✪ “Augustus” in Acts 27:1 is a title which referred to Nero.
✪ The title “Augustus” is used of Nero in Acts 25:21.
✪ See image - man in God's. "The Jews were divided into two political parties. One of these consisted of the Pharisees, who held it unlawful to acknowledge or pay tribute to the Roman emperor, because they were forbidden, by the law of Moses, to set a king over them who was a stranger, and note one of their own countrymen. The other party was composed of the partisans of Herod, who understood this law to forbid only the voluntary election of a stranger, and therefore esteemed it not unlawful to submit and pay tribute to a conqueror. These two parties, though bitterly opposed to each other, united in the attempt to entrap Jesus, by the question, -- “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” If he answered in the negative, the Herodians were to accuse him to Pilate, for treason; if in the affirmative, the Pharisees would denounce him to the people, as an enemy to their liberties." Ref-0788, p. 61. "In other words, what has Caesar’s image belongs to him, and what has God’s image belongs to God. The implication is that the totality of man is God’s image and belongs to God." Shaun Lewis, What is Man? or, The Image of God, Ref-0785, Vol. 16 No. 48 August 2012, 13-26, p. 24n57.
✪ "The 15th year of the Emperor Tiberius is as certain a date as the 15th year of Queen Victoria. He began to reign on the 19th August A.D. 14." Ref-0745, p. 176.
✪ Augustus (BC 30 - A.D. 14), Tiberius (AD 14-37), Caligula (AD 37-41), Claudius (AD 41-54), Nero (AD 54-68), Galba (AD 68-69), Otho (AD 69, 3 months), Vitellius (AD 69, 1 month), Vespasian (AD 69-79), Titus (AD 79-81), Domitian (AD 81-96), Nerva (AD 96-98), Trajan (AD 98-117), Hadrian (AD 117-138), Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161), Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180) Ref-0117, p. 37. "The following is a list of the twelve Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian. 1. Julius Caesar (49-44 B.C.) 2. Augustus (27 B.C. - A.D. 14) 3. Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) 4. Caligula (37-41) 5. Claudius (41-54) 6. Nero (54-68) 7. Galba (June 68-January 69) 8. Otho (January-April 69) 9. Vitellius (April-December 69) 10. Vespasian (69-79) 11. Titus (79-81) 12. Domitian (81-96)." Mark L. Hitchock, "A Critique of the Preterist View of Revelation_17:9-11 and Nero", Ref-0200, Volume 164 Number 656, October-December 2007, 472:485, p. 475. "Three Roman emperors are mentioned in the New Testament: Augustus (27 B.C. - A.D. 14), who ruled when Jesus was born (Luke 2:1); Tiberius (14 - 37), who ruled when John the Baptist and Jesus began their ministries (Luke 3:1); and Claudius (41 - 54) -- Acts 11:28 mentions a worldwide famine during the reign of Claudius, and Acts 18:2 notes that Aquila and Priscilla had left Rome because of an edict of Claudius expelling Jews from that city." Ref-1200, p. 91. See the chart titled, Rulers of Palestine in Ref-1200, p. 99.
✪ "Caiaphas is attested in the writings of Josephus as being installed and removed as high priest, which places the events of the trial of Jesus in his 18 to 36 A.D. period as acting high priest (Antiquities 18.34-35, 18.95; Curran 2005:84)." Titus Kennedy, The Trial of Jesus in Archaeology and History, Ref-0066, Vol. 25 No. 4 Fall 2012, 95-99, p. 96.
✪ "Technically, only one person at a time held the position of high priest, so the references to Annas as high priest in conjunction with Caiaphas can be confusing. Caiaphas was high priest by Roman law, Annas by popular opinion of the Jews. . .Merrill Unger observers that ‘his great age, abilities, and influence, and his being the father-in-law of Caiaphas made him practically the high priest, although his son-in-law held the office.’ Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, became high priest shortly after Annas’ resignation in A.D. 14, and he held the position until he was deposed in about 38." Ref-0105, p. 228. "Now it is observable that the high priesthood was at this time become an annual office, and the Passover was the time of making a new high priest. . . . Hence Luke tells us, that in the 15th year of Tiberius, Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, that is, Annas till the Passover, and Caiaphas afterwards." Ref-0849, pp. 166-167. ". . . the politicizing of the high priesthood began during the Ptolemaic period with the conflict between the Oniads and Tobiads. Later the Maccabean rulers, obtained the office for themselves. Thus the Old Testament ordinance that the office was to reside within a single family was set aside. The brothers Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II acrimoniously exchanged the high priesthood between themselves. Herod the Great and other Roman rulers following him saw the high-priestly office as far too important to leave it to the chance of generational succession. They set aside the provision that a high priest serve for life. Instead, they installed and deposed chief priests at their pleasure. Josephus lists twenty-eight different persons who held the office between 37 B.C. and the suppressions of the revolt in A.D. 70. These, it seems, essentially came from only a few aristocratic families. The most influential high-priestly family was that of Annas, son of Seth; Annas held the office from A.D. 6 to 15. A total of eight members of his family filled the office. The best known is the son-in-law of Annas, Joseph Caiaphas (18-36), who presided at the trial of Jesus. The frequent turnover of high priests explains why Annas, who was not then a high priest, participated in the trials of Jesus (John 18:13,24) and of Peter and John (Acts 4:6), and why Caiaphas is described as “high priest for that year” (John 11:51). When Paul stood before the Sanhedrin, the high priest was Ananias, son of Nebedaeus (Acts 23:2; 24:1). Well known for his oppressive political activities, he held the office from 47 to 58. At one point during his reign he was charged with stirring up disorders in Judea and was sent to Rome in chains. He was acquitted, however, and his power and influence increased. . . . The final high priest was Phinehas, son of Samuel (68-70). He was installed by the people during a revolt after they had assassinated his predecessor, Mattathias, son of Theophilus and grandson of Annas (65-68)." Ref-1200, pp. 92-93.
✪ In November of 1990, a burial chamber was found in Jerusalem containing 12 limestone ossuaries. One ossuary was exquisitely ornate and decorated with incised rosettes. Obviously it had belonged to a wealthy or high-ranking patron who could afford such a box. On this box was the inscription in two places "Qafa" and "Yehosef bar Qayafa" ("Caiaphas," "Joseph, son of Caiaphas"). [Josephus provides his full name as "Joseph who was called Caiaphas of the high priesthood."] Inside were the bones of six different people, including a 60-year-old man (most likely Caiaphas). Ref-0025, p. 305. See F00036, p. 26 for a photo of the ossuary.
✪ ". . . Cain offered merely an expression of his dependence and thanksgiving, and this indeed a self-wrought production of his own strength. Thereby he became the prototype of all who dare to approach the sanctuary of God without the shedding of blood (Heb. 9:22), who indeed own themselves dependent creatures but not death-deserving sinners. . . And from this point onward these two ‘ways’ run through human history. On the one hand the ‘way’ of Cain (Jude 1:11); a religion of the flesh, a self-willed worship, the self-satisfied justification by works and the insubordinate self-redemption, which relies on itself and rejects substitution. . . Thereby was given the basic tendency of all further human development, so far as it leads away from God; namely, overcoming the curse on the path of godless civilization, regaining Paradise without the experience of redemption, the combination of fleshly energy without the acknowledgement of God's sovereignty, and thus the self-redemption of mankind with the Deity excluded." Ref-0197, pp. 64-65. "Those who teach that because the earth is cursed the gift of Cain was inappropriate forget that Abel’s lamb ate from the produce of the cursed ground." -- Paul Henebury, Descending to Demonism: From Cain to the Sons of God, [https://drreluctant.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/descending-to-demonism-from-cain-to-the-sons-of-god/] accessed 20150912.
✪ "Many of these [genetic] mutations are harmful only if you inherit the same one from both parents. That is why today intermarriage of close relatives can cause biological deformities in the offspring, since there is a higher possibility of inheriting the same mistake from each parent than if we marry someone more distantly related (all are related), who will have a different set of mistakes. But the further back in history, the less time there has been for mistakes to accumulate, thus pointing to a time when close intermarriage would not have caused problems." Batten, D. Ed., The Answers Book, Brisbane, Australia, ‘Cain's wife -- who was she?’, chapter 8, 1999.
✪ Arabic for "mars"?
✪ See tribulation - duration of great. See “calendar” entries which follow. ". . .with modern astronomy one can reckon a year very precisely as being “365.24219879 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.975 seconds.” However, in ancient times various systems were used. When one investigates the calendars of ancient India, Persia, Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt, Central and South America, and China it is interesting to notice that they uniformly had twelve thirty-day months (a few had eighteen twenty-day months) making a total of 360 days for the year and they had various methods of intercalating days so that the year would come out correctly. Although it may be strange to present-day thinking, it was common in those days to think of a 360-day year." Ref-0044, pp. 135-136 "Still it must be conceded that the feast recorded in Esther 1:1-5 lasted 180 days which is exactly six months of a 360 day year, thus indicating the possibility of a 360 day year." Ref-0186, p. 238. "The time measurements encountered in Genesis chapters 7 and 8 are the result of a lunar calendar. Gen. 7:11 states the flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month, and it ended on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Gen. 8:4), exactly five months. Both Gen. 7:24 and Gen. 8:3 declare the waters were upon the earth 150 days. Assuming each month is the same length, they would have 30 days apiece. Skeptics say that is a big assumption because the story does not cover an entire year, and thus doesn't take into account any days the ancients may have added on to their year." Charles H. Ray, A Study of Daniel 9:24 - 27, Part II, Ref-0055, Vol. 5 No. 16, December 2001, p. 321. ". . . as can be seen . . . and also according to Talmudic tradition . . . should fog, clouds or a prolonged period of overcast prevent the moon from being seen, the thirtieth day after the previous new moon was reckoned and the new month began on the morrow." Ref-0186, p. 112. "The ancient solar years of the eastern nations consisted of 12 months, and every month of 30 days: and hence came the division of a circle into 360 degrees. This year seems to be used by Moses in his history of the Flood, and by John in the Apocalypse, where a time, times and half a time, 42 months and 1260 days are put equipollent. But in reckoning by many of these years together, an account is to be kept of the odd days which were added to the end of these years." Ref-0849, p. 139. "The moon orbits the earth every 29.5 days or so, and the year is (roughly) 365.25 days in length. It is an untidy arrangement that makes alignment of the lunar and solar calendars virtually impossible. 1 How much simpler it would have been had God, at the creation, decreed that the year should be 360 days and the lunar month 30 days in length. Evidence shows that God so ordained it at the beginning. The lunar year consisted of 12 months of 30 days’ duration, equaling exactly the solar year of 360 days. Only after the Flood did the two calendars drop out of line with each other, necessitating numerous calendar reforms which even today have not resolved the problem. But how can one possibly know that the pre- Flood year consisted of 12 equal months of 30 days? Today’s lunar calendar doesn’t consist of 12 equal months. Nor does the solar calendar. Today’s lunar months are alternately 29 and 30 days, making the lunar year one of just 354 days, 11 days or more short of the present solar year. Is there evidence that the pre-Flood lunar calendar did not contain this aberration? The evidence is found in the book of Genesis. The writer notes two specific calendar events: the exact day on which the fountains of the deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened (Gen. 7:11), and the exact day on which the waters abated (Gen. 8:3-4). The importance of this information is this: The Flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month (Gen. 7:11), and was over by the 17th day of the 7th month (Gen. 8:4). That makes 5 months of 30 days duration each, which Genesis stresses by adding the daycount of 150." Bill Cooper, "The Calendar and the Antiquity of Genesis", Acts & Facts, Vol. 38 No. 6 June 2009, 19, p. 19. [https://www.icr.org] "Consequently it has been further assumed that the king of Nehemiah's day was Artaxerxes Longimanus. But that monarch's twentieth year would be approximately 100 years subsequent to the return front Babylon in the days of Cyrus; and hence it would be too close to the days of Christ to fit in with any of the existing chronologies. Therefore, to force an agreement in this case it is necessary to make the “seventy sevens” a period shorter than 490 years. The ingenuity of our expositors has been quite equal to this; for, to meet this difficulty, they have supposed, that the “sevens” were not sevens of years, but of nondescript periods of 360 days each, which are not “years” at all. Thus, the acceptance of a false chronology (instead of basing conclusions on the Scriptures alone) leads even able and learned men to adopt one false assumption after another, and thus to go further and further astray." Ref-0896, p. 11. "The Egyptians, for example, kept 12 months, each of 30 days. At the end of the 360-day period, they tallied 5 special days outside of normal time, each of the 5 special days represented the birthday of one of their principal gods." -- Ref-1579, p. 126.
✪ See below. See also Ref-1200, pp. 156-157.
✪ "Ussher found that the ancient Jews and the Egyptians did not use a year based on the moon. Instead they had a year made up of 12 months, each 30 days long. At the end of the year they tacked on 5 days. Every 4 years they added 6 days. However, a year of 365 days is too short, and one of exactly 365.25 days is too long. You have to drop days from it to keep the seasons from drifting." -- Larry Pierce in Ref-0222, p. 891. See also Ref-0117, pp. 114-115. "In his research Ussher found that the ancient Jews and the Egyptians did not use the orbit of the moon (lunar calendar) as the basis for their year. Instead, their year was made up of twelve months, each thirty days long. At the end of their year they tacked on five days, and every fourth year they added six days. However, a year of 365 days is too short, and one of exactly 365.25 days is too long. They had to drop days from it every now and then to keep the seasons from drifting." Larry Pierce, The World: Born in 4004 BC?, Ref-0747, July-Sept. 2006, p. 26. "Moreover, we find that the years of our forefathers, the years of the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, were the same length as the Julian year. It consisted of twelve months containing thirty days each. (It cannot be proven that the Hebrews used lunar months before the Babylonian captivity.) Five days were added after the twelfth month each year. Every four years, six days were added after the twelfth month." Ref-0222, p. 9.
✪ "The Assyrians during the period here under discussion measured time by lunar months and solar years. A new month was begun with each new moon. Since the moon makes a complete revolution of the earth once each 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds, or approximately once every 29 1/2 days, the Assyrian months as a rule were alternately 29 or 30 days in length. Twelve of these months made up the year. But since this procedure gave a year that was approximately eleven days short of the solar year, it was necessary, if the year was to be kept in line with the sun and the annual seasons, for frequent adjustments to be made. Such adjustments were made whenever necessary by the addition of an intercalary month to the yearly calendar. Thus once in every two or three years -- seven intercalations within a nineteen year period -- the calendar contained thirteen months instead of the usual twelve, and by this means the Assyrian year was kept in line with the solar year. This was also the procedure followed in Babylon and among the Hebrews." Ref-0839, p. 68. "The achievement of the ancient Babylonian astronomers in devising the nineteen-year cycle with its seven intercalated months was indeed remarkable. It has been noted that one solar year equals 365.24219879 days while one lunar month equals 29.530588 days. Nineteen solar years, therefore, equals 6,939.601777 days. In nineteen 12-month years there are 228 months; adding seven more months equals 6,939.688180 days. Thus, the difference between 235 lunar months and 19 solar years is only 0.086403 day or 2 hours, 4 minutes, 25.22 seconds. This is how close the ancient Babylonian system came to solving the problem of the relationship between the lunar year and the solar year." Ref-0840, p. 27. "When the intercalation took place the added month was called the Second Adar, and the year with a Second Adar was a “leap” year in contrast with an ordinary year. The length of the added month was left to the judgment of the council, and it might be either twenty-nine or thirty days in length. Leap years were frequent and fell, on average, rather more than once in three years. . . . Maimonides also gives a lucid account of the process of intercalation as conducted under the Sanhedrin. Noting that the solar year exceeds the lunar year by approximately eleven days, he says that whenever this excess accumulates to about thirty days, or a little more or less, one month is added and the particular year is made to consist of thirteen months. The extra month is never anything other than an added Adar, and hence an intercalated year has a First Adar and a Second Adar. This month may consist of either twenty-nine or thirty days." Ref-0840, p. 38. "Having noted that the lunar year consists of but about 354 days or approximately 11 1/4 days less than the length of the solar year, the difficulty with merely using a lunar calendar becomes readily apparent. Being shorter than the solar year, the seasons would occur at earlier and earlier dates through the years. As the Jewish feasts unto the Lord were to be regulated according to the harvest of the various crops (Ex. 34:22 etc.), such a departure from the actual season would be totally impractical as the feast days would move “backwards” each year by nearly eleven days in relation to the solar seasons. . . . To offset this effect, the lunar calendar is “solarized” among today's Jews by intercalating (inserting or adding) a month of 29 days (known as either Veadar or Adar II) is added every third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth year of a nineteen year cycle just before the month of Nisan (Abib). The modern Hebrew colloquially refers to the thirteen month year as a “pregnant year” and is the Jewish variant of the Gregorian leap year. By the periodic addition of this thirteenth or leap month seven times in a nineteen year cycle, the correlation of the lunar month and the solar year assured. " Ref-0186, p. 111. "Eventually, the Babylonians that 235 lunar months were almost exactly equal to 19 solar years. This was seven more months than would have occurred in nineteen twelve-month years (228 months). Thus, they knew that seven years out of every nineteen needed to have an additional month." Ref-1307, p. 12
✪ "With regard to the Biblical Hebrew calendar, Sir Isaac Newton penned: “All nations, before the just length of the Solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon; and years by the returns of winter and summer, spring and autumn: (Gen. 1:14; 8:22; Censorinus c.19 and 20; Cicero in Verrem. Geminus c.6) and in making Calendars for their Festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a Lunar month, and twelve Lunar months to a year; taking the nearest round numbers: whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 degrees. So in the time of Noah's flood, when the Moon could not be seen, Noah reckoned thirty days to a month: but if the Moon appeared a day or two before the end of the month, they began the next month with the first day of her appearing: . . . That the Israelites used the Luni-solar year is beyond question. Their months began with their new Moons. Their first month was called Abib, from the earing of Corn in that month.. Their Passover was kept unpon the fourteenth day of the first month, the Moon being then in the full: and if the corn was not then ripe enough for offering the first Fruits, the Festival was put off, by adding an intercalary month to the end of the year; and the harvest was got in before the Pentecost, and the other Fruits gathered before the Feast of the seventh month.” [Sir Isaac Newton, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, (London: 1728), p. 71.]" Ref-0186, p. 110. "All of this notwithstanding, the luni-solar Biblical year in which the feasts and months were regulated by the revolutions of the moon was adjusted to the solar year, not by astronomical or mathematical calculation, but by direct observation of the state of the crops and the physical appearance of the moon. Thus the months, beginning at the new moon, were lunar but the year, which controlled the condition of the crops, was solar. It was this later feature that kept the calendar from drifting. . . . the resulting system was complete, faultless, and self-adjusting. It required neither periodic correction nor intercalation." Ref-0186, p. 112. "Abib was the time marked by the stage of growth of the grain at the beginning of its ripening process after the stalks had hardened. The first new moon after the full ripe ear would begin the next year. . . . A little known yet equally significant factor assisting the Jews in regulating their calendar was that of the presence of the almond tree which was indigenous to the land of Israel. The Hebrew word for almond is “shaked” which means the “watcher”, or “awakener”, “alerter” or “to watch”. The tree was so named because it is the first to awaken from the dormant sleep or “death” of winter, putting forth its conspicuous white (or possibly roseate) blossoms in profusion around February. . . . From their first sighting, the Jews would be alerted to observe closely the status of the corn (barley, not Indian corn) in the field with relation to the following new moons. Again, as both these occurrences were dependent upon the son's light and warmth as related to the tilt of the plane of the ecliptic, the year could not drift. Since plant growth and development are controlled by the sun, the Biblical month of “Abib” occurs at the same solar season each year. Accordingly, it should be seen that all the other months are lunar being determined by the first appearing of the new moon, but Abib is solar as its beginning is first determined and governed by the sun. . . . Moreover, although in more recent years the Jews have referred to the intercalary 13th month as Veadar, there is no such designation or even hint of such a concept in Scripture. It is almost certain that the early Hebrews never employed such a concept in their calendar. . . Indeed, such was totally unnecessary . . . After seeing the almonds blossom and waiting for the first new moon after this event in which the barley was also fully ripened, the new year would begin automatically. If by the middle or end of Adar the Barley was not at the “Abib” stage of maturity . . . the following new moon would not be declared. Thus the twelfth month, called Adar (Est. 3:7; 9:1), would simply become an extended long month rather than adding a thirteenth." Ref-0186, p. 113. "Because twelve lunar months are about eleven days short of a solar year, many ancient cultures used a solilunar calendar. That is, they reckoned twelve months in most years, but occasionally adjusted the year by adding a thirteenth month. This additional or intercalary month would align the solar and lunar cycles and keep the season from drifting through the months." Ref-1307, p. 12 "The first month in the religious calendar (Exod 12:2) began in spring and was the month of the ripening ears of grain, from whence came its name, Aviv, (אָבִיב) which means “a ripe ear of grain” (compare Exod 12:2 with Exod 13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deut 16:9). In order to keep this month at the beginning of spring a regular intercalation of an extra month would have been needed. Thus, Israel must have followed a solilunar calendar. The other months named in the OT support this. The second month was Ziv (זִו; 1 Kgs 6:1, 37), which probably means “bloom,” referring to the spring flowers. The seventh month was The Ethanim (הָאֵתָנִים; 1 Kgs 8:2), “the constant streams,” referring to the late summer when only a few constantly-flowing streams would have water in them. The eighth month was Bul (1 Kgs 6:38), probably related to the word מַבּוּל which is used in Genesis to describe the great flood brought on by rain. This month was the month of the beginning of the autumn rains. None of the names of these months would have retained their meanings for long unless there were intercalary months regularly inserted into the Israelite calendar." Ref-1307, pp. 14-15 "Because twelve lunar months are about eleven days short of a solar year, many ancient cultures used a solilunar calendar. That is, they reckoned twelve months in most years, but occasionally adjusted the year by adding a thirteenth month. This additional or intercalary month would align the solar and lunar cycles and keep the season from drifting through the months." Ref-1307, p. 12 "Scholars differ on the type of calendar Israel used before the Babylonian captivity. Newton thinks they used lunar months and intercalated extra months to keep the festivals in synchronization with the seasons. Ussher thinks they used a tropical or solar year of three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days similar to the Julian year introduced by Julius Caesar. . . . It appears the antediluvians did not use a lunar year. Noah used thirty day months which are too long for a lunar month. . . . It is quite possible that the antediluvians knew the true length of the year and intercalated extra days at the end of the twelfth month to keep it in synchronisation with the tropical year. This is what Ussher thought. . . . The calendar questions is not as simple as it first appears and we may never know the answer to it." Ref-1507, p. 10. "The Israelites also appear to have used the luni-solar year. Their months began with their new moons. Their first month was called Abib from the earing of grain in that month. Their passover was kept upon the fourteenth day of the first month, when the moon was full. If the grain was not ripe enough for offering the first fruits, the festival was put off by adding an intercalary month to the end of the year, and the harvest was brought in before Pentecost, and the other fruits gathered before the feast of the seventh month." Ref-1507, p. 33.
✪ "In modern astronomy the time from one new moon to the next, which is known as the synodic or ordinary month, is determined as 29.530588 days, or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes 2.8 seconds. . . . A problem arises when the relation of the month to the year is brought into consideration. Twelve months of 29? days each make a year of 354 days and 12 months of 30 days each make a year of 360 days, but the year measured by the sun is in round numbers 365 days in length; thus a lunar year of 360 days is 5 days short and a lunar year of 354 days is 11 days short. These two ways of counting the days of the month are found in the existing story of the flood in Gen. 6:5-8:22. In Gen. 7:11 the flood began in the second month, on the 17th day of the month; in Gen. 8:3-4 the waters had abated at the end of 150 days and the ark came to rest upon the 17th day of the month; the intervening time was exactly 5 months of 150 days, i.e., the months were each 30 days in length. In Gen. 8:13-15 the flood waters were dried from off the earth in the first month, the first day of the month, and in the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry and Noah went forth from the ark. Since the flood began in the second month, on the 17th day of the month (Gen. 7:11), this first day of the first month was the beginning of a new year and the 16th day of the ensuing second month was the last day of the first year of the flood and the 17th day of that second month was the first day of the second year of the flood, whereby the 27th day of this same second month was the 11th day of the second year of the flood, i.e., the flood lasted for one year and 11 days which makes exactly the 11-day difference between a lunar year of 354 days and the solar year of 365 days." Ref-0840, pp. 15-16.
✪ From Latin calva, -ae, f. (calvus) - the bald scalp of the head. The place of the skull.
✪ "Much has been written in recent years concerning the relationship between John Calvin and those who are known today as Calvinists. Given that no one attempts to hold Calvin’s doctrines exclusively, there are two basic approaches to Calvin and Calvinism. The first is Calvin against the Calvinists as articulated by R. T. Kendall in Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649. His basic thesis is that what is called Calvinism today is not the theology of John Calvin, especially in regards to the doctrine of limited atonement. In response to this work, Paul Helm wrote Calvin and Calvinism, which sought to refute Kendall and argued for the essential unity between Calvin and Calvinism. In a recent and perhaps more important work [Richard A. Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Word of Christ and the Order of Salvation, Kindle ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012) loc 372-73], Richard Muller agree with neither Kendall nor Helm. Muller stated, “we have no indication from Calvin’s correspondence that his theology was viewed as the primary expression of Reformed thought in his generation.” The terms Calvinism and reformed theology are not necessarily indicative of Calvin or the Reformation, and this point needs to be understood." Drew Curley, New Calvinism, Part 1: An Historical Understanding and Theological Critique, Ref-0785, Volume 18, Number 55 (Winter 2014), 225-270, 227-228. See 20170517163958.pdf. "The terms Calvinism and reformed theology are not necessarily indicative of Calvin or the Reformation, and this is a point that needs to be understood." Drew Curley, New Calvinism, Part III: A Calvinist Soteriology, Ref-1525, Volume 19 Number 57 (Summer/Fall 2015), 133-184, p. 133. "new Calvinism is not Calvinism but simply Calvinistic." Drew Curley, New Calvinism, Part III: A Calvinist Soteriology, Ref-1525, Volume 19 Number 57 (Summer/Fall 2015), 133-184, p. 134.
✪ See Calvin - Servetus. ". . . how ashamed Christian princes ought to be of their slothfulness, if they are indulgent to heretics and blasphemers, and do not vindicate God’s glory by lawful punishments, since King Nebuchadnezzar who was never truly converted: yet promulgated this decree by a kind of secret instinct. . . . kings are bound to defend the worship of God, and to execute vengeance upon those who profanely despise it, and on those who endeavor to reduce it to nothing, or to adulterate the true doctrine by their errors, and so dissipate the unity of the faith and disturb the Church’s peace." Ref-0696, Dan. 4:1. "Jacques Gruet, a young freethinking patrician, was accused of putting up a placard on Calvin’s pulpit that denounced him as a “puffed-up hypocrite.” A search of his room turned up papers mocking the authority of Scripture and dismissing the immortality of the soul as a fairy tale. Gruet was also accused of having appealed to France to intervene in Geneva. He was tortured twice daily for thirty days until he confessed to having put up the placard and conspiring with French agents. As punishment, he was beheaded, with Calvin’s consent." Ref-1522, p. 769. "In the mid-1550s, four of Calvin’s chief opponents in Geneva were beheaded—an act seen by evangelicals as a triumph for both Calvin and God. From 1541 to 1564, when Calvin was in control of Geneva, an estimated fifty-eight people were executed and seventy-six banished." Ref-1522, p. 771.
✪ "It has long been the delight of both infidels and some professed christians, when they wish to bring odium upon the opinions of Calvin, to refer to his agency in the death of Michael Servetus. This action is used on all occasions by those who have been unable to overthrow his opinions, as a conclusive argument against his whole system. Calvin burnt Servetus!—Calvin burnt Servetus! is good proof with a certain class of reasoners, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not true—that divine sovereignty is anti-scriptural,—and christianity a cheat." Ref-1306, loc. 9603. "All the other reformers then living, approved of Calvin's conduct. Even the gentle and amiable Melancthon expressed himself in relation to this affair, in the following manner. In a letter addressed to Bullinger, he says, "I have read your statement respecting the blasphemy of Servetus, and praise your piety and judgment; and am persuaded that the Council of Geneva has done right in putting to death this obstinate man, who would never have ceased his blasphemies. I am astonished, that any one can be found to disapprove of this proceeding." Farel expressly says, that "Servetus deserved a capital punishment." Bucer did not hesitate to declare, that "Servetus deserved something worse than death." The truth is, although Calvin had some hand in the arrest and imprisonment of Servetus, he was unwilling that he should be burnt at all. "I desire," says he, "that the severity of the punishment should be remitted." "We endeavoured to commute the kind of death, but in vain." "By wishing to mitigate the severity of the punishment," says Farel to Calvin, "you discharge the office of a friend towards your greatest enemy." "That Calvin was the instigator of the magistrates that Servetus might be burned," says Turritine, "historians neither any where affirm, nor does it appear from any considerations. Nay, it is certain, that he, with the college of pastors, dissuaded from that kind of punishment."" Ref-1306, loc. 9609-9611. "The doctrine of non-toleration, which obtained to the sixteenth century, among some protestants, was that pernicious error which they had imbibed in the Church of Rome; and I believe, I can say, without doing any injury to that church, that she is, in a great measure, answerable for the execution of Servetus. If the Roman catholics had never put any person to death for the sake of religion, I dare say that Servetus had never been condemned to die in any protestant city. Let us remember, that Calvin, and all the magistrates of Geneva, in the year 1553, were born and bred up in the church of Rome: this is the best apology that can be made for them."—Biographia Evangelica, vol. II. p. 42." Ref-1306, loc. 9631.
✪ "The ‘modern’ approach is to shun words like Arminianism and Calvinism and to say that the biblical evangelical is not a follower of any ‘human’ system. These old terms, it is said, would never have arisen if both sides had seen that each doctrinal scheme had a scriptural emphasis, human responsibility on the one hand an divine sovereignty on the other. The whole truth is larger than either side could see. But this solution to the controversy is not in fact new, it is exactly the same as that of the man whom Spurgeon criticizes for recommending in sermons ‘three grains of Calvinism and two of Arminianism’. Nor is it biblical, for it really by-passes the issue of what the Scriptures mean by sovereignty and responsibility. [Murray]" Ref-1324, pp. 6-7.
✪ "The attitude of Calvinistic churches in general toward the book of Revelation was stated by the Westminster Confession composed in 1643. Article three rejected it as canonical Scripture." Ref-0123, pp. 34-25.
✪ "It is almost an accidental fact of history that Reformation theology became known as ‘Calvinism’ but the name once established has served an important purpose: to the one who believes it, it is a scriptural system and its association with the name of the sixteenth-century leader is merely incidental. This is the sense in which Spurgeon uses the term ‘Calvinism’. [Murray]" Ref-1324, p. 7.
✪ "The reason for new Calvinism’s openness or affinity for the contemporary use of the sign gifts is because their theology is greatly influenced by the charismatic tradition. . . . On this point, it is ironic that new Calvinists identify themselves as Calvinists because there is definitive disagreement with Calvin." Drew Curley, New Calvinism, Part 1: An Historical Understanding and Theological Critique, Ref-0785, Volume 18, Number 55 (Winter 2014), 225-270, 235. See 20170517163958.pdf.
✪ "Berhof defined perseverance of the saints as “they whom God has regenerated and effectually called to a state of grace, can neither totally nor finally fall away from that state, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved." David S. Ermold, The Soteriology of 2 Timothy 2:11-13 - Part 1, Ref-0785, Volume 14 Number 43, December 2010, 65-82, p. 73. "As to what persevere therein involves, Berkhof continued: . . . “Perseverance may be defined as that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer, by which the work of divine grace that is begun in the heart, is continued and brought to completion. It is because God never forsakes His work that believers continue to stand to the very end” [Louis Berhof, Systematic Theology]" David S. Ermold, The Soteriology of 2 Timothy 2:11-13 - Part 1, Ref-0785, Volume 14 Number 43, December 2010, 65-82, p. 73n26. "I am saying that the NT does not support this idea of perseverance but rather of God's preservation of those who embrace the Gospel and are born-again." Paul Henebury, Dispensationalism and TULIP - The Perseverance of the Saints, 1. [http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/documents/articles/index.htm#73] accessed 20140605.
✪ "On Van Til’s metaphysic, a Calvinist soteriology is inescapable: Even if we say that in the case of any one individual sinner the question of salvation is in the last analysis dependent upon man rather than upon God, that is if we say that man can of himself accept or reject the gospel as he pleases, we have made the eternal God dependent upon man. We have then, in effect, denied the incommunicable attributes of God. If we refuse to mix the eternal and the temporal at the point of creation and at the point of the incarnation we must also refuse to mix them at the point of salvation." Ref-1344, p. 86.
✪ A camel's hoof is not completely divided due to an elastic pad at the rear end of foot
✪ "No Canaanite document has yet yielded significant mention of prophets or prophecy." Ref-0150, p. 38.
✪ "Moses’ instruction to Joshua on the eve of the Conquest was that he must refrain from destroying the sub-structures of Canaanite cities, leveling them intact to be occupied by the victorious Israelites (Deu. 6:10-11; 19:1), a plan that came to fruition under Joshua (Jos. 24:11-13). Thus, no evidence exists of major widespread destruction at the end of the 15th century (1406-1400). . . . The record shows that only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were placed under cherem (חֶרֶם, devoted to destruction), the remaining cities of Canaan were to remain intact with only their occupants put to the sword (Jos. 6:17,21,24; 8:1-24,26,28, 11:11,13)." Eugene H. Merrill, Ai and Old Testament Chronology, Ref-0066 27.2 (2014), 52-56, pp. 55-56.
✪ See world - compromise with.
✪ ". . . shortage of food caused many natives to die of starvation and sometimes led to cannibalism, which inspired no less horror among the Indians than among us. It must have occurred fairly frequently, however, for the early fur traders and explorers mention several instances and it occupies a prominent place in the legends of the tribe, which abound in stories of windigos--human beings transformed into supernatural man-eating giants through the eating of human flesh." Ref-1396, p. 285 "Although the rules of the [Iroquoian] confederacy strictly prohibited cannibalism, we find records of several cases in which the Mohawk cruelly sacrificed a prisoner to their war-god Aireskoi and divided up the body to be devoured in the different villages." Ref-1396, p. 305 "The Tsimshian . . . adopted from the Kwakiutl not only the notion of a secret society, but several of the actual fraternities, among them the horrible “Cannibal Society” whose members tore to pieces human corpses and devoured portions of the flesh. . . . An early missionary witnessed the rending of an actual corpse." Ref-1396, p. 338 "The sub-tribes that lived nearest the Tsimshian adopted the secret cannibal society of the coast tribes, and linked it with the superstition of an invisible, intangible force, dwelling in the mountains, that struck down its victims without warning and made them subject to periodic dementia." Ref-1396, p. 368. For images of cannibalism connected with the hamatsa secret society among the Kwakiutl Indians, see 20170828183954.jpg and 20170828183955.jpg. "The [hamatsa] initiate, after dancing to one song, rushes out of the house and soon returns carrying a mummy [or an 'imitation,' says a footnote] wrapped in hemlock branches. Immediately all the hamatsas utter their cry, and quite naked, go squatting to meet the corpse. One of the places the great box-drum behind the fire and another--the corpse cutter--takes the body and lays it on the drum. He severs the head and gives it to the initiate, dismembers the body and distributes the parts among the others. All the hamatsas then squat on the floor with their legs, arms, and ribs across their knees, and begin to eat." The bones are taken to the shoreline . . . Curtis, the self-acclaimed hamatsa, refused to confirm or deny participating in the flesh-eating ritual. "I decline to answer," he commented. "Mummy eating was by the British Government classified as cannibalism, and if one is convicted of the crime, he is due for a long time behind bars." Only years earlier, George Hunt . . . Had been charged with cannibalism. Hunt used a defense of anthropological research to escape the charges, but Curtis apparently had no desire to risk prosecution. . . . Even though George Hunt brought him transcriptions from elders who claimed to have witnessed true cannibalism as late as 1871, Curtis wrote, "But there is grave doubt that cannibalism ever existed in British Columbia." . . . Curtis acknowledged that many tribesmen did believe that the ancients had consumed the flesh of slaves and enemies, but only informant stuck to the belief that it still occurred." Ref-1407, p. 105,109,113. "Melodramatic in its storyline of love and war, In the Land of the Head Hunters portrayed the rugged coast of British Columbia before any contact with the outside world. . . . Curtis built drama around the not-so-ancient practices of headhunting, sorcery and ceremonial cannibalism. . . . a lone damaged copy of the movie was discovered in 1972 by Bill Holm and George Quimby, both of the Thomas Burke Memorial Museum of the University of Washington. They restored and re-edited as much footage as possible and the film was re-released in 1965 under the title In the Land of the War Canoes. In 2008, the film was reissued with the dual purposes of exhibiting the academic restoration of this culturally significant documentary . . ." Ref-1407, p. 114,117. "Despite one more fatal incident they established friendly relations with the people, visited an impressive Maori fortified village, or pa, and found strong evidence suggesting that the Maori were cannibals, though this was later questioned in England." Ref-1557, par. 719. "he was about to sail for home when he lost a boat and crew sent on a foraging trip: a search soon discovered that the men had been killed and eaten by accompanying Maori. The facts came out only later, but there had been a sudden quarrel over food, during which a seaman had first shot two Maori." Ref-1557, par. 946. "The Karankawas, the dominant group on the Colorado and Brazos, certainly tried. “They are an exceedingly fierce and warlike tribe, and also perfect cannibals,”" Ref-1536, p. 95. "As the snow continued to fall, and the provisions dwindled and vanished, the marooned travelers descended into the horrors of starvation. They ate their animals, including their dogs. They gnawed on shoes, belts and anything else of animal origin they could lay hands on. Some died, and the living ate the flesh of the dead. By the time relief arrived in the spring, the camp was strewn with human bones and dismembered corpses. Skulls had been smashed to get at the brains; torsos cut open for the livers and kidneys; femurs shattered to retrieve marrow. “A more revolting and appalling spectacle I never witnessed,” declared a member of a U.S. army squadron sent to help." Ref-1536, p. 233. "The Canadian Indians could be Cannibals. One western explorer, Daniel Williams Harmon, tells of an Indian woman who ate fourteen relatives in a single winter. Another fur trader, Alexander Henry the Elder, describes a conquering tribe who ripped open the bellies of their victims with tomahawks, scooped up the blood in their cupped hands, “and quaffed amid ferocious shouts of victory.” " Ref-1575, p. 19. "Three years later Thompson witnessed a similar wendigo incident hear Lake of the Woods. The “sad affair” involved a young man who’d confessed that he “felt a strong inclination” to eat his sister. At first, since he was a respected hunter, his comments were ignored, but his behaviour became increasing bizarre and alarming. The man’s parents, Thompson wrote, “attempted to reason him out of this horrid inclination,” but it proved to no avail. The man’s condition grew worse; he insisted that he “must have human flesh to eat” ; and he was soon perceived as a threat to the whole camp. A council was called, and it was agreed that the young man was possessed by “an evil spirit” that would turn him into a wendigo. The council resolved to put him to death--and that his own father should be the one to carry out the sentence. The young man accepted his fate, whereupon the “unhappy father arose, and placing a cord about his neck strangled him.” As in the earlier wendigo case, the man’s body was then burned to ashes in order to prevent his “soul and the evil spirit which possessed him from returning to this world.” . . . Based on Thompson’s observations as well as other documented cases, twentieth-century anthropologists and psychologists concluded that fur trappers and Algonquian peoples (a cultural group that includes the Cree and Ojibwa) had been occasionally afflicted by a “cultural bound” psychiatric disorder that manifested itself in a compulsion to eat human flesh. This medical condition was named “wendigo psychosis.”" -- Ref-1584, p. 241-242 "As they wandered, a horrible realization began to eat away at Dr. Richardson. Turning the matter over in his troubled mind, he found it increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that the “meat” Michel had been bringing to camp for the past week was from the corpses of the dead voyageurs who’d gone missing. With horror, he recalled Michel’s having asked for the hatchet the night he’d gone off; in retrospect, it seemed clear that it was for chopping up the frozen bodies of Belanger and Perrault. The supposed meat from a wolf gouged by a caribou that they’d all so eagerly devoured had more than likely been the remains of one of the dead voyageurs. Whether the three missing men, after falling behind from Franklin’s group, had been murdered by Michel or had died of starvation and Michel only ate their bodies afterward was uncertain. At minimum, it was plain that Michel had murdered Hood, presumably after the food supply offered by the other corpses had run out. When Michel was out of earshot, Richardson confided in Hepburn, who concurred with his suspicions. Both felt that Michel’s plan was to cannibalize them in order to survive the march back to Fort Enterprise. Since they were weaker than Michel--who had strength from the corpses he’d been feeding upon--they would have to plan their attack with stealth. Moreover, Michel, besides his musket, was armed with two flintlock pistols, a bayonet, and a large knife. When Michel halted briefly to gather some rock trip from an exposed boulder, Hepburn and Richardson were afforded their chance. Richardson cocked his pistol, and in his own words, “Immediately upon Michel’s coming up to us I put and end to his life by shooting him through the head.” " -- Ref-1584, p. 296
✪ "There were certain tests applied to [recognize canonical books]. (1) Apostolicity - Was the author an apostle or did he have a connection with an apostle? (2) Acceptance - Was the book accepted by the church at large? (3) Content - Did the book reflect consistency of doctrine with what had been accepted as orthodox teaching? The spurious ‘gospel of Peter’ was rejected as a result of this principle. (4) Inspiration - Did the book reflect the quality of inspiration? The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha were rejected as a result of not meeting this test." Ref-0024, p. 172. "As J. I. Packer notes, ‘The Church no more gave us the New Testament Canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by His work of creation, and similary He gave us the New Testament canon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up." Ref-0075, p. 211 quoting J.I. Packer, God Speaks to Man, p. 81. "As Douglas Wilson rightly observes, “before we come to the Word of God at Genesis 1:1, we come to the word of the Church at the Table of Contents.”" Ref-0791, p. 314. "The canon was created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church's part was to discern the canon that God had created, not to devise one of its own . . ." Richard L. Mayhue, Editorial: The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Ref-0164, Vol. 25 No. 1 Spring 2004, 1-10, p. 7.
✪ "Josephus. . . speaks of twenty-two inspired books (the number corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). This number is arrived at by putting together as one book each of the following: Judges and Ruth; 1 and 2 Samuel; 1 and 2 Kings; 1 and 2 Chronicles; Ezra and Nehemiah; Jeremiah and Lamentations; and the twelve minor prophets." Ref-0060, p. 170. "The number of books looked upon as having divine authorship is carefully limited to twenty-two. By joining Ruth to Judges and Lamentations to Jeremiah, and remembering that the Jews enumerated their books differently, the twenty-two books mentioned by Josephus are the same as the thirty-nine books in our Bible today. . . . The time covered in these books is expressly limited. Josephus believed that the canon extended from Moses to Artaxerxes (464-424 B.C.). This corresponds with the Jewish belief that prophetic inspiration ceased from Malachi, who apparently was a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah. This was the period of Artaxerxes. Others indeed wrote later, but their writings are not on a par with the earlier writings. In other words, according to Josephus, the canon is closed." Ref-0236, p. 155. "For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; (39) and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; (40) but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. (41) It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; (42) and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. (43) For it is no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws and the records that contain them; . . . " Ref-0411, Apion 1.8 (38-43). "The Hebrew Old Testament was the starting point for Intertestamental Judaism. The Pentateuch held a special place as unquestioned authority. By the end of the [intertestamental] period all thirty-nine books of the Hebrew canon were regarded as the Holy Word of God." Ref-1200, p. 30.
✪ a "rule" or "measure". The grouping and official acceptance of the books of the Bible. Council of Laodicea in 397 A.D. accepted all NT books but Apocrypha. Council of Carthage in A.D. 397 accepted all NT books including the Apocrypha. Council of Trent in A.D. 1546 reaffirmed NT canon and made proclamations discouraging the reformation. "While the ‘canon’ of scripture means the list of books accepted as holy scripture, the other sense of ‘canon’ -- rule or standard -- has rubbed off on this one, so that the ‘canon’ of scripture is understood to be the list of books which are acknowledged to be, in a unique sense, the rule of belief and practice." Ref-0073, p. 18. "When Josephus speaks of twenty-two books [The total of 22 may have been arranged so as to correspond with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.], he probably refers to exactly the same documents as the twenty-four of the traditional Jewish reckoning, Ruth being counted as an appendix to Judges and Lamentations to Jeremiah." Ref-0073, p. 33. "If the teaching of the prophets and apostles is the foundation, this must have had authority before the church began to exist. Groundless, too, is their subtle objection that, although the church took its beginning here, the writings to be attributed to the prophets and apostles nevertheless remain in doubt until decided by the church. For if the Christian church was from the beginning founded upon the writings of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, wherever this doctrine is found, the acceptance of it -- without which the church itself would never have existed -- must certainly have preceded the church. It is utterly vain, then, to pretend that the power of judging Scripture so lies with the church that its certainty depends upon churchly assent. Thus, while the church receives and gives it seal of approval to the Scriptures, it does not thereby ender authentic what is otherwise doubtful or controversial." -- Calvin, Ref-0791, p. 105. "It was not until the second half of the fourth century A.D. that the term kanōn and its cognates were specifically used in reference to the authoritative books of the NT. Two examples will suffice for our purposes here. In A.D. 363, The Synod of Laodicea pronounced: “Let no private psalms or any uncanonical books (akononista Biblia) be read in church, but only the canonical ones (ta kanonika) of the New and Old Testaments.” In his 39th Festal Epistle, Athanasius of Alexandria specifically identified the 27 books of the NT (Biblia kanonizomena), circa A.D. 367 (Metzger 1987:211; Compton 2011:60)." Henry B. Smith Jr, Turning the Cannons on New Testament Canon Criticisms: Part 1, Ref-0066, Vol. 24 No. 3, Summer 2011, 67-72, p. 68.
✪ "The first official document which prescribes the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as alone canonical is Athanasius's Easter letter for the year 367, but the process was not everywhere complete until at least a century and a half later." Ref-0075, p. 232, quoting J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 59-60 "Television documentaries and popular literature sometimes give the impression that the Bible as we know it today was really the result of decisions that the church made centuries later. For instance, the canon of the Bible was supposedly decided in the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine ruled it over church councils and forced the church to accept certain books and keep others out. This is a misconception. From the writings of the early Church Fathers it is clear that Scripture as we know it was recognized ages before the church made any canon decisions about what should be allowed in the Bible. The primary sources from the first centuries indicate that the early Christians didn't need official pronouncements to accept these books." Benno A. Zuiddam, Battle for the Bible in the early church, Ref-0784, volume 29.1, 2015, 64-71, p. 68. ". . . the numerous Scripture quotes by the Fathers of the second century show that, for all intents and purposes, they had the same Bible available as Christians today." Benno A. Zuiddam, Battle for the Bible in the early church, Ref-0784, volume 29.1, 2015, 64-71, p. 68.
✪ ". . . a completed canon of the Hebrew Scriptures is evident from the testimony of the ‘Prologue of Ecclesiasticus’ (c. 132 B.C.), Jesus, Philo, and Josephus well before A.D. 100. Furthermore, there is evidence that inspired books were added to the canon immediately as they were written. Hence, the Old Testament canon was actually completed when the last book was written and added to it by the fourth century B.C." Ref-0075, p. 237. "Post -- A.D. 70 rabbinic discussion assume that the Old Testament canon was already well established; only the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes were questioned." Ref-1200, pp. 137-138.
✪ "The work of collating MSS and noting variants reached its apex at the end of the 18th cent in the prodigious collations of B. Kennicott and J. B. de Rossi. With the help of assistants Kennicott noted variants from the consonantal text of more that 600 MSS and 52 printed Bibles, while de Rossi and his staff surveyed an even larger field, recording variants from 1475 MSS and editions. The chief result of this enormous investment of time, energy, and money was to verify the negative though important conclusion that most of the variants encountered in the MT MSS are inconsequential and do not affect the interpretation of the text. . . . The phenomenon of the MT is unique in the field of biblical textual criticism. No other stream of scribal transmission, in either the OT or NT, manifests such remarkable uniformity. Intense study of the MT MSS since the late 18th cent has shown that only a limited number of consonantal variants of substance can be found in the entire tradition. When this observation is seen to hold true not only for the principal MSS of the ben Asher tradition but also for the numerous text specimens of the Cairo Genizah antedating those MSS, the phenomenon is truly extraordinary and bears witness to a genuinely conservative and cautious scribal tradition. . . . As noted earlier, the DSS attest a Masoretic-type text, and this fact has contributed significantly to the new appreciation for the MT as an archaic text. The case is well illustrated by 1Qisab. This MS attests not more than a dozen significant variants from the MT, and only two or three of these may be considered preferable to the MT. At the same time many readings in the DSS are at variance with the MT. How are such variants judged? Close scrutiny shows that many of the attested variants are simply scribal errors without text-critical merit (for a sampling of such errors see Würthwein, pp. 106-108). A number remain, however, which are variants of substance, i.e., they offer a consonantal text which yields a meaning different from that of the MT." S. K. Soderlund, TEXT AND MSS OF THE NT, Ref-0385 pp. 4:805-814, p. 4:810-812. ". . . it must be conceded that on the basis of both its unrivaled antiquity as well as its unprecedented unbroken continuous narrative, a natural predilection in favor of the Hebrew Text apart from philosophic views must be seen as intellectually justifiable. Despite all assessments to the contrary, the undeniable fact is that it is simply by far the best most complete record available to the extent that all other records of antiquity, mutilated and fragmented as they often are, fall far below it in analytical worth." Ref-0186, p. 273.
✪ "But the question may be asked, ‘Where is the “water above”? as Genesis 1:7 ends with the phrase ‘from the water above it [the expanse]’. God calls the expanse sky and this is verified when we read in verse 20 that birds fly through it, but it must also include the space above the atmosphere because Genesis 1:14, 15, and 17, says the expanse contains at least the sun, the moon and the planets. . . . In a previous paper I suggested that the ‘waters above’ are in a halo around the solar system, locked up in the form of frozen ices, dirty comets and other large chunks of frozen material." John Hartnett, The ‘waters above’, Ref-0784, 20(1) 2006, 93:93, p. 93. D. Russell Humphreys takes the waters above to be at the outer edge of the expanding universe: ". . . the ‘waters that are above the heavens’ that Psalm 148:4 mentions as still existing today above the highest stars . . . " D. Russell Humphreys, New Time Dilation Helps Creation Cosmology, Ref-0784, 22(3) 2008, 84:92, p. 84. "Furthermore, it [the vapor canopy theory] seems to contradict Scripture, since Psalm 148:4 [indicates] these waters could not have been a canopy that collapsed during the Flood, since they were still present during the time of the Psalmist over a thousand years later." Ref-0784, Jonathan Sarfati, Flood models and biblical realism, 24(3), 46:53, p. 48 "One of the ‘serious problems’ (p. 6) with Morris and Whitcomb’s model, according to Keithley, is the canopy theory. Yet he admits that Andrew Snelling and “other current YEC advocates recognize that the biblical evidence for the canopy theory is tenuous at best” (p. 7). So, the text doesn’t demand a vapor canopy--there was no need to force it into young-earth models in the first place. It should also be noted here that it is not primarily because of runaway greenhouse effect that the canopy should be dropped but because of a reassessment of the scriptural warrant for it." Nick Sabato, "A theologian’s disappointing departure from biblical creation", Ref-0784, 28(3) 2014, 120-127, p. 122. Questionable: Pr. 30:4 (?);
✪ Crete
✪ "Sin and crime were close cousins in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, which drew its list of capital offenses from the Bible." Ref-1406, pp. 45-46. "There was indeed a New England statute against disobedience to one’s parents; the child over sixteen who struck or cursed a father was to be executed. The law was never invoked." Ref-1406, p. 132. "An Act of 1650 made adultery and incest punishable by death, although the reluctance of juries to convict meant that it fell into virtual desuetude; fornication received three months’ imprisonment; prostitutes were to be whipped, branded with B (for Bawd) and serve in a house of correction for their first offence, put to death for their second." -- Ref-1566, p. 400.
✪ "From [Est. 2:5-6] it is perfectly clear that Mordecai is the man whom the writer means to indicate as having been carried away with Jeconiah in the 8th year of Nebuchadnezzar. His name appears as one of the leaders of those who returned with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2, Neh. 7:7), but in consequence of the misdating of the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, this verse has been misinterpreted, and made to mean that it was not Mordecai, but Kish, his grandfather, who was carried away with Jeconiah." Ref-1299, p. 224. "Amongst the leaders of the people who returned with Zerubbabel and Jeshua in the 1st year of Cyrus, we find (Ezra 2:2) the names of Nehemiah, Seraiah (alternatively called Azariah, Neh. 7:7, and possibly identical with Ezra) and Mordecai. There is no reason why these three should not be identified with the well known Nehemiah the Tirshatha (Neh. 8:9), Ezra the priest the scribe (Neh. 8:9), and Mordecai of the Book of Esther. These three men take first rank. They stand at the very head of the list of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the prominence given to them in the narrative of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther is quite in accord with the position assigned to them here. It is only the mistaken identification of the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah with Artaxerxes Longimanus (B.C. 464-424) instead of with Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 521-485), and by consequence the mistaken date assigned to Nehemiah that has led to the distinguishing of the Nehemiah of the first year of Cyrus (Ezra 2:2, 7:7) from Nehemiah the cupbearer and the Tirshatha of Neh. 1:11 and 8:9. And it is only the mistaken identification of the Ahasuerus of Esther with Xerxes (B.C. 485-465) instead of with Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 521-485), that has led to the distinguishing of the Mordecai of the first year of Cyrus (Ezra 2:2 and Neh. 7:7), from the Mordecai of the Book of Esther, and the torturing of the passage in Esther 256 to make it mean that Kish was carried away with Jeconiah, instead of what it really does say, which is, that Mordecai was carried away with Jeconiah (B.C. 597)." Ref-1299, p. 238. "We are told that Mordechai was taken captive at the time of Jeconiah (597 bc) in Esther 2:6. If we date Ahasuerus as reigning from 486–465 bc, then Mordechai would have been at least 124 years old when he was promoted to prime minister (8:1–2) in Ahasuerus's 13th year (473 bc). However, if he was promoted by Darius I, he would have been about 88 years old; a more realistic age for an elder sitting at the king's gate (2:19)." James R. Hughes Which Persian monarch was the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther?, Ref-0784, volume 30(3) 2016, pp. 74-77, p. 77. "Esther 2:6 is sometimes thought to present a problem since it seems to state that Mordecai was deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 b.c. This would mean that Mordecai would have been about 120 years old in the time of Xerxes. Even more improbable, Esther would have been about seventy-five years old--a situation that the rabbis accepted! But as a number of scholars have pointed out, the relative pronoun ʾašer should be taken not with Mordecai (the first name in the series) but rather with Kish, the great-grandfather of Mordecai (the last name in the series). [Wright, “Historicity of the Book of Esther,” p. 38; E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), p. 376.]" Ref-1521, p. 236.
✪ Questionable: Eze. 17:21 (?);
✪ "Judah lost her independence in 609 B.C. when Pharaoh Neco II of Egypt killed King Josiah and Judah became a vassal state of Egypt, only to be made a vassal state of Babylon four years later. In 539 B.C. -- seventy years later -- Babylon was overthrown, and the prophecy of Jeremiah was literally fulfilled." J. Paul Tanner, Is Daniel’s Seventy-Weeks Prophecy Messianic? Part 2 Ref-0200, Vol. 166 No. 663 July-September 2009, 319:335, p. 332.
✪ "rather than quoting the Hebrew, Paul apparently followed the Jewish interpretation of the day (the Targum), which paraphrased this verse as follows: ‘You did ascend to the firmament, O Prophet Moses! You led captivity captive; you taught the words of the Law; you gave [not ‘received,’ as in the Hebrew] gifts to the sons of men." Ref-0038, p. 1:843.
✪ See captivity - Babylonian - predicted
✪ "With the battle of Carchemish [605 BC], two mighty empires fell. Assyria passed away forever, Egypt never again was a first class power, and the great city Carchemish was utterly destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar." Ref-0045, p. 10.
✪ "Though not mentioned by the Saviour by name, they [the Essenes] were referred to, not without approval, as “those who abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” (Mat. 19:12) . . ." George H. Sandison, Jewish Sects and Their Beliefs
✪ "catechisms were produced by men and men who were concerned to emphasise certain things in their peculiar historical situation, over against certain other teachings and attitudes. At their best, therefore, they tend to be incomplete, they tend to have a particular emphasis; and therefore they tend to leave out certain things." Ref-1369, p. 187.
✪ "Early Christians used the term catholic, a Greek word meaning concerning the whole, to describe this worldwide nature of the church. When early Christians referred to the catholic faith, they were speaking of the faith of the whole or universal church. The oldest document containing the term is a letter by Ignatius from the early second century. He wrote, ‘Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.’" Ref-0165, pp. 272-273. "A second characteristic of Cyprian's ecclesiology is his use of the term “catholic.” Whereas previously this term had been used with reference to the worldwide church and to those holding to orthodox doctrine, Cyprian now associated it with a more limited concept of the true church, according to which catholicity depends on the “sacrament of unity, this bond of a concord inseparably cohering [with the Roman See].” Outside of this unity, which he calls the Catholic Church, the sacrifices offered by priestly rivals are considered invalid." Ref-0685, p. 123.