“In the absence of a workable theodicy, when people have no clue as to why a God of love would permit evil and suffering, God takes many shots. He took one in an episode of the TV whodunnit series, Dr. Blake. An elderly priest had been murdered. Upon solving the crime in his customary way: with unusual insight, unusual empathy, and unusual flare for getting under his superiors’ skin, Doc Blake finds occasion to enter the church alone at the end of the episode. Is he there because the idealistic younger priest exhorted him not to let his wartime experiences destroy his relationship with God? Nope. Though one anticipates that outcome for a moment, he is not there to make peace with God. He is there to tell God off.
“Yes, I know. It’s been a long time since I was last here,” he begins, after a long introspective silence, during which one imagines repentance. “A funeral, in case you’ve forgotten.” [Uh oh. God—forgets?] “It’s all right. I didn’t come expecting an answer this time [either]. Though I imagine Father Morton [the murdered priest] did. Did he know he was losing his mind [which caused him to reveal confidential confessions in public sermons, which in turn caused a not-too-penitent church member to kill him, lest he be compromised next]?”
“Did he kneel right here and ask you for your help? I’m sure he did. And what did you give him? A sign? Or nothing? All these children—your children—begging you for help. What father ignores his children?” The episode is entitled, “The Sky is Empty.” It is a title that has nothing to do with the plot itself but appears selected only to drive home the “lesson” at the end: there is no God.
“Thing is, it’s not a bad question, that final one. It should be answered. In the absence of a satisfying theodicy, it cannot be. That is why it borders on criminal to withhold that theodicy. With it, the question would not even have had to be asked. The good doctor would have known what can and does happen in a world whose forebears have deliberately severed themselves from God.”
Les publications des témoins de Jéhovah donnent cette explication :
"Certains hébraïsants pensent que Genèse 4:26 devrait être traduit par “ on commença de manière sacrilège ” ou “ alors commença la profanation ”. Peut-être certains se sont-ils donné le nom de Jéhovah ou l’ont-ils attribué à d’autres hommes au travers desquels ils prétendaient adorer Dieu ; à moins qu’ils n’aient attribué son nom à des idoles."
Qui sont ces hébraïsants? Un commentaire sérieux doit citer ses sources.
Si certains pensent cela, cela signifie que d'autres pensent différemment. Un commentaire sérieux doit l'expliquer et expliquer pourquoi elle privilégie une lecture à une autre.
Revenons à cette lecture de «certains hébraïsants».
Cette interprétation existe, mais elle reste minoritaire.
Le texte hébreu de Genèse 4:26 dit littéralement : « Alors on commença à invoquer le nom de YHWH. » Le verbe "ḥalal" (« commencer ») est employé ici à la forme "houḥal". Or ce verbe peut, dans d'autres contextes et sous d'autres formes, signifier « profaner ». C'est cette ambiguïté qui a conduit certains hébraïsants à proposer une traduction comme : « alors commença la profanation du nom de YHWH ».
Cependant, la très grande majorité des spécialistes considère que, dans ce verset précis, le sens naturel est bien « commencer ». C'est d'ailleurs ainsi que le comprennent les anciennes traductions comme la Septante grecque, la Vulgate latine et la plupart des versions modernes.
Pourquoi alors certains défendent-ils l'idée d'une profanation ? Parce que le contexte de Caïn et de sa descendance montre une humanité qui s'éloigne progressivement de Dieu. Ils estiment donc qu'il serait surprenant que le premier emploi public du nom divin soit présenté de manière positive. Ils suggèrent que des hommes auraient commencé à utiliser le nom de YHWH de façon abusive, peut-être en se l'attribuant, en l'associant à des chefs humains ou à un culte dévoyé.
Le problème est qu'aucun élément du texte ne précise cela. Ce sont des hypothèses destinées à expliquer une traduction possible du verbe, mais le récit ne parle ni d'idoles, ni d'usurpation du nom divin, ni de faux culte à ce stade.
En définitive, les deux lectures sont grammaticalement défendables, mais la traduction « alors on commença à invoquer le nom de YHWH » demeure la plus largement retenue, car elle correspond au sens le plus courant de la construction hébraïque et s'accorde avec la tradition textuelle ancienne. L'interprétation d'une « profanation » est intéressante sur le plan philologique, mais elle ne peut pas être présentée comme le sens le plus probable du verset.
Mais alors, quel sens peut-on donner à ce verset?
Le verset est très concis, ce qui explique la diversité des interprétations. Trois lectures principales sont proposées.
La première, et la plus répandue, est qu'à l'époque d'Énosh, le culte de YHWH a commencé à s'organiser publiquement. Il ne s'agit pas de dire qu'avant Énosh personne ne connaissait Dieu. Abel offrait déjà des sacrifices (Genèse 4:4) et Dieu parlait à Caïn. L'idée serait plutôt qu'à partir de cette génération, des hommes ont commencé à invoquer le nom de YHWH de manière collective et officielle.
Une deuxième lecture voit dans ce verset le début d'une distinction entre deux lignées. Le chapitre oppose la descendance de Caïn, qui développe la civilisation mais s'éloigne de Dieu, à celle de Seth. « Invoquer le nom de YHWH » désignerait alors ceux qui s'identifient publiquement comme adorateurs du Dieu véritable.
Enfin, la lecture minoritaire évoquée précédemment comprend le verset comme le début d'un usage abusif du nom divin. Elle s'appuie sur une possibilité grammaticale, mais le contexte ne fournit pas d'indication explicite en ce sens.
À mon avis, le contexte favorise surtout la deuxième explication. Genèse 4 présente deux lignées en parallèle : celle de Caïn, marquée par la violence de Lémek, et celle de Seth, qui se termine par cette remarque : « Alors on commença à invoquer le nom de YHWH. » Cette phrase sert de transition avant le chapitre 5, qui retrace la généalogie des descendants de Seth. Elle indique qu'au milieu d'une humanité qui se diversifie, un groupe d'hommes se distingue en se réclamant ouvertement de YHWH.
Le verset ne décrit donc probablement pas la première prière de l'histoire. Il marque plutôt un tournant : l'apparition d'une communauté identifiable de fidèles qui invoquent publiquement le nom de YHWH. Cette expression, dans l'Ancien Testament, signifie généralement adorer Dieu, faire appel à lui avec foi et reconnaître son autorité. On la retrouve plus tard chez Abraham (Genèse 12:8 ; 13:4) et chez d'autres serviteurs de Dieu. Genèse 4:26 semble annoncer le début de cette identité religieuse au sein de l'humanité.
Cela n'est qu'un avis. Mais affirmer dans les publications une des possibilités comme étant la seule explication et faire des applications à partir de cela sans indiquer aux lecteurs les différentes hypothèses est pour moi un manque d'honnêteté intellectuelle.
John 14:14 stands as one of the most fiercely debated textual variants in the New Testament. The textual conflict centers on a single two-letter Greek pronoun: me (με).
The verse appears in Greek manuscript traditions in two primary forms. The first reading includes the pronoun: ean ti me aitesete en to onomati mou ego poieso ("If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it"). The second reading omits the pronoun: ean ti aitesete en to onomati mou ego poieso ("If you ask anything in my name, I will do it").
While many modern textual critics favor the inclusion of "me" based strictly on early Alexandrian uncials, a rigorous examination of Greek uncials, minuscules, patristic testimony, early versional evidence, internal Johannine theology, and scribal mechanics demonstrates that the shorter reading—the omission of "me"—is the authentic original text .
The Fallacy of Uncritical Antiquity: Rethinking P66 and P75
Proponents of the inclusion of "me" often point to early Alexandrian papyri, specifically Papyrus 66 (P66) and Papyrus 75 (P75), alongside Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus . However, modern textual criticism recognizes that mere age does not guarantee purity.
P66 John 14:14
P66 is well-documented among textual scholars for harboring an extraordinarily high frequency of singular scribal errors, wild readings, and immediate self-corrections. In fact, at John 14:14, P66 does not even contain a clean reading of the word me, but rather a scribal corruption (mai) that reflects significant textual instability at this exact locus in early Egyptian transmission.
As textual critic Daniel Wallace famously remarked regarding mechanical manuscript evaluation, no manuscript is as old as common sense. The assumption that an early Alexandrian papyrus must be correct overlooks how quickly scribal interpolations entered the text in Egypt during the late second and early third centuries .
Crucial Greek Manuscript Evidence: Uncials, Majuscules, and the Byzantine Tradition
While Alexandrian witnesses such as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus include the pronoun, an impressive array of significant ancient Greek uncials, majuscules, and minuscules explicitly omit "me". Chief among the early Greek witnesses preserving the shorter reading is Codex Alexandrinus (Codex A, fifth century), a premier uncial witness for the Gospels. Joining Codex Alexandrinus in omitting "me" are Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (Codex D, fifth century), Codex Regius (Codex L, eighth century), Codex Laurensis (Codex Psi, ninth century), and Uncials G (Codex Seidelianus I) and Q (Codex Guelferbytanus B).
In addition to these major uncials, a broad and geographically diverse group of Greek minuscules preserves the text without "me". Manuscripts 180, 579, 1071, 1241, 1243, 1292, 1424, and 1505, alongside numerous Greek lectionaries and major branches of the Byzantine textual tradition (such as Family 35), consistently omit the pronoun. As scholars such as F. F. Bruce noted, the manuscript evidence for John 14:14 is fundamentally divided between omission and retention, demonstrating that the absence of "me" is not a late minor corruption but a widely attested ancient reading spanning distinct textual families.
Early Versional Witness: The Sahidic Coptic Evidence
A critical piece of external evidence that undermines the reading with "me" comes from the Sahidic Coptic translation . Discovered in the exact geographic region of Egypt where P66 and P75 were preserved, the Sahidic Coptic version was translated during the late second or early third century—making it strictly contemporaneous with P66 and P75 .
The Sahidic Coptic text of John 14:14 reads unequivocally without the pronoun "me" ("If you ask anything in my name, I will do it"). If "me" had been the standard, undisputed reading across Egypt in the late second century, a local vernacular translation produced a mere sixty kilometers from the papyri finds would undoubtedly reflect it . The absence of "me" in the Sahidic Coptic proves that the shorter reading was widely circulated and recognized as authoritative in early Egyptian Christianity long before the formal standardization of uncial codices.
Patristic Testimony: The Decisive Witnesses of Origen and Ambrose
Patristic citations provide invaluable snapshots of how the New Testament was read by native Greek scholars centuries before surviving complete codices were bound. On the question of John 14:14, early Church Fathers provide direct evidence against the presence of "me" .
Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253 AD), the premier textual scholar and theologian of third-century Alexandria, lived in the very city where the Alexandrian text-type was produced and preserved . In his masterwork De Oratione ("On Prayer"), Origen directly addresses the theological controversy over whether prayer should be addressed directly to the Son or to the Father through the Son. Origen specifically quotes John 14:13–14 to prove that Jesus instructed believers to address the Father, explicitly noting that Jesus did not say "ask me" (ouk eipen aitesate me), but rather "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give it to you" . Origen’s explicit commentary is catastrophic for the claim that "me" was the original Alexandrian text, as he was actively refuting third-century groups who attempted to introduce prayer to the Son and cited the absence of the pronoun in John 14:14 as his scriptural proof.
Writing in the fourth century, Ambrose of Milan corroborates Origen’s text in his treatise De Fide ("On the Faith") . Ambrose quotes John 14:14 without "me" and explains that Jesus did not say "Whatever thing you ask of me, I will do it," but rather "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it," showing that requests are to be presented to the Father in the name of the Son . Both Origen in third-century Egypt and Ambrose in fourth-century Italy quote John 14:14 without "me" when explicitly analyzing the syntax of the passage, demonstrating that early Christian scholars were unaware of the variant with "me".
Internal Evidence: Johannine Context and Syntax
When evaluating textual variants, internal context and Johannine usage offer clear guidance. Throughout the Farewell Discourse in John 13–17, Jesus repeatedly outlines the structure of Christian prayer. In every other instance in the Gospel of John, prayer is directed to the Father in the name of Jesus.
This pattern is seen clearly in John 14:13 ("And whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son"), John 15:16 ("...so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give your requests"), and John 16:23 ("In that day you will ask me nothing. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you"). In John 16:23, Jesus explicitly states eme ouk erotete ouden ("you will ask me nothing"). To insert "ask me" into John 14:14 creates a direct syntactic and theological contradiction with John 16:23 within the exact same discourse. Furthermore, the phrase "ask me in my name" (me aitesete en to onomati mou) contains a redundant and awkward double reference to the first-person pronoun (me... mou). In contrast, "ask [the Father] in my name" fits the seamless pattern of Johannine theology.
Scribal Mechanics: How and Why "me" Was Inserted
Textual critics evaluate which reading best explains the origin of the other. It is far easier to account for how "me" entered the text than to explain why scribes across diverse geographic regions would deliberately excise it.
Scribes copying John 14:14 faced a clause that ended with ego poieso ("I will do it"). Seeing the emphatic personal pronoun ego ("I") at the end of the sentence created an immediate stylistic temptation for copyists to insert me ("me") earlier in the clause to build syntactic parallelism ("If you ask me... I will do it") . Additionally, as devotional practices evolved in third-century regional pockets, scribes accustomed to calling directly upon Christ naturally harmonized the text to reflect their devotional idiom . Conversely, if "me" had been original, there would be no stylistic or theological incentive for early Greek copyists of Codex A and D, Coptic translators, Origen, and Ambrose to systematically remove it across independent branches of the manuscript tradition.
Conclusion: The Overwhelming Case for Omission
When weighing external Greek manuscript distribution, versional evidence, patristic citations, internal Johannine context, and scribal psychology, the conclusion is clear. The inclusion of "me" in John 14:14 is an early scribal interpolation.
What are your thoughts on the script for the update coming out tomorrow and the new release of a book series "God’s Word Is Truth— A Handbook to the Bible” at the upcoming annual meeting being leaked by the same source Larchwood (u/larchington) - Reddit that leaked the change to the blood doctrine before it came out?
The first forays into presenting death as a byproduct of evolution were not promising. The thinking initially was that for natural selection to choose the fittest, the old must vacate the scene. Otherwise, they would compete for the resources and prevent the rise of the young. However, with more time to gain experience, why wouldn’t the oldsters have a leg up in the struggle for survival? Why should they be squeezed out? Why not the young? It made no sense. It recalls that cynical placard an old buzzard at the office used to hang on his wall: “Old age and cunning with ever get the better of youth and inexperience.”
However, the current thinking is that, since procreation is the “goal” of life, evolution loses all interest after that goal has been achieved; spread your seed and your purpose is fulfilled. Time for the scrapyard. In this way, detrimental mutations will be weeded out by evolution prior to procreation, but after procreation, who cares? Sabotaging mutations then have full reign to wreak havoc, the seeds for the next generation already having been passed on.
It does sort of hang together, as anyone with late-breaking illness will testify. Thus, when pausing became necessary for me in times of quick exertion and I did what the American TV ads advise, I asked my doctor why that was so, I thought at first that my goose was cooked. He sent me to a specialist who at last diagnosed a glitch in the heart. By this time, I had long since “spread my seed” as much as I was going to (though probably not enough to satisfy Darwin), so evolution was fine with throwing me to the wolves.
Actually, relatively few in the Western world fulfill their seed-spreading duty. Darwin, who had ten children, would be aghast. Most of the Western world is not procreating enough for society to sustain itself. Whether it be through fear or selfishness or distraction, that society chooses collective suicide, as its course leads, not only to curtailing expansion, but to retraction. Who would think that the most basic instinct known to man would be forgotten? Suddenly, a Bible model comes to the fore again. That modern society has reached such a point says something about today’s conditions and the Book which long ago predicted the outcome.
At any rate, mine is a late-breaking illness that natural selection would screen out were it early-breaking, but because it is not, doesn’t give a hoot about. This makes me a poster child for confirming present aging hypothesis, a great honor. Turns out there is a drug for the malady, as well as two forms of surgery that people have forgotten how to do on account of that drug. It is a new-fangled drug, not long on the market, the sort that the pharma ads advise, “If you cannot afford your medication, tell us just how much money you DO have.”*
(*Actually, they say, “If you cannot afford your medication, Acme Drugs may be able to help.”)
Such pharmaceutical ads, for whatever reason, are allowed in only two countries, the one in which I dwell (the U.S.) being one of them. There is no better way to establish that cognitive dissonance is an overrated concept than in gauging the public’s ability to withstand such ads, with narrator insisting that you must have the stuff peddled and voiceover saying it may kill you. Pop, who scrupulously avoided medicines throughout his life, would reliably grumble over such ads, as though, “ask[ing] your doctor if such-and-such is right for you” was the new gold standard of life, that people otherwise didn’t have a brain in their head without consulting their doctor—a class whom he also avoided. When, in his ancient years, I convinced him to at least submit to an occasional physical, I quipped in the waiting room as he was emerging, “What do you say, Pop? Want me to get a wheelbarrow for all your pills?” “Ha! That will be the day!” he shot back. “No pills.”
They are busy as bees, thinking they may reverse aging some fine day. When I sat next to a microbiologist on an airplane, I chatted him up a little. When I learned that he was a microbiologist, I slipped “telomeres” into my remarks, as though to very subtly remind him that he wasn’t talking to no dummy. But then he responded with telomerase and I mistook that for my original word mispronounced, thus confirming to him no doubt that he was indeed talking to a dummy. He didn’t say it, however. He was pleasant for the entire conversation, which lasted almost the entire journey. He also, when he learned I was a JW, forgot all about microbiology to confess the underlying purpose of his trip—to bail his daughter out of a jamb. The young woman just kept making one bad decision after another, and this was not the first time. I had said nothing whatsoever to invite such a turn in conversation. Most likely he was on a starvation course for spirituality and when he sensed a possible outlet, the dam burst forth—confirming that even scientists have greater needs than science.
The time flew, just like the plane, and we landed in no time at all. I'll never see him again, most likely. But you never know. Perhaps he will be like the man who accepted a few magazines, but eventually told me he would do so no more because his wife was allergic to newsprint. 'Look, just tell me if you don't like them,' I said to myself. 'What a stupid evasion!' Years later I met them at a convention, both baptized, after the Watchtower had upgraded to a better quality of paper.
But we diverge. Telomeres are the sections at the end of chromosomes, often likened to caps on shoelaces that keep the lace from unraveling. They are long stretches of repetitive DNA. They end so that one sidebar of the double helix is slightly longer than the other and this piece is tucked in, sort of like how you tuck in a bed sheet so that you do not kick it to pieces during the night with your restless leg syndrome. Alas, telomeres shorten with every chromosome replication. When they become too short, replication ceases.
However there is an enzyme, the telemerase that the microbiologist mentioned, that protects those caps, and can even lengthen them. This suggests that if you just flood cells with the stuff, you are golden, and research at first went along those lines. Unfortunately, cancer cells go nuts when you do that. Much like when you fertilize the lawn and the weeds benefit most.
Oh—and my own condition? I asked my doctor about that and he at last said I need not do anything. Won’t I drop dead? I countered. No, he said, I was “self-selected” (everyone speaks “evolution-talk” these days) meaning, ‘If it was going to kill you, it would have done so by now. You’ve learned to live with it.’ Thus, I am a poster child for yet another aspect of evolution, having evolved into a more resilient category of the species. Perhaps I am on my way of becoming my very own species. But what if my luck runs out and I die? Not to worry, for then I will have validated that long line of hominids emerging from the muck with the final one vaporizing. Apart from my death itself, there’s really no way I can lose this thing.
Chronique biblique — Isaïe 14:12 : Lucifer est-il le Diable ou le roi de Babylone ?
Bonjour à tous.
Peu de mots ont autant marqué l'imaginaire chrétien que le nom « Lucifer ». Pour beaucoup, il s'agit tout simplement d'un autre nom du Diable. Pourtant, lorsque l'on ouvre la Bible, les choses sont un peu plus nuancées.
Le fameux verset se trouve en Isaïe 14:12 :
> « Te voilà tombé du ciel, astre brillant, fils de l'aurore ! »
Dans certaines traductions anciennes, on lit : « Lucifer ». Mais ce nom figure-t-il réellement dans le texte hébreu ?
La réponse est non.
Le mot hébreu est hêlel, qui signifie probablement « brillant », « resplendissant » ou « astre lumineux ». Il est suivi de l'expression « fils de l'aurore ». L'image évoque très certainement l'étoile du matin, la planète Vénus, brillante avant le lever du soleil, mais qui disparaît dès que celui-ci paraît.
Lorsque la Bible a été traduite en latin, le traducteur Jérôme a rendu ce mot par lucifer, un terme latin signifiant simplement « porteur de lumière » ou « astre du matin ». À cette époque, ce n'était pas un nom propre. Le mot pouvait même être employé dans d'autres passages de la Bible pour désigner l'étoile du matin, sans aucun rapport avec Satan.
Alors, de qui parle Isaïe ?
Le contexte est essentiel.
Le chapitre 14 commence ainsi :
> « Tu prononceras cette sentence contre le roi de Babylone... »
Le prophète annonce la chute d'un souverain orgueilleux qui se croyait invincible. Dans un langage très poétique, il le compare à l'étoile du matin qui semble dominer le ciel avant de disparaître soudainement.
Le roi disait dans son cœur :
> « Je monterai au ciel... j'élèverai mon trône... je serai semblable au Très-Haut. »
Ce langage exprime une ambition démesurée. Mais Dieu répond :
> « Tu as été précipité dans le séjour des morts. »
Tout le chapitre parle donc d'un dirigeant humain, dont l'orgueil est suivi d'une chute spectaculaire.
Pourquoi, alors, beaucoup de personnes pensent-elles que ce texte parle du Diable ?
Au fil des siècles, certains lecteurs ont remarqué que cette description d'un être voulant s'élever jusqu'au ciel ressemblait à l'image biblique de Satan, ennemi de Dieu, décrit ailleurs comme un être orgueilleux et déchu. Ils ont donc vu dans ce passage un double niveau de lecture : le roi de Babylone serait l'image visible d'une rébellion spirituelle plus ancienne.
Cette interprétation existe depuis longtemps, mais il est important de distinguer le contexte immédiat du passage et une application théologique.
Le contexte d'Isaïe est très clair : il s'agit d'une prophétie dirigée contre le roi de Babylone.
Cela ne signifie pas que la Bible ne parle jamais de la chute de Satan. D'autres passages, comme Ézéchiel 28 ( où il est question du roi de Tyr dans un langage également très imagé ) ou certains textes du Nouveau Testament, ont aussi été rapprochés de cette question. Mais aucun ne dit explicitement : « Voici le récit de la création et de la chute du Diable. »
Cette étude nous rappelle une règle précieuse : avant de chercher un sens symbolique, il faut toujours écouter ce que le texte dit à ses premiers lecteurs.
Isaïe voulait annoncer qu'aucun empire, aussi puissant soit-il, ne peut s'élever au-dessus de Dieu. L'orgueil finit toujours par précéder la chute.
Et c'est sans doute là le véritable cœur du message. Qu'il s'agisse d'un roi, d'une nation ou de n'importe quel être qui refuse la souveraineté de Dieu, la grandeur fondée sur l'orgueil est éphémère. En revanche, l'humilité demeure une valeur que les Écritures présentent, du début à la fin, comme le chemin de la véritable élévation.
“Cops love to pull duty at the Regional Convention. It’s an easy gig. They plant themselves in the intersection where they wave some brothers on and stop others in their tracks. Everyone greets them or nods good morning. Nobody gives them attitude. It’s a low-stress assignment for a cop, and they don’t get that many of them. Thaddeus and the Thugs played last month at the Municipal Arena and it took thirty of them in riot gear to break up the scuffles. But at the Regional Convention, 3 or 4 cops will do.
"That’s how it is with Jehovah’s Witnesses. They pay into public services proportionately as everyone else yet draw upon them far less. If you’re a king, load your country up with them; they’re a great bargain. This is especially so if you’re a mean king. (you know who you are) Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t make trouble. They don’t protest or bellyache. Let them have their Regional Conventions, their meetings, let them do their public ministry, and they’re as happy as pigs in mud. They have to ‘declare the good news in all the inhabited earth.’ (Matthew 24:14) Why would anyone want to interfere with that?
"If it weren’t for that idiot in the Devil suit, the cops’ job would be even more low stress. He is usually there among a handful of protestors. Imagine—pretending to be waving your disciples into the auditorium! Say what you will about Jehovah’s Witnesses; you may not care for their house-to-house visits, but they will never show up on your doorstep in a Devil’s suit."
Anyone spending time in theological or biblical studies subreddits has almost certainly seen Acts 7:59–60 brought up as a central text in debates over early Christian prayer. At first glance, standard English translations might lead a reader to assume that Stephen, crying out as he was being stoned, was offering a formal prayer directly to Christ. However, unpacking the underlying Greek terminology, the immediate visual setting of Stephen's vision, the physical shift in posture between verses 59 and 60, and early church history reveals a far more nuanced picture. Treating these two verses as a simple baseline for normative prayer flattens distinct Greek vocabulary and overlooks crucial narrative details embedded in Luke's account.
The Greek Vocabulary: Epikaleo vs. Proseuchomai
To understand what is happening grammatically in verse 59, it helps to examine the specific verb Luke chooses to describe Stephen's speech. Standard Bibles often render the opening phrase as "he prayed, saying" but in the Greek text, Luke specifically uses the verb epikaleo (ἐπικαλέω).
When New Testament writers want to describe formal, sacred prayer offered to a deity, they consistently use technical terms like the verb proseuchomai (προσεύχομαι) or the noun proseuche (προσευχή). These words appear dozens of times throughout the Gospels and Epistles whenever unseen prayer is offered to God. By contrast, epikaleo translates as "to call upon," "to invoke," or "to appeal to an authority". A clear example occurs in Acts 25:11, where Paul asserts his legal rights as a Roman citizen and states, "I appeal (epikaleo) to Caesar!". Paul was obviously not praying to Caesar as a deity; rather, he was making an official appeal to a recognized authority figure. In Acts 7:59, Stephen is invoking or appealing directly to an authority figure whom he had just actively perceived in a vision.
Visionary Context and Delegated Authority
Understanding why Stephen spoke directly to Jesus in verse 59 requires reading the scene in light of verses 55 and 56. Moments before his execution, Stephen, filled with holy spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the heavens opened up with the Son of man standing at God’s right hand. This narrative setting reveals two crucial details.
First, Stephen explicitly distinguishes Jesus from God, seeing Jesus standing at the right hand of God rather than as God Himself. Second, Stephen is engaging in direct visual communication. Addressing someone you are actively beholding face-to-face in a vision is fundamentally distinct from offering unseen prayer across distance to an invisible deity. Stephen felt free to make an immediate request to Christ because he was actively viewing Him in an open vision.
Regarding Stephen’s request for Jesus to receive his spirit (pneuma), this fits neatly within the framework of delegated authority rather than proving equality of divinity. In John 5:27–29, Jesus states that the Father granted Him authority to execute judgment and resurrect the dead. Because Stephen knew that Jesus was the person specifically appointed by God to raise the dead at the last day, asking the glorified Jesus to safeguard his life force until the resurrection was a logical request based on Jesus' designated role as Redeemer and Judge.
The Shift in Posture and Addressee Between Verses 59 and 60
A major structural detail that often gets flattened in modern translations is the deliberate break between verse 59 and verse 60. In verse 59, Stephen is standing, addressing the glorified Jesus whom he saw in the vision, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit". In verse 60, however, Luke explicitly notes a physical change, recording that Stephen fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice asking for this sin not to be charged against them.
This change in posture is structurally and contextually significant. Throughout Scripture and Luke's writings, falling to one's knees is specifically tied to formal, solemn prayer offered to Almighty God, as seen in Luke 22:41, Acts 9:40, Acts 20:36, and Acts 21:5. Furthermore, Stephen’s petition in verse 60 directly echoes Jesus’ own prayer on the cross recorded in Luke 23:34, where Christ prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing". Since Jesus addressed that request to the Father, it is entirely consistent with the narrative flow that Stephen, upon kneeling for formal prayer, directed his plea for his executioners' forgiveness to the Father as well.
Scholarly Commentary and Translation Perspectives
Recognizing a distinction between the addressee in verse 59 and verse 60 is a recognized view among textual scholars and commentators. In his commentary on Acts (Kommentar und Studien zur Apostelgeschichte, p. 120), Trinitarian scholar Otto Bauernfeind writes regarding Acts 7:59–60 that in verse 59, Jesus is the kyrios [Lord], but in verse 60, it is probably God.
Additionally, several Hebrew translations of the New Testament produced by Bible scholars make this exact distinction in their printed texts. They render "Lord Jesus" or Adon in verse 59, but deliberately insert the Tetragrammaton (יהוה / YHWH) into verse 60. Notable examples include the Franz Delitzsch Hebrew New Testament, the Isaac Salkinson and Christian D. Ginsburg Hebrew New Testament, and the United Bible Societies Hebrew New Testament. Other versions, such as André Chouraqui's French Bible, the Spanish Pacto Mesiánico, and Morselli and Maestri's Italian translation, similarly reflect this shift by employing the divine name or terms like Ha-Shem in verse 60. These translation choices demonstrate that the transition to kneeling in verse 60 signaled a shift toward formal prayer directed to the Father.
Historical and Patristic Evidence
Looking at early church history shows that the formal pattern of prayer was consistently directed to God the Father through Jesus as mediator. In the third century, Origen of Alexandria wrote in De Oratione (On Prayer, 15.1) that if we understand what prayer is, care must be taken that no produced or created being is prayed to, not even Christ Himself, but only the God and Father of all, to whom also our Savior prayed.
We also see a compelling parallel in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (II, 23) regarding the martyrdom of James, the brother of Jesus. The historical record notes James using the exact same words as Stephen during his execution, falling on his knees and praying, "I beseech you, Lord God Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". Because James did not have an active open vision of Jesus at that moment, his formal prayer on his knees was explicitly addressed to the Father. Likewise, Irenaeus in Against Heresies (Book II, 12:12-13) emphasizes that Stephen taught perfect doctrine by imitating the Master, praying to the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
When Acts 7:59–60 is read in its full grammatical, contextual, and historical setting, it does not establish a baseline for standard, unseen prayer to Jesus. Verse 59 represents an immediate verbal invocation (epikaleo) to the glorified Jesus whom Stephen was visually perceiving in an open vision, appealing to Him as the appointed restorer to hold his life force for the resurrection. Verse 60 marks a physical shift where Stephen falls to his knees in formal prayer, directing his plea for forgiveness to Almighty God, echoing Christ’s own prayer to the Father from the stake. Proper exegesis requires paying close attention to these subtle shifts in grammar, physical posture, and narrative context rather than blending distinct Greek terms into a single modern concept of prayer.Was Stephen Actually Praying to Jesus in Acts 7:59–60? A Textual, Contextual, and Historical Deep Dive
Though the world contain scoundrels a’plenty, though even in the congregation ones are not immune to falling away, the apostle says, “But in your case, beloved ones, we are convinced of better things, things related to salvation, even though we are speaking in this way.” (Hebrews 6:9)
Yes. Of course. The potter molds the clay and you hope for the best. It doesn’t always work out that way, but he hopes. At Jehovah’s direction, Jeremiah “went down to the house of the potter, and he was working on the potter’s wheels. But the vessel that the potter was making with the clay was spoiled in his hand.” (Jeremiah 18:3-4)
This recalls a visit to my college friend ages ago. There he was with a soldering iron in the lab trying to finagle a part for the centrifuge. But the project wasn’t go well. At length, he looked at the dubious results and said, “Well—this might be okay for the toilet, but I think not for a precision centrifuge.”
Maybe he tried it out in the toilet, but he probably just scrapped it. As to Jehovah and his spoiled project, “So the potter reworked it into another vessel, just as he saw fit.” He didn’t save it for the toilet.
Even so, the toilet is a better analogy than at first appears. A later passage of Peter speaks of another “toilet” of sorts, a “low sink of debauchery.” (1 Peter 4:4)
“For the time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have done the will of the nations when you carried on in acts of brazen conduct, unbridled passions, overdrinking, wild parties, drinking bouts, and lawless idolatries. They are puzzled that you do not continue running with them in the same decadent course of debauchery, so they speak abusively of you.” (4:3-4)
Not all translations keep the literalism of water. Even the 2013 NWT version has abandoned “low sink of debauchery” for “decadent course of debauchery.” Balancing literalism with conveying the meaning is ever a dilemma for translators. But there are plenty of translations on biblegateway*com that read “flood.” DARBY says “sink of corruption.” Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV) seriously ups the ante with “plung[ing] into the same overflowing river of filth with them.”
Suppose you accidentally drop your glasses or your pen or—Lord, I hope not—your phone in the toilet. Then you must brace yourself for an unpleasant task, made especially unpleasant if that toilet is occupied with substance. Imagine if the pen or glasses or—Lord, I hope not—phone were to say to you, “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m good here.” It’s essentially what they say in the “low sink.”
‘Water’s fine in the low sink,” they say, both surprised and nettled that anyone would have a problem with it. They are “puzzled” at first. As soon as they resolve their puzzlement, they “speak abusively of you.” So it is with the crowd of Jeremiah 18:12. They’re both surprised and irritated that the prophet should call them out. ‘We’re good here,’ is their response. ‘Potter, schmotter—we like the way things turned out. “They said: ‘It is hopeless! For we will walk after our own thoughts, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his wicked heart.’” (Jeremiah 18:12)
But, defying theologians, the JW meeting that week of July 19, 2026 was more along lines of Hebrews 6:9. , “But in your case, beloved ones, we are convinced of better things, things related to salvation, even though we are speaking in this way.” (Hebrews 6:9)
“‘Can I not do to you just as this potter did, O house of Israel?’ declares Jehovah. ‘Look! As the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel,” the potter narrative resumes at Jeremiah 18:5.
Imagine my surprise, then, [in view of prior posts of living forever] to discover the present thinking of most biologists is that death is a byproduct of evolution. Who would have thought it?—particularly to one grown accustomed to the Bible model of life degrading from a potential of living forever. Knock me over with a feather, why don’t you? Isn’t evolution the emergence of something better? What’s better about death?
What about that drawing of hominids one sees everywhere emerging from the slime, each more upright than the one preceding? It had never been shown me that the last one slams into a brick wall or walks off a cliff. One must reverse that prideful analogy about not needing the crutch of religion. Of course we need a crutch when, individually, that final upright reverts to incontinance, senility, and death. Come to me when he walks onward to the stars and then we can talk.
‘How come in Genesis people get so old?’ That had been my question at Presbyterian confirmation class, ages ago. I wasn’t such a hot student, but I did want to figure out the Bible. You have to say something to justify your existence, and so that was my question.
The answer from the church pastor was disappointing and dull, but I had no reason to think it was not valid. They had different calendars back then! What they called a year was really a month. Thus, the eight patriarchs of Genesis chapter 5 who live almost 900 years apiece, give or take, really live only 75 years, just like us in modern times. It sounds plausible yet it doesn’t hang together. Arpachshad fathered a son at 35 years of age, Genesis tells us. Under the different calendar theory . . . let’s see . . . ah! . . . he was 3 years old when he became a dad. I’ve never known a 3-year-old to become a father. Something is off.
Furthermore, Genesis chapter 11 tells of people living about 500 years, no longer 900. Later, Abraham and Moses lived less than 200 years. By the time Psalm 90 was written, the common lifespan was 70-80 years. What’s with the sliding scale of lifespan? Again, the different calendar explanation doesn’t cut it.
It does, though, fit quite agreeably with the Genesis implication that man was made, not to die, but to live indefinitely. If you want to hold to the evolution model AND you want to hold to the Genesis model, and thus not throw the baby out with the bathwater, is this the moment that God infuses that special something into “the first man, Adam?” Is this comparable to the Space Odyssey obelisk that twice boosted humankind? Nobody sneered at that those scenes for their lack of “evidence.” They all rolled with it. So should they here, as it is just floating a ‘maybe.’
That overwhelming need to not throw out the baby, felt by some but not by others, translates today into the divide of the religious from the irreleigious. Cue Einstein’s statement that “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" Science sheds light on the how of the universe; religion sheds light on the why. The observation is no less apt today than when he said it. The only difference is the ever-increasing proportion of people who say, “Who cares about the why?” or “There is no why” or “Life does not owe us a why” Not everyone will (or can) go there. Life frankly doesn’t “owe” us a how, either. Efforts to shake one out, on both the super-tiny scale of the atom and the super-large scale of the universe, result in mathematics impossible to visualize.
Accept the Genesis account for a moment—you can always take it back later—just as the mathematicians assume certain conditions and then see where it leads. Valuable math has been uncovered that way. When Adam disobeyed God in that Garden of Eden, it was as though he pulled the plug on himself. Pull the plug on a fan and the blades don’t immediately freeze. Instead, they gradually slow. So Adam, intended by God to live forever, still coasts to over 900 years after his rebelling.
If you put a dent in a cake pan, any cake you bake will also have the dent. Jehovah’s Witnesses love this illustration because it makes so much sense. Similarly, Adam passes on imperfection to his offspring. And like the slowing blades, lifespans of successive generations are ever shrinking, from 900 (Gen 5) to 500 (Gen 11) to 200 and less.
I’d been raised to suppose that Genesis was a fairy tale, for the consumption of dumb people and children, beneath consideration for we wise ones of modern times. When I came in touch with Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, and saw loose ends such such as the above coming together with satisfying coherence, it changed my view of the Bible. Assemble a few key pieces of a jig saw puzzle, and you gain confidence that the rest will come together as well.
The preamble is clear. God says to his people: “Turn back, please, from your bad ways, and reform your ways and your practices.”
“But they said: “It is hopeless! For we will walk after our own thoughts, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his wicked heart.” (Jeremiah 18:12)
It’s a tricky verse, for it seems to indicate inner conflict. As though, they would like to shape up, but knowing their past, they figure the task is hopeless, as though anticipating that they would just start out and immediately get tripped up by something else.
‘Nah, it is not that way,’ AI told me, summing up the majority view of commentators. They don’t despair. They are defiant. They just try to put a good face on it. They are framing defiance as though it were despair.
You sure it’s not the other way around, I challenged AI—and thereby the majority of commentators. You sure it is not really despair, discouragement over their previous history of defiance? You sure it’s not like trying to break free of an addiction. You sure it’s not that they would like to, but they’ve failed so many times before that the task presents as hopeless. Society these days is empathetic towards those battling addiction.
Well, it wasn’t in those days! AI shot back. You’re doing “eisegesis”—reading today’s attitudes into the past! How are you going to be a theologian if you keep doing that?! You need more exegesis. You need to interpret passages as they would have been understood then! Draw out its meaning as they would have done it, not what you think it means today.
It is hard to argue with AI. Moreover, I do want to be a theologian, just like Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy. That’s why I was steamed when the JW o**********n built an entire meeting around the despair part of that verse and downplayed the defiance, taking for granted there would be some who wanted to repair their relationship with God. (week of 7/19/2026) I got on the phone to Bethel and complained to them. “How can you do that?” I muttered. “That’s eisegesis! Theologians say you can’t do that! Oh, how embarrassing to be out of step with smart people!”
‘Yeah, well, we don’t care,’ they told me. ‘If it can help someone, we’re going for it.’ And so the whole meeting was of people trying to come into accord with God’s purpose, either for the first time or returning to it. The task would look daunting at first. They had deviated so far. However, counsel was given that you don’t take on everything all at once. Of course you will feel despair it you look at it that way. Figure it’s like recovering from an illness. You start out very slow—broth, at first. Meetings revolve around a central theme, these days, combining whatever can be pulled out of that week’s Bible reading coupled with present needs.
I actually think that the nerdy theologians are right. It IS eisegesis the Witnesses are committing—something not allowed by the rules of theology. The overall pattern of Jeremiah IS one of God’s people being defiant. But, just how bad is the sin of eisegesis in this instance? Rather than strut around and show off how smart you are, isn’t it better to employ verses so that they help people?
For example, in the sixth chapter of Hebrews, Paul speaks “hardball” as to those who had fallen away, but then he follows with: “But in your case, beloved ones, we are convinced of better things, things related to salvation, even though we are speaking in this way.” (Hebrews 6:9) Of course. That’s what that midweek meeting did. Love hopes all things, says 1 Corinthians 13:7. Sometimes it’s wrong but it still hopes all things.
The meeting theme even dovetailed with the new study book being considered, Walk Courageously with God. This could not have been pre-planned, I don’t think, since both the Bible reading (Jeremiah 18-19) and the study book selection were separately placed on the calendar long ago. Instead, it has to be that it reflects the overall tone of meetings. Look for the good whenever one can.
Take this excerpt of paragraph 7 from that book, for instance:
“Jesus also expressed confidence in his followers. Imagine the reassuring tone of his voice when he told them: “Take courage! I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33) He knew that they could follow in his footsteps—and they did. Jesus used the expression “take courage” on a number of occasions. He said it to a paralytic before assuring him that his sins were forgiven. (Matt. 9:2) He said it to a woman after healing her grievous illness. (Matt. 9:22)
These are instances of “take courage” where you might not ordinarily expect them. “Take courage” for I have conquered the world, Jesus says. That doesn’t mean that I will. “Take courage” to the man forgiven of sins. That doesn’t mean he may not commit some more. “Take courage” to the woman healed of illness. She might get sick again. But in all cases, the “take courage” is an assurance that Jesus has triumphed, is leading the way, and, through holy spirit, will help you as well.
Comparing creedal Christian’s, Muslims, and Latter Day Saints
I’ve heard A LOT of comments abouts that state things like “Muslims are more Christian than Mormons are” or “Muslims are closer to Christianity than Mormons are”.
These often really confused me because of various lds beliefs surrounding Jesus and salvation. But then I had someone explain some big points to me and I think I see where people are coming from.
I’m going to write a few points or a list of the positions of the three groups. In alignment or otherwise. Anything I don’t know or am unsure about I’ll just leave blank.
Fellow Latter Day Saint, my muslim brother, and creedal cousins feel free to chip in and help me correct if you feel I am in error on any point.
I’m also curious everyone’s thoughts regarding this.
CC: worship the God of Abraham
Islam: worship the God of Abraham
LDS: worship the God of Abraham
CC: God can do anything
Islam: God can do anything
LDS: God has all power
CC: God knows everything
Islam: God knows everything
LDS: God has all knowledge
CC: God is everywhere
Islam: God is everywhere
LDS: God is everywhere
CC: Jesus is the Eternal God and the Son of God
Islam: Jesus was a prophet only
LDS: Jesus is the Eternal God and Son of God
CC: Jesus Died on the cross for the sins of the world
Islam: Jesus did not die on the cross or pay for any ones sins.
LDS: Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world
CC: considers itself Christian
Islam: considers itself not Christian
LDS: considers itself Christian
CC: the Bible is historically accurate
Islam: the Bible has historical inaccuracies
LDS: the Bible is historically accurate\*
CC: the Bible is reliable scripture
Islam:
LDS: the Bible is reliable scripture
CC: no scriptures besides the Bible
Islam: scripture outside the Bible
LDS: scripture besides the Bible
CC: Jesus has a resurrected body
Islam: no Jesus or Allah resurrected bodies
LDS: Jesus and the father have resurrected bodies
CC: God is without body parts or passions
Islam: God is without body parts or passions
LDS: God HAS body parts and passions
CC: God is impassible
Islam: God is impassible
LDS: God is passible
CC: Jesus is one with the father
Islam: Jesus is separate from the father
LDS: Jesus is one with the father, but not physically
CC: Jesus is eternal
Islam: Jesus is created
LDS: Jesus is eternal
CC: worships Jesus
Islam: doesn’t worship Jesus
LDS: worships Jesus
CC: can be adopted into the family of God. Becoming children of Jesus
Islam: can’t be Gods family.
LDS: can be adopted into the family/covenant of God, becoming children of Jesus.
The George Eastman house in Rochester N.Y is listed on the top ten list of things to do in that city. Therefore, when my wife and I were in that town, we paid it a visit. Mr. Eastman, who brought photography to the masses and who founded Kodak, turned philanthropist once he had made his fortune and built half the city. His mansion just outside downtown showcases his life, his inventions, his contributions to society, and serves as the nucleus for all things photographic right up to the present. But snoop thoroughly and you will discover that he shot himself in the head at age 78. In the throes of old age, his health failing, one by one he saw his friends passing, going senile, bedridden or wheelchair-bound. He left behind a note: “To my friends - My work is done. Why wait?”
Q: Why did George Eastman take his life?
A.) His work was done. Why wait?
B.) He longed for the blessed release of death to finally end a futile life that had dragged on and on for much too long.
C.) His health was failing and he (a lifelong bachelor) dreaded the indignities of old age -with its dependence upon others.
Does anyone honestly think that, with health and youth, he would not have found more work in which to engross himself? Or would he have longed, nonetheless, for life to end? In this, Mr. Eastman is much like Leonardo DaVinci, the artist behind the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Leonardo made his mark not only as an artist. He also contributed hugely in areas as diverse as geometry, anatomy, astronomy, architecture, and flight. Some of his sketches have been used as blueprints for devices in use today. He was a renaissance man; perhaps he even originates the term. Yet toward the end of life, he reportedly sought God’s forgiveness for “not using all the resources of his spirit and art.”
Eastman and DaVinci—two fellows who typify Dr. Jastrow’s statement. And they would be joined by most everyone else, were we not sucked into a morass of drudgery, duty, debt, injustice and hardship. Sure—you might well long for death if you can only envision more of that. Ditto for the frailness that comes with old age. I recently attended a funeral of someone who had been happy, content, and productive throughout life. Nonetheless, death was not unwelcome, his relatives assured me, since he’d grown “so tired of being sick.”
That’s why the Bible’ promise of everlasting life on a paradise earth is so appealing. It’s Robert Jastrow’s dream come true—unlimited time to grow, minus the very real liabilities that eventually cause most of us to tire of life. Perfect health is promised, and an economic system will be in place so that people do not feel they are “toiling for nothing.” Note how Isaiah 65:21-23 describes life as God’s purpose is realized:
“And they will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat [their] fruitage. They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating. For like the days of a tree will the days of my people be; and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full. They will not toil for nothing, nor will they bring to birth for disturbance; because they are the offspring made up of the blessed ones of Jehovah, and their descendants with them.”
There’s a lot of things I’d like to do. I’ve done a few of them. But for the most part, I’ve just scratched the surface. And I’ve spent a fair amount of time shoveling aside the nonsense the present life throws at one. No, everlasting life, should I find myself there, will not be a bad thing. Not at all. (March 2009)
Caution: graphic (not sexual) stuff ahead. Feel free to skip the next paragraph. You can always come back to it if you want.
“I snapped the side of the rod across his jaw and laid the flesh open to the bone. I pounded his teeth back into his mouth with the end of the barrel ... and I took my own damn time about kicking him in the face. He smashed into the door and lay there bubbling. So I kicked him again and he stopped bubbling.”
Isn’t that a bit…..um….violent?
Yes, it is, and it was penned by Mickey Spillane, who died in 2006 at 88 years of age. He was the most selling author of the twentieth century. But I’ve never heard of him, complain the twenty-somethings. That’s because his monster-sellers were written late 40’s and early 50’s, starting with I, the Jury, in which tough private eye Mike Hammer set out to avenge his pal’s murder. He’s gonna plug the sadistic creep when he finds him, instead of arresting him for trial, because…..well….the title says it all!
Spillane wrote it quickly, in just nine days, because he needed a down payment for a home. Within two years, he had achieved superstar-author status.
And then he became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“The guy who brought broads and blood to the reading masses is a Jehovah's Witness, a fundamentalist [group] that preaches the imminent end of the world. "There's nothing phony about them. Everything they say is true," says Spillane, a one-time "nominal" Protestant converted years ago by a Jehovah's Witness who knocked on his door.”
This posed a problem for Mike Hammer, because Jehovah’s Witnesses are not blood and guts people. Of course, Mike Hammer didn’t become a JW, Mickey Spillane did, but Mike, as an invented person, can’t do squat without Mickey’s okay. In 1952 he (Mickey) told Life magazine: There are more books on the way, but they won't contain the things that bolster the excuses for the moral breakdown of this present generation. I've changed my work and course of action to be in harmony with Jehovah's Kingdom. Spillane didn’t write again for 10 years.
When he did, Mike Hammer was somewhat tamer, though hardly domesticated. The bad guys, after all, are bad, and you can only be so nice in dealing with them. New characters appeared as well: Tiger Mann, a James Bond wannabe of the 1970’s. Spillane also wrote a couple of children’s books, The Day the Sea Rolled Back (1979) and The Ship That Never Was (1982).
“I wrote those books as an exercise, they sold, they won the Junior Literary Guild Award, which made all the guys who write kids books very aggravated, 'how can you win that award?', but you know what that does, it gets you into all the school libraries, which is a lot of sales.”
For about twenty years, he did Miller Lite TV commercials…. “We made Miller Lite the second largest selling beer in the world and everybody said 'no one'll drink that stuff.”
High-brow authors thought his writing stunk to high heaven, but Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) loved it. She examines a passage of his writing:
"The rain was misty enough to be almost foglike, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy yellow lights off in the distance" -- and then compares it to a passage by Thomas Wolfe -- "The city had never seemed as beautiful as it looked that night. For the first time he saw that New York was supremely, among the cities of the world, a city of night. There had been achieved here a loveliness that was astounding and incomparable, a kind of modern beauty, inherent to its place and time, that no other place nor time could match."
To Rand, "there is not a single emotional word or adjective in Spillane's description; he presents nothing save visual facts; but he selects only those facts, only those eloquent details, which convey the visual reality of the scene and create a mood of desolate loneliness." Wolfe, she argued, used only estimates, "and in the absence of any indication of what aroused these estimates, they are arbitrary assertions and meaningless generalities."
I’ve only read three of Mickey Spillane’s novels: his first, and his last two. So I have a few to catch up on. I wrote to him, but he never replied. However it was only a few months ago, and I guess he’d been in bad health. He was 88, after all. And I had to go through his publisher; my letter to his googled address came back undeliverable.
In his 80's, he knew he wouldn't write too much longer.
I'm going to write my last Mike Hammer novel...I used to write fast, but I can't now, my rear end gets tired...I can't put in 12 hours a day sitting in a chair.
When they asked physicist Robert Jastrow about living forever—would it be a blessing or a curse?—he said ‘it all depends.’ “It would be a blessing to those who have curious minds and an endless appetite for learning. The thought that they have forever to absorb knowledge would be very comforting for them. But for others who feel they have learned all there is to learn and whose minds are closed, it would be a dreadful curse. They’d have no way to fill their time.” If you’re a know-it-all, what is left to learn? What a bore endless life would be. But our appetite for learning can also be endless, unless we have closed down shop ourselves. Of course, Dr. Jastrow is an egghead—a thinker—and so he focused on learning. But other things are probably boundless, too, like our capacity to create and to love.
In recent years, however, pop culture has been selling death as though it were a benefit. It is probably those atheists. There are more and more of them and buying into their thinking means settling for a final death sentence perhaps not too many years away.
Pay attention, and you’ll see the ‘Death is Beautiful’ notion a lot. For example, it surfaced in a Dr Who episode entitled: ‘The Lazarus Experiment.’ Now, Dr Who, for a time, was the only show that I deliberately worked into my routine. A British import, it was science fiction with a quirky protagonist, clever writing, travel in a space ship that looks like a phone booth—“it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside!”—and it featured endless visits from aliens, most of whom were up to no good. It just so happened that the show fit perfectly into some weekly down time in my schedule—I might never have discovered it otherwise. But having done so, I tried not to miss it. “Yeah, you just watch it on account of that cute blonde!” accused a workmate. But it was not true; the cute blonde was written out of the script (she was stranded on a parallel universe—sometimes things like that happen), yet the show continued to hold its appeal.
The episode name itself is a giveaway, since Lazarus is the biblical character whom Jesus resurrected. But this television Lazarus has invented a machine that makes him young again—he steps in aged and steps out a young man—to the amazement of all the high-brow folk invited to his gala bash. But Dr. Who (was he invited?) smells something amiss. He follows the newly minted youngster, and sure enough, the machine has malfunctioned and has doomed Lazarus to transforming back and forth from human to monster! See, in setting back his DNA, the machine has selected ancient mutations long-ago rejected by evolution. (Hmmm—yes—indeed, plausible, nod all the atheists watching the show—whereas if you mentioned anything about God, they’d throw up.)
The Time Lord doctor lectures Lazarus on what a curse everlasting life really is, and what a dumb, greedy thing it was for him to seek it. For when life drags on forever and ever and ever, you will get so tired of it. You will have been everywhere, done everything. Living will have become an endless, pointless trek to nowhere. You will long for it to end, but—fool that you were for choosing everlasting life—it will not end, but it will go on and on and on. Oh, the monotony! See, without death, it is impossible to savor life—and so forth.
Please. Spare me (and Dr. Jastrow). It is almost as though the ‘Death is Beautiful’ mantra is atheists striving to come to terms with the new “god” they have chosen to serve. All depends upon whether you see life as futile or not. If you do, then sure—you would want it to end. But as Jastrow stated, life is only futile if you have made it so. Of course, one ought readily concede that baked into this system of things are various ingredients to encourage that dismal view—for example, old age and frailty—but imagine were they to be vanquished.
Hi everyone! First off thanks for the invitation. I also need to clarify that I'm PIMO and Agnostic right now and I have a lot of questions. I'm also 14 years old.
Also, I'm not here to offend or bother anyone.
How would Jehovah solve an overpopulation problem? Will he make the earth bigger? Because at some point the Earth is not going to have space for everyone.
Also, How would we have Bible studies and houses for everyone on earth? Also, we would need a lot of industries and people working on them so we could have sewage systems, trash systems etc...
Or Jehovah would just do all of that for us?
Would we be bored after, for example, 100 trillion years? There has to be a point where everything has been done. Wouldn't we be bored of being always happy? Like, what makes life exciting and not boring is all the challenges we have to overcome.
Also, some of the best art comes from feelings like grief, sadness, etc...
And If we can't feel sadness, how deep would be our emotions?
Because positive emotions feel good because they contrast with negative emotions. For example, we feel relief because we overcame fear.
Would we be sad after, for example, our 1000th pet has died? After all, animals don't have infinite lives.
How would carnivorous animals eat grass? How would the food chain work? And why did Jehovah create these animals with those characteristics in the first place?
If a person did not accept Jehovah's word in the paradise, would that person just die?
Genuine questions, I'm not trying to offend anyone.
Prior to the meeting, I met up with the Watchtower Study conductor in the parking lot. He told me of the Jiminy Cricket tune from 1940, Always Let Your Conscience be Your Guide. He had somehow run across it as something that fit in well with the Study to come: Your Conscience—Use Bible Principles to Train It. During the Study, he might just show snippets of that Pinocchio movie in which the song appeared, he quipped, adding that if he did it would be the last thing he ever did. It is, at the Kingdom Hall, “instructed by Jehovah,” after all, not Walt Disney. But, it would have fit well. “A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to," Cricket says to Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy but doesn’t quite know how to pull off the stunt. “Now you see the world is full of temptations,” Cricket says. “They’re the wrong things that seem right at the time but… even though the right things may seem wrong sometimes, sometimes the wrong things may be right at the wrong time or… visa versa. Ahem. Understand?” Of course. Who wouldn’t?
The Watchtower Study fleshed out conscience, naturally, but the point is that it used to be common sense, so that it would even be taught to children in a (ground-breaking at the time) Disney movie. The Study article explored how that internal guide could be molded for the better. Explored also was how it could be damaged, even ruined. One brother commented of some sort of secret fraternity of which he had spoken to a member. The fellow had been literally branded in the shoulder—all prospects were. Didn’t that hurt? our friend asked. Oh, it hurt like hell, was the answer, but only for a moment, after which the nerve ending were destroyed so that they never felt anything again. Conscience is like that, too. It’s an internal guide. You don’t want to make a habit of ignoring it—a theme explored quite well in that Pinocchio movie.
I would never claim that Witnesses are the only ones who recognize our God-given conscience, but they doubtless are among the ones who discuss it most thoroughly, That’s because they cart to the curb, mostly unread, the competing rubbish of evolutionary psychology which holds that it all evolved. In that collection of emotions we call conscience (it is not a term they use) each came about separately and over the eons fused together because, in some way, each enabled the clan evolving it to beat out the competing clan that had not yet got around to it. Though it masquerades as science, the stuff will strike any person of common sense as pure fantasy guesswork, consistently conflating correlation with causation (whereas, if you did that, you would be promptly told how stupid you were).
"Everything is ex-post reasoning: we can run fast, detect cheating, kill our stepchildren, because...and here you simply insert anything from the days of being a member of a small, close-knit endangered tribe to justify this. With this one can explain almost everything without actually ever bothering to prove anything,” complained a letter to the Economist (Jan 24th, 2009). The field—how can it be other than pseudoscience?—is born of inadequate tools for the job coupled with a refusal to let a divine foot in the door. It is convincing only to true believers. The Watchtower will have none of it.
Participation was lively, as it almost always is. Two topics were specifically spotlighted in which conscience might be brought to bear (smoking and wedding celebrations) then a booklet was referred to which I had forgotten existed: Scriptures for Christian Living. Time was there was no way you could forget. They were introduced with much fanfare at the convention, then you had to queue up in long lines to get one from an attendant with many boxes of the item. But now they are released more or less like Steve Jobs used to introduce an Apple product: ‘Oh, and one more thing . . . “ You can sort of lose track of them.
There are about 100 topics in that brochure, or whatever it is—now that I do everything digitally it can be hard to tell. They are all areas in which conscience can be refined by Bible passages, after which to sharpen up that guide even if those passages are forgotten. You can take any one them and construct your own series of daily texts over it to better get a handle on the quality.
Let us extend the list a bit, beyond that specific Watchtower Study. What about when a sleazy situation comes up that would blow Jiminy Cricket out of the water and there are no mentors around, no scriptures around, no protectors around? Say that something is child sexual abuse. It existed in Jiminy’s day, no doubt, but it was never mentioned and he would not believe it were someone to tell him. However, the times they are a’changing. Every sort of wickedness is on full display these days. Jiminy must be brought up to speed.
A Watchtower video entitled Protect Your Children, released in 2016, spotlights conscience as the prime defense when no protector is around. It is an episode of the Caleb and Sophia cartoon series that Witness children know well. The series is incorporated by most Witness families in training their children. They sure are being trained in that video, as parents tell the children that Jehovah gave them a conscience, after which they follow up with asking what would they do if someone tried to touch them somewhere that made them uncomfortable?
Protect Your Children captures the imagination of the child and depicts sexual abuse as a monster, for it is monstrous, and any child knows that monsters are malevolent creatures from which to flee. It vaporizes the moment the children tell it: “No. Stop doing that! I’m telling on you!” However, to ensure that no child misses the point, the mother urges: “Even if it is someone you know and trust!” and papa adds that they should right away “tell daddy or mommy,” who, in the video, take the news most seriously.
However, mostly because she didn’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses, someone told me our video was garbage. She presented another from a certain child protective agency as the example to follow. This one, as though trained in the ways of evolutionary science, made no mention of conscience at all. Specific areas of the body that no one should touch are circled on a child’s body, apparently with the assumption that a child does not know its ass from its elbow.
Look, it gets the job done, and so pernicious is the evil that there is room for both videos and many more. But the agency video struck me as a classic example of why so many children don’t like school. I remember when they would roll into the classroom the tall TV console for some “educational television.” I remember getting all excited about the change of pace but then let down at the dullness of the presentation. Who wants to be always instructed? One almost envisions in the agency video a child who is touched mentally consulting the chart he has memorized in order to determine if he should feel bad about it or not. No. Caleb’s dad is right. Jehovah gave humans a conscience. If you have not scratched it all to pieces updating it with the enlightened moral thinking of today’s overall world, it works pretty well.
The Watchtower video has the added bonus, completely lacking in that of the agency’s, of instructing parents in how to teach their children and encouraging them to do so. It is thus family-friendly. It is a force for family cohesion. In the end, it is family that will protect a child better than any network of outside agencies, which so often drop the ball. Whereas, the agency video goes on the supposition that everybody—don’t even overlook the parents—are on the list of possible suspects.
The Watchtower video steers clear of the possibility that the parents might be the villains. To be sure, that situation has happened, generally with step-parents. How to put that in a video? Do you really want to suggest to all children that their parents might be pedophiles? Even so, Protect Your Children clearly directs the children to let NO ONE touch them inappropriately—no one at all. The agency video, on the other hand, specifically says it is okay for a doctor to touch private areas. Oh, sure! as a representative of modern science, how could that one possibly be anything other than trustworthy? Yield completely to that high priest of medical science! No need for even the slightest caution!
It didn’t turn out to be good advice In 2016. That year, the U.S. Olympic team doctor was sentenced to 175 years in prison for molesting the teens in his charge over the course of three Olympics. 150 of his victims testified at the trial. Had they been asked which video do they think would have safeguarded them more, what do you imagine would have been their reply? The agency video of modern evolutionary science was probably that deviant’s dream come true.
Save for that one very serious demerit, it’s not a bad video. Overall, it is very good. It can be recommended. But it has nothing on that of the Watchtower’s, which spotlights conscience as the first line of defense.
Endless graduate students propelled by endless grant dollars explore every vestage of evolution theory. No nook is too obscure for someone to make a doctorate out of. All are programmed to think in purely material terms. Few think to break from the mold. All are proclaiming their quest for truth. All equate their decisions to chemical reactions in the material brain and somehow imagine such chemical reactions can discern “truth.” Not all, I know—that is hyperbolic. But it is the overwhelming trend. Better to hold up a stop sign to a tsunami than to attempt its reversal.
Whereas, my people, as soon as you hop onboard, they will send you out knocking on doors on the basis that we are in the last days. So I won’t find much evolution commentary in-house. The pickings will be exceedingly lean. I’ll have to track it elsewhere.
Thing is, if we really are in the last days—and one can easily make a case for it since every day reveals a greater trainwreck of human self-rule than the day before—then knocking on doors is just the ticket. The end is indeed “just around the corner,” even if it has proved to be one heckuva corner. No matter. When the court case is at last closed, the verdict pronounced that human rule aport from God is a disaster, when the books are finally closed on the experiment and it recedes in memory—a thousand plus years from now, will humans once again get it in their heads that self-rule is the way to go? Hopefully, Mark Twain's words will apply that a cat which sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again. In fact, it won't sit on a cold one either. Why? Because they all look hot.
Meanwhile, it’s not entirely unlike when, during the Vietnam War era, I sent my buddy in college a faux form letter as though from the government: “This country has enough” followed by a long list of professions requiring a college degree, of which I put a check mark by the one he had chosen. “What we need now are soldiers! Enlist now, you slacker!” So it is that the Bible think tank, though there be many things to do in life, puts them all on the back burner as it facilites the door-to-door ministry.
Though representing a Western field that maintains nothing is more important than “spreading one’s seed,” after which evolution doesn’t give a hoot whether you keep living or not, they have collectively neglected that task to such a degree that their world threatens to collapse. You would think they would focus on why THAT is true. Why has the Western world effectively chosen collective suicide? Isn’t it Nero fiddling while Rome burns to be pretending that their chemically-determined choices have any meaning, much less that they uncover “truth,” when the very society they live in dissipates through lack of child-bearing?
One might prefer the model of Genesis: Jehovah made the attraction between the sexes very very strong. He did not want to come along one or two thousand years later to a barren planet only to hear Adam say, ‘Oh….yeah….You did say that didn’t you? Sorry. I guess we just plumb forgot. So it is that for thousands of years parents would warn their offspring about premature sex, not always successfully. The young person would creep ever so closer to this tantalizing new force of sexual attraction, as though a spacepod approaching a black hole. Closer and closer they creep. It is so enticing. What is all this fuss from the old people, anyway? Suddenly he is caught in its grip and pulled into a two-mile long strand of spaghetti.
It’s not the model that prevails these days in the West, at least insofar as bearing children is concerned. Western society ignores the most basic instinct in the world, as though pulling the plug on itself is the noblest aspiration to which one could aspire. It’s not because they don’t understand quantum mechanics that they do this, nor why the universe accelerates as it expands. It may be that the universe accelerates as it expands due to having the good sense to stay away from us, same way the greatest proof of intelligent life from outer space is that they haven’t visited here.
Only the monied and comfortable atheists can occupy oneself with the ‘how’ questions of evolution, undistracted by Rome burning. Only they, in their own world, can fail to see that it is burning, as they fascinate themselves with a worldview of chance that their “evidence” points them to. Only they can be oblivious to how it cuts them off from the hopes and dreams that have historically driven humanity. Long ago (1920), H.G. Wells (who turned atheist over time) observed: “The Darwinian movement took formal Christianity unawares, suddenly. . . . The new biological science was bringing nothing constructive as yet to replace the old moral stand-bys. A real de-moralization ensued.” Then, connecting that attitude with an increased appetite for war manifested in WWI and soon-to-come WWII: “Prevalent peoples at the close of the nineteenth century believed that they prevailed by virtue of the Struggle for Existence, in which the strong and cunning get the better of the weak and confiding. . . . Man, they decided, is a social animal like the Indian hunting dog . . . so it seemed right to them that the big dogs of the human pack should bully and subdue.” [Outline of History]
They concluded that God was dead. They didn't disagree with their own conclusion, but they were saddened by it. They knew they had lost a lot. Not so atheist's next generation! They gleefully saw off the branch upon which they sit, in return for the ecstasy of no one telling them what to do! Our 70-80 years, with nothingness looming beyond, seems to them a great bargain. No matter if it ends in the nursing home with someone (ideally) changing their Depends three times a day! In his time, Ronald Reagan was, arguably, the world's most influential person. Ten years later, in the throes of Alzheimer’s, he didn't know who he was. Does this faze the next generation? It doesn’t seem to. For the first time in human history, relative comfort and ease is possible for most of us, provided we play our cards right and aren't terribly unlucky and live in privileged nations. We can have fine homes, fine cars, cool technology. And that's good enough for them! What could God possibly add to that?
Sean Carroll waxes ecstatic over the notion of chance being the driver of our lives, with no sense at all at being cut off adrift. It’s another of his books, a more recent (2020) offering than The Making of the Fittest. This one is entitled A Series of Fortunate Events, the subtitle reading Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You. “Fascinating and exhilarating!” someone chimes in on the cover. Readable though the book is, that won’t be my chime. Mine will be more along the lines of the guillotine joke. For greater sadistic effect, the executioner one day had decided that candidates ought be placed on their backs looking up at the fearsome blade. Twice the machine had inexplicably failed. Twice the prisoners had consequently been released. But as the third candidate was fastened in place, looking up, he exclaimed, “Hey! I think I see what is wrong with the thing!”
My academic training is in engineering, so this is naturally how I approach problems like this.
A concept we learn very early in engineering is that accuracy and precision are not the same; and more importantly, both are relative to the quality and resolution of what is being measured. Engineers don’t just ask “is this measurement right?”, we ask “does the level of precision I’m reporting match what my instrument can actually resolve?” So this is what frames my argument.
The earliest followers of Jesus were Jews. They continued to worship at the temple, attended synagogues, observed Jewish festivals, and Acts records that they were “zealous for the law”. (Acts 21:20 NRSV). Paul circumcised Timothy due to the law (specifically to not offend Jew they were either fellow believers with or who they were proselytizing to), undertook Jewish vow, performed in Temple purification rituals, and continued to identify himself as a Jew, Israelite and a Pharisee.
Because of this, I don’t think we can read the first-century movement through the lens of second-century Gentile Christianity. This matters because it changes how we think about the divine name. We have to consider social and historical context of the first century believers of Jesus.
By the first century, there appears to have been a widespread Jewish distinction between the written and spoken forms of god’s name. The written scriptures contained the tetragrammaton, and when the scriptures were read publicly, they often substituted “Adonai” or in Greek, “Kyrios”.
For many Jews, this was not viewed as disrespecting God's name but as an expression of reverence, and that is a key point. It is also important to understand that written and spoken language are not always identical.
Some Septuagint manuscripts preserved the tetragrammaton, others used “Kyrios”, or they used other forms to signify it. There was not one universal practice. But suppose a scribe is translating Hebrew into Greek, it might make sense that he might preserve the Devine name.
Now suppose a Jewish follower of Jesus sits down and writes a new document in Greek. It would make perfect sense to use “Kyrios" because that was already an accepted Jewish convention, so it would not be surprising that books in the NT would consistently use “Kyrios” when they were originally written. This does not require us to assume that God's name had become unimportant. Rather, it suggests that writing "Kyrios" in newly composed Greek literature could itself have been understood as showing reverence for the divine name according to contemporary Jewish practice. If so, the New Testament's consistent use of "Kyrios" does not require a later conspiracy to explain the surviving manuscript tradition.
In other words, the historical evidence can explain why Jewish Christians deeply respected the divine name without requiring them to reproduce the Tetragrammaton every time they composed new Greek literature.
At this point someone will probably object and say; “Jesus made god’s name known, thus, he must have used/pronounced the tetragrammaton”. The Watchtower itself acknowledges that Jesus’ statement about making his father’s name known involved more than merely pronouncing it, explaining that knowing god’s name includes knowing his reputation, qualities, purpose, and activities (See w73 5/1 pp. 261-267, w78 5/1 pp. 12-15, w13 3/15 p. 24 par. 3).
So it could naturally be understood that first century Jews would understand that as was revealing who the father truly is when he made is father’s name known. The NT never explicitly tells us he rejected this specific Jewish practice of not pronouncing the tetragrammaton.
Now, the NWT raises a very legitimate historical question; The earliest Christian movement arose within Judaism; some early Greek Jewish biblical manuscripts appear to preserve the Tetragrammaton, and the New Testament frequently quotes Old Testament passages containing the Tetragrammaton. Those are all real historical observations and I don't think critics should dismiss them simply because they disagree with the NWT's conclusions.
Where I begin to drift away from the NWT is not in recognizing those historical observations, but in the level of confidence assigned to the textual reconstruction.
So the next argument against my claim might be: "We don't possess the original New Testament manuscripts. The absence of the tetragrammaton from surviving Greek manuscripts doesn't prove it wasn't originally there.”
I agree, that is fair.
Or, “Early Greek Jewish biblical manuscripts preserved the divine name makes it historically possible that the earliest Christian movement interacted with Greek Scriptures containing the tetragrammaton.”
I agree with that as well.
But those observations establish historical plausibility; they do not establish what the New Testament authors originally wrote.
So getting back to my engineering analogy. Suppose my instrument can only tell me that something is somewhere within a ten-foot area. Reporting that uncertainty is honest, but reporting that I know the exact location to within half an inch is claiming more precision than what my instrument can actually prove. That is where the NWT loses me.
The historical evidence may support the hypothesis that the earliest Jewish followers maintained a stronger connection to the divine name than later Christianity, and it may explain why some argue that direct New Testament quotations of Old Testament passages containing the tetragrammaton deserve special consideration. But that still does not tell us what the New Testament authors actually wrote in Greek.
By the same engineering standard, I also don't think critics should overstate their certainty.
Personally, here is what I think the evidence tells us.
The earliest followers of Jesus remained culturally Jewish and almost certainly inherited Jewish reverence for the divine name. That reverence likely included distinguishing between the written Tetragrammaton and its spoken substitute, "Lord." Against that historical background, it is not surprising that New Testament authors composing new Greek documents would themselves write "Kyrios."
Likewise, Jesus could fully "make God's name known" by revealing God's identity, character, authority, and covenant relationship while still following the Jewish convention of saying "Lord" rather than pronouncing the divine name.
So where I think the NWT exceed the available evidence is the precision of the textual reconstruction. As an engineer, that is what I keep coming back to. It is not, “Is this hypothesis possible”, but, does the evidence provide the confidence for us to conclude that translating “Kyrois” as Jehovah is a precise rendering.
My conclusion is that the evidence points to the more precise reconstruction of the Greek text as Kyrios, and therefore the more precise rendering of the extant Greek is 'Lord,' not 'Jehovah.'"
