laura

[Skudgett]

The Flood
Phibber now wants us to consider the Flood because it is the biggest miracle in the Bible. Where though are the traces of it? Phibber agrees with geologists that there appears not to have been a worldwide flood. Ah! Say I. So the Bible is wrong in this respect at least. Let's not be silly! It is once again all a question of language. Phibber himself gives us six examples of the Bible making blatantly exaggerated statements.

In Genesis 41:57 All countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy corn.
In Deuteronomy 2:25 The nations under the whole heaven became afraid of Israel.
In 1 Kings 18:10 Ahab missed no nation or kingdom looking for Elijah.
In Daniel 2:38 Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian, ruled wheresoever the children of men dwelt.
In Ezra 1:2 Cyrus the Persian ruled all the kingdoms of the earth.
In Colossians 1:23 the gospel was preached to every creature under heaven.
Although it sounds as though Phibber has done a U-turn, he tries to persuade us that these false statements are not wrong. They are not meant to be taken literally! God and the Holy Ghost know that but millions of Christians do not. It is God's Truth or, as Phibber has it, Hebrew idiom which makes falsehoods true for Christians.

Well, apparently the Flood is similar so that when we read in Genesis 7:19 that all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered, it doesn't actually mean all of them under the whole heaven. The Israelites had never heard of the Himalayas or the Rockies so it couldn't have included them, says Phibber. Genesis 7:21 says, all flesh died that moved upon the earth. But Phibber tells us that it cannot have included the kangaroos for example.

So, Phibber concludes, the Bible does not say the Flood was really worldwide but covered only that which was known to the Israelites namely the fertile crescent of the Middle East. What's more it probably happened when all the men in the world lived there so they could all be comfortably drowned with a Flood stretching only from Egypt to Persia and Armenia to Arabia—there is plenty of evidence of Floods in those parts.

We can only but agree. Those countries are in the valleys of major rivers where floods are common and occasionally are disastrous. But a flood that could land a four hundred foot long boat on top of a mountain five thousand metres high is still some flood! Unless that is all a figure of speech as well. Phibber has explained it to his own satisfaction. He had to: it is in the Bible and Jesus believed it

[Skudgett]

Creation
Phibber moves us now to consider Creation. According to Genesis it is explained as the work of God, but scientists have so far failed otherwise to explain how the universe could have come into being on its own. Phibber impresses us with his understanding of the concept of entropy but it does not have any bearing on the question of Creation itself, though it does suggest that there was one. Overall entropy always increases implying that there was a moment once when entropy was zero (or some minimum amount), implying in turn that there was a moment of Creation. Few people would dispute that today. But Phibber wants us to believe that this moment of creation required God to decide it.

So far as we know, at present, there is no way of deciding when a radioactive atom will decay. It is a totally random process: one atom could decay now; another in a million years. Who decides when it will happen for any particular atom? Does our scientific Dr Ernest Phibber believe it is God? We can guess he does. An excited atom will shed a photon of light and drop into a lower energy state. Who decides when it will emit its photon? Phibber will say it is God, no doubt. Truthfully there is no way of knowing when the photon will be emitted.

An old idea of God in the scientific age was The God of the Gaps. As science discovered how things happened, God was no longer needed to account for them—he became the God of the Gaps, needed to explain whatever science could not yet explain. Science cannot explain when a radioactive atom or an excited atom will decay but God can!—the God of the Gaps.

At some stage in the past, scientists infer, there was a totally empty void. It was so empty that it did not even contain empty space, and time had not begun. Then it happened—the Big Bang—and Creation had occurred. Did it need a God of the Gaps to push it off or was it like the excited atom?—it just went off at random.

Phibber is now faced with the problem of the Creation being so amazingly fast—only six days were needed. He is not doubting God's power but the scientific evidence in the universe. Phibber feels obliged to concede that the earth as we see it took an awfully long time to make. Fossils, coal deposits, petroleum deposits, all of them took immense eons to form. One could say that God created them all at the time of Creation making them appear as if they were millions of years old. But Phibber does not like the implication that God deliberately tries to deceive us and so rejects this idea.

He floats the possibility that the world had already existed but God, so to speak, melted it into a formless void and then reformed it. Genesis describes the re-formation of the world not its original one. What we see in fossils, coal deposits, etc are the remnants of the previous formation. But Phibber is not satisfied by this either. Again there is no scientific evidence of it and, more important, Genesis does not seem to be describing a re-creation.

Indeed Phibber believes the baby is being thrown out with the bath water if the originality of the Creation is rejected. The reason is that the philosophers who conceived of the Creation story in Genesis had thought carefully about the order in which things must have appeared. Their conclusion, he says, matches quite well the discoveries of modern science. This seems far too good to be a mere coincidence. For Phibber these philosophers could not have been ordinary mortals musing in their studies but had to be someone inspired by God and that is why they got it right. This is not merely excessive love of his God but an insulting denigration of the abilities of primitive man. But let that be.

Phibber in the end settles for his pat answer of the use of Hebrew idiom. In the Genesis account of creation a day was not a day it was millions of eons. For my part this is quite acceptable because I take the Genesis account to be an excellent attempt by early philosophers to reason about the nature of things. They could not have known the time scales involved but made sensible guesses at the order of creation. There is only a problem for people like Phibber who take the Bible to be the word of God and therefore infallible.

His ultimate conclusion is that the Bible is indeed correct and the days of Genesis are indeed days but a day for God is not what it is for a man—it is a divine day! Now lest you should not be impressed by all this, Phibber comes up with a finally ultimate theory. The days of the story are the days on which God revealed his handywork to his human but inspired amanuensis. This solves a problem that science cannot touch. Amen.

[Skudgett]

What IS it all about?
To understand what the scriptures we have mean we must examine Genesis again in the light of what we have discovered in this search that has lasted with intensity of hours a day over the last three years.

Until the creation of the nation of Israel the peoples were searching for a way to eternal life. This, it seems from recent research, was usually through the stars as giving access to a place in the heavens where souls lived for ever.

There was, as far as we know, little idea or worship of one eternal creator God. Certainly there was no relationship with such a being as a loving father.

We have seen that scholars believe there was more than one writer and someone later put the writings together with some connecting remarks to give continuity.

Applying this to Genesis, and remembering that these scriptures were written for Israel to read and be thereby educated over a number of centuries, more comes to light.

There are different periods in the history of the nation, which have to be addressed.

The first is when they left Egypt and were a rabble (Ex. 12 v 37 &38) only used to Egyptian ways and laws. After four generations they would be beginning to loose their heritage from the patriarchs. Strong leadership, guidance, and a sense of nationhood and purpose would be necessary. They needed to know their roots and God's promises for them. They must become united. Laws and festivals bound them together.

Later they needed to be a nation of warriors, not slaves, or nomads, to take the land.

Then they needed to know how to live in it in a just society that could stand proud amongst the nations. Again laws and festivals of remembrance of how God had led them would do this.

They were to be different - a peculiar people: special for their God Yahweh. They would sometimes be called a son and sometimes a wife of the Lord Yahweh.

As Moses led them from Egypt there was still much of that culture with them. This would take a long time to shed completely. Some things had to go immediately, such as worshipping other gods and having graven images. As they worshipped the creator God they were not to eat blood as this signified the life of the animal which belonged to its creator.

On entry into the land Joshua reminded them of the laws of Moses, and the blessings for keeping them and worshipping only Yahweh, God of Israel, and the curses that would come upon them if they turned away from Him. It is interesting that in the last chapter of Joshua he asks them to turn from the gods their forefathers worshipped over the river (Aram and Sumer) and in Egypt. He asked them to get rid of the gods still among them. So even after the time in the desert this new generation still were carrying these gods forbidden in the law of Moses! They promised to follow only Yahweh from then on and Joshua wrote this down and set up stones to witness to this.

When Jesus was entering Jerusalem and being greeted by his disciples he said that if they did not cry out to God in this way the very stones would. Was he reminding them of the promise to follow the pure Mosaic law?The beginning of the book of Judges shows this was soon forgotten. (See Judges chapter 2). As they turned away to worship the gods of the tribes already in the land, and did not eliminate them as they had been told, disasters came upon them, as they had also been told it would. They were invaded time and time again.Still they did not learn, and even after the temple was built they were again worshipping other gods. This was an abomination to the Lord Yahweh, who found their sacrifices and celebrations to Him meaningless whilst they also worshipped other gods. They were like an unfaithful wife. This is the theme of all the prophets who constantly called for a return to the pure worship of Yahweh alone.This is seen in Isaiah ch.1, Jeremiah ch.2, Ezekiel ch.8, (where idolatry is actually happening in the temple itself!), Daniel's prayer in ch.9, the book of Hosea, especially ch. 2 & 4), Micah ch. 1&6, Zephaniah ch. 1, and Malachi ch. 2, as examples.This is theme of the old testament.

Therefore, no matter who wrote Genesis, be it Moses or others, the point being made must be the same : this nation as it is formed must learn that Yahweh is its One and Only God. They are not to worship the sun, the moon, or stars, or graven images of anything. Their God is invisible. He is the Creator. He made everything and has given them their wealth and their land and made them a people to worship and give thanks to Him. They are to look only to Him for their needs and guidance.

If we bring what we have learned that is on this site about the beliefs of the ancient peoples, especially Egypt, to the stories in Genesis we can see that the same points are being made there.

The emphasis on this being about the formation of the nation of Israel is shown as early as the story of the flood. Here we have the escape of Noah and his sons because Noah was a man righteous in his generation (Gen. 6-10). Japheth was the eldest (ch.10 v 21), but the order they are always listed is Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Shem, meaning "name" is the father of all the Semitic peoples, including the Arameans, and the people of Uz, where Job lived, and the Eber (Hebrews) who produced the Israelites from Abraham and Isaac, the Ishmaelites (from Abraham and Hagar), the Midianites (from Abraham and Keturah), and the Edomites (from Esau brother of Jacob), from whom came the Amelekites who were enemies of the Israelites.

These would, then, all be the people of "the Name". Which interesting as they are those who follow either Judaism or Islam today in the Middle East. Jordan, for instance, is called the Hashemite kingdom.

Ham was the father of the Canaanite tribes in the land promised to Abraham, and the Mizraim father of the Egyptians and the Philistines.

Japheth was the father of all the Europeans.

Going further back to the creation there are clearly two stories being told in Genesis chapters one to three. The first is a general one about the creation of the universe, the earth and all that is in them. In this God is called Elohim, which is the pleural form of El, which means a god. Whether you think this means there were multiple gods involved, as in so in many creation stories from round the world, or whether it means one supreme God with multiple attributes, is for you to decide. But for those for whom this book was written; i.e. the Israelites (and those who practise Judaism today), there was only One God. This is the story of creation that the forefathers had handed down to Israel of how everything came into being.

The text then begins with another story of how a particular man and woman were made by a God called Yahweh. The man is taken from the ground and life breathed into him and he is called "Adam" which sounds like Hebrew for "ground". The woman is taken from the man and becomes the mother of all the living - she is called" Eve", which sounds like the Hebrew for "living"

They are placed in the garden of pleasure-"Eden" which has been prepared by Yahweh. Here they have the choice between eating of the tree of life, or the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. They make the wrong choice in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, and so face death and are exiled from the garden to the ground from which they were taken.

If Adam is Abraham being taken from the ground (actually the "dust" which could mean death) to the east of Mesopotamia and brought to Canaan, which was the beautiful land promised to him; then Eve is Israel who comes from him and are the people who have life. She is like his sister wife Sarah, who also a part of him as a close relative. Eve is taken from Adam's side whilst he is in a deep sleep. This is an adaptation of the "lady of the rib" story from Sumer.

Abraham was in a deep sleep when in the land to the east and before the nation came to birth - he had no idea that God was preparing to give him a land. He was also in a deep sleep in Gen. 12 when God made the covenant with him to give him the land in which the nation of Israel would live. So there is a strong connection with the land and the people. The covenant of circumcision was about being in the people and is given later just before Isaac is born.

The story is to warn them that choosing the forbidden fruit of turning to other gods and religions instead of trusting in the God who formed them as a people, will mean exile from the land and death.

The serpent coiled and with its tail in its mouth represented to other religions the cycle of death and rebirth - i.e. their eternal life. The serpent, or dragon in the sky, and the path of the milky way (like the Nile) and the eternal movements of the star formations signified eternity to them and to reach them was to become a god..

Also the tree of Asherah was the bearer of fruit that ensured you would have eternal life, as had the goddess Asherah herself.

The story makes it plain that to become gods as the serpent says is the way of death, not life. The serpent is cursed to crawl in the dust of death as the result of its seduction of the people of the God Yahweh..

When Israel was made a nation on leaving Egypt they were to forget all the other gods and religions and worship only Yahweh. Eve says the serpent made her forget what God had said. Israel did forget and worship other gods, and as Moses warned would happen they were exiled.

In Genesis three they hid themselves from God in their naked vulnerability after forgetting and making the decision to eat of the forbidden fruit of other religions.

Israel became vulnerable when they did that and their enemies were allowed to overcome them as they were no longer under the protection of God.

There was always enmity between the worshippers of Yahweh and those who worshiped the serpent and all it represents.

Israel will have pain in giving birth to her children and the children of Abraham will toil hard for little return if they do not worship only Yahweh. Compare this with the blessings and cursings in Deuteronomy 27 & 28.Moving on through Genesis to the story of Cain and Abel and the birth of Seth, from whom the line of the chosen people comes, we can see the emphasis on what is relevant to Israel later.The name Cain can mean "brought forth" or "jealousy". He is the first to be brought forth from the union of Adam and Eve, but he is jealous of his younger brother Abel when his offering of the fruit of the ground is rejected in favour of the animal sacrifice from Abel. It seems Abel's offering of a first born of his flocks was what God required. This was what was required of Israel, too, as a nation. Is this the beginning of the laws to come, or the reinforcing of laws they already had? The covering of skins given by God to Adam and Eve meant an animal had to be sacrificed. So Abel had understood and acted upon it, but Cain had not so responded. Being right, however, did not, in this case, save Abel from being murdered by his brother. The first murder in scripture is because of religious jealousy - a warning! Cain pays the penalty of being exiled from the land.Cain is told that he could have done the right thing: a sin offering crouches at his door and its desire is towards him, and he should have taken it. This is a different rendering from the usual of these verses, but see the study on Genesis on this site for the Hebrew background; which supports this.Cain is doomed to wander outside the land, but is protected by God.It is not through his offspring that Israel comes, but from Seth, his younger brother, who is the son in the likeness of his father.There are parallels later in scripture of younger brothers being the chosen for inheritance rather than the eldest.

The story of the flood has also been taken and adapted to make points in line with Israelite religion.

The ancients believed disasters came because the gods were angry; and so a flood must happen because the people had been wicked. This is in Sumerian texts much older than the Bible account.

Only the righteous survive. As shown on "Other creation stories from round the world" the creation and flood stories are world wide.

If you look at the text we have there are two accounts interwoven. The passages using "God" and those using "Yahweh" can be separated out and each will give a very similar story.

The name of the hero is Noah meaning "rest" or "comfort" from the painful toil due to the ground cursed by God.

After the flood has receded Noah gives thanks to God and builds an altar to the Yahweh and makes a sacrifice of clean animals. How did he know which were clean and unclean? This information was supposed to be given later at Sinai.

After this God promises not to curse the ground again because of the evil of men. But the word for curse used here is not the same as that used in chapters 3 and 4 of Genesis. In chapters 3 and 4 the word is "aror" which means to be detestable, and in chapter 9 it is "lekalel" which means to "despise" or disesteem, as Young has it.

So comfort comes from Noah, who was a righteous man and gave the right sacrifices to God - Yahweh.

So we have progressed from animal sacrifice to the right kind of animal sacrifice. This kind of sacrifice by a righteous person avails for them and for others. The covenant in chapter nine made with Noah

, is announced by God, not Yahweh. This seems to be for all man kind, but the statement about not cursing (despising) the ground again is spoken by Yahweh to Noah, after his sacrifice.(see end ch..

Job, who was a Semite from Uz, also sacrificed to God. He seems to have lived in ancient times as a patriarch. He and his friends do not speak of God as Yahweh, but the narrator does (which suggests the story itself has been imported from an older source). At the end of the book as the friends sacrifice and Job prays for them he is rewarded by being reinstated with wealth and family again - only doubly so. The book teaches that one should worship God no matter what happens, and after this testing you will be rewarded.So there were stories from the ancient world about man's relationship with a God, to whom sacrifices were made, but that for Israel it was to be only clean animals and only for the God Yahweh.In ch. 10 it is Yahweh God of Shem, and may God enlarge Japheth, and he will live in the tents of Shem i.e. under his covering.

When we get to the account of Abraham again there is use of both "God" and "Yahweh". Hagar, the Egyptian mother of Ishmael, refers to Yahweh. It is God who makes the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, and makes the promises for Ishmael. Also it is God who seems to send Abraham to sacrifice his son, but Yahweh who provides the alternative sacrifice!

In the story of Jacob's life it is mostly "God". Leah speaks often of Yahweh, but Rachel does not.

It is not until Moses' encounter on Sinai that the name of Yahweh is used frequently again.

Where we have Moses speaking to the people it is often "Yahweh your God". In fact, in Deuteronomy, as many times as there are verses this phrase appears.

[Skudgett]

Blessing and Cursing.
In the book of Job in chapter 2 verse 9 in some translations we have Job's wife saying "Curse God and die" and some say " Bless God and die" !

How can both be right? To us they are opposites.

But a study of the Hebrew shows that they are indeed both right but the idea we have of the relative meanings of they words is misleading.

What we think of for "blessing" is " tov" or "tovah" in Hebrew,which has the range of meanings: good, fruitful, fertile, pleasing, happiness, prosperity, welfare, goodness, beauty, the best or choice, virtue.

The word used in this passage in Job is not that – which makes sense: because how can you wish those things for God who has them all anyway?

It also is not the word for " curse" as used, for example, in Genesis 3, for what God pronounces on the serpent, and the ground. That word is " aror" , which means to become abhorrent, and detestable. Job might have felt so angry with God as to curse Him, but he did not.

The word used here and in many passages, such as Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons and the 12 tribes, and in the psalms " Bless the Lord, oh my soul" .. is " beren" which means " to break or bend the knee i n worship," " or to break away from" .

So was Job's wife saying " Admit God has broken you and die" or possibly " Why do you not break away from God and die" (to escape).

From Job's retort it seems he took it to be the latter.

Moses' list of blessings and cursings in Deuteronomy 28 uses "beren" and "aror" .

So this passage needs careful thought with this understanding and gives a whole new aspect on "prosperity" teaching. It does not mean to "speak good "over things or people to produce good things for them – which is akin to witchcraft and spell making anyway.

"Berecherah" comes from the same root and means to make a blessing, as Jacob did.

It is used in Genesis 12 in the promise to Abraham that his progeny would bless the nations and those that blessed them would in turn be blessed.

So what does it mean? In Genesis 48 when Joseph brings his sons to Jacob he kneels to ask for the blessing.

So here we have the key : to bend the knee (blessing) to God is to admit you are broken by him – He is the greater and your will is subservient to His and you bow down to Him. This brings the blessing in return which we think of when we use this word. It was only whilst Israel continued to worship God that they remained in the blessings that came with the land.

The Jews speak of the " otherness" of God and " beren" is more than bending the knee before God – it seeing His "otherness" : that He is the creator and outside His creation and He is what it is not – i.e. eternal, and not made in the image of man.

And He sends both good and evil (apparently bad things) and suffering is not necessarily a punishment for sin – as the book of Job teaches us.

This under standing gives more insight into a number of passages.

For instance in Genesis when Jacob wrestles and says "I will not let you go until you

bless me." Does that mean " until you bow to me" ?

But the outcome is that Jacob is "broken" in one leg and limps for the rest of his life

as a reminder. We have thought Jacob was fighting to get a blessing from God as to

material provision etc., but it was a battle of wills – and Jacob lost (partially).

He was already a wealthy man so what was the battle really about?

He partially won too – having contended with God and men.

He wanted to know the name of the person with whom he wrestled, but was not told it. To know a person's name is to know them and so have some power over them.

Was this battle to know more of God and to come to terms also with his relationship with Esau as he has fear as to how the reunion will go?


Another interesting encounter is that of Abraham with Melchizedek in Genesis 14.

Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Does this mean that he bowed the knee to Abraham because Abraham had just done this great act of retrieving other people's goods and relations from the alliance of enemy kings?

The text says that he gave tithe from all to him . But who to who is not clear.

A question is – how could Abraham give a tithe of what was not his?

And he refused the offer from the king of Sedom (Sodom) of goods as a reward.

Perhaps the answer is that Melchizedek gave from the tithes of the people as a reward to Abraham?

The word used for tithe (it is singular) is " measher" which can mean a tenth (as it comes from the root "esher" – ten, but it also means a large amount, and so wealth, riches, abundance.

Abraham was already a powerful tribal chief and wants nothing from the king of Sodom –"lest you say I made Abraham rich" – similar word.

In 2 Chron. 31 v 5 there is a similar phrase " measher hakol" - tithe of the all.

But the phrase in Gen. 14 is " measher mekol" – tithe from all.

There is a subtle difference but it could be the clue to understanding the passage rightly.

We do not know the practise then, but maybe the people wanted to give back something to God for the restoration of their property, and the priest-king Melchizedek wanted to honour the man responsible.

(The remark that Abraham chased them all the way up to Dan shows later editing as Dan did not exist then. But it tells us that the area was being defined as the north west of the Golan and not the kings highway to the east. And that Abraham went through the gap between Hermon and Golan to get to Damascus.

The valley of Shaveh the valley of the kings is a puzzle – shaveh means a level plain and the Hebrew says " a level plain with a valley as in the valley of the kings" .

The passage earlier speaks of "shaveh kiriathiam "– which means the plain of the villages. This is usually said to be the plain near Jericho, but could also be the plateau of Bashan Golan)

[Skudgett]

Genuine Until Proven Otherwise
Dr Ernest Phibber invites us to consider the question of when the sixty six books of the Bible were written because most of them were written by a named person and they could not have been written by those people unless they were written in their lifetimes. The way to approach this, Phibber tells us, is to accept that each of the books of the Bible is genuine until proven otherwise. The books of the Bible are innocent until proven guilty.

The technique of analysing the old texts of the Bible is called the higher criticism. Our mentor now attacks the higher critics for ignoring what Jesus had to say about the Bible and for pulling the Bible to pieces. Today, Phibber tells us, most higher critics do not accept that the Bible is infallible and most Bible-believers (unsurprisingly) do not accept the higher criticism. For Phibber the Bible is innocent until proven guilty but anyone who proves it guilty is rejected as an unreliable witness. Ergo, no one succeeds and the Bible-believer is left with his beliefs intact. Very scientific! Very Just! What an efficient way to establish God's Truth.

Phibber discusses various objections to the Jewish scriptures beginning with the fact that Moses could not write—because writing had not yet been invented. To cut a long story short Phibber spends some time showing to us that people who in Victorian times thought writing was only 3000 years old were wrong. Point conceded. If they thought that, they were wrong. Not that it should have been any objection anyway for a Christian. Any Holy Ghost that can produce from a man anything that God wants, could surely have enabled sages to remember his commandments for as many years as were necessary until writing was invented. Our mentor is throwing us a red herring to prove that the higher critics or any other critics of the Bible are dimbos, before going on to the more difficult stuff.

Phibber grants us that a great deal of compiling has occurred in the writing of the Bible but, in identifying the separate bits constituting the whole, Phibber tells us that the critical scholars were uncritical scholars. In fact, from idiosyncrasies of style such as the word used for God, emphasis on priestly matters and so on, the critical scholars deduce that different parts of the Pentateuch can be categorised as stemming from differing traditions. Bible-believers have to disregard all this because it means that the Son of God, Jesus, in believing it was all written by Moses, must have been wrong and therefore, if the Trinity is to be believed, God himself also was.

Phibber lists four main points against the critics but, though he says he will, he does not deal with them explicitly. He asserts that Moses did write the Pentateuch. Indeed that written records might have dated back to the time of Adam! He tells us nothing about this but refers us to another source. Next he addresses the song and dance about the two contradictory stories of creation in Genesis—they are not contradictory! The first is a God's eye view of creation and the second an Adam's eye view.

[Skudgett]

Two Versions
Our mentor agrees that God revealed these two versions separately and they were brought into Moses's compilation called Genesis at a later date. There seems little point in refuting what Phibber says here. You merely have to read Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4- 2:9 and you will note that, for example:

in the first and more sophisticated legend, the world begins as a watery chaos whereas in the second but more primitive tradition the world begins as a waterless waste;
God creates herbs before man in the first but creates man before herbs in the second;
in the first birds and fish are made before man whereas in the second tradition beasts and birds (but not fish which are not made at all) are made after man;
in the first men and women are created together but in the second women are rendered inferior by being made from man.

Anyone who reads the two legends carefully will come up with about fifteen to twenty differences which cannot simply be dismissed as differences of viewpoint. Of course, nowadays, no one with any sense reads the Bible except for its mythological or historic value. Those obliged to read it for its religious value, as schoolchildren still are in some parts of the world, are inclined to skip much of it as being boring or irrelevant and simply accept their Sunday school teacher's assertions for an easy life. That is why most Christians still do not know thre are two versions of the Creation in Genesis.

Phibber explains that the odd foibles and the different styles of the two versions arose because Moses did not write it all himself but used several secretaries who gave different parts their own individual flavour. All of this took place, nevertheless, under the supervision of the Holy Ghost ensuring that the books were inspired and infallible as God in his aspect of the Son of God, Jesus, believed. Thus Dr Phibber patches the two traditions together making excuses for the inconsistencies but knowing that God must be right so the Bible must be infallible.

Those who believe in infallibility devise no end of fantastic stories to protect it. The Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures were translated from Hebrew by seventy scholars long before the time of Jesus. Tradition has it that the books were given separately to the seventy men and each was checked against the others when they had all finished to make sure there were no errors. And, you know what—all seventy versions were identical! Not only were there no errors, all seventy scholars had used the same words, grammar and style in making the translation. Which was the greater miracle, this or the writing of the Torah?

Phibber again reminds us that he is a research worker himself and he knows what a temptation it is to turn a blind eye to uncomfortable facts and, to the outside observer (himself), that is what critical scholars are doing. Can you believe this? This man is constantly turning a blind eye to uncomfortable facts refuting the inspired nature of the Bible and has the gall to say it is others who do it.

Place Names

[Skudgett]

Place Names
Phibber gives us a discourse on scriptural place names telling us that where a scribe explains an old name by putting in brackets the new name next to it, the critical theorists claim the old names have all been made up by some unknown scribe. The truth, he says, is that Abraham wrote the original account and Moses updated it by putting in the modern names. What the scholars really say of course is that old accounts were compiled and re-edited by post-exilic scribes who at that stage added the modern names. How though to account for the use of later names by Moses writing before these names were in use. Our master has an answer: the later names were already in use at the earlier date together with the older name and, sometimes, several others!

Finally our tutor asks how the position of Sodom and Gomorrah could be used in describing the extent of Canaan by scribes for whom Sodom and Gomorrah did not exist because they had been destroyed as far back as the time of Abram. Our Ernest Phibber seems to consider this a triumph but as ever he is tilting at windmills because nobody is disputing that the scribes of Ezra and his successors had older documents and traditions to work on. The argument is not about whether the authors of the Pentateuch had earlier sources—we all agree that they had—but it is about when the Pentateuch was written, at the time of Akhenaten or Rameses by a chap called Moses or about 800 years later by a scribal college founded by Ezra.

Phibber now takes us into a discussion of style. Literary critics make judgements based on style yet our teacher tells us this is fraught with danger. He reminds us again that he is a scientist and writes scientific papers. He also writes Christian tracts and the styles are quite different. So, he claims, he is himself living proof that style tells you nothing.

But the proper question for Phibber to address is: Would he swap his style in mid-tract? The answer in general must be no. So if, in the course of an Old Testament book you detect changes in style you must wonder why it has happened. The answer is likely to be because an editor has brought together different accounts and has put them together without extensively rewriting them. In the olden days before there were laws of copyright such practices were common and this is just what the authors of the Jewish scriptures did.

We actually know this from the Bible itself quite plainly. Different post-exilic scribes, probably in different places (unlike the seventy authors of the Septuagint) put together Jewish tradition in different ways. The compilers of the Old Testament liked both so put them both in scripture. Thus several times the same historical sequence is described in different books. The books of Chronicles are such an example. Dr Ernest Phibber would not subscribe to the Holy Ghost being a careless editor, presumably, but no doubt would conjure up some other reason for God wanting to say something several times.

Phibber explains to us the method of the style critics. They do their analysis of style and come to the conclusion that different parts of the Bible were written by different hands.

Doesn't that sound reasonable to you? Eminently scientific, surely? Not according to our Phibber! He points out that they make an assumption at the beginning and come to the conclusion that the assumption is valid—a circular argument. And their assumption?—that the Holy Ghost had no part in the writing of the Bible. They do their analysis, find evidence of different hands and conclude that the Holy Ghost had no part in the writing of the Bible. The analytical Phibber concludes: Any scientist doing that sort of thing would soon find himself looking for another job.

I seriously wonder how this so called scientist managed to hold down a prestigious and lucrative government post for so many years. You or I would ask why a scientist should even consider that a supernatural entity like the Holy Ghost has effected anything which can be explained without it.

Michelson and Morley should have begun their experiments to determine the speed of light by assuming that the Holy Ghost might have some influence on their result. Thus when they found that the speed was the same in two directions at right angles it did not disprove the existence of the aether but proved the existence of the Holy Ghost! Can Phibber really be a scientist? Can he be sane?

Whether he is or not he now gives us a story about an over confident scholar who tried to win a court case of plagiarism by applying his skills. He lost, thus proving that biblical scholars are entirely useless—a bit like analytically minded Bible-believers, I would venture!

Phibber gives us now a long quotation from a good higher critic, Professor H.H.Rowley, who is much more modest about the achievements of his field of inquiry. Rowley says the situation is much more fluid than it was just after the turn into the 1900s when scholars were inclined to certainty. And indeed they were.

[Skudgett]

Certainties
Now, interestingly enough, our teacher, being a physicist, will know that the discoveries in science in the Victorian era, which were indisputably momentous, led physicists to believe that they had solved the key problems of physics. They were wrong. Waves were to become particles according to Planck and particles waves according to De Broglie. Everything was to become relative according to Einstein and everything was to become uncertain according to Heisenberg. Marx and Weber had solved society. Freud had solved personality. W G Grace had solved cricket!

So the certainties of the Victorian era was not limited to biblical scholars, it was a feature of the times. Indeed one could say that a sign of increasing maturity in any field is a loss of certainty leading to more subtle and detailed inquiries. But this is something Phibber cannot comprehend because he is totally certain that everything in the Christian Bible is literally the word of God. Should there be any doubt, the doctor tells us, the Lord Jesus Christ should be allowed the casting vote—and naturally he thought the Old Testament was true. It is as sensible as saying that Peter Pan should be left the casting vote on whether Never-Never Land is true!

Phibber next takes us to the New Testament which allows far less scope for guesswork than the Old. The powerful testimony to the resurrection of Christ given in 1 Corinthians 15 is cited because the Epistle was written only about a quarter of a century after the crucifixion when many of the people mentioned were still alive. They were, of course, but they were in Jerusalem whereas Paul was hundreds of miles away. Communications in the Roman Empire were good by contemporary standards but not at all like ours today, and indeed a few paragraphs later on our tutor tells us that books spread very slowly from land to land.

Since Paul's letters were not letters in any ordinary sense of the word but books of Christian edification, it is evident that Paul could write with little fear of contradiction. And it is quite possible that hysterical people like Mary Magdalene were deluded or deluded themselves in their distress at the failure of their leader to wrest the kingdom of God from the Romans. The rumours that Jesus had risen were useful to the leadership of the Church in Jerusalem but even more useful to Paul whose formerly pagan congregations expected their gods to be reborn or resurrected.

Dr Phibber then tells us that a fragment of John's gospel has been dated to 150 AD when, according to the John Rylands librarian, the ink of the original autograph can hardly have been dry, a slight exaggeration which is forgivable, our teacher tells us. However the slight exaggeration to Phibber is one of seventy or more years whereas the slight exaggeration meant by the librarian was probably no more than two or three decades.

Further testimony is brought by our guide to persuade us that the New Testament was written in the first century AD. We can concede Phibber this point—in essence. But editors remained at work on the original manuscripts well into the second century, and their original authors wrote with their audience in mind rather than any desire to tell the truth. They, like their modern day counterparts, wanted to tell God's Truth. Whatever will persuade the readership to believe will serve as God's Truth however mendacious it might be.

[Skudgett]

lau tell me about your dreams with the devil

[Skudgett]

you said sum thing was after you?

[Skudgett]

and you had blood on your hands

[Skudgett]

You had blood on u?

[Skudgett]

and you had blood on your hands

[Skudgett]

please so i can help you

[Skudgett]

remember what you said

[Skudgett]

laura?

[Skudgett]

thats why you wanted my help

[Skudgett]

fine if you dont want my help

[lau_lauz]

Blessing and Cursing.
In the book of Job in chapter 2 verse 9 in some translations we have Job's wife saying "Curse God and die" and some say " Bless God and die" !

How can both be right? To us they are opposites.

But a study of the Hebrew shows that they are indeed both right but the idea we have of the relative meanings of they words is misleading.

What we think of for "blessing" is " tov" or "tovah" in Hebrew,which has the range of meanings: good, fruitful, fertile, pleasing, happiness, prosperity, welfare, goodness, beauty, the best or choice, virtue.

The word used in this passage in Job is not that – which makes sense: because how can you wish those things for God who has them all anyway?

It also is not the word for " curse" as used, for example, in Genesis 3, for what God pronounces on the serpent, and the ground. That word is " aror" , which means to become abhorrent, and detestable. Job might have felt so angry with God as to curse Him, but he did not.

The word used here and in many passages, such as Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons and the 12 tribes, and in the psalms " Bless the Lord, oh my soul" .. is " beren" which means " to break or bend the knee i n worship," " or to break away from" .

So was Job's wife saying " Admit God has broken you and die" or possibly " Why do you not break away from God and die" (to escape).

From Job's retort it seems he took it to be the latter.

Moses' list of blessings and cursings in Deuteronomy 28 uses "beren" and "aror" .

So this passage needs careful thought with this understanding and gives a whole new aspect on "prosperity" teaching. It does not mean to "speak good "over things or people to produce good things for them – which is akin to witchcraft and spell making anyway.

"Berecherah" comes from the same root and means to make a blessing, as Jacob did.

It is used in Genesis 12 in the promise to Abraham that his progeny would bless the nations and those that blessed them would in turn be blessed.

So what does it mean? In Genesis 48 when Joseph brings his sons to Jacob he kneels to ask for the blessing.

So here we have the key : to bend the knee (blessing) to God is to admit you are broken by him – He is the greater and your will is subservient to His and you bow down to Him. This brings the blessing in return which we think of when we use this word. It was only whilst Israel continued to worship God that they remained in the blessings that came with the land.

The Jews speak of the " otherness" of God and " beren" is more than bending the knee before God – it seeing His "otherness" : that He is the creator and outside His creation and He is what it is not – i.e. eternal, and not made in the image of man.

And He sends both good and evil (apparently bad things) and suffering is not necessarily a punishment for sin – as the book of Job teaches us.

This under standing gives more insight into a number of passages.

For instance in Genesis when Jacob wrestles and says "I will not let you go until you

bless me." Does that mean " until you bow to me" ?

But the outcome is that Jacob is "broken" in one leg and limps for the rest of his life

as a reminder. We have thought Jacob was fighting to get a blessing from God as to

material provision etc., but it was a battle of wills – and Jacob lost (partially).

He was already a wealthy man so what was the battle really about?

He partially won too – having contended with God and men.

He wanted to know the name of the person with whom he wrestled, but was not told it. To know a person's name is to know them and so have some power over them.

Was this battle to know more of God and to come to terms also with his relationship with Esau as he has fear as to how the reunion will go?


Another interesting encounter is that of Abraham with Melchizedek in Genesis 14.

Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Does this mean that he bowed the knee to Abraham because Abraham had just done this great act of retrieving other people's goods and relations from the alliance of enemy kings?

The text says that he gave tithe from all to him . But who to who is not clear.

A question is – how could Abraham give a tithe of what was not his?

And he refused the offer from the king of Sedom (Sodom) of goods as a reward.

Perhaps the answer is that Melchizedek gave from the tithes of the people as a reward to Abraham?

The word used for tithe (it is singular) is " measher" which can mean a tenth (as it comes from the root "esher" – ten, but it also means a large amount, and so wealth, riches, abundance.

Abraham was already a powerful tribal chief and wants nothing from the king of Sodom –"lest you say I made Abraham rich" – similar word.

In 2 Chron. 31 v 5 there is a similar phrase " measher hakol" - tithe of the all.

But the phrase in Gen. 14 is " measher mekol" – tithe from all.

There is a subtle difference but it could be the clue to understanding the passage rightly.

We do not know the practise then, but maybe the people wanted to give back something to God for the restoration of their property, and the priest-king Melchizedek wanted to honour the man responsible.

(The remark that Abraham chased them all the way up to Dan shows later editing as Dan did not exist then. But it tells us that the area was being defined as the north west of the Golan and not the kings highway to the east. And that Abraham went through the gap between Hermon and Golan to get to Damascus.

The valley of Shaveh the valley of the kings is a puzzle – shaveh means a level plain and the Hebrew says " a level plain with a valley as in the valley of the kings" .

The passage earlier speaks of "shaveh kiriathiam "– which means the plain of the villages. This is usually said to be the plain near Jericho, but could also be the plateau of Bashan Golan)
i dooooooooooooooooo neeeeeeeeeeeddd urrrrrrrr help they came to me last nite

[lau_lauz]

help me please i cannot tell u the details of what is happening to me but all u need to know is that its bad, im being chased by sommething more than human, i dont know what it is or how to describe it, i cant, a screeching sound ov violence that echoes in my ear, the shadow that follows me, the voices in the dark, when i close my eyes at nite , i constantly see the terror that they hav made towards other people, children, its revolting, this thing" is after me an i cant stop it, i went to the police, the jus sed i wos nuts, and chucked me out, u r my last chance ov living, if u dont help me sophie then noone can. please

[lau_lauz]

help me theres blood

[lau_lauz]

hiya