AMEN: Common sense in the Lone Star State.

Texas Supreme Court says state has no business regulating Christian schools.

Well, amen to that!

Christian schools, Texas

ESCHATOLOGY: World Ended in 1928!

The article above was found in a rare book in my library (see picture below) but where was I?

The text is as follows ...

Los Angeles Times – December 30, 1927. – [PART 1.]

WORLD'S END IN 1928 SEEN

Paris Seer Predicts Fall of Meteorite Next Summer,
Death of Many and New Civilization Rise

[Copyright, 1927, by Chicago Tribune]

PARIS, Dec. 29. (Exclusive)—Prof. Pav, astrologer and seer, has astounded Paris by prophesying the end of the world in the summer of 1928. The professor, in an interview, gave details concerning the cataclysm which, in the opinion of many savants, marks the calling into the heavens of the true church, as foretold in the Bible.
"The end of the world is imminent, but the globe will not be totally destroyed," Prof. Pav said. "The constellation Lion, from the effect of some unknown force, will explode. A tremendous noise will be heard all over the world. Multitudes of stars composing the Fubulae will smash and a rain of falling stars will be visible in the sky.
"An immense block, like a gigantic meteorite, will fall on the earth. The rupture of the planetary equilibrium will not cause disaster to the entire system, but the same night a bitter cold wave will be felt, and in the morning there will be ice and snow, although the catastrophe is due to occur in summer.
"A large number of people will die in all corners of the globe, crops will be frozen and famine will conclude the hecatomb.
"The most terrible part will be the falling on the earth of a colossal meteorite. The earth itself will be jolted from its orbit by the shock, but magnetic forces will prevent it falling and colliding with another planet. Large areas of land will disappear and new continents will appear.
"At the end of the cataclysm only a relatively few people will survive.
"Afterward nature will resume her task and man will become wiser and more tender. The bases of the present civilization will not be destroyed entirely. The survivors will create new social system, based on the respect of human life and confraternity.
"All holy scriptures and writings point to the year 1928 as being marked with a special sign. It is possible that, owing to changes in the calendars during the centuries, there is a discrepancy, but the catastrophe will certainly happen during a summer night.
"Savants will be able to warn us in advance of the approach of the bolide."

Regarding the Latin word "fabulae," I found two possible understandings of the context: first, the correct spelling, dealt with Gaius Julius Hyginus (ca. 64 BC – AD 17), a Latin author, who collected ...

Fabulae consists of some three hundred very brief and plainly, even crudely told myths and celestial genealogies, valuable for the use made by an author characterized by his modern editor as adulescentem imperitum, semidoctum, stultum of the works of Greek writers of tragedy that are now lost. [reference.com]

The second had to do with a possible mispelling; instead of fabulae, Pav intended "fibulae" ...

"the outer and thinner of the two bones of the human leg, extending from the knee to the ankle" [dictionary.com]

Since Pav referred to the constellation Lion (Leo) it is possible he meant the leg bones of the celestial image; however, the editor (tongue firmly planted in cheek) took opportunity to poke fun at the whacko through an allusion to ancient mythologies (or fables).

Astronomy, Bible, Eschatology,
Last Days, Nut cases, Science

EVOLUTION: Will the real Neanderthal please stand up?

We (people of faith) will be jumping all over this for the next few weeks. Though, like so many other good news events for the family of God, we'll have to wait and see what happens over the long run.

I am impressed, however, with the openness of the bones and booty crowd ... the chicanery in this field is notorious. Fox News reports ...

Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.

The new research by famed paleontologist Meave Leakey in Kenya shows our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, calling into question the evolution of our ancestors.

Now that's ironic; I thought the only "wayward Bush" in our family tree was alive and living well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, WDC.

I have long suspected and am convinced that paleontologists had bitten off more than they could chew; the variables, as my mathematics daughter will tell you, make the probabilities of tying it all together at this distance astronomical.

The old theory was that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became us, Homo sapiens.

But those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years, Leakey and colleagues report in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

At least that's what the ex-"perts" say this year. The AP as reported through Fox gave us this clarification ...

In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said. It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London.

I'm not going to get too excited about this; however God did it, He did it! I don't need to know or understand everything to have faith in Him.

Overall what it paints for human evolution is a "chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us," Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya. That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, keeps getting proven wrong and too simple, said Bill Kimbel [director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University], who praised the latest findings. ... .
"The more we know, the more complex the story gets," he said.

Kinda supports my kid's thinking, doesn't it?

Leakey's team spent seven years analyzing the fossils before announcing their findings that it was time to redraw the family tree — and rethink other ideas about human evolutionary history, especially about our most immediate ancestor, H. erectus.

If they would just listen to me, I could explain it all to them and save them a lot of time. But if they won't listen to God what chance do I have?

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EXODUS: The archaeologist's spade turns some new soil!

Again and again little men with paint brushes, dental picks, and pith helmets crawl over a mound somewhere in the area of biblical Israel; once again they find something they'd heard existed but didn't believe existed in the way they had been told.

Spin is the only answer ... for preserving the lies, that is! To admit the historicity of the area as told in the ancient Hebrew scriptures would be tantamount to admitting there is a real living God, and no one (with a college degree) can believe that ... at least believe it and keep on crawling over little mounds of dirt in the Middle East.

National Geographic, often playing the part of king's fool, has once again reported on events and discoveries which play a key role in confirming our ancient biblical truths.

I believe it was NGM that first confirmed (publicly) the ancient name of (and existence of) the warrior-king Sargon was not a fictional name but the actual name of a King in the fertile crescent ... not just one king, but three kings.

If my memory is faulty, I'm not surprised; the discoveries were at the hands of others, that's for sure.

Now, in this new report, NGM is filtering out of discoveries in Gaza peninsula that might lend support for the biblical-view of Joseph's ascendancy, Israel's captivity, and the Hebrew children's exodus account (see the "discussion" on this link also).

The largest known fortress from ancient Egypt's days of the pharaohs has been unearthed near the Suez Canal, archaeologists announced on Sunday.

The massive fortress, discovered at a site called Tell-Huba, includes the graves of soldiers and horses and once featured a giant water-filled moat, scientists said.

The discovery dates back to ancient Egypt's struggle to reconquer the northern Sinai Peninsula from an occupying force known as the Hyksos (see Egypt map).

The campaign against the Hyksos was depicted in etchings on the ancient walls of the Karnak Temple, 450 miles (720 kilometers) south of Cairo.

So far, I see no reason this cannot harmonize nicely with the revelations of Moses in the Book of Exodus.

Notice however, a caveat has been inserted into the record; a suggestion that the Hyksos were driven out of Egypt ... this would fit nicely into a rewrite of ancient history, a rewrite which would subtly ignore the miraculous narratives of Scripture (Exodus, Psalms, the minor and major prophets, the Gospels, and the Book of Hebrews to name a few).

Archaeologists said the new find shows those stone-chiseled tales to be surprisingly accurate.

"The bones of humans and horses found in the area attest dramatically to the reality of such battles," said Zahi Hawass, director general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA).

"Previously, the area was known only from depictions in temples elsewhere in Egypt. We had no first-hand evidence of what was happening there during the pharaonic period."

Wonderful! "Surprisingly accurate" you say? I think we've been here before.

The fort, called Fort Tjaru (or Tharo), was unearthed by a team led by Mohammed Abdul Maqsoud of the SCA. The fort dates from the 18th and 19th Dynasties (from 1560 to 1081 B.C.).

Tjaru's mud brick walls were 42 feet (13 meters) thick, enclosing an area 546 yards (500 meters) by 273 yards (250 meters). Twenty-four watchtowers loomed over the parapets. A deep moat ringed the entire complex.

It was the biggest in a chain of 11 fortresses that stretched from Suez to the present-day city of Rafah on Egypt's border with the Palestinian territories.

Aha! We know this geography as the area of the wilderness, I think.

In the 17th century B.C., a people known as the Hyksos invaded from Canaan, sweeping across the Sinai to rule over the Nile Delta and northern Egypt.

The Hyksos' reign faded about a hundred years later. Subsequent pharaohs cast a wary eye to the east and militarized the northern Sinai.

By the reign of Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 B.C., a new enemy was on the horizon: the Hittites, who came from present-day Turkey and battled the Egyptians until around 1258 B.C.

The dates don't pose a problem for me or Scripture; reasonable ancient historians [whether secular, Jewish, or Christian (even Muhammadan)] can reconcile these dates with Joseph, Jacob, the biblical ingress of the Jews, and their exodus four hundred years later.

But notice the Hyksos "invaded" ... there is no more evidence for the kidnapping of Joseph and his sale to the Egyptians than there is for a Hyksos invasion; so why is the invasion presented as if it is hardened-history?

On another note: from what I read concerning Hyksos history they settled in Eastern and Southern Egypt, a rendition consistent with biblical history. I'm confused about NGM's presentation here!

Don't get me wrong; I am not dismissing NGM's report, it is a needed piece of the puzzle. It's just the world's dismissing of biblical history, for no other reason than it's biblical roots, is frustrating. I wish to do my share in pointing out the deficiency.

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COLLEGE FAITH: Some Old Myths Evidently Need to Die!

I'm one of those who've traditionally held that secular colleges and universities were deadly places to send our redeemed kids; perhaps I was wrong. I hope so!

WorldMag Blog led me to this -

College students are the least likely to abandon their faith than those who never pursued a college degree, a recent study revealed.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that college attendance appears to prevent young adults from losing their religion, contradicting widely held assumptions that students leave the church or their faith altogether during their college years.

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