TMOC: The Task

Posted on October 10, 2012 by ehurst

(This is offered as a proposal for the second chapter of our book.)
If someone tells you Jesus was perfectly reasonable and consistent in His Hebrew logic, you would probably take that on faith. If we explain something of His reasoning from the known culture and history of His people, showing what shaped His decisions, then you can have a shot at replicating that reasoning and consistency in your own life.
The biggest problem we face in understanding the mind of Christ is the vast pile of mythology arising from the distinctly Western approach to reading the Gospels, and indeed, the whole Bible. Thus, we have an embarrassing aura of false piety obscuring His actions and words as they happened, plus a wide gulf of cultural misunderstanding keeping us from seeing those words and actions in their proper context.
The Bible comes to us as the record of revelation God gave to the Hebrew people. The record itself indicates a wealth of information not included, so we have to trust He would not allow the most important narratives to be left out. At the same time, He preserved sufficient scholarship and evidence we can reclaim some of the background against which that narrative is offered. It’s patently silly to assume the mere words of the record, passed through multiple parties and filtered through many different languages and translations, can somehow stand on their own. Yet this is the very false instinct under which many Western Christians labor. The result is turning some things completely upside down.
God is not hindered in His divine work of revelation and redemption by this, but it certainly keeps us from maximum participation in that work. If you want all God has to offer, it’s on your shoulders to care enough you would study materials which enlighten you to the difference. Here we would offer a bare bones outline of the vast differences between common Western assumptions about the Bible and what the book actually intends to get across.
The Bible begins with certain intellectual assumptions, concepts not subject to debate. God is the Creator of all things, and as such, cannot be presumed confined inside that Creation. Whatever is outside the reality we experience is incomprehensible, but we get indications it is there, and some shadowy grasp of how that matters to us.
Right off the bat, the narrative warns us this reality is broken, not what God intended. Immediately the people in the story lose something so precious, it’s impossible to explain. Instead, we see the results, in terms of a complete loss of perspective. God notes their actions changed because their understanding was broken. Thus, humans are as completely fallen as the rest of Creation. God will not leave things in this condition, but His remedy is not directly obvious. The way back to the Garden is guarded by something incomprehensible to fallen humanity, but that’s not to say it’s forever closed.
In the symbol of the Flaming Sword is the penalty of sin: death on this plane of existence. Redemption requires a certain amount of recognition in the human soul. If you simply stumble under that sword, you gain nothing. But if you seek out that sword knowingly, it changes the results. You can’t go back to eating from the Tree of Life until you stop eating from the Tree of Knowledge, and undo the damage from that taste of forbidden fruit. Quite simply, that forbidden fruit is the human decision to disregard revelation in favor of human reasoning.
How we come to understand that is the rest of the story. At some point God chooses some people with especially fitting backgrounds to reveal bits and pieces of how to face that Flaming Sword. He creates an entire nation with a peculiar intellectual background foreign to us today, and builds the character of that nation through some experiences by which they learn to understand His path back to the Garden.
This was an opportunity too good to miss, but that nation simply frittered it all away. The story is long and sad, showing how God could create a nation best equipped to understand His revelation, then give them everything they could possibly need to live that revelation. There were times they came close to the ideal, close enough to change world history, but they lacked staying power. Through the broad collection of failures, we learn humanity cannot adapt without a direct act of God to change the individual human character. The last dying gasp of this nation was to give birth to the One who would exemplify what was possible when that human character was subjected to the divine character.
In essence, God restored what was lost in the Garden. The path through the Flaming Sword now has meaning to us. Here in the story of Jesus, we see a single human who embodied as much of God’s revelation as any human can know. You have to get to know the man in order to take full advantage of this revelation. You have to understand Him in the context of His own nation, the failed experiment where God pointedly showed how man simply cannot do it, even under ideal conditions.
Our problem, then, is to reclaim some understanding of those ideal conditions. Jesus reaffirmed the importance of those conditions, and so did all His followers. Those conditions, that context of life, by its nature is the revelation we now offer to the world.
(Don’t let me plow too far ahead without comment from those who wish to participate. If something seems belabored, or needs clarification, I may not know until you tell me.)

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TMOC: Why Did He Do That?

Posted on October 10, 2012 by ehurst

We absorb God’s truth via His Spirit’s Presence in our souls. As one might expect, you learn the answers to your own soul’s questions. When it comes time to teach and share that truth, you need to know what questions you can answer for other souls. Our greatest hope in sharing God’s truth is hearing good questions, and I got some great queries by email.

Jesus the man was a unique individual, if for no other reason He grew up not needing that spiritual breakthrough plaguing the rest of humanity. He was fully spiritually alive from birth, and was fully integrated very early in His life. A primary manifestation of such would be a powerful maturity. Not our Western sense of what is mature, but in His own Hebrew sense He would have been way ahead of other men. He didn’t suffer less than others, in the sense He passed through the common lot of humanity. However, He didn’t need three decades of internal maturation to know what He should expect from this fallen world. He suffered none of our delusions about the nature of things, and He was particularly sensitive to the moral fabric of Creation. All His suffering was legitimate, and He used what His Father provided to face it.

His expectations matched reality. That reality is revealed to varying degrees, in varying ways, by previous revelation. You can’t get that understanding any other way, and Jesus studied the Scriptures of His people without the blinders. It’s one thing to absorb the symbols of human communication; it’s quite another to seize their higher meaning.

A recurring theme in God’s revelation is restoring justice. When we use terms such as “God’s Laws” we tend to think in terms of legislation, whereas in the Hebrew mind it would be justice in the courtroom. The better term is “God’s Justice.” So long as we have this delusion people can discern and establish the meaning of justice from the basis of their human talents and logic, we will never understand God’s Justice. Defining justice in that sense is a matter of God’s character; the process was complete before Creation began. What constitutes Justice is a question settled outside our realm of existence, but applies here. God’s actions in this world can be said to confine themselves to setting things right, to restoring His Justice.

Those actions include miracles often enough, but the single greatest miracle is the spiritual awakening. Having that door in the soul opened into Heaven changes everything. It’s not as if scholars can’t come to a working knowledge of God’s Justice without that spiritual awareness; they can, but it will always be limited to the context, at best. The Covenant of Moses was a specific context, and Jesus Himself pointed out some of its limitations. He pointed out what the Spirit would say when free inside your soul within the context, and offering a visible path of greater justice. Restoring justice in your soul is the first priority. Restoring justice in the living implications of our lives takes the rest of our existence on this earth. Sometimes that restoration calls for a miracle, where God does a sort of divine reset, putting things back where they should be, and would be, had justice reigned in the first place.

The healing miracles of Jesus fall under that sort of restoration. A critical element in that restoration is also demonstrating — revealing afresh — something of the nature of His Justice. These were not called “signs and wonders” for nothing. They were signs pointing to something better. In human terms, they were proof of the legal argument in God’s Court. You can’t do miracles, you can’t even pray them down, if you aren’t standing under His Justice. Nor can you separate out, except perhaps in our modern Western logic, the harsh penalties against sin. Justice applied is justice both ways at the same time. Sin is punished, corrected and restoration comes as a result. The only real difference between wrath and blessing is where your heart is. To the degree you cling to sin, wrath will rip you to shreds. To the degree you cling to justice, wrath sets you free.

Why God chooses folks like the Gadarene Demoniac, and the widow in Zarapheth, instead of similar characters running around Judea, is something we aren’t allowed to see clearly. It’s among those things God reserves for His own counsel, and we are seldom offered much insight. Grasping that as part of His Justice, the appearance of randomness from our perspective, is part of His Justice working in our souls. There are some things we’ll never get with our human understanding, and our spirits should be at peace with that. However, in the narratives we do get some clues to partially answer the question. The man from Gadara took the message of Christ off on a tangent we aren’t allowed to follow, but it’s a tangent we see leading off into the future from that point. Part of it was restoring the revelation to an area no longer Hebrew in character, but on lands God gave to Israel. Near as we can tell, they had been Israeli in previous generations, but departed at some point. Israel should not have lost those lands, but she was unjust, so God was restoring a measure of justice. The widow in Zarapheth was clinging to the truth, recognizing Jesus as the Messiah from her limited grasp of revelation. She was as good as any formal convert, and far closer to God’s truth than most Jews.

Did you know among the Twelve were five cousins of Jesus? We look askance at nepotism, but it’s a virtue under God’s Justice. Not in its worst manifestations, but the inclusion of close kin is the starting place for Justice. It’s the hardest mystery for Westerners to absorb, but the very fundamental call in the Genesis account of Noah’s Covenant was for families to assert God’s Justice over themselves. Justice begins at home, and human government should rest on extended household, tribal-style government. Competent kin are your first choice in any enterprise, because human bonds cannot be any stronger than kinship ties. There were other reasons, of course, for His choice of disciples, but this figures larger than we are prepared to understand in our Western culture. Each man in his own way was restored to something lost when the leadership of their nation went astray. Each carried that restoration forward in his own ministry after the Ascension.

By the way, you can read about Peter in The Rehabilitation of Peter. His prior character was a big wad of human weakness characteristic of a much more noble man denied his divine heritage. The flavors and types of human weakness tell us much about what God could do with someone when given the chance. The Lord saw through the various failings of these twelve men, because He understood Justice.

For those interested in participating, how should we weave this into our book?

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Your Own Divine Law

Posted on October 9, 2012 by ehurst

Jesus summed up the moral fabric of Creation by quoting two passages from Moses:

Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18). All the laws and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40 NET Bible

Jesus was hardly the first rabbi to say such a thing. It was commonly understood this way, even when it was misunderstood how to carry it out. It really does rest on your shoulders to love God sincerely, a full commitment without reservation. That’s the meaning behind or English word “faith.” While I may exhibit some limited talent for discussing my own faith, you can’t ever have mine. It has to be uniquely yours.
In the process, you are surely going to come up with your own unique love for your neighbor. As noted previously, the word “neighbor” carries a different connotation than what it means in English. It’s not simply someone residing in close proximity. In the Ancient Hebrew culture it would have meant mostly your own kin, your cousins and such. However, it means anyone who operates according to the wider implications of the Covenant. So when Gentiles act in ways Moses was hoping to see, they are lawful and just in God’s eyes, regardless of what they may or may not know about the writings of Moses. Jesus makes that point with the Parable of Good Samaritan. The priest and Levite were not the victim’s neighbors in that story, because they adhered to the literal words of the Covenant, and violated it’s mystical principles.
Another popular wording is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” That does not mean you can demand others do to you as you want. You have no reason to expect someone will treat you as you treat them, but that you are obliged to do what you know is right regardless of how they treat you.
With strangers, I’m often reticent. Civility says you don’t blurt out every thought crossing your mind. However, I’m more likely to be blunt and honest if it seems the conversation goes that way. I would rather people do that to me, even as I know most people don’t like it. Under God’s justice, I have no obligation to meet their expectations, but to hold forth my expectations applied to myself. If they can’t take my bluntness, they can fuss with God, but I refuse attempts to moderate my verbal behavior. This is what I want you to do for me, so it’s what I’ll do for you.
Don’t buy into false guilt about what society expects of you. The Law of God is not the complex, conflicting demands of others. The Law of God is what He demands of you. When you claim to embrace biblical justice, and you want to see the promises of the Laws poured out into your life, don’t get entangled in making others happy. That’s actually a violation of God’s justice. You are responsible to Him, not those you encounter here below. If you have a thick skin, wear it well. Whatever you do, don’t fuss at someone who has to serve God in a different way. Feel free to explain your choices, but don’t ever let anyone hand you any false guilt.
This is the hardest part of teaching God’s Word.

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TMOC: Apologia

Posted on October 8, 2012 by ehurst

Our book’s introduction should probably explain why we bothered put together yet one more publication with such a title.

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul explains in part why the Corinthians struggled so with the gospel message. At the end this explanation (verse 16), he uses the term “mind of Christ.” Much has been written on this, not a few books with that as the title. We can’t fault the scholarship of those who came before us, but it should be obvious to anyone, if we agreed with their work, we need not bother writing something fresh. It occurred to us Paul explained in that chapter of his letter something it seems so many people miss. Paul attacks the Western intellectual approach to understanding the world. (See my notes here. My notes are now in book form.)

Paul could claim to have the mind of his Savior because they shared a common heritage. But more, they shared a common spiritual orientation built from that heritage. It’s no secret Paul had to throw away his very substantial position among the Sanhedrin to become a Christian, meaning literally, one who followed Christ. While both were nearly pickled in the intellectual ferment of the Pharisees of their day, they clearly rejected that approach to Scripture.

What was that Pharisaical approach? It was a mixture of Hebrew content and Hellenistic analysis. “Hellenism” is the common academic term referring to the intellectual assumptions of the Greco-Roman civilization of that day. Today it’s roughly equivalent to the term “Aristotelian,” a reference to Aristotle, the great philosopher and teacher of Alexander the Great. During his years of conquest in that part of the word, circa 300 BC, Alexander was a hard core evangelist for the intellectual culture of the Greek intelligentsia, and the those people called themselves “Hellenes.” Thus, their intellectual legacy is Hellenism, and we can trace how the rabbinical scholars of that time embraced Hellenism. In so doing, they dismissed the ancient Hebrew intellectual approach. (See Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Book I.) Thus, the religion of Judaism, and being Jewish in the religious sense, is not the same thing as the Old Testament religion of Moses.

That the two are quite different is too easily proven, and yet so often ignored by most modern Christian scholars. That is, those who are aware of this conflict seem to side with the Pharisees, seeing no problem with reading the entire Bible from that Aristotelian approach. It seems these scholars really do not understand how completely different it is, because they seem to ignore how Jesus Himself, and His followers such as Paul, rejected Hellenism in favor of the ancient Hebrew approach. While none of the New Testament writings use such terminology, it seems painfully obvious from how they expressed themselves they were favoring the Hebrew way over the Greek, even as they expressed Hebrew thoughts in Greek language. You’d have to ignore centuries of serious academic work to not see that, and even secular scholars can point it out.

We who write this book are left wondering why so few Christian writers today can offer an explanation of Scripture from this more Hebraic approach. As noted, it’s not out of reach, doesn’t require advanced degrees in Philosophy or anything like that. Further, there’s every reason to struggle for that understanding. This ancient Hebrew way is God’s own choice for His revelation. Indeed, not simply something He found and liked, but something He created Himself by whom He chose to build His nation and carry His message. So why do all those today claiming to offer God’s message eschew the ancient Hebrew approach? We have no idea, but we are determined not to continue in what seems an obvious mistake.

That Western scholars today use dismissive terms such as “mysticism” for this approach cannot be helped. It shares nothing with New Age beliefs or any other brand of mysticism. The term “mysticism” itself means simply non-rational inputs to our minds, to our knowing. The whole idea God can reveal something to humans is mysticism by definition. It assumes we can receive knowledge from a non-human, non-rational source. However, we are careful to choose the distinctive Hebrew form of mysticism.

Thus, we offer this different examination of what must have been the human side of our Lord and Savior. Paul claimed to have the mind of Christ because he had the Spirit of Christ living in him. Paired with that was a mind prepared to obey the Spirit by a proper frame of reference, building on the ancient Hebrew way Christ obviously promoted in His debates with the rabbis of His day. In that portion of the first Corinthian letter, Paul pointedly warns you cannot use human reason to get very far with this. You can’t let your mind run the show; it has to take direction from the Spirit-spirit communion which is far above the human intellect. While fallen men with dead spirits assume this means relying on sentiment or emotion, since it’s not intellect, we see Paul plainly says that’s not so. If your spirit is alive in Christ, you recognize something in you which may well stir emotions, but more importantly, decides things on a much higher moral frame of reference.

We who share the labor in this book wish to offer you our understanding of that moral frame of reference.

(Barring edits from my collaborators here on this blog, I propose this as the introduction to our book. The idea here is you put on your editor’s hat and help me state this most clearly. What seems obvious to me may not come across, and what should come across may be left out. Help me, folks, this is now open.)

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Loving the Law

Posted on October 7, 2012 by ehurst

Take a look at Psalm 119. It’s long, so maybe just skim through it.
You’ll see constant references to David proclaiming his undying love for the the Law. Sure, we could unwind that, abstract it to include the whole Bible. However, at the time David wrote that his Bible was much smaller. In a literal sense, it was mostly about the Pentateuch, though obviously including the extant prophetic and historical writings.
If you don’t understand that fondness for God’s Laws, you don’t understand revelation. From a Hebrew mystical approach, the Laws breathe the very character of God. David speaks of them as a living entity, something which walked around with him because he welcomed them into his life. They were his friend and confidant, his best and brightest adviser. They were closer to him than his own skin, because they were the written gateway to the Spirit Realm.
Jesus felt that way about them, too.
When Paul and his ilk warn you the Law cannot save you, the context should clearly indicate he’s referring to a particular attitude about the Law of Moses. That attitude is summed up in the Talmud. If that’s how you know the Law, you don’t know the Law. And you surely don’t know the God who gave the Law. Nobody is suggesting you embrace Judaism, nor even the more ancient Old Testament religion. Circumcision of the flesh means nothing; it’s the circumcision of the heart — remember that? When Paul wrote that, the “Bible” was our Old Testament. That’s the Scripture given by God to correct and enlighten every human heart. And what Paul found in that Old Testament, as Jesus did, was the foundation of the gospel message. Repent according to the Law, but see through the provisions of the Law to God’s real intent for the human heart.
If you truly care about God and His concerns, you can’t fail Him, even though your flesh utterly fails to perform at every turn. He knows the flesh is fallen; it’s why He gave His Laws. He has always wanted the same thing: “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and all your soul.” And because you know what matters to Him, you are able to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
If you don’t love His Laws, you can’t claim to be His.

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Habakkuk 3

Posted on October 6, 2012 by ehurst

It would be almost embarrassing to attempt breaking down the rich poetic imagery in this grand Hebrew psalm. Far more important to the reader is understanding the uniquely Hebrew approach to certain fundamental questions.
Modern Western man chokes on the notion a single concept can contain two utterly opposing results, and how someone can tremble in fear and rejoice at the same time. Yet Habakkuk clearly points out how God’s divine Presence affects each of us in different ways. The difference is rooted in our attitude toward Him and His revelation. The song opens with the prophet calling on God to rekindle His ancient revelation in the hearts of men.
Habakkuk mentions two territories in the southern regions of both Edom and Judah. They are strongly connected to the earliest period beginning at Sinai when the Covenant was fresh. In the region of Teman was the trial of the fiery serpents, and in Paran was the Forty Years’ Wandering. God arises in His greatest power when judging sin, particularly the sins of His own. Pagan nations are not privileged to know God so personally, but Israel was His very own family on earth, the people who would give birth to His Son. Pagan nations would face His wrath on much gentler terms because they weren’t expected to really know Him so well. Israel was held to a much higher standard.
Yet He cannot abide sin. He disciplines His own people and makes them stronger, but the same wrath destroys those who don’t know Him. Sadly, we recognize here if Israel should cease obeying Him, they will also see destruction. God’s promises would not fail while the earth stands, and His revelation will always come forth, one way or another. Habakkuk weaves into his song the recognition He will always have a people on earth, but to the degree Israel abandons His message, so they will die in His wrath. The people of Israel could well become His enemy, and terrifying is the fate awaiting His enemies.
Yet those who live for His Laws could make themselves a part of the lusty joy of His weapons of truth. So having truly heard with his very heart the message God gave back to him, Habakkuk is utterly shaken anew by the force of this reassurance both directions. The fruit of the land was at His whim, and if Israel turns away from Him, there would be no fruit of revelation, and no fruit of the ground, either. Because he walks in fear of God, Habakkuk fears nothing else. He can handle the trials of the future, living in a nation which has largely forgotten her Master and Lord, with the prospect of being crushed by Babylon.

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TMOC: Hopefully Hopeless

Posted on October 6, 2012 by ehurst

This world is fallen and can’t be fixed.
Once in awhile you find someone who understands that even without relying on revelation, such as Albert Jay Nock. I’ve read so many excerpts of his famous Our Enemy, the State, I probably should simply sit down and finish it off. Someday. Right now, I’ve got too many other very interesting things going on. You can always peruse this review and get the gist of it.
The world is hopelessly stupid. Not so much in details and individual pursuits, but stupid in the main. All governments drift to oppression. You can’t successfully revolt against any government unless she fails to keep her armed men paid and comfortable. When that fails, the armed men will lead the revolt and you will get no say in the results. However, we the governed always outnumber them. If we simply stopped obeying them, it wouldn’t take long for their power to fall apart. This is self evident, as people do it on the small scale every day. All such rule is by consent, typically via massive and evil deception. Unlike the reviewer, I don’t hold out much hope for actually educating the masses. Not that it’s impossible, just so unlikely as to be impossible in effect.
What would Jesus do?
Ask rather what He did. The only hope is outside this realm of existence. It’s not as if He didn’t work tirelessly to make things a little better here. He brought some of the fruits of God’s justice through His countless miracles. He taught a powerful corrective understanding of the Laws of God, more than simply Moses. You may recall He famously contradicted Moses’ soft limitations on divorce, indicating God’s standards were actually higher than that. It’s very instructive, in teaching us God tolerates a lot of things less than His divine will. Not in the spirit and conscience of a redeemed soul, but among human society at large. It doesn’t remove His standard, but leaves the initiative for action in His own hands. It shows He will use fallen man and direct human affairs at large, and if we just pay attention, the implacable failures of humanity will indicate much about Him. Jesus willingly died on the Cross to offer wide open access to that higher understanding of the Laws, so we can make some sense of why we are stuck here in the Big Lie.
We as believers succeed where Nock and his ilk inevitably fail. However, our goals aren’t the same. By no means do we embrace the folly of trying to fix this world. To the degree we should try to make things better, we must embrace the Laws of God. Once our spirits are fully aroused, the Laws make entirely too much sense to ignore, given a chance to understand them. Life here ranges between bad and worse, but under His Laws it’s least bad. That “least bad” includes some awesome miracles God did defending His Covenant from human truculence. He doesn’t treat human-designed government the same. Whatever brilliant ideas for human organization men have tried, nothing — absolutely nothing — comes so close to a decent life on this earth as His Laws. They don’t fix what’s bad, only restrain what’s worse. That’s as good as it gets. We understand this, and our hopes are more realistic. God says He’s going to destroy the whole thing soon enough, so stop trying to save it. Save yourselves, instead.
We cling adamantly and resolutely to the Laws of God as proof this world is a failure. It’s our way of saying, “Repent! Break off from this world and its ways, and cling to the Other World.” Embracing His Laws constitutes my Three Pillars of Christian Mysticism, including pillar of disengagement. We allow things to take their own course in the hearts of others. The Laws require a living commitment to a covenant between believers. It’s power is entirely in the drive of the Spirit of God in the hearts of the members. Should we someday, somewhere, somehow meet in covenant and institute His justice in our small community, then perhaps we can talk about such full measures as the death penalty for adultery. However, in the Kingdom of Heaven on this earth, ostracism is death penalty enough. It serves the same purpose. Things have changed forever. That’s because the one and only real chance for having a just and lawful human government ran its course and ended with the Cross. Moses isn’t coming back, but the frame of reference in God’s Law Covenants remains the source of understanding.
Quite often in the New Testament, Paul and the others would say something about the failure of the Law. Context is everything. Pay attention to what they are talking about, because their harshest comments apply to the Talmud, which at that time was “the Law” in the minds of most Jews and Gentiles who knew about it. The Talmud was still mostly oral and incomplete in Jesus’ day, but it was en route. He referred to it as “traditions of men” as against the revelation of God. He gave examples of how those human traditions failed against the actual revealed will of God. In Jesus’ mind, the Talmud is trash, an exercise in human oppression using God as an excuse. That excuse arose when the restraints of the Hebrew mystical intellectual legacy were thrown away in favor of Hellenism.
Nock is right in his prognosis. He’s only half right about how to fix it, because Nock is very Hellenized in his assumptions. Let’s do better, because the Mind of Christ was the ultimate example of Hebrew mysticism — God’s own intellectual legacy.
I encourage you to embrace this thing to which I can only point with my limited talent in words. I don’t pretend to understand it, only use it in my own life. When you start using it, you’ll likely have plenty to say. Share with me your thoughts and words.

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TMOC: The Adulteress Part 2

Posted on October 5, 2012 by ehurst

The Roman Empire was nothing like the modern state. She recognized the necessity of nations and kingdoms ruled by their own people, and broadly under their own customs and laws. While boundaries were maintained, a person’s national identity had a lot to do with what laws affected them. Each locale was required by Rome to recognize the natural tension between laws of place and laws of people. Thus, Roman soldiers enforced the death penalty on anyone violating the sacred enclosures of Herod’s Temple, including keeping themselves out.
Jesus was a Judean, often translated in the New Testament as “Jew”. That is, He was under Judean national law, which was presumed to be the Covenant of Moses. As noted previously, this was not so.
Jesus showed deference to political leaders. This is the point of Paul’s comments in Romans 13. In Jesus’ mind, political authorities were chosen by God. Take the hand you are dealt when it comes to politics; Jesus pointedly avoided involvement in politics. Whether the rulers chosen by God were just was not the question. However, Jesus did not recognize any political authority over prophecy. This is wholly consistent with the biblical record. When He had a prophetic word or act commissioned by God, political authorities be damned, that message comes from a higher authority.
Critical to the message of Jesus was the assertion His national leaders had abandoned the Covenant. There was no question the adulteress had sinned. There was no question her sin was a threat to the Covenant community. However, the political leaders were an even bigger threat to the Covenant community, and had no standing to prosecute her. The Covenant had already been abandoned by their choices, and there was no Covenant to enforce. Without the Covenant, and no Covenant community, there were no grounds for enforcing the death penalty on her.
Please note Jesus most certainly dealt with her sin.
The government of Judea had chosen Hellenism, the Western epistemology generally associated with Aristotle. Jesus did not dismiss Aristotle; Aristotle dismissed faith, reducing it to mere sentiment. Had you asked, Jesus could have told you all you could stand to hear about the materialistic world view. Science is not a threat to faith, nor inconsistent with faith, so long as science is a method of approaching certain questions it can handle. But science, the combination of observation by the five senses and logical processing of that data, is limited. Hebrew philosophers understand analytical reasons just fine; it wasn’t a bad default for things which didn’t touch morality. However, science is utterly incompetent on moral questions. Reasons falls short there. Instead, we rely on revelation, because the God who made all things gave adequate explanation of the moral fabric human senses cannot detect in Creation.
Where the Spirit Realm overlaps the Fallen Realm is what we call “morality” and what Scripture often refers to as “mystery.” It’s not obvious to the human mind, but to the awakened spirit, it’s a flaming fire of Heaven. The mechanism of things is not always an adequate explanation of why we do what we do. It’s not simply a matter of efficiency to some logical purpose; it’s often a question of pursuing the justice of God.
For the rabbis and other Judean scholars to reject the Hebrew mystical approach to reality was a rejection of the Covenant itself. The Covenant of Moses presumes that Ancient Near Eastern epistemology, as does that of Noah. You and I are under Noah today; “so long as the earth continues to exist” it says.
For those who wish to get directly involved in content on this project, I would suggest you review these:

React to these and any questions they bring to mind, however indirectly related. You may well have a much better way of saying it.

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TMOC: Not Simply Hebraic

Posted on October 5, 2012 by ehurst

The Mind of Christ is much more than simply classical Hebrew.
It’s not enough to notice Jesus was calling His people back to their ancient Hebrew mystical roots. We have statements by the Savior which were clear departures from mere Hebraic thought. Yet true to Hebrew mystical thinking, what He offered were expansions into territory implied but not stated in the words of the prophets. The whole purpose of Hebrew writing was to open a doorway. You could choose to enter, or limit yourself to what you can find without doing too much work. Implicit in Hebrew literature and culture is the dire necessity of contemplation.
We rightly recognize the danger of open ended contemplation. Yet taking a tack too strict would mean not contemplating at all. If you don’t burn off some human time investing in something more important than this realm of existence, you can’t expect to have much on the other side of death. The wealth of Hebrew symbols we know from Scripture alone are more than enough guidance. The Lord eliminated a lot of senseless froo-froo popular with inventive humans. Restrictions were meant to be contemplated as well as the directives.
The corrective factor is not really in our hands. All of this assumes at some point in the process, God grants spiritual life, raising up a dead spirit to full life in His Spirit Realm. He was careful to deny there was anything we could do to make it happen, yet fully requires us to take the path He left for us in His revelation. We know the Laws of God are the gateway to spiritual life; the connection is boiled down in the preaching about repentance. Embrace what you can know and God will supply whatever else He wants from you. That the strong leaders He chose were able to find common ground which resonated with their respective living spiritual natures is all the proof we need.
You can’t control the outcome in any way for another person. You are required to draw some lines you dare not cross. If others cross them, you are required to evaluate whether you can keep working with them, and on what terms. There is plenty of New Testament precedent showing when you cannot and should not try. There is plenty more wide open space for each of us to navigate. The lack of certainty in human terms is a feature, not a bug.
In this project, I propose we seek to leave enough doors open it calls to the widest audience possible, yet would obviously exclude some who simply aren’t ready. We can’t be all things to all people; only God does that, or whatever it is we might imagine it would be. Our call is of necessity limited. What we offer is a glimpse in the mind of Christ the man. That it would provoke reform and renovation of thinking in some is the whole point. We agree something is missing, and we believe we have found it. We already know up front it’s not for everyone, but we have to be careful, faithful to our own calling to reach plenty of folks we don’t even imagine are there within our reach.
Jesus was a Jewish guy in the First Century who hearkened back to a more ancient Hebrew way, but more of what it should have been, less of what it actually had been. We stand here far away in time and space using our best estimate what anyone can know about such things. Some things are pretty obvious, and I’ve belabored them here (and elsewhere) for some years. It resonates with some of you, and you share my enthusiasm for bringing it to a wider audience. We need to harmonize, not sing in unison. You should surely have some insights I lack.
Lacking anything else, for now I propose we start looking at three basic questions: In the Mind of Christ, what would we identify as basic cosmology, anthropology, and epistemology? I’ve given my own views enough already; how about yours? Take your time if you need to become familiar with the academic terminology, but I’m hoping one way or another to get some input.

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TMOC: The Adulteress

Posted on October 4, 2012 by ehurst

Let’s start thinking about what this proposed book should attempt to say.
Surely you’ve read in John 8 about the woman caught in adultery.
I’ll mention in passing this story is highly disputed among textual scholars. That is, you’ll find it’s not included in “the earliest and best manuscripts” of John’s Gospel. Yet, we all seem to recognize this is so much like Jesus in every other scene we see Him, it’s widely recognized as authentic anyway.
Why did He shut down the woman’s sentence? The Law of Moses distinctly condemns adultery with the death sentence. Before we answer any other questions, we have to understand why.
Let’s review: The basic Laws of God are founded on the Covenant of Noah (Genesis 9). Moses is an instance of Noah, serving to offer a concrete example. Despite what Jewish-Talmudic scholars insist, the Code of Noah is the fundamental Law of God for all mankind, and Moses is a specific application of that more ancient Law for a limited context. Moses applied only to those who were born under it, and who willingly remained a party of it, along with anyone else willing to embrace it on the same level. It never applied to anyone outside the ancient Nation of Israel. It was a very specific national covenant. Arrogance about Hebrew blood was contrary to the Law of Moses itself; covenant piety was the whole issue of Israeli identity. Insofar as it’s possible to be “Israeli” today, it still hinges on covenant piety.
Modern Judaism is wholly separate. Don’t get lost here. Indeed, the Judaism of Jesus’ day was not the religion of Moses, and this was the fundamental argument Jesus had with the leaders of His nation. I don’t have to prove this; it’s been done, long ago. Just read Edersheim’s Book I at the link, if you have time and need a full academic accounting. I’ve not found anything which counters his work.
The core issue of Noah is the stability and cohesion of the extended family community. This is your government, too. That business of shedding the blood of murderers is a requirement laid upon the clan elders. That the whole covenant seems tied up on that short passage about keeping social order in exchange for God maintaining natural order is typical ancient Hebrew writing, in that far more is implied than is plainly stated. The writers assume a certain amount of background knowledge in the reader. We need not slavishly follow the Talmudic teaching on what comes in the package with the Laws of Noah (AKA The Noahide Laws), but it’s not implausible. At heart, the ancient Hebrew culture is a mixture of highly educated Aramaic Mesopotamian nobility (Abraham) and the nomadic folks residing in the semi-dry climate of Palestine. We must build our understanding of basic assumptions from that cultural setting.
In that lifestyle, bedding down with someone else’s spouse was a serious attack on the whole community. It’s equivalent to raping your same sex cousin. It disrupts the community trust, raising a fragile and suspicious atmosphere, always on the edge of hostility. It means wasting a lot of time and effort preventing things which should never happen, and everyone refusing to share and the whole thing imploding quickly. The family elders must openly try and execute the people who commit such a horrible evil, and dreamy romance be damned. If you truly love and care for others, you simply must embrace the utter necessity of keeping things open, safe and trustworthy.
Israel under the Roman Empire was hardly that kind of community. Still, adultery was a major threat to social stability. But the Jewish leadership had been tearing at that social fabric for a very long time. As Edersheim notes, it began some 300 years before Christ, at a minimum. They were pushing empty legalism without any of the underlying social cohesion. They were instead creating the very divisions, hostility and distrust the Law of Moses were meant to prevent. Jesus noted this in details in other places, so when they bring him this adulteress, their intent was to get Him to play amateur judge. Given the ancient traditions of Hebrew culture, that was exactly how it worked, but they would hardly have any interest in ancient Mosaic observance from the heart and soul. What they wanted was for Jesus to pronounce sentence and rouse the crowd to stone her so they could blame Him when the Romans demanded to know the reason for this riot. It’s no secret Roman Law forbade execution under any laws but their own.
It’s not enough to know Jesus saw through this. He didn’t just sidestep this fakery for the sake of His own hide. There was something fundamentally wrong with the Jewish leadership. This is the basis upon which He attacks them. Regardless how squeaky clean and logical by Aristotle’s standards their system was, it was spiritually empty. It wasn’t Moses, much less Noah. The Law was not simply a rote observance; it was a personal commitment to the Lawmaker. Jesus knew His Father’s power. He struck to the heart of the matter. He didn’t even ask, “Where’s the man with whom she sinned?” That was damning enough, but instead He raised the issue of how wrong they were inside themselves. “Do you feel sinless? Start the stoning.” Despite their wonderful system, so clear and precise, their own hearts condemned them.
Jesus alone stood pure enough to have cast that first stone. We have no idea what He knew about the woman, but it wasn’t the point. The story is included to slam Judaism itself and it’s departure from the ancient Hebrew ways. Moses himself pointedly said the Law was not demanding the impossible. If you really wanted to please God, you would. If you didn’t care how God felt, the Law would not help you. Oh sure, it would help maintain His earthly favor in the sense of keeping social stability and all that, but it would not change your heart. The Laws of God are the doorway to spiritual enlightenment on the higher plane.
The issue with the adulteress was not her, but the nation and the Laws of God, and the heart of God.

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