Sukkoth Thoughts

Yes it's Sukkoth (sue-coat), a.k.a. the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. Not that anyone in the post-WCG tradition constructs booths from branches, or even sets up a bunk bed in the garden shed, but that's another issue.

This afternoon I listened to a stimulating address which included some provocative references to Tabernacles/Sukkoth. Lest anyone fear that I've de-apostasized (to perhaps coin a new term) and am presently holed up in a motel, attending some obscure COG sect services, hanging on every precious word, I hasten to add that I was sitting in a pew at the very Anglican neo-Gothic St Matthew-in-the-City in central Auckland.

Again, please don't leap to conclusions. Anglicanism is a far stranger fish, in my opinion, than anything that came out of the COG tradition. Stained glass, brass eagles, silly clothes... each to their own. I was there to listen to retired American bishop John Shelby Spong talk about the Jewish Jesus.

Spong is the embodiment of evil to many fundamentalists, which constitutes a glowing recommendation in my opinion. He also has the unnerving gift of talking in everyday language, which is a rare skill among conformist clergypersons.

Among other things today, the bishop put the case for rethinking the time of Jesus death in Jerusalem. The gospels all agree that it was at the Passover, but then again, maybe not.

For one thing there is that "Palm Sunday" procession. Wrong time of year for leafy branches. There was however just such a tradition associated with - you guessed it - the Feast of Tabernacles (Psalm 118:27, Bind the festal procession with branches...) Indeed, you can read the famous phrase used in the New Testament (Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Lord - John 12:13) right there in that same psalm (118), which was read at Sukkoth (verse 26).

Psalm 118 is a Tabernacles psalm? Somehow I don't remember that bit of information coming out when I did the Feast of non-Booths thing with WCG.

Then there's the fig tree that was cursed. There are no figs on the trees in the Passover season, but Jesus in a fit of pique curses the plant anyway, and we get the impression that he was a jerk. The tree was just doing what fig trees do (or don't do) around March.

Figs are on the trees at Tabernacles.

To catch the full discussion you can read it in chapter 14 of Jesus for the Non-Religious. It's part of a wider discussion that is well worth reading.

Creationism? Good Grief!

Recently someone asked whether an article I wrote some years ago on creationism is still available online somewhere. Here's the intro and a link.
One of the first things that initially attracted me about the Worldwide Church of God was its strong, clear, no-compromise position on creationism. There were regular articles in The Plain Truth that dealt with the issue, complete with colourful diagrams and photographs. And you could send for brochures with titles like “A Whale of a Tale” and “Our Awesome Universe.” The way the church presented it, evolution was a theory shot full of holes. Garner Ted Armstrong, at that time the voice of The World Tomorrow, did a nice little number on evolution too. The way Ted told it, those evolutionists were just plain dishonest with the evidence. I believed him.

Read the complete article (PDF file)

Link Update and Dead Sea Scrolls

The Web is a fluid place, and sites blink in and out of existence all the time. If you haven't caught up yet, two significant COG-related blogs have moved to new URLs, while another has been mothballed.

Felix Taylor's Life After WCG blog has moved over to WordPress: the new address is http://lifeafterwcg2.wordpress.com/

Stan Gardner's Ambassador Reports blog (with a name inspired by, and intended as a tribute to the late John Trechak's Ambassador Report) has had a minor change in URL spelling: http://www.ambassadorreports.blogspot.com/

Finally (and sadly) Gary Scott has brought his XCG blog to a close.

Unrelated to the above, I've just uploaded a recently submitted essay on the Dead Sea Scrolls and their significance for the New Testament writings. It's not particularly readable, and riddled with footnotes, but for what it's worth you can find it here.

Cover Up

John Morgan is the former WCG member who wrote Flying Free, an account of his life in the world of Armstrongism. Now John has completed a new project, this time with a wider audience in mind, an investigation of the death of Diana.

The PR material for the book reads:

Cover-up of a Royal Murder is a thorough investigation of the British inquiry – the Paget report – into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed. It uses eye-witness, documentary and other evidence to prove that the conclusions drawn in the Paget report are fundamentally flawed -- yet it is the Paget report that is set to form the basis for the upcoming British inquest. This is the book that proves beyond reasonable doubt that Princess Diana was murdered and that there is a lot more to the Paris crash than the French and British investigations have revealed. "Cover-up" provides credibility to the lingering doubts of a large section of the British and international public -- doubts that remain even 10 years after the crash. This book lays down a huge challenge to those who believe the death of Diana Princess of Wales was just a tragic accident. Cover-up of a Royal Murder exposes one of the greatest cover-ups of our time.

Judging from the meticulous work John did on Flying Free, this should be an enlightening read for anyone interested in the British royals. More information can be found here.

Pathetic Penmanship?

Bear with me on this one...

I have a friend from WCG days, a foundation member of the church here in New Zealand, now retired, whose anonymity I'll respect (though I know many NZ readers will know exactly who he is.) Let's call him Bill. Always a quick wit, Bill writes humorous verse. He's had his work published in local newspapers and read on air by appreciative radio hosts. His interests are political (no great fan of "political correctness"!) and he does a fine job in gently poking the borax at the troubled events unfolding in the Churches of God.

I've been blessed with poetic missives from this source for several years now, as have many others who know the writer from a shared past. Having a pre-Tabernacles poem arrive on your fax machine, or in the post (Bill usually avoids email) is a rare pleasure. Some of his contributions even featured on the old AW site. That said, he's far more traditional than most readers here when it comes to theology, retaining a lively interest in British-Israel. Usually he signs his work with a nom-de-plume, but everyone knows who it comes from: this Kiwi COGster is definitely in a class of his own.

Okay, so there's the scene set. Now the tale.

Some time back Mr Kinnear Penman, representative of the Living Church of God in NZ, contacted a friend of Bill - another longtime member who has since moved on - to discuss a reunion of folk who were members of the Auckland congregation from the beginning. Bill's email address was passed on to Mr Penman on the assumption that an invitation would be issued.

Nice, huh? Despite the parting of ways, Church of God people can still talk over old times and renew friendships.

Now it turns out that Mr Penman has been on Bill's mailing list too. Mr Penman is not, however, famous for his self-deprecating sense of humor.

In any case, true to his word, the LCG minister did contact Bill.

Now what, might you imagine, would he say?

Dear Bill

I hope you don't mind me contacting you with this email address. Jim kindly passed it on so I could give you advance notice of a forthcoming reunion of church members from the old days. I'll pass on details just as soon as they come to hand.

Thank you for sending me the occasional poetic opus. Life is pretty busy at the moment, and I don't often get the chance to read them through, but there's no mistaking your style! Perhaps in the meantime you could drop me off your list and save postage. I know you'll understand where I'm coming from.

In any event, I'm looking forward to renewing acquaintance at the get-together, and hope you can make it. It should be great to catch up with so many from years past.

With warm Christian greetings
Kinnear Penman
Well, he could have written something like that.

But instead he wrote this.

Bill (or [nom-de-plume])

We are getting sick of receiving your pathetic doggerel. We have absolutely no interest in it. Please desist. Haven't you got something better to do with your time? I guess not.

If you were proud of your miserable efforts at poetic commentary why did you go to such lengths to try, unsuccessfully, to hide your identity? A rhetorical question - no answer expected or wanted.

Go away.

Kinnear Penman
And the title of that email? Surprise!!

Any further comment on my part would be superfluous. Anyone willing to put $5 down on a wager that Mr Penman will get over his outburst and follow up with a fulsome apology?

No, thought not.

Transparent English Bible

Dr James Tabor has released a sample from the forthcoming Transparent English Bible, a longstanding project that dates back to a proposal by Ernest Martin. If you fancy literal translations, this may appeal to you. The first few chapters of Genesis are available as a PDF document.

Tabor expresses his preference for literal translations in a blog entry, even recommending the long-forgotten 1901 ASV, and opting for the 1950s RSV over the NRSV. To each their own.

What you can say is that the proposed TEB is different. With the proliferation of dumbed-down "easy to understand" versions (which distort the not-so-easy-to-understand realities of the manuscripts) this version will certainly stand out. This is a long, long way from the feel-good babblings of the Good News Bible or the CEV.

A couple of "buts". The TEB has reached this stage of development before, with substantial excerpts pre-published online (including the first chapters of Genesis, if memory serves.) For whatever reason the project was then rebooted and the initial work apparently withdrawn.

Second, if an important quality of a good English translation involves being able to be read aloud, then this may be the TEB's Achilles heel. Scripture has only been the object of personal, silent reading in relatively recent times. In synagogue and church the Bible has always been read aloud, reflecting the reality of our largely illiterate forebears. Arguably these books were written to be read aloud rather than pored over by individuals - that's how it was supposed to happen when they were first set down. By this criteria TEB looks shaky. Try rolling this text off the tongue:

These are the bringings-forth of the skies and the land in their being created. In the day of the making of YHVH ELOHIM, land and skies, and no shrub of the field was before that on the land, and no plant of the field had before that sprouted - for YHVH ELOHIM had not made rain on the land, and there was no soil-man to service the soil (2: 4-5)

This may be true to the Hebrew, but it's not the way lucid English works. That said, the Tabor Bible may - assuming it finally reaches completion - fill an important void in the market, perhaps supplanting the simply awful NASB and kindred travesties. It's certainly a project worth following, and I'd wager a thousand percent more worthy than the KJVish Coulter translation, due for release (both Old and New Testaments) very shortly.

Meantime I'll be sticking to the NRSV.

Cracked lamps

I like The Journal. It has the ability to treat important issues that affect the Churches of God with fairness and depth. That's an important counter-balance to the less than objective sources online - whether the various sect websites, Bob Thiel's blog, or - yes, it's true - even the one-eyed rants that crop up here on AW.

But along with the good stuff, there are features in The Journal that would drive the sanest person nuts. Take this month's cover story on a new ministry called "Lamp Fire" for example.

Lamp Fire is the brainchild of a troika that includes high-profile BI apologist Steven Collins. Their calling is to spread the good word "to inform the nations of the modern house of Israel about their heritage and warm them [sic] about the prophecies affecting them" via video.

Frankly, I'm not sure what if any relevant qualifications Mr Collins brings to this task. I know he's written a number of obscure books which gather dust on the shelves of the BI bookshop in Auckland. I also believe Fred Coulter is impressed by his research, though that is probably very faint praise.

But more seriously, Lamp Fire has "invited JOURNAL readers and others to consider making tax-deductible (in the U.S.A.) donations to help kick off the project."

Uh huh? The Gospel of fictive racial origins? My money? Yeah, right!

Then there's a long article by the aforesaid Mr Collins on the inside pages where he defends the idea of a "6,000-year period in prophetic calculations." It contains statements like "Until they [Adam and Eve] sinned, the entire physical world was perfect..."

Oh really? Nature has been "red in tooth and claw" since well before the first mammals (let alone humans) appeared on the face of Planet Earth. The food chain involves pain and suffering, and it always has. ADAM DIDN'T DO IT! In fact, Adam couldn't do it.

Perfect? No ice ages before Adam? No volcanoes erupting? No extinction of species? No predation by carnivores? Maybe somebody should take this up with the Discovery Channel!

But Mr Collins has a well-stocked battery of inerrant proof-texts, all to be taken literally, and who can argue against that when all you have at hand is facts? I guess if you can believe that, then it's no great stretch to imagine that the citizens of Milwaukee are Manassehites.

As to when it'll all end, Mr Collins reassures us: "At this juncture I’ll state that I agree with Mr. Nelte that Christ’s return should not be expected before 2010. We are already in 2007, and the prophesied 3 1⁄2-year ministry of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3) has not yet begun, so it appears that the end of this age will not occur until 2011 or later."

Let me go on record here. Christ isn't returning in 2010. Or 2011. How about 2012? Nope. In fact, there's about as much chance of Christ returning in my lifetime or yours as Portugal has of winning this year's Rugby World Cup. Of course Mr Collins has given himself wiggle room by saying "or later." This is the famous "Dankenbring maneuver" (or have I got that confused with the more popular "Meredith maneuver"?)

Wise fellow.

You can read the Lamp Fire item, and peruse the front and back pages of the latest Journal issue here.

Return of the Zombie College

Forget Six-pack's "Armstrong College"

Forget Spanky's "Living University"

As for "Ambassador Bible Center": why bother?

"Ambassador College of Christian Ministry"? Not even a starter!

Not when there's AMBASSADOR COLLEGE itself.

Located in the furthest reaches of Tennessee, Ambassador College liveth yet, apostles provided!

And, from what is available on its website, I'm guessing that it will provide similar, unique standards of academic instruction as its deceased namesake in Pasadena. But do you reckon Joe's legal beagles might object... or has the glorious Pastor General been reduced to selling the name now that the silverware has long gone?

And how come Gerry, Rod, the UCG Sanhedrin et al didn't think of it first?

Stir Away!

Dear John Halford

Your Christian Odyssey editorial, Stirred but not Shaken, gave me pause for thought. You wrote:

These are stirring times to be a Christian. Critics are having a field day, questioning, undermining and ridiculing every aspect of our beliefs. Nothing, it seems, is sacred.

This struck me as a remarkable observation from a longtime WCG functionary. After all, "questioning, undermining and ridiculing" was the evangelistic strategy of choice in the old WCG. The nightly World Tomorrow monologues by Garner Ted Armstrong (imitated in the pulpit by the humblest local elder) raised ridicule to a near art form.

The whole idea of God is a delusion, argues the enthusiastic atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins... What are we poor ordinary Christians to make of all this?
Perhaps you'll bear with me for a moment John, but I'm old enough to recollect Plain Truth articles where science was attacked mercilessly and evolutionists were clearly portrayed as blind fools. Now John, fair is fair: what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If I'm not mistaken, you were around back then too - and in more elevated circles than the common herd. Surely you haven't forgotten!

But you can be sure that there are capable men and women out there who are more than able to defend the Christian turf. They have education and experience, and they are not intimidated by clever arguments. When given the opportunity, they can more than hold their own, and show that the opposition has not really done its homework.

In your footnotes you reference prominent Anglican evangelical Alister McGrath. I enjoyed McGrath's discussion of the King James Bible, and am currently wading my way through his tome on Christian Theology (not by choice, it's "required reading" for a course.) McGrath is a gifted writer, but let's be honest, he's an apologist, though an eminently scholarly one, and whether or nor he does a convincing job in defending the ramparts of conservative orthodoxy, ultimately he's a refined version of GTA in a roman collar.

If any branch of the Christian church has less legitimate cause to get its knickers in a knot over issues like these, it's the Worldwide Church of God. Not only because of the contemptuous treatment it doled out to others in years gone by, but also because that same contempt was poured out upon its own people during its so-called reformation.

You know, John, you could do worse than actually reading Dawkins. He has some important points to make, even if you don't go the full way with his argument (as I don't.) And you could do worse than tackling some of the material on documents like the Gospel of Thomas - which you also seem to find threatening - with an open mind (Marvin Meyer is a great place to start.) Why not leave the pre-Copernican apologetics to the nice people over at the Good News: Mario Seiglie has it well covered.

Nothing, it seems, is sacred.

I guess they said that in Rome during the Reformation, but there are no questions that shouldn't be asked. It's by grappling with the tough questions that we grow. Trying to shield the "poor ordinary Christians" from that responsibility is just plain presumptuous. Given the opportunity, some of those folk could be extraordinary instead!

In the post-modern world a gentle stir may not be enough. Sometimes the foundations need a decent shake-up. It's tragic when Christian leaders counsel their flock to avoid the opportunities - and the insight - by circling the wagons and bleating about how awful things are.

Stirring times indeed!

King James triumphant

According to the last poll, which pulled a respectable 121 responses, nearly half of us still prefer to use either the King James Version or the New KJV. None of us is bothered with the trendy Message paraphrase, almost as many of us have given up on the Bible thing entirely as use the scholarly NRSV, and a bare five percent have been convinced by the evangelically-minded to change to the NIV or TNIV.

Confused? I sure am.

Even more interesting, nearly a quarter of us prefer another translation to the ones listed.

So, if you voted "other," what do you use and why?