Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Athanasius' Timely Observation

I am continuing to write the Generation Word's Online Bible School tests and am working in chapter 31 of the Framework for Christian Faith book on as test that will cover the years 313-590 AD of church history. I have again come across a quote by Athanasius from the time of Constantine's son Constantius. It was a time of Christian oppression and pillage of the Heathen. Athanasius, the bishop from Alexandria, Egypt, said:
Satan, because there is no truth in him, breaks in with axe and sword. But the Savior is gentle, and forces no one, to whom he comes, but knocks and speaks to the soul . . . For the truth is not preached by sword and dungeon, by might of an army, but by persuasion and exhortation.
According to Athanasius, those who spread their religion by using the sword instead of free will and faith are agents of Satan. Can you make your own application of this to historical and contemporary world situations?

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Books and a Series of Book Reviews

I would like to do a brief review of fifteen books written between 1513-1963. My blogs will actually be reviewing the work of Benjamin Wiker, PH.D. and his book 10 Books that Screwed up the World. I think many people wonder how did we ever learn to think and reason in modern Western Civilization in a way that is so contrary with reality. I hope to categorize some of these thoughts and expose the radical contradictions that exist between these ideas themselves, not to mention the contradiction they have with truth and reality. You may not agree with me, but I certainly wish you didn't agree with Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, Mills, Darwin, Nietzsche, Lenin, Sanger, Hitler, Freud, Mead, Kinsey and Friedan. Several of these I have addressed in my own book Hope for America's Last Generation. Some of you may agree with the basic premise of some of the fifteen authors mentioned above. That is fine, . . . OK, whatever. But, others may not realize how dangerous a bad idea is. If ideas have consequences, then bad ideas have bad consequences. Wiker writes a quote from Thomas Carlyle who said,
There once was a man called Rousseau who wrote a book containing nothing but ideas. The second edition was bound in the skins of those who laughed at the first edition.
I am not against reading these books, in fact, I own copies of most of them. I recently purchased and read the 1912 edition of A Civic Biology by George William Hunter, PH.D. (Google it. I will eventually blog about the contents in this book.) Most do not know this book by its title, although most have heard of turmoil it caused. Very, very few people actually know what is contained in this (clue) high school text book:
. . . epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics . . . If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy . . .
To stop our decline we must read these books, understand them, and be able to identify their perverted, malignant logic when we hear it roll out of the mouths of politicians, religious leaders, educators and others who claim to know the way to the Land of Utopia.

Here are some critics and few supporters of the book 10 Books that Screwed up the World. Many do not like it and mock the authors values, education and world view. I disagree with those who mock this book and disregard their insults: See Benjamin Wiker discuss his book on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNy5hO-ylM4

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com/

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Secret Things and Revealed Things

This is my response to a Facebook (www.facebook.com/galyn) question:

The Satan question is a tough question. It goes back before the beginning of time. (It may be part of Satan's accusation against God before the world as we know it.) The answer again has to do with free will and with God revealing who he is. It is an abstract answer and we will never fully wrap our minds around it. For God to reveal who he is he created free agents (in this case) who would then respond to God's nature. Satan chose to rebel which simply moved God's plan forward. Independent of my answer being correct or making sense, God is still in control and God is still good. There will always be questions (I have questions and some apparently conflicting ideas) but we know enough about God and about Truth to place faith in God and move on in faith. Indeed, to have any faith at all you must have some questions answered and something to believe in. But, eventually we all run into a wall that we can no longer see past or understand. This is where we say with the Apostle Paul, "We live by faith, not by sight."
"The SECRET THINGS belong to the Lord our God, but the THINGS REVEALED belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29
Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Hadrian's and Antoninus Pius' Statues from 135 and 138 AD


I mentioned tonight in class a stone fragment in the southern wall of the temple mount in Jerusalem. This photo is the southern gate that contains the stone fragment from the base of a Roman statue. I did not realize this stone was there when I was photographing the gate. The stone and the inscription is in the blue box in the photo below.

The very top stone in the very upper right corner of this photo is a piece of stone from the base of a statue of Antoninus Pius that stood on the temple mound. The stone contains an inscription. Hadrian would have had the statue set on the temple mount along with the Temple of Jupiter that he built after his defeat of the Jews in 135 AD.

Hadrian’s inscription reads:
TITO AEL HADRIANO
ANTONINO AUG PIO

P P PONTIF AUGUR
D D


Translation of Latin:
To Titus Ael[ius] Hadrianus
Antoninus Aug[ustus] Pius

the f[ather] of the f[atherland], pontif[ex], augur.

D[ecreed] by the D[ecurions]



The Roman Temple of Jupiter was torn down by Constantine. The stones were used later by the Muslims to build the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This inscription was found and placed upside down to replace a broken stone above this gate.

Hershel Shanks (archaeologist and editor of Biblical Archaeology Review) says:
"Hadrian erected an equestrian statue of himself on the Temple Mount. The anonymous fourth-century pilgrim known only as the Bordeaux Pilgrim reports that he saw two statues of Hadrian on the Temple Mount when he visited the site. The Bordeaux Pilgrim probably mistakenly identified the second statue; Hadrian's successor, Antonius Pius (138-161 AD), probably added an equestrian statue of himself, which the Bordeaux Pilgrim saw. . . It is quite possible the the Bordeaux Pilgrim saw this inscription when it was part of a statue on the Temple Mount. But he misread it. Antonius had been adopted by Hadrian and named as his successor in 138 A.D. Thus, Antoninus's name included the name of Hadrian. The Bordeaux Pilgrim apparently looked only at the first two lines and concluded that it was a second statue of Hadrian. Both had a thick beard and looked much alike when they were older. (Notice the images of their statues below). Some modern scholars have made the same mistake and read the same inscription now in secondary use as referring to Hadrian instead of Antoninus. They apparently focused on the name Hadrianus, ignoring the following name, Antoninus.


Hadrian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antoninus Pius

For more information or to see the photos I took of the southern side of the temple mount go to http://www.generationword.com/Israel/jerusalem_sites/southern_wall.html

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com