Archive for the ‘History’ Category

The Bible

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

A short essay from a class I’m taking online. It was impromptu, so I didn’t put a whole lot of thought or time into it, but I still thought it worth sharing…

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.

Reminisce and Anticipate

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Just a reminder of what was 65 years ago and what will be again.

Realistic Solutions

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

I would be very interested in hearing some realistic solutions to the problems in Israel and in the Middle East in general. I haven’t heard any good ones yet.

Can’t we all just get along? Umm, no. Israel is completely surrounded by governments (and peoples) who have sworn to kill them all–men, women, and children. They can’t simply forgive and forget. They can’t turn their backs or relax even for a moment. And the Palestinians, whoever they were, whatever their origins, have been hopelessly ghettoized for so long that large segments of their population are no longer capable of living productively with others.

Israel should give the Palestinians their own country. The Palestinians are led by thugs who themselves are pawns for the neighboring Arab states that want nothing more than to kill all Jews. Every attempt at giving the Palestinians more autonomy has been doomed by political maneuvering and insane (literally!) violence against Israel. Even if Hamas and company could all be buried in a deep, mass grave, the Palestinians don’t have a great pool of leaders waiting to take over.

The Jews should give up and go home. And where would that be if not the home of their ancestors? It would make as much sense to suggest that any Cherokee who have found their way to Georgia be sent back home to Oklahoma. Even if we ignored the continuous presence of Jews and other Israelites in the Land for more than three thousand years, at the very least, they have the same right of conquest as every other people. The Coosa were driven out by the Cherokee who were driven out by the English who might soon be driven out by someone else. It’s the way the world has always worked.

The Palestinians should all move to friendlier Arab countries to be with their own kind. Again, what countries would that be? Nobody wants them. Jordan, Egypt, and Syria don’t want them. In fact, they would much rather the Palestinians stay in Israel as a destabilizing force. They are pawns without a single real friend in the world, some willingly but most probably ignorantly. They have nowhere else to go. Maybe those non-Israelis who want the Palestinians to leave Israel could volunteer their suburban homes to house a family or two or three?

There are no clear good guys in that mess, and there are far too many bad guys. The only clear thing in my mind is that the land of Israel, especially that land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, is a special place to God. He entrusted it to Israel once, and although he removed them from it for a time, he promised to give it back to them. The ultimate title to the land has already been established. It is not on the negotiating table.

Where’s Our Rocket Packs?

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

I thought it might be fun to see how far we’ve come since Daniel Amos sang this song in the early 80s. I was wrong. This was a depressing exercise.  We have lots of gadgets, but Taylor was right that “some things never change”.

“(It’s the Eighties, So Where’s Our) Rocket Packs”
from the album Vox Humana
Words and Music by Terry Taylor
©1984 Twitchen Vibes Music (ASCAP)

It’s the eighties
It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?
It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?
Go anywhere, we strap them on our backs
1. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now I’d walk the moon
And ride a car without no tires
And have a robot run the vacuum
And date a girl made out of wires
No thing’s don’t change that much, do they?
We are still out of touch, by now we should discover
Just how to love each other, like Klattus’ robot man
Your looks have killed again

2. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now we’d live in space
And eat a pill instead of dinner
And wear a gas mask on our face
A President of female gender
Though progress marches on, (new day)
Our troubles will grow strong
And my expectancies, become my fantasies
You turn my blood to sand, the earth stands still again

My hopes are running low
things moving much too slow
No space men up above
And we’re still so very far from love

3. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now we’d build a dome
Around the world, control the weather
In every house, a picture phone; communicate a little better
But some things never change (replay!)
You are still acting strange
No way that I can see, this way we will be free
La la la la la la,la la la la la 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 Lift off!

(It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
Repeat 1, 2, 3
(It’s the eighties)

Naso 5770 – A Republic if You Can Keep It

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Numbers 7:84-86  This was the dedication of the altar, in the day when it was anointed, by the rulers of Israel: twelve platters of silver, twelve silver basins, twelve golden pans.  (85)  Each silver dish weighed a hundred and thirty shekels, each basin seventy. All the silver vessels weighed two thousand and four hundred shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel;  (86)  twelve golden pans, full of incense, ten shekels each, according to the sanctuary shekel; all the gold of the pans was a hundred and twenty shekels.

Each tribe of Israel made the same offerings regardless of size or wealth. A peace offering was a community bar-b-que, but Judah, with 186,000 soldiers, offered the same number and type of animals as Manasseh with 32,000 soldiers. This is indicative of Israel’s non-communist, republican form of government. Although Levi had a special role (and did not participate in this round of offerings), every other tribe had an equal voice and responsibility in the national government. The same principle is apparent in the annual half-shekel owed by every man of twenty years and older, whether rich or poor. Every man of Israel was a landowner, and, although not every man could be in leadership, every man had a say in how his nation, his tribe, and his village would be governed.

Vayikra 5770 part 2 – No Scam Lasts Forever

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Leviticus 6:1-5  And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,  (2)  If a soul sins, and acts unfaithfully against YHWH, and lies to his neighbor as to a deposit– or as to security, or by robbery, or has extorted his neighbor,  (3)  or has found that which was lost and lies concerning it and swears falsely– in any of all these that a man does, sinning in it,  (4)  then, it shall be, because he sinned and is guilty, he shall pay back that which he got by robbery, if he robbed; or the thing extorted which he extorted; or the deposit which had been deposited with him; or the lost thing which he had found;  (5)  or all that which he swore about falsely, –he shall even repay it in its principal, and the fifth part he shall add to it, to whomever it belongs. He shall give it on the day of his guilt offering.

And that’s just a tiny fraction of what goes on all over the world. Every day we see corrupt, lying politicians (and others) seeming to get away with murder and theft. Did you notice that God referred to this behavior as unfaithfulness against YHWH? It won’t last forever. The accounts always balance in the end.

Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Irony

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

What else is there to say?

Only God Understands It All

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

I’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, 2009

Somehow 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, 2009

There 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.

degrees-of-consanguinity.jpg

Marriage in the Bible