✪ See Ref-0075, p. 21. "The word Bible can rightfully claim to be the great-grandson of the Greek word biblios, which was the name given to the outer coat of papyrus reed in Egypt during the eleventh century B.C. The plural form of biblios is biblia, and by the second century A.D. Christians were using this latter word to describe their writings." ". . .it is noteworthy that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the phrase ‘the books’ (Gk ta biblia of the two Testaments together; in Christian usage the phrase had previously been restircted to the Old Testament writings." Ref-0073, p. 214.
✪ See Aleppo Codex. "Scholars agree that the Ben Asher family of biblical texts is the most reliable. It is represented today by the Aleppo Codex (A) (lacking the Pentateuch), the British Museum Codex Or. 4445 (B) (covering the Pentateuch), the Cairo Codex (C) (covering the Prophets), and the Leningrad Codex B19a (L) (the only complete representative of the Ben Asher tradition available today). The third edition of Kittel's Hebrew Bible (1937), known as BHK, abandoned the eclectic Ben Hayyim text of 1524-25, also known as the Bomberg Bible, the Second Rabbinic Bible, or the Textus Receptus, in favor of the Leningrad Codex B19a. Kittel's original intention was to provide readers of BHK not only with the text of L but also with its complete Masorah, placing the Masorah parva (Mp) notes in the outer margins of the printed pages, and supplementing these with an alphabetic arrangement of Masorah magna (Mm) notes in a separate volume. These plans were only partially fulfilled. While the Mp or marginal notes were reproduced exactly as they appeared in L, the separate volume would only appear in 1971, and then only as a companion volume [Weil's Massorah Gedolah] to the fourth edition of BHK, otherwise known as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS)." Ref-0842, pp. xi-xii. "Most of the differences [between ben Asher and ben Naphtali] are matters of vocalization and accentuation. The two only differed in eighty instances regarding the consonantal text." Ref-0842, p. 20.
✪ "Four letters in the Bible are written above the normal line. They are the nûn in Jdg. 18:30, and ‘ayin's in Ps. 80:14 and Job 38:13 and 15. According to Yeivin, the nûn of Manasseh (Jdg. 18:30) was most likely intended by scribes to change משׁה (Moses) to מנשׁה in order to avoid mentioning Moses in connection with descendants of his who became idol priests. The ‘ayin of Ps. 80:14 may have been raised to mark the middle letter of the book of Psalms. There is no obvious reason for the two other raised letters." Ref-0841, pp. 4-5.
✪ "Small letters were used less commonly, apparently for purposes similar to large letters. BHS contains only three, all final n^un's in Isa. 44:14, Jer. 39:13, and Pr. 16:28." Ref-0841, p. 4. (The specific purpose of the small letters in each case is not given.)
✪ A systematic dealing with the historically conditioned progress of the self-revelation of God in the Bible.
✪ See Fast stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf galaxies, Ref-0003, 14(3) 2000, p. 5. "This has profound and unwelcome implications for big-bang theory, because our universe is made of ordinary matter, not equal amounts of matter and antimatter. The only known way that matter can form from energy is via quantum pair production, and quantum pair production yields equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Since our universe consists only of matter (as far as we can tell -- though there are probably small amounts of matter/antimatter pairs associated with localized high-energy events), it is a reasonable conclusion that our universe could not have been produced by quantum pair production." Ref-0814, p. 126. "The problem [of galaxy formation] was once put this way: “There shouldn't be galaxies out there at all, and even if there ware galaxies, they shouldn't be grouped together the way they are. . . . [it] is one of the thorniest problems in cosmology. . . . It's hard to convey the depth of the frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.” The scientists at NASA, the world's leading space exploration agency, have admitted that “We have no direct evidence of how galaxies were formed [or] how galaxies evolved, whether they were formed from aggregations of smaller units or from subdivision of large ones.” . . . How can we say this simply? Perhaps just this. The universe is, by definition, the planets, stars, and galaxies that surround us. Insofar as big-bang theory does not explain the origin of these objects, then we can say that big-bang theory does not even address the question of the origin of the universe. It does not even get to first base." Ref-0814, p. 129. Big-bang theory suggests that as we see further and further out into the universe, we should see fewer complex, formed entities such as galaxies. But no matter how far back we look, we see fully-formed galaxies. "When we look out at the universe we find much the same picture in every direction -- galaxies upon galaxies as far as our telescopes can see. Even when the Hubble Space Telescope was focused for ten whole day s(a 153-hour exposure) on an ‘empty’ piece of sky, it turned out to be filled with galaxies, just like everywhere else." Ref-0814, p. 132."The fourth line of evidence is the recent large-scale map of the galaxies, known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). It reveals a picture of the universe completely opposed to the cosmological principle. The galaxies appear to be distributed in concentric shells focused on our galaxy, and they are far more dense close in than farther out. A big-bang universe would not produce concentric shells around our location in the sky, and the density of galaxies should increase, not decrease, as you look back in time -- because the galaxies were supposedly much closer together in the past." Ref-0814, pp. 135-136. "When astronomers look deep into the universe, they don't find a hierarchy of development of galaxies from large and complex nearly to the small and simple at great distance, but they find large complex galaxies at all epochs in the cosmos. The universe is organized into structure from start clusters, to galaxies, to galaxy clusters, to superclusters at all epochs. This is not what we would expect from the expanding big bang universe model." John Hartnett, "A Review of The Virtue of Heresy: Confessions of a Dissident Astronomer" by Hilton Ratcliffe. Ref-0784, 23(2) 2009, 32:37, p. 33. "In his Nobel lecture, William Fowler, a pioneer in Big Bang and stellar nucleosynthesis theory, acknowledged: ‘In spite of the past and current research in experimental and theoretical nuclear astrophysics . . . Hoyle’s grand concept of element synthesis in the stars [is not] fully established, . . . It is not just a matter of filling in the details. There are puzzles and problems in each part of the cycle that challenge the basic ideas underlying nucleosynthesis in stars.’" Jonathan F. Henry, Should Christian Apologists Advocate the Big Bang? Implications for Dispensationalists., Ref-0785, Volume 14, Number 41, April, 2010, 7:20, pp. 9-10. "The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was sent into space to confirm the Big Bang prediction, but it did not. Continued observations have also failed to confirm Big Bang predictions with regard to CMB. Instead, the WMAP data are “far outside the current expectations” of Big Bang cosmology, and have added “to the anomalies seen in the CMB.”" Jonathan F. Henry, Should Christian Apologists Advocate the Big Bang? Implications for Dispensationalists., Ref-0785, Volume 14, Number 41, April, 2010, 7:20, p. 11. "To say that the universe was created out of nothing by a ‘quantum fluctuation in the false vacuum’ is simply promiscuous use of smoke and mirror; it is empty speculation with no experimental basis except that the universe does exist. Scientists who say that ‘we do not need to invoke a higher power’ simply mandate away any possible explanation outside the exceedingly narrow precepts of reductionist science." Allan Sandage cited in Jerry Bergman, "Professor Allan Sandage - his research led to Intelligent Design", Ref-0784, 25(2) 2011, 78-82, p. 81. "The Big Bang singularity does not represent a physical concept, because it cannot be accommodated by a physical theory. It is a point at which physical theories give way." Ref-1386, loc. 1029. "With the non-detection of any SUSY particles and the essential demise of string theory (that is how good experimental physics should work) it also does not bode well for dark matter. The dark matter crisis has just gotten into a bigger crisis. The best candidate has been experimentally shown now to be extremely improbable. Where does that leave dark matter and the standard model of particle physics? . . . Where does that leave the standard big bang model and big bang nucleosynthesis? In big, big trouble. It is a failed paradigm and should be discarded." John G. Hartnett, SUSY is not the solution to the dark matter crisis, Ref-0784, 31(1) 2017, 6-7, p. 7. ". . . when the speeds of rotation of spiral galaxies are assumed to be subject to the same Newtonian Law of Gravitation, spherical halo dark matter is required to explain what would otherwise be anomalous behaviour. Similarly, when the masses of spherical galaxies and clusters of galaxies are calculated from their X-ray emissions, invisible dark matter is again invoked to explain otherwise anomalous behaviour. But these calculations are based on the over-riding assumption that what we know as standard physics applies over the length scales and timescales of the galaxies and the clusters of galaxies. In addition, the same assumption is made concerning the scale size of the universe and the 13.8-billion-year timescale of its assumed history since the alleged big bang. But what if those assumptions are not correct?" John G. Hartnett Our eternal universe, Ref-0784, volume 30(3) 2016, pp. 104-109, p. 108. ". . . wrong assumptions has led in fact to the ludicrous state of cosmology today, with its insistence on dark matter, dark energy, dark radiation, even dark ‘photons', for which there is not one shred of experimental local laboratory evidence." John G. Hartnett Our eternal universe, Ref-0784, volume 30(3) 2016, pp. 104-109, p. 108. "In theory, at least, the inflationary string landscape model can explain the whole range of fine-tuning phenomena, but only at the cost of what philosophers of science call “a bloated ontology” (recall that ontology is the study of what really exists). That is, it does so by positing an extraordinary number of purely hypothetical and abstract entities for which we have no direct evidence." -- Ref-1568, p. 497. "not only does the universe-generating mechanism in inflationary cosmology require prior unexplained fine tuning. It actually requires more fine tuning than it was proposed to explain, making the fine-tuning problem it was designed to solve significantly worse." -- Ref-1568, p. 503.
✪ "Unlike some, I have never had any problem reconciling a historical view of Genesis with the big bang theory, and I set out just such a scenario in my 1978 book From nothing to nature. Briefly rehearsed, this scenario is that the ex nihilo creation of the universe is reported in verse one of Genesis 1 — ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ — with no reference to how long ago that happened. I also regard the order as significant, the heavens being mentioned (and thus created) before the earth. From verse 2 onwards, the account concentrates squarely on the earth itself, which was at first covered with water. As the waters separated into clouds above the firmament (sky) and liquid water on the earth’s surface (the waters under the firmament) the earth was bathed in light from the sun — light that was ‘separated’ from darkness because only half the globe was illuminated, just as today. As the sky cleared, the heavens became visible from an earthly perspective and the heavenly bodies (having already been created) were ‘set’ or placed in the sky — a classic use of phenomenological language describing what would have been seen by an observer on earth had anyone been there to see it." Ref-1341, loc. 1696-1699. "Understood in this way, the Genesis account of creation is fully compatible with the big bang theory and, indeed, predicts some such creation scenario." Ref-1341, loc. 1706.
✪ "The starting assumption of the big-bang model is that all the substance of the universe (in the form of energy) as well as time and space began in a single point of infinite density and temperature. This state of singularity is a thermodynamic dead end, so something else was needed to get it out of the singular state and into a form that could produce the galaxies and stars of the observed universe. This “something else” is called the “big bang,” but nobody knows what it was -- nothing in the known world of physics could have produced it. Physical descriptions of the big-bang model can only begin after the unknown event has already happened. Even the “big bang” was not enough to explain what we see, so a period of “inflation” that expanded the universe by a very huge factor in a very tine fraction of a second is proposed. As the inflated fireball expanded, it cooled down, and the energy turned into matter according to the known principles of particle physics. However, this process would have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter -- but our universe consists only of matter, very little antimatter, so this is a major contradiction. After about 300,000 years, the end product was an expanding cloud of mostly hydrogen gas, accompanied by the cooling glow of radiation from the primordial fireball that we see today as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR). There are no galaxies, stars, planets, or people in the big-bang universe, just an expanding cloud of gas. These latter objects are proposed to have formed by “other means” that have nothing to do with the big bang -- indeed they have to counteract the big band and overcome the cosmic expansion in order to form the stars and galaxies. There are no convincing naturalistic explanations for the origin of the solid objects that we observe in the real universe." Ref-0814, pp. 161-162. "A particular problem is that to explain both the shape and the extreme uniformity of the universe, theoreticians have had to introduce the idea that (in its initial stages) the universe ‘inflated’ from nothing to one metre in diameter in a period of 10-35 seconds — a speed of 1035 m/sec which is a trifling 1027 (ten followed by 27 zeros) times faster than the speed of light. That’s a billion billion billion times faster that the fastest thing we know." Ref-1341, loc. 1647.
✪ Feast of Firstfruits, Hebrew.
✪ "The night before his death [in 1531], he was eating a hearty meal when Matthew Parker and some friends came to visit him. They tried to comfort him before the horrible ordeal of the following day, but Bilney said nothing. When he had finished eating his meal, he slipped down the bench to where they were sitting, put his open Bible on the table beside him, held his index finger over the flame of the candle and burned it to the bone. He looked at his stunned friends and pointed to Isaiah 43:2 - “When though walkest through fire, thou shalt not be burned.”" Ref-0020, p. 128. Bilney started the meetings in the White Horse Inn in Cambridge with a black-market copy of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament (see Ref-0020, pp. 125-128).
✪ All apostles had the power to bind and loose. A rabbinic term ‘bind men to forbid’ and ‘loose men to permit’ - the authority to permit that which was formerly forbidden and to forbid that which was formerly permitted. The authority to establish new rules. Ref-0100, Tape 4:B. "Contrary to Jerome's Latin Vulgate that translates these verbs as simple futures, the periphrastic future perfect nature of the verbs should cause them to be translated “shall have been bound” and “shall have been loosed.” In other words, Peter's authority only comes from announcing what heaven has already determined. The “keys of the kingdom” probably refer to the ability to open citizenship to the kingdom to others. Peter did just this in the book of Acts." Andy Woods, "The Purpose of Matthew's Gospel, Part II", Ref-0785, Volume 11 Number 34 December 2007, 5:42, p. 27n55. ". . . the actions described in heaven are future perfect passives -- which could be translated “will have already been bound in heaven . . . will have already been loosed in heaven.” In other words, the heavenly decree confirming the earthly one is based on a prior verdict. This is the language of the law court. Jewish legal issues were normally decided in Jesus' day by elders in the synagogue community (latter by rabbis). Many Jewish people believed that the authority of Heaven stood behind the earthly judges when they decided cases based on a correct understanding ofGod's law." "This process came to be called “binding and loosing.”) Jesus' contemporaries often envisioned God's justice in terms of a heavenly court; by obeying God's law, the earthly court simply ratified the decrees of the heavenly court. In Matthew 18:15-20, Christians who follow the careful procedures of verses 15-17 may be assured that they will act on the authority of God's court when they decide cases." Craig S. Keener, Exegetical Insight, Ref-0085, p. 115.
✪ "The legitimacy of selling one's birthright (as Esau sold his to Jacob in Gen. 25:33) was established at Nuzi, for in one case an older brother was validly recompensed by a payment of three sheep for selling to his younger brother the rights of primogeniture." Ref-0001, p. 179, referring to C.H. Gordon in Revue Biblique 44 (1935), p. 35. "There is a Nuzi record of the sale of a birthright to a younger brother for the price of three sheep. It was a fairly common practice." Ref-0150, p. 43.
✪ Reuben's birthright was given to Joseph (1Chr. 5:1-2).