Michael Ruppert has not been at his best in recent years. He was much better when he had more active CIA and other covert links, having come from a CIA family involved in spying since WW II.

Blaming Bush Jr. for what happens on Wall St. is somewhat incredulous because he is too dense to have been behind any such events. He looked puzzled down in Florida when SS agents informed him of the World Trade Towers incident, showing that he was a theater prop, nothing more. The Wall St. events are engineered by the top-level Wall St. people at the top investment banks. It’s that simple. They are the only people in a position to do it.

It is not so complicated once you understand in some detail the nature of the Power Elite. They of course know that they can sucker govt leaders in these countries into taking the money from the IMF. This puts the leaders and the elitists in cooperation to sack the indigent farmers and taxpayers.

It is not the U.S. government per se that is the source of evil but the Money Power elitists behind the scenes who control and use the UN, IMF, World Bank and Washington to carry out their plans of world conquest.

I believe you used to post on the ACDiscussion board occassionally? I’ve since left the ACC, but I used to be a moderator/admin there.. markj81.

Anyways, I’m glad to have discovered your blog.

Two things.

1. You are reading Crime and Punishment. Nice! Have you read anything else by Dostoevsky? I love his work! Do you read much literature? I’ve seen you post a lot of book reviews, but it seems its mainly non-fiction? For my blog, I’ve been interviewing/surveying a number of Christians who have a passion for literature. Basically I pose 10 questions and then post the answers on my blog under a post called “Christians and Literature – 10 Questions for [Name]“. If you think you’d be interested, send an email to mark@freelance-developer.com and I’ll send you the 10 questions!

2. In regard to the loser-pays court system, I think thats bascally what Canada has (which is where I live). If I take you to court in Canada and I lose the case, I have to pay your court costs. Honestly, I think it is great and the US should implement it ASAP. Taking someone to court frivilously or on invalid grounds is aggression in my mind and recouping the court costs is the LEAST that should be compensated.. We still have frivilous lawsuits in Canada, but a lot less of them and its a good policy overall, I think.

Anyways, take care.

It might have been a completely alien character who was involved in the transcendence of some hominid – Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? I don’t know – to the Adamite race. It is interesting that the Bible talks about Adam and his descendants, not about _homo sapiens_. There were genetically compatible non-Adamites around. Cain married one.

The idea in our time of what is man is (like the Jew-Gentile confusion) also in need of being sorted out. The transformation of a hominid to Adamites by God’s agents (angels, who are ETs) would explain a 6000 year old date for Adam, a real historic character, while leaving the long ages of biological evolution of hominids intact. It would also explain to an extent similar events such as the Nephalim. Everybody should be left happy except possibly young-earthers.

Maybe bioengineering is not all that new …

“… Collins always held a high view of Scripture, and never allowed science to preempt Scripture.”

This can be a two-edged sword. Theology is what is preempted, not scripture. Theology can get it wrong just as surely as science. So there is no solace in deferring to theology over science. Tuebingen demonstrates that. So does much young-earth creation doctrine.

Both the creation and scripture must be interpreted to be understood and thus science and theology are both inadequate means for trying to understand the whole. To subjugate either science or theology to the other is to close one eye to the three-dimensional truth before us and result in a view lacking depth. I do not know what Collins thinks in relating science and theology but he appears to have a healthy respect for both.

Hardly. That is, what they please to do is that which is in the interests of Them in Washington. (Notice I did not write “us”.) This is arranged by IMF loans and other forms of subtle but real pressure on developing countries. Now that the last two bastions of opposition to the globalists are being attacked directly – the Muslim Middle East and Africa – one can hardly say that any of the countries involved may freely do as they please – without consequences from NATO, that is.

Who is Maoz referring to when he says “Gentiles”? I doubt if he means what the word means etymologically: those who are not citizens of the Roman empire. Presumably he means those who are not Jews, but what does that mean? If he is intending to relate being Jewish to being a descendant of the tribe of Judah – a Judahite – or even an Israelite – a descendant of any of the tribes of Israel – then many and perhaps most Jews are not Judahites nor are they Israelites but would be, by the above proffered definition, Gentiles.

Anyone who gets into this area of relating “Jew” and “Gentile” needs to clarify the vast confusion surrounding these words. Ted Weiland goes a long way toward doing so, but does Maoz? It does not sound like it. The result is to merely add to the confusion.

Ken

Just a thought on the theory of the “old Pope not rotting”. While Karen & I were up in Portland, we stopped in at Finely’s mortuary to inform them that my mom is in Denver and will need to be transported to their facility when passing away. We got off on the topic of embalming and the details of it. We learned that a crime victim that was buried 20 years ago was recently exhumed. To their total surprise he hadn’t changed at all! A picture was taken of him at death next to his 5 year old son, and then 20 years later another picture with the son at 25, and there was no change at all with the deceased father. This was accredited to the effect of the embalming fluid. If embalming keeps you from rotting, Karen & I will do without it!

Maybe you should break out of the Ferguson box and read somebody who is a real expert on U.S. money, the former Supreme Court lawyer Edwin J. Vieira Jr, and his work, a standard on the subject, Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution. See

http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin196.htm

for more on it.

“I came back scared, wondering that I hadn’t seen yet another version of idolatry, and a complete misconception of the church regarding gaining merit. Their fixation on relics, “sainthood”, practices to gain additional merit, the attention to the Pope and pompous splendor all made me quite happy that I was not a Catholic.”

Do you know that Dane and Bernadette Waterman are (or maybe by now, were) living in Rome? Bernadette took her Sabbatical there.

A few comments on the trip:

Too bad you didn’t see the Palatium Britannicum, the place where Paul stayed in Rome with his British friends that included Roman Christians who had become converted and married into British Silurian royalty, such as Linus Pudens Pudentius, having married Gladys (Claudia), the close relative of Caradoc (Caractacus), betrayed king of Siluria who gave the speech before the Roman Senate that European schoolchildren a few centuries ago routinely memorized. (Lincoln had not yet written the Gettysburg Address for later memorization.) It is part of the forgotten church history, a history that the RCC certainly is not telling, though RCC historical documntation clearly has in it that the first church outside Jerusalem was in Britain. It was there early because of the exiled Joseph of Arimathea and his companions (Mary, Martha, Lazarus, et al). Joe, Jesus’s uncle, did metals business in Cornwall having the Roman title of Nobilus Decurio, in charge of the mines. He was a metals magnate, rich and influential enough to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus, a courageous act under the conditions of Roman law which later caused his exile. From times far more ancient, tin and other metals were mined in Dumnonia (Cornwall) by Israelites and Phoenicians and it became the site of the ancient Culdee (refugee) church in 36 AD, in Avalon (Glastonbury), at the invitation of the Druids, who converted en masse. The forgotten British church history finds a focus in Rome in the villa where Paul stayed with these people when they were under the purview of emperor Claudius. The story of the interaction of the royal families of Claudius and Caradoc is indeed stranger than fiction – and strangely unknown today by pew-sitters and visitors to Rome alike.

The old Pope not rotting fits into a theory about the 6 kings of John’s Revelation, where one comes back (miraculously) to be the Last King. In the Middle Ages, St. Molachy had a vision in which was presented to him the characteristics of all the future Popes. While proper nouns were not given, the accompanying symbolism pointing to major facts about them was, and the list has turned out to be remarkably accurate, assuming not too much Rorschach inkblot reading into them has occurred. What is interesting to me is that the current Pope – the German NAZI – is the last Pope on St. Malachy’s list. After him, Molachy wrote, is the last pope, Peter the Roman – another hint from the MIddle Ages that we are at the end of the age, when Revelation will read like the newspapers.

The current Pope – Ratzinger – had a multi-day exclusive interview with a journalist who probed non-superficially into all kinds of matters, and put it in a book I have on my reading pile titled The Ratzinger Report by Ratzinger and Messori, Ignatius (Jesuits again) Press.

As for the non-rotting Pope, Jesuit propagandist Malachi Martin has written at length about him in his (large) book, The Keys of This Blood, a book with a tendentious amount of “Church of Peter” baloney with a few juicy tidbits scattered in among it. Protestants “returning” to Rome, as though it has some historic claim to Christian authenticity, are idiots verifying the aphorism about not learning from history. Need I say more?

To get in on the real action, too bad you didn’t seek out the Black Pope, the Superior General of the Jesuits (Kolvenbach – or cloven-hoof, as some call him; he does have a devilish look to him) who has equal authority to the Pope. (I am not making this up.) The covert agencies always, in time, take over their respective governments, and subvert them.

Did you hear any scuttlebutt about the Black Mass held in St. Peter’s?

It is possible that the apostle Peter’s bones are there, but the story of Peter being the first Pope is pure hogwash that a little of the forgotten British church history would quickly put to rest for the truth-seeking mind. Linus was ordained by Paul (not Peter) as the first bishop in Rome. Peter, though he suffered in the Mamertine Prison in Rome, was a latecomer to Rome, if at all. His apostleship was to the Jewish Israelites and most of them had migrated eastward, toward Babylon from which Peter wrote his letter (which is also written in a dialect of Greek from east of Decapolis). And I am sure that nothing is said about the real “first Pope” of the Roman church, Simon Magus, who came to Rome and started his ersatz Christianity on Soothsayer’s Hill, a pagan spiritual center in Rome which is now the location of the Vatican.

Finally, St. Peter’s Square has at center the obelisk, known otherwise to the astute Bible student as an Ashteroth pole of OT scripture, the phallic symbol of Mystery Babylon. How fitting. The other two in the world (all taken from Egypt) are in Hyde Park, NYC and, of course, in that Babylon on the Potomac. And did you notice what Tupper Saussy identified as the mark of Cain – the symbol of worldly rule – inscribed on the circle of the Square? The double-cross, which also appears on the UN insignia, on the US Supreme Court bldg, the Harvard Law School doors, the British flag, and wherever a ruler appears on the Assyrian steles.

“His theological discussion shows many mistakes, such as his definition of h?se? as being “faithfulness” when it implies “lovingkindness”. Such mistakes are excusable except for when somebody is attempting a scholarly defense against prevailing notions.”

Computer Bibles are great for word studies. Search for “steadfast love” (hesed or checed in Strong’s) in the ESV (or “lovingkindness” in the older translations) and what do you find? In many of its occurrences, it is directly linked to another word (emeth, or sometimes haman) translated “faithfulness”, usually in reference to Yahweh and his covenant with Israel. Examples:

Deut. 7:9 (ESV)
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful [haman] God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

2 Samuel 2:6 (ESV)
Now may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. And I will do good to you because you have done this thing.

Or a few centuries later,

Neh. 1:5 (ESV)
And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

The Psalms show this connection:

Psalm 25:10 (ESV)
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Psalm 36:5 (ESV)
Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.

The problem here, as anyone familiar with language translation would know, is that words in paleo-Hebrew and our vernacular English do not have exact correspondences in meaning. This is true with hesed, and its use (and the context of its use) demonstrates that it is a word associated with the covenant.

If you don’t believe me, a person entirely lacking in a ThD and therefore possibly incapable of knowing anything substantial about biblical linguistics, then here is what esteemed OT Bible scholar John Bright says, in his classic book, The Kingdom of God, p. 28:

The word hesed cannot be exactly translated … The word is intimately related to the idea of the covenant. When it is used of God, it is very nearly the equivalent of “grace.” It refers to the favor of God which summoned Israel into covenant and the steadfast love which he shows them even in spite of unworthiness. When used of man, the word denotes that proper response to grace which is utter loyalty to the covenant of God and obedience to his will.

The biblical instances of hesed demonstrate Bright’s point. I rest my case.

“Dennis’ comments, of which I’ve heard many times before, suggests that there is a “anthropomorphism” in the very substance of the atomic structure of the universe, that demanded that this is the sort of universe only that could have come out of the “big bang”.”

This is probably a reference to the anthropic cosmological principle of Barrow and Tipler. It is not my idea. (I picked it up from them.) It is a rather convincing argument, that the universe, from the standpoint of revelation through the creation alone, is JUST SO for us to be here. There are so many conditions, all not highly probable, that Barrow and Tipler conclude that it is likely that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. The cosmologists have been so influenced by the anthropic arguments that the particle physicists – some of them – slightly resent it.

I suspect that the argument is more correct than not, but not entirely so. Throughout human history we have been visited by ETs. The Bible refers to them as messengers (angels). They are humanoid, even to the point of near indistinguishability, yet they are not Adamites. Their existence (which I accept) would require some modification of the Barrow, Tipler theory.

“Those who develop the construct of Genesis 1 as simply being an apologetic against the Egyptian gods are wrong, ”

“Simply” is not the same as “primarily.” And it is not the Egyptian gods in particular who are dispensed with but the generic pagan pantheon (Egypt included) whose source was Mystery Babylon. See Alex Hislop’s book, The Two Babylons, for more on this.

“The implication that God commands events to happen in each of the days of creation suggest a divine interference on a “daily” basis. ”

What most Genesis readers fail to do is to actually read the text. On the third day,

“Genesis 1:11-12 (ESV)
God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. [12] The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Note the nature of God’s commands: “Let … [occur].” Sounds like some kind of physical development (evolution?) to me. Verse 12 in most readers’ minds reads: “And God brought forth upon the earth (through a magic wand) vegetation, plants …” but that is not what it says. God says instead to let it happen. Is God thus uninvolved? No, but his involvement is not well described by resorting to what are in essence pagan notions about God and the creation.

“Do the questions of creation/evolution really need to recruit discussions of a universal flood? Are these not ultimately separate questions?”

Of course, though for many (not all) YECs, it is a package deal. You are either with them or against them. No compromise of the truth, you know!

“I feel that we assume too much when we attempt to engage in the creation argument.”

I’m with you. The creation-evolution controversy has been one of the devil’s most successful ways of diverting huge amounts of church resources – of time and effort for over a century – into a cul de sac, a bottomless pit, leaving the church ignorant of much that is instead far more important to know and is not known.

“… a plastic middle position” is irrational. There is none. The truth is pro tertium quid. (Are we allowed to use Latin on a largely Germanic website?)

“Dempski falls off the edge, when he removes God from the much of the processes of creation.”

Hah! Dembski is one of the Intelligent Design people and they are the interventionists. You need to read Howard van Till for a God-wound-it-up-at-the-beginning viewpoint.

“It would be better for Morris to simply be a fideist than an apologist. ”

I thought that’s what he was, a kind of blind fideist. Morris was an engineer and he did try to apply his knowledge of hydraulic engineering to the flood, for instance. But He and Gish and the others were simply in the minor leagues in trying to defend what they were claiming when it came to what they needed to know about science. They tried to reason about the creation (like the medieval rationalists) from scripture without bothering to look and see if it is so. They abused science rather than use it. Some of the subsequent YECs are more honest (and better) about this, but even the most honest of them readily admit that establishing “creation science” (as they term it) is a Promethian challenge. None have yet succeeded at it.

“… the “big-bang” theory, which is entirely consistent with Christian thinking that there was a time when the universe was not, and then came instantly (almost) into being.”

You would think so, yet Stephen Hawking has been working hard on a let’s-get-rid-of-the beginning of the universe with his asymptotic beginning theory. So a determined atheist can also conjure up rationalistic tricks like the best YECs.

“God clearly interfered with natural processes at all stages throughout the development of this world, …”

This is a sentence-full. Are you really comfortable saying that God was INTERFERING in his own activity? I would balk at the very words. They do not seem to fit the theology of creation or of the nature of God at all.

This sounds to me like Vatican revisionist propaganda. I am not saying it is, but I find it rather doubtful to claim that the most advanced civilization of the first century, the Christians of first century Britain, treated each other any differently.

Jesus’s parable of the good Samaritan is essentially that of a primitive manifestation of the hospital. If “hospital” means a building where the sick congregate (and share each other’s diseases) then maybe Basil was first, though institutions for treatment of the sick (hospitals?) predate Basil. They are called “homes”.

The article was published in the newsletter of the Christian Engineers and Scientists in Technology, which is not ASA but is affiliated with it.

“Though this article is directed toward “magic” in creation, Dennis would consider any act of God in His created world that acts outside of the natural law that God formed when He created the world to be outside of His nature. ”

This jumps off already in the wrong direction in regard to what the article is about. The article is directed toward pagan beliefs about creation among “good Christians”. The second sentence is not only a false attribution but is confusing. I have said nothing about “natural law” nor when it was “formed”. (Nor do you, so what are you talking about?) Nor do I concede that the creation, an act of God, does not have anything to do with his character.

“Thus, Dennis would propose that all miracles of Scripture would have a physical, natural law explanation, such as the turning of water into wine, the raising of the axe head, …”

This further adds to the confusion. What you are doing in this response is to lay some unannounced beliefs you have onto the article and are interpreting it accordingly. You keep bringing up “natural law” without any further explanation of what you mean by it though it is loaded with presuppositions that you have yet to reveal.

“… or even the ascension of Christ, which Dennis explained probably happened by a flying saucer picking up Christ and escorting Him off into the Heavens (where, I don’t know, perhaps somewhere close to Betelgeuse).”

This sounds like a further descent into parody. Why not instead state clearly and forthrightly what your problem is with what is being said, not with what is not being said?

“… In order to discuss Dennis’s article, I have enclosed a copy of it for non-ASA members and can be found at the end of this blog following my discussion.”

Thanks. Quite clearly, I can speak better for myself.

“…feeling that God does offer restraints on Himself, but those restraints are a product of God’s own ontology or nature, and is not dependent on external law, either law coming from God’s declaration …”

What is “external law”? Does God’s nature have nothing to do with what he: 1) does in relation to the creation, or 2) in his declarations or revelation of himself in that creation? What does “external law” (whatever it is) have to do with it?

“Miracles may occur at the internal behest or desire of the god himself, acting according to his own nature or in his own best interest.:

This is not what is generally regarded as a biblical understanding of miracles. In a biblical framework, they are PHYSICAL EVIDENCE supporting the truth of what a prophet has to say, usually that it is a word form God. This is my working definition of MIRACLE. What is yours?

Magic is the technology of deception, first arising in Babylon for the purpose of causing the initiates in the Babylonian mystery religion to believe that the gods were speaking to them in the temple. It can involve any of the methods that in our modern era are called magic, but more powerfully, it also included drugs that made the initiates more open to suggestion. These drugs are known and used in covert organizations such as the CIA and fall in the category of MIND CONTROL.

You are going on at length to try to compare or contrast magic and miracles and most of it is beside the point of the article. The key point of the article is that those who do not see anything constraining in God’s relationship to the creation have essentially lapsed into a pagan view of the creation, which is operated by the gods magically. You are attempting to defend those who do not think this way against it, but why? The article addresses those who do think in a pagan way about God’s relationship to the creation. It does not appear that you want to defend the magical view of God’s relationship to the creation as presented in the article yet you object to the basic point of the article. What is your problem? It appears to be with details that fall in the category of philosophy of science.

“Both magic and miracles believe in a spiritual world that interacts and affects the natural world in such a manner that influences the desire or will of the god…”

You leave far more unexplained in what you say than you explain. What is this “spiritual world”? And how does it relate to the creation? You don’t say, yet it is critical to your argument. And you keep invoking “natural world” without defining it. The medievals also thought in these pagan categories, of nature and supernature (if that is what “spiritual” is to you), yet scripture knows nothing of them. You must go to the Greeks, not the Hebrews, to find this false category.

“Dennis would tend toward a theistic evolution similar to what is offered by Francis Collins. …”

This is the kind of commentary unworthy of an educated person – to pigeon-hole the beliefs of another (about a rather involved subject at that!), then invoke some other person with other beliefs as though guilt by association were some valid method of argumentation.

“Dennis continues his discussion by supposing that God would never ever violate His own physical laws, yet Dennis makes a serious mistake in this analysis. First, he supposes faithfulness by God as discussed in Scripture to include restrains on His physical actions in the world. Dennis mistakes God’s faithfulness to His own nature, which acts as the restrain on His actions. …”

I will not attempt to respond to this in any detail. The “serious mistake” is not clearly enough expounded for me to know what you think it is. Whole books have been written on this subject. Yet I can summarize where you have gone in what I do understand in your comments: you have fallen into the error of medieval thought about creation, and I think quite clearly without realizing it.

Mistakes of history repeat themselves. Most young earth creationists are repeating these mistakes and are medieval in their thinking about the creation in that they view creation as a NECESSARY consequence of God’s inner being or nature and not a CONTINGENT act of God. In other words, they do not believe in the voluntarist view of creation as Robert Boyle and other early Christians in science, that God could have created the universe any other way, expounded upon at some length, against the scholastics and rationalists of their time. Perhaps you should begin reading some of this literature. This error you are expounding upon leads away from the point I am making in the article which is the opposite error. “Good Christians” of today fall into both errors.

Your talk about God’s faithfulness seems incoherent to me. Is not God’s faithfulness is a consistent faithfulness, not one where he behaves in one area of activity (“moral behavior”) one way and in a contradictory way (“physical behavior”) in some other area of activity? This is the fickleness of the pagan gods.

“It also reflects the notion that the “laws” of science are as immutable as God’s word.”

This is a different (epistemological) issue. If you really want to say that God’s revelation in his word is better, less erroneously understood by humanity (by you?) than his revelation in the creation, then try to defend that point rather than concluding it. I don’t buy it. Both aspects of God’s revelation require human interpretation and both are subject to human error.

What I find is least helpful in your comments is your pontificating attitude:
“Dennis’s greatest mistake is in trying to be both a scientist and a theologian, of whom he is neither, but rather a theological dilettante with training in electrical engineering and an insatiable curiosity about the world. His theological discussion shows many mistakes, such as his definition of h?se? as being “faithfulness” when it implies “lovingkindness”.”

Are you in a position to be able to actually say this with any certitude? I doubt it. Instead of defining YOUR key expressions (and you never did define MAGIC; you only contrasted it with MIRACLE which is not a DEFINITION) you lambast me for not being a scientist or theologian (ad hominem argument – rather unconvincing on the face since you show no sign of knowing the important concepts of philosophy of science bearing on the issue), then pontificate about some Hebrew words translated in English without a shred of argument or counterargument – mere spleen venting! You will have to do better than this to engage me in any substantive discussion on the issues at hand.

Take ONE SPECIFIC issue, define it clearly, state your position (or what you think mine is), then defend (or critique) it using logic and factual evidence. That will give me something to respond to.

I once talked with Jon Wells (at an airport!) and he seems to be a guy interested in applying what he knows of the life sciences (and he is competent) to unravel darwinism. He is part of Phil Johnson’s Wedge effort, he is tall, a closet Moonie, and a quite likable fellow, though he has been cleverly evasive with me about whether he is a member of the Unification Church or not.

As for Collins, he has been an ASA poster-boy in recent years, but I question his consistency as a Christian, given his entanglement with the ruling psychotics. J. Craig Venter’s private entrepreneurial accomplishment of what Collin’s group at NIH has been plodding along (in expensive government fashion) to accomplish for years does not speak well for the NIH effort. Collins would perhaps do better to go back to his African missionary work, and keep practicing on using his guitar and motorcycle.

And Venter’s book, A Life Decoded, might be worth a review too. I have a copy but have not read it. But Ken, if you do – a life scientist and not an engineer – then I can read your review instead! Maybe I should even send my copy to you.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/229524-Hijacking-The-Holy-C-Street-Dominionism-and-Sarah-Palin

People close to her in the Alaska town where she is from are afraid to even say anything about her, she is so controlling and vindictive. Her own children view her as a fake. She is apparently psychotic. Consequently, she is qualified to be a future U.S. President.

The above article is not written by a Christian but brings out the growth of a social movement that is ostensibly Christian yet seeks worldly power in the name of Christ the world’s way and working within the power structures established by the world-system, based on the familiar misinterpretation of Romans 13:1. I did not realize that it is so far-flung and well-developed as a movement seeking power in the usual psychotic manner. Even YWAM and Bill Bright have been connected to it through the Seven Mountains mission. One manifestation of it, according to the article, is the Third Wave movement, which is said to have made major inroads in the Assemblies of God. Although Rushdoony and North are looked upon for support by this movement, knowing North, I find this somewhat absurd as it is in my reading of Rushdooney. Both expect the Messiah to lead the takeover, and it might not be as expected in wordly terms either. Dominionism is not biblical Christianity nor does it seem to have much of a connection to Rushdooney and North either.

I’m interested in reading more on the subject. I tend to shock Christians when I tell them I believe in evolution (evolution simply means change over time, so I believe things change over time). It seems to me that evolution has become so much a taboo word in Christian thinking that it’s hard to cut to the chase on the subject. I’ve heard Pastor Rayburn say that Theistic Evolution is a dangerous idea, but I think he only challenged a subset of Theistic Evolutionist thought. He described it as the idea that in the beginning, God set everything in motion, and simply let creation naturally form itself while having little to no control out of the sort of outcome that would arise. I would of course agree with him on that particular objection.

Anyways, I hope to see you soon.
-Jonny

Calvin had a good background in that he was the student in Paris of John Major (the earlier one, not the former P.M. of Britain) who was a “nominalist”. Nominalism would appeal to magic-wand Christians who see no particular need for a Logos to underlay physical reality. Nominalists considered rational theory to be merely a convenient way of cataloging the observations about nature, a way of “saving the appearances” in much the same way that the telephone book saves everyone’s phone number. The problem with nominalism is that it is a manifestation of empiricism, the outlook on the world that eschews rational theory. Without a rational theory, one is left with a bunch of dots and nothing connecting them into a deeper picture of reality. Why would nominalism have been popular in the late Middle Age? Because it was a reaction to the rationalism of the scholastics, tracing back to Aristotlean armchair physics.

Many of the people in the Middle Age who were called nominalists were not actually; they were realists, and I think Major probably would have better fit that category. Science in our time is based on a realist outlook on the universe. Instead of rejecting reason it finds a need for both observation and reason in the effort to discover the truth about the creation. A realist view, in contrast to a rationalist view, of creation would theologically view it as a contingency of God. Robert Boyle, the early scientist, reflects this view in his voluntaristic theology. The creation need not by logical necessity be the way it is; God could have created it differently. Consequently, it is not possible to deduce what the physical world is from a set of axioms using logic. One must observe the world to see what it actually is and build one’s theories about the world in conformity with observation. While there is a tug and pull between reason and observation (theory and experimental data), those who recognized that both were essential were the realists, and they later came to be known as scientists. John Major and hence John Calvin stood in that tradition, though a more nuanced review of Calvin would show that he was also influenced by nominalist thinking to some extent. How this plays out in his major theological themes goes beyond the scope of these comments!

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1999/PSCF9-99Feucht.html

The emphasis of John Calvin on the determinism of God in eternity was in response to the degeneration of religion into the experiential melange that was (maybe still is in many cases) medieval Roman Catholicism. However, the reconciling of the putatively true concepts of God’s sovereignty and human freedom of the will and responsibility is a profound one.

It was not until Donald MacKay, a Scottish highlander Presbyterian physicist and brain researcher, put forth an argument that was based on self-referencing logic that the larger picture of this issue began to unfold. I will not repeat the arguments of MacKay here but refer you to the above article where I not only give MacKay’s argument in brief but also give a related (inverse) argument that further demonstrates that free will has as its logical basis the “paradox of the liar”, as logicians call it. (All Cretans are liars; the person who uttered this was a Cretan (Epimenides, most likely); therefore, are they or aren’t they?) One reason for why this issue has remained unresolved and mysterious for centuries is that it cannot be understood sufficiently by thinking about it in Aristotelian logic. A higher-order logic is necessary.

He was honest to a fault. Once he agreed to give a talk on physics somewhere as long as he did not have to sign his name more than 12 times. The inviters thought that was not a problem and agreed. It turned out that signing the check they gave him as an honorarium would have taken a thirteenth signature and he wouldn’t do it. This caused plenty of trouble with the System, in trying to compensate him some other way. Here was a man limiting his involvement in an evil System by limiting his signatures, and he stuck to it, even though he could not cash the check. Most of today’s “wonderful Christians” would abandon their word under those circumstances and sign the check.

So I have some respect for Feynman. He is also a good example to Christians of what it means to think for yourself rather than let the world or theological “experts” do your thinking for you. He was “outside the box”, open to new truth, and not terribly fond of his own conceits. I wish we all could be more like Feynman in these respects.

“While Christ often referred to the church as the “Kingdom of God”, ”
“Subsequent chapters note the covenant that binds Israel (the church) in the wilderness, …”

I know of nowhere in the Bible where Christ refers to the Kingdom of God as the church or the church as the Kingdom of God. The true church is a part of that Kingdom, but is not itself the Kingdom. All who are voluntarily subject to the rule of Christ are of the Kingdom. Today, we might consider that to be all true Christians. However, the OT Israelites were not Christians as such. While OT Israel was the church (assembly of God’s people) encamped, the NT church is not necessarily Israelite (as Weiland tends to think).

Robertson seems to be trying to relate his study to the church of today in pointing out the current church’s preoccupation with narcissism and nihilism, and its loss of memory of what it means to be a people on the fringe of “civilization” – that is, the world-system. The holidays (holy days) God has given his people, starting with the nation of Israel, like the festival of RVs (wilderness camping festival) to remind them of their separation (holiness) from the world, are essentially forgotten, relegated to “the Jews” as though they are the rightful inheritors of God’s holidays. In their place, the Babylonian holidays are accepted as having some kind of Christian legitimacy: Easter (Ishtar) and Christmas in particular.

The next step for Robertson is to consider that these festivals are given by God, not man, to his people and that maybe we ought to celebrate them instead of adorning the sacred trees on Saturnalia. A people who are distinct from the world and do not observe the world’s holidays would be a sign that the church is becoming holy and has moved back into its wilderness position.

This all makes sense in terms of the goals of the power elite. The goal in this case is to weaken America so that 5000 elitists can control a quarter-billion outsiders. Who better to use than a person who hates America, a willing participant in its destruction?

While British colonialism was unpleasant, so was the destruction, led by God, of the Canaanites by the earlier Israelites. Certain unreformable evils had to be swept away for a better world to emerge, and in the main, it has. It is the kingdom of Christ, OUR (God’s people) nation and Christ, OUR president, as it were.

In Windsor Castle hangs a chart of the lineage of Queen Elizabeth II, who is Scottish. It traces back to Judah. Jacob said in his blessings to (or prophecies about) his sons that the scepter would go to Judah. The Britannic Empire, a “company of nations”, has ruled the world for 150 years and before them, the Zarahite branch of Judah (Spain) did. Now the brother of Britain (“a great nation”) is trying for world empire. It appears that God actually meant what he said about Judah ruling, something even “good Christians” are not likely to believe.

Well, I agree. However, anyone who really believes this is also going to have to be willing to dispense of long-held cherished notions such as the chronology of the Egyptians king’s list, from which even Kenneth Kitchen places the Exodus under Shishak in the mid-1200s instead of Thutmose II in the mid-1400s according to the biblical dating. At least two archaeologists (David Rohl and Peter James) independently have examined the lists in Luxor and have concluded that though kings are listed in a vertical column (and thus we all seem to suppose, sequential) order, that some of them were ruling contemporaneously and that this explains the earlier dating of the Exodus.

I know Edwin Yamauchi and I would have expected him to be respectful of the Bible as history.

Some more about the Exodus. That now-pseudo-christian publisher, Eerdmans, published a book on the Exodus by archaeologist John Dever that reminds me of much whiny, excusatory Christian apologetics. Dever puts the best possible archaeological face on a late Exodus, though the archeological record shows no major evidence of any invasion, no toppling of Jericho, etc. in the mid-1400s BCE. So he concludes they must have come in now and then in bits and dribbles, and maybe a significant fraction of Israelites were Canaanites anyway (which would not be a problem for spiritual-Israelism). Others, like Ray Capt (highly recommended – see http://www.artisanpublishers.com) simply give the archaeological evidence for the burning of Jericho and other major cities in Canaan such as Hazor. The evidence is there – in the 1400s.

However, when God makes certain clear and unambiguous claims such as that about the dynasty of David never ending, even some “good Christians” rush to their theology to explain how black can be white. So this kind of criticism can cut both ways.

1. The Jews
2. The church
3. Israel

I opt for # 3. It is not hard to sort this out with an open mind driven by facts. The fact is that Israel exists today, is largely NOT the Jews (though some undoubtedly are), and is also not the church, though the overlap is large.

Too bad some of this is not sorted out better in books by authors too influenced to write off most of the church throughout most of history.

Constantine was the son of Constantius and Helen of Colchester. His parents drove the Romans off the Isle and Constantine, with his army of Britons, entered what now is Germany to defeat Roman general Maximius and march into Rome amid the cheering crowds. The Romans had a fearful reverence for the British in that they were one of two nations that the Romans never could defeat. (The other, also Israelites, were the Parthians.) Rome started out in earnest (with Claudius’s edict) to destroy Britain because it was the first-century stronghold of Christianity and Druidism, the Druids having converted en masse to Christ and were the leaders of the Culdee church, the church which brought the gospel to Western Europe. In the end, Britain destroyed the Roman empire, a fact not much attested to in most tellings of history. I wonder if this books says anything about this.

“Many recent writings, such as “Truth Triumphant-The Church in the Wilderness” base an entire theology on the corruptions of Constantine, and many have been mislead by failing to truly understand what Constantine did in favor of the Christian church.”

This is a wild overstatement! It also shows a lack of understanding of the distinction between Magus’s false christian church in Rome and the vast numbers of true believers scattered from Britain to Japan in the first couple of its centuries.

Constantine could hardly have been a Christian ruler because, according to some accounts, he became a Christian on his deathbed. His effects on the church likewise show that he served to establish the apostate Roman church at the expense of the true church such as the Culdee church or the vast church of the East. While Rome, in typical apostate fashion as the accuser of the brethren, called these true believers semi-arians, Only a few were. Protestants seem to not yet be cognizant of that fact. Constantine’s faction supported the bishop of Rome. By the third century, the true church was already being driven into the wilderness by Simon Magus’s false Christianity in Rome, and they quit attending their meetings in the late 300s. Yet in the prior meetings attended, the representative from Britain was always seated first because the order of seating was the chronological order of the churches. This too is a forgotten fact of church history.

Whatever Yoder might have said, the church given impetus by Constantine was the church that became the papal institution, based on military rule. Those who want to support its abominations, go ahead. Constantine did his part.

“Leithart reminds us the the church under persecution prayed for an end to persecution, and for the rise of a Christianized government. They got exactly what they prayed for.”

The followers of Magus’s church got their wish, all right. There is no such thing as “Christianized government”. The ruler is either subject to the rule of Christ and Biblical law or not. It took many centuries before the Dark Ages of such “Christian rule” under the papacy was broken. And if this line of argumentation is followed through, one would have to support Clovis, Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire, and its head, the little horn of Daniel, uttering great boastful words and giving even “good Protestants” a false view of church history. Perhaps that was what Yoder was really on about.

It is good that Constantine is being re-examined in our time. The rest of forgotten church history ought to be included.

“1. Who we call Jews today are actually Kazars and Edomites, 2. Who we call Gentiles in the Bible are actually Israelites who have taken over Europe. 3. The promises of salvation in Scripture remain limited to Israelites.”

This is not actually what Weiland is trying to say. 1. Khazars and Edomites constitute a large fraction of the people who are called Jews today and it is not known what fraction of Jews are Israelites; 2. “Gentiles” is a word used in scripture translation that should be translated “nations” for both Hebrew (goyim) and Greek (ethnae) and that the word is used in scripture to refer to both Israelites and non-Israelites; 3. It is through the Israelites that salvation comes to the world and they are the people whom Jesus called his disciples to go to first. Subsequent history shows they did.

The etymology of the word “Jew” as translated in scripture better renders it as “Judean” and refers to those living in Judea, whether Judahite or not. The word appears in use for those living there after the Babylonian exile. That is how Weiland uses the word.

“Chapter 3 introduces the idea that the current Jews living in the state of Israel are actually Kazars or Edomites. ”

The Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern and Central Europe are descendants of Ashkenaz, the father of the Turks. The Khazars were a Turkish people living at the top of the Caspian Sea at the time they converted to Judaism. Arthur Koestler’s book, The Thirteenth Tribe, goes into the details of their history. These Jews are “false Jews” and are not Israelites. Neither are the many Edomites who came into Judaism in Judea at the time of John Hyrcanus.

“Chapter 5 further labors over trying to define the gentile, accusing translators with inconsistency in the translation of goyim and ethnos, yet always admitting that those words are used to refer to different things at different times.”

The meanings of “nations” is not arbitrary. What is inconsistent in the translations is the arbitrary selection of either “nations” or “gentiles” for a word that simply means “nations”. By introducing “gentiles” much confusion is created because readers suppose that “Gentiles” means “non-Israelites” when it sometimes does not. When the non-Israelite meaning is absurd (“Abraham was the father of many Gentiles” for instance) then “nations” is inserted. Why? There is no logic to the use of “Gentile” in the translations. None. The word “Gentile” comes not from Greek or Hebrew but from the Latin gentilis, referring to anyone who was not a Roman citizen. Thus in its proper use, Jesus was a Gentile but Paul was not. Weiland is trying to draw attention to this vast confusion. Few others in the church are but remain under it instead.

“Chapter 6 attempts to offer a biblical argument that when the Scripture discusses promises to Israel, it could not possibly refer to a “spiritual” Israel, i.e., to non-Israelites who have faith in Christ.”

The church is not Israel. To say otherwise is theology, not biblical fact. Weiland does not consider the church to be Israel as some theologies today would have it. He points out quite factually that the people to whom certain claims were made were Israel. Israel is a nation of people that consists of the descendants of Jacob. Weiland points out this simple, basic fact of OT scripture. To further muddy the linguistic waters by trying to use the word to mean the church instead is simply disingenuous. It is a form of propaganda. Most of the church are Israelites but not all. (This is one point on which I agree Weiland might be going too far.)

“Chapter 9 argues that the whole of Europe was actually occupied by migrations of the 10 “lost” tribes of Israel, thus affirming that the covenant to Israel related to Europe and not to other “nations” that were “non-Israelite”.”

This is an important historical fact. The absurd historical conclusion that Israel just faded away leaving only the Jews might have appealed to rational minds two centuries ago before the Middle East was dug up by archaeologists and before Sharon Turner wrote his book on the origin of the English, but no longer. The evidence that Israel is what has been called the Caucasians is far too strong to omit. If Israel, as properly called in scripture, is alive, well, and (as God promised) numerous today, then it hardly passes to try to call the church “Israel”. This merely adds to the existing confusion Weiland is trying to reduce.

“Chapter 10 again resurrects the argument that the current Israelis are actually Edomites. It is hard to know where to start with a critical review of this book.”

And Khazars. Start with the historical facts. Most of them could not be contained in one book such as Weiland’s. Yet his main point about “Gentiles” is supported by them. Read Koestler and and archaeologist Ray Capt who went through the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum and found the links between upper-kingdom Israel and the Sacae (Saxons).

“The scholarship is so bad, so poorly argued, so inconsistent that it defies imagination. I was careful to look up a number of his quotes, such as to the Jewish Encyclopedia, which one may access on-line, to realize that the text is definitely NOT confirming the arguments of Weiland, but only presenting a number of theories of who the Jews are.”

On the contrary, Weiland is fairly rigorous, but you have to follow what he is saying rather than read theological objections into it. I have also looked at his quotes and do not find anything out of order IF you stick with his main assertions.

“Weiland presents nothing novel, in that British Israelism or Anglo-Israelism has been around at least two hundred years, and has failed in all aspects, historically, scripturally, logically, philologically, and experientially as a reasonable explanation of the definition of the Jew and the Gentile.”

To be more precise, the nature of this failure is that it contradicts cherished theological ideas that some people are unwilling to give up in the face of historical revelation of facts they would prefer to overlook.

“Weiland speaks in a very demeaning style, which is necessary for him in order to attempt to persuade somebody else of his preposterous claims. In his Scripture quotes, he routinely inserts his own definition of pronouns [the house of Judah], [the house of Israel], etc., which defies plain reads of the quoted Scripture. Weiland is an example of forming a theory, and then forcing history and Scripture to fit that.”

I did not find his style to be demeaning but to be fairly objective. He is trying to argue to certain conclusions and does make explicit the meaning of scripture relative to those conclusions. So do the “Church is Israel” people. The difference is that Weiland has historical support while the older spiritual-Israel theory is, like the Tuebingen theologian’s higher criticism, the best that could be made up before the vast revelation of history in the last two centuries. It is high time for a theological update based on facts dug out of the ground.

“Yet, to Wieland’s embarrassment, the Koreans, and African nations are exploding with Christians. Perhaps, Wieland would argue that they are lesser Christians that found in Europe and America. In summary, this book was so bad that it was a struggle to read. I pity the poor souls that actually believe this rubbish.”

This is a classic example of throwing the baby out with the bath water. I agree that Weiland pushes the exclusivity of salvation to Israel too far, but to ignore the rest of the book is to miss the point of the book. I pity that.

As I pointed out in an early message, the top Egyptologist in the world, Birmingham U. prof. Kenneth Kitchen, levels the rationalist-school sandcastle. He speaks with authority and not as the theologians.

It would be interesting to know if the authors actually have any of the forgotten but extremely significant OT history in their book. In the typical evangelical church, you get no inkling that the Israelites knew of anything but their plot of ground on the Levant, yet they formed colonies all over the Mediterranean, in waves over centuries. For instance, the Sephardic Jews (Spanish Jews) of today, which are not anything like the Turkish Ashkenzi Jews (as any Turk can tell you, Ashkenaz was the father of the Turks) who are Khazars, not Israelites, are later colonists in Spain after the “breach of Judah” sent descendants of Zarah in the 2nd millennium BCE to the Hebrew – I mean, Hibernian – peninsula. When the people of both northern and southern Israelite kingdoms were warned by prophets of impending invasions, the prophets recommended going west and many Israelites did just that. Those Zarahites in ancient northern Spain (they founded Segunto, the oldest known town in Spain) gave names to cities (Zaragosa – “fortress of Zarah” in Hebrew) and the Ebro (Hebrew) River, then migrated to northern Ireland, which was known in ancient times as Ibernia. This is where Jeremiah took the daughter(s) of Zedekiah where one of them married a Zarahite king (Eochiadh the Heremon of Erie) and the breach of Judah was healed. The herald of the city of Ulster is that of the herald of the Zarahites: a scarlet hand.

There is now so much archaeological and other historical evidence for believing the Bible, yet even the OT histories in the “good Christian” churches deny God’s claims for Israel and the dynasty of David, and are in complete disarray over who the Jews are and what happened to the Israelites. They are vast and numerous, and remain generally unknown, hidden in plain sight. They are almost completely not “the Jews”. OT history is overdue for a complete re-write, both among the rationalist theologians and the mainstream evangelicals.

Totally agree that most of Facebook (and Twitter) is drivel though. Then again, so are many of the emails that I get. The trick is to log on only occasional and ignore most of the junk (or simply hide information from people who do nothing but post what they ate for dinner).

Interestingly, a blog is a lot more like Facebook/LinkedIn. It allows you to push out what interests you and solicit responses to anyone who checks your blog or has it syndicated.

The purpose of social media is not to connect to someone you know so much as it is to allow others to connect to you and know what you’re doing.

Also, LinkedIn and Facebook both provide great ways to be introduced or “meet” people whose email address or other contact information you may not know but you know indirectly through another person.

Also, by the way, there are a HUGE number of WordPress plugins that allow you to do almost anything with it. The capabilities are really quite staggering.

Anyway — enough rambling for me.

By bringing in the neglected church history of the Celtic Culdee church at Avalon (Glastonbury) in Britain and the church of the East, beginning with Antioch, it is not hard to show a vast unity very early on, beginning in 36 AD with the founding of the first church outside Jerusalem, in Britain by Joseph of Arimithea, with subsequent involvement by apostles Paul, Simon Zealotes, and Philip. The Constantinian church is part of the other thread of history belonging to the false church of Magus, run from Rome, who accused true believers of heresy, with labels such as semi-Arianism, when the real heretics functioned under an “orthodox” label. Some study is required to sort it all out!

As for which books belong in the Bible, this is more of a modern than a historic church issue. The OT apochrypha, for instance, are in the RCC Bible, and should be in the Protestant Bible. They were thrown out because the extant manuscripts for them were only in Greek and none were in Hebrew. After archaeologists began digging, Hebrew manuscripts of them were found, eliminating the objection. Yet where do you find them in Protestant Bibles? II Esdras, for instance, tells us what happened to the Israelites, not leaving it to such wild speculation as that they dissolved into the surrounding peoples of Iran and Media. They did not. II Esdras tells us where they went.

There is no clear line for some works such as Shepherd of Hermas. It was treated by early churches of apostolic times like scripture. And the preponderance of Paul’s writings in the NT can be accounted for only because they became popular in the rise of the Marcionite heresy. Again, there is no easy path to conclusions about the canon of scripture. The book of Jasher, for instance, is cited with authority twice in the Bible yet it is not in the Bible! I have a copy in English. Few know it even exists.

One possible way might be to read the book God and the Ancient Chinese by Samuel Wang and Ethyl Nelson, 1998, Read Books Publisher, Dunlap, TN.

“… a vivid, comprehensive comparison and systematic study of the ancient Chinese writings with the Bible.” This includes little-known Bible prophecy about China, Chinese “prophets” and their prophecies of Jesus Christ, the real meaning of Dao, Yin and Yang, three persons of the godhead in ancient Chinese writings, the plan of salvation hidden in The Book of Changes (Yi Ching), Lao Zi and his misinterpreted teachings, and Confucius, the Chinese Moses and his unrealized dream.

hope, to hear more!

your brother

Despite this, it is a book to have on reference. It is a “legacy” work and deserves an enduring readership, if only to look up specific issues on occasion.