Forgetting God, the works of the Lord, the holocaust

by Damien F. Mackey “Towards the end of his life [Primo Levi] was beginning to worry about precisely what Alastair writes about: that memories would fade and the horror of the holocaust – the greatest evil ever inflicted on man by man – might fade as well”. Fraser Nelson Forgetting the major lessons of history can have dire consequences for humanity. Hence the wise among the Hebrews were forever reminding their people: “Do not forget the works of the Lord!” “That they might not forget the works of God” (3) "That they might not forget the works of God" For instance, according to Psalm 77:11-15 (Douay) /Psalm 78: And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them. Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis. He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel. And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire. He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep. A modern prophet had bemoaned the consequences of such forgetting: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened”: Solzhenitsyn (3) "Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened": Solzhenitsyn Although Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn here was thinking essentially about his own Russia, what he said has applications for the whole world. War, torture, starvation, death camps. “… orchestrated famines, deportations, civil wars, terror campaigns, forced labor, concentration camps, and mass killings” (see below). “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened” Fittingly, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Marist priest in Sydney told of one Primo Levi, himself a prisoner, who had feared that the holocaust, in time, would be forgotten. The priest urged the congregation to obtain a copy of Primo Levi’s book, The Drowned and the Saved: On a far lighter note, the same Marist priest had told a joke. An Italian lady had approached him and told him: ‘You look like Padre Pio’. He replied to her: ‘I look like Padre Pio because I am Padre Pio’. ‘Noooo’, she said. ‘Padre Pio very holy’. Remembering what the priest had said bout Primo Levi, I looked him up on the Internet and found this article by Fraser Nelson (Times and Spectator): https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-primo-levi-s-warning-about-the-young-forgetting-the-holocaust-resonates-now/ Fraser Nelson Why Primo Levi’s warning about the young forgetting the holocaust resonates now • 30 March 2018, 12:00am One of the most thought-provoking pieces in The Spectator this week is from Alastair Thomas on why his generation don’t get so upset about anti-Semitism. He explains the phenomenon and offers an explanation: the years have passed, the memories of the holocaust have dimmed. It’s no longer the experience of someone’s grandparents’ generation, but further back. Since then, there are more recent memories: of the Israeli Defence Force and Gaza. The conflation between Jews, Israel and Zionism has restored the idea of the Jews as being suspiciously powerful – the oppressors rather than the oppressed. This certainly stands to reason. Memories of the holocaust were kept alive for my generation by films like Schindler’s List. But there are few left to tell the story first hand. Reading Alastair’s essay made me think of a book I read years ago: The Drowned and the Saved, by Primo Levi, who was arrested for being a member of the Italian anti-fascist front and sent to Auschwitz. Towards the end of his life he was beginning to worry about precisely what Alastair writes about: that memories would fade and the horror of the holocaust – the greatest evil ever inflicted on man by man – might fade as well. When I first read it, I thought he was wrong: that the holocaust was taught in schools world over and films like Schindler’s List would keep the nightmare vivid for new generations. But perhaps he was right after all. That film is now a quarter-century old. A new generation will have new reference points. …. Levi’s writing is incredibly vivid, yet hard to track down in the digital era: The Drowned and the Saved, even If Not Now, When? are not on Kindle, not Googleable. So we have posted an extract from the book on Coffee House (here) to give a taste. For those who haven’t come across his writing before, you can find it all here, many for under £1. It’s dangerous, he says, to think that the evil of the holocaust sprang from the blackness of Nazi hearts and died with Hitler. It had all-too-human beginnings, and one of them was the general idea that the Jews are suspect, which can come back anytime, anywhere. At church services world over this afternoon, Christians will be saying the Good Friday prayer for the Jews. There’s plenty to think about after a week where Jewish leaders were driven to protest in parliament. But this is about more than Corbyn, or the recent attacks in France: there’s a general sense that anti-Semitism is back – partly because it doesn’t appal a young generation and the scenario that Primo Levi described is now coming to pass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_theology#:~:text=The%20well%2Dknown%20Lithuanian%20Jewish,religious%20observance%20for%20the%20enlightenment. “The well-known Lithuanian Jewish leader, Rabbi Elazar Shach taught that the Holocaust was a divine punishment for the sins of the Jewish people, and for the abandoning of religious observance for the enlightenment”. This is getting to the crux of the matter, not just for Jews, but for Russians, Germans, and indeed for the whole world. Our Lady’s Prophecy Fulfilled: Spreading Errors of Russia …. Our Lady of Fatima warned that if mankind did not stop offending God, and if her messages were not heeded, a worse war was yet to come. To prevent the evil of World War II, Our Lady requested both the Communion of Reparation on Five First Saturdays, as well as the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. As we have seen, the request was not heeded in time. World War II erupted, and the errors of Russia were spread throughout the world. ________________________________________ Our Lady appeared to the three children in Fatima eight days after Pope Benedict XV’s piercing cry for her intercession for an end to the war. Yet that was not the only providential reason for Our Lady’s appearance to the three children at that specific time. Something dangerous was also happening in Russia which would have a devastating impact on the world. The Russian Revolutions Russia suffered greatly from the negative effects of World War I. The high number of casualties, combined with economic stagnation and food shortages, caused the people to grow angry, restless, and critical of the country’s governance. This national instability culminated in the overthrow of the one thousand year-old Christian monarchy, and the execution of the Russian Tsar and the ruling Romanov dynasty. This revolution occurred in February 1917 (March on the Gregorian calendar), and a provisional government was established in its place. Seeing the Russian monarchy toppled, Vladimir Lenin, who had previously been exiled from Russia due to his revolutionary political agitations, saw his opportunity to return and once again involve himself with the nation’s politics. Lenin was fully committed to the economic, social, and atheistic philosophy of Marxism and sought to implement it in Russia. He banded with other leftist political revolutionaries to form the Bolshevik party, and he became its leader. The discontent about the ongoing war and the instability under the provencial government allowed the Bolsheviks to quickly rise to power, and they seized control of Russia during the infamous October Revolution (November on the Gregorian Calendar). Lenin became the head of Russia, and the Bolsheviks became the Communist Party. This was the keystone event that led to the founding of the Soviet Union. The country once called “Holy Russia” by her people, a land rich in faith and tradition, was overthrown. Our Lady was appearing in Fatima during this critical period in Russia’s—and by extension, Europe’s—history; the first and last of her apparitions corresponded closely with the first and second Russian revolutions in March and November of 1917. The Persecution Of The Church And The Family Essential to the realization of Lenin’s goal to implement his Marxist ideals and transform Russia into a communist country was to eliminate the influence of Christianity, especially the Russian Orthodox church. The following year, Russia implemented the law of separation of Church and State, “In order to ensure genuine freedom of conscience for the working people,” that is, freedom from the moral restraints that religion brings. The law of separation of Church and State was, in effect, a law imposing State atheism. Although religion was not officially banned, its influence on society was intentionally and aggressively attacked. The Marxist revolutionaries knew that to undermine religious practice one must first corrupt the morality of the people. In addition to weakening the Church, they also worked to upend the social unit of the family in order to realize their ideal of a classless society ruled by an authoritarian State. To further this goal, the Bolsheviks instituted no-fault divorce, thus supplanting sacramental marriage with civil marriage. Divorce was made swift and easily obtainable, with no provisions for the support of children. Laws were passed stating that there was now no such thing as an illegitimate child, a revolt against the natural right of children to be born into the stability of wedlock and raised by their mother and father. The result was utter moral decay among the people. Previously a deeply religious people, many Russians became promiscuous and literally began to divorce and remarry with the seasons. Women who were divorced by their husbands while pregnant sought to abort their children out of the fear of abandonment. Under Communist rule, Russia became the first country in the world to legalize abortion, and eventually the nation with the highest rate of divorce and abortion in the world. Before these disastrous laws were implemented, it was the Church who governed marriage, family, and the moral life of the people in the name of God. The Bolshevik Revolution was not merely a political revolution, it was a revolution of the fabric of society itself, and ultimately a revolt against the divine and natural law of God. If the Bolshevik Revolution is—as some people have called it—the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be regarded as the century’s most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as both the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx. Encyclopedia Britannica Once Lenin defeated every political enemy which threatened his power, the Soviet Union was formed in 1922 under Secretary Joseph Stalin. Lenin then became the first dictator of the world’s first Marxist state, although briefly, as he died in 1924. His ruthlessness against his political enemies established precedent for his successor, Joseph Stalin, to preside over a campaign of brutality against his own citizens, especially Christians. Although Our Lady mentioned the need for the consecration of Russia during her apparitions at Fatima, she did not formally ask for it at that time. This request was not given to Sr. Lucia until June 13, 1929. Once again, the timing was providential as there was a significant event transpiring in Russia at that time. In 1929 Russia began a new wave of anti-religious persecution under the dictatorship of the infamous Joseph Stalin. Previously the Orthodox Church was persecuted indirectly; Christians were imprisoned by being labeled as enemies of the State. Now, an official political campaign was begun to actually destroy the Church. Ecclesiastical property and wealth was confiscated, religious activities were prohibited, churches were destroyed, and nearly all clergy, along with many laity, were killed or sent to concentration camps. Christianity in Russia was forced underground. In addition to unleashing a severe persecution on the Orthodox Church, Stalin turned on his own citizens in other evil ways. In the 1930’s Stalin forced a man-made famine on the Ukraine. This genocide killed an estimated 7-8 million people. During the famine’s worst period from 1932-34, it is estimated that nearly 30,000 Ukrainians were dying from starvation every day. Meanwhile, Stalin denied the existence of the famine while exporting Russian grain to other countries. Such was the brutality that would become the manner of rule for atheistic communist dictators throughout the 20th century: orchestrated famines, deportations, civil wars, terror campaigns, forced labor, concentration camps, and mass killings. Perhaps Jacinta, who often received visions of the future chastisements that Our Lady of Fatima prophesied, beheld the devastating Ukrainian famine when she said to Lucia, “Can’t you see all those highways and roads and fields full of people, who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary? And so many people praying with him?” Russia Spreads Her Errors The central error of Russia was the modern atheistic Marxist-Communist State and its attacks on morality, the natural order of human society, and the Church. This diabolical revolutionary spirit spread to other countries like an infectious disease, starting with the Eastern bloc countries, until more than half of the globe was ruled by communist dictators. Their brutal regimes which severely persecuted the Church and killed millions of their own citizens. …. The Russian Bolshevik revolutionaries … however, actively pursued a global atheistic communism. The Bolsheviks implemented Marx’s Communist Manifesto and became the world’s first communist state. The Soviet Union then became not only a dominant world power, but also a flagship for the rise of atheistic dictatorships around the world. These brutal regimes and their insidious philosophies threatened and slaughtered their own citizens in a heinous manner never before seen in history. The 1997 book, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stephane Courtois places the death toll of communism in the 20th century at 94 million, making atheistic communist regimes more deadly than the first two World Wars combined: People’s Republic of China: 65 million Soviet Union: 20 million Cambodia: 2 million North Korea: 2 million Ethiopia: 1.7 million Afghanistan: 1.5 million Eastern Bloc: 1 million Vietnam: 1 million Latin America 150,000 International Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: 10,000 In addition to the shocking death toll, the suppression and persecution of the Christian faith and the institutionalization of immorality was the most devastating for the salvation of souls. Without the light of the Christian faith to guide souls to the worship of the One True God, many souls under Communist regimes were lost for eternity. Looking back on this devastation, we are reminded of what Lucia said to the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, on the eve of the anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima in 1982: “The third part of the secret is a symbolic revelation, referring to this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not what the Message itself asks of us: ‘If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, etc.’ Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it little by little with great strides. If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence, etc. And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible.” Again, it is incredible to consider that the Mother of God offered a means to prevent this disaster for humanity, with the responsibility of averting it given to the authority of the Vicar of Christ as the shepherd of the world’s souls.

Zakir Naik’s apologetical tactic meant to embarrass Christians

by Damien F. Mackey “Where did Jesus say, ‘I am God, worship me,’ in those exact words?” Muslim apologetics According to Christian apologist Dr. Jay Smith: “Dr. Zakir Naik is probably the most dangerous man in the world today to Christianity because he brings hundreds of thousands of people to Islam”. However, Dr. Zakir Naik’s simple but ingenious tactic, that he is teaching to his followers to use to confront Christians, has recently been exposed, and the word is now that Dr. Naik and his followers are avoiding debate with certain astute Christians. His methodology is like that of his renowned colleague, Sheikh Ahmed Deedat: force your opponent to answer a question that has been carefully framed. Dr. Zakir Naik, for instance, will press the question: “Where did Jesus say, ‘I am God, worship me,’ in those exact words?”, knowing that “those exact words” are not to be found anywhere in the Bible. Astute Christians such as David Wood American evangelical apologist David Wood is an American evangelical apologist, philosopher and YouTube personality, who is the head of the Acts 17 Apologetics ministry, which he co-founded with Nabeel Qureshi. He also runs Foundation for Advocating Christian Truth, which is the organization behind AnsweringMuslims.com. Wood is known for his criticism of Islam, particularly Islamic views on theology and morality, as well as the Quran in general, hadith, sīrah and Muhammad. Answering Dr. Zakir Naik on Where did Jesus say 'I am God, worship me' … David Wood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsHdhvDB6qc and Sam Shamoum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pLshDsK-Vw Zakir Naik Is RUNNING From Debating Sam Shamoun on Islam and Christianity have seen right through this apologetical sleight-of hand so that now Moslems who have been schooled in using this approach are reluctant to engage with the pair. Sam Shamoum has also written on the subject (2012): http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/06/where-did-jesus-say-i-am-god-worship-me.html Where Did Jesus Say, "I Am God, Worship Me"? The Qur’an commands Christians to judge by the Gospel: Qur’an 5:47—“Let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel.” Thus, when Christians present their beliefs, it makes sense for Muslims to ask, “Could you show us where the Bible says that?” Christians should therefore be eager to present evidence from the Gospel, because Muslims cannot condemn us for doing what the Qur’an commands. Indeed, since the Qur’an affirms not only the Gospel, but also the Torah (Qur’an 5:43), Muslims cannot ignore what the Bible says without thereby rebelling against Islam. Muslims around the world are being trained to ask Christians, “Where did Jesus say, ‘I am God, worship me,’ in those exact words?” However, if Muslims are suggesting that Jesus could only claim to be God by uttering a specific sentence, we may reply by asking, “Where did Jesus say, ‘I am only a prophet, don’t worship me,’ in those exact words?” The unreasonable demand for a particular statement, if applied consistently, would thus force Muslims to reject their own view! Fortunately, we have a simple way to examine what Jesus said about himself. According to both the Bible and the Qur’an, there are certain claims that only God can truly make. For instance, God alone can correctly state that he created the universe. Of course, a mere human being can pronounce the words, “I created the universe,” but the statement would be false coming from anyone other than God. Hence, if Jesus said things that can only truly be said by God, we must conclude that Jesus claimed to be God. Interestingly, Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree on many of the claims that cannot be properly made by (or about) mere human beings. Let us consider a few of these. THE FIRST AND THE LAST Surah 57:3 of the Qur’an refers to Allah as “the First and the Last, the Most High and the Most Near.” The Old Testament agrees that God is the “First and the Last,” as we read in the Book of the prophet Isaiah: Isaiah 44:6—Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.” When “LORD” is written in all capitals in the Old Testament, the term refers to Yahweh, the creator of the universe. Since both the Bible and the Qur’an give the title “the First and the Last” to God, it should be quite shocking for Muslims to open the New Testament and read Revelation 1:17-18, where Jesus says: “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” Would a mere prophet claim to be the “First and the Last”? WHO FORGIVES SINS? While one human being may sin against another human being, there is a sense in which all sin is rebellion against God. Similarly, while you and I may forgive one another for the wrongs we commit, only God can offer ultimate forgiveness. Thus, the prophet David could say to God, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4), and the Prophet Daniel could declare, “To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him” (Daniel 9:9). The Qur’an agrees that ultimate forgiveness belongs to God, for it asks, “Who can forgive sins except Allah?” (3:135). It might surprise Muslims to learn that, in the New Testament, Jesus claims the ability to forgive sins. In Mark 2, a paralyzed man is brought to Jesus in order to be healed. Jesus’ response leads the religious leaders to accuse him of blasphemy: Mark 2:5-7—And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?” The scribes correctly recognized that only God can forgive sins. Yet Jesus (who referred to himself as the “Son of Man”), knowing their thoughts, replied that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). He then healed the paralytic, proving that his claims were true. THE LIGHT In Psalm 27:1, the prophet David proclaims: “The LORD is my light and my salvation.” Similarly, the Qur’an declares that “Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth” (24:35). Yet Jesus tells his listeners that he is “the Light”: John 8:12—“I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” THE TRUTH The prophet David refers to Yahweh as the “God of Truth” (Psalm 31:5). According to the Qur’an, “Allah is the Truth” (22:6). Jesus, however, applies this as a title for himself: John 14:6—Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” How can a mere human being claim to be “The Truth”? THE FINAL JUDGE In Chapter 3 of the Book of the prophet Joel, Yahweh declares that the nations will be gathered and that he “will sit to judge all the surrounding nations” (v. 12). According to the prophet David, “the LORD abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment, and He will judge the world in righteousness” (Psalm 9:7-8). The Qur’an maintains that Allah will judge the world, rewarding believers and punishing unbelievers: Qur’an 22:56-57—The kingdom on that day shall be Allah’s; He will judge between them; so those who believe and do good will be in gardens of bliss. And (as for) those who disbelieve in and reject Our communications, these it is who shall have a disgraceful chastisement. So why, we may wonder, would Jesus tell his followers that he will be the final judge of all people? Matthew 25:31-32—“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Jesus goes on to say that he will admit certain people to heaven and cast others into hell. Isn’t this something only God can do? THE RESURRECTION The Bible and the Qur’an agree that God is the one who will raise the dead. 1 Samuel 2:6—The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. Qur’an 22:7—Allah will resurrect those who are in the graves. Since God will raise the dead at the resurrection, why would a mere prophet tell his followers that he will resurrect the dead? John 5:25-29—“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” John 11:25—Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.” GOD’S GLORY The Qur’an tells us that “Whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah” (57:1). In the Old Testament, we find that Yahweh will not share his glory with anyone. Isaiah 42:8—“I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another.” (Cf. Isaiah 48:11—“My glory I will not give to another.”) Yet Jesus claimed, not only that he would be glorified with the Father, but that he had glory with the Father before the world was created! John 17:5—“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” How can anyone see this as anything other than a claim to deity? FURTHER EVIDENCE In Mark 2:28, Jesus calls himself the “Lord of the Sabbath.” In Matthew 22:41-45, he proves that he is the Lord of the prophet David. In John 8:39-58, Jesus says that he has seen the prophet Abraham. In Matthew 12:6, Jesus claims to be greater than God’s Temple. Jesus tells us that he has an absolutely unique relationship with the Father (Matthew 11:27), that he can answer prayers (John 14:13-14), that he is present wherever his followers are gathered (Matthew 18:20), that he has “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18), and that he is with his followers forever (Matthew 28:20). He even makes the startling declaration that “All things that the Father has are Mine” (John 16:15). According to Jesus, all people must honor him just as we honor the Father: John 5:21-23—“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” Since one of the ways we honor the Father is by worshiping him, it should come as no surprise that Jesus’ followers worshiped him on numerous occasions. Indeed, the Gospel tells us that Jesus was worshiped throughout his life: shortly after his birth (Matthew 2:11), during his ministry (Matthew 14:33, John 9:38), after his resurrection (Matthew 28:17), and after his ascension to heaven (Luke 24:52). Jesus’ disciple Thomas even addressed him as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). ASSESSMENT Where did Jesus say, “I am God, worship me”? As we have seen, Jesus claimed to be the First and the Last, the forgiver of sins, the Light, the Truth, the Final Judge, and the Resurrection. Jesus proclaimed that he had glory with the Father before the world was created, that he is the Lord of the Sabbath and of King David, that he had seen Abraham, and that he is greater than God’s Temple. Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father, he can answer prayers, he is with his followers no matter where they are, he has total authority on earth and in heaven, he is with his followers forever, and he owns everything. Jesus even demanded that he be honored just as the Father is honored. Clearly, these are not the claims of a mere human being. They are not even the claims of a mighty prophet. These are claims only God can truly make. This is why Christians believe that Jesus is God. POSTSCRIPT: THE ISLAMIC DILEMMA Since the Bible obviously supports the Christian view of Jesus, Muslims who want to deny the deity of Christ will have to argue that the Gospel has been corrupted. But if the Gospel has been corrupted, why does the Qur’an command Christians to judge by the Gospel? By commanding us to judge by what we find in the Gospel, the Qur’an has inadvertently ordered Christians to reject Islam! But it gets worse for Muslims. The Qur’an affirms the inspiration and reliability of the Christian Scriptures (3:3-4, 5:47, 5:66, 7:157, 10:94), as well as man’s inability to corrupt God’s Word (6:114-115, 18:27). Muslims therefore cannot reject what the Gospel says, which leaves them with quite a dilemma. If the Gospel is reliable, Islam must be false, since the Gospel presents Jesus as God. Alternatively, if the Gospel is unreliable, Islam must be false, because the Qur’an tells us that the Gospel is the Word of God. Either way, Islam is false, and anyone who is searching for the truth will never find it in the Qur’an.

Critics giving Josephus a precedence over Luke

by Damien F. Mackey “Josephus, supposedly, wrote his autobiography toward the end of his life, ca. the beginning of the second century CE. So the author of Luke, if he were emulating Josephus’s passage would, therefore, have written this passage later in the second century CE.!”. Michael Lockwood Following on from my perennial theme, recalled again in my recent article: Vespasian ‘becoming a god’ (8) Vespasian 'becoming a god' about scholars always, in knee-jerk reaction, giving chronological precedence to pagan legends over the (Hebrew) biblical texts, e.g: - Hammurabi’s Code supposed to have influenced Mosaïc Law; - Akhnaton’s Hymn to the Aten having influenced King David’s Psalm 104. - Etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam, I now find, too, that such-minded critics have long been suggesting that the later Josephus had influenced the earlier Luke. That’s right, it immediately fails the common sense, pub test! And even more so if Qumranic expert, Fr. Jean Carmignac, was correct in dating the Gospel of Luke to “… between 58 and 60 [AD] …. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: … (Greek) Luke a little after 50 [AD]”. This is decades before Josephus wrote his major works some time after 70 AD! So why not argue things the other way around? It would make more (common) sense. There are various instances of thematic convergence between Josephus and Luke, with Josephus considered to have influenced Luke. That is the stance that Robinson Smith, for instance, took, as far back as 1913, as adjudged by his title “Fresh Light on the Synoptic Problem: Josephus a Lukan Source” (The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1913), pp. 614-621 (8 pages)). Now, more than a century later, Michael Lockwood is found pursuing the same theme, claiming that Luke’s fictitious, “mythical” account of the boy Jesus teaching in the Temple had its origins in Josephus’s own boyhood experience. Thus Lockwood wrote last year (2024), in his article: “Luke 2:41-50 Fictionally Imitates a Passage in Historian Josephus’s Autobiography”: Jesus, at age 12, goes into the Jerusalem Temple and enlightens the priests; With Josephus, age 14, high priests & others come out of the Temple to be enlightened by him! Luke 2:41-50: ¶ 41 Now it was the practice of his parents to go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival; 42 and when he was twelve, they made the pilgrimage as usual. 43 When the festive season was over and they started for home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know of this, 44 but thinking that he was with the party they journeyed on for a whole day, and only then did they begin looking for him among their friends and relations. 45 As they could not find him they returned to Jerusalem to look for him; 46 and after three days they found him sitting in the temple surrounded by the teachers, listening to them and putting questions; 47 and all who heard him were amazed at his intelligence and the answers he gave. 48 His parents were astonished to see him there, and his mother said to him, ‘My son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ 49 ‘What made you search?’ he said. ‘Did you not know I was bound to be in my Father’s house?’ 50 But they did not understand what he meant. – The New English Bible Josephus, The Life of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Whiston, p. 1: ¶ Moreover, when I was a child, and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law. That Josephus, at the young age of fourteen, was commended for his love of learning would not be particularly extraordinary. But what follows, in this same passage taken from the beginning of his autobiography, certainly is extraordinary! That high priests of the Jerusalem Temple came to him often with the “principle” (i.e., most learned) men of the city to learn his opinion, mind you, on “points of law”, seems a great exaggeration! The “law”, here, stands for the whole of the Pentateuch, of course. Josephus, supposedly, wrote his autobiography toward the end of his life, ca. the beginning of the second century CE. So the author of Luke, if he were emulating Josephus’s passage would, therefore, have written this passage later in the second century CE. Employing Mimesis Criticism, the Luke passage, above, would be treated as hypertext (the passage which alludes in some way to another passage written earlier, the hypotext). The hypotext, above, would be the passage from Josephus’s ‘Autobiography’. Is this a clear example of fictionalized mimetic dependence of a passage in Luke’s gospel on the historical material written by Josephus? OR Did the notorious 3rd-4th century CE Christian historian, Eusebius, interpolate the wise-child episode into Josephus’s ‘Autobiography’, attempting to harmonize it with the mythical episode of Luke 2:41-50 ? ….

Vespasian ‘becoming a god’

by Damien F. Mackey “Hence, when Vespasian was dying of dysentery, he quipped, “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god!”.” Bethany Williams The emperor Vespasian, considered to have been a pragmatic commoner who made good, appears to have been more down-to-earth and sensible - having a greater degree of common sense - than those moderns who think that this pagan’s life must have been a template for the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. As I have so often pointed out, whenever there is an ancient pagan legend that appears to have, to a greater or lesser extent, something in common with the Bible, the knee-jerk reaction, almost universally, is to say that the Hebrews borrowed from the pagans (be they Akkadians, Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, Greeks, or Romans). This is largely a problem of chronology, as we shall now find. Thus, for instance, the Mosaïc Law was influenced by the great Hammurabi of Babylon and his famous Code. Except that it wasn’t. Moses pre-dated Hammurabi by half a millennium. See e.g. my article: Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon (7) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon And The Hymn to Aten of pharaoh Akhnaton (Akhenaten) influenced King David’s Psalm 104. Except that it didn’t. King David well pre-dated Akhnaton. See e.g. my article: David and the Philistines (7) David and the Philistines And the legend of Sargon of Akkad as a baby afloat in a basket influenced the Exodus account of Moses. Here, at least, the pagan ruler clearly did pre-date the paralleled Hebrew incident. However, the legend itself did not, since it belonged in writing to the c. 600 BC time of Ashurbanipal, which is roughly a millennium after Moses. There are many other instances of this same pattern: A somewhat comparable pagan and Hebrew tale, with the former inevitably given the chronological precedence over the latter, but wrongly, since a properly revised chronology will determine it to be the other way around. Now, here we have Vespasian, a late contemporary of Jesus Christ by any estimate, and afflicted with dysentery no less, being re-cast by modern writers as a miracle-working messiah from whose life the Evangelists supposedly compiled their respective portraits of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. John Nelson, for instance, has rushed in where angels might fear to tread with his (2024) article: Jesus and Vespasian: The Public Ministry Is the Markan Jesus distinctly Flavian? In the first century, there was a Son of God whose arrival brought ‘good news’ throughout the Roman world. He possessed miraculous powers, healing a blind man with spittle; he provided generous benefaction, feeding thousands; and he was indirectly responsible for the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, following which he embarked on a triumphal procession, decked in kingly array. After his death, he underwent an apotheosis, and was deified. His name was Vespasian - and in 69 CE, his rise to power spelt an end to the rule of Julio-Claudian Emperors and the beginning of his own Flavian dynasty. Those interested in the Gospels will immediately note that Vespasian’s ascendancy overlaps with the conventional dating of Mark, around 70 CE. It would be no surprise, then, if Mark shaped his story with Vespasian to some degree in mind. Mackey’s comment: “It would be no surprise” only that this would be the typical academic knee-jerk reaction! A most enlightened biblical commentator, Qumranic scholar Fr. Jean Carmignac, however, had dated the Synoptic Gospels to an era decades before Vespasian’s floruit: Fr Jean Carmignac dates Gospels early (8) Fr Jean Carmignac dates Gospels early “The latest dates that can be admitted are around 50 for Mark . . . around 55 for Completed Mark, around 55-60 for Matthew, between 58 and 60 for Luke. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: Mark around 42, Completed Mark around 45, (Hebrew) Matthew around 50, (Greek) Luke a little after 50”. See also my related article: Carsten Peter Thiede on dating of New Testament (8) Carsten Peter Thiede on dating of New Testament John Nelson continues: Scholars have long noted parallels between Vespasian and Mark’s Jesus. But more recently, Adam Winn has gone further to argue that Vespasian’s life comprises a hermeneutical key in unlocking the Gospel. …. When we read the Gospel ‘under’ Caesar, various unusual aspects of Mark’s narrative are thrown into clear relief. In this series, we have seen how the evangelists drew upon familiar models in composing their stories. Luke drew upon aspects of the story of Aesop, John drew upon Dionysus, and both Matthew and Luke seem to have employed a familiar model in their infancy narratives, the sort told of Augustus and Alexander the Great. Mackey’s comment: As already said: “It would be no surprise” only that this would be the typical academic knee-jerk reaction! Did Mark also draw on aspects of Vespasian’s life to compose his story of Jesus? In this two-parter, we take a look at seven Vespasian-like features of Mark’s Jesus, beginning – in this post – with Jesus’ public ministry. 1. The Good News of God’s Son It does not take long before we stumble into imperial imagery in Mark. Note the incipit: ‘The beginning of the good news (euangelion) of Jesus Christ [Son of God]’. …. For those familiar with the Jewish Bible, these words would recall the ‘good news’ of Isaiah. But for all readers, the term ‘good news’ also had an imperial flavour. Compare, for example, the opening words of Mark with the Priene Calendar Inscription. The stone inscription, from 9 BCE, proclaims the birthday of the ‘god’ and ‘saviour’ Emperor Augustus as the ‘beginning of the good news for the world…’ …. Mackey’s comment: Yes, indeed, but does not the Book of Isaiah well pre-date “9 BCE” by any reasonable estimate? The term ‘good news’ was also used in reference to the accomplishments of later Emperors. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus notes that upon Vespasian’s accession to the throne, ‘every city celebrated the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf’ (War 4.10.6 §618). From Mark’s opening sentence, it appears that Jesus, not the Emperor, is the one who brings good tidings to the world This counter-imperial claim could also be heard in Mark’s reference to Jesus as God’s son. Whether or not the words ‘Son of God’ in Mark’s incipit are original, Mark refers to Jesus as the Son of God at key moments throughout the text (e.g. 1:11; 9:7). This is significant, for the Emperor was also known as God’s son: divi filius. By announcing the good news of the Messiah – the saviour – who is God’s son, readers would immediately see that Jesus is being fashioned in imperial array. 2. Healing by Spittle The concept of the ‘good news’ about a salvific ‘Son of God’ may not tie Jesus to any particular Emperor. Yet in Jesus’ healing ministry, we find something more distinctly Vespasian-like. In his Life of Vespasian, Suetonius reports that Vespasian had healing powers. What is striking is the affinity Vespasian’s miracle bears to Jesus’ miracles in Mark: A man of the people, who was blind, and another who was lame, together came to [Vespasian] as he sat on the tribunal, begging for the help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for the god declared that Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give strength to the leg, if he would deign to touch with his heel. Though he had hardly any faith that this could possibly succeed, and therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd; and with success… (7.2-3). For a long time, scholars have wondered why Mark’s Jesus heals a blind man using spittle. This is not his usual modus operandi when it comes to healing. If Mark is casting Jesus as a Vespasian-esque figure, however, it begins to make sense. According to Oxford biblical scholar Eric Eve, this story of Vespasian’s healing arose at the end of 69 or early 70 CE. …. At the time, it was used as propaganda to legitimate his ascension to the throne. Moreover, for Jewish ears, this scene could easily have sounded like a usurpation of traditional messianic hopes. Two elements of this context should prick our ears. First, many scholars date Mark just after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. If this is correct, then Mark was written at just the right time to be influenced by the Vespasian episode. This Vespasian propaganda would have been floating around Mark’s setting. Second, if Vespasian’s healing of the blind might have sounded a little too close to the fulfilment of Messianic expectations, we can understand why Mark placed the healing episode where he does: at the start of his teaching block of material (chs. 8-10). For, as is well known, the gradual healing of the blind man, which opens this section, serves as a metaphor for the disciples’ realisation that Jesus is the Messiah. The big difference is the type of King that Vespasian and Jesus will be. While Vespasian inaugurated his rule through military victory, Jesus’ own kingship will be manifest in his own suffering and death. 3. Jesus’ Power over ‘Legion’ It is not as though Jesus is without his own conquest in Mark, however. Possible clues that Jesus is a counter-Vespasian are also left in another miracle-story: Jesus’ power over the demon named ‘Legion,’ which he chases into a herd of pigs. None of the Roman Emperors were thought to be exorcists. But several things about this story might make us think of Rome generally, and Vespasian in particular. To begin with, the term ‘legion’ denotes a cohort of 6,000 Roman soldiers. While this connection between the demonic forces and Rome may seem incidental, it is one that was also made in the first-century by John, in the book of Revelation. Strengthening this link, Mark uses war-like terminology to describe the legion of pigs. …. For example, he uses the verb ὁρμάω, a word which often denotes a military charge, to describe the rush of pigs into the sea. And he uses the term agele (άγέλη), which is often used of a military troop, to describe the ‘herd’ (5:13). None of this may seem especially Vespasian-like, beyond the general point that Vespasian’s claim to the throne was martial rather than hereditary. But a further detail may betray a connection to Vespasian: Vespasian was in charge of the Roman legion which destroyed Gerasa during the Jewish revolt. And the banner that the tenth legion carried as they destroyed the city was that of the bore - a pig! …. Early readers may therefore have seen here a thinly veiled anti-Vespasian critique. While Vespasian had control of physical legions, Jesus had total control of a ‘legion’ of demons which, in its location and symbolism, evoked Vespasian. 4. Nature Miracles A fainter set of imperial echos may also be heard in Jesus’ ‘nature miracles.’ Take, for example, Jesus’ ability to control the waves and walk on water. There are clear allusions here to YHWH’s distinct ability in the Hebrew Bible to control the sea. But some of the Roman Emperors were also believed to have ruled the waves. Caesar Augustus, for example, was said to have brought peace to the sea. As Philo writes, “This is the Caesar who calmed the torrential storms on every side... This is he who cleared the sea of pirate ships and filled it with merchant vessels” (Gaius, 145-46). ….7 …. The Roman Emperors were also known for their benefaction, supplying money and grain in times of need. As ‘Father of the Country’, Caesar Augustus claims in his Res Augusta to have given out generous supplies of grain in times of hunger (15.1-4; 18.1). Similarly, when Vespasian secured the throne, the city of Rome only had ten days of grain left. To save the population from starvation, the Emperor imported grain from Alexandria, a city regarded as his personal possession. …. Mackey’s comment: In some of this, John Nelson appears to me to be drawing a very long bow and to be desperately clutching at straws. Vespasian also laid a tax on urinals, causing no end of discomfort for Romans with weak bladders, and, should I say it, suffering from dysentery? For his harsh taxation, many have labelled Vespasian “autocratic”. While they do not provide a close parallel, some of these imperial actions may be faintly heard in Jesus’ own benefaction: his generous supply of fish and loaves to the masses in Mark’s feeding narratives. This affinity would be particularly apparent if the traditional authorship of Mark in Rome is correct, as Winn has argued at length. 5. The Messianic Secret Finally, the idea that Mark’s Jesus is Vespasian-like may also help to unravel a curious thread which runs through Mark: the so-called ‘messianic secret.’ This is the tendency of Jesus to keep his identity a secret and demand secrecy from others too. In recent scholarship, the Messianic secret has been read as less about secrecy and more as Jesus’ intentional resistance to receiving honour. …. There are a number of healing episodes, for example, in which Jesus stands as a patron would to a client. But instead of receiving honour for his benefaction – as one might expect of an ancient client – Jesus commands those he has healed to remain silent (e.g. 1:40-15; 7:31-37). This is an intriguing reading, but there is a problem with it: it is not sustained throughout the Gospel. While Jesus at times deflects honour, at others he embraces it (e.g. 1:21-28; 11:10). …. How can we explain this inconsistency? Winn has argued that seeing Jesus as an Emperor-type can help us. …. For like Jesus, the Emperor was regularly known to deflect honour, as well as to receive it. In a strategic move for the Princeps, the Emperor would give the impression to freedom-loving Romans that he was merely a “first among equals” by rejecting honour. Vespasian, for example, was hesitant to accept the title ‘Father of his Country’ or his tribunician powers (Vesp. 12). …. He also seems to have ended the traditional practice of Romans worshiping the guardian spirit, or “genius” of the living emperor, which had been instituted by Caligula. …. Some readers of Mark may therefore have understood Jesus’ refusal to accept honour as a Vespasian-esque move. …. Far from keeping his identity a total secret, Jesus – like the Emperor Vespasian – at times embraced and at others deferred the honour his elevated status entailed. …. Conclusion Vespasianic miracle legends are nothing more than appropriated pagan versions of the earlier Gospels recording the unrivalled life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Père M-J. Lagrange’s exegetical blancmange

by Damien F. Mackey “To take the Genesis account as historical information … its value is simply nil in informing us about what happened “in the night of times”.” M. Lagrange Dr. Dominque Tassot, writing an article, “The Influence of Geology on Catholic Exegesis”, for the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, tells us something about the opinions of M. Lagrange: http://kolbecenter.org/the-influence-of-geology-on-catholic-exegesis/ …. On June 30, 1909, the Pontifical Biblical Commission granted liberty to Catholic exegetes to consider the word “yom” either in its proper meaning or in a broader meaning (sensu improprio) of indeterminate duration (DS 2128). In 1896, Fr Lagrange (who had founded Jerusalem’s Biblical College in 1893) rejected “concordism”, considering that the hexameron days and geological periods did not correspond. The shaping of the Earth went on a long time after the appearance of life; plants and animals developed in parallel. But remains established the fact that the Earth took a considerable time to form. We renounced forever the historic precise duration of six 24 hours days. …. My comment: The ‘Six Days’ of Genesis One, real 24-hour days, have nothing whatsoever to do with the duration of God’s work of creation, and it is futile to attempt to make them fit so-called scientific views about origins, such as the ‘Big Bang’, or an evolutionary-based geology. On this, see e.g. my article: What exactly is Creation Science? Part One: Our Western obsession with ‘Science’ https://www.academia.edu/35676906/What_exactly_is_Creation_Science_Part_One_Our_Western_obsession_with_Science Some have observed that the ‘Six Days’ (Hexaëmeron) may be a revelation of a creation already effected. Dr. Tassot continues: The further influence of Lagrange on Catholic exegesis is indisputable: he devised the three main ways to render the presence of scientific errors in the Bible acceptable. These were set out in five lectures given at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse a century ago, in November 1902, later published under the title The Historical Method. I will not dispute Lagrange’s dedication to the Church and the Bible. But we will touch here upon the direct influence of geology on the exegesis of the 20th century through Lagrange’s ideas. When a schoolboy, Lagrange used to wander with his uncle, a geologist, in the foothills of the Alps, where he lived. Maybe this explains how readily and completely he accepted the long ages, not only for the earth but also for the history of Man. He wrote in the Biblical Review, which he founded: Mankind is older than one believed when piously collecting the wrecks of remembrances assumed to be primitive. (…) Humanly speaking, oral transmission from the beginning of the world is supremely unbelievable. (…) To take the Genesis account as historical information, … its value is simply nil in informing us about what happened “in the night of times.” So Lagrange invented a new and paradoxical concept: “Legendary primitive history.” The Fall, the Curse, the Flood are neither true history nor simple myth. Genesis gives an account based on a “generating fact” but inevitably distorted and downgraded by the transmission through thousands of generations. Another such concept is that of “historical appearances.” Here Lagrange tried to transpose to history what Leo XIIIth said in Providentissimus Deus about astronomy (the Galileo affair!), that the Bible speaks “according to appearances.” From a Thomistic perspective, our senses give a true path to knowledge. But in the Kantian perspective of that time, “appearance” meant the opposite of reality. In 1919, Lagrange abandoned his theory of “historical appearances,” but the idea remained that the Bible had to be confined to the sphere of religion, and this was indeed the most secure way to prevent any conflict with science. The third method proposed by Lagrange to explain supposed natural science errors in the Bible was the theory of “literary genres.” The idea underlying this explanation was that one does not deceive when simply asserting the false, but only when teaching it: All that the sacred writers teach, God also teaches and this is true. But what do the sacred writers really teach? What they affirm categorically. But—it has been said for a long time—the Bible is not a collection of categorical theses or affirmations. There are such literary genres where nothing is taught concerning the reality of the facts. They only serve as basis for a moral teaching.” …. [And further:] “It is impossible that God teaches errors. Of course [there are places in] the Bible, where everybody is speaking errors; but it is impossible that an intelligent examination of the Bible compels us to conclude that God taught errors.” …. It is obvious that an intelligent use of these three methods is sufficient to get rid of any difficult passage of the Bible. But the authority of the Sacred Writings disappears at the same time, divine inspiration and inerrancy being inseparable! [End of quotes] We could term this method of exegesis as emptying the Bible of all of its meaning. Père Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855-1938) was a Dominican (OP) priest and the Dominicans figure rather prominently in my life inasmuch as OP priests celebrate Masses at the University of Sydney (St. John Paul II) chapel and at Notre Dame University (St. Benedict’s), at both of which places I attend, or have frequently attended in the past. The day that a well-informed friend of mine queried, in an e-mail, the strange biblical views that have emanated from the École Biblique which père Lagrange himself founded in Jerusalem, I happened to attend a Mass at the University of Sydney chapel celebrated by a learned Dominican priest. I thought that I must tell him about the concerned e-mail letter that I had just received, I being particularly interested to get his (Dominican) reaction. He is a scholar, basically a theologian, who seems to flit effortlessly around Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French for starters. It soon became clear to me, though, that the Scriptures were essentially, for him, about theology - fair enough - but that what my colleagues and I would consider to be historical accounts were written late, perhaps beginning “about 900 BC”, and that “Moses and Joshua could not personally have written about contemporary events, nor did they record dates”. He also made the typical comment that the early Scriptures would have been passed on by means of “oral tradition”. Also fair enough, but the written aspect always seems to get downplayed. Whilst some of this was starting to rub with me, especially that Moses and Joshua did not write down the biblical events of the time, I did not feel inclined to become argumentative or contrary with a man who has an easy-going, genial nature. But, at the same time, I tried to push home some bullet points, such as: - God told Moses and Joshua to “write”. - Moses, in Egypt, was already a learned man and a scribe. [Cf. Acts 7:22] “Yes”, he replied, “but he did not write in Hebrew, but in Egyptian”. Some of what the priest said here is, I believe, just plain wrong, and smacks of what I find that père Lagrange had written decades earlier. Deferring to the Numbers (Chronology) Men Whilst I (and apparently Monty Python) find accountancy, numbers, to be utterly BORING: Counsellor: (John Cleese) Ah Mr Anchovy. Do sit down. Anchovy: (Michael Palin) Thank you. Take the weight off the feet, eh? Counsellor: Yes, yes. Anchovy: Lovely weather for the time of year, I must say. Counsellor: Enough of this gay banter. And now Mr Anchovy, you asked us to advise you which job in life you were best suited for. Anchovy: That is correct, yes. Counsellor: Well I now have the results here of the interviews and the aptitude tests that you took last week, and from them we've built up a pretty clear picture of the sort of person that you are. And I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the ideal job for you is chartered accountancy. Anchovy: But I am a chartered accountant. Counsellor: Jolly good. Well back to the office with you then. Anchovy: No! No! No! You don't understand. I've been a chartered accountant for the last twenty years. I want a new job. Something exciting that will let me live. Counsellor: Well chartered accountancy is rather exciting isn't it? Anchovy: Exciting? No it's not. It's dull. Dull. Dull. My God it's dull, it's so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL. …. numbers appear to be greatly revered in modern times. Numbers seem to have replaced ideas. It probably has something to do with the power that measuring offers, and, even, of man’s seeking to be ‘the measure of all things’ (Protagoras). Mathematics makes a wonderful servant, but it can be a very cruel taskmaster. Chronologists are the powerful numbers men of (ancient) history. In Egyptology, historians and archaeologists deferred to the ‘superior wisdom’ of the numbers man, Berlin School chronologist, Eduard Meyer (c. 1906), and allowed him to create a chronology of dynastic Egypt that has little bearing on reality. See e.g. my: The Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited https://www.academia.edu/3665220/The_Fall_of_the_Sothic_Theory_Egyptian_Chronology_Revisited Was Meyer, the numbers man, dull? “The late great Classical scholar Werner Jaeger once said that the only time the lectures of the immortal Eduard Meyer were really interesting and the only time he was ever able to fill his lecture hall at the University of Berlin was when he talked about the Mormons”. Enough said! Meyer’s artificial dating of the Egyptian dynasties did not fit the shorter histories of, say, the Greeks and the Hittites. So, to save the situation, a massive slice of ‘Dark Ages’ (1200-700 BC) had to be inserted into these histories in order to ‘make’ them align with Egypt. These ‘Dark Ages’ did not occur in real history, and their insertion has caused a disruption to the proper sequence of Greek and Hittite history. Henk Spaan tells briefly what happened and how Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had identified the problem: http://www.henkspaan2.nl/velikovsky/15darkages.php The history of ancient Greece is usually divided into several periods. The Archaic period is the time of ancient Hellas, that ran until about 1200 BC and ended shortly after the Trojan War. During this period Mycenae was the centre. Then followed a period of decline, the Greek Middle Ages, also called Dark Ages, when the country was invaded by primitive Dorians. The Greek heyday that we call Classical Greece, when Athens was the main centre, lasted from about 700 to 323 BC. Finally there is the Hellenistic period that begins with the conquests of Alexander the Great throughout the Middle East. In the Hellenistic period, Alexandria was the centre and the period lasted until the Roman conquest of Egypt. The part of Velikovsky's work dealing with "the dark ages of Greece" never appeared in print. Velikovsky worked on it in the last years of his life, but could not finish it. It is published in the Internet archive of his work entitled "The Dark Age of Greece". The Mycenaean civilization is closely linked to the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. During excavations in Mycenae, many objects from the 18th Dynasty were found and vice versa in Akhet-Aten, the city that Akhnaton had built, much Mycenaean pottery was found. This means that there must have been a period of more than 500 years between Archaic Greece that existed until 1200 BC and Classical Greece that began around 700 BC. This period is called a dark age because we know little or nothing about it and little remains of this period are found. Understanding those 500 years is difficult, because 500 years of human activity, however primitive, must have left traces above the remains of Mycenaean civilization and there must have been rulers, however barbaric, about whom people wrote of with fear or surprise. However, those traces are not there and neither are the stories. Of the Greek Middle Ages we know of no people like Vikings or Charlemagne of AD history. Yet, if we move the Mycenaean civilization to 500 years later, it will be closer in line with the rise of Classical Greece and we are then more in line with what, for example, Herodotus and other Greek historians thought about their past. Furthermore, many problems become easier. For example, the famous riddle: how could Homer write a detailed report of the Trojan War if the war took place more than 500 years before Homer wrote his work? [End of quote] Thus, when the likes of W.F. Albright, in close alliance with the École Biblique, attempted to date Joshua’s Jericho, the absence of any Mycenaean pottery at the site meant that - at least according to what Eduard Meyer had established chronologically about the Egypt of the same time, that it was to be dated to c. 1400 BC - the Jericho destruction would inevitably have to be shifted back centuries before this time. A major part in all of this was played by another (pottery-) chronologist (numbers man) and another Dominican, père Louis-Hugues Vincent, who joined the École Biblique only a year after it was founded. Of course, coming for a Lagrangian background, père Vincent was always going to be operating from a base of biblical fluidity. He, being a pottery-chronologist, was accorded a respect similar to that of the ‘expert’, Meyer. Consequently, we now find ourselves in the situation in which the biblical events have been separated from their right archaeology and history by many centuries – almost a millennium (c. C24th BC) in the case of the famous Jericho incident. One of my correspondent’s main concerns was that this - the Bible’s no longer fitting with the textbook history - was one of the reasons why many dismiss much of the Scriptures as being myth or fantasy, having little in the way of historical credibility. “Didactic fiction” is how one elderly Dominican in Sydney has described the Book of Jonah. Not that the Bible is essentially about history, or science, of course. For the Dominican priest to whom I spoke, it is really about “theology”. According to pope Francis, in Aperuit Illis, it is about “our salvation” (# 9): The Bible is not a collection of history books or a chronicle, but is aimed entirely at the integral salvation of the person. The evident historical setting of the books of the Bible should not make us overlook their primary goal, which is our salvation. It is clear from this, though, that the biblical books have an “evident historical setting”, contrary to Lagrange’s view that early Genesis is pre-historical, but also non-historical (see below). Dei Verbum even has “our first parents” Abraham, Moses, and so on. …. 3. God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents. Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2). Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries. …. M. Lagrange, on the other hand, according to the following, denied early Genesis historicity: https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/dominicans/artifacts/the-bible-in-context/ …. His major challenge, however, would be to establish for fellow Catholics the importance of the Bible’s literary and historical contexts while still proclaiming it to be the Word of God. To promote Catholic biblical scholarship Lagrange founded first the periodical Revue biblique which was to publish articles on exegesis by teachers at the Jerusalem school and elsewhere, and second Études bibliques, a series of commentaries which began with a study of Judges published in 1903. Church censorship was a continual possibility. Lagrange challenged in his lectures and articles the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and he denied the historicity (though not the truth) of the creation narrative in Genesis 1–11. As a result, he found himself forbidden to publish a commentary on Genesis. [End of quote] The Dominican priest to whom I spoke did not actually deny an Adam and an Eve, but said: “The first man and woman are called Adam and Eve in Genesis, but these would not have been their real names as they are Hebrew names”. I also advanced this bullet point: - The JEDP sources that scholars claim to identify in the Book of Genesis are not fundamentally the sources from which Genesis was compiled. These latter are the toledôt divisions, to be read as endings of family histories, the histories of the pre-Moses patriarchs. Whilst the Dominican priest was familiar with toledôt, he did not comment on my insistence that they were endings, not headings. He admitted to being uncomfortable with JEDP – “you can’t preach it”. I also recalled to him the case of the French Catholic physician, Jean Astruc, really a pioneer of the modern documentary sources, who had intuitively discerned that the Flood account in Genesis appeared to have been composed from more than one source. The toledôt perfectly accounts for that, of course, it having been written by Noah’s three sons. The next series, I said, was signed off only by Shem, who must by then have become separated from his brothers, Ham and Japheth. Furthermore, I said, scholars who deny the influence of Moses in the compilation of the Pentateuch may not have any expertise in the ancient Egyptian language, and are not able, therefore, to discern a prevailing Egyptian influence throughout much of those books - this being an indication that these books, in their original states (before later editing) were written at an early point in time when Israel had been in close contact with Egypt, and not written in a later Babylonian period as the documentists insist. I queried that, if the early Bible were not really historically or archaeologically relevant, why was it that there is a substantial archaeology underlying e.g. the Conquest when properly dated, and not dated according to the whims of the unreliable chronologists. The Middle Bronze I (MBI) people - the priest knew of them - basically trace the same geographical pattern as do the Exodus Israelites, and they are known to have been bearing Egyptian artefacts. But conventional historians (the more biblically-minded ones) tend to identify the partially nomadic MBI as belonging to the time of Abram (Abraham). Once we fix Abram to his right stratigraphical level, however, which is Late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze I, we can identify the destruction caused by the four invading kings as narrated in Genesis 14, Amraphel of Shinar and his confederacy. All of this is a real history, with a real underpinning archaeology. The Book of James considered today Clearly a farmer is not expected to be patient over a period of centuries for his crop to emerge. And that is the difficulty with any timetable that does not accord with the bald statements of Jesus Christ and the Apostles that that very generation would be experiencing his “coming”. The emptying of the meaning from the holy Scriptures, that has already been considered in relation to the Dominican founder of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, Pere Marie-J. Lagrange (1855-1938), seems to be a continuing phenomenon among Dominican priests, with one recently emphasising to Catholics at a Mass in Sydney (Notre Dame University), with regard to Genesis: “Whatever you do, don’t take any of this literally”. Then, a few days later (15th December, 2019), another Dominican priest, at the same venue, made some statements regarding the New Testament Book of James that I would consider to be emptying that book of some of its meaning, and to be implying that the Apostles were rather clueless about “the Second Coming”. First of all, the priest claimed that the Book of James was written about 90 AD. That is after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD (conventional dating). And James was already dead by then. The bald statements of James regarding Jesus’ imminent return (5:7-8): “Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. … the coming of the Lord is at hand” [literally, “has drawn near”]”, was an indication to the Dominican priest that the Apostles did not have any idea as to when the Second Coming was due to occur. But, still, he added, we need to await it patiently just as does a farmer for the land to yield its crop. Clearly a farmer is not expected to be patient over a period of centuries for his crop to emerge. And that is the difficulty with any timetable that does not accord with the bald statements of Jesus and the Apostles that that very generation would be experiencing his “coming”: • Romans 13:12: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand” [literally, “the day has drawn near”]. • Hebrews 10:25: “[Do not neglect] to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourag[e] one another, and all the more as (because) you see the Day (already) drawing near.” • 1 Peter 4:7: “The end of all things is at hand” [“has drawn near”]. 70 AD, far from being a couple of decades before the Book of James was written, was the year when the prophesied “coming” would occur. For more on this, see e.g. my article: A Coming of Jesus before the Final Coming https://www.academia.edu/106150543/A_Coming_of_Jesus_before_the_Final_Coming Who was this James? The following article poses a similar question: Who Was James, the Brother of Jesus? It is no secret that the Catholic Church teaches, and has always taught, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was just that — a virgin — all the days of her life. This teaching does not come out of nowhere, but is based on a long tradition in Christian history. Despite this venerable Christian tradition, Mary’s perpetual virginity is one of the Catholic beliefs most often questioned by Protestants. It is interesting to note that most, if not all, Protestant denominations have no official teaching on whether or not Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus. Virtually all of the founding fathers of Protestantism (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al.) maintained a belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. Luther preached that “Christ … was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him” (Sermons on John, ch 1–4). Zwingli wrote, “I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact virgin” (Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, v. 1, p. 424.). Most Protestants today, however, assume Mary and Joseph would have had normal marital relations resulting in other children. This is not based on any new historical data unavailable to those in the early Church. Rather it is based on an assumption that … well, that’s just what married people do, isn’t it? For many, the belief that Jesus had younger siblings seems supported by the Bible itself. After all, we have verses like this: “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?” (Mk 6:3). Isn’t this biblical proof that Mary had other children besides Jesus? Before we delve into this specific question, it is important to keep one thing in mind …. The Church has studied the scriptures for thousands of years. Yet the Church maintains that Mary remained a virgin all her life. Has the Church somehow remained unaware of Mk 6:3 all this time? Or is there more to the story? “Brethren of the Lord” There are several other passages that mention the “brethren” of Jesus (Mt 12:46, Jn 7:5, Acts 1:14, 1 Cor 9:5). “Brethren” in this context has always been taken to mean “cousin.” This is how Martin Luther interpreted its meaning in his Sermons on John quoted from above. The reason for this is simple. There was no word for “cousin” in Hebrew or Aramaic (the language Jesus most likely would have spoken). The term “brother” or “brethren” was used generically for any male relative, and this is how it is used in the Greek of the New Testament (even though Greek does have a word for “cousin”). …. Those who maintain that James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were other biological children of Mary and Joseph might say that this “cousin” explanation is a little too convenient. But it can be demonstrated as true in at least one case — the case of James, the most famous “brother of the Lord.” St. James was one of the Apostles, the first leader of the Church in Jerusalem, and a very prominent figure in the early Church. Was he, in fact, another son of Mary and Joseph? We do know that his mother was named Mary. The gospels give us that information. But they also tell us that she was not Mary, the mother of Jesus. We can tell this by comparing the different gospel accounts of the women standing at the foot of the cross. “Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (Mt 27:56). “Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph, and Salome” (Mk 15:40). “And meanwhile his [Jesus’] mother, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene had taken their stand beside the cross of Jesus” (Jn 19:25). If we compare these three accounts, we see three women named Mary standing at the foot of the cross: Mary, the mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; and Mary, the wife of Cleophas who was also the mother of James and Joseph. So James’ mother was a Mary, but not the Mary (Mary is a very common name among 1st century Jewish women. I can’t cite it now, but I remember reading in one source that 25% of Jewish women of the era were named some version of “Mary”). What do we know of James’ father? In Mt 10:3, James is called the son of Alphaeus. It is worth noting that the Aramaic name for Alphaeus could be rendered in Greek as either Alphaeus or Clopas/Cleophas. Since James’ mother Mary is described as the “wife of Cleophas” in Jn 19:25, this is probably the same man described here. And what do we know of him? Not too much from the scriptures, but according to the 2nd century historian Hegesippus, he was the brother of Joseph, Jesus’ foster-father. This would make James the cousin of Jesus. However, even if Hegesippus is wrong about that detail, we still know from the gospel accounts that James is the son of Alphaeus/Cleophas and a different Mary, and not the son of Mary (mother of Jesus) and Joseph. In other words, James cannot be the biological brother of Jesus. Does this prove the perpetual virginity of Mary? No. But it does show the danger of challenging any long-held and well-established Christian teaching on the basis of one or two “proof texts” from the Bible. Benedict XVI - Bible “based on history” “The evident historical setting of the books of the Bible should not make us overlook their primary goal, which is our salvation”. Pope Francis In this article I have suggested that the ‘emptying Scripture of its meaning’ exegetical approach of Père Lagrange of the École Biblique appears to have been followed by contemporary Dominicans. From the recent exhortation by one to by no means take literally the content of the Book of Genesis, to another’s insisting that neither Moses nor Joshua wrote down contemporary records - biblical writing did not begin until “900 BC” - to another’s labelling the book of Jonah “didactic fiction”, to another’s uncertainty as to whether Daniel and his three friends were actual historical characters. And that is only a part of it. As a Christian, I found the last one, concerning the Book of Daniel, to be particularly disconcerting as the aged priest mentioned it in a sermon in which he also proposed that the courageous witness of Daniel and his three friends, in the face of fierce persecution, ought serve to strengthen us today as we face persecution and ridicule for our faith. Well, I don’t know how other Christians would feel about this, but if ISIS had a knife at my throat ordering me to renounce my faith, I would not find it terribly consoling to have that particular Dominican close, Book of Daniel in hand, urging me to remember the heroic witness of Daniel and his three friends. “But you said they may not have been real!!!” Far more refreshingly, I think, pope Benedict XVI had insisted that the Bible was “based on history” (as quoted by Greg Sheridan in “Christmas story still resonates down the ages”): The former Pope Benedict, in his magisterial, scholarly book, Jesus of Nazareth, explains the importance of historicity: “It is of the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events. It does not tell stories symbolising supra-historical truths, but is based on history, history that took place here on this Earth.” Benedict also explains the severe limits of the historical-critical method in trying to deconstruct the New Testament. Concerning biblical critical studies, which once in their wilder speculations did much to undermine religious faith, Benedict writes: “We have to keep in mind the limits of all our efforts to know the past: We can never go beyond the domain of hypothesis because we simply cannot bring the past into the present. To be sure, some hypotheses enjoy a high degree of certainty, but overall we need to remain conscious of the limit of our certainties”. And more recently pope Francis referred to, in “Aperuit Illis” (# 9): “The evident historical setting of the books of the Bible …”. First, recalling Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, Dei Verbum stresses that “we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures” (No. 11). Since the Scriptures teach with a view to salvation through faith in Christ (cf. 2 Tim 3:15), the truths contained therein are profitable for our salvation. The Bible is not a collection of history books or a chronicle, but is aimed entirely at the integral salvation of the person. The evident historical setting of the books of the Bible should not make us overlook their primary goal, which is our salvation. Everything is directed to this purpose and essential to the very nature of the Bible, which takes shape as a history of salvation in which God speaks and acts in order to encounter all men and women and to save them from evil and death. ….

Habakkuk’s solar imagery highly compatible with Akhnaton’s Aten

“Your glory was like the sunrise. Rays of light flashed from your mighty hand. Your power was hidden there”. Habakkuk 3:4 Nili Shupak, of the University of Haifa, has detected what appears to be a definite influence from Akhnaton’s Atenism imagery upon chapter 3 of the Book of Habakkuk. I refer to Shupak’s article, “The God from Teman and the Egyptian Sun God: A Reconsideration of Habakkuk 3:3–7”. Before proceeding to some of Nili Shupak’s comparisons, I need to say who I (at least) consider both pharaoh Akhnaton (Akhenaten) and Habakkuk to have been. Taking Habakkuk first, although he post-dated Akhnaton, I merely repeat my summary of the prophet, as to his alter egos, from my article: Magi were not necessarily astronomers or astrologers (4) Magi were not necessarily astronomers or astrologers …. In what follows it will become clear why I strongly favour this, albeit poorly known, tradition. But, for this to be facilitated, it is necessary for the prophet Job to be fully identified. Firstly, Job was Tobias son of Tobit of the (Catholic) Book of Tobit. This connection imposed itself forcefully upon my mind on this very same day (1st January, Solemnity of the Mother of God) some decades ago. Secondly Tobias (Job), who lived in neo-Assyrian captivity - and on into the Chaldean and Medo-Persian eras - and who must therefore also have had a foreign name, was the prophet Habakkuk (an Akkadian name). Thirdly, the Jews must have shortened the unfamiliar name Habakkuk to Hakkai (or Haggai). [End of quote] In sum: The prophet Habakkuk, abbreviated to (Hakkai) Haggai, was the famous prophet Job, as well as Tobias, son of Tobit. He was a righteous and very pure man who had received angelic visitation (cf. Job 16:19; Tobit 5:4-12:22; Daniel 14:34-36). As for Akhnaton, he I have variously identified in e.g. my article: Syrian Kingmaker in Ancient Egypt (DOC) Syrian Kingmaker in Ancient Egypt as the biblical leper, Na’aman and Hazael the Syrian, as El Amarna’s Syrian, Aziru (according to Dr. I. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos, I), but also - most importantly for my Syrian-Egyptian connection - as the Arsa (Irsu), or Aziru, of the Great Harris Papyrus, a Syrian who took control of Egypt and its gods. Akhnaton, prior to his becoming pharaoh, was the legendary Amenhotep son of Hapu, dutifully serving Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, whom I have identified also as the biblical Ben-Hadad, a veritable master king. Now, coming to consider what Nili Shupak has written, concerning the influence of Atenist imagery upon Habakkuk 3, I need firstly to recall the fact that Akhnaton was, in a properly revised (Velikovskian-based) El Amarna, influenced by King David. The pharaoh’s famous Hymn to the Aton has often been compared to David’s Psalm 104. See e.g. “Parallelism between “The Hymn to Aten” and Psalm 104”: https://projectaugustine.com/biblical-studies/ancient-near-east-studies/parallelism-between-the-hymn-to-aten-and-psalm-104/ Typically, though, but wrongly, Akhnaton is given the chronological precedence over King David. Nili Shupak writes: file:///C:/Users/Damien%20Mackey/Downloads/janes_28_shupak_nili_the_god_from_teman_and_the_egyptian_sun_god%20(4).pdf …. A new explanation in the Egyptian setting a. Amarna religion The problematic verse may be resolved in light of the perceptions and beliefs prevalent in Egypt in the fourteenth century b.c.e., [sic] known as the Amarna or the Aten religion. This religion extraordinary in the history of Egypt, was introduced by Amenhotep IV, Akhenaten, who ascended the throne in 1351 and reigned until 1334. Some regard the religious reform of this king as the first attestation of monotheism in the world. But whether it was a true monotheism or not, it is clear that Amarna religion was belief in one god, the god Aten. A new iconographic symbol was given this god, a sun disc with radiating rays each terminating in human hands imparting signs of life (‘nh) and strength (w·s) to the king and his family (see figure 1). The idea expressed in this symbol, namely, the god bestowing grace upon the king, is represented both in the art of the period—i.e., in the wall decorations of buildings and tombs—and in the inscriptions of the king and his high officialdom. For instance, in the inscription from the tomb of a courtier named Tutu, it is said: [When you are shining] you light up (˙q.k) the two countries (i.e., Egypt) and your rays (stwt.k) are (shining) upon your beloved son, your hands carry life (‘nh) and power (w·s). In the boundary stelae of Amarna, the new capital built by Akhenaten, the king declares that when Aten shines in Akhetaten (Amarna) he fills it with “his fair and loving rays, which he casts upon me, consisting of life (‘nh) and dominion (w·s) forever and ever.” The main source of our knowledge of the new religion is the Hymn to the Aten, which was probably composed by the king himself. As it appears from this hymn, one of the main features of the Amarna religion is the concept of the Aten as a universal god—no longer a national god of Egypt alone but the god who created all people and all languages, the god who bestows life and nurtures all of humankind. The Aten is the god of Egypt’s neighbors in north and south, Syria and Nubia—in the words of the hymn: The lands of Hor and Kush The land of Egypt, You set every man in his place, You supply their needs; Everyone has his food His lifetime is counted . . . You made Nile (Hapy) in the netherworld You bring him when you will, To nourish the people . . . All distant lands, you make them live, You made a heavenly Nile (Hapy) descend to them (The Hymn to the Aten, ll. 8–9). Another innovation in Amarna religion is the ritual of light. The emphasis is not on worshiping the sun as a physical body that projects heat, but the adoration of the sun as a celestial luminary, the origin of light.18 Already in the very beginning of Akhenaten’s reign, when the sun god was still called by his old name, Re-Harakhti, and depicted in the traditional image of a man with a falcon’s head wearing a sun disc, it was said that he rejoices in the horizon “in his name Shu (the god of light) which is in (or from) the Aten (the sun disc)” (The Hymn to the Aten, l.1). Light is the source of life on earth: “You are indeed one, but millions of lives (are) inside you to make them life” (The Short Hymn to the Aten).19 The terminology and expressions accompanying the description of the god Aten are usually associated with the semantic field of light: to illuminate (ssp, s’˙d, psd), to shine (wbn), rays (stwt), brilliance (t˙n).20 The opposite of this light is night’s darkness (kkw), which symbolizes death: “When you set in western horizon, Earth is in darkness as if in death” (The Hymn to the Aten, l. 3).21 Another element which distinguishes the new religion is the abstraction of the god’s image. The god Aten, unlike more ancient gods, is not presented as a sculpted or painted image. The concept is that the heavenly image of the god cannot be rendered as an earthly materialization (theomorphism). This concept is expressed in the following saying of the king: “(God is) the one who built himself with his own hands, and no craftsman knows him.”22 The only tangible embodiment of the god Aten, then, is on the one hand, the sun disc in the sky—“You alone, shining in your forms of Aten” (The Hymn to the Aten, l. 1123)—and on the other, the king, the earthly embodiment of the celestial god: There is no other who knows you, Only your son, Neferkheprure, Wa-ni-Re (The Hymn to the Aten, l. 12).24 The Aten religion, then, was essentially universal, focused on the celestial light, the sun, which exists anywhere on earth, unlinked to any particular theomorphic materialization. Therefore, it may well have been more apt for propagation among the neighboring cultures than any Egyptian religious concept that preceded it. - 18. Cf. J. Assmann, “Die ‘Häserie’ des Echnaton. Aspekte der Amarna-Religion,” Saeculum 23 (1972), 116–18; D. B. Redford, “The Sun Disc in Akhenaten’s Program: Its Worship and Antecedents, I,” JARCE 13 (1976), 47–56; J. P. Allen, “The Natural Philosophy of Akhenaten,” in W. K. Simpson, ed., Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (New Haven, 1989), 89–101; E. Hornung, Echnaton, Die Religion des Lichtes (Zürich, 1995), 61–62. 19. In addition to the “Hymn to the Aten” found in the tomb of Ay, the Commander of Chariotry, theAmarna tombs also contained a shorter version of the hymn which is named here “The Short Hymn to the Aten.” Sandman, Texts, 15, lines 4–9; Lichtheim, Literature, 2.90–92; Murnane, Texts, 159. 20. The perception of the Aten (the physical sun disc) as a source of light is perhaps also reflected inthe musicians’ custom in the Amarna period of tying a white band over their eyes; L. Manniche, “Symbolic Blindness,” Cd’E 53 (1978), 13–21. 21. See n. 17 above. 22. W. Helck, Urkunden der 18 Dynastie (Berlin, 1958–71), 22.12–13. 23. See n. 17 above. 24. See n. 17 above. b. Interpreting Hab. 3:4 on the basis of Amarna religion Difficult terminology and expressions that are supposedly ambiguous and obscure in Hab. 3:4 may be clarified and explained in view of the Egyptian belief in the god Aten. hZo[U ˆ/yb}j< µv…w]÷/l /dY;mI µyin'r]q'÷hy,h}TI r/aK" hg'now is a literal description of the Egyptian god’s symbol. hy,h}TI r/aK" Hg'now. The primary meaning of Hg'no is “brilliance” or “brightness” deriving from light, and it is often borrowed to describe the appearance of God (see, e.g., Ezek. 1:4, 13, 27; 10:4 [in reference to God’s glory]; Ps. 18:13; 2 Sam. 22:13). r/a here means sunlight, so the meaning of hy,h}TI r/aK" Hg'now is that the brilliance and brightness, accompanying an epiphany of God, are like sunlight. In the two remaining cola of the verse the Hebrew God seems to carry the image of the Egyptian sun god, the Aten. /l /dY;mI µyin'r]q'. In /dY;mI the mem (“from”), as the prefix of the word, should be deleted, as dittography of the mem that is the suffix of the previous word µyin'r]q'. /l should be interpreted as genitive lamed, meaning rays (are) his own hands. The difficulty in this explanation is in the repetition of the possessive indication wdy, “his hand,” and /l, “his.” It would be preferable to apply hy,h}TI in the first colon to the second colon also: wl (hyht) wdy µynrq, “his hand will be rays.” Be that as it may, the meaning of the verse is, God’s rays are his hands. hZo[U ˆ/yb}j< µv…w]. µv…w] indicates the hands, or the rays shaped like hands, where God’s power is hidden. hZo[U, his power, refers to the hieroglyphic sign w·s (Gr. S40), the symbol of power and dominion bestowed upon the king and his royal family by the god Aten (see figure 2). Hence, the interpretation of the verse in light of the Egyptian parallel is: the epiphany of God resembles the rising sun, accompanied by intense light, and in his rays, which are his hands, his charismatic power lies hidden. Hab. 3:4 is therefore a literal description of the Egyptian icon. The symbol of the Egyptian sun god from the Amarna period was borrowed to describe the appearance of the Hebrew God. The advantage of this explanation is in the fact that it leaves the Masoretic text intact, except for a minor emendation, namely, omission of the mem to correct an error of dittography. Additional Egyptian features in Hab. 3:3–7 Further support for this interpretation is provided by the following details, which appear in the first part (vv. 3–7) of Habakkuk 3, there too revealing a certain contact with Egypt. a. On the one hand, the image of Yhwh as depicted in this part of the chapter differs from the image that follows in the second part (vv. 8ff.), but, on the other hand, it is close to the description of the god Aten in the Amarna writings. b. The portrayal of Yhwh arriving from south (vv. 3–7) is clearly related to the biblical tradition of the Israelites’ origin being in the south, in Egypt. c. Additional motifs in vv. 3–7 may be explained against the Egyptian background, and not necessarily—as they have generally been interpreted until now—as a product of contact with Canaanite or Mesopotamian mythology. We shall discuss these matters in detail. a. Yhwh is portrayed in vv. 3–7 as an abstract, ethereal image. His glory and fame, his brilliance and power, are mentioned (vv. 3–4). His revelation, we are told, shatters the forces of nature and causes dread among people (vv. 6–7). However, nothing is said about Yhwh’s emotions. The absence of reference to this is remarkable by comparison with the second part of the hymn, where we are told about God’s “wrath” (vv. 8, 12), his “anger” (v. 8), and his “rage” (v. 12). The deity, as described in the first part of Habakkuk 3 then, is cold and calculating, devoid of emotions such as anger, mercy, and forgiveness. These characteristics are typical of the Egyptian god Aten; as Redford has put it: But the new concept of deity that Akhenaten produces is rather cold. His disc created the cosmos and keeps it going; but he seems to show no compassion to his creatures. He produces them with life and sustenance, but in a rather perfunctory way. No text tell us he hears the cry of the poor man, or has compassion on the sick, or forgives the sinner. This portrayal of the god Aten is quite different from the image of the Hebrew God as he is usually described in the Bible. The latter is a deity of mercy and grace, who responds to the suffering and misfortune of the individual and the community; this is a god who repents and regrets what he has done, but also a god who can be vengeful and resentful; a god that becomes enraged, and vents his wrath upon his enemies (Gen. 6:6–7; Exod. 34:6–7; Num. 14:18–20; Deut. 32:11, 21–24, 41–43, etc.). b. The arrival of God from the south, and his appearance, are described in vv. 3–7: God came from Teman, a/by; ˆm:yTEmI H"/la” the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. hl:s< ˆr;aP: rh"mE ç/dq:w] His Glory covered the heavens, wdwh µymç hsk and the earth was full of his praise. . . . . . . ≈rah halm /tL:hIt}W He stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. The eternal mountains were shattered. d[" yrer]h" wxx}Pøt}yw' the everlasting hills sank low . . . . . . µl:w[ t/[b}Gi wjvæ I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction; ˆç…Wk ylEh’a: ytIyaIr; ˆw,a: tj"T" the tent curtains of the land of Midian trembled (NRSV). ˆy;d]mI ≈r,a, t/[yriy] ˆWzGr]yi The tradition concerning the arrival of God from the south recurs in three other poetic passages, usually considered among the earliest compositions in the biblical literature: Judg. 5:4–5; Ps. 68:8–9; and Deut. 33:2. These three passages, as well as the aforementioned section from Habakkuk, belong to the literary pattern of theophany, and resemble each other, in structure and content, as shown by Jeremias. The uniform structure includes the mentioning of God, a verb or verbs referring to his arrival, and a place name, preceded by the preposition min/m (from). The common content is the description of God’s arrival, the effect of his appearance on natural forces—earth, sky, mountains and hills, and the names of the places: Seir, Mount Paran (parallel to Sinai in Deuteronomy 33), Field of Edom, and Teman. Hab. 3:3– 7 describes God as he arrives from Teman and Mount Paran. He casts his wrath and dread upon mountains and hills, as well as on human beings residing in the areas near the site of the apparition, Kushan, Midian, and perhaps also On (see discussion below). Of the three parallel passages, the closest to Habakkuk is Deut. 33:2: The LORD came from Sinai, and dawned from Seir wml ry[çm jrzw ab ynysm òh upon them; he shone forth from Mount Paran. With him were çdqø tbøbrm htaw ˆrap rhm [ypwh myriads of holy ones; at his right, a host of his own (NRSV). wml tD;v‘aE wnymym The arrival of God is indicated here by the verb jrz, meaning to rise up, to shine, associated with the sun, like µynrq in Hab. 3:4; and, perhaps, also by the word tD;v‘aE, which some scholars suggested to explain on the basis of Aramaic and Syriac, as outpouring, diffusion of light, namely an abundance of light to the right side of God. Thus, in Deuteronomy 33, as well as in Habakkuk 3, the description of God arriving from the south is tinted with solar elements. In Habakkuk the names Teman and Mount Paran indicate the stations in God’s passage in his travel from the south. Teman is not mentioned in the parallel passages, but it appears in the Bible as a synonym or in reference to Edom and Seir, as in Judges 5 or Deuteronomy 33.36 Mount Paran, which in Hab. 3:3 stands in parallelism with Teman, is identified as a region south of Canaan, east or west of the Arabah.37 Even though these names originally indicated some specific areas, they appear to refer to the southern region in general when used in the literary pattern of theophany. Likewise, Kushan and Midian in verse 7 should not be understood as specific regions but as the general wandering area of the nomadic tribes, the Kushites and Midianites. It extends from the southern part of Transjordan in the east to the Egyptian border in the west.38 As mentioned, the tradition reflected in these passages on the arrival of God from the south is an archaic heritage, and from recent archaeological discoveries, it seems to have been well known in Israel in the First Temple period. These discoveries include inscriptions from the 9th–8th centuries b.c.e., discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai, a site which served as a stage for caravans on their way south to Elat. In these inscriptions the name YHWH Tmn appears several times, and in one of them the verb zr˙ is used to describe the appearance of God, exactly as in Deuteronomy 33: mrh nsmyw . . . la jrzbw meaning, “when God shines forth . . . the mountains melt.”39 As in the biblical passages dealing with the theophany, the phrase YHWH Tmn should also be understood here as a reference to God’s arrival from the south, and not as an indication of a local god. Travelers heading south would pray to this god to assure them a safe and sound journey. Reigned over the Israelites,” in A. Hurvitz, E. Tov, S. Japhet, eds., Studies in Biblical Literature (Jerusalem, 1992), 191, and by Avishur, Studies, 163. This meaning is also maintained by Cassuto, “Deuteronomy Chapter XXXIII and the New Year in Ancient Israel,” Biblical and Oriental Studies (Jerusalem, 1973), 1.50. 36. Teman is the name of Esau’s grandson (Gen. 36:11) and a region of Edom (Gen. 36:34 = 1 Chron.1:53); it stands in parallelism with Edom and Seºir (Obad. 8–9, Jer. 49:7, 20). 37. For the location of Mountain Paran and its references in the Bible see Hiebert, God, 86–88. 38. The Midianites are depicted in the Bible as nomads wandering in the southern marches of Israel,which include the Sinai peninsula as far as southern Transjordan (Gen. 25:4–6; 36:35; Num. 10:29–31, etc.; Josh. 13:21; Judg. 6:3, 33, 7:12, 1 Kgs. 11:18). As to Kusan, Albright was the first to identify it with the Kusu who appear in the Egyptian sources as early as the second millennium b.c.e. (in the Execration Texts [Posener E50–51] and in the Tale of Sinuhe, l. 220). These sources show that Kusan was one of the nomadic tribes that lived in the deserts located in the south and southwest of Israel. The close relation between the Midianites and the Cushites is evident from the fact that Zipporah, Moses’ wife, is at times called a Midianite (Exod. 2:16–21) and at times a Cushite (Num. 12:1) (supposing that the two passages refer to the same woman). Scholars assume that these two tribes were blended into one national identity. See Hiebert, God, 88–89; B. Mazar, “Cushan,” Encyclopaedia Biblica (Jerusalem, 1962), 4.70–71; idem, Canaan and Israel (Jerusalem, 1974), 17–18, n. 15 [in Hebrew]. 39. The complete text is as follows: . . . µ(Ni)nub}G' ˆKUd'yw ÷µrih: ˆSUm"yw ÷ . . . la j"rzbW hm:j:l}mI µyoB} laE µv´l} ÷hmjlm µyoB} l["B" ˚reb:l} See S. A˙ituv, Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions (Jerusalem, 1992), 160–61 [in Hebrew]; M. Weinfeld, “Recent Publications 3: Further Remarks on the Ajrud Inscriptions,” Shnaton 6–7 (1978– 79), 238 [in Hebrew]; idem, “Kuntillet ºAjrud Inscriptions and Their Significance,” Studie Epigrafici e Linguistici 1 (1984), 126. The tradition of the southern origin of the Hebrew God, which recurs in the Bible and in extra-biblical sources, has an apparently historical basis. Support for this may be found in the Egyptian sources. In topographical lists from the time of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten’s father [sic], and in copies of these lists from the period of Ramesses II (13th century b.c.e.), [sic] there is a region named t· s·sw Yhw, “ land of the Shasu Yehu.” Since this region is followed in the list by “the land of Shasu Seir” we assume that we are dealing here with a region named after Yehu, a local god who was worshiped in the land of Seir, the wandering area of the tribes of Midian and Kushan mentioned in Habakkuk 3. Finally the difficult phrase at the beginning of verse 7 ytIyaIr; ˆw,a: tj"T" has been emended to read ar;ytIw] ˆ/a tj"TE “On will fear and be frightened.” This emendation is supported by the fact that at least in one other reference in the Bible the spelling of the Egyptian town On is ˆw,a: (Ezek. 30:17; cf. Gen. 41:45, 50, etc.; and perhaps also Ps. 78:51). According to this version the city On, Iwn in the Egyptian sources, which was located in the northern part of present-day Cairo, should be added to the list of landmarks on God’s journey from the south. This detail is significant to our discussion since that city was an important center of sun worship in Egypt, from the Old Kingdom period to the late period, as attested by its Greek name Heliopolis, the sun city. Furthermore, Akhenaten was brought up and raised in On, and also served as the “First Prophet” of the local god Re-Harakhti. An additional argument seems to exist here in support of understanding Habakkuk 3 in light of the Amarna period in Egypt. In sum, whether the city of On is connoted in Hab. 3:7 or not, there is no doubt that Hab. 3:3–7, as well as Deut. 33:2 and the inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud, all reflect a tradition that uses solar elements vividly to depict God’s arrival from the south. ….