Subjects in the Labels List (Labels Which Begin with the Letter A, range aa to al)

             This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letter A. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

a capella, A Contract with God, AAR, Aaron, abandonment of position, abba, abduction, ability, Abingdon Press, abjad, Abner, abortion, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln, Abram, Absalom Jones, absolute truth, abuse of power, academics, Academy Awards, acoustics, acrobatics, acrostics, acting, action figures, activism, actor, actress, Acts, Acts of the Apostles, AD, Adam and Eve, addiction to pornography, adolescents, Adolf Hitler, Adonai, Adoniram Judson, adoption, adoptionism, Adrian Peterson, Adrienne Barbeau, adultery, adults, advertisements, advice, aeronautics, affective disorders, Affirmation Declaration, Africa, African American, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Afrikaans, afterlife, age, aging, agnostic, agnosticism, Agrippa, Ahab, Ahaz, Ahaziah, Ahmadinejad, AI, AIDS, Air Force, airline, airplane, Akiane, Akira Kurosawa, Akkadia, Al Sharpton, al- Qaida, Alabama, Alabama A&M University, Alabama football, Alabama State University, Alabaster Box, Alaric, Alaska, Albania, Albanian, Albert Einstein, Albert Pujols, alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, Aldous Huxley, Aleister Crowley, alternate spiritualities, Alexander, Alexander Campbell, Alexander Kazembek, Alexander the Great, Alexandria, Alfred the Great, Algeria, Algonquian, Alice Cooper, alienation, Alistair Crowley, Allah, allegory, alligator, Alon Nil, and alphabet.

Why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus?

             Acknowledgment that there was an actual Jewish man named Yeshua who lived in the areas of modern Israel and Palestine (the Herodian kingdom of Judea) during the first half of the first century is almost universal. Virtually no reputable scholars will deny that. That he existed is the only fact on which almost everyone can agree.

So, why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus? Well, the truth is there if you look. The best way to get noticed in those times was to be born wealthy or to be politically connected. Or, to cause trouble for those people, the ones who mattered.

Jesus was a nobody because he was not a Roman citizen. Almost none of the Jews of that day were.

Jesus was a nobody because he was from a hick country town. None of the residents of Nazareth mattered until it came time to pay taxes. They were considered to be uneducated, unsophisticated, and to have very odd strong speech accents.

Nazareth was a worker’s residential village of about 200 to 400 people. None of its residents were wealthy or politically important in any way.  John 1:46 echoes what was probably a common sentiment: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

The town is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament, the Jewish Talmud, or the writings of contemporary historians like Josephus. The town was ignored and its residents were ignored.

A literal translation of the Greek text of John 1:46 reads like this: “and said to him nathaniel out of nazareth is able any good thing to be says to him philip come and see.” (There was no capitalization, punctuation, or spaces between words in these texts.)

At first, Jesus was ignored and rejected even in Nazareth. He was considered to be odd and just a carpenter. One time, his brothers went to get him before he embarrassed the family. Mark 3:21. They thought he was Ἐξέστη.

Ἐξέστη means to "to stand out of,” here meaning out of one’s mind, losing one’s senses, becoming irrational, out of one’s wits, or overwhelmed.

After he became established as a respected teacher, Jesus’ ministry was primarily in the rural towns among the poor people. All the Jewish wealth and power was concentrated in Jerusalem.

            It was not until the final three years of his life that Jesus was noticed outside of Nazareth. He soon became a very hot topic of intense discussion and he was quickly disposed of when he became a problem for the people who mattered.

If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not have lived very well or very long

             If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not lived very well or very long, because of these things:

a.      Because of childhood ear infections and chronic tinnitus, I would probably have been deaf.

b.      Childhood tonsillitis, measles, or mumps, or any infection, could have led to death.

c.       My teeth would have been filled with cavities.

d.      Because of cataracts, Fuch’s dystrophy, and macular degeneration, I would have become blind.

e.      Because of insulin resistance I would have eventually suffered from diabetes.

f.        The bone spur which cut my rotator cuff would have rendered my shoulder useless.

g.      My osteo-arthritis would have frozen most, or all, of my joints.

h.      My damaged meniscus in my knee would have given me a limp.

i.        The stones in my gall bladder, which led to gangrene, would have killed me.

j.        The mycoplasma pneumonia would have killed me. Or any number of respiratory diseases.

k.    My bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome would have rendered my hands useless.

l.     My numerous pre-cancerous skin lesions would have eventually converted to full-blown cancer and led to my death.

m.   Chronic allergic rhinitis would have led to a miserable existence.

n.   You get the picture and you can probably add many of your own ailments to the list.

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            Television programs and movies about the Bible usually depict everyone as basically healthy. By our modern standards, they absolutely were not. The Bible names a few diseases and ailments, but does not touch on the common limitations the people of the time had to tolerate. It does encourage people to avail themselves of whatever medical treatments are available as a wise use of what God has provided.

            Medical knowledge during the biblical period was, by our modern standards, very limited and elementary. Paul advised Timothy to use a "little wine" for his frequent stomach ailments. Medicinal plants are mentioned, including a fig poultice for a boil (Isaiah 38:21) and the balm of Gilead for healing wounds (Jeremiah 8:22). Luke, the author of the books of Luke and Acts, was a physician (Colossians 4:14). God can work for healing by using doctors and medicine. We are never told to ignore medical advice or to indulge in strange fringe or extreme types of diets.

The concept of Christian bodily stewardship comes from the knowledge that we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and each of our bodies can be viewed as a Temple of the Lord. This implies that taking care of your body is a Christian obligation.  We do not own our bodies. We have been "bought with a price"— the blood of Jesus Christ.

Proper nutrition, physical activities, weight loss, proper rest, presenting a positive and healthy image to others, and avoiding the use of harmful substances are all biblically encouraged. There is a one biblical warning about the concern for physical health. It is possible to become so obsessed with fitness, appearance, or health that these things become idols and replace God in our hearts. He must be the focus.

 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 10:31; Romans 12:1; 1 Timothy 4:8; Proverbs 23:20-21; Exodus 20:8-10.

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 1500 BC/BCE: 1. Chinese mathematicians work on permutations and probability theory.

            2. Hindu writers mention ants being attracted to a patient’s urine as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1550 BC: 1. In Myanmar/Burma, copper is made into bronze.

            2. An Egyptian physician, Hesy-Ra, mentions frequent urination as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1750 BC/BCE:  Babylon: square and cube roots, linear and quadratic equations, Pythagorean Theorem.

Ca 1800 BC/BCE: 1. Bronze is in use in China.

            2. The Berlin Papyrus 6619, found in Egypt, describes algebra.

Ca 1890 BC/BCE: The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, found in Egypt, speaks of applied mathematics: ship construction, beer concentrations, worker efficiency, Pythagorean triples, etc.