Author: eejoseph

Science, fact, and the failure of faith

eejoseph

Constitutional lawyers,  evangelists, pastors, medical doctors, and elected representatives in the United States of America have convinced a third of the population that they can use the label “pro life” to indicate the nobility of faith and respect for science.  Do they want people to  forget that faith and bloodletting have a tenuous relationship? Americans, peace officers included, have spent the last two hundred years shedding innocent blood like eating cereal, bacon and eggs for breakfast.  If you believe that the GOP and the majority in the Supreme Court are philanthropists, your faith is sewer-bound. The facts of life are hidden in plain sight if you are a Bible believer.

Who wants homicidal liars defining person and life?

You are not allowed to cut a baby’s prepuce before eight days under the sun, and we know that no child gets circumcised on being begotten, or at conception (to use the scientific term).  Do the hosts of Catholic and Protestant theologians not know that in the New Testament gennao means both beget (addressing conception) and give birth (or passively, be born)? Obviously not.  Had they been cognizant they would not be defining person from conception.

The Law of Moses (God’s law for Israel) values a woman at 30 silver shekels and a male at 50 silver shekels.  By comparison the patriarchs sold their brother Joseph for 20 shekels four hundred years earlier.  We cannot however lose sight of the census of the sons of Levi, in which, if you were younger than thirty years, you did not matter.  Now we understand why child labour is vigorously exploited worldwide. Now we understand why protecting juveniles in their schools from homicidal assaults is not a thing.

Take a census of the descendants of Kohath from among the sons of Levi, by their families, by their fathers’ households,  from thirty years and upward, even to fifty years old, all who enter the service to do the work in the tent of meeting.

Numbers 4:2-3, NASB

Whatever version of state rights or republican partisanship people invent they stretch credulity.  They want to be seen protecting the unborn when their regard for the living does not tip the scales. Preachers who have been silent over the moral majority insurrection, building for fifty years with less than a third of the population giving informed consent, are stumbling all over one another trying to find their voices. What comes out is FLIP FLOP. Pride in the darkness of their lairs prevents them. Will they come out of hibernation? Maybe.

The love of life, respect for science and genuine faith is in a steep decline in America, despite the brisk business of book sales, thousands of new faith leaders, and the proliferation of radio and television broadcasts.

A royal “nunc dimittis”

eejoseph

When our late sovereign was twenty-one years old she pledged herself to serve and invited her subjects to join and help her. She probably did not imagine how many the fiery trials she would have to endure, but she was most certainly aware that her reign would end and release would surely come. Humans tire, and the wise ones know when they have caught the vision of ultimate glory in the present, and when to throw in the towel.

Now you may dismiss

Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, According to Your word;

Luke 2:29

nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine secundum verbum tuum in pace,

Secundum Lucam 2:29, Vulgate

I am sure that as she kept hitting benchmarks raising her head above her predecessors in various ways she must have said, as her strength waned, “Just one more, Lord”. Please allow me to fantasize that E👑R may well have ended her meeting with the latest UK Prime Minister with a “Lord, release me now”, considering how quickly her strength waned after that occasion.

Like a hen, God.

eejoseph

America, America, God shed His grace on you, and you’ve pulled your pants down and showed the nations otherwise. There are not a few examples of nations that have squandered their heritage, as they pursued emptiness and utter beastliness.

There has been no shortage of profoundly thoughtful American women and men, no shortage of courageous and strong champions of human ingenuity and philanthropy, but the student of history will not allow us to forget that a plentiful crop of crooked sherrifs, forsworn judges, and brutal and homicidal officers of the law has been reaped every year since the nation won its independence. The theologian will not stand by either and pretend that God has not sent help, and placed incredibly opportunies to benefit all before the nation that calls itself respectable.

It is foolhardy to argue that nations do not deserve a swift rebuking kick. You name the nation: kick. They all need to correct their trajectory, but no, foolish pride prevents them.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! (Luk 13:34, NASB)

An icon not needed

eejoseph

“But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.”

(Hebrews 10:39, NASB)

There should be no question who are those persons of whom the writer makes this picture of contrasts.

A covenant like no other

“Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers On the day when I took them by the hand To lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they did not continue in My covenant, And I did not care for them, says the Lord.” (Hebrews 8:9, NASB)

Why anyone might want to be likened to (a) Israel en route to Canaan (b) a levitical kingdom (c) a people deported is beyond me. We should keep our parables and lessons close to the realities such as a the house built on rock.

Better translation alert!

eejoseph

“My mouth is filled with Your praise And with Your glory all day long.” (Psalms 71:8, NASB)

“Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.” (Psalms 71:8, KJVA)

Should not common sense tell the reader that surely the psalmist speaks to others on many occasions and places a multitude of requests before God? His mouth is filled (niphal imperfect of male‘, מלא) with other things besides praise and glory.  There is no sign of a jussive (“let there be” kinds of meaning) as in the King James version.

יִמָּ֣לֵא פִ֭י תְּהִלָּתֶ֑ךָ כָּל־ הַ֝יּ֗וֹם תִּפְאַרְתֶּֽךָ׃

Better translation! 

The difference between the NASB and King James translation of the verb to fill cannot be reconciled. “Is filled” all day is bit over the top, and “let … be filled” is asking unrealistically.

My mouth keeps getting filled…from time to time.

Hosannah to David’s son

eejoseph

David is an Old Testament figure and his sons are the kings of Judah with rare exception.  Still his progeny are mentioned twice as often in the New Testament period, a time when Judah had no Davidide monarchs. People in New Testament times are beside themselves in expectation of and reverence for a son of David. He turns out to be neither king in the normal sense, nor prophet, nor priest, but a sacrificial lamb.

God’s kingdom and civic obligations

24) When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” 25) He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” 26) When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt.” (Matthew 17:24-26, NASB)

This deliberation ended with Yeshua and Peter paying the toll, to avoid scandal.

Yahweh and David’s son

Solomon should come to mind due to his distinct reputation as successor of David. He was responsible for bringing David’s dream to reality, and yet he devastated the Davidide standard by worshipping other gods. When Christ said “Someone greater than Solomon is here” oppressed persons were already appealing to Him for mercy and calling him “Lord”.

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord”

Matthew 9:27-28, NASB

Neither Solomon nor the temple and its administration should come to mind after Christ displays the mercy that makes blind persons (not necessarily males) see. This approach to David’s son continued.

And two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (Matthew 20:30, NASB)

Receiving the king with highest praise

Mounted on donkey, riding into Zion, the word of God comes to pass. The highest praise possible concerns a saving king, not a levitical priest or prophet. The crowds and the children were not shouting “hallelujah” but “hosannah”, and not to Moses.

The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:9, NASB)