Did The LORD "originally have a wife called Ashera"?

IV Kings 21:7 He set also an idol of the grove, which he had made, in the temple of the Lord: concerning which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son: In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever.

So, yes, unlike what some on a livestream were saying to a random objector to Catholicism - there actually was an Asherah idol in the temple.

But the thing is, the culprit was not Solomon but Manasses.

Check out verses 1 to 3 in the same chapter:

Manasses was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Haphsiba. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the idols of the nations, which the Lord destroyed from before the face of the children of Israel. And he turned, and built up the high places which Ezechias his father had destroyed: and he set up altars to Baal, and made groves, as Achab the king of Israel had done: and he adored all the host of heaven, and served them.

Now, I think Ezechias was around the time of Romulus - but King David was in times between the Fall of Troy and the founding of Rome.

The documents we have in the four books of kings (or two books, one of Samuel, one of Kings, or four books again, two of Samuel, two of Kings) do not say that the Asherah idol originally was part of the temple, but that this came as an intrusion, just as it would be totally erroneous to pretend St. Peter was venerating Pachamama back before Nero had him crucified, just because an intruder was doing so very recently, and arguably fairly close to the dark chapters of the Apocalypse.

But some people like to cherry pick some line of a document and ignore the rest.

I told the person he (or she?) was preferring fantasy novels on religious history over the actual documents. But it is true that this particular false goddess actually at one point was idolised in the Temple of the true God.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Eve of Holy Cross
13.IX.2022

Did Helcias and Saphan Invent the Torah?

somewhere else: Did Helcias and Saphan Invent the Torah? · Great Bishop of Geneva!: What About the Scroll of the Law that was Mislaid?

They found it. If you are reading NIV instead of Douay Rheims, you are probably spelling it Hilkiah and Shaphan.

The text is II or IV Kings, chapter 22 (we who prefer saying IV Kings use II Kings for what some others call II Samuel).

DRBO : 4th Book of Kings (2 Kings) Chapter 22
https://drbo.org/chapter/12022.htm

2 Kings 22, New International Version (NIV)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings%2022&version=NIV

[8] And Helcias the high priest said to Saphan the scribe: I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord: and Helcias gave the book to Saphan, and he read it. [9] And Saphan the scribe came to the king, and brought him word again concerning that which he had commanded, and said: Thy servants have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and they have given it to be distributed to the workmen, by the overseers of the works of the temple of the Lord. [10] And Saphan the scribe told the king, saying: Helcias the priest hath delivered to me a book. And when Saphan had read it before the king, [11] And the king had heard the words of the law of the Lord, he rent his garments. [12] And he commanded Helcias the priest, and Ahicam the son of Saphan, and Achobor the son of Micha, and Saphan the scribe, and Asaia the king's servant, saying: [13] Go and consult the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Juda, concerning the words of this book which is found: for the great wrath of the Lord is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened to the words of this book, to do all that is written for us.

Challoner comments:

[8] "The book of the law": That is, Deuteronomy

And that is credible from context, as Deuteronomy 28 spells out misfortunes for disobeying the law.

Was this a coup de théatre with a newly produced book falsely given antiquity from Moses' time?

The holy faith says, this is not so. But supposing it were, it would arguably be to add the curses in Deuteronomy 28:[15] But if thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day, all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. - and following verses up to the end of the chapter.

And if so, the answer of the prophetess was also a coup de théatre ... meant to scare people into following the law, even if it was basically too late.

I find it even humanly speaking more credible, someone found a book, it involved a curse which recent events had triggered, and it was delayed ...

But the idea that all of the Torah was faked on this occasion, like they had never had any Torah before - it was referenced in Joshua's, probably Samuel's and Solomon's times.

[25] And Samuel told the people the law of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord: and Samuel sent away all the people, every one to his own house.
[1 Kings (1 Samuel) 10:25]

Haydock comment:

Ver. 25. Before the Lord. It seems that the ark was therefore present. This record of Samuel is lost, so that we cannot determine what laws he prescribed on this occasion. C. --- Josephus (vi. 5.) says that he wrote and read in the hearing of all, and in the presence of the king, what evils would ensue under the regal government; and deposited the writing in the tabernacle, that the truth of the prediction might be ascertained. He probably alludes to the denunciation of tyranny, which had been made C. viii. and which he says Samuel repeated on this occasion. But the prophet would also take a copy of the law of the kingdom, prescribed by Moses, (Deut. xvii.) and deliver it to Saul, that he might make it the rule of his conduct, and not imitate the wicked customs of tyrants. H. --- The whole process of this memorable event he would also write down, (M.) as we read it at present in this chapter, placing it in the proper order, as a continuation of the sacred history which Moses and Josue had commenced; and like them, depositing the sacred volume beside the ark, or in the tabernacle. See Jos. xxiv. 26. H.

So, for Samuel's time, we only have probable. But we have clear references to the law from other times, as said.

Stating that the Torah was invented by Helcias and Saphan would imply they started a steamrolling cascade of forgeries on forgeries. It would be technically easier to achieve a faked moonlanding (pictures and all) for Apollo 11 than for this to be true, there are so many more who would have needed to be in on it.

So, no, it was inherited. Those hiding it away - probably from Athalia, though I have that from Bible Pix and not from the Bible text - or dropping it had people know of it already in Joas' time, when he succeeded Athalia's usurpation.

[12] And he brought forth the king's son, and put the diadem upon him, and the testimony: and they made him king, and anointed him: and clapping their hands. they said, God save the king.
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 11:12]

Challoner comments:

[12] "The testimony": The book of the law.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Stephen of Hungary
2.IX.2022

Psalm 21 / 22 "pierced my hands" or "like a lion my hands"

Discussion refusing to get into the historic Jewish-Christian blame game:

Pod For Israel - NEVER BEFORE HEARD Theory about Ps. 22 - DON'T MISS THIS!
25th July 2022 | ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UxP74NnPU

In this episode of Pod For Israel, Anastasia an Dr. Seth Postell discuss with us a groundbreaking discovery in understanding Psalm 22.

Case in point about unintentional changes. Should have been:

In this episode of Pod For Israel, Anastasia anD Dr. Seth Postell discuss with us a groundbreaking discovery in understanding Psalm 22.

Ketef Hinnom scrolls

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

Gabriel Barkay is interviewed on this video (starting before time signature 48:52 where I am right now).

Sifting The Evidence: The World of the Bible (Parts 1 and 2) | Dr. Chris Sinkinson
7th May 2022 | Vision Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQeZssBNbo

He considers the texts on the scrolls as Biblical. The divergences could then be considered as textual variants./HGL

Nativity Narrative Revisited

Nativity Narrative Revisited · "and all Jerusalem with him"

somewhere else: Nativity Narrative Revisited · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Joseph in Bethlehem

Nativity Narrative Revisited · Census Complaints, as Per a Video by Testify, Answers, Comparing His View with My Previous One

Here is a video, I'd have loved to put at least two comments below:

Fact-checking the Bible | David Ellis Dickerson
6th June 2018 | TED Archive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MnCjpw7iBI

There is a problem with this approach, namely "Les commentaires sont désactivés. En savoir plus" ... that's why this article is here, and not on Assorted Retorts.

But the description before my "comments", here, from under the video:

In this hilarious talk, David Ellis Dickerson shares his experience writing wholesome Bible trivia for the Emmy-winning TV show “American Bible Challenge,” a show that split its contestants into teams who answer questions that draw from the Old and New Testaments. Writing these questions was, to say the least, challenging.

And now, for my three "comments"

I

4:34 "why in the world would you have a census that required people to go back to their ancestral homeland, when the whole point of a census is to found out where you are now, so we can get your tax money?"

Let's see what the text says on the terms of the census:

Luke 2:3 And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city.
sec. Lucam 2:3 et ibant omnes ut profiterentur singuli in suam civitatem.

And I'm pretty sure, Nestle Aland also has the Greek for "into his own city" and not "into his fathers' city" ... so, what happened?

I see exactly two options. Feel free to use the word "heard" instead of "read" in the following. I doubt pronvincials were offered papers explaining the orders.

A) St. Joseph read the terms as written in a Roman context, and applied them according to a Hebrew one by infamiliarity with the Roman one;
B) St. Joseph read the terms as written in a Roman context, and applied them according to a Hebrew one in order to circumvent the order.

There is basically no possibility that St. Joseph was simply applying the order as it was meant. I'll come back to an acquaintance's theory which contradicts this, but apart from his theory, no. If it was a tax census, St. Joseph made a pilpul on the terms of a legislation to circumvent it, like Pharisees (the generation contemporary to Our Lord!) did to the law of God, but he just did it to the law of Caesar.

Now, a simple question is, why not simply stay in the city where you have a house?

Let's take a modern census. You have a flat in Paris where you live ten months of the year, and a house in Bretagne where you live part of the time that you are free. Your call to income declaration happens to come when you are for some reason in the vacation house. Should you send it to the proper Municipalité in Bretagne, or to the proper Arrondissement in Paris? Well, if you spend ten months in the Paris flat, it's safe to say the Paris flat is your "principal homestead" meaning where your declaration goes, even if you are in Bretagne where you write it.

No state in the world would find it more reassuring to make your census declaration go to the office of whereever you happened to be right when and where you heard the order, whoever you were and whatever your particular circumstances. I am sure France would not go like this:

• "thank you dear police for delivering me from the kidnappers, would you kindly help me to get to Paris, I will send you money later?" - "no, you have only to tomorrow to do your income declaration, you must do it here"
• "ah how nice to see my children again, picking them up from the summer camp - how about the train to Paris?" - "excuse me sir, have you already made your income declaration?" - "no" - "well, all of you need to stay here until that is done" - "but my business is in Paris!" - "doesn't matter!"
• "ah, fine to sign a contract with you maestro, see you again in Paris" - "well, I think tax officials over here would prefer you to stay over night to make your declaration of income ..."
• "so, I'll be late to leave in my taxable income declaration in Lille, on monday" - "no, you must do it now, here in Marseilles" - "but I was just over for a prolonged business trip" - "still, the priority is putting in the declarations on time!" - "but I don't have any money or assets here, they are all in Lille!" - "no problem, we don't really want your money, we want the census, that's all!"

So, even in very modern circumstances - I'll take these parodies of a uchrony to refer to a reality without internet or fax - where one is is not always where one should make the census or declaration.

But ... if you change your work and get a work in Bretagne, near your house, instead, that suddenly becomes your principal homestead. It's a thing that can very normally change over a life. You are a citizen of France (if you are), not a citizen of Paris or of a municipality of Brittany.

Now, not all countries work quite like this even now. I think, if you move from San Francisco to New York City, while you are either place a citizen of the Federation, you are also for some time (I think) still a citizen of California before you do the paperwork to become one in New York State. But I could be mistaken. Perhaps those who moved to New York City on September 5th last year, could no longer vote for (or against, not checked which I would) Gavin Newsom on September 14 last year. Perhaps they would need to do no paperwork except on adresses to vote for or against Kathy Hochul this year. But I think there would be a case for some paperwork between voting Governors of California and voting Governors of New York State, beyond just registering the adress change ...

Certainly, in the Holy Roman Empire, you could be a citizen of the 343:rd state (Liechtenstein, now a sovereign state without an army) even if you were residing in Vienna (currently an enclave in Nether Austria, residence of Emperors back then). Within the Holy Roman Empire, an entity like Liechtenstein or Austria (smaller and bigger than present so named state) or Salzburg (not yet part of Austria!) or Bohemia (quasidependent on Austria) would in a very clear sense be your city. If it involved any kind of voting (most didn't as to the supreme government of it, but typically one would be voting on some subordinate level), that was where you could vote.

But taxes? Well, I have a feeling even if Mozart was a citizen of Salzburg, he may have paid taxes in Vienna when he lived there or in Prague when he lived there, unless his incomes were below poverty level ...

But the old and pagan Roman Empire, to get back to the actual business at hand? Well, here we are speaking partly of artisans and partly also of landowners. If you were a citizen of Mantua, you probably had land in Mantua. You may be in Rome for some subordinate monetary business, but it was in Mantua you had your land, so, even if you lived in Rome all year round, you went to Mantua ... except, again, neither Romans, nor Mantuans, actually paid taxes. Provincials did. Citzens didn't. The concept of citizens paying taxes actually is from later on when some late Emperor made all pronvincials citizens, not sure if it was under the Antonines or even later. By then, getting taxes at all needed citizens to pay taxes, no one left inside who wasn't a citizen (or a slave) and no one outside who could be forced to pay taxes.

Now, in St. Joseph's day, Galilee was already a Roman Province. Judaea was semi-sovereign, like Puerto Rico, with Herod as its quasi-sovereign king. By going from Galilee to Judaea, St. Joseph managed to do tax evasion, at least on this first occasion of the census. On arrival in Bethlehem, no mention there was any Roman census official to actually take up St. Joseph's name and status.

We can nearly see the scene ... "so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehn, good by-ye" ...

St. Joseph : "excuse us, we need to go on a journey"
Roman Centurion : "but you surely are going to make your census, aren't you?"
St. Joseph : "well, the rule says to go to your own city" (meaning province / "state" in the Roman Empire, in the original sense) "and I am going to my own city" (Jewish sense : city of my ancestors).
Roman Centurion : "off you go, and God speed your journey"

Perhaps it was even a less problematic than that (as with von Trapps not actually walking over Alps to Switzerland, but taking a train to Italy - note that it is my reconstruction that I compare to Hammerstein and the Gospel that I compare to "The von Trapp family singers"), since Seppora where St. Joseph would perhaps have been an associate at carpentry, was hiring lots of labour from afar, and St. Joseph could have been simply residing (not as a citizen) for his limited time's work (which was going to get different after Egypt, see Matthew).

II

The point about Matthew and Luke, he admits there is no straight contradiction, even if that requires some "narrative twiggling."

That the Bible is messy, sure. We know the full content of Christmas story, Nazareth to Bethlehem for Nativity, from Luke, Bethlehem, to Temple, to Bethlehem, to Egypt to Nazareth, from Matthew, but full sequence figured out, from tradition, counting these as two parts of same story.

III

7:38 "... because if you saw the whole thing raw and uncut, you would never trust it blindly again - thank you!"

Well, I am not trusting it blindly, I am just trusting it more after I have seen the issues than before!

Thank you!

PS, an afterthought, instead of going to my earlier friend's theory on the matter ... the wording in the Gospel, would it be the official one from Rome, or would it be the one as accessible to St. Joseph, to Our Lady and to Our Lord over His blessed childhood?

In a modern setting, this would coincide. The governmental body would invest in a printing press that would then print out as many examples of the official order as they thought were needed, and some beyond that and would also make sure the post office distributed it to every citizen's or sometimes every resident's mailbox. Now, postal offices were invented about 1500 - 1600 years later, by Turn und Taxis in the Holy Roman Empire, printing presses (using movable type in Latin letters) were invented c. 1450 years after this event, while papyrus was available from Egypt and cheaper than the later prevailing parchment, it was still more expensive than our paper, and especially writing by scribes was more costly than printing, so, this was impossible.

St. Luke is giving us the order as available to the Holy Family, that is as a Roman official, perhaps a centurion, pronounced it in Seppora or Nazareth proper when conveying the order. He might have been tired, angry, wanted to joke around with the locals by being impressive, or whatever. We cannot be sure he used the exact words of Caesar's order (though "own city" would be correct, for reasons stated, more like "all the world" would be a simplification or intimidating brag). And St. Luke is not claiming to be a historian of Roman administration (though the words on Quirinius cannot be an error), he's claiming to be a biographer of Our Lord. Therefore, the wording of the order he is giving, inerrantly, is the one accessible at that occasion to the Holy Family./HGL

Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels?

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Bart answered ... · Continuing with Leo Yohansen · With Leo Yohensen, Snappy Version · Leo Yohansen is Back · somewhere else : Apostles and St. Irenaeus · Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen

Silent Reading is a fairly recent invention.

I think it was St. Augustine who got surprised at St. Ambrose bending over a book, not voicing anything, but still apparently attentive and so apparently reading.

I have this from C. S. Lewis, and I forget which work. And it's so long ago, it could be the reverse, but the roles of the two people (bishop Ambrose teaching rhetoric to an as yet pagan Augustine) suggest I got it right.

Now, what has silent reading have to do with this? This: in a narrative read by a silent reader (after c. 380 AD), the reader may imagine the first person as speaking directly to him. But prior to this, standard procedure of reading was asking a slave to read to you, aloud.

You would not imagine the slave as actually the first person narrator.

Even if a priest read a certain text in Church, or earlier on in the Temple or the Tabernacle, during the Old Testament, you would not imagine the Cohen as Moses, especially if the first Cohen Gadol was Moses' brother Aaron, and you would not imagine the Christian priest as St. Luke watching St. Paul raise the dead boy or as The Beloved Disciple.

The use of first person in any kind of narrative was rare.

In the case of Augustus Caesar, steles were raised with his self account in the first person, very few are left, one very complete one being in modern day Ankara, back then Ancyra, therefore the text is known as Monumentum Ancyranum. Probably having the priest to Augustus (who was deified) read from the Stele did not work very well for imagining Augustus speaking. And the show being bad was called off in more than one place.

So, what was the solution? Moses wrote of himself in the third person, so did Julius Caesar, and so did the Beloved Disciple. This way, when someone else was reading the story, aloud to you, you did not need to be able to imagine that someone as the narrator speaking to you of his own life - the authors imagined how someone else would sound when speaking of them.

One of the first longer accounts in he first person was speech number 1 by Libanius. Speeches by orators were typically (first time over at least) performed by the orator himself who had written them. Except when the first person of the speech was their client, back in Athens - and the orator was coaching the performance of the client before he spoke on his own behalf (but not without all the aid of an orator).

The persons who claim, the lack of first person in Torah and Gospels, as well as Acts, prove the authors are not Moses, actual disciples, or St. Luke, are simply handicapped in cultural history. And for one, haven't read Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars or even Asterix, where Goscinny ridicules this "speeking of himself in the third person" as if it were a personal foible of Caesar.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Ember Wednesday after Epiphany*
12.I.2022

* No Ember days after Epiphany, I misplaced the Ember days after As Wednesday ... my bad.

Apostles and St. Irenaeus

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Bart answered ... · Continuing with Leo Yohansen · With Leo Yohensen, Snappy Version · Leo Yohansen is Back · somewhere else : Apostles and St. Irenaeus · Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen

I got a reply about the two categories after I had stated we know from tradition that such and such wrote the Gospels, and he answered sth about "anonymous" and "rumours named them after characters in a fictional account" ... I wondered if he considered St. Irenaeus as a character in a fictional account too.

No, he didn't, obviously. But that leaves the question where you draw the line.

If we agree that Spidey and all of his surroundings are fictional, to give kind of a parallel to the situation, it would be like saying "we all know Daily Bugle" and "Randy Robertson was just on the news with an interview" ... while still denying that John Jonah Jameson Jr. ever hired any Peter Parker to The DB.

I can live with a Daily Bugle that starts fictional and continues to this day fictional. I could live with a Daily Bugle that starts real and continues real to this day (if I had better evidence than Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, known as fiction providers) - but presuming that the Daily Bugle started out as a fictional paper and transformed into a real life one staggers credibility.

And The Ekklesia is parallel* - obviously St. Irenaeus claims to be part of the same ekklesia that started out "in fictional accounts" when Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John or when St. Peter preached on the 50th day from Resurrection day.

When did you see Randy Robertson come out as saying "yeah, daddy - Joseph "Robbie" Robertson - had to dismiss Peter Parker from The Daily Bugle, when news came out he was Spiderman, but the dismissal was perfectly honourable and we had a farewell party" or words of such effect, and from an outlet known for news and not fiction?/HGL

* Except Christ was not exactly an employee of it!

Some Have Claimed Ezra Wrote Moses

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

Well, they would claim:

Ezra wrote "Moses"

as they don't recognise Moses as a historical person or as a real author. And likewise kings David and Solomon are a mythical touch to two kingdoms that had broadly speaking the same religion, but had never been actually one single united kingdom. It was all invented during the exile.

Horseback riding in regular use, especially military such or for hunting, was invented some time in 800 BC by the Assyrians.

If the story of Genesis and Exodus were written after this, and if the story of kings David and Solomon were written after this, why did those inventing "myths" not put horseback riding as a regular and utilitary feature into these "myths"? It would have been within their experience. With no real historic tradition from before this time, they would have had no means of checking that horseriding hadn't been practised earlier.

Yet ... Absalom rode a mule and would not have ridden the mule in battle (or presumably even for hunting). Horses and their bits tend to come behind chariots, even into the time of King David. If Ezra had been inspired by Babylonian culture without any own historical culture, how would he have known?

Yet, someone knew, as I noted in the PS of Centaurs Revisited:

Did riding exist in the time of King David? According to above, it shouldn't have. So, I looked for the Latin case forms of "equus" in the psalms:

These, first of all, have no relation unambiguously to riding:

Nolite fieri sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus. In camo et freno maxillas eorum constringe, qui non approximant ad te.
[Psalms 31:9]

Fallax equus ad salutem; in abundantia autem virtutis suae non salvabitur.
[Psalms 32:17]

Non in fortitudine equi voluntatem habebit, nec in tibiis viri beneplacitum erit ei.
[Psalms 146:10]

Hi in curribus, et hi in equis; nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invocabimus.
[Psalms 19:8]

This one, of course, does:

Ab increpatione tua, Deus Jacob, dormitaverunt qui ascenderunt equos.
[Psalms 75:7]

But : In finem, in laudibus. Psalmus Asaph, canticum ad Assyrios. It's not a psalm of David, but one of Asaph.

But didn't Absalom ride when his hair got stuck in a tree?

And it happened that Absalom met the servants of David, riding on a mule: and as the mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and the earth, the mule on which he rode passed on.
[II Kings 18:9]

He rode a mule, not a horse. Mule riding and donkey riding is older and it is not used in battle.

So far my PS ... so, the Ezra idea of Mosaic authorship should be at least somewhat shaken by the accuracy about conditions centuries older than Ezra in which there were no horseriders.

There is another idea which is also ludicrous, and I have seen AronRa propose it - the Tower of Babel story records the loss of one common language.

• First, cuneiform writing had been used for both Sumerian and Akkadian (two languages about as different as Chinese and Japanese) since centuries before the exile.
• Second, the cuneiform writing was not lost, it continued to be in a somewhat more restricted use after the fall of Babylon for a few centuries more, up to 1st C BC for last Sumerian and 1st C AD for last Akkadian texts.
• Third, Aramaic immediately took over as new official language, and it was a more practical one, closer to the actual spoken languages.

In other words, the non-miraculous event pretended to be behind the Tower of Babel story is impossible historically. It's as impossible as Queen Victoria getting exited at watching Back to the Future. Or C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien plagiarising George Lucas' Star Wars. Or a huge civil war breaking out in Germany when Hitler died, due to the power vacuum. This is impossible as in truly impossible, whether miracles be possible or not.

As a matter of fact, I think miracles are possible. But even if they weren't, that "explanation" behind the linguistic miracle of Babel would be Scooby Doo on an entirely wrong track.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Matthew, Apostle
21.IX.2021

John Shelby Spong Decided to be Wrong ...

Progressing Spirit had a new article on historicity of the Gospels, with the Questioner asking what we can historically actually know, given that, on their common view, Matthew is supposed to be liturgy which by definition is supposed to be non-historic.

I just finished Bishop Spong’s book arguing for Matthew as 1st century synagogue liturgy. ... Accepting that the Gospel accounts of events in Jesus and the disciples’ lives are nonhistorical creations intended to reach Jews in a traditional Jewish liturgical framework,

which obviously leads up to the question:

what *did* Jesus do and say that made the God’s presence in human life so clear to his followers, that it was worth teaching about in synagogues 50 years later?

Now, the obvious stumbling block is Spong's assumption (according to the Questioner Hugh's resumé) that liturgy by definition is non-historical.

It would be a very Protestant approach to imagine the Martyrology entries are non-historical, and it would be a very ignorant approach to imagine they are not liturgy. The Martyrology was read at a specific entry in the liturgy of hours, during Matins.

In Pagan liturgy too, namely Greek tragedy, the fact that the context is a liturgy of Dionysus doesn't mean that the tragedies are supposed to be non-historical (note, in the case of dialogues, it was accepted that dialogues were fictional renderings of what was said rather than straight recordings, but as the dialogue snippets in the Gospels are much shorter, this need not have been the case with these, as with predecessors even back to Genesis).

Disqualifying liturgy and other religious text types from being thereby historical accounts would definitely leave us with questions like the follow up by Hugh.

Behind the proposition, sometimes you do find rank atheism, but in this case it's revolutionary para-Christianity:

But then matters changed. As the disciples died a new generation of followers arose and the thinking and organization of the “Way” changed dramatically. The written gospels took shape in different locales with different purposes, and so also did other Christian writings of the same period. Much of that writing makes it painfully obvious that a reaction to the revolutionary impetus of Jesus and his disciples had set in. If Jesus had manifested equality of caring and sharing in the community of friends, much of the later writing rejects that vision, epitomized in the warning of 1 Timothy that slaves obey masters, women obey men, the church obey the bishops, and everyone obey the rulers. Not what Jesus had in mind.

So, Dr. Carl Krieg claims to know what Jesus had in mind despite tradition and despite texts accepted by tradition as by contemporaries (directly with Matthew and John, by intermediates who took good note with Marc and Luke). With such an agenda - for his agenda is showing "Jesus" forth as a prophet for Lenin - he has a vested interest in the pretexts that Spong and others invent for not taking the texts as what tradition accepted them as.

Then the fact that such apostates with "Christian" sugarcoating invest their erudition and reputation as scholars into such wild schemes helps atheists to pretend "we don't know who wrote the Gospels."

We do, but some don't want to know.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts Dorotheus and Gorgonius
9.IX.2021

Quoting first entry for today's martyrology:

Nicomediae passio sanctorum Martyrum Dorothei et Gorgonii, qui, cum essent apud Diocletianum Augustum honores amplissimos consecuti, et persecutionem, quam ille Christianis inferebat, detestarentur, praesente eo, jussi sunt primo appendi, et flagris toto corpore laniari; deinde, visceribus pelle nudatis, aceto et sale perfundi, sicque assari in craticula; atque, ad ultimum, laqueo necari. Interjecto autem tempore, beati Gorgonii corpus Romam delatum fuit, ac via Latina positum, et inde ad Basilicam sancti Petri translatum.

Of course the Gospels were meant for liturgic reading, that makes them a very conservative and well conserved text type. Like martyrologies./HGL

PS, it seems Jewish rejectors of Jesus are also into the game, an ex-Christian Muslim just recommended Geza Vermes.

He was also an apostate from Catholic priesthood.

And when getting back to the Judaism he came from, very badly wanted to get Jesus with him, so badly he was willing to invent "Christian editing" adding fake stories to the Gospels. He pretended even the reachout to Samaritans was an invention, not a fact.

He died 2013 and is arguably in Hell.

Also in Paris, Vermes befriended and worked with Paul Demann, a scholar, like him, of Hungarian Jewish origins.[7] Together with a third collaborator, Renee Bloch, they battled doggedly against the anti-Semitic content in Catholic education and ritual of the time.[7] The Second Vatican Council would later accept many of the trio's theological arguments.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Vermes

With footnote 7 referring to:

Geza Vermes, Hungarian Bible Scholar Who Returned to Jewish Roots, Dies at 88
Benjamin Ivry | May 15, 2013
https://forward.com/news/176752/geza-vermes-hungarian-bible-scholar-who-returned-t/

The One Myth that is True?

New blog on the kid: Was C.S. Lewis refuted by Elisabeth Anscombe? · somewhere else: The One Myth that is True?

C.S. Lewis:

Baldr, Osiris, how come Jesus isn't also a myth?

J.R.R. Tolkien:

Of course it is, but it's the one myth that is true.

T.W. Rolleston:

[named a book Celtic Myths and Legends]

How come Baldr and Osiris are untrue myths and Jesus is a true one?

Now, I would say definitely that Baldr is an untrue myth, the Danes seemed to have kept a memory from before they became Odinists of Odin simply grieving over a Baldr killed in battle (see Saxo). The ideas later spread of Baldr being killed by Hodr and then ruling a land of blessed dead in the underworld is simply a rip off from the Osiris story.

Osiris could have lived and been killed by his brother Seth and had his wife and sister impregnated by some primitive type of artificial insemination, but the parts about his then going on to rule the blessed dead in the netherworld is an error. It's wishful thinking on part of those grieving. It involves no immediate nor any observed resurrection.

With Perseus, I don't deny he killed a dragon to save Andromeda. I do deny he went up to heaven to form a star constellation and that she did so.

Romulus, Perseus, perhaps (as said, it's more questionable to me) Osiris were played out by real men, before their eyes. Like Ulysses getting home to Ithaca, like Aeneas leaving Troy.

What one would normally mean by "divine myth" (Göttersage in German) are things like Apollo chasing Daphne and then turning her to a laurel tree or Ymer proceeding with the cow Audhumbla from a mixture of ice and fire. If true, we would not have seen it, and it concerns the divine.

What one would normally mean by "heroic legend" (Heldensage in German) is - if true - played out before human eyes.

Sometimes these overlap, as with Romulus : it is divine myth that he and Remus were sired by Apollo or that he vanished and was taken up to the gods and one ows him worship. It is heroic legend that he and Remus had a part semi-feral upbringing (semi-feral, since having each other, if no adult humans around among the wolves, or with the she-wolf). It is also so that they revenged their at least reputed grandfather Numitor on the grand-uncle Amulius and that they founded Rome, on which occasion Romulus hit too hard, namely with a sword, and killed Remus.

Now, I would definitely say that in the divine myth part of mythology (the pure divine myths, and the divine myth part of overlapping myths/legends) Pagans were bad theologers. Their views include errors. But I would equally say, that in the heroic legend part of it (pure heroic legends and the heroic legend part of overlapping myths/legends), they were decently good historians.

Hercules was a strong man, and wrongly taken to be son of Zeus. Romulus and Remus were sired mysteriously (bad guarding or demonic versions of medically assisted procreation) and belligerent and victorious and this was wrongly taken to mean they were sons of Mars. Nothing in the lives indicates any serious claim to real divinity, except to Pagans who have low bars. Hercules restoring Alcestis to life could be plagiarised from an event older than the oldest telling we know of Alcestis, namely Elias raising the boy.

Gospels are far nearer, and Jesus raising dead and even, very uniquely, resurrecting without someone else raising Him, that argues the divine of some sort. And the Church, founded on a basis of pious Hebrews, give a faithful recording, both of the miracles and of the claims to be God, the Son.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St.Henry I
15.VII.2021

Do Different Interpretations of Christianity Make God a Liar if Existant?

somewhere else: Do Different Interpretations of Christianity Make God a Liar if Existant? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: OceanKeltoi on The Interpretation Argument ...

Lita Cosner answered a question for CMI, but not on Creation Science. It is more into general Christian apologetics, though it has ramifications into my specifically Catholic apologetics.

Here is the article:

The ‘interpretation argument’: an irrefutable argument against Christianity?
Published: 26* June 2021 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/interpretation-argument

Here are two arguments by the arguer who is there answered, both are right:

1. For any event God wants, he knows how to bring it about (omniscience)
2. For any event God wants, he is capable of bringing it about (omnipotence)
Therefore: If God chooses to bring about a particular event, it must occur.

1. For any message God wants to communicate, he knows how to communicate it such that it will be interpreted correctly
2. For any message God wants to communicate, he is capable of communicating it such that it will be interpreted correctly
Therefore: If God chooses to communicate a message it must be interpreted correctly.

I absolutely agree to both.

I also consider there is freewill and there is the fall. It would be contradictory for God to want to have any message ONLY interpreted correctly, overriding freewill with mistakes and overriding sin, so the consequence of error doesn't occur.

If God chooses to communicate a message it must be interpreted correctly.

Correct as it stands. This does not mean:

"If God chooses to communicate a message it must be interpreted ONLY correctly."

But there must be a means for a man of goodwill to get to know the difference, if it is important to him and the matter is important.

The solution is, there must be some kind of "denomination" (for want of a better word) which is not just a denomination, but outstanding.

There exist two types of claim to being that:

• the claim of having preserved unaltered apostolic tradition;
• the claim of having restored correctly a previously altered apostolic tradition.

Modern Anglicans claim neither.

Roman Catholics, Greek or Slavic or Eastern Orthodox, Copts, Armenians, Assyrians claim the former. So du certain Baptists with Baptist Continuity theory.

Mormons, JW, Church of God, and if I get them correctly, Messianic Jews as well, make the latter claim.

Now, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Anglicans, Calvinists once upon a time used to be making the claim, not quite "we have successfully and correctly restored the true apostolic tradition" (though I think Lutheran Orthodoxy in Sweden came fairly close to making it), but at least "we are in the process of restoring the apostolic tradition that the RCC bungled or perverted intentionally" - the kind of claim the JW sect would be making for Charles Taze Russell back when he was reconsidering whether rapture was Biblical doctrine or Christian tradition.

This would mean, on a first approximation, look to those making the claim of perfect doctrine.

However, there is a second approximation to make, namely to avoid the restorationist type of claim. I don't mean claims of restoring papacy after a gap of 32 years, I adher to one such claim myself, but more like claims of restoring Bible obedience after gaps of centuries. The reason is, messages of God supposedly "stantis et cadentis ecclesiae" would have been for centuries inaccessible to men of good will.

On the other hand, the mainstream of either RCC or EOC would by now accept Evolution - no way that could be part of apostolic tradition or the accomodations it now calls for (I have recently seen RC or so called such denying the individuality of Adam, a Babylonic trait in theology, and a documented such, since Babylonian "gods" were supposed to create mankind directly on a collective level, fit for working to make their celestial lives a bit easier with sacrifices of food) being accomodations that apostolic tradition allows.

One could take the view this mainstream only allows evolutionism, but this seems less and less likely to be true. Once it de facto demands it, for instance by stamping Young Earth Creationists not just as kooks in the colloquial sense, but as mentally ill, that departure from Apostolic tradition seems to be already done. Such RC are not RC, such an RCC is not the RCC. Similar observations for EOC.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. William the Confessor
founder of Order of Monte Vergine
25.VI.2021

* CMI articles are published in Australian Time Zone, available while it is still previous date in Western Europe.

Does 3.14 in any sense mean 3?

"Also a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass: it was five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about."
[2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 4:2]

"He made also a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round all about; the height of it was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about."
[3 Kings (1 Kings) 7:23]

Sounds like someone rounded off 3 point 14 to 3, right?

Now, I was told early on by my mother that "pi" is "tre komma 14" (3,14 as per non-English for instance Swedish notation of decimals) and that area of a circle was "radius times radius times pi" and circumference was "radius times two times pi".

But here the circumference seems to be only 3 times the diameter, as if pi had shrunk?

The mathematical solution is arguably hidden in plain sight a few verses further down:

Now the thickness of it was a handbreadth, and the brim of it was like the brim of a cup, or of a crisped lily: and it held three thousand measures.

And the laver was a handbreadth thick: and the brim thereof was like the brim of a cup, or the leaf of a crisped lily: it contained two thousand bates.

When measuring the diameter from brim to brim, you measure across the top. And you hold the measure strings on the outside of the brim.

When measuring the circumference compassing it round about, you hold the measure string, the "line" as it was called, end to end with all around the "molten sea" at its cylinder below the rim, a handbreadth further in. They are diameter and circumference of two different but concentric (and vertically somewhat displaced) circles. Pi is still pi. Hat tip to Jonathan Sarfati for this solution!

King Solomon would have known a fairly exact value of pi from Egypt. He would also have known Babylonians round it off to three (Mesopotamians had made two incursions into the Holy Land, see Genesis 14 and Judges 3. He would have enjoyed the mathematical pun.

But there is another thing. As all patriarchs, prophets, priests and kings, he was aware of the Holy Trinity. He was also aware - by prophecy - that a certain passage in Exodus would be numbered as part of chapter 3 (not yet in existance) and even later than that as verse 14. Here God gives His name, which is pronounced Adonai.

So, by "making pi equal 3" he was stating "the Trinity is Adonai" or "the Father is Adonai, the Son is Adonai, the Holy Spirit is Adonai, yet not three Adonaim, but one Adonai" as St. Athanasius was going to write later on.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Boniface of Frisia
5.VI.2021