Saturday, April 8, 2017

The Church of God Leader Timeline


The best at prophecy since I was 19



Dave has been a theological genius since he was19 yeas old.   No Church of God leader in the  entire span of humanity's lifetime has ever been as thoroughly trained as he has.  Well, maybe except for Bob Thiel.  But even he is turns into a blubbering theological simpleton at the mere mention of Dave's name!

Dave claims that even though he has been thoroughly trained a the feet of HWA, since he was 19, that the just did not understand things totally.  Thus, his god has had to dream up special revelations for Dave to utter.
But I will never throw a stone at anyone, because I had it wrong, and I surely studied prophecy more than anyone. I’m telling you…I tell you, before God…And I hope Mr. Armstrong can come up and tell you about our discussions of prophecy. I studied it more than anybody. If I’m going to start with an indictment, I’d have to indict myself. It was not God’s time to see it. It was just not God’s time to see it. Now, there are other men who studied prophecy. Nobody studied it like I did. And you could probably understand, God put a passion in me when I was 19 years old—the beginning of my sophomore year. I could pull out papers I did in the fall of 1968, digging, and trying to understand. I’ve talked about that. And I didn’t see it. If you’re programmed a certain way, you’ll see it a certain way.

Germans Will Soon Be Joining With Blacks To Punish and Kill Americans, British, Australians


Dave Pack is up to his old tricks, as usual.  He has to scare the living daylights out of his dwindling church members.  The Germans will be rising up and joining up with the "Queen of Sheba" (African blacks) to punish and destroy the sinful people of the British Israelite nations.  Americans, Canadians, British, Australians, and other BI nations will soon be hanging off meathooks as they watch their children being raped and slaughtered in front of them.  What other group of people than Church of God members could dream up and take delight in such a scenarios!

You know what God says? I’m going to have those Gentiles, come up with you in judgment. Now that’s interesting, because we thought the wicked were coming up 100 years later. You’re going to find out, they don’t. Keep listening. They’re going to come up, and I’m going to have the Gentiles tell you, you’re out. Think about it. The Germans, the Assyrians, were the dreaded enemies of Israel. God used them over and over to punish Israel. We’ve been to war with them twice in the last century, and it started thousands of years ago. I’m going to take your worst enemies, because they listened to Me and I’m going to use them.
They’re not the God family. They didn’t come up in the resurrection to eternal life. If they had, they’d have been up 1,000 years earlier. Proof that they’re not in the God family, and God is using them as members of His family to condemn them, is they come up together, after the Millennium. So He’s going to use those physical human beings, who had good attitudes…We’re about to read another one…who had good attitudes to tell them, “You’re thrust out.” Ooh, that will be hard to hear. Talk about weeping and gnashing of teeth…But, brethren, we’re understanding judgment. Let’s read one more, then let’s talk.
“The queen of the south [a black, African Gentile] shall rise up in the judgment with this generation…[Here’s what God thinks of black people, by the way; a little insight here.]…and shall condemn it…[Whoa…Can you imagine?]…for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon [God] is here” (Matt. 12:42).
So God takes people, who are so unlikely for us to believe…these Germans, ferocious warriors, the toughest the world’s ever seen…God is going to use them one more time to punish His people. We’ll be hearing that in the month of November. We’ll talk more about that. And this African Queen…coming up together. Obviously, they didn’t go on to eternal life. They didn’t. But they were good people. They listened—and they were Gentiles. How bitter will that be? Now, look if God tells you, you’re out, or if the prophets, or the apostles, or any member of the God family tells you you’re out, that would be bitter enough…but to hear it from your worst enemies? That’s God’s plan. You need to baptize your mind into that thinking.

PCG: Satan Wins Everytime. More Powerful Than Jesus


One of Gerald Flurry's grand kids is lecturing the slowly dwindling flock of the Philadelphia Church of God on how powerful their mythical satan is.

Vienna Flurry writes about the all powerful Satan who "always wins!"
We, as teens in God’s Church, have in our possession a vast amount of spiritual wealth, just like Atahualpa and Zedekiah had physical wealth. Our adversary is much more dangerous than theirs were, however. Our adversary is Satan, and he is constantly looking for every opportunity to take our spiritual wealth away from us. 1 Peter 5:8 says “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Satan hates the fact that our future is to be a part of God’s Family. He threw his glorious future away, and he does not want us to inherit ours.  
It’s easy for us to think we are smarter than the devil, or that we know the kinds of things he does to tempt us. But we have to know that we can’t play his game! He will always win. We can’t think that if we “bargain” with him, he will keep his promises. If we do something wrong even once, he can use that to weaken our character and get us to make the same mistake again. He will never let us go once he has us in his clutches.
What more can you expect from a group that knows little about Jesus.  Never once in her article did she mention Jesus, or any of the concepts portrayed in scriptures as to what Jesus accomplished and who or what he conquered.  Fear still is the big motivator in the Church of God.  Satan is given more power than the god they claim to worship
On our own, we stand no chance of defeating this roaring lion. Thankfully, we have God on our side! We must do our part by obeying Him and putting Him first in our lives. We must do our part to resist Satan’s temptations. We must do our part to submit to God. And if we do, then God gives us a great promise: The devil will flee from us (James 4:7)! 
We have a source of protection that is much more powerful than mere the promise of gold or silver. We have the great God. Make sure you tap into His power. 
Vienna, her grandad and her father know nothing of the man they claim to follow let alone the god they claim to know.  Morally and spiritually bankrupt people are incapable of understanding any concept of that incredibly inconvenient dude who embarrasses the hell out of them.  Their god is no more going to fight some mythical  battle with their idea of a satan than Bob Thiel is a prophet of God.

Friday, April 7, 2017

Passover Musings: But Is It and Does It Have to be Literally True?



"The Exodus (from Greek ἔξοδος exodos, "going out") is the founding, or etiologicalmyth of Israel; its message is that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant.[1][Notes 1] It tells of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt following the death of Joseph, their departure under the leadership of Moses, the revelations at Sinai (including the Ten Commandments), and their wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan.[2] The exodus story is told in the books of ExodusLeviticusNumbers, and Deuteronomy, and their overall intent was to demonstrate God's actions in history, to recall Israel's bondage and salvation, and to demonstrate the fulfillment of Israel's covenant.[3]
The historicity of the story continues to attract popular attention, but the archaeological evidence does not support the historicity of the Book of Exodus.[4] The opinion of the overwhelming majority of modern biblical scholars is that it was shaped into its final present form in the post-Exilic period,[5] although the traditions behind it are older and can be traced in the writings of the 8th century BCE prophets.[6] It is unclear how far beyond that the tradition might stretch: according to historian Carol Redmount, "Presumably an original Exodus story lies hidden somewhere inside all the later revisions and alterations, but centuries of transmission have long obscured its presence, and its substance, accuracy and date are now difficult to determine."[3]
The Exodus has been central to Judaism. It served to orient Jews towards the celebration of God's actions in history, in contrast to polytheistic celebrations of the gods' actions in nature, and even today it is recounted daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated in the festival of Passover. In secular history the exodus has served as inspiration and model for many groups, from early Protestant settlers fleeing persecution in Europe to 19th and 20th century African-Americans striving for freedom and civil rights.[7]
Many of modern biblical scholars hold the opinion that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the series of five books which consist of the Book of Genesis plus the books in which the Exodus story is told) was shaped in the post-exilic period[5] (c. 538–332 BCE). There are currently two important hypotheses explaining the background to this theory:
  1. The first is Persian Imperial authorization, the idea that the post-exilic community needed a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system
  2. The second relates to the community of citizens organized around the Temple, with the Pentateuch providing the criteria for who would belong to it (the narratives and genealogies in Genesis) and establishing the power structures and relative positions of its various groups.[9]
In either case, the Book of Exodus is a "charter myth" for Israel: Israel was delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belongs to him through the covenant.[1]
The final form of the Pentateuch was based on earlier written and oral traditions.[10][11] These have left traces in over 150 references throughout the Bible.[12]The earliest traces of these earlier traditions are in the books of prophets Amos (possibly) and Hosea (certainly), both active in 8th century BCE Israel. In contrast, Proto-Isaiah and Micah, both of whom were active in Judah at much the same time, show no similar traces. It thus seems reasonable to conclude the Exodus tradition was important in the northern kingdom in the 8th century BCE, but not in Judah.[6]
In a recent work, Stephen C. Russell traces the 8th-century BCE prophetic tradition to three originally separate variants, in the northern Kingdom of Israel, inTransjordan, and in the southern Kingdom of Judah respectively. Russell proposes different hypothetical historical backgrounds to each tradition:[12]
  • The tradition from Israel, which involves a journey from Egypt to the region of Bethel, he suggests is a memory of herders who could move to and from Egypt in times of crisis
  • For the Transjordanian tradition, which focuses on deliverance from Egypt without a journey, he suggests a memory of the withdrawal of Egyptian control at the end of the Late Bronze Age
  • For Judah, whose tradition is preserved in the Song of the Sea, Russell suggests the celebration of a military victory over Egypt, although it is impossible to suggest what this victory may have been.

Cultural significance

Main article: Passover
The exodus is remembered daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated each year at the feast of Passover.[13] The Hebrew name for this festival, Pesach, refers to God's instruction to the Israelites to prepare unleavened bread as they would be leaving Egypt in haste, and to mark their doors with the blood of slaughtered sheep so that the "Angel of Death" or "the destroyer" tasked with killing the first-born of Egypt would "pass over" them. Despite the Exodus story, a majority of scholars do not believe that the Passover festival originated as described in the biblical story.[14]
Jewish tradition has preserved national and personal reminders of this pivotal narrative in daily life. Examples include the wearing of tefillin (phylacteries) on the arm and forehead, the wearing of tzitzit (knotted ritual fringes attached to the four corners of the prayer shawl), the eating of matzot (unleavened bread) during the Pesach, the fasting of the firstborn a day before Pesach, and the redemption of firstborn children and animals.

Summary

There is no indication that the Israelites ever lived in Ancient Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula shows almost no sign of any occupation for the entire 2nd millennium BCE, and even Kadesh-Barnea, where the Israelites are said to have spent 38 years, was uninhabited prior to the establishment of the Israelite monarchy.[15]Such elements as could be fitted into the 2nd millennium could equally belong to the 1st, and are consistent with a 1st millennium BCE writer trying to set an old story in Egypt.[16] So while a few scholars, notably Kenneth Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier, continue to discuss the historicity, or at least plausibility, of the story, arguing that the Egyptian records have been lost or suppressed or that the fleeing Israelites left no archaeological trace or that the huge numbers are mistranslated, the majority have abandoned the investigation as "a fruitless pursuit".[17][18]

Numbers and logistics

According to Exodus 12:37–38, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock. Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550 men aged 20 and up. It is difficult to reconcile the idea of 600,000 Israelite fighting men with the information that the Israelites were afraid of the Philistines and Egyptians.[19] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people.[20] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long.[21] The entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE is estimated to have been around 3 to 3.5 million,[22][20] and no evidence has been found that Egypt ever suffered the demographic and economic catastrophe such a loss of population would represent, nor that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds.[23] Some have rationalized the numbers into smaller figures, for example reading the Hebrew as "600 families" rather than 600,000 men, but all such solutions have their own set of problems.[24][Notes 2]

Archaeology

A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,[25] and archaeologists generally agree that the Israelites had Canaanite origins.[26] The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains are in the Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite.[27] Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether even this is an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[27]

Anachronisms

Despite the Bible's internal dating of the Exodus to the 2nd millennium BCE, details point to a 1st millennium date for the composition of the Book of ExodusEzion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE with possible further occupation into the 4th century BCE,[28] and those place-names on the Exodus route which have been identified – Goshen,  PithomSuccothRamesses and Kadesh Barnea – point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.[29]
Similarly, the Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders seems unlikely in the context of the late 2nd millennium, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Achaemenid Empire and later from the Seleucid Empire.[30]
The mention of the dromedary in Exodus 9:3 also suggests a later date of composition – the widespread domestication of the camel as a herd animal is thought not to have taken place before the late 2nd millennium, after the Israelites had already emerged in Canaan,[31] and they did not become widespread in Egypt until c. 200–100 BCE.[32]

Chronology

The chronology of the Exodus story likewise underlines its essentially religious rather than historical nature. The number seven was sacred to Yahweh in Judaism, and so the Israelites arrive at the Sinai Peninsula, where they will meet Yahweh, at the beginning of the seventh week after their departure from Egypt,[33] while the erection of the Tabernacle, Yahweh's dwelling-place among his people, occurs in the year 2666 after Yahweh creates the world, two-thirds of the way through a four thousand year era which culminates in or around the re-dedication of the Second Temple in 164 BCE.[34][35][Notes 3]

Route

Main article: Stations of the Exodus
The Torah lists the places where the Israelites rested. A few of the names at the start of the itinerary, including Ra'amsesPithom and Succoth, are reasonably well identified with archaeological sites on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta,

Dating the Exodus

Attempts to date the Exodus to a specific century have been inconclusive. The lack of evidence has led scholars to conclude that it is difficult or even impossible to link the exodus story to any specific point in history.[43]"