Sunrise Disproves Heliocentrism and Flatearth
At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
Joshua 10:12-13 ESV
Astronomers tell us that the sun is the relative center of the solar system and that the planets all orbit the sun. The earth revolves on its axis approximately every 24 hours. From the perspective of us little people standing on the surface of the earth, it appears as if the sun rises from one horizon, crosses the sky, and descends to the opposite horizon.
Some argue that, in order for the sun to stand still in the sky as described in Joshua 10, it must be orbiting the earth and literally moving across the sky. This belief assumes that the Bible doesn't use phenomenological idioms to describe real events, that it only uses literal descriptions of celestial mechanics. If the Bible says "the sun stopped", it can only mean that the sun actually stopped moving, not that it stopped moving only from the perspective of the observer.
However, the Bible frequently uses phenomenological language, often in ways that are contradictory if all such statements were to be interpreted hyper-literally.
For example, in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:6 and Mark 4:6, Yeshua said that the sun rose and scorched the seedlings (ηλιου δε ανατειλαντος εκαυματισθη). ἀνατέλλω literally means to rise up.
And he told them many things in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away."
Matthew 13:3-6 ESV
On a flat-earth--a belief system which also relies no hyper-literal interpretation of selected biblical passages--the sun must circle above the earth at a more-or-less constant height. It never sinks below the earth. It just recedes into the distance in one direction and approaches from the distance in the other, creating an illusion of sinking below the horizon and rising up from the horizon. We know that the sun shines on some part of the earth every minute of the day, so if the sun actually went below the plane of the earth, the entire flat-earth model falls apart.
In a non-flatearth, heliocentric model of the universe based on hyper-literal interpretations of the biblical text, the sun also doesn't rise. It orbits in a circle, always directly overhead of somewhere on the earth's equator. If one ball always moves around another ball at an approximately constant distance, one never rises over the other. "Rising" is a meaningless concept in this arrangement. The ball that is the sun can only appear to rise from the perspective of a viewer who is on the surface of the ball that is the earth.
In order to accommodate the sun standing still in Joshua 10 and the sun rising in Matthew 13, one statement or the other or both must be a phenomenological idiom expressed from the viewpoint of the observer and not an objective description of celestial movement. But how is a Bible reader supposed to know when to interpret an apparent idiom as literal? He knows because he can tell which interpretation better fits his biases, but that's just dishonest. A more objective reader can see that heliocentrism based on denying that Joshua 10:13 uses phenomenological language is refuted by the use of phenomenological language in Matthew 13:6.
Both systems rely on inconsistent hermeneutics, interpreting one passage as metaphor and another as literal, depending on which suits the readers preferences rather than on which suits the original author's intent.
A better hermeneutic weighs the narrative's intent, observations of reality, characteristics of normal human speech, etc. It can be complicated at times, but the biblical text becomes much simpler when we recognize that it was inspired by God, but written by actual people for the benefit of actual people, and so it follows the speech and thought patterns of the actual people who lived at the time of its writing, not authors of math and astronomy text books of the 21st century.
Are Paul's Letter's "Scripture"?
Someone asked me the following questions recently:
Do you think that Paul wrote his letters to the church as Scripture? I mean they were letters. He quoted Scripture but do you think he was writing these letters to become church doctrine?
This is a great question, and the answer isn't simple. Let me break it down into 3 parts: Paul's view, the Apostles' view, and the Historical-Grammatical view.
Paul's view
Paul seemed to believe that most of the time he was writing by authority delegated by Jesus, not like he was writing letters dictated by God, but that he had been given a divine commission to expound on the Tanakh and the teachings of Jesus. Sometimes he spelled out that he was writing prophetically, as revelation from God. See 1 Corinthians 14:37 and Galatians 1:11-12. He also directed that his letters be circulated to some extent. See Colossians 4:16.
As a counterpoint, Paul also sometimes said he was writing advice that was not binding as a divine command. This is especially true in 1 Corinthians 7, but implied in personal directions to specific congregations. For example, Romans 14, 1 Timothy 5:23, and Titus 1:5.
The Apostles' view
Luke seemed to believe that Paul's speeches were important enough to record them in great detail in the book of Acts, but we really only have Peter's testimony regarding Paul's letters. 2 Peter 3:16 calls Paul's letters Scripture. Technically the word just means "writings", but the context clearly indicates that he meant divinely inspired writings, particularly the Tanakh.
The Historical-Grammatical view
Looking at Paul's letters from the outside, considering his expressions, manners of address, personal asides, and historical context, it seems pretty clear to me that Paul didn't think of his letters as Scripture on the same level as the Torah or Prophets. They were personal letters that contained divinely inspired instruction and prophecy, but weren't Law in the sense of Exodus or Prophecy in the sense of Isaiah. Each letter was addressed to a specific person or group of people and written to help with one or more specific problems.
You're familiar with the different classifications of Scripture: Law, History, Wisdom, Poetry (I think those 2 deserve separate categories), Prophecy, Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse. OT History tells how the Law plays out in the world. Poetry tells how someone feels about how the Law plays out. Wisdom gives advice on how to live in a land governed by God's Law in the midst of a world corrupted by evil. Prophecy tells what will happen because people reject the Law and calls them back to it.
I think the Pauline Epistles and the General Epistles should be considered separate categories. Paul's letters were personal and situational, while the General Epistles were broadcasts, more consciously "Scripture", with general instruction on how to live according to the Law while in exile in a corrupted world. It seems to me that Paul's letters are blend of Epistle, Wisdom, and Prophecy. Sometimes he prophesied. Sometimes he rebuked. Sometimes he wrote about overarching spiritual principles that apply universally, but mostly he wrote divinely inspired advice into the specific circumstances of mostly-Gentile congregations trying to figure out how to live by this new set of standards in a hostile, pagan world.
Paul didn't have authority to change God's Law--not even Jesus could do that--but he had authority to explain it and to put it into the perspective of Gentile converts who didn't have the advantage of growing up in a Jewish culture that was infused with Torah. Everything he wrote was based solidly on the Torah, but it wasn't itself Torah. As long as we understand that his letters are mostly advice, not Law, then we can take the advice that he gave to Timothy or to the believers in Rome, study the Tanakh to ensure that we understand his advice within that greater context, and figure out how it applies in our own circumstances.
Paul's letters are also a valuable litmus test to see if someone is reading them only within the context of the whole Bible. If a person believes Paul had authority to nullify prior Scripture, then he will interpret him as being very antinomian. He will lean into one of the major doctrinal systems that reject the Law: dispensationalism, reform/covenant theology, or Catholicism/Orthodoxy. If he believes Paul only taught was already established by prior Scripture, then his letters take on a whole new character and depth.
Microsoft Word Find-and-Replace Tip
In my Bible study notes, I prefix comments for each verse with "V1 - " or "V6-7". I don't bother formatting while I'm taking notes because messing with formatting also messes with the flow of my thoughts. Periodically, I go back and run a Find-and-Replace on my notes files to format those prefixes, but the method to do that isn't obvious.
Here's what you do:
- Press Ctrl-H to open the Find/Replace dialog box.
- Check the "Use wildcards" box.
- Enter this text in the "Find what" field: (V[0-9] - ). This tells Word to find the next instance of the letter V followed by 1 number, a space, a dash, and another space. The parenthesis tells Word to treat the found text as a text group.
- Enter this text in the "Replace with" field: \1. This tells Word to replace the found text with the exact same text group.
- With your cursor in the "Replace with" field, click the Format dropdown button. Select Font, then Bold (under "Font style"), and click OK.
- The Find and Replace dialog box should look like this:
- Click Find Next to find the next instance of the desired text.
- Click Replace to replace only the one instance. This will let you test to make sure you have everything right.
- Repeat that last step until you're certain you have the correct formula in each field, then click Replace All.
If you need to find and replace 2 digits, put "(V[0-9][0-9] - )" in the "Find what" box. To find one "V1-2" use "(V[0-9]-[0-9] - )". You can find any alphabetic character using "[A-Za-z]", any upper case alphabetic character with "[A-Z]", and any lower case alphabetic character with "[a-z]". And so on. I'm sure you get the gist.
James Madison's Bad Dream
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. –James Madison, Federalist No 46
Madison was a very smart man, but even he didn’t expect Americans ever to become as passive and slave-minded as they have become. Fortunately, he did have a remedy in case this “incoherent dream” should ever come to pass:
In short, if America was ever a country free of tyranny, it was only because of her heavily armed civilian population and the rights of the states and counties to defy higher government bodies within their local jurisdictions.
Ill-conceived video on the Antichrist and Jewish views of the Messiah
Someone posted this video on Facebook. Other than the poorly chosen video clips, there are several important things to point out...
1. The narrator misrepresents what the Jewish guy said. He didn't say anything about "religious oneness". Some Jews might believe that, but it's not "orthodox". He said that the Messiah will bring peace with neighboring countries--not religious oneness--and that is entirely biblical.
2. Most of what the Jewish guy says is straight out of the Bible. The only thing I heard that he got seriously wrong is that the Messiah isn't divine. Up until the mid to late Middle Ages, Jewish orthodoxy taught that the Messiah will be God in the flesh. Rabbis today will deny it all day long, but it's true. I recommend a book called "Refuting Rabbinic Objections to Christianity and Messianic Prophecies".
3. I don't think Jesus will build the third temple when he returns. The pattern of the antichrist is that he defiles the temple (I could be wrong, but I don't think he will build it), so I think it will be already built before the antichrist comes on the scene. Jesus will cleanse it from the defilement and restore the descendants of Zadok to the priesthood and service in the Temple.
4. The spiritual temple of "Us" is true, but the prophets say over and over that there will be a physical temple in operation during the Millennial Kingdom with the Messiah supervising its operation.
5. Antichrist literally means "substitute Christ", so we should expect him to claim the same authority and to have the same goals as the true Messiah. However, the antichrist figures in the Bible (Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Caesar, etc.) are unanimously opposed to keeping God's commandments. They might give lipservice, but they actually forbid people from obeying God. Daniel described such a figure who would try to change God's appointed times (Sabbath and the feast days) and Law. That will be the #1 tell of the antichrist. The real Christ keeps God's commandments. The Antichrist forbids them.
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