THE MODERN "Word of God" TEACHERS!
THE WORD OF GOD
by DON ROBSON
Recently in our church we had a visiting minister who
pointed out that the burning bush was not really burning but
appeared so because it was framed by the setting sun. I regarded
this as one more example of the clergy trying to destroy the
faith of the congregation by removing one more of the faith's
foundations. In discussing it with a follow parishioner, she
tended to agree with me but added that she could not abide those
people who accepted and believed every word written in the
Scriptures. I confess that I am one of those. I think we are
called fundamentalists, although there may be many other
adjectives to describe me (us)!
I presume that these non-fundamentalist persons regard the
Word of God as a smorgasbo and from which they can choose
according to their personal beliefs or desires. But how would one
know what to believe and embrace and what to reject and discard?
Even in the days of old, the same problem existed. Consider
Isaiah 30: 8-11, "Now go, write it before them in a table and
note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever
and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children,
children that will not hear the law of the Lord: Which say to the
seers. See not; and to the prophet, Prophesy NOT unto RIGHT
things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy DECEITS: Get you
out of the way, turn aside out of the path, Cause the Holy One of
Israel to cease from before us." Doesn't that sound so modern?
Tell us what we want to hear!
Then, there are those who call themselves "New Testament
Christians" They have rejected the whole of the Old Testament.
They forget that on those occasions where Jesus referred to the
scriptures, He was referring to the Old Testament. There is the
wonderful passage in Luke 24:25-27, "Then He said unto them, O
fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken: Ought not Christ have suffered these things and entered
into His glory? And beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets, He
expounded unto them in ALL the scriptures (Old Testament) the
things concerning Himself." Even Peter makes reference to Isaiah
28:16, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I lay in Zion
for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner
stone, a sure foundation: He that believeth on Him shall not be
confounded." In fact, the epistles of Peter are full of
references to the Old Testament.
But are Old Testament stories myths or legends? Stories
like, the voice from heaven, "'This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased'"; the casting out of heaven the sinning angels;
Noah: Sodom and Gomorrah: Balaam being rebuked by the dumb ass
speaking with a man's voice? Peter makes reference to these in
his second epistle. In his first epistle, He sums up the Old
Testament in these words, 1 Peter 1:19-21, "We have also a more
sure word of prophecy: whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as
unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and
the daystar arise he your hearts: Knowing this first, that no
prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but Holy
men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
But some might say, you are using the Bible to prove the
Bible. Well, there are fascinating proofs available: I refer to
the works of Ivan Panin, who demonstrated in his books a
mathematical structure so complex that it could only have been
written by one author! And the structure was totally beyond the
scope of man. Also there is the study of gematria, which is the
science of assigning the numerical values of the Hebrew and Greek
alphabets to the text revealing hidden messages expressed in
numbers. Author Bonnie Guant has fascinated me with her several
books summarizing years of study. For example, she shows that the
name, "Lord Jesus Christ" in Greek has a numeric value of 3168.
Then she proceeds to demonstrate how that number is found
expressed in the great pyramid, Stonehenge, Solomon's temple and
the geometry of our solar system. People tend to ignore this work
but it demonstrates the mathematical genius of the Creator,
reflected in all His works, including the Bible.
I think it is generally accepted that the Bible remains a
mystery to those reading it with a closed mind, but for those
seeking the truth with an open mind it leaps to life and rewards
us greatly. We let Paul sum it all up. 2 Timothy 1:15-17, "And
that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in
Christ Jesus. ALL scripture is given by INSPIRATION OF GOD, and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, or
instructions in righteousness: That the men of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
..........
A "RELIGIOUS FAIRY TAIL"?
by Pastor JORY STEVEN BROOKS
In his recent book, "Israel's History And The History Of
Israel," author Mario Liverani casts weighty personal doubt upon
the Biblical picture of the reign of Solomon, and especially of
early Israel's maritime trade and colonization. Dr.Liveram writes
in particular that I Kings chapter 4 is "all woven of fairy-tale
elements," and says further that "[Solomon's] commercial
enterprises are also quite suspect. The maritime ventures (I
Kings 9:2628: 10:11,22) involving the King of Tyre, who is said
to have contributed his own experienced sailors, exhibit the
literary form of a fairy tale." (p.100)
I am not sure what he thinks a fairy tale "literary form"
exactly is, but the Biblical text never begins any chapter with
the "once upon a time" designation of so many fairy tales, nor is
there any mention of leprechauns, gnomes or elves! Nor does
Scripture give any indication that the text is relating anything
other than literal, factual, recorded history.
Yet for centuries critics have ridiculed the historical
portions of Scripture as the stuff of myth and legend. Just as
the city of Troy and the Trojan War were widely considered to be
figments of Homer's vivid imagination until rediscovered a
century and a half ago, so too the great ancient cities of
Nineveh and Babylon were regarded as figments of the Biblical
writer's imagination until archaeologists rediscovered them in
the mid-nineteenth century. It may seem counterintuitive, but
historians often exhibit the most rabid agnosticism concerning
historical subjects, and even more so when it involves Scripture.
One of the passages Dr.Liveram questions reads as follows:
"And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is
beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.
And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had
knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came
to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty
talents, and brought it to king Solomon" (1 Kings 9:26-28).
Historians have no disagreement with the idea of Phoenician
ships trading and colonizing the coasts of Africa and Europe, yet
many seem horrified to think of the presence of an Israelite on
board one of those ships!
The book, "The Story Of Celto-Saxon Israel," published by
CBIA is a wonderful sourcebook to use in countering historical
and Biblical agnosticism. Appendix 7 contains an excellent quote
from one of the most well respected historians of the past, Dr.
Robert G. Latham, concerning ancient Israel's seafaring
abilities. Here is just a portion of his statement from the book:
"The influences from Syria and Palestine were either Phoenician
or Jewish, and by no means exclusively Phoenician. The selling of
the sons and daughters of Judah into captivity beyond the sea is
a fact attested by Isaiah. Neither do I think that the eponymus
of the Argive Danai was other than that of the Israelite tribe of
Dan; only we are so used to confine ourselves to the soil of
Palestine in our consideration of the history of the Israelites,
that we treat them as if they were adscripti glebae [i.e.
"embedded to the land"], and ignore the share they may have taken
in the ordinary history of the world. Like priests of great
sanctity, they are known in the holy places only - yet the
seaports between Tyre and Ascalon, of Dan, Ephraim, and Asher,
must have followed the history of seaports in general, and not
have stood on the coast for nothing. What a light would be thrown
on the origin of the name Peloponesus, and the history of the
Pelopid family, if a bona fide nation of Pelopes, with
unequivocal affinities, and contemporary annals, had existed on
the coast of Asia! Who would have hesitated to connect the two?
Yet with the Danae and the tribe of Dan this is the case, and no
one connects them" (pp.173-4).
Some scholars have no problem accepting the Biblical account
of ancient Israel's commercial sea traffic. For one recent
example, Marvin Alan Sweeney ("I & 2 Kings," 2007) believes that
this sea trade by Israel and Phoenicia "enables them both to
become rich." (p.146) Dr.Sweeney pointed out that Israel needed
money to pay Phoenicia for expensive labor and materials -
lumber, gold, and silver - for the construction of Solomon's
Temple. Solomon attempted to pay for this work by giving "twenty
cities" in Galilee, but Phoenician king Hiram called them
"kabul," a Semitic term meaning "like nothing," that is,
worthless! (1 Kiings 9:11,13) Dr.Sweeney believes that Solomon's
Temple was paid for instead with the rich profits from Israel's
commercial sea trade, indicating that it must have been quite
extensive.
Dr.Liverom also referred to the Biblical text of 1 Kings
10:11,22, which reads: "And the navy also of Hiram, that brought
gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug
trees, and precious stones... For the king had at sea a navy of
Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the
navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes,
and peacocks."
Ophir is thought by many scholars to be a reference to
India, and Flavius Josephus (Ant. 8:164) connected it with
(S)upora, forty miles north of Bombay. Tharshish is believed to
refer to the lands of the western Mediterranean, including Spain
and the west coast of Africa. Since seafaring techniques changed
little from the time of Solomon until the mid-fifteenth century,
A.D., there is little doubt that Phoenician-Israelite ships were
well able to sail the coasts of the Mediterranean and beyond.
There is much evidence of Israelite colonization in early
Europe, especially the tribe of Dan. Southwestern England was
anciently known as "Damnoni," or "Danmoni," an area comprising
today the British counties of Cornwall and Devon. English
historian William Camden stated, "That region, which according to
the geographers, is the first of all Britain, and ... was in
ancient times inhabited by those Britans, whom Solinas called,
Danmonii, Ptolomy [called] Damnonii, or (as we find in some other
copies), more truly Danmonii. Which name ... derived from the
ever-continuing mines of tin in this tract, which the Britans
call moina." (Britannia, p.183) This compound word is therefore
composed of "moina," a tin mine, and "Dan," the people who mined
the tin. So this most ancient region of England is properly
called "Danmoni," meaning "Dan's Tin Mines." That these early
inhabitants known as "Dan" were in fact the Biblical tribe by the
same name has been established by leading modern scholars such as
Cyrus Gordon. If these early colonists had actually been
Phoenicians, the region would have been called, not "Danmoni,"
but "Fenimom," because the Phoenicians were known as the "Punic"
or "Feni" civilization.
Further information on the connection of the Biblical
tribe of Dan with Greece, Spain, Britain, and Ireland, was
researched in a study, "The Hebrew-Celtic Connection" found on
the CBIA website at www.israelite.ca.
...................
The two above articles are from "Thy Kingdom Come" - July 2009 -
a publication of the Association of the Covenant People, Burnaby,
B.C. Canada.
NOTE
Many well researched and documented books on the wayfaring of
some of the tribes of Israel can be found on the above Website:
israelite.ca but their shipping seems to be outrageous.
Also author/historian Steven Collins has books written on the
movements of ancient Israel. His books are probably available
from Amozon.com.
Keith Hunt
