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September 5, 2008
Jeremiah 10:2-5, “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen…For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, which it move not. They are upright as the palm tree…“ “December 25th has always been a Sun worship holiday. When the sun was on its lowest dip on the horizon and the days grew shorter in the winter, the sun worshipping people feared that the sun would not return. So they held certain festivals around the time of the Winter Solstice when the sun began to return. December 21st is the shortest day of the year, and the following 3 days after it are exactly the same length. On December 25th, the day starts to become longer again, and the pagans called that day the ‘coming of the Sun’.”
What Does Christmas Have To Do With Jesus? [Miscellaneous][Holidays]
Filed by Frank at September 5th, 2008 under Religion
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September 4, 2008
The Tanakh [Torah, Neviim and Ketuvim] is the foundation of the Greek Scriptures [New Testament]; if the Greek Scriptures add or subtract from the Tanakh then they are not legitimate (this can also be applied to the Hebrew Scriptures). Deuteronomy 13:1 All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.If the Greek Scripture cannot support their ideals from the Tanakh then those ideals have added or subtracted from the Tanakh which God commanded not to do. That is why Christians need to support their ideals from the Tanakh. In response to the multiple entities in the Christian Godhead: This only makes sense if you have not researched the Hebrew terms and studied the historical era. Talking about historical era; it is traditional for one in authority to converse of himself as if he were a plurality. 2 Samuel 16:20, when Absalom speaks in plurality does this means that Absalom has multiple personalities? No, traditional aspects come into play. In response to the Hebrew Scriptures predicting the Messiah (Jesus) and Jesus fulfilling every single prediction: Jesus has not fulfilled every single prediction; for example did Jesus rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 37:26-27)? If you say that he will on his second coming then Jesus hasn’t fulfilled this one thus Jesus has not fulfilled ‘every single prediction.’ The problem with the ‘old’ and ‘new’ covenant is that it’s a modern label created to parallel the two different collection of text. Non-Jewish people didn’t need a covenant between God; they already have their place in the Tanakh.
For example, read up on the Seven Laws of Noah.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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The Hebrew term is Moshiach (mashiyach) meaning ‘anointed one,’ anointed kings, priests, prophets, and the altar in the Temple. Each time the text talks about an anointed king, priest, prophet, etc it will use the term Moshiach. For example; Isaiah 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and to loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and that the gates may not be shut: The Hebrew word is Moshiach; as you can clearly see, this verse is about Cyrus the term for anointed is Moshiach. Leviticus 4:5 And the anointed priest shall take of the blood of the bullock, and bring it to the tent of meeting. The Hebrew word is Moshiach; as you can clearly see, this verse is about Moshiach priest, anointed.
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[1] Numbers 22:22: “And God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD placed himself in the way for an adversary against him.–Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.”
The Hebrew term for adversary is ‘Satan’ and is not a separate being in this verse.
[2] Samuel 19:23: “And David said: ‘What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me? shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel?’”
The Hebrew term for adversary is ‘Satan’ and is not a separate being in this verse.
[3] 1 Samuel 29:4: “But the princes of the Philistines were wroth with him; and the princes of the Philistines said unto him: ‘Make the man return, that he may go back to his place where thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us; for wherewith should this fellow reconcile himself unto his lord? should it not be with the heads of these men?”
The Hebrew term for adversary is ‘Satan’ and is not a separate being in this verse.
[4] Zecharaih 3:1-2: “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said unto Satan: ‘The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan, yea, the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this man a brand plucked out of the fire?’”
The Hebrew term for the adversary, a specific adversary is ‘Ha-Satan’ and textual and historical contexts show us that the adversary was an official in the Persian government and the Samaritans.
The final place ‘Ha-Satan’ is shown is in the book of Job. ‘The adversary’ appears in the presence of God along with the ‘sons of God.’ ‘The adversary’ is not only on friendly terms with God but, works for God.
If you want to dig deeper, this tale is clearly anthropomorphism: Egyptian and Near Eastern understanding of kingship had a royal figure that employed many agents who worked for the king.
I will have to deal with the book of Job in more detail later.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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In short: the initial Roman beliefs were animistic, but the Romans progressively began to take on the formal gods of their neighbors, the Etruscans, and then the gods of the Greeks [Rome admired the Greeks greatly].
The developing Roman Empire required conquered nations to worship the Roman gods, but they could also worship their own gods as well.
At times the Romans took on important gods of the conquered nations as a god of their own.
The Romans under Augustus and Tiberius tolerated the Jewish religion and allowed Jews a ‘pass’ on worshiping the Roman gods [partly out of respect for the perceived antiquity of Judaism…I would also say because of political issues].
As a Jewish sect, the early Christians seem to have been provided the same tolerance. The Jewish revolts of 66-73 CE [The Great Revolt], 115-117 CE [Kitos War] and 132-135 CE [Bar Kokhba’s] changed this tolerance. As a Jewish sect, Christianity would receive sporadic mistreatment or persecution just as the other Jews but, it was not for religious issues…it was because of the insurrection.
In 64 CE Emperor Nero, is said to have blamed either the Jews of the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome, but there is no direct evidence of this. Contemporary historians; Josephus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch and Epictetus make no mention of the event and Pliny the Elder barely makes a passing note about the event and say nothing about who was blamed for the act. The only historian who mentions Nero blaming the Christians is Tacitus but, this seems to be another Christian forgery.
With all the Jewish-Roman tensions [which began in 6 BC when Judaea became a Roman province] it would be nothing out of the ordinary if Nero really did blame Christians [a small Jewish sect].
There is no real evidence of the persecution of Christians by the Romans before at least 97 CE which were sporadic periods of persecution at best. When the persecutions happened, it was usually because Christians refused to worship the gods, thus risking divine fury [which some Romans might have wanted to appease their gods by punishing Christians]. In retrospect by that time the Christian sect would have lost their ‘pass’ because of the Jewish revolts and their splitting with Judaism.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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In a 700 (about) year history of Roman colonial administration there is not one record of a man serving 2 terms as a governor of any particular province. The inscription Christian apologists offer to support their ‘twice governor’ claim most likely involved Lucius Calpurnius Piso and he held the title of governor on 2 different instances and 2 different provinces.
Governor of Syria (6 BCE – 3 BCE) was Publius Quinctillius Varus (he put down revolts which happened after the death of Herod the Great). P. Sulpicius Quirinius became governor in 6 CE and performed the census which was the product of the discharge of the Tetrarch Archelaus from Judaea. Quirinius was governor of Galatia (modern Turkey) and suppressed a revolt and rejoiced a triumph in Rome between 6 BCE and 1 BCE. Quirinius already had a military command of a province and it is highly doubtful that he would be given a second in the middle of a war.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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The Synoptic Problem is valid. Large segments of Matthew and Luke are word-for-word transcriptions of Mark. Large segments of Matthew and Luke are word-for-word reproductions of each other. Matthew and Luke share material not found in Mark. Luke 1:2 mentions that he (or she) consulted other works. The Q document is a hypothesized lost textual source for Matthew and Luke. If you compare the Greek verses of Matthew 3:7-10 and Luke 3:7-9 you will see that not only do they recount the story in the exact order but using the exact same words (copy and paste). Q as shared oral tradition cannot account for the nearly identical word-for-word parallels between Matthew and Luke thus; Q must be a written document. Q also was written in Greek because if the document was written in another language it would be improbable that two independent translations would have the exact same wording. If you subtract Mark from Matthew and Luke and take the common textual elements between them, then Q would be a collection of Jesus’ sayings and teachings (Pappias mentions a sayings gospel and the gospel of Thomas which is a sayings gospel has parallels with Q).
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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The apostle Paul by no means mentions a physical resurrection but, more likely a spiritual resurrection.
[1] Paul does not mention the empty tomb, or the physical appearances (Gospels).
1 Corinthians 15: Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses [James, Peter, the 12 disciples, and hundreds of others] saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did (a vision).
[2] Paul made a clear distinction between a ‘perishable’ and ‘imperishable’ bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:42
[3] Paul made a clear distinction between a ‘natural body’ (psychikos) and a ‘spiritual body’ (pneumtikos):
1 Corinthians 15:44
[4] Paul distinguished Adam from Jesus that supports that Jesus was a spirit: 1 Corinthians 15:45-46
[5] Paul said, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” 1 Corinthians 15:50
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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Origen made is pretty clear when compiling the Hexapla that the ‘Septuagint’ was incomplete, fragmented and with more than a few versions around were together untrustworthy. Origen also disputed the authenticity of Paul’s epistles. The Hexapla follows the study of textual criticism.
[SIDE]Origen claimed that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew (which is wrong because the language simply does not work; too many instances of the Greek not matching up with an underlying Hebrew foundation) and does not provide any reasoning for his conclusions regarding the order of the composition of the gospels. Origen wrote extensively to counter Gnosticism: he had to counter the tendency in the 3rd century CE to write additional gospels and the tendency to rely solely on the Gospel of John. Origen was quick to condemn the gospels of Thomas, ‘The Twelve Apostles’ and Matthias but, sadly knew nothing of Q.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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In Aramaic, Peshitta, means ‘simple’ and in Syriac it means ‘Straight.’ The earliest Syriac writings are Tatians’ Diatessaron that dates to the earliest of guess, 165 CE. It was a compilation of the 4 gospels into a single narrative.
The Peshitta is based off the Old Syriac gospels (Syra Sinaiticus and Syra Curetonianus) that were actually based off the Greek ones, with minor scribal alterations in the transliteration. Textual Criticism shows that the Peshitta borrowed heavily from the Greek Septuagint as well as some Targums. The Peshitta is a valuable resource, in trying to understand early “Easter Christians“, it’s quite the stretch to say it’s the “Most Accurate“.
Citation: Kiraz, George Anton (1996). Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Aligning the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshitta and Harklean Versions. Brill: Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002 [2nd ed.], 2004 [3rd ed.].
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion
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