And The Veil of Temple Was Rent -- Or Was It?

At the risk of bringing the Bible inerrancy troops down on my head, may I suggest that we may have been missing the real point of this story?

The Synoptic Gospels relate the story of the Crucifixion, and at the end,

 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost...And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Matthew 27:50-51

And the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. Mark15:38

And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. Luke 23:45

Except that it wasn't. We know that it wasn't because the veil itself is in the Vatican, and has been seen and described by Rabbi Benjamin Blech.

According to Aish.com

Rabbi Benjamin Blech is the author of 12 highly acclaimed books, including Understanding Judaism: The basics of Deed and Creed. He is a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and the Rabbi Emeritus of Young Israel of Oceanside which he served for 37years and from which he retired to pursue his interests in writing and lecturing around the globe. He is also the author of If God is Good, Why is the World So Bad? and of the international best-seller, The Sistine Secrets.

In A.D. 70, Roman soldiers, under Vespasian and his son Tacitus, sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the
Second, or Herod's, Temple. Determined to kill the God of Israel, Tacitus entered the Holy of Holies, sword drawn.

There was nobody there. No idol, no statue, no representation of God. No one or nothing to break or kill.

Furious, the Roman turned and slashed at the Veil.

The Romans hauled off everything they could lay hands on for the big victory parade in Rome. The event is memorialized in the Arch of Titus. Now nobody knows where all the treasure went, but some of it, including the veil, is in the Vatican.

Fast forward now to September 11, 2001, and the Twin Towers. Among the many heroes there that day there was a rabbi who distinguished himself and was awarded a piece of one of the steel beams. He had it cut and fashioned into crosses and Stars of David.

I was privileged to be present (I think in 2005, but don't hold me to the exact date) when Rabbi Blech presented one of these Stars of David to Vendyl Jones at a gathering of Noahides. Vendyl couldn't say a word. He just stood there and wept unashamedly. Rabbi Blech passed the star around to the 80 or so persons present. We all held it for a moment or two, and believe me, Vendyl's tears weren't the only ones shed. Later he said that no one had seen him cry in public since his mother died.

Rabbi Blech was at the head of the group of rabbis who presented a cross from the 9-11 beam to the Pope. While in the Vatican, he was allowed to examine many of the treasures held there. Among them: the four-inch-thick Veil of the Temple.

The Veil was not "rent in two from the top to the bottom." Decades after the death of our Lord, it was slashed by a Roman sword. The cut is still visible. I sat not 20 feet from Rabbi Blech when he told of seeing it. I believe him.

Now I must ask myself: if the veil was not rent, what effect does this have on my testimony of the Gospel? Is the Bible wrong in this respect? Is this an embellishment added in later years? Or am I reading it wrong?

I believe the Bible to be true "so far as it is translated correctly." My background and education tell me that "translate" is not limited to the precise changing of a word from one language to another. I have often spoken and written of the cultural as well as the linguistic vocabulary of a people. Biblical accounts are packed with layers of meaning. See the raising of Lazarus, the cleansing of the Temple, the smiting of the fig tree. When the Bible speaks of the veil of the Temple, is it telling of a curtain of physical fabric, separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the building?

There is another veil, a much more significant one, the one between the Here and the Hereafter. Until that Passover weekend some two thousand years ago, that veil was closed for us. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, and was later resurrected, that veil was rent from top to bottom. We, all of us, will now pass through it, from mortality to immortality, from Earth life to the Holiest of Holies.

The Jewish Revolt, the sacking of Jerusalem, the tragedy of the Twin Towers, the attendance at a meeting of Noahides. Who would have thought that from the confluence of these events, a Christian would gain an insight of eternal significance. It must be true that

All things work together for the good of those that love the Lord. Romans 8:28

So Just Who Do These Mormons Think They Are?

And why should anyone pay attention to them?

In the Book of Mormon, 1 and 2 Nephi, we read of the highly stressful relationship of the two oldest sons of Lehi with their brother Nephi. This young whippersnapper, though he is the the fourth son, keeps taking over the leadership. On the trek back to Jerusalem to obtain the brass plates from Laban, Nephi refuses to allow them to return to their father empty-handed. Even a good beating from them can't make him see the clear sense of the thing.

When his bow breaks he makes a new one, enabling him to continue to hunt and bring fresh meat to the cooking fires. Apparently he thinks they are all dependent on him. Then he gets the crazy idea that he can build a ship. Well, actually he does build or at least supervises the building of the ship. So he wants us to load our wives and children and our aged parents on board this thing and set out on the boundless ocean. What if we get caught in a storm far from land? Another beating ... he deserves it.

Laman and Lemuel seem to be constantly angry. The clear supremacy of their position as the older sons is being threatened, ignored. Why should they bow to the authority of their younger brother? Just who does he think he is?

Now go even further back in time to Joseph the son of Jacob. He had ten older brothers. Joseph is the son of Rachel, the greatly-loved wife, and their father keeps playing favorites. Then we are told of a series of dreams,(Gen. 37:2-11), in which Joseph is shown to take precedence over his older siblings.

They react about like Laman and Lemuel would many centuries later. Not daring to kill the smart-alecky little brother outright, they try to rid themselves of him by selling him to slave traders bound for Egypt. Eventually he is proven right of course, and saves them all from famine.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana

We  see the pattern set by Joseph and his older brothers (and indeed by Cain, the elder brother, and Abel, the favored son) and followed by Laman, Lemuel and Nephi repeating itself in the Christian world today.

In the early decades of the 19th Century, a young boy with the everyday name of Joseph Smith had the temerity to proclaim a new version of the Gospel of Christ.

What?? cried the priests of the old traditions. How dare he? How dare he claim that he knows something of God that we don't know? Haven't we been to seminaries? Don't all those letters after our names mean anything to him? We've studied all the commentaries while he can barely read English. His handwriting is so poor that he must have someone else write down what he dictates. And he talks about translating ancient documents!

Now he claims to have seen God, or rather Gods. God the Father and God the Son; separate beings, he says, when we have proclaimed for centuries that "they" are one, that they have no physical, visible bodies. Joseph Smith hasn't even been to church enough to have learned the Nicene Creed!

Then this lunatic had the nerve to try to tell us what to eat, and how to care for our bodies: eat fresh fruits and vegetables, he said, cut back on the meat. No coffee, tea, alcohol or tobacco, either. (D&C: 89) How does he think men can get together and talk things out without a little nip? Know what I mean?

He raved about space-time: Doctrine and Covenants 130:4–5.

Is not the reckoning of God’s time, angel’s time, prophet’s time, and man’s time, according to the planet on which they reside? I answer, yes.

He talked about the conservation of matter/energy:

The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but never destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end. (TPJS 350–52)

O the impertinence of it all!

This farm kid, who'd never been to university, thought he knew things that ...well, you see the problem.

Today there is a great deal of talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and their "strange"  "new" ideas. Of course these are not new ideas at all. They only seem new to those who have not familiarized themselves with the very old ideas.

One of our number seems headed in the direction of the White House, and our "older brothers" in Christianity are in panic mode, kicking and screaming as in days long gone by.

Just who do these Mormons think they are? And why should anyone pay attention to them?

Was Jesus Born In a Caravanserai?

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! Rudolph is coming! Hear the Jingle Bells? This is the day we exchange gifts, put up trees, decorate our homes to an extent that would make the famous Las Vegas Strip seem austere.

We do all this because this is the day Jesus Christ was born in a manger (or a cave in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem) because there was no room at the inn. The date? December 25, A.D. 1.

We know all this, have known it all our lives; or do we? As Will Rogers was fond of saying, 

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble. It's what we know that ain't so.

Sorry, but all this just ain't so.

The Date

In Luke 2:8 we read

 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Why would the sheep be kept outdoors in the cold and rainy winter? Perhaps they had a shelter of some kind. And how about the people, traveling on sandaled feet on rough, and in winter often muddy, roads? Joseph and Mary are reported to be going to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. Surely the Roman Empire could have survived without a census until springtime. And it probably did.

It is part of Mormon mythology, widely accepted but never actually declared by the Church, that Jesus was born on April 6, A.D. 1.

But in the Mortal Messiah, by Bruce R. McConkie, we read,

We do not believe it is possible with the present state of our knowledge — including that which is known both in and out of the Church — to state with finality when the natal day of the Lord Jesus actually occurred. James E. Talmage takes the view that he was born on April 6, 1 b.c., basing his conclusions on D&C 20:1, which speaks of the day on which the Church was organized, saying it was "one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the flesh." April 6 is then named as the specific day for the formal organization. Elder Talmage notes the Book of Mormon chronology, which says that the Lord would be born 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem. (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, pg 102-104.)Elder Hyrum M. Smith of the Council of the Twelve wrote in the Doctrine and Covenants Commentary: "The organization of the Church in the year 1830 is hardly to be regarded as giving divine authority to the commonly accepted calendar. There are reasons for believing that those who, a long time after our Savior's birth, tried to ascertain the correct time erred in their calculations, and that the Nativity occurred four years before our era, or in the year of Rome 750. All that this Revelation [D&C 20] means to say is that the Church was organized in the year commonly accepted as 1830, a.d." Rome 750 is equivalent, as indicated, to 4 b.c.

 The Place: No Room in the Inn

"Inn" at that time and place probably meant "caravanserai." These were the places where camel caravans stopped along the way; people stayed in rooms on the second floor, while the animals were housed at ground level. Note that Luke 2:7 says,  

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

  Caravanserai -- water trough front and center.

The operative word here is room, not space.

All the rooms upstairs were taken, but there was still space on the ground floor among the animals and in the courtyard. Mangers (actually water troughs) would naturally have been where the animals could get to them
easily.




We might read the above as: [Mary] wrapped him in swaddling clother, and laid him in a watering trough; because all the rooms in the caravanserai were occupied.

I won't comment on the Christmas tree, the holly, the candles and all the accoutrements of Christmas in our day and time. Much has already been written, and is easy to find on the Net. Christmas is a day for prayer and thanksgiving, but it is also a day for the delight of children (and sometimes for the child within ourselves). So don't feel guilty about the gift-giving, or about the sweets we will all consume. Just enjoy. 
The exact date, especially considering the various changes in the calendar, is really of no importance.  As Joseph Smith wrote,

The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it. ( Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 121).

Wishing everyone a slightly more realistic Merry Christmas!
 Beryl

"Christmas" Is About Christ

These are pictures I took in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas in 2003 and 2005.

The music is from Internet royalty free sites; the scriptures are KJV.

Merry Christmas to all!

What if the Mormons are Right? [Gasp! Horrors!!]

The subject of whether or not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is truly Christian or an aberrant cult, is being done to death nowadays. I have written about it before, but this time I propose to address it from a slightly different angle: What If? Just for the sake of discussion, and not to be taken as perjorative in any sense, we might ask: What If we Mormons (LDS) are Christians and "Mainstream Christianity" (MSC for short) is the cult?

Let's look at some of the issues being raised. The first thing that comes to mind is the doctrine of the Trinity. MSC holds that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three manifestations of the One Triune God. LDS belief is that they are three separate beings, united in will and purpose.
On this question many MSCs are closer to the LDS than you might think. A quick look at the SaintsAlive! Store on this site will show you a number of books whose MSC authors do not accept the doctrine of the Trinity.

Here are just a couple (among many) of examples:

The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound [Paperback]
Sir Anthony Buzzard (Author), Charles F. Hunting (Author) Publication Date: August 1, 1998

Book Description [Copyrighted material cannot be copied; thus only the description is reproduced here]:

This important work is a detailed biblical investigation of the relationship of Jesus to the one God of Israel. The authors challenge the notion that biblical monotheism is legitimately represented by a Trinitarian view of God and demonstrate that within the bounds of the canon of Scripture Jesus is confessed as Messiah, Son of God, but not God Himself. Later Christological developments beginning in the second century misrepresented the biblical doctrine of God and Christ by altering the terms of the biblical presentation of the Father and Son. This fateful development laid the foundation of a revised, unscriptural creed that needs to be challenged. This book is likely to be a definitive presentation of a Christology rooted, as it originally was, in the Hebrew Bible. The authors present a sharply-argued appeal for an understanding of God and Jesus in the context of the original Christian documents.

One God & One Lord : Reconsidering the Cornerstone of the Christian Faith John W. Schoenheit (Author), Mark H. Graeser  Mark H. Graeser (Author).

http://astore.amazon.com/sain00-20

Of course, volumes defending the doctrine of the Triune God are innumerable.

Click on any of these three images to see more.

The next thing we might look at is the insistence of the MSC that the Book of Mormon, since it was "added on," cannot be true. Yet they subscribe to one or more of the following Creeds, all of which are obviously "added on."

 Deuteronomy 4:2: "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you."

This of course, if taken literally, would obviate the OT after the Pentateuch, and the NT in its entirety.

Revelation 22:18-19  "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book."

With these scriptures in mind, let's look at the following Creeds and their dates:

Symbolum Apostolorum (Apostle's Creed)

The present form first appeared in the 6th century in the writings of Caesarius of Arles (d 542), but prior versions can be traced back to 340 AD in a letter to Pope Julius I and even still further back to a circa 200 document containing the Roman baptismal liturgy. ... Instead of the continuous prayer as we have it today, each line was rather in the form of a question to which the catechumen gave assent indicating he both understood and believed. ... Eventually this question and answer style was modified into the prayer form as we have it today. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who recite the Symbolum Apostolorum. ...

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

The Canons of the Council of Orange (529 AD) 

CONCLUSION. And thus according to the passages of holy scripture quoted above or the interpretations of the ancient Fathers we must, under the blessing of God, preach and believe ...  

The Synod of Constantinople  (Hiera, 753 AD)

Thirty-five years later, Irene, the regent for Constantine VI, called another council at which 350 bishops repudiated the decision documented above.

Council of Nicaea (7th Ecumenical,787 AD)

We, therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church (for, as we all know Holy Spirit indwells her), define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honorable Angels, of all Saints and of all pious people. ... and to these should be given due salutation and honorable reverence not indeed that true worship of faith which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom. For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented.

See the previous post, Of Temples, Churches and Crosses on this blog, and the page The Cross, the Cross Symbol, and Christianity by MSC writer L.D. Hannons.

MSC holds that Joseph Smith and his successors cannot be called Prophets, since as "everyone" knows there can be no prophets in our day.  But the Prophet Amos wrote "Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." Amos 3:7.
Are we to infer that, since there can be no prophets today, God will do nothing? If this is the case, why do we waste our time in prayer?
In the Temple, Mormons pledge their time, effort and substance to the Lord. MSCs find this particularly offensive, but who among them, if called upon, would not give all that they have in service to the Lord? Mother Theresa comes to mind.

How dare they call themselves Saints? 

Church Discipline By: Pastor Vincent Nicotra

Church discipline was never intended to drive a sinning saint away or to execute judgment on fallen saints. ...At this point the sinning saint should recognize the seriousness of their offense. ..., for the purity of the church and the good of the sinning saint. . . .  Paul commonly addresses the Christian community as "saints." (Acts 9:13, 32; Rom 1:7; 12:13; Phil 4:22; 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1), especially the community in Jerusalem (15:25; 1 Cor 16:1).

To return to our original question, What if? What if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turns out to be the truly New Testament religion? We would never apply the term "cult" to other denominations, but just ask yourself: What If?