The Imagination of C.S. Lewis

There is a great article over at the Ligonier Ministries blog by Leland Ryken titled The Imagination of C.S. Lewis. This article explores how the stories came about for Lewis and how they took on their Christian meaning. It's quite amazing actually:

Lewis famously said that "all my seven Narnian books...began with pictures in my head. At first they were not a story, just pictures." Thus The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe "began with a picture of Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood." Just as we are recovering from the shock of that revelation, Lewis adds, "This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.'"

Just in case we might think that we cannot possibly have heard things correctly, Lewis also gave us another passage of similar import -- only more shocking. In countering the assumption of some of his readers that he "began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children," Lewis claimed that "at first there wasn't even anything Christian about [the stories]."

The order of composition suggests an order of reading. If we follow the lead of Lewis himself, a major lesson we can learn from the Narnian stories is that they are first of all stories -- adventure stories, fantasy stories, children's stories. These narrative features are not simply "a disguise for something more 'adult'."

There is an image posted at the article that details the Biblical themes of the stories - basically they are a walk through the Biblical narrative:

The Jesus Family Tomb

I'm sure many of you have heard about the archaeological find in 1980 that is supposedly the tomb of Jesus, Joseph and Mary along with Mary Magdalene and Judah, son of Jesus and Mary as well as a Matthew and Yosef. On March 4 (Sunday Night), the Discovery Channel will be airing "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." Last night, Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., president, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was on Larry King Live discussing this. A full transcript is available here. Also, he has a podcast about this that I will have to listen to tomorrow.

First of all, I would like to say that this is nothing to get up in arms about. Whether or not a filmmaker truly believes this, he has no proof that this is Jesus' tomb. Regardless of your belief in the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, we all know by watching enough CSI that to prove that DNA belongs to someone that you need two samples of DNA. One has to vouch that one of the samples belongs to the person in question. However, there is no sample of DNA from Jesus. Unless, of course, James Cameron has spent some time with Harrison Ford going through the Great Temple at Petra looking for the Holy Grail.

One interesting thing to note is that Dr. James Tabor, Chair Religious Studies locally at UNCC is really going out and supporting this new theory of the Jesus tomb. I've seen that the local newscasts have talked about his support of this. However, it's great that Dr. Mohler called him out on the hypocrisy of that notion because Dr. Tabor wrote a book in which he claimed that Joseph was NOT the father of Jesus. But in this transcript you can read where he believes this theory and asserts that Joseph was the father of Jesus. So, like Dr. Mohler, I would like to know what Dr. Tabor believes? Was he mistaken in his book or is he just following this controversial theory because it supports some of his other notions?

In the transcript, Ben Wedeman (a CNN correspondent) even said "they are referring this story to Israel's prominent archaeologists, who, by and large, as I said, are fairly skeptical."

But I mostly wanted to pass along to you some of what Dr. Mohler had to say on the show. I hope that it can help clear up some of the mud...

Well, it is only startling in terms of the sensationalism, I think, of public relations here. You are talking about a tomb that was discovered, as you said, well over two decades ago. The archaeologists there in Israel, who are the closest to this, have the greatest expertise, are not only looking at this with skepticism, but basically dismissing its claims.

You are talking about frankly trying to dress up an old documentary, the BBC did something like this over a decade ago, with this kind of supposed statistical research and DNA testing. The DNA testing is to me the most laughable aspect of all of this. I mean, frankly, there could be a thousand, thousand different explanations for whatever DNA pattern they could find.

No one has the DNA of Mary. You know, trying to bring this into a modern crime investigation is like trying to go back and figure out who exactly put the first dagger into Julius Caesar. It's impossible....

I'm going to base my beliefs on the scriptures which hold together far better than the kind of farcical documentary we are talking about here, throwing in a little bit of statistics. I mean, you're talking about the most common names, especially the most common male names, also frankly, female with the name Mary, you're talking about anything that could be found just about anywhere.

And then there are some rather really far-fetched claims. I mean, after all, you're talking about a poor, peasant family from Nazareth with an ancestral heritage in Bethlehem. There's no logical reason why their bones should end up in a middle class tomb in Jerusalem.

Technorati: Jesus Tomb, James Cameron

Compilation from my Gospel of Judas Posts

I finally got around to compiling the information I blogged about in April on the Gospel of Judas. You can find the compilation at my website:

Gospel of Judas

Technorati: Gospel of Judas, Christianity

Awesome Weekend! (Dead Sea Scrolls and Worship Service)

Now that I have some time, I just wanted to go over some highlights from this past weekend. I know it's almost the next weekend, but it's been a wild but great week!

On Friday night, my wife and I finally went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC. This was amazing, but I'm not sure exactly what I expected. To begin, the group gets to watch about a 10 minute film that relates some of the background (for the uninitiated!). This was a fairly high-level overview, but was good. Since I've been putting off going (the exhibit was from February through Memorial Day, so we went on the last weekend), I've been taking the time to read up on this. I had a couple of books on the scrolls and acquired a couple of others since the beginning of the year. Two good ones you should try to get your hands on are Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls by F.F. Bruce and The Dead Sea Scrolls by Millar Burrows. I don't believe you'll be able to find these in B&N, though. I've been trying to find a decently priced edition of the Bruce book on eBay for a while and finally did find one in April. After the short film we were able to go into a large room with different stations set up to see many artifacts from Qumran and other generic ancient artifacts. Highlights (for me) from this room include a replica of the Copper Scroll and coins from the era. There was also a good deal of pottery in there.

After this we were able to see about 15 samples of the actual Dead Sea Scrolls. They were enclosed in a case with lighting that would only illuminate the case for about 10 seconds at a time at 15 second intervals. The room was also extremely dry to emulate the conditions that sustained the scrolls for nearly 2,000 years. It was truly amazing to see these historical documents. Offhand, there were samples from (a) the Biblical books of Numbers, Psalms, Genesis, and Isaiah, (b) the apocryphal book of Enoch, and (c) the sectarian writings of the community such as The Rule of War and The Community Rule.

Sunday, my wife and I took a road trip with our church's worship leader to Villa Rica, GA (about 20 miles on I-20 from Alabama) to lead a worship service with our youth group (about 100 kids were there). We discussed a lot of songs on the way and were up in the air on one to do for "humility". Fastforward to about 5 minutes before the service, the youth minister asked a youth (the worship leader's daughter actually) to give a testimony about humility. During the course of her speech she stated that the song Facedown (also look here) by Matt Redman really speaks to her of humility. WOW! That was the song we had decided on in the car ride down there. It was really awesome!! The service was great and 4 youth made decisions to follow Jesus.

I've already posted about what I got on the way back too...

"The Gospel of Judas" - Part III

This will, hopefully, be my final post on this. You can view Part I here and Part II here. In the second installment, I related my thoughts after reading through the Gospel of Judas. In this post I would like to share my thoughts of the two hour TV special that the National Geographic Channel (NGC) aired on April 9, 2006.

The first thing that strikes me is how much positive support there was shown for this Gnostic gospel in the TV special. We hear right off the bat that it was "hidden" nearly 2,000 years and that it could "challenge our deepest beliefs". I use the term "hidden" simply because that was the quote from the special. To be quite honest, this gospel wasn't hidden but actually abandoned! There was no group that thought it vital enough to perpetuate it or even its contents, so one must keep that in mind when analyzing its importance to the original audience. I took two pages of notes from the special, but I will keep this brief incorporating only key points.

First of all, I have never mentioned in a main post that Bishop Irenaeus wrote about a "Gospel of Judas." According to the NGC special, we should believe that he was writing about this specific gospel. If you are a casual passer-by watching the special, you will hear the following two phrases describing Irenaeus' mention of the gospel: it was "a scathing attack" and he "railed" against it. This is what we hear about 15 minutes into the special and about 45 minutes in we hear of Irenaeus again. This time we are told that he was "targeting" the authors of the Gospel of Judas and he rejected the gospel mainly on the premise that it was "titled" the Evangelion Judas or Gospel of Judas. Further, Irenaeus only "chose" 4 out of about 30 possible gospels. In prior research, I saw a quote of Irenaeus, but it was not anything major (as we would be led to believe here). I should also note that the NGC special did not take the time to quote Irenaeus at all! Please allow me to relate to you the only thing Irenaeus had to say about the Gospel of Judas when discussing the Cainites:

Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Volume I, Chapter XXXI, Section 1)

Judge for yourselves, but this is not a "scathing attack" or a "railing" against the authors of the Gospel of Judas. It should make one wonder what the producers of the NGC special had in mind when they couldn't quote the only verifiable mention of this gospel that has ever been recorded before the Gospel was abandoned not to be read again until the past few years. Instead they take the stance of those who think the formation of the Canon was done by men who were keeping truth from the Church. This example of Irenaeus is just one of many I could relate in depth. But I said I would stay brief, so below are some other things I noted.

1. It was stated that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John died before their gospels were written and that many theologians support this. I have never read or heard this before in any questions from people about the validity of the Synoptic Gospels.
2. There were "many early Christianities" and the Gnostics bothered the church leaders because "they had special insights and didn't need bishops" or any other type of leadership.
3. Judas "grows more evil from the 1st Gospel of Mark to the last Gospel of John" and is "not a villain in Mark's Gospel." The NGC Special basically promoted this and dedicated about 25 minutes to expound upon this. Personally, the special really got ugly here. They noted that since Judas is a Greek form of the word for Judah that Judas was symbolic of the Jews. The villainy of Judas represents that of the Jews. "Judas becomes the poster boy for anti-Semitic thinking." Of course there was one somewhat conservative scholar who they would bring into the special every so often to discredit some of these claims, but when the narrator of the special said the following, it was pretty clear where NGC stands: "The Portrait of Judas in the New Testament did not directly, but may have indirectly fed into the poisonous stream that brought about the holocaust." Wow!...
4. They stated that about 15% of the Gospel of Judas has been lost forever due to decay. This echoes what I noted in my second installment that of 7 pages, about 67 lines were missing.
5. In a dramatic presentation of the key points of the Gospel, no mention was made of the Angel Saklas or that Judas' sacrifice of Jesus would be to this angel. In fact, much of the Gospel text was about the secret teachings of Jesus to Judas on Heaven and the Creation. None of the insanity I mentioned in my second installment regarding the Creation account (an Angel Saklas created Adam and Eve in a cloud!) is related to the viewers of the NGC special. It was rather disheartening to see this left out because it is one of the main factors that church fathers like Irenaeus would have used to show that the Gospel of Judas was not a true gospel.

In sum, I would like to quote Dr. Craig Evans when he stated that the Gospel of Judas "doesn't tell us about the historical Jesus and Judas tradition." In other words, while this may be an authentic document from the 3rd Century, it's not historically accurate.

"The Gospel of Judas" - Part II

On April 7, I initially posted something about "The Gospel of Judas" which had just been released as a translation, included in a book, and promoted for a television documentary all by the National Geographic Society. It will also be featured on the cover of their magazine. I have since read the gospel and would like to relay some further thoughts.

The translation I read was a PDF at the New York Times website. The first thing I would like to note is not what is in the text but what's not in the text. The PDF is only 7 pages long, so it would be a quick read for anyone. But there are all total about 67 lines missing from the text. This is a fair amount of material. There are also other sections in which the text is very confusing due to missing words.

The main section that you won't hear reported is when Jesus is relating to Judas the secret mysteries of the creation account. According to this gospel, there are two "angels", Nebro and Saklas. Each of these angels created 6 other angels each. We then read the following about the angel Saklas:

“Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names."

From my prior post, a commentor asked what Christianity would look like if these gospels had been known before the 20th Century. Besides the fact that most of these were known by the early Church, I doubt that it would have been much different. Just looking at the skewed Creation account above, one can see how quickly this document would have been deemed heretical because of the sheer insanity of the hidden knowledge (gnosis) that it supports! At my website, I have some of my own textual notes on the Acts of Peter, Paul, and Gospel of Thomas.

The main issue with the conversations between Jesus and Judas stems around this quote: “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." But what has not been related is the context of that conversation. Just 4 lines above that line Jesus is talking to Judas about offering sacrifices to Saklas (the angel mentioned earlier). So, in the context, Jesus is saying that Judas would sacrifice His body to Saklas.

As I have done in the past with some of the other apocryphal books at my website, I plan to go through this text a little more in-depth and provide some more excerpts and analysis.

"The Gospel of Judas"

If you've missed it, there is supposedly another "lost" gospel of the Bible that's been supressed for over 1700 years. I've posted about this in the past here. Much like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas is a creation of a Gnostic group in the 2nd Century AD that was penned with the name of an apostle in order to gain a foothold. Otherwise known as pseudepigrapha.

I would urge you to listen to or read through Albert Mohler's assessments of this:

The Gospel Of Judas: What Should Christians Think? - Podcast with guest Darrel Bock

From Traitor to Hero? Responding to The Gospel of Judas? - Here is an excerpt from his blog entry from today:

Accordingly, the most revealing statement in the entire text of The Gospel of Judas records Jesus saying to Judas, "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

In other words, Judas would perform a service to Jesus by betraying Him to those who would then crucify Him, liberating Jesus from the physical body and freeing Him as spirit. As the editors of The Gospel of Judas indicate in a footnote, "The death of Jesus, with the assistance of Judas, is taken to be the liberation of the spiritual person within."

Needless to say, this is in direct conflict with the Christian gospel and the New Testament. The consistent witness of the New Testament is that Jesus came in order to die for sinners--willingly accepting the cross and dying as the substitutionary sacrifice for sin.

Now Playing: "Jaws of Life" by John Petrucci

"The Da Vinci Code" Movie

"The Da Vinci Code" will be released in theaters on May 19, 2006. As most people probably are aware, this is based off of the best-selling book by the same name. It is a completely fictional work that makes some outlandish claims regarding Christianity and Jesus. The movie is sure to be a blockbuster - directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan, and Alfred Molina (who was in the movie "Luther" just a couple of years ago which is a must-see!).

With the upcoming release of the movie, Pastor Mark D. Roberts is blogging about the book in a current series on his blog titled "The Da Vinci Opportunity: How the Popularity of The Da Vinci Code Book and Movie Can Be Helpful to Christians and Others". He just started the series on Monday. I've read some of his previous series which have been really great and centered on facts rather than emotion. I really urge you to check it out if you have some time.

Link to this series: The Da Vinci Opportunity

Link to the feed: http://www.markdroberts.com/index.xml

The CBS Special--- "The Mystery of Christmas"

The other day I wrote about a TV Special I watched about Christmas with Ben Witherington. Well, yesterday Ben Witherington put some notes on his blog about the special.

Now Playing: "All Creatures of Our God and King" by David Crowder Band

The Christmas Story

The other night I watched a special (on NBC I believe) on the birth of Jesus. The first half included some non-orthodox scholars. The second half was with Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky (is also in my Bloglines feeds). I will have to get into that TV special at a later date. But for now I would just like to present to you a generally chronological synopsis of the Christmas Story from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Those passages from Matthew are in italics. All scripture taken from the English Standard Version.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever." And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord") and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed." And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: "'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more." But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.

And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: "He shall be called a Nazarene."

And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

Merry Xmas!

It seems that about this time every year I will see someone write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper talking about the phrase "Merry Xmas." A few years ago I wrote this response.

The idea behind the statement was that Christ is removed from Christmas by using "Xmas." This is a common misconception. I am no Greek scholar, but according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary the Greek word for Christ is “Χριστός.” In English we would transliterate that as Christos (Xristos). As you can see in the Greek, the first letter of Christ is “X.”

Christmas simply means “the Christ mass.” It is a fact that 16th Century Europeans referred to the Christ mass as Xmas (and there are also uses of the words "Xian" and "Xianity"). It is possible that Xmas was used before this time, as it would be simple shorthand for Christmas, but my limited research has not proven this. Knowing these facts, it should be up to each individual as to how they will refer to Christmas. Originally, no disrespect was intended in substituting the first letter of Christ.

We must remember that Christmas is a long-standing tradition of the church and not a Biblical sacrament or ordinance. Perhaps we should concern ourselves more with what Christianity (and Christmas as well) should be all about: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (Jam 1:27 ESV) I believe this is something on which we all need to work.

On another note, don't miss Kevin Presseault's outline from a sermon he gave on December 4. He makes some great points about the true peace that Jesus brought to us. And don't miss his Christmas CSS!

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (Joh 16:33 ESV) Note that while we are in the world that things will go wrong (or be unpeaceful) but we should take care in the fact that the world has been overcome and that we can have inner peace that will flow from us into all of our relationships.

The Samaritans (Of Biblical Times)

Back in June I was reading The Books and The Parchments by F.F. Bruce. Chapter 10 is about "The Samaritan Pentateuch." Basically, the Samaritan Jews only believe that the Pentateuch (First 5 books of the Bible - those penned by Moses) is Canonical and they have preserved their translation of the Pentateuch separate from the Hebrew scriptures. This is highly beneficial to the story of the transmission of our Biblical texts. But that's not really the most intriguing thing about this chapter, though.

For much of us, when we've come to the story of the Woman at the Well, in John 4, and hear about the Samaritans, the "milk" answer we hear at church is that the Samaritans are basically a mixed-race breed of Jews. This is only partially true. In this chapter, Bruce relates to us the full, "meat" answer to the question "Who are the Samaritans?" I will paraphrase and quote some from this 10th Chapter of Bruce's book (pages 125-132 in my edition).

Around 587 B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar brought Judah to an end, many Jews were deported to Mesopotamia. Upon returning, "the Samaritans and others who had not gone into exile offered to cooperate with them, but their offer was turned down." After not being allowed to partake of worship at the Jerusalem temple, around 400 B.C., the Samaritans built a temple near Shechem at Mount Gerizim. See John 4:20 (Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.). The Jews, of course, did not want anything to do with the Samaritans and made light of some of the foreigners in their midst (this was the racial tension).

Moving forward some centuries, around 108 B.C., John Hyrcanus (a Jewish revolutionary from the Maccabeean family) took over Samaria and destroyed the Gerizim temple. This only added fuel to the fire of the hatred between the two groups. The no longer had to worry about Jewish occupation after the Romans took power. They still remain in Palestine. "They have preserved their ancient traditions and worship at the place called Nablus, near the ancient Shechem, where some 250 of them still live; another fifty or so live at Tel-Aviv."

"They have preserved their traditional expectation of the Messiah, whom they call the Taheb, or 'Restorer'; they envisage him primarily as a second Moses - the one of whom Moses said: 'Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken'(Deut. 18:15). They distinguish two main divisions of their history - the period of divine favour (rahutha) from Moses to Eli, and the period of divine displeasure (panutha) from Eli to the Taheb, through whom the divine favour will be restored. It was the Taheb that the woman at Jacob's well had in mind when she said, 'I know that Messiah is coming...when he comes, he will show us all things' (John 4:25); and it was with the Taheb that Jesus identified Himself when He replied to her, 'I who speak to you am he' (John 4:26)."

Now Playing: "We Were Born to Be Loved" by King's X

Happy Reformation Day!

On this day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. While Luther had hoped for an academic discourse and debate regarding the problems of indulgences, the debate never occurred. Instead, the Protestant Reformation, as we know it, had begun.

"Lost Books" of the Bible

On my website, I had begun a few years back working on gathering information on the Apocryphal literature (focusing more on the New Testament Apocrypha). That information may be found here.

Last night and tonight I worked on compiling information on the Gospel of Thomas. I have uploaded that information here.