The Divine Creator, Master of heaven and earth, reached forth His hand and blessed the whole, and Adam and Eve began their life at the Garden of Eden in that primeval happiness and intimacy with God, of which their sin was so soon to deprive them and the world.
The Paradise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Though we do have no knowledge about the where about of the Garden of Eden except from the biblical description which places it amid four rivers and names the Euphrates as one of these. Students have usually guessed its location between Ur, Calneh, near the mouth of the Euphrates, a region where the garden might include seashore, river-meadows, and mountains, and the ancient coastline of the Persian gulf.
Noah’s landing place, Mt. Ararat, the centre from which his descendants went forth for the second peopling of the earth, is fairly settled upon as being in the great culminating range of Armenia, the tremendous peaks which tower at the Euphrates’ source. The site of Babylon or Babel has been definitely established by modern research, as has also that of Ur, the city whence Abraham set out upon his journeyings.
There were the waters and by time the dry land appeared and became more and more coloured by plants or cultivated, step by step developing to its present outline. Throughout history there came people who wanted to notate these developments and how man evolved in that big system of things. These successive steps, as detailed in the Bible narrative, are told also by the investigations of science, which show that our globe must indeed have progressed through just this development. Though the biggest fault many people make is that they all want to see it happening in their notation of time, forgetting that God has an other view of minutes, hours and days.
2 Peter 3:8 (ESV): 8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
It is with this knowledge that we should look at the creation of the earth and at the evolution of our world which is still continuing to evolve and undergoing many changes, regularly presenting to mankind for him newly discovered animals and plants.
It was of the productions of God’s fourth day, the sun and moon, with all their wonder and splendour entered the Bible narrative. Those elements at the sky could be used by man as signs. The lights in the firmament of the heaven were given by the Creator so that man could divide the day from the night and have them for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. That is to say, man from a very early period measured his days by the sunlight, his weeks and months by the changes of the moon, and his years by the shifting of the sun and stars. By them he knew the coming of spring and fall, and when to plant and when to reap his crops. They served as guides to travellers by land and sea.
In the wording of the writer of the Bereshith or the Beginning of everything we can find some indication of multiplying elements and even abundance.
Genesis 1:20 (ESV): 20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”
Psalm 104:25 (ESV): 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.
Genesis 8:17 (ESV): 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1 (ESV): And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Inner left panel of the triptych of the Garden of Eartly Delights. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As the culmination of the sixth day of effort, God had created man, formed from “the dust of the ground” the first male and as a companion who might be with him and share his joy in God’s teaching and uplifting, from the rib of man the first female was created, who also could reproduce and bring forth new generations. Both were made in God’s image, with intellect, with an eternal soul, even with something of God’s own creative power, able to create new things.
God was even willing to give responsibility in the hands of man and gave him the right to give the things names. As such in the glow of God’s inspiration Adam named them; and he was given dominion over them, and dwelt among them as their ruler, in peace and joy. At first the beasts had no fear of Adam, nor of one another; for as yet death had not come into the world. Adam did not live, as do we, by meat, by devouring other lives.
The first book of the Bible mentions the need of the first man to have other company than those animals. God could see that it was not so good that man was alone.
Genesis 2:18 (ESV): 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
God’s first charge to man, or perhaps it were better to say the first wisdom He instilled into him, His first fatherly counsel, was that man should live on the fruit and herbs, that his “meat” should be of these alone.
Genesis 2:20–23 (ESV): 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Those first human beings had no shame and found no reason to be clothed. Naked they were part of a universe that was in unison with God’s Wishes. Together they could enjoy early happy days of innocence, ignorant of any evil, because there was not yet such thing. They were at first happy in the presence of God, conversing with Him as with a father, conscious of His ever-presence and at ease and security therein.
God, in His love and joy for His beautiful new creatures had made them a garden, a beautiful paradise for their dwelling in which they could dwell freely. Out of the ground made the Elohim God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, in a marvellous garden surrounded by four great rivers .
God had provided only one or two restrictions. They had to follow His Words and should not eat from a certain tree, which would bring the eater of its fruit, the knowledge of good and bad. The writer of the Torah (or The Law) use symbolically a creeping animal, the serpent. Also later the serpent has usually been treated by artists symbolically to represent that temptation that came over man. The serpent’s cunning words suggest human nature arguing with itself; the baser, beastly parts stirring the mind to ambition and rage and fear.
The more sophisticated ‘animal‘ or ‘possessor of an anima or soul‘ got so much taken by the inner voices that his own thinking got so strong that he dared to go against the Wishes of the Most High. The 1st Adam and the first mannin or first woman could see that their Maker could do everything and had all wisdom. Would it not be nice for them to have such wisdom and power themselves?
The idea that when they would eat of that forbidden tree, they would become like God “… ye shall be as gods” was so much carrying them away from the Will of God that they did not mind trying it.
Genesis 3:5–7 (ESV): 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
As the first human beings had chosen to go against the Will of God and as such went wrong or sinned, their offspring became ‘infected’ as it were by that attitude of them.
Genesis 3:16–24 (ESV): 16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband,and he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He 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.
When He had created man in His own image, and blown His breath in the nostrils of this man, the 1° Adam came into life with blood running through his veins, and could hear His creation talking to Him, giving him the surroundings to live in and to give names for all the things man could find in his life. Though not so happy on his own man requested a partner, so God provided a mannin (the female, part of the red blooded man) out of his rib. This woman, Eve, also could hear the Voice of God and live with her partner in the Garden of Eden, which was a perfect world. This female creature got a dignified role in the creation, and had to bring forth other human beings to populate the earth.
We may understand God expected man and mannin to be been a faithful to each other and to Him. He had organised the system, having created space, heavens, planets, solar systems, time and as such an organised system of things and asked them also to organise their life by first calling the things by name. They had to take care of mother earth.
God created things with the appearance of age. This allows a specific ‘literal’ interpretation of Genesis 1, 2. It is suggested that miracles such as the turning of water into wine indicate that the miraculously provided wine was created with an apparent age. This idea is extended for example to God creating trees with apparent annual rings that God had fabricated. God organised the whole system so that everything would become clear as soon as man got more insight in those things. Several different combinations of radioactive isotopes in the rocks independently indicate an age of several billion years, that way people can come to place the things in the time indication they are following, which can be different now from one group of humans to an other. Today we may find the Gregorian calendar, the Jewish, an Islamic and Julian calendar in use, making it that for each of these population we are in ‘an other time’.
God normally provided sun, moon and darkness to provide a time indication. This a lunisolar calendar is still being followed by the Jews. The time indication given by God for man is different than God’s time indication for Himself, being one day a thousand years.
Gen 1:5 NSB God called the light day. He called the darkness night. There was evening and there was morning, one day.
2Pe 3:8 NSB Do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (Psalm 90:1, 4)
Psa 90:4 NSB In your sight a thousand years are like a single day, like yesterday, already past like an hour in the night.
Hebrew or Jewish calendar (הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, ha’luach ha’ivri), showing Adar II between 1927 and 1948
In the time span of God man could live freely but had to respect the days of God. By time passing, days were added and as such man was requested to organise special days for God. These holy days could be determined by the the dates on that calendar of the People of God or Hebrew calendar. With it people can organise for Jewish holidays and for Christian holidays, to get the dates right for the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits, and daily Psalm readings, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is still used for religious and for civil purposes, providing also a time frame for agriculture. Although the civil calendar usage has been steadily declining in favour of the Gregorian or Western calendar also sometimes called the Christian calendar, which is internationally the most widely used civil calendar.
The Julian Day calendar, introduced by the authority of Julius Caesar in 46 bce, brings a system of astronomical dating allowing the difference between two dates to be calculated more easily than conventional civil calendars with their uneven months and is still used by used by some Orthodox Churches. Dates in the Julian calendar are sometimes designated “Old Style.”
An Election Entertainment featuring the anti-Gregorian calendar banner “Give us our Eleven Days”, 1755. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
God gave preparation days and special days to remember and to take rest. For mankind it had to be followed and to be a “legacy,” or “inheritance” (nachala) (Time (of) Year) Later in history we shall see that the Roman emperorConstantine organised the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, one of the key concerns was to determine a date for celebrating Easter that would be the same across the board for all Christians and in accordance with the celebration of the god of fertility Eostre, the namesake of the festival of Easter. Constantine wanted to have all the Christian festivities falling together with those of the Romans and having the Christians to accept the Roman tri-godhead celebrations in their meetings. The determination of a dating method for the pagan feast which later became a holiday in many Christian communities called Easter, got all the different Christian communities who came to accept the tri-une godhead to celebrate Easter on the exact same day, whilst the other true Christians kept on celebrating God’s Days but got it more difficult to know which day had to be celebrated. As such the Romans and those who got more power from emperor Constantine hoped they would not be able to follow God’s holidays and soon would join the public holidays.
But before the adversaries of God had taken most in control god took care that His Word would keep sounding all over the world at all times. The order and organisation offered to man by god was rejected by the man and mannin, they questioning His right to govern everything and to decide everything, being Master over everything and especially over the Knowledge of good and evil (with the Tree of good and evil). The order of hierarchy became damaged and God had to provide a new world order with man having now given the right to organise everything himself. After the fall, the first sin of man, the human beings could receive all the robes in their hands to arrange life.
Destructive plate margin; oceanic crust is forced below the continental crust because oceanic crust is denser than continental crust. Friction between the moving plates causes earthquakes. The heat increase due to friction and being pushed into the asthenosphere causes the oceanic crust to melt, and reduced density forces the newly formed magma to rise. The magma rises up through weak areas in the continental crust, eventually erupting as one or more volcanoes.
Man and mannin were cast out of the perfect world which was all the time in harmony. Now they came in the outer boarders where God had allowed the world continually to develop. From then onwards people would feel the creation evolving with among others the movement of the earth’s liquid interior causing earthquakes and volcanoes as lava is forced to the surface and the plates of the earth shift. However, movement of the earth’s liquid core also creates the magnetosphere, a magnetic field shielding the earth from cosmic rays. This all made part of God’s Plan but now man got more knowledge of it and had to bear the consequences of their actions contrary to the Will of God. Whilst at the beginning, man had not to fear volcanoes, they now came to fear them for their destruction. Instead of gaining the knowledge they had hoped for, becoming equal with or even higher than God they lost their innocence and their inner peace, coming not to see straight ahead what possible benefits such eruptions of volcanoes could have. Volcanoes are part of the earth’s carbon cycle, regulating temperature and carbon balance so that life can survive and flourish.
God had everything placed so nicely in His system, but man wanted to be master over their own system. Now they got it. Perhaps the Garden of Eden was such a sacred place where there would not have been any problem with the further development of the universe that the movement of the earth’s surface plates over-there would not have created deadly earthquakes and tsunamis. Spread out over the earth’s surface people had to find places to live which perhaps were not provide for such conditions at first, but with man moving to the wrong places, making the wrong decisions to live somewhere they came to suffer by those actions of the earth were the movement of these plates is also essential to life on earth and were the streams of water are also necessary for the development and fertilisation of the soil.
The God of order had everything in His ‘head’ and enclosed in His ‘heart’ and had everything foreseen for His human beings. The divine Creator is the One to Whom belongs Rulership and awe. Dominion and fear are with Him. He establishes order in the heights of heaven and He makes peace in His high places.
Job 25:2 NSB »Rulership and awe belong to God. He establishes order in the heights of heaven.
Adam and Eve were created perfect. We do believe, unlike most trinitarian Christians, that God made His creation perfect and that Adam and Eve had everything to be and to stay perfect. God was not a cruel god who imposed laws he knew man could not keep. The Divine Creator did very well know that the Laws or Commandments He gave to the human beings could be followed by every human being. In case Eve had listened to God and not driven her own will, there would not have been any problem. Now she got judgement over her and got damned with suffering. With her the 1° Adam also was taken into to temptation and into the damnation of the fall. Man became consigned to perdition, being made from dust he was to return to dust again.
Gen 2:7 NSB Jehovah God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The man became a living being.
Gen 3:12-19 NSB Adam said: »The woman you put here with me gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.« (13) Then Jehovah God said to the Eve: »What is this you have done?« The woman answered: »The serpent deceived me, and I ate.« (14) So Jehovah God said to the serpent: »Because you have done this you are cursed above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. (15) »And I will put enmity (hostility) (hatred) between you and the woman, and between your offspring (seed) and hers. He will bruise (overwhelm) (crush) you in the head, and you will bruise (overwhelm) (crush) him in the heel.« (Romans 16:20) (16) He said to the woman: »I will greatly increase your pains in childbirth; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.« (17) He said to Adam: »Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (18) »It will produce thorns and thistles for you. You will eat the plants of the field. (19) »You will eat your food by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground. You came from the ground. For dust you are and to dust you will return.«
Job 34:15 NSB »All flesh would perish and man would return to dust.
Psa 90:3-10 NSB You turn men back into dust and say: »Return, O sons of men!« (4) In your sight a thousand years are like a single day, like yesterday, already past like an hour in the night. (5) You sweep mortals away in the sleep of death. They sprout again in the morning like grass. (6) In the morning they blossom and sprout. In the evening they fade and wither away. (7) Your anger consumes us. We are troubled by your rage. (8) You set our sins in front of you. You put our secret sins in the light of your presence. (9) Indeed, all our days slip away because of your fury. We live out our years like one long sigh. (10) The days of our lives are seventy or eighty years if we are in good health. But the best of them bring trouble and misery. Indeed, they are soon gone, and we fly away.
The God of order and love presented an ending to the suffering, an end to the misery by the end of life. But this end of life does not fit the Plan of god and therefore He provide a solution to return the consequences of disobedience in the hope more human being would come to obey His orders and be prepared to honour Him as the Only One God.
To help them to find the right way to restore the damaged relationship He continued to give His Word with the people in the world.
Ides of March: What Is It? Why Do We Still Observe It? (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
Aside from its historical connection, the concept of the Ides of March would have resonated with English citizens in 1599, the year Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar was probably performed, Ziegler said.
“This whole business of the Ides of March and timekeeping in the play would have had a strong impact on audiences,” she said.
“They were really struck by the differences between their Julian calendar [a revision of the Roman calendar created by Caesar] and the Gregorian calendar kept in Catholic countries on the continent.”
Because the two calendars featured years of slightly different lengths, they had diverged significantly by the late 16th century and were several days apart.
Fisher: The coming of spring (themorningsun.com)
Anxious people stop me on the street and at parties. I can tell by their expression that they are worried. I clasp their hand firmly in both of mine. “What is wrong, friend?” In a hushed tone they respond, “When is Easter coming?” “Why, the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the Vernal Equinox,” I assure them.
We orbit the Sun every 365.24+ days each year. Think of a clock face, with the Winter Solstice at 12 o’clock, and the Summer Solstice at 6 o’clock. Our planet moves counterclockwise on the clock face. Earth is now very near 9 o’clock, the spring, or Vernal Equinox for the Northern Hemisphere. It will occur at 6:45 p.m. on March 20. (The Southern Hemisphere reverses these: they are entering their fall.)
Cultures throughout history have celebrated the coming of spring, thanking the gods for delivering them from the miseries of winter. Sacrifices, feasts, wild parties and lots to drink were accessories to this time. It was important to understand when spring arrived so farmers knew when to plant their crops. The atmosphere was one of joy and rebirth.
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Among the oldest such festival is Passover, April 3 this year, a Jewish celebration of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. Christian Easter, the most important celebration in their calendar follows from this. Jesus was crucified after the Passover feast of Seder, in 30 CE. Easter is a moveable feast, which means that it does not occur on the same date every year.
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??
Gen 3:13-24 NHEBJE Jehovah God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(14) Jehovah God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
(15) 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.”
(16) To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
(17) To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (18) Thorns also and thistles will it bring forth to you; and you will eat the herb of the field. (19) By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
(20) The man called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (21) Jehovah God made coats of skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.
(22) Jehovah God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…” (23) Therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
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Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, Adam and Eve, detail. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Reflections on Genesis 3:15 (gentlereformation.com)
In one short statement the underlying theme and meaning of history is laid bare. Whatever one says about the history of mankind, therefore, whether they’re looking at the specks of some seemingly insignificant incident, or the grand movements of a mighty nation, if this overarching perspective is fundamentally absent from their thinking, the task of making sense of human experience, whether it be the past or the present or the future, will inevitably fail to reflect the deep currents of reality. As a result, the historian’s work of collating data into a meaningful whole will inevitably run astray.
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The relationship between these two kingdoms will be marked with hostility. As God put it, “I will put enmity between you and the woman.”
This enmity isn’t of a casual sort, as if the citizens of each kingdom are at a ballgame rooting for a different team. The antipathy and opposition will be nothing less than absolute, resulting in the shedding of blood and even the taking of life. It is warlike hostility (Rev 11:7, 12:7, 13:7, 19:11-19). It should be thought of in terms of swords and shields, not empty threats or an unwillingness to attend the same social event.
An offering for sin (dailymedit.com)
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent, the devil, said all the right things to Eve, presenting himself as a good friends, who was only looking out for her. But it was coming from a “heart” full of poisonous venom. Jesus refused to commit himself to man because he knows what was in man (John 2:24-25).
So if God wants to really change man, giving him a new set of rules and regulation will not do, it is changing his nature, the answer is a new creature (2Corinthians 5:17). And in Jesus old things have passed away and all things become new and that starts with who we are on the inside. Paul said that none by following the law will gain the favour of God because God still looks at the heart and not at appearance.
A sacrifice is dead and Paul wrote that we have died with Christ nevertheless we live (Galatians 2:20). We have died to sin and the passion of the flesh and alive to righteousness. By faith, we identify with Christ in his death and in his resurrection life.
Humble beginnings: a rib and an apple (annabelfrage.wordpress.com)
The serpent undulated in happy figures of eight, weaving itself round her legs, up her legs, round her waist, and it was a very nice serpent, despite its legs, not at all cold and slimy, but warm and smooth to the touch. Gently, it urged Eve closer and closer to the tree, whispering that once she’d eaten, she would know as much as God, and why should a dude with a lot of hair and a matching beard call all the shots, huh?
“Why not a pretty lady like you instead?” it hissed, and Eve definitely thought it was onto something here. Besides, she really, really wanted to know what Adam dreamed about each night. She rached for the closest apple. It fell, ripe and round, into her hand.
“Yummy, yummy,” the serpent said, caressing her hips with his coils “And you know what they say, don’t you? An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
“Doctor?”
“Never mind. Once you’ve eaten it, you’ll get to know everything about doctors.” It snickered.”Good one,” it said to itself, attempting a high-five with its stunted little forelegs.
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“You’re the woman, soon enough you’ll be the seductress that tempts Adam to taste. Cherchez la femme, as the French say.”
Eve didn’t understand. But she did know it was right; she would tempt Adam, she had to, making them both equally guilty in the eyes of God.
Choose Positivity (matheusyuhlung.wordpress.com)
Today, if you meet ten negative people and one Caleb or one Joshua, I urge you to listen to them instead – the voice of positivity; as it is said I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
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.
Messiah For All 