Monday, May 25, 2020

Dr Bob Overreaches and Wonders: Does the Nazareth Inscription Refer to the Resurrection of Jesus?

Or maybe?

 "Does overreaching desperately trying to prove issues of faith prove anything?" 

 "Does Faith need proof?"

 "Can faith really be left as the substance of what we hope is true?  The evidence based on no visible evidence that it is true?" 

 "Does closing the barn door after the horse gets out really keep the horse in the barn forevermore afraid ever to leave again. Lesson learned? "




Dr Bob writes: 

"… the Nazareth Inscription speaks of moving corpses–note the plural from the tombs. (Note: Irrelevant to Bob's "proof" It is the correct word to use in a decree and implies "any corpse" ) 

Bob continues..."Incidentally, Matthew 27:52 states when Jesus was resurrected: “The tombs of many were opened and the bodies of many holy people who had died were resurrected.” The use of the plural in the Nazareth Inscription is thus easily explained in terms of the resurrection of Christ  …"

  (Note: Whoa...Watch that "easily" stuff Bob. Matthews account is fantasy by the author. No other Gospel author notes this amazing event because Matthew made it up. None of the resurrectees were ever mentioned again or made it into Church history as so much as a Deacon. 

 And too, someone thought it more doctrinally correct to insert "after his resurrection" into the text (:53) since Jesus later was noted to be the "first born of many brethren."  In Matthew's account, these raised "saints" were implied to have risen at his death as part of Temple Curtain rentings and earthquake drama. Unless one thinks they lay alive in their uncovered graves for three days and nights until given permission to get up. 
Dr Bob continues: 

"The Nazareth Inscription is believed by many conservative Bible scholars to be a version of the Jewish High Priests’ explanation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ as is found in the Gospel of Matthew 28:11-15; in other words, Jesus’ disciples stole his body and perpetrated a fraud pretending that he had resurrected from the dead. …

"It is likely that the Nazareth Inscription was ordered by the Emperor Claudius to be posted in Nazareth in order to counter what he considered to be a dangerous political-religious movement that said that their Jewish “king” had resurrected from the dead.  The Nazareth Inscription threatens with death anyone who takes corpses from tombs in order to perpetrate a fraud."


In actuality...

"The Nazareth Inscription" is a bit misleading. It was not discovered in an archaeological context in Nazareth. It was merely named that as it was associated with Nazareth as the place from where it was sent on to Paris. 

Concerning the origins and intent of the Nazareth Inscription we find it to have been more likely issued as a result of a rather nasty and vengeful desecration of the grave of King Nikias of Kos, considered a tyrant in his rule. 


The epigrammatist Crinagoras of Mytilene wrote:[9]
"Tell me not that death is the end of life.
The dead, like the living, have their own causes of suffering.
Look at the fate of Nicias of Cos.
He had gone to rest in Hades, and now his dead body has come again into the light of day.
For his fellow-citizens, forcing the bolts of his tomb, dragged out the poor hard-dying wretch to punishment."

The marble tablet measures 24 by 15 inches, with the koine Greek inscription appearing in fourteen lines. It was acquired in 1878 by Wilhelm Fröhner (1834–1925), and sent from Nazareth to Paris. Fröhner entered the item in his manuscript inventory with the note "Dalle de marbre envoyé de Nazareth en 1878." Though indicating that the marble was sent from Nazareth, the note does not state that it was discovered there. Nazareth was a significant antiquities market in the 1870s, as was Jerusalem,[7] and may have been "nothing more than … a shipping center" for the item.[8] Since 1925 it has been in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, displayed in the Cabinet des Médailles.
(Note: Bob seems to acknowledge the inscription was not inscribed in Nazareth)
The inscription, with a facsimile, was published in 1930 by Franz Cumont,[9] who had been alerted to it by Rostovtseff.[7]
The text reads as follows.
"The Greek used in the inscription is relatively poor.[10] Clyde E. Billington provides the following English translation:[11][12]
Edict of Caesar 
"It is my decision [concerning] graves and tombs—whoever has made them for the religious observances of parents, or children, or household members—that these remain undisturbed forever. But if anyone legally charges that another person has destroyed, or has in any manner extracted those who have been buried, or has moved with wicked intent those who have been buried to other places, committing a crime against them, or has moved sepulcher-sealing stones, against such a person, I order that a judicial tribunal be created, just as [is done] concerning the gods in human religious observances, even more so will it be obligatory to treat with honor those who have been entombed. You are absolutely not to allow anyone to move [those who have been entombed]. But if [someone does], I wish that [violator] to suffer capital punishment under the title of tomb-breaker."
Cultural background of the day

 Violatio sepulchri ('tomb violation') was a crime under Roman law, as noted by Cicero (d. 43 BC). The Nazareth Inscription prescribes the death penalty for the offense.[13] A tomb at which funeral rites had been duly performed became a locus religiosus, belonging to the divine rather than to the human realm.[14][13]:144 Roman Imperial tombstones are often inscribed with a curse (defixio) against anyone who desecrates the grave.[13]:144

Analysis
Scholars have analyzed the language and style of the Nazareth inscription and attempted to date it. It has been discussed in the context of tomb-robbery in antiquity.
Francis de Zulueta dates the inscription, based on the style of lettering, to between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50, but most likely around the turn of the era. As the text uses the plural form "gods", Zulueta concluded it most likely came from the Hellenized district of the Decapolis. Like Zulueta, J. Spencer Kennard, Jr. noted that the reference to "Caesar" indicated that "the inscription must have been derived from somewhere in Samaria or Decapolis; Galilee was ruled by a client-prince until the reign of Claudius".
It was once of interest to historians of the New Testament. Some authors, citing the inscription's supposed Galilean origin, interpreted it as Imperial Rome's clear reaction to the empty tomb of Jesus and specifically as an edict of Claudius, who reigned AD 41-54.[ If the inscription was originally set up in Galilee, it can date no earlier than 44, the year Roman rule was imposed there.
However, the 2020 isotope study of the marble published in the Journal of Archaeological Science clarified the origin of the tablet and points to another interpretation.[18] The scientists took a sample from the back of the tablet, and used laser ablation to help determine the isotope ratio of the stone.[6] The enrichment of carbon 13 and depletion of Oxygen 18 allowed a confident identification of the source of the marble as the upper quarry in the island of Kos. The team proposed that the edict was issued by Augustus  (27 BCE to 14AD) after the desecration of the tomb of the Kos tyrant Nikias.

In March of 2020 the Smithsonian also commented on recent analysis as well. 

"In the 1930s, a mysterious marble tablet held at the Louvre in Paris started catching the attention of religious scholars. Etched with a warning to keep grave robbers away from tombs and accompanied by a cryptic note that claimed it “came from Nazareth,” the slab was soon linked to Jesus’ death—a written reaction, many theorized, to his body’s disappearance and biblical resurrection."

 "...A more unsavory scenario might exist as well: that the tablet was inscribed by a well-informed forger in the 19th century, just before it was acquired by a French collector named Wilhelm Froehner in 1878, archaeologist Robert Tykot of the University of South Florida tells Science News.

At some point, Froehner (or his seller) was probably duped into an expensive buy—though as Harper tells Science News, “how exactly Froehner acquired the stone will probably always remain obscure.”
Hobby Lobby and its Biblical Artifact obsessed  owners recently got a taste of the problem with
forgeries in their Dead Sea Scroll fragments debacle


  Dr Bob concludes:

"Excluding its journey by sea, the total overland shipping of the Nazareth Inscription from its quarry on Kos to Nazareth would have been only about 25-30 miles total; the fastest, easiest, and the least expensive way for King Herod Agrippa I to obtain and to post the Nazareth Inscription in Nazareth."

(Note:  I have my doubts that Herod Agrippa was concerned about postage)

"In summation, based on the shipping routes of that day, King Herod Agrippa I could have easily ordered this Decree of Caesar to be inscribed on white marble at Kos and then had it shipped by sea to Ptolemais and from there overland to Nazareth where it would have been posted.  This decree, that threatens with death anyone who removes corpses from tombs in order to perpetrate a fraud, fits very well with the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it does not at all fit the story of Nikias the Tyrant."

Note: It actually fits the story of Nikias the Tyrant, as motivation but not exclusive intent very well. Like with Jesus, that horse was already out of the barn and closing the barn door on an event that has already happened is rather moot.  This decree was for all future antics on the part of anyone for any reason thinking to desecrate a grave in the Roman Empire. 

 The committing of "Fraud" was only one of a number of reasons for this decree. A Roman decree of the sort had much more to do with respect for the dead than debunking already past stories about Jesus resurrection or preventing anymore such shenanigans by Christians in the realm as if they had more bodies to be stolen from graves in mind to tell the story of Jesus.  

   A decree forbidding, upon pain of death, anymore grave robbing or desecration  is certainly closing the barn door after the horse gets out if the motive in the day was to counter the story of Jesus resurrection. It would be an ineffective decree unless just repeating the story now was a crime of grave desecration punishable by death.  

 Nothing this specific about Christians or the Jesus story is remotely implied by the decree. It was most likely written and mailed postage paid somewhere before the story of Jesus to begin with. Or a long time after if proven to be a forgery after all.  We may never know, but Bob cannot be as sure to know as he makes out to know. 

 Bob also fails to notice that Jesus was supposed to be resurrected from the dead in Jerusalem not Nazareth so one would expect to find multiple copies of such a decree plastered all over Israel of the day warning all Christians and not in just the backwater town of Nazareth as if Nazareth was the hotbed of the problem with Christians in the Empire. One might rather expect such a decree to be obvious in the town of Sepphoris, a mere four miles away from Nazareth, much much larger, totally Roman and never once mentioned in the OT or NT.  
Cry not heard all over the realm.  "Hey!  Why didn't we get one?"  


Posted by at 3 comments:

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Herbert Armstrong: The Antidote to Religious Confusion?




Herbert Armstrong loved to decry the religious confusion in the world at large and within traditional Christianity in particular. He wrote in A Voice Cries Out Amid Religious Confusion: 
“Why the Babylon of religious confusion in the world? Why so many differing religions? More than 250 denominations in Christianity, besides Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Shintoism, Taoism, agnosticism, atheism and evolution. How could the world have become so mixed up? Out of this spiritual wilderness, a voice cries out in clarity and power, decrying this world confusion, with the reassuring TRUTH of the world's only and SURE HOPE!”


If Herbert Armstrong was that voice, then why has the organization which he founded splintered into so many diverse groups? The old Worldwide Church of God doesn’t even exist as an organization anymore – it became Grace Communion International (a largely mainstream Protestant Church that has shunned many of Armstrong’s teachings). In addition to that body, there is a United Church of God, Restored Church of God, Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, Continuing Church of God, Church of God – a Worldwide Association, Church of God International, Church of God an International Community, Church of God the Eternal, Church of the Eternal God, and a host of smaller groups. Interestingly, most of them claim to be the ONE, TRUE church and characterize each other as apostates. ALL of them have different doctrinal beliefs, methods of governance and/or styles of worship.
Armstrongism as the antidote to religious confusion? I’m just not seeing it. What do you think?
-Miller Jones



Posted by at 15 comments:

The Church of God and Privilege

If you ever hear II Timothy 3:1-5 read during a sermon on the Sabbath, you will hear it followed by the assertion that it refers to “the world,” to “others,” and not to “us.”
But is that true?
Observing the words and conduct of people who claim to be members of the ekklesia (the body of Christ is not a physical organization, but instead a spiritual organization) on social media and in other venues, I personally can attest that it’s not true.
Every word of God, as Paul points out in I Corinthians 10, applies to each of us personally. If we abide in the word of God, striving to live by every word in it, then we abide in God and Jesus Christ and they abide in us. Every time we open the word of God, we are one-on-one with God and Jesus Christ in an intimate relationship and conversation. 
So every word there is personal to each one of us. The word of God is a mirror into which we look. If God condemns something or warns about something, our response should be to ask ourselves, “Is that how I am? Does that reflect something in my character? Is that something I am thinking, saying, or doing? Does this exist anywhere in my life?”
If we look at the majority of the word of God as being for someone other than ourselves, then we miss the boat of our calling, our converting process, our transformation through the power of God’s spirit completely. 
In effect, we quench God’s spirit and we stagnate spiritually, dying on the vine (John 15:1-5).
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the hearts (Jesus said the words we speak reflect the deep inner parts of our hearts: our attitudes, our ideas, our beliefs, and our opinions) of many people who claim to be part of the ekklesia. Fruits are on display, whether they realize it or not.
It’s quite sad to me to see people revealing their inner selves and to see how far we are from living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Many of us are revealing ourselves to be the very things that Paul warned Timothy of in II Timothy 3:1-5.
That is disheartening to observe. But what it reflects is ignorance in some cases. But, underneath the ignorance, is one of the main roots of why this behavior exists and that is the sense of privilege.
Anyone who has been around the churches of God for any length of time knows about privilege. First, we see it in action in every one of the church of God organizations. There is a pecking order – a hierarchy – and privilege is layered throughout that until you get to the people who just fill the chairs every week and fawn over and idolize those with privilege, while in the organizational sense, they have no privilege and aren’t even, legally, members of that church of God organization (only the organizational privileged are).
However, those people know they have privilege compared to others (the world) because they are told that over and over. They’re special. They’re the elite. One day, they will be resurrected first and they will rule with Jesus Christ as kings and priests for 1000 years.
While the substance of this is true, the implication of it is false. The first resurrection will include those whom God and Jesus Christ have both called and chosen, but they are being resurrected to serve, to help, to repair, to restore, to coach, to guide, to agape – just as God and Jesus Christ do with us. None of that is ever discussed because these things don’t sound power-filled.
Power is an idol in society and an idol in the churches of God. The lust for power is often the sole motivation for what these man-made organizations do and say.
Privilege and power often go hand in hand. Whether the power is real or imagined, organizations and people who believe they have power manifest the corruption of the idea of privilege.
People who have not suffered and who also cannot see, relate to, nor empathize with the suffering of others is a symptom of privilege. James discusses this in the second chapter of his letter. Privilege creates a bubble of illusions that is solely focused on self: what I want, what I need, who I am, and what I think or believe.
The bubble of privilege is opaque, so that anything that is outside that bubble is invisible. Jesus discussed this bubble of privilege in Matthew 25 in His parable of the goats and the sheep.
The sheep had no bubble of privilege. They were looking for needs among the people around them and meeting those needs, no matter where they found them. They weren’t doing it because someone was “important,” or because other people would see them and applaud them, or because it made them feel good or superior. 
The sheep were doing it because it was the right thing to do. They were following God’s word (read Deuteronomy sometime if you want to see what loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – about the first third of the book – and loving your neighbor as yourself – approximately the last two-thirds of the book – looks like in action and ask yourself if this looks like you) and they were following the example of Jesus Christ.
The goats had the bubble of privilege. Inherent in their response was, “well, Jesus, if You personally had come to us and asked us, of course, we would have done these things for You.” In other words, if the Son of God had made the first move, knocked on the door of their bubble of privilege, and said, “I need…,” they would have done it. Otherwise, they didn’t see, know, or care to seek out the needs they could meet right outside their bubble.
People across this country are murmuring about COVID-19. Some people, even among those in the ekklesia have bought into the spiritual insanity we see everywhere around us, and believe COVID-19 is a hoax. 
Some people are clamoring to get back to “normal,” complaining that they’ve been confined to their homes, working their fulltime jobs with benefits, and paying the bills and enjoying extras, for too long and they want to get back together with other people, including those in the ekklesia, because, “people die every day, and if people die because we get back together, so be it, because us being together is more important than a few thousand people, who are going to die sometime anyway, dying.” (This is not made up. It is a synthesis of much of the sentiment you’ll see on social media.)
I want to address some of these points of privilege. While people are complaining about being confined in their homes, they are ignorant of the fact that there are many people both in the United States and around the world would simply be happy to have a home to be confined in, as opposed to, if they’re fortunate, living in a vehicle, and, if they’re not, living on the street.
People with privilege will counter with, “Well, it’s their fault they’re homeless. They’re either lazy, addicts, or ‘trash,‘ and they’re where they are because that’s what they deserve.” Some among the ekklesia would be among the people saying these things.
While people are complaining about having to work fulltime jobs with benefits, paying their bills and enjoying extras, they are ignorant of the fact that the American economy over the last 12 years has left many well-educated, highly-skilled people scrambling to find gig work (American work is now highly tilted toward a gig economy, which is freelance with no job security and no benefits and no set amount of income to depend on) just to cobble enough money together to try not to end up homeless.
People of privilege haven’t had to look for work for a very long time. They have absolutely no idea how much the employment landscape has changed. They have been fortunate enough to remain in jobs that, so far, have been insulated from the economic upheavals that have roiled the United States since 2008.
So the response of people with privilege to these gig workers is, “Well, it’s their fault if they don’t have a fulltime job with benefits. They’re either lazy or not trying hard enough, and if they really wanted a job, they’d have a job.” Some among the ekklesia would be among the people saying these things.
The disregard for human life among people of privilege is most appalling. There are some among the ekklesia who would rather people die so they can all start congregating again rather than to have to continue virtual services at home.
There’s some kind of magical thinking about the physical presence of other people and socializing. As if that’s the key, and you’ll hear people say this, to fellowship and unity. 
And it is, from a purely physical point of view. But it’s not spiritually. Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4 that a physical place of worship was irrelevant because those that God has called and chosen worship Him in spirit and truth.
But that’s not the focus for many of the church of God organizations or many among the ekklesia. Why? If we’re a spiritual organism and we “say” we love each other, why are we in touch with people in the ekklesia on a regular basis, whether that’s an email, a text message, a digital meeting, or some other means to check in and make sure everyone – not just our little group of friends – is doing okay, doesn’t need anything, and has whatever assistance they made need?
Frankly, most of us just don’t care. As long as everything’s okay in our little world, we simply don’t think about or care about anyone else. In fact, the only reason we want to get back together physically is to see “our friends.” The same people we don’t see in isolation, we won’t see when we’re in the same room with them.
With this insanity of wanting to be physically together right now comes more insanity, among which includes being asked to disobey God.
Pastors of church of God congregations are already scouting for people to volunteer to do a lot more work on the Sabbath than is already being done. People who have no idea how to truly sanitize (they don’t even have access to the commercial chemicals and machines) a space are being asked to work to clean the meeting facilities before services and after services. Other volunteers are being asked to screen people for temperatures before they let them inside.
When they get inside, everyone must wear a mask and stay six feet apart from everyone else. There are no hugs and no handshakes. In fact, there is no conversation. Instead, you’ve got the people of privilege screaming across the room at each other while the invisible, who know that no one will notice whether they are there or not, are home, resting as God commanded (and this virus has enforced a true Sabbath rest, which has been delightful) and worshiping God with like-minded members of the ekklesia in spirit and truth.
Where did we get so off track? This is definitely not God’s way, nor is it agape. It, instead, is the system’s way, the way of the curse, the product of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
Will we ever see and repent?
That is between God and me and God and you.
What are you personally going to do?
Posted by at 13 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)