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kabane52 · 6 months
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Daily Scripture Reflections at Substack and Patreon
For those who are interested, I am now posting daily scripture reflections six days a week on Substack and Patreon. Half of those posts are available to everyone, while half are exclusive to paid subscribers and patrons of all tiers ($5 per month). In the past two weeks, I've written about forty pages. If you've enjoyed my writing in the past, please consider subscribing. Please keep this project in your prayers. If you would pray Psalm 1 for me, I would very much appreciate that!
patreon.com/kabane
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Bright with Glory
Zechariah 12 describes the children of Judah becoming like a blazing torch- spreading outwards to consume all to the right and left. The notion of consumption can be destructive: but it can also be incorporative. Divine fire descends on the sacrifice to transfigure it into smoke and thereby take it into the divine Presence. The only other use of the words "right" and "left" in Zechariah are in Zechariah 4, where we read of the "two olive trees" which are the instrument by which the holy oil (i.e. that which actually lights the lampstand on fire) is poured out. The sevenfold lampstand is identified as the "seven eyes" by which God gazes into the world and makes Himself present. But in the preceding chapter, the "seven eyes" are to be found on the Crown of the Messianic King- He who is called "Branch" and signified by the figure of "Yehoshua" the High Priest. The Messiah is Branch- and yet these two trees are also "branches." This should not be a shock: "He shall branch out from His place" to build the sanctuary- and those who are "far off" shall build it with Him, alluding to Isaiah 60 where the gentiles come "from afar" to beautify the place of God's rest on Zion.
The "seven eyes" are the seven-lettered inscription on the Crown of the High Priest: "Holy to the LORD." And in Zechariah 14 this inscription is found on even the most common of objects: all creation is caused to become itself in being the instrument through which God's Name- His qualities and character- is proclaimed. Thus the same chapter declares that in that Day "the LORD will be One and His Name One." The unity of God unifies the creation. And so the meaning of the first text considered above is made clear: the Messiah will incorporate into Himself those from the tents of Judah first: they will then spread abroad as fire in sanctifying the world, gathering the nations into divine Presence. This is confirmed by a text in Zechariah 9- "ten men" grab hold of "a Judahite" precisely because they have heard of God's Presence: "that God is with you." Zechariah 2 prophesies this: "Glory in your midst" will come when Zion sings and God "comes" to dwell in her midst. Zechariah 9 combines this with Genesis 49 and identifies the Messianic king as the cause of Zion's song and joy, using the same language. He is the one who "comes." The language of conquest- an expansion of dominion- shades beautifully into the language of sanctification because the two are variations on a single theme. "Holiness" is to belong wholly to God: conquest is linked consistently with fire, but there are many who freely and with joy enter into that divine Fire and are made glorious rather than ash.
Isaiah 54 uses this same language to describe the sanctification of the world after the work of the Messianic servant: His people will "spread" to the "right" and "left" to inherit cities which were formerly desolate: yet this is the language that has been used to describe Zion in exile! The redemption of Zion bursts open and redeems the cities of the gentiles so that they partake of her holiness (compare Isaiah 2, 4, 24-25). Judah is set on fire and burns the whole creation: yet it seems that creation remains- the gentiles worship the King and are engraved with His Holiness. Like Isaiah, tasting the divine Fire irradiates their being and the cosmos with it.
In Romans 11, Paul connects the sanctification of Jew and Gentile together with the "olive tree" and recalls the language of Zechariah 3-4 among other texts: the "branches" of Jew and Gentile remind us of the two branches in Zechariah 4. And this is consonant with what is written in Zechariah 12: glory will be given to the "tents of Judah first" and through them to all mankind. One could go around and around- start from virtually any passage in scripture and one can, like a snowball, roll it around scripture and reveal countless complex and beautiful interconnections whose unifying principle is the King, the Lord of Hosts, Jesus the Nazarene [Nazarene=Branchman] whose glory becomes the glory of all mankind, in whom He is unveiled as the "fullness of Him who fills all in all" through the one Church and in one Name.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Please pray for us
I need your prayers... Please stop for a moment and pray for me and for my partner... Pray for us to go through this hard situation that is happening, united and not divorced... May God softens his heart and enlighten him.
Thank you :*
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Where does Judith fit into a revised chronology, if anywhere?
This is a very interesting question. Damien Mackey (whose older work is quite good but whose newer work is sadly off the wall) suggested that Sargon II was not the father of Sennacherib, but one of Sennacherib's throne names. Interestingly, Sargon II claimed the kingship of Babylon as "Nebuchadnezzar." Judith begins with "Nebuchadnezzar king of Assyria" coming against Jerusalem- an apparent historical anachronism so outright that some commentators have suggested it is meant to be an obvious indicator of the book's being meant as a theological novel and not historical. I am not ideologically committed to the inerrancy of the ecclesiastical books* like I am the inerrancy of the strictly canonical books. However, Judith the Righteous is a saint of the Church and is thus a real person. If Mackey is right, and his revision of Assyrian chronology is probably the most detailed, well-researched, and rigorous aspect of his work (it was published as a Master's thesis at a secular university) then this demonstrates that there was, in fact, a "Nebuchadnezzar king of Assyria" who came against Jerusalem. This sets the book not in the period of the Babylonian exile, but the period of the Assyrian exile of the northern kingdom and the besieging of Hezekiah's Jerusalem by Sennacherib, described in Isaiah 36-37.
* Orthodox Christians are free to disagree on the precise standing of these ten books, but my view has strong precedent in Saints ancient and modern- St. Athanasius, St. John Damascene, and St. Philaret of Moscow all are in this camp of making a distinction between them- so from the fourth to nineteenth centuries at the least. The best analogy I have been able to think of concerning their standing is to those patristic writers who are specified at Ecumenical Councils as reliable teachers of the faith. We are not absolutely committed to the precise inerrancy of every word. But we are committed to overwhelmingly preferencing "we are misreading this text" or "I am mistaken" to "this text is wrong."
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Judas, Redemption, Good, and Evil
This is in answer to the question of how we can say that the betrayal of Judas is an objective evil, given that it is the very instrument by which God liberates mankind from sin. That betrayal launched the greatest thing that ever occurred- how could we say, objectively, that it is evil?
Thanks very much for the good question.
Here is the short version of the answer: whether an act is good or evil depends on the goal towards which an act is directed by a purposeful, intentional being. Only in the context of personhood do categories like "intention" as distinct from instinct make sense. persons have an articulate idea in their mind as to what they seek to accomplish by a given action- to the extent that we are just "doing stuff" for no disernible reason, we are drifting from our growth into personal beings destined for inclusion in the loving relation of Father, Son, and Spirit.) An evil act is an act done for a purpose that is opposed to the purpose for which we were made- it is dehumanizing in the fullest sense. But in God's providential order, even when the human will acts for the sake of evil, that intention is always thwarted: where God permits evil to occur (of course, by definition, those evil things that God prevents from happening are things that we don't see because they didn't happen! He is exercising constant and very powerful restraint on evil at every moment), the *movement* that is inherent in what it means to *act* will always lead to a final result that is in harmony with perfect goodness. God cuts the act from the intention for which it was carried out on the human level.
Here is the far longer and more developed version of this answer:
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The ethical significance of our acts have that significance in view of the purpose one is seeking to realize by undertaking X or Y act. A thing is good when it operates in harmony with that purpose for which it was made. A *good* computer is an *effective* computer. Of course, this is only related to the ethical or moral use of the word "good" by analogy- but the analogy is real. What makes an act morally significant in the complete, proper sense is when a thing acts by virtue of a person's power of willing/choosing. A bad computer is a computer that does not function in relation to the purpose for which it was organized- it doesn't compute. But that's not a moral status because the problem inheres in the poor structure of the machine- there is something fundamentally wrong about the wiring of the machine relative to its purpose. If a professional rewired it with appropriate parts, it would become a good computer.
But for the human being, the difference between choosing good or evil is our will. We are not forced into a particular choice by circumstances: all things being exactly what they are, there are still multiple paths we can walk. We are persons: we have all the components of animal creation: we are embodied organisms with the power to see and experience and move- but the governing principle qualifying every act within our power is our faculty of choice. We were given opposable thumbs in relation to a very specific purpose: the creative development and beautification of the world. But those same hands- whose operation lies within the power of choice- can punch an innocent person in the face. The energy which has been "pointed" to a specific goal by creation design can be utilized to draw the world and oneself *away* from that goal.
This is a more philosophical way of expressing the answer to your question. In terms of the specific contours of the concrete story of biblical (and thus the real, true) history is focused onto the reality that it was in the very worst thing mankind ever did that God enacted the greatest thing He ever did. And as the cross stretches both vertically and horizontally- gathering together all things from all four directions into the heart of Jesus Christ- so we see here, I think, the framing device of the whole reality of the conflict between good and evil in history. In a single event, two absolutely opposed purposes flow into the event itself: but the two are not equal partners. Instead, the *energy* by which human beings crucified Christ- the energy by which their muscles operated and their hands functioned to drive the nails into his hands and feet- is energy which is had only by derivation from God. As God is the Existent-One, all power and motion, no matter how minute, must exist in relation to His life. [This is why evil has no independent existence: it is the twisting of a good- even the most heinous evils are done for things like pleasure- and pleasure, in itself, is good! You can do good just for the sake of good- but you cannot do evil just for the sake of evil- some good is *always* imported through the backdoor and perverted] Yet if God has only good intentions and purposes, how can it be that human beings utilize their powers for evil?
The answer- captured in the dynamic between Judas and the redemption- is in the way that God severs the energy itself from the intention for which it was enacted. All the energy that flowed into the human design to destroy Christ was utilized in service of His glorification and the salvation of the world.
The text you allude to- where the crucifixion is in the definite plan of God- is part of one of scripture's central threads. When God speaks, it will necessarily polarize. This is why Malachi says that when God shines His light in the "Day of the Lord", you will "again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked." We are all relatively inchoate baskets of mixed motives, subconscious wounds, and contradictory intentions. But when things come to a point: when the German high command tells you that you *will* hand over the Jews to be murdered- the very clarity of the moral question in front of the person creates a very sharp distinction between good and evil. And so people who were just average folks end up giving their lives to save Jews. Or people who were just average folks end up laughing as they toss babies into the air on their bayonets.
But evil is inherently self-destructive. Productivity, creation, power- all these things come from God. Evil cannot exercise influence without an enduring trace of goodness. What this means is that when God speaks into things- one branch of the human family is increased in wisdom and matured- the other becomes more intensely wicked. In other words, God is intentionally- by the very act of speaking into the world- accelerating the process whereby evil becomes worse and worse. But the *reason* He does this is because the worse it becomes, the less good it has to exploit. The less energy it has left. God is infinite in energy and power: good can keep going and going and going. But when you are acting for the sake of evil intention, you can only continue to move in that direction as long as there is good left to exploit. But here's the paradox which spells doom in a final sense for evil: the closer you get to your goal, the faster your energy reserves are depleted. And it's just one of the basic spiritual laws of creation that there is never, given a finite supply of good energy to steal, enough energy to successfully realize in the ultimate end of things an evil purpose. The closer you get, the less you have. The less you have, the more quickly it drops. Your tank will always hit empty before you finish the trip.
The longer evil endures, the more people (and indeed, animals- our factory farming practices are *evil* and attest to this relationship whereby creation groans under human sin) are wounded by it. So God cuts short its lifespan by forcing it to come to a point and give up its claim on the reserves of goodness it is stealing to function. One of the words used in Exodus for the "hardening" of Pharaoh's heart is better understood as the "strengthening" of his heart. In other words, his hatred for Israel and God would- under usual circumstances- be overwhelmed by his sheer cowardice and terror at acting against them when the stakes were so high. But God "strengthened" his heart by sending Moses to speak the prophetic word of Israel's God (and people should understand that we learn from Exodus that many Egyptians and other gentiles came to "know the LORD" and even came out of Egypt and shared all the blessings of God with those who were born into the family of Abraham- God has always loved all people and acted for as many who would hear Him) to Pharaoh. God's words are a "two-edged sword." He knows *just* where and how to say things to incite Pharaoh to actually make a visible demonstration of what he wants to do. And it is *this* willingness to actually *act upon the desires of the heart* that facilitates the event of the exodus, the redemption of Israel (and many gentiles, as just noted), and the proclamation of the Name of God. Because God accelerated the degeneration of evil, it had less power through automatic self-destruction.
This is what happens on a large scale in the crucifixion of Jesus. The crucifixion of God is the worst thing mankind ever did. It came about through God's constantly, incessantly, without any interruption, speaking directly to the children of Israel through the prophets. They *lived* in the word of God. They could never escape it. And so it created two branches of the family: those who learned the wisdom God was teaching (scripture calls them the "remnant of Israel")- they become those who evangelize the first gentiles until the whole world is full of the knowledge of God's glory and all nations are healed (cf. Isaiah 27:6- "Jacob shall...put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit...[after I] *glean you one by one.* The other branch of the family are those whom Jesus calls the sons of those who murdered the prophets. They are the focal point of evil's self-perpetuation in the chosen nation. It comes to its sharpest point in that nation which has been showered with constant divine word- that intensifies reaction against that word, as it always does (as Isaiah 6 says- the prophetic ministry of Isaiah causes those who are blind to become even blinder and those who are deaf to hear even less than they did before: this is a play on the truth that one becomes as one worships: they worship idols who can neither see nor hear and thus become like those idols)- and then the Word of God actually stands before you: a living, breathing, visible, audible *person.* God the Word, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is the most concrete expression of that word which polarizes people into good and evil which had ever or could ever come into the world. And so it is the final impetus for evil coming to its fullness.
Naturally, then, as it always does, evil self-destructs. The cross is the victory of God and reconciles all things to Him by the resurrection. And thus everything- absolutely everything that had been carefully plotted (both in a diabolical sense on satan's part and on the part of those who plotted against Jesus at a human level) to end in Jesus' defeat is immediately co-opted for the victory of God in Christ. It could not be otherwise: evil is such that it will always undermine itself. A final triumph for evil is a square circle. It's nonsense.
So that would be the way I'd answer your question: Judas' action is evil because of the intention of his heart. All power and motion comes from God by creation and divine sustenance- Judas is a creature like the rest of us. But that which motivated (notice the etymological relation here- "motion" and "motive power" is conceptually tied to the "motivation" of a person) Judas was not the ultimate source of that by which he moved. As scripture says, quoting a Greek poet: it is in God we "live and move and have our being." Ultimately, God has in His creative gift loaned us His own life so that we could learn to live as His sons. But for those who constantly (think of the parables about being lent money such as the parable of the talents- God gives a gift so that we can use it and increase it and grow into it) abuse that which is given and refuse to utilize its energy for the appropriate purpose (there is much freedom within this umbrella- we can create many different kinds of beautiful and good things, and the choice among goods is real!), God reclaims the loan: and all the energy that has been spent by the human creature in service of evil purchases instead the good, true, and beautiful.
As good and evil are personal realities- we only use these words in an ethical sense when we are speaking of purposeful and intentional persons- and as what marks one person out from another is the unique course in which they are molded into their maturity in, through, and by their constant pattern of freely choosing X, Y, or Z- the ethical value of a particular action (like facilitating the crucifixion) turns on the purpose towards which the *faculty of will and choice* is pointing. The faculty of willing in the human sense can never *successfully* generate ultimate evil external to the will. To say that an act is evil on the part of a human creature just is to say that the motive power of this action is twisted and self-destructive. But the motive power which *effectively* carries that action and power to its actual conclusion in reality is the power of God, and its end result is always flawless.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Hi. What's your opinion about the population of Israelites during Exodus? Some apologists claim they were 2.5 million but that's a huge number so many critics believe they were ca 20-60.000. Furthermore there are biblical passages supporting the conservative numbers (Deut. 7:7) while others disagree (Exod. 12:37, Corinthians 10,8 etc). Is there any contradiction?
Deuteronomy 7:7 speaks of the election of Israel in the patriarchal period: the rest of the book is clear that their lack of numbers is a past reality. It was their multiplication which led to Pharaoh's fear.
(Deuteronomy 10:22) Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
(Deuteronomy 1:8-11) See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.' "At that time I said to you, 'I am not able to bear you by myself. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you!
The other passage often suggested to support the smaller number is the number of firstborn sons in the Book of Numbers. This, however, misses details of the texts which make clear that the judgment was passed out not to every son who was the oldest, but to those firstborn children younger than five in a lex talionis judgment on Pharaoh's murder of Israel's children. Steven Wedgeworth summarizes James Jordan's work here:
Some commentators have tried to solve this dilemma by suggesting that the Israelites practiced some form of mass adoption, but this is an argument without textual basis. Upon closer inspection, however, the problem is actually resolvable without such appeals, and the key is found in the specifics of the redemption price given in Num. 3 and Leviticus 27. Num. 3:47 says that the redemption price for each of these firstborn sons was 5 shekels. Lev. 27:6 (which appears in my Bible’s interlinear notes at Num. 3:47) explains that the 5 shekel price was specific to sons between the ages of 1 month and 5 years. Therefore, the 22,273 figure from Num. 3:43 is not every firstborn son, but rather all firstborns between the ages of 1 month and 5 years. With this added perspective we are no longer limited to the 22,273 number as the total number of family units available, and thus our apparent contradiction ceases to be.
The obvious question is about the history- "Egypt didn't record their defeats" obviously won't do. This cannot be covered up. That requires a revised chronology, which I have discussed elsewhere. There is a moment in Egyptian history where the civilization utterly collapses and which is followed by an upheaval in Canaan, with appropriate destruction layers in Jericho, Ai, Hazor, and other cities. (on this, check the search function on the blog- a popular presentation, which is quite good though of course not perfect, is found in "Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus"- though I am not parroting this and was aware of this important data prior to the release of the film).
An excellent discussion of this issue, from which the above quotation comes, is here:
https://christchurchlakeland.com/are-those-big-numbers-in-the-exodus-for-real/
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kabane52 · 2 years
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On Whom Shall Nations Lean?
(Psalm 20:7-8)  Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
The Lord judges the nations with justice. He lifts up and casts down. The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. This feature of the world- that God acts in faithfulness to His children- is its beating heart. One can no more have a discussion about the justice of a war without recalling the reality of God in Heaven than one can speak of human biology without recalling the heart and lungs. Discourse about the justice of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, unfortunately, ignores this reality. On the one side are those who accept the reality that the expansion of the world’s most powerful military alliance to the border of its historical adversary is genuinely threatening- those who acknowledge the reality of a genuine security crisis posed by the expansion of NATO and the encirclement of Russia by the Euro-Atlantic military-industrial complex tend to be those who argue for the justice of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  And on the other are those who insist that this expansion was and ought to have been recognized as benign- the implication being that if it was genuinely threatening, then war would be justified as a preemptive security measure.
John Mearsheimer refers to the “tragedy” of great power politics- a tragedy rooted in the “anarchic” nature of the international system. There is no authority transcending the sovereign state with the capacity for enforcement, meaning, according to the realist interpretation of international relations, that it’s the law of the jungle. And in the world posited by naturalism- where there is no God in Heaven actively pressing out His purpose in every moment of historical time- this is the end of the story. But for Christians- and especially, I would argue, for Orthodox Christians, who liturgically commemorate many historical acts of God in defense of His people in church history- this is most certainly not the end of the story. 
The political crises of the Kingdom of Judah are stunningly analogous to the security crisis on which basis the Russian government has launched this war. That Judah was encircled by hostile powers and terrified by the prospect of invasion was its great political challenge.
It was for this reason that the Judean kingdom constantly sought refuge in other, more powerful - but idolatrous - nations. The prophets loudly condemned this faithless act. Solomon's multiplication of wives (securing marriage alliances) and chariots (an offensive weapon) were an act of classic realpolitik in an ancient context. Build up a security relation predicated on mutual interest, build a powerful army as a deterrent. It was all for naught. Solomon's participation in the international arms trade circled back to bite Rehoboam. And Egypt, in whose arms the Judean aristocracy sought refuge in the days of Jeremiah, was shattered by the power which exiled the Kingdom of Judah. Hezekiah's overtures of friendship to Babylon (see Isa. 39) circled around to the Babylonian exile. Look at the crisis of Isaiah 7: Judah's northern neighbor - the kingdom of Israel, with whom it shares a history and kindred blood - had become a partner with the Syrians, which terrified the Judeans. Judah sought "refuge in the protection of Pharaoh" (Isa. 30:2) to protect itself.
This is faithlessness. Faithlessness brings violence. Yes, NATO expansion was genuinely threatening to Russia. Yes, the militarization of its border caused them to tremble for good historical reasons. But on whom shall we lean? Shall we lean on Communist China? Is China - a state which sees the lordship of Jesus Christ as an existential threat - a more reliable patron than the God of Heaven and Earth? This war crystallizes the question which must press itself upon every nation which seeks to be called Christian. Our history is dotted with countless instances of the God and Father of Jesus Christ acting in fidelity to His people when they at last called upon Him.
In the Orthodox tradition, the hymn "To Thee O Champion Leader" commemorates God's divine protection of the City of Constantinople from the siege of the Avars during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius. The Patriarch walked the walls of the city with the icon of the Protection of the Theotokos and summoned his people to seek our Queen's intercession before the Great King. And the "Feast of the Protection" celebrates the same feat several centuries later and is today especially dear to the Russian Church. In the West, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary celebrates the divine action whereby the invasion of the Ottomans was repulsed by Our Lady's intercession before the King of Kings.
Whom do we serve? What is the price we will pay for our security in this life? We are promised the life of the world to come: everlasting blessedness for the soul and resurrected body alike. Do we hold this present age so dear in comparison that even fratricide is warranted? Or, more likely, have we all been poisoned by the toxin of unbelief? Unbelief is an act of idolatry - it is to trust in that which is not God above the God of Heaven. And it produces pestilential war, fratricide, hatred, and death.
President Putin! If Christ is Lord, then call back your forces. Repent, and address your people: proclaim this Lenten Fast dedicated to the Christian heart of the Russian nation. Call on your people to seek God and Christ above all else. And constantly exhort those committed to your care to trust not in princes nor sons of men, but in the God who is our salvation *in this life and the one to come.*
(Joel 2:12-16)  "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber."
If Christianity is true, then Jesus Christ is a real, living Person. He has a real, resurrected, glorious Body. He is enthroned in the council of the saints and *really does* judge the world in righteousness. Why are we all so sure God will not answer? The nations snort at the very idea of beseeching the favor of God as the basis for their security and peace. This faithlessness has no basis in reality. When God is called upon in a national capacity, He *does* answer. Famously, God publicly answered the prayer of General Patton's army:
"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations."
This really happened. Why do we not believe? We rely instead on cynicism and Machiavellian international politicking. All the nations of the "free world" are spying on each other. "Love one another," says the King of the Nations. If Russia - visibly, corporately, and truly - calls back its forces and repents, calling upon the Name of the Lord, He will not fail to answer. He will exalt His Name among the nations and blast the trumpet of His faithfulness to the ends of the earth.
We do not receive because we have not asked. How long must we bomb each other before we seek God as Protector?
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight."
- Solomon the Wise
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kabane52 · 2 years
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This is the Finger of God
https://theopolisinstitute.com/leithart_post/is-this-a-judgment/
The evidence is substantial that the current series of global shocks to human civilization is, as Pharaoh’s magicians said, “the finger of God.” It is true that we ought to be careful not to attribute all misfortune to divine judgment. But the Bible is clear that some misfortune is divine judgment. And it is those kinds of misfortune which are collective, affecting an entire society, structural, affecting the instruments by which the society holds together, and responsive, responding to clear and identifiable sin that exists in that collective context. 
All three criteria are true. Crimes of sexual perversion, murder of the defenseless, cruelty to beasts entrusted to human care, cowardice, and treachery to one’s community (starting with one’s close relatives and working outwards, and including stateless corporations who have no sense of duty or loyalty to anything or anyone), and, underwriting and establishing all of the above; idolatry. The valuing of something or someone or some group of people as more important than the Almighty. It’s idolatry which lures us into respectable opinions, joining us to the “wise of this age” whom God has and will make foolish. It’s idolatry which leads us to seek validation in pornography or pornographized sexuality. It’s idolatry which mechanizes slaughter and meatpacking to improve the bottom line. 
There are sins which are popular to condemn- animal cruelty, corporate greed, sexual abuse, getting handsy with every other woman one comes across. These sins are everywhere. And there are sins which it is taboo to outrageous to condemn- abortion and contraceptive barrenness, homosexuality and the attempted formation of same-sex marriages, doctors who encourage patients to kill themselves in a non-messy way- as long as the blood isn’t visible, we pretend there’s no death-machine seeking to swallow up the world. And there are sins that have become so endemic that we have forgotten that they are sins in the first place. Gossip, mundane blasphemy (i.e. using the Name of God and Christ to curse), casual lust, taking joy in the fact of others’ misfortune large and small. 
I can bear witness of my own guilt in many of these crimes, some very serious and endemically repeated. I am not an innocent man, nor is anyone else. It seems to me probable that this day of grace is swiftly passing and that the world is about to be shaken. In a way, these are almost prepared remarks. It was eight years ago that I saw what I took to be the clear simplicity of the issue: if the God of Jesus Christ, the God of the Bible, is a real and living King, then He cannot let this stand. Do not take comfort in modern Hananiahs who say that God will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar from off our necks within the year. If this is the day when He judges our world civilization (not the Second Coming or Final Judgment, which I believe is thousands of years distant), then let us renew our minds and sing for joy “for the LORD has come to judge the earth.”
For death is given so that there might be resurrection, and judgment so that there might be pardon. Though He does not clear the guilty to the third and fourth generation, His delight is to show lovingkindness and mercy to the thousandth generation. 
But stay awake and pray. I think (and I am afraid) that we who have lived in relative comfort may experience things we never dreamed possible. May we also see the rebirth and redemption.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Hello there, I’m a Roman Catholic trying to learn more of the Orthodox beliefs and so I’ve been looking into the Energy Essence Distinction a lot, but so far I’m just unconvinced by it. The biggest issue I have is that it seems like Palamas formulated it himself and he wasn’t just reciting patristics. I just don’t see how else that could be the case with the scale of the controversy he caused. It’s been difficult for me as it’s dogma for Orthodox, any idea how to answer this issue for me?
The doctrine of the energies is Christological in its core- and the word "energeia" is the Aristotelian word for "actuality" in contrast to potentiality. So the question at hand is the innate character of existent things according to the actuality proper to their nature (usually this feature of the concept is expressed in the language of propria or properties). At bottom, however, Palamite theology is an elucidation of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Christ has two natures and two energeia. The controversy over the two energies of Christ was at least as important to the Council as was the controversy over the two wills of Christ. So the operation is both proper to the nature and not reducible to that nature.
While there is development in the history of Christian doctrine, such development is objectively identifiable in its continuity with the Apostolic profession of the Church in all ages. So Palamas and his theological heirs- Neilos and Nicholas Cabasilas, Mark of Ephesus, Gennadius of Constantinople, and so forth- carefully teased out a particular aspect of the Christian mystery according to the issues most important to their era.
Here is a piece of mine which tries to develop the theme of the doctrine of the essence-energies distinction in its appropriate- trinitarian and incarnational- setting:
https://ruleoffaith.org/energies-of-the-trinity-the-energies-as-tripersonal-communion-in-gregory-palamas/
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Tree of Torah
Sometimes one misses the most obvious things in the Bible until they are pointed out. God describes the Torah in its literary conclusion (Deuteronomy 30:15) as *both* the Tree of Life *and* the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God has set before the nation "life" as well as "death", "good" as well as "evil."
The above is the obvious aspect. Some additional thoughts on its meaning and significance:
At the most concrete level, the Torah is literally written on plants- that's where paper comes from, ancient and modern. And we read in this very chapter that the Torah as the word of God shall be "in your mouth" and "in your heart" when the redemption takes place. Thus Ezekiel is described as eating a scroll in a vision. This is the basis for the symbolic importance of "chewing the cud" in Leviticus 11- and it literally provides the etymological foundation for our English definition of "ruminate" as pertaining to intellectual consideration of a matter repeatedly- the word and its Latin root literally refer to physical chewing of the cud.
The noun for "knowledge" used in Genesis 2-3 is not common- it appears precisely seven times- a couple times with reference to the Spirit's illumination of Bezalel of Judah so that he might creatively restructure the world into an image of the life of Heaven itself: the tabernacle. Then it is used in Numbers to refer to the revelation of the messianic word. As Eve's eyes were opened in partaking of the tree of knowledge- knowledge too exalted for her- so also Balaam gazes with "uncovered eyes" at the naked revelation of the inner significance of the whole Torah: it is the revelation of the Messiah, the King, He who is the Archetype for all creation and thus the tabernacle. Like Eve, Balaam's mistake is fatal.
Therein lies the significance of the way in which these threads are tied up. The Torah- and this holds true for the entirety of divine revelation- is both a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge, but one must chew before one swallows. And that means that one will not only ruminate, but also walk on the way of God in obedience to His commandments. When Adam and Eve were exiled, we are told that the "way" into the garden was closed. Thereafter, the imagery of "walking" in a precisely specified path or road is used with increasing significance. Abraham is to "walk before" God and be perfect. God walks before Israel as He splits the Red Sea and they are bound by the wall of water on the "right" and "left." Obedience means to "turn neither to the right nor to the left." And Moses himself is transfigured in being placed in relation to God's walking *forwards.* Moses' face glows with God's face because Moses follows God's back. (see Exodus 33-34) Thus the word "halacha" meaning application of divine instruction is derived from this word: "halach" or "walk."
Like the point about rumination, this appears in the dietary code. A clean animal is one who has a hoof which is split. (equivalent properties are designated for birds and fish). The hoof separates the animal from the ground which bears the curse of death (Genesis 3) and the split allows for exactitude and precision of movement. "Look carefully then how you walk", says Paul, "not as unwise but as wise." (Ephesians 5:15ff) So just as Ezekiel is the image of the meaning of the dietary code in his consuming a scroll as food, so also here: filled with the Spirit which animates the wheels of God's Chariot, he becomes a chariot of God. He is separated from the death-dealing ground because the Spirit takes hold of him and he *flies* here there and everywhere. The exactitude and precision of motion is underscored in the right angles according to which the wheels are placed in mutual relation. And by the end of the book, Ezekiel is measuring to perfection the designs for the messianic city-temple which is the church. (Ezekiel 40-48, esp. 45:3-11).
To walk is to have dominion over the world: to concretely exercise ownership in relation to it by God's creative will. But one can only walk if one can move, and one can only move if one eats. Running a marathon will be deadly if one starves oneself.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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The Mystery of the Middle Kingdom
Virtually no robust work has been done to extend and develop the hypothesis of Donovan Courville that the Middle and Old Kingdoms were not distinct periods of time, but must be integrated together as naming concurrent dynasties or the  same dynasty by different names. Because the exodus and conquest fits so beautifully into the end of both Old and Middle Kingdoms (both end in a dark age) and because this is the only conceivable way to understand the relation of Egypt to the short chronology of the Bible, I believe this to be true. But I wish there were more done on it.
But then when skimming the web on Egyptian history and archaeology, I find stuff like this:
the lower part of a statue of Pharaoh Nyuserre of the 5th Dynasty has been found in Karnak. Another statue which was dedicated by the 12th Dynasty king Senusret may have been usurped and re-used, since the statue bears a cartouche of Nyuserre on its belt.
Now, this is from wikipedia, so take that as you will. But I do find things like this fairly frequently. Little details and throwaway lines- repeated observations in Middle Kingdom sites that the pottery and architecture seems to “return to the style of the Old Kingdom” or texts from the Middle Kingdom which feature pharaohs alleged to be from centuries before as if they were in the recent past. This is particularly striking, as we see a demonstrably Middle Kingdom (Dynasty 12) statue with the royal seal (cartouche) of a pharaoh of the Old Kingdom! The explanation that this has been “usurped and re-used” is ad hoc and does not have anything (that is apparent to me- which isn’t saying all that much until I can dig out the details on this) to commend it compared to the hypothesis that the separation between these two periods is a phantasm- all things being equal. This is not to suggest bad will at all- I don’t think anyone has even remotely considered the idea that this might be a possibility to take into account in analyzing new data. 
Anyway, I just wanted to share this as I don’t know anyone who is interested enough in Egyptian chronology to fully grasp why this is so exciting for me.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Knowledge in Genesis 1-9
How important it is to simply notice the words of the biblical text- consider, for example, the word "know." We read of the tree of "knowledge." The serpent says that God "knows" a truth He is concealing for His own benefit and to their loss. But then Adam and Eve "knew" they were naked. Then Adam "knew" his wife. Cain lies to God and says he does not "know" where Abel is.
We trace this thread down to the flood- and again there is a reference to knowledge in connection to a tree- an olive tree. The olive tree produces oil- liquid light which illumines the creation. As Eve extended her hand to grasp what God had forbidden, Noah put out his hand to receive the dove he had sent forth. And he does what Adam did not: he *waited.* He waited "another seven days", and the dove returns with an olive leaf. And as before, knowledge is involved: "So Noah knew the waters had subsided from the earth." (Genesis 8:11) The word is used one final time in Genesis 9, where it is Noah issuing a judgment: he "knew" what his son had done to him.
  The text is not an atavism to be discarded as a husk once one discovers the concept inside. The text- in every detail, every word, every letter- is essential to understand what is being said.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Hey, your use of Papias in favor of Perpetual Virginity is Bad. It is evident that Papias did not have access to a reliable tradition, which we see in this passage: “Some claim that she (Salome) is the same person as Mary of Cleopas, since she would have married twice”. Papias does not express certainty about this information. Anyway, the hypothesis itself is wrong, since in John 19:25, Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40 demonstrate that Mary of Cleopas and Salome were separate characters.
It is only that piece of information about which he expresses uncertainty, and the very fact that he does express uncertainty specifically about this information undermines the attempt to dismiss the text as unreliable in its whole! Even here, however, it would be a mistake to call this “uncertainty.” Papias is reporting what "some claim”, but he does not agree with this claim. Papias describes these women as “these four.” That makes it obvious that he did not agree with those who identified Salome and Mary the wife of Clopas. He qualifies nothing else here, which attests to the degree of confidence in his source- confidence which comes from the fact that the relatives of Jesus were still in authority in the church of Jerusalem in Papias' day, and Papias was a student of the caretaker of the Virgin Mary. Papias' testimony on this point is corroborated by a host of undesigned coincidences I mentioned in my last post.
Papias’ care in identifying sources and views which he does not hold demonstrates precisely the opposite of what you are suggesting- it tells us that Papias will inform us of any alternative view or tradition! That he does not do so in his identification of the relatives of the Lord tells us that there was no alternative tradition known to him.
 With all respect, your point here seems to be a conclusion in search of an argument. 
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Where is the Word "Adelphoi" used without Meaning "Brother" in the Bible and Others Ancient Greek Writings? Before you Quote the Case of Abraham and Lot: The Quote from Abraham and Lot is totally out of context, they were brothers in a figurative sense, as being "neighbors", I can also say that a friend or a close relative is "a brother" even without being a blood brother. It has nothing to do with a contradiction of the Greek or the Septuagint.
I want to begin by stating directly the most important facts on this matter- as they are actually quite clear- clearer than even many Catholic and Orthodox scholars have recognized.
Matthew tells us explicitly that Jesus' adelphoi have a different mother than the Virgin Mary. Here is their first appearance:
(Matthew 13:55) Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
(Matthew 27:55-56) There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
Were this the mother of Jesus, she undoubtedly would have been identified as such. So in the very gospel which introduces to us James and Joseph as relatives of Jesus, their mother is explicitly identified as someone other than Jesus' mother. Are we really to believe that Matthew, having already introduced a "James and Joseph" in that order, later identifies a Mary as "mother of James and Joseph" in the same order while intending us to recognize that this is a completely different James and Joseph?! We know that this Mary, mother of James and Joseph, was at the cross of Jesus. John 19 identifies her from another perspective:
(John 19:25) but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
The puzzle fits together very neatly in a way that is very unlikely to be accidental. Where one gospel identifies a Mary, "the mother of James and Joseph" at the cross- having identified a James and Joseph earlier as relatives of Jesus- another gospel identifies a Mary at the cross of Jesus who is a relative of the Virgin Mary!
The identification of these relatives as children of this other Mary- and thus cousins- is made not by late Christian theologians subject to legendary influences, but by Papias of Hieropolis, one of our most esteemed witnesses to early Christian history. To be clear, Papias had proactively sought out the witnesses of Jesus' ministry, had engaged extensively with the apostle John, and provides us our earliest explicit testimony of the authorship of at least the first two gospels (while no fragment on the other two gospels has been quoted, there is much circumstantial evidence that he also attested to the Lukan and Johannine authorship of these gospels). Papias is writing based on firsthand knowledge, and he is writing while Jesus' family is still managing the church of Jerusalem! [Though it should be noted that some scholars have sought to attribute this fragment to a different, medieval Papias. I find the argument for this to be very weak- basically that Jerome should have cited it if it were available.]
The same is possibly true for Hesegippus, who identifies a certain "Symeon" (cf. Mark 6:3- "James and Joses and Judas [i.e. Jude] and Simon] as a cousin of Jesus and successor to the episcopate of James- while the phrase has been variously interpreted, Hesegippus seems to refer to Symeon as another cousin- in context, then, James is also established as cousin.
Papias alone is an extraordinary witness- do we really think that Papias, having learned at the feet of the apostle to whom Mary was entrusted, committed such an extraordinary blunder?
Now, to the meaning of the word and the reason that it is used in the NT.
The reference to Abraham and Lot is certainly more than figurative: the bond of mutual obligation was rooted in their kinship: i.e. they were of the same household and family. The kind of sharp distinction made between a sibling and cousin implied in your question makes sense only if the nuclear family alone has significance. But the significant organism, in scripture, is the household. And the household exists in a series of gradations. The house of David, the house of Judah, the house of Israel. Each of these is a family name, under whose umbrella all members would be considered "brothers" in the respective context. In the New Testament, we see that the family of Jesus held a special place. Acts opens:
(Acts 1:13-15) And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120)
Notice the relationship between the blood relations and the adoptive relation of the Church. The church is a microcosmic society, sending out its tendrils of life for the first time from a single household: Twelve Apostles in an extended family of 120, matching the twelve tribes. This is why the physical household (again, we are about to find that the Spirit descends to make the church His household or temple) is mentioned along with Mary the mother of Jesus. Notice how the brothers of Jesus are mentioned as His kin relations immediately before Peter addresses the disciples of Jesus as "brothers." This will continue throughout Acts. We see in 1 Corinthians 9 how the "Brothers of the Lord" are a distinct group- next in significance to the Apostles:
(1 Corinthians 9:5) Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
Observe the use of the Aramaic Cephas here. "Brothers of the Lord" is a title for a special group within the apostolic church, just as "the Twelve" is used in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 despite the actual appearance being referred to only involving eleven disciples. The Aramaic background helps answer your question as there is no Aramaic word for cousin- it would need to be stated in clunky terms like "son of my uncle."
Origen and a marginal textual note in Codex Sinaiticus identify the man walking with Cleopas in Luke 24 as “Simon”- which makes very good sense, as this would be his son. Surveying Jewish Christian noncanonical literature and other evidence provides additional data in favor of the above. In short, I don’t actually think this is all that ambiguous, either biblically or historically. Biblically, we are told that Jesus’ named adelphoi are sons of another woman, and this woman is elsewhere identified as a sister of Jesus’ mother, making them cousins. Historically, we find that there is the most consensus among those most closely connected to the family of Jesus and the circle of His disciples. The Helvidian view has been puffed up by decades of assuming what has never been proved- that it has a substantial historical pedigree. 
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Easter Morning
An interesting little detail in the ending of Mark when read in light of the other Gospels. John was known to the family of the high priest according to the Fourth Gospel and appears to have some connections with Jerusalem. He also was at the foot of the cross with the women as Jesus died. We also know that Peter followed Jesus into Jerusalem for much of the Passion while the other nine of the eleven disciples fled. This helps us understand the way the resurrection narratives hang together. Mary Magdalene and the other women go to the tomb- Mary Magdalene runs first and goes to see Peter and John, who then run to the tomb. All involved parties then regather to debrief in Bethany, where the other nine of the eleven had fled and were staying. Clues in the text of the gospels indicate this broader narrative that tends towards harmonization: Mary Magdalene, talking to Peter and John, uses the first person plural to describe her experience at the tomb- we know there were multiple women involved from John alone. Likewise, in Luke, the two disciples on the Emmaus road refer to Peter's running to confirm the emptiness of the Tomb- but refers to it with a third person plural: again confirming what John tells us, that Peter was with at least one other person.
The road between Jerusalem and Bethany provides the appropriate location for the appearance of Jesus to some of the women described in Matthew's Gospel.
In Mark, we are told that Mary Magdalene gives a report to "those who were with" Jesus. In light of all of this information, we see that this phrase likely refers specifically to the two disciples who had not immediately fled on Good Friday. It was Peter and John who had stayed with Jesus for much of the crucifixion narrative, and it is to these two disciples whom Mary Magdalene first reports. This is how authentic history is revealed: what appear to be contradictions on a first reading turn out to very precisely fit together with each other on closer inspection in light of the geography of the region and clues about the personal histories of the people involved.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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Hey Seraphim!
I'm a fairly new convert to Christianity from atheism. I was enjoying reading the blog-like posts of a really intelligent Christian on the early days of my conversion. Unfortunately, he apostatised a while ago.
According to him, secular biblical scholars are more reliable at evaluating the Biblical texts than Christian scholars and Church history. How would you respond to this claim?
That depends of course on the subtopic- please feel free to send me an email at [email protected] . I would like to talk to you and help you find good resources for the intellectual aspect of your journey with Christ.
I find Biblical criticism to be extremely poor- but as you can't fight something with nothing, I can see how it seems sophisticated without a good grounding in the richness of the whole Bible, in all its details. And that lack of grounding is sometimes hard to come by- you have to know where to look. I think I can help you out, so shoot me a message.
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kabane52 · 2 years
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And I'm considering becoming a Young Earth Creationist due to Biblical arguments, but I really don't want to be Scientifically Illiterate like Kent Hovind, what do I do?
The most important thing you can do in this respect is read the entirety of Leonard Brand's Faith, Reason, and Earth History. The third edition is around 600 pages and is free on Kindle. It is utterly unlike any other creationist book.
https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Reason-Earth-Historky-Intelligent-ebook/dp/B06XR6SSYW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=faith+reason+and+earth+history&qid=1636227115&sr=8-1
In my collection of articles on creationism, I have grouped articles by subtopic:
https://kabane52.tumblr.com/creationism
Recommended reading grouped by subtopic:
http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/148323780160/recommended-works-on-creationintelligent-design
And on specific creationist figures, which are recommended and which are not (of those I've encountered):
http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/149017505575/the-good-and-the-bad-of-creationist-scientists
Sketching out my reason for thinking the scientific data as it stands and develops is very promising:
http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/148730598810/the-big-picture-on-creation
http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/149020865930/geology-and-the-global-flood
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