Sun and Shield

Do different roads lead to the same end?

2012-01-26T03:23:00.000-05:00

People often say that there are different ways to God.

Anne has posted some simple, but important arguments against that view, here. (I know Anne only from her blog -- I don't even know her last name.)

Thanks for reading this. Read Anne.

Sunspots 350

2012-01-25T03:49:00.000-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Perhaps more than you want to know about dodder, a parasitic plant that wraps (usually yellow) stems around other plants, from the Botany Photo of the Day.

Wired reports on tuberculosis germs that are resistant to all antibiotics currently in use.

Politics: (Sort of) National Public Radio discusses the health benefits of adding a 1 cent tax to soft drinks/sodas/pop/whatever you call them sale prices. There are some such benefits.

Image source (public domain)

A good, but short, look at the brain: Edge question

2012-01-24T03:06:00.000-05:00

Every year, Edge publishes responses to what it calls a "World Question." This year's question is "2012 : WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?"

I confess that I haven't read all of the many responses, from various prominent people, but I did read the one from David Eagleman, a neuroscientist.

Here's part of his excellent brief essay: "The . . . brain . . . possesses multiple, overlapping ways of dealing with the world. It is a machine built of conflicting parts. It is a representative democracy that functions by competition among parties who all believe they know the right way to solve the problem."

Thanks for reading. Read Eagleman.

The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

2012-01-23T03:30:00.000-05:00

I recently re-read The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. According to the Wikipedia article on the book, it has been translated into twenty or more languages, and sold over five million copies.

What's the attraction? I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but the good guys (and girls and unicorns) win. And that some of the good guys are flawed characters. Hardly a surprise. Here's a pretty good description: "During the meal Schmendrick told stories of his life as an errant enchanter, filling it with kings and dragons and noble ladies. He was not lying, merely arranging events more sensibly . . ." Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn. (New York: Penguin, 1991, p. 47)

"Whatever can die is beautiful -- more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and is the most beautiful creature in the world . . ." ( p.108.)

The title comes from the situation of the unicorns. They are immortal, or nearly so. All of them have disappeared, into the sea, out past the castle of King Haggard. Haggard's magical red bull, an enormous beast, has chased them there, and keeps them.

Schmendrick is one of the good guys, and the main character. He is a mediocre wizard, at best, except for two occasions, central to the plot, when he tells his magic to go ahead and do whatever it needs to, without direction. The results are not what anyone was expecting, in either case. Molly Grue is another important character. She has been partner to a man who is in charge of some forest knaves, who rob, and act as pale imitations of the mythical Robin Hood. They know that they are imitations.

The book has some beautiful scenes, some amazing symbols (including mythical beings), magic, a unicorn, and a plot which surprised me more than once. If you haven't read The Last Unicorn, and fantastic literature (with no vampires) holds an attraction for you, you should read it. Thanks for reading this.

Prayer requires concentration

2012-01-22T03:46:00.000-05:00

It is man’s business to pray; and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is far-reaching in its influence and in its gracious effects. It is intense and profound business which deals with God and His plans and purposes, and it takes wholehearted men to do it. No half-hearted, half-brained, half-spirited effort will do for this serious, all-important, heavenly business. The whole heart, the whole brain, the whole spirit, must be in the matter of praying, which is so mightily to affect the characters and destinies of men.

The above quote is one in a projected series, using The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The work is public domain. The previous post in the series is here. Thanks for reading.

Race, science and medical ethics - Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells

2012-01-20T12:09:00.001-05:00

I was recently privileged to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. (See here for a New York Times book review of the book, here for the Wikipedia article on the book, as well as here for a Wikipedia article on the late Mrs. Lacks.)

HeLa cells, the human cells now used most widely in culture, were taken from a sample tissue from a cancer in Mrs. Lacks. She didn't know that this was done. Some medical supply companies made billions off of her cells.

Every person who deals with medical patients in an office or a hospital should read this book. I won't re-tell it, but here are some of the lessons I got from the book:
1) Every person, regardless of race, sex, or knowledge, is entitled to respect as a patient, and, as far as possible to informed consent -- they should be told the consequences of procedures they are about to undergo, so that they can understand they consequences.*

Henrietta Lacks, the descendant of slaves, was not usually told the consequences of the treatments she got, let alone told the risks, in any way, let alone in ways she could understand.

Her children did not know what a cell was, or, really what cancer is. They couldn't help their ignorance. Skloot, in the course of writing the book, saw to it that, finally, they did understand the basics of what happened to their mother.

2) Scientists can be pretty stupid, too. HeLa cells are hardy, and spread easily. They infected literally millions of dollars worth of other cell cultures that weren't supposed to be HeLa, but really were. Even when this was pointed out to them, most of the cell culture scientists didn't believe it, or take proper precautions to avoid more contamination.

3) According to Skloot, US law still does not give patients control over cells derived from them. They are deemed discarded by the patient, and the doctor or hospital is free to use them as they see fit. Maybe that's OK, maybe not, but something seems unfair about this matter.

Besides the above, the book is absorbing, scientifically, ethically, historically, and personally. Ms. Skloot has done the Lacks family, and all of us, an enormous service, and worked very hard, under adverse conditions, for years, to accomplish the writing.

Skloot is a science writer by profession. She claims no religious belief, and was amazed, and, I think, impacted, by the religious expression and belief of the Lacks family.

The author used some of the proceeds from her book to fund the Henrietta Lacks foundation, which attempts to help people who have made unwitting contributions to medical science, like Lacks.

Thanks for reading. Read Skloot.

* * * * *
A decade or so ago, I took a relative of mine, who was unable to read, to a hospital, for some routine matter. He was given a consent form, small print on both sides of normal-sized paper, and asked to sign it and return it, with the expectation that he do so immediately. The signature supposedly absolved the hospital from liability, should anything go wrong. He signed it, and I didn't object. I had been to the same hospital, and seen the same form, presented in the same way, a year or so before. I have a doctorate, and it would have taken me at least 20 minutes to read and (maybe) understand the form. I did read enough to see that the form said that, in signing the document, you were certifying that you had read and understood it. This lawyer inspired farce was mostly harmless, but it definitely wasn't informed consent! I would assume that the signature really wouldn't have exempted that hospital from claims for damage, in the event of negligence or malpractice.

Christians react to an order to remove a Christian banner from a public high school

2012-01-19T03:21:00.000-05:00

There have been legal demands that a Christian student remove a Christian banner from a public high school in Rhode Island. Henry Neufeld describes the case. I hadn't heard of it before.

He also has a few things to say about Christian claims of being persecuted in North America -- it's seldom really persecution.

Thanks for reading. Read Neufeld.

A related matter took place in North Carolina recently. See here for the story of "equal treatment."

Sunspots 349

2012-01-18T03:15:00.000-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports on a black hole that was observed to fire off two giant gaseous bursts.

Wired also reports on how the brain spots faces.

National Public Radio on what vertebrates are smallest.

Image source (public domain)

James F. Crow, rest in peace

2012-01-17T08:56:00.001-05:00

James F. Crow was a good man and a scientist. He passed away a few days ago. (Here is the obituary.) It was my privilege to have taken a class from him, and to serve as an instructor of what were called "quiz sections" under him, while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, where Crow spent the great majority of his career. He was the leader of the Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) work group while I was at Wisconsin. However, he and his students made important contributions to human medical genetics, too.

Crow was known principally as a teacher, and he was a good one, bringing out the best in his graduate students, and in those he lectured to. He was multi-talented, though. He testified before at least one congressional committee. He wrote books and articles. He played the viola, and did it well. He was an able administrator. He worked with colleagues and graduate students from many nationalities.

Although he was an important person, he was humble, easily reachable, and sometimes serving as the butt of practical jokes. For example, some of his students etherized some fruit flies and put them in his viola, and, during a concert by the Madison symphony orchestra, the flies revived, and flew out of the instrument.

I was sorry to hear of his passing.

Prayer involves the mind

2012-01-15T03:41:00.000-05:00

Necessarily the mind enters into the praying. First of all, it takes thought to pray. The intellect teaches us we ought to pray. By serious thinking beforehand the mind prepares itself for approaching a throne of grace.
Thought goes before entrance into the closet and prepares the way for true praying. It considers what will be asked for in the closet hour. True praying does not leave to the inspiration of the hour what will be the requests of that hour. As praying is asking for something definite of God, so, beforehand, the thought arises—“What shall I ask for at this hour?” All vain and evil and frivolous thoughts are eliminated, and the mind is given over entirely to God, thinking of Him, of what is needed, and what has been received in the past. By every token, prayer, in taking hold of the entire man, does not leave out the mind. The very first step in prayer is a mental one. The disciples took that first step when they said unto Jesus at one time, “Lord, teach us to pray.” We must be taught through the intellect, and just in so far as the intellect is given up to God in prayer, will we be able to learn well and readily the lesson of prayer.

This is one of a projected series on prayer, using The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. Public Domain. The previous post was here.

How do you understand a tree?

2012-01-13T03:23:00.000-05:00

How to you understand a tree? There are many ways of doing so.

The above photo, of Bradford pear trees in morning sunlight, is from my Flickr photostream. The photo is a link to the original, which is posted there.

Back when I was a college biology professor, I would occasionally say something like this:

One way to understand a tree is to stand under it. You can listen to the wind blowing through the branches. You can feel the bark, and you can look at the leaves. You can watch for insects and spiders climbing up and down it, and look for birds and squirrels nesting in it. You can try to imagine the life of the tree, through years of growth, in various conditions. You can thank the tree for making shade, which can make life more comfortable, and for giving off Oxygen, which we can breathe. For many trees, you can also thank the tree for its fruit. You can thank it for its beauty during the various seasons of the year.

The picture above is, in part, of cells. It is from a public domain drawing of a microscopic view of part of the bark of a cork oak tree, by Robert Hooke, who named cells because of what he saw -- a resemblance to prison cells.

There's another way to understand a tree. You can take a core sample, and count the rings of annual growth, and make guesses about why some years' growth was larger than others. You can examine sample cells under a microscope, study its biochemistry with various analytic devices, measure the light absorption of the leaves, and count the root branches -- and, if you like, you can take the square root of that number!

Which of the two ways is better? That depends on what you are trying to accomplish, or what you need. Both ways have validity, with a legitimate purpose behind them. The first way can be called holistic, or wholistic. (See Wikipedia on holism.) It may help us to appreciate a tree in ways that the second sort of methods does not. An artist or poet, or a landscape architect, an ecologist, or a property owner, should use the first method.

But the second method is also legitimate. That way can be called reductionistic. As the Wikipedia article referred to above says, "Reductionism in science says that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. For example, the processes of biology are reducible to chemistry and the laws of chemistry are explained by physics." (See also the Wikipedia article on reductionism, which is a complex subject!)

A wholistic examination of a tree would never discover an explanation for certain processes, such as how water gets to the leaves from the roots, or how photosynthesis works. It would probably not discover that certain medicines could be derived from parts of a tree. Science mostly uses reductionistic methods, so much so that some biologists may be accused of not knowing what the organism they are studying looks like -- they only study cell cultures, or enzymes, or DNA sequences.

The Psalmist said, about a righteous person:
He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,

that produces its fruit in its season,

whose leaf also does not wither.

Whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:3, World English Bible, public domain.)

Both methods of looking at trees, or tarantulas, or trout, have their value, and neither method should be ignored or despised at the expense of the other. God presumably looks at trees in both ways, better than we could possibly do so. He has given us the ability to look at trees in both ways. Some of us have talent as photographers, or poets, and some as molecular biologists or geochemists.

One of my daughters gave me a book for Christmas. Soon after starting it, I came across a passage entitled
"I CONSIDER A TREE," and found that the author had thought many of the same thoughts that I had, and more deeply. Martin Buber said this (and more):

I can perceive it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of the roots, breathing of the leaves, ceaseless commerce with the earth and air -- and the obscure growth itself.

I can classify it as a species and study it as a type in its structure and mode of life.

I can subdue its actual presence and form so sternly that I recognise it only as an expression of law -- of the laws in accordance with which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or of those in accordance with which the component substances mingle and separate.

. . .
It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it. I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Scribner Classics, 2000. pp. 22-23.

I have posted on trees before, here. Thanks for reading.

Did animals eat meat before the flood?

2012-01-12T03:17:00.000-05:00

Young-earth creationist Todd Wood thinks so, and he cites a paper in a young-earth creationism journal to back up his claim. I found the claim that animals did eat meat before the flood remarkable. Genesis 9, after the flood, states that humans were free to eat meat, but Genesis 1 seems to indicate that, at least prior to the fall, we were not to do so. (The article I have linked to below has more on what Genesis says about this issue.)

I am writing this in late 2011, and I can see this article here, in the January 2011 issue of this journal, although there are warnings that only members can see it before 2012. (This practice of restricting immediate access is fairly common, not unique to Creation Matters.)

Thanks for reading. I have a post, here, on the subject of whether Christians are required to be vegetarians.

Sunspots 348

2012-01-11T03:53:00.000-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Fox News reports that hybrid sharks have been found near Australia, and briefly discusses the implications.

NPR reports that a parasitic fly may be responsible for much of the die-off in bees in recent years.

The Arts: Rebecca Luella Miller, of the Speculative Faith blog, concludes (I think) a series about J. R. R. Tolkien's Christianity.

Image source (public domain)

Christians, Women, and Leadership, by Ken Schenck

2012-01-09T03:58:00.002-05:00

If you are one of the few people reading this, but have never read Ken Schenk's arguments in favor of allowing women in leadership in the church, you should read his latest post on the subject. (He writes about a lot of other things, mostly about the Bible, but, as he says, fires a salvo in this unfortunate war about once a year.) Schenck is dean of a seminary, and well qualified to speak on what scripture means.

Thanks for reading. Read Schenck.

How to really accomplish something through prayer

2012-01-08T03:09:00.004-05:00

The men of olden times who wrought well in prayer, who brought the largest things to pass, who moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in man in answering his prayers. He must have whole-hearted men through whom to work out His purposes and plans concerning men. God must have men in their entirety. No double-minded man need apply. No vacillating man can be used. No man with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and self, can do the praying that is needed. Source: The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. Public Domain.

God help me to live up to that.

I have attempted, for several years, to post something devotional on Sundays. For 2012, I plan to begin with posts copied (it's public domain, and I can't say it nearly as well as Bounds did) from the book indicated.

Thanks for reading.

Intelligent Design and the Multiverse

2012-01-06T03:33:00.004-05:00

Jack Scanlan, who is by no means a fan of Intelligent Design, discusses the matter of the multiverse. At least some Intelligent Design advocates claim that the idea of a multiverse has been proposed to get around the notion that the universe is finely tuned for life, hence, serves as an argument against Intelligent Design. Scanlan says that, if there is such a thing as a multiverse, it would by no means rule out Intelligent Design.

Hmmm. Interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Will fiction last forever? A series by E. Stephen Burnett

2012-01-05T03:58:00.002-05:00

I have subscribed to the "Speculative Faith" blog for several years. One of the reasons is the writing of frequent contributor E. Stephen Burnett (I don't know anything about him, except what I read in the blog.)

He has recently finished a series on the question of whether fiction will last forever. In other words, will there be made-up stories in heaven. You've probably never thought about that, but you probably should.

Here's a brief sample: "But could some genius author create a new genre that doesn’t require traditional villains or opposing causes, which is still just as entertaining and honoring to the God who had long since defeated all real-life villains?"

Thanks for reading. Read Burnett. Please.

Sunspots 347

2012-01-04T03:04:00.005-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports on ideas to keep Venice from sinking too much (which it has been doing).

Politics: An article in The Smithsonian Magazine on Roger Williams, a devout Christian, and founder of Rhode Island, who was instrumental in promoting the idea of separation of church and state. What do you get when you mix religion and politics? Politics.

Weekend Fisher has posted a Christian debaters code of ethics. Most or all of the Republican candidates for President, be they Christian or not, haven't measured up.

Image source (public domain)

A New (at least to me) definition of evangelism

2012-01-02T03:57:00.000-05:00

Anne, alias Weekend Fisher, posts regularly, and well. Recently, she posted on the Name above all Names, which is Christ's. OK, fine. But she closed with an unusual, but excellent, definition of evangelism. See here to read her post.

Thanks for reading this.

Prayers in the Bible: Revelation 22

2012-01-01T03:12:00.002-05:00

The last words in the Bible are a prayer:

Revelation 22:20 He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.”
Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen. (World English Bible, public domain)

At least the last part of verse 20 is, and all of verse 21 is. This is the last in a year-long series (plus one day) of posts on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 346

2011-12-28T03:14:00.001-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Fox News, and many other entities, report on the discovery of two earth-sized planets, circling a star about 950 light-years from us.

National Public Radio reports that birds living in cities have adjusted the pitch of their songs, so as to be more easily heard by other birds.

Sports: Wired reports on how a type of swimsuit enabled swimmers to set many records.

Politics: National Public Radio reports than, in Oregon, at least, bloggers may not automatically be journalists -- a blogger was assessed a huge fine by a court, for defamation of character.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Mary praises God

2011-12-25T03:41:00.010-05:00

Luke 1:35 The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God. 36 Behold, Elizabeth, your relative, also has conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For everything spoken by God is possible.”
38 Mary said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to your word.”
The angel departed from her. 39 Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah, 40 and entered into the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. 41 It happened, when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, that the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 She called out with a loud voice, and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy! 45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord!”
46 Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord.
47 My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked at the humble state of his handmaid.
For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.
49 For he who is mighty has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for generations of generations on those who fear him.
51 He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down princes from their thrones.
And has exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things.
He has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has given help to Israel, his servant, that he might remember mercy,
55 As he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and his seed forever.” (World English Bible, public domain)

We usually think of prayer as asking God for something, because that's what we mostly do. But prayer is talking to God, and/or listening to God, and shouldn't be only supplication, requests. Mary was engaged in Adoration, praising God for who He is, and what He does. This prayer of Mary, beginning in verse 46, is sometimes called the Magnificat, because that's the first word of the Latin version of the prayer.

This is the last of a year-long series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Jesus, the Light of the World

2011-12-24T15:38:00.006-05:00

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it. (World English Bible, public domain)

Sunspots 345

2011-12-21T03:26:00.001-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (or maybe not so funny) ABC News reports, with X-ray photos, on people who come to the emergency room with objects of various kinds stuck into their body openings.

Science: Wired reports that a government study indicates that using chimpanzees in medical research is not necessary.

Politics: Demonstrators in Wisconsin may soon have to pay for the privilege, according to The Milwaukee Journal.

Image source (public domain)

Why did Jesus use "dry places" when He was speaking of an evil spirit?

2011-12-20T03:41:00.003-05:00

The World English Bible renders Luke 11:24 thus: The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’ (All Bible quotations are from the World English Bible, which is public domain. Matthew 12:43 is similar.)

Why did Jesus use the word "dry" there? The simple answer is that I don't know. However, I'll guess.

Here's Psalm 63:1 God, you are my God.

I will earnestly seek you.

My soul thirsts for you.

My flesh longs for you,

in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

We may see here the idea that a person who does not have God's presence is like one in a dry area. It should be remembered, though, that the text also has a heading for this Psalm: "A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah." David may have literally been in the desert when he wrote this.

There's Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families.

He brings out the prisoners with singing,

but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land. (Some versions use "dry," rather than "sun-scorched.")

Isaiah 44:3 says: For I will pour water on him who is thirsty,

and streams on the dry ground.

I will pour my Spirit on your seed,

and my blessing on your offspring:

Ezekiel 30:12 and Hosea 2:3 speak about God abandoning Israel to the desert.

The Greek word translated as "wilderness" in some versions of Matthew 4 (and Mark 1 and Luke 4) is also translated as "desert" in other places. Probably Jesus met Satan in a dry place. The Blueletter Bible gives all of these occurrences, here.

So there are positive associations, related to God's presence, with being watered, in the Bible. And there are negative associations connected with being in a dry land. Probably that's why Jesus used the words He did in this case. But that's just a maybe.

Thanks for reading!

Prayers in the Bible: Solomon prays at the dedication of the Temple

2011-12-18T03:55:00.004-05:00

1 Kings 8:22 Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven; 23 and he said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart; 24 who have kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day. 25 Now therefore, may Yahweh, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’
26 “Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father. 27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built! 28 Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant, and for his supplication, Yahweh my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day; 29 that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place. 30 Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.
31 “If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swear before your altar in this house; 32 then hear in heaven, and do, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.
33 “When your people Israel are struck down before the enemy, because they have sinned against you; if they turn again to you, and confess your name, and pray and make supplication to you in this house: 34 then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.
35 “When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them: 36 then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.
37 “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; 38 whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands toward this house: 39 then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know; (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men;) 40 that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
41 “Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country for your name’s sake 42 (for they shall hear of your great name, and of your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm); when he shall come and pray toward this house; 43 hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.
44 “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name; 45 then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. 46 If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; 47 yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;’ 48 if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name: 49 then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause; 50 and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them 51 (for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron); 52 that your eyes may be open to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you. 53 For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh.”
54 It was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread out toward heaven. 55 He stood, and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, 56 “Blessed be Yahweh, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by Moses his servant. 57 May Yahweh our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. Let him not leave us, nor forsake us; 58 that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers. 59 Let these my words, with which I have made supplication before Yahweh, be near to Yahweh our God day and night, that he may maintain the cause of his servant, and the cause of his people Israel, as every day shall require; 60 that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh, he is God. There is no one else.
61 “Let your heart therefore be perfect with Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.”
62 The king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before Yahweh. 63 Solomon offered for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Yahweh, two and twenty thousand head of cattle, and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of Yahweh. 64 The same day the king made the middle of the court holy that was before the house of Yahweh; for there he offered the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before Yahweh was too little to receive the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings. 65 So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, before Yahweh our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days. 66 On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David his servant, and to Israel his people. (World English Bible, public domain)

Solomon was wise, and used good judgement, at least in the beginning. This prayer is one of the most remarkable ever recorded, as Solomon acknowledges, as the spokesman of his people, the goodness and sovereignty of God.

This is one of a series of posts on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Behold, what wondrous love and grace, by William Sanders (1821)

2011-12-15T20:28:00.002-05:00

Behold, what wondrous love and grace!
When we were wretched and undone,
To save our ruined, helpless race,
The Father gave His only Son!
Of twice ten thousand gifts divine,
No gift like this could ever shine.

Jesus, to save us from our fall,
Was made incarnate here below;
This was the greatest gift of all—
Heaven could no greater gift bestow:
On Him alone our sins were laid;
He died, and now the ransom’s paid.

O gift of love unspeakable!
O gift of mercy all divine!
We once were slaves of death and hell,
But now we in His image shine.
For other gifts our songs we raise,
But this demands our highest praise.

Praise shall employ these tongues of ours
Till we, with all the hosts above,
Extol His Name with nobler powers,
Lost in the ocean of His love:
While angel choirs with wonder gaze,
We’ll fill the heavens with shouts of praise.

This hymn is about the greatest Christmas gift of all. See here for the Cyberhymnal page, which plays a tune for these words. However, they can also be sung to the tune for "Faith of our Fathers." The tune is named "St.Catherine." Another tune, probably less familiar, is "Selena." That tune is used for "O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done," by Charles Wesley.

I would recommend changing the 5th and 6th lines of the 1st stanza to this:

Of all the gifts that might have been,
This was the best to give to men.

Thanks for reading. God's blessings at this and all seasons.

Sunspots 344

2011-12-14T03:23:00.010-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: USA Today reports on geologist's findings in relation to the Japanese earthquake of early this year. Among the findings: "Fissures stretch the length of football fields and a cliff several hundred feet tall looks freshly exposed at one spot, more than 2 miles deep."

NPR reports on experiments demonstrating that rats will work to free a rat they are familiar with from a stressful situation, even ignoring nearby chocolate chips to do so.

Christianity: A Lutheran pastor has a Bible-based Wise Men FAQ: How many wise men were there? How old was Jesus when they visited? and other interesting questions.

A long, but excellent, and understandable, article on translating the Bible into modern English. The article claims that English has changed significantly in some respects within your lifetime, even if you are in your thirties. The main goal of the article is to evaluate the 2011 New International Version, but the article would be pertinent if there had never been such a version.

Image source (public domain)

A Christmas Prayer by George MacDonald

2011-12-13T03:11:00.001-05:00

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Loving looks the large-eyed cow,
Loving stares the long-eared ass
At Heaven's glory in the grass!
Child, with added human birth
Come to bring the child of earth
Glad repentance, tearful mirth,
And a seat beside the hearth
At the Father's knee—
Make us peaceful as thy cow;
Make us patient as thine ass;
Make us quiet as thou art now;
Make us strong as thou wilt be.
Make us always know and see
We are his as well as thou.

-George MacDonald, The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, volume 2, from Project Gutenberg (public domain).

The Christmas Child, by George MacDonald

2011-12-12T03:07:00.002-05:00

THE CHRISTMAS CHILD.

"Little one, who straight hast come
Down the heavenly stair,
Tell us all about your home,
And the father there."

"He is such a one as I,
Like as like can be.
Do his will, and, by and by,
Home and him you'll see."

- George MacDonald, from Poetical Works of George MacDonald, volume 2, from Project Gutenberg (public domain).

Prayers in the Bible: Solomon prays for wisdom

2011-12-11T03:02:00.002-05:00

1 Kings 3:5 In Gibeon Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.”
6 Solomon said, “You have shown to your servant David my father great loving kindness, according as he walked before you in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you. You have kept for him this great loving kindness, that you have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. 7 Now, Yahweh my God, you have made your servant king instead of David my father. I am but a little child. I don’t know how to go out or come in. 8 Your servant is in the midst of your people which you have chosen, a great people, that can’t be numbered nor counted for multitude. 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this your great people?”
10 The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. 11 God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life, neither have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice; 12 behold, I have done according to your word. Behold, I have given you a wise and an understanding heart; so that there has been no one like you before you, neither after you shall any arise like you. 13 I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be any among the kings like you, all your days. 14 If you will walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”
15 Solomon awoke; and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants. (World English Bible, public domain)

Solomon's prayer for wisdom shows the great humility that this young man had, and the wisdom to ask for wisdom. This was my own prayer when I was appointed to a position at a Christian university, nearly 50 years ago now. God is good. I haven't always used the wisdom that God gave me, but He has always given it.

This is one of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 343

2011-12-07T03:21:00.001-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: (or Disasters) Video of an amazing disaster, in 1980, probably caused by a 14-inch oil drilling apparatus. More in Wikipedia, here.

Fox News reports that NASA may have found an earth-like planet, a long way from here.

Sports: (Sort of) An astronaut plays baseball against himself, hitting his own pitch, from Wired. (Short video included).

Computing: Fox News reports on how Facebook has been warned, and punished, for its use of information about users, without their consent.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Daniel thanks God for wisdom

2011-12-04T03:39:00.003-05:00

Daniel 2:17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: 18 that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his companions should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19 Then was the secret revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 20 Daniel answered, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; for wisdom and might are his. 21 He changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding; 22 he reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. 23 I thank you, and praise you, you God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we desired of you; for you have made known to us the king’s matter. (World English Bible, public domain)

The thing referred to in verse 17 was a dream that the king had. He couldn't remember it, and he demanded that the wise men of Babylon remind him of what he dreamed, and also interpret it. The wise men, except Daniel, declared that no one could be expected to do that. But Daniel, and his friends, prayed for help, and got it. Then Daniel thanked God, as he should have, and we should, too.

This is part of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Thirty Days of Gratitude

2011-12-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

I am a Facebook member, and, as such, decided to post about something I'm grateful for, each day. Here is the result, or most of it:

4. I'm thankful for Silicon atoms. They have an amazing ability to hook up with other atoms to form large entities. Without Silicon atoms, and the things they combine with, glass, most rocks, and the semiconductors needed in modern electronics would not be possible.

5. I'm thankful for the tilt of the earth's axis, that makes seasons possible.

7. I'm thankful that I exist. I guess my dad produced a billion or more sperm over his lifetime, and my mother was carrying at least a few hundred eggs when she reached reproductive age, and, presumably, if that one egg and that one sperm hadn't gotten together, I wouldn't be here.

8. I'm thankful to live in a country with a (mostly) functioning democracy. When elections are lost in some countries, the losers get out the guns, or riot. Sometimes the army steps in to remove those in power. These things have never happened here.

9. I'm thankful for a praying wife, and a God who answers her prayers. (Not always with "yes," of course!)

10. I'm thankful that air molecules (and other gases, liquids, and even solids) can be compressed, so that there can be pressure differences, propagated from a source of vibration. In other words, I'm grateful for sound, whether it be the crash of something falling on the floor, or the angels singing to the shepherds. I'm also grateful that I can hear it.

11. I'm thankful for electromagnetic radiation. (This includes light, X-rays, radio waves, and a lot of other forms of energy.) Without it, I couldn't see this screen. Without it, my laptop wouldn't be connected to the Internet right now. Without it, the earth would be a lifeless frozen ball.

12. I'm thankful for my skeleton. Without it, I'd be a blob of meat on the ground, without easy means of movement, of my whole body or my arms -- rather like a jelly fish out of water. My skeleton also protects my brain and my eyes. It makes a good place to attach my muscles. It has marrow which makes some kinds of blood cells.

13. I'm grateful for plant pigments. Most higher plants have chlorophyll, which is a green pigment. Many of them have other pigments that are exposed when the chlorophyll breaks down. The result is beauty, on a magnificent scale.

14. I’m thankful for the phenomena described by the famous equation Einstein developed, e=mc2. It tells us that mass can be changed into energy, lots of energy. This energy, released by nuclear fusion in the sun, is (very slowly) reducing the mass of the sun, and provides the energy that plants turn into food, and that keeps the earth warm enough for life.

15. I’m thankful for lawnmowers and kitchen sinks. When I taught, I was seldom sure if I had really accomplished anything. When I wash some dishes, or mow some grass, or do other routine chores, like washing clothes, mopping, and the like, it’s easy to get a feeling of accomplishment. (The yard IS mowed now. The socks ARE matched and put away. The flowers ARE watered.) I’m also thankful for such routine tasks, which allow me to pay some attention to something else, without danger of messing up the job at hand.

16. I’m thankful for circles. Circles are beautiful curves. In nature, they are produced when some phenomenon is propagated in all directions at the same rate. For example, if a pebble is dropped into still water, the result is circular ripples. Trees generally grow at an equal rate, adding tissue outward from a center in all directions. When a tree is cut cross-wise, the result is a circle. (Actually, it’s often lots of circles, as growth rings are exposed.) Some flowers have a circular shape. Sound travels outward as an expanding sphere, so that, at any one level, sound waves from a point source are circular. The moon and the sun are almost perfectly spherical, and they appear as almost perfect circles. The pupils of my eyes are circular. Many human-made objects are circular, or have a circular cross-section. Where I grew up, pies were circular in shape. Coins are circular. Ice cream cones and eggs have a circular cross-section. I like circles.

17. I'm thankful for sensory neurons. They tell me, for example, what this looks like on the page, how the keyboard sounds, and where my fingers are, so that I can type this.
We often hear that there are five senses. There are more than twice that many in humans, depending on how they are counted. The sense of touch is actually more than one sense -- we sense pressure, pain, and both heat and cold. Both the senses of smell and taste depend on more than one type of sensory neuron. There are sensory neurons in the brain, monitoring the state of the blood, hence our body's states. There is a sense of balance. There are kinesthetic sense neurons that tell us where various parts of our body are located, so, for example, we can (almost) put the tips of our index fingers together in front of our face, with our eyes closed. And then there are senses found in some animals, that we don't have, such as being able to detect heat at a distance. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

18. I’m thankful for decomposers. Mostly, they are pretty yucky organisms – fungi, bacteria, maggots, and perhaps even vultures should be included. But they carry out a necessary job, which is breaking down once-living things, or cast-off parts of living things, making the minerals and organic substances in the remains available for other organisms. If they didn’t, much of the material needed for life would be lying around in the form of dead leaves, grasses, dead animals, poop and the like, piling up over time, except when a fire burned the stuff. It is possible to circumvent some decomposition by embalming – think of mummies. But what’s the point? What’s left is not really human, but just the carcass of what used to be one.
I’ve already been decomposed a lot. My skin cells flake off, for example. Perhaps you have some atoms in you that used to be in me, and perhaps I have some that used to be in you.

19 I’m thankful for J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. I worked in the library when I was in college, and had access to the stacks. I looked around quite a bit, and found The Fellowship of the Ring, which had recently been published. Although the Christianity in Fellowship and related books is not obvious, Tolkien’s enormously popular books were written from a Christian world-view, and, largely, re-shaped the writing of fantastic literature. I have read seven of his books several times, and some others once. Tolkien strongly influenced C. S. Lewis, to become a Christian, and for years after that. Lewis became a leading author of apologetics, as well as of science fiction and fantasy works, which were, and still are, well received. I first found The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe while messing around in the University of Wisconsin library, which was my introduction to Lewis. It had nothing to do with my graduate program, but Lewis has had quite a bit to do with my life. As Puddleglum says in The Silver Chair, “There are no accidents.” As to the Christianity in their fiction, Lewis, and especially Tolkien, were writing the books they need to write, and their Christianity showed through.

20. I’m thankful for sugars. Sugars are not only tasty, but essential. Photosynthesis, the process by which atmospheric Carbon (in Carbon Dioxide) is inserted into living things, produces sugar as an end product. Plants use this sugar to make food molecules, and for structure. Some of the sugar produced by photosynthesis is used to make amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Some is used to make fats. Some is used to make carbohydrates, such as cellulose, a molecule used to enable plant structures to grow to great sizes, or to assume beautiful shapes like leaves and flowers. We, of course, get protein, carbohydrates and fats from plants, or from animals that eat plants, and we use cellulose in the manufacture of paper and of some kinds of cloth. Cellulose is also an important part of wood.
If you are hospitalized and need food energy, you are given glucose solution intravenously. Glucose is a sugar. Table sugar, derived from sugar beets or sugar cane, is a combination of glucose and another kind of sugar. There are many kinds of sugar. One of the most important is deoxyribose, which is one of the building blocks of DNA.
I know that sugar on my teeth allows tooth decay bacteria to grow, and too much sugar in my diet may help me to gain weight, or perhaps to behave abnormally, but, overall, sugars are of enormous positive importance. In Bible times, honey was a major source of sugar, apparently. Sugar beets and sugar cane were not available to the people of the Bible.

21. I’m thankful for music. It seems clear that God invented it. Although it may not be meant to be taken strictly literally, Job 38 is a lecture to Job, on the creation of the earth, and it says that the morning stars sang together then. The angels also sang at the birth of Christ. The disciples sung a hymn when they left for the Mount of Olives, where Christ would be arrested during Passion Week. Revelation (again, perhaps not to be taken literally) suggests that there will be a vast choir in heaven, perhaps singing forever, perhaps singing to mark special occasions, such as the triumph of Christ. The Bible, thus, associates the four most important events that took place in the past, or will take place in the future with music. Music is not just for these epic events. The Psalms have a number of admonitions to sing to God. 1 Corinthians 14:15 and Ephesians 5:19 do, too.

22. I’m thankful for that amazing substance, water. Water is one of the raw materials used in photosynthesis, the manufacture of food. Water is beautiful, whether in lakes, ponds, rivers, oceans, clouds, snow, dewdrops or rainbows. Water is unusual in several ways. It exists as a solid, liquid, and gas at temperatures commonly experienced. This makes the water cycle possible. It requires an unusual amount of energy to change it from one state to another, which helps to stabilize air temperature, keeps iced drinks cool, and also means that our bodies don’t succumb to exposure to cold temperatures quickly. It is transparent, which allows us to see (our eyes have fluid in them.) It dissolves many other substances, including hormones, food, waste products, neurotransmitters, enzymes and antibodies. I’m mostly water, and so are you, and all other living things.

23. I’m thankful for memory. I can remember a lot of things, some beautiful, some exciting, some inspiring, some pleasant, some rather ordinary – maybe those are the best kind. There are also, of course, some memories of failure, or tragedy. Our memories change with time, so that I’m probably not remembering a lot of stuff the way it really happened, but remembering is still important. Without quite a bit of memory, I wouldn’t be the person I am – just consider someone with Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia. However, I’m also thankful for forgetting. I’ve forgotten a lot of bad stuff, as well as some ordinary stuff. (I’ve also forgotten some good stuff, but, on balance, we’re probably better off to forget.) Most important, God says that He has forgotten forgiven sin!

25. I’m thankful for the Bible, the most important way God has chosen to communicate with 21st century people. It’s a great book, written so that it spoke to the culture of ancient Israel, and it still speaks to me, although through imperfect instruments, including my own prejudices, my own culture, translators who may not have gotten it all quite right, and language itself, which is inherently ambiguous. Do I understand all of the Bible? Definitely not, but I understand enough of it. In one sentence, it tells me that I have a sin problem, and that there is a sinless remedy for it, which I need, and can’t provide for myself.

26. I’m thankful for the medicine and medical care available to me. I recognize that there are many millions of people in this country who don’t have health insurance, and I know of at least two people who have died because they didn’t have it – they didn’t go for treatment until it was too late – but I have and can get, medical care. God can, and does heal, but He also chooses to work through rest, exercise, good food, medicines, therapy, surgery, and through conscientious people who provide such services, and I’m grateful for this. Healthcare isn’t the most important thing in the world, although sometimes we act like it is, but it is important, and I’m glad to get it.

27. I’m thankful for emptiness. This sentence would be difficult to understand without spaces. Thissentencewouldbedifficulttounderstandwithoutspaces. Music needs rests, speakers should pause once in a while, printed documents and books use white space, and the sky is more beautiful with gaps between the stars than if it were solid uniform light. Our lives should have gaps, when nothing is scheduled, so we can renew ourselves, or so that God can use us to do something that wasn’t on “our” schedule.
Some people say that we have a “God-shaped hole” in our souls that we try to fill, unfortunately often with pleasure, power, sex, drugs, and other inappropriate things. Jesus said that a person who had had an evil spirit expelled was in danger of having that hole filled again, with even worse spirits. I’m thankful for emptiness.

29. My underwear says that it’s made of 100% cotton. Both parts of my underwear. That’s all I’m going to say about my wardrobe. However, I’m thankful for fibers, including cotton. Why? To shamelessly quote the Wikipedia: “They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together.
Human uses for fibers are diverse. They can be spun into filaments, string, or rope, used as a component of composite materials, or matted into sheets to make products such as paper or felt. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials are generally made as fibers, for example carbon fiber and Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene.
Synthetic fibers can often be produced very cheaply and in large amounts compared to natural fibers, but for clothing natural fibers can give some benefits, such as comfort, over their synthetic counterparts.”
So. Imagine a world without fiber. No paper, not much clothing, string, rope, fabric in autos, or trees, and, besides, we and other animals would pretty much become a blob of glup.
Fiber is also used in a moral sense, as in “moral fiber,” or “the fiber of my being.” I hope that, in the fiber of my being, I want to follow Christ. Thanks for reading. Perhaps your information equipment uses optical fibers, so you could. I know that your own information processing system uses nerve fibers.
My wife reminded me that I should have mentioned that fiber in the diet helps prevent colon cancer. She’s right.

30. I’m thankful for the blood of Christ. As 1 Peter puts it: “18 knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a faultless and pure lamb, the blood of Christ;” (World English Bible, public domain) The only way to redemption from sin’s penalty, death, is trust in the power of the sacrifice of Christ, which sacrifice was validated by His resurrection. Why blood? We don’t know for sure, of course, but blood is symbolic of life. Many crime dramas, on TV and the movies, show blood. Lots of it. Fake blood. But we understand that if we lose too much real blood, we’ll die. We also understand that if the heart, which pumps blood all over the body, stops, we’ll die.
Why is blood so essential to biological life? It carries food and Oxygen all over the body. It carries off Carbon Dioxide and other wastes. It transports the hormonal signals that tell the body to do so many different things. It carries white blood cells and antibodies, which fight off invasions. It helps regulate temperature. It connects an unborn embryo or fetus with its mother. Blood does this, and many more things. How appropriate that it was taken, by the ancient Hebrews, as a symbol of life.

You probably noticed that, for some reason, the entries kept getting longer.

Sunspots 342

2011-11-30T03:54:00.002-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (sort of) National Public Radio reports on the growing parenting advice industry -- parenting advice for parents with offspring 20 or more years old, that is.

Science: National Public Radio also reports that cultures that learned to rely on agriculture for most of their food have developed differently shaped jaws than hunter-gathering societies have.

Politics: (or Humor) I'm getting a lot from NPR this week. Here's an article on which candidate's T-shirts are selling best. (And on other political merchandise.)

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Paul thanks God for Philemon

2011-11-27T03:14:00.002-05:00

Philemon 1:4 I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, 5 hearing of your love, and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; 6 that the fellowship of your faith may become effective, in the knowledge of every good thing which is in us in Christ Jesus. (World English Bible, public domain)

This is part of a series on prayer. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Misconceptions about Evolution

2011-11-25T06:41:00.000-05:00

The Biologos Forum has posted two fine articles on "Misconceptions about Evolution," which are here and here.

The articles are well written, well organized, brief, to the point, and accurate. No one who plans to discuss evolution with others should do so without reading them.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 341

2011-11-23T03:13:00.001-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (or maybe not) "Sleep texting" is when someone sends text messages while they are in bed asleep. Really.

Science: (or something) Turkey breasts are so large that their size prevents normal copulation, hence most turkeys raised for meat are the result of artificial insemination.

Christianity: Anne offers a re-writing of 1 Corinthians 13, for our time.

Image source (public domain)

What Todd Wood would like to hear an evolutionary creationist say

2011-11-22T07:41:00.000-05:00

Todd C. Wood is an articulate young-earth creationist, who, unlike most young-earth creationists, has impeccable scientific credentials, and engages regularly with academic scientists who are not young-earth creationists, or Christians at all.

Wood has recently (no date given) had an essay published by something called The Colossian Forum. In his essay, Wood pleads for a little humility in discussions about origins among Christians. He points out some scientific challenges to young-earth creationism, and admits that he does not have the answers. He also points out that Christian scientists who agree that young-earth creationism is wrong don't agree on much else, including what to call themselves, or the nature of Adam and Eve. It's not just those who don't believe young-earth creationism, Wood writes. Young-earth creationists also have a lot of important issues that they don't agree on.

"I don't know," is the right answer to a lot of questions, and it should be used much more often. Wood uses it.

Thanks, Todd Wood.

Prayers in the Bible: Paul concludes 2 Timothy

2011-11-20T03:15:00.005-05:00

2 Timothy 4:18 And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom; to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
19 Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus. 20 Erastus remained at Corinth, but I left Trophimus at Miletus sick. 21 Be diligent to come before winter. Eubulus salutes you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers. 22 The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. (World English Bible, public domain)

These are last verses of Paul's second letter to his friend, co-worker, and apprentice, Timothy. They include a personal request, greetings, and news about Trophimus. But they are also flavored with three types of prayer. "to whom be the glory forever and ever," in verse 18 is Adoration, pure and simple. The first part of the same verse is Thanksgiving. In this case, it is praise in advance, for something God hasn't done yet, but is going to do. Amazing!

The last verse is the most common type of prayer in the New Testament. It is a prayer of supplication, or intercession, for a fellow believer, in this case, Timothy.

Thanks for reading. This post is one of a series on prayer. The previous post in the series is here.

Creation in the Bible: Seven different stories?

2011-11-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

A recent article in the Biologos forum, by Thomas Burnett, argues, with justification, that there are seven creation stories in the Old Testament, and that to get a complete picture of the relationship between God, humans, and creation at large, all seven must be taken into account.

That's thought-provoking, and I hope to explore it in this blog soon.

Thanks for reading.

Bertrand Russell's world-view

2011-11-18T06:19:00.002-05:00

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar . . . system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. (Bertrand Russell, "A Free Man's Worship," in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, 1918. Public domain, Project Gutenberg edition.)

In other words, there is no real purpose to the universe and no after-life. A clear declaration of atheism, by an atheist.

Keeping the U. S. schoolchild fat and unfit

2011-11-17T03:37:00.000-05:00

Fox News, and a number of other outlets, report that a conference committee of the U. S. Congress removed several excellent suggestions from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, relating to school lunches.

Among other provisions removed were some which would have lowered the amount of french fries and pizza served, made it illegal to count the tomato sauce on a pizza as a vegetable, and lowered the salt content. All these provisions would have made school lunches, and our school kids, healthier.

As Fox News reported: "A group of retired generals advocating for healthier school lunches also criticized the spending bill. The group, called Mission: Readiness has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service." The statement by the retired generals (and other military types) is here.

Oh, dear. And why did the conference committee do this? One reason given by legislators was to stay away from adding regulations to local school districts. One reason not given was pressure from food companies that would have been affected by the changes proposed by the USDA.

Sunspots 340

2011-11-16T03:15:00.007-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: National Public Radio reports on a new method, perhaps, for harnessing nuclear fusion for power, and a new way of financing such technological research.

National Public Radio also reports on the small number of women who work for important computer firms.

Politics: The New York Times reviews a book on racial discrimination in the US, which book is not kind to either the left or the right.

The Arts: Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth, which turned 50 a few days ago, reflects on the book for NPR.

Image source (public domain)

E. Stephen Burnett on "safe" stories, and on story pointing us to God.

2011-11-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

E. Stephen Burnett is always good reading. In this post at Speculative Faith, he says a couple of things that I would like to say myself, but he says better.

They are these:

Christians shouldn't confine themselves to reading, or watching, only "safe" stories. (This is not to say that we shouldn't be discriminating -- he's not advocating, for example, watching a movie which glorifies senseless violence against women.)

And the second main point is that reading, watching, or listening to good stories, or good art of all kinds, can give us an experience that brings us closer to God. See here for visual representation of Philippians 4:8, which bears on that point.

I've made Burnett's main points, but he makes them better, with discussion and illustration, and he has another point to make, too.

Thanks for reading!

Prayers in the Bible: Paul for the Thessalonians

2011-11-13T03:01:00.007-05:00

2 Thessalonians 2:16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word. (World English Bible, public domain)

Another prayer for Christians, which is the most common type of prayer in the New Testament.

This is part of a year-long series on prayers in the Bible. Thanks for reading. The previous post is here.

Sunspots 339

2011-11-09T03:41:00.001-05:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: The Hubble space telescope has gotten a picture of material around a black hole, according to Wired. The article also notes that there are objects further away from us, in light-years, than the age of the universe, in years.

Wired also reports that bacteria are far more able to exchange genes with other species than we had thought. These genes may include genes for antibiotic resistance.

Christianity: (Well, not exactly) Two Pakistani Muslims are keeping a formerly Jewish business going, and using kosher methods, says CNN.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Paul prays for the Thessalonians

2011-11-06T03:38:00.005-05:00

1 Thessalonians 3:11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you; 12 and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you, 13 to the end he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

This is one of several prayers by Paul, for the Christians in various parts of the world he knew. We should be praying for other Christians, too.

Thanks for reading. This is one of a series. The previous post in the series is here.

Sunspots 338

2011-11-02T03:31:00.000-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Karl Zimmer has posted the winners of a science movie festival.

Politics: (or Philosophy) PETA plans to take Sea World to court, on the grounds that dolphins under their care, and displaying as an attraction for customers, are being held in slavery.

Christianity: Russell Purvis challenges our thinking on how to explain and understand salvation.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Paul prays for the Philippians

2011-10-30T03:05:00.009-04:00

Philippians 1:9 This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that you may approve the things that are excellent; that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ; 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (World English Bible, public domain)

A most appropriate prayer for Christians to pray for other believers!

Thanks for reading. Pray for me. This is part of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here.

Happy anniversary to us

2011-10-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

Today is our anniversary. This is posted in honor of my wife.

Sunspots 337

2011-10-26T03:39:00.008-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports on how we alter each other's memories of events. A little scary -- I may not remember correctly what happened to me, but think I do.

Christianity: Weekend Fisher has done a study on the Gnostic gospels, comparing them to the canonical four gospels. (I have never read the Gnostic gospels.) She points out that two of the Gnostic gospels have no mention of place, at all, whereas all four canonical gospels are rich in geographic, or more localized, location information.

Here's her post on one of the Gnostic gospels. Here's her post on John.

The Biologos Forum has a post about research into why Christian young people leave church.

Image source (public domain)

Psalm 104:24-25: Biodiversity, with Echinoderms (starfish and their relatives)

2011-10-24T20:37:00.000-04:00

The animals in the picture above are brittle stars, a member of the same phylum as starfish, sea urchins, and others, and a sponge, also an animal. Echinoderms, among other oddities, have five-fold symmetry. The graphic serves as a link to a Flickr picture, which, among other information, has the credit for the original photo. (Altered and posted with permission of the underwater photographer.)

Here's an amazing video, less than three minutes, from the BBC, showing starfish (also known as sea stars), Nemertean worms, and sea urchins, swarming around a dead seal pup, off the coast of Antarctica.

I thank a friend who looked at one of the previous posts in this series for the tip on this video.

Thanks for looking and reading.

Prayers in the Bible: Paul's benediction on the Ephesians

2011-10-23T03:47:00.002-04:00

Ephesians 6:23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen. (World English Bible.)

That pretty well covers it. In fact, grace covers it.

Thanks for reading. This is part of a series. The previous post is here.

Psalm 104:24-25: How diverse are marine animals?

2011-10-21T03:48:00.000-04:00

The graphic above gives the names of most (not all) of the 36 phyla of animals which are currently known. (There are 36 recognized phyla, at present.) You probably have little or no idea as to what a member of the Loricifera or the Echiura would be like. I don't either. (If you want to know, use the link in this paragraph.)

A phylum is a large group of animals. For example, mice belong to the Chordata (so do we) and ladybugs belong to the Arthropoda. Mice and ladybugs are not very much alike, and those two phyla are probably as much like each other as any two other phyla of animals. What amazing diversity. In the previous paragraph, I said "at present" because we may discover other animals that don't belong to any of the 36 phyla, or we may learn more about one of the phyla, and this knowledge may lead zoologists to divide that phylum into two such.

What amazing diversity! Thank God. Thanks for reading.

Psalm 104:24-25: Biodiversity in marine animals

2011-10-20T15:36:00.002-04:00

Psalm 104 is a fine nature poem, indeed. It was apparently written by David.

As a biologist, I have been struck, for many years, with verses 24-25:
24 Yahweh, how many are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all.
The earth is full of your riches.
25 There is the sea, great and wide,
in which are innumerable living things,
both small and large animals. (World English Bible, public domain)

I have recently made some attempts to illustrate this, using computer graphics, and some photos, of marine animals, from Flickr members, with their permission. This picture:

is the first in a series of these attempts. It was first posted on Flickr, with appropriate credit given to the photographer -- the photograph was taken at the Monterey, California, aquarium. (The picture serves as a link to the Flickr post.) There are at least three phyla, represented by the fish, the sponges, and the corals, in the photo. The word, biodiversity, was produced using a different color, and a different typeface, for each letter, to represent diversity. The colors of the letters were chosen to be colors that could be found in marine organisms.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 336

2011-10-19T03:32:00.001-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (sort of) A curry eating contest put two contestants in the hospital, according to National Public Radio.

Science: Wired reports that scientists have found that meerkats can recognize other meerkat individuals by the sound of their "voice."

Carl Zimmer discusses a recent finding -- the largest known virus.

A video from TED on how babies learn languages.

The Arts: (sort of) The New York Times has discovered books written by robots.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Hezekiah prays for deliverance

2011-10-16T03:59:00.001-04:00

Isaiah 37:8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish. 9 He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’”
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh. 15 Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying, 16 “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God. 18 Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them. 20 Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only.”
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. 23 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. 24 By your servants, have you defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field. 25 I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.” 26 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps. 27 Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown. 28 But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me. 29 Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came. 30 This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31 The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 32 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.’ 33 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,’ says Yahweh. 35 ‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’”
36 The angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there. 38 It happened, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place. (World English Bible)

Hezekiah, and the nation, were threatened with destruction. Hezekiah did the right thing. He prayed. And God answered his prayer!

This is one of a series of posts quoting prayers from the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Mouse gene works in fish

2011-10-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

Stephen Matheson has been writing a series of posts about the limbs of vertebrates, and their relationships. In one of this series, he discusses experiments in which a mouse regulatory gene works in fish embryos, which strikes me as simply amazing.

Thanks for reading

Sunspots 335

2011-10-11T03:15:00.000-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports that fear of failure can inhibit learning, and does.

Sports: National Public Radio reports that the Women's NBA league has improved in attendance and TV viewing, but is not exactly a great success.

Christianity: (Or Judaism) Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength has posted a list of the categories of the commandments found in the first five books of the Bible. (For example, of over 600 laws found there, 14 had to do with business practices.) That wasn't her main purpose, which was to deal with worship.

From the same blog -- a fine piece on what worship pleases God, and what doesn't.

Image source (public domain)

Faster than light?

2011-10-11T03:08:00.000-04:00

A (mostly) political columnist, no less, has devoted an entire column to the possible discovery that some neutrinos may travel faster than the velocity of light. As he says, this is a discovery that will change the way we look at the world, in a profound way.

If it's true, that is. Krauthammer seems to think it is. See here for the Wikipedia's take on the experiments. These results had not been reported in earlier, similar experiments.

Thanks for reading.

Lisa Randall on science and religion

2011-10-10T03:53:00.001-04:00

Can a scientist be religious? Only at the price of inconsistency, she argues, because scientific determinism is not compatible with belief in a deity who can willfully intervene in the world. Sympathetic though I am to her conclusion, I would point out that scientific determinism is equally incompatible with free will and moral responsibility. Jim Holt, "Will the Large Hadron Collider Explain Everything?" a review of Knocking on Heavens Door, by Lisa Randall, Harvard physicist, New York Times Book Review, October 9, 2011.

Thanks for reading.

Prayers in the Bible: one from Isaiah

2011-10-09T03:05:00.002-04:00

Isaiah 33:2 Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you.

Be our strength every morning,

our salvation also in the time of trouble. (World English Bible, public domain.)

A great prayer to start the day with.

This is one of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

Climate change and the velocity of light

2011-10-06T20:09:00.000-04:00

"Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere." Robert Bryce, "Five Truths About Climate Change," Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2011.

I am not a climatologist. Neither is Mr. Bryce, according to the Wikipedia article on him. But, like him, I want to enter the discussion on global climate change.

Bryce refers to a recent experimental result, which may mean that some neutrinos travel may travel faster than the velocity of light. Bryce correctly notes that this result has not been confirmed. But I believe that he has compared apples and oranges.

The theory of relativity (actually, there are two of these, both due to Einstein) is a theory. That is, it is a group of ideas that attempts to explain the way things are. As I understand it, the evidence for global climate change is not theoretical, but, rather, is data, collected over a number of years, and Bryce is questioning the evidence -- the data, not a theory.

Scientists have frequently made mistakes. One kind of mistake is working with an inadequate theory. Another is experimental errors -- equipment malfunctions, for example. Usually, science is self-correcting. A better theory is proposed. Someone tries to repeat the data collection, and finds experimental errors. I don't think that either of these has occurred as relates to global climate change, at least not on a large scale. I think Bryce is wrong.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 334

2011-10-05T03:06:00.004-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: National Public Radio reports on the paw paw, a fruit native to North America that you may have never heard of.

Wired reports on a possible case of human change in response to natural selection, namely lowering of the age when women had their first child, within the past 200 years.

Christianity: E Stephen Burnett points out that our own fallen human nature is never a movie villain. It's usually some monster, or some monstrous human.

Image source (public domain)

Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion -- Christian or not?

2011-10-04T03:11:00.001-04:00

This is a rewrite of a post of June 6, 2007.

I have previously posted about Elizabeth Moon's trilogy, The Deed of Paksenarrion (Riverdale, NY: Baen, 1992 -- combines three novels published previously). One question I wish to muse about is the question of Christianity in this work.

The Wikipedia article on Moon, dated June 6, 2007, discusses the question of religion, and the relation of the trilogy to board games, briefly:

Elizabeth Moon, not gaming herself, heard some people playing "Paladins" (Holy warriors in the service of a god) and doing so very poorly. Her reaction was of course that "such a person wouldn't act like that"... and in thinking about what they would act like, Paksenarrion was born.

The Wikipedia article on the trilogy, on the same date, says:

The Deed of Paksenarrion has an engrossing religious theme with Christian aspects. While this world appears to be polytheistic, there is a "High Lord" and saints, such as Gird, Falk, etc, who serve him. Also, there are prominent themes of atoning sacrifice and redemptive love, with Paksenarrion becoming a kind of Christ figure. However, some believe that comparing this work to themes such as "Hero as Redeemer" and "Hero as Saint" from The Hero with a Thousand Faces shows this is not particularly Christian. There are also several references to the World tree. [The links in this paragraph were copied from the article.]

In other words, religious, yes. Christian, maybe. I concur. This page states that Moon is an Episcopalian. Elliot has posted on religion in these books, and on Moon. One of his posts quotes a web page with an interview with Moon, describing her conversion experience.

I have previously laid out the following characteristics, one or more of which must be present, to satisfy myself that a novel is a Christian novel:
1) A Christ-figure
2) Belief, by central characters, in important Christian doctrines, such as a belief in the Trinity, or the resurrection
3) Monotheistic prayer or other worship
4) Expression of a relationship with God as Lord, by a main character
5) Consciousness of supernatural guidance
6) Explicit rejection of evil, by a main character

And I also said that if the work shows an overall Christian world-view, even though those characteristics aren't present, it could rightly be called a Christian novel, and I categorized Susan Palwick's The Necessary Beggar as Christian for that reason.

I have found some of these characteristics in The Deed of Paksenarrion, but most or all of them are polytheistic. That is, there is a High Lord, to be sure, but there are also saints. Gird, in particular, is one that Paksenarrion relies on. (There is occasional mention of Falk, and of Camwyn, both apparently of status like that of Gird.)

One of the characters in the book explains it like this, in response to a question on how Gird got his powers:
"Then came a new threat. Powers of evil, exactly what we don't know. Many feared them too much to resist, and fled far away. But Gird went out to face them with his old cudgel. No one saw that battle, but the dark powers fled the land for many years, and Gird was not seen on earth again. Gird's best friend, who had been away on a journey, had a dream in which he saw Gird ascending to the Court of the High Lord—saw him honored there, and given a cudgel of light to wield. It was after that, when he told his dream, that the priests of the High Lord recognized Gird as a saint. We don't claim Gird is a god. We say he is a favored servant of the High Lord; he has been given powers to aid his followers and the cause of right." (Chapter 25 of Sheepfarmer's Daughter, which is the first part of the Deed, pp. 255-6 of the combined book. This first part is on-line here.) It isn't just Gird, either. On p. 96, chapter 10, followers of Falk are also said to have healing powers. Some soldiers follow Tir. I'm not sure whether Tir is a saint or not.

There is a two-book combined prequel, The Legacy of Gird, and I am currently reading that, but expect to post this before I finish finding out about Gird.

I recognize that the Catholic church believes in saints, and that, as I understand it, they aren't recognized as such until after death, and until a process has proceeded that, among other things, requires that some after-death miracles are attributed to them. As a life-long Protestant, I have trouble with what I see as rivals to the work of Christ, including saints. However, the Bible does suggest that Peter's brief presence was sufficient to bring about healing.

1) So, is there a Christ-figure in the Deed? That, of course, depends on how you define Christ-figure. Paksenarrion, in some senses, qualifies. She is celibate throughout the book, and apparently throughout her life, except for being brutally raped. She is given some power to heal. She has a strong sense of right and wrong. Finally, and most importantly, she willingly offers herself to the evil priests of Liart (Chapter 27 of the last part of the book) expecting that they will torture her for five days, and finally kill her, in order that they give up five captives, including Duke Phelan, who is to be king. She is tortured publicly, expertly and brutally, and the torture includes rape. She depends on her call to be a servant of the High Lord, and of Gird, to endure this, and, finally, she is rescued -- miraculously healed of most of the damage from the torture, and freed from the evil group. At least one reader thinks that she died and was resurrected during this episode. I didn't interpret the events that way.

An especially interesting parallel is that the Thieves' Guild is purified of its worshipers of Liart because of what happened to Paksenarrion, so that, in a sense, her sacrifice redeems thieves:

"Arvid, there may have been another way to save Phelan: I don't know. Paladins don't know everything; we only know where we must go. But think of this: was there any other way to save the Thieves Guild?"
He stared at her, mouth open like any yokel's. "Thieves Guild," he said finally. "What does Gird care about the Thieves Guild?"
"I don't know," said Paks. "But he must care something, to spend a paladin's pain on it . . ." (P. 992 of the combined book, Chapter 28 of Oath of Gold, the last part of the trilogy. Arvid was chief of the Guild.)

So we have a good figure who offers herself as a living sacrifice for others. A Christ-figure.

Moon, herself, has written about the sacrifice and torture of Paksenarrion, here. I didn't read anything in her post that changes my assessment of the book. It seems clear from other posts by Moon that she is a practicing Christian.

2) I don't find any belief in the essential Christian doctrines in the book. There is no explicit prayer for forgiveness of sin.

3) Intercessory prayer is mentioned several times, but it is often to, or through, Gird or another saint, as much as to the High Lord. However, Paksenarrion, herself, prays mostly, to the High Lord. It is the High Lord who comes to her aid during her torture.

4) Paksenarrion comes to realize that she has been specially called for a purpose, by the High One. There are a few paladins of Gird, but she is not one of them. The realization is a slow process, and others see this, sometimes, before she does.

It is clearly the High Lord who rehabilitates her after her torture. A symbol of Liart, an evil god, which has been branded onto her forehead, is replaced, miraculously, with a circle, a symbol of the High God.

5) Paksenarrion does come to recognize supernatural guidance (see above).

6) There are a number of instances where Paksenarrion explicitly rejects evil. Perhaps the most important is early in her career, when she tells the Duke not to torture an evil man, because the Duke's army is not like them, and she wants it to stay that way. (pp. 307-8, Chapter 31 of Sheepfarmer's Daughter) Many of the others involve sensing, and combating, evil non-human beings.

Perhaps the most remarkable episode is this one:
It was then as if several selves were present, mysteriously separate and conjoined. Trapped inside her body was the same child she had been, feeling each new torment as a wave of intolerable pain,each ragged scream as a fresh humiliation. The seasoned soldier watched with pity as her body gave way to exhaustion and pain as any body would, feeling no shame at the sight or sound or smell of it, for this was something that could happen to anyone, and she had never inflicted it on others. And someone else, someone newer, refused the soldier's tactics of defiance, anger, vengeance, and looked into her own fear to find the link to those around her, to find the way to reach those frightened tormentors, the ones not already lost to evil. (978, Chapter 27 f Oath of Gold.) Here Paksenarrion not only rejects evil, but does not allow herself to desire vengeance, even while she is being tortured cruelly by experts over a five-day period. She also tries to find a way to change some of those who are watching this torture from evil to good.

7) Does Elizabeth Moon's trilogy have a Christian world-view? I would have to say that it is not strictly Christian, but that the leading character comes to have a fictionalized Christian world-view.

Probably no one cares, but here's my bottom line. The Deed of Paksenarrion, though it has polytheistic elements, has an essentially Christian idea, that of a good person sacrificing herself to rescue someone else from punishment. On that score, it's a Christian novel, as much as, say Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. But it's certainly not explicitly Christian, and is not sold as such. Thus, in my view, Moon's work has much more opportunity to be salt and light to a world that needs such things.

Do Christians have to write only books that are explicitly Christian? Should they read only such books? No, and no. I am reminded of Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis. Lewis was a Christian, but this book, arguably his best novel, has characters with a pre-Christian, or pagan, world-view. Nonetheless, it's a great read, and presents Christian truth, especially that God Himself is the only real answer to our questions about justice.

I have found a few other web pages that briefly mention Christianity in the Deed. This page says that the trilogy has "Christian themes," and recognizes the sacrifice of Paksenarrion for others. This post says that there are parallels to Christian ideas, and that the trilogy, especially the last part, is about "Faith," even faith in miraculous resurrection.

This page may be modified later, as I think of things, as you comment, or as I read about Gird.

Thanks for reading.

See this post for links to references to this topic in the Claw of the Concilator blog.

See here for a subsequent post on biblical morals in the Paksenarrion books.

On April 2, 2009, E Stephen Burnett wrote an essay, asking questions about how far a Christian author could go in writing fiction which has a God who is significantly different from the Christian God, and whether a Christian could legitimately create a fictional character who is in defiance of God. I posted tentative answers to these questions, which are related to the subject of the post above, on April 13, 2009.

Thanks for reading. Read Moon, if you have to time to commit to reading about 1,000 pages!

Remaking God in fiction, re-done

2011-10-03T03:34:00.002-04:00

E. Stephen Burnett wonders if authors are on safe ground when they remake God in fiction. (He says that The Shack did that, for example.) He asks, but does not answer, three good questions, which he extrapolates from the writing of C. S. Lewis.

The questions (paraphrased) are:
1) Can a Christian writer write a story about a God who is different? (Different commands or personality.)
2) Can a Christian writer write a story with a character who defies God?
3) What purpose is served by doing either 1) or 2)?

Burnett is a good writer, but he does not make clear, at least to me, exactly what he is asking. I think he is asking if a Christian writer can do these things and remain in God's will.

Let me muse about these matters.

Question 1 - Can a Christian writer write a story about a God who is different?

As I see it, there is possible danger in such writing. I believe that it would be possible to write a story about a God who was so different from the Christian God that the story would be blasphemous. It would also be possible for a reader, or the writer, to become too interested in a false god -- a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.

However, in a sense, the Old and New Testaments present seriously different views of God. The Old Testament God required sacrifices, and adherence to Jewish dietary laws. The New Testament God was a sacrifice, and Christians are no longer required to keep the dietary laws. But, of course, this was not fiction.

J. R. R. Tolkien, an influential writer, usually considered to have been a Christian, presented a false god, or several of them, in his writing. Sauron, although he was, in Tolkien's phrase, "but a servant,"of a more powerful being, was worshiped, and demanded such worship. He was clearly thoroughly evil. Melkor/Morgoth, the great enemy, Sauron's master, was even more powerful, and more evil, and also was a god, to some. In fact, Tolkien had a whole pantheon of lesser beings, some good, some not so. Was he blasphemous? Most would say that he was not. He was merely telling a story. These evil beings were the equivalent of Satan, the real enemy of God, and of God's people, and lesser demons. The good ones were something like angels. Some of them, possibly, were like saints, in the Roman Catholic sense of the term. (Tolkien was a Roman Catholic).

Even though Tolkien had some evil gods, they were not supreme. As in the real world, there was a supreme, good God.

It seems to me that it could be legitimate to present God in a different way, as Tolkien did, if maintaining his goodness, love and supremacy. Some readers might become too obsessed with such fictional deities, but that would be their doing, not the author's. It would be possible to fantasize lustfully about Salome, or Bathsheba, or to covet Solomon's wealth or wisdom, but that would not be the fault of Matthew and Mark, or of the author of 2 Samuel or of 1 Kings.

It seems to me that The Shack also presents God in a legitimate way, although apparently I disagree with Burnett about this.

Elizabeth Moon, an important writer of fantasy and science fiction, has written several novels in an imaginary setting. I have previously posted on the question of whether these works should be taken as Christian novels, or not. I am not sure if Moon meant to portray a polytheistic religion, with a supreme God, and lesser gods, or one that is like Roman Catholicism, with a supreme God, and saints, especially Gird, who was once a living man. As a Protestant, I don't believe in the efficacy of prayer to any but the Triune Supreme God, and believe that prayer to saints comes close to, perhaps is, a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.* To expand on that, there are some Christian elements. (See my post.) Moon, who is an Episcopalian, and active in her church, has posted a summary of the religion in these books.

Lois McMaster Bujold is also an important writer of both fantasy and science fiction. Like Moon, she has incorporated religious ideas into the fabric of one of her imaginary worlds. (There is a fantasy series by Bujold that I have yet to read, and I would guess that she has done that for this sub-creation, also.) I have also written previously about whether one of her novels can be classified as Christian, and, again, concluded that, although there are Christian elements, it can not. Bujold has done some experimenting -- she has constructed a theology based on five more or less co-equal gods. These gods can reveal themselves to people, and are otherwise real to some of her characters. I do not know whether Bujold is a Christian. There are a few Christian ideas, and apparently a Christian character, in her science fiction series.

C. S. Lewis, perhaps the most important Christian writer of the twentieth century, wrote fantastic fiction, for children, and for adults, as well as about Christianity. In fact, Barnett uses Perelandra, a fantastic novel by Lewis, as a focal point in his essay. By emphasizing Lewis, I think Barnett has answered his own question, with a firm "yes." Why? Because Lewis also wrote a sequel, That Hideous Strength, wherein Merlin is possessed by angelic beings, a non-Biblical concept. And, especially, Lewis wrote Till We Have Faces, a book set in a pre-Christian time, with a pagan goddess, Ungit, who was represented by an idol, and with the god of the mountain, apparently the Greek Cupid.

Question 2 - Can a Christian writer write a story with a character who defies God?

Again, I turn to the Bible. Job and Paul defied God, at least at first. Pharaoh, and several Israelite and non-Israelite kings also did so, for their entire lives, or began by following God, but ended up defying Him, as apparently Saul and Solomon did. And let us not forget Satan.

Enough said. The answer is "yes."

Question 3 - What purpose is served by doing either 1) or 2)?

As to writing about a character who defies God, the purpose should be to set forth an example that we must not follow, or of the error of such defiance. (Kings David and especially Manasseh defied God, but repented, and so can and must we.)

What about writing about a different God, or god?

Till We Have Faces made a point that Christians must take to heart. That point is that God is not required to answer our questions. He is, Himself, the answer. Could this point have been made in a book written of a time and society where there were Christians? I suppose so, but it would have been a drastically different book, and perhaps Orual's defiance, had it been of the one true God, would have turned Christian readers off, whereas defying pagan gods is not so likely to. Defiance, and its answer, was necessary to make Lewis's point.

Bujold's gods of Chalion seem to me to be a different matter. She seems to have done what writers of fantastic literature should do, namely present us with a universe like ours, but with some substantial difference, then describe what that would be like. Ursula K. Le Guin did this about gender in her The Left Hand of Darkness, for example. What would it be like if gender was not fixed? But is it legitimate to tinker with a universe by imagining different gods? I'm not sure. Not to have done so would have made the story quite different, but there could still have been goodness, service, and sacrifice in it, as Bujold's Cazaril showed so well. And creating a theology with no single supreme being strikes me as dangerous.

Let me answer the question for Elizabeth Moon (I have used Bujold and Moon because I am familiar with their work, and because of their prominence.) What about Moon's whole zoo-full of gods (or maybe saints) and spirits? Is that wrong, for a Christian writer? Well, let's put it this way. I submit that Tolkien did the same thing. There are all sorts of evil spirits, and good ones, and a pantheon of gods, in his sub-creation. There is little or no worship of a supreme being, private or public. There is no clear Christ-figure. Yet what he did is accepted as having been good, even Christian fiction, by many Christian writers, probably including Burnett.

I would say that if there is a story that an author must tell, and the author herself is not in defiance of God, there may be legitimate reason to write such a story, even though it presents different gods. I think that's what happened to Tolkien. There are certainly dangers. Pride and idol worship, being attracted by the occult, or having gods before the one true God, come to mind. Prayerful care must be taken. I also think it is possible to write a story with a god who differs from God, or including defiance of God, if the author's intent is to present a lesson that is best presented in that way.

Thanks for reading. Read Burnett's essay.

*On October 2, 2011, I changed a key sentence about Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion novels, which was "In a word, they are polytheistic, hence not Christian," to the two sentences before the asterisk in the work above. The reason is that I have re-read the books, and it seems clear that they describe one Supreme God, who is to be worshiped. I didn't come away with that impression in my first reading, several years ago, but I should have. I also changed what I said about Tolkien, adding the idea that some of the good beings, who are no longer mortal, may have been saints, rather than minor gods, and made a few minor editorial changes, related to the ones just described, or to improve the clarity of the post.

This is a re-post, with some revisions, of a post from April 13, 2009. I have removed (unintentionally) the previous post.

Prayers in the Bible: Paul's prayer for the Corinthians

2011-10-02T03:50:00.002-04:00

2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen. (World English Bible)

That's the last verse in 2 Corinthians, and, of course, it's a prayer. May I be one tenth as concerned for some fellow Christian as Paul was for the several churches.

This is part of a series on prayers in the Bible. Thanks for reading. The previous post is here.

Sunspots 333

2011-09-28T03:08:00.003-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports that on-line gamers have significantly assisted scientists in solving the three-dimensional structure of a protein. The research paper is here.

Politics: (or something) CNN reports on a study that attempts to explain why some store clerks can seem rude.

Computing: Google created a doodle in honor of Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets.

Christianity: The Dead Sea Scrolls are now visible on-line.

Image source (public domain)

Female Headship: Biblical Examples

2011-09-27T04:37:00.000-04:00

Although Ephesians 5:22 is often quoted as proof that the husband is to be the head of the house, there are some examples of female spiritual leadership in families in the Bible. One such is the wife of Manoah, who was Samson's mother. Another is Hannah, who seems to have taken the lead, rather than her husband doing so, in praying and acting in the matter of having a child, in 1 Samuel 1. Abigail, in 1 Samuel 25, acted without her first husband's knowledge, and was apparently blessed and scripturally commended for doing so. (She later married David.) In Exodus 4, Zipporah, Moses' wife, took action in relation to the circumcision of their sons,when Moses hadn't, and, in doing so, apparently kept God from killing Moses. In Exodus 2, it was the mother of Moses who was responsible for his escape from the command of Pharaoh that all male Hebrew babies should be killed. The Virtuous Woman/Excellent Wife, idealized in Proverbs 31, is described as making business decisions (perhaps not spiritual ones) on her own, and, also, as having a husband at the time.

I am not including all of the women of faith from the Bible in this brief discussion. Rahab and Naomi may not have taken spiritual leadership while they had a husband, but they took it when they were single. Deborah acted in leadership of Israel. We don't know whether she also acted as spiritual leader in her home. A church was begun in Lydia's home. She may not have had a husband. Dorcas may not have, either. There are other examples, in both the Old and New Testaments, of godly female leaders. Some of them may have been the spiritual leader of their husband. We don't know. 2 Timothy 1:5 says that Timothy's mother and grandmother were the spiritual leaders in Timothy's family. His father is mentioned in Acts 16:3. It is possible that that father died early in Timothy's life. Priscilla and Aquila seem to have been equals in ministry. I submit that most likely at least some of the women in this paragraph were spiritual leaders in their home, and had a husband at the time.

My conclusion is that wives and mothers, at least some of the time, took spiritual leadership in Biblical homes, and, therefore, God may expect many wives and mothers to do this now, in the twenty-first century.

Thanks for reading. This is an excerpt from a previous post.

Prayers in the Bible: Paul's prayer for the Corinthians

2011-09-25T03:55:00.001-04:00

2 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (World English Bible, public domain)

Here, Paul prays for grace for the church at Corinth. He also includes some adoration, and thanksgiving. A good pattern for us.

This is part of a series on prayers in the Bible. Thanks for reading. The previous post is here.

Why do sickness and death bother us so much?

2011-09-22T10:40:00.000-04:00

Why do sickness and death bother us so much? Every one reading this, and the vast number who won't, will die, barring some miraculous event. All of us get sick, sometimes as a minor inconvenience, sometimes as a crippling incapacitation, and sometimes to death.

Why, then, don't we just accept this state of things? Why do we expect things to go right, when they almost never do?

There are probably a lot of different reasons for our rebellion against the way things are. I hope I understand part of the reasons.

I think that, deep in our DNA, or our unconscious, is the knowledge that things shouldn't be like this. So we complain, and rebel against the way things are. What do I mean, things shouldn't be like this? The Bible teaches us that the first humans lived in a world without human sickness and death. (Plants and animals probably died, or were killed by humans.) But that world changed drastically, because those first humans disobeyed God, the Creator. I believe that we somehow know that there has been a change, and long for it to be reversed, and complain at the consequences of that change, the Fall.

Some of us question God's goodness, or even His existence, because of the consequences of sin in the world. How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen? If I had the full answer to that, I would be God, which I certainly am not. But part of the answer is that God suffers with us, probably more than we suffer ourselves. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus also took the consequences of our sin upon Himself, for those who are willing to let Him do so for them. In the process, Jesus, Himself, suffered. Granted, He didn't suffer as long as, say, a burn victim, but He did suffer.

Another part of the answer is that God is going to provide a Heaven for those who believe, free from sickness and death.

It is not wrong to want to do something about sickness. Jesus healed every person who asked Him to do so. He also raised a few people from death. The Bible suggests that we pray for sick believers. But healing everyone is not God's final answer. (See here for more of what the Bible says on that subject.) Consider, also, that everyone Jesus healed died, most likely of sickness, later in their life. Those He raised from the dead
died a second time. The Bible says that death is the last enemy to be defeated.

I think we, including me, concentrate too much on sickness. Although all the churches I have attended, and can remember, prayed most of their prayers for the sick, the New Testament church didn't pray in that pattern.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 332

2011-09-21T03:55:00.002-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: A diagram, showing what we know about planets in other solar systems.

Guess what? Natural selection still works. The widespread use of Roundup, the weedkiller, has led to the appearance of Roundup-resistant strains of weeds, according to Business Week.

Politics: (sort of -- I don't have a category for this) The New York Times has reviewed an important new book on the subject of why marriage is less frequent among blacks than whites, in the U. S. The book's title is Is Marriage For White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. The review is also an analysis of the issue.

(or maybe Science) Wired reports on the new patent legislation. The reported indicates that the new law is an improvement, but is still less than thrilled, saying that it gives advantages to corporations, rather than individual inventors..

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Job prays for his friends

2011-09-18T03:07:00.002-04:00

Job 42:7 It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”
9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.
10 Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before. (World English Bible, public domain)

Job interceded for his friends. Were they really friends? Sometimes, during the 30 or so chapters when they were lecturing Job on his supposed secret sins, they must not have seemed like friends. But they did sit with him in his agony of body and mind. Most of the prayer in the New Testament is prayer for other believers. (See here) Intercession, or supplication. Ours should be, too. For our friends, in other words.

Note that it sounds like God gave Job back what Satan had been allowed to take from him, after Job proved that he really did have his heart in the right place, that is, when he prayed for his friends, when he really would have liked to have said, yet again, "I told you so!"

Thanks for reading. This is part of a series. The previous entry is here.

John 3:13: Had anyone been to heaven yet, during the time of Christ?

2011-09-15T19:12:00.002-04:00

John 3:13 on ascending to heaven

I was recently asked about John 3:13, which says:

NLT translation: No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man* has come down from heaven. Footnote:
* Some manuscripts add who lives in heaven. “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.

ESV translation: No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Footnote:
* Some manuscripts add who is in heaven

NIV translation: No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven -- the Son of Man. Footnote as in the other two versions.

These and other versions are given here.

The question, if I understand it, related to the matter of Old Testament figures who have died, such as Enoch and Elijah. Weren't they in heaven when Jesus said this? (In the discussion below, I generally refer to this as dealing with Elijah. That's short-hand for Enoch, Moses, Rahab, Esther, Ruth, Isaiah, David, Abraham and many other persons, who, one might think, were in heaven when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus.)

I checked four on-line commentaries, all public domain.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown: 3:13. no man hath ascended, &c.--There is something paradoxical in this language--"No one has gone up but He that came down, even He who is at once both up and down." Doubtless it was intended to startle and constrain His auditor to think that there must be mysterious elements in His Person. The old Socinians, to subvert the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ, seized upon this passage as teaching that the man Jesus was secretly caught up to heaven to receive His instructions, and then "came down from heaven" to deliver them. But the sense manifestly is this: "The perfect knowledge of God is not obtained by any man's going up from earth to heaven to receive it--no man hath so ascended--but He whose proper habitation, in His essential and eternal nature, is heaven, hath, by taking human flesh, descended as the Son of man to disclose the Father, whom He knows by immediate gaze alike in the flesh as before He assumed it, being essentially and unchangeably 'in the bosom of the Father'"

This author, who was David Brown, emphasizes Christ's nature, as being God, whereas no human was then, or is now, God, in knowledge and power. He does not address the question of Elijah directly.

John Wesley 3:13 For no one - For here you must rely on my single testimony, whereas there you have a cloud of witnesses: Hath gone up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven. Who is in heaven - Therefore he is omnipresent; else he could not be in heavenand on earth at once. This is a plain instance of what is usually termed the communication of properties between the Divine and human nature; whereby what is proper to the Divine nature is spoken concerning the human, and what is proper to the human is, as here, spoken of the Divine. Explanatory Notes.

If I understand him, Wesley emphasized Christ's assertion of his Divine nature in this verse. That doesn't explain what seems to be the language of the verse, in the NIV, anyway, nor does it touch on the question of Elijah.

Matthew Henry
Our Lord Jesus, and he alone, was fit to reveal to us a doctrine thus certain, thus sublime: No man hath ascended up into heaven but he, v. 13.

First, None but Christ was able to reveal to us the will of God for our salvation. Nicodemus addressed Christ as a prophet; but he must know that he is greater than all the Old-Testament prophets, for none of them had ascended into heaven. They wrote by divine inspiration, and not of their own knowledge; see ch. i. 18. Moses ascended into the mount, but not into heaven. No man hath attained to the certain knowledge of God and heavenly things as Christ has; see Matt. xi. 27. It is not for us to send to heaven for instructions; we must wait to receive what instructions Heaven will send to us; see Prov. xxx. 4; Deut. xxx. 12.

Secondly, Jesus Christ is able, and fit, and every way qualified, to reveal the will of God to us; for it is he that came down from heaven and is in heaven. He had said (v. 12), How shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? Now here, 1. He gives them an instance of those heavenly things which he could tell them of, when he tells them of one that came down from heaven, and yet is the Son of man; is the Son of man, and yet is in heaven. If the regeneration of the soul of man is such a mystery, what then is the incarnation of the Son of God? These are divine and heavenly things indeed. We have here an intimation of Christ's two distinct natures in one person: his divine nature, in which he came down from heaven; his human nature, in which he is the Son of man; and that union of those two, in that while he is the Son of man yet he is in heaven. 2. He gives them a proof of his ability to speak to them heavenly things, and to lead them into the arcana of the kingdom of heaven, by telling them, (1.) That he came down from heaven. The intercourse settled between God and man began above; the first motion towards it did not arise from this earth, but came down from heaven. We love him, and send to him, because he first loved us, and sent to us. Now this intimates, [1.] Christ's divine nature. He that came down from heaven is certainly more than a mere man; he is the Lord from heaven, 1 Cor. xv. 47. [2.] His intimate acquaintance with the divine counsels; for, coming from the court of heaven, he had been from eternity conversant with them. [3.] The manifestation of God. Under the Old Testament God's favours to his people are expressed by his hearing from heaven (2 Chron. vii. 14), looking from heaven (Ps. lxxx. 14), speaking from heaven (Neh. ix. 13), sending from heaven, Ps. lvii. 3. But the New Testament shows us God coming down from heaven, to teach and save us. That he thus descended is an admirable mystery, for the Godhead cannot change places, nor did he bring his body from heaven; but that he thus condescended for our redemption is a more admirable mercy; herein he commended his love. (2.) That he is the Son of man, that Son of man spoken of by Daniel (vii. 13), by which the Jews always understand to be meant the Messiah. Christ, in calling himself the Son of man, shows that he is the second Adam, for the first Adam was the father of man. And of all the Old-Testament titles of the Messiah he chose to make use of this, because it was most expressive of his humility, and most agreeable to his present state of humiliation. (3.) That he is in heaven. Now at this time, when he is talking with Nicodemus on earth, yet, as God, he is in heaven. The Son of man, as such, was not in heaven till his ascension; but he that was the Son of man was now, by his divine nature, every where present, and particularly in heaven. Thus the Lord of glory, as such, could not be crucified, nor could God, as such, shed his blood; yet that person who was the Lord of glory was crucified (1 Cor. ii. 8), and God purchased the church with his own blood, Acts xx. 28. So close is the union of the two natures in one person that there is a communication of properties. He doth not say hos esti. God is the ho on to ourano—he that is, and heaven is the habitation of his holiness.

Henry, also, emphasizes the divine nature of Christ, and does not consider the question of Elijah.

John Calvin 13. No one hath ascended to heaven. He again exhorts Nicodemus not to trust to himself and his own sagacity, because no mortal man can, by his own unaided powers, enter into heaven, but only he who goes thither under the guidance of the Son of God. For to ascend to heaven means here, “to have a pure knowledge of the mysteries of God, and the light of spiritual understanding.” For Christ gives here the same instruction which is given by Paul, when he declares that

the sensual man does not comprehend the things which are of God, [1 Corinthians 2:14] and, therefore, he excludes from divine things all the acuteness of the human understanding, for it is far below God.

But we must attend to the words, that Christ alone, who is heavenly, ascends to heaven, but that the entrance is closed against all others. For, in the former clause, he humbles us, when he excludes the whole world from heaven. Paul enjoins those who are desirous to be wise with God to be fools with themselves, [1 Corinthians 3:18].

There is nothing which we do with greater reluctance. For this purpose we ought to remember, that all our senses fail and give way when we come to God; but, after having shut us out from heaven, Christ quickly proposes a remedy, when he adds, that what was denied to all others is granted to the Son of God. And this too is the reason why he calls himself the Son of man, that we may not doubt that we have an entrance into heaven in common with him who clothed himself with our flesh, that he might make us partakers of all blessings. Since, therefore, he is the Father’s only Counselor, [Isaiah 9:6] he admits us into those secrets which otherwise would have remained in concealment.

Who is in heaven. It may be thought absurd to say that he is in heaven, while he still dwells on the earth. If it be replied, that this is true in regard to his Divine nature, the mode of expression means something else, namely, that while he was man, he was in heaven. It might be said that no mention is here made of any place, but that Christ is only distinguished from others, in regard to his condition, because he is the heir of the kingdom of God, from which the whole human race is banished; but, as it very frequently happens, on account of the unity of the Person of Christ, that what properly belongs to one nature is applied to another, we ought not to seek any other solution. Christ, therefore, who is in heaven, hath clothed himself with our flesh, that, by stretching out his brotherly hand to us, he may raise us to heaven along with him.

Calvin also emphasizes the divine nature -- there is no other way to heaven but through Christ. He also deals with the question of Christ being in heaven and on earth at the same time, and, apparently, believed that He was in both places (?) at once.

My reaction, based on the commentaries, and the context, is that Jesus wasn't dealing directly with the question of who is in heaven now, but, rather, with His nature as Lord and Redeemer, which were the roles that Nicodemus really needed, whether he knew it or not.

OK. What about Elijah? I did a search for this sequence of words (not a phrase search): "Do we go straight to heaven when we die?" I have looked at the first ten responses from that search, and am using them, and, in some cases, from documents that the first group were linked to, in the following discussion.

Do Believers Go Straight to Heaven?
My first answer is that we don't know this for sure. There is disagreement among believers. However, we don't need all the answers. If we can trust Christ to save us, then we ought to be able to trust Him to take care of us, and our departed loved ones, after death, and put us into God's presence for eternity, and we don't need to know whether this will take place instantaneously, or as the result of a process, or will take place only after the creation, as a whole, is redeemed. We also don't need to know whether we will be conscious or not, if we don't enter God's presence immediately. If I am not conscious after death for, say, 100,000 years, and am then raised, and placed in the presence of God, I suppose that this would be little or no different from entering in to heaven immediately upon death, as far as my experience would be concerned.

There is scripture on the subject. I don't believe that it is conclusive, but it seems most likely that it means that believers won't go straight to heaven upon death. (I doubt that that is the belief of most North Americans, or the belief of most believers!)

Probably the most commonly quoted scripture, on this subject, is the statement of Jesus, to the thief on the cross, that that thief would be with Jesus, in Paradise, today. It is possible, I guess, that Jesus meant something like "you are going to die. When you become conscious again, after a long time, you will be with me in heaven," but didn't have the right circumstances to say all that, in such a way that the thief, who must have been in agony, could understand it. But I take it that what Jesus said was meant to be taken literally, or as literally as is possible for us to understand. The Greek word, here translated "paradise," is only used three times in the New Testament. The other two times are 2 Corinthians 12:4 and Revelation 2:7. If you follow the link in the previous sentence, the reference gives five meanings for the word, paradeisos. Here are the most pertinent of these meanings:

3) the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise

4) the upper regions of the heavens. According to the early church Fathers, the paradise in which our first parents dwelt before the fall still exists, neither on the earth or in the heavens, but above and beyond the world

5) heaven

Note that paradeisos would probably not have meant "heaven" to the thief on the cross. Note also, however, that not everyone accepts the distinction between the two.

For more on Paradise, see this Wikipedia article (The Wikipedia is not, of course, divinely inspired, but it usually is a good resource for finding out what we think about a topic. Usually, important competing views are given.) My sense of the word, paradise, is that the thief would probably have understood that Jesus was telling him that he would go to a place reserved for those who had found favor with God, and that Jesus would be there, too.

There is another word for heaven in the Greek New Testament. "Heaven" occurs in the King James Version over 200 times. I didn't check them all, but it appears that it is always the English translation of ouranos. Jesus used that word when talking to Nicodemus in John 3:13. He used it three times in that verse.

So, one answer to the original question is simply that no one except Jesus, including Elijah, had really entered into heaven at the time when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus. Elijah, and others, had gone to paradise instead.

What do other thinkers say on this question? N. T. Wright, one of the most important theologians of today, and one who takes the Bible very seriously, believes that there will be a final resurrection, which will make a new heaven, and that Christians will not enter heaven until that event takes place. The article on Wright's belief quotes him using John 3:13 as part of his biblical evidence. (There are other parts.) Wright says, and I checked, that Martin Luther and William Tyndale, among others, did not believe that Christians go immediately to heaven.

If I die, redeemed through the blood of Christ, what will happen to me? I'm not sure. Perhaps I'll go straight to heaven. Perhaps I'll go to an intermediate "place" while heaven is prepared. Perhaps I won't know anything until the final resurrection. These questions, of course are insignificant, beside the question of whether or not I have had the sin in my life paid for by the death and resurrection of Christ.

Thanks for reading. Be ready.

Sunspots 331

2011-09-14T03:04:00.001-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: (or sex) Wired offers a report on the question of why some women experience orgasms, and some don't. We don't really know why this is so.

The Arts: (sort of) Wired tells us that crowd scenes in movies may use inflatable, life-size dolls.

Christianity: Weekend Fisher tells us, correctly, that the Torah was ahead of its time, at least in some matters.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: David asks for general forgiveness

2011-09-11T03:34:00.002-04:00

Psalm 41:4 I said, “Yahweh, have mercy on me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” (World English Bible, public domain)

Psalm 41, according to a note in the World English Bible, is a Psalm of David. From the context, it doesn't seem that it's about the sins connected with his adultery with Bathsheba (Psalm 51 is about that situation) but that this is a more general prayer, and one that we would do well to copy, frequently.

This is one of a series on prayers in the Bible. The last post is here.

Thanks for reading.

"Born Again" in the Greek

2011-09-10T12:57:00.002-04:00

In doing some Bible study, I read a curious note, in reference to John 3:3, which, in the English Standard Version, is "Jesus answered him, “'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'” The note says this referring to what is usually translated as "born again": "Or from above; the Greek is purposely ambiguous and can mean both again and from above; also verse 7."

I found this amazing, and checked it out. (I am by no means a Greek scholar.) The Blueletter Bible's excellent Greek lexicon says, about the word anōthen, ἄνωθεν, here translated "again," that it can mean 1) from above, 2) from the beginning, and 3) over again. So the ESV note is not off base, although "purposely ambiguous" may be reading in a motive that God, or John, did not have.

The lexicon page goes on to give occasions where the the word, anōthen, ἄνωθεν, is used. They are as follows:
1 &2) Matthew 27:51 and Mark 15:38 use it for the top of the temple curtain.
3) Luke 1:3 uses it for Luke's thought that he knew about Christ, and wanted to write about Him from the beginning.
4) John 3:3 and 7 are referred to in the discussion earlier in this document.
5 & 6) John 3:31 and 19:11, the word is usually translated as "from above."
7) John 19:23 refers to the top of the garment worn by Jesus.
8) Acts 26:5 translates the word as "from the beginning."
9) Galatians 4:9 -- I'm not clear on the proper translation.
10, 11 & 12) James 1:17, 3:15, 3:17 use the word in the sense of "above."

"Born again" is a popular phrase. But, it seems, it could just as well be "born from above." Either event would be way beyond the natural.

Thanks for reading.

* * * *
Added September 11, 2011: I checked the 1611 King James Version (not the commonly used 1769, which is usually called the 1611 version) and found that, 400 years ago, there was a text note to "again," in John 3:3, giving the alternate reading, "from above."

Rick Perry on global warming

2011-09-08T17:36:00.001-04:00

In last night's debate between Republican Presidential candidates, Texas Governor Rick Perry indicated that he is skeptical of scientific claims that global warming is real, because of the "scientific theory that’s not settled yet." However, when asked to do so, he did not name a single scientist that he relied on for his own view. Perhaps he doesn't know one, or perhaps he just ignored the question. Here's my own research on which, if any, scientists doubt the reality of global warming. I didn't find a single scientist with academic credentials in climate science who doubted that reality. I also speculated on why the reality of global warming is doubted.

Less there be any doubt about Perry's position, do a search for "Rick Perry global warming." One of the first returns for such a search is here. I was not able to locate any material on global warming on Perry's official site. Perhaps that site is still under development.

Exxon Mobil, for one, acknowledges global warming, presumably relying on scientific opinion. And, to quote the Exxon Mobil web site: "Rising greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems."

Here's some material on the positions of other Republican candidates for president, on this topic. Most of them, unfortunately, share Governor Perry's position.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 330

2011-09-07T03:43:00.000-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports that human brains are hard-wired to pay attention to animals.

Wired also reports that English uses a lot more positive words (like "happy") than negative ones. English is the only language studied in this way, so far.

The Arts: (or Computing) Wired reports (with pictures) on a painter that uses discarded motherboards as a canvas.

Christianity: A quotation from Keith Drury, who has been involved in training ministers, mostly in my denomination, The Wesleyan Church, for years, on how the Church should treat Origins.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Job prays, even when adversity comes

2011-09-04T03:06:00.002-04:00

Job 1:18 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, 19 and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”
20 Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 21 He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.” 22 In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing. (World English Bible)

This was after losing most of his material possessions, which was bad enough. But to lose his children? How terrible. But Job worshiped. He acknowledged God as omnipotent. What an example!

Thanks for reading. I have attempted to write, elsewhere, about the matter of bad things happening to good people. This is part of a year-long series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here.

Seer of Sevenwaters, by Juliet Marillier

2011-09-03T03:36:00.001-04:00

Seer of Sevenwaters is the fifth book in the Sevenwaters series, by Juliet Marillier. (New York: Penguin, 2010) The books are historical romances, set in a fictional part of the real world, in perhaps the 16th century, mostly in the British Isles. Bookstores usually sell them as fantasy novels. Characters are Irish, Saxon, Norse, and from other parts of the old world. Seer of Sevenwaters includes a family tree. Sibeal, the main character in this book, is the granddaughter of Sorcha, the main character in the first book, Daughter of the Forest.

Marillier is a self-confessed druid. It is not surprising that many of the characters in her books are druid believers. As Marillier portrays that religion, it involved priests, who were celibate, and in tune with nature, and were also in tune with spirits of the land around them, and, perhaps, with supernatural beings, such as selkies.

I don't want to give away much of the plot of this book, which is well put together, and compelled my interest. I will say that Sibeal is in training as a druid priestess. She can see the future, at times, in visions, or by scrying -- looking in a special vessel or body of water. Such vision of the future can be deceptive. It might be something that is actually going to happen, or something that might happen, and it's not possible to tell. Sibeal falls in love with Felix, an outsider. He is not from her own ethnic group, and he does not practice her religion.

The characters are well drawn. They include a variety of people, with a variety of motives and interests. Many of them are part of Sibeal's family, but not all of them are.

In some of the other books of this series, Marillier included one or more Christian characters, who were presented as good people, and whose beliefs were also presented with respect, and without distortion. See here and here for my discussion of this aspect of Marillier's work.

This book has no Christian character, or at least no such character who is important, and who believes in Christ as God and savior. There are minor characters who make the sign of the cross when in danger. Felix, a major character, tells Sibeal:
"I was raised in the Christian faith, but my belief was shattered by the wrongs I saw enacted in the name of the Church. . . ." (395) During the conversation that this is part of, he indicates that he admires Sibeal's strong faith, and is drawn to it.

I was disappointed that Marillier had no strong Christian believer in this book, but deciding to have one was up to Marillier, not me, and the book is well-written, and well worth reading. Characters do have moral choices. There are good characters, and characters who make lots of wrong decisions. One character is surprising in a way that I didn't expect.

Thanks for reading. Read Marillier.

The Bible uses the science of the time: Job 37:18

2011-09-02T03:11:00.001-04:00

Job 37:18 Can you, with him, spread out the sky,
which is strong as a cast metal mirror? (World English Bible)

18 Can you, like him, spread out the skies,
hard as a cast metal mirror? (English Standard Version)

18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass? (KJV)

18 With Him, have you spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror? (NKJV)

18 he makes the skies reflect the heat like a bronze mirror. Can you do that? (NLT)

All the versions I checked use similar language. (See here for several of them, from the Blueletter Bible.) What's going on here? Is the Bible in error? No, but there's a lesson here. For one thing, this illustrates that the Bible can't always be taken literally. Much of Job is poetic in nature, and, besides, note the "as" or "like" in some of these renditions -- the sky is somehow like a looking glass, not literally a looking glass, in the mind of the speaker and the listeners. (This was Elihu speaking to Job, and, apparently, Job's three friends were listening.)

And that's the main point I'm trying to make. God, who knows exactly what the sky is like, allowed, and, presumably, directed, that the ideas of the time of writing were used in Job. To describe the sky in the terms we use today would have made this incomprehensible to Elihu's contemporaries, and to people for several centuries after he spoke this. I believe that the same applies to several other biblical passages -- the Bible used the world-view of the people of the time in describing nature.

Thanks for reading!

The Lost World of Genesis One: Day Seven

2011-09-01T03:45:00.001-04:00

I am posting on The Lost World of Genesis One, by John H. Walton. The previous post is here.

In the previous posts, I have indicated that Walton claims, and presents evidence for the claim, that the description of what happened, in Genesis One, is all about God establishing functions, not about God creating matter. (Walton believes that God created matter, but not that Genesis One describes this.) In other words, rather than describing God creating from nothing, the text is describing how God caused the earth to become organized. He says that we put our own cultural bias into the reading of Genesis One.

Walton's chapters are not listed as chapters, but as propositions -- statements to be supported. The seventh of these propositions was difficult for me to understand. I shall quote Walton:
. . . a reader from the ancient world would know immediately what was going on and recognize the role of day seven. Without hesitation the ancient reader would conclude that this is a temple text and that day seven is the most important of the seven days. In a material account day seven would have little role, but in a functional account . . . it is the true climax without which nothing else would make any sense or have any meaning. (p. 72) Walton, evidently an expert on Middle Eastern culture of the time -- which I certainly am not! -- discusses some of the non-Hebrew literature from ancient times to support this assertion.

It is true that the seventh day seems to be of little importance, as most of us 21st century readers understand it. Is it true that the seventh day was one in which God acts as if He has settled into a temple? That is a little harder for me to grasp. Walton says, and uses other Old Testament verses to support this, that rest, to the culture of the ancient Hebrews, didn't necessarily mean "doing nothing." It meant, he says, that everything was in place, and functioning as it was supposed to.

An interesting claim. Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 329

2011-08-31T03:28:00.001-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: According to an article in Discovery, a parasite which lives in cats, in one stage of its life cycle, and in other animals, like rats, in the other, affects the brains of affected rats, so that they are less frightened, even -- you are reading this correctly -- attracted to cats! (This means that the parasites are more likely to continue their life cycle.)

The New York Times reports on a study of sharing behavior in chimpanzees. Chimpanzees, given the opportunity, are likely to help other chimps.

Politics: (or Science) National Public Radio reports that supposedly silly scientific research, often cited by politicians, as an example of government waste, is usually not silly at all. I'm not suggesting that all taxes are good, but see my post, "Taxes create jobs!," which is related to this issue.

Sports: I am sorry to have read, in Sports Illustrated, that Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in major college basketball, has been diagnosed with the beginnings of dementia. SI has a tribute, which says, correctly, that Summitt made us take women's sports seriously.

Image source (public domain)

I'm glad I'm not an aphid

2011-08-29T18:57:00.001-04:00

In some ways, aphids have it made. They just sit there and suck plant juices until they die. They don't move much, although some of them have wings, and fly, and they usually seem to live in a place that has abundant food available. They have endosymbiotic bacteria in their guts, which make the essential amino acids that are in scant supply in the juice flowing in the plant's vessels. (Which is mostly water and carbohydrates.)

But, on the other hand, they are exposed to predators, with their main defense seeming to be their ability to produce little aphids, so many that they can't all be eaten. They don't live a long time. They don't see much, except whatever plant stem they are on, and a little of their surroundings. Presumably, they don't have any education, any arts, any sports, any politics, any religion. Many of them don't even have any sex life -- they produce new aphids mostly by parthenogenesis, that is, having little ones without a sexual process. (Sexual processes generally reshuffle the genetic material. They may accomplish other things, too!) Some aphid species produce up to 40 generations, all female, and all genetically identical to a first ancestor, in a single summer. (There is usually a sexual phase just before anticipated cold weather, which, instead of giving "birth" to little aphids, mates, and the females lay eggs.)

These insects are amazingly successful, if being numerous, and having lots of offspring, is success. But I'd rather be a human, a fallen human, with more of the image of God in me than aphids, and with a path to redemption.

Thanks for reading. To see more photos of aphids, giving birth, being eaten, and in other activities, see here.

Prayers in the Bible: group fast for Esther

2011-08-28T03:44:00.002-04:00

Esther 4:15 Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17 So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. (World English Bible, public domain.)

Actually, the Bible doesn't say "prayer" in this case, but I believe that it is implied. Note that Esther also fasted. It's interesting that her maidens did, too, as they probably weren't Jewish.

Thanks for reading. This is one of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here.

Three different ways of reading the Bible

2011-08-26T03:41:00.001-04:00

Ken Schenck has posted on three different ways of reading the Bible. As always, what he says is worth reading.

Is Evolution a fact, or a theory?

2011-08-25T07:18:00.000-04:00

Well, it's both. (And, of course, we have to be careful what we mean by "evolution."

Read this explanation of the question of the title. (Not by me.)

Sunspots 328

2011-08-24T03:57:00.001-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports on a study that indicates that marijuana use does not make people stupider.

National Public Radio reports on a study that suggests that being a musician means that you have have better hearing -- you are better able to follow conversations, and lose your hearing more slowly as you age. The study didn't seem to take the extremely loud music produced by some popular musicians into account.

The Arts: (sort of) Wired reports that an artist has produced a (sort of) animated tattoo. Video is included.

Image source (public domain)

Antonin Scalia on gun rights

2011-08-23T03:33:00.002-04:00

I recently read an article on gun rights in The Atlantic, issue of September 2011, which quoted the following statement, from a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States:
2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. - Justice Antonin Scalia, Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, June 26, 2008. Here is the Court's ruling, written by Scalia, which includes this quotation. The ruling declared a gun law in the District of Columbia to be unconstitutional.

The article in The Atlantic points out that Justice Scalia is not exactly the strict constructionist/originalist that he sometimes sounds like, and is often portrayed to be:
"This paragraph from the pen of Justice Scalia, the foremost proponent of constitutional originalism, was astounding. True, the Founders imposed gun control, but they had no laws resembling Scalia’s list of Second Amendment exceptions. They had no laws banning guns in sensitive places, or laws prohibiting the mentally ill from possessing guns, or laws requiring commercial gun dealers to be licensed. Such restrictions are products of the 20th century. Justice Scalia, in other words, embraced a living Constitution."

Interesting, at least to me. Thanks for reading!

The Lost World of Genesis One: God establishes functions in Genesis one

2011-08-22T03:44:00.000-04:00

I have previously posted on John H. Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, indicating that Walton believes that the creation story of Genesis One is not the story of how God made things, but of how God organized things already present. Walton says that we impose our own cultural bias (create = make something) on the Scripture. I summarize some of Walton's evidence for that in the previous posts.

Walton claims that the so-called creation of light, on the first day of Genesis One, was actually an act by God to create time -- to make periods of light and dark exist on a regular basis. That is, to organize time into day and night. One the second day, says Walton, God organized the material of the earth so that there was a place for humans (and other organisms) to live on dry land, and also made weather possible. The act of the second day was not, he says, to create some kind of dome over the earth. He writes "That we do not retain the cosmic geography of the ancient world that featured a solid barrier holding back waters does not change the fact that our understanding of the Creator includes his role in setting up and maintaining a weather system. The material terms used in day two reflect accommodation to the way the ancient audience thought about the world." (pp.57-58)

Thanks for reading!

Prayers in the Bible: Manasseh repents

2011-08-21T03:12:00.002-04:00

2 Chronicles 33:1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. 3 For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars for the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them. 4 He built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh said, “My name shall be in Jerusalem forever.” 5 He built altars for all the army of the sky in the two courts of the house of Yahweh. 6 He also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he practiced sorcery, and used enchantments, and practiced sorcery, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he worked much evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger. 7 He set the engraved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s house, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever: 8 neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from off the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will observe to do all that I have commanded them, even all the law and the statutes and the ordinances given by Moses.” 9 Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel did. 10 Yahweh spoke to Manasseh, and to his people; but they gave no heed. 11 Therefore Yahweh brought on them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. 12 When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to him; and he was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God. 14 Now after this he built an outer wall to the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance at the fish gate; and he encircled Ophel with it, and raised it up to a very great height: and he put valiant captains in all the fortified cities of Judah. 15 He took away the foreign gods, and the idol out of the house of Yahweh, and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of the house of Yahweh, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. 16 He built up the altar of Yahweh, and offered thereon sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel. 17 Nevertheless the people sacrificed still in the high places, but only to Yahweh their God. 18 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, behold, they are written among the acts of the kings of Israel. 19 His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set up the Asherim and the engraved images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai. 20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house: and Amon his son reigned in his place. (World English Bible, public domain)

We are not told the words of Manasseh's prayer, but the substance is clear enough: "I'm sorry!" One of the four types of prayer (in one way of classifying them) is Confession. Clearly, Manasseh confessed. So must we. And God graciously answered Manasseh's prayer. Only God could have restored a captive to the kingship.

This is one of a series of posts on prayers in the Bible. The previous post in the series is here. Thanks for reading!

Galileo on the relationship between science and scripture

2011-08-20T03:18:00.000-04:00

I recently came upon a translation of the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615," by Galileo Galilei.

It is interesting that Galileo wrote this important statement of his beliefs to a woman. The Duchess must have been an important intellectual and political figure.

Galileo was apparently defending himself to the Duchess. What was he accused of? Of ignoring what the Bible had to say about the relationship of the earth to the rest of the heavenly bodies. What was his defense?

Here is part of what he had to say:

. . . I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify.

. . . I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences and necessary demonstrations; for the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word[,] the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.

Good advice! And, I believe, what should have been an adequate defense. Thanks for reading.

We are what we read

2011-08-19T03:38:00.000-04:00

Rebecca Luella Miller, of Speculative Faith, reports that there is some empirical evidence that what we read affects our personality. This is hardly a surprise, is it?

Consider this case. It is anecdotal, not experimental, but anyway:
"What made the change in Lewis? In a word, fantasy. It is no stretch to say that Lewis's faith journey began as a result of reading stories that were dripping with Christian truth -- awakening within him a desire for something he didn't possess." Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware, Finding God in the Land of Narnia (Tyndale House: 2005) The quotation is from p. xi. The stories referred to are those of George MacDonald.

Thanks for reading.

The Lost World of Genesis One: Making things or ordering things?

2011-08-18T03:14:00.003-04:00

I recently posted on John H. Walton's book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. I wrote "He claims that the creation account in Genesis 1 was not understood, by contemporary listeners or readers, as being about making things, but that it was about arranging things so that various entities had a function within a created world." Let's consider some of Walton's evidence for that claim.

Walton appears to be an expert in documents from the ancient Middle East, based not on this book, but on his other scholarly publication. I have seen him referred to in that way, even in the writing of an organization that does not accept most of the claims in this book. He uses that expertise to analyze a number of creation myths, more or less contemporary with Genesis, and from the same general area. He does not accept these as divinely inspired, nor does he claim that the early part of Genesis is similarly in accuracy to these accounts. Walton simply wants to show the way that the people of this part of the ancient world, including the Hebrews, thought about things. He presents his analysis, bolstered by quotations from several ancient texts, and, as he says, ". . . analysts of the ancient Near Eastern creation literature often observe that nothing material is actually made in these accounts." (35) and "They thought of existence as defined by having a function in an ordered system." (p. 36) The activity of the supernatural beings, in these accounts, is to take unorganized material, already present, and to organize it. As I indicated in the previous post, Walton is not saying that God didn't make things, nor that the Hebrews didn't believe that He did, just that Genesis 1 is not about that. We, he says, read Genesis 1 through our own cultural biases. It was written from the viewpoint, and to be understood, by the people of the time when it was written.

He goes on to say that bārā, the Hebrew word translated as "create," in Genesis 1, is used in a number of places in the Old Testament. Walton presents a table of these uses, on page 42, giving the object of the verb bārā in each case, and, he claims, ". . . no clear example occurs that demands a material perspective for the verb, although many are ambiguous." (43) I am not competent to evaluate that claim, but, based on the rest of the book, it makes sense. Creation, in Genesis 1, is about organizing things, giving them a function.

I hope to post more on this book later. Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 327

2011-08-17T03:33:00.000-04:00

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Chinese researchers attempting to return pandas to the wild wear panda suits (with photos).

Politics: The Huffington Post has a horrifying reminder of some of the atrocities, in particular, sterilization without consent, that were committed, in the US, in the name of eugenics.

Sports: Dan Uggla's hitting streak ended, after over a month. Sports Illustrated has a reflection on why, or whether, hitting streaks matter. (The reflection covers other milestones, such as a 3,000th hit.)

Christianity: You probably hadn't thought about God's hospitality -- I hadn't. But Anne/Weekend Fisher has.

Image source (public domain)

Prayers in the Bible: Jehoshaphat sends the choir in front of the army

2011-08-14T03:58:00.011-04:00

2 Chronicles 20:1 It happened after this, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. 2 Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi). 3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4 Judah gathered themselves together, to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh. 5 Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of Yahweh, before the new court; 6 and he said, “Yahweh, the God of our fathers, aren’t you God in heaven? Aren’t you ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hand, so that no one is able to withstand you. 7 Didn’t you, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it to the seed of Abraham your friend forever? 8 They lived in it, and have built you a sanctuary in it for your name, saying, 9 ‘If evil comes on us—the sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this house, and before you, (for your name is in this house), and cry to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ 10 Now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned aside from them, and didn’t destroy them; 11 behold, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. 12 Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that comes against us; neither know we what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
13 All Judah stood before Yahweh, with their little ones, their wives, and their children. 14 Then the Spirit of Yahweh came on Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite, of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly; 15 and he said, “Listen, all Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you king Jehoshaphat. Thus says Yahweh to you, ‘Don’t be afraid, neither be dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. 16 Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they are coming up by the ascent of Ziz. You shall find them at the end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel. 17 You will not need to fight this battle. Set yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of Yahweh with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Don’t be afraid, nor be dismayed. Go out against them tomorrow, for Yahweh is with you.’”
18 Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before Yahweh, worshiping Yahweh. 19 The Levites, of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korahites, stood up to praise Yahweh, the God of Israel, with an exceeding loud voice. 20 They rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in Yahweh your God, so you shall be established! Believe his prophets, so you shall prosper.”
21 When he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who should sing to Yahweh, and give praise in holy array, as they went out before the army, and say, Give thanks to Yahweh; for his loving kindness endures forever. 22 When they began to sing and to praise, Yahweh set ambushers against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were struck. 23 For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to kill and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy another. 24 When Judah came to the place overlooking the wilderness, they looked at the multitude; and behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and there were none who escaped. 25 When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their plunder, they found among them in abundance both riches and dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in taking the plunder, it was so much. 26 On the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Beracah; for there they blessed Yahweh: therefore the name of that place was called The valley of Beracah to this day. 27 Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in their forefront, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for Yahweh had made them to rejoice over their enemies. 28 They came to Jerusalem with stringed instruments and harps and trumpets to the house of Yahweh. 29 The fear of God was on all the kingdoms of the countries, when they heard that Yahweh fought against the enemies of Israel. (World English Bible, public domain)

I don't need to say much about this remarkable story, other than to reiterate part of the title of this post -- Jehoshaphat sent the choir out in front of the army, to point out that King Jehoshaphat was guided by God, speaking through a specific Levite, and that he also took counsel with the people, a wise move, and finally, that the congregation wisely praised God for the result of this battle.

This is one of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous post is here. Thanks for reading.

"The Help": racism in the 60s

2011-08-13T10:25:00.000-04:00

My wife and I went to see the movie, The Help, currently in theaters. We liked it. Here is the film's official web site. Here's the Christianity Today review. Here's the Wikipedia article on the book that the film is based on.

I won't give away much of the plot, but I will say a few things.

The title comes from the subject, namely the state of black women in the Deep South in the 60s, where becoming a household servant was the only way most of them could earn a living.

The younger generation should see this movie. Things have changed, not as much as they should have, perhaps, but they have changed. When the mostly white, and mostly politically conservative people of one of the Congressional Districts of South Carolina elected a black man to represent them, voting for him over a son of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, and over a son of a recently deceased popular governor, things have changed. The Help will remind, or show, viewers some of the way we once were. It may also remind, or show us that a lot of people smoked in all sorts of places a half-century ago.

There are no major male characters in the movie. (There were some men, though.) The stars were Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis, assisted by quite a few others, including Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mary Steenburgen and Jessica Chastain. The story is one that should interest men -- the movie isn't particularly for women, it's just about them.

The Christianity Today review emphasizes the faith of the character played by Viola Davis, and contrasts it with the hypocrisy of Bryce Dallas Howard's character. I didn't see as much of either of those as I expected to see, based on the review. Courage, not Faith, seemed to be the primary subject matter. However, there is a church service, and real, vital Christianity is not minimized.

There's too much of the s___ word, and some other spoken vulgarities, in the movie for my taste. Some of it was required, I think.

My recollection is that there was more physical violence against blacks than the movie shows. It does show a little, and there is news about the assassination of Medgar Evers. My wife pointed out that one form of white violence, namely raping or coerced seduction of black women, was not shown at all. Essie Washington-Williams, daughter of the above-mentioned Senator Strom Thurmond (who sired her long before he entered the Senate) is perhaps the most famous example of such violence, but there was more, not always resulting in a child.

The writing and publication of the book, and the making of the film, are interesting stories in themselves. See here for one article on these matters. The book, by a woman, is a first novel, rejected dozens of times, but later becoming a best-seller, and the film's director is a male childhood friend of the author, who had never directed a film.

The film was made in Mississippi (the story takes place in Jackson, MS.) As Emma Stone said, ". . . in 110-degree heat and 100 percent humidity — but it sure had to be done in Mississippi."

Thanks for reading. See The Help.

The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton: introduction

2011-08-12T03:54:00.001-04:00

I have recently read The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, by John H. Walton. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. I hope to post on the book several times over the next few weeks. (Walton has a Wikipedia page, but the information on it is minimal. It does say that Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.

So what does the book have to say? In summary, Walton makes a bold claim. He claims that the creation account in Genesis 1 was not understood, by contemporary listeners or readers, as being about making things, but that it was about arranging things so that various entities had a function within a created world. How is that possible? After all, the words used speak of creation, and doesn't creation mean making things? Walton says that that's what it means to us, in the 21st century, but it's not what it meant to the ancient world. (He says clearly that God can, and did, make things, in the way that we mean it.)

How is this possible? See here for a Biblical example of how our understanding is not the same as that of people in Biblical times.

Walton is an expert in creation myths from Near East cultures. That doesn't mean that he believes Genesis 1 is a myth. But he uses his knowledge to shed light on the way people thought at about the time Genesis was written. I hope to set forth what Walton thinks they thought -- what he thinks Genesis 1 and 2 meant to the people who first heard and read them.

Thanks for reading.