Category: Bible Studies

Do you write notes in the margins of your Bible? I hope so! The Bible is the Word of God, and we need to be serious students of that Word. Those notes can be precious. I treasure my father’s old Dixon Bible. Some of my best memories are seeing him beside the fireplace with a cup of coffee in his old brown mug, preparing to teach a Bible class. He was a great teacher (and the only man I know who wore out a copy of Josephus). Now I have his Bible and his notes – precious!

On the other hand, writing notes in the margin of a Bible has led to some of the most interesting textual variants. Remember, until the invention of the printing press (Gutenberg, 1440), every Bible was a manuscript – a handwritten copy. If you accidentally left a word out, you could easily add it between the lines or in the margin. Now imagine you are making your own copy of that manuscript. Sometimes it could be difficult to tell whether the note in the margin was a correction or a comment! Such is the case with 1 John 5:7 – 8. Let’s look at the King James Version:

7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Now compare the New International Version:

7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

What’s missing? The additional words “testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the.”

The footnote (you always read the footnotes, don’t you?) explains: “Late manuscripts of the Vulgate testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the (not found in any Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century).”

What is the rest of the story? Those additional words (scholars call them the Comma Johanneum) are included in the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, and only in eight of the more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts – and none of the eight copies dates before the sixteenth century! Apparently, an early North African Christian (perhaps Cyprian or one of his contemporaries) saw this passage as an explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity and put a note in the margin of his Bible. It found its way into the text of the later editions of the Vulgate and thus into the King James translation of the English Bible. There is much more to the story, but we’ll save that for another time.

I was a nerd before being a nerd was cool, and nowhere is that more evident than in my fascination with textual variants of the Bible. Before the European invention of the printing press (Gutenberg, 1440), every copy of the Bible was made by hand. That meant, if you wanted a copy of Matthew, either you had to pay a scribe to make one or copy it yourself.

Sadly, none of the autographs (original manuscripts) of the Bible exist. All we have are copies of copies. The problem arose when people made mistakes when they were making copies. Sometimes skeptics will announce there are over 100,000 “mistakes” in the New Testament alone – and they are right. However, if we remove spelling and punctuation errors, only a relatively handful of textual variants are left. (I’ll share the important ones with you in a future article – if there are enough nerds interested. Meanwhile, compare the King James and any modern English translation of 1 John 5:7, 8 for an example.)

The field of “textual criticism” studies these textual variants. “Criticism” doesn’t mean skepticism. It means “to study carefully because understanding the Bible is critical.” Text critics compare all of the manuscripts and try to decide what the apostles initially penned.

These scholars use some very clever principles in their work. For example, we might suppose the reading with the greatest number of manuscripts is the correct one. That means examining all of the different manuscripts and using their readings as votes. The reading with the most manuscripts supporting it wins. On the surface, that sounds good, but that is wrong. Here is why.

In the ancient world, one of the most important tasks of a monastery was copying manuscripts. Sometimes a single monk would devote his entire life to carefully copying a Bible. He prayerfully worked alone, transcribing it one letter at a time. On the other hand, in the giant monasteries, there were rooms full of monks. The chief monk stood in front and slowly read the Bible. The others wrote down what he said. That introduced “errors of the ear.” Did he say “ad or add? Ball or bawl? Duel or dual? To, too, or two?” The challenge was even worse than that! How well did the monk know Greek or Hebrew or even Latin? Those monasteries produced hundreds of manuscripts, but are those copies more valuable than the single Bible the lone monk carefully copied? Manuscripts need to be weighed critically rather than simply counted.

Sadly, there are English translations such as the New King James Version based on the “Majority Text.” Does that mean you can’t discover God’s will by using one of those Bibles? No, but wouldn’t a serious Bible student want to use the best tools, or maybe just a nerd.

I am often asked if the Bible says anything about life on other planets (the short answer is “No”). Still, a question I have always wondered about is, “If intelligent aliens exist, why on earth would they want to communicate with us?”

The first report of “flying saucers” came in 1947 from Kenneth Arnold. He reported seeing “a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/hr). This was the first post-War sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. Arnold’s description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.” [1]

However, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence preceded that UFO craze.

By the early part of the twentieth century, it was widely believed that planets in our solar system – most particularly, Mars and Venus – were in all likelihood inhabited by extraterrestrial civilizations. In 1901, inventor Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) announced that he had encountered odd electrical disturbances in his lab, “with such a clear suggestion of number and order” that he believed they could only be considered signals from Mars. “The feeling is constantly growing on me,” he explained, “that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical signals.” Years later, radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) claimed to have had a similar experience, convinced that in 1919 he too had intercepted messages from Mars. … While the notion of Martian radio signals was greeted by some engineers and scientists at the time to be little more than wild speculation, others believed the possibility was worth serious study.[2]

American astronomer David Peck Todd argued that if there were Martians, they would probably try to radio earth when the two planets were closest to each other. That date was August 21, 1924. But, if the Martians did try to radio us, would we hear them? Thus “National Radio Silence Day” was born. Owners were asked to keep their radios silent for five minutes every hour so we could listen. The U.S. Naval Observatory carried a radio receiver three miles high in a dirigible. Todd and a navy admiral led the effort supported by an army cryptographer tasked with translating any signals they received.[3]

They didn’t hear anything; however, since the 1960s, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has continued to listen for voices from beyond our planet. Perhaps they just aren’t tuned to the correct wavelength:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe (Hebrews 1:1 – 2).

  [1] Downloaded from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting April 5, 2021

[2] Downloaded from https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ April 5, 2021

[3] Downloaded from https://ufopast.com/2016/12/28/martian-signals-and-the-national-radio-silence-day-of-1924/ April 5, 2021

It’s cute when a little child covers his eyes and announces, “You can’t see me.” It’s quite another thing when grownups deny the truth.

Until 1950, American weather forecasters were forbidden to talk about tornadoes. Common wisdom felt no one could predict twisters, and so to warn people about the possibility of a tornado was just to get people upset. It was better, they felt, to live in ignorance.

Cara Giaimo writes: “From 1887 up until 1950, American weather forecasters were forbidden from attempting to predict tornados. Mentioning them was, in the words of one historian, ‘career suicide.’ During that time, Roger Edwards of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center writes, ‘tornadoes were, for most, dark and mysterious menaces of unfathomable power, fast-striking monsters from the sky capable of sudden and unpredictable acts of death and devastation.’”[1]

The U.S. Army Signal Service began its forecasting office in 1870. John Park Finley joined the Army in 1877 and soon devoted himself to trying to understand these devastating storms. He visited storm sites and studied historical tornado reports. Then he began issuing tornado forecasts to his in-house weather reports. Nancy Mathis in Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado tells us, in 1887, “nervous superiors sent [Finley] new instructions: the word tornado was banned from forecasts.” Businessmen were concerned Finley’s reports would drive investors away from “tornado alley,” and they put tremendous pressure on his superiors.

Giaimo reported, “When the department was reorganized, Finley’s new boss, General Adolphus Greely, doubled down on this conviction. ‘It is believed that the harm done by such predictions would eventually be greater than that which results from the tornado itself,’ Greely wrote in a report to Congress. Other professionals agreed, saying that tornado prediction was a pipe dream. As meteorologist William Blasius put it in an 1887 meeting of the American Philosophical Society, ‘Just where the tornado will strike… no man can tell until within a few minutes of its passage.’”

The Weather Bureau prohibited forecasts that included tornado warnings in their regulations of 1905, 1915, and 1934. Then, two U.S. Air Force meteorologists, Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert E. Miller, began studying tornados in Alabama, Georgia, and Oklahoma. “In 1948, after correctly predicting several outbreaks among themselves, they finally announced an upcoming doozy–the first tornado forecast in history.” Two years later, the Weather Bureau sent out an internal memo announcing, “the forecaster (district or local) may at his discretion mention tornadoes in the forecast or warning.” It was about time, and although tornadoes are still mysterious, forecasters are actively saving lives today.

I wonder what we’re not talking about? I discovered long ago that the way to kill a conversation is to mention “death,” or “sin,” or “salvation.” However, not talking about something doesn’t make it go away!

  [1] Downloaded from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/until-1950-us-weathermen-were-forbidden-from-talking-about-tornados

The stereotypical picture of an English businessman is someone in a dark suit, wearing a bowler hat, and carrying an umbrella, but it wasn’t always that way. In the early 1750s, Jonas Hanway began carrying an umbrella around the streets of London. He had just returned from a trip to France where the carrying of a parasol was the fashion.

In the early 1700s, an ingenious Parisian merchant waterproofed the parasol and invented a folding version. Thus, the umbrella was born. Impressed Hanway brought the practical contraption to England. No one else was impressed. People jeered, made fun of him, and called him a French effeminate. Michael Waters explained:

Jonas Hanway, always stubborn, paid little attention to the social stigma. An eccentric man, he was no stranger to controversy—he fervently opposed the introduction of tea into England, at one point penning an “Essay Upon Tea and Its Pernicious Consequences” (1756). He published four books on the development of British trade in the Caspian Sea, leading 20th-century scholar Charles Wilson to call him “one of the most indefatigable and splendid bores of English history.”[1]

Undeterred, Hanway continued to carry his umbrella, but soon incurred the wrath of hansom cab drivers whose business boomed on rainy days from patrons trying to seek shelter from the rain. One driver tried to run Hanway down, but Hanway used his umbrella to “give the man a good thrashing.”

Waters concluded, when Hanway died in 1786, “The rain-repelling revolution had begun, with the dearly departed Hanway as its pioneer. Not all heroes wear capes, but some carry umbrellas.”

I wonder if we can learn a lesson from Hanway as Christians. Are we ever afraid of being labeled because we are Christians? Are we fearful of sharing the good news because we are afraid of what other people will think? Friends, stand tall, carry your Bible, and, on a rainy day, don’t be afraid to take an umbrella!

  [1] Downloaded from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-public-shaming-of-englands-first-umbrella-user March 29, 2021

The Plague of Darkness

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived (Exodus 10:21 – 23).

The tour operators in commercial caverns seem to get a perverse delight in turning the lights off. I remember visiting a cavern in Kentucky with my family as a boy. We were all huddled together. Then the guide told us to “Stand still! I’m going to turn the lights off.” He flipped the switch. Darkness pressed in on us just as God described. It was a “darkness that can be felt.” It was overwhelming. After a minute, one man could stand it no longer. He reached in his pocket, pulled out his lighter, and “flicked his Bic.” That tiny flame brought welcome relief to us all and a scowl, I’m sure, to the face of that sadistic tour guide.

I have a lot of questions about this plague. Did the darkness extinguish the light of the Egyptians’ torches too? How did Pharaoh’s messengers find Moses in the dark? Why did it take so long (three days) for Pharaoh to give in? Why did this plague seem so much worse than the other plagues to Pharaoh? It was so bad; it made Pharaoh stop resisting. (Was Pharaoh afraid of the dark?)

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, “Go, worship the Lord. Even your women and children may go with you; only leave your flocks and herds behind” (Exodus 10:24). 

However, the Lord wasn’t finished with Pharaoh: “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go” (Exodus 11:27). It is important to remember the purpose of the plagues. Do you recall how before the plague of locusts, the Lord told Moses:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord” (Exodus 10:1, 2).

The purpose was “that you may know that I am the Lord.” Here then is the key: Pharaoh claimed to be a god. He set himself up in the place of the Lord! This contest was no contest, and that is our lesson for today. Do we ever sit on the Lord’s throne? Do we ever act like Pharaoh? Maybe it’s time to reach in our pockets and shine a light.

The eighth plague, the plague of locusts, gets to the heart of the matter (pun intended).

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 10:1 – 2).

Pharaoh is suffering from a hard heart. The big question is, “Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?” Did the Lord do it, or did Pharaoh do it to himself? In many places (including this passage, 7:3; 9:12; 10:20; 10:27), it says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but in others, it says Pharaoh himself was responsible (8:15; 8:32; 9:34).

I remember teaching this principle to children during Vacation Bible School. We conducted a “science experiment.” The children made things out of clay, and I filled a plate with a pound of butter. Then we put them all out on the hot Phoenix summer sidewalk and left them for an hour. Both were exposed to the sun. What do you think happened? Yup, the clay turned into bricks, and the butter melted into a soupy mess. The same sun that hardened the clay melted the butter. No surprise!

One of the early church leaders was “Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch” (Acts 13:1). Jesus called Herod the tetrarch “that fox” (Luke 13:2). He was responsible for beheading John the Baptist and crucifying Jesus. Manaen and Herod Antipas grew up together. They had the same education and opportunities, so why did one grow up to become a monster and the other died a beloved leader of the church? The same sun was shining on them both. The answer is in their hearts.

As I was working on this lesson, a dear friend of mine asked me, “What are the warning signs of a hard heart?” His answer is brilliant: EGO. A raging ego is a precursor to a spiritual heart attack. No wonder the Scripture repeatedly calls on Christians to humble themselves! Thanks, Tom.

Finally, the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians:

“You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Ephesians 4:17 – 19).

Exercise: Underline the issues Paul shares in this passage that lead to or result from “hardness of heart.”

Did you know hail causes nearly $1 billion in damage to property and crops every year in the United States? That’s significantly more than the damage done by tornadoes. Fortunately, your chances of being killed by falling hail are much less than being struck by lightning; however, it does happen:

IN 1942 A BRITISH FOREST guard in Roopkund, India, made an alarming discovery. Some 16,000 feet above sea level, at the bottom of a small valley, was a frozen lake absolutely full of skeletons. That summer, ice melt revealed even more skeletal remains, floating in the water and lying haphazardly around the lake’s edges. Something horrible had happened here.
A National Geographic team set out to examine the bones in 2004. Besides dating the remains to around 850 AD, the team realized that everyone at the “Skeleton Lake” had died from blows to the head and shoulders caused by “blunt, round objects about the size of cricket balls.”
This eventually led the team to one conclusion: In 850 AD, this group of 200 some travelers was crossing this valley when they were caught in a sudden and severe hailstorm. An ancient folk song of the area describes a goddess so enraged at outsiders who defiled her mountain sanctuary that she rained death upon them with ice stones “as hard as iron.”[1]

The seventh of the ten plagues of the Exodus was a plague of hail:

“Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.” Then whoever feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the LORD left his slaves and his livestock in the field … There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field (Exodus 9:18 – 21; 24 – 25).

Why don’t people listen to warnings? Perhaps they feel like they know better. (“The recommended speed is 25, but I think I can take the curve at 50.”) Perhaps they aren’t paying attention. (The ever-present “distracted driving.”) Maybe they didn’t believe it. Friends, it’s time to get ready. There is a great day coming!

  [1] Downloaded from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hail-no-an-account-of-the-worlds-biggest-deadliest-hailstorms March 29, 2021

Whereas the first five of the ten plagues of the Exodus affected the world around the Egyptians, the sixth plague, the plague of boils, affected them personally. The buzzing flies, annoying gnats, the death of the livestock, and their water turning into blood made life miserable. Still, those were things around them. This was different:

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses (Exodus 9:8 – 12).

The Egyptians worshiped many different gods, and commentators have been quick to correlate the other plagues with attacks on the various deities they worshiped. Ryken and Hughes observe:

The plague of boils was an attack on all the gods and goddesses that the Egyptians trusted for healing. When the Bible says that “the LORD … brought judgment on their gods” (Num. 33:4), it is speaking comprehensively. God defeated the entire pantheon of Egypt—Amon, Thoth, Imhotep, Sekhmet, and all the rest. Perhaps this explains why God sent such a variety of plagues on the Egyptians: He wanted to expose the impotence of their idolatry by causing each and every idol to fail in its area of special expertise. When the Egyptians were covered with painful, oozing sores, they discovered that their gods could not heal.

I am amazed at medical progress just in my short lifetime. Polio and smallpox have all but been eliminated. When faced with a pandemic, we race into the labs to develop new vaccines – and that’s a good thing, but we need to be careful to remember medicine has its limits. The gods and magicians of Pharaoh were powerless. Ryken and Hughes rightly remind us:

As a result of our advanced knowledge of the body and its various ailments, it is tempting to make medicine an object of faith. Most patients go to the hospital believing they will be cured. However, it doesn’t always work out that way. Doctors and nurses sometimes make mistakes. They don’t always make the right diagnosis or prescribe the right treatment. Besides, there is still no cure for death. So medicine has its limits.[1]

There is still a powerful place for prayer!

  [1] Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Exodus: saved for God’s glory (p. 272). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

The fifth of the ten plagues of the Exodus was the death of the Egyptian livestock. The Egyptian animals died, and the Israeli animals did not. Moses and Aaron were not required to do anything. They didn’t strike out with their staves. This was an act of God alone. Moses was only required to announce it. It came directly from the Lord. Likewise, Pharaoh didn’t repent or ask Moses to intervene on his behalf. All Pharaoh did was investigate:

“And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead” (Exodus 9:7).

It has been my experience that once people have made up their minds, nothing will sway their hard hearts. They may call for “proof” – “If God exists, let Him strike me down!” – but even evidence won’t change their minds. “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

In November 1945, Advertising and Selling magazine published an article by Roy S. Durstine entitled, “Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts.” He reported on a meeting between the advertising executives and a client:

A group from the agency had just finished its presentation of a market survey. The findings were conclusive—clearly showing that the policies being followed by the client could lead only to disappointment and perhaps disaster.

Despite the facts given in the presentation, the client had no desire to change the strategy that had been previously selected.

“I still think we’ll go along as we have been doing.”

“But how can you say that in the face of this evidence?” protested the agency man.

The client stared at the presentation, deep in thought. At last, he reached for a cigarette and said softly:

“Don’t confuse me with facts!”

But the client wasn’t the first to make that claim. Thousands of years before, Plato said, “I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with the facts!” But most famously:

During the Watergate Hearings in August 1974, the pro-Nixon Representative from Indiana, Earl Landgrebe (in)famously retorted, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind’s made up.” He went on to say, “I’m going to stick with my President even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot.” The next day Nixon resigned…and a few months later, Landgrebe was voted out of office.[1]

Pharaoh knew the Egyptian livestock were dead. Pharaoh knew the Lord was behind it, “But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go” (Exodus 9:7).

That’s the curse of a hard heart.

  [1] Downloaded from https://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog/16319 on March 28, 2021.