October 31, 2009, 9:19 am by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 39

This is the story of Joseph’s rise and fall, in Potiphar’s house and in Potiphar’s custody.  Remember Potiphar is the captain of the guard, we learn in Gen 40:3 that Joseph is in custody in the house of the captain of the guard.  So Potiphar is not the captain of the Pharaoh’s military guard but of his prison guard!  And Joseph has gone from being a slave of Potiphar to being a prisoner of Potiphar.

We can assume that it took time for Potiphar to recognize that Joseph was good at what he was told to do.  So over time he gained favor in the eyes of Potiphar.  He did diligent work, and his master saw this.  The Word of God attributes Joseph’s capacity to work to YHWH.  But just like Jacob, Joseph’s father, I would not be surprised that shear human capacity would be effective.  When Jacob becomes rich off of Laban, it is not due to YHWH.  And we can be sure that Joseph learned a thing or two from his father, both about work ethics and about tending flocks.  Basically, Joseph was prepped by his childhood to succeed. 

Due to the “good looks the Lord gave” Joseph, Potiphar’s wife began to notice him; she wanted to have sex with him.  Rich woman and slaves, common story!  Day after day she would ask, and Joseph would deny her.  He denies her by bragging about his position in the house.  His pride does not help the situation, which would only make her want him all the more.  There is no fury like a woman scorned!  She sets a trap by sending all the servants away except Joseph.  Then she approached him and attempted to seduce him.  She fails, but in the attempt has his cloak.  Miraculously the other servants hear her scream, at her failure.  In her scorn, she devices to tell Potiphar that Joseph was the one who tried to sex with her. 

For some reason, Potiphar believes his wife.  Wouldn’t you think that she had tried to have extra-marital affairs before?  Don’t you think that he would not know about this?  But he is furious with Joseph.  Even though by this time, Joseph has been in the household for a number of years.  So Potiphar puts Joseph under house arrest!  Potiphar’s house is the prison that Joseph is in!  When you realize this, of course the warden likes Joseph.  He has seen everything that Joseph has done since Potiphar bought him as a slave!  And I would not be surprised if the warden did not know the truth about Potiphar’s wife, to boot.  As a result, the warden takes advantage of having someone he trust.  Joseph becomes the warden’s right hand man, just like he had been Potiphar’s right hand man.

If the Christians would recognize that Joseph was never moved out of the same compound (Potiphar’s house), they would recognize that YHWH was not responsible for anything that happened to Joseph!  His brother’s anger sold him into slavery, his hard work paid off in Potiphar’s house and prison.  The only thing that remains a mystery is why did Potiphar buy Joseph?  But the Word of God is completely silent on this topic.

Posted in Biblical Hotties, Genesis, Readings | Print | No Comments »

October 25, 2009, 1:20 pm by dc-agape.

I have a new post up at my back-up blog entitled “The End is Near!!!“

Posted in Dead Sea Scroll, Traditions of Men, Readings | Print | 31 Comments »

October 24, 2009, 4:58 pm by dc-agape.

Well you might be wondering what has happened in the last week.  I am attempting to adjust the domain host and improve spam filtering.  In that process I have hit a few snags. 

The first snag is that writing blogs in the new Word Document 2008 format does not allow for exporting the posts to a new site.  Even though I am attempting to keep blog.dc-agape.com as the main posting site, 1 & 1 hosting is not very user friendly.  I am not allowed access to by blog to introduce widgets or gadgets to improve comments or other neat options.

The second snag is that I am attempting to write two journal articles for my PhD program and an NSF grant proposal.  The articles aren’t that bad, I am still collecting data (lots of it), but the NSF grant is a huge load.  It is due by Dec 8, 2009 and I am attempting to get funding to visit a polymer facility in Pohang, Korea (POSTECH)!  If I get approval I will be in Korea for 2 months this coming summer.  It will allow me to proceed with my research in a completely different perspective and possible lead to a better understanding of chromatographic molecular recognition.  So my writing time has been cut short, and my research time even shorter.

I hope to have both snags worked out shortly.  Then I can get back to posting closer to a daily system.  The back-up site for my posts and the posts I will be writing until this blows over is:

http://dearcannonist.wordpress.com 

Sorry for the trouble!

Posted in State of Mind | Print | 6 Comments »

October 24, 2009, 4:39 pm by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 38

In this chapter we are told that Judah leaves his brothers.  We are told that he went to a city that was southwest of Jerusalem (which of course did not exist yet).  The brothers were located in Hebron, which is about 20 miles south of “Jerusalem”.  Judah went to different town than this that was also southwest of “Jerusalem”.  Basically, he went across the street, compared to keeping the flocks in Dothan (80 miles way).

So just like Dinah going out with the Canaanite woman, Judah goes out with the Canaanite men.  He befriends a man by the name of Hirah.  During this time he meets a woman and marries her.  He also has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah.

When Er was old enough to marry Judah got a wife for him named Tamar.  YHWH did not like Er, we have no idea why.  The Word says that Er was wicked in the sight of YHWH, just like all the Canaanites.  For some reason YHWH picked out Er to kill.  The only reason that makes any sense is that Er was born into the Chosen Family.  YHWH was not ready for evil children yet.  See the entire book of Judges; YHWH has to deal with a bunch of wicked people in that Book.  But YHWH was naive in Genesis and did not put up with this type of behavior, except in the case of Levi, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

Well there just happens to be a practice that YHWH does not have an opinion on:  levirate marriage.  This is the practice of a brother-in-law being responsible for producing offspring for a dead brother.  Since this was a traditional marriage in the Word of God, I wonder why we don’t practice it today.  It seems that since so many TrueChristiansTM want to have traditional marriages protected; shouldn’t levirate marriage also be protected?  Polygamy was also a traditional Biblical marriage; I wonder why that is not protected as well.

Onan is required to sleep with his dead brother’s wife because of the Biblical levirate marriage tradition.  He cheats, knowing that it will not be his children, and OMG…spills his seed.  Well, this piss-off YHWH and in a temper tantrum YHWH kills Onan as well.  Judah has only one young son left and is not ready to marry Shelah to Tamar. 

Judah sends Tamar back to her father, with a lie that she should wait there until Shelah is old enough to marry.  After some time, Tamar learns that she will not be wed to Shelah.  She decides to trick Judah into sleeping with her.  She dresses with a veil to disguise her face and waits for Judah to pass by on the way to sheer his flocks.  Judah, ready to get his rocks off, sees her and thinks that he has found a prostitute.

Tamar and Judah begin the bargaining process of the cost of having sex outside of marriage.  She requires his seal and his staff as promise that he will give her a young goat.  Judah is so ready to have sex that he agrees.  Later he sends Hirah back to the spot where he met Tamar with the goat, but Tamar is not there.  Judah finds out that no prostitute has been in the area for a long time. 

In pride, he decides not to hunt down Tamar to pay for the sex he had with her outside of marriage.  Three months later he finds out that Tamar is pregnant.  He is furious, and wants her to be burned to death.  She counters with the presentation of his seal and staff.  Judah recognizes that the Canaanites can be more righteous than the Chosen Family.  The people without YHWH are more righteous than those who do have YHWH, what a surprise!  Soon Tamar has twins.  The story ends with a detail about how the two boys struggle to get out of the womb and the name of the boys are: Perez and Zerah.  Even though this birth of the two sons seems isolated, these are the firstborn tribes of Israel.  Throughout the Book of Numbers these names will reappear.

From a gay Atheist point of view I cannot see why anyone would think that this Word of God was a good guide to how to live your life.  Judah committed the sins of adultery, anger, pride, false witness, and attempted to not pay for services rendered!  How is this an example of how to live?  He neither fears, nor worships YHWH.   Judah even admits that a Canaanite woman, that commits adultery, is more righteous than himself.  Reading this Book without the for-determined attitude that it is “God-breathed” makes all the difference.  Without making the assumption that YHWH was involved does make this an interesting read, but that is all the Book is: an interesting read.  No morality for the human race exists in this Word of God.  If anything we are learning from other peoples back choices, but YHWH is not required for that.

Posted in Biblical Marriage, Family Values?, Genesis, Readings | Print | No Comments »

October 17, 2009, 9:29 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 37:12-36

This is the story about Joseph being sold into slavery by his jealous and angry brothers.  Jacob Israel sends Joseph to Shechem (were Levi and Simeon) murdered all those people.  Jacob Israel heads out, alone, from Kiriath Arba (Hebron) to Shechem, which is over a 50 mile trip, one way.  No wonder Esau and Israel could not live together, if the shepherds of the time required that much land, Esau would have to move over 100 miles away!  Joseph cannot find them at Shechem because they have moved further north, an additional 20 miles from Kiriath Arba! 

Joseph’s brothers see him coming and hatch a plot to get rid of him.  Reuben talks them out of directly killing him.  Rueben hopes that he will be able to rescue Joseph from the cistern that they trough him in.  But while Rueben was gone, (where did he go?) Judah talks the remaining eight brothers into selling Joseph to some Ishmaelite slave traders.  They earn a whopping 20 shekels of silver.   So each brother gets about 2 shekels for selling their own brother into slavery!

When Reuben returns he discovers that Joseph is no longer in the cistern.  All ten brothers decide to use goat’s blood and stain Joseph’s ornamented robe.  They return to Jacob Israel and dishonor him by giving false witness about the death of Joseph. 

Jacob Israel is horrified, and tore his cloths in mourning and wore sackcloth (symbol of mourning in the Traditions of Men).  Jacob’s Israel’s entire family tries to comfort him but be declares that he will mourn until he dies.  Some of the family that attempt to comfort Jacob Israel are his daughters, since the Word only mentions one daughter, we can assume that these are the kidnapped woman of Shechem that have been forced to marry Israel’s sons.

When Joseph gets to Egypt he is sold into slavery.  But not to just anyone, he is sold into slavery to Potiphar, the captain of the Pharaoh’s guard.  Why Potiphar chooses Joseph is a complete mystery, the Word does not say. 

From an Atheist point of view, this story can be interpreted to have several meanings.  No is something that most Humanist recognize.  Lying to someone never works.  Does no one ever realize that when you lie, someone will catch you at sometime in the future?  Lying gets to complex very rapidly.  After lying to their own father, the brothers had to attempt to console him.  I am amazed that not a single one of them broke down and told their father the truth!  This story also tells an Atheist how even being chosen by YHWH does not mean that a person will be honorable or good!  These men were the Chosen Ones of YHWH, yet they get angry and jealous, they murder, steal, kidnap, lie, dishonor their parents, have multiple wives, and sell/buy slaves.  And TrueChristianTM think that Atheists are evil!  I’m also getting really tired of correcting YHWH.  Jacob’s name is ISRAEL!!  Why can’t YHWH remember that he gave him that name!

Gen 32:28 Then the man (who is YHWH) said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel. Because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

The moment YHWH changed Abram’s name to Abraham it stuck.  We never read the name Abram again.  But this verse says that Israel’s name is no longer Jacob.  YHWH has decreed it, why does the Word of God not follow his own decree?  The more I read the Bible the more I am certain that YHWH has dementia, or maybe Alzheimer’s.  We know that YHWH is an old man, by the Traditions of Men, so maybe that’s why he keeps forgetting things.

Posted in Family Values?, Genesis, Readings | Print | 1 Comment »

October 17, 2009, 9:10 am by dc-agape.

This Scroll starts by claiming to “speak out freely” about various saying, parables, and riddles.  The term “speak out freely” is directed to those who are willing to hold fast to what is taught.  These include those who are devious, stiff necked, and even the Gentiles.  This sounds so familiar, yet we can be certain that it was written nearly a century for Jesus is teachings.  Is this not exactly what Jesus did?  So the Judaism had forms of religion that were evolving into Christianity. 

The next paragraph is so what fragmented but has a very interesting interpretation.  It would seem to be saying that there’s only one source for the desire of knowledge.  It even uses the words “Light” and “Illumination”.  This light and illumination is from the “angels from those we praise”.  This seems to indicate that light and illumination come only from YHWH.  But it is the origin of knowledge that this paragraph is referring to.  Interesting, if applied to Christianity, that wisdom and knowledge are equal and both come from YHWH.  How I wish Christians would take this to heart.  Knowledge is not evil; knowledge is from the one they worship.  In that case, there is nothing wrong with learning new things.

The next paragraph is actually rather simple but in a surprising way.  It basically says those that do not learn and from the past will repeat the past.  The only way to avoid this cycle is to know “this secret of the way things are.”   But what exactly is the secret of the way things are?

The rest of the scroll is devoted to explaining the secret of the way things are.  Unfortunately, it starts with a prophecy that has not occurred.  It claims that time will come when all evil has been eliminated from this world.  We will know when this occurs because there will be no more sin or folly.   It claims, it this prophecy, that the end of sin and folly cannot be averted!  I certainly can’t wait for that time…  But it’s if since this was written over 2000 years ago, the chances of that happening now are very slim.

The next paragraph tells how all cultures space and nations are similar.  This similarity is in the rejection of evil, the desire for truth, freedom from its oppression, freedom from theft, and possibly some more that have been fragmented away in time.  So the author(s) of this Scroll understood that all humans desire the same thing.  They also understood that all of these things cannot be stopped.  Evil occurs, falsehood is spread, oppression and theft continue to happen.  Even the “righteous” have fallen short of fulfilling these eternal desires.  And the reason for this is that the “righteous” have not sought the true secret of the way things are.

Since the wisdom of YHWH is secret, YHWH knows all secrets.  Not only does he know them all, but he “stands behind every thought”.  The “secret” is that all things are controlled by YHWH.  Even the times of our birth, the test of our heart, the limits of our deeds, and the actions of the Gentiles are controlled by YHWH.

So is there more to this secret?  From this Scroll the answer seems to be yes. One must understand that the stars, the day, the night the rivers in the seas, the rains, and even the mounds were created for humankind. The most important thing to keep in mind is that humans have the ability to understand knowledge, insight, and great intelligence.  The Scroll claims that we were created to pursue true knowledge and wisdom.  But YHWH locked this knowledge and wisdom up away from humankind so that we would have to search for it.

The final paragraph comes from a completely different scroll and does not seem to have much to do with the earlier part of the Scroll.  It speaks of YHWH having patience, great anger and splendor.  It ends by claiming YHWH to be the leader of Israel, honored by the people who are splendid and blessed when the period of wickedness is over.  

Posted in The Book of Secrets, Dead Sea Scroll, Readings | Print | 31 Comments »

October 16, 2009, 9:51 am by dc-agape.

This post I want to introduce the shorter Scrolls that have survived that deal with the life and beliefs of the Jewish Sectarian Association.  This group is not the Sadducees, Pharisees, nor Essences that you might be familiar with.  They have similarities to these three better known Jewish “denominations” of the 1^st century BC, but they are less political (similar to the Essences) yet more fundamental (like the Sadducees) and more importantly the Yahad (unity – the writers name for themselves) are similar to the Zealots and the Sicarii (they were prepared for a Messiah that would come and destroy the Romans (and all Gentiles).   Since these Scrolls do not lead well to placing the Yahad into one category I will take the position that they were independent of all the other Jewish groups present from the 2^nd century BC until the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  

There are number of shorter Scrolls that I want to cover over the next couple of weeks.  The first one is called The Book of Secrets.  This will be followed by The Charter for Israel in the Last Days.    To describe the Yahad’s tendency towards being a Masonic or even Sicarii group I want to cover the Scroll titled the War of the Messiah.  I also want to cover this Scroll titled A Vision of the New Jerusalem.   Following that will be the Scroll titled The Coming of the Melchizedek.   The three last short posts will be prefaced with a guide entitled “A Reader’s Guide to the Qumran on Calendar Texts”.  These three short Scrolls are entitled Calendar of the Heavenly Signs, Synchronistic Calendars, and Priestly Services as the Seasons Change.  In total this series of short Scrolls will take about 10 days to cover.

The Book of Secrets

This Scroll is only four pages long.  It is rather fragmented.  This Scroll is of the same form of “Wisdom books” like the Books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.  As the title implies there is a secret hidden in this Scroll.  That secret is that wisdom only comes from YHWH.

The Charter for Israel in the Last Days

This Scroll is also only four pages long.  Is not nearly as fragmented and seems to be in rather good shape.  This Scroll is about what will happen when the Messiah comes to redeem Israel.  It is very Christian like, and shows that at least some Jews had specific believes about the results of the “begetting” of the “son of God”.

The War of the Messiah

This Scroll is two pages long and when discovered created quite a controversy.  As more research was placed on the meaning of this document, the Yahad were determined to believe that the Messiah would be victorious and bring Israel to become a leading nation in the world.

A Vision of the New Jerusalem

This Scroll is five pages long but many parts are missing.  The quality that stands out the most in this text is a similarity between the New Jerusalem of the Yahad and the New Jerusalem described in the Book of Revelation.

The Coming of the Melchizedek

This Scroll is barely a page long and is somewhat fragmented.  The author ff this Scroll intended it to be a true interpretation of the jubilee year, which occurred every 49 years.  When I get deeper into the scroll I will explain how the jubilee year and Melchizedek are related.

A Reader’s Guide to the Qumran on Calendar Texts

This guide is to attempt to explain the difference between a lunar year and a solar year.  During this period of time (2^nd century BC to 1^st century AD) some nations, and even groups within the nations, were using one or the other of these methods of marking time.  To understand the next three Scrolls the full understanding of this difference is helpful.

Calendar of the Heavenly Signs

This Scroll is written in a way that is rather confusing to the fact that it is actually an almanac.  But since such documents had not been created at this time the format is rather odd.  What it does do is described how the solar year and the lunar year are related.

Synchronistic Calendars

This Scroll is so fragmented that it can only be described as being as being four pages long.  What it does do is synchronize the rotation of the priestly family between the solar year and the lunar year.

Priestly Services as the Seasons Change

This Scroll is a single paragraph.  What it does do in that short paragraph is explain the other three month-long seasons relates to both the solar year and the lunar year.

In conclusion, some of these Scrolls will seem extremely boring.  Fortunately, they are also very short.  Together these Scrolls actually give great insight into the Jewish histories of the 2^nd and 1^st centuries BC.  When I finished these shorter Scrolls undo plan on moving on to a couple of the longer ones.  These would include Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, the Book of Jubilees, Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll.  I’ll just have to seeing if I actually make it to all of these before deciding to move on to the Nag Hammadi Library.

Posted in Genesis Material, Dead Sea Scroll, Introduction | Print | 3 Comments »

October 14, 2009, 9:59 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 21

This post will be the final post from the Gospel of John.  John does not write about the ascension of Jesus.  I will say more about this in the next paragraph.  He also writes a prophecy of Jesus that took place in his own lifetime…and just happens to have taken place before he wrote this Gospel.  That will be one of the major topics of this post.  The third most interesting thing that occurs in this Gospel is the number and locations of Jesus’ appearances after his crucifixion.  John, the only Apostle to be an eyewitness to everything that happened to Jesus, only records three visits. 

John ends his Gospel having left out the ascension of Jesus.  As far as John is concerned, this event, if it happened, was not import enough to record.  The other possibility is a John was not present at the ascension.  But it seems difficult to believe, since our only sources come from two men: John Mark (a follower of Peter while in Rome) and Luke (a follower of Paul).  In both these reports the ascension of Jesus is recorded as having happened in the presence of all the believers.  So what is John not include this very important Christian concept?  Why is it not important?  Of all the miracles, attributed to Jesus, is not the ascension of Jesus by far the most important?  It almost seems as if, the apostles themselves, either did not experience witnessing this, or but nothing about it!  It is only the followers of the original disciples that record this event.  Even the Gospel of Matthew does not record the event.  Relying on secondhand (or third hand) records seems very dangerous to the non-believer.  Stories always get manipulated, distorted, or exaggerated with extended retelling.  This seems to be the same case.

In the Gospel of John the prophecy and the death of Peter is record.  Unless, the death of Peter is a later addition, the date of writing this gospel can be insured to have occurred after Peter’s death in 67 AD.  As a result, recording a prophecy after the prophecy has occurred weakens the power of the prophecy.  Adding that this book was recorded some 35 to 40 years after the prophecy, the memory of the specific words Jesus used should be taken into account.  To make matters worse, our records of how and when Peter died are sketchy at best.  The truly are Traditions of Men and not sanctified holy script.

John ends his gospel with an interesting twist:

John 21:25 Jesus did many of the things as well.  If every one  of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

This most certainly is an exaggeration.  Recording the events of a ministry that lasted less than four years would not create that many books.  But we are told:

John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down.  We know that his testimony is true.

This is a very odd addition to a personally written document.  Basically he is saying, since I wrote these down they must be true.  To  the non-believer, this is arrogant, this does not prove the trustworthiness of the document, and adds nothing to validate the testimony given in this Gospel.

To the non-believer these issues are not solved by faith.  They only add more confusion, lack of unity in the Gospels, and create more questions that cannot be answered.  If these Gospels were inspired by an all-powerful Holy Spirit it would seem that these problems would not have occurred.  If these Gospels were inspired by the loving YHWH, who wants everyone to believe, these problems would not occur.  Instead, we have different stories (not different perspectives), Tall Tales, differing accounts, disorganized chronology, and difficulty tracing Jesus’ actual route used in his ministries.  I do hope that I get the chance to make a full scale map showing an organized chronological description of Jesus’ ministries.  Unfortunately, it will be very difficult since only the Gospel of John describes the additional trips to Jerusalem.

This is my last post from the New Testament for the time being.  My next posts will be from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I have still not decided which order I will present the scrolls that I want to focus on.  But They Will Include: the Book of Secrets, Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, Charter for Israel in the Last Days, the Book of Jubilees, Work with the citation of Jubilees, the Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll.  This may seem like a large number of documents to cover before I start back into the Nag Hammadi Library.  But no actuality, many of these scrolls are either very short or very fragmented.  The total number of pages covered in the seven scrolls is actually only 105 pages.  Many of the pages are introduction to the scrolls.  Since the meaning of the scrolls are not as complex as the gospels, and that print type is much larger than in the New Testament, the pages should not take that long.  In actuality, only the Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, the Book of Jubilees, Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll have any length to them at all. 

Posted in Contradictions, Gospel of John, Dead Sea Scroll, Traditions of Men, Tall Tales, Readings | Print | 1 Comment »