ottilie.org blog

Prophecy

In Fundamentalist circles it is common-place to come across claims that forecasts made in the OT are fulfilled in the NT.   This restss on a misunderstanding of what the OT is about,   Those books which are referred to as the prophets are not so much forecasters of future events as proclamations, speaking forth.

To take some examples:

1. Born of a virginIsaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel”In the Hebrew the reference is to a young woman, not a virgin.   The passage  refers to Ahaz’s wife and the child promised will guarantee the dynasty’s future.
2. Son of JacobNumbers 24:17: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall comee forth from Jacob, and a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall crush through the forehead of Moab, and tear down all the sons of Sheth.”This prophecy is said to refer to Jesus, the son of Jacob (Lk 3:23,34).   However,the passage iis part of  court apologetic llegitimising the reign of David  proclaiming  his rise and defeat of Moab
3. Born at BethlehemMicah 5:2:   “But as for you, Bethlehem….From you One willl go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.   His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity”.The refernce is to a descendant of David as king, which Jesus did not fulfil: He was not a ruler in the sense used by Micah.
4. Herod killls childrenJeremiah 31:15: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more”The reference to the northern kingdom, personified by Rachel.
5. ResurrectionPsalm 16:10: “For Thou wilt not abandon my soul in Sheol; neither wilt Thou allow Thy Holy One to see the pit”.This is inadequate prophecy of Christ’s Resurrection: there is no mention of the Empty Tomb, the appearances to the disciples etc..
6. Accused by false witnessesPsalm 35:11: “Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know”This can hardly be a reference to Jesus as He knew only too well what His opponents were saying.
7. The Suffering ServantIsaiah 53

The Suffering Servant is corporate Israel   In any case, the details of  the Suffering Servant do not conform to those of Jesus on the cross.

• Many, many more instances can be given of prophecies not matching the NT.
• When Jesus arrives on the scene, He is a shock.
• The prophecies provide no information about Jesus’ main teaching theme – the Kingdom of God.
• They provide no information about Jesus being an exorcist.
• They provide no information about Jesus forgiving sins.
• The claimed prophecies are dotted about in the OT: there is no composite whole.
• All OT prophecies are fulfilled in the OT itself, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, at Pentecost and in the Church.

Addenda
Petra, capital of Edom
Forecast: “No-one will live there…..” (Jer.49:18)
Reality: Tourists, hotels, local tribes in tents,,,,

Nineveh
Forecast: Completely destroyed, no prophecy as to its being revived
(Nahum)
Reality:  Suburbs rebuilt

Babylon
Forecast:  Never inhabited again (Jer.51:25; Is.13:20)
Reality:   Saddam Hussein set in train the re-building

Sodom
Forecast: completely destroyed forever (Passim)
Reality:  Dead Sea minerals operation.   In plain to the South a few
springs and 2 agricultural villages

One might have thought that, after 2,000 years of opposition, hostility, persecution and eventually extermination at the hands of supposedly Christian authorities, the Jews would be in no frame of mind to look favourably upon the Christians’ Saviour.   It is all the more surprising, therefore, to discover that the reverse is true; in-deed, that the 20th century has seen a pronounced movement for what has become known as “the reclamation of Jesus for Judaism”.

Joseph Klausner, writing in the Twenties rejects the idea that Jesus is not an historical figure.   He speaks glowingly of Jesus, although he does not  accept Jesus as the Messiah.   He writes: “Everything which Jesus ever uttered on ethical teaching is Jewish but his over-emphasis was NOT Judaism and, in fact, brought about non-Judaism”; “It is universally admitted…that Christ taught the purest and sublimest system of ethics, one which throws the moral precepts and maxims of the wisest men of antiquity far into the shade”; and “In his ethical code there is sublimity, distinctive-
ness and originality in form unparalled in any other Hebrew ethical code; neither is there any parallel to the remarkable act of his parables”.

Another prominent Jewish scholar, Claude Montefiore,writes:
“The rabbis see both sides: their counsel. is, therefore, cooler and better balanced than Jesus.   Jesus teaches an excess of virtue, an excess of forbearance, an excess in forgiveness, an excess in gentleness, an excess in giving and yielding….Jesus teaches the same thing as the rabbis with burning passion and as part of a rounded whole of self-sacrifice and devotion…

“We can find rabbinic parallels to each of the beatitudes but as a whole they seem original.

“To call sinners to repentance, to denounce vice generally, is one thing.   To have intercourse with sinners and seek their con-version by counselling and comforting them – that is quite an-other”.

The Jewish scholar who has concentrated more than any other on Jesus since WW2 is Professor Geza Vermes.   Beginning in 1973, Professor Vermes has produced a trilogy on Jesus.   These are some of the conclusions he reaches about Jesus:

“Second to none in profundity of insight and grandeur of character he is in particular an unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth and of bringing every issue back to the essence of religion, the existential relation- ship of man and man and man and God…..

“In  addition to proclaiming the oppressed blessed, he actually took his stand among the pariahs of the world, those despised by the respectable.   Sinners were his table-companions and the ostracised tax-collectors and prostitutes his friends”.

“Thanks to the sublimity, distinctiveness and originality of his ethical teaching he stoodd head and shoulders above the known re- presentative of this class of spiritual personality”.

Another Jewish scholar, Dr Pinchas Lapide, goes so far as to claim that the Resurrection of Christ actually happened.   Dr. Lapide does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.   He believes that God brought Jesus back from the dead in order to bring the knowledge of Himself to the Gentile world.

Quotations could be supplied from other Jewish scholars, such as S.Sandmel, S.C. Reif and D. Flusser, to show that Jesus stands above His contemporaries.

• It is not the purpose of this article to reject out of hand all concepts of Evolution.    It is rather to highlight some of the points in the case against being too eager to drop the word “Theory” after the word “Evolution”.
• Even established scientists refuse to consider the possibility that Evolution could be wrong.   Professor D.S.M. Watson, a Nobel Laureate, has openly admitted: “Evolution has been accepted by scientists, not because it has been observed to occur or proved by logical coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly unacceptable “.
• In “Animal Species and Evolution” (1963)Ernest Mayr, a supporter of Evolution, conceded:”The basic Evolutionary theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate and its application raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case”.
• One of the leading (and in his case crusading) disciples of Darwinism is Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford.     In “The Third Culture” (1995), a series of interviews with leading evolutionists, John Brockman discovered an unsuspected degree of intellectual discord.
• Stephen Jay Gould, a fossils expert from Harvard, dismisses the arguments of Dawkins as “logically and empirically wrong”; Brian Goodwin, a British biologist,describes Dawkins as “the most extreme exponent of an unfortunate tendency in biology”;  and Professor Lynn Maargulis of the University of Massachusetts, dismisses Dawkins’ writings as an extended exercise in tautology, divorced from the real world of biological facts.
• The scientific establishment is so concerned lest the sanctity of belief in Evolution be violated that there has been, and still is, tremendous discrimination against those who have left the “party line”.   An important factor in bringing about the almost universal dominance and acceptance of Neo-Darwinism has been that virtually every eminent professional scientist appointed to a post in the life sciences in the last 60 years or so, in the English-speaking world, has been a convinced believer in Neo-Darwinism..
• The Scientific Establishment (which includes such eminent names as Sir Gavin de Beer, Sir Julian Huxley, J>.B.S. Haldane, C.H. Waddington, Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky and George Simpson) has perpetuated itself in the same way that the Soviet Praesidium used to under Communism!
• Writing in “The Spectator” (London) on 31.12.94 Warwick Collins told his readers that his tutor had been the brilliant theorist, Professor John Maynard, a disciple of J.B.S. Haldane.   He told him when he raised certain objections to Darwinian theory that he would not be permitted to air them publicly and that he would personally block publication of a paper which Collins had written on the subject and that, if he continued,his status as one of his inner group of researchers and students would be withdrawn!
• Collins argued inter alia that “Darwinian individual selection, as the central mechanism of Evolution, would tend to eliminate one species after another; and that far from being the origin of species, as Darwin suggested, Darwinian theory seems more capable of providing an elegant explanation of “species extinction”!
• The palaeontologist, Miles Eldridge in “Reinventing Darwin” (1995) writes:”Gradual evolutionary transformation at the ‘macro level is a myth”.
• Dean Kenyon, Biology Professor at San Francisco State University, in his book, “Of Pandas and People”, provides the most comprehensive and thorough scientific critique of Darwinian theory currently available.  For 30 years he was the leading scientific authority in the U.S.A. on the mechanism by which the first and most primitive of living organisms might have arisen spontaneously billions of years ago from a chance interaction of chemicals on the Earth’s surfaces.   He came to the conclusion that “life itself owes its origins to a master intellect”.   It must be stressed that for Professor Kenyon the inference that there must be an intelligent designer has nothing to do with religious belief but is rather a possible conclusion that can be reached from an honest  interpretation of the scientific evidence.
• Radiocarbon dating, so necessary for assisting Neo-Darwinists to establish the enormouss time-span for their theory to be accurate, is now widely suspect.   After an impressive start, the method quickly ran into difficulties.   Anomalous dates were produced from successive attempts, including the discovery that some living shell-fish had very little radiocarbon in their shells and so had been theoretically dead for up to 2,300 years!
• The human eye is the archetypal “impossible” for Darwinism; indeed, it is the one subject which, as Darwin himself confessed, gave him a “cold shudder”.   The problem for Evolutionists is to demonstrate that the human eye has developed by evolutionary stages.
• Professsor Michael Crawford and David Marsh challenge the widely accepted theory that chance mutation and Darwinian natural selection “drive” evolution.   According to them, the interplay between Humankind and chemicals in the food chain is the dominant evolutionary force.
• Evolutionists believe that the snake is a reptile which was originally like a lizard but lost its arms and legs as a result of adapting to a crawling mode of life.   Similarly the whale is believed to be a mammal which has returned to the sea and lost its limbs in order to becomee stream-lined for swimming.   Despite the whale’s enormous size, its thigh-bone has now shrunk to a mere 18″   and is on its way to vanishing completely.   When one asks about the evolutionary advantage to the snake and the whale, Evolutionists fall back on “random mutations”.   This, however, is no more than an act of faith, since it has not been demonstrated.
• In his book, (“Evolution: A Theory in Crisis”) Michael Denton, a molecular biologist, states: “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some freakish, vastly improbable, event…..In terms of complexity, individual cell is nothing when compared with a system like the mammalian brain.   The human brain consists of about 10,000,000,000 nerve cells.
• Professor Mark Doughty, Professor Chemistry at Concordia University, Montreal, writes: “Evolution presents us with a perplexing array of order…..It is impossible to believe that such a stupendous series of incessantly repetitive reactions within the living cell, all involving the smallest units of matter – photons, electrons, protons, could have been solely the result of a fortuitous concourse of disparaging entities at the right time and the right place”.
• According to Professor G.A. Kerkut, an Evolutionist, instead of there being one missing link, there are actually thousands upon thousands!
• Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a plant biologist, is something of a scientific heretic, who believes that plants and animals can “tune in” to the experience of their predecessors.

He says that what makes an elephent an elephant is not some genetic programme woven in DNA but a designing principle which he calls “formative causation”

He states that a computer by itself cannot do anything intelligent or impressive: a computer programme pre-supposes a computer programmer.   In the thinking of the convential biologist the computer programme  is the DNA – there is still a need for a programmer in the universe.

The followiing challenge was issued to Neo-Darwinists in 1940 by the then Professor of Genetics at the University of California at Berkley, Richard Goldschmidt:”:  “…try to explain the evolution of the following features by accumulations and selection of small mutants:   hair in mammals, feathers in birds, segmentation of anthropods and vertebrates, the transformation of the gill arches in phylogeny including the aortic arches, muscles,nerves etc.,teeth, shells of mollusces, ectoskeletons, compound eyes, blood circulation, etc.etc.  Getting on for 70 years later his points have not been comprehensively answered.

• Darwin is under attack from another quarter.   Professor Keith Oatley of Glasgow University told the British Association for the Advancement of Science cconference in Seeptember, 1989 that Darwin was wrong with regard to emotions,   According to Professor Oatley, Darwin thought that human emotions were “fossils of the mind”, vestiges of primitive behaviour that were useful for our ancestors but were not so any longer.   He said that Cognitive Psychologists now believed that Darwin’s view was flawed, particularly since many mammals and birds show emotions.   He added that “Emotions are not just vestiges of an infantile and bestial history.   They are important now in our lives, in the everyday management of actions.   The function (of the emotional state) is to help adapt to events and to make sense of them”.
• With regard to “Evolutionary Ethics” Bertrand Russell has this to say:

1. “The motive force of Evolution, according to Darwin, is a kind of biological economics in a world of free competition.   It was Malthus’ doctrine of population, extended to the world of animals and plants, that suggested to Darwin the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as the source of Evolution”.
2. “Darwin himself was a Liberal but his theories had consequences in some degree inimial to traditional Liberalism.   The doctrine that  all men are born equal, and that the differences between people are due wholly to education, was incompatible with his emphasis on congenital differences between members of the same species”.
3. “An adherent of Evolution should maintain that not only the doctrine of the equality of all men, but also that of the rights of man, must be condemned as unbiological, since it makes too emphatic a distinction between men and other animals”.
4. “Though Darwin himself was a Liberal, and though Nietzshe never mentions him except  with contempt, Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fiftest led, when thoroughly assimilated, to something much more like Nietzshe’s’ philosophy than like Bentham’s”.

• Darwin and his apostle, T.H.Huxley, believed that “negroes are closer to apes than white people are”.   They said that the black races would be eliminated – apparently without protest on their part.
• Darwin’s survival of the fittest was  a template for Hitlerism.
• It is significant that Sir Julian Huxley, grandson of TH Huxley, and the principal architect of the Neo-Darwinist theory in the 20th century as well as being a prominent Humanist, publicly advocated that people who were genetically abnormal should be sterilised in order to relieve society of having to care for their offspring!
• In his correspondence Darwin wrote in 1870: “My theology is a simple muddle.   I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I see no evidence of beneficent design or indeed of design of any kind in the details”.    In 1879 Darwin wrote to J. Fordyce:  “My judgeement often fluctuates.   In my most extreme fluctuations   I have been an atheist…..I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older)   but not always, an agnostic would be more a correct description of my state of mind.”
• In the year of his death, according to a record made by the Duke of Argyll, in reply to the Duke’statement that he saw the wonders of life as the  expression of mind, Darwin looked at the Duke very hard and said “Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force but, at other times,” and he shook his head vaguely, adding “it seems to go away”.

• Long before the NT there was religious healing.   Religious shrines and religious amulets have been found at shrines in Egypt,Babylonia, Chaldea, Arabia, Greece and Rome.
• In Humanity’s earliest days the line between primitive Medicine and religious healing was almost invisible.
• Jesus was the outstanding healer in the Ancient World.   He healed the blind, the deaf, the dumb, lepers, paralytics and the mentally disturbed in addition to the possessed.
• But what of healing to-day?
• The most prestigious healing shrine of the Catholic world is Lourdes.
• It is right to state at the outset that Lourdes takes great  pains to verify or otherwise claims to religious healing.   This stands in contrast to the claimed healings at revivalist meetings.   It is suggested that they should adopt the Lourdes system which follows.
• The strict medical procedures adopted at Lourdes   are:

1. The disability or malady should be serious.
2. The patient should not have already been improving  at the time of the healing   nor suffering from a condition that normally might be expected to improve.
3. The patient should not have been under orthodox treatment at the time.
4. The healing should be sudden and instantaneous.
5. The cure must be perfect and complete.
6. The cure should not occur at a time when a crisis due to natural causes has affected the patient or the illness.
7. The cure must be permanent.   A patient has to be free from all symptoms of his/her illness at least a year before a miracle is declared.

• An array of well-qualified doctors examines the fine details of each case submitted to it.   These doctors are not all Catholics; indeed, some are non-believers.
• It is common within the Catholic Church over the centuries to find examples of healings through the intercession of saints whether in this life or the next.   These are well attested, if not to the standard of Lourdes.
• Examples of  Lourdes pilgrims who have been cleared by the system are:A sufferer from acute bronchitis over many years; gross complications and secondrary ailments set in.Cases in which a diseased organ – an eye, an ear , a paralysed limb – will suddenly begin to function while remaining damaged to such an extent that it could not possibly perform physiologically.Paralytics and arthriticsCancers

  Heart and lung disease.

• The number of healings verified by the Lourdes system is of the order of 200 but many thousands of claimed healings are not referredd to the Medical Bureau.
• The most notable Protestant healer in the second half of the 20th.century was Kathryn Kuhlman of the USA.   She addressed huge meetings at which she claimed to heal many in the audience
• Her services were highly charged emotionally, as is the case with many similar healing-services at the Evangelical end of the Church spectrum around the world.
• Surveys of Miss Kuhlman’s healings produced a mixed bag.   Few, if any, were submitted to the sort of scrutiny that obtains at Lourdes.

The Star Of Bethlehem

• Most biblical scholars do not accept the historicity of the Star of Bethlehem: together with the other elements surrounding the Birth of Jesus it is regarded as myth.   What may be said against such a voluminous case?
• Stars have been mentioned in connection with such figures as Aeneas, Alexander the Great, Augustus, Mithridates and Alexander Severus.
• The Star of Bethlehem might have been a supernova or new star.   This was the preferred candidate of the astronomeer, Johannes Kepler, in the 17th century.   There is, however, no record of a star of this type just before Jesus’ supposed birth.
• The Star might have been a comet: the prime candidate being Halley’s Comet.   However, by astronomical calculations we know that this comet had appeared in 12-11 BC, several years before the Birth.
• The Star might have been a planetary conjunction.   Kepler calculated that Jupiter and Saturn had met up in 7-6 BC.   From calculations we know that a triple conjunction occurred in the high points of May/June, September/October and December of 7 BC and that Mars passed early the next year.
• The Star might have been two meteors in roughly the same path at an interval.
• The ancient Chinese made detailed observations of comets and in the likely time range for the Birth only one comet is recorded and this apppeared in 5 BC and was visible for more than 70 days.   From the Chinese records we know that this comet rose in the east, as also described ny Matthew concerning the Star.   There was a further comet in 4 BC
• It is possible that the conjunction of Jupiter and  Saturn in 7-6 BC had acted as an  early warning to the Magi; that the conjunction of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter had acted as confirmation; and that the comet in 5 BC was the signal for them to begin their journey to Bethlehem.
• It is interesting to note with regard to Matthew’s term “stood over” that the Jewish historian, Josephus speaks of a star that stood over Jerusaleem and of a comet that continued for a year at the time of the Fall of the City in 70 AD.

Hard Sayings of Jesus

There are several hard sayings of Jesus in the gospels.    Four are selected here by way of illustration.

*   Pearls before swine

The full quotation in Mt.7:6 reads: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and (the dogs) turn to attack you”.

The general sense of the saying is clear: objects of value, special privileges, participation in sacred things should not be offered to those who are incapable of appreciating them.

Has the saying a more specific application?   In the NT Church more restrictive brethren might have used the quotation as an argument against presenting the Gospel to Gentiles.   At a slightly later date it was used as an argument against admitting unbelievers to the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus knew that it was useless to impart His message to some people:  He had no answer for Herod Antipas when Herod “questioned Him at some length”.

*   Let the children first be fed

The full verse reads:”Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Mk7:27)

To the modern reader this verse is hard because it seems so inconsistent with the overall character of Jesus.   In the event, as a result of the Gentile woman’s persistent request He healed her daughter.   However, the problem remains that Jesus seems to be anti-Gentile: “dogs” is an insult in any language.   Although Jesus’ over-arching mission was to the Jews, as He Himself stated (Mt.15:24), He did heal Gentiles and the full outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost opened the door for Genntiles to enter the Church as full members.   Even more so, this quotation seems to be a contradiction  to His main bearing.   The jury is still out on this saying!

*   You brood of vipers

This saying occurs in Mt 23:33: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

The verse is part of a series of lamentations uttered by Jesus.   John the Baptist had already used the expression.   There are several considerations here:

1. There is considerable invective in the dialogue with the religious groupe of His time,   At times the temperature was high   It was not as if the combatants were cool-blooded Anglo-Saxons:  Middle East races think with their gut.!
2. If Jesus had been on earth when the Nazis were in power over much of Europe, and had used this expressioon of them, He would have been applauded,   It is the sort of thing that Churchill said in his broadcasts to the peoples of occupied Europe.
3. Rabbinic traditions enumerate seven types of Pharisee and only one of these – the Pharisee who is one for the love of God – receives unqualified commendation.   Not all Pharisees were, therefore, denounced.

• This generation will not pass awayThis saying (Mk 13:30) has been regarded as a hard saying by those who take it to refer to Christ’s second coming.
• There are several interpretations:

1. Jesus made a mistake.   He had already told the disciples that they would not have completed the mission He had given them earlier in His ministry before the irruption of the Kingdom would be accomplished.   It had not happened.   Elsewhere He had said that He did not know “times and seasons” – including after His resurrection.   It is no sin not to know.
2. The Jewish race is meant by “generation”.   They will still be around when thee second coming takes place
3. Jesus’ statement was in answer to the disciples’ questions about ” all these things” – the temple’s destruction and attendant events.   Jesus’ reply might then mean “this generation will not pass away before the temple is destroyed (in 70 AD).”.

Even after 70 AD there was a feeling in the early Church that the Second Coming was imminent; indeed, this feeling persists to the present day.

(With acknowledgements to Professor FF Bruce)

ADDENDA

Taken from Psychology, Religion and Healing by the Rev.Dr.Leslie Weatherhead:

My own method of offeriing intercessions for the sick at the Ciity Temple is as follows.

First of all, I find that only about three or four cases can be lifted to God in prayer. It puts a very great strain on the congregation to ask peoople to steady their minds and hold them in intense prayer and longing for particular cases of illness…I try to make an imaginative picture of what is actually happening.   This is the kind of thing that was said in an actual case:

‘Here is Nurse So-and-so, a member of our church, a girl of nineteen, who is studying at such-and-such a hospital.   She is suffering from such-and-such a disease.   Her temperature is very high.   She cannot sleep without drugs.   She has not taken any food for some days.   In  imagination go into the ward and stand with Christ next to her bed…..Believe that at this very moment Christ is touching her life and that His healing power is being made manifest in her body now.   Believe that He can more powerfully work in the atmosphere of our faith and love….Hold, on the screen of
your imagination a picture of Nurse-and-so becoming well’.   The nurse was healed at the time of the intercession, although she did not know she was being prayed for.

Taken from “Healing” by Francis MacNutt:

Rev.Frank Loehr, a chemist, reports in his book “The power of prayer on plants” the results of 156 persons praying in 700 unit experiments using more than 27,000 seeds and seedlings involving about 100,000 measurements and achieving up to a 52.71% growth advantage for prayer seedlings”

Taken from a TV programme:

Incisions were made into the arms of volunteers.   The first group was screened from healers and was prayed over; they did not know it.   The second group was screened from healers but was not prayed over.   Neither group knew what the experiment was about.   After a fortnight the group prayed over had made a swifter recovery from the
incisions.

All Christians honour Mary.   She had the unique honour of giving birth to Jesus.   With so much agreement  why are there divisions about Mary within Christendom?

“Mother of God”

The Council of Ephesus (431 AD), one of the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church, had to deal with the Nestorian heresy.   In a nutshell Nestorius and his supporters taught that the Word did not become flesh so much as “inhabit” man; that in Christ there are two persons; that Mary was not the Mother of God, simply the Mother of Christ.

The Council condemned Nestorius and in the process declared Mary to be Theotokos (literally the God-bearer).   In English Theotokos became rather unhappily “Mother of God”

Perpetual Virginity

In the gospels reference is made to the “brothers of Jesus”.   The most natural reading might be to conclude that,although Jesus, according to the gospels, was Mary’s first-born, Mary had other children, too.    The counter-argument is that the Greek word translated “brother” can also be translated “cousin”.

In Mt.1:18  we read that Mary became pregnant before she and Joseph “came together”.

In Mt.1:25 we read that Joseph “knew her not till she brought forth her first-born son”

The question to be answered is whether the two passages above suggest that Joseph and Mary had intercourse after the birth of Jesus.   Catholics and Orthodox say “No”; most Protesstants and Anglicans say “Yes”.

Immaculate Conception Of Mary

In 1854 Pope Pius IX promulgated the following doctrine:  “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of  her conception  by a unique gift of grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin”.

In Scripture we read in Lk.1:28: ‘And the angel being come in said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.’   To be full of grace is to haave the characteristic of complete sinlessness.   To have this requires that it has always been the case beginning with entry intoo life i.e., from conception.   The only other
person who is “full of grace” is Christ.

Although this dogma was not proclaimed until 1854, its roots go back to the earliest centuries of the Church so there was, from a Catholic viewpoint, no question of the Pope having invented a brand new doctrine.

Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers teach the Immaculate Conception explicitly; there may be a case, however, for saying that they taught it implicitly.

There is an abundance of reference in the early Fathers to Mary as the Second (by implication sinless) Eve:

• Justin Martyr (100-163) writes:  “Christ became man by the Virgin so that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might be destroyed in the same way as it originated.   For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word from the faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her  the good things…….answered: Be it done to me according to thy word”.
• Irenaeus (130-202), the first great theologian of Christendomm, represented the tradition of both East and West.   He wrote: “Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying: Behold the handmaid of the Lord……….Eve, however, disobedient: for she did not obey, even though she was still a virgin.   Inasmuch as she, having indeed Adam for a husband,  yet being still a virgin, became disobedient: and was made both for herself and the whole human race the cause of death, so also Mary, having a husband destined for her yet being a virgin, by obeying, became the cause of salvation both for herself  and the whole human race.   And for this reason (namely for the sake of the parallelism between Eve and Mary)  does the Law call her who was betrothed to a man, even though she was still a virgin, the wife of him to whom she was betrothed, signifying the transference from Mary to Eve.   Thus was the knot of Eve’s disobedience, dissolved by Mary’s obedience; for what the virgin Eve had tied up by unbelief, this the virgin Mary loosened by faith”.Elsewhere Irenaeus  refers to Mary as the “pure womb which regenerates men unto God”.
• Tertullian (155-222) and Origen (185-254) similarly use the parallelism between Eve and Mary.   Ephrem (306-375) declared: “Thou (Christ) and Thy mother are the only ones who are totally beautiful in every respect”.   Augustine (354-430) said:”All men must confess themelves sinners except the Holy Virgin Mary, who I desire, for the sake of the honour of the Lord, to leave entirely  out of the question, when the talk is of sin”.

The Assumption Of Mary

In 1950 Pope Pius XII promulgated that:  “Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven”.

In the O.T Elijah is said to have been raised to heaven body and soul; in the apocryphal Jewish writings Enoch similarly; and in the NT (Mt. 27: 52-53)it is recorded that “…the graves were opened: and many of the saints that had slept awoke and coming out of the tombs after His Resurrection came into the holy city and appeared to many.  Among the Fathers the earliest witnesses to the belief are Timothy of Jerusalem  and Epiphanius in the latter part of the 4th.century.   Ambrose (340-397) tells us the circumstances of Mary’s death are unknown and Jerome (340-420) on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he visited the holy sites,, makes no mention of Mary’s tomb.   In the East a feast of the Assumption seems to have existed even before the Council of Ephesus (431)

Marian Apparitions

Marian devotion is heightened at shrines where there have been claims that the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared.   Since 1930 the Vatican has taken note of 83 claimed apparitions of the Virgin. in Italy; 30 in France; 20 in Germany; 12 in Spain and smaller numbers in other countries.   Only 7 have been given even an “informal approval” by the Vatican.   Even such approval does   not amount to any addition to Revelation.   Thus such Marian shrines as Lourdes and Fatima cannot be regarded as affecting Revelation.   At the very most they remain no more than an “optional extra”.

The Founding Fathers of Protestantism

• Luther said that Mary’s prayers may be sought; that she was without sin; and that she may be called Queen of Heaven.
• Calvin and Luther said that Mary was perpetually Virgin, as did John Wesley.
• Zwingli, Calvin and Luther said that Mary may be venerated.
• Calvin referred to Mary as “treasurer of grace”, even if not in the full Catholic sense.

Wikipedia – Parables of Jesus (Other articles in this section include: Is Christ God?; Prayer;Healing; The Star of Bethlehem; Hard Sayings of Jesus; What Did Jesus Look Like?; A Plain Man Looks At Jesus; Jesus Through The Ages; Prophecy; Divorce And Re-Marriage; Anti-semitism;Mary; the NT documents; Evolution:ATheory?; Materialism; Scientific Method; the Kingdom of God; Dating the Gospels; God and the Unconscious; Women Priests)

There are 9 parables in the Old Testament; in the New there are 35 – 72 depending on the definition of the parable used.  The higher number is obtained by including sayings which most scholars would call not parables but similes or metaphors.  In John only the good shepherd (Jn.10:1ff.) and the vine and the branches (Jn.15 1-7) can be called parables, although these are probably better regarded as allegories.  There are only two commentaries on the parables in the gospels (Mt. 13:36-43; and Mk. 4:13-20= Mt.13:18-23=Lk.8 11-15).

(Approximately 2’000 rabbinic parables have been collected.  It has been argued that Jesus drew his stories or at least themes from a fund of popular stories.  The problem with the rabbinic writings is that in all likelihood these are later than the New Testament.  Virtually none of the rabbinic parables is from as early as the first half of the 1st century C.E.  One of the main differences between the parables of Jesus and those of the rabbis is that the latter concentrated primarily on interpreting Scripture by use of parable, whereas Jesus did not.

Parable was the teaching method used by Jesus most frequently to explain the Kingdom of God and to show the character of God.  About a third of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics is in parables.  There is no evidence of anyone prior to Jesus – in either Judaism or the Graeco- Roman World – using parables as consistently, creatively or effectively as Jesus.

There is a view that at times the parables appear to have experienced a change when they were translated from Aramaic into Greek.  The alterations go beyond mere vocabulary:  they include implicit changes in the cultural background such as differences in houses, furniture, agricultural methods, the names of officials, the types of implements used in domestic and industrial work and similar items.  These changes are minor and do not affect the meaning of the parables.

J.Jeremias has enumerated 8 themes in the parables: the imminence of the new age; the assurance of the approach of the reign of God; the necesssity of  immediate personal response; the conditions of discipleshiip; the passion ;  the consummation; and the mercy of God for sinners.plus the imminence of judgement.   These themes are original in the teaching of Jesus.

(With acknowledgements to Dr. J. McKenzie)

(1)   The First Three Gospels

• About one-third of the teaching is given in the form of parables.   (See above article)   The main theme of His teaching is the Kingdom of God. (See 7 articles below this).
• Struggle with Satan
• His miracles aree generally associated with faith – faith on the part of the patient or faith on the part of a third party
• “No prophet is acceptable in his own country”
• Throughout His ministry Jesus warned those healed not to speak about it.
• The Beatitudes (Mt.5:3-12)
• “Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them”"But I say to you that everyone who is angry shall be liable to judgement”
• Adultery of the heart
• “Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”
• Against taking oaths “Let your aye be aye and your nay be nay”
• On retaliation: turn the other cheek
• “Give to him who begs from you and do not refuse him who wouldd borrow from you
• “Love your enemies”
• “Love your neighbour as yourself”
• Almsgiving to be in private
• On prayer: in private and  do not “heap up empty phrases”
• The Lord’s Prayer
• On fasting:  do not be dismal
• “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth”
• “You cannot serve God and Mammon
• Do not be anxious about yourself; trust your heavenly Father
• “Judge not that ye be not judged”   The mote and the beam
• Pearl before swine
• God answers prayer
• “Enter by the narrow gate”
• The test of a good man (Mt.7:15-20)
• Warning against self-deception
• Hearers and doers of the Word
• “Follow me and leave the dead to bury the dead”
• Exhortation to fearless confession
• Divisions over Christ in households
• “He who receives you receives me”
• “If  any man would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me”
• Jesus’ words about John the Baptist
• Woes on the cities of Galilee – the judgement
• Comfort for the heavy-laden
• Dispute over plucking heads of grain on the sabbath
• “Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation
• Teaching against seeking for signs
• “And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!   For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’”
• The blessedness of the disciples
• The Pharisees seek a sign: “No sign shall be given except the sign of Jonah”
• “Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees”
• Peter’s confession: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.   I will give you the keys of the kingdom and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”   Later in the gospel Christ gives the second power here to the other apostles as well.
• For what will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
• “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will repay every man for what he has done”
• “Trully, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”
• “Elijah does come and he is to restore all things”
• Jesus predicts His passion on three occasions
• Jesus pays the Temple tax
• “Whoever humbles himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven
• “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea”
• “You are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men”
• On reconciliation: “I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven”
• “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.   This is the first and great commandment.   And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.   On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets”
• “And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?”
• Dialogue with the Pharisees. on “in-house” matters, including lamennts by Jesus.
• “Everyone who acknowledges me before men I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven”
• “Whoever says a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”
• Providence: “Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”
• “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword”
• The lament over Jerusalem
• “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you”
• “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor willl they say, ‘Lo, here it is’ or ‘There’.   For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”
• “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man”
• “Let the children come to me and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven”
• “It is easier for a camel to go throough  the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”
• “Whoever would be first among you must be your slave”
• The Final Judgement (the Sheep and the Goats) with the message that it is the merciful and caring who will enter the Kingdom, not necessarily the religious
• Prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem
• “Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”
• “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven”
• “The Son of Man on earth has power to forgive sins”
• “But you are not to be called rabbi for you have one teacher and you are all brethren”
• The signs of the Parousia
• The desolating sacrilege of the Temple
• Institution of the Lord’s Supper
• Peter’s denial foretold
• The High Priest asked Jesus: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”, to which Jesus replied “I am”.
• Jesus speaking to the “Daughters of Jerusalem” on the road to Calvary
• “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”
• Jesus said to the penitent thief: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”
• Jesus cried with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
• “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”

(2)  The Fourth Gospel

• Among the most important features  of John’s thought is his view of Jesus as the Incarnate Word of God, one with the Father, – he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father
• He comes down from the heavenly Father and returns to him
• True worship is in “spirit and truth”
• “I am the bread of life”
• “I am the light of the world”
• “I am the door of the sheep”
• “I am the good shepherd”
• “I am the resurrection and life”
• “I am the way, the truth and the life”
• “I am the true vine”
• “I bear witness”
• “I glorify”
• Jesus as Judge
• The Saviour’s secret victory over the world
• Flesh and Spirit
• The water of life
• Father, Son andd Eternal Life
• Freedom through Truth

Passages that seem to imply that the title “God” was not used for Jesus:  Mk.10:18   13:32   15:34;  Mt 27:46;  Jn 20:17   17:3   14:28;  Eph 1:17   4:4-6;   2 Cor 1:3   13:14   2 Pet 1:3    1 Cor 8:6   12:4-6   15:24;   1 Tim 2:5

Passages where  the use of the title “God” for Jesus is dubious:

Gal 2:20;   Jn.1:18

Passages where Jesus is clearly called “God”:

Rom 9:5:      Christ, who is God over all……”

Col 1:15-19:”He is the image of the invisible God……For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell”

1 Cor 1:2:     “……..Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours”

Phil 2:10:       “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”

Jn 1:1:            “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God”

Mt 28:18:       “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven has been given to me.   Go, therefore, and make disciiples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”

Kyrios

• Means Sir, Master or Lord depending on the context
• Used for “God” in Greek OT
• Used for Emperor
• Applied more to Jesus than the Father in the NT
• “The day of the Lord” used in the OT of Yahweh, now used of Jesus in the NT:
• e.g., 1Cor 1:8, 5:5; 2 Cor1:14; Phil 1:6,10; 2:16; 2 Thess 2:2; 2 Pet 3:10.
• The divine appellatioon  of King of Kings and Lord of Lords is applied to Jesus in Rev 17:14, 19:16

Regaarding the Last Supper the Ancient World’s culltic meals meant that adherents communed with their god.   So it is with Jesus.

Christendom regards Christ as God but this was only arrived at after 150 years of upheaval with the Arian heresy.   As St. Jerome  (342-420) put it: “We woke up with a groan and found that we were Arian”. Eventually the heresy disappea.red.

• Jesus told His disciples not to utter long prayers in public but to pray briefly in private.
• The brief prayer by the publican is the prayer which makes one righteous.
• When asked to teach His disciples how to pray, Jesus gave them the Lord’s Prayer.
• Jesus teaches that the Christian must pray with complete assurance that prayer will be answered.
• The gospels mention only a very few occasions when Jesus prayed privately.
• Christians are to pray with importunity
• When St. Paul prayed for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed, His request was not granted but he was given strength to bear it.
• Prayer in the NT outside the gospels was uttered in the name of Jesus.
• In Hebrews Jesus is the eternal high priest who intercedes for those who approach God through Him.
• Christians invoke the Father in virtue of the Spirit Jesus gives them, without Whom they cannot even professs their faith that Jesus is Lord.
• The posture was either kneeling or standing, probably with their arms outstretched, common in the OT and among the Greeks and Romans.
• There is a variety of objects of prayer:  the salvation of the Jews, deliverance from enemies,spiritual strength,  peace for all, the sick…
• The prayer of praise and thanksgiving is encouraged.

What about Jesus’ practice of prayer?

• As a Jew, He almost certainly would have recited the morning and evening set prayers of Judaism
• He regularly attended the synagogue services of His time.
• Jesus occasionally went off into a lonely place to pray on His own.
• He prayed at a time of temptation and of decision-making
• He prays following His baptism; His early success; prior to choosing His apostles; on the mountain of Transfiguration; prior to His teaching the Lord’s Prayer; and twice on the Cross; and in Gethsemane.
• In John’s gospeel Jesus prays not for His own benefit but “on account of the people standing by”.
• In His public prayers and maybe in His private prayers Jesus reveals an intimacy with God, He speaks of God as Father, even Daddy.

The New Testament does not give a description of Jesus’ physical appearance.   What follows, therefore, is speculation.

• In one incident in the gospels Zacchaeus climbs a tree to get a better view of Jesus, surrounded by crowds.   The gospel states “because he was small”.   It is not clear from the text whether it was Zacchaeus or Jesus who was small.   So, it is 50:50 that, maybe, Jesus was small.
• In Isaiah 53:2, from one of the Servant Songs pointing to Christ, we read: “he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him”.   Justin Martyr, one of the early Christian martyrs, on the basis of this verse, said that Jesus was unprepossessing in appearance.
• Celsus, the anti-Christian, sstated that Jesus was “short and ugly”.   Origen who crossed swords with him in the early centuries of the Faith, did not dispute this remark.
• On the other hand, St. Jerome and St. Augustine believed that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful.
• As a descendant of King David, Jesus might have been like His ancestor.   In 1Samuel 16:12 David was “ruddy, had beautiful eyes and was handsome”.
• Waves of immigration into Galilee and the surrounds might have affected Jesus’ ancestry.   Arab, Aramean, Berber, Roman, Greek, Black African, Persian and Indian – these immigrants have led some to wonder whether onee or other of these are included in Jesus’lineage.   Because Gallic troops were, so he said, in Galilee, Hitler said Jesus was of Gallic ancestry and was certainly not a Jew!   Discuss!
• Because Jesus was a carpenter and there were no power-drills at the time, it is likely that He was physically strong.   It is also likely that He was of Middle Eastern appearance: olive-skinned, long black hair and bearded, hooked nose, eyes possibly brown and  with a strong presence.

A Plain Man Looks at Jesus

• Jesus was born and grew up in an obscure part of the world.   Apart from being taken by His parents to Egypt as refugees as a child, He did not travel.   He worked as a carpenter until in His late twenties/early thirties He began His mission,
• His is the best attested life in the ancient world and He has been written about by more people than anyone else in history.
• His teaching was, for the most part, for the masses, with some for His intimate circle of followers.   About a third of the teaching given in the first three gospels is given in parables, memorable stories and phrases.   His teaching was challenging.
• Within the confines of Judaism, His teaching was original.
• His main teaching theme was the Kingdom of God, a theme which was past, present and future.   In a curious phrase, He said that the Kingdom is “in your midst”.
• The Kingdom equates with eternal life.
• One aspect of His teaching is a bias to the poor.   He associated with them and also the outcasts of society.
• He had a reputation as a healer and exorcist; also, as a miracle worker.
• He had enemies, mainly members of the religious establishment.
• He promised salvation to those who believed in Him:  they would inherit heaven.
• He taught His followers how to pray.   He told them to believe that their prayers were being answered.   He advised brevity in prayer.
• He founded a Church which He empowered to carry on His mission and promised to be with them to the end of time.
• Before His death He instituted the Last Supper as a memorial of Him – in  the sense of making a past event a reality  in the present.
• His death was a sacrificial death.   It didn’t end there :He overcame death and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Jesus Through The Ages

• There is plenty of evidence in the gospels of Jesus being projected as Jesus the Rabbi.
• In the 2nd and 3rd centuries there is a theme of Jesus the Light of the Gentiles,
• In the 4th century, with the legalisation of Christian and the portrayal of Constantine as Emperor and Christian, Jesus is seen as King of Kings.
• The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the emergence of the Cosmic Christ.
• Much later – in the 8th and 9th centuries – Jesus is seen as the True Image, the inspiration for a new art and architecture in Byzantine culture.
• In the 10th and 11th centuries in the West the Cross in literature and art is a metaphor for the saving work of Christ – Christ Crucified being “the power of God and the wisdom of God” for the Middle Ages.
• The 11th and 12th centuries in the West witnessed a great flowering of monasticism, in which we have Jesus the Monk.
• The Middle Ages also saw the growth of mystical language and thought, in which we have Jesus, the Bridegroom of the Soul.
• In the 15th and 16th centuries we encounter Jesus, Renaissance Man.
• In the 16th century we have Jesus, Reformation Man.
• The Crusades had projected Jesus, Man of War; the Quakers projected Jesus, Man of Peace.
• In the 18th century we encounter Jesus, Enlightenment Man.
• In the 19th century we have Jesus, Romantic Man, His beauty and subliminity being conveyed in the art and poetry of the period.
• In the 20th century we have Jesus the Liberator, the Freedom Fighter, CND Man, Third World Man, Environmentalist Man, even (in America) Capitalist Man.