Worshipping the Bronze Snake

I picked up a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible" (Tom Head, Que Publishing, 2006) from the local library the other day. All sorts of fascinating little tidbits.

Remember the bronze snake that Moses made in Deuteronomy 21:4-9? It eventually found its way to the Temple, where it became an object of veneration for the Israelites. During King Hezekiah's reforms, he smashed up this idol:

In YHWH's opinion [Hezekiah] was a good king; he kept to the standards of his ancestor David. He got rid of the local fertility shrines, smashed the phallic stone monuments, and cut down the sex-and-religion Asherah groves. As a final stroke he pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made; at that time the Israelites had taken up the practice of sacrificing to it—they had even dignified it with a name, Nehushtan (The Old Serpent).

2 Kings 18:3-4

Was Isaiah Familiar with the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh?

I picked up a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible" (Tom Head, Que Publishing, 2006) from the local library the other day. All sorts of fascinating little tidbits.

Apparently (I say "apparently" because I realize there might be other factors at work here than how the book presents things) God expected Isaiah to be familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh. You've likely heard at least a passing reference to this ancient Babylonian tale, which essentially is the Babylonian version of Creation and the Flood, etc, written, according to this book, about 2000 B.C. (but I'm always suspicious of dates prior to about 500 B.C. -- too much guesswork and assumptions needed in most cases).

According to page 56, the Epic of Gilgamesh says this:

Inanna tended the tree carefully and lovingly
she hoped to have a throne and a bed
made for herself from its wood.
After ten years, the tree had matured.
But in the meantime...
the demon Lilith had built her house in the middle.
But Gilgamesh, who had heard of Inanna's plight,
came to her rescue...
[and] Lilith, petrified with fear,
tore down her house and fled into the wilderness.

Isaiah 34:14 (The Message) says this:

Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together,
demons and devils dance through the night.
The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious,
will establish permanent quarters.

(It seems that most translations hide this "Lilith" as "night bird" or similar, but some offer the margin note of the literal Hebrew being "Lilith".)

Samson the Vow-Breaker

I picked up a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible" (Tom Head, Que Publishing, 2006) from the local library the other day. All sorts of fascinating little tidbits.

Samson, you'll recall, was dedicated at birth ...

to God as a nazirite, which means he must be kept away from unclean animals, corpses, fermented food and drink, and that his hair must never be cut. He violates most of his vows -- most notably in [Judges] 14:8-9, where he eats fermented honey from the corpse of an unclean animal....

(pg 104)

The Tanakh

I picked up a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible" from the local library the other day. All sorts of fascinating little tidbits.

One of the things I found interesting: you're probably familiar with the way the folks of Jesus' day referred to the Old Testament, as "The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings". In Hebrew, the "Law" would be "Torah", the "Prophets" would be "Nevi'im", and the "Writings" would be "Kethuvim". Taking the first letter of each word, you get "T.N.K.", and adding in some vowels, you get "Tanakh". This is the word used by adherents of Judaism to refer to what we call the Old Testament.

You Have Rocks in Your Head

From http://creationsafaris.com/crev1003.htm#body80

Rocks in the Head are Good for Balance 10/10/2003
Next time someone says you have rocks in your head, it might be a compliment, depending on where and how big. You have rocks in your inner ears that keep you from falling over. No kidding. Fish, birds, and mammals have tiny crystals of calcite, called otoliths, that are a key ingredient in the sense of balance. This means that we all have tiny chunks of limestone in our heads.

How They Work: Because rocks have inertia, they resist motion when moving forward, and they fall in a gravitational field. The otoliths rest against tiny hair cells in a part of the inner ear called the utricle (in mammals, just below the semicircular canals). When you move or turn over, the hair cells sense the shearing motion of the otoliths, and report the information to the brain. This sense works in conjunction with the eyes to help you know which way is up, how fast you are moving, and which direction you are turning. A good explanation, with illustrations, can be found on the website of a clinical otolaryngologist, Dr. Timothy C. Hain. What They Look Like: Otoliths are microscopic. Fish have one large oblong otolith resting on a bed of hair cells in the macula (the gravity-sensing organ), whereas mammals have many smaller, irregular ones, called otoconia, surrounded by hair cells. Sometimes referred to as “ear dust,” the otoconia are too small, 30 microns or shorter, to be seen without a microscope. They are made up of calcium carbonate in a protein matrix. They form early in the embryo and are maintained throughout life. Some of the vertigo that ails seniors is due to shortage or accumulation of otoconia. Normally, debris is thought to be reabsorbed and new otoconia regenerated, but there is much still to be discovered about this sensory mechanism. In fish, the otoliths are also part of their sense of sound. What’s New: Scientists just found an enzyme essential for proper otolith development. In the Oct. 10 issue of Science1, Sollner et al. found a gene they named Starmaker that when mutated, causes zebrafish to produce irregular stones with sharp edges instead of the smooth, oblong otoliths produced in normal development. This is partly because it switches the biomineralization process to produce aragonite instead of calcite, a different crystal form of calcium carbonate. (Some animals, like amphibians, actually use aragonite in their otoliths.) Donna Fekete, in a review of this paper in the same issue,2 has illustrations of these little rocks in the utricle and describes how they work. She says that the discovery may lead to improved medical treatments for vertigo and more: “In humans, mutations of a related protein have been linked to congenital deafness and defects in tooth mineralization,” she notes. In other words, the proteins that guide otolith development are also essential for hearing, and are involved in producing the other gemstones in our head – tooth enamel. 1Christian Sollner et al., “Control of Crystal Size and Lattice Formation by Starmaker in Otolith Biomineralization,” Science Magazine 25 June 2003; 10.1126/science.1088443. 2Donna M. Fekete, “Rocks That Roll Zebrafish,” Science Magazine 25 June 2003; 10.1126/science.1091171. Did you know this? Did you know that you have limestone in your ears? Did you know it is essential for you to stand and walk? This is amazing stuff. Consider that it is not just dust collected from a cave or wherever, but it is carefully manufactured by proteins and enzymes, that are in turn directed by the DNA code. The result are beautiful hexagonal crystals of calcium carbonate: little gems in your head. They reside in a fluid in your inner ear, enmeshed in a forest of hair cells that can sense every move they make. Then there are the lovely crystals in your teeth – that’s another amazing story, for another time. Everywhere they look, scientists find complex systems of interrelated parts. Slight mutations often cause complete loss of function, sometimes in several apparently unrelated systems. Without these rocks in your head, you would wobble dizzily like a drunken sailor and have a hard time just standing up. When they work, as they usually do, they work very, very well. The rocks are actually the simplest part of the system. The sensory apparatus that reports each movement, and the brain software that continually monitors and interprets the signals and sends the necessary messages to the appropriate muscles for rapid response, is mind boggling in sophistication. How could such things evolve without intelligent design? Get real! Whether it’s in a fish darting in the water, or an eagle dive-bombing on its prey, or a cheetah in pursuit of a gazelle, the hardware and software to accomplish such things surely overwhelms any man-made imitations, and yet we get all excited when Sony builds a robot that can walk upstairs (slowly) without falling over (sometimes). It’s time to give credit where credit is due. Think about these tiny gemstones the next time you watch the Olympics, and see a champion gymnast do a complex routine on the balance beam. When she nails that double-twisting dismount, stand up and cheer – not just for her, but for the Creator who thought of a good use for rocks in the head.

New Pyramids

http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/ and http://www.bosnian-pyramid.com/ report that new pyramids, twice the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza, have been found in Europe.

And The Register says, "Nope".

A Message to Religious Leaders

Jeremiah 23:

"Doom to the shepherd-leaders who butcher and scatter my sheep!" YHWH's Decree. "So here is what I, YHWH, Israel's God, say to the shepherd-leaders who misled my people: 'You've scattered my sheep. You've driven them off. You haven't kept your eye on them.'"

...

"I know what they're saying, all these prophets who preach lies using me as their text, saying 'I had this dream! I had this dream!' How long do I have to put up with this?"

...

"But don't go around pretending to know it all, saying 'God told me this...God told me that....' I don't want to hear it anymore. Only the person I authorize speaks for me. Otherwise, my Message gets twisted, the Message of the living YHWH-of-the-Angel-Armies."

...

I'm telling you: Quit the 'God told me this...God told me that...' kind of talk.

A Message to Political Leaders

Jeremiah 22:2ff:

Listen to what YHWH says, O King of Judah, you who sit on David's throne—you and your officials and all the people who go in and out of these palace gates. This is YHWH's Message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don't take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering!

To Know God

Jeremiah 22:16

He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?"
declares YHWH.

You Make Me Hate My Brother

Joel Turtel has an interesting article over at American Daily that concisely contrasts arguments for Big Government with those against. Here's one of the arguments:

[The government says] "You must pay 50 percent of your salary in state and Federal income taxes to support all our entitlement programs. You are morally responsible to help the poor, unwed mothers, college students, corporations who want tax breaks, big farmers who want farm subsidies, and Mexican illegal aliens who insist on free medical care."

"By what right," I replied, "do you force me to be my brother's keeper at the point of a gun? Why do you think you have the right to rob me to give unearned handouts to people who will vote for you? You turn compassion into compulsion and make me hate my brother."

This is so spot-on, that "forced compassion" leads to ill-feelings toward those recipients of that compassion. I found that very interesting.

Hydroplate Theory

UPDATE: I've just now noticed that most of my images have disappeared (my mistake), so rather than recollect/restore them I'll just suggest you look at the pix on this page in the original: http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/HydroplateOverview7.html
/End of UPDATE


There's an online book (http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/, from which all illustrations below have been taken (apologies that the right-side of the pix are chopped off; go see the originals at the link above)) that presents a "Hydroplate Theory" for the current structure of the earth's surface. I find it fascinating, and although not everyone will want to read the whole book, you might find looking at a few pictures to be interesting.

The basic jist is that prior to the Flood there was a vast underground reservoir about 10 miles below the surface of the earth, and about half a mile deep. There were pillar-like supports dividing this reservoir into interconnected chambers and providing support for the crust above it. During the 1656 years between the Creation and the Flood, tidal forces (from the moon acting on these underground water chambers, just as it acts on today's oceans) caused daily stretching/compressing cycles on these pillars that built up heat and pressure, and that caused partial melting of these pillars allowing iron and nickel to sink to their bottoms while quartz remained nearer the top.



Eventually, in Noah's day, the pressure got so great that some micro-fractures opened up on the surface of the earth. These micro-fractures rapidly spread around the globe (in a matter of hour), causing the beginning of the world-encircling mid-oceanic ridge.






The sudden release of this pressurized water was even stronger than you'd think, because of some interesting physics that take place with water under certain pressures and temperatures, and when the fountains of the deep blew, they blew catastrophically.





The rift quickly eroded, and the eroded portions of the crust formed huge deposits of sediments that quickly buried many organisms, later to become fossils, and that got blown into space to become our modern-day asteroid belt,asteroids, meteoroids (composed largely of iron and nickel), and comets (http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Asteroids2.html), and that blasted craters in nearby planets and moons.

As the heavy overlying crust was eroded away, the underlying pressure forced the remaining crustal plates up; the continents sitting on those plates, lubricated by a still-remaining water layer, slid down the slopes thus created, away from the upraised ridge.



They traveled rapidly, and then came to a rather abrupt slowdown at the end of their trip, causing all sorts of continental crunching and folding and uplifting, giving form to our modern-day folded and up-turned mountain ranges.


The newly exposed thin crustal plates now allowed all sorts of incredible volcanism to burst forth, spewing forth millions of cubic kilometers of lava, giving rise to the vast volcanic deposits we see on the Earth's surface today.

As the continents were compressed by their sudden stop, they thickened (trading thickness for breadth), and rose up out of the flood waters while sinking down to the newly-evacuated underground chambers, choking off further flood-waters. Water rushed off the newly-exposed land into the newly widened space between continents, creating vast sheet-erosion of freshly-laid sediments at first, and then slowing down to a vast "trickle" carving canyons and valleys. Trapped lakes later breached natural dams, causing further erosion (such as the Grand Canyon by the sudden drainage of two vast lakes East of the canyon), or died a slow death of evaporation, leaving great salt flats such as the Salt Flats of Nevada and the Great Salt Lake of Utah.

In the early years after the flood, sea level was much lower than at present, creating land bridges for humans and animals to cross into islands and continents now separated by water barriers. As the continents sank into the underground chambers over the course of several centuries, sea level "rose" to its present level, drowning those land bridges.

The incredible amounts of warm water, leading to high rates of evaporation, combined with the cold atmosphere from all the volcanism and debris and re-radiation of solar heat from so much water reflecting it, and cloud cover preventing solar heat, would have caused centuries of heavy snow, resulting in an "ice age".

All-in-all, a rather fascinating theory that accounts for a lot of observations.

And You Thought Abe Lincoln was a Good Guy...

As a kid I considered Abraham Lincoln to be my favorite U.S. president. I know many such folks consider him likewise. Over the past few years however I've begun to realize that ol' Honest Abe was actually one of the worst things that could have happened to these United States of America.

This article at http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo118.html provides a quick overview that might entice you to rethink your position regarding Lincoln. Here's a snippet to get you started:

Boritt does not deny that Lincoln was a non-believer. "He would not join a church, could not embrace the Christian conception of sin and redemption, kept mostly silent about Jesus, and showed no inclination to build a personal relationship with God," he writes in Newsweek. He "rejected, even ridiculed" the Calvinism of his parents. But Lincoln was a master politician, once defined by Murray Rothbard as one who is "a masterful liar, conniver, and manipulator." There has never been anyone better at it than Lincoln.

...

Nearly every one of Lincoln’s major claims in the Gettysburg Address is not only false, but exactly the opposite of the truth.

...

Lincoln of course did not believe in equality of the races at all. He clearly stated his opposition to it many times, spent his entire adult life advocating "colonization" or deportation of blacks; and supported the Illinois Black Codes and other laws that would deny blacks any semblance of citizenship. He also was behind the "Corwin Amendment" to the Constitution that would have enshrined slavery in the Constitution forever.

The article also points out that our current understanding of a nation known as the United States of America is totally foreign to the founding fathers' understandings, which was that of a collective of several states in America, united. Some good reading, that only takes five or ten minutes to read. I suggest it.

The Attack of the Killer Snow Dog

It was the first snow of 2006, and when I hunkered closer to the ground to snap a picture of 'Reo, he thought that meant I wanted him to jump into my arms. Just as I snapped, he left the ground, and it turned out to look like a vicious attack.

God's Social Justice Scheme

Much of my life I've heard, particularly from non-believers, that the God of the Old Testament is angry and jealous and vengeful and cruel, whereas the God of the New Testament is merciful and loving and forgiving.

Of course, most believers, myself included, find that to be an inaccurate claim.

This time 'round of reading the Old Testament (and I'm really beginning to not like that phrase to refer to that section of the Bible) I have been stunned to realize just how much of God's emphasis in it is on social justice. This snippet from Isaiah 58 is a great example:

The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.

This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.

What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.

The Ethiopian Eunuch

You may remember the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts chapter 8.

In the very earliest days of the church, Philip, the evangelist, met with an eunuch who had traveled to Jerusalem to worship. The eunuch was heading back to Ethiopia, Africa, reading from the book of Isaiah. He must have been self-consciously aware that as an eunuch he was not "good enough" to serve as a priest (Leviticus 21:20). He also probably felt pretty much like a societal outcast anyway because of the stigma attached to being an eunuch. But the eunuch wasn't thinking of these things at the time he was reading from Isaiah, as the passage he was reading was this passage:

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.

According to Acts,

Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

What I discovered last night, is that if they read just three more chapters from this passage in Isaiah 53, the eunuch would have found this little gem in chapter 56:

Do what's right and do it in the right way,
For salvation is just around the corner,

...

Make sure no outsider who now follows God
ever has occasion to say, 'God put me in second-class.
I don't really belong.'
And make sure no physically mutilated person
is ever made to think, 'I'm damaged goods.
I don't really belong.'

for God says:

"To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths
and choose what delights me
and keep a firm grip on my covenant,
I'll provide them an honored place
in my family and within my city,
even more honored than that of sons and daughters.
I'll confer permanent honors on them
that will never be revoked."

Here comes Philip saying, "that time is at hand; no need for you to worry anymore about being an eunuch. You are just as acceptable to God as any uber-priest, because of what Jesus has done."

No wonder the eunuch "went on his way rejoicing".

A Message to Jews

To my fellow sons and daughters of Adam, chosen by God:

Take note of your holy scripture, from these snippets starting in Isaiah 48 (The Message):

And now listen to this, family of Jacob,
you who are called by the name Israel:

God is talking to you.

you who use God's name to back up your promises
and pray to the God of Israel?
But do you mean it?
Do you live like it?

And He wants you to live as a God-fearer, not just act like one.

I know you're a bunch of hardheads,
obstinate and flint-faced,
So I got a running start and began telling you
what was going on before it even happened.

He wants you to be able to see His work in the world, so He's telling you beforehand what it will look like.

This isn't a variation on the same old thing.
This is new, brand-new,
something you'd never guess or dream up.

And it's unique.

You've never been good listeners to me.
You have a history of ignoring me,

But He still expects you to miss the significance of it.

Get out of Babylon! Run from the Babylonians!
Shout the news. Broadcast it.
Let the world know, the whole world.
Tell them, "God redeemed his dear servant Jacob!"

First off, He's going to get you out of Babylonian Captivity, which He has already done.

God put me to work from the day I was born.
The moment I entered the world he named me.
He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate.
He kept his hand on me to protect me.
He made me his straight arrow
and hid me in his quiver.
He said to me, "You're my dear servant,
Israel, through whom I'll shine."

Next, He's going to use you as a mirror of His glory.

this God who took me in hand
from the moment of birth to be his servant,
To bring Jacob back home to him,
to set a reunion for Israel—

And He will raise up a specific Servant to bring you back to His good graces.

But, here's the new thing He mentioned earlier:

He says, "But that's not a big enough job for my servant—
just to recover the tribes of Jacob,
merely to round up the strays of Israel.
I'm setting you up as a light for the nations
so that my salvation becomes global!"

Wow. God's Servant will not merely save you; he'll save the Goyim also!

But Zion said, "I don't get it. God has left me.
My Master has forgotten I even exist."

But when it happens, you still won't "get it".

But even if mothers forget,
I'd never forget you—never.
Look, I've written your names on the backs of my hands.
The walls you're rebuilding are never out of my sight.

But God remains faithful to you.

Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God.
Ponder the rock from which you were cut,
the quarry from which you were dug.
Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,
and Sarah, who bore you.
Think of it! One solitary man when I called him,
but once I blessed him, he multiplied.
Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion,
comfort all her mounds of ruins.

Abraham was but one man, but from him came an entire nation.

Israel is but one nation, but from her comes an entire world of salvation.

Pay attention, my people.
Listen to me, nations.
Revelation flows from me.
My decisions light up the world.
My deliverance arrives on the run,
my salvation right on time.
I'll bring justice to the peoples.
Even faraway islands will look to me
and take hope in my saving power.

Again, God's salvation is not for the Jews only, but also for the Gentiles. And it will come through his Servant:

Just watch my servant blossom!
Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!
But he didn't begin that way.
At first everyone was appalled.
He didn't even look human—
a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.
Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,
kings shocked into silence when they see him.
For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes,
what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."

You've been watching for a Servant who is tall and exalted; you've failed to watch for one that has a ruined face and is disfigured. And what happens will be unthinkable (which should be a warning that you'll resist believing in it).

Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

God's salvation won't be what you expect.

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.

You won't recognize God's Servant, because he won't look like what you expect. And when God's Servant suffers, you'll think it's his own fault.

But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

But this Servant will function as an atoning sacrifice. I daresay few modern Jews today understand this aspect of the Messiah, since burnt sacrifices seem to be more of an historical oddity than a modern reality (but I'm speaking as a Gentile here; I may not know what I'm talking about).

He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

This suffering servant will die. He'll be buried. But yet ....

Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

This sacrifice will result in a great salvation, and the dead servant will see it.

This sounds to me very much like something new, like something unexpected.

Question: Have you ever been taught that your Messiah would be un-recognized and die a horrible death? Because if not, your teaching has not been scriptural, according to Isaiah.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you've been taught wrong about the Messiah, and therefore may have missed him?

Jehovah? Yahweh? LORD? What?!

In the comments to a previous post, I mentioned that the term "Jehovah" is a man-made term and we have no business using it. I was directed to an article that convinced me to retract that claim, at least temporarily, until further evidence swayed me one way or the other. The following is my (slightly edited) reply to that exchange.

---

Well, I've done further research, and my conclusion is that "Jehovah" is indeed a man-made term.

The clinching evidence is that the Tetragrammaton is not always marked in the Hebrew text with the vowels for "Lord". When it is in conjunction with the actual word "Lord", the Tetragrammaton is marked with the vowels for "God", so that the audio reader would render the phrase "Lord God" rather than "Lord Lord". If the Name was truly "Jehovah", the reader could simply read the text as written, "Lord Jehovah", and there would be no need to use the vowel markings for "God".

An interesting side note is that I had a dialog with a Jewish scholar who assured me that "Jehovah" is not the correct term. He claimed that a few of the Jewish elite, himself included, such as the members of the Sanhedrin, know the actual pronunciation of the Name, but are forbidden from revealing it to the world at large. (Yeah, whatever.) He also assured me that "Yahweh" was not the correct pronunciation either.

In talking to him I found it fascinating that I have more respect for his written scriptures than he does, as he has more respect for the interpretation of those scriptures as given by the Oral Law, as delivered by the Sanhedrin, regardless of all the warnings in the Torah against adding to or taking from the written word. His only substantial argument was to appeal to something Jesus said (ironic, ain't it, as he's no Jesus-follower?). He pointed out that Jesus said in Matt 23:2 that because the "Sanhedrin" sits in the Seat of Moses we should obey them. But it seems pretty clear to me from the context that whatever Jesus meant by this statement, he did not mean for us to elevate the traditions of the Sanhedrin over the written word of God.

The Efficacy of Prayer?

Today was a half-day at work, being as everyone was allowed off the afternoon to begin the Thanksgiving Holidays.

I hate being sick on Holidays! If I'm gonna be sick, why must it be on a day I already have off? Arg!

Just before leaving work to go home, I started wondering if that uneasy feeling in my gut was a portent of something worse. As I drove home, I actually thought about praying to God that I don't get sick, but I didn't want to treat God like Santa Claus, so I intentionally did not.

By the time I got home, I was not feeling well at all. I went straight to bed, and slept fitfully for a couple of hours, then spent the next six hours in very much pain. I was absolutely miserable. But Jesus went through much worse; what's a bit of discomfort in light of his sufferings?

But finally, I broke down and started crying out to Jesus and to YHWH for pain relief. I cried out and whimpered and begged and cried. All day long, the problem in my gut had just settled mid-range, and would go neither up nor down. I had no sensation of nausea or bathroom needs; I just had some blockage in my gut that was near intolerable. Within about ten minutes of my crying out to Jesus, all of a sudden I needed a vomit bucket. I hate vomiting, mostly 'cause it takes thirty minutes of nasty feeling to get the process started, and then there's the burning throat and nose, and the bad taste, etc. But this time, the need came on suddenly, and within two minutes I was hurling, Baby, yeah! And it was relatively easy, quick, and no burn or bad taste!

A couple of minutes after that, I felt so much better. I'm not well, but I feel so much better. I have to give credit to Jesus / YHWH for my relief; I was miserable for hours until I prayed, and then shortly after starting to pray, God granted me much relief.

So often, prayer seems to not work for me, but this event helps to re-emphasize that Jesus does hear and act on our prayers.

I want to use this venue to publicly praise Jesus and give him credit for my improvement. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you YHWH! Thank you Spirit!

The Fruit of the Spirit

A wise friend of mine wrote in regard to Gal. 5:22-23:

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.

This is a description of a Christian’s character. This is not about Sunday and Wednesday. This is about how we behave and respond and think every day. At home, at work, at the grocery store, even in traffic.

This Appeals to Me Greatly

For some time now I've been pulled toward the idea of switching careers, to take up the study of the inner workings of microbiology. I'm fascinated by the machinery, by the incredible design of the workings in living cells. This article points up the fact that so much of modern-day "science" is wasted on trying to prove we're just random accidents of nature, when with a re-focusing of our efforts, we could be harnessing sophisticated designs already in existence for solving world hunger and poverty. If you're at all interested, take a quick look-see:
http://creationsafaris.com/crev200611.htm#20061118a