Thru the Bible - Questions & Answerswith Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Questions & Answers #3063



Today it was conjectured that Adam did a noble thing by accompanying Eve out of the Garden.  That's interesting.  Something must have happened in between her eating and his, and McGee says it was man's last noble act, before the Fall.


Hmmm.

We also heard about the wife of Moses, from Cush or Ethiopia, and the multi-cultural nature of the Israelites and how they're told not to inter-marry comes up again.  I haven't followed the line of Moses, but I don't remember people saying they're descended from him as they do the twelve or thirteen.



Today, Summer has hit us like a lead brick.  Orlando is sweltering, and I'm glad I have a job indoors.


Job interview on Monday.


Annual Review in progress.

I'm typing without my glasses!  I can almost read it.  Well, I can read it, but things are not clear unless I blink some.

It strikes me clearly that if no one had been watching television, the city would not be in morning and would not have a recovery period or a crisis.

I know two people who each know someone who knew someone involved in the shooting.

Thru the Bible - Questions & Answerswith Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Questions & Answers #3063



Today it was conjectured that Adam did a noble thing by accompanying Eve out of the Garden.  That's interesting.  Something must have happened in between her eating and his, and McGee says it was man's last noble act, before the Fall.


Hmmm.

We also heard about the wife of Moses, from Cush or Ethiopia, and the multi-cultural nature of the Israelites and how they're told not to inter-marry comes up again.  I haven't followed the line of Moses, but I don't remember people saying they're descended from him as they do the twelve or thirteen.



Today, Summer has hit us like a lead brick.  Orlando is sweltering, and I'm glad I have a job indoors.


Job interview on Monday.


Annual Review in progress.

I'm typing without my glasses!  I can almost read it.  Well, I can read it, but things are not clear unless I blink some.

It strikes me clearly that if no one had been watching television, the city would not be in morning and would not have a recovery period or a crisis.

I know two people who each know someone who knew someone involved in the shooting.

Genesis 46

Very candidly, I'm shocked.  We're already in Genesis 46 and I still want to go back to Eden and slow it down.  Next time we'll have the introduction of Jacob and his sons to Pharoah and wouldn't that be a sight to see.  I think of Charlton Heston and that white white lady Ann Baxter who says "Moshes" a lot.  I think of Yul wh's different looking than all of them.  Egypt was a melting pot during the time of Cleopatra but what about then?  They're painted black and brown and white and yellow and blue and even green and red.  I don't think they cared about skin color but in Song os Solomon there is the bias against sun in terms of manual labor vs. a desired life of luxury indoors.  I don't know.  But I don't think Moses or Joseph looked very different from the people they were among.

Today Dr. J. Vernon McGee mentioned the abominable shepherds, and it got me thinking about the sheeple.  We all look alike from a distance anyway, and our world has made an idol of Jesus who never looked like that.  The Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep.  It's hard for me to imagine the Egyptians saying "Here's our profitable part of the land, take  it and our sheep."  But what was that prejudice between agriculture and ranching that is still real.  Can't the cowboy and the farmer get along?  

They’ve made an idol that doesn’t even look like the Lord Jesus  of the Bible. The one they talk about’s not virgin born,  never performed miracles, and he never died for the sins of the world and he wasn’t raised bodily.   Now may I say, that’s the Jesus of the liberals.  And he never lived.

That's how McGee put it.

As I see this age come to a close I see how it was never Christian.  But the idea of Jesus held some power to keep people interested in finding the real thing.  But it's only the real thing that ever mattered and it's not Coke.  Or coke.  

Orlando

I moved here years ago and as a tourist who became a resident, I have a pretty common vantagepoint from which to vew The City Beautiful.  It seems like everyone here is from somewhere else.  But of course, there is a dichotomy that separates those of us who haven't been here that long and thos old-timers who remember pre-Disney days.

Disney is the dividing point in our local history.



The excitement of Disney World coming to Florida is one of the first things I remember outside of my family. As my brain fills with information from living life, and dong what we do, I look back and try to remember things pre-kindergarten.  Leaving the home and heading off to Pixie Private School, I made my first forays  out of the nest.  I remember many things about our home, but they don't have markers with them.  I have no idea when it was that I climbed up on my Father's lap and he decided I was too old for that.  Was that before kindergarten?  I don't know when my cousin woke up terrified in the middle of the night during a sleepover and couldn't find her bearings for a few minutes.  Was that after kindergarten?

But there are certain markers that connect my memories to the outside world, and the anticipation of Disney World opening is one.

I remember being told as a class that it was 1972 and Nixon was president.

I remember waking up from dream promptings to watch Saturday cartoons and the day we were jumping in the car and heading off to Disney World for the first time.  Those connections to the outside world were so strong for me that they invaded my sleep and I would tell myself to wake up and get on with the day because they weren't just ordinary days and it was time to get moving.


After Orlando has made the news a few days in the row, I search for connections.  We have two gun activities right after one another, and now we have a Disney tragedy too.  So what are the connections there?

YouTube provides many answers that are all interesting.  But I know that just because I can connect them, it doesn't mean the events are connected.  It's fascinating.  And it's one big jumble of confused words.  It's a Babel.  There are guns used all the time.  And some make the news.  Some of those are picked up and spread more than others.  They're telling us what they want us to know.  And there are a few reasons why the outside media wants us to know certain things.

I'm listening to people combine their thoughts about each topic and miss the facts and coalesce their feelings around ideas that they already believe.  They're pointing out the connections between guns and groups or guns and individuals.  They already think something and they're hanging bits and pieces of facts upon that framework.  I suppose there are times when people switch frameworks but for the most part the paradigm is already there and lo and behold, we find the facts that support our position.

Yesterday I'm teaching a physics simulator to kids and I mention that they can test a hyposthesis here without a mess.  We can do many things in a simulator instantly and without cost, since it is a computer program, and that could free us up to make many hypotheses and test them quickly, as opposed to building a laboratory or a factory, etc.  But what do we want to do?  We want to play with the bright colors and create designs that have no value other than artistic play- which is a great thing- and create games.

In a game, we accept the way the rules are, if we want to play.  Or, if we don't accept the rules, we move on to another game.  But where does the pleasure come from?  It's learning about the environment.  If we're learning, we're happy.  If we're finding that world incomprehensible, it loses its lustre and we move on to a more comprehensible world.

So it helps some people to think that shootings of people in Florida are connected.  And it rings true for some people that all death here is part of a larger conspiracy.  Watching YouTube videos about celebrity, I wonder if there are any deaths of celebrities that no one interprets as symbolic.  After all, the mortality rate of celebrities is pretty close to that of all of us.  It's hovering very nearly at one hundred percent and I don't think there are many signs that it is going to change any time soon.

What I hear about in Orlando, without watching television, is probably a small portion of the things they're telling us.  There are the Invictus Games with their slogan of "I AM" and the involvement of some big time players but only two were greatly advertised.  And then there was the death of Jan Crouch which was really a big ending of a big big enterprise, or at least a great transition for an important organization.  And then there are the two shootings that are deemed more worthy of coverage than all the other shootings that happen around the world, and then there is the alligator.  Boy he was discovered in a very propitious spot.  He wasn't in the very heart of the Kingdom, but it was a significant place- maybe some other major organ.  And then Disney opens their biggest park.

Back to normal, are we?

When we heard about Obama coming to Orlando, I only discuseed it with three people.  And two of them were like me- extremely nervous.  I suppose we've been conditioned to see the patterns and to make our own.  I don't remember Dallas, but I do remember mis-interpreting the times.  I didn't think an Obama would be elected unless it was spelled O'Bama.  I also thought the man would be in danger.  And I suppose every politician is.  The politician in Britain was killed- yesterday?  Was that yesterday?  The details fade but the pattern into which I place the selected facts hangsthere strongly.  It made me nervous that the Vice came with him.  After all, if Biden is actually really Trump as well, then who is going to deflect us from having no choice but to elect her if they are taken out?

I thought the Veep and the POTUS were kept apart most of the time.  But where have I heard that?

O Orlando, what a great word.  The Italian and the orange connections, the Dixie invaded theme, the tourism before Disney and after.. you're an interesting iidea.  And I suppose that's where I live; in an idea- which is different than the actual place.

THe more you get to know a place the more normal and weirder it becomes.

What to do from where I am.

Questions from Genesis 3

Genesis 3 Questions

In between eating the fruit and sharing it with Adam, what was Eve thinking?  Did misery want company?  Or did she think she was sharing something good, since no curses had happened?  Was there a gradual realization that hadn't really hit her yet or was there an instant insight that left her immediately wishing to share this painful knowledge?  Or happy knowledge?  Man, you gotta try this.  I notice people always want to share mind-changing substances and very few spend much energy on peer pressure for broccoli.

What was the root of the problem- eating the fruit, touching the fruit or listening to the serpent at all?  Did those other animals talk?  Did they already know that serpent?  God gave Eve and Adam a chance to give an excuse, but didn't listen to the serpent and just cursed them all with consequences involving dust.  Today it hit me that the serpent would end up eating what man would become.

What was the comparison between the fig leaf aprons and the God-made leather outfits?  I don't picture long robes, and was there a big difference in quality when they had to make their own after the initial ones wore out?

How long did that revolving flaming sword stick around?

What did the earth outside the garden look like before it was cursed?

Did they forget that God had already seen them naked?

Did they talk to that snake again?

What would they have been doing if they had not started tilling?  Lolling?

Did those leather clothes have seams or linings, and how did his compare to hers?

Thoughts on Genesis 2

Listening to the MSG version by Kelly Ryan Dolan at BibleGateway.com today, a few things came to mind.  When I started it, the verse it was on, from last time- said something like "Go back to Bethel.  Wait there and build an altar."  Wasn't that what I was typing last time?

Bethel, or House of God, is now each of us.  If we're the tent or temple or house of God, we'e being called to get back to that, rather than the distractions around us.

I thought today of Adam, having come alive and being placed into the Garden.  I always picture him coming awake inside it, but today I picture a man like an action figure, picked up and placed into this world made just for him, and knowing as it was being made, why it was being made and who it was for.

In Genesis 1 the emphasis is on the hierarchy and man is last.  He is supposed to be responsible, and husband the creation as the reflection of the Creator.  In Genesis 2, the plants and animals are made for man.

And then there is woman.

I do remember being taught somewhere by someone that men have one less rib than women.  I think I had already heard that and then someone used that as an example of why myths were written.  They said that a myth explained things that were unexplainable to poor primitive man who didn't have science.  I guess he may have meant Science.  Anyway, the point was that men do have one less rib and Genesis 2 was written to explain that.  But of course, we don't.  And those people weren't without knowledge.  We're still learning what they handed down to us today.

Chapter 2 ends with man and woman naked and unashamed.  It started with the sabbath.

What would a word search of "rib" uncover?

Today listening to the story of Tamar and Judah and Onan from TTB.org, I started thinking about the things that are recorded in the Bible that are not condoned.  And all those male names and the few female ones.  Is it because the Mom knows its hers and the Dad isn't sure?

Relatedly, I read from my crazy YouTube wanderings, a post that said that DNA from previous men interferes with current pregnancies and that's why virgins are so highly valued.  Hmm... that's a new one for me.  But I do remember being told that cats and dogs can have litters with more than one father and that people can't.  And then recently there were the twins with different fathers.  Is that even true?

Truth... Beauty, that's all we know and need to know, I guess.

J. Fibber McGee and My Journey through Genesis

So I was so excited when I rediscovered J. Vernon McGee at TTB.org and realized I could for free keep up with the whole five year program and follow it daily.  I miss a day and then catch up, but that doesn't bother me at all.  What I want to do is start at the beginning and go all the way through and in the past I've just happened to catch programs here and there.

In some books, and several times, I caught the man speaking about Genesis and I couldn't wait to actualyy oops dive in to it instead of just referencing it here and there.  I watched John Huston's The Bible- again, and watched 2001 again and read a few versions of Genesis 1 and had some read to me from BibleGateway.com and here I am in June just starting the story of Joseph.

What stikes ... ha ... me this time around is the paucity of information.  Dr. McGee said it straight out and it is so clearly true.  People have fashioned entire hypotheses and countered them and whole perspectives and paradigns ha have been created over what is just a thumbnail sketch.  It's not a treatise.  It's a spiralling ha snowball setting for the last weeks of or make that week of life of Christ.  It is a history of Him with a long prelude.  It's faster and faster and faster until the difference in words spent over Creation and just one hour of Jesus' death are so enormous we can't fathom.

And of course the end of Genesis mirrors the whole thing.  Finally we have a biography of sorts.  The only story of any character that even approaches the level of detail of Christ is Joseph.  He's at the end of Genesis and Christ is at the end of the gospels.

I've often wanted to do a comparison between the two famous names of Old and New Testaments: Joshua who is Jesus, and Joseph who is His father.  I've never seen it done that I remember- beyond maybe one or two sentences.  But I do feel that the changing of the name to Jesus was a coup for the devil.  In English, anyway.  The changing of names bothers me so much.  But tacking on some weird sounding name instead of the very common Joshua seems a real mistake to me.  Of course there are languages that name people Jesus, but in English it only means one thing.  And it's not even a person.  It's a stained-glass image of a Man who could never have existed as opposed to a Man who almost never could have existed, but miraculously did!

What are the parallels between Joseph and Joseph?  What are the parallels between Joseph and Jesus?  And what are the parallels between Joshua and Jesus?  I want to know.

I'm riding along with TTB.org's J. Vernon McGee and he's with Joseph and I'm still back in Genesis 1 wanting to go deeper into that.  I've passed the Sacrifice of Isaac with not enough meat consumed and I've passed Babel and The Deluge, and I've passed Jacob who's always bothered me Nd the missing life bits of Isaac that startle me and here I am confronted with Joseph.  I'm glad to be in Egypt, even though I know I need to come out of it.

I noticed that Joseph was said to use his cup for divination.  This is a theological problem just like Jacob commanding his people to give up their idols so late in his story.  I suppose the Bible is written for theology, but it's also written for history and it's also written for applicatoin.  How did I spell that?  What spells did Joseph cast?  Or was it just said about him?

There is no way Moses could have written about the entire history of his people without even knowing God's name and being raised the way he was.  I didn't grow up thinking the Books of Moses were actually written by Moses.  But is that what they flat out say?  To me the first five books were called that because they were the text from which the one understanding of them- which came much later, actually was drawn.  I don't think anybody reading them ever considered they were one thing, until people started saying they believed it all without reading it seriously.  That's modern.  People didn't used to have so many books so they actually took them seriously rather than spouting off that they believed every word of them without reading much of them very well.

Back to Joseph.  He is blameless but at the same time he is quite a dick.  How is that conveyed in so little words.  We have novels today that have characters like that and we think it's because we've read so much about them that we have empathized with their trouble and understand their inner workings and after 400 pages with them we feel like we know them.  But even in all of its comparative length, how do we possibly arrive at this belief about Joseph?

I'm hoping to learn more about Joseph this time around, but I really want to study the difference between the use of the names Jacob and Israel.  Surely there is something there.  People think of Jews as tricksters every so often in history and there's got to be some lessons there.  And what is the difference between an Israelite and a Jew, in historical thought?  Was the term Jacobite ever used?

There;s not enough time to learn everything but I think I need to go back to Bethel.  I can tell you that.  What is this wrastling (not a typo) thing I've got going on?  Isn't there any authority at all that I don't hate?

I can't think of one.

Invictus

It is June and I feel as if I haven't kept up with my blog much at all.  Yet, I was still surprised when I realized just now that I had not posted for this long.


Sidenote about my vision.  I've been wearing my Dollar Tree glasses and receiving compliments about them.  My four hundred dollar bifocals, with progressive lenses, are basically sitting here unused.  I find myself most comfortable with no glasses but I know I look better with them on so I tend to have them with me when I'm bound to meet people.  Here at home, I had them on just now and could see my blog perfectly with them- I think they are plus 1 magnification.  With them off, I see everything blurry, but I'm determined tonight that if I make a typo I'm just going to leave it in.


So I'm driving around Orlando tongiht oops... and I notice a few things.  The weather is a little humid but let;s face it... oops... it is beautiful with the top of the car down and with the windows open and a little air on to take the sting out of the humidity.  I hear that the worst mass shooting just happened and I try to care and I try not to care at the same time.  Watching Jungle Surfer today, and someone else, I just thought without a doubt that the two political strands of this false narrative were combined so nicely that I couldn't even think about the actual victims.  I guess I feel we're all victims of this one and I'd rather drive around in my beautiful car and enjoy the weather than to cry.  I don't even feel like crying.  I live in a beautiful world and the news isn't going to tell me that.

They're gearing up for the Woman against the Man, and the Politician against the Businessman and the Liberal against the Conservative and the Red against the Blue and the Glorious Past or Crappy Past against the Glorious Future or the Crappy Future.  They're pulling the strings and giving us one vote each that can only be cast for one end or other of the glorious evil beat that pretends to be two parites.  oops...  Democrats and Republicans work together just fine.  We just don't hear about what their goal is.  THeir ooops goal is to stay in power.  And they are doing that just fine.

I don't want to research it but I think I heard that the death toll of fifty last night is the worst mass shooting in somebody's history.  Is it in the whole US?  So much travail and ink has been suffered over mass shootings, it seems impossible that none of them have ever claimed more than fifty lives.  They want us to argue over gender roles and they want us to argue over guns.  It's so clear.  Now is the time to invest in a gun company.

Jungle Surfer pointed out that the coverage from Orangeland was in purple and the carnage occured between  oops Kaley, which he pronounced Kali, as in the goddess of destruction, and Gore street.  So let me get that straight.  The carnage which has upended the world but means frankly nothing to me rigfht now... oops- isn't that terrible?  I'm feet away from this event and just don't care about it.  The carnage took place between Gore and Goddess of destruction.  Wow.  But I'm still stuck on how this trend that has caputred the narrive for so many years has never brought more than fifty deaths.  Fifty deaths?  We're talking about fifty deaths as if the fate of the world hangs in the balnace?  Come on.

Now it is terrible when someone dies.  Even if they are old and they've been sick it is sad.  I am reeling from my Dad's death which was years ago.  But, the entire nation is divided over issues sparked by events that they tell us happen all the time... that have never killed more than fifty people.  I am incensed.  I sit bewildered at the power they hold over us.

When I find out tomorrow that I knew some of these people, I too will be sad.  But these things don't make the news because death is sad.  The mortality rate is consistently hovering right around one hunderd percent since the dawn of time.  THis isn't new and it isn't news.  And as I get emotional I'm making more typos and my OCD wants to fix them but I am triumphantly not doing that.

This poen, wow.. how did I misspell poem, is actually terrible.  It is powerful, and I understood its artistry several times by hearing bits and pieces of it and hearing it read well.  But today I read it and I think wow, I am glad I have Jesus.  I know Jesus cares about these deaths and didn't place them in harm;s way and will heal my city and these families.  I don't care right now but I know in spite of that that He does.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
          –William Ernest Henley