Easy refutation of Pantheism : God is not Wrong

I was told by the friend of a friend on FB she was God and so was I.

In that case the girls* who contrived to kill a comrade in order to please Slender Man were presumably too.

But that cannot be. Being so deluded happens to created and fallen mankind, not to God./HGL

* Only age twelve! What is Modern School and Harry Potter and Evolution and Atheism doing to our young ones?

It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

I looked up Acharya Sanning - because Varg Vikernes and his fan Hermann Cherusci (sic!) so much reminded me of her position.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on a Theory of Neanderthals by "Scandinavian V." alias Varg Vikernes
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/05/on-theory-of-neanderthals-by.html

So, having looked up Acharya, one note of hers on TF caught my eye.

The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled by Acharya S/D.M. Murdock
http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm

Untangled? Was she giving a theory on how the forgery was done? Was there some stimulating mental wrestling for me to do?

I was a bit disappointed by that side when it came to the article, but rewarded in other respects.

Regarding the TF, as well as the James passage, which possesses the phrase James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, Jewish writer ben Yehoshua makes some interesting assertions:

"Neither of these passages is found in the original version of the Jewish Antiquities which was preserved by the Jews. The first passage (XVII, 3, 3) was quoted by Eusebius writing in c. 320 C.E., so we can conclude that it was added in some time between the time Christians got hold of the Jewish Antiquities and c. 320 C.E. It is not known when the other passage (XX, 9, 1) was added... Neither passage is based on any reliable sources. It is fraudulent to claim that these passages were written by Josephus and that they provide evidence for Jesus. They were written by Christian redactors and were based purely on Christian belief."

Yehoshua claims that the 12th century historian Gerald of Wales related that a "Master Robert of the Priory of St. Frideswide at Oxford examined many Hebrew copies of Josephus and did not find the 'testimony about Christ,' except for two manuscripts where it appeared [to Robert, evidently] that the testimony had been present but scratched out." Gerardus Vossius states that, since "scratching out" requires the removal of the top layers, the deleted areas in these mere two of the many copies likely did not provide any solid evidence that it was the TF that had been removed. Apologists will no doubt insist that these Hebrew texts are late copies and that Jewish authorities had the TF removed. This accusation of mutilating an author's work, of course, can easily be turned around on the Christians. Also, considering that Vossius purportedly possessed a copy of the Antiquities without the TF, it is quite possible that there were "many Hebrew copies" likewise devoid of the passage.

Well, first of all, whether TF or something else had been removed from the manuscript could pretty easily be determined by some considerations like the following:

• If erasure was not done thoroughly, some remains of a text - like the name Iehoshua, Hebrew for Jesus - or other word relevant for context (truth, justice) may have been still visible.
• One can see if the words after the erasure correspond to the words after the TF in the standard text.
• One can see if the length of the erasure corresponds to the length one presumes TF would have in Hebrew.
• And of course, if between the words preceding and following TF in standard text and erasure in two Hebrew copies, no other text variant than TF is known, that speaks very much for the erasure being TF.

Apologists will no doubt insist that these Hebrew texts are late copies and that Jewish authorities had the TF removed. This accusation of mutilating an author's work, of course, can easily be turned around on the Christians.

I have already done so - when defending TF as originally there but originally containing some antichristian stuff that Christians erased.

BUT saying Christians added sth is NOT just turning about the accusation that Jews erased something.

Adding something is rank forgery. No one can evade that evidence. Erasing something is sometimes considered as an act of piety. If, namely, as Hebrews would consider TF, the thing erased was considered as impious by the one erasing.

No, this is not so easy to turn around against Christians at all, if the mutilation is in that case addition rather than erasure. Rather, instead of turning the same accusation just around, this would be making a very much worse accusation.

So, of course I go with Gerald⁹ Cambrens⁹ on this one, and with his Master Robert of the Priory of St Frideswide at Oxford.

Also, considering that Vossius purportedly possessed a copy of the Antiquities without the TF, it is quite possible that there were "many Hebrew copies" likewise devoid of the passage.

Once the copies where TF was detected and scratched out had been recopied without the erased passage, there was no problem in multiplying copies and in destroying such as had the TF and were not needed. Vossius was a Renaissance or Baroque scholar, a Humanist, several centuries after Gerald of Wales and even more removed from Robert of the Oxford Priory.

One more question: which language did Josephus originally write in? If Hebrew, why would there by any trace of anything like TF in Hebrew manuscripts, unless it was originally there? And if not Hebrew, that takes away the worth of the many Hebrew manuscripts without the TF.

This was my first gain when looking up Acharya. But there is more.

Here is a list of her authorities - apart from the already cited scholar Yehoshua, who is Jewish and might dislike his Divine Namesake so much as to hope He was not history. I add remarks about what traditions they are from.

Sabine Baring-Gould

Sabine Baring-Gould (28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) was an English Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. ... He is remembered particularly as a writer of hymns, the best-known being "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Now the Day Is Over". He also translated the carol "Gabriel's Message" from the Basque language to the English. His forename is pronounced 'Say-Bin'.

Charles Warburton

Charles Mongan Warburton (born Terrence Charles Mongan;[N 1] 1754–1826) was a 19th-century Anglican bishop who served two Irish Dioceses.

Mongan was originally a Roman Catholic who recanted and joined the Anglican community. His brother was a Catholic priest.Terence Mongan was Chaplain of the 62nd Regiment of Foot, before which point he was using the name Charles Mongan.

Frederic Farrar

Frederic William Farrar (Mumbai [sic! = Bombay], 7 August 1831 – Canterbury, 22 March 1903) was a cleric of the Church of England (Anglican), schoolteacher and author.

John Remsburg

John Eleazer Remsburg (January 7, 1848 – 1919) was an ardent religious skeptic in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His name is sometimes spelled Remsberg.

Remsburg was born in Fremont, Ohio, a son of George J. and Sarah A. (Willey) Remsburg. He enlisted in the Union army at the age of sixteen during the American Civil War.[citation needed] On October 9, 1870, he married Miss Nora M. Eiler of Atchison, Kansas. He was a teacher for 15 years, a superintendent of public instruction in Atchison County, Kansas for four years, then a writer and lecturer in support of free thought, his lectures being translated into German, French, Bohemian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Bengali and Singalese.[citation needed] He was also a life member of the American Secular Union, of which he was president from 1897–1900, and a member of the Kansas State Horticultural Society. [citation needed]

...

Role in Christ Myth debate

In recent years a list of forty-two names from the "Silence of Contemporary Writers" chapter of The Christ (sometimes called the Remsberg List) has appeared in several books regarding the nonhistoricity hypothesis by authors such as James Patrick Holding,[2] Hilton Hotema,[3] Jawara D. King,[4] Madalyn Murray O'Hair,[5] D. M. Murdock and Robert M. Price,[6] Asher Norman,[7] Frank Zindler,[8] Tim C. Leedom et al,[9] as well as appearing in some 200 blog posts[citation needed] regarding the nonhistoricity hypothesis. This Remsburg List was improved upon in 2012 with the book No Meek Messiah, augmenting the number of "Silent Writers" to 126.

[In other words, he originated the stupid argument I have been previously refuting. Which I did with quotes from the good old wikipedia he had no access to.]

Nathaniel Lardner ?

Nathaniel Lardner (6 June 1684 – 24 July 1768) was an English theologian.

Theology

Lardner made a case against subordinationism of Samuel Clarke in which the eternal Logos unites with a human body in the man Jesus, opposed to the Trinitarian view. Lardner went further to argue that the New Testament does not teach that Jesus or any element within him pre-existed Mary's pregnancy. According to Lardner the Logos of John 1, was to be understood as a divine attribute, which metaphorically “became flesh” in the man Jesus, and other traditional pre-existence proof texts are interpreted in ways consistent with Christ's not existing before his conception. Lardner analyzes the use of “spirit” in the Bible and concludes that it refers to God, or to various of God's properties, actions, or gifts.[1][2] This view was essentially Socinian.

[In other words an Apostate even from Protestantism.]

Dionysius Lardner ?

[Without citing article, just after looking on it: no. "Dr. Lardner" is pretty certainly Nathaniel, the heretic.]

Karl Theodor Keim

Karl Theodor Keim (December 17, 1825 – November 17, 1878) was a German Protestant theologian.

[Need I look at more? Liberal Protestant of Evangelische Kirche, just as the Nazi clergy of Deutsche Christen a bit later? Not unlike Adolph von Harnack, I presume? I am too disgusted to read the rest of the article!]

Rev. Dr. Hooykaas - see Leidsche Vertaling

De Leidse Vertaling (waarnaar soms nog verwezen wordt in de oude spelling Leidsche Vertaling) is een Bijbelvertaling uit het begin van de 20e eeuw, die grotendeels door professoren van de Leidse Universiteit tot stand is gebracht. Men volgde het formeel-equivalente vertaalprincipe ... De vertalers, Abraham Kuenen, I. Hooykaas, W. H. Kosters en H. Oort, behoorden allen tot de vrijzinnige richting, en beoogden een begrijpelijke vertaling die beantwoordde aan de eisen van de kritische bijbelwetenschap.

[In other words, a Liberal Protestant at the University of Leiden, also infamous for hosting Einstein: "Albert Einstein was known as a professor at Leiden University. Einstein regularly taught Leiden students for a few weeks per year. His first lecture at Leiden was about "Ether and Relativity Theory"."]

Alexander Campbell (clergyman) ?

Alexander Campbell (12 September 1788 – 4 March 1866) was a Scots-Irish immigrant who became an ordained minister in the United States and joined his father Thomas Campbell as a leader of a reform effort that is historically known as the Restoration Movement, and by some as the "Stone-Campbell Movement." It resulted in the development of non-denominational Christian churches, which stressed reliance on Scripture and few essentials.[1]:111 Campbell was influenced by similar efforts in Scotland, before emigrating to the United States.

[I this the right Alexander Campbell?]

Thomas Chalmers

Thomas Chalmers FRSE (17 March 1780 – 31 May 1847), was a Scottish minister, professor of theology, political economist, and a leader of the Church of Scotland and of the Free Church of Scotland. He has been called "Scotland's greatest nineteenth-century churchman".[1]

He served as Vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1835-42.

...

Moralist

In his St Andrews lectures Chalmers excluded mental philosophy and included the whole sphere of moral obligation, dealing with man's duty to God and to his fellow-men in the light of Christian teaching. Many of his lectures were printed in the first and second volumes of his published works.[2]

In the field of ethics he made contributions in regard to the place and functions of volition and attention, the separate and underived character of the moral sentiments, and the distinction between the virtues of perfect and imperfect obligation.[2] Religion

At his own request the article on Christianity was assigned to him in David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. The separate publication of this article, and contributions to the Edinburgh Christian Instructor and The Eclectic Review, enhanced his reputation as an author.[2]

Chalmers's writings are a source for argument and illustration on the question of Establishment. "I have no veneration", he said to the royal commissioners in St Andrews, before either the voluntary or the non-intrusive controversies had arisen, "for the Church of Scotland qua an establishment, but I have the utmost veneration for it qua an instrument of Christian good."[2]

...

Gap creationism

Chalmers popularized the concept of gap creationism,[21][21] also known as the "gap theory". This is a form of old Earth creationism that posits that the six-day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth.[22][23][24] It differs from day-age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and from young Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.

The "New College", as the Divinity School became known, was a centre of opposition to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). Chalmers himself did not mention the work, but indirectly attacked its view of development in writing for the North British Review.[25]

Templeton, citing Acharya now

In the modern apologist work The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel relates a passage from a novel published in 1979 by Charles Templeton, in which the author states, regarding Jesus, "There isn't a single word about him in secular history. Not a word. No mention of him by the Romans. Not so much as a reference by Josephus." (Strobel, 101) Strobel then reports the response by Christian professor Edwin Yamauchi, who claimed that Templeton was mistaken and that there was a reference to Jesus by Josephus. Yamauchi's fatuous response ignores, purposefully or otherwise, the previous ironclad arguments about which Templeton was apparently educated, such that he made such a statement. In other words, Templeton was evidently aware of the purported reference in Josephus but had understood by the arguments of the more erudite, earlier Christian authorities that it was a forgery; hence, there is "not so much as a reference by Josephus." In this facile manner of merely ignoring or dismissing the earlier scholarship, modern believers cling to the long-dismissed TF in order to convince themselves of the unbelievable.

He was not a little facile in dismissing the TF due to this "scholarship"? Anyway, Charles Templeton seems to have died as an Apostate.

	Jews	Anglicans	Evangelisch	Presb. /Calv. /Other Prot
Yehoshua	Yes	No	No	No
Sabine Baring-Gould	No	Yes	No	No
Charles Mongan Warburton	No	Yes	No	No
Frederic William Farrar	No	Yes	No	No
John Eleazer Remsburg	No	No	No	No
Nathaniel Lardner	No	No	No	Yes > No
Karl Theodor Keim	No	No	Yes	No
Rev. Dr. Hooykaas	No	No	No	Yes
Alexander Campbell	No	No	No	Yes
Thomas Chalmers	No	No	No	Yes
Templeton, Charles	No	No	No	Yes > No

	Liberal	Apostate	Old Age
Yehoshua	Don’t know	No more than other Jews	Don’t know
Sabine Baring-Gould	Not very ?	No	Probably Yes
Charles Mongan Warburton	Don’t know	Yes	No
Frederic William Farrar	Yes	No	Yes
John Eleazer Remsburg	No	Yes?	Yes!
Nathaniel Lardner	Yes	Yes	No
Karl Theodor Keim	Yes	No	Yes
Rev. Dr. Hooykaas	Yes	No	Yes
Alexander Campbell	No	No	Don't know
Thomas Chalmers	No	No	Yes
Templeton, Charles	Yes	Yes	Yes

	18 th C.	19 th C.	20 th C.	21 st C.
Yehoshua	No	No	Yes	Yes
Sabine Baring-Gould	No	Yes	Yes	No
Charles Mongan Warburton	Yes	Yes	No	No
Frederic William Farrar	No	Yes	Yes	No
John Eleazer Remsburg	No	Yes	Yes	No
Nathaniel Lardner	Yes	No	No	No
Karl Theodor Keim	No	Yes	Yes	No
Rev. Dr. Hooykaas	No	Yes	Yes	No
Alexander Campbell	Yes	Yes	No	No
Thomas Chalmers	Yes	Yes	No	No
Templeton, Charles	No	No	Yes	Yes

I may have missed one on Acharya's name dropping list, but I saw no Catholic or Orthodox. I saw exactly one Pagan - the Japanese who did not agree with her. The list is limited to the field of Judeo-Protestantism with its offshot Atheism.

On this note it has been said that Protestantism is limited to Western Culture. Yes. So is Western Atheism. It is not just geographically another location for Atheism different from Confucian and Buddhist Atheisms, it is also different, closer to Mencian Confucianism (which was available to the Enlightenment in translation) but the latter traditionally has no ties with either prolonged antichristian polemics (though involved in persecutions of Christians) and no ties with either anarchist or other revolutionary ideologies.

It is also limited to 18:th C. to the present. Gerald of Wales and Master Robert of the Priory of St Frideswide at Oxford very clearly support TF, and if Vossius admitted to having a copy without it, he is not cited as having used this as an argument to attack TF.

Among Protestants, only Alexander Campbell surprised me totally, since he was founder of one of the Revivalist sects. No liberal. No Apostate from either Catholicism to any Protestantism or from his Protestantism to any kind of non-Christian belief.

These are unfortunately the kind of narrow company which Acharya considers broadminded and intelligent.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Day after Ascension
30 / V / 2014

Avoiding Apostasy is Not Endorsing It

First, what do I refer to as "apostasy"? There are many apostasies, and a Christian however duty bound to avoid all of them might fail in his duty and avoid one at the expense of falling into another. So, which apostasy are we talking about?

Gary Bates, this one is for you. The apostasy I suppose you might accuse me of endorsing but which I am really very much avoiding, is one which you have been warning against. Like here:

CMI : Scientific proof we were created by aliens?
The exo-creator idea continues to gain momentum
by Gary Bates
Published: 1 May 2014 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/dna-created-by-aliens

Or here:

CMI : Did God create life on other planets?
Otherwise why is the universe so big?
by Gary Bates
http://creation.com/did-god-create-life-on-other-planets

In a certain modern "cosmos" (or rather concept of it, since the Cosmos itself, as created by God, hardly is "modern"), every star is a sun and every sun is a star, including ours. Some of them are in this idea also endowed with planets. Every planet or at least everyone close to conditions on earth has the capacity to evolve life and every life has the capacity to evolve into sentient and intelligent beings. Another planet somewhere else - in Vega or Orion or whatever - beat us in that race and evolved far enough technologically to get spaceships launched to earth in time for our human genome to be at least partially manipulated or even totally constructed from scratch by that team. This is a very big lie. And coming to it from Christianity is apostasy.

Now, angelic movers to or in every star and planet is something other than biological life on every planet.

Stating someone is either living as the sun or carrying the sun as a lantern and doing so either way under the orders of his Creator is very much not believing in E.T.s. Same with moon, or α Centauri as with the Sun.

In the cosmos I believe to be a correct account of the real one, God created angels in the beginning and on day four gave some but not all of them heavenly bodies to carry. Sun, moon and stars - the latter subdivided into fix stars, comets and planets under the sphere of the fixed stars. What is considered as parallax is really a dance move taken by the angel carrying for instance α Centauri. This is why my idea of cosmos need not at all be as big as the idea of Chris Impey.* I can consider Aristotle with his "cosy" one million miles across the universe as not far from the mark.

That in its turn means I cannot at the same time consider even a real exoplanet meaning a nonluminous but reflective body circling one of the fixed stars as far enough to be big enough to be a real parallel to earth. If I am right the largest exo-planet would very easily be as small as the planet of The Little Prince - a ludicrous environment for evolution to take place in.

This ties in with Romans 8.**

πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις (pasa hē ktisis, ‘the whole creation’) does refer to the whole creation in Romans 8, and Paul cites this as a matter of common, accepted knowledge among his Christian audience. It includes all of non-sentient, moral decision-capable creation—i.e. excluding humans and angels, because Paul goes on in the next verse to talk about the believers’ state, and angels are excluded by οὐχ ἑκοῦσα (ouk hekousa, not willingly) in verse 20—Schreiner (Baker Exegetical Commentary, 1998), is of the view that this excludes any being with a will. So basically what κτίσις denotes in the passage is all of non-human physical creation.

First off, I suppose you mean "moral decision-INcapable creation".

If I am right, the heavenly bodies are perhaps not under the fall, since so closely identified with angelic movers as not to be meant by all creation excluding angels and men. Here is Haydock on Romans 8:19 ...***

Ver. 19. The expectation[2] of the creature. He speaks of the corporal creation, made for the use and service of man; and, by occasion of his sin made subject to vanity, that is, to a perpetual instability, tending to corruption and other defects; so that by a figure of speech, it is here said to groan and be in labour, and to long for its deliverance, which is then to come, when sin shall reign no more; and God shall raise the bodies, and united them to their souls, never more to separate, and to be in everlasting happiness in heaven. (Challoner) --- Waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. That is, for the time after this life, when it shall be made manifest that they are the sons of God, and heirs of the kingdom of his glory. Several interpreters understand all creatures whatsoever, even irrational and inanimate creatures of this world, which are represented as if they had a knowledge and sense of a more happy condition, of a new unchangeable state of perfection, which they are to receive at the end of the world. See 2 Peter i. 13; Apocalypse xxi. 1. Now every insensible creature is figuratively brought in groaning like a woman in labour, waiting, and wishing for that new and happy state; but in the mean time unwillingly made subject to vanity, i.e. to these changeable imperfections of generations and corruptions, which then they shall be delivered from. (Witham) --- The creature, &c. The creatures expect with impatience, and hope with confidence, to see a happy change in their condition; they flatter themselves that they will be delivered from the captivity of sin, to which man has reduced them, and enter into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. Not that the inanimate creation will really participate the happiness and glory of the elect; although in some sense they may be said to have part in it, since they will enter into a pure, incorruptible and perfect state to the end of ages. They will no longer be subject to those changes and vicissitudes which sin has brought upon them; nor will sinful man any longer abuse their beauty and goodness in offending the Creator of all. St. Ambrose and St. Jerome teach that the sun, moon, and stars will be then much more brilliant and beautiful than at present, no longer subject to those changes they at present suffer. Philo and Tertullian teach that the beasts of prey will then lay aside their ferocity, and venomous serpents their poisonous qualities. (Calmet) --- Other, by the creature or creatures, understand men only, and Christians, who groan under miseries and temptations in this mortal life, amidst the vanities of this world, under the slavery of corruption; who having already (ver. 23.) received the first-fruits of the Spirit,[3] the grace of God in baptism, have been made the children of God, and now, with expectation and great earnestness, wait and long for a more perfect adoption of the sons of God: for the redemption of their bodies, when the bodies, as well as the souls of the elect, shall rise to an immortal life, and complete happiness in heaven. (Witham)

In 1859 Haydock quoted Challoner (18th C. English Catholic bishop) and Witham (17th C. dito, never set foot in England after being consecrated bishop but rather ordained Catholic priests for Martyrdom and England in Douai or Reims) as saying this applies to "corporal creation, made for the use and service of man" or according to following: "Several interpreters understand all creatures whatsoever, even irrational and inanimate creatures of this world, which are represented as if they had a knowledge and sense of a more happy condition, of a new unchangeable state of perfection, which they are to receive at the end of the world." But St Jerome actually goes on to include creatures at least he considered angelic:

St. Ambrose and St. Jerome teach that the sun, moon, and stars will be then much more brilliant and beautiful than at present, no longer subject to those changes they at present suffer.

That St Jerome of Stridon, famous as Bible translator, considered the stars as having for a kind of soul a kind of angels is clear from St Thomas Aquinas, Prima Pars, Q 70, A 3. Now, St Jerome may have considered that Sun, Moon and Stars shall shine brighter in the New Heaven and New Earth, but he may not have considered they should go through the final conflagration first, at least St Thomas did not when writing things later incorporated into the Supplement of his Summa:°

Article 4. Whether that fire will cleanse also the higher heavens?

Objection 1. It would seem that that fire will cleanse also the higher heavens. For it is written (Psalm 101:26-27): "The heavens are the works of Thy hands: they shall perish but Thou remainest." Now the higher heavens also are the work of God's hands. Therefore they also shall perish in the final burning of the world.

Objection 2. Further, it is written (2 Peter 3:12): "The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat of fire." Now the heavens that are distinct from the elements are the higher heavens, wherein the stars are fixed. Therefore it would seem that they also will be cleansed by that fire.

Objection 3. Further, the purpose of that fire will be to remove from bodies their indisposition to the perfection of glory. Now in the higher heaven we find this indisposition both as regards guilt, since the devil sinned there, and as regards natural deficiency, since a gloss on Romans 8:22, "We know that every creature groaneth and is in labor even until now," says: "All the elements fulfill their duty with labor: even as it is not without labor that the sun and moon travel their appointed course." Therefore the higher heavens also will be cleansed by that fire.

On the contrary, "The heavenly bodies are not receptive of impressions from without" [Cf. Sent. Philosop. ex Arist. collect. lit. c.--Among the works of Bede].

Further, a gloss on 2 Thessalonians 1:8, "In a flame of fire giving vengeance," says: "There will be in the world a fire that shall precede Him, and shall rise in the air to the same height as did the waters of the deluge." But the waters of the deluge did not rise to the height of the higher heavens but only 15 cubits higher than the mountain summits (Genesis 7:20). Therefore the higher heavens will not be cleansed by that fire.

I answer that, The cleansing of the world will be for the purpose of removing from bodies the disposition contrary to the perfection of glory, and this perfection is the final consummation of the universe: and this disposition is to be found in all bodies, but differently in different bodies. For in some this indisposition regards something inherent to their substance: as in these lower bodies which by being mixed together fall away from their own purity. In others this indisposition does not regard something inherent to their substance; as in the heavenly bodies, wherein nothing is to be found contrary to the final perfection of the universe, except movement which is the way to perfection, and this not any kind of movement, but only local movement, which changes nothing intrinsic to a thing, such as its substance, quantity, or quality, but only its place which is extrinsic to it. Consequently there is no need to take anything away from the substance of the higher heavens, but only to set its movement at rest. Now local movement is brought to rest not by the action of a counter agent, but by the mover ceasing to move; and therefore the heavenly bodies will not be cleansed, neither by fire nor by the action of any creature, but in lieu of being cleansed they will be set at rest by God's will alone.

Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xx, 18,24): "Those words of the psalm refer to the aerial heavens which will be cleansed by the fire of the final conflagration." Or we may reply that if they refer also to the higher heavens, these are said to perish as regards their movement whereby now they are moved without cessation.

Reply to Objection 2. Peter explains himself to which heavens he refers. For before the words quoted, he had said (2 Peter 3:5-7): "The heavens . . . first, and the earth . . . through water . . . perished . . . which . . . now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire unto the day of judgment." The entire text differs somewhat from St. Thomas's quotation; but the sense is the same. Therefore the heavens to be cleansed are those which before were cleansed by the waters of the deluge, namely the aerial heavens.

Reply to Objection 3. This labor and service of the creature, that Ambrose ascribes to the heavenly bodies, is nothing else than the successive movements whereby they are subject to time, and the lack of that final consummation which they will attain in the end. Nor did the empyrean heaven contract any stain from the sin of the demons, because they were expelled from that heaven as soon as they sinned.

Obviously, part of the consideration about stars being brighter is that now they are circling is full circle in less than 24 h., which, together with sun whose full circle defines the night-and-day and its 24 subdivisions, is how time is measured, but afterwards, time will cease insofar as this movement ceases.

This scenario is valid if you accept the Geocentric premisses and that one can do if one accepts that "apparent parallax" (or rather real movement appearing as itself, but interpreted as parallax by Heliocentrics) is caused by angelic movers. This also makes the Distant Starlight problem a non-problem.

Baker on the other hand in 1998 started out saying that stars are inanimate and mindless and therefore concluded they too must in the full sense (needing cleansing by fire) are subject to the curse of Adam.

Is someone living in α Centauri as a soul lives in a body, or holding it as a man or angel (including sometimes fallen angels acting as Poltergeists on a very much lower level) holds a lantern, it is obviously not Han Solo and so obviously does not contradict that all men descend from Adam. It is only when we say that a planet held by α Centauri as Earth is supposedly held by the Sun in its turn holds intelligent beings as Earth holds men, it is only then that we encounter any conflict with the Gospel. One which may indeed have been active in making the late John Templeton apostatise, since Chris Impey is writing on a collective blog called Big Questions which in its turn depends on the Templeton Foundation. And as explained, I do not believe that more than St Thomas Aquinas did. Or Pope St Zachary. He has been accused of having condemned the roundness of earth, when in reality he was condemning E.T.s and therefore also "E.T. phone Rome?" - a paradigm which has become popular with supposed successors of Pope St Zachary:°°

From a letter of Pope St. Zachary (1 May, 748), addressed to St. Boniface, we learn that the great Apostle of Germany had invoked the papal censure upon a certain missionary among the Bavarians named Vergilius, generally supposed to be identical with the renowned Ferghil, an Irishman, and later Archbishop of Salzburg. Among other alleged misdeeds and errors was numbered that of holding "that beneath the earth there was another world and other men, another sun and moon". In reply, the Pope directs St. Boniface to convoke a council and, "if it be made clear" that Vergilius adheres to this "perverse teaching, contrary to the Lord and to his own soul", to "expel him from the Church, deprived of his priestly dignity". This is the only information that we possess regarding an incident which is made to figure largely in the imaginary warfare between theology and science. That Vergilius was ever really tried, condemned, or forced to retract, is an assumption without any foundation in history. On the contrary, if he was in fact the future Archbishop of Salzburg, it is more natural to conclude that he succeeded in convincing his censors that by "other men" he did not understand a race of human beings not descended from Adam and redeemed by the Lord; for it is patent that this was the feature of his teaching which appeared to the Pope to be "perverse" and "contrary to the Lord".

So Ferghil was presumably aware the Earth was round (who said Irish literacy was subpar in pre-Strongbow Erin?), the Pope who came from Byzantium was not but did not condemn it as such (who said Byzantium was superior to the West?), and the crime for which Ferghil was suspected was "E.T. phone Rome" theories. No, E.T., don't bother to phone the Rome of Pope St Zachary! But then again, he had no phones there, the first phones in the Vatican came with Pope Pius XI. However, if grey ones or such had shown their ugly faces in his Rome, they would have been scared back down to Hell with holy water and exorcisms. Not quite what we see in the Rome of these days, is it? How did Rome get there? By agreeing - Pacem in Terris, Roncalli pseudopope, 1963, § 6 which is somehow appropriate - with Baker (1998, how about dividing that number by three, btw!) that stars and such are governed by mindless laws. By diminishing the guardian angels of the stars to highly evolved beings on planets around them - because denying there are, in the first place, such a thing as guardian angels of the stars.

But Pope St Zachary who warned against this even wrote his letter same date as Gary Bates his latest article on CMI.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Athanasius of Alexandria
2-V-2014

* Whom I found here:

E.T. phone Rome?
American Morning|Added on November 13, 2009
Summit attendee Chris Impey explains why the Vatican held a five-day summit on the possibility of alien life.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tech/2009/11/13/am.vatican.aliens.cnn.html

** Cited by Gary Bates and Lita Cosner here:

CMI : Is the whole creation fallen?
Published: 8 March 2011(GMT+10)
http://creation.com/whole-creation-fallen

*** Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
ROMANS - Chapter 8
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id152.html

° Newadvent, Summa, Supplement to III Part
Question 74. The fire of the final conflagration
Article 4. Whether that fire will cleanse also the higher heavens?
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5074.htm#article4

°° Newadvent, Catholic Encyclopedia
A : Antipodes
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01581a.htm

Pope St Zachary's letter is thus 1226 years before Gary Bates' article. Did Bergoglio complain about some being "more Papist than the Pope"? Well, if even a non-Catholic like Gary Bates can be more Papist than he (as I presume he endorses the "E.T. phone Rome" thing, he may want to correct this impression if I am wrong), being more Papist than he is not very difficult or challenging. If one is not more Papist than he, one is not getting into Heaven, I should think.

What about Randel Helms?

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

Randel Helms: Gospel of St Thomas (etc, etc, etc) is/are fiction, proving Christians are not reluctant to it, Gospel of St Mark is earliest and was written forty years after the events. In that time it passed through oral tradition, which PER DEFINITION means it was embellished with additions. See, for instance Dieudonné de Gozon, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, who according to tradition slew the dragon of Malpasso.

We are in the presence of some ideology here.

The "tradition" about Dieudonné de Gozon slaying the dragon of Malpasso did presumably NOT remain oral such up to when Mircea Eliade wrote on it. The latter claims the "genuine historical account" of that same Grand Master of Maltese Knights is innocent of dragons. (I checked on French Wiki: if the account of that particular GM was before a certain date without the dragon story, at least the dragon story was in existance before that date and already concerning a person later GM of the Knights of Malta.)

Concretely this means no doubt that Mircea has found two medieval accounts, one without and one with a dragon. To him, obviously, the one with the dragon has suffered an addition. By passing through tradition. Kent Hovind, alias Doctor Dino, might have something other to say about that matter. "Sure, there were dinosaurs after the Flood too, it is just that in the records they weren't called Dinosaurs, the word is pretty recent. They are usually called dragons."

Then we have the problem whether Christians were or were not involved in writing fictions about Jesus.

By naming Gospels of Thomas, Mary, Philip .... he is supposed to have proven "Christians" - as one homogenous group (rather than pseudo-Christian Gnostics distinct from Catholic Christians) - were not loth to add fictions about Jesus.

This is not valid proof.

Then he repeats the pretty consensus heavy (among Modern Academians) canard of Mark being first (as if 19th C/20th C scholars knew the order of writing of the Gospels better than Papias and Irenaeus!) AND of even he being late and only recording events as filtered THROUGH a tradition of forty years purely oral. This last point proves pretty much that Academic Tradition in Modern Times is a very Fixed Tradition. It does NOT support the idea that oral tradition in and of itself is unstable. And remember it is in high degree oral, from pulpit to students in benches.

His argument for this involves that there were already heretical traditions beside the orthodox ones.

But this is simply because there were people with heretical ideas that were not content with the orthodox tradition which did not support their ideas. Far from proving that oral tradition is of itself unstable, it proves that Christian Orthodoxy was from the very start under attack, not just open but also undercover.

Randel Helms then claims that Paul was ecstatic and saw visions, and noone felt a need to distinguish between these and the historical Jesus. Of course not, if everyone had reason to believe the historical person was in Heaven - after The Eleven saw the Ascension.

What exactly is Randel Helms' epistemological authority for all these allegations?

Norman Perrin has declared that his approach to the Gospels, Redaction Criticism, looks for "redaction of new material" by the evangelists. I write in a similar spirit.

OK, so if a text is younger it is more or less per definition based on an older one plus additions? Can never kind of happen it is shorter than the previous text on same matter or based on another line of transmission? That is the kind of prejudice a real historian (as opposed to a "Higher Critic") can very well do without.

Then we have his take on St Paul and on St John. He thinks the historical Jesus and the Jesus of their visions are clearly different, not at all the same person, no Resurrection and Ascension presumably. He takes as example the things St Paul says about the Gospel he preaches.

For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12) Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that he was seen by Cephas; and after that by the eleven. (I Corinthians 15:1-5)

Does this mean - as Randel Helms seems to think or pretend to think - that St Paul knows only of three ways of knowing Christ? Revelation (like his own several ones or St John's on Patmos), tradition (from those having received such revelations, no doubt) and the Scriptures?

Pretty obviously no. St Paul says for one thing that Christ "was seen by Cephas". And later in the same chapter, yes even the very next verses he enumerates other witnesses:

Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time.

OK, this means that of the witnesses only himself was - in that capacity - what Randel Helms is here calling a visionary. The rest were what one ordinarily calls eyewitnesses. He says their eywitness is enough, but that his visions and all of the Old Testament match this eyewitness. This would hardly be possible if his visions were just a product of his own imagination.

The preview is cut off when Randel states:

So we must understand that what Luke means by "eyewit-

I supply as probable continuation: nesses" are really visionaries like Paul. Or words of synonymous meaning.

Not at all. St Paul knew a fourth way of knowing Christ, that of the, precisely, eyewitnesses. People who, like St Thomas Didymus, had seen, conversed with and even touched (or at least closely inspected, but even, I think, by obedience, touched) Our Lord after he rose from the dead.

Randel Helms supposed St Paul to be pretty self-occupied if he did not consider it possible that St Paul made a distinction between how he knew himself and how Cephas knew the Resurrection. He did very clearly distinguish, by And as obviously, we do not only have St Paul referring to what Cephas saw, we also have Cephas accepting St Paul. We have an occasion on which it would have been in his interest not to. But St Peter humbled himself before the reproaches of St Paul. He does not go "hey, that guy was not there, what does he know?" - all of St Peter's attitude testifies that St Paul's vision closely matches what he knew and in general what was known by the original Apostles. Through non-visionary means of knowledge.

This chapter is addressed to some among the Corinthians who denied the resurrection: St. Paul, therefore, in order to cure this philosophical opinion, gives them his counsel and advice in this chapter; and lest he might be thought to preach up a new doctrine, in the beginning of his admonitions he informs them that he is preaching no other gospel than what he has always taught, and wherein they believe. (Estius)

Ver. 7. He was seen by James. The time is not mentioned in the gospels. (Witham)

Ver. 8. As by one born out of due time; not born at the ordinary term, meaning after Christ's ascension. He calls himself so out of humility, abortives being commonly imperfect and less than others. (Witham)

So, the main three ways of knowing Christ to St Paul were: eyewitnesses, tradition from those, seeing how it matches all of the Old Testament. His own way of knowing Christ through visions was an extension of the eyewitness way, not the basic mode. However, it was not different enough to disqualify him as an Apostle either.

After all, if the Apostles even after eating a fish breakfast in what could have theoretically been a vision could see they had all had the same one and there was plenty of fish left, St Paul on his side had been blinded by the first vision and then healed from blindness. None of them had a vision that could be "just a vision" or just a dream or just a hallucination. All of them had something to solidly back it up.

And they were not building communities just by saying that. They made miracles which only the supernatural could explain. St Luke saw St Paul raise a boy who had died and broken his neck.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

Quote from Haydock Comments:

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
1 CORINTHIANS - Chapter 15
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id176.html

Summaries and direct quotes of Randel Helms:

Randel Helms : Gospel Fictions (1988)
[preview skips p. 5 and breaks off after p. 14]
http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Fictions-Randel-Helms/dp/0879755725#reader_0879755725

Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity)

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

I have not read the book - just the twelve pieces of his puzzle.* I hope my answer is not too puzzling.

1) Lateness of Christian Testimony to Historical Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only toward the end of the first century CE.

I answer:

Admitting that the Gospel of St Matthew was first, it is indeed the earliest Christian piece of writing. I have heard it attributed by Orthodox Historians to variously one and seven years after the main events, as Passion, Death, Burial and Resurrection of Our Lord.

Obviously this would cause some problem for an Atheist.

If a man says that seven years ago there was an Earthquake and All Earth was for Three Hours in Darkness, either that is what happened, or the man will be considered as mad or joking.

I can see why an Atheist, who starts out believing the supernatural events in the Gospel did not happen, would conclude that St Matthew was pretty late.

That being so, is there any case for this, in face of early testimony for St Matthew's priority for any rational inquirer, I mean of course someone not starting out from Atheist prejudice? None as far as I know.

I was just looking at a video with Richard Carrier, in which he came to challenge the consensus that Christ is historical. His point is that Academic consensus can happen (even without intricate conspiracy theories as explanation) with a very bad basis in methodological assumptions, as well as through a consistent misapplication of the good or even not so bad there is in them, so as to make the resulty worse, plus being based on factual errors.

Earl Doherty - I hope you enjoy a good cup of Earl Grey while reading this - is here appealing to a consensus which I thinks suffers very much from these faults. There is simply not any claim from early concerned sources that Mark was both first and late. That claim is very recent in scholarship and arises only after there comes to be an organised disbelief in Christianity.

2) Lateness of non-Christian Testimony to Historical Jesus

There is no non-Christian reference to Jesus earlier than the second century. The two references in Flavius Josephus (end of first century) are unreliable and can be dismissed in their entirety as later Christian insertions.

I have already answered this

Critiques of Testimonium Flavianum
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2010/11/critiques-of-testimonium-flavianum.html

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Challenged Again on Testimonium Flavianum
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2012/12/challenged-again-on-testimonium.html

It seems I get a challenge on TF every two years. My earlier answers are from 2010 and 2012.

Btw, I was only dealing with one TF, one of the passages. However, Earl Doherty is now speaking of two Testimonia Flaviana. Which is the other one?

3) Ethereality of Early Epistle Mentions

The early epistles such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus (Messiah Savior [sic!]) as a spiritual, heavenly being, one revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man.

I answer

The charge really boils down to ED only accepting as historical an account of anyone which does not identify that someone as spiritual in any way or Heavenly or as revealed before his arrival by Scripture. And of course a real person can neither be a Christ nor a Saviour, according to ED! Will the Antichrist also be doubted as being a real person because he can be described as Hellish, as well as being revealed before his arrival by Scripture?

This is of course a great refutation of people calling Jesus from Nazareth historical but not admitting these claims, but no refutation at all of Christianity.

Note that the trait "+ spiritual" does not here equal "- bodily." And "+ heavenly" does not equal "- historical."

Romans: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, [2] Which he had promised before, by his prophets, in the holy scriptures, [3] Concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh

I Corinthians: Is Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? and Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep.

II Corinthians: And Christ died for all; that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again.

Galatians: Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead and For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me. I cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.

Ephesians: Which he wrought in Christ, raising him up from the dead, and setting him on his right hand in the heavenly places.

Note that if the "setting on his right hand" is indeed "in heavenly places" this does not belittle that the "raising him up from the dead" is something observed on earth. As in I Corinthians.

Philippians: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

Someone may object that Krishna is also supposed to have taken the shape of a man. Now, I do not doubt Krishna was a man. Whoever of the two was God, both were men. But in the case of Christ it is better attested. The Mahabharata poet cannot be certainly identified. We cannot say if he lived a thousand or two thousand years after the events. Krishna seems to have lived before the Flood of Noah. Mahabharata may in Indian culture be ascribed an uninterrupted existence since the events, but they cannot point to a Chronology like ours with all generations from Adam to Christ. Paul can be identified as having died under Nero and as having stoned - indirectly, by keeping the coats of those who did the stoning - a man who had bee among the original disciples of Christ. Paul and Luke were nearly contemporary with Christ. The Mahabharata poet can have been as little contemporary with Krishna and Arjuna as Luke with ... I'd rather say Abraham than Adam, for chronological precision and realism.

However, unlike Christ, Krishna never proved his divinity by rising from the dead. Nor was his ascension into heavenly places ever visible to 11 pairs of eyes (22 eyes, like the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet) as an ascension from earth and disappearance high up among the clouds.

Colossians: And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy: Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell; And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

If you have not died, you cannot be firstborn from the dead. And heavenly things are not dying unless they are also earthly.

I Thessalonians: And to wait for his Son from heaven (whom he raised up from the dead,) Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.

II Thessalonians (this time about Antichrist) For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying: That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.

St Paul is really claiming that Antichrist is not just an evil spirit, but also - once he comes forth - a man, able to show off. A magician. A purely metaphysical Antichrist would hardly have powers of seduction.

I Timothy: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.

II Timothy: Who hath delivered us and called us by his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the world. But is now made manifest by the illumination of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath destroyed death, and hath brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel:

However much Earl Doherty may feel "destroyed death" strikes a mythical tone, the words about "made manifest" and the contrast between them and the heavenly reward preexisting since "before the times of the world" simply will not square with St Paul talking of an only heavenly and only mystical Christ Jesus.

Titus: Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, who turn themselves away from the truth.

St Paul implies very much here that he is not in the position of one inventing fables or making himself a human interpreter of what was previously only known among the spirits. He is not Hesiod. He is not Numa Pompilius. He is not a Shaman. Instead of being the Mystic, he is saying the Jews are.

For the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men;

Pretty comprehensible words if a person touching him with a handkerchief could heal a blind or a lame person or raise someone from the dead with the handkerchief, as is claimed in Acts. Totally incomprehensible otherwise. If he had been mad enough to make such claims without backing them up - who would have believed him?

Philemon: one epistle, at long last, in which there is only a reference to what Christ expects from Paul in Heaven. And likewise no reference to appearing or to Christ's adversary being a real man. Is this what Earl Doherty means?

Hebrews (ascribed variously to St Paul or St Barnabas): God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, In these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.

Since the rest of chapter one is very solidly rooted in Heaven, I remind Earl Doherty that "plus heavenly" does not mean "minus bodily". Then I observe that as the prophets were historical persons and perceived by everyone as being such, by implication this means people had actually heard Jesus Christ speak.

4) Platonism and Semiticism of Cosmology

Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world based on Platonic and Semitic cosmology, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ from scripture.

I answer

There is a Red Herring here. OT Scripture is not invoked as describing a merely cosmological person and as only source of information. It is invoked as giving information matching the one known from the history of Christ as he was alive.

And if the real cosmology is Platonic and Semitic to the extent that it is so in the epistles of St Paul, then I cannot see how setting events in this cosmology would invalidate the information about them as historic information.

Of course, if you start out with the theory that these cosmologies include one "supernatural/mythical world" distinct from the mundane one, you are in trouble. There is no trace of a supernatural world being the place where myths are set, except very rare ones about the relations of our mundane world to that supernatural one. Usually myths are set HERE.

5) Ancient World View Reflected in Paul

The ancients viewed the universe as finite and multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world of the heavens was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, where spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things were located. Paul's Christ operates within this system.

I answer

Sure they did. Prove them wrong.

Besides, even if they were wrong, their placing the events in this wrongful setting would not making their descriptions non-historical.

Assume a flat earther were reporting about Christopher Columbus (there were noone such in position to be reporting, but assume there had been such). "In the year of Grace One Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety-Two, Christopher Columbus, misled by the demon to believe the earth is a globe, set out with three ships. By a very great Mercy of Providence, he did not reach the rim of the world, but stopped in an island which he called Hispaniola, and came back in March the next year, getting into Lisbon by a storm, and proving by the fact of bringing back selvatic men that he had indeed reached some land outside Christendom."

This would be - and we would know it - set in a cosmology which is false. This does not mean we would have any reason to doubt that Christopher Columbus made these voyages if we only had the words of Flat Earthers for them.

But to get back to some seriousness, I view the world as finite and as multilayered. Matter having a lower degree and spirit a higher degree of actuality and of causality. I think the ancients were simply right. Prove me wrong. If. You. Can.

6) Mystery Cults and Ahistoricity of their Saviours

The pagan "mystery cults" of the period worshipped savior (sic!) deities who had performed salvific acts. Under the influence of Platonism, these acts came to be interpreted by the cults as taking place in the supernatural/mythical world, not on earth or in history. The Pauline Christ was similarily regarded as undergoing death and resurrection in the heavenly realm. This new Christ also shared other mythological concepts current in the ancient world.

I answer

There is no trace of any Pagan Mystery Cult placing death in the heavenly realm. It is by definition deathless, for Hebrew, Pagan and Christian alike. Earl Doherty is inventing a background culture which he cannot prove was there.

7) Son = Logos = a Concept à la mode

The most prominent philosophical-religious concept of the period was 'the intermediary Son': an emanation of the ultimate transcendent God who served as a spiritual channel between God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish personified Wisdom were models for Paul's heavenly Christ and Son, who took on an additional, sacrificial role under the inspiration of scripture.

I answer

Once more, this is perhaps good enough for an Atheist, for one believing such Son-ship must be non-factual and describe an un-real figment of erroneous imaginations.

This is not in any way an argument against Christianity.

If our religion is true, we would expect that not just Hebrews but also Pagans were somehow prepared to receive the truth when it came. Platonism is part of the preparation for the Gospel.

Even more. To Plotinus who rejected Christianity, the Mind was not Son of the One or the Good. His concept of Logos is not a concept in which a Father to Son relation has any role. Instead, to Plotinus, the Mind is inferior to the One, because it is self aware. Because one can affirm something about it. This Platonic idea is incompatible with Christianity and pretty much the model for the Arian heresy. And the Gospels could not be proven to support it, believe me, Arius tried really, really bad.

Or, do NOT believe me. Read Newman's well documented History of the Arians of the IV Century.

8) Gospels and Acts Unreliable from One Source

All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: the Gospel of Mark, the first one composed. Subsequent evangelists reworked Mark in their own interests and added new material. None of the evangelists show any concern for creating genuine history. The Acts of the Apostles as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement is historically unreliable, a second century piece of legend-making.

I answer

It is modern scholarship which is unreliable and derives its "information" from one logical source: the refusal to believe the truth of it.

So far from studying the question and rejecting the truth because the evidence is against it, they reject the truth first and judge the evidence by improbable conjectures about it, calculated to support that rejection.

9) Gospels Symbolic Not Historic

The Gospels were not written as historical accounts, but present a symbolic representation of a Galilean kingdom-preaching sect, combined with a fictional passion story set on earth, presumably meant to allegorise the heavenly Christ's death and resurrection in the supernatural realm. They are constructed through the process of "midrasch," a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture, and has nothing to do with "history remembered."

I answer

First off, this completely contradicts the previous charge. Saying a text is an unreliable factual account and saying it is not meant as a factual account at all are two incompatible charges against its factual reliability.

It is like claiming at once that a text is Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and that it is The Vatican's Holocaust by Avro Manhattan. It cannot be both at the same time.

Second, the heavenly Christ cannot have died unless he became an earthly Christ. Death is not in heaven. As previously already said.

10) Does "Q" Give you any Cue?

"Q" is a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, and made no reference to a death and resurection, or soteriological role for its Jesus. It can be shown to have no Jesus figure at its roots, some of which roots were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the imminent coming of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the heavenly Son of Man as an End-time judge, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was combined with the spiritual Christ Jesus of the Pauline type in the Gospel of Mark. The case for the existence of Q is much superior to any alternative explanation for the common material in Matthew and Luke.

I answer

Especially if you start OUT with excluding a Historical Jesus as the real source, right?

Again, we are dealing with a charge contradicting a previous one. One source only and one source plus another one are not compatible.

Also, in order to explain a Community well known from its beginnings, like most other ones, he now invents (or the Academics that he follows invent) a lost community of which we have no trace except the changes they wrought by fusion with the known community which is supposed to have changed from a never asserted more primitive state. In terms of logic this is an atrocity.

11) Christ is So Complex He Cannot Have Been a Real Person!

The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual heavenly Christ and Son of God, some with a revealer role, others with a sacrificial one, shows that this broad movement began in many different places, a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the Jewish scriptures and other religious expressions of the time, not as a response to a single individual or point of origin.

I answer

Usually persons are considered as mythological props because they are too flat to be real persons. Here we have the opposite charge!

Mercurius is often these days considered a pure myth because his only remaining role (openly on earth, as opposed to "in the consciousness" of people as "messenger of the gods") is to have been a magician. And an author of the books attributed to Hermes Trismegistos. Obviously a magician like Hermes Trismegistus cannot have written Hermes Trismegistus. That is so obviously a flat and unreal personality with only one role to play. So he is a myth. Then one goes on to say "but the books of Hermes Trismegistus have some kind of author" and modern Academia has hey presto invented a new character which has only one role to play. Which means he should be regarded as mythical, on the same criterium they apply to Hermes Trismegistus.

BUT here we have a Man (not to mention that this Man is God Himself) treated as a mere myth, because He is too complex to be a real person!

12) Letting Gnostic Gospels Prove the Orthodox Ones were Not Meant Literally - I Presume.

Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a past human man as an element of their faith. The type of Christ belief which became later orthodoxy developed only through the course of the second century to eventually gain dominance toward its end. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical and his 'life story' real.

I answer

The Gnostic pseudo-Gospels like the one inscribed with the name of St Thomas are indeed from this kind of timescale. I e later than the real and Canonic Gospels.

However, it is a big mistake to speak of early Christianity and Similar Stuff as One Movement rather than as Many Communities. Any text which explicitly rejects Historic Existence of Christ as Jesus from Nazareth is not from the Church but from the Gnostics. The Gnostics are another Community. Another Community is Not the Same One.

And the fact that there was a very definitely organised Church or Communion of Churches is very apparent from the Epistles I just cited from. Precisely as it is from Acts. Or from Martyrologium Romanum. Or from St Irenaeus. Or from St Ignatius of Antioch. Or from Didaché. That latter piece of writing mentions the fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. This was not done by Gnostics, as far as we know. It was and is done by Catholics (at least Four times a Year, plus Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, plus Abstinence on Fridays, and that is the Latin Rite which has alleviated the fasting discipline). We can pretty safely conclude Catholics are the same Community as that of the Didaché.

And as Communities do usually know something baout the way they were founded - a certain Civic Community knows uit was founded by a Declaration of Independence and a Bill of Rights to justify it, both from 1776 - we can conclude It also knows how It was founded. It is not something which reasonable people cannot accept. BUT Earl Doherty is rather in the category of Naturalist Pseudo-Philosophers, and therefore we cannot know if he will accept it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

* From: Earl Doherty : Jesus, Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Neither-God-Case-Mythical/dp/0968925928#reader_B00772ZH8Y

From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

Let us take Mark Shea first, and let me say that I totally agree on the principle outlined in the passage I put in bold letters:

Conspiracies do happen. The murder of Caesar was a conspiracy. So was the murder of Jesus. And Lincoln. The Holocaust was a conspiracy. 9/11 was a conspiracy–but not one involving Bush or Mossad. So, for a little while, was Watergate.

But here’s the thing: we know all about them. Why? Because conspiracies to commit big crimes are inherently unstable. They unravel and the whole thing gets exposed. Bad people are mainly about Looking Out for Numero Uno. When things go sour, they run to their lawyers, head for the border or get caught in complicated lies. What we never see is massive conspiracies which, of necessity, have to involve hundreds or even thousands of co-conspirators, lasting for years and years and years with nobody being the wiser.

The sort of person who insists Jesus never existed is somebody who simply does not know what they are talking about, like believers in moon landing hoaxes, or the NASA plot to cover up geocentrism, or Holocaust Deniers.

WELL, as for Moon Landing Hoax going sour, we have all the Moontruthers. Footages of how the footage with Armstrong juming on a Moon with six times less graviation (or similar footage) was shot - or the guy who was summoning Armstrong to admit he was a liar.

If Moon Landing was a hoax, it went sour.

We do not know if the man who told Armstrong that was subsequently shut up. For instance in a padded cell. But that is very clearly what conspirators would have some likelihood to want to do. I do not know if they have the assurance to do that.

Spreading out hysteria about conspiracy theorists are so much less risky moves.

Or NASA efforts to cover up Geocentrism ... well, I asked them for information which would possibly prove Geocentrism (or my version of it) wrong, they did not give it. They have however issued a few parodies. Like the Moon Landing Sketch linked to in Mark Shea's article. They have also handed out a few assurances about Biblical Geocentrism being absolutely wrong. But which happen to lack proof. At least of the kind I require.

So, if it is a conspiracy (I do not say it is except in the sense that people in power with convictions in power will try to marginalise challenges to such convictions pretty routinely, and that if they prefer doing so by solid evidence, such is perhaps not available against Geocentrism), it has also in a way blown up in their face.

If prisoners conspired to get former gaolors punished for worse crimes than actually comitted and to get a good piece of land, both Intifada's and Faurisson could be said to be that conspiracy blowing up in their faces. And if 9/11 involved Bush and Mossad, some pieces of evidence might be blowing up in their faces too. Like Jews being unhurt, because absent for their religious holiday that day. Or like architects disputing a hit on the top would topple a tower like that.

There have been clearly conspirational attempts to cover up that I am "wrong" about "these conspiracy theories", as if either I were a clearly important person who is not allowed to be wrong (but still wrong on these items according to those who consider me so), or, a theory which would give my person less importance, as if the fact of my being wrong in this particular way were a kind of threat to the right answer remaining right in the eyes of the many who are no doubt better informed than I (in this assessment of my takes as mistakes).

I consider such a fact a sign of my takes or some of them being at least akin to a conspiracy blowing up in the faces of conspirators.

So, assuming Christianity were once a conspiracy by the Caesars against the people ... did it go sour? Did it blow up in their face?

Christianity was in fact not treated as such a thing in Antiquity. It was treated only as what clearly (and especially on Joseph Atwill's theory, but even without it) it was not: a conspiracy against Caesar, against public order, against peace. Something which is more likely to be accuate about certain aspects of Jewry without Christ, from Bar Kochba to Trotski. And this mistreatment of Christians cannot be truly said to have been a conspiracy blowing up in the face of its perpetrators. Noone was ever confessing "I faked the story of Jesus" and noone was pretending anyone had confessed it. Noone said "if I had known this, I wouldn't have lied about that." Noone looked embarrassed except on occasions like defecting from the faith and offering incense to Caesar's Genius.

Atwill brags about finding "ancient confessions" or "confessions from antiquity", but those are "only very indirect such", inside the Gospels, and only function as such to someone presuming (without evidence) they were written:

• a) after the Titus event in the Jewish War
• b) by someone very familiar with not just the Jewish War but also the other details of Titus' life.

Let us look closer at his claims. Now.

I do think there was a conspiracy in Antiquity concerning the active years of Christ. A conspiracy to hush up the Sun that went dark for three hours. A conspiracy to hush up Simon Magus getting beaten in Rome. And that the victory - but at first just survival - of Christianity (meaning its Orthodox form, Roman Catholicism) was when that conspiracy blew up in their faces. What says there was a conspiracy at all?

Well, the missing Roman Contemporary Historians for the years 31 - 90 AD.*

'What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus'

Mr Atwill continued: 'This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern.

'The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar.' Joseph Atwill

Oh really? But this might be because Jesus Christ was giving a share of His Messianity to the Caesars. When Jews said "we have no King but Caesar", He made sure that Caesar Constantine would recognise Him as Emperor of Heaven. And because they had crucified Him as a blasphemer because He had said He would destroy and in three days again build up "This Temple". Meaning His Blessed Body.

Instead of Gospel Story being by Caesars deliberately constructed as copy of that Roman Caesar, we see the biography of that Roman Caesar as deliberately constructed along the lines of the Gospel story (or some of them, not all since he was a Pagan and in religious error), by God's Providence.

He adds: 'An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognised the literary game being played.'

Atwill maintains he can demonstrate that 'the Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and that the solution to that puzzle is "We invented Jesus Christ and we're proud of it".'

No, his proofs show that God left the Roman Caesars a kind of puzzle to which eventually convert Constantine caught on.

'Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history.

'To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East.'

Funny then that as a Christian, not lukewarm but dedicated (I defend the Crusades like 1099 taking Jerusalem) I find the recent Wars in the Middle East were NOT conform to Christianity, either in relation of justice or in loyalties of alliance.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Marguérite Audoux
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

PS: Atwill is right there are conspiracies by the powers in place to hijack spirituality or religion of the people against their interests, but these are nowadays usually very clearly AGAINST Christianity, because they are against poor people who are married getting many children, they are against children staying with parents who are poor, they are against people getting married while poor and so on./HGL

American Bible scholar claims ancient 'confessions' prove story of Jesus Christ was entirely fabricated by Roman aristocrats
[That Bible Scholar being Joseph Atwill]
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451087/American-Bible-scholar-claims-ancient-confessions-prove-story-Jesus-Christ-entirely-fabricated-Roman-aristocrats.html

Links to another page which says very much the same thing:

Covert Messiah
http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm

Which links to Atwill's blog, which also says much the same thing:

Caesar's Messiah / Joseph Atwill's Blog : Religion vs. Spirituality
http://caesarsmessiah.com/blog/2012/02/religion-vs-spirituality/

As I said on the radio show tonight, our spirituality has been hijacked, and a return to a truer spirituality could benefit us at this crucial time in history.

The good old joke (or, for those who do not take it as a joke: the bad old hoax) about Spirituality judging Orthodoxy. Jesus against the Pharisees (a theme he dons't believe happened, of course) was not about Spirituality judging Orthodoxy. It was more about Orthodoxy plus unconventional applications judging a revered Spirituality of Study and Compromise and Humanity which had gone wild, divorced from their God.

Latest Real Jesus Shakes Christianity to Its Very Foundations!
by Mark Shea Sunday, October 13, 2013 11:59 PM
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/latest-real-jesus-shakes-christianity-to-its-very-foundations

* As I previously wrote here:

1st C Historians, Wikipedia Category
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/04/1st-c-historians-wikipedia-category.html

Is Matthew 17:19 literally true?

Short answer, yes, but Christ's promise in that verse is not for everyone.

A somewhat lengthier discussion is this challenge on the site "God is imaginary":*

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

If "nothing will be impossible to you", then if we ask to cure cancer tonight, cancer should disappear. Right? Yet nothing happens. Note that if we take the Bible less-than-literally here, the statement "nothing will be impossible to you" becomes "lots of things will be impossible to you," and that would mean that Jesus is lying.

Now, what does Haydock comment have to say?

ST. MATTHEW - Chapter 17:19** Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. *For amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.

Comment:

Ver. 19. If you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed. Christ insinuates to his apostles, as if they had not yet faith enough to work great miracles, which require a firm faith joined with a lively confidence in God. The mustard-seed is brought in with an allusion to its hot and active qualities. (Witham)

That is, a perfect faith; which, in its properties and its fruits, resembles the grain of mustard-seed in the parable. (Chap. xii.[xiii.?] 31.) (Challoner)

By faith is here understood, not that virtue by which we assent to all things that are to be believed of Christ, the first, of the theological virtues, in which the apostles were not deficient, but that confidence in the power and goodness of God, that he will on such an occasion exert these, his attributes, in favour of the supplicant. To have a true faith of this kind, and free from all presumption, is a great and high privilege, which the Holy Ghost breathes into such only as he pleases. (Jansenius)

Examples of this efficacious faith are given by St. Paul. (Hebrews chap. ii.[xi.?]) St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea is also related, by Eusebius and Ven. Bede, to have removed by the efficacy of his faith a rock, which obstructed the building of a church; thus literally fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ. (Tirinus)

The faith of the apostles, especially of those that had not been present at the transfiguration, was not perfect and complete in all its parts, till after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost. (Haydock)

St. Jerome understands by mountains, things the most difficult to be effected.

One simple example of the fact that the Apostles eventually had the faith to move mountains: 100 years after Spartacus and his followers were beaten in battle and crucified along the Via Appia or whereever it was, it was as impossible as anything to imagine slavery would disappear.

Yet slavery did disappear where Romans and Franks ruled one after another. And in the rest of the Occident.

Now for the whole context:**

14 *And when he was come to the multitude, there came to him a man falling down on his knees before him, saying: Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much: for he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water.

15 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

16 Then Jesus answered, and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me.

17 And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.

18 Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: Why could not we cast him out?

19 Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. *For amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.

20 But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.

In other words, everywhere an exorcist succeeds, there is an example of this promise in work. Ask Gabriele Amorth of his experience thereof.

This is no warrant for just any layman - the Apostles to whom Christ spoke were the first bishops of the Church - asking anything and waiting for it to happen and it will.

But as Tirinus commented, one bishop had in fact done what Christ promised. St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea is also related, by Eusebius and Ven. Bede, to have removed by the efficacy of his faith a rock, which obstructed the building of a church; thus literally fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Quadragesima Sunday
or First Sunday of Lent
9-III-2014

* God is imaginary : Proof #1 - Try praying
http://godisimaginary.com/i1.htm

** Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition. ST. MATTHEW - Chapter 17
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id35.html

... And Why Not Mormonism (*grinning*)?

I came across Pearl of Great Price, not meaning the thing so called by Our Lord, namely state of Grace and pleasing God and getting to Heaven, but the text which Joseph Smith called so.

Wikisource : Pearl of Great Price/Moses
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pearl_of_Great_Price/Moses

Chapter 1[edit]*

1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain,

2 And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.

3 And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

No, that is not God speaking to Moses in those words. Book of Moses in Pearl of Great Price portrays God as a babbler.

I could have added something like "for ... and is not this ..." because I am a babbler, but I refuse to take God for one!

It is not that God would not reason. It is rather that God when talking to men reasons so well that he has no need to point out a lot of things to make the argument understandable.

That is of course the ONE reason why I refuse to believe in Mormonism, which I do on other grounds just as with Mahometanism, just as with Hesiod's Theogony and its Muses or with Odinism. Among these, Odin might even beat the "god of Joseph Smith" when it comes to literary style (see Hávamál).

But the main one is that I draw a very thick and straight line between revelations as in messages purporting to be from Heaven and Revelation as in Heaven showing itself in action, like Christ's Resurrection or things. A revelation is tested by its agreement with Revelation as in Salvation History. Not the other way round.***

There is no hint whatsoever that Joseph Smith got the "Pearl of Great Price" in any way that connects it with Moses. Unlike how Jesus and we get the Pentateuch, for instance.

We get the Pentateuch as firmly from Moses as we get the Lord of the Rings from Tolkien. Joseph Smith got The Pearl of Great Price as little from Moses as Tolkien got Lord of the Rings from The Red Book of Westmarch.

And not only is the "God" of Pearl of Great Price wrong, its "Moses" is wrong also:

9 And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth.

10 And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.

A phrase like "which thing I had never supposed" is basically Malory style or even Howard Pyle style for "who'd have thunk it?" And that in its turn is a very American turn of phrase. Of course it may well have had its precursors in the time of Malory or even Chaucer but to me it sounds like a sort or habitual introspection that became fashionable through Stoics Platonics and through the Christian habits of confession and examination of conscience but hardly entered into the daily habits of anyone at the court of Pharao whatever the Pharao was. It seems - according to recent attempts to harmonise the Exodus with Egyptian history that the Pharao in question was Amenamhet III (whom David Grohl has nicknamed "Mister Grumpy") and I suspect he was more surrounded by people who would remind us of old Arabs with white beards making comments that sound like lessons than by men expressing themselves like Chaucer. Besides, close by Amenamhet III the atmosphere may well have been a bit stifled, like living on a spy mission into enemy country or like living next to Stalin. Not really a school of spontaneity.

Someone I met over the internet reasoned "Moses can hardly have been humble if he called himself humble, considering that humility is a Christian vertue" ... but the thing is, whether he realised that God would accept his humility or not, he was from a place and an upbringing which did not habitually value humble people. It is not like a man these days calling himself "modest" (which would usually be self praise), it is like a man these days saying he has "a self-esteem issue" (which is generally speaking not self praise). When Moses said it he was basically telling God that if he was to speak to the Pharao he risked feeling very uncomfortable and even bungling it all by shutting up when he should not. Which is why God gave him his brother Aaron for help in that errand.**

And I would of course be as suspicious of a text purporting Moses used the roundabout modern phrase "self-esteem issue" rather than using the word humble for it as I am of a text where "Moses" in one breath speaks like a Sufi ("Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing,") and in the next ("which thing I never had supposed") like an English or French but certainly Christian gentleman with the curiosity of an explorer and the background of introspective expressions from centuries earlier - which were earlier than the English or French gentleman, but definitely later than Moses.

The fact that "Pearl of Great Price" includes visions and other supernatural stuff has really nothing to do with my disbelief.

And I suppose the guys who recognise Lord of the Rings as fantasy because they think Balrogs (i e demons taking physical shape and threatening with physical destruction) are impossible will miss Tolkien's real deliberate giveaway to make the very gullible think again. A thing like The Red Book of Westmarch (which Tolkien showed as little as Joseph Smith showed the gold plates he translated Book of Mormon from) is made to make the reader think about such a trivial matter as how did the text come from purported or implied observers to us. The guys who say "it is fantasy because it contains Balrogs" might miss that hint and therefore believe in the manuscript of one Adso from Melk.

I know one lady I was back then friends and sometimes in love with (she is now married to someone else) who actually thought it funny to realise that Adso from Melk is fiction and Name of the Rose is not a Medieval text, even if it is a text by a better Medieval Historian than most of its readers. She laughed at herself so heartily she cannot have been making a show to be ironic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Adaucus and the Town dwellers
who had him for chief, martyrs
under Galerius Maximinian
7-II-2014

* Wikisource, like wikipedia, is a wiki, ok, that means readers can edit it. Not meaning you should unless you see part of the text misrepresented, as in you know the text.

** In the real Pentateuch, of course, not in The Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses.

*** I believed the Palmarian revelation until I found out a quote where Palmarian Catechism disagrees with the cosmology of ordinary Patristic understanding of Christianity (there are three dimensions, not eight!), I doubted about Christ's revelation to St Bridget as to crusade when I thought "heathens in Novgorod" referred to Russian Orthodox (even if schismatic, Christ would hardly call them heathen just for that) but have regained confidence in it since I noticed she lived a century after Alexander Nevski first defended Novgorod against Teutonic Order and then handed it over to very real Pagans - the Yellow Horde. Christ's words to St Bridget were of course a way of telling her and through her the Swedish King that Novgorod needed liberation from the Yellow Horde. He did not listen however. But notice that it is not my view of Catholic Orthodoxy that changes according to what I read in St Bridget's Extravagantes or in ... earlier ... a site by Palmar de Troya. It is my view of these revelations which changes according to as I notice a discrepancy with Catholic Orthodoxy either showing up (as with Palmar) or disappearing (as with St Bridget).