Not Afraid of the Terror by Night

Nor the Arrow that

                                        Flies by Day

The success of an entire book often rests on its' title in my opinion. The next verse of Psalm 91 contains the success of a book. Nor the pestilence that walks in darkness nor of the destruction that lays waste at noon day.

That book was entitled Darkness at Noon I am positive, by Arthur Koestler. Book titles are bigger than the book.

 "The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeleton of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life." Arthur Koestler

Even Smaller than a good Quote

Hardest to Write

Reading Psalm 91again recently I discovered something smaller and even harder to write than a good quote. This is based on my theory, if I can call it that, based on the fact "the smaller the writing goal," the harder it is to write it.

A good quote was formerly my smallest but, while reading Psalm 91 discovered an even smaller one I had over looked.

The title of a book! One writer in the fifties, wrote a super fantastic story he entitled They Shoot Electric Sheep, Don't They?

Made into a movie, it was entitled Bladerunner. So what does Psalm 91have to do with that picture? Tomorrow...

Circumcision a Covenant?

The early Christians lived in a Greek dominated culture, that was opposed to circumcision. Paul, as a missionary to the Gentiles, talks about a circumcision of the heart. 

How God changed His mind, after not conceiving circumcision, it is a seeming logical trick to back track it all and come up with it for a reason lodged in a logical mist. God made a change of mind in order to make a covenant? 

No one takes responsibility for it as far as I understand. It happened way back in Abraham's time when they most needed to multiply.

Reasons advanced for it, like cleanliness, seem lame. One does not take off gloves to be clean and cancer, as non-existent, is far fetched.

But the need for soldiers was vital for survival. Just my view.  Meanwhile the baby is talking up a storm. 

Circumcision like a tatoo?

Remember I am objectifying my own beliefs, no one else's. Believing is not with me an easy go along with position. Only God knows my heart. It is not my part to make such judgements since God gave that power to Jesus.

Regarding circumcision it seems to me that God did not make a mistake nor does He, can He, change His mind. Just my view. But I do recall Peter, after Pentecost, on the housetop about food..

I believe it is like tonsils and perhaps even treating on the heels of running a fever, which may be the body's attempt to cure itself.

What about the prophets? It seems to be a pressing concern to have more soldiers, as the opening story seems to tailor itself. As for my part, my uncle called me the baby who never cries. 

Contextualizing is the same as

Proving God 

Eliminates Faith

I came upon this Old Testament story when quite young and not far from being fooled by a logical fallacy. My extreme youth set me apart from adults and I thought God was in on the same religious pretenses as the minister and the church elders.

The angle can change the story

This was the fallacy of the misplaced authority. I believed the Bible, and the adults didn't. They gave me coloring books but not communion. Thru persistence I finally made it but I labored  under my fallacy for a long time. 

It was somewhere in this stage that I casually came upon this story about circumcision. One of the early fathers in his old age gave one of his younger leaders jurisdiction,  who was approached by families who wanted to join the Hebrews since theirs was dying out. 

They were accepted on the condition they would be circumcised first. They were and that night while recovering in their tents were broken into and killed. Where upon finding this out Jacob or maybe Isaac said this has brought disgrace upon us.

My conclusion was it was hard for me to to think the stories in the Bible were made up if a story like this one was included. 

 Some scholars have contextualized the story to such an over riding extent as to muddle the entire event. How next.......

Circumcision & Tonsils

Always Watch the Context!

There is not much universal under standing of how circumcision came to be nor even its' purpose. 

But I believe the ancient writings, particularly the Old Testament are right. It is right on because there is one story , a very negative one included which, I believe anyway, that casts a solid aura of truth to it all. Continuing.....   

Jumping right in

Right Into John 1:17

There are an untold number of arguments, views, opinions, whatever which exploded when Saul, a murderer of Messianic Jews, was chosen by God to a missionary to the uncircumcised, and who became known as St. Paul.

Thru a window darkly

Everything changed with Jesus. No one knows the settled purpose or origins of circumcision. It was revealed by the prophets, not many know which one or ones.

It seems to be rooted in a time when small family populations were easily enslaved by larger ones. To survive they needed soldiers to keep their women from being stolen. 

Men not only had many wives with many sons but those powerful enough could support many concubines as well. There was an instinctual air to it all.

I read in the Old Testament at an early age a story which would not have been  told only if it were not all true. To be edited... 

Talking about myself

When I Talk About Others

I did not make my point clearly enough in my previous post. I believe that everything that I say, no matter to whom or about whom, is effecting me more than any others. I knew that as far back as when the Lone Ranger told Tonto when I had to be in bed-y-bye, the guilty always speak up first. 

We All Write for Our Own Benefit

As we all do, I write for my own benefit as well everybody else. I benefit from everything I say whether it be good or bad. Largely I am trying, always trying, to convince myself.

Outlook lost without guidance

Whatever I say, good or bad, I am speaking to that end which is already, yearningly, is or will be my present end.

It is not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles a man, it is what comes out, according to Jesus the Christ. Matt 15:11 & Mark 7:15

Picking up my primary thread

The incident which proved to me that the collected books of the Old Testament were true involved an unfavorable account of a dwindling group of families who wanted to join the Hebrews because they felt they were not going to survive if they could not more greatly multiply.

Things are not always clear.

The Hebrews agreed on the condition they were circumcised. When this was agreed they broke into their tents and killed them all. 

I no longer recall the leader, whether it was Isaac or Jacob in their old age rebuked the general they had placed in charge who authorized this, saying this has brought humiliations upon us.

Upon researching this story I uncovered a vast complicated story involving so much context as to obscure the entire event.

So I abandoned that whole effort to rely only what I remember reading in one of the books in the Old Testament.

I do this to concentrate on the subject of circumcision and its' origins which I find confusing to this very day. See John 1:17

The strong & the weak

 The more things change

Believing every word

 Not every verse in the Bible, while believable, was of any interest to me. When I was in Sunday School shrugging off coloring books, I thought Matthew was the only begats in the Bible.

The begats are eventually forgot...

The Old Testament is loaded with long lists of them. Atheists have made fun of them because a person is one age in one book and another age in yet another book. Maybe it was recorded in a different time, but it is for certain if it were the same, atheists' would call it collusion. I find it boringly historical but boring just the same. There is one I do not, which proves the Bible's is of the truth and the lack of collusion better.....the next time.