Sheep and Goats

Category: Theologians

  • Manipulating Cyrus the Great King

    Pulverizing Sennacherib was a big deal? Turns out that it was just a warmup for a greater deliverance, that of Babylon being defeated but not before it had conquered and strutted around insufferably. So the Sennacherib experience would serve as faith strengthening groundwork for that other deliverance in store.

    The one who did the conquering is pre-named in the Book of Isaiah. Chapter 44 ends that Jehovah is “the One saying of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, And he will completely carry out all my will’; The One saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’ And of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’” (44:28)

    45 expands upon his role:

    “This is what Jehovah says to his anointed one, to Cyrus, Whose right hand I have taken hold of To subdue nations before him, To disarm kings, To open before him the double doors, So that the gates will not be shut: 2 “Before you I will go, And the hills I will level. The copper doors I will break in pieces, And the iron bars I will cut down. 3 I will give you the treasures in the darkness And the hidden treasures in the concealed places, So that you may know that I am Jehovah, The God of Israel, who is calling you by your name.” (45:1-3)

    It’s not so much a violation of Cyrus’s free will as it is an object lesson in If you want to get a guy to do something, appeal to his vanity. First-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus relates that Cyrus was shown that prophesy after he conquered Babylon but before he freed any Jewish captives.

    Says his Antiquities of the Jews (Book XI, Chapter 1, Section 2):

    “This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision: ‘My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own land, and build my temple.’ This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written…”

    He didn’t just free the Jewish captives and then someone said, ‘Hey, do you know that you just fulfilled prophesy?’ Rather, Josephus relates that he was shown the passage (maybe via Daniel, a high official in that Babylonian court) and seeing his name in lights, was inspired to fill the role.

    Don’t think he didn’t read ahead. Don’t think his head didn’t swell when he came to 45:9

    “Woe to the one who contends with his Maker, For he is just an earthenware fragment Among the other earthenware fragments lying on the ground! Should the clay say to the Potter: ‘What are you making?’ Or should your work say: ‘He has no hands’”?

    I certainly won’t, he’d say, since the Potter made ME the most excellent of the excellent vessels and sealed the deal by giving me His most sacred assignment, to conquer the Babylonians! (which is right up my alley since I wanted to kick their rear ends anyway)

    It’s sort of like the religious football players who conspicuously thank the Lord after every punishing play. It’s not as though they’re going out of their way to serve him. Pummeling other players is what they’d be doing anyway. One of these characters was known for wearing John 3:16 as his eyeblack, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.” True enough, but is the football field the best place for display, where they regularly haul players away to mend broken bones inflicted by other players? This prompted some atheist fans to suggest Matthew 6:5 for eyeblack: “5 “Also, when you pray, do not act like the hypocrites, for they like to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the main streets to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” But for the fistfights that might break out between the two sides, I’d love to see it.

    Whoa! Would Cyrus’s chest ever puff out at applying to himself the next chapter, 46:

    “Remember the former things of long ago, That I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is no one like me. From the beginning I foretell the outcome, And from long ago the things that have not yet been done. I say, ‘My decision will stand, And I will do whatever I please.’ (46:9-10)

    And what did he foretell from long ago? Cyrus would savor the answer: ME! and then keep reading:

    “I am calling a bird of prey from the sunrise, From a distant land the man to carry out my decision.” (46:11) Who is that fearsome bird of prey? Ahem: ‘C’est moi! C’est moi, I’m forced to admit. ‘Tis I, I humbly reply. That mortal who these marvels can do, C’est moi, c’est moi, ’tis I.’

    “Listen to me, you who are stubborn of heart, You who are far away from righteousness. I have brought my righteousness near; It is not far away, And my salvation will not delay. I will grant salvation in Zion, my splendor to Israel.” (46:12-13)

    And he selected ME to do it! Who is more righteous than me? An excellent choice! “I’ve never lost In battle or game; I’m simply the best by far. When swords are crossed ‘Tis always the same: One blow and au revoir!”

    It’s really not too hard to put hooks in the jaws and direct the mighty ones to your bidding. Just appeal to their ego. If even Hezekiah, from a culture in which humility was a thing, became full of himself at the thought that God would deliver the city while HE was in charge, just think of Cyrus, raised in a culture in which humility was for chumps. Hoo boy. He’s even called God’s “shepherd” and “anointed.”

    God chose me to do his purpose? Good choice! How could he have chosen better? Guess I’ll hop to it.

    Revisit the contention for a moment that the Book of Isaiah is divided into two sections at the chapter 40 mark, Isaiah and ‘Second Isaiah.’ Why do they say this, when the extant evidence indicates otherwise? (The two supposed sections immediately follow one another in the same column of the pertinent Dead Sea Scroll.) You assume they must have some good reason, but it is only that Isaiah 40 clearly tells the future beginning with chapter 40 and they think that’s not possible. it’s their historical-critical method they’ve adopted as the be-all and end-all!

    “2nd Isaiah” (chapters 40-66) is the future deliverance from Babylon set as though it had already happened, they observe. Therefore, it DID already happen, and some liar of a scribe later tacked the chapters on to 39 to make it appear foretelling the future!

    Well, isn’t that what prophets did? Wasn’t that one of the tricks up their sleeve? Weren’t they conduits for God who sometimes revealed future events? It’s a slam-dunk for believers, but the historical critical method assumes that they don’t. When they appear to, it’s the work of some dreamy and delusional God-apologist, in their eyes. I mean, you hope that when you’re tried in court, your own lawyer won’t join the side of the opposition, but in the case of the Book of Isaiah, that is too much to hope for. If your preacher is a graduate of the historical-critical seminary, watch out. “Okay, I have to repackage this pablum for the masses,” he or she is apt to say, “so as to extract the higher meaning.” The higher meaning they find is likely to be higher only in their eyes, as they reconfigure scripture as a tool to mend the present system of human self-rule.

    The same sort of abhorrence for divine power is also at work in the dating of the gospels. Most contemporary theologians think the gospels were written much later than originally supposed, toward the end of the first century and into the second century. Do they have a good reason to think this? Well, it’s good in their eyes, if not those of the sort of humble people who would treasure the gospels. Jesus foretold the Roman destruction of the Jewish temple, which occurred in 70 CE. He couldn’t have foretold it, they say, such things don’t happen today. He must have written it after the fact and then slipped it in as though before. The same bias that creates 2nd Isaiah also creates the late writing dates for the gospels!

    Moreover, this bias that foreknowledge of the future is impossible is so strong that they must overlook in the New Testament much of what is plainly their expertise in order to accommodate it. If the gospels were written after the temple destruction, it’s amazing that none of them mention it. It would have been a fantastic vindication of Jesus’ words, the irresistible climax of his tussling with the Jewish leaders. And Luke, the writer of Act of the Apostles, who “traced all things with accuracy,” (Acts 1:3) can’t trace his way to the bathroom if he neglects the most monumental Jewish event of the last 500 years! The far-simpler, Occam’s Razor explanation, unless you have a grudge against the divine, is that the gospels and Acts were written beforehand, as everyone of common sense used to say before those of the historical critical method came along to foul the water.

    All this is not to condemn the historical-critical method, also known as higher criticism. It works just fine, provided one keeps in mind it is a limited tool. So long as one realizes it is not the sole means to unveil truth, one is okay. Some practitioners do. Some don’t. The two sides are reflection of the world of scientists. Some think science is a nifty tool that reveal a lot, but not all. Others think that if science doesn’t reveal it, it is bogus “pseudo-knowledge.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • The God Not Made with Human Hands vs the Gods that Are

    So here is Rabshekah hollering outside the Jerusalem city wall. The guy on top, a diplomat, wants him to speak the diplomatic Aramaic language that he understands, but the commoners do not. It’s not happening: Rabshekah responds: “Is it just to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Is it not also to the men who sit on the wall, those who will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you?” (36:12) Such things did occur during prolonged sieges. Food and water would run out. It would make conquest of a city so much easier. It happened as recently as 1941, when the Nazis laid siege to Leningrad. The siege lasted over 2 years. Residents ate wallpaper paste, leather, pets, rats, even each other. Up to 1.5 million died.

    Faced with such a diet, one might overlook it if Hezekiah’s knees knocked as loudly as would Belsazzar’s 200 years later.  One might overlook it is his sole thought was for his own neck and the necks of his people. But it didn’t unfold that way. It’s not how he presented the matter to God, first through Isaiah (37:4) and then to God directly:

    “Incline your ear, O Jehovah, and hear! Open your eyes, O Jehovah, and see! Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God.” (37:17) It’s the taunting that gets him going! One thinks of teenaged David, furious that Goliath is “taunting the battle lines of the living God,” overlooking the fact that the lout is four times his size. Maybe that’s what faith is: you don’t see yourself at all, everything is in terms of God’s presence and ability to deliver.

    Letters spread out so God can better read them, Hezekiah says: “It is a fact, O Jehovah, that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the lands, as well as their own land. And they have thrown their gods into the fire, because they were not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone,” (18-19) he continues, as though adding, “Well, duh! What do you expect from that type of god” In fact, he does say it: “That is why they could destroy them.”

    Rabhekah is not really up to speed, either, on just how Jehovah (Yahweh) operates, as he throws everything he has against the wall to see what, if anything, will stick:

    “And if you should say to me, ‘We trust in Jehovah our God,’ is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, while he says to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You should bow down before this altar’?”’ (36:7) Yeah, that really must have set him off, Rabshekah figures. His gods would take it poorly if you did that to them. Must be that Jehovah would be steamed, too. He doesn’t know that it’s setting up the far-away altars in the first place that steamed God. Rabshekah has never heard of a god not made with human hands. He doesn’t know how to relate to one. Usually, the more statues and altars you have for them, the happier they are.

    He blusters away: “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘Jehovah will rescue us.’ Have any of the gods of the nations rescued their land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they rescued Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands have rescued their land out of my hand, so that Jehovah should rescue Jerusalem out of my hand?”’” (36:18-20)

    There are gods galore. Every nation has an arsenal them. Sometimes they’re unique to the nation. Sometimes they overlap. They’re all made with hands and they’re all no good in the clutch. They all have names, too, though not mentioned in chapter 36. Some of them were such duds that the names have been forgotten, like Charlie Browns and Elmer Fudds of long ago, perpetually outsmarted and outmaneuvered. But ones that are recalled are Ashima, Baalshamin, Iluwer, Hadad, Arpad, Adrammelech, Anammelech, Shamash, Ishtar, Anunit—the names have been recorded somewhere, sometimes in the Bible, sometimes in secular history, sometimes in archeology. Sennacherib himself was bowing to his god Nisroch when his own sons bumped him off, the ungrateful brats.

    The Forward of the Revised Standard Version is surely wrong as it explains the choice to completely replace the divine name, Jehovah, with LORD (all caps): “The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom he had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.”

    Is it? Inappropriate? Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 8:5 show that it is entirely appropriate, with its recognition that “there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords?”True, the passage continues (verse 6): “there is actually to us one God, the Father, from whom all things are and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and we through him.” 

    Okay. Got it. Only one is real. The thing is, if you do not name all the “so-called gods,” the “many gods” and “many lords,” they all fold into one who is worshiped in different ways by different people. It’s an approach that works great for people, since anything they do counts, but not so great for God, who might have preferences.

    I think those ancient nations were on to something and I’m sorry to see the Revised Standard Version (and almost everyone has followed suit) wave the God-centered view away in preference for the human-centered. We’ve all experienced cases of mistaken identity. We’ll speak with someone of a name we both know, yet the attributes don’t line up. We soon realize we’re speaking of two different persons who share a common name. If anyone said, “No, it’s still just one person; it’s just that we approach him differently,” we would know that that person is not pulling with both oars.  It’s the same with God.

    The “Jesus gets us” God is surely not the same as the MAGA God. The God whose aim is to reform this world is not the same as the God who reckons to rescue people from it before it is scrapped. The God who is a trinity (and thus incomprehensible) is not the same as the God who is not. The God willing to torture people in hell is not the same as the God who would never dream of such a thing. Different attributes mean different Gods (gods).

    Surely, the modern view is advanced to us by the critics who conclude that God is unknowable, the tenets of faith beyond the ability of their tools to mention. As with theology itself, the modern view is human centered, not God centered. 

    The God not made with human hands is not something Sennacherib has encountered before. He can cream all the ones made with hands. He has. But he has never met the god not formed by hands.

    Hezekiah continues in prayer: “But now, O Jehovah our God, save us out of his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are God, O Jehovah.” (37:20) He does this only after decrying the taunt to God’s name. He does it the same way as Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer. He puts God’s concern first, even before his own, even in a super-dire emergency where you could understand if he put his own first.

    The answer to his prayer is immediate.: “Isaiah son of Amoz then sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Because you prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, this is the word that Jehovah has spoken against him: 

    “The virgin daughter of Zion despises you, she scoffs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you. Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice And lifted your arrogant eyes?  It is against the Holy One of Israel!” (37:21-23)

    It isn’t the answer that Rabshekah had expected. It is hooks in the nose and bridle between the lips time for him. (37:29)

    ******  The bookstore

    Supplementary: This is why I like it that religions in general flee in terror at saying “Jehovah.” Some take refuge temporarily in “Yahweh,” since they know “The LORD” sounds ridiculous, but Yahweh sounds too Jewish, so they tend not to hang around there too long. 

    It means that, while “God,” may have 100 different definitions, “Jehovah” is what Jehovah’s Witnesses say he is, since others avoid the term. 

    It’s not unheard of to come across someone who shares your name. The way that anyone else knows it is not you is that the attributes don’t line up. If anyone was to say they, too, know Tom Harley, it’s just that they approach him in differently, you’d know you were not speaking with someone playing with a full deck. Yet, this is all the rage with God, asserting that there is but one God and people approach him in different ways. 

    No. They are approaching different Gods. The MAGA God is surely not the same as the God behind “Jesus Gets Us.” The “no part of the world” God is surely not the same as the “fix the world” God. The trinity God is not the same as the “Father is greater than the Son” God. The hellfire God is not the same as the one who would dream of such a thing. They ought to have different names. In Jehovah’s-Witness land, they do.

    The ancients were on to something with their myriad names for gods. We never should have strayed from that. Witnesses never did.

  • David and the Deceased 70K

    David makes a dumb move at 70,000 die. Israel of old clears out the Promised Land and many more die. And then—what about slavery?

    Probably, the way it works is that once humans, in the persons of Adam and Eve, have sailed past God’s will and entered the doomed experiment of independent self-rule, to be concluded several thousands of years later, God works with the products of that rebellion to achieve his purpose. 

    This means, if warfare and yielding to the whims of the gods has become a fixture in life, it is used in furtherance of that purpose. People of that time may not like it, but they will take it right in stride as the sort of thing that happens in their times—whereas people 4000 years later won’t be able to get their heads around it at all. We, from the present day, imagine a world court of some sort that will make a stab at punishing war crimes. Not so then. The time-tested way to clear people out, especially those whose “error” has had 400 years to come to fruition, the way Genesis 15:16 says, is through warfare. 

    It is rather the same thing with slavery. Modern woke people expect Jesus, or any character of godly standing, to suspend all activity upon encountering it so as to deliver lectures as to how unjust it is. Instead, they say: “well, humans chose injustice (albeit unknowingly) from the earliest days of the first couple,” so they work with it, rather than rail against it. “Were you called when a slave? Do not let it concern you; but if you can become free, then seize the opportunity,” Paul writes at 1 Corinthians 7:21.

    In short, humans chose injustice. So God incorporates all the products of that choice into his developing purpose. In the case of David and the 70 deceased K, this is likely a realized manifestation of God’s warning not to choose a king. The system of judges was working just fine. Don’t mess it up:

    “However, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and said: “No, but a king is what will come to be over us. And we must become, we also, like all the nations, and our king must judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

    Oh yeah! Cool! Do it the way “all the nations” do. Maybe we can even have our own flag!

    Sometimes the king loses those battles. When he does, since you’ve put yourself under his authority, you bear a part of the defeat. Even in lands of participatory government, when you succeed in putting your guy into office, then he commits mayhem abroad, don’t you share some bloodguilt for putting him in that position? Can you really claim to be an innocent civilian?

    That God uses the products of early human rebellion against him, in this case the nations they congeal themselves into, as instruments in his purpose, is no more evident than it is in the Book of Isaiah. He uses the nation of Assyria, even calling it the rod of his anger, to discipline his own people:

    “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”  (Isaiah 10:5-6) Later, Babylon will be the instrument, as demonstrated most notable in chapters 39 and 47. 

    They are fickle and imprecise instruments, as would be expected of products of human rebellion—hard to control, even for God, but such are the tools he has to work with. When the hangman gets too ghoulish, even the State may restrain him. So it is that the mayhem-inducing nations go too far, and God must pull them back. “Should the axe exult itself over the One who chops with it?” Jehovah rebukes Assyria. (10:15) It is the same way with Babylon: “I was angry with my people and profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy…” (47:6) The oppression is limited. Once the discipline of his people is complete, His anger turns away.

    Though disguised, the beef of many is not with the 70K, nor clearing the Promised Land, nor the mean Assyrians or Babylonians, nor the myriad other criticisms they bring up, but with God’s overall plan to let thousands of years elapse to demonstrate that human self-rule independent of him doesn’t work. Rather than the present world “passing away,” they appear to want it repaired, and imagine that lectures on the evils of warfare and slavery will do the trick. If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that humans at the highest levels of accountability are perfectly capable of arguing away whatever is recorded in scripture in favor of what they would rather do. The way the Bible has it laid out is that after the experiment of self-rule has ended, Jehovah will forcefully uphold his sovereignty through the rulership of his son, amidst much loss of life from those who yet oppose. And I suspect they won’t like that either.

    ”They love this current system so they want to just ‘repair’ the aspects they dont want not realizing its broken and the only solution is to destroy it and have something better”

    Sometimes I phrase this that these don’t really want an end to injustice as much as to the symptoms of injustice, mostly the ones that affect them personally. Or, to be more charitable, to the ones that they know of personally. A central Bible theme is that human self-rule is itself the source of injustice, and that injustice manifests itself in so many ways at so many levels that nobody can possible tally it all up—so they just focus on fixing ones those they know, often at the expense of ones they do not know. Human self-rule itself has to go if injustice is to be solved.

    These are the ones who put unlimited faith in humankind—or maybe it is disdain for God—so that they continue to insist humans are salvageable, that all that lacks is more education, more communication, more ‘coming together.’ At root, it is those who suppose that man is basically good, rather than fatally flawed. Witnesses take the ‘fatally flawed’ viewpoint, and that the only remedy is salvation through Christ.

    It really is true that “the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints from the marrow, and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

    Meanwhile, the most learned theologians, stymied by tools that prevent looking into the divine, attribute all such scriptures to after-the-fact damage control, as though putting lipstick on a pig. The 70K died, the original inhabitants west of the Jordan wiped out, Israel and Judah itself desecrated at the hands of foreign powers, and narrative must be concocted to cover these unpleasantries from a human point of view.

    ******  The bookstore

  • First Thing Upon Arrival—Chow Down: Isaiah 25:6

    The first thing we do upon arrival in the new system, apparently, is chow down. Finally, we have arrived and all the promised blessings being to flow. We have been breaking eggs for the first 23 chapters of Isaiah. Finally, an omelette is emerging. The broken eggs were not for nothing. 

    It’s such a departure from what threatened to become same ‘ol, same ‘ol, that one theologian wrote a book about it, as though chapters 24-27 itself was a new book, a book within a book in Isaiah. This book is ‘Isaiah 24-27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic.’ by William R. Millar, published in 1976. The four chapters, he and his fellows maintain, find their origin in  post-exilic community conflicts, as though those later exiled Jews say: “We may be down but we’re not out! Just wait till next season! Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, there will be payback! Not only will your cans be kicked to the curb, but the rewards to us faithful will be out ‘a sight!. It’s all for us and none for you. Nyah, nyah!” This is about as much as you can expect from higher critics who don’t necessarily believe what they are critiquing, nor is its truthfulness their main concern.

    There are omelettes aplenty in the banquet of well oiled dishes, prepared by Jehovah for all the nations at his table. Being from Jehovah’s Mountain, that is Mount Zion, it is the place where the temple was located. It stands symbolically as representative of God‘s government. Today, we would call it God‘s kingdom. When it comes to power, then is served the omelettes. Omelette do not really appear in any of the verses discussed, but it is on the menu. You can order one if you like:

    “In this mountain Jehovah of armies will make for all the peoples A banquet of rich dishes, A banquet of fine wine, Of rich dishes filled with marrow, Of fine, filtered wine.” (Isaiah 25:6)

    “Squeet!” would grunt my supposed Native American friend, poking fun at himself with his own made-up supposed Native American word, which, when translated, means “Let’s go eat.” Throughout his life, he had told one and all that he was Native American. His Innuet appearance easily convinced non-savvy chums. He believed it himself. But, in his eighties, he took one of those ancestry tests and discovered he had not a drop of Indian blood in him. It was all Swedish. His father had taken off before he was born. Turned out that all his neighbors, perhaps dad himself, were know-nothings. He believed what he had always been told and had come to have a special sympathy for Native Americans.

    As to chowing down, Jehovah prepares his feast on the aforementioned “mountain.”—Mt. Zion, where the temple stood. It comes to symbolize God’s presence, wherever he is. It is when his will has come to overshadow everything else, everything that would oppose. Furthermore, he spreads this feast “for all peoples,” not just his own Israel. Many mysteries have been unveiled for that to take place.  

    Echoes and glimmers and even the exact same thing appear elsewhere in Scripture, both in the Old Testament, as prophetic parallels or echoes, and in the New Testament, as fulfilled in Jesus and the kingdom. Isaiah 55:1-2, for example, and Psalm 23:5, 36:8, Exodus 24:9-11. 

    In the New Testament: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 8:11), in the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1–14): A king prepares a magnificent wedding feast for his son. When the originally invited guests decline—they’re all busy— the invitation goes out to everyone—good and bad alike—until the hall is filled. This reflects the universal scope of Isaiah 25:6.

    The promise to his eleven, after Judas has been dismissed: “You will eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones…”  Luke 22:29–30

    The parable of the great banquet: A man prepares a great dinner and sends servants to compel people from the highways and hedges to come in, so his house may be full. Again, the emphasis is on abundant provision and inclusion of unexpected guests, echoing the “all peoples” of Isaiah. (Luke 14:15–24)

    The foretaste of Matthew 26:29, with parallels at Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:18: “I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”  

    The Last Supper and the future Messianic Banquet: Jesus connects the Passover wine to a future joyful drinking of new/aged wine in the fulfilled kingdom—directly recalling the “finest of wines” and “aged wine” of Isaiah 25:6.

    The Grand Finale itself in Revelation 19:6–9: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad… Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”  

    Really, every time Jesus fed the masses it was a precursor of the messianic feast.

    So it is that meetings and publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses love to dramatize this scene. Take the 2021 Regional Convention, for example, which I wrote up in ‘In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction.’ All the trimmings are there, the participants are exchanging recipes, all of which are from the same recipe book, and there is contained even the extra-apocalyptic account of the guard who came into the faith because the guard of Acts 16 did. And then—knock me over with a feather!—a special guest of honor is there. It was the resurrected Joseph at the convention, though I made him the resurrected Mephibosheth in my book. Both are sure that the fellow guests will have many questions to ask. In my book, the first question is mine, and it is how did he ever get stuck with such an unpronounceable turkey of a name, to which he replied that it was just one of those things. Nonetheless, the great evening banquet scene was sort of a show-stopper at the convention, as it will be when the fulfillment of Jehovah’s promises in the kingdom of his son brings it about.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Filling the Tables with Vomit: Part 2

    While they were puking their guts out, there were a lot of underpinnings they were turning a blind eye to—this part was in the oral Bible reading: 

    “Woe to those who join one house to another house and who annex one field to another field until there is no more room and you live by yourselves on the land.” (Isaiah 5:8)

    It is a reference to the Mosaic Law that supposedly governed that long-ago agricultural society. Each extended family was allotted a certain amount of land. That land was inviolate. You could neither sell it nor expand it into an empire. If you did, say due to some temporary hardship, the land reverted back to its original ownership at the end of designated 50-year periods, called Jubilees. Thus, there could never arise a wealthy landowning class, pricing their poorer countrymen out of existence. 

    That this is a good thing is obvious from contemplating current events. In the U.S, whereas a house could once be purchased for 2-3 times the average annual income, the figure is now 7 times. Whereas, the average age of first time ownership was once 30, it is now 37. All this within about a 30 period. Large firms now buy up homes and would seek to turn the entire nation into renters. (All this according to Charlie Kirk, heard in interview, who was later shot and killed.) It is the most recent manifestation of a very old problem. At our mid-week meeting, one brother related how long ago, well before Kirk was born, his mother had returned home to find all of her belongings on the street. The family had fallen behind in rent and had been evicted. The experience traumatized her for life, the brother said, himself now up in years.

    The Mosaic Law, when observed, would have prevented such things. That is why, to those who would ignore it—the majority of the nation, as it turned out, Isaiah pronounced “woe.” It was among the reasons (there are six “woes” in the chapter) that God would “raise up a signal to a distant nation [and] “whistle for them to come from the ends of the earth; And look! they are coming very swiftly.” (Verse 26)

    This spelled bad news to the nations of miscreants: “None among them are tired or stumbling. No one is drowsy or sleeps. The belt around their waist is not loosened, Nor are their sandal laces broken. All their arrows are sharp, And all their bows are bent.  The hooves of their horses are like flint, And their wheels like a storm wind.  Their roaring is like that of a lion; They roar like young lions.  They will growl and seize the prey And carry it off with no one to rescue it.” Such a “distant land” did invade subsequently: first, the nation of Assyria, later, that of Babylon. (27-29)

    As though alarmed that wrong conduct might be dissuaded by seeing things this way, higher critics regards verses such as these as a “gnomos,” a way of looking at the world. A long-standing gnomos (that God will fight for his people) is set upon its head after the invasion. Emergency repair is needed. Wait—isn’t there some fine print somewhere to the effect that Israel must behave to enjoy such protection? Yes, there is! Gnomos restored. God could have fought for his people, but he chose not to.

    Save us from the world of higher critics. It is as I wrote in ‘Workman’s Theodicy:’

    “It is as though someone runs a stop sign and a horrific accident results. Thereafter, survivors are desperate to impart meaning to the event, to understand how such a horrible thing could happen. Whereupon, one of them recalls a long-ago contract to the effect that you are supposed to stop when you see one of those things, as though no one had ever imagined such a connection before.”

    In other words, per the higher critics, the warning of 26-29 is not advance prophecy, but after-the-fact damage control. The enormous benefit to those who adopt this scholarly view is that, with it, they may act unjustly if they want to. Nobody’s going to call them out on it. Nobody’s going to forbid them from (verse 20) “say[ing] that good is bad and bad is good [or] who “substitute darkness for light and light for darkness.” One man’s light is another man’s darkness. Who are you to impose your standards of good and bad on us, trying to control us that way. We’ll do what we want. It is a mainstay theme of the entire Bible, that first couples departing from God’s dictating “good and bad”to “know” matters on their own.

    With such an enlightened view, If calamity happens, it happens. It was meant to be. Don’t embarrass yourself claiming it way punishment from some higher source. We’re wise in our own eyes and discreet in our own sight! (verse 21) We’ll keep on keeping on, until buying a house costs 20 times the average salary and the age of first-time ownership is 50! Should that course trigger upheaval, we’ll deal with it when the time comes.

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  • Save Us from Critical Thinking: Part 2

    Luke Timothy Johnson, lecturer of the Great Courses series, ‘The Story of the Bible,’ likened the historical critical method (higher criticism) to a Trojan Horse. It is dazzling in appearance. Therefore, you let it right into your camp. Once inside, however, it releases the seeds of your own destruction. This is because the historical critical method is based entirely on ‘critical thinking,’ which is all the rage today.

    black and white photography of a wooden trojan horse
    Photo by Ayşe İpek on Pexels.com

    Probably, the phrase ‘critical thinking’ should be struck from the Christian vocabulary, since it defines the thought process of those who put all their trust in human science. Nothing against science here, but it is not something that should not be elevated over all else. It is also unsettling to hear modern calls to “believe the science,” since science is not a system of belief. Jehovah’s Witness published literature has never used the expression “critical thinking.” (nor any faith tradition, to my knowledge) Instead, it opts for biblical counsel to “let your reasonableness be known to all.” There’s no need to let narrow people define what it means to be “reasonable.”

    Plenty of Witnesses use the expression innocuously and good conscience, but it is technically a tool of the “enemy.” It is the exact opposite of the apostle’s directive that “we are walking by faith, not by sight.” Not only is “critical thinking” the epitome of “walking by sight,” but it is walking by provable sight, specifically scientifically-provable sight. It is not simply the opposite of being gullible. It is a too-narrow definition of what it means to be smart. It ensures that you will miss a lot.

    It has the effect of decimating faith because it examines only what is scientifically provable, and no tenet of faith is. Those who are trained this way in theology end up taking all spiritual beliefs off the table for consideration. They figure they have the tools to examine only the effects of faith on a person: that is, does a given belief system help or harm a person? Shelving the fundamental aspects of faith, it is left to examine only the secondary. The effect is to make religion an expression of human rights.

    Just as higher criticism rules out examination of the resurrection or the virgin birth of Christ as being scientifically unprovable, so it rules out any consideration of an afterlife, or (for Witnesses) the notion of living forever on a future paradise earth. Not scientifically provable. Can’t go there. Passages like 1 Timothy 6:19 (instructions to the young man on how to shepherd the congregations) become meaningless:

    “Tell them to work at good, to be rich in fine works, to be generous, ready to share, safely treasuring up for themselves a fine foundation for the future, so that they may get a firm hold on the real life.”

    Since the “real life” is unprovable to the higher critics, and the present life is the only one they acknowledge, the Bible verse, at best, makes no sense, and at worst, becomes a harmful distraction from the present. Higher criticism vs traditional biblical reading are opposites. The “real life” to the higher critics is the present. The “real life” to the traditional Bible reader is the future. To the higher critic, pursuing the “real life” of 1 Timothy has relevance ONLY in how if affects a person in the present.

    This insistence on examining only the immediate aspects of faith puts it at the mercy of changing human values. For the longest time, Witnesses received a green light as to benefiting in the present. Witness beliefs enabled them to break free of addictions and enjoy stable marriages, for example. But now, these benefits are being overshadowed by modern demands for “inclusion,” as well as an added savoring of “independence.” Even breaking free of debasing addictions doesn’t count if “someone told you to do it.” Plainly, Jehovah’s Witnesses put themselves under the relative authority of congregation headship. The fact that Christians did it in the first century as well is irrelevant. Plainly, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not practice “inclusion” for some increasing popular lifestyles. The fact that they beat everyone for inclusion towards races, ethnicities, economic and educational differences doesn’t cut it.

    To be continued—here

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  • Save us from Critical Thinking: Part 1

    Here in the U.S, when the media wishes to discredit someone, they say that he or she stated such-and-such “without evidence,” as if it were a god that they failed to bow down to. It is a relatively new expression, not more than 10 years old.

    In fact, meaningful “evidence” is extremely hard to obtain. Just distinguishing causal from correlated can spur endless studies and be squabbled over without resolution. Then, assuming people successfully obtain “evidence,” they come to polar opposite concussions regarding it, as determined by their preexisting backgrounds, experiences, education, culture, dispositions, etc.

    Then, in this country (U.S.), at least half of all people are on some sort of medication, many of which are said to alter mood and overall thinking ability. 

    It is enough to make one bridle at the expression “critical thinking,” as though humans are capable of it beyond a light seasoning. When applied to theology, it is a major detriment to faith, since it allows for discussion only that which can be scientifically proven. Fundamentals upon which faith depends, such as the resurrection of Christ or his virgin birth cannot be so proven. Therefore, they are off the table, as are most tenets of faith. All that remains for examination is the effects of faith upon a person, which is often in the eye of the beholder.

    With the beliefs of faith removed from discussion, critical thinking theology largely demotes religion to a forum for human rights. Everything else is taken off the table. That is all that remains. Nothing against human rights here, other than to point out that our own bodies do not respect them, failing us when we need them the most. But, surely faith in God must be more than such strictly human matters.

    Historian Allen Guelzo examines the modern-day emphasis on “critical thinking” in interpreting history. Does it make it better? If anything, he suspects it makes it worse, by “cloaking human bias in a veneer of science.”

    When it comes to politics, how are we to account for people aligning themselves in opposite camps, both of which claim critical thinking as their friend? I like to view it as “all human governments drop the ball. Usually it is a bowling ball. As people ponder the vulnerabilities of toes on their right or left feet, such is determined their politics.” The influence of critical thinking is not what seals the deal. It is mostly bias, formed through preexisting experience and training.

    The Bible stands in contrast. It doesn’t pretend that critical thinking is any significant component of meeting God’s approval. Jesus “draws” people. The “children” (not known for their critical thinking skills) are more likely than the “wise” (who are known for it) to get the sense of it. “Taste and see that Jehovah is good” says the psalm. Suppose someone thinks that beets taste bad. Will you prove to him through critical thinking that he is wrong?

    Covid 19 and worldwide response to it has proved the absolute inadequacy of critical thinking. It is not that the stuff is bad. It is that humans are incapable of it to any degree that would make a significant dent in life.

    (To be continued—here)

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  • Burn Up Sons in the Fire? Atheists Strike Again

    At a home Bible study, the kind that Jehovah’s Witnesses offer, Darrel had a question. He brought up Exodus 22: 29-30.

    “You shall give me the firstborn of your sons. You must do the same with your oxen and your sheep.” (New International Version) This meant, he worried, that you burn up your firstborn child for God, same as you would your ox and your sheep. “You must do the same”—he repeated the expression.

    He got it from the atheists, I’ve no doubt. They would make a burnt offering of the entire Bible were it up to them. He doesn’t necessarily buy into it. He just doesn’t want to be snowed—by the atheists or by the Witnesses. He even apologizes for raising the question, as though for rocking the boat. ‘What—are you kidding me?’ I tell him. ‘We’d be worried if you didn’t have questions.’

    Should one be flustered? The snippet quoted does sort of sound like you’re supposed burn your sons. It will not do just to say, ‘It doesn’t mean that!’ Unless you explain why it doesn’t, it comes across as though you are covering up a crime. The challenge is enough to send the one conducting the study scurrying in search of other scriptures to shed light on the passage—using one scripture to explain another, the tried and true method in the JW world. Me, I’m just the companion, sitting there, taking up space.

    Actually, just backing out some and taking the entire passage into account would answer the question, but this is not immediately apparent. The entire passage reads:

    “You shall not delay the offering of your harvest and your press. You shall give me the firstborn of your sons. You must do the same with your oxen and your sheep; for seven days the firstling may stay with its mother, but on the eighth day you must give it to me.”

    Three things are being compared in the expanded passage, not two: 1) the first offerings of the harvest and [wine]press, 2) your own firstborn, and 3) the firstborn of the oxen and sheep. You must "do the same," not with the manner of sacrifice, but that all are subject to sacrifice. Grain and drink offerings were not done in the same manner as animal sacrifices. Neither would people be.

    And here the atheists are trying to get him all pumped up over that passage! 'Well, it sure sounds like you're supposed to burn your son just like your ox or sheep,’ they mutter. 'If it’s not that way, it could have been explained more clearly!' Really? When we read of a celebrity roast, does anyone expect an asterisk explaining that they're not literally roasted (though many of them should be)?

    In time, the conductor emerges with a verse from Jeremiah that explains it all. He had one of three to choose from; the prophet makes the point that many times. Referring to when Israel went carousing with their rowdy neighbors (the nations surrounding them) and in time picked up their bad habits, the prophet speaks for God and says, “they built the high places of Baal in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to Baal, something that I had not commanded or spoken of and that had never even come into my heart.” (Jeremiah 19:5) Okay? If it “had never even come into [his] heart,” he’s not going to command his people do it. It is Baal they are thinking of.

    Ezekiel confirms what Jeremiah related. The raucous neighbors did such things. When Israel proved unfaithful to its God, Jehovah, it followed suit:

    “Because they did not carry out my judicial decisions and they rejected my statutes, they profaned my sabbaths, and they followed after the disgusting idols of their forefathers. I also allowed them to follow regulations that were not good and judicial decisions by which they could not have life. I let them become defiled by their own sacrifices—when they made every firstborn child pass through the fire—in order to make them desolate, so that they would know that I am Jehovah.” (bolding mine)

    These appeals to Jeremiah and Ezekiel fall flat to persons schooled in higher criticism. They will object that Exodus is a work of ‘the priestly tradition’ and Jeremiah a work of ‘the prophetic tradition.’ The two traditions fought like cats and dogs—you wouldn’t appeal to one for support of the other. But Darell is not a person of higher criticism. He is a person of common sense. The point registers with him. Had it not, maybe an appeal to an earlier portion of Exodus (4:22-23) would have sufficed. There, Moses is directed, “You must say to Pharʹaoh, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Israel is my son, my firstborn. I say to you, Send my son away so that he may serve me.”’” See what God wanted from his firstborn? He wanted service, not burnt remains. Since both quotes are from Exodus, the comparison might work with a higher critic. Though, it might not; even within a given Bible book, they claim to be able to see both the priestly and prophetic traditions squabbling with one another.

    Thing is, to the higher critic, any words attributed to God are really human in origin. They cannot prove God by their scientific method, and the scientific method is all they recognize. God, for them, is a human construct. So, necessarily, words attributed to God are merely that of some human spinning his own theology. Moreover, how strong can a human construct be? Strong enough to fly in the face of tribal neighbors who did indeed offer children as burnt sacrifices? The critics judge it is not. Therefore, when Jeremiah and Ezekiel present Jehovah as condemning the practice, they are to the critics just reformers proclaiming what they would like to see, not what is. They are just whistleblowers. Their protests are but the protests of human prophets, not of God himself, who is imaginary. To the higher critics, Jehovah is a tribal god like all the rest. The religious zealots that are Jeremiah and Ezekiel may try to extricate him from the abhorrent practice, but it will not fly with higher critics. All gods to them are really but one god, and all are figments of the common human urge to worship what they can neither control nor understand. The human sciences of sociology and anthropology lead them to conclude that if one god did it, they all did. A passage such as Leviticus 18: 24-25 makes little impression on them: “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” To them, it is like the words of an ascending politician explaining why he must beat up on his rivals. He is just talking sweet until he gains power, whereupon he will revert to true form.

    Biblical passages drawing a favorable distinction between the God of the Bible and the gods of surrounding nations are defused by the critics in short order. For example, a passage of Deuteronomy: (FN 4:5-8)

    “See, I [Moses] have taught you regulations and judicial decisions, just as Jehovah my God has commanded me, for you to do that way in the midst of the land to which you are going to take possession of it. And you must keep and do them, because this is wisdom on your part and understanding on your part before the eyes of the peoples who will hear of all these regulations, and they will certainly say, ‘This great nation is undoubtedly a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has gods near to it the way Jehovah our God is in all our calling upon him? And what great nation is there that has righteous regulations and judicial decisions like all this law that I am putting before you today.  Deut 4:5-8

    With no way to ascertain that there is a God, the higher critic regards the above as a concoction of Moses, who was a great man hoping to impose his theology upon a resistant nation. He is attributing his own forward vision to God, saying the ways of his god are best, when he actually should be saying, ‘My ways are best.’

    As an exercise, in the following summation of 2 Kings 17:7-18, replace every mention of Jehovah (FN traditionally thought to be Jeremiah, though you won’t be able to ram that by the higher critics, either). with the name of the author writing the account. Doing so moves it into the realm of a political statement, not one of God. Modern critics can identify with political statements. They cannot with statements of faith, so they repackage the latter as the former:

    “[Calamity] happened because the people of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the control of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods, they followed the customs of the nations that Jehovah had driven out from before the Israelites, and they followed the customs that the kings of Israel had established. The Israelites were pursuing the things that were not right according to Jehovah their God. They kept building high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city. They kept setting up for themselves sacred pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree; and on all the high places they would make sacrificial smoke just as the nations did that Jehovah had driven into exile from before them. They kept doing wicked things to offend Jehovah. They continued to serve disgusting idols, about which Jehovah had told them: “You must not do this!” Jehovah kept warning Israel and Judah through all his prophets and every visionary, saying: “Turn back from your wicked ways! Keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law that I commanded your forefathers and that I sent to you through my servants the prophets.” But they did not listen, and they remained just as stubborn as their forefathers who had not shown faith in Jehovah their God. They continued rejecting his regulations and his covenant that he had made with their forefathers and his reminders that he had given to warn them, and they kept following worthless idols and became worthless themselves, imitating the nations all around them that Jehovah had commanded them not to imitate. They kept leaving all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and they made metal statues of two calves and a sacred pole, and they bowed down to all the army of the heavens and served Baal. They also made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and looked for omens, and they kept devoting themselves to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him. So Jehovah was very angry with Israel, so that he removed them from his sight.”

    None of the above is God’s complaint, according to the higher critics. It is all the complaint of Jeremiah—or whoever is writing as though Jeremiah.

    So destructive to faith is higher criticism that it ought to be as banned as DDT and thalidomide, for it triggers no fewer spiritual stillbirths. Instead, it is the method of theological preference today. If you shop the theological schools for your church pastor, it is what you most likely have inflicted upon your congregation. Jehovah’s Witnesses will have none of it. To them, the words of Peter apply, that “prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were moved by holy spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21) Those words of Peter lead them to assume unity of scripture, not inherent discord between them. It necessarily makes scripture more powerful. You can focus things that are united. You cannot things that are disunited.

     

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  • “Frankly, in some of those congregations, I’m not even sure they believe in God:” It’s no joke with theologians.

    When a full-time-service couple moves into town, they may have several congregations to choose from. I try to woo them into mine. ‘Frankly, in some of those other congregations,’ I tell them, ‘I’m not sure they even believe in God.’ It’s a joke. Everyone knows it’s a joke. They laugh.

    But in the world of theologians, it’s no joke. Theologians may not. And if they do not, their credentials as theologian are not diminished. ‘How could they not believe in God?’ the uninitiated who supposes the two all but synonymous might ask. The answer is that theology is not a study of God. It is a study of humans. Specifically, it is a study of human interaction with the concept of a divine. As such, it does not even assume that there is a divine. The concept is what counts, not whether the concept has “the quality of existence.” Frequently, theologians are agnostic. Sometimes, they are atheist.

    Since their limited tools of rational measurement leave them unable to verify spiritual interpretations, they don’t try. They leave that area, huge though it is, untouched. Instead, those trained in higher criticism judge religious belief entirely by its effect upon people and society. When they entertain arguments as to God’s existence, arguments categorized as ontological, cosmological, and teleological—they generally find flaws with all. James Hall considers numerous examples of each argument and in every case arrives at what he calls a ‘Scottish verdict’—undecided. He ends his 36-part lecture series on the Philosophy of Religion with the plea that religious people take more seriously the notion that they may be wrong. Why? Because when they don’t, they tend to persecute those believing differently.

    Just tamp them all down some so that human reason might rule the roost; that is his position. No wonder he downplays any dualism theodicy that implies some things are beyond human control. Strong faith is not amenable to his tools of choice. he prefers you make it weak. As a hobby, as a dimly motivating background philosophy, it is okay, but for anything serious, just shelve it, please. “I wish you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth,” Jesus says. Hall’s reply is that lukewarm with have to do.

    It may be that religious people persecute those of different beliefs in his world—clearly, they do—but in the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they do not. As people who integrate the scriptures, rather than assume each one an island oblivious to all others, they are motivated by the Old Testament verse put in New Testament context, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says Jehovah.” If there is any persecuting to be done, it will not be at their hands. Witnesses do not even engage in the ‘soft violence’ of stirring up politicians to force their ways upon people by law. But those addicted to changing the world, by force, if necessary, cannot abide the expanded ‘vengeance is mine’ passage:

    Return evil for evil to no one. Take into consideration what is fine from the viewpoint of all men. If possible, as far as it depends on you, be peaceable with all men. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but yield place to the wrath; for it is written: “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says Jehovah.” But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing this you will heap fiery coals on his head.” Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good. (Romans 12: 17-21)

    They do like the part about “heaping fiery coals” upon the heads of their opponents, but alas, it is not a literal recommendation. It is a reference to how metals can be softened to make them more pliable, and how acts of kindness can have that effect upon people.

    Thus, one need not water down faith, as Hall appears to advocate. Assume unity of scripture and you are fine. Assume the ‘vengeance is mine’ passage is the insertion of some renegade theological peacenik, however, and you can see why he wants to dilute all systems of faith—they just go at each other like baking soda and vinegar.

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  • Theologians Move Away from Satan—Why?

    Modern theologians have discarded Satan. It is so yesterday. Satan makes Christianity a dualism, a bad to offset the good. The devil is a good concept to have around, since you can blame all your troubles on him. But modern theologians of the monotheistic religions have long since moved on from him, as though an embarrassment from their childhood.

    I think this is because they are very much into fixing the world via human solutions. They are really not too much different from secularists, only with a light God-seasoning sprinkled on top. A Devil makes all their efforts moot. How can you fix the world if the basic problem is outside your influence? When they do devil at all, they present him as an analogy for ‘the evil that is within us.’ That is something they imagine will yield to their repair efforts.

    Then too I think they suffer an overreaction to how the churches have portrayed the Devil, as the master torturer of hellfire, somehow commissioned by God to do his dirty work of punishing sinners. What logical person wouldn’t want to break away from that?—and these theologians are nothing if not those who pride themselves on their logic.

    Chasing down a lecture series that Tom Whitepebble pointed me to, I found the lecturer, James Hall, told that he was raised Lutheran Evangelical. Nobody does hellfire more than they. So when he described himself as an “ethical monotheist,” I just assumed that his worldview incorporated a devil. Instead, he tested theodicy after theodicy, punched holes in all of them, and only last did he consider a “dualism” solution that involves the devil. (A theodicy, for anyone who doesn’t know, is an attempt to explain how God could coexist with evil) He conceded this one made the most sense, but also that it was very unpopular, so unpopular that he seemed to think portions of his audience might not have heard of it.

    This “unpopular” theodicy only posited that there was a devil. It did not touch on how that one came to be, why God permits it, how he will resolve it, or any other aspect of the Universal Court case scenario—just that there was a devil whom you could pin all the bad stuff on. I had asked Whitepebble if he knew where our court case scenario originated. Based on something he had heard, he pointed me to this lecture series. But it really didn’t touch on the essence of it, just that there was a master villain devil.

    Imagine. The fellow reviews theodicy after theodicy, rejects them all as unsatisfactory, and ignores only the one that works. It recalls what a certain friend used to say to me, a friend who is fond of alternative medicine: “If it works, insurance won’t cover it.”

    It is not a contradiction in terms to find a given theologian might not believe in God. Some are atheist. This is because theology is not a study of God, as the uninitiated might assume, but a study of man’s interaction with the concept of God. Thus, there doesn’t even have to be a God for the ‘concept of God’ to be valid. It is entirely a human field of study, like sociology or anthropology.

    It is all a part of my current work in progress, a review of our ‘court case’ theodicy. It begins with discussion of the Book of Job. In fact, that’s where I first got the idea to write it, when we were doing Job in our congregation Bible readings. It had been vaguely kicking around in my head before, but it needed those Job readings to gel.

     

     

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