The problem of 19th century prophets

The August 2013 issue of Adventist World includes an article by Ellen White which they entitle Infidelity in Disguise. It appears to be some kind of edited work with most sentences ending in ellipses and reported to have first published in Signs of the Times, March 20, 1879. You can read the article by clicking the link above I am mainly going to deal with the last paragraph which says:

“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Men professing to be ministers of God raise their voices against the investigation of prophecy, and tell the people that the prophecies, especially of Daniel and John, are obscure, and that we cannot understand them. Yet some of these very men eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists, which dispute the Mosaic record. But if God’s revealed will is so difficult to be understood, certainly men should not rest their faith upon mere suppositions in regard to that which He has not revealed. . . . In [God’s] providence men, beasts, and trees, many times larger than those now upon the earth, were buried at the time of the flood, and thus preserved to prove to man that the inhabitants of the old world perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things in the earth should establish faith in inspired history. But men, with their vain reasoning, make a wrong use of these things which God designed should lead them to exalt Him. They fall into the same error as did the people before the flood—those things which God gave them as a benefit, they turned into a curse, by making a wrong use of them."

 She begins by quoting Deut 29:29 which is Moses recitation of the covenant with Israel, about being brought out of Egypt etc. It is most certainly not a statement about scientific understanding. As we learned about germs and viruses we were not learning of the secret things of God. It would be foolish to think that when we learn about geology we are again trying to learn the secret things of God. I don't know of any scientific discipline that God revealed to his children, this is simply a statement of absurdity put in to make the whole thing seem somehow more deep and religious.

Then she moves on to those of us...most everyone really who find the prophecies of Daniel and John the Revelator to be obscure. About the only people that don't think the apocalyptic books are obscure are those who have their own version of interpretation. And so far of those not one has predicted anything to occur based upon the writings of Daniel and the book of Revelation. Those predictions that have been made have all be disproved, which caused some like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists to make some of their incorrect predictions appear to be fulfilled in spiritual or heavenly realms where we have no access.

The Mosaic record which she finds to be disputed by geologists is but a tiny part of what is by tradition attributed to be the writing of Moses but that tradition is not based upon any facts. But still it is only a tiny fragment of the Genesis story concerning Genesis 1 and 2 and the account of the flood. None of which is written in anything close to a record of geology. In fact the practice of testing theories and ideas is far less supposition then the supposition that Moses even wrote the book of Genesis.

But what really made me want to write this article is this part:

In [God’s] providence men, beasts, and trees, many times larger than those now upon the earth, were buried at the time of the flood, and thus preserved to prove to man that the inhabitants of the old world perished by a flood. 

Really!? Why would finding them indicate the reality of a world wide flood? She earlier referred to "Bones of men and animals are found . . . showing that much larger men and beasts once existed. . . ." Actually there have never been bones of men that have been found to be larger then men today. And the larger animals besides the dinosaurs are usually of the era of the ice age. In fact if you look we have evidence of Wooly Mammoths who appear to have been quickly frozen in place and covered with ice. If that was to show that they died in a flood of water they would be far different in the contents of their stomachs then what we have.These ice age giants are much more recent in the geological column then dinosaurs so there is little reason to think that they are the evidence of some world wide flood.

It really is time to realize that our 19th century prophet was a person of her time. With a limited understanding and limited knowledge. She may well have believed in the hoaxes of the late 1800's such as Cardiff Giant. It is likely that she did believe it as she did come out of the Methodist movement as Wikipedia says:

 The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument at a Methodist revival meeting about the passage in Genesis 6:4 stating that there were giants who once lived on Earth.^[1]

She likely incorporated that into her thinking about Adam and Eve as she wrote: "Adam's height was much greater than that of men who now inhabit the earth. Eve was somewhat less in stature;"  Patriarchs and Prophets, pg. 45 "He was more than twice as tall as men now living upon the earth... Eve was not quite as tall as Adam. Her head reached a little above his shoulders." -- Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, pg. 34

^{We can do better and we must do better. Not only must we be more critical in understanding the Bible but we must be more critical in our assumptions about people who claim to speak for God. Once we understand that even sincere people can be confused about the facts we can see that such confusion is not limited to modern times. That we must use more then just accepted traditions as our evidence and reason for believing.}

When and why is something a Prophetic statement?

There is an interesting article on Spectrum by Alden Thompson entitled Rediscovering Lost Adventist Literature The subject is not really what interests me but rather this information from the article:

Lost-and-Found #1: An Astonishing Ellen White Quote on Conditionality
The astonishing Ellen White quote on conditionality is this one:

The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short. Thus it has always been presented to me. It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message. Our Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped. But has the Word of the Lord failed? Never! It should be remembered that the promises and the threatenings of God are alike conditional.

Her treatment of this quotation is tantalizing. First, it is part of a longer manuscript in which she responds to a critic who quoted this 1851 statement as proving her testimonies false: “I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most holy place was nearly finished, and that time can last but a very little longer.”⁵

After addressing the question of conditionality at some length (the point of the quoted paragraph), she then refers to her critics in vivid language, declaring that heretofore she had “not felt at liberty even to notice their vile speeches, reproaches, and insinuations.” She goes on to say that she “would not now depart from this custom, were it not that some honest souls may be misled by the enemies of the truth who are so exultantly declaring me a deceiver. In the hope of helping the minds of the honest, I make the statements that I do.”
But she apparently had second thoughts, for there is no evidence in the White Estate files that this response (Ms 4, 1883) was ever sent to anyone and the critic is not identified. The manuscript was found in the Ellen White files after her death. Apparently she never used any part of it while she was still alive. A number of such manuscripts were brought to light in the1930s and then step-by-step brought to the attention of the church. In this instance, part of the statement was published in Evangelism in1946. In1958, it was published in full in Selected Messages, Bk. 1, 59-73.

Now I have used the phrase “astonishing” to refer to this quotation because of the reaction of a retired pastor with whom I have had extensive email correspondence in recent years.  He is devout and thoughtful, conservative, but open to new perspectives. I had used the quote several times in dialogue with him, and more than once he read through the SDABC article, “The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy,” described here as lost-and-found item #2.⁶ “I had read it before, but enjoyed it again,” he said. I finally told him that I would answer no more of his questions until he gave me a straightforward answer to my question about Zechariah 14:

I know this is a volatile question, but if Scripture includes an end-time scenario which no SDA would now affirm, shouldn’t we conclude that specific end time plans, including the specifics in the book The Great Controversy, may not happen exactly that way? I have pressed you on that point because if that conclusion is wrong, I would like to know why. If it is correct, shouldn’t we take steps to educate the church – including those ancient preachers who would rather not come to that conclusion?...

I have to admit I did not know that she never published or even sent out her statement "It should be remembered that the promises and the threatening of God are alike conditional." I have to give her more credit then her followers because if that statement were true then the promise of a second coming becomes no longer a surety but a conditional promise. It may or may not even happen because when phrased the way the quote is "are alike conditional" there is an implied "all" in the statement. It probably would have assured her position as a false prophet. Particularly in light of the context which was to try and explain why her own predictions did not come to pass. Because if a so called prophet is allowed to explain away why their predictions failed then there would no longer be any objective test of prophetic ability. They simply say that the conditions were not met. Which is way to easy if you say that everything is conditional and what those conditions are is never given. (in his article Thompson mentions the Jonah parable, don't put a whole lot of wait on that since it is highly unlikely that Jonah only said those eight words to the people of Nineveh, it is a greatly misused book by those trying to defend Ellen White and condition-less conditional prophecy).

Which leads to the second area of concern which is why her followers and supporters use the quote that she herself did not publish or send out. What gives it any authority or truth to be used at all if the prophet in question did not feel it to be a worthy piece of instruction for people? That strikes me as the assumption that everything someone believed to be a prophet said has to be inspired. Something which in fact even the supporters of EGW say is not true. It does appear to me to be something that should have in fact never even have been published at least not until there is a change in the understanding about how to view her writings and the removal of her writings as "a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction." (Fundamental SDA belief 18)

What is the first prophecy

I keep reading the Adventist Today Blog, though I am constantly amazed at some of the material that Stephen Foster posts. For example he has an article entitled the Purpose of Prophecy. In it he writes:

"Prophecy is the God-inspired revelation of what He wants those who claim/believe Him to know. In the 66 books that comprise the canonical narrative, the first prophecy we come to is the one which encapsulates the entire remaining narrative writ large—Genesis 3:15. It is the prophecy describing God’s plan.

Is the first prophecy the prototypical prophecy? Does it reveal to us what prophecy is all about in terms of purpose? It tells us what will happen and why; but not how it will happen. Subsequent prophecies, particularly those of the prophet Isaiah, certainly do reveal, or detail, how. (Isaiah 7:14 comes to mind for example.)"

If the first prophecy is some kind of prediction of what will happen then it is certainly not Gen. 3:15 all though that verse is frequently cited by ill informed people as being a messianic prophecy. It of course is not and is never referred to in the rest of the Bible in anyway to the Messiah. But as with much of the first chapters of Genesis people read into it what they want.  But let us assume it presents a predictive prophecy, is it the first one? No it is not we read the following in Gen. 2:17

 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not 1eat, for in the day that you eat from it ayou will surely die.”

So what if it is meant to be Stephen's prototypical prophecy. Well that is open to question. It goes back to the old canard that the first use of a word in the Bible is supposed to be the key to understanding any and all uses of that word.

When ever I read Stephen I think how sad that there are so many Adventists who think so little and talk so much. They regurgitate their traditions and don't have a clue when their traditions are errant at all because as a tradition, they rarely question what they already believe. That is the biggest problem in Adventism and in religion in general.

Prophetic Prognostication

I was prompted to address the subject of the “prophetic prognostication” because of Stephen Foster's recent article The Case Against Secularism - And For Prophecy Here is the line that Stephen wrote that interested me in this topic. “While history is a great teacher, it is difficult to quantify how much better it is, if at all, than is a “prophetic prognostication” on the same topic.”

Is “prophetic prognostication” better then history? Does history repeat itself as we often hear? For some reason this quote from Karl Marx has taken on a meaning that is far from accurate. Marxist.org writes: “Marx never believed that “history repeats itself,” but in a famous quote he said:

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” [Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonapatre, Chapter 1.]”

In fact history does not repeat itself, Napoleon is not the same as Hitler and Hitler was not the same as Stalin and Pol Pot is different then all the other leaders who created mass killing of people. History can teach us lessons that we can apply to our current conditions or movements, it does not repeat itself, whether in reality or in farce. Certainly people will continue to make the same mistakes, usually because they think they can do it right where the others failed but still history does not repeat itself and when we view history we have to interpret the data and analyze it for the best use we can make of it. History like most information is subject to interpretation.

“Prophetic prognostication” is equally subject to interpretation but unlike history there is no reality of actual experience to help with the interpretation. There is no history involved, no reality observed and no data from the occurrences to help the development of an interpretation. This moves prophetic prognostication into the realm of speculation. Speculation can be used to problem solve or run scenarios, such as making “what if” statements. The more variables in a scenario however means there are more possible “what if” statements that could be envisioned. The answers to those “what if” statements then branch like a tree into multiple possible additional “what if” possibilities of actions and reactions. This fact limits the application of “what if” statements or thought problems (thought experiments) to fairly simple options which are often not found in life's open systems (in terms of multitudes of interactions possible). “Prophetic prognostication” is not even in the useful “what if“ category because there are far too many factors then can be considered.

Adventism has seen the difficulties with “prophetic prognostication” in its application of Biblical predictive prophecy. Most famous in this list of  predictions is the of the end of the world in1844 the so called “Great Disappointment”. Adventists have from their beginning practiced prophetic prognostication on various topics. Most were thought to be fulfillments of some or other Biblical prophecy for example:

-- November 1 1755. The great Lisbon earthquake.

-- 1780 May 19. The unexplained dark day over New England

-- 1798 The Vatican fell because of the French Revolution, temporarily ending 1260 years of religious       and political domination

-- 1833 November 12-13. The great Leonid meteor shower

-- 1838 Josiah Litch used Revelation 9 to predict the fall of the Ottoman Empire around August of 1840

All of the above quoted from an Adventist teaching website.

 Adventists have been totally inaccurate in their “Prophetic prognostication” and interpretation of fulfillments. Earthquakes still happen, with more or less death and destruction then Lisbon, Forest fires and storms occasionally cause dark days, such as when Mt. St. Helens erupted. The Vatican did not fall in 1798 just because a Pope was captured once again, it had lost significant power for several hundred years before 1798, remember in just the area of religion there was the Reformation! There have been greater Leonid meteor showers since 1833 and they still come on their regular cycle. The Ottoman Empire did not fall in 1840 though it had been in decline for a hundred years, still nothing of significance even happened to the Ottoman Empire in 1840. Most of these formerly thought of fulfillments are rarely mentioned today in the Western World. The fact is that not only Adventists have failed with“Prophetic prognostication” but numerous other Christians have been completely unsuccessful with their interpretation and application of predictive prophecy from the Bible. Many have tried and all have failed. (Wikipedia even has a page on unfulfilled Christian predictions)

For Adventists this becomes even a greater problem because many try to use the “prophetic prognostication” of Ellen White as the general Christian community tried to use the Biblical predictive prophecies. Ellen White's predictive prophecies even in her life time also failed. The most famous probably being her statement that some of those at the 1856 conference would be food for worms, some would be subject to the seven last plagues and some would be translated.

"I was shown the company present at the Conference, Said the angel: "Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." Ellen G. White, 1 Testimonies, p. 131-132. May 27, 1856

When we look at what the Adventist denomination says itself about Ellen White's fulfilled predictions we see that they cannot really find any to point to with specificity. The book Seventh-day Adventists Believe ...  A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines (1988) On page 225 writes of Ellen White

  

“2. The accuracy of predictions. Ellen White's writings contain a relatively small number of predictions. Some are in the process of being fulfilled, while others still await fulfillment. But those that can be tested have been fulfilled with an amazing accuracy. Two instances that demonstrate her prophetic insights follow.”

“a. The rise of modern spiritualism...”

“b. A close cooperation between Protestants and Roman Catholics...”

Both are actually very questionable, Ellen White wrote about the "mysterious rapping" as a phenomenon caused by Satan, the quote  appears to be a reference to the Fox sisters spiritualism hoax of her time. In her day Abraham Lincoln held séances in the White House. In other words she wrote about the spiritualism which was already popular. To say that what was popular in her day was a prediction of the  rise of modern spiritualism is not even a prediction of significance but even that has not proved itself true.  If you go by those who say they follow or practice spiritualism there would be a decline just as there is a decline in the Theosophists of her day, another brand of spiritualism. But spiritualism is somewhat vague in meaning and could be held to a wide array of interpretations thus it becomes a vague and meaningless prediction, fulfilled by anyone that wants to say it is being fulfilled any time something becomes popular, such trends as Transcendental Meditation or the New Age Movement for example.

The second supposedly fulfilled prediction is cooperation between Protestants and Roman Catholics, again a prediction based upon the current events of her time. In her time there was such animosity by the Protestants against the Roman Catholics (often reciprocated) it would be hard not to see them either come together and get along or become so divisive that they tore the country apart. As this article reports: “In 1850 Catholics made up only five percent of the total U.S. population. By 1906, they made up seventeen percent of the total population (14 million out of 82 million people)—and constituted the single largest religious denomination in the country.” When Ellen White saw this kind of immigration it would not take some kind of divine imagination to see that the anti-catholic hatred and distrust of 19^th century America was not going to last. But to be fair we can give her partial fulfillment on this issue as Protestants and Roman Catholics get along more as Christian brothers and sisters despite the rift of the Reformation. That Christians could have been that hateful of other Christians is a scar on Christianity. Still  the two are widely separate on many issues and here again the vague nature of the prediction plays a role, allowing who ever wants to interpret it to see some form of fulfillment.

If we are honest with ourselves we have to admit that the value of “prophetic prognostication” is very close to nil. The vaguer the prediction the more leeway for the interpreter to see what they want as a fulfillment. But due to the wide range of possible fulfillments we are still usually left with nothing of value. Worse yet when other “prophetic prognostications” are added to our view of current events the speculation simply runs wild. Those speculations though (historically based upon the complete failure of Christians to predict anything) are most likely wrong. The speculative interpretations are artificially upheld as truth because of their claim of a prophetic nature. When such speculation is used to prejudice people against other people or organizations, not upon what they have done or said but upon what they are anticipated to do following a “prophetic prognostication” then we practice a most offensive type of chauvinism and a complete misuse of reason. Speculation should never rule the day!

A Response to Alden Thompson on Conditional Prophecy

In the most recent issue of Adventist Today (Fall 2011) Alden Thompson has an article entitled Conditional Prophecy and Last-Day Events. I had mentioned to a friend that he seemed to waste a lot of the article on talking about the Sabbath. My friend who knows Alden and thus I suspect has a bit more insight into his thinking, but is also a bit less critical of what he actually said, suggested that the underlying reason for the Sabbath inclusion in the article was to develop subtly the idea that the Sabbath is not an end time Seal of God and the conditional prophecy was a method of planting those ideas into the reader.

Thus I had to re-read the article to see if I could see those subtle connections as my friend explained it. If there I thought I would be in substantial agreement though likely not with his conditional prophecy position.


Alden Thompson introduces us to his subject after explaining through the process of some rather gratuitous assertions the solid foundation of the Sabbath and that “the New Testament is equally clear pressing the question of how to keep the Sabbath but never quarreling over the fact of the Sabbath.” True enough but what does the “fact” of the sabbath really mean. That the New Testament acknowledges the Sabbath is true but does not in any way seek to endorse it as a continuing obligation, leaving it up to the conscience of people (Rom. 14:5). But when someone says the fact of the sabbath to an Adventist I think they often have a different understanding, the fact to them being the continuing obligation of Seventh day Sabbath keeping as their proof of true commandment keeping. I will come back to that after I cover the next area of Thompson's article where he recounts the conflict of 1888 through Ellen Whites perspective.
The article covers an area of all or nothing thinking which he seems to want to use to develop his concept of conditional prophecy. He recounts this incident from the 1888 Ellen White Materials page 220 I will give the full two paragraphs:

I told them I had been shown that some of our brethren had educated themselves as debaters. The process of this education and the mold received by such an education were not after God's order, neither did they meet the approval of God. In many respects men trained in this kind of school unfitted themselves to become pastors of the sheep and lambs; and in combating an opponent, as in the way of discussions, usually harm is done with but little good results. The combative spirit is raised in both parties, and a defiant, hard spirit becomes habitual when their track is crossed. They become criticizers and do not always handle the Scriptures fairly, but wrest the Scriptures to make their point.

The remark was made, "If our views of Galatians are not correct, then we have not the third angel's message, and our position goes by the board; there is nothing to our faith." I said, "Brethren, here is the very thing I have been telling you. This statement is not true. It is an extravagant, exaggerated statement. If it is made in the discussion of this question I shall feel it my duty to set this matter before all that are assembled, and whether they hear or forbear, tell them the statement is incorrect. The question at issue is not a vital question and should not be treated as such. The wonderful importance and magnitude of this subject has been exaggerated. For this reason--through misconception and perverted ideas-- we see the spirit that prevails at this meeting, which is unchristlike, and which we should never see exhibited among brethren. There has been a spirit of Pharisaism coming in among us which I shall lift my voice against wherever it may be revealed." Full 1888 materials in PDF

The brother who says we don't have the third angel's message is on the side that says the law in Galatians is the Ceremonial law (which by the way is an entirely artificial designation the Jews did not separate the law as moral or ceremonial). The brother was working against the position of Jones and Waggoner that the law in Galatians was the moral law (by which Adventists mean the 10 commandments, again a fictional law division).

Thompson then begins on the Conditional prophecy portion by saying that the Adventists had two pillars which can be found in the simple covenant that Adventists first signed when they formed as a church in 1861. “covenanting to keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus Christ [Rev. 14:12] Central to the commandments is the Sabbath;”

So even though Ellen White thought the brother was exaggerating his thinking, that if the law in Galatians was our school master to lead us to Christ and then fade we can't be correct in our statement of the third angel's message which is that last part of the verse in Rev 14:12. Thus the brother's offering is not really all or nothing but the recognition that if our faith is in our understanding of the Seventh day Sabbath observance as our special mission (to preach the third or three angel's message) the position would be in error and faith based on error is not terribly useful. Ellen White is not even able to refute the brother but threatens to, as we continue to read that letter we see she never deals with the issue only criticizes the spirit of those involved. Which by the way is usually a truism when any two or more people get together and argue strongly held views religious or otherwise.

Alden Thompson's conclusion to the illustration of history is:

“Let's be clear: whatever we do with conditional prophecy or end-time events does not move a pin from those landmarks, the ones reflected in our name Seventh-day Adventists.”

That would not be the conclusion I would draw from the illustration from Adventist history of this event. But then I don't see the brother as giving an all or nothing position either. He seems quite rational and deserved a bit more rational response then he received. I might accept the conclusion that from our history we accept certain pillars as unmovable because we ignore any reasons to move them. Which strangely enough seems to be Thompson's case, as he continues:

“I hope the long preamble makes it clear that there is no point in going further unless the Adventist landmarks are in place. When they are secure, however, we can begin to nibble on “conditional prophecy” in bite-size chunks.”

He then covers some of the ideas of the “last days” as being a nebulous term that does not fit all that well with the New Testament and contemporary interpretations of Christians. That some see conditional prophecy as things that must be fulfilled in the last days such as the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem etc.

Next he points to the article The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy (I did an Internet search to give you a link to this article but being an important article it appears to not be anywhere on the Internet). Alden writes:

“All Adventists know about the Sunday law. But very few know how the Bible, the Great Disappointment, and Ellen White come together in this remarkable article that takes “conditional prophecy” seriously in exploring God's original plan for Israel.”

His next point is to direct our attention to Ellen White's own all or nothing statement:

The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short. Thus it has always been presented to me. It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message. Our Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped. But has the word of the Lord failed? Never! It should be remembered that the promises and threatenings of God are alike conditional. Selected Messages Page 67 from MN 4 1883

Notice her position is either the Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped or God failed. No possibility for the messenger being presumptuous or making something up quite apart from anything God ever said or simply wrong interpretations. After all it had been nearly 2000 years since those New Testament last day prophecies. It does seem a little presumptuous in the 19th century to assume they are all talking about her century. This would be a good example of all or nothing thinking. But if one did believe that the promises and threatenings of God are conditional and you have to admit there is an implied “all” in that statement. In fact the implied “all” would make the statement fall in the category of a logical fallacy known as the false generalization (sweeping or hasty generalization). 
 
The whole possibility of the second coming becomes conditional and may never happen. What are the conditions, who knows? A conditional prophecy without the conditions stated somewhere is worthless. Now ancient Israel had loads of prophecies and from the start of the nation state there were conditions set for all the prophecies. (Read Deut. 28) Is it really logical to assume the same conditions for a ancient nation to modern people in so many different nations? If one accepts that all promises and threatenings of God are conditional and the conditions are not stated then whenever anyone makes a prediction that fails to come to pass they can say the conditions of God were not met and most likely after the fact they will name some conditions. In this way people like Harold Camping could continue setting dates for Christ's return and continue to create excuses for the prophetic failures. The so called prophet could never be shown to be wrong, if something comes true it will show them as a prophet if it does not it shows nothing except conditions were not met.


Alden Thompson continues by saying:
“It was the 1844 Disappointment that forced Adventists to come to grips with conditional prophecy—reluctantly.” Going on to say that Ellen White never published her statement about conditional prophecy while she lived, it was in the form of a letter defending herself from certain charges.  I would ask should the letter be taken as inspired or the statement as inspired? Did Adventists come to grips with 1844 as a conditional prophecy? Well no it was assumed that the date was correct but the event was wrong and 1844 became integral to the novel SDA only doctrine known as the Investigative Judgment. He then moves on to Jonah, a favorite of Adventists who want to assert all prophecies are conditional. You can read a response to that position in my article Ellen White's Food for worms, Is it Conditional.


He finishes back with the Sabbath:


“Anywhere and everywhere Adventists can preach that the beast of Revelation 13 is coercive and deceptive. Anyone who coerces and deceives is in league with the beast. Today, however the great threat to our Sabbath is not coercive Sunday legislation, but secularization. Almost no one takes sacred time seriously anymore.”

So here at the end I grant my friends observation is probably correct. But all along the way I see numerous problems with the article's positions. But if this is the only way we can get Adventists to leave behind the 19^th century theology of Ellen White and realize that so far she has been wrong on most every prediction she made, I guess I will have to say Amen. Though I wish we could be more honest with ourselves. But I am not an all or nothing person so it is not either lie to ourselves about conditional prophecy and Ellen White or continue to accept Ellen White and teach the outdated prophecy scenarios, I think honesty demands more. There is a place for subtleness but even being subtle with incorrect facts is not really a winning formula.

All Christians are prophets

This is how our lesson study guide begins for the week of Feb. 15 2009:

Memory Text: “Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20, 21, NKJV).

All through the Bible, a theme recurs: God talks to people through His prophets, and the people either accept or reject what’s being said. Of course, by rejecting the words of the prophets, they’re not rejecting the prophets; they’re rejecting the One who sent them.

It’s a very serious thing, then, to claim to speak in the name of God. If you claim it, and are, then you are a mouthpiece for the Creator of the universe, no small responsibility. People have been delegated authority to speak for the boss of the company, or the president or prime minister—but to speak for the Lord? That’s heavy. Unfortunately, much of biblical history is a story of God speaking through His prophets and of people rejecting what was said. How careful we need be not to make the same mistake today.

What strikes me about this is how they have taken the New Testament statement on prophets and applied it to Old Testament prophets. I think that perhaps they are right and also wrong. Right in that the text used is applicable to everyone. Read the text :

(1 Th 5:16-22 NIV) Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil.

God communicates with His followers but they have to test what they think God reveals to themselves and others. It is common sense isn’t it? Wrong however in assuming the ultimate authority of prophets. The lesson goes on to say that Moses was God’s spokesman as if God was speaking to Aaron and Pharaoh. This is very similar to the New Testament where Paul says:

(2 Cor 5:20 NIV) We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

The prophets are God’s ambassadors; Christ’s followers are God’s ambassadors. We are just as much prophets as Moses and Elijah, but of course we don’t live under a Theocracy where a prophet acts as a ruler who sets up kings and declares what to do in a battle with an enemy nation. Time and circumstances change and we simply cannot carry forward into our time the things of thousands of years ago.

So let’s say a prophet receives a message from God, does it have to be new and original to him or can God give multiple times the same message to prophets. Well that is pretty easily answered because the Old Testament is filled with prophecy which are basically the same thing that Moses first gave. Repent and follow God or trouble will follow. So prophecy does not have to be novel. Can a prophecy be derived from something previously said by God? Again I think the Old Testament has frequently shown to have prophets using what other prophets have said and applying the message to their times.

So far we have seen prophets to be simply followers of God, the messages are pretty straight forward in that they usually relate to obedience to some command or other that God through some other prophet had given. For the most part dealing with the nation of Israel with the later prophets dealing a lot more with ideas such as justice and mercy, yet they were still centered upon the nation. So it was not too hard to test these prophets; as they were pretty consistent in telling people to return to God in one way or another. If as in Jeremiah you have a prophet going about saying how well you all are doing and how pleased God is with you, you probably don’t have a real prophet, probably not someone who really is a follower of God. Now back to Paul:

(1 Cor 14:29-33 NIV) Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

The spirit of the prophets appears to be what the intent of the prophet is. That is he/she is in control of the things he/she does and says. What is there motivation is probably as important as what they said. John says:

(1 John 4:1 NIV) Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So not everyone who claims to be a prophet is one and not everyone who claims to be a follower of God is a follower of God. We have to test not only what they say but their motivation. So clearly the idea of the authority of a prophet is becoming pretty dicey. We can’t simply trust them we have to test them carefully. We are no longer dealing with a nation and what happens to a nation but to people living out in multitudes of nations. The common factor is that they are followers of God not because they are part of a chosen nation for some specific purpose.

Martin Luther wrote:

But why does he say: “We have a sure prophetic Word”? Answer: I believe indeed that henceforth we shall not have prophets like those the Jews had in times past in the Old Testament. But a prophet must really be one who preaches about Jesus Christ. Therefore although many prophets in the Old Testament foretold future things, they really came, and were sent by God, to proclaim the Christ. Now those who believe in Christ are all prophets; for they have the real and chief qualification prophets should have, even though they do not all have the gift of foretelling the future. For just as through faith we are brothers of the Lord Christ, kings, and priests, so we are also all prophets through Christ. For we can all state what pertains to salvation, God's glory, and a Christian life. In addition, we can also talk about future events insofar as it is necessary for us to know about them. For example, we can say that the Last Day will come and that we will rise from the dead. Furthermore, we understand all Scripture. Paul also speaks about this in 1 Cor. 14:31: “For you can all prophesy one by one.”⁴ [Martin Luther, (1999, c1967). Vol. 30: Luther's works, vol. 30 : The Catholic Epistles (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (vol. 30, page 164). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.]

So we being good protestants can agree with Luther here, the importance of a prophet is to be declaring Jesus Christ. What about this predicting stuff. Were the Old Testament prophets particularly good at it? No, they did not even predict the coming of the Messiah so anyone could really notice it. There are scores of unfulfilled predictive prophecies in the Old Testament. So we say they are conditional prophecies designed to lure the nation into following God which of course as all the other prophets reiterated the nation did not follow God. So we end up with prophecies that did not come to pass and it is highly likely that God knew they would never come to pass. We see this in the New Testament where the Apostles clearly thought and taught the soon return of Christ. No doubt for the purpose of making the expectation of something better in life more immediate. Because saying that in 2000-4000 years Jesus would return would put a heavy damper on the idea of spreading the gospel. Of course one of the techniques people use to attempt to shore up the Old Testament unfulfilled prophecies is to move the fulfillment to some time yet in the future.

All in all with predictive prophecy which can be conditional or can be transferred way beyond what it originally appeared to suggest there is very little one can do to test it. We end up with saying here is a prediction that did not come true thus they are not a prophet, we can do that with a modern authoritative prophet such as Ellen White but it can be done with Isaiah or Ezekiel also. But we have to do it with the Old Testament Prophets because we are still reasonably instructed that we have to test all prophets. Just because something is in the Bible does not make it true, does not make it the express instructions of God or a correct understanding of God.

Adventists I think are currently at the crossroads in understanding both how to interpret the Bible and how do deal with the prophecies of God. We made the fundamentalist mistake of making Ellen White an authoritative Old Testament prophet of the nineteenth century. It has proven to be a disaster for our church; it keeps our church stuck in nineteenth century eschatology and a self importance based upon wrongly interpreting the Bible from Miller to the SDA formation. Maybe all we had to do was open our minds to what a prophet is they way Martin Luther describes it; someone who directs the attention of others to Jesus Christ because that is where the authority is not in the prophet.

Ellen White Food for worms, is it conditional

I am going to interrupt the review of the book previously mentioned because this weeks Lesson Study Guide is designed to counter the type of criticism mentioned in my last post review of It’s Okay Not To Be A Seventh-day Adventist. Specifically I will deal with February 3 lesson because unlike many other lessons in our history this lesson deals with a specific statement of Ellen White which many cite as a false prophecy. Here is what the lesson says:

The fulfillment of most prophecies (exceptions are the end-time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation) is dependent on the actions and attitudes of the people concerned. Jonah made the clear-cut statement, given him from God, that in 40 days Nineveh would be “overturned” (Jonah 3:4, NIV). Yet, it never happened. Was Jonah a false prophet? Of course not. Instead, the prophecy was conditional; its fulfillment depended upon how the people responded to the message God had given them.

This principle may explain why a particular prophecy made by Ellen White in 1856 did not come to pass. In 1856, Mrs. White declared: “I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: ‘Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.’ ”—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 131, 132.

All who were alive way back then are now, of course, dead. How do we explain this? The answer is conditional prophecy. We must remember that she was told God’s kingdom could have come in her lifetime. In 1896 she wrote: “If those who claimed to have a living experience in the things of God had done their appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would have been warned ere this, and the Lord Jesus would have come in power and great glory.”—Review and Herald, Oct. 6, 1896.

In the last volume of the Testimonies for the Church, published in 1909, she wrote, “If every soldier of Christ had done his duty, if every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet a certain sound, the world might ere this have heard the message of warning. But the work is years behind. While men have slept, Satan has stolen a march upon us.”—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 29. If we apply the principle of conditionality to her 1856 vision, the problem disappears. See also Friday’s lesson.

First of all does overturned in Jonah 3:4 mean destroyed? If we look up the word overturned in a lexicon we see this definition:

Definition

1. to turn, overthrow, overturn
1. (Qal)
1. to overturn, overthrow
2. to turn, turn about, turn over, turn around
3. to change, transform
2. (Niphal)
1. to turn oneself, turn, turn back
2. to change oneself
3. to be perverse
4. to be turned, be turned over, be changed, be turned against
5. to be reversed
6. to be overturned, be overthrown
7. to be upturned
3. (Hithpael)
1. to transform oneself
2. to turn this way and that, turn every way
4. (Hophal) to turn on someone

So even if Jonah thought, or hoped Nineveh would be destroyed; to turn away, turn from, to change or reverse their course are all legitimate meanings for the word used. Jonah may have thought his prophecy failed but that would only be if a certain meaning is used to the exclusion of other meanings. The story is pretty clear that Jonah wanting the city to be destroyed even if God did not. There are also the other problems with the book of Jonah used to compare to Ellen White’s food for worms quote. First there are only 8 words recorded of Jonah’s message. If we assume that those were the only 8 words then we have a problem logically because why would anyone listen to a stranger in town repeating those words. At some point you would have to assume he identifies who he is and who his God is. The other problem with using Jonah as a comparison is that there is a pretty even split between Biblical scholars whether the book is supposed to be literal history or an analogy; a parable to demonstrate the grace of God over the nation of Israel’s tendency to self importance. Since there has never been any evidence that Nineveh worshiped the God of Israel I tend to think it is meant as a parable.

Next there is the possibility of conditional prophecies, but they are not all conditional and simply saying the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation are not conditional because they say so is pretty poor reasoning. In any case the verse which is most applicable to Jonah’s prophecy is found in Jeremiah as the lesson study guide mentioned:

Jeremiah 18:6-10 (New International Version)

6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

Is that applicable to Ellen White statement where she said:

I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said (132) the angel: "Some food for worms, [SISTER CLARISSA M. BONFOEY, WHO FELL ASLEEP IN Jesus ONLY THREE DAYS AFTER THIS VISION WAS GIVEN, WAS PRESENT IN USUAL HEALTH, AND WAS DEEPLY IMPRESSED THAT SHE WAS ONE WHO WOULD GO INTO THE GRAVE, AND STATED HER CONVICTIONS TO OTHERS.] some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." {1T 131.3}

Solemn words were these, spoken by the angel. I asked the angel why so few were interested in their eternal welfare, so few preparing for their last change. Said he: "Earth attracts them, its treasures seem of worth to them." They find enough to engross the mind, and have no time to prepare for heaven. Satan is ever ready to plunge them deeper and deeper into difficulty; as soon as one perplexity and trouble is off the mind, he begets within them an unholy desire for more of the things of earth; and thus their time passes, and, when it is too late, they see that they have gained nothing substantial. They have grasped at shadows and lost eternal life. Such will have no excuse. {Vol 1 Testimonies to the Church p. 132.1}

Clearly the angel gives no conditions in fact Ellen White asks the angel why people are not preparing for their last change and makes it clear there is no excuse if they are not ready and lose eternal life. It is quite the opposite of a conditional prophecy. The lady mentioned here and in Ellen White’s book “Spiritual Gifts” certainly did not think it was conditional as Ellen White writes:

Sr. Bonfoey remarked to a sister as we left the meeting-house, "I feel impressed that I am one that will soon be food for worms.” The conference closed Monday. Thursday Sr. B. sat at the table with us apparently well. She then went to the Office as usual, to help get off the paper. In about two hours I was sent for. Sr. B. had been suddenly taken very ill. My health had been very poor, yet I hastened to suffering Clara. In a few hours she seemed some better. The next morning we had her brought home in a large chair, and she was laid upon her own bed from which she was never to rise. Her symptoms became alarming, and we had fears that a tumor, which had troubled her for nearly ten years, had broken inwardly. It was so, and mortification was doing its work. {Vol 2 Spiritual Gifts p. 208.2}

Jeremiah’s statement is specifically for a “nation or kingdom” Ellen White is addressing a group of people at a conference, not even the SDA church because they did not exist yet. Jeremiah also says that if someone prophesies something good then you really know they are true because it is too easy to prophecy troubles:

(Jeremiah 28:8 NIV) From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms 9. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the LORD only if his prediction comes true."

Ellen White’s food for worms prophecy also includes the very best news; “translated at the coming of Jesus”. Ellen White’s statement fails to meet any of the conditions of Jeremiah’s statements.

What about the method the Lesson Study guide uses, it is the same method the White Estate uses when it quotes Ellen White’s explanation that if people had done their duty Christ would have returned before the time she made the statement. How would we verify the accuracy of that statement? If we allowed that type of reasoning then it would be impossible to ever show anyone to be a false prophet. All that so called prophet would have to do is give an excuse why their prophecy did not occur (the excuse being in the form of another prophetic statement). Rather like the Jehovah’s Witnesses saying that Armageddon and the consummation of the age would occur in 1914. When Armageddon did not occur it became the invisible return of Christ and began to rule in heaven. Click here for more.

There is no doubt if Jeremiah’s conflict with the false prophet Hananiah had used the rules as interpreted by the Lesson Study guide above prophets would have lost all meaning as what they said could or could not happen and their would be no consequence either way. Any so called prophet can prophesy their way out of any failed prophesies.

Ultimately it makes prophecy meaningless and testing of prophets worthless.

Matthew, Prophecy and Context

As the subject of Prophecy and the Bible in general is the subject of this quarter’s Lesson Study Guide here are some thoughts based upon some of the things that were touched upon in my Sabbath school class.

For some time I have had a distaste for the book of Matthew. The biggest problem I have with Matthew is the author’s way of taking material out of context from the Old Testament and applying them to the life of Christ. Now we don’t know who the author of Matthew was for certain. It is set forth by tradition to be the disciple Matthew; it may or may not be. We do see that in the book of Matthew at least in the first several chapters, an intentional literary device is employed. The book tries to create a recapitulation the events of ancient Israel in the life of Jesus Christ. The writer of Matthew therefore attempts to create or recount similarities between the life of Christ and Israel or Moses. Jesus is endangered in infancy like Moses by an evil king, Jesus goes down to Egypt like Moses and/or Israel and subsequently out of Egypt. Israel passes through a baptism of water by their crossing of the Red Sea and Jordan River. Both spend time wandering about the wilderness at God’s command. There are other ways the book of Matthew continues this comparison but they may not be as easily seen as the above. For instance some say that the Sermon on the Mount is similar to the Law delivered on Mt. Sinai etc.

As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary writes in reference to Matt 2:15:

1. Many have noticed that Jesus is often presented in the NT as the antitype of Israel or, better, the typological recapitulation of Israel. Jesus' temptation after forty days of fasting recapitulated the forty years' trial of Israel (see on 4:1-11). Else where, if Israel is the vine that does not bring forth the expected fruit, Jesus, by contrast, is the True Vine (Isa 5; John 15). The reason Pharaoh must let the people of Israel go is that Israel is the Lord's son (Exod 4:22-23), a theme picked up by Jeremiah (31:9) as well as Hosea (cf. also Ps 2:6, 12). The "son" theme in Matthew (cf. esp. T. de Kruijf, Der Sohn des lebendigen Gottes: Ein Beitrag zur Christologie des Matthausevangeliums [Rome: BIP, 1962], pp. 56-58, 109), already present since Jesus is messianic "son of David" and, by the virginal conception, Son of God, becomes extraordinarily prominent in Matthew (see on 3:17): "This is my Son, whom I love."

A related concept is that Matthew used a technique often used by Jewish Commentators called Pesher:

The term pesher means, "to explain." In fact, however, pesher is an application of OT scripture with little to no concern for the context of the passage applied. Pesher may refer either to commentaries on the OT found amongst the Dead Sea scrolls or to the interpretive technique typical of these commentaries. Pesher interpreters assume that OT authors were speaking to the contemporary audience. This form of interpretation is tied to a word, text or OT allusion, which is then related to a present person, place or thing. The interpretations are generally aloof from the source context and appear to lack any coherent methodology. According to Lundberg, "This kind of commentary (pesher) is not an attempt to explain what the Bible meant when it was originally written, but rather what it means in the day and age of the commentator, particularly for his own community." Matthew's Use of the Old Testament: A Preliminary Analysis
by Lee Campbell

There also seems to be a recurring theme if we look a little deeper at the verses that the author of Matthew uses. In the following verses the section used in Matthew are highlighted in bold.

To Christians the most important of these Old Testament verses is that found in Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.(NIV)

Thanks to the book of Matthew’s use of this verse it is often only considered to be a prophecy of Christ. Even though there is no place other then Matthew that calls Jesus Immanuel. However it is not to the name Immanuel that Matthew wants to draw attention, it is to the idea of what the name means, “God with us”. In fact it was the idea of “God with us” that Isaiah had presented to the Israelites hundreds of years before. In our ardor to insist upon Immanuel as a Messianic Prophecy we often ignore the repetition Isaiah uses of the terms with the meaning of “God with us”. Besides the reference in Isaiah 7:14 he precedes to us it two more times:

Isaiah 8:8

And sweep on into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck. Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!"

Isaiah 8:10

Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us. (NIV)

God is with us is Isaiah’s words of comfort to a people about to suffer a major defeat by their enemies. And even when the enemies appear to be winning God notes that even the purposes of the enemy will not stand because God is with his people. So like the sign to Ahaz, the child born is a reminder that “God is with us”, though bad may come, God will not abandon his people, He does not leave them alone. In the echoes of Immanuel we see that though the people may have failed in their covenant with God, God has not nor will He fail. For we see an inherent promise of hope in Isaiah.

In the book of Matthew the author has taken this hope, this certainty of God with us and applied it to the person of Jesus Christ. Not because Jesus was to literally be named Immanuel and not even because of a virgin birth but because Jesus Christ was now seen as truly “God with us”. Remember the author is writing after all the events in Christ’s life had happened. He is going back in time to state his case as to why this Jesus is the Messiah. In some ways the book of Matthew is very much like the book of John. When they both begin to tell about the person of Jesus they both tell us that it is God with us, Matthew by means of Immanuel and John by means of the Logos, the Word become flesh.

Many people become sidetracked by the part of Isaiah 14:7 about a virgin conceiving a child however in the Hebrew it just means a young woman. It works out well for the book of Matthew’s purposes but again it is a foreshadowing of events to come rather then a clear straight forward prophecy of the messiah. There seems to be no indication that the child born was from a literal virgin as we use the term today. Interestingly Isaiah in the first part of Chapter 8 also has a son who is used to foreshadow what will happen to Judah’s enemies when they are defeated. The first child with the name Immanuel brings confirmation to Ahaz of the disaster to come but the name and its echoes also confirm that God has not left the people.

After the proclamation of the good news that God is with us Matthew moves on to the recapitulation of the Messiah with Israel, it is also possible that it is to Moses the deliverer of Israel that Matthew is comparing Christ.

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. (Hosea 11:1-4 NIV)

Herod’s death decree against baby boys reminds us of the death decree Egypt inflicted upon the children of Israel in slavery (Exodus 1:16). "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." (NIV)

Like the miraculous deliverance of Moses, Jesus is delivered from Herod’s evil also. Matthew then quotes Jeremiah 31:15-17 to show the sorrow of the people under Herod’s decree. 13 Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. 14 I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty," declares the LORD. 15 This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more." 16 This is what the LORD says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded," declares the LORD. "They will return from the land of the enemy. 17 So there is hope for your future," declares the LORD. "Your children will return to their own land. (NIV)

The verses in Jeremiah are referring to the exile of Israel and once again while the people must suffer the exile, God has promised relief, they are not abandoned, they can say, “God is with us”. While the verse in Jeremiah has nothing to do with Egypt or Herod’s decree Matthew has changed its setting to reflect the story he is telling. While the story being told may have a much deeper meaning then it appears. All the verses he has used reflect in their original context the healing and deliverance God offers. Matthew is a book that presents us with this Messiah, the anointed one who delivers his people from sin and its consequences.

The book of Matthew then moves a step farther then we today can comprehend. …and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene.”. (Matthew 2:23 NIV)

Since there is no Old Testament reference like this it may be that the author was using an expression of scorn used against the Messiah. Such as that expressed by Nathanael,

"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip. (John 1:46 NIV) Conceptually there may be some places which could offer the author the incentive to make the statement. Certainly the ancient history of Israel is filled with Israel’s scorn of the things of God.

But Matthew’s failure to reference something in the Old Testament while stating it was something said through the prophets is perhaps the key to unfolding Matthew’s intent in the second chapter of Matthew. The history might not be accurate, but the concepts are what the author found most important. The Messiah has come, God with us, the deliverer miraculously inserting Himself into mankind’s world. The precious gold of God presented to a world that would kill its very savior. So in the book of Matthew the author tells us of the myrrh given to child, an aromatic resin used for the preparation of a corpse for burial. The gift of incense, the sweet fragrance that for centuries was used in the worship of God, even the gifts of the Magi have deeper meanings.

Matthew 2 is not the simplistic story I was indoctrinated to believe. It is a piece of in depth literature with more substance then history. But then isn’t that the way of so much of the Bible. Literature, poetry, Chiastic Structure, and analogy all and more find themselves used within the Bible. Human creativity and God given inspiration can create amazing things. Yet we can in our excitement of discovery often trample all over what was written in our haste to explain what our tradition has taught us.