Sacred Sharp and Pointy Object

Mar Ephraim the Syrian tied together the sword of the cherub in Genesis 3:24 and the lance of the Roman Soldier in John 19:34 Blessed be the Merciful One---who saw the lance beside Paradise---which barred the way to the Tree of Life. And he came and took him a body, that was wounded, that by the opening of his side he might open a way INTO PARADISE--St Ephraim the Syrian, Nativity Hymns 8:4 He just unpacks the Tree of Life, the swords, the Tree of Life. Elsewhere, St Ephraim preaching about holy sharp and pointy objects says: The lance of Phineas filled me with fear, that sword, with which he excluded the plague. The lance that guarded the Tree of Life make me joyful yet sad, for it excluded Adam from Life yet excluded the plague from the People. But the lance which wounded JESUS, I grieve for it; he was wounded, and I weep. From Him came forth water and blood; Adam washed, came to life and returned to paradise.--CNis 39,7 Then Cyrillona, St Ephrem's successor and maybe nephew wrote: The sickle cuts the vine and streams of water flow down it; the lance pierced Christ and streams of Mercy flowed to us--Cyrillona, Memra on the Pasch, 363-6 (Syr, Bickell, p 581/; tr. Vona, pp. 111-12)

Mormonism and worshiping Jesus 2 Nephi 25:29

The Mormons sometimes say "we also worship Jesus." However, this is a common careless slip, since Mormonism discourages and rejects Jesus worship and says they only worship Heavenly Father. This is odd since the Book of Mormon gives explicit instructions to worship Jesus:

And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out.--2 Nephi 25:29

But the common Mormon response and interpretation is that "worship" means being "in awe of" and "honor." This can be summed up with former LDS member of the Quorum of the Twelve, "Apostle/Elder" Bruce R McConkie who stated:

1. We worship the Father and him only and no one else.
We do not worship the Son, and we do not worship the Holy Ghost. I know perfectly well what the scriptures say about worshipping Christ and Jehovah, but they are speaking in an entirely different sense—the sense of standing in awe and being reverentially grateful to him who has redeemed us. Worship in the true and saving sense is reserved for God the first, the Creator.--Bruce R McConkie, Our Relationship with the Lord, March 2, 1982

So to be clear, Mormons only worship "Heavenly Father." Not the Son, and certainly not the Holy Ghost--a person Mormons do not even know where He came from (The Father, a brother of the Father, somewhere else?)

The problem with the usual Mormon interpretation of this verse is that it does fine to explain away one word--worship, but does nothing to explain the rest of the verse that says, "worship him with all your might, mind, and strength." This is obviously something the Bible says about God the Father, a point some LDS know so they construe the verse as being about worship the Father in "Jesus' Name" though the verse is strictly about Jesus. If you are told to worship Jesus with all that you have--your might, mind, and strength, what else is left? That is everything, which means that is the same worship that the Father is to be given! Even, the Doctrine and Covenants, another one of the many Mormon additions to Scripture refers to the same verse in the Torah Deuteronomy 6 when it says:

 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.--Doctrine and Covenants 4:2

And again in,

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him”--Doctrine and Covenants 59:5

To a Mormon when the D&C says "God" that means "heavenly Father." So why is Jesus being given worship that Mormons say should only be given to Heavenly Father? To make things even more confusing--to the LDS Jehovah is the Old Testament name of Jesus, which the D&C often just uses "Lord" for. D&C 59:5 also seems to contradict 2 Nephi 25:29 which says to worship Jesus with all your might, mind and strength, but here in D&C 59:5 it makes a distinction between "Lord the God" and "Jesus Christ" that it says you worship God in the name of. But if we were to look at Deuteronomy 6:4 in Hebrew it uses the word transliterated as Jehovah.

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

וְאָהַבְתָּ, אֵת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכָל-לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל-נַפְשְׁךָ, וּבְכָל-מְאֹדֶךָ 

 יְהוָה is the Hebrew spelling for LORD/Jehovah/YHWH. So, the verse is saying to worship Jesus, is we accept the LDS interpretation Jehovah=Jesus. LDS.org on who Jehovah is, in the

Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel Teacher Manual, 2015 states:

"In testifying of the Savior Jesus Christ, modern prophets have declared: “He was the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament” (“The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles,” Ensign or Liahona, Apr. 2000, 2). Jesus Christ, as Jehovah, established Heavenly Father’s everlasting gospel on the earth in every dispensation of time in order to gather in every one of God’s children who were lost."--Lesson 5: Jesus Christ Was Jehovah of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel Teacher Manual, 2015

But, even if we were to pretend Jehovah is not meant in the verse in 2 Nephi 25:29, it still renders to Jesus something Latter Day Saint theology says is reserved for Heavenly Father alone.

Jesus, Barabbas, Revolutionaries

 BarAbbas/Bar Abba was a type of the Great Antichrist just like Muhammad. BarAbbas means "son of the father" in Aramaic and his name in some manuscripts (Alexandrian of Matthew 27:17) was also "Jesus." The Nation and the Romans chose a false "son of the father" instead of the Christ. On top of that, Barabbas is described as being in prison for being:

^" a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city, and for murder."--Luke 23:19

A sort of type of the "man of lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Whereas, Jesus accused the money changers being in the temple as turning the House of God into a Though the People certainly did not think of Barabbas as a messiah (though maybe they saw some Messiah potential in him", the fact he was imprisoned for being a "revolutionary" (like the two thieves/revolutionaries that died along side Christ) certainly is more in line with what many in the Israel at the time of Christ and after were looking for--another Judas Maccabeus that would free Israel from pagan rule and reestablish the Jewish nation as a self ruling state. Much of the Jewish clergy convinced the People to pick a wicked man who was called the "son of the father" just like the rabbinate of Rav Akivah's generation 100 years later thought Bar Kozivah [Khokbah] would/did achieve 'messiah status' since he established a led a Jewish revolt that temporarily may have made a Jewish state and made himself hannasi (prince/president) for 3 years before being annihilated by the Romans (again).

Ironically, Jesus was the one that taught people to pay taxes and claimed His kingdom was not of this world, but was betrayed by people who were supposed to be part of His kingdom--the priests and elders of the people and his own apostle--Judas, whose name is symbolic, and his death by having his bowels gush open in a potters field even more symbolic and was how the Nation would suffer for rejecting God and did when the Roman army came and destroyed Jerusalem 40 years later. 40 years also being a symbolic time period of repentance.

Jesus was executed for the same crime he accused other people of (a lot)--being a LEESTEES--robber/thief/revolutionary. Barabba, and the two "thieves" (same word used for a revolutionary) were all convicted of the same crime. Jesus accused people that pushed for his execution beforehand of turning the Temple into a "cave of LEESTON" (robbers/revolutionaries). When Jesus was arrested he even referred to this. John 10 even talks about people trying to steal sheep by sneaking in not using the gate as being a "thief and a robber (leestees)" referring to failed messiahs.

So in the end, Jesus was executed on charges of treason/insurrection by declaring to be a King, although the people hated the Roman King--Caesar, they said he was the real king and must be followed. Jesus the one that told people to pay their taxes and accepted Roman soldiers and tax collectors was executed for treason, and Pilate the governor freed a revolutionary at the urging of the same people that demanded Jesus be executed for being....a revolutionary. So Pilate executed a man that recognized Roman authority and discouraged revolution in order to prevent a revolution, and freed the guy that wanted a revolution.

But, in the end, perhaps Jesus was the biggest threat and biggest revolutionary since after Jesus' died His followers would gain control of the empire, ousting pagan authority, but in order for this to happen--Jesus had to die and resurrect from the dead.

Pilate really had no good solution.

Global Warming, Jehovah Witness, and Earth destroyed by Fire

The North Pole has been expelling gas which in turn causes global warming, but the expelled methane was caused by global warming, and global warming is mostly caused (in my opinion, since Mars experiences the same rate of global warming as the Earth) by the dense ball of burning hydrogen gas we float around called the Sun.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4804
The warmer temperatures in the arctic causes the ice to melt, so all the decomposed plants thaw and convert to methane, which fuels the process that causes more thawing. I wonder if the North Pole will revert back to being a tropical climate like it was millions of years ago. Sea levels have been rising for thousands of years. The main way we even have ground water supplies in aquafers/aquatards is from cycles of millions of years of climate change that thaws and freezes soil causing layers of water in the earth.
It could be humans are just making climate change go faster, or maybe slower, either way it does not matter, the Earth does what it wants in the end. Land, houses, islands will be lost, glaciers will melt people and animals will die.

Eventually, our sun will burn up more and more hydrogen, and burn progressively hotter until its about out and turn into a red giant start that will literally be so big it burns the Earth up killing anything that survives, then again first pope said the earth and the elements will be burned by fire almost 2000 years ago.

the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out... the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire--2 Peter 3:10,12

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/…/65-what-will-happen-to-l…

The Bible and many of the ancient pagan religions seemed to know we were all at the mercy of the sun which caused people to worship God or the Sun. But in these times humans made themselves into gods and believe they are completely at fault for global warming and think they can end it, too bad the Sun doesn't care what we do, its just going to burn brighter, hotter and get bigger until all burn up. The Pope even recently wrote about the modern issues of Anthropocentrism and relativism when talking about the environment in Laudato Si.



Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness of you, Most High.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather
through whom you give sustenance to your creatures.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night,
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong--St Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents

LDS $3 bill

A picture taken from BYU's webpage, literally showing a $3 bill produced by the Deseret Currency Association--with Mormon Prophet/President/Seer/Revelator Brigham Young signature at the bottom.

 Notice at the top of the note is literally an image of sheep getting fleeced, for those that do not know--Mormonism requires members to pay 10% of their income (among other things) in order to be considered worthy to enter the temple and become a god. In fact, Mormon Sunday schools even to this day say, "pay your tithe or burn." Mormon scripture has Jesus saying,

 "Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming."--Doctrine and Covenants 64:23

Also, interesting, its generally recognized that the LDS increased the amount of what tithing should be. Movements that broke with the LDS like the RLDS (Community of Christ) only require a 10% tithe of a person's "increase" whereas the LDS want a flat 10% of everything before taxes--wards leaders will even confront people before and after the chapel service on Sunday saying they need to discuss their tithing.

City of Los Angeles "helps" homeless by taking homes

UPDATE: The City of LA claims it will return the mini homes. Of course, the city only treats the homeless fairly when FORCED to by courts, even knowing in advance this will happen.

The City of Los Angeles continues its long, cherished custom of treating homeless people with the most contempt possible under the guise of "helping" them to find "shelter" by taking their shelter.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seized-20160224-story.html

Pope kissing the hands of David Rockefeller?

There is a very silly claim going around anti-Catholic forums (particularly in Spanish) this week that the Pope kissed the hands of David Rockefeller--"proving" the Pope is in the New World Order and other secret, nefarious organizations. The picture however is taken in 2014 at Yad Vashem--Holocaust memorial in Israel. The man the pope is kissing is an elderly Holocaust survivor named Eliezer (Lolek) Grynfeld.

The video can be seen in full where they announce the man people claim is David Rockefeller.

 The meeting with Eliezer, or as some falsely claim--David Rockefeller is at 16:12. The name is clearly said. The Youtube video is on the official page of Yad Vashem.

The English translation of the event is found here, where you can read for yourself what is said about Eliezer Grynfeld.

Why I abandoned Peshitta Aramaic Primacy long ago

The Peshitta Text is a manuscript of the Bible (sometimes Old Testament, sometimes Old and New Testament, with or without the catholic epistles) that is generally believed to have been written between roughly the 4th and 5th centuries, with the disputed 'catholic' epistles/books included by AD 616. Some believe, however, the Peshitta text to be the original version of the New Testament written by the New Testament writers preserved. For a while I believed this might be true, in part because of the language which matched the language likely spoken in 1st century Israel and the deceitful arguments made by Peshitta Aramaic primacists. Though I generally doubt the Peshitta text is original, and now agree with what scholars have been saying for a while--that the Peshitta is a translation of the Greek text, I still believe what St Jerome said is true--that Matthew, possible the Letter to the Hebrews, were originally in Aramaic, but whether or not the Peshitta text preserves this--I do not know.

Some of the reasons I no longer believe in Peshitta primacy are

1) When the New Testament translates Aramaic words, the Peshitta text strangely seems to also. If the Peshitta were the originally, it would not see to repeat itself when explaining Aramaic, this would seem more likely of a work that was done by a scribe careful, not wanting to leave any thing out, no matter how silly. For instance, whenever the Aramaic word Abba/Ava appears in the Greek Testament, thanks to dukhrana.com:

 ܘܶܐܡܰܪ ܐܰܒ݂ܳܐ ܐܳܒ݂ܝ ܟ݁ܽܠ ܡܶܕ݁ܶܡ ܡܶܫܟ݁ܰܚ ܐܰܢ݈ܬ݁ ܐܰܥܒ݁ܰܪ ܡܶܢܝ ܟ݁ܳܣܳܐ ܗܳܢܳܐ ܐܶܠܳܐ ܠܳܐ ܨܶܒ݂ܝܳܢܝ ܕ݁ܺܝܠܝ ܐܶܠܳܐ ܕ݁ܺܝܠܳܟ݂ --Mark 14:36 in Peshitta

 (Hebrew transliteration of Peshitta)וֵאמַר אַבָא אָבי כֻּל מֵדֵּם מֵשׁכַּח אַנתּ אַעבַּר מֵני כָּסָא הָנָא אֵלָא לָא צֵביָני דִּילי אֵלָא דִּילָכ

 And he said: Father, my Father, thou canst do all things. Let this cup pass from me. Yet not my pleasure, but thine. --Lamsa Translation

  και ελεγεν αββα ο πατηρ παντα δυνατα σοι παρενεγκε το ποτηριον απ εμου τουτο αλλ ου τι εγω θελω αλλα τι συ --Greek Text

He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” --RSV from Greek Text

It seems strange that the Aramaic would read awkwardly "father, my father" both in Aramaic, when the Greek text reads "Abba o pateer." With Abba/avva being obviously Aramaic, and pateer being the Greek translation of abba.  The Peshitta here looks just too phony. We see similar occurring at Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6.

2) Greek loan words when the Greek text does not even use those words. For instance Acts 2:42 and Acts 20:7 in Aramaic uses the Greek word "eucharisteo" whereas the Greek text it self uses "breaking of the bread"

 ܘܐܡܝܢܝܢ ܗܘܘ ܒܝܘܠܦܢܐ ܕܫܠܝܚܐ ܘܡܫܬܘܬܦܝܢ ܗܘܘ ܒܨܠܘܬܐ ܘܒܩܨܝܐ ܕܐܘܟܪܣܛܝܐ

Acts 2:42 - ואמינין הוו ביולפנא דשׁליחא ומשׁתותפין הוו בצלותא ובקציא דאוכרסטיא .

Acts 2:42 - And they persevered in the doctrine of the legates; and were associated together in prayer, and in breaking the eucharist (translation from Aramaic).

Acts 2:42 - ησαν δε προσκαρτερουντες τη διδαχη των αποστολων και τη κοινωνια και τη κλασει του αρτου και ταις προσευχαις


tbc