Prof. Dale Tuggy has posted the first of a two-part interview with me talking about the Unseen Realm. I was a guest on his Trinities podcast. Have a listen and tell your friends (and maybe some enemies).
Mike Interviewed on the Trinities Podcast about the Unseen Realm
Brilliantly accessible.
Great host (no softballs).
Great guest (standard humility warning applies).
For anybody that was wondering what “that” was all about.
“That; that’s the end point to which God wants to bring it all back.”
Well. Now you know.
Thanks/Best.
Thanks!
That is great. Hope not too much of a spoiler.
Queston…. Why were the “rebelling ones” all given land except Satan. But The ‘creator’ was given Israel? Why was Satan omitted?
The nachash (who was never called “satan” in the OT – hence this omission) was cast down to the earth/Underworld (same word in Hebrew) to be lord of the dead. He thus had ownership of all mortals (everyone dies), necessitating salvation from death via the gospel plan. The nachash is of course a rebel against Yahweh, a status that the elohim of the nations would “achieve” through their own rebellion. He gets spoken of in “lead” terms because he was the first. But I’m not going to reproduce all that’s said on this here; see The Unseen Realm.
The comments on that site are quite interesting as well, along with Dan McClellan chiming in.
Ah, the “loyal Mormon opposition” – I’ll have to remember to look before the meetings in November. Had a fun chat with Dan last year.
Always like these interactive interviews. Hey, recieved the Unseen Realm on the 29th, and I am totally serious when I say that the LORD teaches us that all things are under His control ,and the delayed release of this book really has a Theological message for us all, and that is to SLOW us down. Case in point, for some reason ,I felt led to reread Ezekiel in the days immediately before recieving the book, and I realized that I had not seen how Many times Eden was mentioned. So, if I can pass on something useful to those who are not going to get this book for a few more weeks, it might be good to Reread Ezekiel, and any other portions of scripture you might add here Mike. It sure helped me, to reread that book , otherwise I would not of got quite as much out of the Unseen Realm as I so wonderfully did! —Another thing, it added great motivation in the passing out of tracts which I do. To any of you reading this , if you are at all uneasy about passing out tracts,– HINT ,things said in The Unseen Realm by Mike will make you see that we have Nothing to worry about ! Love you Mike and all !
Thanks, Rob. Let me know what you think after you’re through Unseen Realm.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel ‘built ships’. and he said I have built a ship. Don’t use pizza stories to make an incorrect analysis. Give the workers some credit not just the designer.
No idea what this is even referring to. Maybe some secret code only the enlightened understand.
Maybe now you understand the indignance that the sons of god (serpents) felt. They abhorred the ‘creators’ arrogance. Consciousness has free will inherent and there was nothing that the creator could do about it inspite his desires for blind worship. Now you know.
Nice to see a Gnostic was listening. And like so much of Gnosticism, we get an incoherent statement – attributing personal attributes (free will) to an impersonal thing (consciousness). And lest you fill in that gap with the pleroma or the “true God,” pause and reflect that such an answer means that evil beings who are conscious then have the true god in them or enlightening them, which sort of subverts the whole Gnostic system.
Yes. Even evil beings have conscious free will, just misguided. Notice even the sons of god rebelled against him. How? because free will is inherent in consciousness.
Yes, I know (I write about that in Unseen Realm). I’m missing the Brunel reference – that may help.
Rev 13:8
“Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world”
That’s Yahweh’s creation.
If you stop confusing assertions with evidence it’s not that complicated. Your book was nice to read though just standard doctrine disguised as academic analysis.
So in that senario, the crucifixion is a re-enactment of creation (the lamb is slain). So the resurrection is the second coming which will bring about the destruction of the created world. The Koran says that Christ will return to “break the cross”. i.e. to destroy creation.
But your belief system has a different interpretation.
That’s a pretty bizarre take on the crucifixion. I’d like some NT verses that cite the OT to make such connections.
John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
and then completes the task at the crucifixion and resurrection.
You see, why would ‘Yahweh’s spirit’ (supposedly) have to “over come” his own creation? The truth is that the creation/corruption/destruction cycle is just that, a cycle. I think the Hinduh’s refer to it as Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva. But it’s is all in the readers pre-beliefs.
You’re misunderstanding several concepts simultaneously in this exchange (“world”; the nature of creation and the fall, the notion of “overcoming”). Basically, you’re defining these terms in ways I don’t, and then presuming your definitions work for interacting with me. They don’t. There’s no short way to address this. You need to first read Unseen Realm. That’s the starting point for this.
So of course the cross is therefore a symbol of creation, on which Jesus (the lamb) was slain. Jesus over came the death of the cross (creation) on resurrection. At least that is what my bible says.
Rev 13 , 8
“witten in the Book of Life before the world was made–the Book that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered.
Notice BEFORE the world was made at which point the lamb of life was slain.
You can’t agree though. It is not your upbringing. Just remember that Jesus’s task was greater than even you realise, He had to over come them ALL.
See my earlier note. You’re misdefining and misunderstanding too many things at once. I have no problem with Rev 13:8.
Your problem is that I have read the “Unseen Realm”. The Lamb was slain twice, once at creation and the other time at the crucifixion. If you don’t realise that these two events are related then I can’t help you. You see it’s all to do with upbringing and conditioning.
Then you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the material. Can’t help you there. What you’re saying simply makes no sense, and puts YOU in the place of the biblical writers for citing interconnections.
… although I feel that I should warn you that the authors and contributors of the Nag Hammadi(you know, James, Thomas, Paul, John and Jesus) don’t share your interpretation of their writings or (“world”; the nature of creation and the fall, or the notion of “overcoming”).. But to be fair, they haven’t read your book.
I love the way you assume that “world” has no semantic range (only one meaning). LOL!
Thank you for getting that point. The main thrust is that textual analysis assumes that the meaning is in the text when in fact the meaning is in the reader. Our mental context cannot be referred back to ‘theirs’.
The other point is that the new testament is gnostic, although I feel that the ancient’s gnosticism was vastly different to our version but it clearly conflicts with OT authority worship.
it’s an overstatement to say meaning is in the reader. The writer also had a cognitive frame of reference. (It’s funny how “reader response” folks somehow always forget that very obvious fact). The closer the reader’s is to that of the writers, the greater the chance of discovering what the writer was trying to communicate. The NT isn’t gnostic. Yamauchi’s work years ago (of course drawing on other scholars) showed conclusively (it has stood the test of time) that the NT period didn’t even know of Gnosticism (which is why scholars use terms like “incipient Gnosticism” for that period). Gnosticism draws threads from many traditions, some of which pre-date the NT. That’s why you can find traces of what would become Gnosticism in earlier works. The NT theology itself isn’t Gnostic. Even John’s work (the so-called best example) has a lot of material that is anti-Gnostic.
I thought that the Nag-Hammadi was circa NT.
That’s the popular myth.
The Nag Hammadi texts (with the possible exception of Thomas, which isn’t a gospel so much as a collection of sayings) are several centuries later than the NT period. From Anchor Bible Dictionary: “A group of twelve papyrus codices, plus eight leaves from a thirteenth, dating from the 4th century C.E. and inscribed in Coptic.”
Birger A. Pearson, “Nag Hammadi: Nag Hammadi Codices,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 984.
The dating is based on C-14 and the fact that the Nag Hammadi texts are codices (not scrolls) – the codex (a “book” with leaves) replaced scrolls after the first century).
Very small fragments of Thomas have been found in Greek, so it is presumed that Thomas is older than the fourth century (the version found at Nag Hammadi being a translation into Coptic).
Divine imaging. What it is its intrinsic meaning?
None. But you can apply one.
This is flawed thinking. No words in any language have “intrinsic” meanings. Words and phrases only take on meaning in context. Divine imaging is presented in biblical theology in a context (several actually). So your view only works if one has had no life experiences, perhaps being raised in a sensory deprivation chamber.
The author of a text has an intention. This is the strange thing about the authors of the Bible. They must have realised the problem with reading the bible for people 2000 years later (and it was for those people, hence Rev), and yet still wrote it. There MUST be a culturally independent meaning to it or the very writing of it doesn’t make sense. And yet I don’t agree with your interpretation of it and I live in the same year as you.
Your problem only has coherence if you can reproduce a different ancient context. I’m not proposing interpretations so much as I’m showing how an Israelite would have parsed things in their context. Your problem is that you don’t have that context because you haven’t read the material I’ve footnoted everything in the book with. You’re assuming I put the footnotes in there to take up space. I didn’t. I’m giving readers the trails they need to follow. If you absorbed that information, you wouldn’t be living in Gnostic land when it comes to all this. That’s a foreign context (as is our own). I can’t produce a book that simply copies the text of all the sources and primary texts. You have to do that work. But I can show you where to look, and have.
Not sure what the point is. And if you know of another doctrine book that makes the divine council the centerpiece, let’s hear about it. (I’m presuming your reference to my book refers to the Unseen Realm).
There is no such work that does what Unseen Realm does.
But I wasn’t being “Gnostic” I was referring to your book. The sons of god felt a justified sense of ownership of the creation (just as the builders of Brunel’s ships would) and hence the rebellion. They thought that God was being greedy and arrogant. It’s a bit like your Dad saying he owned your book. The sons of god had a good case.
MSH
Why did Jesus have to be in Israel to find the “sons of Satan”. And why do you have to delete comments to protect your beliefs?
Neither part of this question makes sense – ? Posting 600,000 words on blogs isn’t exactly protective behavior.
I enjoyed listening to this podcast. Good job DrH. Also, have enjoyed listening to other Trinities podcasts too.
Thanks!
“Your problem only has coherence if you can reproduce a different ancient context.”
No my point is that in many cases the authors and their contemporaries didn’t even understand what they were writing and yet they still wrote it. We are ‘clearly’ supposed to get the meaning (even though they frequently didn’t) inspite of our different culture. So who IS supposed to understand it. Cultural context is NOT the problem.
The Gospel of Thomas
Jesus said “This heaven will pass away and the one ABOVE it will pass away”
This is gnostic. Satan is not above heaven.
of course it’s Gnostic if it comes from the Gospel of Thomas – ?? (and the line doesn’t mention Satan).
I presume you are quoting Logion 11 (the first saying) from Thomas: “(1) Jesus says, “This heaven will pass away and the (heaven) above it will pass away.”
So what was your point? Gnostic literature is Gnostic?
For those who might wonder, this saying does not appear in the NT (i.e., the second half does not appear in the NT). The first half does. What about the second half? That the idea is much older than the NT – the idea is found in the OT, which is, everyone in the relevant fields know, isn’t Gnostic literature (what an anachronism). See Isa 34:4.
“(1) Jesus says, “This heaven will pass away and the (heaven) above it will pass away.”
no it says
Jesus said “This heaven will pass away and the one above it will pass away”
you added (heaven) But as you point out “of course it’s Gnostic”
The fact that Jesus said this implies that Jesus was a gnostic not just Thomas who just followed His teachings, being a disciple circa NT.
You see it is not a ‘cultural context problem’ it’s just an understanding problem. Thomas was a Gnostic becaaue Jesus was a Gnostic, the problem comes from not realising this, not by struggling to decipher the meaning of Hebrew text from 2500 years ago.
Guess who the One is in ‘the Heaven above heaven’ (to use your inclusion).
it’s not God or the “true God” – it’s another heaven.
Here’s the Coptic text with commentary by a Thomas / Coptic scholar:
(1) ⲡⲉϫⲉ ⲓ̅ⲥ̅ ϫⲉ ⲧⲉⲉⲓⲡⲉ ⲛⲁⲣ̄ⲡⲁⲣⲁⲅⲉ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲧⲉⲧⲛ̄ⲧⲡⲉ ⲙ̄ⲙⲟⲥ ⲛⲁⲣ̄ⲡⲁⲣⲁⲅⲉ
Gos. Thom. 11 contains four originally unconnected single sayings. At most, the end of the fourth sentence is formed in the fashion of the third sentence (or vice versa). The statements in the first two sentences can be found in the same combination in Gos. Thom. 111. All four sentences are now bound together by the same eschatological aspect that might be responsible for their present arrangement. Since the opening of the saying, “Jesus says,” appears only at the beginning of the first sentence, the compiler of the Gospel of Thomas may have had a collection of these four sayings already at his disposal.
With the proclamation of the end of heaven, the first sentence makes a traditional eschatological statement that can also be found, for instance, in Mark 13:31 and parallels, or seen as lying behind Matt 5:18. The idea of the destruction of heaven (and earth) at the end of the age has in turn its model in the Old Testament (Isa 51:6, Ps 102:26–27). Yet Gos. Thom. 11,1 does not (yet) continue this announcement and salvation promise (as in Mark 13:31 and parallels; Isa 51:6, Ps 102:28). Remarkable is the – biblically not attested – term “this heaven,” which can only refer to the visible sky above us as the lowest in a series of consecutive heavens according to the view of Late Antiquity.
Uwe-Karsten Plisch and Gesine Schenke Robinson, The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with Commentary (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008).
It’s time to move beyond Robinson (or the internet) for your information.
It doesn’t say “the one”
First, he isn’t quoting a Hebrew text. It isn’t a precise citation of anything in the OT / Hebrew. The word “heaven” is supplied from context, BASED ON PARALLELS IN THE PRIMARY TEXT CORPUS ITSELF.
Second, unlike Greek, where a definite article (“the”) can stand alone and be a referent to some other noun in context, the Hebrew definite article doesn’t do that — it never stands alone. So this can’t come from a citation of any Hebrew text.
Third, if we go with “the one above it” (cp. The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. Robinson, it simply refers to another level from heaven, not an entity. Is the idea of multiple levels of heaven Gnostic? No – you can find that at Qumran, in Jewish merkabah texts, which themselves derive from the OT scenes of divine encounter. (See Halperin’s massive study on this, Faces of the Chariot).
Jesus a Gnostic? Laughable. He certainly taught lots of non-Gnostic things then – oh, wait, those things aren’t original to the gospels, right> 🙂 Pick and choose. Not here.
Gnostic propaganda only works with people unfamiliar with the primary texts.
I didn’t say the text was Hebrew or a citation of Hebrew??.
The heavens were considered the abodes of different levels of gods/sons of gods/fallen angels/watchers etc. Wh0 lives in the second heaven? is a totally reasonable question.
“Jesus a Gnostic? Laughable. He certainly taught lots of non-Gnostic things” Well Thomas quotes Jesus in, quote “an obviously gnostic text”
“Gnostic propaganda” ?? You’re beginning to sound like a zealot.
On Thomas:
1) This book is later in origin than the lifespan of Thomas the apostle, so it wasn’t written by him.
2) The book is later than the gospels in general. I can quote Jesus in a novel; that doesn’t mean that Jesus was fictional or that the gospels were fiction. In other words, the source of a quotation doesn’t validate the nature of the text in which it’s quoted, nor does it mean the source and the thing in which the source is quoted are of the same nature (or even genre). This logic is unworkable in pretty demonstrable ways.
3) Even in the East (where the apostle Thomas went by tradition) the Gospel of Thomas was not considered canonical or on the level of the four gospels most people know. How do we know? Tatian — an eastern father and author of the oldest harmony of the gospels (the Diatesseron) excluded Thomas.
To be honest, Gnosticism bores me. Granted, I find some of its ancient threads interesting, but the system is eclectic, taking thoughts from here and there and then claiming some sort of originality or special knowledge. Gnosticism as a system is the guy at work who takes ideas from everyone in the office and then tells the boss they came up with something new or is more enlightened than everyone else. (He takes credit). It’s also intellectually lazy. It conflates questions and answers (questions are not answers, but I find modern gnostics trying to convince people how enlightened they are by only raising questions and talking about “the journey” – without ever trying to come up with any answer to their own questions). That isn’t deep thought. It’s laziness. Sure, there are mysteries, but what real intellects do is attack the problem/mystery so as to weed out answers that are wrong, to keep working at the problem. They aren’t content to just contemplate their own questions. It’s like navel gazing but adding Jesus. It bores me to tears.
Gnosticism only succeeds where people are not familiar with primary texts, or where people (usually traditional Christians) blindly accept certain ideas handed to them by their own forefathers, never bothering to see if those ideas really derive from the primary sources. Gnosticism can “evangelize” people who are hindered by those two items. I’m not hindered by either of them, so I’m not impressed.
They did understand it — unless you want to claim the author didn’t understand it, which would be absurd. The author and the original recipients shared the same worldview. This is why I noted the silly propensity of reader-response folks to forget the WRITER had a cognitive framework.
•The First Heaven was also considered to be the place where Adam and Eve lived
•The Second Heaven was the place where the Fallen Angels are imprisoned..
•The Third Heaven was the place of the Garden of Eden, the home of the Tree of Life.
•The Fourth Heaven contains the heavenly city of Jerusalem.
•The Fifth Heaven, Samael the Ruling Archangel is served by two millions of angels and the Watchers,
•The Sixth Heaven, Sabath,.
•The Seventh Heaven is the home of God and his Throne.
Whether they all fall I don’t know, which is why I am not a gnostic.
that would be a-gnostic (don’t know).
I don’t understand why you think you do know. The Bible tells me so?
Most of the Bible can be understood pretty well (not exhaustively, but well) if we view it through its original context. That takes work, not “contemplation of mystery” (see my other reply).
“unless you want to claim the author didn’t understand it, which would be absurd.”
That is the point. They didn’t understand, they obeyed and recorded.
Here is a staff… I will smite
and Moses said “oh that old staff smite thing”
God did not like questioning. Except for Abraham and his son… oh no wait
Don’t apply the hope of a “lost understanding”
This is good for readers to see. Your hermeneutic = “the writers didn’t understand what they were writing?” Balogney. Your example has just confused a divine command with writing about the command. Because of what preceded and followed, it isn’t hard to get the point of this life lesson for Moses (and he understood it all too well, as he wasn’t able to enter the land because of it).
Well here is just one example of many
Daniel 12–8
I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, “My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?” He replied, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end….. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.
Notice WILL understand not DO understand . Who was this non understood text written for?
Again, confusing the experience with the ability to write. My argument in this exchange has never been that everything in the Bible is totally comprehensible. But your case has been that nothing is. That idea is nonsense. You’ve also (I think) seemed to say that everything that isn’t comprehensible – in your case, every paragraph of the Bible – is Gnostic. That is equally absurd. You seem to think that NOT knowing something = Gnosticism. Gnostics claimed the opposite. They claimed to have gnosis (knowledge), not non-gnosis (a-gnosis, or ignorance).
Questions are not answers.
Even though content of certain prophesies or visions wasn’t known by certain biblical writers, other biblical writers may have known what XYZ passage was talking about (that’s called inner-interpretation and intertextuality). But of course that wasn’t exhaustive, either.
And even though content of certain prophesies or visions wasn’t known, biblical writers do present the material in comprehensible form. That is, while a biblical reader may not have known how a prophecy would precisely “turn out” in history, they could and did know (and so can and do we, if we are interpreting the text in their context) what the writer was getting at. For example, they knew what certain symbols meant and what they telegraphed, though WHEN such as they telegraphed would happen, they didn’t know.
So, while there’s plenty FOR US in the text that isn’t clear, that was less of a problem for the original readers and writers. “The Bible” is not one massive obtuse tome. Its messaging is mostly comprehensible (moreso to those who originally produced it and read it), even though prophetic outcomes are not.
In other words the writers of the Bible were just documenters. Try asking an economics news presenter what the heck is going on, they will say “don’t ask me, I’m just a reporter” One may analyse their reports and I am sure that they would love to hear ‘your’ understanding, just like Daniel et al.
No, in other words they were intelligent writers with specific communication goals. I’ve said this before. You must have missed it.
No I didn’t miss it. I am pointing out that the evidence does not support your claim. But if you ignore the contrary evidence then you are correct.
“writers with specific communication goals”
Wheels within wheels? Assertions are just assertions, not evidence. That is why science took over religion.
This just makes no sense. It requires you to prove that the writers had no communication goals. Do you realize that? You’ve just required an unprovable assumption of yourself. Nice logic.
If you have to deleted comments to sustain your argument then I don’t trust your motives.
“I don’t understand” (Daniel) means “I don’t understand”
Any other interpretation is just Cognitive bias.
“I don’t understand this vision” doesn’t translate to “we can’t understand anything” or “they didn’t understand anything.” That’s textbook illogic, and that’s what you’ve claimed here (readers can see that for themselves). You don’t get to reframe your statements into something they weren’t.
I’ve spent more time corresponding with you on this blog than anyone (other than Hanan). Some of your posts were duplicates or duplicated content. If you want to resend them, do so. Otherwise, quit whining.
Still deleting. You are a pathetic third rate deceitful prat.
No, it filters repeated content. But this one has earned you the deletion filter. You’re unteachable, and I’m under no obligation to keep posting the same things over and over again. But congratulations on being the second person in seven years (and 17,000 comments) to be banned. Folks can look and see that I engaged your comments repeatedly. I’m bored now and, as I noted, and this and other comments will testify, you’re unteachable.
It’s real simple for those following the discussion. Brian thinks the biblical writers couldn’t understand *anything* they wrote (some sort of mystical agnosticism he calls – somehow – gnosticism). I disagree. While there are some things the biblical writers didn’t understand, the vast majority of the Bible was written with specific communication objectives and intentions that the writers and readers could understand quite well. I’ll leave it to readers to decide which view is more coherent. Let’s just say I’m not worried.
Let’s just say that you don’t understand but still delete the contrary evidence.
I gave him clear responses. Everyone can read them. He didn’t prove his unprovable position (that the biblical writers didn’t understand what they wrote). It’s unprovable because it was so categorical. But that’s his problem, not mine. When folks resort to name calling, I’ll ban them. If you don’t like it, start your own blog. It’s not complicated.
So you put Brian’s argument for him but won’t allow him to put his own argument without censoring his posts. Unbelievable! I am beginning to thing that Brian’s conclusions about you are correct. But of course this will be deleted too.
Please. Try reading the threads/comments. There are almost a dozen of his comments up here with his arguments. Look at the names.
“mystical agnosticism” so he is saying that the Bible is the word of God.
No, he’s saying that he doesn’t know anything because the biblical writers didn’t know anything (which is a-gnostic, not gnostic, but he doesn’t seem to see that).
LOL… I thing Brian is the one who doesn’t *understand anything* Wow! I am amazed at your patience with such pride. The thread had me literally laughing out loud!
Academics are just students that still don’t get it.
of course … so who gets it?
Who indeed?
This appears a pointless comment. If you want future comments approved, they have to be coherent (I don’t see anyone specific to whom it was addressed).