Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Irony
Sunday, February 21st, 2010Only God Understands It All
Saturday, January 30th, 2010I’ve been listening to Rabbi Bruce Cohen of Congregation Beth El of Manhattan lately. Over the last few weeks he has delivered some humbling messages about some of the things in the world that we can’t expect to understand. Tell the little girl pulled from the rubble in Haiti that God is just, that everything happens for a reason. Tell the innocent man on death row that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Tell the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz that all Israel will be saved. There are hard truths somewhere in these things, but in this lifetime I might never know what they are.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…”
More Database Woes
Sunday, December 27th, 2009Somehow in the course of upgrading and then restoring my Wordpress database, the Marriage category was dropped and all of its blog posts were added to the History category. I don’t know if I’ll get around to fixing all of them. Just so you know…
Prohibited Degrees of Kinship
Saturday, December 26th, 2009There are numerous methods of charting degrees of consanguinity, so I thought I should post something about my own. Especially since I mentioned in my book that God prohibits marriage to anyone closer than the fourth degree. Ancestors and descendants, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and siblings are all out of bounds. First cousins are acceptable. At least to God. You might feel differently. Don’t use this chart for legal purposes, of course. Many jurisdictions define the degrees differently.
Marriage in the Bible
Vayigash 5770 – Two Sons, Two Kingdoms
Friday, December 25th, 2009Genesis 44:27-28 And your servant my father said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons. (28) And the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces. And I never saw him since. (29) And if you take this one also from me, and mischief befall him, you shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
I frequently wonder if Jacob knew the details of the future history of his sons. Although he certainly only meant Joseph and Benjamin here, his words and the story that followed prophesied of events centuries away.
In the 8th century BC, the Assyrian armies captured the northern kingdom of Israel and scattered her inhabitants across the Ancient Near East. Many of the old prophets referred to the northern kingdom as Ephraim, the son of Joseph. Ephraim didn’t stop in Persia but continued across the whole globe. In their long diaspora they have forgotten their identity and have become lo ami.
Three hundred years later, Judah was invaded and scattered by Babylon. When the two kingdoms split during the reign of Rehoboam, Benjamin became part of the southern kingdom known as Judah. Remember that Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin. Unlike Ephraim, Judah never forgot their identity. They have remained a relatively distinct people to this day.
This is the explanation of the prophecy:
Ephraim is Jacob’s first son, Joseph. He was taken away, and, to all appearances was destroyed forever. Judah, including the tribe of Benjamin, is Jacob’s second son. He was also taken away but was never in any real danger of being annihilated. Both of Jacob’s sons were restored to him, and both of the houses of Israel will also be restored to their Heavenly Father. The house of Judah is returning to the Land en masse while the house of Israel is awakening to their identity and bringing much of the rest of the world with them. The first stage of Hosea’s words concerning Israel was fulfilled millennia ago (Hosea 1:9). The second stage is coming to pass right now (Hosea 1:10), and the third stage, the reunification of the entire nation under the singular banner of the Messiah (Hosea 1:11), cannot be far behind!
Christmas
Monday, December 14th, 2009It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Should it? I’ve read several discussions of the topic over the last week or so, and thought I’d throw my thoughts out there too. Specifically I want to answer three questions.
1. Should Yeshua’s birth be celebrated? I can’t think of any reason why not. It was one of the greatest events in history, and God has a history of wanting people to celebrate great events. As long as it doesn’t violate any God’s other commands, why not? Celebrate your own birth and those of your family and friends while you’re at it.
2. Should Yeshua’s birth be celebrated on December 25th?
This is, perhaps, a thornier question. I don’t think many people seriously believe Yeshua was born on that date, but is that a problem? We should celebrate his birth in some fashion every single day! Since nobody can be absolutely sure on which day he was born, why shouldn’t we just pick this one?
There is nothing inherently evil about any paricular day on the calendar. October 31st is a day that God made just like December 25th, July 4th, and April 12th. There is nothing wrong with having a party, inviting friends and family to your house for a feast, or even exchanging gifts on those days. However, there may still be a problem!
God told Israel (with whom we have been joined) to “learn not the way of the heathen,”1 and to “learn not to do after the abominations of those nations.”2 Of course, he did not mean “Don’t do anything that pagans do.” That would be absurd. Pagans sing, dance, and eat cookies, and there is nothing at all wrong with those things. God’s intent seems to have been to say, “Don’t adopt religious practices in order to emulate pagans or that are specifically pagan in nature.” Does a peculiar celebration of Yeshua’s brith held on December 25th pass or fail this test? Here are the apparent facts:
a) Yeshua was almost certainly not born on December 25th.
b) The date appears to have been chosen sometime in the fourth century by gentile church leaders with little to no understanding of Torah and Jewish customs.
c) A few church leaders of the day believed Yeshua had been born in December, but most seem to have settled on that day specifically because it was already a well-established pagan holiday. The Roman church, especially, has a very long history of adopting pagan traditions and redressing them in quasi-biblical trappings.
God seems to have a habit of grouping significant events around particular days. Some of those days correspond to the Biblical Feasts, some of them don’t. Since Yeshua is the focus of the Law, I’m willing to bet that all of the major events of Yeshua’s life took place on or around one of the seven feast days. Here are a few examples:
a) Passover/Unleavened Bread/Firstfruits: Death and resurrection
b) Shavuot: Teaching in the temple as a child (and the giving of the Holy Spirit, aka Pentecost)
c) Rosh Hoshana: Second coming?
d) Yom Kippur: Day of judgment
e) Sukkot: Arrival in the Promised Land. Both times.
There are some very good reasons for supposing that Yeshua was actually born during Sukkot. While I haven’t done the math myself (other trustworthy individuals have and you are welcome to check their work), it appears that John the Baptist was born around Passover. Yeshua would have been born six months later, which is about the time of Sukkot. Also, Old Testament prophecies talk of God tabernacling among his people, and tabernacling is what Sukkot is all about.3
I am not saying that everyone must celebrate Yeshua’s birth during Sukkot or that anyone must celebrate his birth at all. I’m not even saying that it is wrong to celebrate his birth on December 25th. I am saying that the choice of that date seems to have been inspired by a desire to emulate a pagan religious practice.
Which brings me to Christmas trees.
3) Should believers have Christmas trees?
The origins of the Christmas tree are shrouded in even more mystery than the origins of December 25th as Christmas. There are a lot of theories with very little historical documentation. Here are some better attested facts:
a) Evergreen branches and lights were used as decorations by the Romans to celebrate Saturnalia. Some Christians retained this practice and might have incorporated it into their Christmas celebrations.
b) Many ancient peoples used evergreen branches as winter decorations to symbolize life against the cold of the season.
c) some ancient peoples used evergreens to ward against evil spirits.
d) The first Christmas trees, as such, appear to have originated in Germany in the late Middle Ages. Nobody seems to know who started the custom or why.
There is nothing inherently wrong with decorating your house with evergreens. However, the date of Christmas was specifically chosen to correspond with Saturnalia, and evergreen branches and wreaths were used as decorations for that holiday. It seems to me that decorating with those objects as part of a Christmas celebration is dangerously close to emulating pagan religious practices while saying you are doing it for God. Maybe early Christians copied Saturnalia customs and maybe they didn’t, but Paul said to avoid the appearance of evil. If you have evergreen decorations in your house normally, I don’t see any reason to take them down, but I wouldn’t put them up just for Christmas.
Christmas trees are almost certainly related to the many customs of decorating homes with evergreen branches during the winter. That, in itself, poses no problem, and the pagan roots of putting decorated trees indoors seem dubious. However, consider these words of God given through Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 10:2-4 Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, (3) for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. (4) They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
Clearly, God did not intend Jeremiah’s audience to interpret this as referring to Christmas trees or even their analog in that day. The very next verse explains that he was talking about idols, carved figures used in the veneration of deities, but God’s perspective is not limited to what’s happening today. He knew 2500 years ago that we would be cutting trees down, prominently displaying them in our homes and buildings, decorating them with silver and gold, and bowing down before them to receive their gifts. And he knew that we would be reading Jeremiah’s book. I don’t believe in coincidences, so I’m going to play it safe and not put a Christmas tree up in my home.
1 Jeremiah 10:2
2 Deuteronomy 18:9
3 I don’t buy the argument about sheep not being in the fields during December. They didn’t have huge barns in which to shelter their sheep. They kept them in the fields year round. According to the US Department of Agriculture, shepherds in Montana around the beginning of the 20th century kept their sheep on the open plains through much harsher winters than Israel has ever experienced. Why shouldn’t Jewish shepherds in the 1st century BC?
Further reading:
-http://www.orlutheran.com/html/chrtree.html
-http://kimber64.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/how-does-the-messianic-community-celebrate-christmas/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
- http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/theology/christmas-should-it-be-celebrated-or-rejected-you-decide!/
-http://www.fullquivermission.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1271
Update: Jim Staley has a pretty good sermon on the subject of whether or not it even matters how and when we celebrate the birth of Yeshua. Not perfect, but good.
Permission to Sin?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009I frequently hear people say that God allowed this or that sinful behavior because people are weak.
Buzzzz. Try again.
God does not allow sin. He never says, “Don’t ever do this, but if you do, here’s how I want you to go about it…” He just says, “Don’t do that.”
So, if, in the course of your Bible reading, you see that God said, “If you are going to [insert activity here], then do it like this,” you can safely conclude that the given activity is not sinful. It might not be the best thing for you, but it’s not a sin to make choices where God has given you liberty.
Marriage in the Bible
On Kathryn Kuhlman
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009I disagree with one thing Pastor Mark said in the podcast I linked to in my last post. Kathryn Kuhlman’s decision to remain unmarried should not be considered a pattern for other women to follow. She married a man who apparently left his wife for her, and when that marriage ended in disaster, she concluded that marriage would only interfere her ministry. She was wrong. She made a mistake and learned the wrong lesson from it.
There might be extraordinary circumstances in which God doesn’t want a particular woman to marry. There is no specific command in scripture that all women must marry, so I’m not going to say otherwise. However, I will say that the universal scriptural example is that a woman should marry, and if she has a ministry independent of her husband’s then it must be conducted within the context of her primary roles as wife and mother. See, for example, Deborah, who was not simply Deborah, a prophetess, but “Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth”. (Judges 4:4)
Mark McLellan on the Roles of Men and Women
Sunday, November 29th, 2009Pastor Mark has another great podcast, this one on the respective roles and responsibilities of men and women in marriage. Listen to his last sermon at http://graftedin.com. Seriously. Listen.
Marriage in the Bible
Vayetzei 5770 – Who’s Eyes Were Veiled?
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Genesis 29:23 …he took Leah his daughter…
It appears that this maneuver was Laban’s idea, but Jewish tradition says that Rachel and Leah willingly cooperated. Jacob and Rachel had devised a secret sign for just this situation, so that Jacob would not be fooled. Rachel, knowing that Leah might never be able to marry and have a family, had compassion on her and revealed the secret sign to her. Even so, it seems difficult to believe that Jacob could make such a mistake, especially after having lived with both of these women for seven years. But there are several other factors to consider:
- There was almost certainly a substantial amount of alcohol consumed during the celebrations.
- Rachel and Leah probably both wore veils, even in public, and which they might not have removed even on their wedding night until after the last lamp had been put out.
- The interior of an animal skin tent at night can be exceptionally dark.
- Jewish tradition says that Rachel and Leah were twins and so could have been very similar in height, weight, and build.
- God had promised to look after Jacob until he returned to Canaan, and Jacob’s blindness could have been induced by God to ensure the execution of a divine plan.
In support of the fourth and fifth items above, there is another tradition that says Esau should have married Leah while Jacob should have married Rachel. Since Jacob received Esau’s blessing from Isaac, he also had to be the father of all twelve of the tribes of Israel. Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah had been marked as the mothers of the nation of Israel, and no other woman would do. Therefore Jacob had to marry all four of them, and God made sure that it happened. But why did Rachel and Leah go along with this idea? I have heard some women say that they would rather be the third or fourth wife of King David than the first wife of Nabal. The rabbis say that Jacob married so late in life because he had been studying under Shem, the son of Noah. I do not know if that is true, but it would certainly make Jacob a more attractive prospect than most other men. Having spent the last seven years in such close proximity to Jacob, Leah might have already harbored a strong attraction to him. She was also a godly woman and probably very respectful of her father’s wishes, however conniving he might be.
Rachel was more likely than Leah to find another husband if Jacob rejected her and could have felt some compassion toward her sister in her unfortunate situation. She was also a godly woman and probably experienced a great deal of conflict in her loyalties, as she was not yet fully married to Jacob.