Hell part 5

Next we will look at the Greek word Hades as translated into hell in the New Testament, in KJV English Bibles. It occurs twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, three times in Acts, and four times in Revelation. Even though Hades and Gehenna are both translated into hell, they are not the same place. In fact, Hades started out as the Greek god of the underworld, the place all people go when they die. When the ancients translated the Hebrew bible (What is now called the Old Testament) into The Greek bible called the Septuagint, they translated the Hebrew word Sheol into the Greek word Hades. Interestingly, the NIV retains the Greek word Hades and also uses "realm of the dead." It does not change the word to hell like it does Gehenna.  Other versions change the word to death or the grave instead. Read about the Christian views of Hades here. (Link)

As you can see from the above link, the different versions of christianity hold many differing beliefs about hell or hades. I can tell you that the church of christ denomination which I have attended for over forty years, teaches very little about hell. It has no sophisticated theology or doctrine of hell or hades. Basically, people are taught that if you do not believe the gospel and get baptized (essential) you go to hell, what they view as eternal damnation/separation from god, when you die. No ifs ands or buts. The beliefs about hell of most people in the pews is very simplistic.

Lets look at the verses with the Greek hades translated into the English hell in the KJV:
*Matt 11:23- here the city of Capernaum is being told it will go to hell (hades in the NIV)because it didn't repent after Jesus performed miracles there.
*Matt 16:18- this is the famous passage where Jesus tells Peter "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." (NIV-gates of hades will not overcome it.)
*Luke 10:15-This passage repeats the sentiment in Matthew 11:23 that Capernaum will go to hell.
*Luke 16:19-29 contains the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar. In it a poor man dies and finds comfort "in the bosom of Abraham." A rich man, who apparently never helped the poor man, dies and finds himself in hell being tormented and burnt by flames. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to give him water to cool his tongue, Abraham says the gulf between the two places is too great. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of hell. Abraham says they already have the law and the prophets. If they don't believe them, they won't believe someone back from the dead. Hell here is hades in the NIV. Also, let us remember this is a parable not a story about a supposed actual event.
*Acts 2:25-36 contains part of Peter's sermon to a crowd, on the day of Pentecost, after Jesus was taken up into heaven. In it Peter quotes Psalm 16:10- "For thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt though suffer thine holy one to see corruption." Peter claims that since David died and was buried he can't have been talking about himself, so he must have been prophesying about Jesus. Jesus supposedly did not remain in the land of the dead and his body did not rot. The NIV calls this hell Hades in Acts and Sheol in Psalms. I think it is also important to note that the word "holy" in both Acts and Psalms does not mean divine. It means righteous or pious.

In the next post, we will look at hell/hades in the book of Revelation.

Imagine a world without religion.

I present for your viewing a video that was blocked from support on Youtube. It is from a content creator called "Godless Cranium." I am posting it here to show opposition to censorship of what others consider offensive to religion. Select "continue" to watch the video if  you come to a blank screen.

Imagine a World Without Religion

Hell part 4

Now that we have covered hell in the Old Testament, we will look at the New Testament. Strong's concordance has 9 instances of the word Hell occurring in the book of Matthew. All but two of them are from the Greek word Gehenna which refers to a currently unknown valley outside Jerusalm where children were supposedly sacrificed to gods by fire. It may also have been a burning trash dump. The exact location appears to be a modern mystery, but the name lives on as a kind of metaphor for eternal destruction or punishment after death. Gehenna is in Jewish literature, as well as in the Christian Bible. Gehenna as hell also occurs three times in Mark, once in Luke, and once in James.

Lets look at what the New Testament KJV and NIV say about gehenna/hell in these verses:

*Matt 5:22-  Both versions say that anyone who calls his brother a fool will be in danger of the fires of hell.
*Matt 5:29-30 Both versions say it is better to lose your eye or your right hand (after cutting it off to keep from sinning) than to have your whole body cast into hell.
*Matt 10:28-Tells us to fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
*Matt 18:9-Repeats the sentiment of Matthew 5 and tells us again that it would be better to lose body parts (eyes) rather than sin and get our whole body thrown into the fire of hell.
*Matt 23:15-Asks the scribes and pharisees if they can escape the damnation (divine judgement or sentence) of hell.
*Mark 9:43-47 Again, it's better to have body parts cut off (hands, feet, and eyes) than to be cast into hell with the fire that never goes out (NIV) or that can never be quenched (KJV). Some versions include multiple iterations of "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." This is a phrase from Isaiah 66:24. That not all versions repeat the saying is a sign that it is not repeated in the oldest manuscripts. Worm here means a gnawing worm that preys upon dead bodies. 

Here is the whole passage from Isaiah 66:22-24, which is the very end of the book of Isaiah and is in the context of what appears to be an end times prophesy to the Israelites. "As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me," declares the lord, "so will your name and descendants endure. From one new moon to another and from one sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the lord. "And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to mankind."

Remember, this was written to Israelites, not Christians. They are told their descendants will be able to look at the dead bodies of Yahweh's enemies being burnt and eaten by worms forever. This the passage that Mark is referring to when he speaks of  Hell, though Isaiah does not name it hell/gehenna. So, is this passage literal or metaphorical? If it is metaphorical, what is the reality behind the metaphor? Notice that people are not suffering eternal torment, their dead bodies are just being subject to eternal grossness which I assume gives some kind of satisfaction to the people who get to live on the new earth because they didn't rebel against Yahweh.

More verses:

*Luke 12:5-Says to fear the one who has the power (KJV) or authority (NIV) to cast or throw you into hell.
*James 3:6- "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." 

There you have it. Gehenna/hell has a fire that can not be extinguished, dead bodies of those who rebel against god, immortal worms eating the dead bodies. The dead bodies were cast into hell by someone with power and authority and hell destroys both body and soul and tongues. However, gehenna is not the only hell in the New Testament.

More to come. 

Isaiah chapters7-9, part 3

Today we finish up the Christmas posts with Isaiah chapter 9.

After chapter 8 ended with a dark curse for those who do not speak according to god's word, verse 9:1 says its not the end of the world. "In the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles...The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the shadow of death a light has dawned." Matthew 4:13-16 claims this was a prophecy that was fulfilled when Jesus lived and preached in Galilee. However, there are no contemporary extrabiblical sources that place Jesus in that place at that time. The (unknown) author of Matthew could very well have written his story with an eye to choosing vague prophetic sounding passages that could do double duty.

The passage goes on to talk of the gentile nation (In the Galilee region) being enlarged and increasing their joy. The yoke of oppression will be lifted and war time clothing burnt. According to my study bible this did happen, kind of. Around 701 BCE, the Assyrian army lost its hold on the region. If the author of Isaiah was deliberately projecting his writing into the future, as though he was writing from the past, he would have known that. But what does that have to do with Jesus? Why do some verses of Isaiah apply to Jesus and others do not? Shouldn't real prophecy be internally consistent? The easy answer is that the authors of the New Testament gospels picked and chose the ones that would help enforce the story they wanted to tell.

Verses 6-7 says that this improvement in the region will happen... "for to us a child is born, to us a son is given..." Okay, who is US here? Ahaz and his young woman, or Isaiah and his prophetess? And what son? Immanuel or Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz? Or is it talking about Jesus as Christians claim? Could it have two meanings?

More about this child from verses 6-7: "and the government will be on his shoulders." Did that happen to Jesus? Nope. "And he will be called Wonderful Counselor." Did that happen to Jesus?
Not anywhere in the New Testament. Christians do call him that now, BECAUSE of this passage. He will also supposedly be called "Mighty God." Was Jesus ever called that? Not in the Bible. "Everlasting," nope. "Father," nope. "Prince of Peace," nope. If he was ever called any of these things outside of the bible, it was usually because someone had read this passage and assumed it was talking of Jesus.

Verse 7 says "of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." Did that happen? First of all Jesus never had a government, unless you count the government of the Catholic church and the Vatican. I hope you don't. It certainly has not had a reign of peace. "He will reign on David's throne." Did that happen to Jesus? No. However, the gospels tried to get around that by claiming Jesus had direct lineage from David, and christians say that he "reigns" with god in heaven on the "true throne of David." It's all metaphorical don't you know. At least the parts christians find convenient to be metaphorical. The virgin birth, that's literal.

Continuing on in verse 7, the son will establish and uphold David's kingdom "with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever." Did that happen? Uh, no. In fact it didn't happen to the Jewish nation after Assyria left either, they were eventually conquered by the Babylonians. There was no justice and righteousness forever, and no peace without end. This section ends by saying "the zeal of the lord almighty will accomplish this." What happened? The prophecy failed, no matter who it was about.

We will not finish chapter 9 because it is blatantly obvious that it can not be applied to Jesus in any way. But I urge you to continue reading to the end. It's got a lot of interesting stuff about the wrath of god against Israel and false prophets. (I think we can assume the author of Isaiah does not consider himself one. )There is even a mention of cannibalism at the end of the chapter.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and Warm Wishes to all my readers. Until next week.

Isaiah chapters 7-9, part 2

Now let us look at Isaiah chapter 8. God tells Isaiah to write on a scroll, with an ordinary pen, the name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. This means "quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil." Then two priests are to be called in as witnesses.

After that, Isaiah went to the prophetess, presumably his wife, they had sex and she had a son. They named him the above wacky name because god told them to. God also told Isaiah that before the child could say mommy and daddy, the king of Assyria would plunder Damascus and Samaria, the locations of the kingdoms of Aram and Israel. So is this child the same child mentioned in Isaiah 7:14? It is unclear. Why would Isaiah's child be a sign to King Ahaz? That makes no sense to me.

Next is a long poetic passage talking about this invasion. The end of verse 8 is the phrase "O Immanuel" which you may have heard in christmas carols. This is the name that was supposed to be given to the child in Isaiah 7:14 It means "god is with us," a completely different name than the one Isaiah supposedly gave his newborn son. The phrase "god is with us," echoing the name, is also at the end of verse 10.

In verse 18, Isaiah says, "Here I am, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion." Well, whoop-dee-doo. A guy has some kids, which lots of guys all over the world do, and that means they are some kind of special portent of coming destruction? Why should anyone believe him? What difference would it have made if he hadn't had any kids?

Yes, Assyria invaded. But when was this written? Before, or after the fact? It is unknown, but most probably after. If it was written after the invasion, with Isaiah projecting his past self into the future, how are we to know whether or not he actually recieved any message from god beforehand? Nobody was fact checking him then, just as very few people bother to fact check religious figures today. Should we just believe anyone who says they predicted a particular thing would happen and it happened after they said it? Of course, not. This is what makes biblical prophecy so problematic. The likelihood of actual detailed prophetic statements before specific events is highly unlikely.

The chapter ends with a screed against those who would consult mediums and spiritists who talk to the dead. Isaiah says they should enquire of their god instead, meaning him, the supposed mouthpiece of god. Then he goes on to pronounce a fancy curse on those don't consult god (him).

And what does all this have to do with Jesus?

To be continued.

Isaiah chapters 7-9, part 1

Before I continue on with my study of hell, I thought I would do my "Christmas" post. We will look at Isaiah 7-9 because parts of it are often brought out at Christmas, as a supposed prophesies of the birth of Jesus.

Verse 7:14 says, "Therefore the lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Matthew 1:23 says that Mary concieved Jesus by the holy spirit to fulfill this passage in Isaiah. So, is this passage really prophesying the birth of Jesus?

First of all, If we go to the beginning of chapter 7 and read through the chapter , we see Ahaz, the king of Judah, is in a war with the kings of Aram and Israel. Isaiah is told by God that the kings of Aram and Israel will not conquer Judah. If they do not stand firm in their faith, they will not stand at all. God offerred Ahaz a sign that this would happen.  Ahaz didn't want a sign from god, so god got irritated and gave him a sign anyway.The sign is the birth of the previously mentioned child. Notably, before this child "knows enough to to reject the wrong and choose the right" the armies of Assyria would invade the land and destroy Aram and Israel. (In fancy poetic language)

Does this sound like it has anything to do with a baby to be born at least 700 years later? Of course not. What about the virgin who was supposed to have this child? Who would be the child's father if this child was to be born before the Assyrian army came? Surely not god. So then, his mother wasn't actually a virgin when the child was born, if it had a human father. It turns out that this passage in Hebrew uses the hebrew word "almah", which has been translated here as virgin. However, this word can also denote a young, newly married woman. She obviously didn't remain a virgin. It is unclear who the father was supposed to be. My study bible suggests it might have been Isaiah, but it makes more sense to me if it was Ahaz. At any rate, the child was supposed to be born in that time period.

Notice that this young child will not yet know right from wrong when the Assyrian army comes. Was there a time when Jesus did not know right from wrong? Was he divine or not? Was he the son of god or not? Was he god in the flesh or not? Is this whole prophecy about Jesus, or was just the virgin part about Jesus? How does that work? How would anyone know which parts were supposed to be about a coming child of god/christ/messiah and which parts were not? What invasion was Jesus's birth supposed to be a sign of? What nations would be invaded before he was old enough to reject the wrong and choose the right?

Plus, when was Jesus ever called Immanuel? Well if you search the New Testament, you will come up empty. Matthew 1:23 is the only place that name occurs and there he is quoting Isaiah. Could it be that Matthew just cherry picked a verse about a young woman having a child and said "See, this proves Jesus was prophesied about?" But was he?

What do Jews have to say about this passage found in their scriptures? (Link) The link shows a similar line of thought to what I just covered. If Isiah 7:14 is not a prophecy, and Jesus was not born of a virgin or called Immanuel, then the author of the book of Matthew made that part up on purpose to try to convince his audience of the divinity of Jesus.  Could he have made up the whole book, most of it, or other parts? Was Jesus even born at all? The author of Matthew was not an eyewitness to the birth, and we don't even know who he was or where he got his information. Why should we believe him?

More to come.

Hell part 3

As we have seen, the Old Testament hell is actually sheol, which is not the same as the hell taught in christianity. It is the realm of the dead, the grave. It is underground or some nebulous place in the depths, "down below." It is often associated with a pit. The word pit associated with the grave or death in the Old Testament often comes from the Hebrew word "bowr." This word appears to have meanings associated with a hole in the ground that is a well or cistern, or a dungeon. The word pit  associated with death and the grave in the KJV  is also sometimes translated from the Hebrew word "shachath." This word has connotations of a ditch or a trap. Notice that these are all words associated with under the ground or holes in the earth.

Sometimes the word destruction is associated with sheol. Then, it is often from the word abaddon. They are often seen together as in "death and destruction." (Sheol and Abaddon) Abaddon appears to be a distinct part of hell, perhaps a bottomless pit. There is that word pit again.

Besides Sheol, the Old Testament does have a few descriptions of a punishment after death at some "end time," but it is not named as a particular place. Some christians claim these are descrptions of hell. Let's look at some of them.

First let's look at Daniel chapter 12: 1-2. "....at that time your people-everyone whose name is found written in the book-will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth  will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel is an apocalyptic/prophetic book, written anonymously, about 200 years before Jesus, according to many scholars. My NIV study bible says its writers think Daniel was written around the time period of its events, about 560 BC, at least partly by Daniel. I  have not studied the book of Daniel in depth, but this passage does appear to refer to an afterlife. The phrase "your people"  obviously refers to jews. Why do christians think it speaks to them? The book of Daniel was written by Jews for Jews. Also, in practical terms, what does it mean to awaken to everlasting shame and contempt?

The study bible references lead me from Daniel to another supposedly prophetic book, Isaiah. Again, this book was written by Jews, for Jews. In chapter 26, a future day of judgement is being sung about. In verse 11, Isaiah begs Yahweh to let the fire reserved for his enemies consume them. In verse fourteen we see Isaiah say that God's enemies are dead "they live no more." Yahweh "punished them and brought them to ruin." He wiped out all memory of them. This doesn't sound like a literal hell. In fact, from there the study bible leads me to Psalm 9:5 where the worse thing that can happen to the wicked is that they are utterly destroyed, their names blotted out, and the memory of them perishes. Really? Okay, being destroyed is totally the pits. We have only one life.  But once you are gone, so what if noone remembers you. You won't know.

Let us remember that Daniel, Isaiah, and Psalms are written in poetic and metaphoric language. They are trash talking about the enemies of the Israelites. I don't think these passages were meant to be doctrinal statements about what happens to nonbelievers in christianity.

Hell part 2

We are going to look at the Old Testament passages where Sheol is translated into "hell" in the King James version. We are doing that because Strong's concordance was created based on the King James. We will compare that to how the NIV scholars translated those passages. My NIV study bible has no references for hell in the Old Testament in its concordance. The words "death" or "grave" in the NIV  replace the word hell from the KJV. The Hebrew is sheol for each of these.

1- Deut. 32:22, sheol is translated to "realm of death below" in the NIV. There is a fire from god's wrath.
2- 2 Sam. 22:6 talks of the cords of the grave.
3- Job 11:8 says the mysteries of god are deeper than the depths of the grave
4- Job 26:6 "death is naked before god"
5- Psalm 9:17 "the wicked return to the grave"
6- Psalm 16:10 "you will not abandon me to the grave"
7- Psalm 18:5 "the cords of the grave entangled me" This is very similar to the verse in 2 Samuel.
8- Psalm 55:15 "let them go down alive to the grave"
9- Psalm 86:13 "you have delivered me from the depths of the grave"
10- Psalm 116:3 "anguish of the grave came upon me"
11-Psalm139:8 "if I make my bed in the depths (sheol) you are there" this is talking about god.
12- Prov. 5:5 "her feet go down to death" talking about the "adulterous woman."
13- Prov. 7:27 "her house is a highway to the grave"
14- Prov 9:18 "her guests are in the depths of the grave"
15- Prov. 15:11 "death and destruction lie open before the lord"
16- Prov. 15:24 "The path of life leads upward.....to keep him from going down to the grave."
17- Prov. 23:14 "punish him with the rod and save his soul from death"
18- Prov. 27:20 "death and destruction are never satisfied."
19- Is. 14:15 "you are brought down to the realm of the dead to the depths of the pit"
20- Is. 28:15 "with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement"
21- Is. 28:18 "your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand"
22- Is. 57:9 "you descended to the very realm of the dead"
23- Eze. 31:16 "I brought it down to the realm of the dead"
24- Eze. 31:17 "they too had gone down to the realm of the dead"
25- Eze. 32:21 "from within the realm of the dead, the mighty leaders will say"
26- Eze. 32:27 "who went down to the realm of the dead"
27- Amos 9:2 "though they dig down to the depths below"
28-Jonah 2:2 "from deep in the realm of the dead"
29- Hab. 2:5 "he is as greedy as the grave"

Again, these are all the NIV versions of the passages where sheol is translated into "hell" in the KJV Old Testament. We see from these that NIV scholars determined they should be translated as death, the grave, the depths, and the realm of the dead.
I also looked up "death" in the Strong's concordance and found no instances where the KJV translators used death for sheol.The Hebrew word translated as death was an entirely different word. However, when I looked up "grave" in the Strong's concordance, I found 30 instances where sheol had been translated as "the grave" instead of hell. So, even the KJV scholars were not consistly translating sheol into hell. I also found 3 instances where sheol had been translated into "the pit" in the KJV. As far as I could tell grave, hell, and pit are the only English words that the KJV uses for sheol.

I searched the text of the NIV for the word hell here: (link). As far as I can see, there is no hell in the Old Testament of the NIV, at all. Very interesting. In fact, the Old Testament scriptures  of these translations also do not contain the word hell: ASV, RSV, ISV, NET, WEB, YLT, ISV, EST, NASB, The Easy To Read Version, and the Good News Bible. The ones that do contain hell in the Old Testament are the various versions of the KJV, and surprisingly enough, The Living Bible and The Message. That last one shocked me, considering it is often used by non-fundamentalist, progressive christians. I wonder if the word hell occurring in the KJV is one of the reasons that version is preferred by fundamentalists.

Hell, part 1

Over the next few weeks, I thought we could take a look at Heaven and Hell. My personal, in depth study of hell some years ago was one of the main factors in my deconversion. I looked through my old posts and could not find a comprehensive examination of those subjects, so that's what I want to do now. We will start with Hell, since that is a fear introduced to believers as the only alternative to Heaven, where everyone woul prefer to end up, of course.

The general, cultural idea of Hell, in Christian North America, is either a place of eternal torment with fire, pain, and anguish, or a dark void of eternal separation from god and all that is good. Does the Bible support either of these ideas? Is there reason to believe either version of Hell exists? Let's find out.

Today, we will start with the old testament. I looked up the word Hell in my Strong's concordance. For the old testament there appeared to be only one Hebrew word translated into the English word Hell: Sheol. Sheol is also translated into the English words "death" and "grave" in multiple scriptures. Read about  Sheol here: (link)

Sheol of the old testament was not the hell of eternal punishment found christianity. It was an underground world where ALL the dead resided. It has its equivalent in the Greek Hades. Obviously, no such world actually exists. It is pure mythology.

However, it is important to recognize that Jews do not follow the doctrine of "sola scriptura" that many protestant christian groups do, including the church of christ, of which I was a member.  Jews also have a long tradition of rabbinical writings which include laws, commentary and additional stories. These are found in the Talmud and other books. They are often given as much weight, or more, as what christians would call the old testament, which Jews call the bible.

We are not going to cover what Jewish extrabiblical writings say about hell, because I'm not all that concerned with them. Jews are not going around trying to convince anyone they will go to hell if they do not believe what is taught by Judaism. Many christians, however, are doing just that.

I will give you a few links with Jewish discussions of what they believe about hell and or an afterlife.

Here
Here
Here
Here
and
Here

As you can see there is great variation in the Jewish faith and tradition. Each of the above links shows a unique perspective, with some pertinent history. However, they all seem similar in that they do not take a stance of condemnation or eternal punishment/torture. They don't see a need to evangelize to save souls. Most do not think what you believe matters as much as what you do. If christianity had not happened, would the world have been a kinder gentler place? Who knows.

Ephesians 6 wrap up

After reading Ephesians, I have noticed that, as I mentioned before, it contains very little information that is concrete. It mentions "spiritual" blessings but not material ones. It talks of faith in Jesus, but gives us little to no information about Jesus, his life, and his teachings. It talks of how the gentiles and the jews are no longer separated, but are now fellow citizens of god's household, sharing in the promise of christ.  This was supposedly once a great mystery that has now been revealed through Paul. It is also a direct contradiction of Paul's statements concerning the Jews in the letter to the Galatians, chapter 4.

Saints are mentioned and are presumably referring to believers. Unity of all believers is stressed in a kind of creedal statement."There is one body, and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one lord, one god and father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

Another famous passage is found in 6:10-18, referring to the "armor of god." This invisible armor is to be used to fight against an invisible enemy.

There is mention of the devil/Satan, but not hell or specifics about any punishments for disobedience. There are vague references to heaven as the place where Jesus and god live, but no specifics. Forces of evil are also said to reside in the heavenly realms. (6:12) I don't remember any mention of angels.
A day of evil is coming (6:13), but again no specifics. There is no mention of any old testament characters, places,  or events, not even Moses or Abraham, just the phrase "men in other generations." (3:5) The law with its commandments and regulations is said to have been abolished. (2:15)

The submission/obedience of women to husbands and slaves to masters is actively promoted and encouraged.

There are two old testament passages supposedly quoted, but when we look back at the Old Testa,ent, the passages read differently and mean something else in their particular context. The first is Eph. 4:8- "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." This is different in Psalm 68:18, which reads-"When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train and you recieved gifts from men." The second is found in Eph. 5:14- "Wake up o sleeper, rise from the dead, and christ will shine on you." The closest scripture to that is found in Isaiah 60:1-"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the lord rises upon you." These are obviously not the same, but no other passage is either. Theses passages don't appear to actually have anything to do with Jesus.

There is also no mention of any other New Testament characters, places, and events, except Jesus's death and resurrection. One exception is the mention of Tychicus at the closing of the letter. Tychicus is mentioned in almost exactly similar wording at the closing of Colossians. His name is also found in Titus 3:12 and Acts 20:4.

All in all, this is an extraordinarily ambiguous and generic letter. It could have been written to anyone at any time in the first century church. It is assumed to be written near the end of Paul's life when he was supposedly in prison. This is assumed from the passages where the author calls himself an "ambassador in chains" (6:20) and a "prisoner for the lord" (4:1), a "prisoner for Jesus christ" (3:1). However, these could all be metaphors, because they do not come right out and say he is actually imprisoned.

Ephesians chapter 6, part 3

Starting in verse 10, this section is subtitled "the armor of god " in my bible. It is the beginning of the end of the chapter and the letter. The christians addressed in this letter are told to be strong in the lord and in his mighty power. But what is his mighty power? So far it seems to be only abstract ideas. There are no concrete acts that this god does, that I can recall being mentioned in this letter. Instead, all the real action is to be done by the readers/hearers. Everything else is couched in metaphors and the language of "spiritual" philosophy. We have been told about grace, redemption, salvation, etc.. All words that have ambiguous meanings and purpose. What good is this god in the present tense, here on earth, besides making sure his commands are followed correctly? To what earthly end?

This armor that the readers are to put on is another metaphor and it is supposed to be for protection against the schemes of the devil. Is he also a metaphor? The passage tells us he is not flesh and blood, but he has something to do with rulers, authorities, and powers in this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. He is a Sith Lord? Now that humans have actually explored the heavens with spacecraft and telescopes, it is quite obvious there are no spiritual forces of evil messing around up there. Where are these heavenly realms any way?

This armor of god is for fighting a spiritual battle on an evil day that is supposedly coming. When? Is the battle just as imaginary as the armor? The armor consists of 1. The belt of truth. 2. The breastplate of righteousness. 3. Shoes of readiness 4. A shield of faith. (To extinguish the devil's flaming darts) 5. The helmet of salvation 6. The sword of the spirit, aka the word of god. Add all kinds of prayers and requests. What practical good is any of that? The armor sounds a bit like it belongs on Wonder Woman. At least you can see hers. The christian's armor is invisible and just about as powerful as any other invisible armor.

Lastly, Paul asks the readers to pray for him that he can continue to propagate this drivel fearlessly. Why does he need prayers? Isn't he wearing his armor? I am impressed with how much a waste Paul's life was, earnestly suffering and toiling for nothing, not to mention teaching others to do the same.

*Today many christians interpret the fiery darts to be the persecution and opposition of nonbelievers, which they see in the most innocuous places. The sword of the spirit is interpreted to be the bible, even though the bible did not exist in its present form then, and the only New Testament writings that existed were possibly a few of Paul's letters. Even the author of Ephesians has not been bold enough to call his own writings the word of god.

Ephesians chapter 6, part 2

We are at verse 5. In my bible, this next section has a subtitle of "Slaves and Masters." Verse five says, "Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey christ." We are going to go through this word by word, so it is clear what the author intends to convey.

The word translated slave here is also translated as servant or bond-servant in other translations. If you think servant in this context could mean someone who chose to serve someone else as a paying job, like a servant in Downton Abbey, you would be wrong. The greek word clearly refers to someone who is legally bound to another person and has no personal freedom or rights. (Link)  The word obey in this passage clearly means to do what the master says. (Link) The phrase "respect and fear"  in this passage is literally "fear (link) and trembling (link)" in the greek. It seems the authors of the NIV tried to soften the meaning. Not only must the slaves obey with fear, they must obey sincerely. What good is sincerity, if you are afraid? Isn't sincerity of more value if it is under no compulsion? What are they to be afraid of? The consequences of disobedience?

The next verse says,"Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of christ, doing the will of god from your heart." Here is a common refrain in christianity, "hearts" will be judged. It is not enough to obey, you must do it from the heart. An insincere heart nullifies obedience. How does one person tell if another is sincere or not? How do you measure sincerity?

Verse 7, "Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the lord, not men,(But they are serving men.) because you know that the lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free." No, we don't know that. When do slaves get this nebulous reward and what exactly is it? Paul has not told us in this letter. He has mentioned slavation, inheritance, redemption, and power for those who believe. But what does that actually mean? And why must our hearts be sincere as long as we are doing  "good"?

Verse 8, "And masters treat your slaves in the same way." Yeah, right. Masters are to serve their slaves wholeheartedly as though they were obeying christ? Since when? Why aren't they just told to give the slaves their freedom and hire them for reasonable wages? Why aren't they told it is wrong to own another person? Why does god not promote personal autonomy? Could it be because the god of the bible is a product of that era and had the same values that the people of that time held?

Last, masters are told not to threaten their slaves, because he who is in heaven is the master of them both and he shows no favoritism. So, all christians are Jesus's slaves. They are to sincerely obey him with fear and trembling. But what has he commanded that must be obeyed? Back in Ephesians 2:15, the author says Jesus abolished in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. So far, all the commands in this letter have come from the author. None have been claimed to come from Jesus or god. Does one obey Jesus by doing what Paul says? Why should anyone do what Paul says? Again, what is the consequence of disobedience? Why must they fear and tremble? Also, how can god have no favoritism and still allow the inequity of the master/slave relationship to exist?

Refutation of Deism, Book Review

Today I read Refutation of Deism by Percy Bysshe Shelley, found here: (link) it is Shelley's argument against William Paley's Watchmaker/intelligent design hypothesis. It seemed to me that Shelley was trying to use the style of argument found in Plato's dialogues, with two fictional Greek characters having the discussion.

One character, Theosophus, is the deist, the other, Eusebes, argues against deism. However, at first I was confused, because Eusebes starts off rebuking Theosophus for his need for evidence and his rejection of the christianity of faith in miracles and revelation. I think Shelley must have been trying to be ironic or sarcastic. Most of Eusebes's replies to Theosophus's deistic intelligent design argument consisted in dismantling the material necessity for a creator.

The dialog ends with Theosophus conceding that Eusebes gives a good argument for atheism, but since he can not give up his belief in god, he will resort to whatever form and practice of traditional Christianity that he can stomach.

I found the arguments against intelligent design very reasonable and well thought out. They comprised the main body of the dialog. There were many quotable portions, including "To suppose some existence above and beyond (the natural laws) is to invent a second and superfluous hypothesis to account for what has already been accounted for by the laws of motion and properties of matter. "

This essay is only 30 pages long, but does take some time to decode and digest.

Ephesians chapter 6, part 1

We have reached the last chapter of Ephesians. This begins with a command to children to obey their parents in the lord. The readers are told to "honor their mother and father." It was commanded in the Old Testament as part of the 10 commandments. It is supposedly the first command with a promise. The promise claims that if you do this it will go well with you and you will enjoy a long life. What it doesn't say is that you will enjoy a long life because you won't be stoned to death, which was the penalty for disobedient children. (Deuteronomy  21:18-21) The penalty for dishonoring parents was to be cursed, as opposed to blessed. (Deut. 27:16) So, this is not just a sweet promise that obedience brings good things.  This is a veiled threat. As we see from the Deuteronomy passages, even adult children are considered to be under their parents' authority.

Also, is this a universal command? There have been some pretty despicable parents throughout history, asking children to do despicable things. Should those parents also be obeyed? This question is usually side stepped by saying the phrase "in the lord" covers that. For some christians, it is only necessary to obey in god approved ways. Plus, also leaves a loophole for  christian children of atheist parents to refuse to obey even benign requests.

Verse 4 command fathers to not exasperate their children. What exactly does that mean? Other translations say do not make them angry, provoke them to wrath, or irritate them. Any one who has had children could tell you that it practically impossible to not exasperate a child at some point in its life. Children are not famous for their reasoning abilities. In place of the exasperation, the parent is to provide the training and instruction of the lord. This will keep the child from being exasperated? I have yet to hear anyone explain this passage in a clear way, and I have seen plenty of children irritated by the church's teachings.

 A reminder here: Paul was not a parent, but he is giving advice to parents? He also was never a husband or a wife, yet he gave advice to them, as we saw in the last chapter. He set himself up as an authority on how to properly do life. Did no one question his authority? If he actually went around the middle east telling people how to live and telling them he was sent from god, he had some hubris. (He may not have even written this letter.)  It seems to have been convincing enough to thousands of people because some form of Pauline inspired christianity has lasted almost 2,000 years. If it is true that he landed in jail for what he taught, it's not hard to see why he was considered disruptive.

Robert Ingersoll

I recently finished reading volume 1 of the collected works of Robert Ingersoll.   I had read that Ingersoll influenced Mark Twain and I had seen Matt Dilahunty talk about reading Ingersoll when he was deconverting from Christianity. This made me curious because I respect the work of both Dilahunty and Twain. Mark Twain has long been one of my favorite authors. You can find the collected works of Ingersoll for free at multiple spots on the web: Gutenberg, the University of Adelaide, and Amazon Kindle.

After reading the first volume, I can definitely see how Ingersoll influenced Twain. The soft sarcasm and deep caring for humanity are shared by both men. While Twain preferred to give his lectures and lessons under the cover of fictional satire. Ingersoll is straightforward and factual about his atheism and disdain for religious prejudice. Ingersoll goes further than Twain in spelling out injustice against women, children, and minorities. He speaks candidly about the science and history scholarship of the day and how it does not agree with the Bible. Of course it is somewhat outdated now, because he wrote and spoke over 100 years ago. However, the main ideas remain valid across time. There were a couple of passages which  revealed that in spite of his forward thinking, Ingersoll retained a few prejudices of his time.

I found Robert Ingersoll fairly easy to read and understand. However, by the last lecture in the book, the repetition of themes began to be a little tiring. All in all, I highly recommend reading at least the first volume of his lectures. Especially for any one interested in the history of free thought in America.

Submission, respect, and the study of theology part 2

Last time, I talked about how when we do a bible word study, the average person does not have a masters degree in theology, nor a working knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Greek. Therefore, unless they want to rely on what someone else tells them a text means, they must take the translated text at face value, or use the tools available to the general public. Since I do not want to place my eternal fate in another person's hands, I prefer to use the latter methods of bible study. That is what most protestant christians do and what I, as an atheist, do in my writings here on this blog.

Thankfully, the internet gives us many bible study tools that were not always readily available to the masses in the past.  I do not accept that there are people who have more authority when it comes to bible interpretation than I do. Mostly because I believe that the bible is a human product, not divine in any way. It only matters what you believe it says, if you think you have an interest in it being truly the work of a god with some kind of power over your life. Even when that is the case, how do so many different versions of christianity have different answers to the same questions?

The person with whom  I was discussing Ephesians 5 not only said I was committing "root fallacy" when it came to the translation of phobetai as a cousin to fear. They also said that submission in this passage did not mean obedience or subjection as to a king or god.

According to this person:
"And from my study of the Greek text regarding "submission" it s not about rote obedience, but "to lovingly yield ones own interest in behalf of another" - and is implied from the mutual submission in 5:20. . . it's more about not seeking one's own way to the detriment of the other person than anything else, and not a complete abdication of will."

My response:
"How do you know what the usage and meaning of the time were? Source that supports this assertion, without biased interpretation? And how do you explain the clear statement for the wife to submit to the husband in Everything, if not a complete abdication of the will? Those words submit/submission are translated as obedience in other passages. Frankly, to me, you are reading the passage through rose colored glasses."

Lets look at the Greek interlinear for Ephesians 5 (link). Go to the end of the chapter and read from about verse 20. In the Greek there appears to be only two places with a word that actually means submission (verse 21) or subjection (verse 24). My NIV uses the English word submit four times. Verse 21 has the Greek "hypotassomenoi." Here is the Strong's concordance entry for that word. (Link) When I click on the word itself (link), I find that this form of the word only appears in the NT twice. The other time refers to servants being in subjection to masters. 

The word in verse 24, "hypotassetai." has the same Strong's entry as the previous word.  When I click on the word itself (link), I  find a total of five occurances. Not one appears to have a connotation of "lovingly yielding ones interests on behalf of another." I maintain that the person with whom I was discussing this passage was looking at it with rose colored glasses--they saw what they wanted to see. 

Both of the words appear to mean subjection with an implication of obedience, as to a higher authority. I am convinced that this passage means exactly what it appears to mean: Paul is telling wives to obey their husbands in everything. Christian wives do not have personal autonomy. That is unacceptable.

More on Ephesians 5, submission, respect, and the study of theology.

Yesterday, in an online discussion, I mentioned my study of the submission passage in Ephesians 5. I told how I had done word study of "submit" and "respect" and how they appeared to actually mean, obey and fear. One person, who had a masters degree in theology and had studied Greek and Hebrew, said that I had committed a fallacy called "root fallacy" by assuming that the Greek words had a strong connection to their roots.

Let's take a look at root fallacies here and here. Basically, the idea of a root fallacy is in the assumption that a person studying scriptures can look up a Greek or Hebrew word in a book like Strong's Concordance and determine the original meaning of a word by learning its roots. This can be problematic because word usage changes over time and there are idioms, nuances, and plays on words that make interpretation more difficult. I can see how that might apply to my conclusions on the words submit and respect. But I am not convinced that it does.

What I found interesting when looking into the phrase "root fallacy" is that it is used, as far as I can tell, almost exclusively within the context of christianity and the study of the bible. It is said to be a kind of etymological fallacy. The etymological fallacy says that the present meaning of a word should rely on its historical meaning. It's a fallacy because present meaning has often changed so much from the historical that there is little correlation.  The problem in bible word study is we are not looking for present usage and meaning, we are looking for historical meaning and connotation to begin with. We are not living in those times or speaking those languages any more. So, we must use the tools we have on hand.

The online bible study tool I use the most is Bible Hub. It has multiple bible versions, interlinear texts, concordances, and dictionaries. When I want to find the meaning  of a NT word  I click on the passage and first view the interlinear text. Then I click on the specific word in the text. Then I will see word roots, definitions, and how often the word is used in the bible, etc. when I click on the interlinear Ephesians 5:33, this is what I get (link). It says "she might respect" under the Greek word phobetai. If I click on the number above the Greek word, I get Strong's concordance reference for the word (link). That page gives me word origins, and definitions. Phobetai has a close word cognate of phobeo which means to fear, withraw from, avoid. The root of phobeo is phobos, which is given three definitions/usages. 1. To flee 2. To fear or be afraid 3. To reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience.

 On the side of the page is a list of 95 times the root phobos appears in a NT word. Every single one of those words that I looked up has been translated across versions to mean some form of fear or fright.  The word phobetai occurs only once in the entire New Testament. In my NIV it has been translated into the English word respect. What does it look like in other versions?  (Link)  On the left side of the page we see that some versions translate the word as respect, others translate it as reverence, others as fear. How are we, ordinary people, to know which is the correct approximation to the modern meaning of the historical word?

Let's say that this word uses the third meaning of the root phobos, so it has been translated "respect." Does that first century respect look the same as our 21st century respect? Are there any 21st century Christian women in the western world who venerate their husbands and treat them with deference or reverential obedience? These are words that have been applied to gods and kings, are modern women to apply them to their husbands? Are they truly following the scriptures if they don't? Doesn't reverential obedience come from a position of subjection and possibly fear?

Ephesians chapter 5, part 2

*We start at verse 21: "Submit to one another out of reverence to christ." What does that mean exactly? Constant submission to others is not  healthy. It opens the avenue for abuse by those who are willing to use the command to submit to manipulate those around them. Paul is going to get specific.

*Verse 22: "Wives submit to your husbands as to the lord." In other words, pretend your husband is your personal savior. If you don't think that is what it means, just wait. Why should you act like your husband is your savior? "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is The Savior." Told you. Paul is going to continue in this vein with the analogy of the husband being like christ, the wife being like the church, christ being like the groom, the church being like the bride. It's kind of wierd, with sexual undertones in the relationship of christ to the church.

*I find it interesting to note that there are no Old Testament scriptures that are addressed to women about how they should submit to their spouses. There are many scriptures in some of the books of prophecy that equate the relationship of god to Israel as one of husband and wife, but I don't recall submission being an issue, just adultery. That analogy was used to describe Israel's supposed unfaithfulness to Yahweh when it followed after other gods. Not that a command for submission was necessary.  What options did a wife have, when she was literally owned by her husband? I wonder if first century women in the Roman empire had more freedom? Perhaps that was why Paul felt the necessity to say "Now as the church submits to christ, so also should wives submit to their husbands in everything." (Verse 24) In Everything. That doesn't leave any wiggle room, does it?

*I have looked up this section in the Greek interlinear version and "submission" in these verses of Ephesians clearly means to obey or be subject to, as a person would be subject to a ruler or deity.

*Verse 25: Husbands are not told to submit to their wives, but to love them as christ loved the church.  It is christ's loving self sacrifice that made the church holy, so he could give himself a radiant, unwrinkled, and unblemished church. By inference wives are also made holy by a husband's love. What were they before they were wives, before their husbands "loved" them? Unholy? Verse 28: "In this way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies, feeding and caring for them, as christ does the church."  This appears to be an oblique reference to the story of Adam and Eve, where Eve is created from Adam's rib and he calls her " bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." However, the man is the head, the part with all the brains and all the control over the body.

*The body analogy is carried further to say that not only is the wife part of the husband's body, the church is part of the christ's body. Now we have proof the author was thinking of Genesis and the creation story when he quotes "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh." (Gen. 2:24) Not only are male and female one body because of the way women were supposedly created, but they are also united in sexual union as husband and wife. How does this apply to the church? Paul says that is a profound mystery. (He doesn't know.) Then he says this whole analogy was a an object lesson about Christ and the church, but all husbands should still love their wives as they love themselves,  and women should respect their husbands. (Verse 33)

*See that word "respect" in that last verse? A quick look up of that word in the greek shows that its root is phobeo- a verb that mean to frighten or terrify. It is from where we get our word phobia. Almost every verse in the new testament that has a word with that root is translated as some form of fear or fright, except this one. Here the translators decided "respect"  would be a better fit. Why do you suppose that is?

Ephesians chapter 5, part 1

*The author begins this chapter by telling the readers to be imitators of god. I find this an odd thing to tell anyone. After all, this is the god that supposedly destroyed every living thing in a great flood. This is a god who told his people to take over a land that was not theirs and kill any resistors. This is a god who created a legal system that punished infractions with death. This is a god who condoned enslavement of people who were not his people. This is a god who told priests to indiscriminately slaughter their closest friend and relatives. (Exodus 32)

*Next, the readers are told to live a life of love, "just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to god." Lets unpack that metaphor for a minute. It is equating Christ's death to the traditional sacrifice of atonement which god ordered in the levitical law. There a lamb was slaughtered and various things done to its carcass and blood, then portions were burned/cooked, and then eaten by the priests and/or people who brought the sacrifice. The burning meat was said to be emit a pleasing fragrance to god. The god who doesn't actually have sense organs to smell with. All this bloody business, including christ's death, was required because of god's insistence on a standard of morality that was impossible for humans to achieve, even though his omnipotence had forseen it.

*The next paragraph tells what is improper for god's holy people. This includes sexual immorality, impurity (exactly what is that?), greed, obscenity, foolish talk, and  coarse joking. It seems to me that these things can vary in their personal and societal impact, some being merely innocuous to downright harmful. Nevertheless we are then told that no immoral, greedy, or impure person has an inheritance in the kingdom of god. (What is the kingdom of god?) In fact, they are labelled as idolaters and disobedient. God's wrath will come on them. Believers should have nothing to do with them. Aha! Here we do not have a case of love the sinner hate the sin. The sinner and his sin are inseparable. What happened to "live a life of love" from verse 2?

*Next, the readers are told to live as children of light, not darkness. They are to find out what pleases the lord and having nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. The fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. However, we are not told what those are in concrete terms.  We are also not told what the light refers to. We are to live as wise, not unwise. Again, how? By not being foolish and understanding what the lord's will is. How? By not getting drunk. Instead we are to be filled with the spirit. Is this an ancient pun? Apparently being filled with  that spirit makes you sing and recite scripture. (Remember that the only scripture at that time was what we now call the Old Testament.) They are also to spend a lot of time giving thanks to god for everything.

*Next time we take a look at submission. Oh, joy.

Ephesians chapter 4, part 2

*Starting at verse 17: Now, the author, who is writing this letter to gentiles, tells these gentiles not to act like gentiles. Gentiles, he says, are futile in their thinking, darkened in their understanding, sparated from god, ignorant in understanding, and hard hearted. They have given themselves over to sensuality with a continual lust for more. (I wonder if any were offended by this letter.)

*These particular gentiles know better, because they were taught in accordance with the truth in Jesus. They were taught to put off their old selves, to take on new mental attitudes, and to put on a new self, created to be like god, in true righteousness and holiness. The way to do this is to stop lying and speak truthfully. (So far, so good.) They are to practice self control when angry. (Not bad.) They are to not go to bed angry because the devil will get a foothold. (Wackadoodle. The devil has feet?) They are to give up stealing(Good) and work with their own hands so they can share with those in need. (Admirable) So far, all these things are basic "do unto others" morality, which probably already existed in that society.

*Next they are told not to let unwholesome talk cone out of their mouths, but only that which is helpful for building other up, to their benefit. This seems to be a perfectly reasonable standard of conduct, if you are interested in the wellbeing of all humanity. After that, they are told not to "grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption." What that actually means is a mystery. My study bible says this proves the holy spirit is a person, because only people can be grieved.  Finally, they are told to get rid of bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and malice. They are to be kind and compassionate. All these positive qualities are not exclusive to christianity. They also have not been  universally practiced by all christians everywhere. The internet alone is full of christians who daily prove they do not adhere to these principles.

*Very last they are told to forgive each other, just as in christ god forgave them. This is a sticky topic. Are there no limits to forgiveness? How is that accomplished in a practical sense? What does it mean to forgive a murderer or an abuser? Vile people can just claim god's forgiveness? What is the proof that they have actually been forgiven by a god? In my experience as a former christian, it means I have to be civil, accept the society of that person without public drama, and not carry on a personal feud or vendetta. I'm not so sure that is always the best course of action. Sometimes people need to be called out, avoided, or punished by humanity for their horrible deeds.

Ephesians chapter 4

*This chapter is often called the unity chapter. After having told the readers that the Jews and Gentiles are now one family in christ Jesus, Paul asks that they act like it. They are to be humble, patient, and loving, making every effort to be peacefully united.

*Verses 4-6 are often repeated as a doctrinal statement. There is one body, not two. There is one spirit, one hope, one lord, one faith, one baptism, one god and father. There are not separate versions of these for Jews and Gentiles.

*Next we are told grace has been gven to us as christ apportioned it. (But what exactly is grace?) This is why it (?) says "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." This  is said refer to the ascension of Christ and his gift of spiritual gifts, such as gifts of apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, and teaching ability. The author is quoting Psalm 68:16 but rewording it. That verse in Psalms says,"When YOU ascended on high, YOU led captives in YOUR train; YOU RECEIVED gifts FROM men." (Capitals to stress the differences in the two passages.) In Psalms, this verse is directed to Yahweh and refers to Yahweh ascending to his mountaintop sanctuary in the land of Canaan, supposedly where the temple in Jerusalem was eventually situated, on Mount Zion. There, gifts were not given to men but received from men. The passage in Psalms originally had nothing whatever to do with Jesus.

*The aforementioned gifts were supposedly given to prepare god's people for works of service "so that the body of christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of god and become mature." Well. It's been two thousand years and unity still hasn't been accomplished. There are still separations between Jews and Gentiles, not to mention the thousands of christian denominations that exist, each thinking it is the one true church.

*Verse 14. On this amazing day of unity we will be grown up christians, each part of the body of christ doing the work it is supposed to do. Not like infants who are decieved by the teachings of cunning, crafty, and deceitful men. We will all speak the truth in love. Does that mean telling people they will go to hell if they don't believe all this stuff?

Ephesians chapter 3

*Paul begins this section by talking about himself. He calls himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of the Gentiles to whom he is writing. It is unclear if prisoner here is literal or figurative, but most of Christendom assumes it to mean Paul is literally a prisoner at this time. He goes on to say God's grace was given to him for them. As in Ephesians, Paul mentions the revelation he recieved. This means he has a special insight into what he calls "the mystery of christ." The mystery can be summed up by saying that through the gospel, the Jews and gentiles are actually members of one body and share in the promise of Jesus Christ.

*God has given Paul, in spite of his unworthiness,  the special job of making the mystery plainly known to everyone. In the past this mystery was hidden. God had a plan to make his wisdom known to all the powers on earth and in heaven, through the church. He accomplished his plan through Jesus.  
Now anyone who has faith in him can approach god with freedom and confidence.

*This is why Paul prays that the readers might strengthened by the power of the spirit and have christ living in their hearts through faith. He wants them all to know how very much christ loves them. God is able do far more than the could ever ask or imagine and his power is at work in them. To him be the glory forever, Amen.

*Does all this actually mean anything? Not really. Does it change anything? Yes, if you believe it. Then you will have a different attitude regarding your status with Yahweh as compared to the Jews. Now you are supposedly part of the family of Yahweh. That was god's plan all along. Yahweh is no longer an ethnic god or a national god, now he is a universal god. The mystery that he always was a universal god has been revealed through Paul.

*It is very interesting that this letter makes gentile believers equal to Jews and co-heirs. There is no superiority to Jews and no replacing Jews in the Yahweh's affections. They are now one big happy family. Again, this is in direct contrast to the Galatian letter, where the mystery was that the Gentiles were the true heirs of Yahweh and the Jews were his illegitimate children. There the gentiles had the superior position and were not going to share their inheritance with the Jews. Which one is the true doctrine of christianity? There can't have been more than one version of christianity, can there?

Ephesians chapter 2, part 2

We pick back up at 2:11.

*Paul now talks about the previous difference between gentiles and jews. The gentiles being uncircumcised, were excluded from citzenship in Israel and the covenants of the promise, without hope, and without god. Interestingly, the phrase "without god" is translated from the greek atheoi, which makes it seem that Paul is saying they were basically atheists when it came to the god of Israel.
He also says they were separated from Christ. That is even more interesting. Did Christ not preach salvation of/to the gentiles?

*That doesn't matter now, according to the author. The blood of christ on the cross destroyed the invisible  barrier between the two peoples by abolishing  the law in his flesh, so both Jews and gentiles could be united. Now everyone has access to the father by one spirit. Now they are all members of god's  household, with Jesus as the chief cornerstone. Together they are a holy temple, a dwelling in which god lives.

*This  is somewhat different than what Paul said in Galatians. In chapters 4 and 5, Paul comes down hard in favor of the gentiles being the children of the promise. He calls them "the children of the free woman" and the Jews "the  children of the slave woman." Then he goes on to say "the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son."  That is in direct contrast to chapter two of Ephesians, which has the Jews and gentiles sharing god as their father in one big happy family. 

Housekeeping: comments section

I am not sure if my readers are aware that I do accept moderated comments. Moderated because, I'm not interested in spite and vitriol, but sincere comments, even criticism. Until recently, I had no comments at all, for over a year. So, I stopped checking. Today, I checked to make sure the comments are indeed enabled and to see if there were any comments to actually post. There were three, two were spam. One was asking me to write more and not just post a video. I wasn't quite sure what it was referring to because it was attached to a post that had no video. After a few minutes, I realized that that person must have been referring to the video of Aron Ra and the Mythical Man that I posted not long ago. I want to apologize to the commenter for not replying. I appreciate your feedback. Frankly, I didn't have time to write a comment that day, but I will consider putting in my two cents on mythicism in the future.

I have been getting visitors to this blog from around the world. I have no idea how they find me, because I can't even find this blog on a search engine when I am not signed in to blogger and google. I just want to say thank you to everyone who spends any time here. Just knowing you are out there motivates me.

Ephesians chapter 1, part 4, and chapter 2

*As we have seen, Paul should have been very familiar with the church in Ephesus and in Asia Minor. He was there for at least two years, according to Acts. Yet, verse fifteen of Ephesians chapter one sounds as though Paul's knowledge of the recipients of this letter is from hearsay. We will be on the lookout for any internal evidence that this letter was written to people with whom Paul had previous associations.

*The rest of the chapter is exhortations, Paul's "prayers" for the recipients of the letter, and a bit of christological mumbo jumbo. Stuff about God's power displayed in raising christ from the dead, putting him in dominion over all other authorities and titles, not only in the present, but the future as well. Paul covers all the bases, preemptively discounting any other messiahs or spiritual and earthly authority figures that may arise. Jesus is it. He's the big boss and the church is his henchman, um body.

*Moving on to chapter 2. Now Paul says that the readers were once dead in their sins and transgressions, because they followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Say what? What is the kingdom of the air? This phrase is not found anywhere else in the Bible, but you can believe there is plenty of speculation by people who act like they know what they are talking about. This being is also called the spirit who is at work in those who are disobedient. (Disobedient to whom?) Therefore, the claim made by commentators is this must be referring to Satan. A quick scan of the rest of Ephesians shows that Paul does refer to the devil in chapter six, but Satan is not named.

*Paul goes on to say that "we" were by nature objects of wrath. Speak for yourself dear Paul. God, being so wonderful, and rich in mercy and love, has saved us. God raised the readers up and seated them with christ in the heavenly realms. This is obviously metaphorical. I haven't seen any christians rise up to heavenly realms, yet. This is so that in the coming age (which hasn't come yet) "God can show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in christ jesus." what does this mean in practical earthly terms? Not much. It basically boils down to some people believing a dead dude was resurrected by a god, so that one nebulous day in the nebulous future, that invisible god won't get angry at them for being the sorry creatures they were born to be. Then they will someday get to sit with the dead dude in the sky. What fun.

*How do the readers get this priveledge? Not because they deserve it or earned it by doing anything, but because god gave it to them. It was a present called "grace." Don't know what grace is? That's okay, neither does anyone else, even though they like to think they do. Sometimes it is defined as unmerited favor, but that is not very concrete either. This wonderful gift has a catch-- faith. You gotta believe that god and jesus actually exist or you are out of luck. Oh yeah, even though you can't earn this gift by doing anything, you totally got stuff to do. God has some chores he needs done and he prepared them just for those who have faith. Aren't they blessed?

Edited

Ephesians chapter 1, part three

We will continue reading about Paul's associations with Ephesus, found in Acts and other writings, before we finish Ephesians chapter one.

*Starting in Acts 19:21, we see that after the scroll burnings, Paul decided to travel back through the region we know of as Turkey, to Jerusalem. He is said to have wanted to go to Rome from there. Before he left, there was a rabid protest against Paul by crafstmen whose businesses were linked to idol worship. They said they were losing business because of Paul's teachings. Paul was encouraged by his friends to not interact with the protesters. The city clerk quelled the uprising by telling the protesters that Paul and his disciples did not appear to have broken any laws. If there was a claim aganst him, it was to be made through proper channels. Again, none of this appears in extrabiblical contemporary histories.

*In Acts 20, Paul travelled  around Macedonia and Greece for a while. Before he finally set sail for Jerusalem, he stopped in Miletus and sent a message to the elders of the church in Ephesus to meet with him. When they came, he made a farewell speech full of pathos, saying he will never see them again because prison and hardships await him. He warns them of wolves among the sheep who would  distort the truth and draw away disciples. After an emotional scene, he leaves.

*What does Paul say about Ephesus in the letters attributed to him? In first Corinthians 15:32, Paul says, "If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for human motives,  what did I gain if the dead are not raised." This is part of a passage which is declaring that if the message about Jesus and the resurrection of the baptized is false, baptism is useless and Paul's risking death to promote it has been in vain. Who knows what this sentence about Ephesus means, probably not real wild beasts but metaphorical ones, referring to Paul's opponents.

*First Corinthians 16 ends that book. It refers to Paul being in Ephesus at the time. It also mentions his travels in Asia Minor plus Pricilla and Aquila. Presumably, First Corinthians was written in Ephesus. However, Paul also says he is staying there till Pentecost. Acts 20 has Paul eager to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost.

*First and second Timothy are supposedly written from Paul imprisoned in Rome, as the book of Ephesians is supposed to have been. They also mention Ephesus and refer to particular people there, namely Pricilla and Aquila. (1 Tim. 1:3, 2Tim. 4) The Timothy books have many exhortations against false teachers.

Book Review: The Great Agnostic by Susan Jacoby

I recently finished reading The Great Agnostic, which is a biography of Robert Ingersoll. Mr. Ingersoll was a politician, orator, freethinker, and unabashed atheist, in the 19th century.  He was popular, in spite of his nonbelief. Ms. Jacoby does a good job convincing us that he should be remembered and honored for his contributions to modern free thought. The man was, by all accounts, self taught,  kind, generous, humorous, loyal, and plain spoken. Of course he was human and made errors in judgement at times, but he was also a man of sensitivity and understanding. He showed himself to be far ahead of his time in his humanism, especially his thoughts on the lives women and minorities, and treatment of women as equals. Now I am interested in reading some of Ingersoll's writings for myself.

Ephesians chapter 1, part 2

Starting at verse 15:

*Paul tells the recipients of the letter that he gives thanks for them continually because of the faith he heard they have. If this is a chain letter, how does he know what churches will be reading it and what their faith level is? Why does he say he "heard" about their faith, when he is supposed to have lived in Ephesus?

*Let's look at the scriptures that mention Paul in Ephesus (in Turkey). First, Acts 18: There Paul is said to have arrived in Ephesus with Pricilla and Aquila. He went to a Jewish synagogue to reason (argue?) with the Jews. He was asked to stay but left, saying he would be back, if it was God's will. He sailed back to Caesarea, which is in Israel, then travelled from there to Antioch, Galatia and Phrygia, and made his way back to Ephesus. It appeared to be in God's (Paul's ) will after all.

*While Paul was gone, a Jew named Apollos, from Alexandria (in Egypt), who knew only the baptism of John, arrived in Ephesus.  He was very knowledgable in the scriptures and began to speak boldly in the synagogue. Pricilla and Aquila were still in Ephesus and took Apollos to their home to "teach him the way of God more adequately." I find it interesting that Apollos seems to have had no idea about Jesus, the crucifixion, or the resurrection, just John the baptist and his practice of baptism. This would be at least two decades (NT timeline) after the death of Jesus. Why hadn't Apollos heard "the good news" before?

*Apollos went to Corinth, which is in Greece. Meanwhile, Paul took the road through Turkey and arrived back in Ephesus. There he found some disciples. These disciples had not been there his first visit? Disciples of whom? These disciples had never heard of recieving the holy spirit and the had been baptised with John's baptism for repentence, not the baptism into the lord Jesus. Okay, what is the difference between one dunking in water and another? -Belief in Jesus and the magic words recited when it is performed. Plus, it helps if Paul puts his hands on you so you can get the elusive Holy Spirit along with the ability to speak in tongues. Twelve men recieved the spirit this way. Ooh. Do you suppose that the number twelve is significant here? There were twelve tribes of Israel after all.

*According to Acts, Paul spent three months in Ephesus speaking in the synogogue, arguing about the kingdom of god. Some of them (Jews) refused to believe him. Good for them. So, Paul left with his disciples and had daily discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. "This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord." However, not one of them wrote a single word about Paul or the new teachings. There are no contemporaneous writings about this revolution in religious thought, from that time or region That seems a little odd to me.

*It is even more odd that there are no extrabiblical records, when Acts says that extraordinary miracles were performed through Paul. (Acts19:11-12). Some Jews tried to exorcise evil spirits by invoking the name of Jesus. The evil spirits knew the difference between them and Paul and beat the Jews up. Naturally, this caused some consternation among the inhabitants of Ephesus, not to mention terror. Believers came out of the woodwork and confessed their past associations with sorcery. Then there was a public scroll burning of extremely valuable magic texts. Too bad Paul didn't just simply tell them their magic books had no power to do anything, evil or good. But he couldn't do that, could he? He had set himself up as having powers greater than  theirs.

To be continued.

Ephesians chapter 1, part one

*The book of Ephesians starts off with a greeting "to God's holy people", supposedly by Paul. A footnote says that the phrase "in Ephesus" is not in the oldest manuscripts.

*The first paragraph tries to establish that christians are indeed chosen to be God's holy people and that they were chosen before the creation of the world, or "predestined" to be his children through Jesus. Before we talk about predestination, I want to point out that this is totally contrary to the Jews' belief and scriptures, which teach that their people are the ones chosen to be God's children. The author also takes this chosenness back to before creation, earlier than the Abrahamic promise,  another strike against Jewish chosenness. This cannot be anything but deliberate.

*The author goes on to say that, through Jesus's blood, Christians are given redemption and  forgiveness of sins, things that were previously supplied by the Jewish system of sacrifices. He also states that they are given knowledge of the mystery of God's will. This appears to be another oblique stab at the Jews, implying that they were not supplied with some hidden knowledge that christians now possess.

*Paragraph two (1:11-14) continues with the predestination theme. This and the previous passages are fundamental to the Calvinist christian belief system. In Calvinism, predestination is basically the idea that God has chosen ahead of time who will or will not be unconditionally saved through Jesus. "God has unchangeably ordained whatever comes to pass." This leaves little room for the idea of free will choice and a lot of room for fatalism.

*In other christian faiths it is the plan of salvation that is predestined, not individuals' salvation. In this way, it is that all who accept salvation through jesus are predestined to be saved. Even though God supposedly knows what the outcome will be, he is not the one who chooses which individuals will be saved. They are responsible for that themselves. If you ask me, it is a very fine difference, considering that if God knows what will happen, can the outcome be changed?

*According to verses 13 and fourteen,  those who have heard the message of salvation through christ, and believed it, are the ones included in this plan. They are given the holy spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing future redemption. There is one problem...no one is quite sure exactly what the holy spirit is and how you can tell if someone has it. There are probably  as many ideas of the holy spirit as there are believers. Many of them prefer to avoid the subject altogether, maybe because there is no demonstrable reason to believe it exists and does anything that can't be explained by natural means.

Introduction to Ephesians

I've decided to look at the book of the bible called the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is just after Galatians, which we looked at earlier. I happen to be attending a bible class on Ephesians right now, so it will help me keep on track. I still go to a church with my family, to keep my husband from feeling like it is the end of the world.


Read about the book of Ephesians here. Remember that I usually read the NIV study bible and I try to use a plain reading and do not try to interpret  meaning that isn't there into the writings. At times I do go a little deeper when we are comparing what the bible says to the reality of history and science.

It is traditionally thought that Paul wrote this letter while in prison in Rome, because he calls himself a prisoner for the Lord in Eph. 3:1 and 4:1. He says he is an ambassador in chains in  6:20. However, it should be noted that those passages could also be metaphorical. It is hard to tell.

There is a dispute over whether Paul actually wrote this letter. Many older versions do not include Ephesus in the greeting of 1:1. This leads some scholars to think it was a chain letter, not actually meant for just the Ephesians. There is no mention of Ephesus in the main body of the letter and no personal greetings to people who live in that city, as contained in other letters of Paul. There are also no particular personal issues addressed. If it was not written by Paul, it was probably composed between 80 and 100 CE.

Religious survey report

A link to a recent religious survey report showing the demographics of religion in America:

https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/

Update and shepherds wrap up.

Hi, our family recently rescued and abandoned 5-6 week old kitten. He has been taking up a lot of my time and I've had to readjust my daily schedule. Plus school has started and kids need a mom who is available, no matter how old they are. When I returned to see where I left off, I groaned. I'm tired of the shepherd question. So, I will summarize what I learned and be done:

*Shepherds are not called unclean in Hebrew or Egyptian literature. They were a common occupation in ancient times. Egyptians owned and herded sheep, ate mutton, and used wool.

*Shepherds were considered common laborers and looked down on by the elite wealthy Egyptians and elite rabbinical Hebrews. However, they were not "the lowest of the low."

*Egyptians had a sheep headed god named Khnum. The symbols of Egyptian royalty included a shepherds crook and a flail, which encompass animal husbandry and agriculture.

*Shepherds were required to keep their flocks out of the city and in designated or approved grazing areas. This was for practical reasons and not because they were "banished."

*There is a nuanced distinction between those who merely tend sheep and those who own the flocks. I am not talking of Philo's metaphor here but of the reality of life. The picky laws and commentary in the Talmud make this distinction for legal purposes, not as social commentary. Some rabbis stated that shepherds who owned their flocks might let them accidentally graze on land that was not theirs. Therefore they were technically thieves or robbers, because they benefitted from stolen goods, whatever the sheep ate. Even if they tried their best to keep their sheep from straying on to other's property, they could not be certain it would never happen. Those who merely tended sheep for wages were not guilty of theft, because they recieved no profit when the sheep ate from fields that did not belong to the owner of the sheep.

Thieves and robbers, even imaginary ones, were disqualified from serving as witnesses in legal cases. They also disqualified many other professions such as sailors, potters, shop keepers, camel drivers, and of course, all women. One rabbi in the Talmud admonishes his fellow rabbis not to let their children enter one of these professions, because it would disqualify them from serving in the jewish legal system.

Even though the hired hand shepherds were not automatically considered robbers, they still could not serve as witnesses in court. There were other qualifications which included being educated in Torah and being land owners. Sounds like the rabbis and the religious elite, the ones who made the rules, were the ones who got the privileges. Go figure.

*In one place, there was an odd rule that three shepherds could testify together, but that was disputed. I also seem to remember a story in the Talmud about a rabbi who used to be a shepherd.

*I never saw any indication that shepherds were any more despised than any other ordinary people of the first century.

The end. Next time we will get back to the bible.

Shepherds part 9

Now we come to what the Mishna has to say about shepherds. But first I want us to remember that the Mishna was not compiled in the first century, nor does it stand alone. It is part of the Talmud. The Mishna is essentially rabbinic commentary on the Torah (the law of Moses) , handed down by word of mouth, until it was compiled and written down about 200 C.E. Other parts of the Talmud are rabbinic commentary on the Mishna. They were written later. So we've got rabbinic commentary on rabbinic commentary that some rabbis were taught other rabbis had said. All of it is part of a complex legal code that was produced after the fall of Jerusalem and led to modern rabbinic Judaism.  How relevant is what was eventually written to actual life for ordinary Jews in the first century of Jesus's time, before this rabbinic law was codified?

We have seen from first century Philo of Alexandria's work "On Husbandry" that Philo implies shepherds are ordinary men. (XIV:62) He says the rich Egyptians look down on anyone who has an ordinary occupation. I suspect that this was may have also been the case of the rabbis who wrote what we will be examining in the Mishna and Talmud. They weren't necessarily rich in wealth, but they did hold a priveledged position in the Jewish community. The  rabbis were experts in the Jewish legal code and presided over local courts. They ultimately decided how the law was to be interpreted in daily matters and disputes.

I think it is important to note that not once in my research into what these rabbinic writings say have I seen shepherds called despised, unclean, or the lowest of the low. It is true that they do have some legal disadvantages, as did other occupations.  These strictures did not seem to carry a connotation of spite, but a merely an obssession with legal codification of absolutely every circumstance that could be imagined in ancient Jewish culture. I certainly could not find any passage that said anything about not helping a shepherd who fell into a pit as Mr.Alcorn suggests in his article. Nevertheless, I could be wrong.

My main source for finding passages in the Mishna and Talmud is the Jewish Virtual Library. I conducted searches using the word shepherd. I will post the names of tractates where the word shepherd is found. You can do a page search for the word shepherd. I will give a brief summary of what applies to shepherds in the tractate. Notice that the tractates will divide the mishna up into chunks with detailed commentary on each chunk from the Gemara. Many of the references are in the Gemara sections.

Yoma 6- wierd paradoxical questions about shepherds and lions
Yoma 8- a story about a gluttonous man who robs a shepherd
Beitza  3- regulations about what can and cannot be done on festivals days. Shepherds can't carry pouches. A person can go to a shepherd of his acquaintance and ask for a goat or sheep, but can't mention prices.
Beitza 5-regulations about what labor can be performed on festival days. Shepherds can only drive cattle as far as the owner of the amimals may go.

To be continued.

Shepherds part 8

In paragraph 9 of Mr. Alcorn's article Shepherd's Status, we read "In the course of 400 years, the Egyptians prejudiced the  Israelite's attitude toward shepherding." Again, there are no sources to back this up and no reasons to believe it is true.

In paragraph 10, we see a statement that shepherding in Palestine decreased after the Israelites occupied the land and settled down. Again, no sources to back this up. Not surprisingly, Mr. Alcorn seems unaware of the current scholarship, supported by archaeology, that shows the Israelites probably originated and developed  from within the Canaanite people. They were Canaanites to begin with.

Mr. Alcorn continues to make statement after statement of dubious historicity, with no sources given. In paragraph 12, this claim is made: "In the days of the prophets, sheep herders symbolized judgement and social isolation. (Zephaniah 2:6)."   I don't think Mr. Alcorn read the context of that passage in Zephaniah very well. The shepherds represented Yahweh's people, the remnant of the house of Judah. They were supposed to show god's loving care for his chosen ones.

We are given Dr. Joachim Jeremias as a source for the statement that shepherds were "despised in everyday life." We are not told in which of Dr. Jeremias's writings we would find this, or where he got his information.

Paragraph 13 says, "Shepherding had not just lost its widespread appeal; it eventually forfeited its social acceptability. Some shepherds earned their poor reputations, but others became victims of a cruel sterotype. (Sources ??) The religious leaders maligned the shepherd's good name; rabbis banned the pasturing of goats and sheep in Israel, except on desert plains." We will see there is a small kernel of truth in the last statement when we examine the Mishnah's statements about shepherds. But it is not the whole truth.

The article goes on to say, "The Mishnah, Judaism's written record of the oral laws, also reflects this prejudice, referring to shepherds in belittling terms. One passage describes them as 'incompetent'; another says no one should ever feel obligated to rescue a shepherd who has fallen into a pit. Mr Alcorn does not tell us where in the mishnah we can find these statements. My guess is he didn't actually check to see if they are there.

If you read the Wikipedia article on the Mishnah you will see that it is a collection of documents about oral traditions and laws, supposedly passed down from through the ages. They were written and edited by rabbis, combined with other documents written and edited by rabbis. Some of the documents are comentaries on the Mishnah. All together, the collection is called the Talmud, and there are two versions of that. Think of the whole thing as a kind of law library reference encyclopedia.

In the next post I will attempt to uncover just what we can find about shepherds in these documents.