Chinese Genesis

History of Jesus
First, a summary
The Son of God first speaks in the Bible in Proverbs 8: 22-33.

In Genesis 1:1, early Jewish scholars recognized that the plural name of God, ‘elohiym, referred to a Trinity: God the Creator, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Messiah, whom Christians recognize as Jesus.

In Genesis 3, God said a descendant of a woman but not a man will fight with evil — the serpent represented as Satan. Jews expect Messiah, Christians accept Jesus as the Son of God who won the fight against Satan.  As God, living a sinless life on earth, Jesus fulfills the requirements to forgive the sins of those accept him so we can enter a sinless-heaven.

I find no indication in the Bible that Adam or Eve ever acknowledged their sin. When their first son, Cain, murdered their second son, Abel, God gave Adam and Eve a third son, Seth, who began to worship God. No other is said to love God until Enoch in the eighth generation. His grandson, Lamech, blamed God for making life hard for him by throwing Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden. He named his son Noah, meaning “Comfort.”

God found Noah, tenth generation, as the only person he could trust in a totally wicked world. From him God brought forth a new generation of people after the flood. Three generations later, descendants of his sons, Japheth, Ham and Shem,  gathered as one community, speaking one language. When some moved east, others began to build a tower to the sky to celebrate their power and keep all their people together. But God confused their language, and families and neighbors began to scatter and make their own languages.

How could any knowledge of God survive with these scattered peoples?

April 18, 2010

When Rev. Kang, a preacher in China, was chided by a Chinese woman that his Bible was “a fairy tale,” he began to search evidence of its validity. In a Mandarin book, he found that the character meaning “boat” was originally written with a combination of Chinese figures for a vessel, eight, and mouth, meaning person. A boat with eight people: Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives!

He quickly began to look for meanings of other words, and found “create” formed from the characters for “dust, mud” for “life, motion,” and “walking” and ”ancestor” — an adult, not an infant.

This information was found by Ethel R. Nelson after her return from China to the United States, and she offered to prepare his materials as a book for Occidentals. It was published as The Discovery of Genesis with his name and hers. Her own study showed that the origin of these Chinese words was about 2500 B.C. People scattered from the Tower of Babel in about 2218 B.C.

Following are other Chinese words that reflect the story of Genesis written into the Chinese language — more leads in the History of Jesus.

The name for God was ShangTi, combining emperor with above: heavenly. This plus “heaven” was God, a Spirit. ShangTi plus holy and spirit also designated God. A word for Spirit includes heaven, cover, water, rain, mouth [person]. (Genesis 1:2 tells of the Spirit over the waters of the earth.)  Together these mean “rain.” The Spirit is represented by three “mouths,” persons — a Trinity.

The Spirit is also represented as a substitute, a distinguished person, to speak, conduct (trust), an ambassador. This would be one who speaks as, or for, God. The final radicals of Spirit are composed of three radicals, signifying man, work, man, with a third person in “work.” The top stroke represents heaven, and the base represents earth. The stroke that joins them means “work.” Three persons working together between heaven and earth shows the concept of a Trinity. Altogether, these mean, “a worker of magic.” Thus, heaven + cover + water + rain+ three persons + worker of magic = Spirit.

“To create” consists of dust + breath of mouth + alive=to talk + walking, which shows hair and first. Other “God” radicals include proclaim, manifest, exhibit, reveal.

Devil was man, son, in a garden, or field; secret, private plus cover, tree. This was the tempter. The details of all their characters are exquisite.

The earliest account of religious worship is recorded in China is in Confucious’ Book of History: Emperor Shun in 2230 BC:   “He sacrificed to ShangTi.”

The author of Discovery of Genesis notes that in the 4000 years of Chinese history, no picture or image of God has been found. These are just a few of the ancient Chinese words built around the distant memory of creation that we read in our Bible.

Ancient people in many other countries retained a memory of Creation and lived and sacrificed with the blood of animals, just as Abel and Noah and Abraham and others worshiped God until the blood of Jesus fulfilled the promise of overcoming the power of Satan. We shall read examples of people of other countries who remembered God in weekly blogs that follow.

Noah changes God’s mind

Genesis 5 ends  with verse 32, “After Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons and daughters and named them Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” The fact these people lived hundreds of years reflects the perfection of human beings as God created them/us, and intended for us to live in his perfect world.

Contemporary English Version, Chapter 6:1-3, begins, “More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted. Then the Lord said. ‘I won’t let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever. No one shall live more than one hundred and twenty years.’”

King James Version translates these  “supernatural beings” as “the sons of God.” Strong’s Concordance translates the Hebrew word son, 1121, “ben” as “a son, “as a builder of the family name.”  It can refer to animals, relationships, son or daughter, any age, and good or bad persons. However, the Hebrew word does not suggest supernatural beings, and nothing implies that they “came down.”

In verse 4, King James Version gives “giant,” that is, 5303, “nephil,” meaning “a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant — a giant.” The Contemporary English Version says that the children of these “supernatural beings became famous heroes and warriors.” Surely Noah’s descendants would be curious about people before the Flood, these later generations would brag about their ancestors. In a pagan world, they would even worship these forefathers.

A related word is “Nephilim,” 5305, translated as, “sons of Naphish, a son of Ishmael and his posterity.”  The word is closely related to “naphach,” a primitive root meaning “puff,” or to breathe as in God’s saying “I won’t let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever.”

As descendants after the Flood named gods, built great temples to them and worshiped them, we may guess that Nephish became Neptune, god of the ocean. However that may be, Revelation 7: 6 lists 12,000 who will come from the tribe of “Naphtalli” with “the mark of the living God” upon their brows.

Verse 5: Verse 5, God saw the wickedness of man [read "people"] was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.  7. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth. Both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I made them.” I use the KJV, not for dependable accuracy, but for its passionate expression.

God’s regret shortly yielded to one good man. Verse 8: “The Lord was pleased with Noah,”, or KJV, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Isn’t that a beautiful thought we would love to earn?

Noah was the one person who lived right and obeyed God. Surely his wife, too, was a righteous person, for one immediate reason to choose Noah was to find a family whose genes, beliefs, and life styles did not reflect the times in which they were born.

Books are written about Noah and his boat, and searchers over the years have tried to find its remains. A book published in 1601, before the King James Version, tells where Noah traveled, and where his descendants founded countries.

This one man was entrusted to keep alive for all the world a love for God and a memory of his promise of a Savior.

Delving Deeper in Genesis

816
AN HISTORICAL TREATISE OF THE TRAVAILES OF Noe into Europe
was written in 1800 by “Richard Lynch, Gent.” before translation of the King James Bible was begun. Lynche wrote, “The cheefest guide is first prince and Patriarch of the world, Noe:
Noe: –taught the use of history back to Creation.
He learned from his father, Lamech
who learned from his grandfather, Enoch,
who learned by tradition from our first father, Adam.

This is an important section of our path from the statement of God’s Son in Proverbs 8 22-31 to the plural name of God in Genesis 1:1 (understood as a Trinity) to the promise in Genesis 3: 15b that a descendant of the woman would fight against the snake, representing Satan.

How was that promise preserved by God’s people through thousands of years until it’s fulfillment as recorded in Matthew 28? It seems an unlikely path as we review the early days of Adam’s descendants.

Even Adam’s and Eve’s warnings about their experience in Eden

In all the 930 years Adam lived, only a precious few of his descendants understood that it was the love of God that promised protection from the Evil One, even as he put their father and mother out of the Garden.

In Chapter 5, verse 1-2, the Bible repeats, “God created men and women to be like himself. He gave them his blessings and called them human beings.” The Hebrew word translated “Adam” means “to show blood in the face,” or “to blush”. This term also translates, “ruddy,” i.e. a human being, (an individual, or the species, mankind.)” Did Adam and Eve blush when God saw their disobedience? Surely he hoped this evidence of conscience would lead them to confession, and forgiveness. I find no word in the Bible to indicate that Adam or Eve ever turned to God to repent of their jealousy and claim his forgiveness. So what message did they give their sons?

Chapter 4:17-25 is the story of the second two people on earth. Cain was jealous because God favored Abel’s sacrifice of a newborn lamb to his own gift. God saw him angry, and warned him that sin was waiting like a lion to attack him. God said, “Sin wants to destroy you, but don’t let it.” But Cain went directly to Abel and killed him.  Because Abel’s blood ran in the ground, God put a curse on the land so he couldn’t farm. Cain said, “You are making me leave my home and live far from you and anyone could kill me.” God put a mark on him so he would not be killed. “But Cain had to go far from the Lord and live in the Land of Wandering, which is East of Eden.”

Cain’s son, Enoch, was the first to build a town. Enoch’s son, Irad, begat Mehujael, who begat Methussael, who begat Lamech. Lamech’s two wives were rare female names in these first chapters. One of his sons, Jabal, was the first to live in tents and raise sheep and goats. His brother, Jubal, was the first to play harps and flutes, lending his name to the modern singers, the “Jubalheirs.” Lamech’s third son, Tubal Cain, made tools out of bronze and iron. This brief outline shows the founding of civilization on earth.

Then there was another killing, and throughout, no mention of God in Cain’s line.  But who, then, was left to tell God’s plan for his people? How meager were the opportunities for God’s love to be known.

So whence came the good news of God’s promise for a Savior? God gave Adam and Eve a third son, Seth, meaning “given,” “in place of Abel.” Seth had a son Enosh, and finally, “About this time people started worshiping the Lord” or, in some translations, “worshiping in the name of the Lord.”

Chapter 5. Look how long these generations lived. Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912 years, Enosh 905. Adam and Eve then had many more children until Adam was nearly one thousand years old.

Seth (second generation) had more children, and his son Enosh (third) had first a son Kenan (fourth) and then more children. Kenan had Mahalalel (fifth), who had Jared (sixth), and Jared had Enoch (seventh), who, after all these generations, “truly loved the Lord.” (This is the same name as Cain’s first son, which raises the question of relationships among the descendants.)   “When Enoch was sixty-five, he had a son named Methuselah (eighth)” and for the next 300 years, he had more children. Verse 23-4, “and God took him away.” There was no grave for Enoch. During his more than 300 years, God had a friend on earth to tell and to show God’s love and his promise. Let us be thankful for each child he taught to know and love God and thus continue the history of Jesus.
Enoch’s son, Methuselah, lived the longest– 969 years. Only one of his sons, Lamech (ninth), is named, and Lamech’s only son named here is Noah (tenth generation). Did Lamech continue Enoch’s love of God? His comment about his son was, “I’ll name him Noah because he will give us comfort, as we struggle hard to make a living on this land that the Lord has put under a curse.” Nine generations later, all they knew was that their trouble was all God’s fault.

Oh, the patience of God, who gave these generations a thousand years of sons to make a people he hoped would be worthy of his world, and of his Son. For God, in his amazing generosity, refused to force them to do what was right, but chose to receive their love and righteousness only when freely given. How God must treasure those who love him and give a witness in their lives.

The last son mentioned here was Noah, the last of all the generations before him to continue life on earth. Why specifically did God decide to leave only this one man, his wife, their sons and son’s wives as the only people to live on earth?

Was God ever sorry he made these people? Why did he change his mind?

History of Jesus 2

AN HISTORICAL TREATISE OF THE TRAVAILES OF Noe into Europe
was written in 1800 by “Richard Lynch, Gent.” before translation of the King James Bible was begun.
Lynche says, “The cheefest guide is first prince and Patriarch of the world, Noe. :
Noe: –taught the use of history back to Creation.
He learned from his father, Lamech
who learned from his grandfather, Enoch,
who learned by tradition from our first father, Adam.

This is an important section of our path from the statement of God’s Son in Proverbs 8 22-31 to the plural name of God in Genesis 1:1 (understood as a Trinity) to the promise given in Genesis 3: 15b. How was that promise preserved by God’s people through thousands of years so that we can experience it’s fulfillment as recorded in Matthew 28? It seems an unlikely path as we review the early days.

Even Adam’s and Eve’s warnings about their experience in Eden all the 930 years they lived did not persuade many of their descendants to understand the love of the God who promised protection from the Evil One when he put their father and mother out of the Garden.

In Chapter 5, verse 1-2, again the Bible says, “God created men and women to be like himself. He gave them his blessings and called them human beings.” The Hebrew word translated “Adam” means “to show blood in the face,” or “to blush”. This term also translates, “ruddy,” i.e. a human being, (an individual or the species, mankind.)” Did Adam and Eve blush when God saw their disobedience? Surely he hoped this evidence of conscience would lead them to confession, and forgiveness. I find no word in the Bible to indicate that Adam or Eve ever turned to God to repent of their jealousy and claim his forgiveness.

Chapter 4:17-25 tells of the amazing developments in the lives of these first generations. When the first son, Cain, in jealous rage killed their second son, Abel, there was no one left who could tell God’s story.

Cain’s son, Enoch, was the first to build a town. Enoch’s son, Irad, begat Mehujael, who begat Methussael, who begat Lamech. Lamech’s two wives were rare female names in these first chapters. One of his sons, Jabal, was the first to live in tents and raise sheep and goats. His brother, Jubal, was the first to play harps and flutes, lending his name to the religious singing group, the “Jubalheirs.” Lamech’s third son, Tubal Cain made tools out of bronze and iron.
This outline shows the founding of civilization on earth. Then there was another killing, and throughout, no mention of God in Cain’s line. How meager were the opportunities for God’s love to be known, and his amazing offer of a Savior.
So whence came the good news of God’s promise for a Savior? Then God gave Adam and Eve a third son, Seth, meaning “given,” “in place of Abel.” Seth had a son Enosh, and finally, “About this time people started worshiping the Lord” or, in some translations, “worshiping in the name of the Lord.”
Chapter 5. Look at the lists of names. See how long they lived.
Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912 years, Enosh 905. Adam and Eve then had many more children until Adam was nearly one thousand years old.

Seth had more children, and his son Enosh had first a son Kenan and then more children. Kenan had Mahalalel, who had Jared, and Jared had Enoch, who, after all these generations, “truly loved the Lord.” “When Enoch was sixty-five, he had a son named Methuselah” and for the next 300 years, he had more children. Verse 23-4, “and God took him away.” There was no grave for Enoch. During his more than 300 years, God had a friend on earth to tell and to show God’s love and his promise. Let us be thankful for each child he taught to know and love God and thus continue the history of Jesus.
Enoch’s son, Methuselah, lived the longest– 969 years. Only one of his sons, Lamech, is named, and Lamech’s only son named here is Noah.

Oh, the patience of God, who gave these generations a thousand years of sons to make a people he hoped would be worthy of his world, and of his Son. For God, in his amazing generosity, refused to force them to do what was right, but chose to receive their love and righteousness only when freely given. How god must treasure those who love him and give a witness in their lives.

The last son mentioned here was Lamech, and his son would be the last of all the generations before him. Why specifically did God leave only one man, his wife, their sons and son’s wives the only people to live on earth?

Read the strange events in Chapter 6.

JESUS HIS STORY

JESUS  HIS STORY

What can we learn about Jesus before the first Christmas? Let’s be surprised!

Solomon the Wise was writing Chapter 8 in his Proverbs about wisdom when another voice appeared. Verses 22-31 are the words of The Son of God as he described his own role while his Father was creating the Universe. He ended, “I was pleased with the world and pleased with its people.” How much did he understand of  their  future and his?

Genesis 1:1 begins, “In the beginning, God.” In Hebrew, the word god singular is anything people worship. But this word, Elohiym, is plural. Gods? The Targum is a collection commentaries on the Old Testament that Jews trust.  Several of the early Jewish scholars decided that God is a Trinity — three Gods in One. My understanding is like a man who is a person who becomes a father, and is an eternal spirit. Thus God plural is one Being who has the Son who spoke to Solomon, and a Spirit named in Genesis 1: 2, “But the Spirit of God was moving over the waters.” Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one Person, three roles.
A concordance such as HTTP://Xisthros, which can be downloaded, defines Hebrew and Greek words, gives the reference for every word in the Bible, plus other information. The word Spirit in Genesis 1:2 is translated in a footnote as “a mighty wind.” In Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve heard God in the Garden, the same word is translated in 3:8 as “in late afternoon a breeze began to blow.” This “breeze” is the same word as the “Spirit” in v. 2. In Acts 2: 2, the Disciples were gathered at Pentecost when “Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind!”
The Holy Spirit is powerful, but unseen. The Spirit announces the presence of God and does his work. God’s spiritlives in us, and is God’s communication with us. Gen 1:2 is from the primitive root, ruwach, “to blow, to breathe, to smell, perceive.” In Acts 2, a current of air.
Genesis 2 describes how God made the first man and woman and placed them in the beautiful Garden of Eden. Genesis 3 tells of the first sins and the result. Eve blamed the Snake, Adam blamed Eve, and there is no record that either repented what they had done, though Adam lived nearly a thousand years.
God first dealt with the Snake/Satan, referred to in Revelation as a Dragon: 3:15. “You and the woman will hate each other; your descendants and hers will always be enemies. One of hers will strike you on the head, and one of you will strike him on the heel.” Here again, the translation fails us.  The word translated “head” is the verb “rosh,” a primitive Hebrew verb meaning to shake. It was assumed that the head was most prone to shaking, and thus translated it so. However, science, dealing with superstrings and such, now learns ever more about the role of shaking — which they term oscillating. Every element, every action, no exceptions, is identified by the way it oscillates — it shakes. The last example I read was that we identify smell by the way microdust oscillates in our nostrils.
2 Peter 3:10-11 gives this scenario when the world ends: “The heavens will disappear with a loud noise, and the heat will melt the whole universe. Then the earth and everything in it will be seen for what they are.”  The word heat in Greek “to loosen” may release the forces that oscillate and hold identities together and the word “melt”is “to liquefy.”
Genesis 4: Banished from the Garden, Adam’s and Eve’s first son, Cain, killed their second son, Abel, in jealousy because God favored Abel’s offering: the best parts of his first-born lamb. Blood on the doorposts as Israel escaped from Egypt. Blood of the Lamb. Symbolism.
See Genesis 9:4: God told Noah, “Life is in the blood.” This is the basis of “kosher,” the Jewish law which says which animals could be eaten but only after all the blood is drained away.
Genesis 5: “God created men and women to be like himself.” [Note -- both sexes like himself, as in Gen. 1:27: “So God created humans to be like himself: he made men and women.”]. “He gave them his blessings: [the word we’ll follow through time] and called them human beings.” This chapter lists generations from Adam and Eve to The Flood. 3-4: When Adam was one hundred and thirty he had a son who was just like him, and he named him Seth, Ch. 4: 25, given them, they said,  in place of Abel.
With Cain a murderer, and Abel dead, how would we know about events in the Bible? Science says there was no writing for thousands of years, but God wrote Genesis and Noah could read the Ten commandments. But there is also the record of people who memorized a great many generations, such as Alex Haley, who went to Africa and found a very old man who could remember hundreds of years of genealogy, and told about the one boy who was stolen to slavery and became Haley’s ancestor. Yes, remembering our history with God is more than important, it is necessary to live.
After Seth, there were more children until Adam was almost a thousand years old. Women were rarely a mention in Jewish genealogy.  Seth had a son, Enosh: “About this time people started worshiping God.” This is the path we will follow through time, those who kept the faith then to now.  In the seventh generation, Enoch “truly loved God, and God took him away.” Enoch’s son was Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years. His son, Lamech, had a son whom he named Noah whom we’ll study next.

Make a Difference!

Make A Difference!

Haven’t we all wondered — agonized over — how long it is still taking for hurt people of Haiti to be found, given water, fed, and treated for their broken bodies.

The driver of a truck load of supplies sees a large group of thirsty people running toward his truck. He hits the gas and escapes, carrying lifesaving supplies with him.

Planes filled with everything needed hover overhead, while enough space for them to land on a second runway is not being cleared. Hundreds of strong, young men find nothing to do but to steal, and sell their plunder for cash.

CNN’s Dr. Sanja Gupta begins to operate on patients in a tent with a group of doctors from Europe. They ask if they can be provided safety, and when the answer is no, they leave. They leave — Dr. Gupta with a couple of helpers — who stayed all the long night long to treat 15 patients who might have died if he, too, left for his own safety.

Young looters throw cartons of goods from the top of a crumbled building and one hits a little boy. Anderson Cooper leads the little boy to get help, and when the child stops to wipe off the blood that is flowing from his head, Anderson picks up the child and takes him to the tent that serves as a hospital in this crushed city. He later cwonders what happened to the little boy. I bet he’ll find him!

Bill Clinton stands in a line moving containers of water from a truck to the next person in line.

A community several miles away takes care of its own every way possible,
putting some on boards to take them to the tent hospital.

Why? Why are people not getting water a week later? Why are arms and legs being cut off of children because there are no antibiotics?

Because there are not enough Gupta and Coopers and Clintons who simply take charge and make things move.

Why didn’t sensible people say to the big teenagers, Hey, fellow, you’re a big strong guy. Be a hero! Grab this box of medicine and take it to the tent hospital! Here’s a carton of water — run to the back of the line so they can get water, too! Here — grab this carton and give one to each person lying on the ground! And when they come back, say Bravo! Grab another carton and call some of your buddies to do the same! A little of this initiative would surely have brought more teens to help, and fewer to rob.

Ask the pilot of the plane on the ground, what’ll it take to prepare another landing strip? And gather these young people, young men and women, and put them to work, encouraging them all the while.

Look at the woman leading a group of injured people on the ground singing rousing hymns. And the woman coming out of what was surely a tomb singing thanks and praise to God!

And how ‘bout those kids! “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls come tumbling down!” They enthusiastically use a Bible story to make fun of the horror around them.

The contrast. The difference between the hopeless and the looters — and those who jump in and make a difference.

It takes practice. We already have such opportunities as practice. We can ignore the problems, we can complain, or we can make a difference.

First, we must acknowledge a problem as an opportunity to help someone or to improve a situation. When you see a worried look, give a smile. Often those who look mad return the happiest smiles! Turn your own frown into a smile. Or explain your frown to a passerby: Look at that mess! I’m going to put that trash in this bag, put it in the trash can, and then go wash my hands. We should all help clean up such a mess. And smile when we ask people to do the same with their own trash.

At Murphey Candler Park, I never miss a chance to complain about the grass being cut into the dirt all around the park, making more erosion, while ivy grows to the tops of pines near the tennis court, bringing them crashing to the ground. Get off those mowers and cut off the ivy! I complain at every opportunity about almost 200 young trees being cut at a gully that reaches from E. Candler Street all the way across to the lake where erosion is the worst. I email my neighbors, and I take pictures to show to DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis and beg for some green people on the Parks and Recreation Board.

Where can you make things better? Use your complaints to make a difference! Talk about it, do something about it, and solicit help to improve the situation. Then be sure to compliment those who at least agree with you, and praise those who help. Write to the editors, put up signs. (I posted my own computer-made signs against small cutting trees on public property — and I took down dozens of yellow plastic ribbons marking young trees to be cut so neighbors could see the lake from their front doors.)

Yes! Make a difference! Be nice about it, smile, explain the problem, ask help, and lead the way. This is our country. Smile and let your voice be heard, and your works be a witness to the possibility of change for us all.

The Bible and Homosexuality

What does the Bible say about Gay?

People have strong opinions about homosexuality, and most quote the Bible to prove what they say. This is what I find in my Bible.

Leviticus 18:6-20 are the verses most used against gay people. The writer says God forbids sex with relatives or another man’s wife. Then he writes, “It is disgusting for a man to have sex with another man.” He is giving only his own opinion in this case. Yes, homosexual sex is disgusting to heterosexuals, just as heterosex is disgusting to homosexuals.

Matthew 19:12 answers the biggest question people have today about gay: Is a person born gay, or chooses to become gay? Matthew says, “For there are some eunuchs [innocent] which were so born from their mothers’ wombs, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men: and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs (pure) for the kingdom of God’s sake [to serve God]. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Acts 8 tells about the Ethiopian (African) eunuch in his chariot whom Philip met as he was walking from Jerusalem to Gaza. The eunuch was “an important official — the chief treasurer — for the queen of Ethiopia.” He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and was reading his Bible. Philip explained Isaiah to him, and the eunuch accepted Christ.

Isaiah 56:4-5 says to those eunuchs who please God, he will give them “a place in my house, and a name better than of sons an daughters.”

Many believe Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuals. Ezekiel 16: 48-49 says, “…the people of Sodom … were never as sinful as you. They were arrogant and spoiled; they had everything they needed and still refused to help the poor and needy….And I destroyed them.”

The Bible makes no reference  to homosexuality in Sodom. The real message is the way we — and, the Bible says, our nation — treat the poor and needy. In this cold weather,  let’s find something to share.

Where Jesus Grew Up

WHERE JESUS GREW UP
In this Christmas season, archeologists have unveiled a house in Nazareth, the little town where Jesus lived as a child. Here about 50 poor families lived where Joseph had a carpenter shop. When Jesus

was proclaimed as a prophet, people asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

The AJC article, Dec 21, 2009,  says, “Archeologists and present-day residents of Nazareth imagined Jesus as a youngster, playing with other children in the isolated village, nor far from where the Archangel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would give birth to a boy.” They don’t know if this was the house where Jesus lived, but it is likely that, “A young Jesus may have played around this house with his cousins and friends.”

The small, crowded community stood near the border between Jews and the Roman invaders, and the people of Nazareth dug holes with hidden openings where about six people could hide for a few hours. But soldiers could find little of value here. Now small chips and pieces left by the “simple Jewish family” are found in and near the stone house. Now we can know how the building looked inside and out and what’s left of their hiding place, their yards, and the way water was collected outside to flow into the house.

This is the only building uncovered from the village where Jesus grew up in the first century — numbered for his birth. There are too many buildings now to continue digging in this modern Arab city of about 65,000 citizens with twice as many Muslims as Jews.

Christmas Gift

√ Christmas

What can I give you for Christmas, Jesus?
I’m so busy doing stuff for everybody else.
What special gift can I give to your on your birthday?

You give me every gift you give away.
You give me the nativity scenes you make for
your grand kids. They are beautiful to me.
You give me the class that learns of me each week.
I bless those who come.

You give me the words you write,
the decorations you make,
the food you share.
You give me every gift you give away.

But I want to give you something special, Jesus.
Something just for you.

Then give me all the affection of your heart,
all the vitality of your life,
all the  attention and creativity of your mind.
This is the special gift you give me
with every sensitivity and every deed and every thought.
This is the birthday gift your love gives me every day.

History of Jesus

The History of Jesus

Liane asked about the history of Jesus. What happened before the universe was made? Read Genesis, the first book in the Bible, the first chapter,  to see how God made the world.

Here are some verses I found that I never heard or read about from anyone else that tells what happened before the universe was created. They are written by Solomon, considered the wisest man on earth.  He was writing a chapter about wisdom when God revealed something to him that he wrote down right in the middle of the chapter. In our Bible it’s on page 761, Proverbs 8, named “In Praise of wisdom,” verses 22 to 30:

22-23. “From the beginning, I was with the Lord. I was there before he began to create the earth. At the very first, the Lord gave life to me.

24. “When I was born, there were no oceans or springs of water. My birth was before mountains were formed or hills were put in place.

26. “It happened long before God had made the earth of any of its fields or even the dust.

27. “I was there when the Lord put the heavens in place and stretched the sky over the surface of the sea.

28. “I was with him when he placed the clouds in the sky and created the things that fill the ocean.

29. “I was there when he set boundaries for the sea to make it obey him, and when he lay the foundations for the earth.

30. “I was right beside the Lord, helping him plan and build. I made him happy every day, and I was happy by his side. I was pleased with his world and pleased with its people.”

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My understanding of this is that that God’s Being grew another dimension when he began to plan for the Earth and for all of us. A man becomes a father when he has a son, and his mind, heart and time are involved in new ways they never were before. In this sense, God became both father and son, thinking, planning, caring for the people he would make, and the world — the universe he would put us in. Another translation of the last verse reads that the son was “…rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.”

Jews do not believe Jesus was the Son of God, but their earliest scholars knew from the start that God is a Trinity — three persons in one — we say they are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When the first man and woman sinned, God promised that a woman’s descendant would fight with evil — the one we call Satan. We believe this is our perfect Jesus, born of Mary by God’s Holy Spirit, who never sinned, won over Satan when he died for our sins so all who believe in him will be without sin. Only these can come into a perfect Heaven to live with God the Father, Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who comes to live in the hearts of those of us  who love God. Genesis 3:15.

The part of the Bible that was written before Jesus was born was written in Herbrew by Jews. When Jesus was born, the whole world was speaking and writing in Greek. Now we have translations in many languages that often differ. We can look up the defininiton of words in Hebrew or in Greek in a concordance to find more of the original meaning.