What Paul Actually Taught After His NDE

 Because we know that whatever the Torah says it's talking to those within the Torah, so that every mouth might be fenced and all the world would become liable to the God; because no flesh based being will be made right when standing in front of Him by doing what the Torah says, because it is through the Torah that the knowledge of the error through observation exists. And now a divine right state of being has been manifested separate from the Torah being testified to by the Torah and the Prophets, and a divine right state of being through the trust of Yeshua the Anointed for all those who trust. Because there isn't a distinction, because everyone erred and are deficient of the reputation of the God being freely made right by His charity through the slave buyback which is by means of the Anointed Yeshua whom the God put forward to be a mercy-seat through trust by means of His blood for an indication of His right state of being because of the falling to the side of the errors which happened beforehand by means of the God's permission, for the indication of His right state of being at the present time, for Him being right and making right the one who is of the trust of Yeshua.
Romans 3:19-26, my rough translation this morning.

It doesn't follow the standard Protestant translation and understanding of this passage. It's not supposed to, because Paul wasn't talking about penal substitutionary atonement. He was talking about being bought back and freed from being enslaved to one's own flesh. He was talking about an error within that flesh which prevented this divine right state of being from being manifested up til this point when the God put Yeshua forward as a mercy-seat. He was talking about the total inability of anyone being made right from the error at their life review by doing what the Torah says because the Torah can only expose the error, it cannot correct it. Let me say this again, Torah or "Law" keeping cannot fix the error or manifest this divine right state of being because it was never designed to do that. 

 This divine right state of being which belongs to the God is already a part of every human being, but because of the error which enslaved us to our flesh (literally our brain's survival response systems) we have been unable to manifest. By Yeshua dying and resurrecting, who is the Seminal Logos, the Head, of whom the logos of every human being is a part, every human being thus can reap the benefits, the after-effects if you will, of His death experience, His NDE so to speak. Why was His death necessary? Because what has died has been made right from the error. Paul understood that the error was in the flesh, it wasn't and could be in the divine Spirit which every human being has, and when the flesh dies, the error dies with it. When a person is resuscitated or resurrected, those after effects always include the weakening and breaking of the hold of the flesh, the fear which keeps us trapped. Why did Jesus Christ die on the cross for us if not as a penal substitutionary atonement? So that the hold of this error over human beings, us, would be broken through our innate unity with Him as Logos.

We only need to trust what already is, that is, what we already are, divine sons through our existential oneness with the Son, the Seminal Logos, the firstborn from the God, and the firstborn among many, many siblings. It is this divine Spirit which each human being holds, the Consciousness born from His Source Consciousness, this eternal and infinite Awareness which is who and what we truly are apart from the finite, transient, and flawed flesh, experiences, perceptions, and identities to which we cling and of which Jesus told us to drop and let go of or we couldn't be His disciples. Why? Because being His disciple means stripping away everything else except our essential awareness, our own "I am..." without any qualifiers which is a part of His “I Am” and borrowed from Him.

What Paul experienced and learned in his NDE on the road to Damascus was not that different if at all from what nearly every Near Death Experiencer experiences and learns. He just interpreted it through his own cultural, societal, and philosophical worldview as does nearly everyone. It was tailored specifically for him as it is everyone. What he writes and describes is a result of that learning and experience. The most common interpretations of what Paul wrote fail to take this into account and are the product of the five hundred year old Reformation theology and teachings.

My Beef With English Bible Translations

 I wrote this a while back, but I believe it is pertinent here to what I am trying to say:
 "What a lot of people don't realize about Bible translation, and specifically the translation into English is how much linguistic "noise" there actually is between the source and the target languages. Let's just take the New Testament for a moment. The New Testament was originally written in the colloquial Greek of the first century Eastern Mediterranean. The dialogue and teachings of Jesus that it records however were likely originally spoken in Aramaic (Classical Syriac, not the Biblical Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra), at least most of the time, and as such there are a number of Aramaicisms in the text which were translated directly by four different authors into the more widely spoken Greek.
      In the fifth century, the Greek text was translated into colloquial (or "vulgar") Latin. Think about the amount of linguistic change which occurred just between the first and fifth centuries when Jerome translated the texts. That's about 4-500 years worth of change. To put that into perspective, that's the difference between Anglo-Saxon (think the original Beowulf poem) and Elizabethan English (think Shakespeare and the KJV). The latter is still mutually intelligible with Modern English, the former is not and must be learned as a foreign language. So when Jerome translated it into the Latin of the fifth century, he translated first century Greek with a fifth century Greek understanding of the words and syntax, and both changed over that period of time.
     The Latin text, the Vulgate, was the de facto standard text of the New Testament for the Western Church and Western Scholarship for about a thousand years, and long past the time when Latin was the colloquial language of anyone. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it had morphed into what we now know as the Romance languages and their respective dialects (much as Anglo-Saxon morphed into Elizabethan). Latin as such only remained spoken as, essentially, an artificial language used for education and ecclesiastical liturgy. It was no one's birth language. While it was artificially maintained, the meanings of the Latin words continued to shift and change over that thousand year period. The artificial Latin spoken in Martin Luther's day would have been barely intelligible if at all to Jerome in the fifth century.
     When John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the other early translators and Reformers first read the New Testament, they read it in this artificially maintained Latin, not their own native tongues, and not in the Original Greek. The Greek texts themselves had been maintained by the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but were largely unknown in the Western Roman Catholic Church until after 1451 CE when the Byzantine capital of Constantinople fell to the Turks and a large number of Greek scholars and clergy fled with their manuscripts west to Rome, and other European capitals. Those who came spoke Greek, but a Greek which, like the other languages, had morphed over the fifteen hundred year time span since the original texts were written, and was mutually unintelligible with the Greek of the New Testament. Furthermore, there was no one unified text of the Greek New Testament until Erasmus compiled his Textus Receptus from Eastern Orthodox Lectionaries and other manuscripts. Ironically, he only did this so he could place it side by side with the Latin to prove the superiority of the Latin text over the original Greek!
     This is the linguistic context of Luther's German translation from the original languages, as well as Tyndale's English, and Calvin's French translations. They all may have been excellent scholars, but in many if not most cases their translations relied heavily on the meaning of the Latin text as they understood it in the sixteenth century even if they were trying to translate it from the Greek because they simply did not have the tools at their disposal to achieve enough of a fluency in first century colloquial Greek laced with Aramaicisms in half the text.
     Modern translations of the New Testament often still rely heavily on the work of these men. Virtually all modern translations into English rely on Tyndale's understanding of what the text was saying, even if they don't copy his words directly, they often paraphrase them. Probably a good 75% of the King James Version of the New Testament is plagiarized directly from Tyndale, and most follow suit to a greater or lesser degree because few translators want to deviate from what has already been done, even if modern translation tools tell a different story. Put simply, the New Testament which is read today in English has 2,000 years worth of linguistic, cultural, and theological noise which makes it difficult to understand what the original authors were trying to say to their own target audiences who knew the language, culture, and worldview because they shared it."

     Modern English Bible translators tend to bias their translations to what previous translators have already done. "No need to reinvent the wheel" so to speak. More than this though, they also tend to bias their translations along their own theological systems of thought. For some, like with the ESV, it is overt. For others, like with the NRSV, it is subconscious. No matter who you are as a translator, you will always render a passage as what you think it's saying. Your translation will always depend on your personal understanding of what the author was trying to say. Attempting to translate something word for word doesn't actually help the situation because there are no words between Koine Greek and English that have a direct 1:1 translation. There is always semantic drift between them which is why one word in Greek can often be seen being translated five different ways in English (and one word in English having three or four Greek counterparts) even though the word itself encompasses one concept in 1st century near eastern thought.
     Most Modern translations are dynamic equivalence translations to one degree or another, attempting to render what was meant rather than the actual form in which the words in the text appear. There are a few that attempt to adhere to a modified formal equivalence such as the NKJV, NASB, NAB, and the ESV, but most of the others are either dynamic equivalence such as the NIV or straight up paraphrases such as the Living Bible, the Message, and the NLT. These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, though I know there have been more published in the last 20 or thirty years. 
     Again, the translation is only as good as the understanding of the translator of what the author was trying to say. If the translator is steeped in a particular theological worldview then their translation will ultimately reflect that worldview. They will see what the text says through the lens of their theology. They will see it through the lens of their own modern worldview most of the time. Are they doing their best? Yes, of course they are, but when you're locked into a certain theological or denominational framework of understanding certain passages, it's going to color everything you produce.
     All of the above is why I don't use English translations on a regular basis anymore. I don't generally care who's doing the translating because the problems are still the same. 
     I've been translating and re-translating the Greek text of the New Testament for going on thirty years. I've translated through every book of the New Testament at least twice. Most of them I've done at least four or five times. Some, like Romans, I've lost count of how many times I've translated through it completely fresh. 
     Why do I do this? 
     Because every time I put it away and start again fresh I see something I didn't see before. Every time I go back and check the lexical definitions of words I know I've checked a hundred times before, I'm looking to understand what exactly the semantic meaning really is here. My autistic brain wants to just plug in one of the lexical definitions that's already there, but it also knows that most of those lexical definitions are using English that's at least a hundred years old to describe idioms from a language and culture that's 2,000 years old. And so, I get hung up on a word or a sentence. 
     What is Paul actually saying? (Paul's letters are where this usually happens the most.) 
     I put it away. Read more about the history, language, culture, and philosophy of the first century Roman Near East. I read modern translations of other works from the same language and period, and then go back again and look at it again with those eyes. 
     I put it away again and focus on Modern Greek to see if it has anything to teach me about how certain word usage and constructions might have survived, and then I again go back and run through it again, looking at it with the eyes which that has given me. 
     And every time I do this, I strip away just a little bit more of the two thousand years of language, culture, and theological changes which have been imposed on the text and I come closer to being in the room with the author as he's writing. I come closer to having that conversation with him on his terms, not my 21st century, English speaking American terms. And I come closer to understanding what he was saying to those readers who already knew what he was talking about, because he was only reminding them of things he's already said to them while he was there. 
     I must come to this author without a Protestant theological background, without a Catholic or Orthodox background, without the background of someone from my century, and I must listen to him as he writes as though I was someone from his own time and place, someone who understands the people, the places, the idioms, the humor, the sarcasm. I go, and I come back as though I'm traveling through time; learning more each time I do until I get it. 
      I must approach it without bias, without judgment, without a preconceived opinion and just let Paul, or Matthew, or John speak as they are, no more and no less, and not put words in their mouths they didn't mean or say. In doing all this over the more than three decades since I started learning Biblical Greek, I peel back the noise generated by twenty centuries of change, both unintended and deliberate, layer by layer. 
     This is why I don't just do one translation and then go back and edit and revise it. I always go back and work from the Greek fresh. Every time. I go back and look up words I already know the meaning of just so I can find a new way to say it in English to see if that is more appropriate for a modern usage. I play with it a bit. Should this be word for word and grammar for grammar, or should it be rendered idiomatically or paraphrased? My ASD brain spends a half hour on a single sentence sometimes obsessively trying to make it make sense with the actual word meanings and grammar rather than giving it the standard theologically biased translation. And sometimes I go back and find that I was wrong, and I look at it again and wonder how I could have rendered it that way before. Sometimes it makes perfect sense at the time but looks like gibberish in English when I go back and look at it again. 
     But I go back. I sit in that room with the author as he's writing, and I do the hard work of trying to understand what he's actually saying without the noise. And sometimes, just sometimes, I get it. He speaks clearly as though it's my own native tongue. And that makes all of the above worth every single time.

My Response to Dr. Nina Livesey's Accusation that the Apostle Paul Never Existed and His Letters and the Books of Acts and Luke are Forgeries

 I started learning Koine Greek when I was fifteen. I am now fifty-one. I've spent the better part of the last thirty six years pouring over, translating and retranslating the books of the New Testament in the original Greek, so much so that I have trouble when I open an English translation because frequently I know the translation isn't quite right. Most of that study and translation has been focused on Paul's letters. 

     I've read through and translated all of them so many times I've lost count. I've also studied Paul's timeline, travel, and just about everything available about him and about the time period within the near eastern Roman Empire and the surrounding culture and history. Maybe I don't have a doctorate, but I do think I have at least something to add here based on all of this. 

     First, the ancient Roman Empire around the Mediterranean was far more connected than she's giving them credit for. These communities of disciples knew of each other better than she suggests. There was a kind of network if you will after the diaspora from Jerusalem, though Ephesus was kind of the central hub for a long time, and many of these communities if not most of them were originally started by Paul wandering into town. Many, many churches in Greece and Asia Minor can and still do trace their lineages back to Paul's work. That might not be proof of his existence, but it's a start. It's not inconceivable that they made copies of these letters from him not long after they received them. These churches were founded at the same time the canonical Gospels were still being written. These letters might have been all they had besides oral tradition. It's also not inconceivable that someone went through and collected copies of these letters by the end of the first century. Second, Clement of Rome, the author of 1 Clement, was actually the Episkopos or "Bishop" of Rome at the time the letter was written. To suggest that he did not exist without actual proof that he did not exist isn't scholarship. And this brings me to my overall thought regarding this particular professor's theory. 

     She's basing her theory on a number of assumptions about what those communities would or would not do, or what they could or could not do, or what they knew or did not know. She has no proof of whether the community in say Galatia couldn't have known of the Apostles in or from Jerusalem. She has no proof that they wouldn't have used terms like Episkopos, Presbuteros, or Diakonos to describe a community's leadership, and all of which were well in use by the end of the first century as evidenced by the letters of the Apostolic Fathers. This world at the time was far more connected than she appears to assume. It only took two weeks to get from Rome to Caesarea in Judea during the spring. Her claims are built on her own assumptions about that world two thousand years ago which, quite frankly, just don't stand up to real scrutiny. 

     Finally, there are the letters themselves. As I said, I've spent more than three decades reading, translating, and rereading them in Greek. Compare them with the Gnostic writings. Compare them with other spiritual texts. They're too personal. They read more like Seneca's letters or Marcus Aurelius' personal reflections than they do any of the others. Paul's intent was to teach, yes, but that teaching was directed and personal. He addresses people by name. He knows people who will receive or see the letters. He knows their personal circumstances. And it's also clear that all of the letters were written by the same man just from an analysis of the language and writing style used. You might as well question whether Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius or any of the first or second century authors and writers that we know of existed because we have almost less evidence of their existence than we do of Paul's. No, this particular professor, as sincere as she may be, became too enamored with her own study of Marcion and took an easily refuted idea and ran with it. The real problem is that there are too many people who don't actually understand why she's wrong and so believe what she's selling without question.
     One other thought to add to my previous comment. Marcion or someone else attempting to forge the letters of Paul or forge the books of Luke and Acts is like me attempting to forge the letters of Abraham Lincoln or write a false biography of a secret son of his without the benefit of the internet. Marcion was a hundred years removed from Paul's time and the time recorded in the Books of Luke and Acts. Under those circumstances, there is no way a pseudo-author could have gotten every detail correct from that time period. 

     In the book of Acts, Luke names real Roman governors that were serving at that time such as Gallio (Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, brother of Seneca) and Sergius Paulus, a proconsul whom we know oversaw Cyprus during that time from inscriptions which were found. Furthermore, the description of the scales falling from Paul's eyes is a perfect description of what is called photokeratitis. It's a condition that today is usually found among welders who don't get their welding masks in place fast enough. The bright flash burns their eyes like a sunburn, are temporarily blinded and it takes two to three days for them to heal. When they do, there's a build up over the cornea that falls off like scales. People who get this often have eye problems for the rest of their life, which many Biblical scholars suspect Paul had. Acts records that he was exposed to a bright light before falling on the road to Damascus. Furthermore, everything about what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus and the after effects screams a perfect, textbook description of a Near Death Experience, the likes of which have only been studied and documented within the last fifty years or so. There are more things like this. How would the pseudo-author have known about any of this a hundred years after the fact? How would he have known about the effects of photokeratitis, a condition which couldn't have been common in the first century? He would have had to travel extensively and make the same painstaking notes a novelist would today in order to pull this off, and even then there would have been mistakes made. 

     Finally, the same Church leadership which rejected Marcion's teachings and his butchering of Luke wouldn't then have turned around and just thrown their entire support for the fictional writings of an Apostle they'd never heard of. Out of all the writings in the New Testament, Paul's letters were never contested in the ancient church as being authentic. Ironically, Peter's were. The letter to the Hebrews was. But Paul's were never contested as being authentic. There is too much internal evidence that they were written by who they say they were written by and when they say they were written.

     Dr. Livesey has no real evidence that Paul never existed except her own speculations and assumptions. The internal evidence of the records of Paul's life are more than enough to put these accusations and speculations to rest. Whatever you believe about Paul, whatever beef you made have with what you think he said or taught, the man existed and did exactly what these records say he did. 

Paul Had A Near Death Experience On The Road To Damascus

     The Apostle Paul had a Near Death Experience on the road to Damascus. He didn’t just fall down, and it wasn’t just a waking vision. This is the only known experience which can account for his sudden and dramatic transformation, and which can account for how he describes things in his letters. But what about those men who were with him who heard a voice, but saw no one? This can also be accounted for by a similar phenomenon called a “shared death experience.”
     Near Death Experiences, or NDEs, occur when a person is clinically dead for a certain length of time, either the brain has died or the heart has stopped or both, and has then resuscitated back to life. These experiences are marked by specific events that, while tailored to the individual, show a remarkable degree of consistency across all cultures, religions, languages, and societies. These experiences generally include one or more of the following: a displacement from one’s body, being removed to a place where time is not experienced, meeting relatives or friends who are deceased whether or not the person knows about either them or their death, meeting a “Being of Light” or religious figures like Jesus Christ, a life review where a person experiences their lives from the point of view of those they’ve interacted with positively or negatively,  an experience of union with God or Source, and being either told they’re returning to their body or being given the choice to stay or return. An NDE can take place over mere minutes, hours, or even, in Dr. Eben Alexander's case, a week of being brain dead from a bacteria that had reduced his cerebral cortex to pulp. By 2013, Dr. Bruce Greyson, M.D. states in his article for the medical journal “Missouri Medicine” that “around nine million people in the United States alone have reported this kind of experience.” P.M.H. Atwater writes, “There's no denying that experiencers become quite intuitive afterward. Psychic displays can be commonplace, such as: out-of-body episodes, manifestation of "beings" met in near-death state, "remembering" the future, finishing another's sentence, "hearing" plants and animals "speak." This behavior is not only worrisome to relatives and friends, it can become frightening to them. A person's religious beliefs do not alter or prevent this amplification of faculties and stimuli. Yet, experiencers willing to learn how to control and refine these abilities, consider them beneficial.” She also writes, “Life paradoxes begin to take on a sense of purpose and meaning, as forgiveness tends to replace former needs to criticize and condemn. Hard driving achievers and materialists can transform into easy-going philosophers; but, by the same token, those more relaxed or uncommitted before can become energetic "movers and shakers," determined to make a difference in the world. Personality reversals seem to depend more on what's "needed" to round out the individual's inner growth than on any uniform outcome. Although initially bewildered, families can be so impressed by what they witness that they, too, change-making the experience a "shared event."
     People who have Near Death Experiences typically will remember their experience with perfect or near perfect clarity. They will describe it as being “more real than real.” According to Dr. Greyson, “A recent review of research into the characteristic changes following NDEs found the most commonly reported to be loss of fear of death; strengthened belief in life after death; feeling specially favored by God; a new sense of purpose or mission; heightened self-esteem; increased compassion and love for others; lessened concern for material gain, recognition, or status; greater desire to serve others; increased ability to express feelings; greater appreciation of, and zest for, life; increased focus on the present; deeper religious faith or heightened spirituality; search for knowledge; and greater appreciation for nature. These aftereffects have been corroborated by interviews with near-death experiencers’ significant others and by long-term longitudinal studies."
     A shared death experience is when someone literally starts seeing or experiencing all or part of what a dying person is experiencing. They can happen to people in the same room and they can also happen remotely to people in a different room or even in another country. Like near death experiences, there are some doctors who study and document this phenomenon, and there are many doctors, nurses, and "death doulas"who have experienced it themselves. One doctor and nurse who weren't related to the dying patient at all literally saw a spectral image of the dying man's already passed wife hovering over him waiting to receive him as recounted in the book "Not Yet" by Dr. Jeff O'Driscoll, M.D.
     There are literally thousands of NDE testimonies available to read on the website for the International Association of Near Death studies, as well as many, many recorded videos of people relating their experiences in interviews and podcasts on YouTube. Two however stand out at the moment for this purpose and these are Howard Storm’s and Betty Guadagno’s (also known as “Buddha Betty”), both of whose testimonies I highly recommend finding and watching. Howard Storm was a former, extremely atheist art professor who experienced a near-death event in June 1985 after suffering a catastrophic duodenal perforation while traveling with students in Paris, France. He describes himself as being an arrogant, selfish man prior to his NDE. His near death experience led him to not only turn away from atheism, but to become a pastor in the United Church of Christ. Betty Guadagno’s near-death experience occurred in March 2019 following a severe drug overdose, completely transforming her life from a multi-decade battle with homelessness, trauma, and severe addiction into a journey of recovery and spiritual teaching.
      The more information I read and consume about NDEs and their after effects, the more I recognize a pattern that feels very, very familiar, and should to anyone who's studied Paul the Apostle. Paul’s pattern of behavior, extreme change in beliefs and practices away from Pharisaic Judaism, previously uncharacteristic yet extreme Christo-centric spirituality and mysticism as documented explicitly in Philippians 3, demonstrations of supernatural abilities, extreme increase in compassion and love, loss of attachment to material things, and near total loss of the fear of death fits the pattern of NDE after effects perfectly. Add to this his statement in his letter to the Galatians that he wasn't taught his gospel by human beings but by Jesus Christ Himself. Numerous near death experiencers report speaking with Christ, asking questions, and getting clear answers during their encounter in a completely timeless setting. While only minutes might pass for the rest of us, these encounters feel like years, centuries, or even millennia have passed as well as no time at all. Everything about Paul's narrative in the book of Acts, and what he writes about his own experiences fits the pattern of an NDE perfectly. 
      According to Acts chapter 9, Paul was on his way with a group of other men to hunt down followers of the Way and drag them in chains back to Jerusalem, "breathing murderous threats against them." Suddenly, he's engulfed in a bright intense light and falls to the ground. He and those with him were on their feet and Paul suddenly drops to the ground. In the middle of this light, he then sees Jesus who asks him why he's hunting Him down. During the conversation, the men who are with him hear the voice of Jesus but see no one. Jesus then, literally in the Greek, tells him to "resurrect," and head for Damascus. Jesus uses two words in the Greek which are usually translated in this account something akin to "get up," but these two words are usually translated as "resurrect" and "awaken." Everything about this short account screams Near Death Experience by Paul, and shared death experiences on the part of those men with him.
     Why then, if Paul was dead and then resuscitated does the account in Acts not say this directly? Luke would have only learned of it from Paul. I can only speculate, but it could be that neither Paul himself nor the men with him knew he was dead during the time he was on the ground because of how fast it happened within time. When someone experiences an NDE they always report it occuring in a “timeless” state. They can’t tell if minutes, hours, years or even centuries are passing, or if no time is passing at all. They can watch their entire lives play out one event at a time, and yet when they return, only minutes have passed if that. If Paul had more of a conversation with Jesus, why doesn’t Acts record it? Honestly, because that wasn’t Luke’s purpose and Paul would later consider the things he heard and saw there things he wasn’t to speak of, at least not directly.
     What Paul records having done after the event in his letter to the Galatians also evokes many NDE testimonies. He states that, after it happened and presumably after he regained his sight in Damascus (the condition itself being a good description of a severe flash burn to the eyes called "photokeratitis"), he didn’t talk to anyone about what he heard and saw from Jesus, but spent several years in the deserts in Arabia trying to sort it all out. Many people who have NDEs don’t tell anyone about what they experienced for long periods of time as they try to sort it out and understand what they experienced, but once they do, frequently they speak with a boldness and a confidence about it regardless of anyone’s criticism or rejection. They don’t just “believe” about what happens after death, they “know” what happens and no one can tell them otherwise. This too follows Paul’s pattern.
     Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus, like many people who have near death experiences, was a sharp dividing point in his life. It was the point when the Pharisee “Saul of Tarsus” died and was resurrected Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ.
     But if Paul did actually have a near death experience on the road to Damascus, why doesn’t his teaching reflect what most near death experiencers return with? First, Paul was a Roman Jewish man of the first century who was going to interpret everything through that lense. Near death experiences are always tailored to the individual, and Paul was no different. He was going to interpret anything he saw and learned through the lense of first century Judaism and Roman culture. Second, as I have written about many times, what Paul actually said in the original language and how it is translated and interpreted at times are two very different things. Much of Paul’s writings are today interpreted through the lense of theologies which were developed hundreds of years after he wrote his letters, and which frequently take his words well out of the contexts in which he wrote them. The basis of what Paul wrote about Christian practice and belief centered around the equality of everyone, union with God, the supreme importance of love, and functioning from a consciousness which has it’s Source in God rather than one’s own body. All of these things can be found spoken of in different ways within modern NDE testimonies.
     Paul the Apostle had a near death experience on the road to Damascus, and like virtually all other near death experiences which are documented, he was never the same man again.

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

 One of the things I keep encountering is atheists demanding absolute proof of Biblical events or people, and the bar they set is so high, you couldn't even prove you yourself exist. Another thing I encounter is a "scholar" stating with absolute certainty something like "Jesus wouldn't have been buried in a rich man's tomb, he would have been thrown into a ditch with the other criminals," yet without offering any tangible proof that Jesus in fact was not entombed. In fact, most of the criticisms I see either on YouTube or social media or even in articles written by "scholars" about the veracity of what the Biblical texts say offer absolutely no proof whatsoever, only the vague speculations and opinions of those scholars.
     So I say this, prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist. Prove to me that He didn't rise from the dead. Prove to me that the bones entombed on Vatican Hill in Rome aren't those of Peter and Paul. Prove to me that the N.T. writings weren't eyewitnesses beyond any doubt. 
     I'm getting so very sick of speculative skepticism being treated like Gospel without any real evidence to back it up, yet demanding irrefutable evidence for things like Biblical accounts when circumstantial and anecdotal evidence has existed since they were first written down. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the only evidence which exists is generally on the side of these things actually happening in some way, even if only anecdotal or circumstantial. Beyond all doubt? Maybe not, but it's more evidence in favor than against.
     I've spent a lot of time tracking down whether certain things in the Biblical text are even possible. Not necessarily probable mind you, but possible. Can I say that it happened exactly that way with ironclad proof? No, I can't. But no one else can really offer proof that it didn't. At least I have plausible explanations with some evidence of the possibility. I've spent years pouring over the N.T. texts in the original languages and learning to "hear" the voices behind them. It's been enough to convince me of the authenticity of them as mid first century. Just deciding that they weren't written when tradition says they were because it's inconvenient to your narrative isn't scholarship.
     Saying that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist is an extraordinary claim. Saying that Paul the Apostle didn't exist and didn't write the N.T. letters is an extraordinary claim. Saying that Jesus of Nazareth didn't die on a Roman cross or didn't rise from the dead is an extraordinary claim which contradicts the circumstantial and anecdotal evidence (and in the case of a very rigorously re-examined in the 21st century Shroud of Turin, about as hard an evidence as you're going to get for anyone's resurrection from that period of time). All of these extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof that they didn't happen. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense, in any court of law, at least in the U.S. And the prosecution of these people and events simply have no evidence to make their cases with.

Looking at "Praying in Tongues" as a Linguist

 I was thinking today about "praying in tongues" or "speaking in tongues" while I was on my way home from taking the trash to the dump. (Wednesdays are trash run days here in Ohio County, Kentucky if you don't want to pay for trash service. ) I've been to a number of tongues churches in my life, though it has never been a home for me in any way, and I've known a number of folks who use the practice in their worship. Rather than thinking about it as a theologian, today I was thinking about it in terms of my other major interest, languages and linguistics, and I realized something.
      Something is very off linguistically with the majority of "tongues" speakers and prayers. What do I mean by this? Every language has its own set of both vowel and consonant sounds that tend to be unique to that language. Even among related languages like the Romance languages, the phonemics of the languages differ from one another in some way. The same is true among the Germanic languages. While Dutch and German may sound similar to the English speaking ear, their sound schemes are actually quite different. The difference is far more pronounced the farther away from English that you get. Many languages have consonants or vowels which simply do not occur in English and take quite a bit of practice for the English speaker's tongue to master. The "hard 'h'" sound which occurs in Semitic languages, comes to mind, but also the glottal stop with which many tribal Papua New Guinea languages are rife. Gimi and Bisorio both have multiple types. And then there are the plosive consonants which occur in various tribal languages, as well as clicks, and the tongue twisting plosive clicks of Xhosa. Where vowels are concerned, Irish Gaelic comes to mind as their vowels only slightly resemble the vowels sounds English speakers know lending themselves to the Irish accent. The human mouth is capable of making far more sounds than we realize and nearly all of them are used in the 7-8000 recognized languages around the world, not including dialects.
     In addition to the phonemics, languages have grammar which dictates how they are used, and that grammar can vary wildly between them. But unless someone is deliberately repeating something, the sentence structure will rarely repeat the same cluster of phonemes twice. Even particles and discrete units indicating grammatical function are rarely repeated one right after another.
     Why do I bring all of this up? Because every time I have heard someone "speaking in tongues" or "praying in tongues" the phonemics they use are almost always, 99% of the time, native to English or the native language of the speaker in some way or another. The "sh" sound makes a frequent appearance, as does the "l" sound. There's a lot of the "a" as in "father" usually. "b", "j", "f", and a few others are used over and over again. There are many repetitions of the same strings of sounds. In short, nothing of what I have ever heard from a tongues speaker has ever sounded like real spoken language. The one exception I can think of is one lady I knew who, when she prayed in tongues, it bore a remarkable resemblance to the phonemic structure of the somewhat deciphered Linear A, that is, ancient Minoan, that I went over once upon a time.
     "But they're speaking heavenly languages or the languages of angels!" Someone might protest. Again, this doesn't track. Why would non-corporeal spirits, who do not have mouths, tongues, or vocal chords need human pronouncible language to communicate with one another? And if they were to use language to communicate with a human being, every single record of this has them speaking a language that human being already knows. And even then, wouldn't such languages still follow the patterns of language itself?
     Finally, speaking as someone who knows the Scriptures, the only recorded instance in the Bible itself describes the "tongues" being spoken as known, intelligible languages that were unknown to the person speaking them, and they were being spoken to people who could understand and interpret them.
     I understand that many people find comfort and a spirituality in praying this way. I am not saying it is wrong. But from a linguist's standpoint, and from a Scriptural standpoint, most of the time, it is still nonsensical gibberish all things considered. As Paul wrote, it's better to speak five words that make sense than ten thousand in a "tongue" no one understands, even the speaker.

Only Through the Logos Can You Come to the God

 It is the Logos of the God who said, "I am the path, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father if not through Me." This statement makes all the more sense when you understand what the Logos was in 1st century thought. The Logos was the "firstborn of the God" through which the God created everything. More to the point, every human being was created with a piece or "shred" of the Logos. Long before Paul wrote about the members of the Body of Christ with Christ as their Head, it was understood in 1st century Roman thought that all human beings shared a part of the Logos. No one could approach or come to the Father apart from the Logos, Itself or Himself firstborn from the very same substance as the God, of which they were already a part. It wasn't and isn't possible because it is that Logos which connects every human being to the God and Father. 
     It is not unreasonable to say that what the ancient world called Logos we now call "consciousness." It was that first and seminal source of Consciousness that incarnated as a human being over two thousand years ago. It is not unreasonable to read John 1:1 as "At the start was Consciousness. And Consciousness was right next to the God, and the Consciousness was [qualitatively] God." Our consciousness is born of His Consciousness and is a part of His Consciousness like the parts of a body with His Consciousness as the Head. 
     We cannot come to or approach the God and Father through anything having to do with our "flesh" or our physical bodies or brains. As Jesus told Nicodemus, "If someone wasn't born from above, he isn't capable of seeing the kingdom of the God. ... That which is born of Spirit is Spirit, and that which is born of flesh is flesh." As Jesus also told the woman at the well, "The God is Spirit, and those who prostrate themselves before Him need to prostrate themselves by means of the Spirit and by means of the Truth." To prostrate oneself is to worship, yes, but it is also an act of submission to a greater or higher person. One not only gets on their knees, but also presses their face to the floor baring their neck to that person in an extremely vulnerable position. Just doing so with one's body and flesh helps nothing. Those wishing to submit to the God must do so with the Spirit and with the Truth. As Paul also wrote, "we are debtors not to the flesh for living in line with the flesh, because if you live in line with the flesh you intend to die; but if you make the practices of the body die by means of the Spirit, you will live. Because as many as are guided by the Divine Spirit, these are divine sons."
     When Jesus said these words, He wasn't talking about needing to follow a certain religion to go to heaven. At the time, Christianity or any of its denominations didn't exist. He was talking about submitting to and cooperating with that piece of God which each one of us holds and being guided, not by our flesh and its fears and desires, but by that Source from which we all came who is also Love. No one comes to the Eternal God except through His Eternal Logos. It just isn't possible because there is no other mechanism than the Logos which we all share. 

Thoughts On Attempting to Legitimize Yahweh as a Part of the Ancient Canaanite Pantheon

 I was watched a video on the supposed origins of Yahweh as an ancient near eastern Canaanite god, and I'm pretty sure it ended up confirming the Biblical narrative without meaning to. The principle question being asked was essentially "How did an unknown tribal god just appear out of nowhere and depose and merge with El as the high god of the Canaanites eventually becoming the primary deity for almost everyone on Earth?" 
     In the process of answering that question, several pieces of archaeological evidence from Israel's and Judah's kingdom period are produced while discussing Yahweh's place in the Canaanite pantheon. It is said that Israel's real religion was one where Yahweh sat atop a pantheon with Asherah his wife, Ba'al his son, and several other Canaanite gods.
     What struck me about all of this is that it all ironically confirms the Biblical narrative that the name Yahweh was unknown prior to the Exodus (Ex. 3). The exodus occurred between roughly 1500 and 1400 BCE. The earliest known text to mention Yahweh ("YWH of the Shasu"), an Egyptian one, dates to the 14th century BCE and the reign of Amenhotep III. In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites make a "golden calf" and proclaim that this was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The symbol of the Canaanite high god, El, was a bull. The word used in Exodus for "calf" specifically means a "young bull" or "bull calf". It's made clear by His reaction in the text that Yahweh does not self-identify with El. 
     In the book of Judges, as well as in the books of the Kings and Chronicles, it states in no uncertain terms that the Israelites did not obey the Torah which was given to them. They began worshiping the gods of the people of the land and intermarrying with them. This is probably the origin of the Hebrew language as we know it by 1000 BCE because it was an offshoot of Canaanite. There are several points in those books where the worship of Yahweh was nearly subsumed in both Israel and Judah by the worship of the Canaanite pantheon and an Asherah pole was set up in the first temple.
    What the author of the video and others like it call the real Israelite religion (and except for a few periods during the reigns of a few Judahite kings, it was probably the most practiced), the Biblical texts called disobedience and apostasy and recorded intensely. Whatever else might be legitimately questioned in the Biblical narrative, clearly the running after other gods constantly talked about and complained about checks out in the time periods under discussion. Straight Yahweh monotheism didn't actually appear to be the majorityt practice ironically until after the return from Babylonian exile, just as the Biblical texts record.

Raameses II Could Not Have Been the Pharoah of the Exodus

 Raameses II could not have been the Pharoah of the Exodus. He ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE. This Pharoah is often named as the one from which Moses led Israel out of Egypt because the two cities he built are named in Exodus 1. The problem is that he's in the wrong time frame completely.
The seventeenth and eighteenth dynasties of Ancient Egypt are the only period in which the events of the Exodus can realistically be placed. The history of the arrival and rule of the "heqau khasut" or "Hyksos" ("foreign rulers" or "shepherd kings" West Asiatic peoples originating in Canaan and the Levant) to Egypt begins in roughly 1900 BCE, just about the right historical time period for the story of Joseph and his brothers to take place if we're assuming Abram left the Sumerian city of Ur in its sunset between 2100-2000 BCE.
      Eventually, Egypt broke into at least two distinct kingdoms, a more "pure" ethnically Egyptian Upper (southern) Kingdom ruled from Thebes, and Lower (northern) Kingdom ruled by the Hyksos from Avaris. Between roughly 1560 to 1510 BCE, the Upper Kingdom waged war against the Lower Kingdom ruled by the Hyksos and ultimately defeated it, driving the Hyksos out of power in Avaris and uniting the two kingdoms. The Pharoah who accomplished this was Ahmose I, the son of Seqenenre and brother of Kamose. 
     This parallels the biblical account of a Pharoah arising that didn't know Joseph which is what started the Hebrew enslavement period. It stands to reason that those West Semitic peoples associated with the Hyksos and possibly benefiting from their rule who could not have left would have been deposed and made slaves. After the conquest, Ahmose undertook major building projects in several cities, especially Thebes. It's not unreasonable that the backbone of those building projects were Hebrew (Hyksos) slaves. 
     Ahmose reigned for 25 years and was succeeded by Amenhotep I. Amenhotep I reigned for 21 years and was succeeded by Thutmose I. Thutmose I reigned for 10-12 years and was succeeded by Thutmose II. Thutmose II reigned for about 13-14 years and was succeeded by his sister/wife Hatshepsut who became Queen Regnant after he died and his son (her stepson), Thutmose III, was only two. Hatshepsut, the daughter of Thutmose I, reigned for 22 years before she died in 1459 BCE and Thutmose III became the sole ruler. He reigned a total of 54 years, 22 of which were coregent with Hatshepsut. Towards the end of his reign, his son and co-regent Amenhotep II tried to erase Hatshepsut from all inscriptions, iconography, and official records even though her reign was prosperous. So, from the time Ahmose I conquered the Hyksos to the time Hatshepsut's iconography was defaced was approximately 111 years give or take. There is one theory which suggests that Hatshepsut was the Pharoah's daughter who pulled Moses (Moshe/Mose) out of the river, and this is one of the reasons why they tried to erase her. It is also potentially one reason why, after Moses committed a murder and ran no one went hunting for him. His adopted mother was on the throne. Within that 111 years, it's possible for Hatshepsut to have found Moses and for him to grow up, flee, and then return at eighty years old to face Amenhotep II on the throne in the last years of his father's coregency.
     This is also the time period in which the Island of Santorini, Thera, volcanically exploded with a VEI 7. The effects were felt as far south as Egypt while the entire Minoan civilization next to it was completely destroyed. This was no small eruption and would have produced a year without summer. The next higher place on the VEI scale, 8, is described as nearly world ending. As Simcha Jacobi described, the cataclysmic effects of this eruption could have produced the same conditions in Egypt described by the Ten Plagues in the book of Exodus.
     The Amarna Letters from the 1300s BCE are a series of letters from Canaanite vassel lords to the Pharoah in Egypt begging for him to send help against the "Habiru" who were attacking their settlements. This demonstrates that by the time these letters were written, between 100-200 years after Amenhotep II, the "Habiru" were already in Canaan and at war against the Canaanite inhabitants in the land.
     Finally, this is also the only period (1600-1500 BCE) which matches the time frames involved up to the rise of David circa 1000 BCE. It was four hundred years between Joshua and David according to the Scriptures. Raameses II is simply too recent.
     Why are his cities then mentioned in Exodus 1? Chances are it's the same reason why Exodus was written in later, post-Davidic Hebrew. It was written down from an oral history that remembered these events but did not remember the names of the Pharoahs in question. (Really, the Biblical histories are fastidious about remembering the names of rulers nearly everywhere else; why wouldn't Moses have recorded the names of the Pharoahs in question if he actually wrote it since he knew them?) The  human author, not knowing who that Pharoah was or the exact chronology, was using cities, and possibly a Pharoah, that were known to make his point.

The Original "Christian Witch"

 Today I learned that "Christian Witches" are a thing. My discovery started with a YouTube video which showed up in my feed, and I ended up going to their website to learn more about this contradiction in terms. Even after perusing their FAQ, I still wasn't sure how these two things didn't contradict each other. But then I got to thinking about another possible "Christian Witch," though I'm not sure she would have ever described herself as such.
     Mariam of Migdol. You know her as Mary the Magdalene. What's really interesting about the word "Magdalene" is that while Magdala was a fishing village near Migdol, this word is never used to apply to anyone else from the region. There is another possible meaning for this appellation with just a couple of sound changes. It highly resembles two Greek words smashed together, "Magos" and "deleomai" or one of its cognates. The first one means "sorcerer," the second as a compound cognate can be construed as meaning "one who causes mischief or hurts by magic potions." In other words, Mariam from Migdol was what we might call a "witch." In my humble opinion, the Gospel writers changed certain sounds of her "surname" so that it wasn't quite so offensive to her memory.
      Consider it fiction or not, here is how I think of her.
     Mariam of Migdol was born to a priestess of Cybele at a smaller shrine to that goddess in Migdol. She was one of two fraternal twins, the other being her brother Thomas. Because Thomas was born male, their mother made him eunuch at a very early age because no intact male could serve at the altar of Cybele. Ritual prostitution, spellcraft, and the brewing of potions to either harm or heal were how she and her brother were raised and taught by her mother. To this end, she was taught to read Latin so that she could read the spell texts that were brought there from the temple in Rome. She and her brother were raped, sexually abused, and she in particular was subjected to horrific rites from early on by their mother. This upbringing from a very young age eventually split her mind and she developed what we would now call Dissociative Identity Disorder with seven personalities inside of her. When she was a young teenager, she escaped. It was only later that her brother was able to follow her and be reunited with her. From then on, she fiercely protected him, and he to the extent he could, to protect her.
     Mariam took what she knew and survived in a world that would just as easily stone her for what she was. She used her knowledge of spellcraft and potion making to develop a powerful and terrifying reputation. Her DID only added to the fear that surrounded and even protected her and her brother. She made potions to both heal and to harm. She made poisons for those who paid her with no questions asked. She made potions that could induce abortions; something that both common woman and wealthy elites came to her for, and not just the women, but their husbands too. People would come to her to put a spell on someone they wanted to suffer. There was a power of presence that radiated from her by the time she was introduced to Jesus by her brother.
      Her DID was becoming worse than Thomas had ever seen it. The "demons" were so out of control she could no longer truly function with any normalcy and he was afraid of what she might do, or what might be done to her. He had heard of Jesus and listened to the things He said, as well as having seen the things he could do. He was the only one who could approach his sister without fear, and he brought her to Jesus. Suddenly, the "demons" were gone and she was in a right mind she hadn't been in a long time. She was whole and perfectly sane. No one had every shown her the kindness Jesus had without demanding something in return. But He wanted nothing, only that she be able to live in peace.
      Not long after, maybe a day, maybe two, she knew Jesus had been invited to a dinner by a wealthy Pharisee. She knew the man. He'd been one of her "customers" along with several others among his peers. She knew where he lived. She wanted to do something for Jesus and she knew at least then where He would be. She didn't know exactly what she would do, only that she would think of something.
      She entered the house. No one dared stop her or tell her "no." That was like attempting to stop the "Baba Yaga" in their minds. She might put a curse on them. She might poison them just by looking at them. She found Jesus reclining at the table and quickly assessed what had happened. She looked at His feet which had not been washed as should have happened for an invited guest. She briefly stared daggers at Simon before settled on what she would do for Jesus, but as she knelt down at his feet, the flood of emotion consumed her. She started sobbing. Twenty years of abuse and hardship flooded out from her eyes and it all fell on His feet. She then used the water from her eyes to wash them properly, and removed her veil, humbling herself before Jesus in a way she had never allowed herself to be humbled by any man since leaving Migdol, to use her hair to dry them.
     Simon stammered a protest quietly as though she might not be able to hear him. But Jesus wasn't having any of it. He stood up and defended her in front of everyone. The only man in her life to stand up for her when He didn't have to, and someone who clearly had to be a real prophet no less! So much more, He shamed them and praised her!
     After that day, she was never far from Him. She took it upon herself to look after His needs from her own considerable stores. Whatever He needed she made sure He had it. She was the kind of person that once she was certain you were really her friend, that was it. Her loyalty and concern knew no bounds. And with Jesus, she was more devoted than any real wife could have been with a husband, even though they were neither. There was no "romance". But she made sure He ate. When she was concerned about His health, she acquired a horse and rode for two days to find and bring a Greek physician she knew back to Jesus to look after Him when her own skills failed. Everything came from her own pockets. She would eventually learned other healing skills from that same physician as he also traveled with Jesus, and gradually abandon the spellcraft that once was her and her brother's shield. It was she who broke open the flask of Nard spiked with Myrrh over Jesus' feet at the last supper in preparation for His burial. The Nard came from her own dwindling stores of ingredients which she had not fully sold off or disposed of by that point. It was some of her last.
     And on that day when He was taken for trial, she stood with His mother and His cousin John (His mother's nephew) through the entire travesty of justice as a member of His family, and neither His mother or cousin, His best friend, denied her that position. It is no accident that she was there that morning with His mother and His mother's sister to try and properly embalm the body. It is no accident that she lingered sobbing when she thought His body had been taken. Her whole world for the last three years had been placed in that tomb, and now He was just "gone." This is why it was no accident that she was the first one He appeared to, and why He tenderly called her by name when she couldn't see who He was through her tears. It's also why she grabbed Him and refused to let go, and why He gently told her not to cling to Him.
     Mariam of Migdol was an extraordinary woman. She was confident, powerful, and a survivor in a world that didn't want her. But she was also a fierce friend, a deeply sensitive and caring person, and loyal beyond a fault. She was courageous, compassionate, intelligent, and beautiful in every way.
      This is how I choose to imagine her. She deserves to never be forgotten for who she was, not who "tradition" bastardized her to be.

There Is No Point In Judging The Flesh

 It is pointless to try and tame the flesh and bend it to your will. That is, your brain will always see everything in terms of threats and needs, fear and desire. Nothing will really change this because that is what it does. It assesses the threat or need and reacts with fear that either it's going to happen or fear that the need isn't going to be met. It then becomes aggressive (or runs as the case may be). I was reflecting on this thought this morning after watching myself get frustrated with the animals and the extreme heat and reacting badly. I then started feeling really badly and getting upset that I wasn't a better person. Animals are going to be animals. They're not going to act in any other way than they are. I know this. Getting frustrated or angry isn't going to change that, but I still did. It went against my own self perception of a kind person, also generated by the brain. As a result, I then became the threat, and then the cognitive dissonance, the "fatal error," really went into overdrive with guilt, shame, and wondering whether I had really learned or practiced anything at all.
     And then I remembered, that's the point. Like the animals, the flesh, the dysfunctional survival system in the brain and the thoughts which it generates and reacts to, is going to do what it's going to do. That's not going to change until the flesh dies. Being upset that "I'm not a better person" is pointless. I'm not my brain, my thoughts, or even my body. It's my choice whether or not to confuse myself with the flesh. It's my choice whether or not to be aware of this and to let go of obeying its responses and taking the bait it drops. It's my choice to operate according to the Spirit, the Logos, or not.
      This "real me" is quiet. It's patient. It loves, taking no thought for itself because it doesn't need to. It's at peace. This "real me" doesn't react to anything as either a threat or a need because nothing can threaten it and it has no needs. Those things belong to the flesh, the brain, the body. The "real me" functions connected to the Head, the "seminal Logos," who is Jesus Christ. 
      There is no point in judging the flesh. It's going to react how it's going to react. It's going to do what it's going to do. It is neither good nor evil. It just is. It is the flesh judging the flesh in a downward spiral whether it agrees with its own reactions or not. Just be aware of it and do not engage with it. Just be aware of your thoughts, but do not let them dictate to you. Engage with the Spirit. Ask Him to act and speak through you with intention and He will. But getting upset because your flesh does not change is pointless. 

Guilt Is Not From God

      Guilt is not from God. We do not feel guilty because God is making us feel guilty. Guilt is a product of our common human malfunction. It is the result of something we’ve done or said conflicting with our own self-image as a morally good person. In psychology, this is called “cognitive dissonance.” The same can be said for shame, which is linked to guilt. This is why guilt and shame can linger over mistakes made far in the past even after we learn that we are forgiven by God. It is not God who needs to forgive because He was never holding those things which caused guilt and shame against us to begin with. It is not God who needs to forgive, it is we ourselves who need to accept that these things happened, drop them, and let them go. He does not hold our mistakes against us, and He is not the one who incites guilt within ourselves. That is caused by our own brains, our own amygdalae specifically, the cognitive dissonance when we have done something contrary to what we believe to be the "good" or "right" thing and it conflicts with our self-image as a "good" person.
     This is why there were sacrifices for unintentional wrongdoing in the Mosaic Law, but no sacrifices for intentional wrongdoing. There were sacrifices meant to assuage or propitiate the internal guilt felt for mistakes and wrongs committed unintentionally. By performing a symbolic action to “atone” for that unintentional wrong, that mistake, the internal guilt and shame can be appeased. These were for our psychological health, not for any need of “justice” on His part. But when someone did something wrong intentionally, they were meant to suffer the consequences of their actions as a means of correction. This is also why the Sanctuary cities existed for people who committed unintentional homicide. It was a mistake, and so He meant to shield them from avengers. This is why David was made to suffer for Uriah’s death and for adultery with his wife. It was a corrective action because David’s wrongdoing was intentional. God’s purpose was not to destroy David, but to correct and teach him. This is His purpose with every soul that He would bring that soul to completion. 
     God's justice is not our justice. God doesn't punish us for our mistakes, especially those we never intended to make. He corrects us for when we intentionally do wrong, but the intention of the correction is to set us on the right path like any good Father would do. It is not retribution for retribution’s sake. God does not hold our wrongs against us, and especially not to torture us forever for them. His goal is reconciliation and restoration, maturity, and union with Himself for all of us, not losing any of us to be tortured forever. He is the one who will leave the ninety nine to seek and save the one. He is the Father who takes no thought for the past wrongs of his son but runs to embrace him when he comes to his senses and comes home.

What "Sin" or the "Sin Nature" Actually Is

 Around 2014-15, I started trying to understand what "sin" actually is from two things. First, the actual meanings of the words "khata'," in the Old Testament, and "hamartia," in the New Testament, in the original languages. The former is an archery term and the latter a javelin throwing term and both meaning the same thing, "to miss the target". What I came to discover the more I looked into "hamartia" in particular, being in the language of the New Testament, was that there was an implied unintentionality to this word. This comes out actually very strongly in the Greek Septuagint translation of Leviticus, for example, where there were sacrifices made available for "hamartia" but no sacrifices made available for intentional wrongdoing. In other words, if someone made a mistake, a sacrifice could be brought. If someone deliberately did something, no sacrifice was available for propitiation but that person had to suffer the penalty which the Torah prescribed. In ancient Greek, this word came to mean error, mistake, or the "fatal flaw" by which a hero perished in Greek Tragedy. In other words, it's most basic meaning is that something happened which wasn't intended to or supposed to happen. As such, I have also come to render it at times as "malfunction," or when it is in the plural, "malfunctioning behaviors."

The second thing I started from was two things Paul said about hamartia in Romans which I think have been overlooked too much. The first thing he says in Romans 5 is that it is inherited in that our first ancestor "sinned" so too all human beings descended from him are afflicted with it. The second thing he says is in Romans 7, and this is really interesting to me because he says that it is located "in the flesh." As you probably know, the word here is "sarx" and it literally means the flesh of an animal or human being, that is, the meat, skin, organs, etc. I know the NIV and maybe a few others render it "sin nature" but this is an interpretive translation and not a literal one. It's based on the translator's own theological biases. Paul located hamartia within the physical, biological flesh of a human being. So, according to Paul, Hamartia is inherited from our first ancestor and it is physically or biologically based. It should be noted that, contrary to popular theological teaching, nowhere in Scripture is "sin" ever called "spiritual" or implied to be of a "spiritual" nature.

Once I came to this conclusion, I asked two questions, "What if Paul meant what he literally said?" and "Is there any way to locate where 'in the flesh' it might be?" This led to my taking a psychology major at Orange Coast College. I reasoned that if hamartia is located "in the flesh" then it has to be in the brain because it deals with human behavior, and the source of human behavior is in the brain. Paul described it as an "error" or a "malfunction" or "fatal flaw" when he used the word hamartia. This suggested that there was a flaw or an error in the human brain. As I went through my coursework, one particular part of the brain stood out: the limbic system and specifically the hypothalamus and the amygdala. These are the parts of the brain responsible for our survival responses of fear, aggression, feeding, and sex, and in women, childbirth (this last one caught my attention because of Genesis 3). The hypothalamus is what controls these responses, but the amygdala is kind of like the gateway to the hypothalamus. It essentially tells the hypothalamus when to engage and when not to.

One of the things I did next was I went back and looked at everything Paul described as the "works of the flesh," now understanding this in a far more literal sense. In particular in Galatians, what I saw now was that every single thing Paul lists, every single behavior, can be attributed to one or more of these survival responses in some way. People commit murder out of fear. They steal out of fear. They commit adultery out of the drive for sex. They overeat or overindulge out of the drive to eat. All of these are neurologically based, biologically based responses to different situations and stimuli. Any behavior born from the fear, aggression, feeding, or sex response is a "work of the flesh" as contrasted with the "fruit of the Spirit" which is not born from "the flesh," that is, anything biologically based.

One of the things about the brain's survival response system is that, in virtually all other animals, it is meant to deal with physical threats or needs. That is, if an animal is threatened, it responds by either running from the threat or attempting to fight or destroy the threat. Once the threat is averted, the system is meant to shut down. Again, if an animal needs food, it directs the animal to eat. It also controls the sexual drive meant for reproduction in order for the animal to propagate. But once these needs are met, it is meant to go back into standby.

It does not fully do this in human beings, and it does not just do this with perceived physical threats and needs. Instead, it does it with things remembered or imagined. It does it with perceived likes or dislikes. It does it when one's "self-identity" is threatened, or it feels the need to propagate the things with which the self identifies. In short, it does it with perceived physical, psychological, emotional, and even spiritual needs or threats. In other words, it does it with "everything." It is my contention that this is also the source of what we call "good" and "bad" or "evil." Those things we like are treated as needs and therefore "good". Those things we dislike for any reason are treated as "threats" and are dealt with accordingly. We tend to crave and hoard those things we like, and we tend to push away, run from, or attempt to destroy those things we dislike. In short, our survival response system as human beings is stuck in overdrive, or is at least way too sensitive and far more sensitive then it was ever intended to be.

Another thing I ran into in my studies of this is that the human amygdala is disproportionately larger than in any other primate. It is four times larger than our closest genetic animal cousins the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Recently, I read an article where a correlation was made between a larger left amygdala and a higher intolerance for differences. So, the size of the amygdala directly impacts the scope of its function. My conclusion to all of this is that, because of an abnormal enlargement, relatively speaking, our amygdala as human beings is reacting and responding to things as threats or needs that it was never originally designed to react to. Now, this does not make it "evil," nor what it is trying to do "evil." It means though that it is not functioning in the way it was supposed to or intended to. In short, it is attempting to fulfill its original program by protecting us from threats and fulfilling physical needs but, I believe the evidence points to, its physical parameters have changed and now it's "malfunctioning." I had some experience with a similar problem with a machine in a job I once worked as a Laser Drill Technician where the machine was still following its program, but a slight flaw with the power output produced circuit boards that were entirely useless (I lost my job over that). Even the smallest change in the hardware parameters produced catastrophic results, and it is a similar thing with our amygdala.

So, our Hamartia is an enlarged amygdala processing "everything" as either a survival threat or a survival need and attempting to respond accordingly and mostly with fear of some degree. This is why I liken us to a child with a neurodevelopmental or behavioral disorder, because in a way, that is exactly what is happening. Now as to how it happened, my hypothesis is that it had something to do with a reaction to something found in the fruit which our ancestors ate. We know compounds can alter human genetics both immediately and in pregnancy, and some compounds can alter genes and pass down mutations. I think something in it caused our amygdalas to enlarge more than they were supposed to producing the aberrant, "sinful" behaviors as it attempted to protect us from things it really didn't need to.

Jesus Taught Detachment

 What most Christians don't realize is that one of the core principles Jesus taught is detachment. That is, a letting go. When you look carefully, it undergirds everything He teaches in the Gospels right there along with loving kindness and compassion.
     Think about the conditions of discipleship laid out expressly in Luke. If you're too attached to your family relationships, you can't be His disciple. If you're too attached to your possessions, you can't be His disciple. If you're too attached to your own soul or self-identity, you can't be His disciple. 
     Jesus taught, "Don't judge and you won't be judged." Judgment is a kind of attachment to beliefs about right and wrong. Jesus taught "forgive and you will be forgiven." The word translated as forgive literally means "to drop from the hand," that is, to let go or to detach. 
     Think about the conditions He laid out for both the twelve and the seventy He sent out to prepare the towns and cities for His visits. Take nothing with you. Or the condition he laid on the "rich young ruler" when asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, "go, sell everything you own, give it to the poor, then come and follow Me."
     Being a disciple of Jesus Christ, learning how to live as Jesus taught and walk as He walked, requires that we let go of... "everything" that would keep us from it. Why? Because He did. Jesus had let go of family that would have held Him back. He let go of any possessions or sense of a stable job or income. He let go of everything that did not contribute to His one goal of doing what His Father wanted. His disciples were required to live the same way. Jesus practiced detachment.
      We don't like this word because we associate caring with attachment. We associate love with attachment. How can you love if you have no attachment to a thing? But that's the dysfunctional human brain talking. Attachment is not love. It's not kindness. Attachment is about what someone or something means to you. What they can do for you. Love is about what you can do for the other person. Love and attachment are two very different things. Genuine love lets the other person go for them to be who they were meant to be. It does not cling, and it does not push away. It wants the best for the other person. Genuine love understands that things, people, ideas, and identities change, grow, and move on and it lets them. It is not unseated because someone or something is no longer a part of its life for a time. It does not cling to them.
     The human brain doesn't like this. It clings to things and people it thinks it needs to survive, and it equates "happiness" with survival. It will enslave itself to the service or care of a thing or a person if it means it gets to be happy, if it gets to receive dopamine or serotonin from it. We call this addiction. Jesus required His disciples to break their addictions because they weren't going to be able to live as He taught and walk as He walked if they didn't. 

What Does It Mean To Worship?

 What does it mean to worship?
In the Greek text of the New Testament, there are two words usually used, "latreuo" and "proskuneo". The first one means in ancient Greek something like "to serve as a priest in religious rites" while the second means "to prostrate oneself before someone". Think about those two pictures which these words give. The primary concept of worship in the language and culture of the New Testament is to serve and obey the object of that worship. What does "to serve" mean? It means to do whatever that person tells you to do. Again, it means to obey and attend to the object of that service in question.
        Now, in John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well that God is Spirit, and those prostrating themselves before (worshiping) Him must do so with Spirit and with Truth. It's not optional. So, if someone is to actually "worship" God, it must be done with Spirit and with Truth. That is, that person must serve and obey Him honestly and not with the flesh, but with the Spirit. Anything else is not actually worship. And this holds up when we look at the Old Testament prophets who were very clear that God despised the "worship" of those who kept His festivals but trampled on the poor, the outcast, the widow, and the orphan. They were going through the motions, but they were neither serving nor obeying what He actually wanted which was mercy, compassion, fairness, and love.
     There are many in churches today who sing the songs, get emotional, recite the liturgies, perform the sacraments, and hit all the right performative notes, but through their words and actions outside, or often even inside, disregard, disobey, and make light of what He actually wants. They explain it away as common sense or being practical. These people are not worshiping Him at all.
     Genuine worship of the God and Father of Jesus Christ is, first and foremost to love the person next to you like yourself. It is to treat others as you want to be treated. It is to forgive, and to not pass judgment. It is to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner and to defend them. These are the acts of worship which He has repeatedly asked for. Not songs. Not liturgy. Not sacrifices. Not performative shows and theater. Love. Compassion. Mercy.
     Until you engage with these, until you do these things, you are not worshiping Him and it's best to keep your songs, liturgies, and religious rites to yourself. They disgust Him.

The Divinity of Jesus Christ

 People will argue about Jesus' divinity. Christians have been somewhat debating what it means since the first century. Jesus Himself never denied His own divinity, but in the passage where He quotes the psalm which says, "I said you are gods" and speaking to human beings, He also affirmed a divinity for other human beings as well. That it was John who recorded this is no accident.
     The key to understanding what this means is when John calls Jesus the "Logos". This was not a new concept to the first century reader. This was an old idea first really conceptualized among the Stoic philosophers. Just about everything Paul says about "the Christ" the first and second century Stoics said about the Logos. The Logos was the "firstborn of all creation" by "the God". Every human being carried a piece, shred, or part of the Logos while the "seminal Logos" was the point of origin and "head" over all. John records that the Logos existed "next to" the God, and that the Logos was Deity, that is, the Logos was of the same "substance" as the God yet distinct from the God. A Stoic would have 100% agreed with this statement. But what this also means is that every human being carries a shred or piece of the divine within themselves and are themselves a part of the greater whole of the Logos.
     The implication of John's statement that "the Logos became flesh and camped out among us" is that this is the “seminal” Logos, the Logos from which all others come, who took on flesh, as obviously a piece of the Logos takes on flesh every time a human being is born. And He took on flesh without the error which afflicts the rest of us which meant that He was in full possession or communion with the divine from His birth. The Logos was calling the God His Father, again a statement no Stoic would argue with, and Stoicism was as ubiquitous a worldview in the first century Roman empire as Christian evangelicalism is today.
     The key here is that Jesus never limited the God's fatherhood to just Himself. Even in "the Lord's Prayer" it begins with "Our Father..." not "My Father". And then there's the prayer in John 17 where Jesus prays, "that they may all be one, just as you Father are in Me, and I in them, so that they might be one in us." Interesting thing about the Greek of "one" in this passage. It's neuter. It literally means, "one thing." And of course there's Paul's description of the "Body of Christ" where Christ is the Head and the rest of us are body parts of the same body. Again, swap out the word "Christ" for "Logos" and it becomes instantly agreeable to a Stoic mind. So the thing, if anything, the Church has missed in the last 2,000 years, and not all of it, is that the divinity which Jesus owned He didn't limit to Himself. Instead, He was trying to teach His disciples how to access and live in it for themselves by connecting to and staying put within Himself, that is, the Logos.

"Wherever you are, I Am"

 "Wherever you are, I Am."
This is the message I got this morning.
It's funny, a while ago I started reading many of the books I was warned against by my initial Christian faith tradition. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Gospel of Buddha, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, and many others. And instead of leading me away from Jesus Christ, they all led me straight back to Him, complimenting His teachings and making me see them in different ways. I started asking questions, started learning psychology and the workings of the brain in order to answer those questions, and it still led me straight back to Him. Not to the interpretations or theology about Him, but to Him. Now, I've been watching the series "Lucifer" of all things, where the actual devil is the main protagonist "anti-hero", and still, it leads me back to Him and His Father who is love who isn't willing that any should be destroyed but that all should come to redemption.
     In Evangelical Protestantism, really, you're taught to be afraid of a lot of things, depending on the church in question. You're taught to stay away from anything which might disagree. You're taught to not question. You're taught the devil is this huge monster waiting for you to put a toe out of line. Fear is what laces everything. Somehow God is omnipresent, but not in those dark spaces where they don't want you to look. God is everywhere, but apparently not in hell. God is infinite except for these boundaries here.
      God is everywhere, even in the darkness. The true darkness is only you shutting your eyes and plugging your ears to Him. He hasn't gone anywhere. God reveals Himself in everything if you've eyes to see and ears to hear. 
     The other day I got acquainted with a song I had only heard a couple of times before, and then only parts of it in passing, "One of Us," by Joan Osborne. It asks the question, "What if God was one of us?" As I learned, upon its release, many within evangelical protestantism condemned it as blasphemous. Many protested at her concerts.
     But isn't this question answered by the incarnation? You know, when God actually became one of us? When divinity was born as a human being who had to eat, sleep, and poop like the rest of us? Who sweated, got tired, got thirsty, had to deal with a plugged nose every once in a while, and so on?
     It was Mother St. Theresa of Calcutta who said that she saw the face of Christ in the poor and dying she served, and when she washed them, stayed with them as they were dying, and took care of them, she was doing so to Christ.
      What if God was one of us?
     It was Jesus Himself who said whoever feeds the hungry, gives water to the thirsty, visits the sick or the imprisoned, clothes the naked, welcomes the foreigner, that they do it to Him. Jesus was directly saying that how we treat others is how we treat Him. He was also asking the question, "What if God was one of us?" and answering it with, "Treat every human being as if it was Him."
     Sometimes I think the god that many churches want is Zeus, or Ba'al, or Marduk, or one of the pagan warrior gods who, if you propitiate them enough they'll fight for you and give you what you ask. But that's not the God and Father of our Owner Jesus Christ. The God who has already revealed Himself through His Son, and continues to reveal Himself within and through each one of us as He works to reconcile each and every one of us to Himself and will not stop or give up until He has accomplished His goal. He doesn't need to conquer. He already owns everything and only loans it to us for a few moments. He's already given us everything we could ever need. We're the ones who hoard it and keep it from each other. He's always present and willing to work with us and bring us into union with Himself. We're the ones who choose blindness to Him.
     "Wherever you are, I Am." That's the message He gives this morning. He'll meet us right where we're at, and will gently guide us with our cooperation like a guide to a stubborn blind man to where we need to go.

The Character of God in the Television Series "Lucifer"

      I finished binge watching season one of "Lucifer" yesterday. I've seen seasons five and six, but was hesitant to see the first one because I wasn't sure I wanted to see the main character when he was at his worst, before his growth and redemption arc. But I got it anyway, for a good price too, and decided to have a gander. What surprised me most was in discovering that this growth and redemption arc began from the word “go” in the pilot. But what continued to amaze me is to see how the character of God is actually portrayed in the series.
     Underneath the obvious surface blasphemy inherent to the series is actually a portrayal of a God, Lucifer's Father, who cares deeply for His son, and all of His children. It's a portrayal of a Father who had a plan for Lucifer's life for him to grow past his narcissism, self-absorption, and self-indulgence, but it required him coming to growth and conclusions on his own. In the series, much to Lucifer's misunderstanding, God sent him to govern hell for his own growth and to teach him compassion for the suffering of others. Instead, Lucifer believed it was his assignment to judge and torture the guilty. As a result, he became the mythological face of evil and blamed for all the human evils in the world, an image which hurt him tremendously and he felt was forced onto him unjustly. He believed his Father didn't love him, even though he yearned for it and never stopped loving Him though he hid it even from himself. He rebelled and lost and was locked out of Heaven. But God's plan took this into account as well.
     In the series, Lucifer decides he's had enough of hell and enters Earth with no intentions of returning. He has his servant Mazikeen cut off his angel wings to ensure it. He sets himself up as a wealthy nightclub owner in L.A. and attempts to “reinvent” himself. Then, five years later, he meets Detective Chloe Decker, L.A.P.D., who is totally immune to his supernatural charms, something which has never happened to him before. What neither of them know at the time is that Chloe was born specifically as a "gift" to him: the one woman immune to his charms and so she was free to choose him or not for who he himself was. He also meets and begins seeing a psychologist, Dr. Linda Martin, who at first believes he's completely delusional but goes with it anyway. Dr. Martin begin getting Lucifer to see things in a different way and begins making breakthroughs with him almost in spite of his total cluelessness about his own psychology, and between his therapist and his budding relationship with Chloe, her daughter, and her group of friends and coworkers at the L.A.P.D., he begins to change and grow.
     And all the while throughout the series, his Father keeps gently reminding him that He's there, He's got a plan for him, and He works with Lucifer where he's at. He doesn't really push, He waits. When Lucifer does call out to Him, not for himself even when he's dying but to save Chloe's life, His Father responds by healing him, sending him back to rescue Chloe, and giving him a task he's suited for. When Lucifer's Father shows up bodily in season four, He's kind, non-judgmental, and always has a look of deep concern and compassion for everyone. He's also presented as fair, and knowing everything that's going on even when another brother of Lucifer's tries to twist the truth. He intentionally makes Himself human and mortal, ostensibly to be a part of Lucifer's world for a while, and when He puts Himself in real physical danger, Lucifer becomes protective of Him stating "no one hurts my dad!" perhaps surprising even himself as he realizes that he still loves and cares for Him.  Again, part of his Father's plan to heal and redeem His fallen son. By the end of the series, Lucifer finally understands His Father's intention all along. It was never about punishing him, but entrusting him with the care and treatment of fallen souls so that they too could be ultimately redeemed and sent on to "the silver city," because He didn't want anyone to remain in hell forever. For as much of a "bad father" picture that the character Lucifer complains about, the show itself reveals God to be the "hound of heaven" who refused to give up on His hurt, angry, rebellious, fallen son.
     And Lucifer is not the only one whom his Father’s plan affects. Amenadiel, Lucifer’s brother is sent ostensibly to recover him and return him to hell. When we first meet him, he’s harsh, judgmental, and without compassion. He just want’s to get the job done and return home by any means necessary and he becomes one of season one’s “villains”, lying, deceiving, and even trying to get Lucifer killed once he discovers his growing mortality so that he can return him to hell that way. But then he learns the human cost of his actions. The deaths of innocents which he cannot justify. He understands the wrong he has committed even while trying to do the “right” thing. He then really starts trying to understand humanity and take part in it, and in so doing, he learns to care and have compassion. And you can see his Father’s hand here as he begins to truly reflect God’s love and become like his Father by the end of the series, and eventually, reluctantly inherits the throne of heaven after He retires (no, not theologically accurate by any means).
     There is also Mazikeen, Lucifer’s demon servant. She begins the series focused on nothing but sex, violence, serving her boss, and wanting to return home. But as the series progresses, she too is made to really confront her past and her traumas, and she begins to actually make friends, to grow beyond what anyone expected of her. In season four, she asks Lucifer’s Father for a soul. He responds that “you’re perfect just the way you are.” Angry and believing He denied her, she storms out. But then in a later conversation, it’s revealed that He couldn’t give her what she had already grown herself. Again, His plan throughout the show included more than just redeeming Lucifer.
     If we were to go through all of the characters in this series, we can see Lucifer’s Father’s hand touching all of them directly and indirectly, gently guiding them to self reflection, growth, and ultimately their redemption. Even with the main villains of seasons five and six who do end up in hell. Once Lucifer returns, he returns as its chief therapist working to help them and all the souls trapped there to work through their guilt and pain so that they can be freed to move on to heaven.
So really, this is a show about God working behind the scenes gently to bring about the best possible outcomes for everyone while working within their free will and not against it. He’s infinitely patient with all of them. Never responds harshly to anyone. Never actually turns anyone away. Puts up with continuous accusations and verbal abuse from everyone, and in the end, ensures that all of them reach their full healing and completion just the way He planned.
     Regardless of the polytheistic theology, isn’t that the essence of who God actually is? Love?

Homosexuals Will Enter The Kingdom of Heaven Before the Self-Righteous Christian

 Homosexuals, prostitutes, "non-Christians," "tax collectors," the poor, and the homeless will all enter the kingdom of heaven long before the self-righteous religious person will. Scripture is clear about this that it is the "sinner" who turns around who goes home made right, not the self-righteous religious person resting on his or her laurels.
     Who goes to Gehenna? Jesus was absolutely clear on this subject. Those who see those in need and refuse to help. Those who refuse to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner and the sick. He was clear that everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and according to John, no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. Every human being alive is a descendant of the same man and woman whether you look at either Scripture or genetics. Every human being alive is from the same tribe, the same clan, the same family. We are all brothers and sisters. If you hate another human being, you do not have eternal life within you. Scripture is clear on this subject.
     If you do not love, you do not know God because God is love. Scripture is also clear on this subject. If you do not have love, you are nothing and have nothing, and like Jesus said, if you do not have, what little you think you have will be taken from you.
     You claim the blood of Christ? You claim to believe in Jesus? The devil believes in Jesus and Gehenna was made for his kind. Your faith without love will not save you because faith without love is a faith without God and God alone saves. Don't tell me how much you love Jesus, how much you believe in Jesus if you continue to hate your brother, your fellow human being. The outer darkness awaits you, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
     If you refuse to follow His even His simplest teachings to love your neighbor as yourself and treat others as you want to be treated, you trample the blood of Jesus Christ underfoot. God does not take kindly to this. He takes an even dimmer view when you teach others to do the same. You build up wrath for yourself with your utter blasphemy.
     Turn around. Set aside your hate. Embrace love, mercy, compassion. Don't judge and you won't be judged. But if you persist, you will taste suffering in eternity until you come to your senses and embrace Love Himself.
      The gay person marching in a pride parade will enter the kingdom of heaven before the "Christian" who condemns them. The prostitute will feast with Abraham before the Christian nationalists. The immigrant will enter the wedding feast fully clothed before the Republican that seeks their harm. Unstop your ears and listen! If you continue on this path you do so to your own destruction.