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Friday, October 4, 2024

Paradigm shift in way Church views women

[Pope Francis] repeated his frequent refrain about women being the “fertile” nurturers who complement men, and that regardless “the church is woman.” …. Francis heard a similar call from the French-speaking campus, where students staged a reading of an articulated critique of his landmark environmental encyclical “Praised Be” in which they called for a “paradigm shift” in the way the church views women. They noted that the encyclical virtually ignores women, cites no female theologians and contributes to women’s “invisibility” in the church and society. Women have long complained they have a second-class status in the church, barred from the priesthood and positions of power despite doing the lion’s share of the work educating the young, caring for the sick and passing on the faith. Francis, an 87-year-old Argentine Jesuit, said he liked what they said. But he repeated his frequent refrain about women being the “fertile” nurturers who complement men, and that regardless “the church is woman.” We read at: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-03/pope-francis-highlights-womens-role-in-church-and-society.html#:~:text=%22The%20Church%20needs%20to%20keep,collaboration%20to%20achieve%20this%20goal. Pope Francis highlights women's role in Church and society Pope Francis addresses an international conference on women in the Church, and emphasises the importance of recognising women's contributions while calling for unity and education to promote women's rights and dignity. By Francesca Merlo In his address to the participants of the International Conference titled "Women in the Church: Builders of Humanity," Pope Francis extended a warm greeting to all attendees, expressing gratitude for their presence and the organisation of the event. "The Church needs to keep this in mind, because the Church is herself a woman: a daughter, a bride, and a mother," said the Pope. He highlighted the significance of recognising and valuing women's contributions within the people of God, and he called for unity, discernment, and collaboration to achieve this goal. The conference, which gathers individuals from all over the world, focuses on highlighting the exemplary holiness of ten women: Josephine Bakhita, Magdeleine de Jesus, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mary MacKillop, Laura Montoya, Kateri Tekakwitha, Teresa of Calcutta, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, and Daphrose Mukasanga. Pope Francis underscored the significance of their charitable, educational, and prayerful initiatives, which exemplify the unique reflection of God's holiness through the feminine genius. "The contribution of women is more necessary than ever," emphasised Pope Francis, acknowledging the challenges of hatred, violence, and ideological conflicts in today's world. He spoke about the urgent need for women's contributions, which he said are characterised by tenderness and compassion, in order to foster unity and restore humanity's true identity. On the topic of education, Pope Francis commended the collaboration between the conference and various Catholic academic institutions. "Every effort to present students with testimonies of holiness, especially of feminine sanctity, can encourage them to aim higher," he said, stressing the importance of presenting role models to inspire future generations. Pope Francis concluded his address by highlighting the ongoing struggles faced by women worldwide, including violence, inequality, and injustice. He called for concerted efforts to address these issues, emphasizing the transformative power of education for girls and young women in promoting overall human development. Bringing his address to a close, Pope Francis entrusted the outcomes of the conference to the Lord and imparted his blessing upon the participants before urging continued commitment to the advancement of women's rights and dignity. …. “In this sense the Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided from it or being less complementary. The Immaculate Mary precedes all others, including obviously Peter himself and the Apostles”. Pope John Paul II The Marian and Petrine Principles Annual Address to Roman Curia H. H. John Paul II December 22, 1987 On Monday, 22 December, in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Rossi, conveyed the Christmas greetings of the assembled cardinals and officials of the Roman Curia to the Holy Father, who delivered the following address in reply. Your Eminences, Revered Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood, My dearest Laity, I sincerely thank the Cardinal Dean for his greeting; he has interpreted your personal desires in this traditional and always pleasant gathering before Christmas. His message has focused our common attention on the particular significance which current circumstances contribute to our annual meeting. We meet near the Eve of Christmas in the Marian Year. Every year on this occasion we are moved by the expectation of him who is born in Bethlehem of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and it is our mutual desire to experience as deeply as possible this central event of history by extending a welcome to the Incarnate Word. In this Marian Year our meeting has a special significance and brings a new emphasis to our Christmas reflection. The Marian Year, in fact, prepares us to approach Christ in this Advent of the third millennium in order to relieve the mystery of his Incarnation, following Mary who precedes us in this journey of faith. She was the first “minister” of the Word. As members of the Roman Curia we are conscious of serving the Mystery of the Incarnation from which the Church as a “Body” originated. In Mary, as St. Augustine noted: “the only-begotten Son of God was pleased to unite to himself human nature, so that to the immaculate head he associated the immaculate Church, (Serm 191.3; PL 38, 1010). From Mary is born Christ the Head who is indissolubly united to the Church, his Body. The “whole Christ” is born. As servants and ministers of this Mystical Body, daily nourished with the Eucharistic Body of Christ, we manifest this year the particular presence of the Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and of the Church in which we are aware of participating in a particular manner. 2. We well understand that Vatican II effected a great synthesis between Mariology and ecclesiology. The Marian Year adheres to such a synthesis and conciliar inspiration so that the Church may be everywhere renewed through the presence of the Mother of God who, as the Fathers taught, is a model of the Church. The Council offers an enlightening interpretation of the presence of the Virgin in the divine plan of salvation. Because she is the instrument and privileged channel of the Incarnation of the Word in human nature and of his presence among us, Mary is “intimately united with the Church: the Mother of God is a figure of the Church, as Saint Ambrose had earlier taught, in the order of faith, of charity and of the perfect union with Christ” (Lumen Gentium, 63). Developing this teaching, I wrote in the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater: “ the reality of the Incarnation finds a sort of extension in the mystery of the Church – The Body of Christ. And one cannot think of the reality of the Incarnation without referring to Mary, the Mother of the Incarnate Word” (no. 5). Mary united to Christ, Mary united to the Church. And the Church united to Mary finds in her the most refined and perfect image of its own specific mission which is simultaneously virginal and maternal. The Fathers and the Teachers of the early Church have underlined this double aspect: for example, St. Augustine brilliantly comments, Hic est speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, sanctae filius Mariae, sanctiae sponsus Ecclesiae, quam suae genitriit similem redditit: nam et nobis eam matrem fecit, et virginem sibi custodit” (Serm 195.2; PL 38:1018). The Virgin Mary is the archetype of the Church because of the divine maternity; just like Mary, the Church must be, and wishes to be, mother and virgin. The Church lives in this authentic “Marian profile”, this “Marian dimension”; thus the Council, gathering together the patristic and theological voices, both eastern and western has noted this phenomenom: “The Church, moreover, contemplating Mary’s mysterious sanctity, imitating her charity, and faithfully fulfilling the Father’s will, becomes herself a mother by accepting God’s word in faith. For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life, children who are conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God. The Church herself is a virgin, who keeps whole and pure the fidelity she has pledged to her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she preserves with virginal purity and integral faith , a firm hope and sincere charity” (Lumen Gentium, 64). Sphere of divine grace 3. This Marian profile is also- even perhaps more so- fundamental and characteristic for the Church as is the apostolic and Petrine profile to which it is profoundly united. In this vision of the Church Mary precedes the People of God who are still pilgrims. Mary is she who, predestined to be the Mother of the Word, lived continuously and totally in the sphere of divine grace subject to its vivifying influence; she is the mirror and transparency of the life of God himself. Immaculate, “full of grace”, she was prepared by God for the Incarnation of the Word and was always under the Continuous action of the Holy Spirit: hers was the “yes” and the fiat par excellence to him who had chosen her “before the beginning of the world” (Eph 1:4). Such response was evident in the docility, the humility, the conformity to the least movement of grace which rendered her, we can say, mother in a twofold sense through conformity to God’s will: “who does the will of God is my mother” (cf. Mk 3:35). The divine maternity, that unique and sublime privilege of the ever-Virgin, must be seen in this perspective as the supreme glory of the fidelity of Mary in corresponding with grace. The Marian dimension of the Church is evident from the similarity of tasks in relation to the whole Christ. To this dimension, in fact, can be applied the word of Jesus: “whoever does the will of my Father is my brother, sister, and mother”, (Mk, ibid.). The Church, like Mary, lives by grace in submission to the Holy Spirit; according to his light the signs and necessities of the times are interpreted, and progress is accomplished in complete docility to the voice of the Spirit. In this sense the Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided from it or being less complementary. The Immaculate Mary precedes all others, including obviously Peter himself and the Apostles. This is so, not only because Peter and the Apostles, being born of the human race under the burden of sin, form part of the Church which is “holy with sinners:, but also because their triple function has no other purpose except to from the Church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary. A contemporary theologian has well commented: “Mary is ‘Queen of the Apostles’ without any pretensions to apostolic powers: she has other and greater powers” (von Balthasar, Nette Klarstellungen, Ital. transl., Milan 1980, p. 181). In this context it is especially significant to note the presence of Mary in the Upper Room, where she assists Peter and the other Apostles, praying for and with them as all await the coming of the Spirit. This link between the two profiles of the Church, the Marian and the Petrine, is profound and complementary. This is so even though the Marian profile is anterior not only in design of God but also in time, as well being supreme and pre-eminent, richer in personal and communitarian implications for individual ecclesial vocations. In this light the Roman Curia lives and ought to live – all of us ought so to live. It is certain that the Curia is directly united to the Petrine office to whose service it is dedicated by office, constitution and mission. The Curia serves the Church as a Body; situated, one may say, at the apex, it offers its collaboration to the Successor of Peter in his service to the local Churches. In this activity, it is more necessary and indispensable to preserve and strengthen the Marian dimension in the service to Peter. Mary precedes those of us who are in the Curia where we serve the Mystery of the Word Incarnate, just as she precedes the whole Church for which we live. May she assist us to discover ever more fully and to live more authentically this richness, which for us, I would say, is vital and decisive. May Mary help us to participate more consciously in the symbiosis of the Marian and Petrine apostolic dimensions from which the Church daily draws orientation and sustenance. May attention to Mary and to her example bring us to a greater love, tenderness and docility to the voice of the Spirit, so that each one is more enriched interiorly with that dedication to the ministry of Peter. 4. In the light of the Marian Year as the central theme of our meeting, which continues the teaching Vatican II in presenting Mary as the guide of the People of God in their pilgrimage of faith, I would now like to underline some of the salient events of the year that is about to conclude: the Synod of bishops, the numerous beatifications and canonizations, and the visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Dimitrios I of Constantinople. In the first place the sessions of the Synod: two months have passed since the conclusion of its discussions and it is more and more evident that the interventions and labours of the Synodal Fathers have resulted in a global image of the Church – how she lives, works, prays, suffers, struggles, and adheres to Christ. The Synod has effectively offered the image of this People on pilgrimage on earth, and especially of that portion of the People of God, the laity, according to their specific characteristics. In their pilgrimage it is still the Mother who precedes her children as they seek “the kingdom of God in dealing with temporal affairs as they organize them according to God’s will in the ‘spirit of the Beatitudes’” (Lumen Gentium, 31). This Marian presence in the mission of the laity, in their journey of faith, is the line which clearly defines that great event. As time passes since the Synod of last October, the positive results become more evident, not alone in the reaffirmation of the teaching of the magnificent documents of Vatican Ii but more so because of the emphasis on the ecclesiology of communion as a necessary contest for situating the role of the laity in the Church for the salvation of the world. The laity themselves have co-operated in formulating this conclusion, in so far as the Synod Fathers represented the voice of the laity; furthermore, the laity themselves of both sexes entered actively by their conspicuous and qualified presence at the Synod where they spoke in the plenary sessions and collaborated effectively in the circuli minores. The result has been a truly universal overall view of the diverse realities that constitute the true image of the Church today. As with the preceding Synods, it shall be my duty to follow those unforgettable days. Meanwhile I am happy to underline in our present meeting how this richness and plurality of results is the evidence that the Church is truly open to the voice of the Spirit in her pilgrimage of faith and love, and is always conscious of her responsibility to God and before the world. Mary is present in this journey of the laity, to guide them a she guides us all towards the coming of Christ. Final destiny 5. Vatican II has demonstrated that in her who is the Mother of God the Church has reached her final destiny: “In the bodily and spiritual glory which she possesses in heaven, the Mother of Jesus continues in this present world as the image and first flowering of the Church as she is to be perfected in the life to come” (Lumen Gentium, 68). This affirmation reiterates what the dogmatic Constitution the Church had already expounded in chapter7: “the eschatological character of the pilgrim Church and its union with the heavenly church”, and chapter 5: “the universal vocation to holiness in the Church”. In the fullness of time Mary, in virtue of her immaculate conception, reunited in herself the salvific design of God that had been destroyed by sin. Assumed into heaven with her most holy body, which is the Ark of the new Covenant, she already reigns with Christ in the psycho-physical unity of her person. She is, therefore, after Christ, “the first-begotten of the dead (Rev. 1:5; Col 1:18). She is the one who precedes the Church in the journey towards the fulfillment of sanctity and awaits the completion that shall be total. However, with her there are also those who, awaiting the final resurrection, are already in heaven according to the judgement of the church. They have verified in themselves the plan of God and have reached that desired success of every human existence: “the complete, intimate union with Christ” (cf. Lumen Gentium, 49). Recalling the Queen of all Saints in this Marian Year I now wish to mention the two canonizations and eleven beatifications of this year. These numerous liturgical events of 1987 have demonstrated, perhaps more forcibly than usual, how real, true and actual is the Church’s universal call to holiness, and have given testimony to the ethnic-vocational plurality of such a call. The new saints and beati, in fact, belong to diverse vocations among the people of God. Among such we discover: Cardinals, as Marcello Spinola y Maestre (29 March) and Andrea Carlo Ferrari (10 May): bishops, as Michal Kozal (14 June) and Jurgis Matulaitis (28 June); priests and brothers, as Manuel Domingo y Sol (29 March), Rupert Mayer (3 May) and Jules Arnould Reche (1 Nov.); women religious, as Teresa de los Andes (3April), Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinelli (10 May), Ulrika Nisch and BlandinaMerten (1 Nov.); laity of both sexes, as Lorenzo Ruiz (18 Oct.), Giuseppe Moscati (25 Oct. ), and many others all professions and occupations, even the most humble. It is a witness given in the most diverse circumstances, i.e. as pastors and ministers of the Church, as medical doctors, as educators and evangelizers. Often such witness was rendered in the most arduous circumstances, such as by martyrdom antonomastically so called as in the case of three Carmelite Sisters of Guadalajara (29 March), Edith Stein (1 May) and Karolina Kozka (10 June), Marcel Callo, Pierina Morosini and Antonia Mesina (4 Oct.), the 16 martyrs of Japan (18 Oct.), and the eighty-five English martyrs (22 Nov.). Again, many of the new saints and beati lived in our century: they are contemporaries. In reality, the saints are in our midst and they demonstrate that even today the Church is called to sanctity and responds generously under the inspiration and guidance of Mary. Furthermore, the saints and beati belong to diverse nations of different continents: thus the canonizations and beatifications attest to the universal significance even when viewed geographically. From this point of view I regard it as a special grace of the Lord to have been able to propose for the veneration of the church, as desired by repeated requests of the local bishops, come champions of the faith in the locality where they lived. I did this during some of the apostolic journeys of this year: Sister Teresa de los Andes at Santiago, Chile (3 April); Sister Benedicta of the Cross, at Cologne (1 May); Father Mayer at Munich (3 May); Karolina Kozka, at Tarnow (10 June); and Mons. Kozal at Warsaw (14 June). The ever-increasing possibility of publicly proclaiming the heroic sanctity of the sons and daughters of the Church in the course of my visits to various countries of the world confirms me in the belief that such journeys constitute a particular service to the People of God on its pilgrimage, precisely that pilgrimage towards the definitive Kingdom of God, in which Mary “precedes” the Church in various places on earth. Since the journeys are, with God’s help, the contemporary application of the mandate of Christ – “go therefore into the whole world” (Mk 16:15) – and also and explicit consequence of the Petrine ministry, “confirm your brothers” (Lk 22:32), they afford a greater spiritual and intellectual irradiation of the office that is so sublime and solemn, by proposing for the imitation of the Church the authentic exemplars of sanctity proper to it. Such saintly individuals are proof before the world that holiness is possible for all people, in every civilization and in all climates. 6. Following the path of the Council, the encyclical Redemptoris Mater underlined the “pilgrimage” aspect of the Church, in which the Mother of God “precedes”, and as such has ecumenical overtones. ….

Sunday, September 22, 2024

God could have used natural phenomena for the Plagues of Egypt

“But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control”. Dr Stephan Pflugmacher Benjamin Leon has written, in his article: The 10 plagues of Egypt happened: Scientists - The Standard (newsday.co.zw) The 10 plagues of Egypt happened: Scientists …. The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues. The rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to dry up, turning the fast-flowing river that was Egypt’s lifeline into a slow moving and muddy watercourse. These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood. Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae. He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood algae or Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3 000 years ago and still causes similar effects today. He said: “It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm waters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water red.” The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues — frogs, lice and flies. Frogs development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress. The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived. But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control. This, according to the scientists, could have led in turn to the fifth and sixth plagues — diseased livestock and boils. Professor Werner Kloas, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute, said: “We know insects often carry diseases like malaria, so the next step in the chain reaction is the outbreak of epidemics, causing the human population to fall ill.” Another major natural disaster more than 600km away is now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that brought hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt. One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterranean islands of Santorini, just north of Crete, exploded around 3 500 years ago, spewing billions of tonnes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms. Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fall out from the ash. He said: “The ash fallout caused weather anomalies, which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that’s exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts.” The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight, causing the stories of a plague of darkness. Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any volcanoes in Egypt. Analysis of the rock shows that it came from the Santorini volcano, providing physical evidence that the ash fallout from the eruption at Santorini reached Egyptian shores. The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim. But Dr Robert Miller, associate professor of the Hebrew scriptures, from the Catholic University of America, said: “I’m reluctant to come up with natural causes for all of the plagues.” The problem with the naturalistic explanations, is that they lose the whole point. “And the whole point was that you didn’t come out of Egypt by natural causes, you came out by the hand of God.” [End of quotes] Mackey’s comment: While I would once have shared Dr. Robert Miller’s view here, I now think that there is enough in the account of the Plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7-11) to warrant one’s giving all the glory and praise to God, even if one also posits the use of natural phenomena. All the fine timing, for instance, was His. And so was, a bit further on (Exodus 13:21-22), the Glory Cloud (popularly known as Shekinah), which served Israel as their guide along the way: And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud (בְּעַמּוּד עָנָן) to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire (בְּעַמּוּד אֵשׁ) to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. This was the same manifestation of glorious Light that the Shepherds and the Magi would later witness in relation to the Christ Child, who would appear on the radiant Cloud in 1925, at Pontevedra in Spain. See my article: The Magi and the Star that Stopped (4) The Magi and the Star that Stopped | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu 2:5-6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere. 2:10 The river is blood. Ipuwer Papyrus https://ohr.edu/838/print The Ten Plagues - Live From Egypt by Rabbi Mordechai Becher In the early 19th Century a papyrus, dating from the end of the Middle Kingdom, was found in Egypt. It was taken to the Leiden Museum in Holland and interpreted by A.H. Gardiner in 1909. The complete papyrus can be found in the book Admonitions of an Egyptian from a heiratic papyrus in Leiden. The papyrus describes violent upheavals in Egypt, starvation, drought, escape of slaves (with the wealth of the Egyptians), and death throughout the land. The papyrus was written by an Egyptian named Ipuwer and appears to be an eyewitness account of the effects of the Exodus plagues from the perspective of an average Egyptian. Below are excerpts from the papyrus together with their parallels in the Book of Exodus. (For a lengthier discussion of the papyrus and the historical background of the Exodus, see Jewish Action, Spring 1995, article by Brad Aaronson, entitled When Was the Exodus? ) IPUWER PAPYRUS - LEIDEN 344 TORAH - EXODUS 2:5-6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere. 2:10 The river is blood. 2:10 Men shrink from tasting - human beings, and thirst after water 3:10-13 That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin. 7:20 …all the waters of the river were turned to blood. 7:21 ...there was blood thoughout all the land of Egypt …and the river stank. 7:24 And all the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river. 2:10 Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire. 10:3-6 Lower Egypt weeps... The entire palace is without its revenues. To it belong [by right] wheat and barley, geese and fish 6:3 Forsooth, grain has perished on every side. 5:12 Forsooth, that has perished which was yesterday seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax. 9:23-24 ...and the fire ran along the ground... there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous. 9:25 ...and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field. 9:31-32 ...and the flax and the barley was smitten; for the barley was in season, and flax was ripe. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten; for they were not grown up. 10:15 ...there remained no green things in the trees, or in the herbs of the fields, through all the land of Egypt. 5:5 All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan... 9:2-3 Behold, cattle are left to stray, and there is none to gather them together. 9:3 ...the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field... and there shall be a very grievous sickness. 9:19 ...gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field... 9:21 And he that did not fear the word of the Lord left his servants and cattle in the field. 9:11 The land is without light 10:22 And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. 4:3 (5:6) Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls. 6:12 Forsooth, the children of princes are cast out in the streets. 6:3 The prison is ruined. 2:13 He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere. 3:14 It is groaning throughout the land, mingled with lamentations 12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive that was in the prison. 12:30 ...there was not a house where there was not one dead. 12:30 ...there was a great cry in Egypt. 7:1 Behold, the fire has mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth against the enemies of the land. 13:21 ... by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night. 3:2 Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze... are fastened on the neck of female slaves. 12:35-36 ...and they requested from the Egyptians, silver and gold articles and clothing. And God made the Egyptians favour them and they granted their request. [The Israelites] thus drained Egypt of its wealth. Mackey’s continues: What gave pause to my earlier view (see above) was that the Plagues of Egypt were re-visited in modern times, with the Mount Saint Helens volcano (1980) - though the actual sequence of plagues may vary from the Exodus account - making me wonder if God had chosen to use the ancient Thera (Santorini) cataclysm as a backdrop to the biblical phenomena – as some commentators have suggested. “The vastness of Santorini compared to the others – more than 80 cubic kilometres of island thrown into the sky one terrible night – is amazing”. Gavin Menzies The scholar who pioneered the fascinating notion of there being a material causal connection between the Plagues and Exodus of the Old Testament and the Thera (Santorini) cataclysm was Dr. Hans Goedicke, the Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Since then, other scholars and writers have taken up this suggestion, often using the more recent eruptions of Vesuvius and Krakatoa, but especially Mount St. Helens in Washington State, as a template of what might have occurred in the Theran – Old Testament case. Dr. I. Velikovsky (Worlds in Collision, 1950) was one; Graham Phillips (Act of God), another, and (heavily indebted to Phillips), Gavin Menzies (Lost Empire of Atlantis). The latter, in the “New Evidence” section on pp. 3-32 at the back of his book, will summarise Velikovsky and a host of others, whilst giving his own interpretation. In Part Three (p. 9), Menzies writes: ‘1444 BC – The year the earth faced extinction’ The Book of Exodus (1444 BC) compared with the Santorini Volcanic Eruption: (Hebrew scholars date the Exodus to 1444 BC – from Old Testament records) I have had the good fortune to visit Vesuvius and Mount St Helens, to fly over the Indonesian Caldera, and to lie in bed looking down onto the Caldera of Santorini. The vastness of Santorini compared to the others – more than 80 cubic kilometres of island thrown into the sky one terrible night – is amazing. [May be linked to Aegean island of Yali] P. 9: … Aegean volcanic arc … Yali …. P. 10: As the Thera foundation states: ‘The sampled profiles in Yali and Santorini consist of tephra layers with different radioactivity, possibly implying different eruptive phases, recorded on the neighbouring islands. The latter may indicate occasionally simultaneous eruptions of both Yali and Santorini volcanoes …’. On p. 12, Menzies will reproduce some of G. Phillips’ comparisons between the plagues of Egypt and Mount St. Helens (Phillips also discusses this in his book, Acts of God, ch’s 9 “Cataclysm” and 10 “Exodus”). Comparisons between the Nine Plagues of the Old Testament Book of Exodus (1444 BC) and the Mount St Helens Volcanic Eruption (AD 1980) (thanks to Graham Phillips website: www.grahamphillips.net). showing parallels at Mount St. Helens with dead fish and blood red water: - Flies - Boils (skin sores and rashes) - Hail (pellet-size volcanic debris, fiery pumice) - Foul water (water supplies had to be cut off) - Darkness (sun obscured for hours over 500 miles from volcano).

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Race to save colt, babies left to die

“The colt gets the world’s best medical care; the baby gasps for breath without so much as panadol”. Vikki Campion Australia has been called “The Lucky Country”, and we often hear it said that it is the best place in the world to live. I (Damien Mackey) think, however, that it might resemble somewhat the old Cretan and Canaanite cultures, that were technologically advanced, highly productive and prosperous, on the one hand, and yet philosophically bankrupt and incredibly barbaric, on the other hand. Two female journalists, Vikki Campion and Peta Credlin, have called out the appalling – even philosophically sanctioned – infanticide: Vikki Campion has written in The Daily Telegraph: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/campion-inhumane-deaths-aborted-babies-born-alive-are-being-left-to-die/news-story/0e7cdbbdf245a8020674b669e9505174 Campion: ’Inhumane deaths’: Aborted babies born alive are being left to die A parliamentary inquiry has heard hearing gut-wrenching testimonies and facts like at least one aborted baby is born alive every seven days and left to die, writes Vikki Campion. Vikki Campion follow 4 min read August 24, 2024 - 9:53AM The Saturday Telegraph When Black Caviar’s foal – a colt sired by Snitzel – passed away this week, there was a virtual day of mourning. He received “around-the-clock, world-class veterinary care, but unfortunately could not be saved”, and headlines lamented devastation, with even ABC reporting that “late Black Caviar champion racehorse’s final foal has died”. As the world mourned the loss of a baby horse, a parliamentary inquiry in Queensland, sparked by Katter Australia Party MP Robbie Katter, was hearing gut-wrenching testimonies from frontline midwives like Louise Adsett. They revealed the tragic story of a baby boy, fighting for his life for five agonising hours devoid of any care, let alone that given to a colt. A motion in the Senate, which sought to “recognise that at least one baby is born alive every seven days following a failed abortion and left to die and that Australia’s health care system is enabling these inhumane deaths, and for the Senate to condemn this practice, noting that babies born alive as a result of a failed abortion deserve care,” went strategically unrecognised in most media, save for Weekend Telegraph columnist Peta Credlin on Sky. …. This was not a debate about women’s right to abortion but only pertained to what to do when an aborted baby is born alive. The colt gets the world’s best medical care; the baby gasps for breath without so much as panadol. As UAP Senator Ralph Babet spoke to his urgency motion, the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young made vomiting-gestures behind him for the cameras. Care for babies in the Greens stops at Gaza. Climate 200-funded independent David Pocock, who fights to the marrow in his bones to save koalas, voted against painkillers for a baby dying on a table. NSW Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic, who has never won an election in her own right and who took the spot of a giant in the history of the Senate, Jim Molan, (whose life was not just about protecting the innocent, but in protecting all Australians in the Australian Defence Force), accused her colleagues of manipulating the process of the Senate and then went on to Meta and claimed it was “trying to take away women’s rights to their own health care”. Her page has since been inundated with threats. Senator Kovacic voted with the Greens, Teals, Labor, and three other moderate Liberals, arguing, “the complex issues that arise from the contents of this motion are challenging for most people but particularly for women, and they are deeply personal”. Once the baby is outside the woman, that infant is its own person and has its own rights. If this were a koala struggling to breathe and dying with no pain relief, these same politicians would vote for the koala. However, their compassion evaporates when it comes to a baby. Worse again was the media, failing to stand up for the powerless against the powerful. You can’t get any more powerless than a 21-week-old aborted baby being denied the care that, if these senators were denied it, someone would end up in court on charges. Regardless of the circumstances, every child born alive deserves care and comfort. The motion was never a preclusion to a woman’s right to abortion; once a person is alive and dying on the table, we are talking about a completely different set of rights. As one senator pointed out, an aborted baby would likely experience “shocking injuries that will not make them viable in the sense of a long-term life”. When ambulances go to car accidents, do they drag the poor souls onto the side of the road and leave them there because they would die anyhow, or do they do their best to help them? All the motion asked for was palliative care and essential pain relief, just as we would with anybody else towards the end of their life. Is the reason people look the other way because it’s too confronting to admit innocent lives are being left to perish in a metal tray for hours with no pain relief? Spare us the faux compassion on refugees, on the horrors in Gaza, when you pretend to gag for the cameras behind a person talking about the horrors of Australian babies dying in our hospitals. Spare us the faux compassion for the koalas, when you deny a dying baby painkillers. And as for the Labor and moderate Liberal members who voted against it, how will this help their vote amongst swinging voters with no faith but find it abhorrent on a purely human level? Some question the worth of the life of an abortion survivor, due to potential disability in their life. How can you say that a physically imperfect person does not deserve to live? …. Queensland MP Robbie Katter has introduced a bill to ensure the rights of babies born alive in his state. It’s a crucial step, which means the duty of a registered health practitioner to provide medical care and treatment to a person born as a result of termination would be no different from their duty to anybody else. I’ll help with some transparency, a link to how they voted. You’ll find every so-called “caring”, “ethical” party, including Teal, Labor, the Greens and the four soft-moderate Liberal faction Senators, voted against pain relief for a baby dying in a dish. Peta Credlin has declared on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut_MXgxv1og ‘Elsewhere we would call this infanticide’: Late term abortion survivors denied medical care August 21, 2024 - 8:13PM Sky News host Peta Credlin discusses the fact that babies who survive late term abortions are refused life-saving medical care and left to die in some Australian states. “I still couldn't get over that decision in the Senate last night that refused to even allow debate on a resolution that all new-born babies, born alive after late term abortions, be allowed to receive medical treatment rather than being left to die,” Ms Credlin said. “Why should the treatment of one human person depend upon a veto from someone else? “She might have intended the child dead, but if the baby is born alive, surely its right to live trumps everything else? “Elsewhere at law, we would call this infanticide.”

Monday, August 12, 2024

Humanity’s ‘Cradle of Civilisation’ certainly not to be found in Sumer

by Damien F. Mackey Due to the after effects of the Flood, the low-lying land of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer) was not able to be settled as early as were more northerly locations. That is why Sumerian civilisation springs up fully grown, much to the amazement of antiquarians. It was a late clutch of settlements that had benefitted from the long development of civilisations elsewhere. It is often presumed that southern Mesopotamia (Sumer) - now modern Iraq - was where human civilisation began, after millions of years of painful evolution. The following comments by Kristoffer Uggerud would, therefore, be typical: How Did Mesopotamia Become the Cradle of Civilization? Around 4500 BCE humans settled in Mesopotamia. Within a few centuries, the Sumerians developed what we today call the cradle of civilization. Apr 9, 2024 • By Kristoffer Uggerud, MA Area studies, BA History SUMMARY • Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, became the cradle of civilization due to its fertile land and the development of irrigation, which supported the growth of city-states like Ur, Eridu, and Uruk with populations over 50,000 around 5,000 years ago. • The Sumerians innovated with the world’s first written language, cuneiform, on clay tablets, facilitating record-keeping for food supplies and trade. This advancement, alongside their development of a numerical system, laid foundational aspects of modern society. • The decline of the Sumerian civilization around 2000 BCE was attributed to agricultural productivity loss due to soil salinization from irrigation. This led to the rise of subsequent empires in Mesopotamia, such as the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires. …. [End of quote] Sadly, none of this is correct – the inflated dates (BC and otherwise); first writing; Sumer preceding the Akkadian and Assyrian civilisations; and so on. This southern region was neither the Cradle of Civilisation before or after the Flood. Before the Flood (antediluvian), in the Beginning, Eden (centrally located where Jerusalem now is) was the Cradle of Civilisation. While, after the Flood (postdiluvian), new beginnings were made, as we shall find, in the region of modern SE Turkey. Due to the after effects of the Flood, the low-lying land of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer) was not able to be properly settled as early as were more northerly locations. That is why Sumerian civilisation springs up fully grown, much to the amazement of evolutionary-minded antiquarians. It was a late clutch of settlements that had benefitted from the long development of civilisations elsewhere. More accurate to regard The Fertile Crescent as being, approximately, humanity’s Cradle of Civilisation: https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/fertile-crescent “The Fertile Crescent, often referred to as “the cradle of civilization,” is the crescent-shaped region in Western Asia and North Africa that spans the modern-day countries of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and, for some scholars, Egypt”. Written records were kept even before the Flood The beginning of the Documentary Theory of the Book of Genesis was actually based on a correct premise. Frenchman, Jean Astruc (1684-1766), a famous professor of medicine at Montpellier and Paris, claimed to have found several distinct sources in early Genesis. And he was quite right regarding that at least. But it soon went all pear-shaped! Liberal scholars, most notably German Lutherans, thought themselves able to detect no end of strands and sources throughout the Book of Genesis, culminating in the famous JEDP hypothesis of the likes of professors Karl Heinrich Graf (d. 1869) and Julius Wellhausen (d. 1918). Jean Astruc had correctly speculated that Moses used existing written or oral sources in constructing Genesis. Sadly, again, those who came after him effectively slammed the door shut on any notion of Mosaïc influence by proceeding, in stages - and by the early 1800’s - to the view that the Pentateuch was written around 900-800 BC, centuries after Moses. An extremely well-educated and intelligent Dominican priest once declared to me that “Moses and Joshua wrote nothing, that writing was not invented until about the time of King David (c. 1000-900 BC)”, and this despite passages such as Exodus 34:27: “Then the Lord told Moses, ‘Write down these words, because I’m making a Covenant with you and with Israel according to these words’”, and Joshua 8:32: “There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the Law of Moses”. Writing not invented until. c. 1000 BC, eh? What, then, to make of the brilliant Autobiography of Weni in Egypt, written prior to 2150 BC, I queried the Dominican, using the same inflated sort of conventional dating in which the erudite priest would have been schooled? What about Moses being “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians …”? (Acts 7:22) {This Weni, who was a Vizier and Chief Judge in ancient Egypt, exactly as was Moses: ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ (Exodus 2:14), I have identified as Moses} The fourfold sigla, JEDP, of the Graf-Wellhausen theory has proven to be disastrous for biblical studies, “confusion confounded” as one scholar called it. This J-jaberwocky, E-eccentric, D-desolate, P-primitive, theory, quite lacking in archaeological awareness - pure Kantian a priorism - needs to be replaced with what might be called the PJ theory, of Air Commodore P. J. Wiseman, a wise and common-sense theory of the true structure of Genesis, based on sound archaeology and an acute awareness of ancient scribal methods. (See New discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis (1936), republished by Wiseman's son, Donald Wiseman, as Ancient records and the structure of Genesis: A case for literary unity, in 1985). Editor Moses did indeed make use of multiple sources to compile the Book of Genesis, so P. J. Wiseman would demonstrate, but these sources pre-dated him. Moses used the family histories (Hebrew toledôt) of his ancestral patriarchs, Adam; Noah; Shem, Ham and Japheth; Terah; etc; etc., some of which histories included triple repetition, as Jean Astruc had discerned - but was not able to explain correctly. The triple repetition in the second Flood account, for example, simply arises from the triple authorship of the document: “Shem, Ham and Japheth” (Genesis 10:1). It is as simple as that! The great Genesis Flood is an account by eye-witnesses, firstly Noah’s toledôt history, and then that of his three sons. Note that, afterwards, a separation appears to have occurred. Shem, formerly a co-author with his brothers, is now a sole recorder (Genesis 11:10). Psalm 104 on extent of the Flood The misinterpretation of the ancient texts by modern (say, Western) minds in regard to the Noachic Flood is well explained in the following piece by Rich Deem: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/localflood.html The Genesis Flood Why the Bible Says It Must be Local Many Christians maintain that the Bible says that the flood account of Genesis requires an interpretation that states that the waters of the flood covered the entire earth. If you read our English Bibles, you will probably come to this conclusion if you don't read the text too closely and if you fail to consider the rest of your Bible. Like most other Genesis stories, the flood account is found in more places than just Genesis. If you read the sidebar, you will discover that Psalm 104 directly eliminates any possibility of the flood being global (see Psalm 104-9 - Does it refer to the Original Creation or the Flood?). In order to accept a global flood, you must reject Psalm 104 and the inerrancy of the Bible. If you like to solve mysteries on your own, you might want to read the flood account first and find the biblical basis for a local flood. The Bible's other creation passages eliminate the possibility of a global flood The concept of a global Genesis flood can be easily eliminated from a plain reading of Psalm 104 … which is known as the "creation psalm." Psalm 104 describes the creation of the earth in the same order as that seen in Genesis 1 (with a few more details added). It begins with an expanding universe model (reminiscent of the Big Bang) [sic] (verse 2 … parallel to Genesis 1:1). It next describes the formation of a stable water cycle (verses 3-5, … parallel to Genesis 1:6-8). The earth is then described as a planet completely covered with water (verse 6, parallel to Genesis 1:9). God then causes the dry land to appear (verses 7-8, … parallel to Genesis 1:9-10). The verse that eliminates a global flood follows: "You set a boundary they [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." (Psalm 104:9)…. Obviously, if the waters never again covered the earth, then the flood must have been local. Psalm 104 is just one of several creation passages that indicate that God prevented the seas from covering the entire earth. …. An integration of all flood and creation passages clearly indicates that the Genesis flood was local in geographic extent. The Bible says water covered the whole earth... Really? When you read an English translation of the biblical account of the flood, you will undoubtedly notice many words and verses that seem to suggest that the waters covered all of planet earth. …. However, one should note that today we look at everything from a global perspective, whereas the Bible nearly always refers to local geography. You may not be able to determine this fact from our English translations, so we will look at the original Hebrew, which is the word of God. The Hebrew words which are translated as "whole earth" or "all the earth" are kol (Strong's number H3605), which means "all," and erets (Strong's number H776), which means "earth," "land," "country," or "ground." …. We don't need to look very far in Genesis (Genesis 2) before we find the Hebrew words kol erets. …. [End of quote] ‘Creationists’, having arrived at their completely artificial - and sometimes quite laughable, if they weren’t so serious - interpretations of the Bible, will then insist upon one’s adhering to their peculiar ‘biblical’ Weltanschauung as behoving Christians dedicated to the preservation of scriptural inerrancy. {Confession: Since I used to share these views, I ought to be more sympathetic} Well, I would suggest that no one would have been more surprised than Noah (and his family) to learn that he had once ridden out a global Flood in a sea-going vessel the size of the Queen Mary! As to the once common view that ‘there had never been rain until the Flood’, it has no solid biblical support as far as I can tell. And even some ‘Creationists’ now seem to have dropped this idea. For example: https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/arguments-to-avoid/was-there-no-rain-before-the-flood/ Was There No Rain Before the Flood? Some Christians claim that there was no rain before the Flood; however, as Dr. Tommy Mitchell shows us, a close examination of Scripture does not bear this out. While we cannot prove that there was rain before the Flood, to insist that there was not (and even to deride those who think otherwise) stretches Scripture beyond what it actually says. …. Noah’s world Those who approach Genesis with a Fundamentalist mentality will take ancient biblical phrases such as “the whole earth”, “all flesh”, and, unhappily, re-present them in global terms. St. Peter writes of “… the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Peter 3:6). Now, rather than for one instinctively here to seize upon the phrase, “the world”, and automatically take it to mean global world, one would do better to learn from Genesis what “world”, “earth”, the Book of Genesis had so far presented to us. We find that only a few chapters before the Flood, in Genesis 2. It is a “world” that basically constitutes what would later come to be known as “the Fertile Crescent” – also regarded by some, as we read, as “the Cradle of Civilisation”. It stretches approximately from Iraq to Egypt. Practically every nation today, great or small, has its Flood legends that bear greater or lesser similarities to the Genesis Flood account. Mountain of the Ark This brings us to SE Turkey, as mentioned earlier, where, I believe, humanity had its second start (postdiluvian). A pair of researchers have conclusively, for mine, identified the mountain of the Ark’s landing as Karaca Dağ. Previously I wrote on this: The combined research of Ken Griffith and Darrell White has caused me (Damien Mackey) to move away from my former acceptance of Judi Dagh for the Mountain of Noah’s Ark Landing in preference for their choice of Karaca Dagh in SE Turkey. The pair have strongly argued for the validity of this latter site in their excellent new article: A Candidate Site for Noah’s Ark, Altar, and Tomb. (2) (PDF) A Candidate Site for Noah's Ark, Altar, and Tomb. | Kenneth Griffith and Darrell K White - Academia.edu My main reason for entertaining this switch is that the latter site appears to have been the place, unlikely as it may look, for the world’s first agriculture, including grapes, and for the domestication of what we know as farmland animals. For example, Ken Griffith and Darrell White write: This mountain, Karaca Dag, is where the genetic ancestor of all domesticated Einkorn wheat was found by the Max Planck Institute.1 The other seven founder crops of the Neolithic Revolution all have this mountain near the centre of their wild range.2 This was so exciting that even the LA Times remarked how unusual it is that all of the early agriculture crops appear to have been domesticated in the same location: “The researchers reported that the wheat was first cultivated near the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey, where chickpeas and bitter vetch also originated. Bread wheat—the most valuable single crop in the modern world—grapes and olives were domesticated nearby, as were sheep, pigs, goats and cattle.”3 …. Manfred Heun was the botanist who followed the DNA of domesticated wheat back to its source on Karaca Dag: “We believe that the idea is so good—the idea of cultivating wild plants—that we think it might be one tribe of people, and that is fascinating,” said Manfred Heun at the University of Norway’s department of biotechnological sciences, who led the research team. “I cannot prove it, but it is a possibility that one tribe or one family had the idea [emphasis added].”3 A 2004 DNA study of wild and cultivated grapevine genetics by McGovern and Vouillamoz found the region where grapevines were first domesticated. Vouillamoz reports: “Analysis of morphological similarities between the wild and cultivated grapes from all Eurasia generally support a geographical origin of grape domestication in the Near East. In 2004, I collaborated with Patrick McGovern to focus on the ‘Grape’s Fertile Triangle’ and our results showed that the closest genetic relationship between local wild grapevines and traditional cultivated grape varieties from southern Anatolia, Armenia and Georgia was observed in southern Anatolia. This suggests that the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Taurus Mountains is the most likely place where the grapevine was first domesticated! ... . This area also includes the Karacadağ region in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.” …. The Göbekli Tepe Phenomenon This is fitting, because a site considered to be the world’s oldest, the now famed Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”), is ‘just down the road’ (so to speak) from Karaca Dağ. And two most ancient sites, Ur (Sanliurfa) and Harran, relevant to Abram (Abraham), are also situated close by. It makes sense that, if Karaca Dağ was Noah’s mountain, then Göbekli Tepe (unrealistically dated to c. 12,000 BC) must have been a very early settlement - perhaps the first - after humanity’s departing from the mountain. {A tradition has Noah remaining on the Ark mountain for a century} Now the significance of Göbekli Tepe in possible connection with the Ark of Noah may be enormous. Klaus Schmidt, who first discovered the site, referred to it as “a Stone Age zoo”. It features an abundance of depictions of different animals seemingly in enclosures. Do we have here a representation of the types of animals that really were on board Noah’s Ark? Not exactly what we might have expected! No hint whatsoever of any dinosaurs – I definitely would not have expected them. No wonder scientifically-minded people laugh at this sort of desertion of common sense, that once again takes a “literalistic” approach to a global sounding phrase, “every living thing of all flesh” (Genesis 6:10). Noah simply would have taken pairs of such animals, dwelling close at hand, as he and his family would need for food and sacrifice, and to kick-start his new life on terra firma, until conditions began to revert back to normal. Boars, lions, bulls, foxes, gazelles, birds (cranes, vultures), snakes (cf. Genesis 7:8): “Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground …”. All of these and more are depicted at the Göbekli Tepe site. Apropos of this, we read at: https://nt.am/en/news/221107/ Gobekli Tepe, Noah’s Ark & Lost Atlantis …. Meanwhile, where else but in Noah’s Ark can we find a menagerie as eclectic as the one portrayed on the megaliths of Gobekli Tepe – a menagerie that includes spiders, scorpions and snakes (‘every creeping thing of the earth’), birds and cattle (‘fowls after their kind, and cattle after their kind’), and foxes, felines, goats, sheep, gazelles, boars, bears, etc, etc (in short – as Genesis 6: 20 has it, ‘every kind of animal and every kind of creature’)? Likewise we read in the Bible that Noah sacrificed some of the animals and birds that he had just saved from the flood as an offering to God. At Gobekli Tepe archaeologists have found the butchered bones of many of the animal species depicted on the megalithic pillars. Further highly recommended reading: https://archaeotravel.eu/noahs-beasts-released-on-the-hills-of-gobekli-tepe/ “Noah’s Beasts Released on the Hills of Göbekli Tepe”, by Joanna Pyrgies. Where did Noah build and launch the Ark? This appears to be a largely neglected question and there does not seem to be much at all in the way of legend or tradition to help us answer it. The types of animals depicted at Göbekli Tepe might provide geographical clues for some enterprising future researchers. Armadillos, for instance, are apparently not native to the Göbekli Tepe region. There is a tradition that Noah had to flee to “Egypt” (whatever that land was like, and called, back then) to escape the violence of the age. (“Nu (/nu/ “watery one”), also called Nun (/nu:n/ “inert one”) - a name somewhat like Noah - is the deification of the primordial watery abyss in ancient Egyptian religion). Did Noah then return from there, and, like Moses, who built the Ark of the Covenant at the Holy Mountain (Har Karkom near the Paran desert), build the great Ark there? Who knows? It is a question that still need to be answered. I just like the symmetry of it. For Moses is clearly presented as “a new Noah” in the Book of Exodus (on this, see Before Abraham Was: The Unity of Genesis 1-11, 1984, by Isaac M. Kikawada and Arthur Quinn). But there is far more to Göbekli Tepe than just animals. Of special interest to Australians might be certain symbols that the site has in common with our aboriginals. Ancient Australians – culture going south Previously I wrote: Great Gobbling Turkeys! There’s an archaeological site in Turkey, at Göbekli Tepe, that has palaeontologists scratching their collective heads. Dated to as early as 12,000 – 10,000 BC, the site exhibits cultural and technological advances that ought not to have occurred during a phase in human evolution (supposedly) when man was still just a primitive hunter-gatherer. “History is Wrong” declares one site regarding “The Mystery of Gobekli Tepe” (2018): https://coolinterestingstuff.com/the-mystery-of-gobekli-tepe …. many have proposed that Gobekli Tepe can even be a temple inside the Biblical Eden of Genesis. Is it possible that what we know about the ‘uncivilized and primitive’ prehistoric men is not at all true? Is it possible that advanced civilizations existed before 6000 BCE and their tracks are simply lost in time? Or is it possible that extra-terrestrials interfered and helped men to build monuments throughout the history of humanity? The questions are certainly compelling. Man was supposed to have been a primitive hunter-gatherer at the time of the sites’ construction. Gobekli Tepe’s presence currently predates what science has taught would be essential in building something on the scale such as those structures. For instance, the site appears before the agreed upon dates for the inventions of art and engravings; it even predates man working with metals and pottery but features evidence of all of these. …. [End of quote] This site finds it all so incomprehensible as to have to resort to the extreme suggestion of ancient aliens. But forget those large palaeontological numbers (12,000, 10,000) variously suggested for the BC age of Göbekli Tepe. These people play with, and throw away, 100’s and 1,000’s like reckless gamblers. Australia’s Mungo Man, for instance, was dated to 60,000 BC and then dropped to 40,000 BC in the space of a week. Nobody seemed to raise a Neanderthalian eyebrow. Creationist Dr. John Osgood has made an impressive start in sorting out the Stone Ages in his most helpful series: “A Better Model for the Stone Age” (pts. 1 and 2): https://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age https://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age-part-2 The Acheulean era, which according to Pierto Gaietto, impacted upon the Göbekli Tepe masonry: “Regarding the topic of evolution in general I am of the opinion that the strong tendency towards the dressing of large stones at Göbekli Tepe had its origin in the Acheulean tradition of the Mousterian culture”, has been placed by Dr. Osgood during the dispersal after the Noachic Flood. Acheulean The characteristic feature of this culture was, of course, the large hand axe prominent in it. Comment has already been made about the possible relationship between the virgin forests, an early spreading people, and the necessity to use hand-axes in much of their culture. The widespread common relationship of these tools in Europe, Asia and Northern Africa certainly is not inconsistent with the biblical model of the recent origin of the spread of people from the Middle East into diverse places having initially similar cultures. There does seem to be a definite stratigraphic relationship between the so-called Paleolithic strata - Acheulian, Mousterian and Aurignacian in ascending order. This, however, does not indicate that they were cultures that succeeded one another all over the country, but the principle of mushrooming may legitimately be investigated here as in the Mesopotamian Chalcolithic. In other words, the superposition of one stratum on the other may only be a measurement of the cultures in one dimension. It fails to come to terms with the possible horizontal contemporaneity of at least the last two of these cultures, the Mousterian and the Aurignacian. …. [End of quote] Most striking of all are the art-works and symbols common to far-away Australian Aboriginals, so much so that author Bruce Fenton has been prompted to query whether Göbekli Tepe may actually have been an Australian Aboriginal site: Following the typical evolutionary view of things, though, which requires much time for the human development from ape-man, Bruce Fenton must locate the origins of the Göbekli Tepe culture down south in Australia, before its having arrived at the degree of sophistication enabling for the spread of that culture in the far north (e.g. Turkey). A biblical view, instead, would have cultures like Göbekli Tepe emanating at a stage after the Flood from an already fairly sophisticated antediluvian world (Genesis 4:20-22) – Tubal-Cain, for instance, forged implements of copper and iron. Those who later became the Australian Aboriginals - who were not just one people, but many tribes/nations with different languages - would have absorbed this, and other northern cultures (e.g. Aboriginal art connects also with the ‘Ubaid culture in Mesopotamia), and carried the vestiges of these in their long journeys southwards, inevitably losing much of that knowledge over time and distance. Contrary to Bruce Fenton, then, Australian aboriginality is a cultural devolution, rather than an evolution. Ian Wilson, exploring the Lost World of the Kimberley (2006), the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia, has pointed out striking similarities between art figures of the Mesopotamian ‘Ubaid culture and the Kimberley’s aboriginal art figures. The Australian Aboriginal languages apparently have some affinity with ancient Sumerian: http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/cser.pdf Hungarian language belongs to the family of agglutinative languages. Officially it is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family. Structurally similar – although in a very distant relationship with it – are the Turkish, the Dravidian groups of languages, the Japanese and the Korean in the Far-East and the Basque in Europe. A large portion of ancient languages were agglutinative in their nature, such like the Sumerian, Pelagic, Etruscan, as well as aboriginal languages on the American and Australian continents. …. [End of quotes] World Economic Forum’s interference at Göbekli Tepe "He who controls the past controls the future". George Orwell Political and national agenda do not sit easily with such archaeological sites as Ebla and Göbekli Tepe, whose findings may support the Bible, a Hebrew (Jewish) book, anathema to the Syrian government that wants to represent Ebla as a purely Syrian kingdom, and anathema to the World Economic Forum (WEF) that wants to control the narrative about human origins and virtually everything else. So the WEF has put a lid on Göbekli Tepe. Shockingly, we read at: https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPNgGnUrCKM You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPNgGnUrCKM 00:00:00 - 00:20:00 In the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the speaker expresses shock over the slow progress of excavations at the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, which is the world's oldest and largest megalithic site, dating back approximately 11,600 years. The site covers an area of approximately 22 acres and consists of over 200 T-shaped pillars, some reaching heights of nearly 20 ft and weighing up to 22,000 lbs each. Despite its size and age, little is known about who built it or when. The speaker also shares concerns over recent developments, such as a partnership between the site and the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2018, which has led to the preservation of the site and the construction of tourism infrastructure, but has hindered full excavation efforts. The speaker also notes intriguing similarities between certain aspects of Gobekli Tepe and other ancient sites around the world, fueling speculation about a lost ancient global connection. The speaker encourages further investigation and excavation at the site and invites viewers to join the conversation. …. • 00:00:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the speaker expresses his shock over new information regarding the world's oldest and largest megalithic site, Gobekli Tepe, located in Turkey. Dated at approximately 11,600 years old, this site is older than Stonehenge and covers an area of approximately 22 acres, making it the largest megalithic site on Earth. Despite its size and age, little is known about who built it or even when. The site is comprised of an estimated 200 T-shaped pillars, some of which are still buried underground, and many of these pillars reach heights of nearly 20 ft and weigh up to 22,000 lbs each. The carvings on these pillars suggest a high level of planning, logistics, and ingenuity. However, the mystery deepens as historians previously believed that something this old and sophisticated couldn't exist, and it's unclear how such a civilization could have achieved this and what motivated them to do so. Additionally, only a small percentage of the site has been excavated, with only six of the 20 known circular sections or enclosures having been fully excavated, and many more areas remain unexplored. The speaker emphasizes that only 5% of the site has been excavated, a figure first reported in 2008, and gives credit to Graham Hancock for bringing international attention to the site through his books and podcast appearances. • 00:05:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the speaker expresses his surprise that the excavation progress at the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey has not improved since 2017, despite excavations beginning nearly three decades ago. He was initially investigating if the 5% excavation figure had changed, but learned that it had not. The speaker then shares that recent visitors to the site, including author Hugh Newman, have suggested that future generations may focus on excavations at neighboring sites instead. The speaker's investigation led him to discover that the Dogus Group, a large Turkish conglomerate, has a partnership deal to oversee excavations and tourism management at Gobekli Tepe since 2016, with a generous donation of $15 million for ongoing excavations. The speaker finds it disturbing that the focus seems to be on preserving the site and establishing tourism infrastructure rather than increasing excavation efforts. The speaker also takes a moment to promote a sponsor and encourage viewers to purchase emergency medical kits. • 00:10:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the speaker reveals that a 20-year partnership between the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey and the World Economic Forum (WEF) was announced at the WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in 2018. The CEO of the Dogus Group, Fet Sahen, who is a Turkish billionaire and a longtime WEF member, was involved in the deal. The speaker expresses surprise that such a partnership existed, as it involves the oldest and most mysterious structure in human history. The infrastructure developed for tourism and preservation, including protective roofs and walkways, has obstructed parts of the site and impeded its full excavation. The speaker also questions when the orchards located in the midst of ruins were planted and whether any ancient ruins lie underneath them. Additionally, 900 miles of walkways and roads were constructed after the partnership began, some of which destroyed ruins at the site. The speaker implies that the WEF's involvement in the management and excavations of Gobekli Tepe raises questions about their motives and goals. • 00:15:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the widow of archaeologist CLA Schmidt, who was the first to excavate at Gobekli Tepe until her husband's passing in 2014, expressed deep concern upon visiting the site in 2018. She was dismayed to find that heavy equipment, asphalt roads, and concrete sidewalks had destroyed parts of the ancient site. Mrs. Schmidt's photos of the destruction sparked worldwide outrage, leading to a statement from the ministry of culture and tourism denying the use of concrete or asphalt. However, evidence of extensive concrete walkways and the removal of wooden walkways for permanent concrete replacements contradicts their claims. The limited excavations currently taking place make it unlikely that the remaining 14 circular enclosures will be fully excavated, leaving potentially valuable information hidden in the ground. The decision-making power and resources of the World Economic Forum, which infiltrated excavation management in 2016, are believed to be hindering a full excavation of the site. • 00:20:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "You Won’t Believe This Disturbing Gobekli Tepe Update," the speaker discusses intriguing similarities between certain aspects of the Gobekli Tepe site in Turkey and other ancient sites around the world. These similarities include the "handbags" or T-shaped limestone pillars, which have been compared to ones found in ancient Iraq, Mexico, Bolivia, South America, Easter Island, and Indonesia. The speaker also notes the unique placement of hands in front of the pillars at Gobekli Tepe, which is similar to statues in various other locations. While these similarities could be a coincidence, many consider them as potential evidence of a lost ancient global connection. The speaker expresses frustration with the current state of archaeology and calls for further excavation at the site. He encourages archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, skeptics, and enthusiasts to speak out and champion for further excavation. The speaker plans to host a live stream to discuss the topic further and invites viewers to follow him on various social media platforms and support him personally. ….

Monday, August 5, 2024

Bible may not seem to favour the concept of a global Flood

by Damien F. Mackey A friend has e-mailed the following: “…. A couple of matters related to one of my classes last night: 1) Reason(s) that we hold that the Flood was literally global. 2) I was told many years ago that there had never been rain until the Flood and that people were at first delighted and amazed at what they were seeing. Can you help me with either of these? ….” My response: A ‘literally global’ Noachic Flood is what I used firmly to believe, as well as the notion that rain was formerly unknown to the antediluvians. But I don’t anymore. And I feel sorry and embarrassed, now, for those, such as ‘Creationists’ with their ‘Creation Science’, who hold to 1) in particular, “the Flood was literally global”. Why? Because, as I see it, they are reading the Bible in a modern language, say English, with a modern ‘scientific’ - even to a great extent a pseudo-scientific - mentality, instead of in a way that gives due consideration to the meaning of the language used by the ancient (not modern) scribes with those scribes’ intended meanings. Previously I have quoted Tim Martin on the modern tendency to reduce everything to science – and one could probably add, to numbers and statistics. Tim Martin has actually called ‘Creation Science’ “a right-wing form of modernism”: http://planetpreterist.com/content/beyond-creation-science-how-preterism-refutes-global-flood-and-impacts-genesis-debate-%E2%80%93-par-5 We live in a world dominated by materialism and scientism. The reduction of every aspect of life to “science” has corrupted the soul of Western Civilization. This is one key to understanding the related popularity of both futurism and Creation Science. They are both perfectly compatible with the scientistic spirit of the modern age. In fact, dispensational futurism, at least, is impossible apart from it. Christians aid this scientistic syncretism through Creation Science methods of reading Scripture. They do it by reducing even the language of the Bible to the “scientific.” …. Viewed in this light it is not difficult to see that Creation Science ideology is a right-wing form of modernism. Conrad Hyers puts it this way: Even if evolution is only a scientific theory of interpretation posing as scientific fact, as the [young-earth] creationists argue, [young-earth] creationism is only a religious theory of biblical interpretation posing as biblical fact. To add to the problem, it is a religious theory of biblical interpretation which is heavily influenced by modern scientific, historical, and technological concerns. It is, therefore, essentially modernistic even though claiming to be truly conservative. …. [End of quotes] Catholics (those tending to be of the conservative variety) who have followed Creationism over the years would be well aware that mainstream Catholic scholars have shown virtually no interest whatsoever in its teachings, and that official Catholic documents never seem to support Creation Science. Why might this be so? Surely Creation Science, teaching a belief in God the Creator of all things, and vehemently defending the inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures, ought to be warmly welcomed by the Church as an invaluable ally. On the other hand, the God-fearing are not always right in their estimations, no matter how sincere, and they may need to be corrected. Consider Our Lord’s constant corrections of good people along the lines of: ‘You have heard it said … but I tell you’ (e. g. Matthew 5:21-22). ‘Creationists’ will take biblical phrases such as “the whole earth”, or “all flesh”, and bestow upon these a universal or global status – intending the entire globe. At least they do so when it suits them, such as in the case of the Flood or Babel. For they are not consistent. If they were, would they not have the Queen of the South, who came “from the ends of the earth” (Matthew 12:42), making her way northwards from somewhere in the southern hemisphere? And how do they account for the fact that, at Pentecost, people “from every nation under heaven” are actually listed as being inhabitants of only a very small part of the global world – basically, Rome, Crete, and Egypt, through Syria and Turkey, to Mesopotamia? (Acts 2:5-11): Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God’. The misinterpretation of the ancient texts by modern (say, Western) minds in regard to the Flood is well explained in the following piece by Rich Deem: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/localflood.html The Genesis Flood Why the Bible Says It Must be Local Many Christians maintain that the Bible says that the flood account of Genesis requires an interpretation that states that the waters of the flood covered the entire earth. If you read our English Bibles, you will probably come to this conclusion if you don't read the text too closely and if you fail to consider the rest of your Bible. Like most other Genesis stories, the flood account is found in more places than just Genesis. If you read the sidebar, you will discover that Psalm 104 directly eliminates any possibility of the flood being global (see Psalm 104-9 - Does it refer to the Original Creation or the Flood?). In order to accept a global flood, you must reject Psalm 104 and the inerrancy of the Bible. If you like to solve mysteries on your own, you might want to read the flood account first and find the biblical basis for a local flood. The Bible's other creation passages eliminate the possibility of a global flood The concept of a global Genesis flood can be easily eliminated from a plain reading of Psalm 104 … which is known as the "creation psalm." Psalm 104 describes the creation of the earth in the same order as that seen in Genesis 1 (with a few more details added). It begins with an expanding universe model (reminiscent of the Big Bang) [sic] (verse 2 … parallel to Genesis 1:1). It next describes the formation of a stable water cycle (verses 3-5,1 parallel to Genesis 1:6-8). The earth is then described as a planet completely covered with water (verse 6, parallel to Genesis 1:9). God then causes the dry land to appear (verses 7-8,1 parallel to Genesis 1:9-10). The verse that eliminates a global flood follows: "You set a boundary they [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." (Psalm 104:9)…. Obviously, if the waters never again covered the earth, then the flood must have been local. Psalm 104 is just one of several creation passages that indicate that God prevented the seas from covering the entire earth. …. An integration of all flood and creation passages clearly indicates that the Genesis flood was local in geographic extent. The Bible says water covered the whole earth... Really? When you read an English translation of the biblical account of the flood, you will undoubtedly notice many words and verses that seem to suggest that the waters covered all of planet earth.3 However, one should note that today we look at everything from a global perspective, whereas the Bible nearly always refers to local geography. You may not be able to determine this fact from our English translations, so we will look at the original Hebrew, which is the word of God. The Hebrew words which are translated as "whole earth" or "all the earth" are kol (Strong's number H3605), which means "all," and erets (Strong's number H776), which means "earth," "land," "country," or "ground." …. We don't need to look very far in Genesis (Genesis 2) before we find the Hebrew words kol erets. …. [End of quote] ‘Creationists’, having arrived at their completely artificial - and quite laughable, if they weren’t so serious - interpretations of the Bible, will then insist upon one’s adhering to their peculiar ‘biblical’ Weltanschauung as behoving Christians dedicated to the preservation of scriptural inerrancy. Well, I would suggest that no one would have been more surprised than Noah (and his family) to learn that he had once ridden out a global Flood in a sea-going vessel the size of the Queen Mary! As to point 2) ‘there had never been rain until the Flood’, it has no solid biblical support as far as I can tell. And even some ‘Creationists’ now seem to have dropped this idea. For example: https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/arguments-to-avoid/was-there-no-rain-before-the-flood/ Was There No Rain Before the Flood? Some Christians claim that there was no rain before the Flood; however, as Dr. Tommy Mitchell shows us, a close examination of Scripture does not bear this out. …. Conclusion While we cannot prove that there was rain before the Flood, to insist that there was not (and even to deride those who think otherwise) stretches Scripture beyond what it actually says. …. My friend’s further comments: Thank you for sending this through. It is very interesting and well written. It reminds me of what I was explaining in class last week, the difference between "literal" and "literalistic" readings of Scripture. Literal is adhering to the text's meaning as literally intended by the author. Literalistic doesn't consider this, but rather merely what the words mean in their most obvious meanings, accounting for no use of idiom or figurative language. Without using this terminology, Damien highlighted this distinction in the case of the flood. I agree with his analysis. However, I don't think he ruled out that the flood might have extended to all the inhabited world? You might want to ask him? He does suggest that this is not necessarily the case with reference to Acts "every nation under the sun". Perhaps then it is inconclusive. That it extended to all the inhabited world would be my favoured interpretation, however, I would like to hear what Damien thinks. This issue is a good case study to indicate that Biblical studies is quite challenging! The historical-critical methods can be helpful at establishing what the original text literally meant, and shouldn't be written off as useless. But, very frequently I think modern scholarship tends to manipulate the scripture in a way that undermines the literal meaning. …. Noah’s world So far I have suggested that those who approach Genesis with a Fundamentalist mentality will take ancient biblical phrases such as “the whole earth”, “all flesh”, and, unhappily, re-present them in global terms. St. Peter writes of “… the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Peter 3:6). Now, rather than for one instinctively here to seize upon the phrase, “the world”, and automatically take it to mean global world, one would do better to learn from Genesis what “world”, “earth”, the Book of Genesis had so far presented to us. We find that only a few chapters before the Flood, in Genesis 2. It is a “world” that basically constitutes what would later come to be known as “the Fertile Crescent” – appropriately also known as “the Cradle of Civilisation”. It stretches approximately from Iraq to Egypt (Ethiopia). Thus editor Moses will geographically update the primeval toledôt account of Adam, which would have pre-dated “Ashur” and “Cush” (Genesis 2:10-14): A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Noachic world is not really very much different in its span from that rendered as “every nation under heaven” in Acts 2:5-11. Presumably, though, the Noachic (the Adamic) world was significantly different, both geologically and topographically, from the post-diluvian world. For instance, it is possible that the antediluvian world was circumscribed by a sea (the earth-encircling river Okeanos of the ancients – Tethys Sea?), thereby preventing Noah from escaping the Flood and the burden of having to build an Ark. In this regard, “… the flood might have extended to all the inhabited world?” That is the view that I personally would favour. It seems to accord with St. Peter’s other statement (I Peter 3:20): “In the Ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water”. Common sense, I think, would tell us that (as according to the Catholic mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich) there must have been significantly more than just eight people aboard the Ark, and that the eight were the progenitors from whom every person on earth - including those others in the Ark - are descended. Practically every nation today, great or small, has its Flood legends that bear greater or lesser similarities to the Genesis Flood account. Noah and his family did not need to take on board every type of animal then in existence, much less the dinosaurs. No wonder scientifically-minded people laugh at this sort of desertion of common sense, that once again takes a “literalistic” approach to a global sounding phrase, “every living thing of all flesh” (Genesis 6:10). Other flood stories throughout the world have the surviving flood-man, whatever he may be called, with only domestic animals on board his boat or raft. Noah simply would have taken pairs of such animals as he and his family would need for food and sacrifice, and to kick-start his new life on terra firma, until conditions began to revert back to normal. The animals depicted at the Göbekli Tepe ‘menagerie’, close to where Noah’s Ark actually landed at Karaca Dag: Noah’s Ark Mountain (4) Noah's Ark Mountain | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu might be a clue to the sort of animals that were to be found on board the Ark.

Monday, July 22, 2024

Beginnings of a Catholic revival

“Even Richard Dawkins, God bless him, has decided to dial the God-hatred back a bit and now says he’s also a cultural Christian. Christianity, for him, is a “fundamentally decent religion,” unlike a certain other form of monotheism, of which Dawkins doesn’t approve”. Dr Philippa Martyr Taken from: https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/a-catholic-revival-is-upon-us-feel-free-to-enjoy-it/ A Catholic revival is upon us. Feel free to enjoy it By Dr Philippa Martyr April 14, 2024 If you’ve been reading the international Catholic media lately, you’ll know what an exciting Easter it’s been. Westminster Cathedral in London had to turn people away from the Triduum ceremonies because the cathedral was overflowing. Other churches reported record crowds over Easter. In France, around 1.6 million Catholics turn up to Sunday Mass on a regular basis. But there’s been a 30 per cent increase in adult baptisms since 2023, to a whopping 7,135 in 2024. Next door in Belgium, there’s around 460,000 Catholics going to Mass on Sundays. But the number of adult converts there has doubled in 10 years from 186 in 2014 to 362 in 2024. I wish I could tell you how many adult converts came into the Church in Australia this Easter, but outside Sydney where the bumper RCIA group was even noticed overseas, I don’t know. We don’t collect or publish that data centrally, which I think is a shame. This Easter, Tammy Peterson also became a Catholic. Tammy is the wife of Dr Jordan Peterson—the psychologist, speaker, and author who is probably best described as “Christian-adjacent.” Many of us have great hopes for Dr P’s eventual conversion. But I think it will need more prayers, as he’s already announced he won’t be rushing into anything soon. Media pundits are saying that there’s a Christian revival going on in the UK. Prominent public figures there like Tom Holland and Douglas Murray have publicly praised the social and cultural value of Christianity. Even Richard Dawkins, God bless him, has decided to dial the God-hatred back a bit and now says he’s also a cultural Christian. Christianity, for him, is a “fundamentally decent religion,” unlike a certain other form of monotheism, of which Dawkins doesn’t approve. But none of them has become a Christian yet (and Douglas Murray is openly gay so that’s going to be a hard sell). Nor has Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose recent embrace of Christianity is based not on her belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God, but her belief in Christianity’s ability to withstand the coming fall of Western civilisation. And that’s the rub. This kind of “secular Christianity” is a response to fears about radical Islam and its increasing public presence in the UK. Even the most virulent anti-Christian public figures have started to realise that radical Islam does not tolerate most of the things they value. Is any of this okay? Of course it is. It’s nice when prominent people stop publicly hating your religion 24 hours a day. We should all enjoy the breather. Huge influxes of people into our churches at Christmas and Easter are also not a new thing, and some of the crowds may have been coming in a tidal wave of post-COVID relief. But of course, they’re all welcome. There’s also an online social media trend in “ChristianCore” and “CatholicCore,” where getting your Catholic weird on is increasingly attractive to bored and disenchanted young people. …. The church is here to stay. It has been planted very firmly in the world to save it. But the Christian tide comes in and goes out in different parts of the world over time. God is very patient. He is deeply immersed in his relationship with the individual soul who he is wooing over time and space. We can help him best by getting out of his way. What won’t help is to rush in and start watering down church teaching in the hope of head-hunting famous people who aren’t ready to love God back just yet. Conversion is a journey. Some people like to admire the scenery on the way to the beach while they’re wondering just how cold the water will be when they decide to plunge in. This means that those of us already in the water should be having the best time we can in it. The water is glorious but we might need to signal that more often to the ones still waiting to come in.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

New Adam tends the Garden neglected by the Old Adam

“Trust the gardener (and stay in his garden!) and Jesus will grow new life out of the husk of your old life. Please, stay in the garden. Yes, I know it’s easy to get depressed about ecclesial garbage. But just remember, even beautiful gardens have a compost pile”. Brian Zahnd Taken from: https://www.ecodisciple.com/blog/god-the-cosmic-gardener/ God the Cosmic Gardener May 25, 2023 - The whole of creation is a magnificent garden created by God. Every aspect of that creation God looked at and proclaimed “It is good.” By Christine Sine …. ________________________________________ Not long ago we celebrated Earth Day, and recently I had the privilege of sharing the sermon at Seattle Mennonite church. This was not another doom and gloom talk about climate change. I think we are all aware and concerned about the future of our planet. I couldn’t open my computer in the last few weeks without another story shouting its concern. Some feel we only have a decade in which to make changes. It overwhelms us but research suggests that it does not galvanize us into action; in fact, quite the reverse. It actually makes us less likely to respond, because we feel so helpless. We need new language and new perspectives that inspire us with the enthusiasm and passion to get out and make a difference. We need to re-enchant and re-wonder peoples’ view of the world. Part of our problem is that we have lost the language to describe the beauty around us. When the Oxford Junior dictionary was last updated, some words were removed and new ones added. All the words removed were about nature. One of them was dandelion. Can you imagine? No wonder we think of dandelions as weeds to be eradicated rather than recognizing them as one of the most nutritious plants in the garden and, to a child, one of the most beautiful too. I love that the Bible begins and ends with a garden. The Eternal God, the cosmic gardener, starts by creating a garden. Our creator doesn’t just go to the local nursery and buy a few plants, but creates every single element of that garden. The divine spirit is infused through every aspect of creation. The flora, the fauna, even the soil, pregnant with life, shimmers with the vibrant presence and glory of God. It’s not just Eden that is a garden, though; the whole of creation is a magnificent garden created by God. Every aspect of that creation God looked at and proclaimed “It is good.” In the Voice translation of Genesis 2:7-9 we read: “The Eternal God planted a garden in the east in Eden – a place of utter delight – and placed the human whom they had sculpted there. In this garden, the Creator of all made the ground pregnant with life – bursting forth with nourishing food and luxuriant beauty.” God took all the good stuff of creation and formed it into a garden of utter delight. It gives me a feeling of delight just to think about it. The great Irish teacher John Scotus Eriugena taught that God speaks to us through two books - the physically small book of scripture and the big book of creation, vast as the universe. Eriugena invites us to listen to the two books in stereo, to listen to the strains of the human heart in scripture and discern within them the sound of God and to listen to the murmurings and thunders of creation and know within them the music of God’s Being. To listen to one without the other is to only half-listen. To listen to scripture without creation is to lose the cosmic vastness of the song. To listen to creation without scripture is to lose the personal intimacy of the voice. At the end of the Bible in Revelation 22 there is another garden. This is a garden city, a garden that inspires me with possibilities for how to beautify our urban world today. Imagine it—garden cities multiplying throughout the world. I am deeply touched by the verse, “On each bank of the river stood the tree of life, firmly planted, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and producing its sweet crop every month throughout the year.” I will never forget my first experience of holding a child dying of starvation in my arms when I worked in the refugee camps on the Thai Cambodian border in the mid 80's. Then, from Africa, more images of starvation are seared in my brain. Starvation is seasonal. If the harvest is poor, stored crops will run out before new crops are ready for harvest. In the Middle Ages, it was known as the hunger season. I close my eyes and think of it—a tree that gives fruit twelve months of the year. Can you imagine abundant, lush harvests every month of the year? In God’s garden there is no hunger season, no chance of a child dying in infancy— abundance and provision for everyone and every creature at all times. Jesus is the gardener of this new creation garden. We heard it at Easter. When Mary Magdalene encounters the resurrected Jesus as depicted in John 20:15, she was coming to the garden tomb looking for Christ’s body. Instead she finds a very much alive Jesus and she thinks he is the gardener. This is not a throwaway line. It is of cosmic significance! Jesus is indeed the gardener of the new creation and asks us to once again join him in its care. Soil must be fertilized, seeds planted, watered, and nurtured and fruit harvested. Animals must be tended and cared for. I don’t think this is a spiritual metaphor. Jesus loved creation and delighted in using it as the focus for his parables. Several years ago I read A New Heaven and A New Earth by Richard Middleton. It both inspired and stunned me. Middleton suggested that our purpose is to transform the whole earth into a fitting and hospitable place not just for humankind but also for God to dwell. Can you imagine it? God longs for a beautiful place where all creation flourishes and all creatures enjoy abundant provision. A place in which God, too, feels welcomed and comfortable, able to walk once more in relationship with humankind. I like to close my eyes and think about this. What kind of world would God feel comfortable in? Obviously, one in which justice and peace reign, but also one in which creation is restored and cared for. This is why Earth Day is so important for me. It is not just about climate change and our concern for a world humankind has abused, but about our longing to be able to walk once more with our God in a world of beauty where creation flourishes and all are abundantly provided for. How could this view change how we approach God’s good creation and the destruction we often unwittingly contribute to? How could we make this world more inviting for God to dwell in? What difference would it make if we saw God as the cosmic gardener and Jesus as the gardener of the new creation? My husband Tom and I live in a small intentional community with three two-bedroom units. One of our foundational guidelines is sustainability. Recently, we became full for the first time in several years with keen gardeners, and we look forward to sharing an abundant harvest of salad greens straight out of the garden, as well as tomatoes, squash, and beans. In our parking strip, we have several fruit trees, including three apple trees that sometimes produce up to 400 pounds of apples. Over the last 15 years we have probably harvested 5,000 pounds of apples from the trees. Talk about the abundance of a generous God. "I am not a gardener!" you might exclaim. "I have a black thumb. I don’t have space or time for gardening. I don’t like dirty hands." Well it doesn’t matter. There are many ways to become a co-worker with Jesus to create the new world that Easter beckons us into. It is not just about plants and gardens; it is also about justice and concern for those whose lives are increasingly devastated by the impact of climate change, which usually hits the poorest in our world and communities hardest. …. And, taken from: https://brianzahnd.com/2018/03/mistaken-as-the-gardener/ Mistaken As the Gardener Brian Zahnd “Mary Magdalene turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener.” –John 20:14, 15 “On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, not in the cool of the evening, but in the dawn.” –G.K. Chesterton The first person to encounter the risen Christ was Mary Magdalene. It happened in a garden. At first Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. A logical mistake. Or a prophetic mistake. Or a beautiful mistake. Or perhaps not a mistake at all. On Good Friday Jesus was buried in a garden. A garden is a place to cultivate and grow living things. An appropriate place for Jesus to be buried. A few days before his crucifixion Jesus had said, “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) On Holy Saturday the Son of God was a holy seed sown in a peaceful garden. On Easter Sunday the garden brought forth the first fruits of resurrection — “Jesus Christ declared to be the Son of God by resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4) The first seed raised by God in the garden of resurrection became the gardener. When Mary Magdalene “supposed him to be the gardener,” she was exactly right! Jesus is now the gardener of resurrection, cultivating new life in all who believe. The first Adam was a gardener who failed in his task and the world became a wasteland of war and sin. But the second Adam will succeed in his task — Christ will restore the ruined garden. With Christ as the gardener of new creation we have a hopeful eschatology. Instead of the thorn bush shall come up the juniper; Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle. –Isaiah 55:13 “On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be there anymore.” –Revelation 22:2, 3 Jesus is the gardener who turns blighted wastelands into verdant gardens. Jesus is NOT a conductor punching tickets for a train ride to heaven. Christian hope is not so much about getting from earth to heaven, as it is about getting heaven to earth. Jesus is NOT a lawyer to get us out of a legal jam with his angry dad. God is not mad at sinners. Jesus told Mary to tell his disciples that his Father was their Father too! Jesus is NOT a banker making loans of his surplus righteousness. Modern people love economic metaphors…but they are terrible! Economic metaphors invariably produce bad theology. Jesus IS a gardener! A gardener cultivating resurrection life in all who will come to him. The conductor, lawyer, banker metaphors are mostly false, giving a distorted view of salvation. The gardener (and physician) metaphor is beautiful and faithfully depicts the process of salvation in our lives. A gardener’s work is earthy and intimate. Gardeners have their hands in the humus. (We are humans from the humus.) Conductors and lawyers and bankers are concerned with abstract and impersonal things like tickets, laws, and money. But gardeners handle living things with living hands. Jesus is not afraid to get his hands dirty in the humus of humanity. That Jesus is a gardener with a good heart and a green thumb should change your perspective on life. I promise you that your life is not so messed up that Jesus can’t nurture you into a flourishing state. This is the good news! Take a leap of faith and believe it! Trust the gardener (and stay in his garden!) and Jesus will grow new life out of the husk of your old life. Please, stay in the garden. Yes, I know it’s easy to get depressed about ecclesial garbage. But just remember, even beautiful gardens have a compost pile. Believing that Jesus is a good gardener tending to your soul really does change your perspective on life. So when “stuff” happens (you know the expression), don’t despair. Allow Jesus to use “it” as fertilizer to help you grow. Paul says something about God causing all things to work together for good… Then there are those times when the gardener pulls out his shears. Oh, no! Pruning time! Pruning is the painful experience of loss. No one likes to be cut back. But the gracious intention of the good gardener is always the same: to prepare you to flourish. Jesus says, “every branch of mine that bears fruit is pruned, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2) I know in my own life any fruitful result from my work of writing has only been possible because of pruning. If I had remained a church-growth, success-in-life unpruned pastor I could never have written on forgiveness and beauty, peace and love as I have. I had to be pruned. It was painful. Very painful. But I thank the gardener for it. So take heart, if you’re in the garden, the gardener is there. You may not always recognize him at first, but he is there. He calls you by name and his desire is for you to flourish. Believe in the gardener…for he is risen!