Film Comment: Sinners (2025)

 

Sinners is a movie which is intended to be about racism, cultural oppression, colonialism, black culture, anti-religion, and anti-Christianity. As usual, I can make Christian observations about the film which are probably unintended by the director.

“Son, you keep dancin’ with the Devil, one day, he’s gonna follow you home,” from a pastor father to Sammie, nicknamed Preacherboy, who is aching to become famous for his outstanding blues guitar and singing talent. Sammie hooks up with two morally fluid brothers who are opening a juke joint. This sets up a conflict when two white men and a woman show up that night wanting to join in the fun. The problem is that they are vampires.

One man about to be killed/turned into a vampire begins to loudly quote the Lord’s Prayer. All the vampires join in and help complete the quotation. This seems to be intended to show that Christianity has no power against evil.

A Christian response: the frightened man’s words were just that, words, and they did have no power. There is a difference between knowing and believing. The power is not in the words. They are not a Magick spell. God is not our genie in a bottle. The words have power only as they are used by the Holy Spirit.

Satan can quote scripture. He quoted Psalms 91:11-12 while tempting Jesus to misuse his authority (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44).

Book Comment: The God You Thought You Knew

 

In his book, The God You Thought You Knew, Alex McFarland responds to ten common secular objections to Christianity.

Some of the objections discussed in this book include:

1.     Christianity is judgemental and intolerant.

2.     Evil and suffering exist and a real God would not allow that.

3.     Christianity is totally made up and not based on any facts.

4.     Modern science disproves Christianity.

5.     Religion is not for the educated.

6.     The whole thing is boring and a waste of my time.

7.     Since I do not like it, it cannot be true.

8.     The Bible is full of errors.

9.     Dead people cannot come back to life.

10.  A loving God would not send anyone to Hell.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book: McFarland, Alex, The God You Thought You Knew. Exposing the 10 Biggest Myths About Christianity (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2015)

___________________________________________________________________

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Bonjour, Congo-Brazzaville !

 Bonjour, Congo-Brazzaville ! Bienvenue parmi nos lecteurs du monde entier, venus de nombreux pays, qui visitent également ce blog. J'espère que vous trouverez certains articles utiles et pertinents. Parlez-en à vos amis. Bienvenue à tous.

Ce blog a enregistré 860 216 pages vues depuis mai 2010. Il contient actuellement 1 808 articles. Vous pouvez rechercher ces articles grâce à la fonction « Rechercher dans ce blog ». Une liste alphabétique des sujets abordés sur ce blog se trouve tout en bas de la page, sous « Étiquettes », et indique le nombre d'articles sur le sujet en question. L'outil « Traduire cette page » permet de présenter le blog en plusieurs langues.

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            The Translate tool above can convert this text into Kituba and Lingala.

            This blog has been viewed from at least one hundred and forty-seven countries: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia/Kampuchea, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo - Kinshasa), Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany,  Ghana, Greece, Guam, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast/Core d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg,  Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of the Congo (Congo - Brazzaville), Reunion, Romania, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, Tunisia, Turkiye, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam,  Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

        Some references say that there are 197 countries on Earth, but many people will say the number is 195, the number of members of the United Nations, plus Vatican City and Palestine, who are not UN members.

 

 

Science in Antiquity: Part 2

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was not actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

9 March 5 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers describe a comet which they observed.

24 BC/BCE: Strabo visits Thebes (modern Luxor/al-Uqsur, Egypt). On this trip (24-20), he finds the ruins of Heliopolis (the biblical On). Genesis 41:45. He described the Earth as a sphere and said gravity pulled things to the center.

(b. ca 25 BC/BCE – d. ca 50 AD/CE) Aulus Cornelius Celsus is a Roman medical encyclopedist who wrote about subjects including skin disorders, fevers, kidney stones, eye anatomy, dentistry, jaw fractures, cancers, diet, surgery, and medicines. He taught correctly that fevers were the “effort of the body to throw off some morbid cause.”

10 May 28 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers recorded the earliest known dated record of a sunspot, a black spot on the sun. Exactly how the sunspots were viewed is not known, since telescopes were not invented until the 1570’s and direct viewing of the sun will damage the eyes.

78-37 BC/BCE:  The Han Chinese genius, Jing Fang, is a music theorist, mathematician, and astronomer. He explained lunar and solar eclipses and musical octaves.

The Classical Arguments for the Existence of God

 

There have been many attempts made to prove the existence of God but none have been definitive or inarguable. Some have pointed out that even if definitive proof existed that would not be enough. Knowing is not the same as believing.

There are three classical arguments for the existence of God. Argument to most people carries

the idea of an angry exchange of words sometimes leading to a physical altercation, but there is also an understanding of the word from a classical legal background. Ancient orators (the forerunners of attorneys) and their descendants, modern scholars, professors, and attorneys offered arguments on numerous subjects, giving persuasive statements for or against a particular matter or understanding of a subject. Modern lawyers present closing arguments to a jury at a trial.

The three classical arguments for the existence of God are the ontological, cosmological, and the teleological. The English-language word ontology is derived from the Greek words ὄν or ὄντος (being, that which is) and λογία (word, study). The English-language word cosmology is derived from the Greek words κóσμος (order, arrangement, or adornment) and λογία. The English-language word teleology is derived from the Greek words τέλος (end, aim purpose, goal, finality) and λογία.

The Ontological Argument says that since we can conceive of a perfect being, then God must exist. The weakness here is that we can also conceive of H.P. Lovecraft’s extremely complex mythology of ancient gods like Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, or Cthulhu but that does not mean that they actually exist.

The Cosmological Argument says that everything in the universe has a cause and that there must be a first cause, which is God. The weakness here is how to explain how God can be an uncaused cause. To say that God caused himself is just talking in a circle and does not answer the objection.

The Teleological Argument: is generally considered to be the strongest of the three.  This is also known as the argument from design. This argument points to the apparent order, purpose, and complexity of the universe as strong evidence pointing to an intelligent designer. This argument often mentions the fine-tuning of physical constants which must be the way they are for the existence of life, and of multiple complex biological systems which must all function correctly together the very first time or the organism will not be viable. The weakness here is that this argument can point but cannot prove. It can only define a degree of probability.

This argument cannot answer numerous objections. Was God designed by another designer who also had a designer who also had a …? Are there other designers creating other universes? Do suffering and natural disasters show God to be cruel or evil? Does the designer care at all about what he designed? Do we so much want to see design that we see it when it is not really there? Does the apparent presence of design point to the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition or to some other deity? Every one of these questions and objections and many others have been brought up over the centuries and have led to the development of the field of apologetics.

Apologetics absolutely cannot prove the existence of God. What it seeks to do is to find and explore every possible provable fact which adds to the probability of the truth of the Judeo-Christian tradition. There are literally thousands of these provable facts. Do not expect any of this to convince a true confirmed skeptic.

One can easily get bogged down in all the arguments, but I believe that the point of apologetics can be summed up by a line from the Jean-Pierre Jeunet secular comedic film masterpiece, Amelie: “When the finger’s pointing at the sky, only a fool looks at the finger.” 

The field of apologetics attempts to pile facts upon facts to raise the probability of God’s existence to the point at which even hostile total skeptics have to admit that it is at least a viable argument.

Hello, Dominica!

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Minced Oaths

 

On 7 May 2025, I posted Holy Smokes! about the white or black smoke which the Roman Catholic Cardinals in the Papal Conclave use to signal the status of the election of the next pope. The post mentioned minced oaths in discussing the situation and I promised to talk about that later. Well, here it is.

Minced oaths are phrases which can sound blasphemous but which are altered or disguised to be less explicit. They use indirect language, softened phrasing, or euphemisms. Think of the British exclamation Zounds!, which replaces God’s Wounds!  The usage also exists in other languages but is very extensive in the English-language. Examples include: dang, darn, dagnabbit, gadzooks, gee whillikers, jeepers, blimey, good heavens, Holy Moly, Holy Cow, Holy Mackerel, Great Scot, Golly, and many more. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_minced_oaths

 The idea of not saying the name of God out loud because of its sacredness is an ancient Jewish concept. When the holy name, the Tetragrammaton JHWH,  יהוה, occurs in their sacred texts, Jews still today substitute Adonai ,אֲדֹנָי , meaning Lord, or Ha-Shem, הַשֵּׁם, meaning the Name, or Elohim, אֱלֹהִים, meaning God.

Saying the holy name of God out loud is considered to be disrespectful, sacrilegious, and offensive. Many observant English-speaking Jews carry this even further, writing the word God as G-d.

James, the brother of Jesus, warned against the careless use of words. James 3:2-10. Being able to control one’s language is considered to be a sign of spiritual maturity.

Hello, Palau! Welcome to Saints on the Loose

 

 Hello, Palau!  Welcome to the world-wide group of readers from many countries who also visit this blog.  I hope you find some of the posts useful or meaningful. I was unable to find translation for Palauan, Sonsorolese, or Tobian.

The “Translate This Page” gadget directly above the “Total Pageviews” Counter has the capability of translating the English text of this blog directly into numerous other languages.

パラオの皆さん、こんにちは！このブログをご覧いただいている、世界中の様々な国からの読者の皆様へようこそ。記事が少しでもお役に立てたり、意義深いものになれば幸いです。

 「合計ページビュー」カウンターのすぐ上にある「このページを翻訳」ガジェットを使うと、このブログの英語テキストを様々な言語に直接翻訳できます。

Parao no minasan, kon'nichiwa! Kono burogu o goran itadaite iru, sekaijū no samazamana kuni kara no dokusha no minasama e yōkoso. Kiji ga sukoshi demo o yakunitate tari, igibukai mono ni nareba saiwaidesu. `Gōkei pējibyū' kauntā no sugu ue ni aru `kono pēji o hon'yaku' gajetto o tsukau to, kono burogu no eigo tekisuto o samazamana gengo ni chokusetsu hon'yaku dekimasu.

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Snopes.com

 

On 7 May 2025, I posted Holy Smokes! about the white or black smoke which the Roman Catholic Cardinals in the Papal Conclave use to signal the status of the election of the next pope. The post mentioned Snopes.com in discussing a misconception about the known origin of the exclamation and I promised to talk about Snopes later. Well, here it is.

Snopes.com is a fact checking website which checks the available documentation about what actually happened at events, the truth of statements and claims, rumors, legends, or hoaxes. The site was originally named the Urban Legends Reference Page. They give their opinions as True, False, Undetermined, Unverifiable, or some variation on these.

            Snopes is sometimes accused of being left-leaning in its political judgements, but the site rejects that charge. If you use the site, that will be left up to you to judge. In the case of the Holy Smokes! exclamation, their judgement of False is based on hard empirical facts which do not depend on any particular religious or political orientation. 

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Modern Names of Places Mentioned in the Bible

 

First or representative mention.

Ammon                         Jordan                       Genesis 19:37-38                   

Arabia                          Arabia                       1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chronicles 1:14

Aram, Aramiyim         Syria                         1Chronicles 19:6; 2 Samuel 10:6-8                       

Assur/Asshur               Iran, Iraq                   Numerous mentions

Babylon                       Iraq                            Numerous mentions

Canaan                        Gaza Strip, Israel, Lebanon, West Bank   Numerous mentions

Damascus                    Syria                          Genesis 14:15

Ethiopia                       Ethiopia, Sudan         Genesis 2:13

Media                          Iran                             2 Kings 17:6

Pekod, Peqod             Iraq                             Jeremiah 50:21; Ezekiel 23:23

Togarmah                    Armenia, Turkiye, Turkestan  Ezekiel 38:6

Science in Antiquity: Part 1

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

185 AD/CE: Chinese astronomers report a bright star which faded away after eight months. This is Supernova SN 185 which occurred 8200 years ago in the Centaurus constellation.

Ca 140 AD/CE:  A Chinese surgeon, Hua Tuo, is the first recorded to use anesthesia during surgery.

78-139 AD/CE: Zhang Heng, a Han polymath, works in seismology, hydraulics, astronomy, cartography, poetry, and politics. He invents a functional water clock.

100 AD/CE: 1.  The mathematician Theon of Smyrna says that the Earth is a sphere.

Ca 20 AD/CE:1.  Birth of the Greek scientist, Hero of Alexandria, who did work in theoretical mathematics, mechanics, and physics.  He studied the science of light reflection and invented a rotary steam engine and several pneumatic devices.

              2. Geminus of Rhodes studies astronomy and writes The Theory of Mathematics.

8 AD/CE: Chinese astronomer Liu Xin calculates the solar year as 365.25016 days. He calculates pi as 3.154

Breaking the Fourth Wall

 

            In film-making, there is a concept called breaking the fourth wall in which one or several characters acknowledge the existence of the viewing audience and address the viewers as if they are participants in the ongoing events.

            The first, second, and third walls are like a box around a stage set: the back wall and the two side walls. The fourth wall is the wall visible to the characters in the play but totally transparent to the people watching the events as they occur. Traditionally, the actors and narrators are assumed to be unaware that they are being watched by the audience.

            Breaking the fourth wall occurs when a character in the play or film glances at the audience or camera, makes movements like a wink or a knowing smile which betray a knowledge of the existence of the audience, or actually speaks directly to the viewers. Occasionally, the narrative itself becomes self-aware. Examples of this phenomenon occur in the films, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Marvel Deadpool films, and The Neverending Story, which can be seen to exhibit as many as seven levels of fourth wall breaking.  

            What does this have to do with this Christian blog? Well, this is in reference to the Bible itself. The Bible is holy, but as an object it is just a book, ink on sheets of paper, or, in our current modern days, the arrangement of millions of pixels on your cellphone screen.

            There are widely varying levels of reverence for the physical book itself, with some actually bordering on idolatry, but the physical book is just that, a book.

            Two ways of understanding the Bible are as a tool or as a weapon. Both understandings can be biblically supported.

            So, back to the subject of this post. Sitting on a shelf or lying on a desk the Bible is just a book. The thing which only Christians can understand is that once it is picked up and opened, the Bible is itself indwelled by the Holy Spirit, the same person who inhabits each of us. Just as we can use the Bible, so can he. It is one of the many ways he can speak directly to us.

            The Holy Spirit is aware as we read the biblical text and he guides us to new insights, the meat of the gospel, new levels of understanding which we as believers can gradually comprehend as we mature. How do we know this? The Bible tells us so.

            One of the activities of the Holy Spirit is the Reminding Ministry. He will guide you in the Bible to the answers or understandings which you need to further mature as a Christian.

            Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 3:1-4, 6:19-20; Hebrews 5:12-13; John 14:17,26, 16:13; Romans 8:9; Colossians 1:27; 1 John 4:15.

The First Three Letters of the Bible

 

In Genesis 1:1, the first word of the Bible, in Hebrew, is בְּרֵאשִׁית which is transliterated as bare sit or b'rei-sheeth.  The first letter is ב (bet), the second letter is ר (resh), and the third letter is א (alef). The English-language name of the book is Genesis, from its Greek name, Γένεσις. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit, “in beginning.”

Some Christian commentators have noticed and commented on this as a statement of the Trinity in the first word of the Bible. Others see it as merely an interesting coincidence.

            בן         Ben (son)

            רִיחַ       Ruach (spirit, breath, wind)

            אֱלֹהִ֑ים    Elohim (God, a name in plural form)

            Religious Jews reject this understanding as heretical, believing that the very essence of their religion is monotheistic; God is one, not plural. They understand the plural name of God, Elohim, as expressing the majesty of God, as in the phrase "holy, holy, holy," with each "holy" adding to the emphasis or strength of the word.

            An objection to the idea of Jesus or the Trinity being mentioned in the Old Testament is seen here:  https://gsgriffin.com/2017/07/29/the-bereshit-jesus-in-genesis-argument-has-no-merit/#:~:text=Both%20assert%20the%20following%20meanings,covenant%2C%20mark%2C%20cross)

by writer Garrett S. Griffin. Griffin is a Democratic Socialist activist and political writer.

Science in Antiquity: Part 12

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust. By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 1950 BC/BCE: Quadratic equations are solved by Babylonian mathematicians.

Ca 2000 BC/BCE: In India, fouled water is purified by boiling and subsequent filtration through

charcoal.

Ca 22 Oct. 2137 BC/BCE: A solar eclipse is recorded and described by Chinese officials.

9 May 2138 BC/BCE: Solar eclipse visible over Babylon.

24 May 2138 BC/BCE: Lunar eclipse visible over Babylon.

Science in Antiquity: Part 10

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 805 BC/BCE: In India, Baudhayana calculates square roots and quadratic equations.

Ca 1000 BC/BCE: Egyptian mathematicians use simple fractions.

11^th Century BC/BCE: Chinese scholars describe algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.

27 December 1192 BC/BCE: A Chinese oracle bone has been found inscribed with a description of a lunar eclipse occurring between 2148 (9:48 PM) and 2330 (11:30 PM). The lunar eclipse has been confirmed by NASA to have happened on that date and time.

Ca 1486 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers see a ten-tailed comet.

You are in our thoughts and prayers

             When you say, "You are in our thoughts and prayers," or, " I will pray for you," be sure that these statements are true. Otherwise, you are taking the Name of the Lord God in vain. Don't just blab out pious phrases: words really do have meaning.  

Modern Names of Places Mentioned in the Bible

 

First or representative biblical mention.

Assyria                         Iraq                                                 Numerous mentions

Chaldea                       Iraq, Kuwait                                    Jeremiah 50:10; Ezekiel 11:24

Cush/Kush                  Ethiopia and Sudan                         Genesis 2:13

Edom                           Jordan                                             Genesis 25:30

Midian                         Jordan                                             Genesis 25:12-18

Mitzraim/Mizraim     Egypt                                              Genesis 12:10. Mitzraim  מִצְרַיִם is the Hebrew                                      word for Egypt. The English language word Egypt is derived from its Greek                                                 name aiγuptos. The modern Arabic name for the country is Misr مصر. 

Philistia                       Palestine                                         Joshua 13:3; Judges 16:5

Put                              Libya, North Africa, Egypt             Nahum 3:9

Rosh                           southern Russia                               Ezekiel 38:2,8

Scythia                       southern Russia, Ukraine                Ezekiel 38:1 

Render Unto Caesar What Belongs to Caesar: Christian Citizen Involvement

 

Most of us read Jesus’ comment, “Render unto Caesar…” as a negative but it clearly is not. Jesus turned the Pharisees’ hostile trap question back on them and they walked away humiliated. The point of what Jesus said is that the commandments of God supersede or override those of any government whenever there is a conflict between the two. His comment acknowledges that the government can make legitimate claims on us. Remember that all governments are in place only with his consent.

Our compliance with and assistance to government can take many forms, including jury duty, military service, running for a place on the local school board, and paying required taxes. I know, I hate them too, but Jesus himself paid taxes.

There are many avenues for Christians to faithfully serve their government. For Americans with an interest in history, there is one very intriguing option. (I am not sure if this is restricted only to American citizens, but other countries may also have programs such as this for their own documents.)

The vast majority of the millions of original documents from the 17^th to 19^th centuries and many from the early 20th still exist only in handwritten form. These include military records, land transaction and dispute records, supply requisitions, court records, official correspondence, census books, tax records, government pension applications, and various miscellaneous documents. The United States National Archives is seeking unpaid volunteers who are able to read cursive handwriting and especially the handwriting of the 17^th to 19^th centuries. The needed skill is called paleography: the science or skill of transcribing ancient or historical documents.

The Archives need this because people have shifted through the years from handwriting, to type-setting, to typewriters, then word processors, then texting, and many now almost exclusively use talk-to-text technology. Some even tell an artificial intelligence program what they want to be in a document and then allow the AI to compose it. These people will look at the English-language handwriting of the 18^th and 19^th centuries and may be as confused as if it were written in Chinese or Arabic.

The handwriting of prior centuries is very different from what is now considered to be standard. The forms of letters are different, the language can sound stilted, flowery, or obscure, the letters may be written very close together to get more writing on one page (paper was expensive), unfamiliar or archaic words may be used, and the spelling is often very fluid, even in the same document.

The difficulties are compounded by the fact that in some modern school systems, cursive handwriting is no longer even taught. My granddaughter went to one such school and had to ask me to teach her how to read and write cursive.

Volunteers for the National Archives program may sign up online and pick any one of the over 300,000,000 currently digitized but still un-transcribed documents. There is no specified number or type of documents which the volunteer must process and no time limitations. Those who are uncomfortable reading older forms of cursive can still volunteer their efforts since the documents transcribed by others also need to “tagged” by mentioned subjects and names to make them easier to search. Information about this program can be viewed here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/01/15/national-archives-is-seeking-citizen-archivists-who-can-read-cursive/77717797007/ and the government website is here: https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions/revolutionary-war-pension-files

Matthew 17: 24-27, 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17: Luke 20:20-26; Romans 13:1-7.

Koko’s Message for Us

 

People have questioned the exact nature of animal intelligence. Some wonder if their beloved pets have souls and will be in Heaven with them. While many have very firm opinions on the matter, the hard answer is that no one knows for sure. The Bible does not speak on the issue in any clear way.

Modern science asserts that animals have some sort of intelligence and personal identities. The level of intelligence varies depending on the type of animal, but some animals clearly exhibit emotions, social structures, teamwork, wars, use of simple tools, recognize themselves in mirrors or photographs, long-term memory, play video games, food preferences, manipulative behaviors, favorite toys, and the choosing of a favorite person.

Koko was a lowland gorilla who lived at The Gorilla Foundation in California (USA). Obviously, it is anatomically impossible for gorillas to speak in a human manner, but an attempt was made to teach Koko some simple manual sign language. She learned over 2000 signs and was able to carry on what appear to have been intelligent conversations with people.

https://www.google.com/search?q=koko+the+gorilla&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS864US864&oq=koko+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg7MgoIAhAAGLEDGIAEMgoIAxAuGLEDGIAEMgoIBBAuGLEDGIAEMg0IBRAuGIMBGLEDGIAEMgcIBhAAGIAEMhMIBxAuGIMBGK8BGMcBGLEDGIAEMhAICBAAGIMBGLEDGIAEGIoFMgoICRAuGLEDGIAE0gEJMTAxOTlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Koko had a pet cat which she named All-Ball and she babied and pampered it as if it were her child. When the cat died, Koko went through a grieving period.

Koko’s daily routines included watching television. Her favorite program was Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. When Fred Rogers came to visit her, she was delighted and, after she hugged him, she took off his sweater and shoes, just as he did in every episode of his program.

https://www.koko.org/research-care/796/kokos-farewell-to-mister-rogers/

Another of her television favorites was the comedian, Robin Williams. When Williams came to visit, the pair hugged and laughed repeatedly. They played Tickles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9I_QvEXDv0

Listen to what Koko said to us at the age of 44. She died at the age of 46.:

“I am nature. I am flower, animals. I am nature. Man Koko love. Earth Koko love. But Man stupid. Koko sorry. Koko cry. Time hurry. Fix Earth. Help Earth. Hurry. Nature see you. Thank you.”

https://au.news.yahoo.com/gorilla-uses-sign-language-voice-035805465.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIvldsBZX40yfisATqjYKZzeG7_iCd1n-_DDWeMVkzuXHtHAxFZ6C-EgXiKbtMnI9KcnSHRYfCGkND3T_IBQrNKhaXzgGCGnDPEwXhW6FBdj4tLsNDC0RVcyUlNZw3dE1saGbR1Xg_WIerPKhvgFI7q6retmf_7UHbs2a-GG54Xg

and

https://www.the-independent.com/climate-change/news/koko-gorilla-cop21-environment-message-noe-video-a6800761.html#:~:text=The%20Gorilla%20Foundation%2C%20which%20looks,'%20and%20fix%20the%20problem.%22

Isaiah was of Royal Descent

 

When King Amaziah died , his son, Uzziah/Azariah became king of Judah. The prophet Isaiah was the son of Amoz, who was possibly a brother of King Amaziah, so, Isaiah was of royal descent. 2 Kings 14: 19-22; 2 Chronicles 25-27.

Modern Names of Places Mentioned in the Bible

 

Caphtor                      Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:9               Greece

Cushan                       Habakkuk 3:7                                Jordan

Gomer                        Ezekiel 38:6                                   Possibly Ukraine

Moab                          Numbers 22-24                              Jordan

Persia                          Numerous mentions                      Iran

Phoenicia                    Numerous mentions                      Lebanon

Sidon                          Genesis 10:15                                Lebanon

Tadmor                      2 Chronicles 8:4                            Palmyra, Syria

Tyre                            Isaiah 23:2,12                                Lebanon

Uz                               Job 1:1                                           Jordan and Lebanon