Numbers, Codes and Mysteries-
OK, I fell for it and looked into the "Bible Code". There is a very GOOD book by Jeffrey Satinover about it "Cracking the Bible Code". He doesn't even bother to mention Michael Drosnin (the one who made all the money off the "Code"). It gave a very good history of cryptography, kabbalah and so on and showed how the Bible Code was an outgrowth of these things. So here's my problem, its based on the Masoretic text which is very DIFFERENT than the ancient Hebrew. Major portions of the bible are actually written in Chaldean or Aramaic. I know it was based on the Torah but you just got to wonder (the Torah was the first five books of the Bible).
So I downloaded the "code software". It let me run some ELS (Equidistant Letter Spacing) for about 8 times. I naturally looked up my name "MartyBee" (all run together). I showed up 4 times most of the references were to FALSE prophets like Balaam. Heh, heh, gotta make you WONDER!
They have found OTHER references that say Jehovah is evil in the Torah using this ELS system. So I don't feel TOO worried...
Is there a problem with all this jazz? My first reaction is that it IS traditionally OCCULT. That is it is all about hidden wisdom, secrets if you will. GNOSTICISM then is what this all about whether you want it to be or not. Its all about secret wisdom that is only accessible to a few initiates.
As for me it reminds me of the whole "backwards masking mania" that was in vogue in evangelical circles years ago. The idea was that if you played "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin for you younguns) backwards you got someone saying "I love you Satan..." (I NEVER heard it and I played it back on a reel to reel). In the meantime they ignored what it was saying FRONTWARDS. It was literally a hymn to the White Goddess of European Witchcraft/Paganism! In the same sense, people are looking for mysteries in the bible and trying to find secret codes when just read straight up, its message is powerful enough.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Fast Note on Nag Hammadi (DaVinci and so on)
The big idea behind the Da Vinci Code book is that the scriptures were edited by Constantine in 325 A.D. Other gospels could have been included and weren't for chauvinist reasons. This is the main motif behind all of Elaine Pagels work on the Gnostic Gospels. There are some very good reasons that the Nag Hammadi gospels were NOT included in the canon of scripture (or what we know now as the New Testament):
1. The canon of scripture (what books would be included) was FIXED by as early as 150 A.D. In other words the books we know as the New Testament were pretty much fixed in place much, much earlier than 325. Most of the Gnostic Gospels can be dated as 3rd or late 2nd century. Far to late to be part of the legitimate record of Jesus.
2. The nature of the Nag Hammadi gospels is distinctly NOT historical. They consist of sayings and proverbs. There is NO historical information such as when Mary and Joseph went to be counted in the census of Tiberias at Bethlehem. The book of Acts can be considered an accurate diary of the early church. Places, people and dates can be fixed accurately for the most part. You have no such ability with a book of proverbs.
3. History IS dictated by consensus. It is not something that can be affirmed or denied 100%. It isn't like a hard science that you can measure. What I mean by that is suppose you had 1000 reports of a helicopter flying over a neighborhood at night and 3 that say it was a UFO. Which side would you believe? You COULD say that the UFO reports were suppressed by the government. But a little common sense would say it was most likely a helicopter. We find the same case with the Gnostic "Gospels". There are THOUSANDS of copies of all the portions of the New Testament as we know it, dated early enough to be valid, and only FEW copies of the Gnostic Gospels (with references to them by Iraneus) that are dated LATER. You can make the call that a suppressive, authoritarian, chauvinist Roman church DESTROYED all the copies to make their point, and you can believe every light that passes over your house at night is a UFO.
What does all this point out? Are all evangelicals like me just in denial? Or is it that Academics are victims of their own "Political Correctness"? Feminism, the Mother Goddess religion, new thought in spirituality are all in vogue in this culture. But it is intellectually unsound to impose our views of the world on another time and culture. If the gnostic literature is examined closely enough it is far more misogynist than our current day.
You be the judge! (As for me, I ain't believing in any UFO's till they land and show me their registration and proof of insurance.)
The big idea behind the Da Vinci Code book is that the scriptures were edited by Constantine in 325 A.D. Other gospels could have been included and weren't for chauvinist reasons. This is the main motif behind all of Elaine Pagels work on the Gnostic Gospels. There are some very good reasons that the Nag Hammadi gospels were NOT included in the canon of scripture (or what we know now as the New Testament):
1. The canon of scripture (what books would be included) was FIXED by as early as 150 A.D. In other words the books we know as the New Testament were pretty much fixed in place much, much earlier than 325. Most of the Gnostic Gospels can be dated as 3rd or late 2nd century. Far to late to be part of the legitimate record of Jesus.
2. The nature of the Nag Hammadi gospels is distinctly NOT historical. They consist of sayings and proverbs. There is NO historical information such as when Mary and Joseph went to be counted in the census of Tiberias at Bethlehem. The book of Acts can be considered an accurate diary of the early church. Places, people and dates can be fixed accurately for the most part. You have no such ability with a book of proverbs.
3. History IS dictated by consensus. It is not something that can be affirmed or denied 100%. It isn't like a hard science that you can measure. What I mean by that is suppose you had 1000 reports of a helicopter flying over a neighborhood at night and 3 that say it was a UFO. Which side would you believe? You COULD say that the UFO reports were suppressed by the government. But a little common sense would say it was most likely a helicopter. We find the same case with the Gnostic "Gospels". There are THOUSANDS of copies of all the portions of the New Testament as we know it, dated early enough to be valid, and only FEW copies of the Gnostic Gospels (with references to them by Iraneus) that are dated LATER. You can make the call that a suppressive, authoritarian, chauvinist Roman church DESTROYED all the copies to make their point, and you can believe every light that passes over your house at night is a UFO.
What does all this point out? Are all evangelicals like me just in denial? Or is it that Academics are victims of their own "Political Correctness"? Feminism, the Mother Goddess religion, new thought in spirituality are all in vogue in this culture. But it is intellectually unsound to impose our views of the world on another time and culture. If the gnostic literature is examined closely enough it is far more misogynist than our current day.
You be the judge! (As for me, I ain't believing in any UFO's till they land and show me their registration and proof of insurance.)
On the Golden Compass-
This is only a first reaction to what the author of the original books was up to. He apparently has a decidely anti-christian agenda. The church is portrayed as a sort of "sacred gestapo" that is experimenting on children. God is really a shriveled old man that lives in a crystal. The two protagonists in the book series meet and have sex and save the world (at the end of the third book apparently). The heirarchy of heaven and creation have a very GNOSTIC viewpoint (that is the earth and creation were made by that shriveled up creator "god" and the rest of it is under a sort of warfare mentality between different "angels", or demi-urges.)
That aside, New Line cinema is touting it as "from the same people that brought you Middle Earth". It turns out Phillip Pullman has little regard for Tolkien and even LESS regard for C. S. Lewis and Narnia. He considers the Narnia series "racist" and wrote the "His Dark Materials" series to counter it (this is the series that the "Golden Compass" movie was drawn from). The heroine even starts the adventure in a "wardrobe" closet!
Let me finish with what I read on one blog last night, "we had people worried about Harry Potter when J. K. Rowling was just out to make an engaging fantasy, this is the real one to worry about..." (paraphrased as best I remember it).
Its time for some serious fantasy writers (of the Christian sort) to take up their pens and start writing I think.
This is only a first reaction to what the author of the original books was up to. He apparently has a decidely anti-christian agenda. The church is portrayed as a sort of "sacred gestapo" that is experimenting on children. God is really a shriveled old man that lives in a crystal. The two protagonists in the book series meet and have sex and save the world (at the end of the third book apparently). The heirarchy of heaven and creation have a very GNOSTIC viewpoint (that is the earth and creation were made by that shriveled up creator "god" and the rest of it is under a sort of warfare mentality between different "angels", or demi-urges.)
That aside, New Line cinema is touting it as "from the same people that brought you Middle Earth". It turns out Phillip Pullman has little regard for Tolkien and even LESS regard for C. S. Lewis and Narnia. He considers the Narnia series "racist" and wrote the "His Dark Materials" series to counter it (this is the series that the "Golden Compass" movie was drawn from). The heroine even starts the adventure in a "wardrobe" closet!
Let me finish with what I read on one blog last night, "we had people worried about Harry Potter when J. K. Rowling was just out to make an engaging fantasy, this is the real one to worry about..." (paraphrased as best I remember it).
Its time for some serious fantasy writers (of the Christian sort) to take up their pens and start writing I think.
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