The Bible is the most remarkable body of literature on Earth. It includes oral tradition, court records, poetry, correspondence, history, and prophecy in a consistent and accurate whole. The reader must keep in mind the cultures, languages, and circumstances of the various authors to reach a full understanding. He can’t read as if Paul’s letters were written in English. He can’t even completely trust that the English translation accurately conveys the author’s intended meaning. Aside from the usual difficulty involved in understanding any text absent inflection and body language, politics and religious dogma and a natural failure to understand cultural memes that would have informed a contemporary reader make a perfectly accurate understanding almost impossible. Add the challenges of translation, especially from an essentially dead language to a living and evolving one, and the obstacles to true understanding seem insurmountable. It is all the more amazing, then, that we can read the Bible in English today and, so long as the entirety of its teachings are considered and not a single passage in isolation, still have a very good idea of what God is trying to tell us through it.

I can understand how some people come to elevate the Bible above God himself, treating the physical material of paper and ink as if it is itself something to be worshiped. We must keep in mind all the filters through which we read and study. Most people don’t read it in the original languages and some sections of scripture no longer even exist in their original forms. We don’t have access to the actual words that God spoke to Adam in the Garden, only a paraphrase that was passed down from person to person and translated from language to language. That’s not to say that the meaning of the words we do have can’t be trusted–as I already pointed out, the Bible is astonishingly consistent from end to end–but that they are frequently not word-for-word transcripts. Even in those places where the text is precise, the words are not always inspired or truthful. Letters and messages from kings and generals are reproduced for history and context, not necessarily because they contain any great truths. Some passages contain advice that doesn’t rise to the level of command let alone divine command.

The Bible is an amazing collection of Scriptures, but it is not all we need to understand the world or even all we need to understand God and our relationship with him. It is essential, but not everything.

1) Adam and the Image of God: On page 9 (the first page of text), I talk about how man was created in the image of God. At one point it sounds as if I am saying that men are more important than women or that women are not created in the image of God. That isn’t what I meant at all. Men and women are both created in the image of God. What I meant was that only Adam was created directly in the image of God. All other normal humans were copies of Adam. Eve wasn’t created from dust and God’s breath, but from Adam. She was a copy of a copy, and so is every person born since then. We are a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy…. Each iteration becomes just that much further removed from that original image of God. The precedence of Adam being formed in God’s image and Eve being formed in Adam’s sets a tone for all marriages since then. Paul wrote about this when he said that “…he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.” We all bear the image of God, but Adam was the only mortal person created directly in God’s image. The rest of us were created in that same image only indirectly.

2) Yeshua and the Image of God: On that same page, I say that Yeshua was also created in God’s image. I do not mean that Yeshua is a created being. I mean that his created earthly form was not made after the pattern of an earthly father but of the Heavenly Father. In that sense, and only in that sense, is Yeshua a created being. He is God. He was the Word of God who spoke the universe into existence and who thundered the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. But the body that was crucified was formed by the breath or Spirit of God. He wasn’t implanted fully formed in Mary’s womb, but began as a zygote that developed into a baby that grew into a man.

While returning from a trip to the US (in other words, going to Canada) on December 8th, Canadian SF author Peter Watts was attacked, beaten, pepper-sprayed, and imprisoned without access to legal counsel by the US Border Patrol.

Read the article for more details. Follow all the links in the article for yet more details and discussion if you don’t mind “strong” language.

1. What is the Truth? Scott Ledbetter
2. The Messianic Revelation Series V.1. Announcing: Judgment Day Eliyahu ben David
3. Man and Woman in Biblical Law, Part 2: They Shall Be One Flesh Tom Shipley

I’ll try to let you know what I think.

Update December 21, 2009: The radio show went well for the most part. You can tell I don’t have a lot of radio experience! I need to correct one thing. At one point I said I didn’t see real life examples of patriarchy in action. I had to back-track a little bit beca…use my parents were actually excellent examples. The problem was that they were an anomaly. Few other “Christian” families lived by the same rules. You can download the show at Biblical Families Radio.

I’m back to full-time self-employment for now, so I have more time to write. I’ll be posting regularly again and working on Volume II in between marketing, studying, networking, and making money.