The Divine Creator is a God of order, clarity, Who does nottell lies (= always telling the truth) and does not create chaos or confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33) Man should have known that God always told the truth. But by letting his thoughts wander about, he was caught by his own bad thoughts that God would keep something hidden from him or did not want to give him what he also should own.
As He had promised they would get to knowlife and death, He cursed them to the hard labour which they previously never had to do. And having made out of dust, God told them they would return to it, becoming dust again, meaning to die and then to decay. (Genesis 3:19)
(Genesis 3:19 ASV): “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
In the previous chapters we discussed that what happened to Adam and Eve still happens to us every day. Temptation today still follows the same pattern with us as it did with Eve in the Garden of Eden. Always there is first the arousing of desire; then the mind, seizing upon that desire, rationalizes it to make it seem reasonable, proper, and profitable. Then the will acts — and often immediately confusion, guilt, blame, and a sense of limitation follows without fail. The process is absolutely relentless.
Adam and Eve thought, like we often do, that we can hide ourselves. We may think that we have hidden things we did from the eyes of man, and oftentimes many of us are deluded into thinking that because no human being knows about our guilt, nothing has happened.
Yet within us, whenever we yield to evil, a darkness falls and death tightens its grip upon our throat. {Ray C. Stedman}
When addressing the evil God shows His understanding and shows His willingness to provide help in their hopeless situation. It is not that man shall be able to escape for what they have done. No, there is the curse for the woman and for the man. and to the evil or the adversary of Him, Jehovah says
Genesis 3:15 NHEBJE I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
The evil or satan shall become subject of a war to the “death”. The thoughts Eve had, would now also come to her children, dwelling in them they shall be troubled by desires, vanity, and other bad things, bringing them into captivity to the law of sin which is in their members
Romans 7:18-23 NHEBJE For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. (19) For the good which I desire, I do not do; but the evil which I do not desire, that I practice. (20) But if what I do not desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. (21) I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. (22) For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, (23) but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
For those who have that incapacity to be fully correct or without fault, God did not want that they would not have to face total destruction. Speaking out His judgement over Adam and Eve the Divine Creator spoke about a future saviour. Some one who would be able to break the curse of death. Between the bad thoughts and the way of righteousness shall be a battle. Those who would like to follow their own self-love and what made Eve from this world shall find tribulation and lots of problems in this world, not strong enough to fight them. Though others who not want to be of that world shall be able to be stronger and find their way out, though the world may hate them.
John 15:19 NHEBJE If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 16:33 NHEBJE I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
Yes, there will be one coming, by the promise of the Most High, who can call himself the only begotten son of God. Though the mind of the flesh may be hostile to God (Romans 8:6-7) this provider foreseen by God in the Garden of Eden, after the fall of man, long before Abraham, is the one we all have to look for and have to find. In him we shall have to put our faith to come away under the curse of death. He is the only man who succeeded to be without fault. He always managed to do God His Will. Though he was tempted many times (in the desert, in the square of the village and in the town, in the temple, in the garden of Gethsemane) he never gave in to the temptation, always wanting to do God His will instead of his own will.
Luke 22:41-42 NHEBJE He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and prayed, (42) saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
The writer of Bereshith notates God’s declaration that there shall be a separating of the serpent (the evil, the temptation) from the woman, and tells about the provision of a solution, which we shall hear about in later books as well. In the third chapter of Genesis we find the basis for the first promise of redemption which must be interpreted allegorically. In that light, the serpent stood for what it proclaimed:
“Ye shall not surely die” (v. 4).
This error was an emanation of the thinking of the flesh called “the carnal mind” by the apostle Paul, which, he declared
“is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).
Moses lets us understand that there in the Garden of Eden was the base of our problems. There the first man and woman doubting God and His honesty, they becoming adversaries or enemies of God. Eve her thoughts are represented as the creeping animal, a serpent which became “the father of lies“, and all who endorse or proclaim error are considered as its seed, or children.
John 8:44 NHEBJE You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil עברית: חטא עץ הדעת – ד”ר לידיה קוזניצקי (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Accordingly, in the allegorical signification of this statement, the serpent represents the spirit of error and deceit as it emanates from the carnal mind. It is frequently used for those who oppose the Truth (Psalms 58:4; 140:3; Matthew 23:33; Revelation 12:9), manifesting themselves as adversaries of the righteous. Its error stemmed from its presumption in reasoning upon Divine law from the standpoint of the flesh. This philosophy caused Eve to view the forbidden tree anew, and its attractive appearance aroused in her the latent propensities of the flesh which then became active and demanding.
“The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”
which John teaches is
“not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16)
were inflamed, and became “the word of the serpent” made flesh in her.
Adam and Eve wanted so much to have that knowledge of good and evil. Their aspiration to own that knowledge was fed by their lust for more. Paul calls such ‘wants’ “lusts” and gives them the title of sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3), or “sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:20).
Romans 8:3 NHEBJE For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;
The sending of that son is God’s solution for mankind. Though evil shall do everything to try to destroy him, it shall not succeed.
Michelangelo Bounarotti – The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve – detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By the offspring of the woman the world shall come to see a Virgin Birth where “It” (AV), a singular seed, shall “bruise” (AV), or “Shuwph” = to crush (Job 9:17). This enmity which had come into existence, between man and God, is seeking the destruction of the higher interests of man. While it will inflict injury, this enmity is subject to the ultimate conquest of man.
The sorrow of woman consequent upon the Fall brings God now having a woman bringing life to a man, but this time not without pain. Also the seed God provides shall bring lots of pain to his mother and generations shall look up at that miserable pain this son of hers had to endure.
After a turbulent year in which the Belgian Christadelphians had to undergo several tests I decided to react to those Christians who called me dirty names and send me horrible things, accusing me of defiling Jesus name or God’s name.
For that reason, wanting to bring a clear picture of the Biblical character Jesus, at the beginning of 2015 I started looking for a new platform to present texts which could justify our way of thinking and could open the eyes of others, offering them also the material from the Bible, the infallible Word of God, itself. In our eyes the Bible is the best tool to bring guidance and insight. After we shall have introduced general introductory texts, about the Word of God, presented in the Book of books, the Bible, and about the Creator and creation in general, we shall present more Biblical fragments by our explanations and when we shall come to the period of the New Covenant and New Testament we shall go step by step through the Messianic Writings (or Kethubim Bet or Kethuvim Bet), using the words of those Godly writings to show who Jesus is, what he has done and what he is still going to do, plus what he means for us, for mankind and for the whole creation.
More than once we have been and still are accused of being haters of God and being haters of Jesus, which made it so important to proof to you and the world that we carry our heart on the right place and do love Christ with all our heart, really appreciating what he did and acknowledging his position as sent onefrom God, who liberated the world from the curse of death. with this website we want to show you and those who come along that we are a loving group of worshippers of God who live peacefully as united people under Christ, being part of his body and not belonging to this world but to the world of Christ and the world of God, the Divine Creator.
Getting away from the starting bloc
Having tried out several starting blocs we are now on our way with WordPress. – Pressure-sensitive starting blocks at the start line of the 100 metres at the 2007 Pan American Games in João Havelange Olympic Stadium.
“The Eternal Laws of Creation are exact to the minutest detail because they are the expressions of the perfect Will of the Almighty! Where uncertainties and imperfections are found they only arise from man’s limited understanding and application!” {Eternal Laws of Creation #8…..likes repel, opposites attract!}
Being one or more, not feeling at ease in the body others can see
This uncertainty often frightens man. The not knowing for sure brings up many questions, doubts and lots of insecurities. We are very limited in our thinking and handling. But we should trust more in the given Word to humanity. With this blog we want others also to see how we as human beings fit in the whole universe and in the Plan of God. We want to show how Christ is The Wayto God and the Way to life and how we do have to become in Christ to become a whole person and not a split one in this world full of controversy.
Usually, Light messengers, prophets, masters, etc. mediate or, hand down rules and observances to guide their followers in living aright! Without doubt, these rules have beneficial spiritual relevance especially if they are received from Luminous Heights like the Biblical Ten Commandments! They are infallible guidelines for the human spirit living on earth and in the immediate beyond but, not meant for the literal, one sided interpretations many believers give to them! {Eternal Laws of Creation #2…….Omniscience and eternal laws!}
Man can not do anything without god letting it happen. this is also for the work we try to do to get the work of God be known at more places on the earth. the first ten months of the existence of this blog we could find readers in 66 countries. Most visitors came from The United States (1048). United Kingdom (111) & Australia (88) came before Belgium (62) and the Netherlands (16) which became behind Canada (64), India (35) and the Philippines (27).
With His Will God spans everything, maintains everything, and furthers everything from out of the Living Law which brings to each individual that which he deserves, i.e., that which he wove for himself! {Eternal Laws of Creation #2…….Omniscience and eternal laws!} And we want to knit some good duvet to keep us warm in cold Winters (figuratively speaking). In the times coming we do know we are going to enter a hard time, coming closer to the end times.
Writings and Readings
In the ten months this blog existed in 2015, there were 76 new posts, not bad for the first year!
Coming nearer to the end the messages we want to send in the air are necessary. Jesus asked his followers to go out into the world to preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God. Bringing that Gospel of the Kingdom of God we, with several writings, want to bring your thoughts to the teaching of Jesus, remembering the days that our father Abraham rejoiced that he would see Jeshua’s day. (John 8:56). Throughout the years we do hope to present our writings in such a way that you and others might come to “see” the coming day.
“we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
we dare to ask our readers to look beyond our writings. We want to challenge you and our other readers to go looking in your own or their Bible and to compare what is said in that book and what you believe at the present or believed in the past.
We sincerely hope throughout the years we shall be able to build up some followers and find more people coming to the Biblical Truth. As such we also do hope that in our readings (followed by meditation) of God’s Word, we shall be able to be “clothed with gladness” – a gladness that flows out from the relationship we have developed with our Lord.
As our world falls apart – more and more – we are going to need to sense the importance of becoming active partakers of the Body of Christ. As we are trying to do our best in the name of Jesus we want you to work with us to “work together with him” (2 Corinthians 6:1), that the Most High Lord His Guiding Hand is there and our
In the Bible we have the assurance that we may have good hope and that God preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Let us therefore be strong, and let our and your heart take courage, all you who wait for Jeshua, the Kristos or Christ to return!
In the meantime have a look at our statistics for 2015, the first ten months we presented this blog and offered our readers 76 posts.
***
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.
The patriarch of the Jewish nation became known by many. Also outside the Scriptures we have abundant evidence of the way that Abraham was regarded by his posterity in the Jewish nation.
The oldest of these witnesses, Ecclesiasticus, contains none of the accretions of the later Abraham-legends. Its praise of Abraham is confined to the same three great facts that appealed to the canonical writers, namely, his glory as Israel’s ancestor, his election to be recipient of the covenant, and his piety (including perhaps a tinge of “nomism”) even under severe testing (Ecclesiasticus 44:19-21). {International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia}
Abraham got a unique position and piety cherished by the Jews. Also to Mohammed Abraham is of importance in several ways and gets mentioned in no less than 188 verses of the Koran, more than any other character except Moses.
For Jews, Christians and Muslims Abraham is the first in line of important men of God, revealing God’s Word and giving an example and guidance to mankind. Being one of the series of prophets sent by God he is the common ancestor of the Arab and the Jew playing the same role of religious reformer over against his idolatrous kinsmen as Mohammed/Muhammad himself played.
Abraham is said to have build the first pure temple for God’s worship (at Mecca!). As in the Bible so in the KoranAbraham is the recipient of the Divine covenant for himself and for his posterity, and exhibits in his character the appropriate virtues of one so highly favoured: faith, righteousness, purity of heart, gratitude, fidelity, compassion.
Gunkel (Genesis, Introduction), in insisting upon the resemblance of the patriarchal narrative to the “sagas” of other primitive peoples, draws attention both to the human traits of figures like Abraham, and to the very early origin of the material embodied in our present book of Genesis. First as stories orally circulated, then as stories committed to writing, and finally as a number of collections or groups of such stories formed into a cycle, the Abraham-narratives, like the Jacob-narratives and the Joseph-narratives , grew through a long and complex literary history. Gressmann (op. cit, 9-34) amends Gunkel’s results, in applying to them the principles of primitive literary development laid down by Professor Wundt in his Volkerpsychologie. He holds that the kernel of the Abraham-narratives is a series of fairy-stories, of international diffusion and unknown origin, which have been given “a local habitation and a name” by attaching to them the (ex hypothesi) then common name of Abraham (similarly Lot, etc.) and associating them with the country nearest to the wilderness of Judea, the home of their authors, namely, about Hebron and the Dead Sea. A high antiquity (1300-1100 BC) is asserted for these stories, their astonishing accuracy in details wherever they can be tested by extra-Biblical tradition is conceded, as also the probability that, “though many riddles still remain unsolved, yet many other traditions will be cleared up by new discoveries” of archaeology.
J. Oscar Boyd {International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia}
With Abraham we come to another man who worshipped the same God as him and belonged to a small community worshipping Jehovah God and who came in contact with the Jews (Israelites) but not belonged to that people.
Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, Priest, King of Salem — by Dieric Bouts the Elder, 1464–67
Like Abraham receives marked tokens of the Divine favour in the shape of deliverance, guidance, visions, angelic messengers, miracles, assurance of resurrection and entrance into paradise this high priest later shall be mentioned, as a way of gratitude, by God. Melchizedek got his name already as a favourite. He is introduced as the king of Salem, and priest of ElElyon, ( an epithet of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible) (“God most high”). He reveals the man from God, Abram/Abraham, brings out bread and wine and blesses this giver of a tenth of the prey of the conquering of Kedorlaomer, after the battle of the four kings. (Chazalic literature—specifically Targum Jonathan, Targum Yerushalmi, and the Babylonian Talmud—presents the name (מלכי־צדק) as a nickname title for Shem, the son of Noah who blesses and El Elyon or the Elohim Jehovah.
When time passed much things had happened and around 1445 b.c.e. Moses received the request from God to help the people to remember those things which happened in the past and how they related to the Divine Creator. After Moses other fallible humans continued with the meticulous task to write down the Words of God so that man could by looking at those Words of God come to understand God’s method of revealing Himself.
Moses and the Messengers from Canaan, by Giovanni Lanfranco, oil on canvas, 85-3/4 x 97 inches, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles United States
Joshua (1404-1390 b.c.e.), Samuel (1374-1129 b.c.e.) Ezra (1011-425 b.c.e.), Jeremiah (971-587 b.c.e.), Nehemiah (445 – 425 b.c.e.), Mordecai (465 b.c.e.) and David with sons of Korah wrote (ca. 1000 – 400 b.c.e.) the other first scrolls or books of which became placed in a series of books or library of books, which is the Bible, coming from the word for the bark of the papyrus.
The plural form Biblia (“books”) was first used of the collection of holy writings but since this neuter plural has the same form as a feminine singular it became mistaken for the singular form, hence “books” became “book” (Bible). The mistake in the grammatical derivation of the word was not inappropriate as growing conviction developed regarding unity of the whole. In Jerome’s time the whole collection was known as the divine library (Bibliotheca), which draws attention to the diversity within the whole. The Bible is simultaneously “the book” and “the books”, both a single volume and a library.
In the collection or assemblage of books the writers put their own personality aside and wrote down what God wanted them to write down. Given the infallibility of the Bible, one can assume that there is a Higher Force behind those writings which show mankind in its weak and imperfect state and the Divine Creator as the Omnipotent. God is the Creator and Overlooker of the text of the Bible, making sure to prevent the authors from committing any error.
In the Torah writings, commonly called Law or Law of Moses, Moses presents the books of the Beginning (Bereshith or Genesis) telling about the special relationship with certain people, protecting them and getting them out of difficulties and out of slavery (Shemoth or Exodus). In the five books of Moses, also known as the Humash or Pentateuch, Law or Teaching the Wyyiqra or Leviticus is followed by the Bemidbar or Numbers or Numeri and Debarim or Deuteronomy.
Up to the book of Psalms we see the revelation of God, how the people went on and how God coped with their behaviour. From the beginning God created man in His image and choose certain persons to be a medium for Him. Those chosen people showed that they had an intimate communion with God, a spirit trained to discern spiritual things, a perfect understanding of and zeal for God’s purpose.
David’s confidence in God and his declarations of His faithfulness bring him to praise the maker of everything and declare God’s revelation in the creation.
In the first part of the Old Testament God’s methods which are harmonious with one another are proclaimed. They also show how God has given men natural faculties to acquire scientific knowledge and historical information. The Elohim did not stultify this gift by imparting such knowledge in a miraculous and unintelligible manner. There is no evidence that inspired men were in advance of their age in the knowledge of physical facts and laws. And plainly, had they been supernaturally instructed in physical knowledge they would so far have been unintelligible to those to whom they spoke. Speaking from the point of view of his contemporaries, and accepting the current ideas regarding the formation of the world, King David attached to these the views regarding God’s connection with the world which are most necessary to be believed. What he had learned of God’s unity and creative power and connection with man, by “the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,” he imparts to his contemporaries through the vehicle of an account of creation they could all understand. It is not in his knowledge of physical facts that he is elevated above his contemporaries, but in his knowledge of God’s connection with all physical facts. No doubt, on the other hand, his knowledge of God reacts upon the entire contents of his mind and saves him from presenting such accounts of creation as have been common among polytheists. He presents an account purified by his conception of what was worthy of the supreme God he worshipped. His idea of God has given dignity and simplicity to all he says about creation, and there is an elevation and majesty about the whole conception, which we recognise as the reflex of his conception of God.
Christians and Israel (debatepolitics.com)
Without Israel, there wouldn’t be Christianity. Christians have an obligation to stand with Israel.
We shouldn’t be silent about that.
Theory that the biblical holy land was not in present day Israel (ask.metafilter.com)
I’m trying to find an article by some historians that posited that the places described in the Bible we not actually in present day Israel. The historians had done some theorizing that the mountains and valleys mentioned in the bible (can’t remember which book) fit better with an area in Saudi Arabia off the coast of the Red Sea. I’ve searched the Google but can’t find any mention of this theory. I would love to find it again.
“He struggles with God. God perseveres; contends. In the bible when Jacob was in his nineties as a token of blessing God changed his name to Israel.”
So, we could all just be satisfied with knowing that the Dillards named their son after something religious, but we’re not! There has to be even more to it!
Book of Genesis, Jianning (Jian’ou) Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Offering, sacrifice and worship are only mentioned casually in the book of Genesis. The stories of those who continued to populate the earth are also offered in the Book of books, the Bible, which we consider as the infallible Word of God. There is no reason to give a historical detail and the person who wrote down the Words of God had also no such intention. We are also reminded that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but that man has the task to find God and to search all things, making it possible to receive glory by searching matters out.
Pro 25:2 NSB It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.
In our life we shall have to search for God and should come to know what God’s expectations are and why God listens to some one and does not come to help to others. In Genesis 6 we can see how God was patient and gave enough time to people to come to other ideas and to stop our egoistic life, giving us opportunities to come to live the way God wants us to live.
The Bible assumes and asserts the existence of God,
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”;
and is itself the most illustrious proof of his existence, as well as our chief instructor as to his nature and will. It puts a voice into the mute lips of creation; and not only reveals God in His works, but illustrates his ways in providence, displays the glories of His character, His law, and His grace, and brings man into true and saving communion with him. The Book of books reveals Him to us as a Spirit, the only being from everlasting and to everlasting by nature, underived, infinite, perfect, and unchangeable in power, wisdom, omniscience, omnipresence, justice, holiness, truth, goodness, and mercy. He is but One God, Who gave His Name to the world to be known all over the world. The proper Hebrew name for God is Jehovah, which signifies that “He is the Being” or that “He is the Essence of Being” or “Essence of life”. As time passed by the Jews, from a feeling of reverence, started avoiding pronouncing this holy name, substituting for it, wherever it occurs in the sacred test, the word Adonai (Lord); except in the expression, Adonai Jehovah, Lord Jehovah, for which they put, Adonai Elohim, Lord God.
Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, God’s Name illuminating
This usage, which is not without an element of superstition, is very ancient, dating its origin some centuries before Christ; but there is no good ground for assuming its existence in the days of the inspired Old Testament writers. The proper word for god or God is elohim or Elohim, which is plural in its form, being thus used to signify it is a higher or important person (a god) and in this case even the Most HighGod of gods, signifying the manifold perfections of God, or, as some wrongly think, the Trinity in the godhead. In Exodus 3:14, God replies to Moses, when he asks Him His name,
“I AM THAT I AM”;
which means either, “I am He who I am”, or, “I am what I am”. In either case the expression implies the eternal self-existence of Jehovah Who is Only One God “Who Is”. He “Who is Who He is” is the Source, Owner, and Ruler of all beings, foreknows and predetermines all events, and is the eternal Judge and Arbiter of the destiny of all. True religion has its foundation in the right knowledge of God, and consists in supremely loving and faithfully obeying him.
In the early times that holy Name and what this Only One God wanted from His creation was told from one generation to the next. But after the situation had become so bad that God had made the choice to destroy that ungodly population we can see a sufficient reason why the sons of Noah renewed the tradition of presenting the stories and name and titles of God and godly people in their families, as they were naturally disposed to perpetuate the memory of their distinguished ancestors.
The Flood came that God’s purpose might be fulfilled. The course of nature was interrupted, the arrangements of social and domestic life were overturned, all the works of men were swept away that this purpose might be fulfilled. It was expedient that one generation should die for all generations; and this generation having been taken out of the way, fresh provision was made for the co-operation of man with God. On man’s part there is art emphatic acknowledgement of God by sacrifice; on God’s part there is a renewed grant to man of the world and its fullness, a renewed assurance of His favour. There was made a covenant with Noah on the plane of nature. It is man’s natural life in the world which is the subject of it. The sacredness of life is its great lesson.
Men might well wonder whether God did not hold life cheap. In the old world violence had prevailed. But while Lamech’s sword may have slain its thousands, God had in the Flood slain tens of thousands. The covenant, therefore, directs that human life must be reverenced. The primal blessing is renewed. Men are to multiply and replenish the earth; and the slaughter of a man was to be reckoned a capital crime; and the maintenance of life was guaranteed by a special clause, securing the regularity of the seasons.
The sons of Noah (Sem/Shem, Cham, Japheth) continued the tradition of telling the Works of God and having to face the difference in tongue spoken with the different languages the Word of God became told in different languages as well.
You would expect the people to have more sense after the flood and after the experience of Babel but lots of people kept ignoring what God wanted from them. They did seem to have difficulty to learn from the Flood that wickedness must not be allowed to grow unchecked and attain dimensions which nothing short of a flood can cope with. It may be felt that the matters about which God spoke to Noah were barely religious, certainly not spiritual. But to take God as our-God in any one particular is to take Him as our God for all. If we can eat our daily bread as given to us by our Father in heaven, then we are heirs of the righteousness which is by faith. It is because we wait for some wonderful and out-of-the-way proofs that God is keeping faith with us that we so much lack a real and living faith.
Only a small amount tried to stay faithful to the Creator. One of them was Abraham. The consequences of Abraham’s movements and beliefs have been limitless and enduring.
With Abraham there is introduced the first step in a new method adopted by God in the training of men.
The dispersion of men and the divergence of their languages are now seen to have been the necessary preliminary to this new step in the education of the world — the fencing round of one people till they should learn to know God and understand and exemplify His government. It is true, God reveals Himself to all men and governs all; but by selecting one race with special adaptations, and by giving to it a special training, God might more securely and more rapidly reveal Himself to all. Each nation has certain characteristics, a national character which grows by seclusion from the influences which are forming other races. There is a certain mental and moral individuality stamped upon every separate people. Nothing is more certainly retained; nothing more certainly handed down from generation to generation. It would therefore be a good practical means of conserving and deepening the knowledge of God, if it were made the national interest of a people to preserve it, and if it were closely identified with the national characteristics. This was the method adopted by God. He meant to combine allegiance to Himself with national advantages, and spiritual with national character, and separation in belief with a distinctly outlined and defensible territory. {Expositor Bible}
God revealed Himself to Abraham who knew about the deities worshipped by his fathers in Chaldea, but his ears were open to the God of gods and he wanted to follow His instructions even when He asked to offer his son.
Had Abraham abandoned Charran at the command of a widely ruling monarch who promised him ample compensation, no record would have been made of so ordinary a transaction. But this was an entirely new thing and well worth recording, that a man should leave country and kindred and seek an unknown land under the impression that thus he was obeying the command of the unseen God. While others worshipped sun, moon, and stars, and recognised the Divine in their brilliance and power, in their exaltation above earth and control of earth and its life, Abraham saw that there was something greater than the order of nature and more worthy of worship, even the still small voice that spoke within his own conscience of right and wrong in human conduct, and that told him how his own life must be ordered. While all around him were bowing down to the heavenly host and sacrificing to them the highest things in human nature, he heard a voice falling from these shining ministers of God’s will, which said to him, “See thou do it not, for we are thy fellow-servants; worship thou God!” This was the triumph of the spiritual over the material; the acknowledgment that in God there is something greater than can be found in nature; that man finds his true affinity not in the things that are seen but in the unseen Spirit that is over all. It is this that gives to the figure of Abraham its simple grandeur and its permanent significance. {Expositor Bible}
Things The Bible said would happen, but didn’t (ask.metafilter.com)
Outside my work today I got to talking with a Jehovah’s Witness. When talk turned to the Bible, I said I didn’t take any of it literally. None of it Reall happened like that.
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According to my very religious parents there are no biblical prophesies that haven’t happened, just ones that haven’t happened yet.
Your best personality. (yoursuccessinspirer.com)
There are people whose best personality is in the Old Testament.
The God Who Sees (theloveliestlifeblog.wordpress.com)
God saw Hagar when she was in her lonely wilderness, and he went to her. This passage has reminded me so much of God’s sight and concern for us, each of us. No matter our standing or background, God’s eyes are on each of us at all times. He knows where we are and what we’re going through. We are never alone.
What To Do About The Old Testament Law (jsparkblog.com)
Though the Old Testament Law was entirely fulfilled in Christ for us, the OT Law still stands in principle for us today. Even the weird things about shellfish and fibers shows a very meticulous God who was perfect, even quirky, and shows a God we could’ve never made up.
Against The Flow by John C. Lennox (create-with-joy.com)
Unlike many books that primarily focus on the prophetic aspects of the book of Daniel, Against The Flow delves into all aspects of the book, looking at Daniel from a historical, cultural and theological perspective.One of the author’s primary purpose for writing Against The Flow, however, is to highlight the similarities between our modern culture and the ancient Babylonian culture in terms of antagonism towards people of faith – and to provide insight and inspiration into how God empowers His people to go against the flow – to stand up for what they believe in – to cling to what is right, even when there is a high cost.
Open Heavens Sunday, 29 March 2015 : Emmanuel (emmanuelayeni.com)
For you to fully key into the revelation of “God with us”, you need to understand who God is. God revealed who He is in discrete parts through His redemptive Names to the saints of old. He said to Moses in Exodus 6:3:
“And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
An understanding of His redemptive Names gives us insight into His personality and allows us to profit from the consciousness that this personality is with us.
God is the Elshaddai: He is the All-Sufficient One. This means that He has enough resources to meet all your needs – be it spiritual, physical, emotional or psychological. Also, God is Jehovah Jireh: the Great Provider. He has the ability to turn your austerity to prosperity and poverty to wealth (Philippians 4:19). Another Name for God is Jehovah Rapha: the Healer.
In the first 11 chapters of the book Genesis we can find a survey of the world before Patriarch Abraham. From chapter 12 until 50 we get more a focus on one main family line in considerable detail. In the world there have been many creation myths written down, in contrast to the patriarchal stories, however, those ancient nonbiblical stories do not in any way challenge the authority or the inspiration of Genesis. In fact, the nonbiblical stories stand in sharp contrast to the biblical account, and thus help readers appreciate the unique nature and character of the biblical accounts of creation and the flood. In other ancient literary traditions, creation is a great struggle often involving conflict between the gods who themselves also got created or came into existence by certain forces of nature.
Through these stories the people of the ancient world learned their traditions about the gods they worshipped and the way of life that people should follow. Babylonian versions of creation and flood stories were designed to show that Babylon was the centre of the religious universe and that its civilization was the highest achieved by mankind.
With the words that accompanied the followers of God it could be seen that though many would love to worship the sun and moon or natural phenomena, they had to hear that such ideas are non-constructive delusions, ignoring that there is Only OneTrue God, Divine Creator of heaven and earth, Whose Word is Almighty and incorruptible.
The man called the mannin, who he got as a partner of wife “Eve“, because she was the mother of all living. Because the man had become like one of the heavenly creatures in knowing good and evil God drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:20-24). When God had cast out Adam and Eve and they got children His words accompanied them and got them to know if they pleased the ElohimHashemJehovah or not.
The First Mourning (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The first son of Adam and Eve (Cain) became a murderer after he came to know that Abel’s offering was more liked by God than his. Though God stayed with him and placed a sign for his protection so that he would not be killed by others. Though we can see how it went from bad to worse. Adam and Eve got again a son which they called Seth and when this son got a son, Enosh, which means ‘to call upon the name of God’ or, ‘call themselves by the name of the Lord’, the people started worshipping Jehovah, the God and later God declared the offspring to be His people.
Gen 4:25-26 NSB Adam had intercourse with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth. She said: »God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.« (26) Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on (proclaim) the name of Jehovah.
Deu 26:17-18 NSB »You declared Jehovah to be your God today. You said you would walk in his ways and keep his statutes, his commandments and his ordinances, and listen to his voice. (18) »Jehovah declared you to be his people and a treasured possession. Obey his commandments and receive his promise.
In the 5th chapter of Genesis we are given the genealogy of the People of God up to the sons of Noah, when the earth was not any more the paradise form the first days. Whereas 5:1–32 is largely a genealogy that traces a single line of descendants from Adam to Noah, naming only one person in each generation, 6:1–8 provides a worldwide picture of increasing human wickedness. The contrast between these two elements is not simply between the particular and the universal but, more importantly, between righteousness and evil.
In the 5th chapter we see that the usual pattern of the genealogy (vv. 1–32) is altered with the substitution of the expression ‘Enoch walked with God’ but tells us also that Enoch was taken by God, he disappearing from the earth after having walked with God for 365 years in total (Genesis 5:22–24).
Gen 5:24 NSB Enoch walked with God. Then he was no more, because God took (moved) him away.
In this passage, and in certain other contexts in Genesis (e.g., 3:8; 6:9; 17:1; 24:40; 48:15), the Hebrew verb for “walked” is a distinctive form that conveys the sense of an ongoing intimacy with God. Remarkably, because of this special relationship, the words of God Enoch do not speak of dying in this instance, which we also can find by Elijah who went up to heaven in a windstorm. (2 Kings 2:1–12). The narrator’s desire to highlight this fact may explain why the present genealogy, unlike the one in Genesis11:10–26, regularly mentions that “So and so died.”
Finding the name “Noah” (Hb. noakh) in god’s Word may be also of particular reason. Strictly speaking it means “rest” (Hb. nuakh). After some turbelent years, having people going further away from God, ignoring His Word, we do find the concept of “comfort” (Hb. nakham) “Out of the ground that the Elohim has cursed, having one to “bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” Lamech expecting that Noah will bring both rest and comfort from the painful toil of working the soil (see 3:17–19).
Gen 5:28-32 NSB When Lamech had lived one hundred and eighty-two years, he had a son. (29) He named him Noah. He said: »He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground Jehovah has cursed.« (30) After Noah was born, Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years and had other sons and daughters. (31) Lamech lived a total of seven hundred seventy-seven years, and then he died. (32) After Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The Lost World of Adam and Eve (christianitytoday.com)
In recent years, John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, has been both lauded and criticized for his interpretation of Genesis 1–2. In his 2009 landmark book, The Lost World of Genesis One (InterVarsity Press), he argued that to rightly understand Genesis 1—an ancient document—we need to read it within the context of the ancient world. Read alongside other ancient texts, he says, Genesis 1 is not about how God made the world, but about God assigning functions to every aspect of it. In 2013, Walton contributed a chapter in Four Views on the Historical Adam (Zondervan). There he argued that Adam was a historical person, but also that Adam’s primary function in Scripture is to represent all of humanity. For Walton, Genesis 1–2 is not concerned about human material origins, but rather about our God-given function and purpose: to be in relationship with God and work alongside him, as his image bearers, in bringing continued order to our world.
The Lost World of Adam and Eve ~ curated by Charles Kannal (UTS’96) (utsalumni.org)
Throughout history, theologians responded to the challenges of their day. Today we have different issues on the table. So it’s no surprise that I talk about things they didn’t address. Even though my exegetical conclusions are different from what many people have heard, I’m not calling into question any basic doctrines. I’m still essentially conservative theologically, and I’m firmly evangelical in my approach. I want to maintain and articulate the authority of Scripture.
Biblical Tree of Knowledge (debatepolitics.com)
God had already decided to make man in His image Before He created Adam. Therefore, the morality of God had been bestowed in man before they ate from the tree.
Great abyss upon the waters of creation (postdelugestudio.wordpress.com)
When God created the heavens and the Earth, it was made in his own image, or likeness. Basically transferring all of its glory and manipulative energy into it’s own spiritually inanimate clone. Giving it’s own form of birth, continuing on in the reaffirmation of it’s own existence through these acts of creation. However, by the time it came around to the creation of our universe, it’s own consciousness had grown weary, and old. And it became a slumbering giant, who by the sweep of a hand created the universe, only managed to trap itself within the realms of its own unconscious, the infernal dimensions, and its own vast dream world. It became a world between worlds, a spiritual halfway house, where souls would pass through into a realm of destruction, or make it back out of this dark labyrinth, reactivated with the Holy Spirit. Within the waters of God’s own creation, it came to manifest itself as a bringer of the dawn, the black, primordial soup of matter, that would become the natural world. A form of consciousness which only known to distinguish itself as apart from God, from it’s very conception
Found in the Falling (thebeggarsbakery.net)
Adam and Eve wasted no time falling away from God in the Garden of Eden, when everything was pristine and perfect. We fall away in good times and in bad.
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What kind of God rewards the art of collapsing…the majesty of falling? The kind who made us in His own likeness. The kind whose love for us manifested in the death and resurrection of perfection, so that we could serve in the highest priesthood.
Nicholas Asks About Adam And Eve (kathleenbasi.com)
No one had ever really addressed the possibility that Adam and Eve were not historical figures but representations. When my teacher (I don’t remember now if he was a TA or a professor) started tossing the word “myth” around in regard to the creation story, I had my first practice at the Mama Bear-claws-out defensive stance, thirteen years before I ever became a mama. The only meaning of the world “myth” I had ever heard was the one that meant “not true.”
I Think I Know Lot’s Wife’s Name (dianerivers.me)
Lot, the nephew of Old Testament patriarch Abraham, lived in a rotten neighborhood. In fact, the entire city, as well as the one next door, was so wicked, God ordered they both be destroyed, as a warning to future generations of His disdain for unrepentant sin. To this day, even the names of the cities – Sodom and Gomorrah – have come to epitomize evil and wickedness.
Vayikra: Cows, sheep, goats and God (anitasilvert.wordpress.com)
Vayikra – And God called. And so begins a lot of instructions about killing and offering up a lot of animals for all sorts of reasons, all with the purpose of getting closer to God (“korbanot”, the word for offering, comes from the word “karov” – get close to).
Placing the rules and regulations of offering animals within the context of an “am kadosh”, a holy people, beholden to God, asks us to take on the mindset of a wholly different society than the one in which we live today. But as with all Torah, there are lessons to be learned, even if the simple reading seems foreign and disturbing. One example is examining the actual animals identified for offering in this parasha.
As you can imagine, there exists several millennia of commentary on these chapters. This is a summary of some Jewish commentary. Here is a singler, modern, source. This is from the Book of Jubilees.
In the previous articles discussing the “Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden” articles series by Alexander Rivera on his blog The Aeon Eye we looked at the seed having come to the earth.
From the seed can come a shrub or a tree and fruit. In Part 3 of his interesting series Alexander Rivera goes deeper into the exploration of the archetypal symbols of the Tree and Fruit.
He writes:
Genesis 3 relays how the Serpent offers knowledge in the form of a fruit grown from the Tree of Knowledge (the “Good ” and “Evil” part may have have been added later as a gloss.) Like the Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge is sometimes considered to be a phallic symbol. This Fruit along with the Tree also were used to signify the result or effect of some cause, having both a positive and a negative effect and origin.
And later on continues:
Eve gives the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of which she had eat to her Husband (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Tree of Knowledge and digesting the forbidden fruit in Genesis according to Jewish tradition represented the primeval mixture or intermingling of good and evil, light and darkness in an almost Manichean fashion. Eating the fruit forbidden set off a chain reaction where humanity developed a “yeitzer hara” or “evil inclination.” Unlike the earlier Hebrews, who blamed themselves for their woes, the Jewish Rabbis believed God had implanted in the ‘heart’, the Hebrew place of the unconscious of each individual, at his birth or conception. The yezer was not hereditary. It was intrinsically good and the source of creative energy, but had a strong potential for evil through appetite or greed. Only strict observance of the Law could keep the strong, irrational passions it engendered under control. To the commentators in the five centuries before Christ, Adam’s death was due to his own “sinful actions”, and not to the Augustine-authored “original sin nature” or “ancestral sin” inherent in the DNA in the race of man because of the disobedience of the primal parents. The Zohar claims that Adam and Eve lost their immortality by ingesting the fruit which is ironically enough compared to the occult: {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)
At first the creation was like God wanted it. We can hear that in his Voice, him every time when he had created something, saying it was good.
Gen 1:4 MKJV And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided between the light and the darkness.
Gen 1:12 MKJV And the earth brought forth tender sprouts, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree producing fruit after its kind, whose seed was in itself. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:18 MKJV and to rule over the day and over the night; and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:21 MKJV And God created great sea-animals, and every living soul that creeps with which the waters swarmed after their kind; and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:25 MKJV And God made the beasts of the earth after its kind, and cattle after their kind, and all creepers upon the earth after their kind. And God saw that it was good.
So, what happened with the following phase in the creation?
Gen 1:26-31 MKJV And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. (27) And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth. (29) And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. (30) And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so. (31) And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Once more we hear God saying:
Gen 1:31 NET God saw all that he had made — and it was very good!63 There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
Would it be said in the Scriptures that God Elohim saw every thing all that he had made worked , and, behold, it was very mighty good if it was not ‘picco bello’? Also in the way the phase is closed or coming to an end we may find the satisfaction of the Most High facing once again an evening and the morning were became the sixth day.
As such we find that to every beast live being of the earth, and to every fowl flyer of the air heavens, and to every thing that creepeth creeper upon the earth, wherein there is life a living soul, we notice that the soul is the being alive itself, not something extra in the living being, but the living element itself having life in it others it would not be a living creature.
We are told that it was that Elohim, the Most HighMaker who has given every green herb for meat food and it was so thus it became. Though one certain fruit was not to be eaten. By it man brought death over himself.
Hear what saith scripture when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree by which death entered into their souls or lower nature, ‘And when they heard the voice of the Lord of the Alhim walking in the garden’ (Gen. iii-8), or, as it ought to be rendered, had walked (mithhalech). Note further that whilst Adam had not fallen, he was a recipient of divine wisdom (hochma) and heavenly light and derived his continuous existence from the Tree of Life to which he had free access, but as soon as he allowed himself to be seduced and deluded with the desire of occult knowledge, he lost everything, heavenly light and life through the disjunction of his higher and lower self, and, the loss of that harmony that should always exist between them, in short, he then first knew what evil was and what it entailed, and, therefore, it is written, ‘Thou art not a God that approveth wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee’ (Is. v-5); or, in other words, he who implicitly and blindly follows the dictates of his lower nature or self shall not come near the Tree of Life.
The imagery of the tree is also included in Simon Magus’s cosmology, as reported by Hippolytus of Rome, is a powerful model that describing some rare concepts that Simononians in the early third century work described in the Philosophumena, asthe “Great Declaration” or “Great Announcement”. Simon very much describes a tree of fire that consumes itself. This is a third century Simonian document, positing that the root of all existence is infinite, and abides in man, who serves as its dwelling-house. The Logos or the Word is projected down by the luciferian Lightening Flash through the Aeons and into the manifest world and man. From the original root, the hidden principle, spring three pairs of manifestations of: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Reflection. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)
When the seed falls in the earth, starts to grow it can become a bush or grow out to a tree, being a wooden stake presenting fruits with new seeds. In the classical Greek Scriptures we also find the word stau·ros′ which meant merely an upright stake, or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation, a single piece of wood. In the New Testament we do find that Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is nailed at such a stake, a pale, without a crossbeam of any kind at any angle. By the apostles Peter and Paul we also find th word xy′lon to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed, and this shows that it was an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy′lon in this special sense means. (Acts of the apostles 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1Peter 2:24)
Act 5:30 MKJV The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed and hanged on a tree.
Act 10:39 MKJV And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed Him and hanged Him on a tree;
Act 13:29 MKJV And when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, taking Him down from the tree, they laid Him in a tomb.
Normally every one that was hanged on a tree was considered to be a cursed one. In several cultures living beings where also like fruit was hanging on the wood, made to hang on the wood and burned as an offering. In this way Christ came also to redeem us – Εξηγορασεν· buying us us with a price made by his body loosing life in his flesh and blood. He became an atonement for our sins buying us free, like in the many cultures people thought to ‘bribe’ their gods getting some favours by offering a lamb or food or innocent children. Here an innocent lamb or innocent ‘child’ was offered by giving the God an innocent man. For whatever was offered as an atonement for sin was considered as bearing the punishment due to sin, and the person who suffered for transgression was considered as bearing the curse in his body; therefore, in the same day in which a criminal was executed it was ordered that his body should be buried, that the land might not be polluted, because he that was hanged, which was the case with every heinous culprit, was considered accursed of God, (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23).
This man from Nazareth coming under the curse of the Law — more or less artificially, and in the manner of his death only — whilst living a perfectly righteous life. This way Jeshua removed that curse and made it meaningless. He took away the chains of that curse and as such became a liberator, a Kristos or Christ, a Messiah. He died innocent and gave his body as a ransom for all souls (all living beings) but they will have to recognise him as their liberator, their saviour who would then become “in Christ” also liberated from the curse of death.
Jesus has become that seed on a tree which justifies.
Gal 3:13 MKJV Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone having been hanged on a tree”);
Though “Trust, Faith”shall be necessary to have a knowledge which shall bring comfort and should make a fundamental condition through which a man becomes well-pleasing to God, and partaker of the gracious gift of life, presenting also works according to that faith. In his letter to Galatians the apostle Paul states that one is declared righteous or well-pleasing to God, in consequence of faith whereby truth is included.
Wanting to have the seed bearing fruit it has to find good soil. In barren land it shall not be able to shoot. Only there where people are really willing to obey God rather than men shall be found such fertile ground which shall bring forth the fruits from the seed which the God of our ancestors raised Jesus, whom was put to death by hanging him on a wooden stake. It is this Jesus whom God has exalted to his right hand, to be a Guide, Ruler and a Saviour, to give Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.
Act 5:29-31 MKJV And Peter and the apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. (30) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed and hanged on a tree. (31) This One God has exalted to be a Ruler and Savior to His right hand in order to give repentance and remission of sins to Israel.
In the many creation myths we can find gods who are favoured by one or the other but in the Judaic Scriptures the Divine Maker only favours the human beings in allowing them to give names to plants and animals and to use them as food. But in between the human beings the Elohim does not places one before the other. That God of the Universe does not show partiality, but it is true He wants recognition for Himself as the sole Creator and for being the Only One God. He is the One Who gives life and he is the one who cursed the 1° Adam and his seed but also provided a new pure seed which could grow fluently and be rich in giving good seeds, even providing a very pure seed which could become a new tree of life by being hang on the tree of death. We also have to notice that God has sent His Message to the Israelites and told them, through Jesus Christ, the Good News of peace — and that Jesus is Lord of all! Today there are many who know the story which spread through all Judea, how good news,which sprang from Galilee, after the baptism preached by John brought the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and how God consecrated him His Christ by enduing him with the Holy Spirit and with power; and how he went about doing good and curing all who were under the power of the adversaryof God, because God was with him. The apostles were witnesses to all that he did in Judea and in Jerusalem and how he was put to death by hanging him on a tree, a piece of wood that could not give any fruit any more, but by God now was made higher to become a symbol of life giving fruit which all who would take it would give eternal life by receiving remission of sins.
Act 10:34-43 MKJV Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Truly I see that God is no respecter of persons; (35) but in every nation he who fears Him and works righteousness is accepted with Him. (36) You know the Word which God sent to the sons of Israel, preaching the gospel of peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all!); (37) that word which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed; (38) how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good, and healing all those who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him. (39) And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed Him and hanged Him on a tree; (40) but God raised Him up the third day and showed Him openly, (41) not to all the people, but to witnesses hand-picked before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. (42) And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. (43) All the Prophets give witness to Him, that through His name whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins.
Hanged on a stake as a criminal but also as the King of the Jews
In the writings of Livy, a Roman historian of the first century B.C.E., crux means a mere stake. “Cross” is only a later meaning of crux. A single stake for impalement of a criminal was called in Latin cruxsim′plex. One such instrument of torture is illustrated by Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) in his book Decrucelibritres, Antwerp, 1629, p. 19.
The instrument on which Jeshua died was in the original writings called “σταυρός [stau·ros′] which means every upright standing pale or tree trunk. At Jesus’ time of the Romans beside scourging, according to the gospel accounts, only the simplest form of Roman crucifixion comes into consideration for the infliction of punishment upon Jesus, the hanging of the unclad body on a stake, which, by the way, Jesus had to carry or drag to the execution place to intensify the disgraceful punishment.
. . . Anything other than a simple hanging is ruled out by the wholesale manner in which this execution was often carried out: 2000 at once by Varus (Jos. Ant. XVII 10. 10), by Quadratus (Jewish Wars II 12. 6), by the Procurator Felix (Jewish Wars II 15. 2), by Titus (Jewish Wars VII. 1).” {Paul Wilhelm Schmidt, DieGeschichteJesu (The History of Jesus), Vol. 2, Tübingen and Leipzig, 1904, pp. 386-394}
Just as the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to rocks people found it right to have cursed ones being tied up on a rock by the sea or on a tree on land. The Greek word that the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this word stauros, simply means to tie or to fasten, the Greek author Lucian (Prometheus, I) used a·na·stau·ro′o as a synonym for that word. In the Christian Greek Scriptures a·na·stau·ro′o occurs but once, in Hebrews 6:6. The root verb stau·ro′o occurs more than 40 times, that is also a reason why we render it often as “impale,” or ‘fasten on a stake (pole) and you shall find us saying “Jesus was impaled” instead of the wrongly understood “Jesus was crucified”, making people think of the pagan cross-concept, the sign of Tammuz, the god of evil and personification of death.
Alexander Rivera writes:
The Stauros (Cross), which means to “stand” or “straighten up” (e.g. the “Standing One” per Simon Magus?) in its true self is a living idea, a reality or root-principle of separation and limit, dividing entity from non-entity, being from non-being, perfection from imperfection, fullness and emptiness, Light from Darkness. The Stauros or Horos was also seen as synonymous with the Logos and was also seen as the sign of victory as per the doctrine of Christus Victor atonement i.e, that Christ defeated the powers by duping them into crucifying him. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 4)}
The apostle John in the opening of his gospel-book refers to the Genesis story where God every time spoke and had His Word (Logos) bringing something into being. The Logos or Word is that what is said, not exactly a person like many Christians want to see it. Out from the darkness and chaos light was created and out of the darkness of the sordid world came again the Word of God bringing light with bringing that what the Elohim had promised in the Garden of Eden (long before Abraham was born) into flesh, giving the world His onlybegotten son, Jeshua, Jesus Christ.
From eternity there was the Elohim God. Him being there from eternity had His Thinking or His Pneuma, His Mind or Spirit with Him in Him. But with Him was also the coming forth form the Thinking which gave sound or a beginning of ordered vowels presenting sound and giving Words. As such The Word was in the beginning, and that very Word was with God. That speaking coming from God belonged to God and as such also could be considered being God, because God is spirit and not a person like we see ourselves as human beings.
That Word, The speaking of God, the Promises he made, were in the beginning with God and they are still with God. It was in the beginning of times God had already to make a promise about the seed. As everything came into being by The God of gods, there were seeds in the Garden of Eden, but having now Adam and Eve out of the Garden there had to come a new seed and a new tree of life. By that tree or stauros life had to enter again in the world of man. By the Hand of God the 1° Adam was made but also the world could find the 2° Adam being made. By God’s Word spoken to the young girl Miriam (Mary/Maria) God’s Word brought His Word onto earth. The Elohim took care speaker for Him was to be presented under man. This voice in the world would be high placed, being a god between people. Like everything came to be by God His Hand; and without Him not even one thing came to be of what was created, so also this seed of the 1° Adam was going to multiply with seeds full of life. Like the life was in the Elohim God Most High, Jehovah provided a solution for the fall in the Garden of Eden, and gave the world a new tree of life in which the world found again the light of man.
Joh 1:1-4 MKJV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
In many man-made stories we can find lights of man, emancipators, bringers of strength, bringers of fortune, guides and leaders.
Guarding this Horos was the Limit-Setter, the Across-Taker, the Emancipator, the Guide or Leader that guides the initiated soul from its astral journey from the underworld, to the zodiacal cosmos, to the eighth heaven or “ogdoad” where Sophia is said to dwell, near the gates and finally to the Heavenly Cross, functioning like a portal or gateway into the realm of the Father or the Pleroma. The Logos himself is designated as a “door” or a “gate” into eternal life symbolized as pasture, for the saved sheep (or souls) (John 10:9).
This region was also called the “suburbs”, a frontier or the barrier, demarcating the boundary between the worlds. The term “suburbs” is also used in a Peratic text that the Church Father Hippolytus quotes at length called The Suburbs up to the Aither in the Philosophumena or the Refutation of All Heresies, which I will briefly touch on later on. In Plato’s Timaeus, he refers to the soul-stuff of the universe in terms of two circular strips joined together like the Greek letter chi (X). Similarly, tau, the last letter of the Phoenician and Old Hebrew alphabets, is shaped like a cross, and was popularly held to be a protective emblem of supernatural power. Crosses were also said to be used by Roman General Marcius Turbo’s forces in the first century to carry their food and clothing. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 4)}
Hanged on the sign of the god Tammuz as persons of evil. – Kreuzigung Christi: 1509, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)
The sign of the god of evil, Tammuz, being two beams crossing each other was used in many cultures and was also taken over later in Christendom by those who wanted to have a sign for their god as well to bow down for. Though those Christians should have know that the Elohim Creator does not want His people to bow down in front of graven images.
Exo 20:1-7 MKJV And God spoke all these words, saying, (2) I am Jehovah your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (3) You shall have no other gods before Me. (4) You shall not make to yourselves any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (5) You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me, (6) and showing mercy to thousands of those that love Me and keep My commandments. (7) You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain. For Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.
The most commonly known format of the Rosary, flanked by the Bible and a free-standing Crucifix.Islamic prayer beads for dhikr (remembrance of God)
Today we still can find lots of Christians making themselves an idol, like sculptures of a Jesus hanging on a cross, a Christ with a red open gleaming heart, a virgin Mary, all sorts of saints, all statues where they pray for. They seem to forget The God asked His people not to bow for in worship for a picture of Himself nor for the likeness of any thing, which is in the heaven above, or in the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. Though by the warp and weft, it is for many the order of the day to burn candles or to pray in front of pictures or statues. By many Trinitarian Christians this seems to be the run-of-the-mill to them and they often do not feel happy when they could not do such an action or are afraid that something could happen to them.
Also by several Muslims we do find such a fear and like we can find Christopher or rosebuds or rosary (paternoster) in cars hanging on the front mirror or on the dashboard we find prayer beads hanging on the front mirror by Muslims as well. When they would not have such symbols in their car or in the house, like ‘sacred or blessed palm’, they think the seed of evil might come over them.
Mural “God’s Mather” in Belyova church
Real Christians should take God Words at heart and remember:
Deu 5:8 MKJV You shall not make a graven image for you, any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters beneath the earth.
Deu 27:15 MKJV Cursed is the man that makes any graven or molten image, an abomination to Jehovah, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and puts it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
Psa 97:1-12 MKJV Jehovah reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of islands be glad. (2) Clouds and darkness are all around Him; righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne. (3) A fire goes before Him and burns up His enemies round about. (4) His lightnings lit up the world; the earth saw and trembled. (5) The hills melted like wax at the presence of Jehovah, at the presence of Jehovah of the whole earth. (6) The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. (7) All those who serve graven images are ashamed, those who boast themselves in idols; all gods bow down before Him. (8) Zion heard and was glad; and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of Your judgments, O Jehovah. (9) For You, Jehovah, are high above all the earth; You are lifted on high far above all gods. (10) You who love Jehovah, hate evil; He keeps the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. (11) Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. (12) Rejoice in Jehovah, righteous ones; and give thanks at the memory of His holiness.
Isa 40:18-20 MKJV To whom then will you compare God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? (19) The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. (20) He too poor for that offering chooses a tree that will not rot; he looks for a skillful workman to prepare a graven image that will not totter.
In having a figure of a man on a piece of wood or a sculpture of a god-man people find themselves presented as God and have their god from mankind in their own world. As such they created themselves a go son, a god father and a god mother and twist the Words of Scriptures to suit their man madedogma of a Trinity or triune god, a three headed god, like such a god can be found in lots of ancient pagan religions.
“The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of ‘person’ and ‘nature’ which are G[ree]k philosophical terms; actually the terms do not appear in the Bible. The trinitarian definitions arose as the result of long controversies in which these terms and others such as ‘essence’ and ‘substance’ were erroneously applied to God by some theologians.” {Dictionary of the Bible, John L. McKenzie, S.J., p. 899}
Seed was the essence of life and out of seed came more than one element or fruit and more than one god. The evangelist John referring to the seed promised in the Garden of Eden, speaking about the first-born of all creation should have people to open their eyes and to question them why, if the Trinity doctrine is true, the Father and the Holy Spirit, god’s Pneuma, not also said to be the firstborn of all creation? When we look closely at what is written in the Holy Scriptures we can see that the Bible applies this expression only to the son.
In the Old Testament we can find more than once the seed of Adam being blessed and bringing forth children of God. We also get to see that there is the firstborn of Abram (Abraham) being requested as an offering but that what came out of the seed, the bush, getting into fire, giving light and promising Abraham much more seed and letting the world to be known that out of his seed would come more light and salvation. Many years after Abraham a child is born which is spoken of as the “firstborn,” who is also presented as the newborn of the new world, the 2° Adam. It indicates that Jesus is the eldest in Jehovah’s family of sons. With this new seed, promised in the Garden of Eden and having come into blossoming a two thousand years ago
“by means of him allotherthings were created “
we get a figure that can create again some would say, but it indicates that God uses Jesus Christ to continue His creation and as such
. . . Allotherthings have been created through him and for him.”
Thus he is shown to be a created being, part of the creation produced by God who has delivered us from the power of darkness? It was the Father of this son Who is the Deliverer or Saviour, because he accepted the offering of His son who is the saviour for mankind. That seed of King David is the one who was promised and who brought us the way to the kingdom of God. It is by that seed on the tree by whom we have obtained salvation and forgiveness of sins. He is not only a first-born but also the pure image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every creature. In case that seed would not have grown and have been purified we would not have had any chance. Without him our names would not been written in the Book of life, which is in heaven. Whether imperial thrones, or lordships, or angelic orders, or dominions, all things were in his hand and as such could be considered as having been created by him, because when God would not have provided that seed in the Garden of Eden and would have destroyed Adam and Eve at once, no human being would have lived on this earth. Therefore Jeshua, the promised seed, is before all things, and by him all things are sustained. Though many people do not want to respect what he really has done, dying for the sins of many (remember that God cannot die), Jesus who was first lower than angels (remember that God was, is and always shall be the Most High) Jesus became the seed of the woman that could become the head of the body, the church, for he is the beginning, the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead. It is like seed has to fall on the ground after it had dried up or died from the plant, this seed of a man also died and became the shoot of Jesse that in all things he might be the first; for it pleased God to complete all things in him; and by his hand to reconcile everything to himself; and through his blood shed on the stake made peace both for those who dwell on earth and for those who dwell in heaven.
Col 1:13-20 MKJV For He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; (14) in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins. (15) who is the image of the invisible God, the First-born of all creation. (16) For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. (17) And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. (18) And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that He may be pre-eminent in all things. (19) For it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell. (20) And through Him having made peace through the blood of His cross, it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to Himself through Him, whether the things on earth or the things in Heaven.
The seed from the dead wood was a single man, not one who existed out of three seeds or three gods. God Himself has revealed that seed as His only begotten belovedson.
Mat 3:16-17 MKJV And Jesus, when He had been baptized, went up immediately out of the water. And lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him. (17) And lo, a voice from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The “You are My Son, the Beloved” gives an indication that this son of man is also son of god and not like some interpret it to be ‘god the son’. His “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” is about that seed spoken off in the Garden of Eden. It is noteworthy that, instead of saying “days of eternity,” RS renders the Hebrew as “ancient days”; JB, “days of old”; NW, “days of time indefinite.” That seed was not eternal it had the beginning in those older days way back at the beginning.
Mic 5:2-5 MKJV And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity. (3) Therefore He will give them over until the time the one giving birth has given birth; then the rest of His brothers shall return to the sons of Israel. (4) And He shall stand and feed in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God. And they shall sit, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth. (5) And this One shall be peace. When Assyria shall come into our land; and when he shall walk in our palaces, then we shall raise against him seven shepherds and eight anointed ones from men.
The seed like a mustard seed has grown and from the smallest seed shall have to come forth a great tree of seeds of the Father, the Most High Creator, all children of God.
If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were coequal, comprising one Godhead then we would find a God who at several occasions did not tell the truth, because God is an all-knowing God, but Jesus on several occasions says he does not know a certain thing; He even does not know when he would come back. God also says He is an eternal Spirit which would make Jesus faking his death and telling lies when he says that a spirit has no flesh and bones and when he shows his wounds to his disciples to proof he is no spirit.
Luk 24:34-40 MKJV And they said, the Lord has indeed risen, and has appeared to Simon. (35) And in the way they related the things happening, and how He had been known by them in breaking of the loaf. (36) And as they spoke this, Jesus Himself stood in their midst, and said to them, Peace to you! (37) But they were terrified and filled with fear, for they thought they saw a spirit. (38) And He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? (39) Behold My hands and My feet, that I am He! Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have. (40) And when He had spoken this, He showed them His hands and feet.
In case Jesus is God then Jesus being in God like we should be in Jesus and in God would make us God as well, when you take it that being in some one is being that one and that the unity of Christ means that Jesus is god than the unity of us with Christ means that we are Christ and as such are also God.
Jesus asks to believe in him and to know that the works which he does, his Father in heaven shall do even greater works than these which Jesus could not do without his Father. And Jesus was on earth but told the others, not he was doing al this but the One to Whom he was going to. He was going to the place of his Father, Who he was going to join. He also told his followers that he was going to his Father who may be glorified through him, Jehovah God His Son. It is this son of God who will ask of his Father; and it is Him Who was to give the apostles another Comforter, to be with them for ever.
Jesus tells his apostles that he will be gone and that the world shall not able to see him any more. On the day the comforter or the Force of God would come over them their eyes would go open and they would come to understanding of all those things they saw happening. At the time they happened they did not understand but after the Pneuma, God’s Power came over them they came to understand everything and came to know that Jesus is with his Father. But at the same time Jesus would be there for them with them and they would be with him. Everybody should get the faith in Jesus, the son of God and love him so that he also will be loved by Jesus his Father.
Joh 14:12-21 MKJV Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me, the works that I do he shall do also, and greater works than these he shall do, because I go to My Father. (13) And whatever you may ask in My name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (14) If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (15) If you love Me, keep My commandments. (16) And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, so that He may be with you forever, (17) the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him nor know Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and shall be in you. (18) I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. (19) Yet a little while and the world does not see Me any more. But you see Me. Because I live, you shall live also. (20) At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (21) He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.
Jesus never claimed to be God and addresses the Father as “the only true God”; so, Jesus as “a god” in the first chapter of John merely reflects his Father’s divine qualities and looks at Jesus as a high or important person person, like Apollo, Zeus, Pharaoh, Moses, angels and others are called ‘god’ in the Bible, but where never is intended them to be The God.
In several stories written before the New Testament several gods are presented to bring new light and to bring change in life because crossing axes would bring in new breath (life). But to get the life the occult signs, the making of a cross repeatedly had to be done regularly, because otherwise the gods of evil would get more force and conquer again over light and bring darkness again.
Little Known Facts About the Christmas Tree (articles.we-wood.us)
For thousands of years, people have brought live greens into their homes during the dark weeks surrounding the winter solstice. Ancient Egyptians picked palm fronds to honor the sun god Ra, while Romans decorated with holly for the solstice celebration of Saturnalia.The pagan tradition of decorating with branches and trees was adapted by early Christians in Germany, where Germans decorated trees with apples to remember Adam and Eve. In the 1600s, Protestant reformer Martin Luther was walking home through a fir forest one night while composing a sermon and was inspired by the stars shining on the snow to add candles to his family’s Christmas tree.
Retreat Notes on Authority (supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com)
Eve’s sin was curiosity (which I wrote about here) and when the snake began to talk, as animals did not talk (Eden is Not Narnia) she should have left the scene immediately and asked Adam for discernment and help.
Heave is for Real – The Most Believable Depictions (mybloglogb.typepad.com)
Some spiritual topics simply can’t be done seriously in movies very often. I wrote recently about how Adam and Eve have never been depicted very seriously in film (other than a couple of times), and it seems heaven is the same way. Like Adam and Eve, we can’t get our head around what the reality of these spiritual topics may be, and we’re probably not supposed to in the grand scheme of life. In the movies, translating the ineffable means bringing plenty of irony, and the depiction of heaven has had plenty.
Adam and Eve are Ancient “Archetypes” (jacksonwu.org)
the book demonstrates the importance biblical training with respect to interpretation method. I’m not simply referring to theological instruction. In fact, Walton’s argument suggests that theological presuppositions are precisely what keep us from understanding God’s authoritative meaning in Gen 1–3.
The Truth: Who Are You (a Must Read) (eyeopenerunity.wordpress.com)
So if good was already known and evil was presented as good than what does that tell us??
The Aeon Eye with Alexander Rivera looks also at the very beginning of the Bible and the Torah where we are presented with the idea of the origins of mankind in the Primordial Garden of Eden that we first see in the Book of Genesis, the Bereshith.
Alexander Rivera remarks:
The traditional Orthodox reading of this story, of course, presents the age-old legend as literal evidence for the claim of mankind’s original sin and subsequent fall from primordial perfection and divine grace, as if God was still holding an eternal grudge against mankind for eating a fruit that he created in the first place, and still cursing mankind and the world for a multitude of generations after the fact. From this disobedience to God, alienation was given rise from the creator and humanity was once again condemned under the Law that God later gave to Moses at Mt. Sinai. In this reading, humanity is specifically condemned because of their inherently wickedness due to their rebellion and disobedience. And so the story goes, God had to send his innocent Son to die a cruel death to shed his blood to atone for the transgressions of a sinful and destitute humanity. Yet, beneath this callous, misanthropic reading lies a deeper layer of spiritual truth.
Adam and Eve were both naked & were not ashamed, as in Genesis 2:25: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (KJV) illustration from the 1728 Figures de la Bible; illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, and published by P. de Hondt in The Hague; image courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the previous Readings from the Scriptures we could see how the female got tempted to get to know more about good and evil and how there was a delight to the eyes, the tree to be desired to make one wise. When she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat she wanted her partner also to be part of her disobedience to the Elohim. She lured him into eating of it as well, though God had prohibited them to touch the tree.
By eating of this tree of the forbidden fruit the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Suddenly the innocence of nakedness made place for an uncomfortable feeling. Their discomfort being so naked for each other and for the rest around them gave them a bad feeling.
Throughout history the story of the beginning of sin got merciless made in a weapon to unconscionably threaten people with demons, un-heavenly creatures who would damage the human soul and torture the human beings who got tempted by their words and actions. Their living quarters being deep under the ground in the burning alcoves of the underworld.
In the Bereshith, the Tanakh, the Holy Jewish and Christian Bible the adversary of God, could be any tempter, but people wanted to see not themselves in it but preferred to see an extra-terrestrial being in it, giving the noun satan (adversary) the surnames Satan and Lucifer. We do not know if it is like Alexander Rivera thinks that this interpretation would have come into the picture much later with the Book of Wisdom (2:23-24) revealing in this version:
For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.
Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, writes in Against Heresies 5.23, which started the ball rolling for the Orthodox exegetic interpretation:
But that God was true, and the serpent a liar, was proved by the result, death having passed upon them who had eaten. For along with the fruit they did also fall under the power of death, because they did eat in disobedience; and disobedience to God entails death. Wherefore, as they became forfeit to death, from that [moment] they were handed over to it.
Originally the serpent was the metaphor for the creeping evil, the danger that could come up to man, and by moments could have been very beautiful and attractive, very cunning. In life we can encounter slyness and man has found ways to use subtlety and tricks to bring deceit, not always playing clever or subtle games.
In the Revelation of John 12:9, the serpent is equated with a dragon, a devil or satan, which many people take to be a specific figure with the name Satan or Lucifer:
The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
In the Book Wisdom is told that God created man unto His own likeness without corruption. Nevertheless through envies of the devil, the inner-thought of man going against the given purity of the Master Creator, came death into the world. Everybody in the creation of the Most High has elements of Him in him or her and by this gift of God has the possibility to feel the essence of the Creator in themselves. It are the wicked thoughts which separate from God and do come into the mind of those who think themselves wise or want to test God. Eve clearly wanted to test the Elohim. Therefore the Power of Jehovah had to come to her to condemn her. It was His Spirit Which filled the world but has all the right to give and take and man doubted His rights.
Wis 1:1-7 WEBA Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth. Think of the Lord with a good mind. Seek him in singleness of heart, (2) because he is found by those who don’t tempt him, and is manifested to those who trust him. (3) For crooked thoughts separate from God. His Power convicts when it is tested, and exposes the foolish. (4) Because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin. (5) For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in. (6) For wisdom is a spirit who loves man, and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips; because God bears witness of his reins, and is a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue: (7) Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said.
Wis 2:21-24 WEBA Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them, (22) and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls. (23) Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness; (24) but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.
For to the light of day succeeds night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail (Wisdom 7:30) Adam and Eve having had evil thoughts of God by giving heed to their wish to know as much as God knows. They were not not ashamed concerning their soul and now it was to late to hide for God. Sirach 7:1 tells us not to do evil so will no evil overtake you. Now the relationship between God and man got disturbed and they knew very well that they had done wrong.
That satan and lucifer are not wicked beings, can also been seen in other places in Scriptures where the evangelist John equates Jesus Christ with Lucifer, the Latin word for “light-bearer” which stems from the “Latin Vulgate” Bible, produced by Jerome, commissioned by Pope Damascus in 382 A.D. In Revelation 22:16, “Jesus” proclaims that:
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give youthis testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
In the verses about the penalty coming over the man and female, the 1° Adam and Eve, the Creator offers a solution and talks about the evil being crushed by the foot of the send one, the darkness eliminated by the light. The ‘Light” spoken off in the Bible refers then to the promised one, who got born in Bethlehem out of the tribe of God’s servant King David.
Of course, the Latin “Lucifer” (“Lux Ferre”) was associated with the planet Venus, which is called “Phosphoros”, the “morning star” or “dawn-bringer”, who was both a minor god in Greece and Rome, who according to the Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus, was a:
…son of Atlas, who was fond of astronomy, and once, after having ascended Mount Atlas to observe the stars, he disappeared. He was worshipped with divine honours, and regarded as the fairest star in the heavens. (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.) {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
We have goodness in us but there is also badness which “lies in wait to turn things that are good into evil” (Sirach 11:31). When Jehovah’s Word came into the world everything got created and out of chaos came order, but that does not mean that disorder would have gone for ever. In the Plan of God everything should stay in good order, but man got the right to order things themselves as well. Jehovah God is a God of order. Normally man had to be the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Man was placed in the beautiful Garden of Eden, the Garden of God.
To dwell in the awesome presence of a perfect and holy God, many would agree that those being there in the Garden of God had to be perfect. What went wrong is seen in the reaction of the woman ignoring God’s commandment. there was light that made an end to darkness, which was set up on the holy mountain of God. This light is also called “Lucifer” in Scripture who also fitted the name, ‘Son of the Morning’ being perfect in its ways from the day that it was created, until unrighteousness was found in it. (Ezekiel 28:2-19)
A “Son of Light” bad and good. Lucifer the evil one.
Man got its insides filled with badness, a violence against the Will of God, and this the Bible calls sin. We come to hear in the Scriptures that splendour and beauty did not last forever. It is told that Lucifer while ministering, began to consider his own position of prominence and became prideful, believing that he deserved more than what he already had. He wanted to become like the Most High. This is the main problem of what went wrong in the Garden of Eden. This is also still the problem of today. There were those who wanted to be like God in a bad sense of having the same power as God, wanting to be God. This became the reason to cast them out as ‘wrongoers’, ‘wrongdoers’ or sinners as profane ‘out of God’s mountain’.
Lucifer was also known by the Greeks as the Titan Prometheus, the son of Iapetus. (As a side-note compare this description of Phosphoros with Isaiah 14: 13-14: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most high”). {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Man was stripped of his beauty, his position, and his rights to heaven. The lucifer got his light dimmed. Lucifer’s name, ‘son of the morning,’ was given to a far more deserving individual, the Son of God. He is the seed of the New Generation, the beginning of the New World. Jesus Christ is called the ‘Bright and Morning Star’ (Revelation 22:16).
Today, the one promised in the Garden of Eden, who was in the dark for a long time, has become the light of the world again and is now back close to God, seated at the right hand of the Most HighDivine Creator. The 2° Adam is now dwelling in the presence of the Almighty. Christ’s words hold true, even ‘in the account of Satan’:
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).
In what has happened in the Garden of Eden we have an example which we should seriously take at heart. We shall have to look deep in our heart and question ourselves which position we do want to take in. We should see and understand what the 1° Adam and Eve did wrong and how we can avoid falling in the same trap as they did. We should come to understand that recalcitrance and aversion to God will make us weaker and defenceless. The rebellious attitude will bring us only in the dark, like it did with Adam and Eve being brought in a grim world.
We should know that still today the adversary of God is willing to control the world, therefore it is also said that ‘Satan’s attempt’ to control this world system is nothing to take lightly.
Vos on Creation (greenbaggins.wordpress.com)
If the creation history is an allegory, then the narrative concerning the fall and everything further that follows can also be allegory. The writer of the Pentateuch presents his work entirely as history (Reformed Dogmatics, volume 1, p. 161).
Imagination: What does the Bible say? (endtimesprophecyreport.com) they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward
Did Plato influence the Book of Genesis? (lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com)
the belief among Orthodox Jews is that the book of Genesis is very old, but as the web page points out, there are no outside historically dated references to the book of Genesis until the second century B.C., which is two hundred years after the founding of Plato’s Academy.
We Will Always Be Tempted (birdchirp.wordpress.com)
The devil is as dangerous to us as he was to Adam and Eve. Peter refers to him as “a roaring lion…seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet.5:8). According to Jesus, he is the prince of this world (John 12:31). We must remember, however, that the devil rules as a usurper.
Servants of God (christopherjmoorewriter.wordpress.com)
if we choose to put ourselves above God, then ultimately we will join Satan in the eternal fires of hell. It’s our choice. Jesus, in allowing himself to be crucified for our sins provides another way.All we have to do is repent of our pride, put Christ as the centre of our lives and be his servant – feed the hungry, visit the prisoners, comfort the sick and dying. These charitable acts provide us with the opportunities to be servants of God. And we don’t have to travel to distant lands to perform them, just look around you, the area where you live. There are plenty of God’s children who need and deserve your help.
Where Are You? (psychologytoday.com)
God doesn’t rage or leave. God simply responds by asking the first question of the Torah: “Ayeka?”Translated literally, Ayeka means, “Where are you?” and upon first pass, that question seems silly for a Higher Power to be asking. First, why does it matter where they are hanging out? Second, shouldn’t God “know” anyway?
By Faith? (hiwaychristian.wordpress.com)
Take note as to how all the creatures involved in creating what is creation, did not hear the reason until some distance into the building. And even while salvation among men is in full swing, the angels still long to look into these things. Unless the translation is wrong, I noticed that Peter did not use the past tense of the word “long”.Remaining obedient though we have no clue, is not only essential now, it is a pattern of behavior for all God’s creatures for eternity. And this ought to renew our devotion to serve without full understanding. Frankly folks, that will be our state of affairs forever.
Psalm 80 (embodiedtorah.wordpress.com)
The theology of this verse reminds me of the comment on the first verse of Genesis by the medieval French commentator Rashi, in which he explains that the purpose of beginning Torah with creation, rather than with the first mitzvah given to Israel in Exodus 12, is to remind us that the world belongs to God. In this Psalm, God is a gardener and the world is God’s garden.
Nearly everyone has heard of Abraham and his faith in God. What most do not realize is that he struggled with Fear. You see, Abraham had a drop-dead gorgeous wife and he knew it too. Because of her beauty, he feared that the wicked ruler of the land they were passing through, might kill him in order possess his wife.
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Today, the whole world remains blessed by the faithfulness of God toward Abraham. How so? Because our Savior, Jesus Christ, eventually came from that same line of Abraham and his beautiful wife!
When we look at different myths about creation we can see that in several of them that though details may differ the essential lines of the stories or the elements of the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same. For people it was found important to tell what happened in the past and by the years the stories grew. Having continents getting out of each other, spacing out by sees in-between people got estranged from each other and stories went their own way.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 3, 2003 through January 16, 2004. The patch of sky in which the galaxies reside was chosen because it had a low density of bright stars in the near-field. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those who want to analyse the beginning of the world will always come to a point where there shall be something which they are not able to place. Some of them may think that there is nothing that exists that they cannot analyse under the rules of science, say the Big Bang theory can only be explained by other theories that sound like faith. Honest and maybe agnostic scientist should come to realise that in the previous centuries it where humans who did not want to see what was really explained in the Bible being close to the theories they scientifically could find. Man has to agree that the Bible said it all a long time before science got there.
That the Big Bang theory proposes that the universe started from a singularity – a dense wad of matter that for reasons not yet known suddenly exploded outward in an immense pulse of energy and light, is in a way not contradiction with the void spoken of in the Holy Scriptures. Scientific consensus has pretty much decided that is how the universe we currently live in started, but they still cannot explain more or say what made the mass to have a black hole or an action taking place somewhere in time.
That time could be placed under the name of day or phase, but at the start there was not such an indication because light and darkness were the elements to be forming the differences in time. The book of Genesis wants to give the synopsis of Creation in a few sentences, saying it took six periods or phases of coming into existence. In the later books of the Bible it is indicated that people do have no idea about the space and about the time in God’s eyes. Time for God is totally different than for the creatures who can find darkness and light as elements dividing the space in countable or measurable units to give an indication of the now, before and after. The indication of that time also changed in the course of history, bringing it to seconds, minutes and hours, days, weeks, months and years which may be divided differently or follow another calendar. Man should know, according Scriptures, that for the eternal Creator our time indications are like nothing to hold on, because what is a day to an eternalBeing when there was no sun to calculate a time period and when there is no beginning and no end to Its existence.
Book of Genesis, Ningpo Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The gods we may find in all the different myths are not self consistent and are not exactly creators of all elements. Though the God presented in the Scriptures and presented by the Israelites, the people of God or People of Jehovah, is One God Who was before everything and Who is responsible Himself for everything. The oral tradition brought the history of mankind and the Word of God from one person to the other. That it was penned later than other stories of the beginning of the world does not make it less believable or untrue. The way the story was presented had to bring understanding to all, educated and non- educated and it should have been able to tell it from one generation to another. Short lines were the easiest to get it recounted; told over and over again, making sure it got through time with the same lines. That not everything is exactly the same in the genesis stories we can find by the different cultures takes not away that we can see the ‘grosso mode similar line’. The perspective by which is looked at the beginning of the elements says a lot of the people but also can give an indication of the connection of the people with that Creator, having the Israelites having kept their relationship on good terms and seeing human being as major part of creation and as the only elements being in the image of that Creator, placing them more in the centre than in other cultures. For them it was also more important to know what their function is in this creation and where they stand opposite the Creator.
In the God’s People version of the beginnings of the universe the Elohim as Most HighAll-knowingSupreme Being wanted Him to be known and supplied a description of Who He is, who man is and why man existed and then allowed the people of that era to cast it into terms that they could understand rather than in terms that we would readily recognize in the 21st century.
Einstein’s theory not only describes our universe, from the Big Bang to black holes; it has also taught physicists the relevance of geometry and symmetry – lessons that spread from particle physics to crystallography. But, despite the similarities that Einstein’s theory has with other theories in physics, it stands apart by its refusal to fit together with quantum mechanics, the theory that explains the dominant behavior of matter at the atomic and subatomic scale.
Today’s Scrip-Bit 2 March 2015 Psalm 27:10 (randyobrien50.wordpress.com)
Can you imagine too that we’re already into March, and it seems like only yesterday we were singing Old Lang Syne, and wishing each other a Happy New Year. It’s already been a couple of weeks too since we were singing: ‘Mas in yuh mas! Play mas!’
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And all of that was just to say my people that time is swiftly moving by and who knows what will happen, or when, so it is essential that we get our house in order, just in case…just in case Jesus returns unexpectedly and we’re not ready. The same way we’re seldom ready for Monday mornings. The big difference though is that we have something to counteract our Monday morning blues – our Monday Morning Battle Hymn.
1 Samuel 13 (asorensen.wordpress.com)
The people of Israel see they are in trouble, and cry out to God. Saul is waiting for Samuel to show up and seek the Lord about the situation. When he doesn’t come as quickly as Saul expects, Saul takes things into his own hands and offers a burnt offering to the Lord on his own.
The Word (carolynwebbrussell.wordpress.com)
Secular scientists suggest that Big Bang Theory is different than creation that they are two different things. I’m not going to even bring up evolution because Darwin himself just thought it was a theory and didn’t even believe it.
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I feel that if in the book of Genesis it is written that God spoke everything into existence. The sound of His voice, brought form to this world, hung the stars and called them each by name all in 7 days. All throughout the Bible it talks about how powerful God’s voice is. We read that it can make mountains tremble and so much more. So…what if when God spoke everything into motion at that moment that is when the “Big Bang Theory” happened. God created even that theory that scientists have come up with in trying to figure out all He created. As I study the voice and essential oils through science it keeps pointing me back to the fact that God is so much bigger than “science” because He created it all because He loves us so much.
There are well recognized parallels between Genesis 1 and 2 and other ancient Near Eastern creation myths. Archeologists tell us that the Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths predate the Biblical account.
Oh, my! I’ve been wrong about this faith thing all this time! Thank you for setting me straight!
No, seriously – my faith does not rest on scientific or archeological research. I find the study of these things interesting, but the study of creation should never take precedence of the Creator.
Before the mid-19th century it was possible to read the Old Testament in isolation and marvel at the creation stories in Genesis, to believe without equivocation that they were a unique special perfect revelation delivered to Moses during the sojourn in the wilderness.
Multitudinous discoveries over the last two centuries have challenged this view in deep and profound ways. Tablets were found dating from the mid-7th century…
When we look at the universe we can see that from chaos came order. But straight from the beginning we also get some idea of the Creator Himself. We come to know how He places everything one after an other making also clear differences between things, like darkness and light, which pleased Him. Order and regularity came part of our universe, having different moments, time dived by day and night.
Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, God’s Name illuminating
The myths humans created for themselves did not give any clear explanation of the reasons why and how. The eternal Creating Force, the AdonaiElohimHashemJehovah, on the other hand showed the world His love by giving it all possibilities, creating a place for each, plants with seeds for the earth (3° Phase), animals for in the waters and for in the heavens (5° Phase). After those animals in the waters God let them come on land to find their way over there and all sorts of wild animals came into being (6° Phase). When we look at the evolution presented by many scientists the Bible is not in contradiction with their findings.
Problem with man is that they expect everything to have been already like they see it today. They expect human beings to have been as well physically as psychologically formed like man today? They forget that it is their pride which makes them not accepting that they themselves had to develop and are still developing.
Question should not be how many minutes, hours, days were literally used, but how and why God did it a certain way. We should come to accept that the Divine Creator did it His Way, with a preconceived plan. God created everything according to His Wish and out of love. The saying that God saw what he had made and found it nice, finding it good, indicates that God considered it sufficient and according to His Wishes.
In the 6th phase of creation, having wrigglingorgansandcrawling bodies God also wanted a reflection or mirror image of Himself. Several Christians do want us to believe that God created after the animals an imperfect being unable to follow God His commandments, but when we look at the words of God, I do not think so. Because after God had created man in His image He, like in the previous phases was pleased with what He had created and said it was good.
Like God was pleased with His work we should also be pleased with our work when we try to do our best and when we want to live according to the Will of God. Having God, every time He established something, looking at it and being satisfied, it tells us that God has a feeling and can be pleased with what happens.
God being satisfied and closing each day with pleasures shows us that God found it was perfect, so the elements where like God wanted them to be. Many times it is said that the Elohim saw that it was excellent. If things would not have been like God wanted it this would not have been written down.
Elohim employed two intense lights, the larger sunlight to rule the day, and the lesser moonlight to rule the night; the stars He made too in the cosmos of heaven to shine light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:18)
Elohim blessed great serpents, and every living creature that creeps and moves, which the waters teemed forth abundantly, after their species, and every winged flying creature after its species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation. (Genesis 1:21) To those things God said to branch off and multiply, filling waters of the seas, space in the heavens, space on earth. Clearly in God His Plan creatures had to increase. He wanted a universe full of living creatures. (Genesis 1:22,24)
In the 1st book of Moses, the Bereshith we find a picture of the total beginning, the beginning of the universe. At the end of it an opening is made to the next chapter where is been given a resume of the last creation by the birth of the cosmos and the earth when they were accomplished, in the day when Jehovah Elohim fashioned the earth and cosmos, and every organism of the field before it existed in the soil, and every green plant of the field before it sprouted: for Jehovah Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil. Then there ascended a cloudiness from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the land. As in the first chapter again we hear that it is God’s Voice demanding the earth to bring forth the living creature after their species, animals, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their species; and it was firmly done. (Genesis 2:4-6; 1:24-25) And Elohim made the creatures of the earth after their species, and beasts after their species, and every thing that creeps upon the earth after their species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation.
It is interesting to note that only after all those creeping things the Elohim spoke to fashion a being in His image, and after His likeness. Again we hear the created element had to be in the likeness of God. You may wonder if God would make something which would dissatisfy Him? though there are may TrinitarianChristians who want us to believe the man God created was so imperfect it is impossible for him to follow the Will of God. If that would be so, would God have created him and be satisfied? I do not think so.
Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.
Like with the previous creatures the living creature made in God’s image had enough elements similar to the Godly qualities that God looked at these creatures and also was pleased and asked them to multiply too. He even was so pleased with them and placed them in His plan of creation that He gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27)
So Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim was mankind created; male and female fashioned He them. And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim spoke to them, asking them to be fruitful and become many, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28-29)
Throughout history man shall have to remember that the Adonai has given His Word to make the things coming into being but also giving it the ability to have every green plant bearing seed, which is upon the surface of all the earth, and every tree, containing the produce of the tree bearing seed, to the living creeping or flying creatures it being for food. (Genesis 1:30-31) It was done and the Elohim inspected every thing that He had accomplished, and behold, it was valuable in estimation. And the sunset and the sunrise were the sixth phase of His creation.
Be Strong, Be Bold (hrhome.wordpress.com)
Read what Elohim said directly to Joshua after Moses died.
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Did you catch the fact that Elohim commanded him to be strong and bold? It wasn’t simply a suggestion, it was an order. Let’s strive to follow in those footsteps, keep our eyes on YHWH, be careful to obey His Word, and live in His strength.
11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
For the rabbis oral Torah was an integral part of the Torah given to Moses on Sinai, but it was passed on orally through the generations.”[7] The stress upon the Oral Torah by the Pharisees is what caused the Pharisees to confront Jesus about His disciples breaking the “tradition of the elders.”
Reasons of Misotheist and Atheist (new.exchristian.net)
Greek mythology is different, for natural disasters are made by them
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Islam teaches that everything is God’s will; therefore Allah wills it not to intervene…always.
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Scientists observations suggests that stability on universe is an illusion
a1. Eternal chaos of the cosmos only shows us that by time and chance, life on earth or on other planets (only a theory) will eventually die
a2. Some creationist scientists’ argument about perfectly tuned universe for the sake of life is invalid for by time and chance life on earth flourished but also by time and chance it will die.
b. Allowing war, chaos, and evil
a1. Maybe God/gods is/are sick psychopaths who loves to watch action movies on real life
The story of Hannah could easily become our story. As Hannah was quietly crying out to God in her distress, another person (Eli), who was watching from a distance, wrongly judged her as being a drunkard. He misjudged both her character and her situation horribly.
Thursday, 5 March 2015 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading) (petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com)
This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”
Desert Island Texts: The Shema (jewishnews.co.uk)
The first word with its complexity of meaning between ‘hear’, ‘listen’ and ‘understand’ already provides a deepening into the centrality of my being, helps me to become myself, to nourish my soul – the soul of ‘Israel’, that is, the angelic side of Jacob, the heel, the trickster and I am both. Can I be a Jew on a desert island, without community, without others? The word ‘Israel’ will give me much to ponder, of my history and the history of my people. I shall wonder what might be happening in the world outside, to Israel the state, and in Europe.
Dog Poop And Leash Signs (dogpoopsigns.com)
In New York City, for example, estimates show that there are about 2 million dogs. With just over 8 million human inhabitants, this would mean that roughly 25% are dog owners (assuming of course that no one owns more than one dog). Consider, then, that according to Citizens Committee for NYC, these dogs produce around 275,000 tons of feces per year. That’s 275 pounds per dog. Consequently, NYC streets are like a minefield littered with dog poop. Many a careless pedestrian will notice a funky smell emanating from their feet and only realize they’ve stepped in poop once they tread across the living room carpet. After receiving many complaints, NYC officials took action and passed a statute in 1978 called the Canine Waste Law, threatening a fine for up to $250 for each violation. The code also prohibits dog owners from allowing their pets to poop “on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting a public place.” Violators failing to scoop their dog’s poop can be ticketed by authorized employees of NYC’s Departments of Health, Sanitation, or Parks and Recreation.
When we hear the story of the creation of the universe we might get that impression.
WMAP image of the (extremely tiny) anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the Holy Scriptures we get to read that there was void or a “Containing of no matter“. There was or was not something with something ” completelylacking”. At first there was a “Having no legalforce or validity” but than out of nowhere seemed to come a Voice of Some One Who spoke.
The Bible tells us that every time that One Spoke His Voice brought into being. We do find the principle of something not being there but “God said…” and it was done. The prophet Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying:
I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded (Isaiah 45:12).
So, there was not only The Voice but there where also Hands. Out of nothing we do seem to get Sound, from emptiness creating things. This means that there was a power. This incredible Power we consider to be the Most High Power. It is the Force of bringing to life, or the Force of life.
Galaxies are very important fundamental building blocks of the Universe. Some are simple, while others are very complex in structure. As one of the first steps towards a coherent theory of galaxy evolution, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, developed a classification scheme of galaxies in 1926. Although this scheme, also known as the Hubble tuning fork diagram, is now considered somewhat too simple, the basic ideas still hold… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This creative Power of God is mentioned many other times in the Scriptures, but, as always, the mechanistic details are not supplied. It is hard to imagine, for example, what would have happened if instead of saying let there be light, the Bible had written out Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. Even if the Bible had given us the formulas explaining the physical details, no one in ages past would have understood them, or if somehow they could have achieved comprehension, they would surely have abused the information!
There was the void or openspace which could or could have not a continuity or a break in continuity, a vacate space.
About when and how the universe came into being, science and scripture may come up with the same unambiguous result, namely, in the beginning (Genesis 1:1).
The scientist is not let off the hook, for an eternal universe would also have solved a whole host of scientific problems. According to the model pictured by classical physics, an eternal, everlasting static universe would have been just fine, but these ideas were overturned by the astronomer Hubble in 1929, and still later unambiguously verified by observations made in the mid-1960’s on the universal microwave background.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble, an astronomer working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California, discovered that all the galaxies in the universe appeared to be moving away from the earth and the further away they were from us the faster their speed of recession. The conclusion was that the universe could not be static but was undergoing dynamic expansion. (See e.g. G. E. Christianson, Edward Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae, (1995) )
Arno Allan Penzias (born 26 April 1933) is an American physicist, radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics who is co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory of cosmology.
In 1965, two physicists at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey studying antenna noise discovered that the entire universe appeared to be bathed in a radiation afterglow of a singular event of vast energy taking place in the far distant past. This event has come to be known in popular terms as the “Big Bang”. We will have more to say about this in a later chapter. See: A. Penzias and G. Wilson, A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080Mc/s, ApJ, 142, 419, (1965).
The book of Genesis does not want to present a factual account but in a certain way wants to bring a tale or narrative comprehensible for most people.
Genesis simply and beautifully describes God’s initial creation, as well as His declaration of His creative purpose. It then describes the coming of sin into the world through the choices made by Adam and Eve, and the consequences of those choices for them and their descendants. Then Genesis follows their descendants’ decline into lawless violence — a decline that God brought to an end by sending a great flood, while saving eight people for a new beginning.
Genesis bringing an account from the creation of the world to the death of Joseph in Egypt, we may later find references to the course of events by the New Testament writers, by which John loves to construct his books in the same manner as the Bereshith, talking of the Word spoken and a Word bringing into being. He looks at the Old world and compares the happenings to the New World. He was convinced that in the Garden of Eden the Word spoken by God, the promise made to the first male and female creature of the human line or human tree, had come into existence with the birth of the NazareneJeshua from the lineage of king David.
Physics of Sound Sensory System of the Inner Ear & Space Time Continuum – By Doctor Emad kayyam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Out of nothingness there was sound. That What had been for ever and is everlasting, has no beginning and no end, has no birth but also no dying or no death, and Which is an incredible Power, a Supreme Being, the Only One capable to create something from nothing. this may be very difficult to believe and is what we consider the only dogma a person of faith has come to take for truth. All other thoughts in our faith are easy to proof and are particularly explained in the Book of books,which we consider the infallible Word of that One and Only One God Who is One.
The question of how to reconcile suboptimal design with special creation is one that has puzzled many Christian groups as well as the Christadelphian community.
While the existence of suboptimal design is not ‘proof’ of evolution, for any special creationist who appeals to design in nature as evidence of special creation, the existence in nature of suboptimal design that directly leads to morbidity and mortality is a problem that is too often ignored.
Too many people want to take the Bible as an minute per minute or literal day to day account, forgetting that one day in the eyes of God is like a thousand years in the eyes of man. And they are also forgetting that perhaps God does not see any reason to have a detailed scientific account of all things when the uneducated also has to understand His Word.
God has given man, created in His image the possibility to see, hear, speak and think, using their brains to make up their minds and to come to conclusions. God has given in nature proof for all things. In it we should come to see how and what and should come to understanding.
In this contemporary world there are still too many Christians who do not want to see what God provided in nature and which treasures He left behind to be discovered by man in time.
The challenge of how to explain the scientific evidence for a very old earth, filled with fossil remains of countless generations of extinct species which are increasingly complex, has been faced by Christadelphians since the earliest days of our community.
Brother Roberts and other early expositors explained this evidence as the product of numerous creations being made and destroyed by God in succession. [1] [2] [3] Later Christadelphian commentators found this solution unsatisfying. Brother Walker objected to it on scientific grounds, pointing out that there was no break in the fossil record providing evidence for the destruction of a previous creation, and that the fossils showed earlier extinct animals had a close physical relationship to modern species which were still alive, indicating a continuity of life rather than a break.[4]
However, a far more challenging problem with which Christadelphian commentators have wrestled, is the issue of sub-optimal features within the creation. Our community has long recognized the imperfections of the human eye, acknowledging it has a blind spot.[5]
We should learn from geology, geographic changes, and take not of the many findings of people who studied several sciences. We not always should accept that they are totally right. Look at some findings, which a few years ago where considered the discovery of the time and the truth which are now considered as outdatedandno longervalableandincorrect.
We should not have to expect from the Bible to give a detailed account, but should see the general line. This over the whole line of the canonical Bible Books has been proven to be happened like it is told and should be enough information to be provided for all people to come to understanding the Works of God.
The Book of the Beginnings teaches us much; it speaks of a time and creation on this earth when animal life was not like it is now and people did not look like we recognise other human beings today. Appearance was totally different.
We should not expect the Bible giving us all details of the creatures, how they looked like or how they behaved. It does not want to specify that humans and apes have are missing an enzyme that would allow them to make their own vitamin C, like other animals do.
To come to faith people do not need to know all sub-optimal features of all living elements.
Many creatures may have features which are sub-optimal, and may let people think this would not be the work of an omnipotent and omniscient Designer. In fact brother Matthew’s description of creation was that “the evidence implies problem, failure and imperfect solution”.[6]
There are several people who also do want to believe like Brother Matthew who proposed that the angels were responsible for creation, rather than God and suggested that since angels are less powerful than God, and closer to humans, it should be expected that their characters and work would be subject to weaknesses and limitations similar to those of humans. Because of that we can see so many ‘faults‘ in creation.
But we should know better and follow the Biblical account which explains what went wrong with creation. The Bereshith tells us how the first human beings reposted and went against the wishes of their Maker, resulting them willing to go on their own, God allowing them to be their own master, with all consequences, we having to face so many problems.
We do not believe God left the work to unskilled, uninformed, and largely unsupervised agents who were compelled to learn on the job as they muddled through generation after generation of mistakes. We do know that every high person speaks in the plural form, using the pluralis majestatis or Royal we, to have their words being taken seriously and as important.
When looking at creation we should consider that it all happened over a long period of time, many thousands of years. God was the Only OneMaker Who established a natural biological process of speciation, which accounts for the variety of creatures in the fossil record and those we see today. That process followed rules established by God in the beginning, and was not blind, random, or accidental. Man revolting against their Maker choose to go their own way and where allowed to go into their own universe. In their own world they could give plants and animals and everything they created a name. they themselves had to cultivate it and work it out how to survive in the world they chose themselves. However, being a natural process without constant guidance from an intelligent being, its results were imperfect. God has always been prepared to work with a less than perfect creation, and it is a Biblical principle that His glory shines with great brightness when His character is reflected by fallible creatures.
The tendency for the evangelical Christian church to source their information outside of mainstream science [7] tends however to blunt the impact of such scientifically informed Christian warnings both against science denialism and basing first principles on demonstrably false views of the natural world. Deconversion anecdotes such as these, culled from a 2002 TalkOrigins post of the month [8] are representative of the one-way traffic towards unbelief that often results when science and faith are pitted against each other.
Young earth creationist organisations remain stubbornly wedded to an a priori commitment to a fundamentalist reading of Genesis. Terry Mortenson, a YEC theologian and historian regards adherence to Biblical literalism as important because he regards it as fundamental to his theological world view:
None of us, including any particular scholar (no matter how respected he is), or even the majority of scholars or Christians, can be the final authority for determining truth. God’s Word must be the authority. And it clearly teaches creation in six literal days about six thousand years ago and a global catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah. We must graciously but uncompromisingly contend for the literal historical truth of Genesis 1–11, which is absolutely fundamental to all other doctrines in the Bible. [9]
What Mortenson fails to so convincingly is justify why a Christian must interpret Genesis 1-11 literally or exactly how our salvation depends on recent creation in six days or a literal world-wide flood. Instead he damns respected 19th century Christian scholars such as Torrey, Warfield and Dana as ‘compromisers’ for being willing to follow the scientific evidence where it led them, even if it contradicted with a particular interpretation of the creation narratives.
This refusal to engage with modern science is particularly acute given that the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against flood geology and recent creationism, and in fact was recognised by conservative Christians well before Darwin. To be blunt, any Christian doctrine that hinges on a literal world-wide flood that laid down the fossils or recent creation in six days has been falsified, and no amount of appeal to a literal reading of Genesis will change observable reality. [10] Mortenson and his colleagues at Answers in Genesis may pride themselves on not compromising on what they believe to be a fundamental principle, but all they are doing is forcing believers to choose between observable reality and dogma, which as the Barna Group has shown is not a strategy for long-term growth of Christianity. More importantly, it is forcing believers to base fundamental doctrines on a description of the natural world that is demonstrably false.
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Notes:
[1] ‘Interested Stranger.—No doubt the earth has gone through changes. Christadelphian. — Have not these changes been in the nature of progress—an advance from a crude to a more perfect state? Interested Stranger.—It has doubtless been so. Christadelphian.—From what sort of a state did this process make its start? Interested Stranger.—That, I think, we cannot ascertain. Christadelphian. — Not in an exact sense perhaps; but are we not justified in saying that if we go far enough back in the record of the earth’s physical history, as written in the rocks, we come to a time when the earth was a molten mass, incapable of sustaining life, either vegetable or animal? Interested Stranger.—That is believed by the geologist; and I do not see that any thing can be said against it.’, Roberts, ‘A Page for the Interested Stranger – No. 2’, The Christadelphian(22.255.405), 1885.
[2] ‘Geology teaches us much; it speaks of a time and creation on this earth when animal life, if not totally, was nearly unknown, and only the lower order of vegetable life covering its face, and this must have existed many thousands of years; and during the whole of that long period, the earth was undergoing wonderful and necessary changes to fit it for a creation of a higher order, and evidently with the creature man in view. There are evidences to show that when this early period had done its work, it was replaced by a creation of a higher order , when animal and vegetable forms of a far more wonderful structure were brought into existence and most admirably adopted to the atmosphere, climate, and peculiarities of that creation; and this, again, must have lasted for many thousands of years, and in its turn been swept away, and a grander creation built on its ruins. And so on, stage after stage.’, Simons, ‘Why Man was not at once made Perfect’, The Christadelphian (21.238.177), 1884.
[3] ‘There can be no reasonable doubt that when the non-fossiliferous rocks were first formed t he heat of the earth’s matter was too intense for vegetable and animal life to exist. There can be no reasonable doubt that it was only in a later age that the lower forms of plant and animal life could exist . And there can be no reasonable doubt that the succeeding ages allowed the creation of still higher and more perfect forms, till we reach the age called the “Tertiary,” and the “Post-pliocene” period of that age, when we are told remains of man are found for the first time. All of this, I say, I do not doubt. The facts of old mother earth’s storehouse are too convincingly inscribed upon her crust to allow me to doubt. At the same time, and amid it all, I have the most implicit faith and unbounded trust in God and His sacred word.’, Welch, ‘Knowledge.- No., 12 Geology’, The Christadelphian (28.329.416), 1891.
[4] ‘If we suppose a sudden and absolute break some 6,000 years ago, or before, resulting in the destruction of all life, and that the creation account of Genesis describes a new creation following, we ought to find some evidence of the break, and we cannot well account for the apparently close relationship that obtains between extinct and existing forms. There are forms becoming extinct in our own day from slow and natural causes. May it not have been so in pre-Adamic times? The professors tell us for instance that some of these ancient birds, whose strides we can see for ourselves from their footprints were from four to six feet long, were like gigantic ostriches.’, Walker, ‘Genesis’, The Christadelphian (47.557.501), 1910.
[6] “So to take the human elements, the frustration, the changes of plan and the solution along with God allowing that process to work its way through, and applying it to a creative environment where the evidence implies problem, failure and imperfect solution.”, Matthew Wigzell, email on his email list “Watchmen“, 17 January, 2013; (brother Matthew has explained this email list was not private, and both he and other members have shared publicly emails by various members of the list.)
[10] See for example Alan Hayward’s “Creation and Evolution – The Facts and Fallacies” (Triangle Books, 1985). Although his arguments against evolution were flawed even in the early 1980s, and are utterly dated now, his critique of flood geology and young earth creationism still hold up today.
6 significant steps in the quest to find the shape of the universe (royaldockside.com)
The latest immersive spectacular at the Peter Harrison Planetarium at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory is the exquisitely rendered exploration of the structure and history of the universe.
Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dark Universe moves from Edwin Hubble’s discovery of an expanding universe to the enigma of dark matter and dark energy.
In between, the design team of astrophysicists and visualisation experts, commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History, take the viewer through time and space in a series of sweeping journeys.
After the Fact (briankoberlein.com)
One of the common accusations made about cosmology is that it is just a kludge model to explain away all the strange things we see in the universe. Galactic redshift? Invent the big bang. Galaxies don’t move the right way? Invent dark matter and dark energy. Tweak any model enough and you can make it fit data. Part of the reason for this is the way scientific discovery is represented. The lone genius has a revolutionary idea that clears away all the stuffy old models. But that’s not how science gets done. Scientific models are often proposed to explain strange data, but the real test is whether the predictions they make hold up under scrutiny. Take, for example, the story of the cosmic microwave background.
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The CMB was actually discovered 25 years before Penzias/Wilson “stumbled” across it… In a 1940 paper, Canadian astronomer Andrew McKellar (1910-1960) published “excellent coincidences obtained between the wave lengths of three of the unidentified, sharp, interstellar lines and lines arising from the lowest states of the CH, NaH, and CN molecules” (from spectral analysis). Based on data obtained, McKellar stated that “the maximum ‘effective’ temperature of interstellar space would be 2.7K” — no reference to “ghost radiation” from the “birth of the Universe”… McKellar’s findings have apparently been largely forgotten.
Could it be that the CMB has been misinterpreted? Could it simply be thermalized starlight, the “temperature of space”?
NASA Has Revisited the Pillars of Creation and It’s Stunning (nerdist.com) In 1995, after one servicing mission to repair a warped mirror, Hubble took the iconic image of the so-called “Pillars of Creation.” It revealed in unprecedented detail three giant columns of cold gas bathed in hot ultraviolet light in the Eagle Nebula. It’s an evocative image. Inside those pillars of gas are the building blocks of solar systems like our own.
“Dark Universe” Opens January 16 in the Hansen Dome Theatre (clarkplanetarium.org) Dark Universe starts 100 million light years away from Earth. After flying to our own Milky Way Galaxy, visualized using the latest scientific data, and to our own planet, viewers arrive at California’s Mount Wilson Observatory, where Edwin Hubble’s discovery that the universe is expanding gave the first hint of the Big Bang. That initial discovery, and ever more sensitive instruments on the ground and in space, led to other breakthroughs that give astronomers an increasingly detailed and precise picture of how our universe formed and evolved.
But these revelations have also uncovered intriguing new mysteries. What is the mysterious Dark Energy accelerating cosmic expansion? What is the invisible Dark Matter underlying galaxies that, together with dark energy, account for at least 95 percent of the universe? What lies beyond our cosmic horizon?
In stunningly detailed scenes based on authentic scientific data, including a NASA probe’s breathtaking plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere and novel visualizations of unobservable dark matter, Dark Universe explores this new age of cosmic discovery and reveals the myst
On Lorser Feitelson’s Life Begins (greg.org)
:Life Begins is oil and collage on a shaped masonite panel around two feet square. The painted elements are the blue space, which often gets called a sky, and a half peach and pit on a small plate. The collage elements are two black&white photographs, or close to it, of a doctor holding a newborn baby, cropped to preserve the caption, which gives the work its title; and an astronomical feature.
Transmitting Live from Mount Wilson: How KCET’s Signal Comes to You (kcet.org)
Television, by its own design, seems like magic — you turn on a box (or, nowadays, a panel), and images and sound magically appear out of nowhere. Of course, how those images and sounds find their way to you isn’t as magical as the experience of enjoying the content that’s being broadcast, but we all know that television signals reach our sets via antenna, cable, or satellite dish.
The exact journey of how those signals travel from the television station to your set is something we usually take for granted, or fail to think about at all, yet it has been a fundamental concern to the people who perform the day-to-day task of keeping KCET on the air for the past 50 years.
Oh, my! I’ve been wrong about this faith thing all this time! Thank you for setting me straight!
Messiah For All 