Weaker Vessel and Stronger Vessel

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Responding to Nicholas Bowling · somewhere else: Weaker Vessel and Stronger Vessel · Great Bishop of Geneva! Did Jesus Obey Leviticus 20:10?

This is a part of Nicholas Bowling's argument I didn't respond to:

the 15:26 immaculate conception where for Jesus to 15:28 come into the world without sin Mary 15:31 also had to be without sin which I would 15:33 disagree with if he had to be born 15:35 through someone who had never sinned for 15:38 him to be without sin right that would 15:41 mean Mary for her to be without sin she 15:44 would have to be also born through 15:46 someone without sin

Sounds logical, right?

Until you consider that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, as Maria von Trapp said on the Charismatic Conference in Kansas City (my mother loved to quote it).

Part of this is, a man is (usually, and typically, and according to God's general plan, and therefore to be followed in the case of the woman and her seed) the stronger vessel. A woman is (same qualifications) the weaker vessel.

Now, likeness between parents and children produces harmony. Unlikeness instability, disharmony. And harmony in childhood is essential for strength, disharmony produces weakness.

Jesus did not just have to be sinless, He had to be this as an active and a confident male adult. AND as fully human.

Mary grew up with a certain disconnect by being sinless. She was sensitive to sins all around her, she was happily surprised at being sinless. I e, before the angel's greeting puzzled her and the cousin's greeting set her straight, she was anxious she might have committed a sin. Even a slight one would have been a horror to her. While the sin of the first parents was proportionally to their state (and to hers, had she known it) much worse than even mortal sins are in us, in its own kind, it was a very slight one. She hated, just as Adam and Eve should have hated, the sin that was so slight compared to most, but which was damning to them (and would have been damning to her).

This created a weakness, a need to get confidence from others. She could be sinless with this weakness, while having a parent who had had original sin, and most of whom, though not her parents, retained fomes peccati, a surrounding which every day committed venial sins. And she was meant to be weak, even as she is shown in the Apocalypse 12, because she was a woman. God was her strength, everywhere else she looked, she saw a disastrous weakness that could (until Elisabeth explained that Gabriel had told her otherwise) be a trap for her as well.

Jesus was male. That's why we have male only priesthood. He needed to provide strength, in His ministry. Humanly, He only could do that by growing up in perfect harmony with "the parents." At least one of them had to be perfectly sinless. And it couldn't be Joseph, because he wasn't His real father, through the flesh, it had to be the mother, Mary.

There were only two ways in which this could happen.

He could have divine and miraculous force in staying harmonious, obedient to parents, while sinless and neither of them fully so. Or He could have a sinless mother. A fully sinless mother. So that He could have this strength as a sinless person, humanly.

The former option is kind of if not totally negating, at least minimising, the Incarnation. Hence, if He is fully God and also fully Man, He needed to grow up in full harmony with a sinless mother. Mary as being the weaker vessel did not need this harmony in growing up.

A similar reason is also why God couldn't have allowed that Adam be born as a fully human baby to parents of human anatomy but no real human mind. That would have been cruel to the first Adam, and to him before he sinned. I think that should settle the debate that Humani Generis very cautiously allows for, in favour of the traditional doctrine. So also, for the Last Adam, for Jesus. Hence, the sinlessness of Mary.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
VIth Sunday after Easter
1.VI.2025

PS, normally, I would have taken an issue about the differences between Catholic and Protestant onto another blog, but I'm happy for the oversight, since it may help some to grasp how one of their difficulties about the Incarnation is solved.

The other blog is:

Great Bishop of Geneva!
https://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/

Deaths of Apostles and Deacons — "See Church History"

How many of the very first Christians died as martyrs? The question is asked, including by Sean McDowell, in response to for instance Paulogia claiming only St. Peter and St. James died as martyrs in a way we can document. Let's consult the Roman Martyrology. Yes, I know, the text is basically from 1583, not very old ... I'll return to that, just humour me for now.

Apostles:
24 Februarii / 24 aut 25 in anno Bissextili.		24 February (25th in Leap years)
In Judaea natalis sancti Matthiae Apostoli, qui, post Ascensionem Domini ab Apostolis in Judae proditoris locum sorte electus, pro Evangelii praedicatione martyrium passus est.		In Judaea, the birthday of St. Matthias Apostle, who, after the Ascension of the Lord, elected by the Apostles in place of Judas the traitor by lots, was martyred for the preaching of the Gospel.
29 Junii		29 June
Romae natalis sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, qui eodem anno eodemque die passi sunt, sub Nerone Imperatore. Horum prior, in eadem Urbe, capite ad terram verso cruci affixus, et in Vaticano juxta viam Triumphalem sepultus, totius Orbis veneratione celebratur; posterior autem, gladio animadversus, et via Ostiensi sepultus, pari honore habetur.		In Rome, the birthday of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, who, same year and same day, suffered, under the Emperor Nero. The former of these, in the same City, was fixed to the cross with the head turned towards the earth, and was buried in the Vatican Hill close to the Via Triumphalis, he is celebrated by the veneration of all Earth; but the latter, executed by sword, buried in Via Ostiensi, is held in equal honour.
25 Julii		25 July
Sancti Jacobi Apostoli, qui exstitit beati Joannis Evangelistae frater; et, prope festum Paschae ab Herode Agrippa decollatus, primus ex Apostolis coronam martyrii percepit. Ejus sacra ossa, ab Hierosolymis ad Hispanias hoc die translata, et in ultimis earum finibus apud Gallaeciam recondita, celeberrima illarum gentium veneratione, et frequenti Christianorum concursu, religionis et voti causa illuc adeuntium, pie coluntur.		Saint James Apostle, who was brother of the Blessed John the Gospeller; and, close to the Paschal feat, was decapitated by Herod Agrippa, and first among Apostles received the crown of martyrdom. His holy bones, transferred from Jerusalem to the Spains this day, and buried in the furthest ends of them in Galicia, are venerated piously by the veneration of those peoples, and by the frequent arrival of Christians going there for the cause of religion and of a vows / wish.
24 Augusti		24 August
Sancti Bartholomaei Apostoli, qui Christi Evangelium in India praedicavit; inde in majorem Armeniam profectus, ibi, cum plurimos ad fidem convertisset, vivus a barbaris decoriatus est, atque, Astyagis Regis jussu, capitis decollatione martyrium complevit. Ipsius sacrum corpus, primo ad Liparam insulam, deinde Beneventum, postremo Romam ad Tiberinam translatiun insulam, ibi pia fidelium veneratione honoratur.		Saint Bartholomew Apostle, who preached the Gospel of Christ in India; from there, gotten on his way into larger Armenia, was there, as he had converted very many to the faith, skinned alive, and, on the orders of King Astyages, fulfilled his martyrdom by beheading. His holy body, transferred first to the isle of Lipara, then to Benevent and lastly to the Tiber isle in Rome, is there honoured by the pious veneration of the faithful.
21 Septembris		21 September
In Aethiopia natalis sancti Matthaei, Apostoli et Evangelistae; qui, in ea regione praedicans, martyrium passus est. Hujus Evangelium, Hebraeo sermone conscriptum, ipso Matthaeo revelante, inventum est, una cum corpore beati Barnabae Apostoli, tempore Zenonis Imperatoris.		In Aethiopia, birthday of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Gospeller; who, preaching in this region, suffered martyrdom. His Gospel, written in Hebrew language, by revelation of the same Matthew, was found together with the body of the Blessed Apostle Barnabas, in the time of Emperor Zeno.
28 Octobris		28 October
In Perside natalis beatorum Apostolorum Simonis Chananaei, et Thaddaei, qui et Judas dicitur. Ex ipsis autem Simon in Aegypto, Thaddaeus in Mesopotamia Evangelium praedicavit; deinde, in Persidem simul ingressi, ibi, cum innumeram gentis illius multitudinem Christo subdidissent, martyrium consummarunt.		In Persia, the birthday of the Blessed Apostles Simon the Chanaanean and Thaddeus, who also is called Jude. Of the same however Simon preached the Gospel in Egypt and Thaddeus in Mesopotamia; from there, entering Persia at the same time, after subduing a countless multitude of that people under Christ, they consummated martyrdom.
30 Novembris		30 November
Apud Patras, in Achaja, natalis sancti Andreae Apostoli, qui in Thracia et Scythia sacrum Christi Evangelium praedicavit. Is, ab Aegea[e] Proconsule comprehensus, primum in carcere clausus est, deinde gravissime caesus, ad ultimum suspensus in cruce, in ea populum docens biduo supervixit; et, rogato Domino ne eum sineret de cruce deponi, circumdatus est magno splendore de caelo, et, abscedente postmodum lumine, emisit spiritum.		At Patras, in Achaia, the birthday of Saint Andrew the Apostle, who preached the sacred Gospel of Christ in Thracia and Scythia. He, taken by the Aegean Procunsol, first was locked up in prison, then beaten most grievously, and finally hung on a cross, in this, he tought the people and survived for two days; and having asked the Lord that He not allow him to be taken down from the cross, was surrounded by a huge brightness from heaven, and, when the light then departed, he breathed his last.
21 Decembris		21 December
Calaminae natalis beati Thomae Apostoli, qui Parthis, Medis, Persis et Hyrcanis Evangelium praedicavit; ac demum in Indiam pervenit, ibique, cum eos populos in Christiana religione instituisset, Regis jussu lanceis transfixus occubuit. Ipsius reliquiae primo ad urbem Edessam, in Mesopotamia, deinde Ortonam, apud Frentanos, translatae sunt.		In Calamina (??) the birthday of the blessed Apostle Thomas, who preached the Gospel to the Parths, Medes, Hyrcans, and finally arrived in India, and there, when he had established the peoples in the Christian religion, by order of the king was stabbed by spears and died. His relics were first transferred to the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia (Şanlıurfa is in Shinar!), then to Ortona, to the (Italic people of the Frentani).
Deacons:
9 Aprilis		9 April
Antiochiae sancti Prochori, qui fuit unus de septem primis Diaconis; et, fide ac miraculis clarus, martyrio coronatus est.		In Antioch saint Prochor, who was one of the seven first Deacons; and, bright through faith and miracles, was crowned with martyrdom.
26 Decembris		26 December
Hierosolymis natalis sancti Stephani Protomartyris, qui a Judaeis, non longe post Ascensionem Domini, lapidatus est.		In Jerusalem the birthday of Saint Stephen Protomartyr, who by the Jews, not long after the Ascension of the Lord, was stoned to death.

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: The Answer I Tried to Add

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum (meaning "martyrology of Jerome") or Martyrologium sancti Hieronymi (meaning "martyrology of Saint Jerome") is an ancient martyrology or list of Christian martyrs in calendar order, one of the most used and influential of the Middle Ages. It is the oldest surviving general or "universal" martyrology, and the precursor of all later Western martyrologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrologium_Hieronymianum

Despite its early date, the Martyrology of 411 does not stand at the head of the eastern martyrological tradition. Rather, it is related to the western tradition as represented in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.[1] It is a translation of a Greek martyrology of about 362, which was also used as a source for the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrology_of_411

Now, the question is, the Greek martyrology "of about 362" ... was it compiled about 362? Or was it updated to about 362, before being used by both St. Jerome and some unspecified actor in the East in 411?

The latter is a very much easier point to prove. And if we don't have the martyrology itself, it means that the dating is based on this type of proof. So, was Book of Foxe written after 1762, because it includes the case of Jean Calas? Or was that particular online edition based on an edition that had been updated to 1762? I think the latter. I also think Jean Calas very likely did kill his son, he was not simply put to death for townspeople considering his son as martyr for Catholicism, he was convicted of actually having killed him. In a court of law. But the point isn't Book of Martyrs being less reliable, the point is, the original edition of the Protestant Martyrology (which it is) was in 1563. About 2 C. prior to the latest update.

We don't know the origin of the Greek partyrology in question. Stephan Borgehammar (in a paper I thought I had commented on in my blog posts, but I apparently hadn't?) considers liturgic development only came to use of martyrologies after Constantine. But perhaps this martyrology "from 362" had been ongoing as a simple collection of (at least supposed) facts, way earlier, in a private collection, not unlike the "place in life" of the site of Carlo Acutis. Only later getting actual Church approval, through St. Jerome and this 411 martyrology.

So, my point about the texts I just cited and made amateur translations of, this is not an ad hoc imposition in 1583, that Roman Martyrology was based on the Late Medieval updates of Usuard, which like most others of the Latin rite, excepting those of orders, namely by Bede, Rhaban Maur, and a few more, was written by a monk of Carolingian times, based on the martyrology of St. Jerome, which itself is best known from Gallican manuscripts. Now, as said, the Martyrology from 362 served St. Jerome.

Actually, the French wiki is better equipped on the matter of martyrologies than then English one. The article on the martyrology of St. Jerome is longer, and we are offered insights about the sources that the English wiki already cited does not give.

À l'origine, selon la reconstitution de Louis Duchesne, il y a la compilation de trois documents antérieurs :		At its origin, according to the reconstruction by Louis Duchesne, there is a compilation of three earlier documents.
1) un martyrologe oriental, spécialement consacré aux martyrs des Églises de l'Empire d'Orient (Illyricum oriental et occidental compris), établi sans doute à Nicomédie vers le milieu du IVe siècle (avec des indications éventuellement ajoutées allant jusqu'au règne de Julien) ;		1) an oriental martyrology, specially consecrated to the martyrs of the Churches of the Eastern Empire (including both Eastern and Western Illyricum), established no doubt in Nicomedia around the middle of the IVth C. (possibly with later added information going on to the reign of Julian);
2) un calendrier liturgique romain, constitué au temps de l'empereur Constantin (et qui a servi aussi pour le Chronographe de 354), avec adjonction de quelques martyrs des églises voisines de Rome ;		2) a Roman litirgic calendar, constituted at the time of Emperor Constantine (and which served also for the Chronograph of 354) with addition of some martyrs from Churches bordering on Rome;
3) un calendrier liturgique de la province d'Afrique, antérieur en tout cas à la persécution d'Hunéric (476 - 484) qui n'est pas prise en compte.		3) a liturgic calendar from the Province of Africa, anterior at the very least to the persecution of Huneric (476 — 484) which is not taken into account.
Le document oriental est extrait en partie des œuvres martyrologiques d'Eusèbe de Césarée, à savoir un gros recueil d'anciens martyria qu'il avait constitué pour les temps d'avant Dioclétien, et son De martyribus Palestinæ (appendice du livre VIII de l'Histoire ecclésiastique) consacré aux victimes de la persécution de Dioclétien en Palestine. Selon Louis Duchesne, on peut déceler la trace d'une origine arienne. Une version syriaque abrégée de ce martyrologe oriental (avec ajout de martyrs de Babylonie et de Perse) a été trouvée dans un manuscrit (Add. 12150) datant de l'an 412 de la Nitrian Collection du British Museum[7].		The oriental document is a partial extract from the martyrological works by Eusebius of Caesarea, that is, from a large collection of old martyrdoms which he had constituted for times prior to Diocletian, and his De martyribus Palestinæ (appendix to book VIII of History of the Church), which is consecrated to the victims of Diocletian in Palestine. According to Louis Duchesne, one can find the trace of an Arian origin. A Syriac and abriged version of this oriental martyrology (with additions for the martyrs of Babylonia and of Persia) has been found in a Manuscript (Add. 12150) dating from the year 412 of the Nitrian Collection of the British Museum.

Let's also check The Chronograph, Chronography, or Calendar of 354.

So, Martyrologies are at least a thing since Constantine. And material for them has been available since at least the time before Diocletian. But in fact, the earliest entries, chronologically of the timeline of the martyrs, must have been taken over from lots of earlier Church historians, like St. Hippolytus. And such would have had privately accessible written accounts as well as accounts publically in the Church accessible orally. Sometimes the older accounts contradict the entries of the martyrology. The origin of "Calamina" is cleared up by St. Hippolytus:

8. And Thomas preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Margians, and was thrust through in the four members of his body with a pine spears at Calamene, the city of India, and was buried there.

But the end of Matthew is seen as peaceful:

7. And Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew tongue, and published it at Jerusalem, and fell asleep at Hierees, a town of Parthia.

Kudos to Sean McDowell for noting this. What he didn't note is that St. Hippolytus' On the Apostles and Disciples is seen by some as a spurious work, those someones including the New Advent site or its admin.

So, what are the chances that a work centuries after the facts, but tracing more recent facts in a usually accepted as basically factual (according to some perhaps too sensational) way is totally out of touch with what happened? Errors of transmission or of apprehension do occur, and so do lies. But I would say such errors are a thing to be argued on their own merits, not the default until confirmations are found. The opposite approach actually has some merits in history more recent, like since the 12th or 13th C. which saw an explosion in literacy and in the number of documents preserved.

But for ancient history, this is not worse than accepting Alexander was from Greece (larger sense, including Macedon) and conquered Persia, while our sources are centuries later, the oldest of them actually being:

Now it came to pass, after that Alexander the son of Philip the Macedonian, who first reigned in Greece, coming out of the land of Cethim, had overthrown Darius king of the Persians and Medes 2 He fought many battles, and took the strong holds of all, and slew the kings of the earth 3 And he went through even to the ends of the earth, and took the spoils of many nations: and the earth was quiet before him 4 And he gathered a power, and a very strong army: and his heart was exalted and lifted up 5 And he subdued countries of nations, and princes: and they became tributaries to him 6 And after these things, he fell down upon his bed, and knew that he should die 7 And he called his servants the nobles that were brought up with him from his youth: and he divided his kingdom among them, while he was yet alive 8 And Alexander reigned twelve years, and he died 9 And his servants made themselves kings every one in his place 10 And they all put crowns upon themselves after his death, and their sons after them many years, and evils were multiplied in the earth [1 Machabees 1:1-10]

But Alexander died in 323 BC, and First Maccabees was redacted around 100 BC, at the earliest possible 135 BC, since it covers events up to then, so, this source is at least 188 years after the facts. Our most detailed and used source in continuous narrative would be Arrian, a bit older than Appian, see next, born a bit before the Apocalypse, and dead after 145/146 AD, so, perhaps 15 years before Appian.

Or for Hannibal, we have only fragments of Polybius, we rely mainly on Appian, whom I just mentioned, Livy and Cassius Dio. While Hannibal died in 183 BC, Appian was born around the time the Apocalypse was written and died after the birth of Irenaeus, Livy was the earliest of the three, dying in 17 AD, and Cassius Dio was born when Appian had hardly died, and himself died in AD 235. If we go by death years, the least timespan from sources other than Polybius would be to Livy, 200 years, then Appian, 343 years after the fact, and Cassius Dio, 418 years to Cassius Dio.

But we have Polybius, right? Yes, in fragments. And a fragmentary account of above would be there in Acts, which is a First Century source, includes the actual martyrdom of St. Stephen and also the beginnings of St. Paul's martyrdom in Rome.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Easter Monday
21.IV.2025

See also Feet and Martyrologies — and for Sean McDowell's work, his video on David Wood's channel: Did Jesus’ Apostles Die for Their Faith? (New Historical Evidence)

Matthew 28:11—15

... and this word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day.

So, this is obviously not the case if "this day" means 6.II.2025. You'll hear a few things from Jews, but not this one. If St. Matthew spoke the truth, as he did, this was obviously some time ago. I'm OK with that, as I hold to Matthew being the first Gospel. But, was this ever spread among Jews?

The Nazareth Inscription: Rumor and Reaction to the Resurrection of Jesus
APXAIOC Research / Uncategorized / By Archae27
https://apxaioc.com/?p=16

Hat tip to Christians for Truth for the article

Nazareth Decree May Prove That Jews Plotted to Deny the Resurrection of Christ
March 31, 2024 By CFT Team
https://christiansfortruth.com/nazareth-decree-may-prove-that-jews-plotted-to-deny-the-resurrection-of-christ/

A View on Evolutionist Explanations of Reason

I am of course familiar with this kind of argument:

Monkey minds / How evolution undercuts reason and science
by Keaton Halley
https://creation.com/monkey-minds

Can evolution produce rational minds?
Answering some critics of the argument from reason
https://creation.com/evolution-rational-minds

So, I did not read the former a few days ago, but today's article has arguments from atheists.

1. They said that even though some of our thoughts/reasoning might be unreliable, evolution (and natural selection) would tend to produce beliefs that were accurate over time, since natural selection has been “working” on it for a long time.

2. Didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, but they also said that using the scientific method overcomes any difficulty in interpreting data (or information), therefore any false beliefs/thoughts that we had would be nullified.

3. The other one I couldn’t answer well was that they said just because we can’t prove that our thoughts are reliable doesn’t mean they aren’t, and that it’s no different than saying that we as Christians trusting God.

Let's not discourage anyone from reading Keaton Halley on this one, I've linked, but I'm fond of taking the objections and giving own, parallel, answers.

1. They said that even though some of our thoughts/reasoning might be unreliable, evolution (and natural selection) would tend to produce beliefs that were accurate over time, since natural selection has been “working” on it for a long time.

Apart from the fact that Evolution can neither explain beliefs or even notions, as it cannot explain language, the Evolution process as depicted is supposed to priorise correct (or useful) reactions, not true beliefs.

Quicker turning around and slower shooting (but not too much slower) is the kind of good reactions that evolution could promote. Beliefs as such are perfectly irrelevant to the process. Obviously, if you want to train yourself in that kind of reaction pattern, given you are some kind of thing that has beliefs, it helps if you correctly also believe this kind of reaction is useful. But if you weren't, evolution, as portrayed, would hone this kind of reaction and not do a damn thing to produce beliefs or make true beliefs standard of anything.

If Evolution did create beliefs, which is impossible, the kind of beliefs it would inculcate are things like "it pays to be curious when in need or when it's calm" and "it doesn't pay to be curious when it's very risky and one has no need for it" ... or the kind of more concrete beliefs that could be derived from that. NOT beliefs about the cosmos or the nature of reality.

2. Didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, but they also said that using the scientific method overcomes any difficulty in interpreting data (or information), therefore any false beliefs/thoughts that we had would be nullified.

It seems quite a lot of the modern day use of the term "scientific method" boils down to:

• Identifying reactions that are useful for survival in certain settings, but not logically valid ways to search out truth
• nullifying them by making an opposite reaction the intellectual knee-jerk
• and considering one has improved on Evolution as author of reason.

Obviously, such a discipline cannot be upheld by a person on his own, and therefore requires collectivist approaches.

The irony is, logically, a collective due to group pressure is less likely to be logical than an individual person, and on top of that, inculcating the kind of reaction pattern roughly equivalent to "all swans are black" (because "all swans are white" is a bias) is not doing good logic.

But apart from that, there is some futility in believing one can outgrow one's origin, acquire powers not inherent, and produce logic while having no such thing. But obviously, behind Neo-Darwinian Evolution belief, there is a real Lamarckian bias, like a giraffe ancestor producing long necks by stretching up, while itself being shortnecked.

3. The other one I couldn’t answer well was that they said just because we can’t prove that our thoughts are reliable doesn’t mean they aren’t, and that it’s no different than saying that we as Christians trusting God.

We need to treat our thoughts as reliable. And the most reliable way to do so is to skip some of the "scientific method" drill, and instead trust one's thoughts, presuming an origin that can explain (not prove) their reliability.

From an Atheist, the reference to Christians trusting God is obviously meant as an insult.

What Christians do in this connexion is more typically trust logic and work backwards from the phenomenon of logic to what kind of thing could have produced it. You know like heat and light galore could be traced to a really big and self luminous body, or a fire, that was very big ... (we tend to call it the Sun), logic can be traced to what? Well, to an eternal logic, not a logic produced by evolution (there can be no such thing), which then further can be analysed. Richard Carrier has somewhat agreed to a concept somewhat like an eternal logic, namely in presuming natural laws of absolute necessity governed something coming from (materially) nothing. But a more logical way to trace an eternal logic would be an eternal mind that's eternally perfectly logical. And, since logical minds tend to have some domination over matter, eternally has perfect dominion over matter. Does that begin to sound like something we have heard of? I think so. If St. Thomas had called this "sexta via" or "septima via" he would have rounded off with "which all men call God" ...

To the prima via ... heat and light are traceable to the nature of the Sun as a kind of fire. But we see this fire moving every day from East to West. Now, fires don't usually perform circular movements. Something else is either moving or giving the impression of moving the Sun. Now, Heliocentrics would say, it's Earth giving the impression of the Sun moving. But when debating them, and saying God moves the whole shebang (as far up as it is visible) from East to West and the Sun along with it, I usually get answers on the lines "there is no God, so that couldn't happen" ... they presume a universal negative, and opt for the illusory explanation. However, if we can already make a case for an eternal reason having perfect dominion over matter, this would obviously be counterfactual.

Sometimes the rebuttal takes the form "first prove there is a God, before you use Him as explanation" ... this bypasses that explanations that are invisible are always proven only by what they explain. Therein, they are unlike explanations that are visible. These can be proven to exist by direct observation. You know, for water, the explanation "two small atoms along a bigger atom" is kind of observable in electronic microscopy, but below the level of atom, all explanations are invisible. Like God, if they can be proven at all, it's because of what they explain.

At another twist of irony, God moving the Sun, the Moon and the Stars around us is the kind of explanation Evolution would tend to favour, if any at all. In that sense, the Bible is more "true to Evolution" (if that were the origin, but it isn't, see above), than the Scientific Method is. That's probably why a certain kind of modern mind despises that kind of explanation, much like a certain type of feminism despises normal motherhood, also a presumed result of Evolution.

If those guys are so anti-God, so anti-Nature, so anti-everything, perhaps they are on occasion anti-knowledge too?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Lucan, martyr
30.X.2024

When Dan Barker Was a Christian, He was in Control of His Own Mind, He Says

How a Christian Fundamentalist Became a Leading Atheist | The Story of Dan Barker
A Dose of Reason | 20 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFs8DG8tfIE

Here is a piece of his dialogue with Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah

do you feel you're better off now 15:38 that you've rejected religion in your 15:39 life

Dan

well I'm in control of my own mind 15:41 now I'm not receiving orders from some 15:44 mind that I don't even know what

Oprah

who was 15:45 in control of it before

Dan

I was 15:48 basically I was living a delusion

So, basically, whether or not he was actually living a delusion, on his view, he was not really oppressed by an alien mind. It was his own mind.

Certainly tying itself into some kind of knot, if that's true, but still, it was not making his life dysfunctional.

Apart from the fact that he got no answers on certain themes (like God a God of order, not of confusion vs Bible and Protestant confusion, he didn't look into Catholicism, and timing of the parousia) the supposed delusion was not hurting him. It was just not giving him everything he had hoped for, intellectually. Also, it was probably deluded (normal sense, not psychological one) on some moral issues, that's what I'd say about certain Puritan views, whether they think they have the views from Bible reading or the voice of God.

Does he find this roundabout way so unsatisfying today?

and I would get goosebumps 1:56 when I was talking to Jesus and all that 1:58 and in fact I can do that right now as 2:01 an atheist I can go back somewhere quiet 2:03 and speak in tongues and all those 2:05 feelings come back

So, basically, he doesn't want freedom from religion, he wants freedom from obedience. Not feeling bad if he's disobeying something God tells him, but he still likes hearing the voice. Or perhaps he's not even disobeying, perhaps God is guiding him through atheism. I don't claim to know, Dan gave too little detail.

Well, in that case, I'd say, he is somewhat disingenious in wanting to "disabuse" others of it. A Commie might believe, you only get those types of experiences, if you have been heavily abused by a pastor shouting about as much as Steven Anderson, I think Dan Barker could testify, this is not the case.

For my own part, I have plenty of other reasons to believe there is a God (like human language can't evolve from ape*). I have plenty of other reasons to believe the Bible is intelligible, to the actual Church that Jesus founded, the one which was given it, the Catholic Church.** I have plenty of reason to believe in tradition (even if "inadequately" documented in writings and therefore to us basically oral) is clue to understanding the past. I apply that to Pagan legends as well.

I have recently argued again, in a youtube comment, as previously in comments reposted as blog posts, the timing question of the Church refutes the idea of it being fake.

This being so, there are alternatives to myself being the one doing the talking, when I feel Jesus is talking to me. For instance, God could be giving me a good hint. Or, worst scenario, the devil could. As far as I can see, my situation is not getting worse through decisions I make, this way. If anything, when I neglect obeying. I cannot blame the devil for having deluded me to a bad decision, when I see all of my good decisions taken away from me, and "dismantled" ... so, I have no reason to consider I'd need an actual cure.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Hedwig of Poland
16.X.2024

(15.X) Cracoviae, in Polonia, natalis sanctae Hedwigis Viduae, Polonorum Ducissse, quae, pauperum obsequio dedita, etiam miraculis claruit; et a Clemente Quarto, Pontifice Maximo, Sanctorum numero adscripta est. Ipsius autem festivitas sequenti die celebratur.
(16.X) Sanctae Hedwigis Viduae, Polonorum Ducissae, quae pridie hujus diei obdormivit in Domino.

* See here: Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Tomasello Not Answering · New blog on the kid: How did human language "evolve from non-human"? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Adam Reisman's Response, Mr. Flibble's Debate · Andrew Winkler's Response and Debate · Creation vs. Evolution: Odd Perfect Numbers? Less Impossible than Abiogenesis or Evolutionary Origin of Human Language! and also here: Human Language Revisited · Elves and Adam · Back to Picq · Off the Bat

See also: Scientists Discuss Music and the Origins of Language, which is great on health benefits of music, and great on mnemonic benefits of music to an already existing language, and already existing text, at 43:06 in the overall 51:18, Daniel Levitin hasn't really given a beginning of an explanation on how language originated./HGL

** Question on Epistemology

*** See here: What Did Thor Heyderdahl Say, Again? · What did I say about Troy, Again? or here: I Have Some Audience in India or (in French) here: Quelle discrépance de critères entre Buican et Bloch ... and also here: Venus Mater = Puduhepa?

Sennacherib, IV Kings vs Prism

And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 19:35-37]

FB: "The Sennacherib Prism, also referred to as the Taylor Prism"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ancientsecrets/permalink/865282729066998/

Wiki cites this portion:

As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams. ... I took as plunder 200,150 people, both small and great, male and female, along with a great number of animals including horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem. I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns which I captured I gave to Mitinti, king of Ashdod; Padi, ruler of Ekron; and Silli-bel, king of Gaza.

DV

JL Sennacherib didn't siege Jerusalem and never lost 185,000. How so? Read his chronicles - next years he marched with his army to new wars.

JL

DV ,Sennacherib never had the opportunity to siege Jerusalem, his army was defeated by one angel before he had a chance! 2 Chronicles 32:21 provides the account. Isaiah 37:33-37 gives more details of the same account, verse 36:” And the angel of Jehovah proceeded to go forth and strike down a hundred and eighty- five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people rose up early in the morning, why ,there all of them were dead carcasses.” 2 Kings 19:35 provides a parallel account of the same event. Sennacherib was killed by his own son upon returning to Nineveh ,2 King 19: 36,37,Read it for yourself!

GA

JL : You are aware that the Bible is about 90% fiction/fantasy, aren't you?

First problem with the objection against the reliability of the Bible is, are we speaking of the same event, or were there two attacks?

Could Sennacherib have won round one not mentioned in the Bible and lost round two as per the Bible and not mentioned in his annals?

Second problem is presuming that secular rulers are honest and down to earth and just because Sennacherib was neither a Christian nor a Jew, that makes him a secular ruler. Rulers in this time, when writing of far-off exploits (far off from the capital) were capable of horrible bragging and lying to keep their populace (specifically in the capital) happy.

In politics and economics, a Potemkin village[a] is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Pretty blatant example from Ancient Near East history is the Battle of Kadesh. Hittite and Egyptian rulers both claimed a decisive victory.

The battle is considered to have ended in a stalemate.

The wikipedian article Battle of Kadesh at this point cites Weir, William (2009). History's Greatest Lies. Fair Winds Press. In other words, it's modern scholars who conclude for a stalemate. Because they do not believe these ancient official accounts.

Third problem, as C. S. Lewis points out, Herodotus gives as general confirmation that Sennacherib suffered an inexplicable defeat, while giving an explanation that doesn't explain. C. S. Lewis comments* "mice don't behave that way" even if in poetry and fiction he went on to explore a vision of "what if they did?"

Fourth problem, DV seems to hail from the former East Bloc, which was quite as good at Potemkin villages as the previous Czarist régimes. I'm anonymising the names, but JL and GA both have English names, DV a Slavic one. In other words, the attacks on Biblical reliability are part of the Communist propaganda, and they are kind of a Potemkin village, as admitting the Bible was reliable could have entrained admitting Communism (in the political sense) was the Scarlet Beast.

Fifth problem, it is usually assumed that Assyrian chronology is fairly good, but it is not over the top to imagine a king could add years (for instance two after the campaign in Judah) in order to make his reign seem longer. Or in this case to make the situation of Hezechias in a cage seem longer. You see, they had no epoch, in the chronological sense. An epoch is an event you date from. Christians have dated Anno Mundi (before replacing it with BC) and with Anno Domini, creation and Christ serving as epochs. Greeks have dated since the Trojan War and then more systematically since the First Olympiad. Romans have dated since Rome founded the City. Egyptians and Babylonians had no such thing, and neither, I think, Hittites, Mycenaeans or Cretans of the Bronze age. He was free to lie, because no one was able to check against the number of the year.

On top of this, we do not know if he wrote it himself or it was written in his name.

On top of that, the cylinder is just six paragraphs long. And passionate brags at that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XXth LD after Pentecost
6.X.2024

* In Miracles, a Preliminary Study, if my memory serves right.

"God is Being Itself, Creationism Portrays Him as a Cause Among Others"

Great Bishop of Geneva! Can a Catholic Say the Bible is Infallible? · Creation vs. Evolution: Would Tuas Libenter Condemn Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism Because of the Theologians who were Fine with Heliocentrism and Deep Time? · somewhere else: "God is Being Itself, Creationism Portrays Him as a Cause Among Others"

Modern Scholastics have a certain way of preferring Tertia Via over Prima Via. Here are Trent Horn and Pat Flynn explaining how the God of the Tertia Via, by the fact of being Being Itself and by the fact that Being and Goodness are convertible, is Goodness Itself, like a certain Iridium bar* in France was THE meter itself. They have oversimplified more than one parts of the argument, but they kind of have a point, as far as that goes:

Why the "medieval God" beats the "modern God" (with Pat Flynn)
The Counsel of Trent | 31 March 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO05XXXxZok

Here is, for one, how they speak of the Eutyphro dilemma, which is a very correct way of seing it:

So so the way we we split the dilemma using Plato's language 25:09 it's not we don't have only two choices to say [...] 25:14 is something good because God wills it is it good because he says so or does 25:20 God will it because it's good that goodness is outside of Him. The way 25:25 you split the dilemma is : God wills it because He is good or He is goodness 25:32 itself right and so naturally what He wills automatically will be good.

To be fair, in the video, I'm four minutes from the end, they have not mentioned Young Earth Creationists, they have mentioned William Lane Craig who isn't YEC, they have mentioned an Orthodox philosopher called Swinburne, perhaps he isn't either. They have not said anything against Kent Hovind or against Ken Ham or against Jonathan Sarfati. But other men have done so. If not every creation act followed from already existing natural laws, note the plural, and as physicists understand "natural laws", then God would have been "arbitrary" and therefore not the God Who's the Eternal Law, of which a human participation is the Natural Law (singular, as lawyers adhering to some theories of law understand the word).

Now, let's check what the Creation dot com has to say of the Eutyphro dilemma. Jonathan Sarfati** in a feedback:

Thus the dilemma can be shown to be a false one. God indeed commands things which are good, but the reason they are good is because they reflect God’s own nature. So the goodness does not come ultimately from God’s commandments, but from His nature, which then results in good commandments. As Steve Lovell concluded in ‘C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma’ (2002):

‘The commands of an omniscient, loving, generous, merciful, patient and truthful Being would not be issued without reason, and that since these characteristics are essential to God, His commands possess a strong modal status. It was also observed that God’s possession of these attributes is sufficient to give significant content to God’s goodness.’

In substance, Jonathan Sarfati has said exactly the same thing as Pat Flynn. So, believing in an all powerful God Who can do any miracle He wants and Who had a possibility to create or not create the world He created does not lead to believing in an all powerful tyrant who for no reason except his whim decrees something to be good or evil.

But back to the metaphysics of being, created and uncreated.

The idea of some critics of Young Earth Creationism (I'm reminded of my second Father Confessor, a Dominican Tertiary, I think the French former Dominican Jacques Arnould said so in a book, maybe Dieu n'a pas besoin de "preuves") goes a bit like this:

If you say that God created rather than that mutations and natural selection produced for instance mammals or for instance man, is "putting God and mutations and natural selection" in an either or relationship. It's like saying I either have to exist because I consist of atoms or because God gives me being, it cannot be both, which is false. Atoms*** are a created and non-ultimate basis of my existence, which should not be confused with the non-created and ultimate basis of my existence, namely God. Both are "the basis of my existence" but on two very different levels.

I'd perfectly agree that we should not confuse the levels. However, I would definitely NOT agree that any statement of the form "God and not X" is doing so. It would only be the case for all statements where X is the created and non-ultimate reason for something, and is actually the reason for something.

If I said "God, and not spacemen who try to elevate our spirituality and failed to do so with Atlantis, raised Jesus from the grave" I would not be committing this kind of fault. No Christian would agree such spacemen° even exist, or that they raised Jesus from the grave, or for that matter that they tried and failed with Atlantis and then judged it. As the spacemen are not the correct explanation, the denial of them raising Jesus from the grave would not be putting ultimate cause and created cause in alternation, they would be putting the ultimate cause acting miraculously against a fake cause supposedly acting by only better (material and spiritual) technology.

The one question that would really confuse the issues would be "was He raised by God or by the reunion of His human Soul and human Body?" or "was He raised by God or by His Heart starting to beat again and His lungs starting to breathe again?" ... God acted through the reunion of a soul with a body, and this reunion by definition, unless hampered, produces a renewed heartbeat and spiration.

So, likewise, about Adam speaking, denying he evolved is not automatically a question of pitting created against ultimate cause, in both cases actual cause. It may simply be to get rid of a fake explanation of Adam speaking.

And another thing. St. Thomas did not put Tertia Via first among the proofs of God. If you know Latin, it means "the third way" ... what is the "first way"?

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

In a parallel text, or a parallel edition of this text°°, it doesn't go "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion." But it goes "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion, like for instance the Sun" (utputa sol). So, Riccioli understood the First Way to correspond to the proposition "God turns the visible parts of the universe around Earth each day" ...

In other words, God could stop day and night by simply stopping to provide, by divine fiat, this motion. Here I am skipping ahead into the philosophical discussion as much as Pat Flynn was in the parts not quoted, but basically, if God is the ultimate cause why the Sun moves around earth, there is at each point of moving causation a natural previous cause and mover, except the caused cause which immediately comes after the uncaused cause, so, for St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed in crystalline spheres, that would be the sphere of the fix stars, which would be contiguous to inferior spheres, and then move them. To me, that would be the aether, a substance which is not in space,°°° but which rather is the substance of space or spacetime itself. Also identic to the aether that light is waves in. But God Himself would not be caused to provide this movement by some even mightier physical mover, God would rather be "moved" in another sense by the necessity we have for a certain amount of light, warmth, and not ten times more, and hence also for moderation, and therefore also for night but one that has no sufficient time to freeze to zero Kelvin, more like perhaps to -5 or -15°C when it gets really cold. And even in the order of purpose rather than of physical application of force, He would be the ultimate mover, since we exist for His glory.

But either way, He was perfectly free to not create us. It's not God, it's we who are arbitrary, since our existance is arbitrary. But it's arbitered by a decision by God. God's goodness isn't. We are.

When we speak of God's goodness, sometimes Fundies do get heat for in practical morals not believing God is goodness and incapable of ordering the evil. I'll hand the word to Jonathan Sarfati:

Some animals only suffer during their short, innocent, miserable lives, but they will never be compensated for this. If innocents suffer but never get compensated, that’s not righteousness, not by my definition at least. Of course you can say that God is the one who decides what’s right and what’s wrong, and that I shouldn’t be arrogant.

Yes, one could, because your knowledge is fallible and your conscience imperfectly informed. After all, you cannot prove that God hasn’t a good reason for allowing the suffering of animals, e.g. to achieve a greater good. See also the discussion in The problem of evil.

But that makes the word ‘right’ meaningless, because even the cruellest things can then be ‘right’.

Indeed, given our imperfect knowledge, you are in a sense right. Consider how a tribesperson from a low-tech culture might view the removal of an eye in a child after a minor injury that seems to have healed. The specialist knows that the patient has ‘sympathetic ophthalmia’, and if the injured eye is not removed, the patient will go totally blind in both eyes, as happened to Louis Braille. Removal of the eye (without anaesthetic, if none is available) seems ‘cruel’, but is definitely ‘right’ given the greater knowledge. God’s knowledge relative to ours is infinitely greater than the disparity between the knowledge of the eye surgeon and the tribesperson.

In other words, certain people who want to use the phrase "God is goodness itself, and some have a mistaken idea that God arbitrarily decides what is good" are simply after validating their own conception of good against God's revelation. St. Thomas certainly didn't go that route.

But even less, if possible, did He go the route of stating "the prime mover moves by secondary movers" (quotation from him, so he would agree with this part), "however this or that model posits a secondary mover is not moved by another secondary mover but bby the prime mover only, therefore this or that mmodel is wrong'" ... whether it be Biblical Creation account of Adam, or the Scholastic and Geocentric view of why we have night and day.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
3.X.2024

Sanctae Teresiae a Jesu Infante, ex Ordine Carmelitarum Excalceatorum, Virginis, peculiaris omnium Missionum Patronae; cujus dies natalis pridie Kalendas Octobris recensetur.

* Actually, the alloy is 90 % platinum and only 10 % iridium.

** CMI : Feedback archive → Feedback 2007
What is ‘good’? (Answering the Euthyphro Dilemma)
https://creation.com/is-good-what-god-commands-or-does-he-command-what-is-good

*** The ones observed in electronic microscopy are presumably real.

° Even Jimmy Akin, pretty well known for being rather favourable to spacemen, would not accept that they are our spiritual guides or that they are the main agents in wreaking judgement over iniquity.

°° First Part, Question 2. The existence of God
Article 3. Whether God exists?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

°°° It would be in space as Newton and Riccioli understood it, but not as Aristotle, Aquinas and Einstein understood it, where it would be identic to the fabric (Einstein) and be one instance of "the surrounding body" (Aristotle's definition of space).

Next Frontiers for Christian Research

A) Iron and the iron age

I) Here is what wikipedia has to say about the Iron age:

Although meteoritic iron has been used for millennia in many regions, the beginning of the Iron Age is defined locally around the world by archaeological convention when the production of smelted iron (especially steel tools and weapons) replaces their bronze equivalents in common use.[2]

In Anatolia and the Caucasus, or Southeast Europe, the Iron Age began during the late 2nd millennium BC (c. 1300 BC).[3] In the Ancient Near East, this transition occurred simultaneously with the Bronze Age collapse, during the 12th century BC (1200–1100 BC).,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age

II) Here are the first five mentions of iron in the Bible:

Sella also brought forth Tubalcain, who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Noema.
[Genesis 4:22]

And I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass:
[Leviticus 26:19]

Gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin,
[Numbers 31:22]

If any man strike with iron, and he die that was struck: he shall be guilty of murder, and he himself shall die.
[Numbers 35:16]

For only Og king of Basan remained of the race of the giants. His bed of iron is shewn, which is in Rabbath of the children of Ammon, being nine cubits long, and four broad after the measure of the cubit of a man's hand.
[Deuteronomy 3:11]

And, not many decades after Og of Basan, we have Judges 1:19, here is the Catholic Douay Rheims translation:

And the Lord was with Juda, and he possessed the hill country: but was not able to destroy the inhabitants of the valley, because they had many chariots armed with scythes.

Here is the King James Version:

And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

Even earlier than Judges, you have Joshua, and here even Douay Rheims has:

But thou shalt pass to the mountain, and shalt cut down the wood, and make thyself room to dwell in: and mayst proceed farther, when thou hast destroyed the Chanaanites, who as thou sayest have iron chariots, and are very strong.
[Josue (Joshua) 17:18]

III) Here is the date of the Exodus, in the Roman martyrology, the liturgical martyrology reading for Christmas day says Christ is born in

a Moyse et egressu populi Israel de Aegypto, anno millesimo quingentesimo decimo

So, if Christ is born 1 BC (most of the year was before His birth and the beginning of it even before His conception) and in 1510 after Exodus, that means the Exodus took place in 1511 BC.

Let's confer the Syncellus chronology, used by Orthodox when saying what year after creation it is, on September 1st every year.

Creation 5510 BC - Flood 2242 after Creation = Flood in 3268 BC
Flood in 3268 BC - Abraham born 1070 after Flood = Abraham born 2198 BC
Abraham born 2198 BC - Exodus 505 after Birth of Abraham* = Exodus in 1693 BC (I think I recall seeing 1683 BC, as well).

So, Exodus in 1511 or 1693 BC => Conquest in 1471 or 1653 BC. That's some time before the Bronze Age collapse, 12th C. BC.

IV) Resuming the problem, and solutions to propose:

Iron chariots, iron bed of Og, iron objects in the law. Mentioned before the archaeologically apparent Iron Age.

Speaking of which, this shows the folly of excluding a Middle Kingdom Exodus, just because archaeologists claim the Egyptians had no chariots prior to the New Kingdom.

Iron in Genesis 4, as being pre-Flood, is not a problem. If we haven't found iron objects from Nod, yet, so, we also haven't found Henoch in Nod yet in the first place.

Here are a few solutions:

a) The iron chariots and the iron objects mentioned in the law could simply be things that are sharp. The chariots could be armed with scythes as the Douay Rheims translation suggests, and the iron objects in the law could be sharp objects. Og's bed could be a very isolated item in meteoric iron.

The reason this would work is, barzel does not just mean "iron" the metal, it means also "sharp object" more specially "axe" ....

On this theory too, "bikli barzel" in Numbers 35 would be better translated as "sharp objects" or "sharp tools" than as objects or tools actually made of iron, and a bronze or stone knife would be a more probable itemization than an iron bar.

b) But it could be that meteoric iron had actually been used on the chariots too. They could have had a fright of meteoric iron as endowed with mysterious properties, or they could have had the sun reflected more glaringly in a surface of meteoric iron than in bronze, so the men of Juda were blinded by sunlight.

c) Or, archaeologists are wrong on when iron became a commonly used metal.

Given that lots of what is preserved to us, what they dig up, comes from graves. It was arranged in certain ways to escape normal processes of entropy. Bronze would have been more likely to put in a grave than iron which one could still use.

B) Horses and horseriding

Except, that seems by now to be a fixed problem:

somewhere else: Inerrancy of OT: Riding in King David's Day!
https://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2024/09/inerrancy-of-ot-riding-in-king-davids.html

C) Haven't thought of it yet ...

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bertin, Abbot
5.IX.2024

* Catholics and Orthodox in these chronologies count on a short soujourn, Exodus 430 years from when Abraham got the promise = when he was 75, 75 + 430 = 505.

Who's Afraid of the Squortlebleep?

Barry Goldberg, author of the "Common Sense Atheism" series of books, on Thursday 18.VII.2024 answered:

How can atheists deny that God exists, when the ability to even wonder about it , to even have a concept of God, proves beyond doubt that He does exist?
https://www.quora.com/How-can-atheists-deny-that-God-exists-when-the-ability-to-even-wonder-about-it-to-even-have-a-concept-of-God-proves-beyond-doubt-that-He-does-exist/answer/Barry-Goldberg-1

From his answer:

If you really want to go down that path, however, then you must then let me define Squortlebleep (the magical and invisible winged ferret) as “that which keeps our planet’s atmosphere from flying off into space” and then I can logically assert that the very fact that our planet’s atmosphere hasn’t flown off into space therefore proves beyond doubt that Squortlebleep exists.

In philosophical circles, btw, this is known as the “fallacy of equivocation,” which is when you use two different meanings of a particular word in the same argument and treat them as if they were the same. With regard to Squortlebleep, the fallacy occurs when I define him both as “a magical and invisible winged ferret” and as “that which keeps our planet’s atmosphere from flying off into space” and insist that if there is proof of the second meaning then there must also be proof of the first meaning.

Have I ever heard the fallacy of equivocation from Atheists?

Me

How could an explosion of compressed matter result in formation of atoms and star systems?

Sci teacher

It must have, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

Me

How could chemicals that weren't "alive" (that weren't parts of biology) come together to form life?

Sci teacher

If they couldn't have, we wouldn't be here.

Me

How could one life form develop into a radically different one?

Sci teacher

If it couldn't we wouldn't have the variety we have.

Not sure if all the examples I gave are genuine or if one is my addition.

I would say he was equivocating when defining "Big Bang" as both "rapid expansion from a highly condensed state" and as "actual origin of the universe."

I would say he was also equivocating when defining "Abiogenesis" as both "chemical reactions in the primitive atmosphere leading to amino acids further combining into primitive life" and as "actual origin of biological life."

And, if the last one isn't a parallel, false memory, he was defining "Evolution" as both "the interplay of mutations and natural selection" and as "actual origin of the diversity of life" ... in very different life forms with not just different but even incompatible solutions for diverse needs of biological life.

I have a hunch that Barry Goldberg would share the fallacies of equivocation with my Sci teacher. Most Atheist do ...

Seriously, a fallacy of equivocation doesn't exist just because so and so is identifying two concepts that many others do not identify. It only exists if the one doing so is unwilling to argue why he should do that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bertin, Abbot
5.IX.2024

Inerrancy of OT: Riding in King David's Day!

When was horseback riding invented?

For the Ancient Middle East, I have heard the date 800 BC, when Assyrians came to master riding.

As Biblical material about King David involved riding, this could potentially have been a stumbling block about the credibility of the Bible.

This screenshot involves an old rider carbon dated to 4300 BC, and a few more ones, the youngest carbon dated to 2623 BC:

How do we know he was a rider? Well, if someone has a tennis arm, he probably plays tennis. Riding also leaves traces in the human body.

2080 av. J.-Chr.

75,723 pcm, donc daté à 4380 av. J.-Chr.

2063 av. J.-Chr.

76,553 pcm, donc daté à 4263 av. J.-Chr.

...

1700 av. J.-Chr.

87,575 pcm, donc daté à 2800 av. J.-Chr.

1678 av. J.-Chr.

89,4653 pcm, donc daté à 2598 av. J.-Chr.

The real dates for these riders would be younger than 2080 BC (65 years before Abraham was born) and older than 1678 (88 years before Moses was born). The passages would still present some problem as to why horseback riding was available in Old Israel 200 years before it was so in Assyria, and why we haven't seen that, but the problem is on the level of a quibble, not (at least not to the Christian), not an actual doubt./HGL

PS, Ebla archives involve Indo-European names. Carbon dated 2300 BC, i e during the Soujourn in Egypt (1725 to 1510 BC, carbon dated as between 2800 and possibly precisely 1609 BC). Mentioned later on, by 29:38, as also the fact that horsewhips had been offered as merchandise to people with such names./HGL

Sources:

The video I screenshotted (at 19:31) is:

David Anthony and Dorcas R. Brown: The Yamnaya Origins and the Expansion of Late PIE Languages
HUN-REN Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont | 20 June 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg77kPvDmqQ

And the article that the video features is:

Science Advances | Research Article 2023 Anthropology
First bioanthropological evidence for Yamnaya horsemanship
Martin Trautmann et al
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade2451

For Jewish Readers

Wesley Huff is kind of clueless so far about where Protestants get the Bible from (unless he changes his mind), but he's definitely not bad about the Jewish expectation of the Messiah:

The Jewish Messiah described by the Dead Sea Scrolls
January 22, 2023 | Wesley Huff
https://www.wesleyhuff.com/blog/2023/1/22/the-jewish-messiah-described-by-the-dead-sea-scrolls

It's 4Q521 compared to Luke 7:22./HGL

Israelites at the Exodus

Ibn Khaldun, a Neglected Source of Antichristianity or Attacks on the Bible · Responding to Tim Zeak on Exodus, part I · More on Exodus, not on Tim Zeak, for now · Some Have Claimed Ezra Wrote Moses · Israelites at the Exodus

First of all, like the traditional Christian chronographers and, as I believe, in agreement with the words of St. Stephen Proto-Martyr in Acts, or St. Paul's words in Galatians, I hold to a short soujourn.

The Exodus happened 430 years after God's promise to Abraham. Meaning 215 years after Jacob arrived in Egypt.

The statement "430 years in Egypt" in the text of Exodus look like this in Douey Rheims:

And the abode of the children of Israel that they made in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.
[Exodus 12:40]

Ellopos site has LXX Greek and an English translation side by side:

And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Chanaan, [was] four hundred and thirty years.

This obviously means that "the children of Israel" start out with Abraham, who was not a child of Jacob, but his grandfather. But that's no problem, since it is a continuity, this family that becomes a people is named "children of Israel" from a bit before half of the 430 years, but what precedes is actually identical.

GotQuestions wrongly assumed a long soujourn. But they sum up a nice little problem:

How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus?
https://www.gotquestions.org/Israelites-exodus.html

What can I answer?

Exodus 12:37, Numbers 1:46, and Numbers 2:32 all describe Israel’s population of men, not including women and children. Numbers 1:21–43 gives an account from each tribe, using Hebrew words, not symbols, to represent quantities. Adding these up, one arrives at the figure given in Numbers 1:46. This phrasing is traditionally interpreted to mean just over 600,000 adult men, implying a total population about four times that size, or 2.4 million.

I agree with tradition.

What is the major problem? Feeding them in the desert is a miracle. There was space for the mannah, but God had to give it. Another problem is, the armies of back then are, apart from the Israelites, considered as numerically smaller than 600 000 men. Why would they react as if facing supreme odds if they were in fact the bigger army?

One possibility is, their impression of facing supreme odds are overblown. It says more about their fears than about the real odds. But there are two more possibilities which complete each other and match God's words in Deuteronomy 7 better:

• armies back then were in fact bigger than archaeologists estimate, as well as populations;
• other peoples had well trained élite armies, Israel just a makeshift militia, consisting of men who had other things to do, and who therefore are not the best well trained soldiers. Case in point, the Temple Guard is what caught Jesus, in Gethsemani, and they were so inefficient that Petrus could cut off a man's ear and survive that. That would never have happened with the Romans doing the arrest. Picture other nations as having well trained professional armies, except Moab, and then the odds are what they would seem to be according to Deuteronomy 7.

Now, there is another problem — how did they grow from a population of 70 to a population of 2.4 million or whatever, in 215 years?

70 * 1.05²¹⁵ = 2 516 502, pretty exactly the 2.4 million described.

A further possibility is, after the 40 years, the Israelites in the Desert had actually become fewer, not more numerous, than just after the Exodus.

Other problem, third one:

When Israel conducted their census of the Levites and the firstborn from the rest of the tribes (Numbers 3:39, 46), the number of firstborn males is recorded as just over twenty thousand. Using the traditional interpretation of 600,000 adult males implies that firstborns made up only 1 out of every 30 men. If that were the case, the average Israelite family would have about 60 children, boys and girls combined. This reckoning seems unreasonable.

Here is a tentative solution:

39 All the Levites, that Moses and Aaron numbered according to the precept of the Lord, by their families, of the male kind from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand. 40 And the Lord said to Moses: Number the firstborn of the male sex of the children of Israel, from one month and upward, and thou shalt take the sum of them.

41 And thou shalt take the Levites to me for all the firstborn of the children of Israel, I am the Lord: and their cattle for all the firstborn of the cattle of the children of Israel: 42 Moses reckoned up, as the Lord had commanded, the firstborn of the children of Israel: 43 And the males by their names, from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three.

I think the solution is, they were only counting first born who were still children, not adolescents or people serving in the militia. The first-born children of the other tribes correspond roughly speaking to the total of males in the Levite tribe. If someone was an adolescent or fully adult before the Exodus, before the law was given, the sacrifice did not apply. So, no, the text would not suggest families of 60 children per couple, unless the population were trimmed downward.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Dominica in Albis
7.IV.2024