Category Archives: Religion’s Cell Articles

God Does NOT Hate Divorce

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Once in a while I find a work from another scholar that is so important and so crucial for women to read, that I just cannot help myself in sharing it here on my blog. Such is the case with a book written by Adele Hebert, and independent scholar from Northern Alberta, Canada.

When I first purchased her book, Every Woman & Child, and began to read it, it did not bring anything new to light that I did not already know UNTIL I was over half way into it. From that point on, she had my attention until the end, in the most amazing way.  However, most women and men have no idea how prevalent WOMEN are throughout the Bible and about the important roles they played in the early church! They were disciples, leaders, preachers, business women, etc. So, for the majority, all that Adele covers in the first half of her book WILL be new to them. Please keep that in mind.

Throughout the world, women are being forced to stay in abusive marriages by religion because of changes in translation that prevent them from getting a divorce. Many live in bondage and abuse because of this. Women have no idea that God made provisions for them to keep them from being abused by men!  Throughout the many articles on this blog, I have tried to expose this fact: Men have PURPOSELY written women out of scripture and translated scripture in such a way as to point women into a place of subjugation to men, regardless of how evil the men may be! I feel that this book covers the issue of “putting away” and divorce as well as the subject of removing women from places of leadership, authority and autonomy in scripture, superbly. Subsequent chapters until the end are worth the read and, in my opinion, more than worth the price of the book.

Because of how important this topic is to women, I have asked permission from this author to allow me to offer a preview of her chapter on divorce and then cover two other chapters in subsequent articles. She has so graciously granted my request! Ladies, this is for YOU. You DO NOT have to live in bondage to man-made religious dogmas any more. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed!”

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titleBy Adele Hebert

(To purchase a copy, click on the Title of the book below)

GOD DOES NOT HATE DIVORCE

“You don’t have to die for him; I already have.” – JESUS

Let me say this: I am not against men; I am against injustice, from any gender, or any podium. There are some excellent men out there who have strong values, who work hard to defend human rights and who try to improve the conditions of this world. I thank God for them. We really need more of them.

Let me also say that I am not promoting divorce. How I wish that all marriages were happy and peaceful. Divorce is very painful, especially for children, but living with controlling or violent men traumatizes much more. Do you really believe that God prefers people to stay in an abusive marriage rather than to get a divorce?

“Even though God instituted marriage, He does not approve of ALL marriages.” – Stephen Gola, DIVORCE: God’s Will? (Trafford Publishing, 2005) www.divorcehope.com. You will want to read what Stephen teaches about boundaries when submitting. He also proves, with scripture, who is a True Widow. Remarkable book!

Three reasons for divorce, from a woman’s perspective: first, God does not want His daughters to be abused (forced to stay); second, God does not want His daughters to be abandoned (forced to starve); third, men are to give their wives financial security, half of the matrimonial property.

I am deeply concerned about the destructive teachings regarding submission, divorce and remarriage; they have done so much damage. Religion has a direct influence on society’s attitudes of power, authority, subordination and women’s sexual status. Why are Christian men battering their wives?

Even if there is no physical violence, a vast number of marriages are a living hell, where women live in constant fear and have no control of their lives. They get yelled at and threatened regularly, are belittled and blamed beyond reason. Some women are given almost no money, their friends and family are restricted, and they are forced sexually. Children have to listen to the fighting and everyone walks on eggshells.

When religions teach that women must be silent, they lay the foundation for men to be abusive to their wives. When religions remain silent about the accountability of men towards women and children, they play an enormous role in enabling men to be controlling and bullies in the home.

There are many studies that prove the negative effects of divorce, but we don’t hear much from the religious leaders about the women and children who are living with anger and violence. Yes, there are some men who are abused and cheated on, and it all hurts, but we cannot ignore the statistics. Countless women are coerced into staying with their abusive husbands, only to suffer more, affecting them and their children for generations. Children who witness violence in the home are usually violent when they grow up. Boys are victims as much as girls; they just don’t talk about it until much later.

Probably the most damaging word in our bibles for women is ‘submit.’ Jesus never used that word. Submit is a swear word to most women, and we usually only hear half of the sentence. Women are being deceived when they are told to submit. “Support” is a much better translation; then no one is put in a slave position. Even the words “learn in silence with all subjection” are demeaning. “If a preacher talks about submission, then he should be prepared to address abuse in the same sentence.” – Maryanne Rempel. God does not want His daughters to be degraded.

Probably the most damaging teaching today is “God hates divorce.” That belief locks people in marriage, and for some it is unbearable, even fatal.

First of all, we need to accept that almost all bibles have mistranslated the words “put away.” The false teachings about divorce all stem from Malachi 2:16. Most modern bibles say, “God hates divorce,” but they Used To Say, “God hates the putting away.”

Mal 2:16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. King James Bible

*An extremely important margin note about the words “put away” in Luke 16:18 is found in the Geneva Bible 1599. The margin reads, “that is, not Lawfully divorced.” http://www.genevabible.org/files/DailyScripture/Luke16Footnotes.htm

“PUT AWAY” DOES NOT MEAN “DIVORCED.”

“PUT AWAY” MEANS “SEND AWAY.”

If the wife was only “put away” (not divorced yet), and if she found someone else, she would be committing adultery against her husband (for the wife only), because she was still legally married, (still his ‘property’) and she would likely get stoned to death.

We are being deceived into thinking that God hates divorce, as if it’s the unforgiveable sin. God hates men “putting away” their wives!

Putting away is the final club of abuse, the getting rid of a wife and not giving her the matrimonial settlement. That’s what God was angry about in Malachi 2:16. Men had dealt “treacherously” and with “violence” – their wives were cast away empty-handed!

In biblical times, the worst words for women were “put away.” To be put away damaged the whole family and, consequently, all of society. Men were accustomed to just sending away their wives when they wanted to get rid of them, and then getting another one.

A woman who was still legally married but abandoned by her husband was in a tragic, hopeless situation. Forced to stay celibate, her only options were begging, prostitution or starvation!

Our God, through Moses, instituted the divorce certificate in Deut 24, for the protection of the wife, to ensure her a matrimonial settlement, and to enable her to get remarried.

 Deu 24:1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,

Deu 24:2 and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife,

Deu 24:3 and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,

Deu 24:4 then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.

Divorce and remarriage are woman’s rights. Being “put away” was not only a disgrace; for many, it meant death. God saw the suffering of those “put away” wives. Moses commanded in great detail, twice (Deut 24:1, 3) that if a man was displeased with his wife or if he turns against her, he had to first write out a divorce certificate, which included the property settlement, then put it in her hand and after that he could send her away. If something is repeated in the bible it is for confirmation and clarity.

God does not want women to stay in an abusive marriage, nor does he want them to be destitute. Children are on the front lines here. God knows they are greatly affected by how their mother is treated.

Notice that it does not mention adultery or fornication, only that the husband was displeased with his wife. This does not preclude that the woman did anything wrong. Divorce is a safeguard for women, a protection against having to live with a man who did not want her. If divorce was not allowed, women would have been in grave danger, “lest, if they were not permitted to divorce their wives, they should murder them,” – Matthew Henry Commentary.

God commanded divorce so that women can get away from their abusive men and get remarried. It is a way out for women. Men had to be commanded to give their wives a divorce, because God knows how much men detest having to divide half the matrimonial property and especially how they loathe giving women their freedom, to be with another man. Men kill for those two reasons. Yes, women kill too, but we all know the statistics that men are much more violent than women.

After a divorce, God decreed that women are allowed to get remarried, even if the husband is still living (Deut 24:2). The only stipulation is that the “former” husband cannot take her back, which meant he was alive; she was not a widow (Deut 24:4). Guidelines had to be made because God did not want women to be passed around and used. This proves that people are allowed to get remarried after a divorce. It was also a warning for the husband to be very sure of his decision, because he could not get her back, ever. These are God’s laws, not man’s.

God instituted divorce as a woman’s entitlement so she could find another husband who loves her. In biblical times, men had the responsibility to take care of the women and children. Obviously, a woman who is sent away is not being cared for. That is why God commanded divorce as a woman’s right. The “put away” wife had no money, she had to remain celibate and she could not remarry, which left her in a very life-threatening situation. One can only imagine how the children fared if they were with their mother.

Big question: Why were the men only sending their wives away, without a divorce? If the certificate was only a matter of granting permission so she could get remarried, the men should not have complained about it, because they wanted to send the wife away in the first place.

It’s about Money!!!

Without a settlement, women were destitute. Women had no means for survival. Divorce always involves division of property. At least, if she got her divorce, she would have some finances, which would also make her quite eligible to remarry. She would not be abandoned, forced to starve.

Some might object to this teaching of divorce and remarriage and say that was only in the Old Testament, but Jesus always asked, “What did Moses command you?” (Matt 19:7, Mark 10:3)

Others might object to the property part; they say the divorce was only to enable the woman to get remarried, but what good is a piece of paper? You can’t eat it. Women need more than a piece of paper.

The daughters of Zelophehad were given property, because they had no husbands. Achsah received land and two springs of water, after she got married. Job gave his beautiful daughters their share of the inheritance, even though their beauty would have attracted wealthy men; it was their insurance.

Although they are not written about often, divorced people are there in the bible, which means it was a reality: Deut 24:1-4; Deut 22:19, 29; Lev 21:7, 14; Lev 22:13; Num 30:9; Isa 50:1; Jer 3:8; Eze 44:22. The expression ‘Til death do us part’ is not even in the bible.

Some women who were “put away” in the Old Testament were Tamar (Gen 38), Queen Vashti (Est 1), and the ten raped concubines (2 Sam 20). Tamar was a widow but she needed a levir and her father-in-law refused to give her his son. Queen Vashti was sent into exile for not displaying her beauty to her drunken husband and his friends. The ten raped concubines had to live the rest of their life as widows. These women were all put away and financially looked after, but they were not free to remarry. Talk about control!

The clearest example in the Old Testament we have of “put away” wives is in Ezra 10, where 113 men had to pledge to separate from their foreign wives, because God told them to go back to the wives of their youth. God ordered the men to “put away” (leave) their illicit relationships (the second wives, foreign women), because these men were not legally married to them – they had not divorced their first wife.

God had “fierce anger” until these foreign wives were “put away.” In this case putting away was advised and necessary, because they were not legal marriages. The men even admitted their guilt in abandoning their original wives. They repented. The process took three months as the put away foreign wives needed property for their future security. If the men only had to separate, it would not have taken judges and elders and three months of appointments. The men were not allowed to just walk away.

Even though they were foreign women, they needed papers regarding the property, and the children had to be in their names. The women did not need a divorce paper because they were unlawful unions. There were elders and judges working and each one came at their appointed time, “until the fierce anger of God was turned away from them.” At least these put away mothers got to keep their children (Ezra 10:44).

In the first century, men still struggled with divorce and property division (they still do). Men did not like being told to divide up ‘their’ properties, so they had invented all kinds of excuses not to settle; then they could keep everything. It was obvious that the men wanted to only “put away” their wives and cheat them out of a divorce settlement because many times they tested Jesus with their dilemma, “The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” (Matt 19:3)

Jesus knew what they were up to. The financial aspect, dividing ‘their property’ is likely the biggest reason why the men simply “put away” their wives and did not give them a divorce, although most men despise the fact that ‘their wife’ will be with another man.

God has always had to make men respect women, especially when it came to money and sex. Divorce was always allowed, except there were two situations when it was never allowed. The first case was when a man “hates” his wife and falsely accuses her of not being a virgin. “I gave my daughter unto this man to wife and he hateth her… he may not put her away all his days.” (Deut 22:16-19)

“husband, who had thus endeavoured to ruin the reputation of his own wife, was to be scourged, and fined, and bound out from ever divorcing the wife he had thus abused,” – Matthew Henry Commentary.

Regarding date rape: The second case was concerning premarital sex, because she was forced. “and he lay hold on her, and he lie with her,… he hath humbled her,… he may not put her away all his days.” (Deut 22: 28, 29).

“if a virgin was not betrothed, and a man seized her and lay with her, and they were found, i.e., discovered or convicted of their deed, the man was to pay the father of the girl fifty shekels of silver, for the reproach brought upon him and his house, and to marry the girl whom he had humbled, without ever being able to divorce her.” – Keil and Delitzsch Commentary.

“If a damsel not betrothed were thus abused by violence, he that abused her should be fined, the father should have the fine, and, if he (the father) and the damsel did consent, he should be bound to marry her, and never to divorce her, how much soever she was below him, and how unpleasing soever she might afterwards be to him.” – Matthew Henry Commentary.

Shamefully, God had to create laws to protect women. Husbands were slandering their wife’s honour, and God wanted to stop men from forcing themselves on women, even if they liked each other. In both situations, the men were punished with never being able to divorce. Even if these men separated from their wives, they were financially responsible for them, forever. That should have made the men think twice.

Men had to watch what they say, and they had to watch what they do.

Women, being the weaker sex, were to be honoured and protected. Every situation was written about in God’s Word: whether a woman was married, betrothed or not betrothed; whether she consented or not; whether she lived in the city or the country; whether she cried out or not. These laws were mostly directed towards the men, as they seemed to have more problems with lust, self-control and violence.

God never told men to have concubines or multiple wives; they invented those ones for themselves, and for any excuse. One excuse was if a couple had no children (the woman was always to blame). The wife was forced to provide a surrogate mother or she would be sent away. Do you believe Sarah really wanted to offer Hagar?

In the New Testament, we have two examples of illegal / immoral relationships. Herod was told to “send away” Herodias, his brother Philip’s “wife” (Matt 14, Mark 6, Luke 3). She was not divorced yet, so this second marriage was invalid, “not lawful.” Also in 1 Cor 5:1 it talks about a man with his father’s wife (referring to Lev 18:8). These relationships were not approved of, and the people knew it was wrong. God does not allow sister-wives or polygamy.

If an engaged woman was found with child, the engagement could be broken. Joseph wanted to send Mary away privately, and cancel the betrothal contract, because she was pregnant. He planned to “put her away” privately (Matt 1:19). An angel appeared to Joseph and told him to take Mary for his wife. Again, it says “put away,” not divorce.

The main divorce passages are: Deut 24:1-4; Mal 2:16; Matt 5:31, 32; Matt 19:3-10; Mar 10:2-12; Luk 16:18. Divorce was a provision that was commanded since the time of Moses. God designed it for women.

The KJ3 Literal Translation (SGPBooks.com, Inc., 2010) translates all the divorce passages properly using “put away”. The Wuest New Testament (Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1961) uses “dismiss,” which makes it very clear.

Some old bibles which use “put away” are: American Standard Version ASV, Darby DAR, Douay Rheims DRB, Revised Version RV, Young’s Literal Translation YLT. These were all written over 110 years ago.

Almost all modern bibles use the wrong word!

Divorce and Remarriage is NOT Adultery (God’s Kingdom Ministries, 1998-2012) is a great study. The opening sentence goes right to the source of the problem.

“Church opinion has long favored the teaching that remarriage after divorce is adultery, based upon what we believe to be a single mistranslated word in Matthew 5:32 and a few incorrect assumptions. The result? A great many people today who are divorced and remarried are being expelled from their churches. Others are being refused leadership positions or are being plied with a load of guilt for “living in constant adultery.” It is tragic, and so very unnecessary. Many times it turns people away from God altogether, either in rebellion against what they feel is an injustice in Scripture, or else through discouragement over their own inability to remain single for the rest of their lives.” – by Dr. Stephen E. Jones. http://gods-kingdom-ministries.org/COLDFUSION/Chapter.cfm?CID=197

Matthew 5:32 is the most common verse referred to, in regards to divorce. One mistranslated word, “put away” was changed to “divorced,” and has caused all the false teachings. It contradicts Deuteronomy 24 and is not consistent with all the other divorce passages. The KJ3 Literal Translation of the Bible reads as follows:

 Mat 5:31 It was also said, Whoever puts away his wife, “let him give her a bill of divorce.” Deut. 24:1 (KJ3)

Mat 5:32 But I say to you, Whoever puts away his wife, apart from a matter of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever shall marry the one put away commits adultery. (KJ3)

The original word was “put away” in both parts of Matthew 5:32, which means sent away or separated. Check the Greek Strong’s word ‘apoluo’ G630. Modern bibles have exchanged the words “put away” for “divorce.” The word should not be divorce because we have already established that people were allowed to get remarried. Divorce and remarriage were always permitted. Even if divorce is not spoken of much, the commands are very clear.

The translators were quite successful in changing the words “put away” to “divorce” in most bibles, but they forgot about the commentaries and other books which contained the accurate transcriptions of these verses.

Proof from old books: Francis Augustus Cox, 1783 – 1853, wrote Female Scripture Biographies. Put away in Matt 5:32. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9783/9783-h/9783-h.htm

“Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away, doth commit adultery.”

More proof: I also found the accurate translation of Matt 5:32 in another old book – Sermons on Several Occasions, John Wesley 1703 – 1791. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.html

“But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the case of fornication, (that is, adultery; the word porneia signifying unchastity in general, either in the married or unmarried state,) causeth her to commit adultery, if she marry again: And whosoever shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery. (Matt 5:31, 32).”

There is no word “divorce” found in this text. I wonder when the words “put away” were changed to “divorce.” There are literally millions of people who are held captive, still in terrible marriages because of that one mistranslated word. Bible translators are highly accountable for their choice of words. Rev 22:18 gives a severe warning to anyone who adds to these words. You will want to read Gail Riplinger’s book, Which Bible is God’s Word? (AVPublications, 2007). She did amazing research on bible translations. You will be shocked!

Ted R. Weiland wrote Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage. http://www.missiontoisrael.org/m-d-remar.php (pages 4, 6):

“While it is true that the term “put away” – the final step in the divorce process – is sometimes used to represent divorce, women can and often were put away without being divorced.”

“A “put-away” woman would be left to provide for herself, a nearly impossible feat under the conditions of that time. No doubt, some women felt they had no choice but to resort to prostitution in order to provide for themselves and their children. One can understand why Yahweh hated the treachery these hardhearted men committed against their wives. It was for this reason that Yahweh provided for lawful divorce.”

Matt 5:32 is so critical because there are countless millions of people who feel trapped, even after divorce. I do not promote divorce, but it is necessary to know that divorce and remarriage are both allowed. These are God’s way of showing love to women and children.

Marrying someone who is divorced does not mean people are committing adultery. If the new husband marries a divorced woman, then who is he committing adultery against? The former husband divorced her so it can’t be him, because he is no longer her spouse.

To make it simple, Matthew 5:32 should read, “If a man puts away his wife without giving her a divorce, then he causes her to commit adultery (but if HE is fornicating with another woman, then HE should put that woman away).”

The exception clause in Matthew 5:32, “saving for the cause of fornication,” cannot be referring to women, because if she was having an affair it would not be considered fornication, it would be classified as adultery against her husband, and she would be stoned for it.

Let’s say the wife was having an affair, and the husband sent her away, then why would the husband get blamed for “causing her” to commit adultery? That does not make sense. The fornicating person MUST be referring to the husband, and HE is the one who should send the second woman away, because HE is not looking after his first wife, thereby forcing her to find another man who will look after her. God’s design is monogamy.

In Moses’ day, women were forced to stay celibate if the men did not want to give them a divorce. Today, we are repeatedly and severely warned that God does not allow divorce, even though the scriptures prove that is not true. Then we are told that we cannot get remarried, because those verses have been twisted, in modern translations, to make it sound like it is adultery. So now we are worse off – forced to stay celibate forever, even after a divorce. Women are either forced to stay in abuse or forced to stay single and celibate forever.

Not being able to remarry is a false teaching. In fact, God wants women to get remarried, after they get their property and divorce. We are being deceived into thinking that God hates divorce and remarriage. The bible says, “let every woman have her own husband.” (1Cor 7:2) We are not meant to “be alone.” Furthermore, “if thou marry, thou hast not sinned.” Christian men coerce women into believing that God hates divorce, forcing them to stay, to continue being abused. “Men forbidding to marry” is a “doctrine of devils.” (1Tim 4:1, 3).

People don’t know the scriptures, so they believe what they are told. Tragically, if they are a Christian in an abusive marriage, they feel forced to either remain a victim of abuse, or by the time they do leave, they deny God. Essentially, to be a Christian woman today literally means to submit and accept violence.

While they are in a bad situation, not many people defend the abused woman, ‘You made your bed, now you sleep in it.’ When a woman feels trapped with an abusive man, it erodes her self-esteem, her strength, her health and eventually her faith. In abusive marriages, the children are caught in the middle and suffer lifetime emotional scars. Frequently, the children are also victims of physical and sexual assault; it is not just the mothers. How could God want all this suffering? Maryanne Rempel claims, “We need to submit only to God. I wish all parents would teach that to their children – boys and girls.”

You might think, “What does “put away” have to do with us? Actually, this still goes on in court rooms every day. You can get a divorce paper alright, but that doesn’t mean it will be fair. Both parties can feel cheated financially, but it’s a well-known fact that usually the mothers and children are left to live in poverty. Entire neighbourhoods in every city are filled with single mothers living in crowded, low-income housing. Women already feel like they have been thrown away, but it is worse when they are cheated out of property and child support.

In recent years, mothers are being knocked out with grief, bereft and devastated, when they lose custody of their children. There are not enough words in the dictionary to describe their nightmare and pain. I’m not saying all mothers are perfect, but the majority of the time it is about money, control and revenge. It was fine for the mother to raise her children while they were married, but as soon as a divorce is on the horizon, the mother is, all of a sudden, unfit.

The lives of these mothers and children are in the hands of the lawyers and judges, and they have no choice. It was no different in the days of slavery. “I have born thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me!” – Sojourner Truth. 1851, Akron, Ohio. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

The ultimate abuse for a mother is losing custody of her children. I have only a few words for any mother in this situation: Don’t despair. Jesus was extremely angry with the men who didn’t treat women right, and God is the Ultimate Judge. Our God is a God of Justice and Love. God knows your pain; Jesus sees your tears; He even cries with you.

Although Jesus did not promote divorce, He knew that it was inevitable, because of the hardness of men’s hearts. Jesus was admonishing the men, telling them that it is not acceptable to just put away their original wives. If men want to be free of their wives, they must divorce them, and they better do it fairly. Women are daughters of God and Jesus demands that men treat them with justice and mercy.

Regardless of what people want or don’t want, God does allow divorce, and remarriage, too. And God does not want anyone to submit to anyone else. We are “servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Eph 6: 6, 7).

Assimilation of the Church to the World

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ASSIMILATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE WORLDassimilation

For those that claim the title of “Christian,” it is very important to understand that the religious systems of the world are full of corruptions. It is my humble opinion that none are exempt. To think that there is a pure religion out there would be ludicrous. It doesn’t matter what one thinks, the historical evidences show that man corrupts everything he touches.  There are countless millions following the “doctrines and commandments of men” and not God. Many of these corruptions have an agenda in mind. What is that agenda? Control of others for self-indulgence, personal gain, power, control and money.  History supports this premise and shows it with glaring clarity.

In order to separate tradition from truth, in order to separate truth from the corruption, in order to genuinely understand and know the truth, we must study history and textual criticism. Studying the Bible, for many, is of no avail because the understanding of the times in which it was written is not there. One must understand the culture, the events taking place at the time of penning of scripture, and so much more in order to truly understand what the authors meant. How can one KNOW what was “meant” if you are interpreting based on the current culture and word usage? Jesus and his disciples spoke in terms that the people of their day were familiar with. Today, we are not familiar with many of the colloquialisms and terms they used. They were dealing with the real problems of the day and age in which they all lived; thus, learning history is important to correct understanding and interpretation.

We also must understand the “tares” that man has inserted through translation, that have become foundations for many. There is so much truth wrapped around a “cloak of deception” aimed at leading people to believe and act in a manner that is in direct opposition to truth and love! There were some insertions, changes and deletions through translation that have affected one particular race of people throughout history – women. As a result, women have been robbed of equality, honor and dignity. They have been treated in-humanely and, even today, still are, in some countries.

All this said, today’s history lesson will cover how the church assimilated with paganism. Throughout, I will interject my thoughts and enclose them in brackets. What will become apparent is that the church system has not changed. The corruptions then, are still around today. Let’s dive in and see what we can learn from this tidbit of early church history.

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Early Church History to the Death of Constantine

Edward Backhouse, 1906

With the increase of the Church in numbers and wealth, the introduction of infant baptism and the growth of a sacerdotal religion, there came an increased assimilation to the world. The dividing line between Pagan and Christian lost its sharpness, or was drawn from a new and entirely different point.

The Christians of the earlier ages were marked out from the rest of mankind by their life and conduct: “They are in the flesh, but live not after the flesh. They dwell upon earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.” But now the difference turned more especially upon external and ceremonial distinctions. [Think about this for a moment. Today, one’s Christianity is based on church attendance and service, looking outwardly holy in all manner of one’s life. What is considered “holy” living? Following all the many rules, spoken and unspoken, that the clergy within the religious system tell us to follow! Salvation is based on these same factors as well as baptism. If someone does not fit into our perceptive “mold” of what a Christian should be, then we label them as “lost,” “sinners,” “not right with God,” “reprobates,” “heathen,” etc. Standing in God’s place of judgment, we treat them differently and shun them. We isolate ourselves and our families from them as if they had a plague of sin that would affect and corrupt our righteousness. By doing these things, we break the most important commandment of all – to LOVE our neighbor as ourselves. Additionally, we give off a “better than thou” attitude that leaves a stench in the nostrils of those we are trying to reach for God!]

The Christians were those who had been baptised with water, those who partook of the bread and wine, or as it was now called, the Sacrament or the mysteries [calling it such was one of the many corruptions by clergy]. Not that there were wanting other tokens of discipleship of a less formal kind; the martyrdoms, the conduct of the Church during the times of famine and pestilence, and the holy watchful life of thousands, both in and out of office, still affording a shining testimony to the world around of the vital and energetic power of the Gospel. But in proportion as more importance was attached to the ceremonial distinction, the moral difference was overlooked.  [This is a very important statement here. When religious leaders put more weight on outward appearances and rules, the wicked thoughts and intents of the heart will manifest themselves in hidden abuses such as rape, domestic violence, incest, physical abuse, pedophilia, sex trafficking and other such crimes. As we have seen in overwhelming evidence on this blog, the internet is full of stories of these atrocities taking place hidden under the mantle of the church. The “church” has become a safe haven for criminals because they look and sound good on the outside!]

When a man like Gregory Thaumaturgus could adopt a pliable policy, and make the holy rule of the Gospel bend to the vicious habits of the newly baptised heathen, it is easy to account for the decline in morality. And after the edicts of Milan, when admissions into the Church took place in a still more wholesale manner, the maintenance of morals and discipline must have been extremely difficult, not to say impossible. [Throughout the early church, moral corruption was rampant – just as it is today. If we just do our homework and search the internet, we will find countless thousands of articles of such abuses and crimes as well as many victims speaking out about their abuses.]

Moreover, as the danger became more urgent, the voices of the watchmen on the walls grew fainter. [The “watchmen” were supposed to be church leaders. Their voices grew fainter because they had no desire to rid the church of the crimes, many of which, I believe, they were complicit in.] After the second century the influence of the Montanists rapidly declined, whilst the Novatians and others who pleaded more or less earnestly for a return to primitive manners and discipline, seemed never to have gained the ear of the general Church. Here and there, however, the cry of warning was still heard from individuals. [Those that are trying to expose the corruptions and deliver truth to the people, will always be ignored and/or silenced. This still takes place today. We must also add to this the use of character assassination — used against those that try to get the truth to people.]

Amongst these was Aerius. He was a native of Pontus or Armenia, and a friend of the semi-Arian Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, by whom he was made a presbyter. Disputes arose between himself and the bishop, which widened into a rupture with the Church; and Aerius and his followers, who were numerous, openly separated from their fellow Christians. They also renounced the possession of worldly property. The teaching of Aerius on some points remarkably anticipated that of the most enlightened Protestants at the time of the Reformation, and drew upon him the hostility of the orthodox Church. Epiphanius, who attacks him in no measured language, brings forward four special counts upon which he charges him with heresy. The first is his assertion that the Holy Scriptures make no distinction between a bishop and a presbyter. Next, that prayers and offerings for the dead are not only useless but pernicious: if they avail to the benefit of the departed, no one need trouble himself to live holily, he will only have to provide by bribes or otherwise a multitude of persons to make prayers and offerings for him, and his salvation will be secure. Although a monk he condemned all set fasts: a Christian man should fast when he feels it to be for his soul’s good; appointed days of fasting are relics of Jewish bondage. Lastly, he ridiculed the observance of Easter as a Jewish superstition, insisting that Christians should keep no Passover, because Paul declares Christ, who was slain for us to be our Paschal Lamb. [Aerius was telling the truth here and the church leaders wanted him silenced! A rule of thumb is to “label” those truths as “heresy.” Then, label the truth teller as a “heretic.” By doing so, no one will believe the truth and continue to believe the lies instead.  These same tactics are still being used today within religion as a whole.]

“Aerius,” says his biographer, “brought scriptural weapons to the attack of the fast growing Sacerdotalism of the age; dared to call in question the prerogatives of the Episcopate; and struggled to deliver the Church from the yoke of ceremonies which were threatening to become as deadening and more burdensome than the rites of Judaism.” The warning voice was uttered, but it fell on closed ears. “The protest,” he continues, “was premature; centuries had to elapse before it could be effectually renewed.” But alas ! the rulers of the Church not only rejected the warning; they persecuted the messengers. [This sounds so familiar, doesn’t it? Persecute and silence the messengers of truth. Persecute and silence those that expose abuse or speak out about their own abuse at the hands of the church and its leaders. Persecute, silence and discredit those that expose the corruptions in translation of scripture. Church leaders and church people can be vicious about their attacks on those that speak out or expose what’s hidden or corrupted. Look at what they did to Aerius.]

Aerius and his associates were denied admission to the churches, and even access to the towns and villages, and were compelled to sojourn in the fields or in caves and ravines, and hold their religious assemblies in the open air, exposed to the cruel severity of the Armenian winter. Aerius lived about A.D. 355.

[Make life unbearable for these “heretics.” Follow them where ever they go and persecute them. Stop them from being able to get the bare necessities of life. Slap lawsuits on them to cripple them financially. Take to blogs and websites to slander and discredit them. Show the world the “genuine, unconditional love of God you have” for your fellow man that you exude by doing such things (Being facetious here). THIS is the FRUIT of the religious system at its finest. Is there any wonder that people are fleeing the faith?

By these tactics, you will know who truly AREN’T God’s people. For they fill many of the churches of today and, instead of extending love toward others, they extend hatred and slander toward victims of abuse who speak out, hatred and slander toward those that expose corruption in the church, hatred and slander toward those that expose corruption in translation of scripture;  and, they offer up murder against those that live or believe differently. “They should be stoned!” they say. It never occurs to them that the intent of their heart is MURDER. They are guilty of murder in their heart, and believe it is justified – all in the “name of God.”   Instead, they should be showering their fellow man with love, letting “unconditional” LOVE do its work in the hearts of men, leading them to the “unconditional love of God” that can penetrate even the hardest heart and lead many to repentance and faith.

For those that do these things to their fellow man “in the name of God,” they are not only exuding hatred, abuse and slander, but they are breaking the Third Commandment. Since when is hatred, slander, abuse and murder justifiable? Sadly, there are some Christians that think it is if it’s done in God’s name.]

Fasting

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During the early centuries, fasting as a requirement entered into the church system. Many Christians genuinely believe that fasting was instated by Jesus, not realizing, that he did not do this. His forty day fast in the desert was not meant to be copied; and, the only time the Lord mentions fasting is in Mat 17:21 where he says, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting (see also Mar 9:29).” What man has done is instituted a rule or ritual that has made it not only mandatory to fast but, also instituted penalties and/or punishments for those that did not do it according their rules! This, according to the Apostle Paul is a departure from the truth faith as evidenced below. Let’s look at what history tells us regarding fasting.

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Early Church History to the Death of Constantinefast

Edward Backhouse, 1903

 

I Tim. 4: 1-3. – The Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own consciences with a hot iron, forbidding to marry”

Dionysius of Alexandria writes: “Some remain entirely without food the whole six days [of the Passover week]; others fast two, three or four days; others not so much as one whole day.”

FASTING. The Holy Spirit who revealed to Paul that some should depart so far from the faith as to deny to men the gracious ordinance of marriage, showed him also that they would withhold the meats “which God created to be received with thanksgiving.” Fasting, as we have seen, passed in very early times from a voluntary observance as a help of devotion, into a ceremonial usage obligatory at fixed days and seasons. Wednesday and Friday in every week were set apart as Fast days, the former as that of our Lord s betrayal, the latter as that of his crucifixion; to which various other seasons of humiliation were afterwards added. The fasting consisted in abstinence from food until three o’clock in the afternoon.  After that hour, in early times, no restriction was made as to the food which might be eaten whilst the season of humiliation lasted. Even so late as the early part of the fifth century, the historian Socrates speaks of a great diversity of usage in this respect. In some countries Christians abstained altogether from animal food; in others they allowed themselves fish; in others fowl as well as fish. Some abstained from eggs and fruit: others ate dry bread only: others not even that; whilst some partook of all kinds of food without distinction. The Apostolical Constitutions direct that during the Passover week the diet shall consist of only bread, herbs, salt and water. Meat and wine are expressly forbidden; and the Apostolical Canons rule that, “If any bishop, presbyter, deacon, reader or singer, does not fast the fast of forty days, or the fourth day of the week and the day of preparation, he is to be deprived [Forced to fast!], except he be hindered by weakness of body. If he be one of the laity he is to be suspended [Punished].”

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When we look at early church history and consider all the many “rules” that man has brought into the religious system of worship, it is no wonder that the corruptions are many and, have filtered down into today’s system of worship. Consistently on this blog, we will continue to point out the error and the corruptions in the hope of helping people to really consider what they have been taught by the “church.” Man-made rules, opinions and doctrines, have infiltrated not only the scriptures through translation, thereby changing what we have come to perceive as truth, but, they have infiltrated the very lives of the populous to such an extent that they are being led astray by religion! The fruit of these corruptions are obvious. Just take some time to read the many other articles on this blog to learn more about them and the class of people affected the most by them — women.

Forbidding to Marry

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forbid to marryBefore the death of Constantine, there were many corruptions that entered into the church system. One such corruption was the rule forbidding clergy to marry. This corruption is still alive today and, just as it led to perversions for the clergy back then, so it does today. The “priesthood” is fraught with all manner of sexual perversion and has become a safe haven for pedophiles and rapists. Although many may equate this corruption to one major religion, it is not the only one that forbids people to marry; and, it is not the only sect whose leadership is harboring abusers, rapists and pedophiles!

The religious sect that I came out of does the same thing; but in a different way and, a more underhanded way.  The control that pastors have among their congregations is nothing short of amazing. While clergy is allowed to marry, the pastors control who young people marry within their congregations. If the pastor says not to marry someone, then the parents usually make sure their young people don’t! It doesn’t matter how old these young people are or how they feel about it. They usually, along with the parents, follow leadership’s advice as though leadership was all-knowing, like God, and knew what was best for these young people; or what God’s WILL was for them.  This is still “forbidding to marry;” it’s just done more deceptively.

Countless relationships have been organized by clergy that have ended in divorce because young people were coerced into loveless marriages. Also, countless numbers of these “arranged marriages” evolved into abusive relationships that the woman felt trapped into. And if a divorce did occur, it was usually the woman that would be slandered and/or blamed. I cannot express how many stories of abuse I have heard from such organized marriages. Let me also say that on occasion, I have even heard of the woman being the abuser in these types of relationships. Though this is uncommon, it still happens, and the clergy stand behind the abusive spouse in many instances.  I am sure the sect I came out of is not the only one where clergy coerce young girls into “arranged marriages.” Not only are these marriages arranged, but clergy then condemns divorce even if a spouse is being sexually, physically and emotionally abused! As a result, many victims of domestic abuse find themselves in a place of bondage and fear to the abuse with no hope of escape! Arranging a marriage is the same thing as forbidding to marry! It is just a more deceptively packaged way of doing it; even if it does not apply to clergy. But of course, those that practice this, will want to split this hair and say it is not the same thing. Forbidding someone to marry because you don’t approve, is wrong. It doesn’t matter who it applies to – clergy or congregant. Forbidding to marry can lead into either the direction of celibacy or, an arranged marriage.

Let’s look at how “forbidding to marry” made its way into the church system, and the fruit of this corruption, by looking at another bit of church history. All emphasis is mine throughout.

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Early Church History to the Death of Constantine

Edward Backhouse, 1906

Methodius, bishop and martyr at the beginning of the fourth century, has left a long treatise or dialogue, called The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, composed on the model of Plato’s Banquet, in which the speakers strive to outdo each other in praises of the virginal state.

But if this condition of life was held up as so desirable for Christians generally, much more was it thought to adorn, if not to be absolutely essential to the clerical vocation. When the unmarried state came to be regarded as the only condition of perfect sanctity it naturally followed that the communicants objected to receive the bread and wine from any other hands. It is true that hitherto married men had not been actually disqualified for the priestly office; but for a long time marriage after ordination had been a thing unheard of, at least amongst the higher clergy. The Apostolical Canons and Constitutions rule that only the lower orders, sub-deacons, readers, singers, door keepers, may marry after their appointment. The Council of Elvira bears hard upon the married clergy; and the Council of Nicaea was only saved from adopting its canon on this head as a law for the whole Church, by the protest of Paphnutius, the maimed and one-eyed confessor from the Upper Thebais, himself a celibate. Rising in the midst of the assembly he reminded his fellow-bishops that “marriage is honourable in all,” and earnestly entreated them not to impose so grievous a yoke on the ministers of religion, or to injure the Church by intolerable restrictions.

But the headlong course was checked for a time only, not really arrested. Glancing forward beyond the strict limits of this volume we set: how the new doctrine grew and reached its full development. Siricius, bishop of Rome in A.D. 385, forbade absolutely the marriage of presbyters and deacons; and Innocent L, A.D. 405, enforced the prohibition by the penalty of degradation. But the ninth Council of Toledo, A.D. 659, the issue of such marriages were declared to be illegitimate, and condemned to become slaves, the property of the Church against which their fathers had offended. [Wow, a slave of the church for being a married priest! It doesn’t get any more perverted than that!] Seventy-two years later another council of the same intolerant Spanish Church found itself compelled to make new laws to meet the fearful consequences resulting from its former decrees. It passed canons, on the one hand against the spread of UNNATURAL crime among the clergy [Could this be pedophilia and sodomy?], pronouncing the sentence of deposition and exile on all who should be guilty of it, and on the other, against the attempts at suicide which were becoming frequent among those who had been subjected to the discipline of the Church. [How bad is the discipline that it would lead to suicide? Think about it!]

Note: The philosopher Synesius, made bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrene, A.D. 410, being required on his ordination to abandon his wife, indignantly replied : “God and the law and the holy hand of Theophilus (the bishop of Alexandria) gave me my wife. Wherefore I declare and testify to all men that I will in no wise be separated from her, nor live with her secretly like an adulterer; for the one is impious, the other unlawful. But this assuredly I will pray that we may have many and virtuous children.”

The rule was hard to observe. Infractions were winked at, and by the ninth century had become very numerous, especially in Germany and Lombardy. Successive popes attempted to enforce the law, but it was not until 1074, when Gregory VII. put his iron hand to the work, that the offenders were induced to yield. Even then many ecclesiastics resigned their benefices rather than abandon their wives. “Throughout the whole period from Pope Siricius to the Reformation, the law was defied, infringed, eluded. It never obtained anything approaching to general observance, though its violation was at times more open, at times more clandestine.”

Ever since, the blessing of matrimony has been wholly interdicted to the clergy of the Latin Church. In the Eastern or Greek Church the practice was less rigorous; and at the present day marriage is actually enjoined on the inferior clergy, whilst it is forbidden to the superior. The bishops are chosen from monks or widowers: second marriages are unlawful.

Of all the infractions of the Gospel rule of life into which the Church was betrayed, there is none more to be deplored than this enforced celibacy of its ministers. As if it were not enough to turn back to the Law, and set up again a copy of the priestly order which Christ had for ever abolished, marriage, which had been always permitted to the sons of Aaron under the Old Dispensation, must be forbidden to the new priesthood. [Amazing how religion wants to have its own rules instead of God’s.]  It is almost incredible that, when the echoes of the apostolic voices had scarcely died away, and the apostolic writings were in every hand, Church teachers and Church councils should have the hardihood to fulfill in their own practice and enactments, that most emphatic prediction of the Holy Spirit, that faithless men and hypocrites should arise and forbid to marry. Such an issue must be regarded as a master-stroke of the enemy, who, building on the perversion of man’s aspirations after holiness, thus established his stronghold in the very midst of the Church of Christ–The moral safeguard which had been divinely provided for all mankind, was in the case of one order of men removed; and the men who were set apart to guide the flock were cut off from those domestic duties, interests, and sympathies, which would best enable them to fulfill their charge. The consequences of this grand error have been many and terrible; not the least being that the priestly life, instead of rising to that higher level of purity and godliness which was so fondly hoped for, has too often fallen below the common life of the people. The roots of the evil had taken no light hold in the Church before the death of Constantine.

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As we can see from history, there were perversions taking place as a result of forced celibacy. This practice goes against the very scriptures these church leaders claim to follow. But, as I have stated so often, it is not about following God; it is about controlling the people. Control brings with it power. Control brings money. The more control religion has, the more corruption you will find hidden underneath its mantle of righteousness.

What About Christian Holidays?

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Countless numbers of Christians the world over celebrate certain fasts and festivals throughout the year – Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc.  What many do not realize is that many of these fasts and festivals have their origins in paganism.  As stated many times on this blog, there are many things that Christians believe that are rooted in paganism, but Christians have no idea they are. Why would Christians be so ignorant of the truth of what they do? Could it be because they enjoy the festivals as did the early Christians from so long ago? Could it be because they don’t care to know and see nothing wrong with celebrating them even if they did know? Could it be because they haven’t taken the time to research the history on it? Could it be because they believe blindly, the traditions handed down from generation to generation regarding them? I believe that it could be a combination of several of these reasons, or all of them.

As believers, it behooves us to do our due diligence in seeking out truth. Man has proven himself to be a liar in all instances of religious practice handed down through tradition. Because of this, it is important that people not believe blindly what they are told. Seek truth and pursue it! Find out if what you are being told is truth or not. NEVER take a man’s word as gospel truth just because of his “position” in the church. As said many times before, every denomination produces “clones” of its system of beliefs and doctrines. God did not create us to be “clones.” He created us to be individuals – autonomous, thinkers, reasoning with one another, seekers of truth.

The history of the many fasts and festivals that are practiced within Christendom do have origins. Take some time to search the net for information on these. As usual, I will quote Early Church History to the Death of Constantine on these.  Let’s look at them.

Early Church History to the Death of Constantinechristmas

Edward Backhouse, 1906

Fasts and Festivals

FASTS AND FESTIVALS multiplied during the third and fourth centuries. In imitation of our Lord’s forty days temptation in the wilderness, a fast of as many as forty hours was observed, out of which afterwards arose the forty days of Lent. (Or because our Lord was supposed to have been forty hours in the tomb.) The Feast of Pentecost, instituted to commemorate the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the disciples, followed fifty days after that of the Resurrection, the whole interval being observed as a season of festival, during which there was no fasting, and prayer was made standing. Pentecost, which was also named Whitsuntide from the white robes of the candidates, was one of the three special baptismal seasons, the two others being Easter and Epiphany. Epiphany (the word signifies manifestation), appears to have been instituted by Jewish Christians in honour of our Lord’s baptism, and to have travelled from the East to the West some time in the fourth century. Ascension Day is likewise not mentioned before the middle of the fourth century. About the same time Christmas, the festival of our Lord’s birth, first began to be observed at Rome, from whence it spread to the East. “It is not yet ten years,” says Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, writing about A.D. 386, “since this day was first made known to us. It had been before observed in the West, whence the knowledge of it is derived.”

Much has been written regarding the way in which the Christmas festival came first to be observed in the Roman Church, and how the time for its observance came to be transferred to the 25th of December; for although nothing certain is known as to the season of the year when our Lord was born, it may confidently be asserted that it cannot have been very near to the winter solstice. Neander suggests the following solution to these questions, but without committing himself to it in all respects.

“Precisely at this season of the year a series of heathen festivals occurred, the celebration of which was closely interwoven with the whole civil and social life. The Christians were on this account exposed to be led astray into many of the customs and solemnities peculiar to these festivals. Besides, these festivals had an import which easily admitted of being spiritualised, and with some slight change receiving a Christian meaning. First came the Saturnalia, which represented the happy times of the golden age, and abolished for awhile the distinction between slaves and freemen. This admitted of being easily transferred to Christianity, which, through the restoration of the fellowship between God and man, had brought in the true golden age, the true equality of all men, and the true liberty. Then came the custom peculiar to this season of making presents (the Stren*), which afterwards passed over to the Christmas festival. There was also the Festival of Infants, with which the Saturnalia concluded, just as Christmas was the true festival of the children. Lastly came the festival of the shortest day, the birthday of the sun about to return once more towards the earth, in which case a transition to the Christian point of view naturally presented itself when Christ the Sun of the spiritual world was compared with that of the material. To all these series of Pagan festivals was now therefore to be opposed that Christian festival which could be so easily connected with the feelings which lay at their root; and hence the celebration of Christmas was transferred to the 25th of December in order to draw away the Christian people from all participation in the pagan solemnities, and gradually wean the Pagans themselves from their heathen customs.”

To see how the minds even of wise men were in matters of this kind swayed by the opposing influences of truth and custom, it is only necessary to read Origen’s answer to the philosopher Celsus, when he objects that Christians did not observe the heathen festivals. He quotes Thucydides, “To keep a feast is nothing else than to do one’s duty;” and adds, “He truly celebrates a feast who does his duty and prays always, offering up continually bloodless sacrifices in prayer to God. It was a most noble saying of Paul, Ye observe days and months and seasons and years; I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in vain. If it be objected,” he continues “that we Christians are accustomed to observe certain days, as the Lord’s day, the Preparation, Passover, Pentecost, I answer, the perfect Christian who is ever in thought, word and deed serving God the Word, he is always keeping the Lord’s day. He who is unceasingly preparing himself for the true life, abstaining from the pleasures which lead so many astray, such a one is always keeping Preparation day. He who considers that Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, and that it is his duty to eat of the flesh of the Word, never ceases to keep the Paschal feast. Lastly, he who can truly say, We are risen with Christ to sit with Him in heavenly places, is always living in the season of Pentecost.”

No sooner however has Origen said this than he turns round, disregards Paul’s “most noble” saying, and propounds a maxim not to be found in the New Testament, but which he endeavours to support from the Old. “Nevertheless, the majority of those who are accounted believers are not of this advanced class; but from being either unable or unwilling to keep every day in this manner, they require some sensible memorials to prevent spiritual things from passing altogether away from their minds. It would take too long at present to show why we are required by the law of God to keep its festivals by eating the bread of affliction, or leaven with bitter herbs, or why the law says humble your souls, or the like.”  In this way were Origen and the teachers of his time accustomed to mix together the precepts of the Law and the Gospel.

More enlightened was Socrates Scholasticus, the ecclesiastical historian, who, although he wrote so late as the fifth century, has some remarks on this subject which manifest a rare freedom of thought. Speaking of the Easter controversy, he says: “Men have altogether lost sight of the fact that when our religion superseded the Jewish economy, the obligation to observe the Mosaic law and the ceremonial types ceased. The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, demonstrates that the Jews were in bondage, as servants, but that Christians are called into the liberty of sons, and he exhorts them to disregard days, and months, and years. In his Epistle to the Colossians he distinctly declares that such observances are merely shadows: Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a feast-day, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come. . . . Men love festivals because they afford them a cessation of labour; therefore it is that each individual in every place, according to his own pleasure, has by a prevalent custom celebrated the memory of the Saving Passion. The Saviour and his apostles have enjoined us by no law to keep this feast. The apostles had no thought of appointing festival days, but of promoting a life of blamelessness and piety. It seems to me that even as many other things have become customary in different places, so the feast of Easter from a certain custom has had its particular observance, since, as I said, none of the apostles have enacted anything concerning it.”

 – Early Church History to the Death of Constantine, pgs 251-253.

The Fruit of Silence

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There are countless women out there that genuinely believe that what religion teaches about women is “of God.” They have been taught that:

  • Their value is “less than” a man’s in God’s eyes.
  • They are to keep silence in the church; that GOD does not want to hear them in “his house.”
  • They are to be in submission to their husbands, or other men.
  • They cannot teach men or, have authority over them.
  • They are to endure abuse and abusive marriages.
  • They have no rights or autonomy, but are a product and reflection of the religious beliefs of the sects they are a part of, or a reflection of their husbands.
  • They should not be educated or hold jobs.

Sadly, there are countless women the world over that have been brainwashed into believing they are worthless because of these religious teachings.  Their value as women, have been stripped from them. The abuses that women endure even today defy conscience and morality. Sexual abuse and mutilation are rampant and affect all ages of women even down to the smallest little girls. Sex trafficking and prostitution are rampant. Physical abuse and emotional abuses are widespread.  All of these things are a result of religion propagating a mindset in men the world over that leads to all of these abuses. But the truth is that GOD did not say or teach any of these things listed above about women! Consistently, on this blog, I have been exposing the corruptions in translation and teaching by the translators of the early centuries. I have cited the evidence from re-known scholars of today and the early centuries; as well as historians. The evidence is clear and, it is damning to religion and those that use it as a weapon to control, dominate and abuse women.

As usual, I will cite one of several Hebrew and Greek Scholars of the early centuries on this subject – Katherine Bushnell. She has taken great pains to expose the lies of the religious elite and the errors in their teachings and translation of scripture.

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That we might make no mistake as to God’s own approval upon women of old who broke the silence of public assemblies, we have it expressly told us that Miriam, Deborah, Huldah and Anna were all “prophetesses,”—for they are so called where their names are mentioned. It behooves us to ask, What is it to prophesy, in the Biblical use of the word? Scholars will agree that the primal thought of the word is that of one who is acting as a spokesman for another. The idea of prediction is not necessarily implied. But as a true prophet in the Bible is one who speaks for God, and as God does not live nor necessarily speak, within the limits of time, by which mortals are bound (but, to Him, yesterday, today and tomorrow are all present), therefore it follows that what He causes mortals to say for Him often relates to a future as yet not experienced by them; hence we use this verb in a secondary sense, “to foretell.” But let us keep in mind its proper meaning, – to speak for God.

It is certain that women were not, as theology has claimed, subordinated to men from the day Eve sinned. History proves that that subordination was gradually brought about by men themselves, and was not accomplished for hundreds of years. It is as certain that not one syllable can be found in the Old Testament ordering women to “keep silence” in the Jewish public assemblies; and it would be astounding, since women were NOT silenced under the Old Covenant, if it were true that they were silenced for the sin of Eve under the New, and strike at the very heart of the teaching of which is, “There is therefore NOW no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

The congregation of Israel, a religious body called by God out of bondage and into the wilderness, was certainly a “church.” Indeed, Stephen spoke of it as “the church in the wilderness,” Acts 7:38. The very first note of praise raised by God in that “church,” was responded to by Miriam and her women, with timbrel and dance—“Miriam the Prophetess” (Ex. 15:20). And why should she have been called by the inspired Word “the prophetess,” if God had never, and did never use her voice to declare His will to Israel? God gives no empty (lying) titles. And this woman prophetess, was one of three great leaders of whom God said: “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. . . and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron and Miriam” (Micah 6:4).

And women were not silent in the Tabernacle, after the children of Israel became a settled people in the Promised Land. Where else did Hannah sing that wonderful psalm of praise she composed for the dedication of Samuel to the Lord’s service at the Tabernacle? All the context here goes to show she “prayed” it (1Sam. 2:1) in public (compare 1:28 and 2:11); and it became public property, preserved to us to the present day, and its comforting words re-echoed in a dozen Psalms, composed in later days, like this, for the service of the Temple.

And women were not silent in the Temple: We have high authority for believing that two Psalms, at least, were meant for women’s voices alone (Psalm 8 and 45). Hannah must have been gifted in music. Her Song proved this; and her son Samuel, as can be gleaned from many incidental statements in the Bible (and as has been so well brought out in a book by Dean Payne-Smith. “Prophecy a Preparation for Christ”), taught his young prophets, whom he had in training, to praise the Lord in song.

This writer says: “One of that choir [of the prophet Samuel] was Heman, the son of Joel, Samuel’s first-born (1 Chron. 6:33, 1 Sam 8:2), who there acquired that mastery of music which made him one of the three singers selected by David. . . to arrange and preside over the Temple service (1 Chron. 25). Blessed with a numerous family, who all seem to have inherited Samuel’s musical ability, he trained them all for song in the house of Jehovah, with cymbals, psalteries and harps (1 Chron. 25:6), and it is remarkable that no less than fourteen of the twenty-four courses of singers were Samuel’s own descendants, and that as long as the first Temple stood they were the chief performers of that Psalmody which he had instituted.”

“God gave Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the Lord.” This certainly proves that women did not “keep silence” in the Temple. We know this also from the mention of the “woman-singers” in Ezra 2:65, and Neh. 7:67. The same thing is made clear by the description of a religious procession, Psalm 68:25. If, as Dean Payne-Smith says, “Psalmody commenced with that hymn of triumph sung by Miriam and the women on the shores of the Red Sea, with timbrel and dance,” surely psalmody was introduced into the Temple service by the Song of Hanna, taken up by Samuel and his female as well as male descendants, through Heman, and extended through the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, by both women and men. There is no just reason for supposing that women ever ceased to have their part in prophecy with song, up to the days of Anna, the aged prophetess, who never left the Temple, but preached there, to the worshippers, that Messiah had come (Luke 2:36,38).

It was not until after woman had brought the Redeemer into the word,–not until after she had given her testimony to the most important facts in the Christian’s faith, and convinced the early disciples of their truth; not until long after Paul’s days, when “grievous wolves” had entered the flock, as Paul said they would do (Acts 20:29); and wrested Paul’s language, as Peter said they did (2 Pet. 3:15-16), that the teaching arose that Paul had silenced women, veiled them, and subordinated them to men. We have shown that his language is capable of more consistent interpretation.

–Katherine Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, pgs 340-342.

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Consistently, I have given voice to the corruptions regarding women. Once again, I give voice to the corruption that women have been silenced. They have not. What is taught by religions the world over regarding women is either abusive or, leads to abusive mindsets, attitudes and actions. Women have borne the brunt of some of the most heinous crimes against humanity as a result of religious teachings aimed at subjugating and controlling women. Their value has been stripped from them so much so that many men regard them as nothing more than property to be used and discarded. In countries where they are allowed to be part of the work force, they are underpaid for the same jobs that men do; and in many instances, they are bullied and sexually discriminated against by other men.  Their dignity and autonomy has been stripped from them as well. They are being forced into servitude to wicked and abusive men as a result; with no protections afforded them from such abuse.  The culture that has mutated from these mindsets is a rape culture. Women are not protected by laws, instead victims of rape are being held up as the “guilty party” instead of holding men accountable for their crimes against women.

Women need to educate themselves outside of mens teachings of what THEY say “God said” and really study what God actually says. In doing so, we will find that much of what we believed is rooted in the “opinions and doctrines of men” and is only aimed at sexual dominance and control. It has taken centuries for the religious mindsets to proliferate and create the culture we live in today. Today, not only are women being raped, children and infants are being raped!  But it’s not too late for that to be changed. It just takes the courage of victims everywhere to step up to the plate and speak out about the abuses they have endured. The problems are all rooted in “silence.” Silence breeds corruption, violence and abuse and, those that bear the putrid fruit of the violence – suffering, psychological disorders, physical pain and suffering, death—are women and children. Laws need to change drastically to hold MEN accountable for their own actions, instead of punishing victims. These changes in law have to start with voices being heard – victims voices from every corner of the world.

A New Perspective on the Genesis – Part 2

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The following is the continuation from the excerpt of part one from The Ages Before Moses. Part one of this lecture covered the Genesis in its form, scope and substance. Part two will now cover the harmonies of Bible and Science, Man and, a lesson in Grace.

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The Ages Before Moses

John Monro Gibson, 1879

The Harmonies of Bible and Science

 We have said that almost everybody knows about the difficulties, but how few are there comparatively that know about the wonderful harmonies? So much is said and written about the difficulties, that many have the idea that the narrative is full of difficulties—nothing but difficulties—nothing that agrees with science as we know it now; whereas, when we look at it, we find the correspondencies most wonderful all the way through. Let us look at a few of them. And first, the absence of dates. The fact is very noteworthy that there is such abundance of space left for long periods, not till quite recently demanded by science. And this does not depend on any theory of day-periods; for those who still hold to the literal days; find all the room required before the first day is mentioned. Not six thousand years ago, but “in the beginning.” How grand and how true in its vagueness.

Another negative characteristic worth noticing here is the absence of details where none are needed. For example, there is almost nothing said in detail about the heavens. What is said about the heavens in addition to the bare fact of creation, is only in reference to the earth, as, for example, when the sun and moon are treated of, not as separate worlds, but only in their relation to this earth as giving light to it and affording measurements of time. There is no attempt to drag in the spectroscope!

 Note: This is strikingly indicated in the Hebrew text, by the accent punctuation: “In the beginning-created-God-the heavens and earth. And the earth—it was without form and void;” which is, read in full: “And the earth” (for it is only the earth that this narrative has to do with),–etc. Bearing this in mind, it is evident that when heaven is spoken of again as in the eighth verse, it is not the universe at large, but the visible heaven, as the definition indeed most accurately points out: “God called the firmament (expanse) Heaven.”

A certain infidel lately seemed to think he had made a point against the Bible by remarking that the author of it had compressed the astronomy of the universe into five words. Just think of the ignorance this betrays. It proceeds on the assumption that the author of this apocalypse intended to teach the world the astronomy of the universe; and then, of course, it would have been a very foolish thing for him to discuss the whole subject in five words. Whereas, in this very reticence we have a note of truth. If this work had been the work of some mere cosmogonist, some theorist as to the origin of the universe, he would have been sure to have given us a great deal of information about the stars. But a prophet of the Lord has nothing to do with astronomy as such. All that he has to do with the stars is to make it clear that the most distant orbs of light are included in the domain of the Great Supreme, and this he can do as well in five words as in five thousand; and so, wisely avoiding all detail, he simply says, “He made the stars also.”  There was danger that men might suppose some power resident in these distant stars distinct from the power that ruled the earth. He would have them to understand that the same God that rules over this little earth, rules to the uttermost bounds of the great universe. And this great truth he lays on immovable foundations by the sublimely simple words, “He made the stars also.”

But passing from that which is merely negative, see how many positive harmonies there are. First, there is the fact of a beginning. The old infidel objection used to be that “all things have continued as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Nobody pretends to take that position now that science points so clearly to beginnings of everything. You can trace back man to his beginning in the geological cycles. You can trace back mammals to their beginning; birds, fishes, insects to their beginnings; vegetation to its beginning; rocks to their beginning. The general fact of a genesis is immovably established by science.

 Secondly, “The heavens and the earth.” Note the order. Though almost nothing is said about the heavens, yet what is said is not at all in conflict with what we now know about them. We know now that the earth is not the centre of the universe. Look forward to Genesis 4:2, and you will find the transition to the reverse order—quite appropriate there, as we shall see in the next lecture; but here, where the genesis of all things, the origin of the universe, is the subject, it is not the earth and the heavens, but “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

 Thirdly, there is the original chaos. “The earth was without form and void.” Turn to the early pages of any good modern scientific book, that attempts to set forth the genesis of the earth from a scientific standpoint, and you will find just this condition described. Observe, too, in passing, how carefully the statement is limited to the earth. The universe was not chaotic then.

Fourthly, the work of creation is not a simultaneous, but an extended one. If the author had been guessing or theorizing, he would have been much more likely to hit on the idea of simultaneous, than successive creation. But the idea of successive creation is now proved by science to be true.

Fifthly, there is a progressive development, and yet not a continuous progression without any drawbacks. There are evenings and mornings: just what science tells us of the ages of the past. Here it is worth while perhaps to notice the careful use of the word “created.” An objection has been made to the want of continuity in the so-called orthodox doctrine of creation, the orthodox doctrine being supposed to be that of fresh creation at every point. But the Bible is not responsible for many “fresh creations.” The word “created: is only used three times in the record. First, as applied to the original creation of the universe, possibly in the most embryonic state. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Next, in connection with the introduction of life (v.2), and last, in reference to the creation of man (v.27). In no other place is anything said about direct creation. It is rather making, appointing, ordering, saying “Let there be,” “Let the waters bring forth,” etc. Now, is it not a significant fact that these three points where, and where alone, the idea of absolute creation is introduced, are just the three points at which the great apostles of continuity find it impossible to make their connections? You will not find any one that is able to show any other origin for the spirit of man than the Creator Himself. You cannot find any one that is able to show any other origin of animal life than the Creator Himself. There have been very strenuous efforts made a great many times to show that the living may originate from the not-living; but all these efforts have failed. And the origin of matter is just as mysterious as the origin of life. No other origin can be even conceived of the primal matter of the universe than fiat of the Great Creator. Thus we find the word “creation” used just at the times when modern science tells us it is most appropriate.

Sixthly, the progression is from the lower to the higher. An inventor would have been much more likely to guess that man was created first, and afterward the other creatures subordinate to him. But the record begins at the bottom of the scale and goes up, step by step, to the top: again, just what geology tells us. All these are great general correspondencies; but we might,

Seventhly, go into details and find harmonies even there, all the way through. Take the fact of light appearing on the first day. The Hebrew word for “light” is wide enough to cover the associated phenomena of heat and electricity, and are not these the primal forces of the universe? Again, it used to be a standard difficulty with skeptics that light was said to exist before the sun was visible from the earth. Science here has come to the rescue, and who doubts it now? It is very interesting to see a distinguished geologist like Dana using this very fact that light is said to have existed before the sun shone upon the earth as a proof of the divine origin of this document, on the ground that no one would have guessed what must have seemed so unlikely then. So much for the progress TOWARD the Bible which science has made since the day when a skeptical writer said of the Mosaic narrative, “It would still be correct enough in great principles were it not for one individual oversight and one unlucky blunder!”—the oversight being the solid firmament (whose oversight?), and the blunder, light apart from the sun (whose blunder?).

I have spoken already about the words “created” and “made,” in relation to the discriminating use of them. This word raqia, too, how admirable it is to express the tenuity of our atmosphere, especially as contrasted with the clumsy words used by the enlightened Greeks (stereoma), the noble Romans (firmamentum), and even by learned Englishmen of the nineteenth century (firmament)! And not to dwell on mere words as we well might, look at the general order of creation: vegetation before animal life, birds and fishes before mammals, and all the lower animals before man. Is not that just the order you find in geology? More particularly, while man is last he is not created on a separate day. He comes in on the sixth day along with the higher animals, yet not in the beginning, but toward the close of the period. Again, just what geology tells us.

These are only some of the many wonderful harmonies between this old revelation and modern science. I would like to see the doctrine of changes applied to this problem, to determine what probability there would be of a mere guesser or inventor hitting upon so many things that correspond with what modern science reveals. I don’t believe there would be one chance in a million! Is it not far harder for a sensible man to believe that this wonderful apocalypse is the fruit of ignorance and guesswork, than that it is the product of inspiration? It is simply absurd to imagine that an ignorant man could have guessed so happily. Nay, more. Let any of the scientific men of today set themselves down to write out a history of creation in a space no larger than what occupied by the first chapter of Genesis and I do not believe they could improve on it at all. And if they did succeed in producing anything that would pass for the present, in all probability in ten years it would be out of date. Our apocalypse of creation is not only better than could be expected of an uninspired man in the days of the world’s ignorance, but it is better than Tyndall, or Huxley, or Haeckel could do yet. If they think not, let them take a single sheet of paper and try!

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Regarding Man

Finally, what do we learn about Man? Here we have man in his heavenly relations. When we come to the narrative of the Fall we shall meet him in his earthly relations. But here he is introduced in his relations to God. “God created man in His own image. In the image of God created He him.”

Here, in the first place, we see man’s true place in nature. He is not altogether separated from the animals below him. As we have already seen, he was created on the same day with the highest group of animals. But while his lower earthly relations are not ignored, it is by his heavenly relations, his relations to God, that his place in nature is assigned him. “God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. (Gen. 1:27)” It is important for us to take firm hold of this truth in these days. When man’s place in nature is discussed nowadays, an anatomy seems to be the first and the last resort. It has even been suggested by a very eminent anthropologist (Haeckel) that the investigation would be more satisfactorily made upon subjects “packed into large vessels filled with spirits of wine!”  The corpus, the corpse, is the final appeal. No account is taken of man’s spiritual powers; no notice taken at all of his higher nature, by which he is related to God. Tell me which is the more important part of a man, his bodily organism, by which he is related to the beasts below him, or his spiritual nature, by which he is related to God above him? Is not the Bible, when it gives man his place in nature as created in the image of his Maker, far more rational than these materialists, who only give us his place in relation to the lower animals?

Let us look for a moment at this truth, of man made in the image of God, as a foundation truth in theological as well as anthropological science. In the first place, it is the only basis of Revelation. If it had not been true that man was made in the image of God, a revelation from God would have been an uttered impossibility. Just think of it for a moment. We are told in the Bible that “God is Love.” Would that convey any idea to our minds if there were no such thing as love in our hearts? Or when we are told that God is just, could we have any conception of the meaning if we did not know from our own natures what justice is? Or take the great and blessed truth of the Fatherhood of God; what possible notion of it could we have, if fatherhood were unknown among men? So you will find, when you think of it, that it would have been impossible to have any idea of God at all, unless we had been made in His image. The truth that man was made in the image of God is the only rational basis of revelation.

Further, we have here a rational basis for the Incarnation. What more natural, when God would reveal Himself in some way that would appeal to our senses, when He would come near to us and let us know Him as a Friend—what more natural than to take the form of a man, seeing man was made in the image of God? The doctrine of the New Testament is that the man Christ Jesus was “the Image of the Invisible God.” The doctrine of the Old Testament is that man was made in the image of the Invisible God. You see the harmony between the two: man in the image of God, and Jesus Christ “the Image of God.” Thus we find here a rational basis for the Incarnation.

We find, still further, a rational basis for the doctrine of Regeneration by the Holy Spirit. We are told there in Genesis, that “God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul,” and in another passage that “the inspiration of the Almighty gave him understanding.” Is it not, then, reasonable to suppose that the inspiration of the Almighty will be necessary to restore to him his understanding, to restore to him his true life, when he has lost it through sin? Do we not find again a beautiful correspondence between the Old Testament doctrine of man’s regeneration, as both requiring the inspiration of the Almighty, the inbreathing of the Spirit of God? So that in this old doctrine concerning man and his place in nature, as made in the image of God, we find the only rational basis for a revelation of God, for a revelation of God in Christ, for a revelation of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit: a trinity of truth in unity.

And still further in this old doctrine of man made in the image of God, we have the foundation laid for those glorious hopes that are set before us in the New Testament. When we look at man’s lower nature and his relation to the animals, it seems hard for us to believe the glorious things spoken in the Bible about the prospect that is before us of dwelling in God’s holy heavens and reigning with Christ upon His throne. What the Bible has to say about our future destiny as sons of God, seems too good to be true. And indeed so long as we dwell upon our earthly relations and have in view only our lower nature and our material bodies we cannot rise to these conceptions. But when we think of ourselves as being made in the image of God, it does not seem any longer unreasonable or extravagant that we should share the glory of God. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Let us only rise to our true dignity as sons of God, and then we shall be prepared to realize our lofty destiny as heirs of the glory of God!

We have finished what we had to say on the substance of this revelation. We have had important truth concerning God, concerning Nature, and concerning Man. Can we learn any lessons of Grace before we close? It is true that sin is not yet in the world. So grace is not needed, and accordingly has no place directly in this apocalypse. But cannot we learn some lessons of grace indirectly? May it not be that God’s work in nature is a picture of His work in grace? Look and see.

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A Lesson in Grace

The first thing in the transformation of chaos to cosmos is Light. God said, “let light be, and light was.” That was the first thing needed to prepare the way for the coming order. And it is the first thing needed to illumine the chaos of the sinner’s heart. God must say, “let light be,” before the sinner can be brought “from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God.” The next thing, after the production of light and the primal forces of the universe, is Order, advancing steadily from stage to stage. So God deals with the soul that comes to Him. He first gives light, gives it in a moment as by a word, and after the sudden change, follows a gradual transformation. Just as the Spirit of the Lord moved on the old chaos, and gradually it was reduced to order, so the Spirit of the Lord moves on the dark and troubled waters of the heart and restores it stage by stage to order; and at each stage He says, “It is good, it is good.” The Lord rejoices in His work.

We get still another view of God’s working when we reach the animate creation. The earth had not only been “without form,” but “void,” and now that Light has come, and Order has followed, it only remains that the void be filled with life. Light, Order, Life: these are the three remedies for chaos, with its darkness, confusion, and death. And we, too, want something to fill the void, and so God in Christ comes to us, and by His Spirit gives us life: a life which, following the order of the creation record, is gradually becoming higher and higher, nobler and nobler, until it reaches up to God Himself. Then, when all is finished, God says, “Behold, it is very good.” So shall it be at the last, when God has finished His work; when everything within has been reduced to order, when life has reached its culmination, when we have become at last like Him, who is “the Life.” Then the Lord will look upon His finished work in grace, and say: “Behold, it is very good.” What follows? “The rest that remaineth for the people of God.” Not the rest of inactivity. God has not been inactive during his seventh day. It was only rest from the work of reducing things to order. He no longer needed to reduce things to order. It was only the administration of that which was already brought to order that was henceforth necessary. So after God has come into our souls, and everything has been reduced to order, and we have been brought to that perfect day, we shall enjoy the rest of heaven, the rest of unwearied, active service, and onward, unobstructed progress that remaineth for the people of God. “There shall be no night there,” no confusion there, no death there. Light, Order, Life, all very good, for evermore! – pgs 55-76, Ages Before Moses.

A New Perspective on the Genesis

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Every now and again, I come across an historical text that I find quite interesting. The following is an excerpt from The Ages Before Moses. The author wrote this somewhere between 1838 and 1879. The work itself was published in 1879 as a series of lectures, but the writings contained in it span many decades for this author. What stood out for me in this lecture was his perception of the seven days of creation and what he brings out regarding the harmonies of the Bible and Science. It is a most interesting perception for us to think upon and consider as we continue to weigh out evidences presented to us. Throughout this excerpt, many different things will strike a chord in the mind of the reader – an idea, a thought, a concept – all worth some serious contemplation on our part. Much of what this author has to say, one will notice, stands at odds with what many fundamentalist Christians teach in today’s churches. I put this here today, to allow readers to gain a new perspective and consider what this author has to say. There are many “truths” that this author brings to light in his many different works, some of which, I quote in my book, Religion’s Cell. Sometimes, it’s just refreshing to see some truths put in such a way that it brings the Bible and Science together in harmony. This author does just this. Because of the length of this lecture, I will put it out in two parts; both of which, will be worth reading just for the new concepts and ideas covered on this topic of Genesis and all that it involves. This first section will cover the Genesis in its form, scope and substance. Part two, to come, will cover the harmonies of Bible and Science, Man and, a lesson in Grace.

 

The Genesis

John Monro Gibson, D.D., The Ages Before Moses, 1879

–deeds and lives that lie Foreshortened in the tract of time.”

genesisOf this kind of foreshortening the book of Genesis is a remarkable example. The lives of the men that lived before Abraham, long as they were, pass so rapidly before the eye that it is difficult to realize that in the course of a few short chapters, many long centuries have been traversed. And the deeds of the Great Creator before the time of Adam, are recorded in such rapid succession, and with such sublimity of condensation, that it is only after the imagination has been thoroughly accustomed to the deep perspective, that we are able even to feebly realize that in the course of a few short verses whole ages of time have been compassed.

These earliest ages of the world’s history will come before us in proceeding to consider the Genesis proper, as we may call that portion of the larger Genesis contained in the first chapter and the first three verses of the second chapter, which ought by all means to have been included in the former.

In looking at this Genesis record we shall consider first the form of it, then the scope of it, and finally its substance.

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It’s Form

 Here it is very important to notice that it is not historical in form. The book of Genesis as a whole is historical, and from this we are apt to suppose that every part of it is so. Now it is quite manifest that this portion of it is not historical. The histories of the Bible, as far as their human authorship is concerned, were produced just like other histories. They are the reports of eye-witness, or of those who obtained their information from eye-witnesses, or from persons competent to testify to the facts. The book of Genesis as a whole is historical, and from this we can suppose that every part of it is as well. But, who were the eye-witnesses to the first chapter of Genesis?  Obviously, there were none. Therefore it must have been an apocalypse. God must have revealed it to some of the prophets, in early times. (See Luke 1:70). We are not told how He revealed it, but it looks as if it may well have been in the usual way, namely, by visions. (See Num. 12:6). It would seem as though a series of pictures of creation had passed before the mind of the ancient seer. And, as in other parts of Scripture where God made known His will by visions, so here there are voices falling on the ear, as well as scenes presented to the eye. “God said: Let there be Light.” “God called the Light, Day,” etc.

And here it is most interesting to compare the apocalypse at the beginning with that at the end of the Bible. How natural it was, how necessary, that we should have an apocalypse at the beginning to tell us of that part of the earth’s history which transpired before man existed. And how necessary, too, that we should have an apocalypse to tell us what it was important for us to know about the undiscovered future.

The unknown past—the unknown future—both of these needed an apocalypse, and so we have it. And how numerous and striking the correspondencies between the two. For example, we have the seven days of creation at the beginning; and at the end we have the seven churches and the seven seals and the seven vials and the seven trumpets and the seven voices. Then again, when you compare the first few chapters of Genesis with the closing chapters of the Bible, you see the same great ideas reappearing. In the first apocalypse we have the heavens and the earth. In Genesis we have the Paridise of Eden; in Revelation the paradise of God. In Genesis we are told of the rivers of Eden, and the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Life “in the midst of the garden;” in Revelation we are told of the River of the water of Life, and the Tree of Life upon its banks, and “in the midst of the Paradise of God.” At the beginning of the Bible we have the institution of marriage; and at the end we have “the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Many other comparisons might be made between the two, showing the connection between the first and the last book of that wonderful Bible which opens with an apocalypse of the dateless past, and closes with an apocalypse of the dateless future. So much for the form of this book.

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The Scope

Next let’s look at the scope of it:

First of all, it is dateless. There is no date at the beginning of it. It simply says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There is no date at the end of it. This is not often noticed. We are told, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” the second day, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth day, but we are not told that the evening and the morning were the seventh day. There is no date, then, at the end, any more than at the beginning of it. We shall see the importance of this a little later.

Next, it is measureless. There is nothing in it to measure the scope of it. It has been said that it is measured by the narrow boundary of six or seven days. There seems abundant reason to conclude that there was no such intention of limiting the scope of this chapter. In the first place, notice that three days are spoken of before any measures of time are given. So the first day and the second day and the third day were without measure. Again, in Gen. 2:4, the same word “day” is used to cover the entire time of the creation work. Then there is evidence to show that the Jews, and in particular the sacred writers, did not understand the day of creation in the limited sense of either twenty-four or twelve hours. Take the ninetieth Psalm for example. Observe that this Psalm starts from the idea of creation; and it is worth while to notice that the title of the Psalm ascribes it to Moses, so that we may have here the views of the author of the Pentateuch himself. Well, what does he say? “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from age to age Thou are God.” These words translated “everlasting” in our version refer to enormous periods. And observe there is no reference to the future, as many suppose. It is all to the past, to the past of creation, as its majestic history sweeps on “from Olam to Olam,” from age to age. And again in the fourth verse: “A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past.” Or take the parallel passage in the New Testament, 2 Peter 3:8: “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” And observe that here, too, the mind of the writer has been carried back to the book of Genesis, for only a few sentences before he has been speaking of “the beginning of the creation” (v.4).

As a good exercise on this subject, let me recommend you take some of the numerous references to creation in the Scriptures and see if you can find a single one that conveys the idea that the work of creation transpired in a short space of time. If the sacred writers had really entertained the idea that so great a work was done in so short a time, would not some notice have been taken of so wonderful an act?  Whereas, if any reference to time is made at all, it is the thought of ages rather than of days that is impressed on the mind. In this connection it may be well to refer to the ideas about creation which are found outside of the Jewish people; and here the remarkable fact meets us that, while the heathen traditions of the creation have so much resemblance to the Mosaic Revelation, as to indicated identity of origin, the idea of long periods is quite familiar. Take the following sentence from the Brahminical records as a specimen: “One thousand divine ages are a day of Brahma, the creator.” These are very ancient authorities you will see, for the extension of time expressed in the word day; and by no means liable to the suspicion of their being driven to it in order to escape geological difficulties! And in the same way sufficient evidence has been adduced to show that Josephus and many of the old Jewish rabbis, and some of the early Christian fathers too—Irenaeus in the second century, Origen in the third, and Augustine in the fourth—did not regard the Bible as committed to literal days in the creation narrative.

Further, what if the days instead of representing the periods of creation represented the time of the vision? May it not have been a seven-day vision, and this only a brief account of it? And if it took so long a time for the vision to pass before the seer’s mind, what a conception of age-long periods would it give him. If a scene passing before your mind should occupy only fifteen minutes in passing, it would appear a long time. If it took an hour, it would seem very long; and if it took an evening and a morning, it would seem almost interminable. I do not urge this very strongly, but it seems to me not by any means unreasonable.

Note: While we hold very strongly to the interpretation of the days above given, we have nothing but respect for the views of those who interpret the days literally and bring in the periods of geology between the first and second verses. It is of course impossible for both to be right; and yet either may be a tenable hypothesis. And it is very important to remember that while different hypothesis necessarily discredit each other, they by no means discredit the sacred text. No one pretends that there was any intention of teaching geology. All that is wanted is room for the discoveries of science: and the greater the number of so-called “reconciliation” hypothesis, provided only they be tenable, the more evidence have we of the wisdom displayed in presenting the truth so as to be final spiritually, and yet so singularly OPEN for future physical investigation.

Let us now revert to the fact already notice, that the seventh day is left open. It is not said of the seventh day as of the others, “the evening and the morning were the seventh day.” Why not? Because all the rest of the Bible is included in the seventh day. This is evidently the thought in the Saviour’s mind, when in defending Himself for healing a man on the Sabbath, He says: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work’ (John v. 17). It is as if He said: “My Father’s Sabbath has been in process all these years since He rested from His creation work as Sustainer and Redeemer: and so may I; My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” And the very same idea is full wrought out in the intricate, but interesting passage in the fourth chapter of Hebrews.

We are living, then, in the seventh day. In what part of it? Remember the order. It is “the evening and the morning.” The Hebrew order—through darkness to light—is the divine order, which ends in the darkness of midnight. Is it the evening still? Or did the morning break when the Sun of Righteousness appeared upon the horizon eighteen centuries ago? If so, we are only in the early dawn as yet. There is a great deal of darkness about us. But the Day of the Lord is coming, a day which shall know no ending, for “there shall be no night there.” The path of the exalted Saviour through the ages, however obscure it now may be to sight, will be shown at last to have been like that of the true disciple in his day and generation, “as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the Perfect Day.” So much for the magnificent scope of the Bible “Genesis. We come now to the substance of the revelation. Here we have three great subjects: God, Nature, and Man.

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The Substance

First, what do we learn from God? His existence is simply postulated: “In the beginning God”—How much grander, stronger, and better than any argumentation would have been. The existence of God really needs no argument. It comes to us in the shape of an intuition. It is inborn in us, and those who are atheists, are atheists in spite of themselves, I was going to say. They have struggled away from their natural convictions. Atheism is not natural. And downright atheism is a very rare thing indeed. We have also the unity of God as against the polytheism of the heathen world; and the spirituality and personality of God as against all pantheistic notions of Deity. Then, finally, His supremacy as “God over all.” If we could realize the extent of the evil arising out of the superstitions of the ancient world, we should see how important it was to set forth the conception of God’s supremacy over all in the beginning. Take the superstitious notions about the weather as an illustration. What a comfort to all to whom this Revelation came, to be assured, long before there was or could be any science of meteorology, that all these changes, that seemed so capricious, were under the control of One intelligent and beneficent Power. Or, again, think of the tendency to worship the heavenly bodies. What a complete antidote to this tendency was the announcement of the fact that all these came into existence by the fiat of the Almighty, and were consequently under His absolute control. The supremacy of God is a very important part of the apocalypse of Genesis.

Have we anything about the Trinity? Attention is often called to the plural form of the name of God, used with a singular verb, the idea being that the plural form gives the conception of trinity and the singular verb that of unity. I do not think we should lay much stress upon this, however, because the plural in the Hebrew language is often used as signifying the excellence, the greatness, the majesty of the subject in reference to which it is used. So the plural may be used here to signify the greatness of God. But the apostle John has called our attention to the presence in this narrative of Him whom we call the Second Person of the Trinity. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). God SAID: “Let there be Light.” And we can see for ourselves “the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters.” We have then God, the Word, and the Spirit, all brought before us in the work of creation. As we review the truth about God contained in this apocalypse, we should feel constrained to bow the knee in lowly adoration. What a well-spring of worship is there in these opening sentences of the Bible, and how the solemnizing and elevating effect of them appears in all the subsequent literature of the Hebrews. Hence comes that lofty appreciation of nature which is found nowhere else in the ancient world, and is so conspicuous and so inspiring throughout the pages of the Bible. Read the one hundred and fourth Psalm for example, the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and the closing chapters of the book of Job, and you will hear the majestic echoes of that voice of majesty that speaks so grandly in the Genesis. “Hallelujah!” “Hallelujah!” is the never-dying refrain of the Creation Epic: “Praise ye the Lord.”

Next, what do we learn about Nature? Here, unhappily, the attention of Bible students has been almost exclusively directed to certain difficulties. These difficulties all arise, as it seems to me, from three sources, and the Bible is not to blame for any of them. First source: treating the passage as if it were history, whereas it is apocalypse. Second source: taking it as intended to teach science, especially astronomical and geological science. Third source of difficulty: the mistakes of translators. For example, the unfortunate word firmament continually comes to the front as one of the “mistakes of Moses.” Strange that a Latin word should be a mistake of Moses! Did Moses know Latin? Did he ever write the letters f,I,r,m, etc.? Not only is the word “firmament” not in the Hebrew Bible, but it does not represent the Hebrew word at all. The word firmament means something strong, solid. The Hebrew word, for which it is an unfortunate translation, signifies something that is very thin, extended, spread out; just the best word that could be chosen to signify the atmosphere.

Note: The mistake is really a mistake of science. It was the false astronomy of Alexandria that led the Septuagint translators to translate raqia, expanse, into arepewya, firmament. Then there is the word “whales,” that Professor Huxley made so merry over a year ago. But the Hebrew does not say whales. The Hebrew word refers to great sea monsters, and is just the very best word the Hebrew language affords to describe such animals as the plesiosaurus and ichthyosaurus and other creatures that abounded in the time probably referred to there.

Let us only guard against these three sources of error, and we shall not find many difficulties. If we would only avoid the mistakes of Moses’ critics, we would not show our ignorance by talking about the mistakes of Moses.

—Click Here for Part 2

Is the Bible the Foundation for Christianity?

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Is the Bible the Foundation for Christianity?translations

The day and age in which we live is a critical one. With the advances in science and technology, with better scholarship and, the most biblical manuscripts available in history, it is nothing short of astounding what many believe today regarding the Bible, faith, religion, religious practice, religious dogmas, etc. The critical faculty of today’s scholars, as well as scholars of old, has tremendous value. It is not to be despised since they are doing the long and tedious research in the area of textual criticism to expose errors and demolish the false teachings of many. There are many scholars out there that have brought to light the errors in translation of biblical text in order to find a closer tenet of truth to what the original authors of the scriptures wrote. Scholars do not bring these errors to light to destroy truth, but to help in bringing out the truth! We must realize this. Every article on my blog is not designed to tear down and discredit the truths that the Bible contains, they are to educate and inform people of the tares that have entered in through translation that have caused a race of people great harm throughout history – women.  Once we know what the tares are, they can be weeded out of our thought processes and the beginning of change to undo this great harm can begin.

The day and age in which we live is one of the best in history. It has surpassed every other era in the areas of technology, invention, discovery and modern conveniences to help us live easier and better lives.  This said, the area of textual criticism regarding the Bible brings to those that endeavor to educate the populous regarding the errors, changes and additions, much anger.  As a result of this critical and destructive response by those that espouse an affiliation as “children of God and His Christ,” division and strife abound and, hatred spews toward those that bring these biblical criticisms to light. What one must realize is that none of these expositions are new! Scholars have known for centuries about them, but the populous has not.  As a result, it has led to the Bible being the foundation and cornerstone of Christian belief and practice for many.

The Bible is a large book and an old book. But the trouble is that the majority of Christians will not allow themselves to read the facts that scholars put out regarding translation. This could be due to a fear that what they read may raise questions and doubts in their minds regarding truth, inerrancy and infallibility that they have been taught lies in their particular translation of the Bible.  Or, it simply could be due to the control of information by their respective religious institution. Fear of studying outside the “approved” literature of the church could be another factor. Because of these fears, the weapons that Christians use against those that expose errors in translation are ridicule, shaming, humiliation and character assassination as mentioned on this blog, toward the authors.

When we think about this, it almost seems as if TRUTH has no chance of ever coming to the surface. For when truth is exposed, we find that man’s true nature is brought to light and it does not reflect Christ at all.  We find all manner of abuses, pride and deception, underneath the mantle of righteousness that is worn and projected by many who claim the name of Christ. It’s a tough realization that a very large number of people are not interested in having the light of “truth” shown to them when it involves the Bible. Remember, what I said earlier. We expose the error, not to destroy the truth, but to help in bringing people closer to the real truth! There are many alarmists in religion that do their best to stop others from being educated so that they can make spiritual decisions for themselves and their families on their own — outside of religious leaders and institutions — based on the evidence. These alarmists underestimate the power and persistency of man’s spiritual nature: his conscience and spiritual longings. This hunger for truth is a hunger of spirit which, for many, cannot be satisfied until the “tares” are identified and removed from their spiritual foundations.  And as long as the Bible is the only hopeful source of supply for these spiritual longings and hungers, it is imperative that we do our due diligence to make sure that we feed it truth and not error. Error will always lead to inequality, oppression and control.

The reality is that there is a more excellent way than what some religions teach us. We already understand that the Bible allows us to see God’s provision for our spiritual wants; makes it evident that nowhere else can we find “the words of eternal life.” And once we make this discovery, exposition of error will affect one’s spiritual walk or journey very little because the foundation of one’s faith is solid.

There will always be those that criticize the findings of scholars. We know that. There will always be questions raised. However, don’t let these questions and the zeal they invoke, cause us to set a bar to our actions that lead us to extend unkindness, hatred and slander against another person. Instead of focusing on the errors exposed, try and focus on what truths can be found in the Bible! Once you make that your focus, there will not be much of anything that will upset you. There is only one major truth that needs a person’s sole focus in order to keep at peace, one’s conscience – that truth is Jesus Christ.

I am one of those people that believe that there is nothing in the Bible, when it is properly understood, which contradicts astronomy, geology, or any of the sciences; but, it is far less important to try and convince someone of this than to show them what there is in the Bible that can give them eternal life. While questions of authority and authenticity are of great importance, and our obligation should be to acknowledge the truths that scholars bring to light in translation, we must realize that the Bible IS its own best witness despite the errors found. Once our eyes are opened to what the Bible contains – bread for the soul, medicine for depression, sadness, loss and loneliness, comfort in time of sorrow, strength in time of great and pressing need, and most important of all, hope in death—these will be the evidences we need as proof of its divine nature. Granted there are dark and uncertain places in scripture: just don’t dwell on them. Take and use what is helpful and leave the rest alone until such a time as your spirit is ready to understand them. Time and experience make for great teachers in helping us to understand later what we could not understand at first.

One thing that I have come to realize is that there are countless multitudes that are intellectually wide awake but spiritually dead. The Bible tells us plainly that, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). This explains why some are transformed completely when their spiritual eyes are opened to God’s truths. There lies in the heart of man a natural hunger for God; a hunger to KNOW Him, to be accepted of Him and, to please Him.

But what about those who say there is no God? Well, we cannot say anything to them unless we have the scholarship enough to be able to prove in detail that every part of the Bible IS from God.  Even Peter, when Jesus said things too hard to digest, decided that he would not let the sayings choke his faith and continued on saying, “To whom shall we go?” and “…we believe, and are sure, that Thou are that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:69). Peter did not feel it absolutely necessary that his understanding be opened so long as he could fall back on Christ Himself. Herein lies an important lesson for the times in which we live. There is a very prevalent notion within Christendom that the Bible is the only foundation upon which Christianity rests; that the inspiration of the Scriptures is the main truth and, that a particular translation is inerrant and infallible. But let me make a point here. The Bible NEVER claims to be the FOUNDATION of Christianity. Those that have the Bible as their foundation, or a part of their foundation, have been handed a “wooden nickel.” The scriptures tell us that “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” “Ye are built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.” The Lord Himself says: “I AM the truth.” When the Word of God is spoken of by way of emphasis, it is not the written word that is meant, but the incarnate Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (See also 1 John 1: 1,2). Not the Bible, but Christ Himself, is the ultimate foundation on which the entire system of Christianity rests.

By remembering this, it will keep us clear of the disputations of men and the vitriol dished out toward those that disagree or expose the errors and abuses that lurk underneath religion’s mantle.  Think about this: WHY do you believe in Christ? Because you find it in the Bible. Why do you believe what you find in the Bible? Because the Bible is inspired. How do you know that it is inspired? Because the Bible says so. This is not sound reasoning. No intelligent Christian should ever take such a position. An inspired Bible is a broad foundation on which to build a mighty structure, but men still want to know, and we do not blame them for wanting to know, on what foundation the inspired Bible rests.

As said earlier, the Bible is its own best witness. It does bear the ability to enter into the human heart in a way that no other work in the history of the world can. It truly satisfies the soul of every human in a way that no other work can. Of course scholars have brought to light the many thousands of errors in translation – the “tares” as I call them. But, is it necessary to know what all the errors are before deciding on what foundation to rest our souls upon? No. If Christ Himself is our foundation, then our foundation is immovable, despite what is brought to light. We are not resting in the Bible, we are resting in Christ, our hope of glory.

And so, we ask another question: on what authority do you believe the Bible to be the Word of God? On authority of Christ. But how do you know about Christ so as to credit Him, and acknowledge His authority? Do we need to fall back upon inspiration for this knowledge? Not at all. We know about Him in the same way as we know about Julius Caesar, only with far greater certainty. The annals of history record the life of Christ and have shown us who he is apart from any theory of inspiration. If Jesus speaks in the name of God, then we have reason to believe what He says about God, what He says about Himself, what He says about the Holy Spirit, what He says about Scripture, what he says about our duty, what He says about our destiny.

With Christ Himself as the foundation of our faith, we have a position that is sure and much less susceptible to attack and dismantling. There have been throughout history, many objections raised regarding various passages of scripture. But what if we cannot answer these objections? It doesn’t mean they are unanswerable. Because surely all objections have been heralded over and over again throughout history and answered! It just requires far more extensive knowledge than the average Christian has. Most Christians have been spoon-fed their beliefs and many have their foundations resting on what they have been taught the Bible says. Therefore, when an objection is raised regarding contradictions and errors, it is very difficult to have an answer! How many of us have felt as if our very foundations were about to crumble because we could not answer a simple objection to a Bible story or because we could not reconcile the flood with the observations of science? Why is this? Because of the mistaken notion that the BIBLE is the innermost citadel of our faith. The Bible is not the citadel of our faith. It is the open country; and a very extended country it is. It requires an encyclopedic scholar to cover the whole ground in his mind, and to be armed at every point. What is the citadel? It is Christ Himself. And the best way for Christians to respond when they are pressed with difficult objections and questions about the Bible that they do not know the answers to is to simply respond with: “It is not Noah I believe in, or Joshua, or whatever or whomever else, but Christ.” Those are only side issues. Really, what can anyone say about Christ? Do they have anything negative to say about Him? Do they feel competent enough to criticize Him? Are they wise enough, and good enough, and great enough to sit in judgment of Him?

It is really amazing to see how well the Bible has stood the unnatural strain which has been put upon it. There are countless Christians all over the world that have dealt very unreasonably with it. They have treated it as if it claimed to have been struck off from stereotype plates in heaven and dropped down to earth—a purely divine production! Whereas the human authorship of its different parts is not only not concealed, but is spoken of just in the same way as if there were no doctrine of inspiration. Yet there are those that have claimed for it the same kind of ideal perfection that you should expect to find, if it were not human in its origin at all. Scholars have already brought to light the mistranslations, the errors and the changes in translation of texts. To blindly believe in inerrancy and infallibility, defies intellect and sound reasoning. Yet, the Bible has withstood all and is still the number one book people turn to when their souls are hurting and they are in need of comfort and strength, direction and truth. They do this not because the Bible may be their foundation of faith, but because they know that it contains the words of truth, comfort and strength they are searching for. It contains a record of the TRUTH—which is Christ. Though not inerrant, it still speaks to man’s heart and heals wounds. This said, it is not our foundation. Our foundation alone is Christ. “The Rock of Ages” whose challenge still rings out strong and clear across the centuries, “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” And again, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life;”—and again, “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.”

It also may be worth noting that it greatly elevates our conception of revelation to make Christ and not the Bible the ultimate foundation. We are familiar with the objection that has been made to a revelation in a book. And if it were indeed true, that it was in nothing better than a book, that God had revealed Himself, then there might be some reason why thinking people should say: “Give us the glorious revelation of nature.  Don’t ask us to turn from its magnificent pages to paper and ink!” But, this is not the case. The revelation that God has given us is not a book, but something immeasurably nobler and grander. It is a revelation in a LIFE. “The Word was made”—what? Paper and ink? Not at all. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Here indeed is a revelation worthy of God. “Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”  Most fitting is that during Jesus’ darkest hour, the rocks rend, the graves opened, and darkness overspread the sky. Greater than great nature is nature’s Lord. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him: and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Can you conceive of any revelation greater than that which God has given us in Him who is the true and eternal Word of God?

As for the Bible, it is but the record of the revelation—a priceless record—one which we can never overvalue and which we cannot too diligently study; but it is only a record: a record of His coming as the central theme, with the long course of preparation in the days of the Old Covenant, and the results in the development of the New. “Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me.” John in Patmos gives the right order: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying: I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and, What thou seest, write in a book.” So is it throughout the entire Scriptures. If in a certain sense we are “built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets,” let it never be forgotten that “Jesus Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone.” The Apostles and Prophets had no Bibles. They only had Christ, their HOPE and STRENGTH. They did not have disputations like we have today regarding inerrancy and infallibility!

In closing, let me say this regarding the terms of salvation as announced in the Bible. They also agree totally with what has been said here about our foundation of faith—it is Christ. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that, “we should believe everything that is in the Bible and we will be saved.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Don’t trouble yourselves about errors and the like that the Bible contains. Trouble yourself with making SURE your foundation; that it is in CHRIST and not the BIBLE. After you have believed in Christ and taken Him as your Savior, it will not be difficult for you to find out that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.” And when the errors are brought to light that man has made in translation, your faith and foundation will not be shaken and, you can truly understand and utilize this Book for everyday living setting right in your mind the errors you once believed.

Let’s Ask a Scholar

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QandAOne of the areas of religion that garners the most controversy with fundamentalist church leaders and lay people in the fundamentalist sect I came out of is, “original” text and “inerrancy” of the Bible. Throughout Christianity there are various sects that teach that we have a certain translation of the Bible that is inerrant and contains no mistakes; that it is inspired completely and in its very words — “verbal, plenary inspiration. (Bart Erhman)”

Some of these religious sects have Bible colleges where they not only teach this, but they also require all students and faculty that attend or teach at their colleges, to ascribe to this belief! My son went to two fundamentalist colleges that taught this view.  My daughter also went to a fundamentalist college that taught this view. The churches I raised my children in, taught this view.  I was taught this view!

To embark on this topic of discussion was, and IS, explosive within the fundamentalist Christianity I was involved in for over 18 years.  Many of these fundamentalists will get angry and hurl insults at anyone that dares to say that the Bible is not inerrant or is not infallible.  Sadly, this is because they believe what they are told within their respective religious institutions and churches; it is not because of higher secular education and scholarship. Anyone that dares to expose the errors, lies and corruptions in their teachings or Bible translation will come under attack and be the recipient of a nasty, but swift, character assassination. I have witnessed this tactic many times in the fundamentalist sect I came out of. I have even been on the receiving end of it. This is a sad testimony to the kind of “Christianity” that I was a part of for most of my life. It is quite embarrassing that a good number of the fundamentalist Christians, resort to name-calling, insults and character assassination instead of weighing out the evidence and being respectful, gracious and kind, to those they disagree with. It makes me wonder if there are any fundamentalist Christians out there that can “agree to disagree” without hurling the insults and bashing the authors! Why do many fundamentalists feel the NEED to do their best to discredit and malign those they disagree with by twisting scripture to suit their point of view? I have witnessed so much viciousness from people that call themselves “Christian” that it makes it hard to even be associated with that name! This type of behavior should not be happening amongst those that claim His name. One can disagree with someone without attacking their credibility and character! To do so, would be the CHRISTIAN thing to do and, many Christians fall short of their Christianity when it comes to opposing beliefs. They would rather leave their opponents character and credibility lying in the dust. (Please feel free to read my article Handling Opposing Beliefs.)

All this said, there are countless multitudes of people that believe that there are “original” manuscripts of the New Testament out there, when in fact, all we have “are copies of these writings, made years later–in most cases, many years later. Moreover, none of these copies is completely accurate, since the scribes who produced them inadvertently and/or intentionally changed them in places. All scribes did this. So rather than actually having the inspired words of the autographs (i.e., the originals) of the Bible, what we have are the error-ridden copies of the autographs (Bart Erhman, Misquoting Jesus, pgs 4-5.).”

Because I cover this topic in some of my articles on this blog and, I quote Bart Erhman in them, what I would like to do today is present some questions that were asked of him and answered in his book, Misquoting Jesus. Believe it or not, but question  number five is the number one question I get asked and, I always answer by telling the person what Erhman recommends and I quote his answer as it’s given below.  Before we get started, however, it is important that you know about the scholar that will be answering the questions!

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Who is Bart D. Erhman?misquoting jesus

(From Bart Erhman’s website)

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited twenty-four books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews.

Among his most recent books are a Greek-English edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press), an assessment of the newly discovered Gospel of Judas (Oxford University Press), and four New York Times Bestsellers: Jesus Interrupted (an account of scholarly views of the New Testament), God’s Problem (an assessment of the biblical views of suffering), Misquoting Jesus (an overview of the changes found in the surviving copies of the New Testament and of the scribes who produced them) and Forged (discusses why some books in the New Testament are deliberate forgeries). His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.

Among his fields of scholarly expertise are the historical Jesus, the early Christian apocrypha, the apostolic fathers, and the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

Professor Ehrman has served as President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical literature, chair of the New Testament textual criticism section of the Society, book review editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature, and editor of the monograph series The New Testament in the Greek Fathers (Scholars Press). He currently serves as co-editor of the series New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (E. J. Brill), co-editor-in-chief for the journal Vigiliae Christianae, and on several other editorial boards for journals and monographs in the field.

Professor Ehrman lectures extensively throughout the country. Winner of numerous university awards and grants, he is the recipient of the 2009 J. W. Pope “Spirit of Inquiry” Teaching Award, the 1993 UNC Undergraduate Student Teaching Award, the 1994 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching.

Professor Ehrman has two children, a daughter, Kelly, and a son, Derek. He is married to Sarah Beckwith (Ph.D., King’s College London), Marcello Lotti Professor of English at Duke University. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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For a list of books published by Bart Erhman, click here: Books Published by Bart D. Erhman.  I highly recommend all of his books to anyone interested in furthering their knowledge and education in an area that very few endeavor to embark upon.

Because Erhman’s works have had a life-changing affect on my life,  I felt that it would be very important for him to answer some questions that you may have or, that I may have.  After reading Misquoting Jesus, I was so appreciative that Erhman took the time to put some questions and answers at the end of his book. Some of these questions below are from his book, while the last two questions are ones that I have that he answers in the back of his book.  I sincerely hope that these few questions can open a door of understanding for readers and allow them to think beyond what mainstream religion has taught them. If you wish to read more of his questions, or his book, please feel free to purchase a copy of it. It will be a life-changing book for any reader. At the end of the Q & A, I have a video of Erhman that would be worth watching for anyone interested in hearing how the Bible was changed.

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Questions for the Scholar

 1. Why do so many people—including some ultraconservative scholars with full access to the manuscript record—insist that the Bible is without error? And why is the inerrancy of Scripture the supposed foundation upon which all other Christian beliefs stand or fall?

Actually the view that the Bible is inerrant is a completely modern idea—it is not the traditional “Christian” view since time immemorial. Many Christians especially in my part of the world, the American South, don’t realize this, but simply assume that belief in the Bible has always been the central tenet of the Christian faith. But that’s not true. In fact, the views of inerrancy held by evangelical and fundamentalist Christians today were developed less than a century ago, in a set of conflicts in Christian circles in the United States.

I tell my students that there are two approaches that one can take toward the question of whether the Bible is inerrant. One approach—the approach I took as a late teenager—is simply to presuppose that it is inerrant. If you take this approach, then anything that looks like an error in Scripture is obviously not an error (since the Bible cannot have any errors). I no longer find this approach satisfying. This presupposition about Scripture as without error is a modern invention of fundamentalist theologians; it is not the traditional Christian view of the Bible. And if we simply want to presuppose a belief (about God, Christ, the Bible), rather than rationally thinking about it—what good is it to have a mind to think with? Some people object to this, saying, ”How can you question God?” My response is that I’m not at all questioning God; I’m questioning your opinion about God.

The other approach to the question of inerrancy is to remain neutral on the question of whether the Bible (or any other book) has any mistakes, and simply read it for yourself to see. If there are errors in it, then it is not inerrant!

Once you open yourself up to the possibility that there can be inconsistencies, contradictions, geographical mistakes, historical misstatements, scientific errors, and so on in the Bible, you will certainly find them. They are in there, all over the place.

In short, I think it is best to approach Christianity (any kind of Christianity: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, mainstream Protestant, evangelical, or any other kind), or any faith, with an open mind—making sure to use the mind! Those who believe in God surely think God gave us a mind to think with. And so no one should check their brains at the door when they enter through the portals of their religion.

2.  You once viewed the Bible as encapsulating the very words of God. Then, during your time at Princeton, you came to regard the Bible as “a human book from beginning to end.” Why does it have to be one or the other?

Actually, I don’t think that it does have to be one or the other. In fact, most Christian thinkers whom I know think that the Bible is both: a book containing the Word of God and a book shaped by human hands.

When I started out as a believer in high school, though, I thought (and was taught) that the Bible was unsullied by human hands, that it was completely divine, down to its very words. This was the view taught at Moody Bible Institute, where I went to college; we called it the “verbal plenary inspiration” of Scripture. Inspiration was verbal (down to the very words) and plenary (complete from beginning to end).

Now I realize that most Christians throughout history—in fact the vast majority of Christians—have never thought any such thing about the Bible. And most Christian thinkers today do not think so. The Bible is understood in many, many ways (by many, many different Christians); but for most Christians it in some sense contains or conveys the Word of God, even though this word comes through the human words of the text, written by human authors.

That was more or less the view I adopted when I stopped being an evangelical Christian, and began associating with more mainline Christian denominations (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian), during my graduate student days and later.

I eventually came to think, however, that I could no longer subscribe even to this broader understanding of the inspiration of Scripture. In large part this was because of my studies: I came to see that the Bible was a book written by human authors, and if it was “inspired,” it was in the way that other sacred books (the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Christian apocrypha) and other great literature (Shakespeare, Milton, John Donne) were inspired. Many of the books of the New Testament (for example, Mark, John, and Galatians) are works of religious genius, and sometimes we just have to stand back in reverential awe at their beauty and power. But in  my opinion, they are human books nonetheless. They are filled with human biases, perspectives, opinions, and ideas, and often one book stands completely at odds with the views of another book (as I have tried to show in some of my other writings). That’s why it is a problem answering the question, “What does the Bible say about X?” Often the Bible will say many different things about “X.” And about “Y” and “Z” as well!

3. All study Bibles, across the full range of translations, include notes that identify verses with questionable historical accuracy. Why do you think that most people are unaware of these New Testament problems that you reveal in the book?

This is a great question, and it’s one that I’ve often wondered about. My guess is that there is a simple answer: most people don’t read the footnotes!

The facts that I explain about the New Testament in Misquoting Jesus are not at all “news” to biblical scholars. They are what scholars have known, and said, for many, many years. These are the facts: we have thousands of copies of the New Testament in its original Greek language, written over a period of centuries; these copies all differ from one another in ways great and small; most of these differences are significant—some of them slightly significant for understanding an author’s nuances, others of enormous significance affecting the interpretation of an entire passage, or even a book.

Why is it that this came as “news” to many readers of Misquoting Jesus? In large part because scholars (and Christian pastors and teachers) have been reluctant or unable to communicate the message to a broad audience. But this is information that readers of the New Testament have the right to know! It should not simply be tucked away in footnotes, but should be loudly proclaimed in Christian education classes, by Christian leaders and educators, in books about the Bible, and in editions of the Bible. It should be proclaimed from the rooftops and taught on the ground. This is information that is crucial for our understanding of the Bible, the most important book—whether looked at religiously or culturally—in the history of our form of civilization.

4. Do the same kinds of textual mistakes show up in the Old Testament as well? What about the Koran?

The Hebrew Bible is filled with lots of textual problems—as we have come to realize, for example, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where copies of the Hebrew Bible a thousand years older than our previously earliest copy turned up. Even though Jewish scribes were incredibly meticulous and exacting in the Middle Ages, in earlier centuries (for example around the time when Christianity arose, and earlier) scribes made numerous changes in their texts. You can see this simply by looking at a good modern translation of the Hebrew Bible, such as the New Revised Standard Version, where in the footnotes to books like 1 and 2 Samuel there are numerous passages where translators are not sure what the original text was. And this is not counting those intriguing passages, such as a number in the book of Job, for example, where translators are not even sure what some words mean because they are so rare!

One difference with the Hebrew Bible is that there are far, far fewer original manuscripts than for the New Testament. The standard editions of the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew, depend on the readings of one manuscript that was produced around the year 1000 CE. With the New Testament, the standard editions are based on thousands of manuscripts that date all the way back to the second century. It appears that when Jewish scribes of the Middle Ages copied their texts, they destroyed the manuscript they were copying. Christians didn’t do that, so there are many more manuscripts for the New Testament: and the more manuscripts there are the more errors you will find.

After I wrote Misquoting Jesus, I started getting a lot of e-mails from all sorts of people. One common kind of e-mail was from people who wanted me to know that even though the New Testament had textual problems, the books that they revered were absolutely perfect, with no mistakes and no textual errors. Most commonly these emails came from people who wanted me to convert to follow either the Book of Mormon or (on the other side of the religious spectrum!) the Koran.

My own view is that every piece of religious literature is produced by human hands, and that human hands are never perfect. Anyone who claims that a religious book is perfect is making a statement of faith, not a statement of fact. People believe that their own sacred texts are perfect, but very few of these people (including the kindhearted ones who have sent me e-mails) have actually engaged in the kind of detailed textual study of their texts that I, and others like me, have engaged in with respect to the New Testament. If they did so—what would they find? My hunch is that they would find that all the works of religious genius are produced by human hands, and they all have the imprints of those hands still upon them.

5. Is there an English translation that comes closest to preserving the “original” text instead of the text as changed by scribes over the years?

Looking back, I see that I certainly should have expected the question. The reason I didn’t is because I know full well–as does every other scholar in the field–that all modern translators are thoroughly aware of the textual problems posed by our manuscripts, so that all modern translations attempt to get back to the original text (this isn’t “news” to the translators!)

Still, it is an important question, and so I can here indicate the answer I have almost always given: my own preference, in terms of a modern English Bible translation, is the New Revised Standard Version, which I especially like in a study Bible format, such as the Harper Collins Study Bible. I think this is a highly judicious translation, done by some of the world’s best biblical scholars, who come from a range of religious and theological persuasions, so that it is not biased toward one theological point of view over another.

6. Is the information that you cover in your book, “new?”

One of the striking things about Misquoting Jesus is that it contains information that scholars have known for a long, long time. Centuries even. But most non-scholars have never heard of it. And that was the reason I wrote the book in the first place, to explain such information to the nonscholar . . . to average, normal, ordinary readers of the Bible who do not have access to the ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, etc.) in which it was copied, but are nonetheless interested in knowing–and are entitled to know–where the New Testament came from and how it was copied over the centuries, down to the present day.

7. Do the textual differences really make that much of a difference?

. . . If you change what the words say, then you change what the passage means. Most textual variants have no bearing at all on what a passage means. But there are other textual variants that are crucial to the meaning of a passage. And the theology of entire books of the New Testament are sometimes affected by the meaning of individual passages.

From my point of view, the stakes are rather high: Does Luke’s Gospel teach a doctrine of atonement (that Christ’s death atones for sins)? Does John’s Gospel teach that Christ is the “unique God” himself? Is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity ever explicitly stated in the New Testament? These and other key theological issues are at stake, depending on which textual variants you think are original and which you think are creations of early scribes who were modifying the text.

Where I differ from some critics is on the other differences, the ones that do matter. Some of these are in fact highly significant. Some of them affect how a verse is to be interpreted; others affect the meaning of an entire passage of the New Testament, or even an entire book of the New Testament. That strikes me as something that is important to know.

http://youtu.be/nbpUNLBJDjI