who went with me: 'For whom are they preparing these instruments?' And he said unto me: 'They prepare these for the kings and the mighty of this earth, that they may thereby be destroyed.

And after this the Righteous and Elect One shall cause the house of his congregation to appear: henceforth they shall be no more hindered in the name of the Lord of Spirits.

And these mountains shall not stand as the earth before his righteousness,
But the hills shall be as a fountain of water,
And the righteous shall have rest from the oppression of sinners.'

CHAPTER LV.3-LVI.4

When I have desired to take hold of them by the hand of the angels on the day of tribulation and pain because of this, I will cause My chastisement and My wrath to abide upon them, saith God, the Lord of Spirits. Ye †mighty kings† who dwell on the earth, ye shall have to behold Mine Elect One, how he sits on the throne of glory and judges Azâzêl, and all his associates, and all his hosts in the name of the Lord of Spirits.'

CHAPTER LXI:1-13
And I saw in those days how long cords were given to those angels, and they took to themselves wings and flew, and they went towards the north.

And I asked the angel, saying unto him: 'Why have those (angels) taken these cords and gone off?' And he said unto me: 'They have gone to measure.'

And the angel who went with me said unto me:
'These shall bring the measures of the righteous,
And the ropes of the righteous to the righteous,
That they may stay themselves on the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.

The elect shall begin to dwell with the elect,
And those are the measures which shall be given to faith
And which shall strengthen righteousness.

And these measures shall reveal all the secrets of the depths of the earth,
And those who have been destroyed by the desert,
And those who have been devoured by the beasts,
And those who have been devoured by the fish of the sea,

That they may return and stay themselves
On the day of the Elect One;
For none shall be destroyed before the Lord of Spirits,
And none can be destroyed.

And all who dwell above in the heaven received a command and power and one voice and one light like unto fire.

And that One (with) their first words they blessed,
And extolled and lauded with wisdom,
And they were wise in utterance and in the spirit of life.

And the Lord of Spirits placed the Elect one on the throne of glory.
And he shall judge all the works of the holy above in the heaven,
And in the balance shall their deeds be weighed

And when he shall lift up his countenance
To judge their secret ways according to the word of the name of the Lord of Spirits,
And their path according to the way of the righteous judgement of the Lord of Spirits,
Then shall they all with one voice speak and bless,
And glorify and extol and sanctify the name of the Lord of Spirits.

And He will summon all the host of the heavens, and all the holy ones above, and the host of God, the Cherubic, Seraphin and Ophannin, and all the angels of power, and all the angels of principalities, and the Elect One, and the other powers on the earth (and) over the water. On that day shall raise one voice, and bless and glorify and exalt in the spirit of faith, and in the spirit of wisdom, and in the spirit of patience, and in the spirit of mercy, and in the spirit of judgement and of peace, and in the spirit of goodness, and shall all say with one voice: "Blessed is He, and may the name of the Lord of Spirits be blessed for ever and ever."

All who sleep not above in heaven shall bless Him:
All the holy ones who are in heaven shall bless Him,
And all the elect who dwell in the garden of life:

And every spirit of light who is able to bless, and glorify, and extol, and hallow Thy blessed name,
And all flesh shall beyond measure glorify and bless Thy name for ever and ever.

For great is the mercy of the Lord of Spirits, and He is long-suffering,
And all His works and all that He has created He has revealed to the righteous and elect
In the name of the Lord of Spirits.

CHAPTER LXII:1-16

And thus the Lord commanded the kings and the mighty and the exalted, and those who dwell on the earth, and said: 'Open your eyes and lift up your horns if ye are able to recognize the Elect One.'

And the Lord of Spirits seated him on the throne of His glory,
And the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him,
And the word of his mouth slays all the sinners,
And all the unrighteous are destroyed from before his face.
And there shall stand up in that day all the kings and the mighty,
And the exalted and those who hold the earth,
And they shall see and recognize How he sits on the throne of his glory,
And righteousness is judged before him,
And no lying word is spoken before him.

Then shall pain come upon them as on a woman in travail,
[And she has pain in bringing forth]
When her child enters the mouth of the womb,
And she has pain in bringing forth.

And one portion of them shall look on the other,
And they shall be terrified,
And they shall be downcast of countenance,
And pain shall seize them,
When they see that Son of Man Sitting on the throne of his glory.

And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden.

For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden,
And the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might,
And revealed him to the elect.

And the congregation of the elect and holy shall be sown,
And all the elect shall stand before him on that day.

And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the earth
Shall fall down before him on their faces,
And worship and set their hope upon that Son of Man,
And petition him and supplicate for mercy at his hands.

Nevertheless that Lord of Spirits will so press them
That they shall hastily go forth from His presence,
And their faces shall be filled with shame,
And the darkness grow deeper on their faces.
And He will deliver them to the angels for punishment,
To execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and His elect
And they shall be a spectacle for the righteous and for His elect:
They shall rejoice over them,
Because the wrath of the Lord of Spirits resteth upon them,
And His sword is drunk with their blood.

And the righteous and elect shall be saved on that day,
And they shall never thenceforward see the face of the sinners and unrighteous.

And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them,
And with that Son of Man shall they eat
And lie down and rise up for ever and ever.

And the righteous and elect shall have risen from the earth,
And ceased to be of downcast countenance.

And they shall have been clothed with garments of glory,
And these shall be the garments of life from the Lord of Spirits:
And your garments shall not grow old,
Nor your glory pass away before the Lord of Spirits.

CHAPTER LXIII:1-12

In those days shall the mighty and the kings who possess the earth implore (Him) to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment to whom they were delivered, that they might fall down and worship before the Lord of Spirits, and confess their sins before Him. And they shall bless and glorify the Lord of Spirits, and say:

'Blessed is the Lord of Spirits and the Lord of kings,
And the Lord of the mighty and the Lord of the rich,
And the Lord of glory and the Lord of wisdom,
And splendid in every secret thing is Thy power from generation to generation,
And Thy glory for ever and ever:

Deep are all Thy secrets and innumerable,
And Thy righteousness is beyond reckoning.

We have now learnt that we should glorify
And bless the Lord of kings and Him who is king over all kings.'
And they shall say:
'Would that we had rest to glorify and give thanks
And confess our faith before His glory!

And now we long for a little rest but find it not:
We follow hard upon and obtain (it) not:

And light has vanished from before us,
And darkness is our dwelling-place for ever and ever:

For we have not believed before Him
Nor glorified the name of the Lord of Spirits, [nor glorified our Lord]

But our hope was in the sceptre of our kingdom,
And in our glory.

And in the day of our suffering and tribulation He saves us not,
And we find no respite for confession

That our Lord is true in all His works, and in His judgements and His justice,
And His judgements have no respect of persons.

And we pass away from before His face on account of our works,
And all our sins are reckoned up in righteousness.'

Now they shall say unto themselves: 'Our souls are full of unrighteous gain, but it does not prevent us from descending from the midst thereof into the †burden† of Sheol.'

And after that their faces shall be filled with darkness
And shame before that Son of Man,
And they shall be driven from his presence,
And the sword shall abide before his face in their midst.

Thus spake the Lord of Spirits: 'This is the ordinance and judgement with respect to the mighty and the kings and the exalted and those who possess the earth before the Lord of Spirits.'

CHAPTER LXX: 1-2

And it came to pass after this that his name during his lifetime was raised aloft to that Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits from amongst those who dwell on the earth. And he was raised aloft on the chariots of the spirit and his name vanished among them.

CHAPTER LXXI: 11-17

And I fell on my face,
And my whole body became relaxed,
And my spirit was transfigured;

And I cried with a loud voice,
. . .with the spirit of power,
And blessed and glorified and extolled.

And these blessings which went forth out of my mouth were well pleasing before that Head of Days.
And that Head of Days came with Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Phanuel, thousands and ten thousands of angels without number.

[Lost passage wherein the Son of Man was described as accompanying the Head of Days, and Enoch asked one of the angels (as in 463) concerning the Son of Man as to who he was.]

And he (i.e. the angel) came to me and greeted me with His voice, and said unto me:

'This is the Son of Man who is born unto righteousness;
And righteousness abides over him,
And the righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not.'
And he said unto me:
'He proclaims unto thee peace in the name of the world to come;
For from hence has proceeded peace since the creation of the world,
And so shall it be unto thee for ever and for ever and ever.

And all shall walk in his ways since righteousness never forsaketh him:
With him will be their dwelling-places, and with him their heritage,
And they shall not be separated from him for ever and ever and ever.

And so there shall be length of days with that Son of Man,
And the righteous shall have peace and an upright way
In the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.'
............................................................

1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The Importance of 1 Enoch to Christianity.

Not Peace but a Sword: NT, OT and 1 Enoch

2009-09-20T21:03:00.025+10:00

There's a passage in the New Testament that I have great difficulty with. It's:

Matthew 10:34-36 (NIV)

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Let's look at the first part of this:

Matthew 10:34 (NIV)

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

Why does he say this? It's because this is what is expected of the Messiah:

Zechariah 9:9-10 (NIV)

The Coming of Zion's King

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Another expectation of the Messiah is that he will sit on his throne and judge all people and all nations:

Acts 10:41-42 (NIV)

He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.

A Passage in the Old Testament that mentions the the Final Judgement and the sword is:
........
Jeremiah 25:15-16, 27-33 (NIV)

The Cup of God's Wrath

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

27 "Then tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.' But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must drink it! See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty.'

"Now prophesy all these words against them and say to them:

'The LORD will roar from on high;
he will thunder from his holy dwelling
and roar mightily against his land.
He will shout like those who tread the grapes,
shout against all who live on the earth.

The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth,
for the LORD will bring charges against the nations;
he will bring judgment on all mankind
and put the wicked to the sword,' "
declares the LORD.

This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Look! Disaster is spreading
from nation to nation;
a mighty storm is rising
from the ends of the earth."

At that time those slain by the LORD will be everywhere—from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned or gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground.

............

So here God is bringing punishment onto Jerusalem, but then also onto all the people of all the nations of the world. Before this transpires however, other things have to happen first. Jesus specifically mentions that family member will turn on family member and have them put to death. He is quoting Micah 7 here. Context is important so here's most of it:

............

Micah 7:2-20 (NIV)

Israel's Misery

The godly have been swept from the land;
not one upright man remains.
All men lie in wait to shed blood;
each hunts his brother with a net.

Both hands are skilled in doing evil;
the ruler demands gifts,
the judge accepts bribes,
the powerful dictate what they desire—
they all conspire together.

The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.
The day of your watchmen has come,
the day God visits you.
Now is the time of their confusion.

Do not trust a neighbor;
put no confidence in a friend.
Even with her who lies in your embrace
be careful of your words.

For a son dishonors his father,
a daughter rises up against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man's enemies are the members of his own household.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.

Israel Will Rise

Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be my light.

Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the LORD's wrath,
until he pleads my case
and establishes my right.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.

Then my enemy will see it
and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me,
"Where is the LORD your God?"
My eyes will see her downfall;
even now she will be trampled underfoot
like mire in the streets.

The day for building your walls will come,
the day for extending your boundaries.

In that day people will come to you
from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
even from Egypt to the Euphrates
and from sea to sea
and from mountain to mountain.

The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants,
as the result of their deeds.

Prayer and Praise

Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock of your inheritance,
which lives by itself in a forest,
in fertile pasturelands.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in days long ago.

"As in the days when you came out of Egypt,
I will show them my wonders."

Nations will see and be ashamed,
deprived of all their power.
They will lay their hands on their mouths
and their ears will become deaf.

They will lick dust like a snake,
like creatures that crawl on the ground.
They will come trembling out of their dens;
they will turn in fear to the LORD our God
and will be afraid of you.

Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.

You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

You will be true to Jacob,
and show mercy to Abraham,
as you pledged on oath to our fathers
in days long ago.

...........

To summarize, the people of Israel turn to sin, God will punish them, then He will punish Israel's enemies and then He'll restore Israel's land back to what God promised on Mt. Sinai and then they will have peace.

So that's clear. When Jesus said he wasn't there to bring peace but a sword he meant the sword had to come first.

So what does 1 Enoch say that parallels all this?

.............

1 ENOCH

CHAPTER LVI: 5-8.

Last struggle of heathen Powers against Israel.

And in those days the angels shall return
And hurl themselves to the east upon the Parthians and Medes:

They shall stir up the kings, so that a spirit of unrest shall come upon them,
And they shall rouse them from their thrones,
That they may break forth as lions from their lairs,
And as hungry wolves among their flocks.

And they shall go up and tread under foot the land of His elect ones,
[And the land of His elect ones shall be before them a threshing-floor and a highway:]
But the city of my righteous shall be a hindrance to their horses.

And they shall begin to fight among themselves,
And their right hand shall be strong against themselves,
And a man shall not know his brother,
Nor a son his father or his mother,
Till there be no number of the corpses through their slaughter,
And their punishment be not in vain.

In those days Sheol shall open its jaws,
And they shall be swallowed up therein
And their destruction shall be at an end;
Sheol shall devour the sinners in the presence of the elect.'

CHAPTER C: 1-9

And in those days in one place the fathers together with their sons shall be smitten
And brothers one with another shall fall in death
Till the streams flow with their blood.

For a man shall not withhold his hand from slaying his sons and his sons' sons,
And the sinner shall not withhold his hand from his honoured brother:
From dawn till sunset they shall slay one another.

And the horse shall walk up to the breast in the blood of sinners,
And the chariot shall be submerged to its height.

In those days the angels shall descend into the secret places
And gather together into one place all those who brought down sin
And the Most High will arise on that day of judgement
To execute great judgement amongst sinners.

And over all the righteous and holy He will appoint guardians from amongst the holy angels
To guard them as the apple of an eye,
Until He makes an end of all wickedness and all sin,
And though the righteous sleep a long sleep, they have nought to fear.

And (then) the children of the earth shall see the wise in security,
And shall understand all the words of this book,
And recognize that their riches shall not be able to save them
In the overthrow of their sins.

Woe to you, Sinners, on the day of strong anguish,
Ye who afflict the righteous and burn them with fire:
Ye shall be requited according to your works.

Woe to you, ye obstinate of heart,
Who watch in order to devise wickedness:
Therefore shall fear come upon you
And there shall be none to help you.

Woe to you, ye sinners, on account of the words of your mouth,
And on account of the deeds of your hands which your godlessness as wrought,
In blazing flames burning worse than fire shall ye burn.

CHAPTER LXII: 11-14

And He will deliver them to the angels for punishment,
To execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and His elect
And they shall be a spectacle for the righteous and for His elect:
They shall rejoice over them,
Because the wrath of the Lord of Spirits resteth upon them,
And His sword is drunk with their blood.
And the righteous and elect shall be saved on that day,
And they shall never thenceforward see the face of the sinners and unrighteous.
And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them,
And with that Son of Man shall they eat
And lie down and rise up for ever and ever.

..............

Considering it was written before the New Testament it fits the rest quite nicely, doesn't it? It even makes the connection between people slaying each other and the End Times, though there is a difference- in 1 Enoch, the sinners slay each other, in the New Testament the sinners slay the Elect. On the other hand, maybe the original New Testament meaning was that it was the sinners whose family members were turning on each other? That would agree with Micah as well.

Let's look at the passages around the Matthew version,

Matthew 10:32-37 (NIV)

"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

You can see that verses 34-36 could stand alone, without necessarily having anything to do with the sentences around it.

Let's look at the Luke version of this passage:

Luke 12:49-53 (NIV)

Not Peace but Division

"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

You could make a case that he was saying the family members were all sinners and that the fire he was going to kindle was hell?

..............................................................
1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The Importance of 1 Enoch to Christianity

1 Enoch: In the Beginning There Was the Oath

2009-09-17T01:58:00.004+10:00

John 1 starts with the puzzling “In the beginning was the Word”

John 1:1-3 (NIV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

1 Enoch has something that sounds very similar, only it is not a word, but an oath. The oath gets its power from a name. It is not clear if this is the name of God (Lord of Spirits) or the name of the Son of Man. Judge for yourself.

1 Enoch

CHAPTER LXIX :14-29

This (angel) requested Michael to show him the hidden name, that he might enunciate it in the oath, so that those might quake before that name and oath who revealed all that was in secret to the children of men. And this is the power of this oath, for it is powerful and strong, and he placed this oath Akâe in the hand of Michael. And these are the secrets of this oath . . .

And they are strong through his oath:
And the heaven was suspended before the world was created,
And for ever.

And through it the earth was founded upon the water,
And from the secret recesses of the mountains come beautiful waters,
From the creation of the world and unto eternity.

And through that oath the sea was created,
And †as its foundation† He set for it the sand against the time of (its) anger,
And it dare not pass beyond it from the creation of the world unto eternity.

And through that oath are the depths made fast,
And abide and stir not from their place from eternity to eternity.

And through that oath the sun and moon complete their course,
And deviate not from their ordinance from eternity to eternity.

And through that oath the stars complete their course,
And He calls them by their names,
And they answer Him from eternity to eternity.

⌈And in like manner the spirits of the water, and of the winds, and of all zephyrs, and (their) paths from all the quarters of the winds. And there are preserved the voices of the thunder and the light of the lightnings: and there are preserved the chambers of the hail and the chambers of the hoarfrost, and the chambers of the mist, and the chambers of the rain and the dew. And all these believe and give thanks before the Lord of Spirits, and glorify (Him) with all their power, and their food is in every act of thanksgiving: they thank and glorify and extol the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.⌉

And this oath is mighty over them
And through it ⌈they are preserved and⌉ their paths are preserved,
And their course is not destroyed.

Close of the Third Parable.

And there was great joy amongst them,
And they blessed and glorified and extolled
Because the name of that Son of Man had been revealed unto them.

And he sat on the throne of his glory,
And the sum of judgement was given unto the Son of Man,
And he caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the earth,
And those who have led the world astray.

With chains shall they be bound,
And in their assemblage-place of destruction shall they be imprisoned,
And all their works vanish from the face of the earth.
And from henceforth there shall be nothing corruptible;

For that Son of Man has appeared,
And has seated himself on the throne of his glory,
And all evil shall pass away before his face,
And the word of that Son of Man shall go forth
And be strong before the Lord of Spirits.
........................

1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

1 Enoch Summary Part 3: Punishment of Angels, Birth of Demons

2009-09-12T20:33:00.020+10:00

So the angels (also called Satans) became family guys, and they weren't so different from any humans of the time. They loved their children and hoped that they'd take after them and get to live forever. Unfortunately the hybrids had a genetic default that meant they never stopped growing, meaning they were always hungry and it was hard to keep up with their demands for food. Soon these giants were eating animals and birds and reptiles which was really shocking because at that time humans were vegetarians. Soon those ran out and the giants began to eat humans and even attacked and ate each other. The souls of the dead victims cried out to God for justice.

God was angry and decided to punish the angels and the giants.. He declared He'd make the angels watch while the children that they loved fought each other to the death in a battle with swords.

Then the leader, would be bound hand and foot, thrown into a dark narrow deep abyss in the middle of the desert, and buried alive underneath rough and jagged rocks so he couldn't see any light.. The other parents would be put in chains and imprisoned in a deep valley that had fire falling down its steep sides like a waterfall. Their jaws would be covered over with rough stones so they couldn't speak and they'd be in great pain. They'd be left like this until Judgement Day when they'd all be thrown into the fire.

The fallen ones were afraid, and ashamed of what they had done, and repented and in tears sent Enoch to ask God for forgiveness and mercy for themselves and the children they loved. Even the other angels felt sorry for them and considered the judgement was too harsh.

However God did not change his sentence, and further declared he'd punish humans as well. He said that because they'd gone out and learned all the secrets of the angels and had turned violent and practised witchcraft he was going to send a flood to destroy everything on earth. Not only that, but the few who survived and their descendants would be plagued by the souls of the dead wives of the angels, which would become sirens, and the souls of the dead giants who would become demons that would attack humans until Judgement Day.

1 ENOCH TEXT

Children of the Angels

CHAPTER LXIX: Title

The Names and Functions of the (fallen Angels) Satans: the secret Oath.

CHAPTER VII: 2-6

And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.

CHAPTER IX: 9-10

And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth.

CHAPTER LXXXVI: 1-6

And again I saw with mine eyes as I slept, and I saw the heaven above, and behold a star fell from heaven, and it arose and eat and pastured amongst those oxen. And after that I saw thelarge and the black oxen, and behold they all changed their stalls and pastures and their cattle, and began to live with each other. 3. And again I saw in the vision, and looked towards the heaven, and behold I saw many stars descend and cast themselves down from heaven to that first star, and they became bulls amongst those cattle and pastured with them ⌈amongst them⌉. And I looked at them and saw, and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows of the oxen, and they all became pregnant and bare elephants, camels, and asses. And all the oxen feared them and were affrighted at them, and began to bite with their teeth and to devour, and to gore with their horns. And they began, moreover, to devour those oxen; and behold all the children of the earth began to tremble and quake before them and to flee from them.

CHAPTER LXXXVII: 1

And again I saw how they began to gore each other and to devour each other, and the earth began to cry aloud.

Their Punishment

CHAPTER X: 9-10

And to Gabriel said the Lord: 'Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle: for length of days shall they not have. And no request that they (i.e. their fathers) make of thee shall be granted unto their fathers on their behalf; for they hope to live an eternal life, and that each one of them will live five hundred years.'

CHAPTER LXXXVIII: 2

And one of them drew a sword, and gave it to those elephants and camels and asses: then they began to smite each other, and the whole earth quaked because of them

Leader's Punishment

CHAPTER XIII: 1-2

And Enoch went and said: 'Azâzêl, thou shalt have no peace: a severe sentence has gone forth against thee to put thee in bonds: And thou shalt not have toleration nor †request† granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou hast shown to men.'

Chapter X:4-6

And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII: 1

And I saw one of those four who had come forth first, and he seized that first star which had fallen from the heaven, and bound it hand and foot and cast it into an abyss: now that abyss was narrow and deep, and horrible and dark.

Parent's Punishment

chapter X: 11-13

And the Lord said unto Michael: 'Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: 〈and〉 to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever.

CHAPTER XII: 5-6

And ye shall have no peace nor forgiveness of sin: and inasmuch as †they† delight themselves in †their† children, The murder of †their† beloved ones shall †they† see, and over the destruction of †their† children shall †they† lament, and shall make supplication unto eternity, but mercy and peace shall ye not attain."'

CHAPTER XIV: 4-7

I wrote out your petition, and in my vision it appeared thus, that your petition will not be granted unto you ⌈⌈throughout all the days of eternity, and that judgement has been finally passed upon you: yea (your petition) will not be granted unto you⌉⌉. And from henceforth you shall not ascend into heaven unto all eternity, and ⌈in bonds⌉ of the earth the decree has gone forth to bind you for all the days of the world. And (that) previously you shall have seen the destruction of your beloved sons and ye shall have no pleasure in them, but they shall fall before you by the sword. And your petition on their behalf shall not be granted, nor yet on your own: even though you weep and pray and speak all the words contained in the writing which I have written.

CHAPTER XXI: 1-10

XXI. Preliminary and final place of punishment of the fallen angels (stars).

And I proceeded to where things were chaotic. And I saw there something horrible: I saw neither a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place chaotic and horrible. And there I saw seven stars of the heaven bound together in it, like great mountains and burning with fire. Then I said: 'For what sin are they bound, and on what account have they been cast in hither?' Then said Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me, and was chief over them, and said: 'Enoch, why dost thou ask, and why art thou eager for the truth? These are of the number of the stars ⌈of heaven⌉, which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till ten thousand years, the time entailed by their sins, are consummated.'

And from thence I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed, and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of fire: neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture. Then I said: 'How fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon!' Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.' 10. And he said ⌈⌈unto me⌉⌉: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned for ever.'

CHAPTER LXVII: 4-7

And He will imprison those angels, who have shown unrighteousness, in that burning valley which my grandfather Enoch had formerly shown to me in the west among the mountains of gold and silver and iron and soft metal and tin. And I saw that valley in which there was a great convulsion and a convulsion of the waters. And when all this took place, from that fiery molten metal and from the convulsion thereof in that place, there was produced a smell of sulphur, and it was connected with those waters, and that valley of the angels who had led astray (mankind) burned beneath that land. And through its valleys proceed streams of fire, where these angels are punished who had led astray those who dwell upon the earth.

CHAPTER XVIII: 11-16

And I saw a deep abyss, with columns ⌈⌈of heavenly fire, and among them I saw columns⌉⌉ of fire fall, which were beyond measure alike towards the height and towards the depth. And beyond that abyss I saw a place which had no firmament of the heaven above, and no firmly founded earth beneath it: there was no water upon it, and no birds, but it was a waste and horrible place. I saw there seven stars like great burning mountains, and to me, when I inquired regarding them, The angel said: 'This place is the end of heaven and earth: this has become a prison for the stars and the host of heaven. And the stars which roll over the fire are they which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, because they did not come forth at their appointed times. And He was wroth with them, and bound them till the time when their guilt should be consummated (even) ⌈for ten thousand years⌉.'

CHAPTER LIV: 1-6

And I looked and turned to another part of the earth, and saw there a deep valley with burning fire. And they brought the kings and the mighty, and began to cast them into this deep valley. And there mine eyes saw how they made these their instruments, iron chains of immeasurable weight. And I asked the angel of peace who went with me, saying: 'For whom are these chains being prepared?'

And he said unto me: 'These are being prepared for the hosts of Azâzêl, so that they may take them and cast them into the abyss of complete condemnation, and they shall cover their jaws with rough stones as the Lord of Spirits commanded. And Michael, and Gabriel, and Raphael, and Phanuel shall take hold of them on that great day, and cast them on that day into the burning furnace, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them for their unrighteousness in becoming subject to Satan and leading astray those who dwell on the earth.'

Angels Repent and ask God for Forgiveness

CHAPTER XIII: 3-6, 9

Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them. And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. Then I wrote out their petition, and the prayer in regard to their spirits and their deeds individually and in regard to their requests that they should have forgiveness and length 〈of days〉9. And when I awaked, I came unto them, and they were all sitting gathered together, weeping in ’Abelsjâîl, which is between Lebanon and Sênêsêr, with their faces covered.

Other Angel's Horror of the Severety of the Punishment

CHAPTER LXVIII: 2-3

And on that day Michael answered Raphael and said: 'The power of the spirit transports and makes me to tremble because of the severity of the judgement of the secrets, the judgement of the angels: who can endure the severe judgement which has been executed, and before which they melt away?' And Michael answered again, and said to Raphael: 'Who is he whose heart is not softened concerning it, and whose reins are not troubled by this word of judgement (that) has gone forth upon them because of those who have thus led them out?'

People's Punishment- Flood

CHAPTER LXV: 6-10

And a command has gone forth from the presence of the Lord concerning those who dwell on the earth that their ruin is accomplished because they have learnt all the secrets of the angels, and all the violence of the Satans, and all their powers--the most secret ones--and all the power of those who practice sorcery, and the power of witchcraft, and the power of those who make molten images for the whole earth: And how silver is produced from the dust of the earth, and how soft metal originates in the earth. For lead and tin are not produced from the earth like the first: it is a fountain that produces them, and an angel stands therein, and that angel is pre-eminent.' And after that my grandfather Enoch took hold of me by my hand and raised me up, and said unto me: 'Go, for I have asked the Lord of Spirits as touching this commotion on the earth. And He said unto me: "Because of their unrighteousness their judgement has been determined upon and shall not be withheld by Me for ever. Because of the sorceries which they have searched out and learnt, the earth and those who dwell upon it shall be destroyed."

CHAPTER CVI: 17,15

17 And they shall produce on the earth giants not according to the spirit, but according to the flesh, and there shall be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth shall be cleansed from all impurity. 15. Yea, there shall come a great destruction over the whole earth, and there shall be a deluge and a great destruction for one year.

People's Punishment-Sirens

CHAPTER XIX: 2

And the women also of the angels who went astray shall become sirens.'

People's Punishment-Demons

CHAPTER XV: 8-11

And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, ⌈⌈and⌉⌉ from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; ⌈they shall be evil spirits on earth, and⌉ evil spirits shall they be called. [As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.] And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, ⌈but nevertheless hunger⌉ and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded ⌈from them⌉.

CHAPTER XVI: 1

From the days of the slaughter and destruction and death ⌈of the giants⌉, from the souls of whose flesh the spirits, having gone forth, shall destroy without incurring judgement--thus shall they destroy until the day of the consummation, the great ⌈judgement⌉ in which the age shall be consummated, over the Watchers and the godless, yea, shall be wholly consummated."

RELEVANT NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGES

Genesis 9:1-3 (NIV)

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Children of Satan

1 John 3:10 (NIV)

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

John 8:44 (NIV)

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Leader's Punishment

Revelation 20:1-3 (NIV)

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Revelation 17:8 (NIV)

The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction.

Angel's Punishment

1 Peter 3:18-20 (NIV)

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

Jude 1:6 (NIV)

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

2 Peter 2:4 (NIV)

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment

Hebrews 2:16 (NIV)

For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

Matthew 25:41 (NIV)

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

People's Punishment

Matthew 24:36-39 (NIV)

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.

Demons

Matthew 8:28-29 (NIV)

When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"

Matthew 12:22 (NIV)

Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see

Mark 5:1-5 (NIV)

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

Luke 8:27-31 (NIV)

When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!" For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"

"Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

Mark 9:17-22 (NIV)

A man in the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not."

"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."

So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"

"From childhood," he answered. "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."

1 Corinthians 10:19-22 (NIV)

Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Revelation 18:1-2 (NIV)

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
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1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Other Posts in this Series:

Intro 1 Enoch
Part 1 Angels on the Prowl
Part 2 Angels Make a Living

next: Judgement Day

1 Enoch Summary Part 2: Angels Make a Living

2009-09-08T21:20:00.008+10:00

The angels left heaven, and went to earth becoming subjects of Satan. They found some women they liked and ended up marrying them. Soon the angels and their wives were having kids, because after all, when God said that the humans were made in their image, he meant that literally- they were so alike they could interbreed. The angels had to find a way to support themselves and their families so they decided to sell some of the secrets they learned in heaven. Since they had thrown in their lot with the humans, why not help them a bit? So they taught the human useful things like the knowledge of plants, how to cut roots, about precious stones, the metals and the art of working them, the knowledge of the clouds, the course of the moon, and the constellations plus a way of writing all this down with pen and paper.

They also taught men how to make swords, and knives, and other weapons, and how to use them, and how to make shields, and breastplates, and the coat of mail to protect themselves. They also introduced them to magic, such as astrology , spells, counterspells, using amulets, and how to summon spirits and demons to kill and protect.

Not everything they taught was for utilitarian purposes, they also showed them how to make eyeshadow, bracelets, ornaments, and dyes.

Not surprisingly this made them popular with both men and women who became eager students.
Because of what they had learned however, the humans were no longer pure and righteous but were corrupted and did evil things. All sin was attributed to the giving of this knowledge.
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1 Enoch Passages:

CHAPTER LIV:6

And Michael, and Gabriel, and Raphael, and Phanuel shall take hold of them on that great day, and cast them on that day into the burning furnace, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them for their unrighteousness in becoming subject to Satan and leading astray those who dwell on the earth.'

CHAPTER VII:1

1.And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.

CHAPTER XV:3-4

Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? 4. And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those ⌈also⌉ do who die and perish.

CHAPTER LXIX:2-14

The Names and Functions of the (fallen Angels and) Satans: the secret Oath.
And behold the names of those angels [and these are their names: the first of them is Samjâzâ, the second Artâqîfâ, and the third Armên, the fourth Kôkabêl, the fifth †Tûrâêl†, the sixth Rûmjâl, the seventh Dânjâl, the eighth †Nêqâêl†, the ninth Barâqêl, the tenth Azâzêl, the eleventh Armârôs, the twelfth Batarjâl, the thirteenth †Busasêjal†, the fourteenth Hanânêl, the fifteenth †Tûrêl†, and the sixteenth Sîmâpêsîêl, the seventeenth Jetrêl, the eighteenth Tûmâêl, the nineteenth Tûrêl, the twentieth †Rumâêl†, the twenty-first †Azâzêl†. And these are the chiefs of their angels and their names, and their chief ones over hundreds and over fifties and over tens].

The name of the first Jeqôn: that is, the one who led astray ⌈all⌉ the sons of God, and brought them down to the earth, and led them astray through the daughters of men. And the second was named Asbeêl: he imparted to the holy sons of God evil counsel, and led them astray so that they defiled their bodies with the daughters of men. And the third was named Gâdreêl: he it is who showed the children of men all the blows of death, and he led astray Eve, and showed ⌈the weapons of death to the sons of men⌉ the shield and the coat of mail, and the sword for battle, and all the weapons of death to children of men. And from his hand they have proceeded against those who dwell on the earth from that day and for evermore. And the fourth was named Pênêmûe: he taught the children of men the bitter and the sweet, and he taught them all the secrets of their wisdom. And he instructed mankind in writing with ink and paper, and thereby many sinned from eternity to eternity and until this day. For men were not created for such a purpose, to give confirmation to their good faith with pen and ink. For men were created exactly like the angels, to the intent that they should continue pure and righteous, and death, which destroys everything, could not have taken hold of them, but through this their knowledge they are perishing, and through this power it is consuming me†. And the fifth was named Kâsdejâ: this is he who showed the children of men all the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, and the smitings of the embryo in the womb, that it may pass away, and [the smitings of the soul] the bites of the serpent, and the smitings which befall through the noontide heat, the son of the serpent named Tabââ‘ĕt. And this is the task of Kâsbeêl, the chief of the oath which he showed to the holy ones when he dwelt high above in glory, and its name is Bîqâ. This (angel) requested Michael to show him the hidden name, that he might enunciate it in the oath, so that those might quake before that name and oath who revealed all that was in secret to the children of men.

CHAPTER IX:6-8

Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn: And Semjâzâ, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates. And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins.

CHAPTER VIII:1-2

And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals 〈of the earth〉 and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, (taught) astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds,〈Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun〉, and Sariêl the course of the moon.

CHAPTER LXV:6-7

And a command has gone forth from the presence of the Lord concerning those who dwell on the earth that their ruin is accomplished because they have learnt all the secrets of the angels, and all the violence of the Satans, and all their powers--the most secret ones--and all the power of those who practice sorcery, and the power of witchcraft, and the power of those who make molten images for the whole earth: And how silver is produced from the dust of the earth, and how soft metal originates in the earth.

CHAPTER X:6-8

And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin.'

CHAPTER XVI:2-3

"You have been in heaven, but ⌈all⌉ the mysteries had not yet been revealed to you, and you knew worthless ones, and these in the hardness of your hearts you have made known to the women, and through these mysteries women and men work much evil on earth."
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Bible Passages

1 Corinthians 11:10 (NIV):

For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.

Genesis 1:26 NIV):

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,

John 12:31 (NIV)

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.

Genesis 6:5-6 (NIV):

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
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1 Enoch quotes are from www.sacred-texts.com. To get to a particular chapter, add 3 to the one you want. ie To get to Chapter 11, go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe014.htm.

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Other posts in this series are:

Intro 1 Enoch
Part 1 Angels on the Prowl
Part 3 Punishment of the Angels and Birth of Demons

1 Enoch Summary Part 1: Angels on the Prowl

2009-09-04T19:59:00.019+10:00

I'm doing a series on 1 Enoch (also called The Book of Enoch). For an explanation of why it is important in understanding Christianity, click here .

This is a summary of what's in it, and what passages from the New Testament parallel it.It consists of several threads, one dealing with the fall of the angels, another to do with the time of Noah, the last being the end times and Judgement Day. The version I have is in old English, so I thought for fun I'd put the first thread in the new vernacular so my kids could relate to it. Personally, I don't believe this story line at all, so I don't think it's wrong to parody it.

But first a brief background. The Book of Enoch uses Genesis 6:1-4 as it's starting point:

Genesis 6:1-4 (NIV)

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The first thread is an extended explanation of what happened, as told to Enoch, the great grandfather Of Noah, through a series of visions. He was chosen because he was a righteous man. The storyline reads like a soap opera so I thought I'd write it up that way:

My version:

Semjâzâ and his gang of 199 angels were hanging around heaven, obviously bored to tears, probably because there was no action there. Watching Adam and Eve frolic around naked was entertaining for a while but then the Big Guy made them wear clothes and that spoiled everything.

Meanwhile the humans seemed to be enjoying themselves.The angels wanted part of that. They saw that there were all these hot chicks there, so they decided they'd go and pick some up. Everyone in the gang agreed it was a good idea, but Semjâzâ was worried they'd back out at the last minute, so he made them take a vow of solidarity. If one went down, they all would. This is because they knew God would not approve. God wanted his angels to be sweet and pure and in heaven, not be sleazy players slumming it on earth.

The Actual Translation:

CHAPTER VI :1-8:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl,Tûrêl,Jômjâêl,Sariêl.These are their chiefs of tens.

Chapter XV :6-7

But you were ⌈formerly⌉ spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling.

Relevant New Testament passages:

Matthew 22:30 (NIV)

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Luke 20:35-36 (NIV)

But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels.

Jude 1:6 (NIV)
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness

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All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Other posts in this series:

Intro 1 Enoch
Part 2 Angels Make a Living
Part 3 Punishment of the Angels and Birth of Demons

The Importance of 1 Enoch to Christianity

2009-09-03T15:22:00.010+10:00

Here are some quotes from Wikipedia about the book of Enoch 1:

The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic [misattributed] work ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah and son of Jared (Genesis 5:18).

According to Western scholars its older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) date from about 300 BC and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of 1st century BC; It is argued that all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with it and were influenced by it in thought and diction.

There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines about the Messiah, demonology, the resurrection, and eschatology [end of world scenarios].

The Greek text was known to, and quoted by nearly all the Church Fathers: references can be found in Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Origen, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Commodianus, Lactantius and Cassian although these references come exclusively from the first five chapters of 1 Enoch.

The book is referred to, and quoted, in Jude 14-15:

"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these [men], saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

Compare this with Enoch 1:9, translated from the Ethiopic (found also in Qumran scroll 4Q204=4QEnochc ar, col I 16-18[7]:711)

"And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."

Another probable Biblical reference can be found in I Peter 3:19,20 to En. 21:6. 1 Enoch is considered as Scripture in the Epistle of Barnabas and by many of the early Church Fathers such as Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian who wrote c. 200 that the Book of Enoch had been rejected by the Jews because it contained prophecies pertaining to Christ.

The passage in 1 Peter mentioned above is:

1 Peter 3:18-20 (NIV)

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

The corresponding passages in Enoch 1 are:

Chapter 21:7-10:

And from thence I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed, and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of fire: neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture.Then I said: 'How fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon!'Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.' And he said ⌈⌈unto me⌉⌉: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned for ever.'

Because this book had such an influence on Christianity, I figured it might be interesting to take some quotes from it. But not all at once because that would be overwhelming. So what I'll be doing over the next series of posts is quoting from it and seeing how it aligns with the New Testament. Some of this stuff is surprising, some is amusing and some is just shocking.

........

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Other Posts in this series are:

Part 1 Angels on the Prowl
Part 2 Angels Make a Living
Part 3 Punishment of the Angels and Birth of Demons

The Chosen Ones

2009-09-03T01:57:00.006+10:00

Everyone knows that Jesus said he was chosen before the beginning of creation, but Paul felt that he and the earliest Christians, the ones he called the firstfruits, were too.

He says this in several places:

Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12 (NIV)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

Galatians 1:15-17 (NIV)

But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

Romans 8:29-30 (NIV)

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Now Paul says he was a violent man before he started preaching about Jesus. He said:

Acts 22:19 (NIV)

" 'Lord,' I replied, 'these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you.

1 Timothy 1:13 (NIV)

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.

So given his history and his personality, how could he possibly be a Chosen one? Well Paul mentions the case of Jacob and Esau.

Romans 9:10-13 (NIV)

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

If you look at that story you find that Esau was an innocent , while Jacob was mean. He cheated his brother out of his inheritance and also out of his blessing.
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Genesis 25:29-33 (NIV)

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!"

Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."

"Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?"

But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

Genesis 27:6-10, 15-16, 19, 21-24, 32-36 (NIV)

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, 'Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.' Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies."

Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.

Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing."

Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not."

Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. "Are you really my son Esau?" he asked.

"I am," he replied.

His father Isaac asked him, "Who are you?"

"I am your son," he answered, "your firstborn, Esau."

Isaac trembled violently and said, "Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!"

When Esau heard his father's words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, "Bless me—me too, my father!"

But he said, "Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing."

Esau said, "Isn't he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!"
......................

Modern day courts would not have allowed him to keep these things given that he used extortion and identity theft to obtain them. However, God still blessed Jacob, despite his crimes.

Genesis 28:13-15 (NIV)

There above it [the stairway to heaven] stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Some would think this is unfair, but Paul said God could do whatever he wanted with those he created:

Romans 9:20-21 (NIV)

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

This made some to think that if they are chosen they can get away with anything. But Jacob was duly punished:

Genesis 31:6-7, 38-42 (NIV)

You know that I've worked for your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times.

"I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed.

As well as that, his daughter was raped, two of his older sons were murderers, his eldest son slept with his concubine.,his favourite wife died in childbirth, for 20 years he thought his favourite son was dead, though actually he had been sold into slavery and imprisoned on false charges. Meanwhile Esau was the favourite of his father, was prosperous, got a large gift of at least 550 animals from Jacob, had many wives, many descendants and much territory. As far as we know nothing further bad happened to him. He didn't need his father's blessing or his inheritance- he did well without them. He also was the founder of a whole nation. So justice was done.

As for Paul he wasn't nearly as bad as Jacob, and he reformed but still went through all sorts of ordeals:

2 Corinthians 11:23-27 (NIV)

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

He also ended up being executed. The other firstfruits were also persecuted and most were killed. If there really are such people who are chosen from before the beginning of creation, you sure wouldn't want to be one of them.They are chosen to suffer for little or no reward and possibly die as a martyrs so that they can change the course of history. Which is maybe why God can't use just anyone? Maybe ordinary mortals aren't strong enough? Maybe that was the theory, anyway.

..............................

All quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Followers of the Way

2009-08-27T03:58:00.042+10:00

So here's an important cult I read about.

It's adherents called themselves followers of the Way. It was lead by a charismatic leader who was a faith healer and miracle worker who claimed to be of divine origin and who said his words and actions were directed by God. He said he was chosen before the beginning of creation to warn everyone of that generation that the world was about to end. He warned that only those who belonged to his elite group would be saved.

To be a member of the group people had to leave their families, and sell all they had and live in poverty. He demanded their obedience in everything they thought, said and did. They were told they had to hate their relatives, and hate themselves as well or they wouldn't be true followers. He said that if they hid the fact that they were members of this group, even if it was to save their lives, they would go to hell. He told them other people were wicked. unbelieving, corrupt, perverse, and depraved. He called his opponents children of the devil. He instructed his followers to be pacifists but said he himself was there to bring war, not peace to the world. He warned that anyone who left the group was doomed even if they later changed their minds. He also said very few of them would get to heaven. He lost a lot of followers.

After the leader died a mystic who was not the founder's chosen successor came and started his own movement inspired by the cult. He gave it the same name, but targeted it to a different demographic and took a different approach to selling it. His theology was also different from the founder's in a fundamental way. This caused friction between the two groups. In the end it became wildly successful.

Because of this friction, and because he divided the world into children of God and children of the devil, and because governments co-opted the religions he inspired, more men, women, and children were tortured and killed in his name than anyone else's in all of history. People of the founder's race were the ones who were persecuted most of all.

So who was he?

Jesus Christ of course.

Don't believe me? Here are the passages to back it up:

It's adherents called themselves followers of the Way.

Acts 9:1-2 (NIV)

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

It was lead by a charismatic leader. (Jesus)

Mark 1:22 (NIV)

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

who was a faith healer

Matthew 15:30 (NIV)

Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.

and miracle worker

John 10:32 (NIV)

but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

who claimed to be of divine origin

Luke 22:70 (NIV)

They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am."

and who said his words and actions were directed by God.

John 8:27-29 (NIV)

They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him."

He said he was chosen before the beginning of creation

John 8:58 (NIV)

"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

John 17:5 (NIV)

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

to warn everyone of that generation that the world was about to end.

Matthew 16:27-28 (NIV)

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

He said that only those who belonged to his elite group would be saved.

Mark 16:15-16 (NIV)

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

John 3:36 (NIV)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

To be a member of the group people had to leave their families,

Matthew 10:37-38 (NIV)

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Mark 10:29-30 (NIV)

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.

and sell all they had and live in poverty..

Luke 14:33 (NIV)

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

He demanded their obedience in everything they thought,

Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man “unclean”.

Matthew 5:28 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV)

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

said

Matthew 12:36-37 (NIV)

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

and did.

Matthew 5:17-18 (NIV)

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law

Matthew 5:19-20 (NIV)

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

They were told they had to hate their relatives, and hate themselves as well or they wouldn't be true followers.

Luke 14:26 (NIV)

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

He said that if they hid the fact that they were members of this group,

Matthew 10:31-33 (NIV)

"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

even if it was to save their lives, they would go to hell..

Mark 8:35-36 (NIV)

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

He told them other people were sinful,wicked,unbelieving,
perverse, and depraved.

Matthew 17:17 (NIV)

"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?

Mark 8:38 (NIV)

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Luke 11:29 (NIV)

As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

He called his opponents children of the devil.

John 8:42-47 (NIV)

Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."

He instructed his followers to be pacifists

Matthew 5:5,9,21-26, 38-45 (NIV)

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

but said he himself was there to bring war, not peace to the world.

Matthew 10:34 (NIV)

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Luke 12:49-51 (NIV)

"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.

He warned that anyone who left the group was doomed even if they later changed their minds.

John 15:6 (NIV)

If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

Matthew 5:13 (NIV)

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

He also said very few of them would get to heaven.

Matthew 22:14 (NIV)

"For many are invited, but few are chosen."

Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

He lost a lot of followers.

John 6:60-66 (NIV)

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

After the leader died a mystic who was not the founder's chosen successor came along and started a religion inspired by the cult.

Galatians 1:11-24 (NIV)

I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." And they praised God because of me.

He gave it the same name,

Acts 24:14 (NIV)

However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.

but targeted it to a different demographic

Galatians 2:7 (NIV)

On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews.

and took a different approach to selling it.

Romans 10:6-13 (NIV)

But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,"that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

His theology was also different from the founder's in a fundamental way.

Colossians 2:13-17(NIV)

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

This caused friction between the two groups.

Galatians 2:11-16 (NIV)

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

Acts 21:17-22(NIV)

When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.

When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. What shall we do?

Galatians 3:23-25 (NIV)

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

Titus 1:9-11 (NIV)

He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

Revelation 3:9 (NIV)

I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.

In the end it became wildly successful.

Because of this friction, and because he divided the world into children of God and children of the devil, and because governments co-opted the religions he inspired, more men, women, and children were tortured and killed in his name than anyone else's in all of history. People of the founder's race were the ones who were persecuted most of all.

So I guess he succeeded in his mission.

................
All quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Demons and Personal Hygiene

2009-08-20T13:28:00.026+10:00

In the old Testament sickness was considered to be a punishment from God, while in the New it was thought to be caused by demons. There was a real phobia about them in Jesus' time:

The Jewishencyclopedia says:

R.(Rabbi) Johanan knew of 300 kinds of shedim living near the town of Shiḥin. It is dangerous to walk between two palm-trees. Demons are particularly hurtful at night. It is unsafe to salute a person in the dark, for he might be a demon; to sleep alone in a house, as Lilith may seize one; to walk alone in the night or in the morning before cockcrow; to take water from one whose hands have not been washed in the morning. Especially dangerous are the eves of Wednesday and of the Sabbath, for then Agrat bat Maḥlat, "the dancing roof-demon", haunts the air with her train of eighteen myriads of messengers of destruction, "every one of whom has the power of doing harm". On those nights one should not drink water except out of white vessels and after having recited Ps. xxix. 3-9 (the verses mentioning seven times "the voice of the Lord") or other magic formulas. Another perilous season is midsummer noon from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Ab. Then the demon Keṭeb Meriri reigns from ten in the forenoon to three in the afternoon. He has the head of a calf, with one revolving horn in the middle, and an eye on the breast, and his whole body is covered with scales and hair and eyes; and whosoever sees him, man or beast, falls down and expires. Demons assume the shape of men, but have no shadow; at other times, seven-headed dragons "Like angels, they have wings and fly from one end of the world to the other, and know the future; and like men they eat, propagate, and die". They cause the faintness of students and the wear and tear of their dress in the schoolhouses and assemblies of the learned.

In the main demons were workers of harm. To them were ascribed the various diseases, particularly such as affect the brain and the inner parts. Hence there was a constant fear of "Shabriri" (lit. "dazzling glare"), the demon of blindness, who rests on uncovered water at night and strikes those with blindness who drink of it; "ruaḥ ẓeradah," the spirit of catalepsy, and "ruaḥ ẓelaḥta," also "ruaḥ palga," the spirit of headache (megrim or meningitis ?), hovering on palmtrees; "ben nefilim," the demon of epilepsy, and "ruaḥ ẓeḥarit," the spirit of nightmare; "ruaḥ tezazit," the spirit of delirious fever and madness, befalling man and beast; "ruaḥ ẓara'at," the spirit of leprosy; "ruaḥ ḳardeyaḳos," the spirit of melancholy (καρδιακός); "shibbeta," a female demon, bringing croup to persons, especially children, who leave their hands unwashed in the morning, probably identical with the "bush-asp," the Parsee demon "with long hands," who lulls men to sleep and attacks them; "bat ḥorin" (daughter of freedom; possibly a play on "ḥiwar," a euphemistic expression for blindness), a demon bringing a disease of the eye to one who fails to wash his hands after meals; "kuda," a demon of disease which attacks women in childbirth; "eshshata," the demon of fever; "ruaḥ zenunim," the spirit of sexual desire ; "she'iyyah," an ox-like demon dwelling in desolate houses; and many others mentioned in Rabbinical lore, only part of which has been preserved.

It was the primitive demonology of Babylonia which peopled the world of the Jews with beings of a semi-celestial and semi-infernal nature. Only afterward did the division of the world between Ahriman and Ormuzd in the Mazdean system give rise to the Jewish division of life between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of evil. Rabbinical demonology has, like the Chaldean, three classes of, demons, though they are scarcely separable one from another. There were the "shedim," the "mazziḳim" (harmers), and the "ruḥin" or "ruḥotra'ot" (evil spirits). Besides these there were "lilin" (night spirits), "ṭelane" (shade, or evening, spirits), "ṭiharire" (midday spirits), and "ẓafrire" (morning spirits), as well as the "demons that bring famine" and "such as cause storm and earthquake". Occasionally they are called "mal'ake ḥabbalah" (angels of destruction). "They surround man on all sides as the earth does the roots of the vine"; "a thousand are on his left, and ten thousand on his right side"; if a man could see them he would lack the strength to face them, though he can see them by casting the ashes of the fetus of a black cat about his eyes, or by sprinkling ashes around his bed he can trace their cock-like footprints in the morning. They hover around the house and the field, particularly in the lower regions of the air. Their main abode is in the northern part of the earth. Their sporting-places are caper-bushes and spearworts, where they dwell in groups of sixty; nut-trees, where they form in groups of nine; shady spots on moonlight nights, especially the roofs of houses, under gutters, or near ruins; cemeteries and privies (there is a special demon of the privy, "shed shel bet ha-kisse"); water, oil, and bread-crums cast on the ground; and they harm persons and things coming near them.

I found the idea of demons hanging around bathrooms quite funny, until it occurred to me that if you substitute the word “germs” for “demons”, well, then it's something a modern day person could relate to. The suggestions, in bold above, that washing your hands could prevent croup and eye disease and other nasties falls into the same category. But of course 2000 years ago they didn't know about germs. However, judging by some of the rules in the Old Testament, there did seem to be an awareness of them then. Here's an excerpt from an article from the American College of Chest Physicians:

If Moses Could Speak

Legend tells us that, upon completion of his
statue of Moses, Michaelangelo, gazing in pride
and awe at his own handiwork, struck the statue's
knee with his hammer and exclaimed: "Speak,
Moses, speak." We may recall that Moses was the
Father of preventive medicine. His edicts conceming
personal and group hygiene and his prohibitions
about diet were largely responsible for the survival
of his people during their four decades of travel and
travail. It is therefore reasonable to believe that if
the great Lawgiver could speak to us today, his
discourse would involve his favorite subject. He
might say:

We built our temporary
latrines away from our camps. We decreed frequent
baths, insisting that bodily cleanliness was essential
for moral purity. We also decreed that every
seventh day should be a day of rest from physical
labor and should be devoted to spiritual uplift. We
knew from clinical observation, a method that a few
of you still use occasionally, that eating pork often
caused serious disease, even though the responsible
round and flat worms were not discovered until
3,000 years later. Thus, pork was forbidden. These
procedures, and others, allowed us to escape those
pestilences that continued to afflict you, whenever
large groups were gathered in camps, until the 20th
century. Thus you lagged behind us during three
millenia.

Now contrast this with what Jesus said:

Mark 7:1-7,14-19 (NIV)

Clean and Unclean

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")

Teachings of men, eh? By telling people they didn't have to wash their hands or the dishes they ate from, and telling them that it doesn't matter what they ate, he was increasing the chances of them getting sick! Did God, who gave these rules to Moses, forgot to tell Jesus? Meanwhile, the cure Jesus gave, which was to call demons out, seemed to make things worse:

Luke 11:24-26 (NIV)

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."

Interesting.

However, he seemed to have a lot of success, which could be attributed to the placebo effect. Again and again he said that the cure wouldn't work unless people believed it would.

Matthew 13:58 (New International Version)

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

The placebo effect is real so he could have added to the health of his followers, but instead they got sicker.

1 Timothy 5:23

Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

Now we know why...

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If Moses Could Speak: Copyright 1972, by the American College of Chest Physicians

All Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

Will All Believers Be Saved?

2009-08-15T23:22:00.023+10:00

I was attending a certain Baptist church for the first time. I was kind of sad and felt my life was aimless and I hoped the Sunday service would help. It was pretty packed, but there was some room beside me and this young guy about my age sat next to me. After the service we got to talking. He decided that I was possessed by an evil spirit and he offered to do an exorcism on me. I didn't think I was possessed, I figured it more likely he wanted to show off in front of the congregation, so I refused.

After more attempts at persuading me he gave up and asked, “Well....OK then, do you want to f**k?”

I was shocked. I wished there was a Bible passage I could have thrown at him but I couldn't think of one so I just said "no" and took off.

For the longest time I couldn't figure out what on earth he was thinking, but then I got it. See, he was saved, so no matter what he did, he'd get to go to heaven. Me, I was doomed, so no matter what I did I'd go to hell. So he thought "Why not?"

I'm sure other wayward Christians think that way too. They could even back it up with scriptures. Paul said:

Romans 10:4, 8-11 (NIV)

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.

Romans 11:5-6 (NIV)

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

This led some of his followers to say:

1 Corinthians 6:12 (NIV)

"Everything is permissible for me"

Paul's answer to that was:

1 Corinthians 6:12-13 (NIV)

"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Galatians 5:19-21 (NIV)

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:3-5 (NIV)
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God

Galatians 6:7-8 (NIV)
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

So according to Paul, sin leads to death even if you are a believer.

No way could anyone who heard Jesus speak think that everything was permissible to them:

Matthew 5:28-30 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Matthew 12:36-37 (NIV)

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

So I guess what I should have said to that churchgoer was this:

Matthew 7:22-23 (NIV)

Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

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All quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

The Moonies and Me

2009-08-13T15:30:00.016+10:00

Moonies

It was in the Eighties. I was married and getting my commerce degree at the University of Manitoba. At that time I was already searching for the truth about Christianity. I had been attending a Pentecostal church, but they changed pastors and I wasn't happy there any more.

While I was on campus having lunch one day these two Korean women approached me and asked if I'd be interested in doing Bible Study with them. I had a lot of questions about the Bible and no one to answer them so I said “Sure!” We talked about the Bible a bit and they invited me to come over to their place the next day.

I arrived and was given a tour of their two storey house. It was full of people. I asked who they were. She said they were members of her church and that they lived there. She introduced me to a few of them. They looked strange. Their eyes looked dead. There was no light- no spark of personality in them. This worried me.

I went upstairs with the two women to a small bedroom. They opened the Bible, but then they said they wanted to get to know me a bit first.

They asked the usual questions about where I grew up and was I married and was I happy with my marriage. I said of course I was. They then told me that in every marriage there's something you don't like about your spouse, right? So what did I dislike about my husband? I was wary and assured them there was nothing. They kept pushing but didn't get anywhere. Finally they gave up and we did some Bible study. After about 15 minutes I told them I had to go home. I wondered if they'd let me.

Fortunately they did. They waved goodbye to me from the front porch. It was beautiful outside and I only lived about two miles away so I decided to walk. When I got within a block of my place I realized that there was a car following me. I looked inside and saw the two women. They obviously wanted to see where I lived. This upset me. As a child my parents had always told me we were being spied on, now this paranoia paid off. I blew up at them. I told them that in this country you don't go around following people and if I had wanted them to know where I lived I would have told them. I scared them so bad they took off and I never saw them again.

Later I read in the University paper that the Moonies were recruiting on campus and to look out for any Koreans offering to do Bible Studies with you. It gave the name of the church and I recognised it as being the same as what those women belonged to. At that time, everyone knew the Moonies were a cult, but not so nowadays- my kids have never heard of them. And they are at an age where they are prime targets to be recruited. It's scary because if you look up Moonies in the Wikipedia, they sound like just another harmless church group. But they are so not!

Here's some excerpts from some websites I read. Anything marked [a] is by Steven Hassan, a former member of the Moonies, [b] is from the Wikipedia article on the Rev Moon and [c] is a seven part series on the Moonies by Harry V. Martin and David Caul of the Napa Sentinel, [d] is a broadcast by Frontline.
...................................................................................

When I was recruited into a front organization of the Moon group (The International One World Crusade) in 1974, and was told to drop out of college, quit my job, donate my bank account, and follow, I was an idealistic, nineteen year old who wanted to make the world a better place. [a]

After joining the Moonies, the recruit will be given about two weeks of adjustment. They call it "losing", a period when the recruit's desires become nothing. Recruits are allowed to return home for one visit, but they must be accompanied or tailed by a Moonie. After that one visit, the recruit's communication with his natural family is reduced to mainly correspondence, and that diminishes rapidly. [c]

"You are taught that everyone not in the movement is under the influence of Satan and that you should mistrust them.” [c]

Indeed, as I detail in my first book, Combatting Cult Mind Control (Park Street Press, 1988), phobia indoctrination is a universal technique to control people's minds. In the mind of someone under cult mind control, they cannot imagine being able to leave the group and be happy and fulfilled. They can only think negative thoughts and have irrational fears that leaving the group is equivalent to leaving God. As a leader, I repeated to members what I was indoctrinated to believe: anyone who leaves the Church is weak; possessed; undisciplined; sex crazed; drug crazed; or brainwashed by deprogrammers. Anyone who left the church would go insane; get cancer; have a car accident; their parents would have a heart attack; have stillborn babies or babies with birth defects; they would be condemned by ten generations of their ancestors in the spirit world for betraying the messiah! [a]

I was taught that if I have a doubt about Moon or the group, that it was a result of evil spirits which were having give and take with my mind. The solution was to cut off "give and take" with negativity and pray or chant or read the Divine Principle (his new bible) to re-center myself on God. What I didn't understand at that time was this was a powerful behavior modification technique called "thought-stopping". By doing this technique on myself, I unwittingly short-circuited my critical, independent thinking process. When a person automatically shuts down any "negative" thoughts, and is only "allowed" to have positive thoughts, no independent thinking or reality testing can take place. I allowed myself to be controlled by fear and an unhealthy dependency on "central figures", the term used for leaders within the group. [a]

I was a completely devoted follower and was trained to "die, rather than betray Father". I was captain of a Mobile Fundraising Team (M.F.T.) and my members were under orders to make a minimum of $100 per day, otherwise they couldn't go to sleep. I was trained to lead by example and so, if they couldn't sleep, then I wouldn't either. [a]

The second son of Hak Ja Han and Moon, Heung-Jin Moon, died on January 2, 1984, from injuries suffered in a car crash in December 1983. For several years church members "channeled" his spirit, and in 1987-8 a Zimbabwean member who became known as "the Black Heung Jin Nim" was accepted by Moon and his family as Heung Jin Moon's continuous channel, and toured the world giving speeches, getting confessions, and subjecting some members to beatings. Long-time member Damian Anderson reports seeing him

"knock people's heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs"

and describes

"brute force applied to stop people leaving the event, or the building, and imprisoning protesters by force and with handcuffs in isolation."[25]
Nansook Hong recounts: "No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain. He beat Bo Hi Pak—a man in his sixties—so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital." [b]

Moon sees himself as the Perfect Adam, so he must be obeyed without question. He claims that Jesus was the most important Adam between the original one and Moon, attaining spiritual perfection but a "flawed" Messiah. Moon is the reincarnation of Jesus only more perfect. [c]

"Then in one sense, Father, Heavenly Father will say "Reverend Moon is far better than me, the Heavenly Father".Also, he is proud of himself and appreciates that Jesus Christ's unfinished job of 6000 years has been completed by him in his lifetime." ( Moon as quoted in MASTER SPEAKS 7/31/74) [a]

Moon believes that in the "ideal world" all languages will be abolished except Korean. He believes that the Korean race is "superior" and that 'Orientals' are more spiritual than Caucasians or dark skinned people. [a]

I was present with a group of top leaders when Moon said in an impromptu, unrecorded talk that "when he takes over the U.S., he will amend the Constitution and make a capital offense for people to have sexual relations with people they are not assigned to".A capital offense is an offense punishable by death. [a]

Moon is quoted in many publications as saying, "I will conquer and subjugate the world. I am your brain. The time will come, without my seeking it, when my words will almost serve as law. If I ask a certain thing, it will be done. If I don't want something, it will not be done." [c]

Most of Moon's money comes from Japan. For almost 20 years there have been consistent reports that one of Moon's most important financial supporters and advisors is Ryoichi Sasakawa. Sasakawa. describes himself as "the world's richest Fascist". [c]

At the end of World War Two, both Sasakawa. and Kodama were classified as Class A war criminals by the American Occupation Forces in Japan. [c]

Another prominent Japanese war criminal who became an important member and supporter of the Moon organization was Yoshio Kodama. Having participated in a failed plot to assassinate, in one stroke, all the most powerful men in Japan, Kodama ended up in prison for attempted assassination and other terrorist acts. [c]

Moon, Sasakawa. and Kodama first got together in the 1960s to form the Asian People's Anti-Communist League. In 1966, the League merged with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, another Fascist organization, to form the World Anti-Communist League. Dedicated to fighting Communism and promoting Fascism, and spreading to nearly 100 nations on six continents, the World Anti-Communist League was headed by John Singlaub, one of the key players in the Iran-Contra scandal. The headquarters for the League is in the United States, in the offices of Moon's Freedom Center. [c]

Moon's most expensive political project was the creation of the Washington Times. "Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world. There is no better agency or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else than a newspaper." These were the words of ~~Rev. Moon.~~ James Whelan, editor of the Washington Times [d]

In 1965, working with the South Korean CIA, Moon made his first visit to the United States and obtained a 45-minute audience with former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike agreed to allow his name to be used on the letterhead of the Moon-created Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation, as did Harry S. Truman and Admiral Arliegh Burke. During the 1973-74 fall of President Richard Nixon, Rev. Moon captured the attention of the American media by supporting Nixon. [c]

Moon also received proclamations honoring the Unification Church from such governors as Georgia's Jimmy Carter and Alabama's George Wallace. Moon received endorsements from Senators William L. Scott of Virginia, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Mark Hatfield of Oregon and J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, as well as Mayor John Lindsay of New York City and William F. Buckley, Jr. Moon had his picture taken and published with Senators Hubert Humphrey, Strom Thurmond, James L. Buckley and Edward Kennedy. [c]

House Speaker Carl Albert had been closely linked with a female follower of the Unification Church. [c]

Several Congressmen were entertained in a Washington Hilton hotel suite rented by the Moonies. Everything the girls learned about Senators and Congressmen was to be entered into the Moonie's confidential file, including details of personal lives. [c]

In 1977 Congressman Donald Frazer launched an investigation into Moon's background. The House Committee report states that it uncovered evidence that the Moon organization had systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency and foreign agent registration laws. The report indicates that Moon was paid by the Korean CIA to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and run pro-South Korean propaganda efforts. The investigator for the report commented, "We determined that their primary interest, at least in the U.S. at that time, was not religious at all, but was political, it was an attempt to gain power, influence and authority." But after the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan all investigations were halted. Moon was Vice President George Bush's guest at the inauguration and was a major financial contributor to the Washington conservative establishment. [c]

In January 2001 Moon sponsored President George W. Bush's Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal.[45] [b]

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So, here's a man who thinks he's the Messiah, is financed by war criminals and fascists, uses brainwashing techniques on his followers and has considerable influence oveer the media and US presidents, but even my internet savvy teenagers have never heard of him or his church. That makes him worse than the Scientologists!

[a] The Truth About Sun Myung Moon by Steven Hassan
[b] Sun Myung Moon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[c] MOONIES: Seven Part Series By Harry V. Martin and David Caul Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1992
[d] The Resurrection Of Reverend Moon, a transcript of a January 21, 1992 broadcast, "Frontline: The Ressurection Of Reverend Moon." Eric Nadler, reporter. Written and produced by Rory O'Connor. Copyright (c)1991 WGBH Educational Foundation