4.18.2006

New Fossil: Transitionary Link Between Fish and Land Creatures?

Recently Yahoo News!, CBS, and others declare, “Scientists have caught a fossil fish in the act of adapting toward a life on land, a discovery that sheds new light one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals.”[1] This fossil, the coelacanth, “is a large fish, some 150 cm long, covered in thick scales reminiscent of armor. It belongs to the Osteichthyes class, and the earliest fossils from it are found in strata from the Devonian Period (408-350 million years). Up until 1938, a great many evolutionist zoologists assumed that the coelacanth walked on the sea bed using its two pairs of double fins, and that it represented a transitional form between land and sea creatures. As evidence for this they pointed to the bony structure of the fins in the coelacanth fossils to hand at the time.” [2]

As in the Gospel of Judas, the media wishes us to believe that this fossil is a new find. In fact, it is not new. It has been cycled through the system for some time now. The assumption here is that this fossil is a transistionary link for the evolutionary theory of fish evolving to land dwelling creatures. This leads the evolutionist to believe that humans derive from this as well and assumes to affirm macro evolution.

The April 2003 edition of Focus magazine (a magazine affirming evolution) heralded this fossil as well, yet to their demise because the coelacanth actually refutes evolution. “A development in 1938, however, totally overturned this intermediate species claim. A living coelacanth was caught in the waters off the Republic of South Africa! Furthermore, study of this animal, believed to have disappeared at least 70 million years ago, revealed that coelacanths had undergone absolutely no changes at all for 400 million years.”[3]

In addition, in 1966 a coelacanth was frozen immediately after it was caught. Later scientists found that the coelacanth had shark blood. Focus Magazine said that this was an “evolutionary difficulty”.

The coelacanth is classified as a “living fossil” and is a “baffling enigma to evolutionists…These are creatures alive today which are identical to fossilized (sic) forms, believed to have lived ‘millions of years ago.’ Examples include the coelacanth fish (fossil coelacanths are believed by evolutionists to be 340 million years old), Gingko trees (125 million years), crocodiles (140 million years), horseshoe crabs (200 million years), the Lingula lamp shell (450 million years), Neopilina molluscs (500 million years), and the tuatara lizard (200 million years).”[4]

Evolutionists are left “baffled” by this mysterious fossil and others which have never “evolved” or experienced change. Doesn’t this defy the term “evolution” which implies that things “evolve”? Yes! As Christians there is no enigma, there is no mystery about “living fossils”. God’s Word tells us that these creatures were made to be fruitful and multiply after their kind, the Word says nothing of evolving into humans. In modern species there has been little or micro changes. These changes are normal. Dogs have changes colors and sizes yet they still remain just that—a dog.

Evolutionists cling to these mirages of hope for their cause ad nauseum. They do so at the sacrifice of their intellect, it is only to maintain the untenable declarations that there was NO creator, just the evolution of a species coming from primordial soup! Alas, therein is the rub! Humanity, fallen humanity, does not desire to be accountable to God. When they admit there is a God, they will understand He has a book. And that book—the Bible—makes demands.

NOTES:

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/ap_on_sc/landfish_fossil
[2] http://www.darwinism-watch.com/focus_0304.php
[3] http://www.darwinism-watch.com/focus_0304.php
[4]http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i2/living_fossil.asp

4.09.2006

The Gospel of Judas: For the Gullible Only


Recently, National Geographic along with Coptic linguists and biblical scholars have announced the finding of what they call the “Gospel of Judas” or Peuaggelion Nioudas. This writing was found to be an ancient Egyptian Coptic text. Samples of the papyrus were analyzed at the University of Arizona's radiocarbon dating lab in Tucson—the world-renowned facility that was responsible for dating the Dead Sea Scrolls. The dating found is confidently placed at 220-340 A.D. Other linguist working on the text, because of theological nuancs, suggest a later date--possibly 400 A.D. The gospel of Judas, so called, is a codex—a method of keeping manuscripts beyond the use of scrolls. The older method of scrolls often made difficult the finding of a certain passage. The codex method allowed the pages to be placed sequentially and bound like a book.

The term “gospel” describes the genre of the type of manuscript that the writing of Judas is from. However, “gospel” comes from the Greek word for “good news”, thus, beyond genre, this author does not view this writing of Judas as “good news” since it distorts the orthodox Christian views of Jesus Christ. The “gospel of Judas” will be called the writing of Judas or etc. The term “gospel” will not be used in conjunction herein.

First, the way the media presents this writing it would seem it is a new discovery. It is heraleded as a great new find. Christianity Today (June 2006) offers these salient comments that are more revealing, "the best liberal scholars admitted up front that this find "tells us nothing about the historical Jesus, nothing about the historical Judas." Those are the words of James M. Robinson, lead scholar of the team that investigated the last great find of Gnostic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi library. Or as Adam Gopnik told New Yorker readers, "The finding of the new Gospel … no more challenges the basis of the church's faith than the discovery of a document from the nineteenth century written in Ohio and defending King George would be a challenge to the basis of American democracy."

The codex was discovered in the Egyptian desert in the 1970’s. It finally reached the United States and rested unfavorably in a safety deposit box for 16 years. Sadly, the writing of Judas deteriorated tremendously in the decades after its discovery. The codex was broken into many fragments and even crumbled at even the slightest touch. The sheets of the codex had also been reshuffled in a random pattern—most likely to increase the appeal to potential buyers by moving pages in apparently better physical condition to the front of the codex. Thus, the original pagination was lost; this complicated things tremendously especially in efforts to reassemble the manuscript. Conservationists, aided by computer software, were able to reconstruct most of the manuscript, fragment by fragment, over a period of five years. Consequently, the linguists in review of this codex have been able to translate the text. An English and Coptic translation can be downloaded here:

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html

Second, the writing of Judas begins in esoteric fashion, “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover.”

This intro gives the text away immediately as an Gnostic writing and non-Christian. Considering the dating of this codex we should feel compelled to, at least, consider the implications of competing doctrines—specifically Gnosticism—a belief contemporary with the early church and this codex. The Gnostics obviously wished to paint the life of Jesus with a different brush. Gnosticism is a heretical movement in the early Christian centuries that emphasized salvation through a secret gnosis or knowledge.[1] Given the opening of this codex, e.g. "secret...revelation", it is apparently an Gnostic theological teaching.

These Gnostic type manuscripts are not new, neither are such methods. Such writings were expressly for rewriting the normative and accepted biblical accounts. (Odd, I think somebody named Dan Brown wrote something like that too.) Manuscripts such as these were around in 180 A.D. We know this because a historic early church leader by the name of Irenaeus wrote about it in his work entitled Against Heresies. Such sects are called Cainite Gnostics, in fact the Ante-Nicene Fathers rebut them often. This is an early group that repeatedly tried to rewrite the orthodox biblical stories and spin them to give positive reflections of biblical characters seen as negative or evil in the Bible, including Cain and the Sodomites.

The writings of Judas indicate numerous theological concepts held by Gnosticism existing in the 2nd Century. Forms of Gnosticism were taken up with subdeities like angels and demiurges. For example in Scene 3 of the text, under “JESUS TEACHES JUDAS ABOUT COSMOLOGY: THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF-GENERATED” it is recorded:

Begin quote:

Jesus said, “[Come], that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit], which no eye of an angel has ever seen,no thought of the heart has ever comprehended,and it was never called by any name. “And a luminous cloud appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’ “A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, [48] ‘Let […] come into being […],’ and it came into being […]. And he [created] the first luminary to reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘[Let] an enlightened aeon come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary [to] reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service. That is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. He made them reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to assist them.

End quote.

This writing of Judas also purports that Christ persuades Judas to betray Him. This view implies more of a human effort in the Christian plan of redemption rather than a divine one. Recent writings have attempted to articulate that Jesus was not seen as God nor did He see Himself as God. The implications here lend themselves to Gnosticism.

Actually these types of discoveries are not new at all. There are the Nag Hammadi texts that were found after WWII (1945-46) which included the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Phillip and other esoteric writings. However, with these and with this of Judas, there is an issue of credibility. Are we to take on this ancient "codex" and arrogantly assume that it usurps the accounts of the extant Gospel texts of the New Testament?

There are more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. If we add over 10,000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions, then we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers. In comparison, Homer's Iliad comes second, with only 643 surviving manuscripts. Even then, the first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the 13th century AD.

The New Testament texts of over 5,000 have beautiful harmony. The present texts of the Gospels corroborate with each other. In other words, there is not just one lone text that depicts the life of Jesus as God or that says Jesus walked upon water, but there are hundreds from different time periods and writers that say essentially the same thing. This can be nothing but divine preservation and providence. In contrast, the writing of Judas does not share that privilege. In any sense, the writings of Judas are not on the same level or plateau of credibility as the present Gospels found in our New Testaments.

Third, this writing of Judas should not be seen as or understood as a writing as credible, accurate, or authorship as ascertainable as the largest percent of biblical writings. If one were to juxtapose the theological landscape of this writing with those of the biblical Gospels there would be irreconcilable differences. This writing, unless empirically proven otherwise, is simply Gnostic hypothesis. This writing of Judas, if it is to usurp the biblical accounts bears an insurmountable burden of proof.

Fourth, these Gnostic theological concepts show a diversity of opinion in ancient civilization and not necessarily the early church. Nevertheless, this should not diminish the early church in any way. Since the beginning of Creation there has been a dark and a light, a good and an evil. Where there is a truth there is a counterfeit or a lie. The fact of diversity should not be seen as alarming or diminishing in anyway--it should be a beacon to us that the truth of Jesus as God existed then as now.

Fifth, the University of Arizona carbon-dated five tiny samples of papyrus and leather binding to between AD 220 and AD 340, and other tests backed up that conclusion. The Judas writing is dated too late to be written by Judas first hand. Therefore, corroborating textual evidence would need to be presented to show Judas was indeed the author. Or, another few texts harmonizing with the writings and theological opinions found therein.

It's also very interesting that this work has surfaced at this time as well. Recently, while preparing to build a new prison in Israel, an ancient church at Megiddo with the mosaic stating "the God, Jesus Christ" was found.[2] This basically debunks delusional authors like Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) and others who purport that Jesus was not viewed as God in the early church. Now, this pseudo-gospel may be a rejoinder in the textual debate on whether or not Christ actually claimed deity and whether or not the primitive church viewed Him as such.

This ancient mosaic speaks volumes concerning Jesus Christ as God Himself. Trinitarian theology will not say that Jesus is God in a definitive way, only qualitative. For example, John 1:1 says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

For a more exhaustive treatment of this text see John 1:1: “With God” and Pros. Trinitarian theology would say that the last phrase “the Word was God” does not mean that the Word or Jesus is God or the God. They would assert that this means Jesus is of the same quality as God. Although there is no definite article here this does nothing to the fact that it can be definitive (See John 1:1 “With God” and Pros). This is indeed not necessary. John is emphatic here in declaring the Word was God! Thus the early church declares with definiteness "the God, Jesus Christ"!

The reason that lost writings like Judas disappeared is not, as some claim, that there was some staged attempt to suppress gnostic literature. On the contrary, Gnostic texts abound. These Gnostic texts were rejected by the early church because they were not faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the prophecies of the Jewish faith which prophecied of a Messiah--a God-man. Gnostics did not want a Savior to which accountability is reckoned, rather Gnosticism desired and still desires the little god within.

NOTES:

[1]Kurian, G. T. (2001). Nelson's new Christian dictionary : The authoritative resource on the Christian world. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Pubs.
[2] http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/?p=1208

4.02.2006

The Source of Conflict: A Study of James 4:1-4

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (2) You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. (3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (4) You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (5) Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? (6) But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:1-6 ESV

The inspired writings of James have found themselves in considerable controversy primarily because of a false perception of his view of Faith and Works, juxtaposed with that of Paul. James is "not in opposition to Paul but against people who fail to understand that faith includes obedience (Romans 1:5)" (1) In actuality both compliment one another and go hand in hand. In the Pauline epistles we see him speaking of faith that assumes good works to follow saving faith. James actually demonstrates for us that "faith without works is dead".

In a recent bible study, I found myself drawn to this passage. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? The answer, indeed, lies at the heart of all strife and conflict. Each of us, especially myself, suffer from falling prey to senseless and often times selfishly driven quarrells. James accurately describes strife among Christians with the terms wars (KJV) and fights. Sadly, the battles that erupt among Christians are bitter, severe and often lengthy. Moreover, the battles and wars that erupt on our globe are fatal and acute.

The source of these strife's, come from desires for pleasure that war in our members. The source is the desires battling within each individual. There is some root of carnality, an internal war within the believer regarding the lusts of the flesh. At this point some may be thinking of 1 Timothy 6:10, where Paul says "the love of money is the root of all evil" Some scholars feel that money is NOT the root of all evil but all kinds of evil. However, the point at hand is that it is the "love of money" and not money itself that lies at the root of most, if not all, evil. It is avarice and the power that monetary wealth brings to an individual. This is inexorably linked to what James proposes in 4:1-6 because this is a carnal desire.

Another interesting note here is that James seems to be taken up more by the selfish spirit and bitterness of the fights and strife's than by the rights and wrongs of the various viewpoints. He never speaks of whether or not the fight is just or unjust, but it is in the source of the fight and the prideful manner in which it may be carried out (cf. vs. 6). Often time our truths are drowned out by the deafening noise of fighting and quarrelling.

"Most Greco-Roman philosophers and many Diaspora Jews repeatedly condemned people who were ruled by their passions, and described these desires for pleasure as "waging war." Many writers like Plato, Plutarch and Philo attributed all literal wars to bodily desires. In a somewhat similar vein, Jewish people spoke of an evil impulse, which according to later rabbis dominated all 248 members of the body." (2) Obviously, people ruled by their passions fall into prideful conflict where truth is not the sake of the argument but the purpose of winning the argument. Post-Modern hermeneutics are folly to this quite often. Covetousness leads to conflict (you lust and do not have), anger and animosity lead to conflict (murder). These are basic human attributes present prior to most conflicts.

James looks back to the Sermon on the Mount when he uses murder to express more than actual killing, but also as an inward condition of heart, shown outwardly by anger (Matthew 5:21-22). For a treatment of killing and its link to killing by the tongue see The Sixth Commandment: Thou Shall Not Kill. James uses the word murder also, and it is startling and meant to startle; James sought to force his readers to realize the depth of the evil in their bitter hatred toward others. This is a continuation of the principle Christ laid in Matthew 5 concerning the tongue.

The reason such destructive desires exist among Christians, or humans generally, is because they are not seeking God for their needs. Or, when they do ask, they ask God with purely selfish motivation (you ask wrongly). Most often, our human condition worsens to the utter depths before we finally seek God concerning our condition. This is due to our selfishness and self-dependency, this is purely anti-Christ because it relies upon human ingenuity and human strength rather than Christ to provide.

There are those who perpetually offer their supplications before the throne yet their supplication is from selfish motives. I have noted that some who are in a troubled condition feel the compulsion to pray more than they did prior to the trouble. Often, these individuals only avail themselves to prayer to be delivered from this condition, all the while overlooking the fact that they ignored heaven previously. Even this affair often leads to strife because the individual with new found piety begins to rally others for their cause and condemns those who do not.

America is reached empire status. We are a country ruling over several provinces of assorted languages. America is constantly extending its influence, this inevitably leads to conflict. Some may say, and rightly so to a degree, we extend our influence to share democracy and freedom. However, what is also a reality is that we extend ourselves for financial gains and territorial annexation.

James says, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Spend is the same verb used to describe the wasteful spending of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:14. Ironically, destructive desires persist even in the midst of the most pious actions. Even if we pray, because our prayers may be self-centered and self-indulgent, we can have destructive desires. We must remember that the purpose of prayer is not to persuade a reluctant God to do our bidding or prod a slothful God to action, rather the purpose of prayer is to align our will with His, and in partnership with Him, to ask Him to accomplish His will on this earth (Matt 6:10). Today, we are His feet and we are His hands. God has chosen this to be so.

To pursue and propagate Godliness we should prefer one another. Romans 12:10 states, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;" (NKJV) Could this be the source of peace?

NOTES:

1. Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). Harper's Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.). San Francisco: Harper & Row.

2. IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig S. Keener Copyright © 1993 by Craig S. Keener. Published by InterVarsity Press. All rights reserved.

Adversus Trinitas

"...unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." (John 8:24 ESV)