Sunspots 998

 



Notices (2)

**Try our New Beta Features**: Create a more engaging reading experience with the help of Google

Google Search links: Based on your blog content, Blogger will automatically identify key words and phrases in your post and insert Search links in case your readers want to explore more. In Compose View, Look for the ‘Pencil’ icon on the top-right of the page to get started.

**Try our New Beta Features**: Create a more engaging reading experience with the help of Google

Google Search previews: Easily insert visual Google Search previews for popular people, locations, pop-culture and more directly in your blog! In Compose View, look for the ‘G’ button in the editor tool bar to get started.



Post settings

Labels

No matching suggestions

Published on

4/6/26 7:19 AM

Permalink

Location

 

Joel Duff examines the oft-repeated claim that the amount of salt in the earth's water was not deposited over a long period of time -- there's not enough salt, the argument says. Duff argues that the amount of salt is, in fact, an argument for an old earth.

Duff also shows that the Young-earth Creationist explanation of why about 140 types of marsupial mammals came to exist in Australia and nearby land areas, but only a handful of types of  placental mammals are found there.

Gizmodo reports that China is successfully transforming a desert into growth that acts to remove Carbon from the atmosphere.

Gizmodo also reports that the Vera Rubin observatory, in Chile, ia locating lots of asteroids, previously unknown. Like hundreds or thousands' of them.

Ken Schenck argues, from the Bible, that heaven will be on earth.

UTNews reports that a large group of chimpanzees has split into two groups, and they are engaging in violence toward between the two.

Thanks for reading!

Salt-Bible study

There are about 40 occurrences of the word, salt, in the Bible. Here are some of them:

Salt was part of the offerings to Yahweh: Leviticus 2:13 Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.

Salt was used to poison the fields of enemy nations: Judges 9:44 Abimelech and the companies that were with him rushed forward and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city; and the two companies rushed on all who were in the field and struck them. 45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city and killed the people in it. He beat down the city and sowed it with salt.

Deuteronomy 29:23 that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

But salt, in at least one case, had the opposite effect, presumably because of a miracle: 2 Kings 2:19 The men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, please, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is barren. 20 He said, “Bring me a new jar, and put salt in it.” Then they brought it to him. 21 He went out to the spring of the waters, and threw salt into it, and said, “Yahweh says, ‘I have healed these waters. There shall not be from there any more death or barren wasteland.’”

Offerings were supposed to be salted:

Leviticus 2:13 Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.

Numbers 18:19 All the wave offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel offer to Yahweh, I have given you and your sons and your daughters with you, as a portion forever. It is a covenant of salt forever before Yahweh to you and to your offspring with you.”

Salt was used in part of the ritual of establishing a covenant:

2 Chronicles 13:5 Ought you not to know that Yahweh, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? (I'm not sure whether salt was used in covenants between people, or just in covenants between God and people.)

Babies were salted at birth: Ezekiel 16:4 As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren’t washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all. (It may be that some of the significance of salt, as in putting it on babies, were prevalent just at the time related to that scripture. Or these practices may be widespread.

Here are some references from the New Testament: Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.

Luke 14:34 “Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it?

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

For the Christian, salt is related to keeping our flavor. Does that mean that we should remain distinct from the general population? Christians are to impart God's grace, perhaps somewhat like babies were salted in Ezekiel's time.

Salt preserves and flavors. These uses were well known in Bible times. A use that they probably didin't think about was that salt retards freezing. As I write, there is lots of crystallized salt on roads and sidewalks nearby.  Christians, too, should be warm-hearted.

There are several Biblical references to the Salt Sea, which we now call the Dead Sea. (It has a high salt content.)

For a lot more about salt, see the Wikipedia article.

Sunspots 683

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

Christianity: A Christianity Today editorial on immigration.

Christianity Today also reports that multi-ethnic Protestant congregations are becoming more common, especially among evangelicals.


Computing: Gizmodo discusses the frequent failure of governments web sites, and the causes.

Health: (or something) FiveThirtyEight points out that using a phone hands-free while driving can also be dangerous. And so can the car's complicated controls.

Earther reports that, until now, most plastic waste that's recycled goes to China for such treatment. However, the Chinese are clamping down on importing plastic.

National Public Radio reports that an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that, US county by county, there is a strong correlation between opioid over use and voting for President Trump in 2016. This does not prove cause. Both phenomena may have been caused by something else, such as the local economy.

An article on the use of superlatives in reports of cancer research. Claiming too much happens a lot.

Politics: Sojourners discusses an analysis of word use in Vice-President Mike Pence's recent speech to the Southern Baptist Convention. He used "President" 61 times, "Trump" 12 times, but "God" 9 times and "Christ" twice. Some Southern Baptists, including leaders, were not happy with his speech.

The Washington Post tells us where President Trump got his figure of 63,000 people killed by illegal immigrants. Someone basically made it up.

Science: ListVerse tells us 10 interesting things about salt.

Gizmodo reports on the real cause of the "drip, drip, drip" sound made by a leaky faucet, and on how to stop that sound quickly and easily.

National Public Radio discusses the advantages of increasing the beaver population of the Western US.

Sports: The Associated Press says that pitchers are throwing fewer fast balls, and why.
Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Salt in the incense and the grain offerings

I recently noticed, for the first time, that salt was significant in the religious practices of the Old Testament.

Exodus 30:34 The Lord said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), 35 and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. 36 You shall beat some of it very small, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you. It shall be most holy for you. 37 And the incense that you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord. (ESV)

Leviticus 2:13 You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. (ESV)

I noticed these passages, which refer to the use of salt in worship ceremonies, as a consequence of following the ESV on-line Bible reading for two separate days in February.

A search for salt in the on-line ESV Bible turned up the following additional passages:
Moses, speaking to Aaron, the first High Priest, said: Numbers 18:19 All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” 20 And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.

2 Kings 2:19 Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city* is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 20 He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” 22 So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.
*The city was apparently Jericho.

2 Chronicles 13:4 Then Abijah stood up on Mount Zemaraim that is in the hill country of Ephraim and said, “Hear me, O Jeroboam and all Israel! 5 Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt? . . .

King Darius speaking, and, seemingly, knowing about the requirement for salt in the work of the priests, in Ezra 6:7 Let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. 8 Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God. The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from Beyond the River. 9 And whatever is needed—bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require—let that be given to them day by day without fail, 10 that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.

Ezekiel indicates that newborn babies were normally treated with salt: 16:1 Again the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

So salt was a symbolic substance, in the Old Testament, as well as the new. Sorry I wasn't paying better attention earlier! Thanks for reading.