Thomas enjoyed an ability to run off the neighborhood kids by just looking at them, but even he was surprised that Moshe’s one year old daughter was old enough to have the sense to start crying when their eyes met. Unfortunately not only was the girl precocious, but the memory of her eyes acted on Thomas like a match lighting up horrendous nightmares.
When Thomas was finally too afraid to go to sleep and ready to try anything he sought Moshe’s advice complaining about his dreams. With Thomas’s permission Moshe commanded, “All you demons influencing, tormenting, terrorizing or generally messing with my neighbor, Thomas, – LEAVE HIM – BaShem Yeshua HaMashiach!” Thomas fell to the ground screaming out demons like vomit.
After the demons left Moshe helped Thomas to his feet and explained to him the changes he would have to make to keep them from returning with reinforcements.
In the photo above of the trail, I knelt down to get a different view of the railings. This was taken many years ago on the Barr Trail in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
In the photo below I pretended I was a pigeon. I got down very low and focused on the ground. This was also taken many years ago somewhere in Europe.
Bob Sorensen used the phrase “dust-to-Darwin” to describe evolution. This phrase succinctly describes the mythopoetic rationalization underlying evolutionary speculations. It brings two contrary things to mind. First, the word dust brings to mind Genesis 2:7 where we have a “dust-to-Adam” creation by God. Second, the word Darwin brings to mind those who promote a mindless, deterministic/random evolutionary explanation of how we got here.
The dust-to-Darwin problem is the realization that the speculations attempting to replace Genesis are no longer plausible, if they ever were. The problem for atheistic speculations is that science never has been on the side of atheism in spite of it being institutionally force-fed. That’s because experimental science doesn’t sit still. Scientists, some of them witlessly, keep pushing down the atheist fencing, because that fencing doesn’t fit reality.
For example, although mutations in DNA might look like the driving force of evolution, look closer and they point to genetic entropy and single, recent male and female ancestors. Although the fossil column might look like it could be dated to be hundreds of millions of years old, look closer and that dating falls apart when scientists estimate the entire geologic record would be eroded away in a mere ten million years assuming measured rates of erosion. Experimental science measured this entropy and erosion. Those measurements undermined speculative philosophy’s attempts to justify atheism.
Even more fundamentally, the dust-to-Darwin problem is that the philosophy of atheism offers no plausible way for any kind of dust to get here in the first place without God. It presents no plausible explanation for how that dust came alive without God. It has no plausible way to explain why men and women are inhabiting earth right now without God.
But the most serious part of the dust-to-Darwin problem comes when normal, ordinary people realize that they have been deceived, fooled into filtering reality through atheistic mythology.
The darkness blinding us has gone. We know the Lord as we are known. Face to face we finally see soaring past all mystery. The part we could not see is shown.
1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.“
Thomas longed to live in harmony with his neighbors but none of them deserved it. Everywhere he turned they would rush off just as he was warming up to explain again what they were doing wrong. They reminded him of those rats in his yard scurrying from one neglected debris pile to another.
In the evening, feeding on beer and popcorn, Thomas set his thoughts on the day’s alleged news and contentious commentary until he could stand it no longer and let his wagging tongue off its leash. At such breaking points he would rise, pace the floor, open his mouth, and without a clear understanding of what his hardened heart was leading him to say curse the stale air of his living room. Demons loved to party there.
I was walking along the beach on Friday afternoon. The sun was hot. The sand was hot. If it warms up any more I will have to put my sandals back on. So I waded in the water along the beach and saw a small section where some seaweed (and other stuff) was moving to shore.
I have no idea why I took these two photos of the same seaweed. The hot sand gave me hope they might fit the prompt.
Another view of the same seaweed and debris floating to shore
23 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2 Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
The oral Torah is part of the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism in addition to the written Torah of the Bible. Not all Jews accept this second Torah. Those who don’t are called Karaite Jews.
Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew, described this oral Torah in the first half of the lecture below. Given Yeshua’s (Jesus’s) objections to the Pharisees he suspected Yeshua was an early Karaite Jew (although Christian and Messianic believers know He is much, much more).
Being also a Hebrew scholar who studied the Shem Tov Hebrew manuscript of Matthew as well as one who found other manuscript copies of it Gordon attempted to answer a question about Matthew 23:3 that has puzzled some. In spite of Yeshua’s objection to the oral Torah of the Pharisees why did He tell His disciples to do whatever “they bid you observe”?
Gordon observed that in the Hebrew manuscript of Matthew Yeshua told his disciples to do whatever “he” bid you observe where the “he” referred to Moses, not the Pharisees. If this section of the manuscript is more authentic, the puzzlement can be explained by a scribal error.
His explanation is in the second half of his talk starting about 1:15:50 in the video. For more details see his book, The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus.
I am grateful to Benjamin Andreessen’s very detailed posts on this and similar topics in his MeWe group Hebrew Shalom.
Seemingly faraway in time and space Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel and King Ahab and the wife of Jehoram son of King Jehoshaphat of the southern hill country.
She observed how her mother handled the problem of Naboth when he refused to trade his vineyard to please her father. In her husband’s name Jezebel directed two false witnesses to accuse Naboth of cursing God and king resulting in him being stoned to death. As her father took possession of the vineyard like windfall from the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden a prophet gave Ahab a piece of God’s mind.
That her mother got away with stuff like that bewitched Athaliah allowing toxic ingredients of cold-blooded manipulation to manifest. She was ready to usurp the reign of the southern hill country.
Dale offers the prompt “art from nature” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I chose a fall flower with a bug, a huge leaf with a heart-like center and the shapes that happen to sand when people walk on it.
Some people pronounce the divine name in the Bible represented by the four Hebrew letters, yud-hey-vav-hey, YHVH, יְהוָ֤ה, as “Yahweh”, but is that correct?
The following are some arguments in favor of Yehováh (accent marked on the last syllable to distinguish it from “Jehovah”) as the divine name.
Benjamin Andreessen in a recent post to his Hebrew Shalom MeWe group noted that Nehemia Gordon found manuscripts with full vowel pointings and cantillation marks for the divine name Yehováh. He also gives a brief history starting with the Samaritans and leading to Gesenius for why Yahweh might even be considered today as a possible ancient pronunciation suggesting there is not enough evidence to support it.
Navah provides an explanation favoring the Yehováh pronunciation and an explanation why the Hebrew letter vav would have been pronounced in ancient times with a “v” rather than a “w” sound as it is done by many Hebrew speakers today. He takes a different view of Gesenius than Gordon does.
The following video summarizes Al Garza’s argument for Yehováh.
Justin J. Van Rensburg created fifteen video responses to Gordon (see the Hebrew Gospels). His arguments are based on “ketiv qere perpetuum” explained in video 3, that some readings of the vowel pointings are gibberish explained in video 5 and a claim that the vav had a “w” pronunciation in ancient times in video 15.
Brown-Driver-Briggs constructed vowel pointings for the Yahweh sound, but that assumes the vav had a “w” sound in ancient times and the visible vowel pointings in the Masoretic text were faulty. They also used the JEDP documentary hypothesis to classify the evidence. Since I maintain that Moses wrote most of the Torah, I find what they have to say suspicious.
If anyone has more information, or a strong opinion one way or the other, you are welcome to comment.
There is a third position presented by the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues Steering Committee (One Law, Two Sticks, 1-15-2014, page 10) : The problem with praying to God by His so-called “sacred name,” was that nobody was really quite sure what it was. Some said it was “Jehovah,” while others decided it was “Yahweh,” and there were other forms as well. This position would prefer a title such as Lord or Adonai than a specific name.
Until recently this third position was the one I followed saying “Maythe Lord bless you” rather than may Yahweh or Yehováh bless you. However, it raises the question: Should I be invoking a title when the Hebrew text offers an explicit name?
This issue concerns me because I have unwittingly believed things that I later wished I had not. Until I read Andreessen discuss the “Yahweh heresy” and its suspected origins in “liberal Theology” I had no problem with the ancient Yahweh pronunciation although I didn’t use it. Now I wonder whether the introduction of Yahweh a couple of centuries ago had been part of a larger deception. I don’t want to be fooled any more.
In the video below Nehemia Gordon provided evidence for the divine name being Yehováh citing 16 rabbis who explicitly stated that the correct vowels were sheva, cholam, and kamatz. He did not find anywhere in the database of historical Jewish documents the name Yahweh (about 29:00 in the video). This is the view I now favor.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Tzav 16 Adar II, 5782 – March 19, 2022 Torah:Leviticus 6:1 – 8:36 Haftarah:Jeremiah 7:21-28; Jeremiah 9:22-23 Brit Chadashah:Hebrews 7:24 – 8:6 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 