We now come to what I call the "utility" of the Christian Gospel. Does it really transform lives? Is the choice to weather we get "saved" in such a transforming manner up to us or God? Let me leap to my point and say as I did a few weeks back that "Even if I accepted everything in the New Testament as true (Leaving out Revelation to John for the moment) the question is what use it would be to the average person. Because Romans 8:28 says that "All things work out for good for those who are called by God and love God". So the question is that whether its true or not if a person receives personal "signs from God" then it confirms the "Confession of Jesus" they have made with their mouths. Some might prefer "Profession of Jesus". Trump in his press conference yesterday wants us all to think that the things he said were the "Majority oppinion" of Americans in this country. There is a "Majority view" that Shawn Hannity pots forth. So should be now accept the "Saving message" by accepting the Gospel about Trump's brilliant plans to transform America? Would believing Trump's message actually make it So?
There is also a "Majority view" about the Bible and the Christian Church and how it all came into being and basically even the non "devout Christians' basically believe the standard lines about how the Church got started in 30 AD and there it spread out first to Syria and then to Turkey and then to Rome itself. They take this scenario on Faith. But first let's start with the Resurrection. Gene Scott spoke of the Eight Things you need to believe to believe in the resurrection and I personally have doubts about those eight. It was things like Jesus was pronounced guilty by Pontious Pilate and was dead and was buried in a known, accessable tomb. One of the big tag lines of Harry Green and other pastors was the notion that the People of Jerusalem on Palm's Sunday were shouting 'Hosannah" on Sunday and yet this same crowd was shouting "Crucify Him" on Friday. If we accept this as True it is an amazing thing and would seem to imply that they learned something about Jesus' message in those five days that turned their idolization and admiration of him to sheer Rage against him. This is a key area where I believe the simpler explanation is the best. It wasn't the Same Person on Sunday as on Friday. I believe that Judas indeed seek to betray Jesus with money from the authorities. Somehow I believe that the real Jesus made his escape and somehow Judas ended up being caught. One movie, perhaps "Day of Triumph" even mentions Judas being captured by the authorities and almost forced to betray Jesus with threat of imprisonment or death. We need to ponder this possability. It would certainly be "a minority oppinion". Some sources say that the person looked like Jesus when he was being tried and scourged by the Romans, but then while hanging on the cross his face turned into the face of Judas Iscariot. In other words in "becoming Sin for us" he turned into sin incarnate and turned into Judas. We then have the character of Barrabus in the gospels who appears in all four of them but in nowhere else in scripture or History- - who was a "convenient" character who comes in and does his job, his 'role" in the soap opera text, and then departs, never to be heard from again. The concencus seems to be that Barrabus never got saved or became a desciple. One of our eleven blogs is called "Escape from Egypt" but maybe we could have called it "Escape to Egypt" because this is just what Barrabus slash the real Jesus did. There is a place where he is referred to as "That Egyptian". It is my belief that John the Baptist's ministry came AFTER the messiah that John told parables about, that were adopted by the Gospels as belonging to Jesus. In these parables there is much talk about Kings and violence and of "going away on a long trip". It is my belief that this "long trip" was spoken of even by Jesus when he talked with the authorities in John 7 or something when he said "I am going away. You will look for me but you will not find me". He escaped to Egypt and from there went to Rome where he arrived around fifty AD. This pre dates when the Apostle Paul arrived there by his own letters. I have written extensively on this in the past. I believe the Apostle Paul's ministry occurred much later around the turn of the century if not later after the Syrian Church was established and Paul had a far more Marcionite 'Gospel" than what the Syrian "orthodox" church preached. I also believe the crucifixion was done on November 24th 29 AD during a partial ecclipse of the Sun, which explains the three hours of darkness. I'll keep repeating my story and others will go on NOT believing it. We have the example of the cold weather and of the fig tree not being in season. There are various Coptic writings with a few strange things in the texts. There is of course a Gospel of Judas. Here again Judas was another "convenient" character who comes in and performs his function in the text and then disappears and I means Completely disappears- - as in Death, so we don't have to think about him again. So both me and the Bible agree that we have a live Jesus and a dead Judas. The only question is how both got that way.
Now there is a whole other theory that "explains" these mysteries and that is an impostor faking the resurrection. So now we go back to Gene Scott's eight facts you must accept about Easter sermon. Because I don't see anything in those eight "facts", which would preclude an impostor faking Jesus resurrection, much as Stephano Di Mira's death was covered up by a replacing of bodies in the coffin and faked up DNA and finger prints and a "Stephano mask". As I said a few days ago, there are always things about these "sightings of dead people". They are always fleeting. It's always at a distance and no conversation is held with the subject at length. He always seems "a little different" than when he was alive. There is no "contenuity of relationship". If the resurrection accounts in the Bible have anything in common it's that on three occasions the desciples at first failed to recognize it was Jesus whom they were talking to. But then there was some "sign" that the desciples got that they knew it was really him. But here again nobody asks the question of "If you see a dead guy who is alive again why take your eyes off him for one minute but pursue him and nail down a few facts. But with Elvis or whoever these "facts" never seem to be nailed down. These resurrections, just as in the case of Stephano, never have any staying power. All the people on Days of our Lives- - -just figured Stephano was still alive and "at large" once more. But I would return to my own thesis that an impostor is not even necessary for my theory. I have quoted Tassitus or whoever that Historian was- - who spoke of a "Crestus" as being alive after fifty AD. He wasn't spoken of as a belief, but a real live person. I believe something "happened" in the intervening years of Church history, which I have gone into in the past. I have spoken of a "Syrian Church", which was really out of work Jewish Priests, perpetuating their Jewish religion after 70 AD when blood sacrifices were no longer performed but they came up with the idea of an Ultimate Sacrifice for sin- -which seemed neater and cleaner and with a really marketing appeal to the masses, which we call Christianity today.
Saturday bulletin in red. For a third day in a row there is a new song line-up in 'Lover's Question" because of various factors. See the blog post entry for more details. "Mystic Eyes" was slipped in because people said it's hard to find because the compilation that contains it has distribution problems. We spoke a couple of weeks ago about "Out of Our Heads" our compilation. We have six faces of people on the front cover and one of these is Ian Stewart, the stealth Rolling Stone. He is lower center. It's two rows of three people but the two in the center row are squeezed a little tighter so that the corners are more prominent. Mick Ronson is another face, along with Mal Evans, and then there is Yours Truly, and another contraversial guy who was fired and then rehired, and the final face is the guy who's had the most to do with the re-release of this July 2006 compilation. This photo is unchanged from the original but we just wanted to hype the songs more. These people were not all at the same place at the same time. You can see the listings in "Bastille Day" from July of 2006 in "For the Record". Under the category of “Hard to find stuff”
maybe people reading our posting are wondering if we listed “Viva, Las Vegas”
anywhere. It can be found on the Rocca
Rolla posting from June of 2007 on the album LLEPS ETH ESREVER VOL 2. Of course many may scan our listings
wondering whether they might find it on You Tube to find out what some of these
songs actually sound like. For your
information the other Ben E King solo hit “Rose in Spanish Harlem” can be found
in Skeletons From the Closet in May of 2006 on the “Deep Cover” album. Another perhaps even harder to locate
compilation is “Love or Confusion” from March of 2007 which can be found in the
Escape from Egypt posting. “The
Stripper” came out in bold and some of these irregularities can’t be helped
just like today’s additions to yesterday’s “A Lover’s Question” can be easily
spotted because the paragraph is not indented.
Speaking of hard to find things many would like a compilation of all of
Donald Trump’s flaws and failings in his month as President. Stephanie and all the other left wing outlets
are giving you little pieces of Trump’s failings. But it might be nice to have a whole list
like the “35 Articles of Impeachment” thing they did with Bush. In other more banal news I got up at twenty
after five because I was restless. I did
work on computer before six and had Stephanie on a little. April was at the med counter serving Linda’s
many medication requests and then that other lady who barges in speaking
Philipino was talking with April and they were exchanging items. I got my medication with milk and went my
way. Actually April wanted me to be sure
and wake up Bill to get his medication because that seemed important for her
today. I got a dollar cup of coffee at
the liquor store at seven. I was a
little surprised to see that the rains hadn’t started except for a few stray
drops now and then. It was foggy last
night. I took the cup into breakfast as
soon as one brave person had opened the dining room doors. We had oatmeal followed after a long
interlude with a full English muffin, butter and jelly and scrambled eggs. Judy gave me her scrambled eggs, too.
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