For PERSPECTIVES Vol. 7 No. 3 [July-September 2004]   

Please feel free to submit short questions or your comments. We reserve the right to answer and publish those we believe to be in the public interest. We reserve the right to use or not use submitted material (in whole or in part), to include your name, and to edit or condense your questions for clarity and space. Click here to submit a question or comment to the editor.

Trinitarian?

Having visited your website while working on an article on Binitarianism (which I support), I noticed that you listed both the Living Church of God and United Church of God under the category of Trinitarians. As a person who helped draft the following statement, "The Father and the Son comprise the 'Godhead.'" There is one God (1 Corinthians 8:4 and Deuteronomy 6:4). Scripture shows that God is a divine Family which began with two, God the Father and the Word" (Official Statement of Fundamental Beliefs. Living Church of God, March 2004).", I am confused by your listing. May I ask why you have come to a differing conclusion?

−Bob Thiel

Taxons are at times difficult to define (see The Nature of God. You may disagree with our structure and definitions. Binitarianism requires the Godhead to exist in two hypostases that are indivisible as opposed to Ditheism which has two Gods in the Godhead. Trinitarianism does not necessitate three Gods or three persons but rather three hypostases (three realities or essences). The use of the word persons in contemporary parlance blurs the meaning in its ancient sense. Acknowledging the existence of three Gods would be Tritheism. Readers may learn more of Dr. Thiel's views regarding Binitarianism at his website.  We will drop our reference to the Living Church of God.

�Editor

Where Can I Study Biblical Archaeology?

I am very interested in getting started in the field of biblical archeology. Unfortunately I am unable to find a school that offers this. I was just wondering, where do I go to get the education I need to pursue this career? and what qualifications do I need in order to run a dig? Any information you could offer will surely be helpful.

�Adam Young

The archaeology of the Levant as a field of study is usually found in anthropology departments of major universities and in the New Testament Studies departments of theology schools. Some bible colleges also offer such programs. We suggest you speak with a college or high school counselor who can help you use the internet and other resources to find a suitable program for you. In anthropology one usually majors in the field at the undergraduate level and then would pursue an area of specialty at the graduate level. To meet an archaeologist we suggest you contact the anthropology department of a university near you and explain your interest.

If you really want to become grounded in this field we suggest you explore the programs at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Tel Aviv. In the USA we doubt you will find a regionally accredited institution with a masters degree in this specialty. Stay away from diploma mills displaying themselves on the WWW claiming that some accrediting association has accredited them. Avoid them like the plague.

The research strategy we suggest is for you to explore area studies programs such as Middle Eastern Studies and Anthropology at large universities. We like Texas A&M at College Station, the University of Arizona, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. We recommend SMU for doctoral studies in archaeology. You might explore other anthropology programs at schools we list on our Useful Links page.

--Editor

Sir William M. Ramsey

Do you know when Sir William Ramsey died and when his last trip to Jerusalem was? I looked on google.com but couldn't find out. I need to know for a novel I'm writing. I also need the name of his wife and granddaughter. It's a minor part but I want to be accurate.

�Kristen Halter

Ramsay married first, in 1878, Agnes Dick (died 1927), second daughter of the Rev. William Marshall, of Leith. By her he had two sons, the younger of whom was killed in action in 1915, and four daughters. He married secondly, in 1928, Phyllis Eileen, daughter of Alfred Ernest Thorowgood, of Old Bosham, Sussex, who survived him. He died at Bournemouth April 20, 1939. We could find no information about his grandchildren or his last trip to Jerusalem. For more information see Anderson 1949 and  Gasque 1966.

--Editor

Our Beliefs 

I came across your website a week ago and am enjoying it. I live in NC and notice that is where your home base is. I was wondering if there are any opportunities to go on a dig. Of course without huge costs. I am a Christian and love biblical archaeology. I have a bachelors degree in criminal justice and getting my masters in divinity. I will be licensed as a youth pastor soon and hope to be chaplain at our local juvenile prison as well. Young people I believe is Gods calling in my life. I currently have a ministry at our group home and juvenile prison as well. I also have a great passion for studying the Bible. One last thing, could you give me some insight on your beliefs and its history, I was just curious.

�Tommy Colie

Many years ago, when a student at the University of Illinois, I faced three challenges: an attack speech made by a campus speaker entitled "A Pagan's Message to the Christian Clergy," a series of questions on a large poster a Roman Catholic priest had placed in Newman Hall (at Champaign, Illinois) intended to show that only the Roman Catholic Church was the true church, and an evangelist who challenged his listeners on WLS radio out of Chicago to examine the Bible and believe it. He said "Don't believe me, believe the Bible."

I took these challenges seriously and determined to carefully undertake a study of the Bible (God's Word) that would help me understand the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and the early church. I assumed that if one wants to be a real Christian then he or she would have to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. This search for truth and fact has been ongoing now for over forty years. My belief system is fairly well set forth in the What We Believe section of this website. However, as we continue to grow in grace and knowledge our beliefs will change as God leads us into a greater and deeper understanding of his way.

I grew up in the First Congregational Church (now United Church of Christ) in Granville, Illinois. My interest in the Bible and commitment to God's way of life largely came from a series of wonderful, inspiring  teachers that I experienced as a child in that congregation, under the leadership of Dr. F. E. Rockwell.

--Editor

"Six Pence None The Richer"

I was curious to know about sixpence none the richer and if the phrasing is correct. I was told it was biblical.

�Monique Rosario

�Editor

Help with Latin Phrases

Could you please provide the English to Latin translation for the following two phrases. 1. Before Christ 2. After Divinity.

�Harry Shaw, Jr.

Lost Ten Tribes?

The late evangelist Oliver Greene said, "The lost ten tribes are not lost, God knows where they are."

−Lester and Nancy Peck

Matthew.10:5-7......"But go rather to the lost  (apollumi) sheep of the House of Israel." They were not lost! The word lost (apollumi) is put away and punish! Thus the put away and punished House of Israel. John.7....where will He go that we can not find Him ? Will He go UNTO THE DISPERSED AMONG THE GENTILES " (Hellen).

Hellen, the name of the land we now call Greece. The Pharisees of Christ's time Knew there were Israelites in Greece (HELLEN) in that day, yet modern theologians deny it! They were not lost!

Paul was sent to the gentiles (ethnos) race or tribe. Hence Christ's instructions were, Acts 22:21 "I will send you far hence unto the race, or unto the tribes of Israel in the European dispersion."

−David Buckman.

When you put the pieces together, it appears that the lost tribes are the nations where you find Christians, the places where you see God's blessings that were promised to Israel. Read Gen. 35--48--49. Look at II Samuel 7:10. If you separate all the verses by topic and pull them together and compare the prophecy each time to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, compare them together and separately.

In Hosea the house of Israel was to be called the sons of the living God in the last day. So through out the prophets you always find them separated in prophecy. they were each called a different part of the plant.

In Mathew 10, seek out the lost sheep of the house of Israel was Jesus' commandment to the disciples. Ephraim followed after an east wind, which is headed west, Ephraim is my first born. They will be brought back together at the setting up of the Kingdom and we may never Know enough of the truth to be sure but to me it points to the nations that have followed after Jesus and made God their stronghold. If it were important God would have told us in his Word, or did He mean for us to search His Word to find out for ourselves. I believe we were to find out for ourselves and to workout our own soul salvation with fear and trembling.

�Kim C. McGough

Words from France

God, if you exist, please protect us from your representatives on earth; they suck!

�Gerard Lapagesse

The Jewish Calendar

You might be interested in the way the original calendar, less Dr. Hillel, was calculated.

It's very simple, as is all of God's commands. Christ said He came to preach the Acceptable Year of the Lord. So Christ's Acceptable year acknowledged only God's commanded days, and not Hillel's, or Johnny's or anybody else's. The first month of the sacred year is Nisan, and it begins on the first new moon after the vernal equinox. The evening of the full moon that month begins the Passover. (Basically why the Hebrew calendar is called the "anomalistic" calendar).

Christ was born in 4 BCE, so He was 7 years old in 4 CE. Notice you must ADD a 1 to get the correct year number (not subtract 1) when you cross from AD to BC or the other way. That means Christ was about 30 in 27 AD, not 26 AD. Now 4 happens to be the number of God revealing Himself to man, as I'm sure you know, so besides the Roman census which records Joseph and Mary attending the Feast of Ingathering in Bethlehem that year, it is likely that Christ was born on the first day of that Feast, was circumcised on the 8th day, and 12 years later appeared to the priests in the temple on the 8th day of the feast (called a Sabbath) and confounded them all with His knowledge.

When He was about 30 years of age, on the 8th day of the Feast of Tabernacles (also a Sabbath), it seems that He gave His speech in Luke 4:18-19 in which He began His ministry. In v. 19 Christ refers to the year calendar as an Holy calendar. He does so in the 4th chapter and 19th verse. Whether it's purposeful or interesting, there are 19 years in the complete Hebrew calendar cycle. Easy to remember: 4 = revelance, 19 = complete cycles.

Everything seems to fall right into place, if Christ began His human life on the first day of the Feast and is accepted unto God as his Son on the 8th day, appeared in the temple teaching the priests on the 8th day when He was 12, and began His ministry on the 8th day of the Feast of Tabernacles. JESUS in the Greek numbers 888, according to the Greek number system. The 8th day of the Feast is called the Last Great Day, and represents the resurrection and Eternal life. Christ said, "I AM the resurrection and the life." So Christ is directly represented by the 8th day of the Feast. (8x8x8=512 whose digits add up to 8. 8 in scripture is always the number representative of new beginnings, from Noah and the flood, to the 8th dispensation which brings a new heaven and a new earth.)

We can also check on this date of 27 AD several other ways. Christ's ministry began 483 years after 457 BCE. 483-457=26. No year zero, so add 1 year and that date number we designate as 27 CE, or 27 AD. That puts His crucifixion date as Apr 25, 31 AD. In that year, the Passover was a Wednesday eve, explaining the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on a weekly Sabbath day. That type-mirrors the prophetic "week" in which He would confirm the covenant with many. If God begins His week every Sunday and ends every Sabbath day at sunset, then Christ, in order to perfectly mirror this prophecy in type, had to begin His last week on earth in human form on a Sunday and end it on a Saturday night. He didn't keep Easter, so an Easter sunrise service is out. Mary went to the tomb Sunday morning while it was yet night and the tomb was empty, proving Christ had risen before then.

He had been entombed as the sun was setting on a Wednesday. Count it up: According to Matthew 16:4 (lots of 4's there) he would be 72 hours in the grave. So when would He have risen? Saturday, as the sun was setting! You could say, from (yearly) Sabbath to Sabbath. That could have only happened in the intercalary year of 31 CE. I don't know who else may or may not believe these figures, but they come out perfectly in a variety of ways.

There are more ways than one to arrive at this answer. It is also self-corroborating. The belief that Christ was born on the first day of the Feast (which is also a yearly Sabbath) is just my guess. But we can know that it was still warm when He was born since the shepherds were still in the fields, tending flocks by night and the mangers were empty and stocked with fresh straw. Everyone's financial year was completed and they could then be taxed by Rome on the year's produce or earnings. It was also the time they paid their yearly tithes to the priest. There was no snow. Christ didn't share the stall with animals, and the magi, of which there were many (not just 3) from the college Daniel and his 3 friends (4 founders) began in Babylon, arrived several months later when they were already home again. (Notice, the magi come to their "house" to worship the babe, no longer just an infant of days, according to the Greek.) The shepherd's star was not the magi's star. But remember too-- everything must mirror everything else. The scripture corroborates everything with type and antitype. This is how we know it is true. If the Shepherds saw a star guiding them to the manger, then unless there was another one as its antitype, the shepherds could not have seen a star. Even Christ's miraculous birth had to have been preceded by another physical type. That other was named John the Baptist.

Symmetry in scripture is necessary and provided to corroborate everything, in many different ways. Look for it.

�Craig Brougher

�Editor

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Page last edited: 01/02/06 05:20 PM

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