Also they teach that the Word, that is, the Son of God, took unto him man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably joined together in unity of person; one Christ, true God and true man: who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that he might reconcile the Father unto us, and might be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.

The same also descended into hell, and truly rose again the third day. Afterward he ascended into the heavens, that he might sit at the right hand of the Father; and reign forever, and have dominion over all creatures; might sanctify those that believe in him, by sending the Holy Spirit into their hearts, who shall rule [sanctify, purify, strengthen], comfort, and quicken them, and shall defend them against the devil, and the power of sin.

The same Christ shall openly come again, to judge the quick and the dead, according as he Apostles’ Creed declareth these and other things.

Everything’s pretty standard, but something’s missing. And that something is villains. Article 3 is the first article so far in which no enemies of the faith are named and condemned.

(Source here.)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was waste and empty; darkness on the surface of the abyss. And the Spirit of God hovered [or brooded] upon the face of the waters.

After a detailed construction process, he brought the world into a state of order. Then he made a gan, a pardes, an orchard, a walled-in garden, in which he put the man and woman. Failing to follow his regulations, the people messed things up and were expelled, no longer allowed to come in the garden’s eastward entrance. The godly line, continued through Seth, Enoch, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and company moved, through a long and painful process, toward restoration with God. God took humanity out of a sea of human chaos and, cooperating with them, created a Temple, a walled-in building, its inside an artificial model of the original garden of mankind, complete with palm-branches and cherubim and gold.

The book of Isaiah grapples powerfully with God allowing Israel to fold in the chaos-ocean of international politics. Isaiah digs down into creation imagery as a way to explain God’s attitude and plans for all this:

As birds hovering [or flying, or covering (their young)], so will יהוה of Hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver; he will pass over and preserve it.

God, hovering over it all, rebuilt the Temple. It was near this second temple that Jesus picked up this train of thought yet again, and said:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you: how often I would have gathered your children together, as a hen her brood under-wing, and you would not!

Jesus was reaching into a tradition of imagery stretching all the way back to Eden. And that’s why everyone should learn Isaiah — the New Testament references it, a lot.

1. Unlike the pagan and Jewish cultures from which the early Christians came, the early Christians had almost no variations in their belief about resurrection.

2. Whereas resurrection was important in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, it was a peripheral topic in the eyes of first-century Jews. To Christians, however, both the resurrection of Christ and the final resurrection of his people were central.

3. Early Christians articulated an unusual but consistent view of the resurrection body as physical and recognizable but possessing some properties very different from those of the pre-resurrection body. The dichotomy because the psychikos body and the pneumatikos soma, though not thoroughly described in the NT, nevertheless may be found throughout it.

4. Judaism looked forward to a one-shot resurrection, but Christianity split the resurrection into two stages: Jesus resurrecting as the firstfruits from the dead, and the future general resurrection as the second stage.

5. Rather than signaling the end of all time, the resurrection of Jesus was seen as the inauguration of a new body and work in the world.

6. The biblical metaphor of the resurrection as the return of Israel from exile is remarkably absent from early Christian discussion of the resurrection, which is seen as an issue tied to mankind in all its ethnicities.

7. Christianity ties resurrection and messianic status together, whereas first-century Judaism does no such thing.

Wright then argues that the only adequate explanation for this shift in approaches to the resurrection was the actual observed resurrection of Jesus Christ, leaving behind an empty tomb. Lest I rewrite the book, I’ll skim very briefly through these, but write argues that the absence of Old Testament references in all four resurrection narratives argues against the resurrection being constructed to fulfill prophecy, that the record of female eyewitnesses and their subsequent omission by Paul argue that the embarrassing nature of female witnesses is not something made up by the writers, that the description of what Wright calls the ‘trans-physicality’ of the resurrection body is inexplicable as an invention, and that the relationship of the gospels with other Christian literature seems to indicate Christian theology being built on the resurrection stories, and not the opposite. Wright also shoots down a variety of revisionist attempts to explain away the resurrection. By this time, Wright argues, we are stuck with a situation in which the only explanation which does justice to the available evidence is the perfectly monstrous assertion that a man was genuinely raised from the dead. Wright’s discussion of whether such a thing is ‘scientifically possible’, though I won’t summarize it here, is a worthwhile exploration of epistemology.

Well, that’s Part 1, anyhow. I’m partly through Part 2, but I’d rather not discuss it till I’ve finished it.

Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

Praying for fast and pretty feet seems, well, shallow, if the biblical allusion is not explained. The words make sense, however, if one is familiar with Romans 10. Paul, writing about the need for proclamation of the gospel, says,

For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those announce the good news of peace, who announce joyful news of good things!’

Paul, to underscore the importance of the proclamation of the gospel, uses an excellent bit of imagery from Isaiah to illustrate. He is quoting a passage from Isaiah 52, where Isaiah is dealing with the problem of Israel’s exile. Looking forward to a day when Jehovah would set straight all that was wrong in the world, Isaiah drew a picture of a return, a time when God’s people would no longer be oppressed. He pictured the news of Jehovah’s triumph spreading, as news did in those days, on the swift feet of messengers the victory and reign of Jehovah throughout the earth.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the bringer of good news, who makes known salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your god reigns!’ 8 The voice of the watchmen! They lift up their voice; together they sing: for they will see eye to eye when Jehovah returns to Zion. 9 Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem, because Jehovah has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jersualem. 10 Jehovah has made bare his holy arm to the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our god.

The prophet, of course, is not excited about the visual attractiveness of feet. The ‘feet of the bringer of good news’ is the poetic image of the coming glorious day of Jehovah. It is the solution to the problem of exile. For Paul, the true end of exile, the victory of God, and the proclamation of the victory of God were all being worked out through the spreading of the gospel. This, for Paul, inaugurated the reign of God (or, kingdom of God) which the prophets had looked forward too.

Now, when we sing, ‘Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee,’ we know what we’re singing about. We are praising God for bringing us back from the oppression of the world, we are thanking him for establishing his kingdom among us, and we are asking him to make us effective bringers of that good news to the world around us.

As Christianity post-Jesus (I mean that in a limited sense) began to emerge, the Church discovered that its generosity was breeding a peculiar group of folk who did nothing but gossip and live off church generosity.  And so Paul, without abandoning the original gospel orientation toward generosity, worked towards shaping an attitude and set of church practices which would preserve the original spirit of generosity while seeking to remove the incentive towards laziness.  In one of his letters he gives a view of the Church’s developing stance toward finances.  And now I’ll quit talking and let Paul have his say.  2 Thessalonians 3:

1 Finally, brothers [and sisters], pray for us, so that the word of the Lord might spread speedily and be glorified, as it has been among you, 2 and that you may be delivered from the unreasonable and evil men [who seek to persecute you], for not all are of the faith. 3 The Lord is reliable;  he will build you up and guard you from evil. 4 We are confident about you in the Lord, that you do and will continue to do what we command you. 5 May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the patience of Christ.

6 We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how it is right for you to imitate us, for we did not act disorderly among you. 8 We did not eat bread free of charge from anyone, but in labor and toil we worked not and day so as not to be a burden to any of you. 9 This is not because we did not have authority, but in order to give you an example to imitate us. 10 Even when we were with you we commanded you that if anyone refuses to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear about certain people walking disorderly, never working, but meddling in the business of others. 12 We command and exhort these people through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work quietly and eat their own bread. 13 And you, brothers, do not become tired of doing good.  14 If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, take note of this person, and do not keep company with him, so that he might be ashamed. 15 Don’t regard him as an enemy, but rather correct him as a brother.

16 And may the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The Lord be with you all. 17 This is the greeting which I, Paul, have written by my own hand, signing it as I do every letter.  This is how I write. 17 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.

1 After these things Tobiah went on his way, praising God that he had given him a prosperous journey.  He blessed Raguel and Edna his wife, and went on his way until they approached Nineveh.  2 Then Raphael said to Tobiah, “You know, brother, how you left your father.  3  Let us hurry on ahead of your wife to prepare the house.  4 And take in your hand the gall of the fish.

Remember that Tobiah’s father, Tobit, is blind, and that the gall of this particular fish is supposed to heal the eyes of Tobit.  Admittedly this is a weird concept, and some Protestants have gone so far as to call it witchcraft, and use this incident to condemn the Roman Catholics as heretics.  The reasoning they use is that by giving the fish-gall power that ought to belong only to God, the story of Tobit shows its pagan influences.  Though I certainly don’t hold Tobit to be inspired, and I can’t even rule out the possibility of some pagan influence, it would seem to me that it’s unfair to call this an example of witchcraft.  For the Bible uses physical things for strange purposes in a number of places.  Before we try to pick at the Catholic speck of fish-gall, let us remember the plank in our own eye.  Consider the way in which mere contact with the bones of Elisha raised a dead man (2 Kings 13:21).  Remember that a stick cast into a running stream caused metal to float (2 Kings 6).  Recall that Jesus used a mixture of spittle and mud for healing (John 9).  If we do not believe the deuterocanonical books to be inspired and infallible, let us say so.  Let’s even argue about it if we must.  But let’s not use unfair reasoning to advance our case, lest we become followers of Jack Chick instead of Jesus Christ.

So they went their way, and the dog went after them.

I wish we knew more about this dog.  Perhaps he’s the only dog in all the canonicals and deuterocanonical books to be portrayed in a positive light.

Now Anna sat looking around toward the road for her son.  6 And when she spotted him coming, she said to his father, “Look–your son’s coming, and the man who went with him!”

7 Then Raphael said, “I know, Tobiah, that your father will open his eyes.  8 Therefore anoint his eyes with the gall, and when he feels the sting he will rub them, and the whiteness will fall away, and he will see.”

9 Then Anna ran out and fell upon her son’s neck, and said to him, “Now that I have seen you, my son, from now on I may die in peace.”  And they both wept.

10 Tobit also went out toward the door, and stumbled, but his son ran to him, 11 and took hold of his father, and sprinkled the call on his father’s eyes, saying, “Have good hope, my father.”

12 And when his eyes began to smart, he rubbed them, 13 and the whiteness peeled away from the corners of his eyes, and when he saw his son, he fell upon his neck.  14 And he wept, and said, “Blessed are you, O God, and blessed is your name forever, and blessed are all your holy angels.  15 For you have scourged, and have taken pity on me, for behold, I see my son Tobiah.  And his son went in rejoicing, and told his father the great things that had happened to him in Media.  16 Then Tobit went out to meet his daughter-in-law at the gate of Nineveh, rejoicing and praising God.  Those who saw him marvelled, because he had received his sight.  17 But Tobiah gave thanks before them, because God had mercy on him.  And when [Tobit] came near to Sarah his daughter-in-law, he blessed her, saying, “You are welcome, daughter.  May God be blessed, who has brought you to us, and blessed be your father and your mother.  And all his brethren at Nineveh were filled with joy.  18 And Achiacharus came, as did and Nasbas his brother’s son.  19 And Tobiah’s wedding was kept seven days with great joy.

So we’ve had a beginning, a set of problems (specifically the demon Asmodeus, the poverty, and the blindness), and now all is solved and happy.  The book could just end here.  But it doesn’t.  There’s a few more chapters.  But Joel warned me not to skip them, so I shall post on them starting Monday.  Have a great afternoon (or whatever time of day or night you might happen to read this).

1)  There is a God, and he is, more specifically, the kind of God the knowledge of whom has been passed down to us generations by generations, first through personal experience, then through Judaism, and then through Christianity.

2)  Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  He was sent to earth, God in human flesh, a carpenter’s son, the savior of the world.  The doctrine of the Trinity, passed down as it traditionally has been in over the centuries, cannot explain everything about God to us, but the God-in-three-persons view as traditionally taught is true.

3)  The story of Jesus Christ as expressed in the gospels and the ancient creeds, is true and non-negotiable.  He was born of a virgin, he preached the good news on earth, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, he was crucified, he was buried, he was dead in the ground, and on the third day he rose, having conquered Death, he spoke to his disciples for forty days, he ascended into heaven, and he will return as the Scriptures tell us.

4)  After leaving his disciples, Christ gave the Church his Holy Spirit to guide his followers into all truth.  Through all the chaos in the world, God is nevertheless leading his people towards himself.

5)  God left for us the Bible, which speaks to us and continues to guide us into all truth.  It is a gift of God, and speaks to us even today.  It is perfect and filled with insight.  It ultimately has no errors, although it is true that it has been handed down by fallible men and taught by fallible men and developed over time.  I do not claim to understand this process completely.

6) God has left the Church upon the earth as a community of all believers worldwide, in order to pass on his message and fill his earth with communities who believe in and worship him, and lead others into a relationship with both God and others.  God is doing this because he wishes to restore humanity.

7)  God does not reject thinking;  rather, he gave it to us.  Any group, Christian or not, which encourages its members to take all their thinking and information only from inside its own narrow sources is lying to itself and its followers.  Coercion in thinking, whether scientific or religious or otherwise, is an enemy of the truth.  A group which maintains ideas through coercion, physical, monetary, or otherwise, no matter how intelligent its spokesmen may seem, must forever be held in extreme suspicion, until its ideas are able to be challenged in the open.

8)  We cannot simply use logic to produce beliefs out of a vacuum, nor can we suppose that if we merely use the right thought-techniques we will necessarily be right all the time about everything.  That’s arrogant nonsense.  Instead, the formation of our worldview and beliefs is a constant accumulation and selection process as we assign differing weights to various ideas we take in from tradition, from community, from logical examination, and from the careful comparison of contradictory ideas to see which hold weight.  Caution and care must be applied, and we must recognize just how tentative our ideas have.

9)  It is the worst kind of foolishness to pretend that we can plan out on our own the lives of other people, or that we can comprehend enough to forcibly direct other people’s activities.  It is also absurd to imagine that we can control other people in a world where God has created free will.  Any such attempts will result in disaster;  and thus I dismiss as silliness any societal engineering.

10)  People are profoundly depraved, and they will almost always act and think in their own selfish interests, even when they think they are being unselfish.  To analyze the incentive systems people exist under will go quite far toward allowing understanding of what they do.

11)  Things don’t just happen randomly.  Patterns are everywhere.  Everywhere.  And it’s our job to find them.

The story goes thusly:  The Knights Templars, a secretive religious association of the Middle Ages, are said to have had a fort.  In that fort, a nail has recently been found.  What is amazing about this is that the nail is believed to date from the 1st century A.D., the same time that Jesus was crucified.  In addition, nails don’t last that long ‘in the wild,’ so it is theorized that the Knights Templar must have cared for it, as an important religious relic. And what religious nail could be more important than one which pierced Christ himself? It’s all speculative at this point, but it’s not altogether impossible that it’s genuine, as far as I know. (See update below)

Now all this is fascinating, but the good news is that for us as Christians, it does not deeply matter whether we find out the nail is genuine, a forgery, or forever in doubt. This is because our faith based on nothing less, as the song tells us, than “Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” and does not rely on the existence of anyone or anything else. On Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand. And that’s good news.

And if the the classic hymn isn’t your sort of thing, how about the way Rich Mullins put it in ‘While the Nations Rage‘:

Where are the nails that pierced His hands?
Well the nails have turned to rust but behold the Man
He is risen
And He reigns
In the hearts of the children rising up in His name
Where are the thorns that drew His blood?
Well the thorns have turned to dust but not so the love
He has given
No it remains
In the hearts of the children who will love
While the nations rage

UPDATE: Claude Mariottini reports that the whole things a bunch of nonsense.

(19) There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and lived it up luxuriously every day.  (20) And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who was laid at his gate, covered with sores.  (21)  And longed to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.  And the dogs came and licked his sores.  (22)  And so it was, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.  The rich man also died and was buried.  (23) And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus on his bosom.  (24)  And he cried out and said, Father Abraham!  Have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that the may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.  (25)  But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and so also Lazarus received evil things;  but now he is comforted, and you are tormented.  (26)  And besides all this, there is a great gap set between us and you, so that anyone who might want go pass over from here to you cannot, nor can they pass over to us, who would come from there.  (27)  Then he said, Please, Father, send him to my father’s house–(28) for I have five brothers–that he may be a witness to them, so that they don’t also come to this place of torment.  (29)  Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the Prophets.  Let them hear them.  (30)  And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone went to them from the dead, they will repent.  (31)  And he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, they would not be persuaded even if someone rose from the dead.