Category: One Year Skeptic

Reference links:

Jeremiah 23:21-25:38 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 Psalm 84:1-12 Proverbs 25:15

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

What’s of interest today? Let’s see if we can find anything.

False prophets are evil and whatnot: Nope

Visions of good and bad figs which represent, respectively, the people taken into exile and those left behind in Jerusalem: Kind of interesting.

Jeremiah scolds the people for not listening to him and idols are bad: Nope

A prediction that “Israel and her neighboring lands will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years”: Interesting because it’s wrong. According to the internets, the first deportation of Israelites was in 597 BCE and the next (the one which ended the kingship) was 587 BCE. By 538 BCE the forced exile was ended because Darius of Perisa had conquered the Babylonian empire and it was his policy to let people return to their homelands. Thus, the gap between the start of the exile and the end of Israel and the neighboring lands serving the king of Babylon was, depending on how you count, 49 or 59 years. Not 70.

Nations being forced to drink the cup the Lord’s anger: Interesting because there is nothing in the text itself (at least in English) to indicate that this is any more symbolic than many passages literalists insist on taking literally. Do they insist on taking this one literally?

God’s going to cause misery and destruction: Nothing new.

New Testament

What will happen before Jesus comes? The author of 2 Thessalonians lets us know. A “man of lawlessness” must arise.

He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God.

He’ll be evil, of course.

This makes me suspect the Pauline origins of this letter. Paul’s pretty good at repeating the things he considers important (again and again) . If this were a genuinely Pauline idea, I would expect it to be repeated elsewhere. Either that or Paul considers this a minor idea.

I also discovered when searching for ‘Paul antichrist’. That there are apparently a non-trivial number of websites declaring Paul to be the antichrist. I had never encountered that particular train of thought before.

Psalms and Proverbs

Patience and soft speech are good.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 22:1-23:20 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 Psalm 83:1-18 Proverbs 25:11-14

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

I have not been tracking the chronological ordering (or rather, lack thereof) in Jeremiah, but today we have a what seems like a jump back in time. We have gone from the imminent doom of Jerusalem to Jeremiah giving what are, for him, reasonably friendly warnings to the king.

This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent! If you obey me, there will always be a descendant of David sitting on the throne here in Jerusalem. The king will ride through the palace gates in chariots and on horses, with his parade of attendants and subjects. But if you refuse to pay attention to this warning, I swear by my own name, says the Lord, that this palace will become a pile of rubble.

Then we seem to jump forward again with messages about Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim. Quick review. Jerhoahaz was the king taken to Egypt and replaced with essentially a puppet king, his brother Jehoiakim. Although Judah had not been completely destroyed at this point, its kings were pretty much powerless. This makes it seems like Jeremiah’s warning above to an earlier king or, at latest, Jehoahaz before he was deposed. On the other hand, the repeated references to the palace do thematically link the opening warning and the message to Jehoiakim.

In any case, the picture is pretty grim for Jehoiakim. Jeremiah most emphatically does not think he will come to any good. After that, the Lord sends message to Jehoiakim that he will an unmourned death. We then read prophecies again Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin. He does not fare much better in the eyes of the Lord. He’ll die in exile.

Jeremiah then prophecies eventual restoration and lasting safety of his people. Those are most certainly unfulfilled prophecies. Even for those who consider Jesus to be the “Righteous Descendant”, there is certainly some delay in the implementation of this plan:

But I will gather together the remnant of my flock from the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their own sheepfold, and they will be fruitful and increase in number. Then I will appoint responsible shepherds who will care for them, and they will never be afraid again. Not a single one will be lost or missing.

Also, Jeremiah doesn’t like false prophets because they encourage evil. People should not listen to them.

New Testament

New book! I must admit that just from today’s reading, I could go either way on Pauline authorship. That said, the bit in the middle gave me pause:

He will come with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power. When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his holy people—praise from all who believe.

Mighty angels and flaming fire do note seem like standard Paul, and generally thus far Paul has talked about praise given to God, not Jesus (or human praise, but that is generally in a negative context).

Other than that, greetings, thankfulness for the growing faith of the church, and prayers to them all seem typically Pauline.

So now let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say:

Although repeating themes from 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians  reinterprets Paul’s original eschatology, asserting that a number of traditional apocalyptic “signs” much precede the eschaton. 

Many scholars question Paul’s authorship  of 2 Thessalonians. If Paul composed it, why does he repeat — almost verbatim — so much of what he had just written to the same recipients? More seriously, why does the author present an eschatology so different from that given in the first letter? In 1 Thessalonians, the Parousia will occur stealthily, “like a thief in the night.” In 2 Thessalonians, a number of apocalyptic “signs” will first advertise its arrival. The interposing of these mysterious events between the writer’s time and that of the Parousia has the effect of projecting the eschaton further into the future — a contrast to 1 Thessalonians, in which the end is extremely close. 

Scholars defending Pauline authorship advance several theories to explain the writer’s apparent change of attitude toward the Parousia. In the first letter, Paul emphasizes the tension between the shortness of time the world has left and the necessity of believers’ vigilance and ethical purity as they await Christ’s return. In the second missive, Paul writes to correct the Thessalonians’ misconceptions of his earlier emphasis on the nearness of end time.

… Paul rarely predicts specific events in the course of future history, particularly in the vague and cryptic style of 2 Thessalonians.

2 Thessalonians contains a warning that forged letters were already circulating in Paul’s name and ends by insisting that Paul verified his genuine letters with his own signature. Scholars doubting Pauline authorship view the pseudonymous writer as protesting overmuch, but the apostle appends similar comments to undisputed letters. 

The Wikipedia article has more details.

So it sounds like we’re in for vague, not typically apocalyptic warnings in a letter that may or may not be genuinely Pauline.

Psalms and Proverbs

All of today’s proverbs are rather poetic:

Timely advice is lovely,
like golden apples in a silver basket.

To one who listens, valid criticism
is like a gold earring or other gold jewelry.

Trustworthy messengers refresh like snow in summer.
They revive the spirit of their employer.

A person who promises a gift but doesn’t give it
is like clouds and wind that bring no rain.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 19:1-21:14 1 Thessalonians 5:4-28 Psalm 82:1-8 Proverbs 25:8-10

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Jeremiah pulls another stunt, this time with a clay jar which he breaks to signify Jerusalem’s impending doom. More interesting is the setting of this event. Jeremiah makes his point in the valley of Ben-Hinnom. There he conveys these words from the Lord,

For Israel has forsaken me and turned this valley into a place of wickedness. The people burn incense to foreign gods—idols never before acknowledged by this generation, by their ancestors, or by the kings of Judah. And they have filled this place with the blood of innocent children. They have built pagan shrines to Baal, and there they burn their sons as sacrifices to Baal. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!

First off, just to get it out of the way: child sacrifice is terrible. I am glad that Jeremiah and his vision of God are against it. But that’s not why this passage interests me.

I am much more interested in the question of why Judah is turning to these idols (a subject that, sadly, the Biblical authors do not seem to actually address). Although people are far from rational about religion (especially when evaluating its likely truth), they do tend to be rational in so far as their choice to pursue some particular religion or religious act corresponds to some real need.

Throughout the Bible, we have seen God’s chosen people turning to idols. This, to me, indicates that Yahweh was not adequate to fulfill the needs of the people. So why was it that, again and again, the cult of Yahweh was unable to meet the needs of the people (‘cult’ in the technical sense)?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Jewish faith changed dramatically. Perhaps when they were separated from their traditional shrines for Yahweh and for other gods and goddesses, the Jewish people were able to synthesize the disparate ideas into one coherent God (and then bring themselves to think that Yahweh fulfilled all these needs the full time). Without the constraints of physical places of worship, the ideas associated with different shrines were able to flow into each other.

Also, Jeremiah hates his life and Jerusalem is totally going to be destroyed.

New Testament

We end 1 Thessalonians today. A little bit of advice. A little bit of encouragement. Nothing we haven’t seen in the other Pauline letters.

Psalms and Proverbs

Avoid rushing to court. Don’t share secrets even in anger.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 16:16-18:23 1 Thessalonians 4:1-5:3 Psalm 81:1-16 Proverbs 25:6-7

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

The Lord’s declarations of punishment alternate with Jeremiah’s declarations of his confidence and trust in the Lord. Jeremiah insists that the people of Jerusalem observe the sabbath. The Lord instructs Jeremiah to use a potter an example of God’s ability to destroy. This includes a declaration that all God’s promises are conditional.

If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. And if I announce that I will plant and build up a certain nation or kingdom, but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless it as I said I would.

The reading ends after Jeremiah hears he is being plotted against and turns vengefully upon the people he had been trying to get God to save. Somehow, it is not surprising that both Jeremiah and the words he attributes to God share a desire for vengeance and violence.

New Testament

Stay away from sexual sin. Love each other even more than you do already. Live a quiet life and mind your own business (I wish more attention was paid to that one).

After that, we get a brief aside about whether or not dead believers will be resurrected when Jesus returns. Paul says they will. Paul also says something that some take to be further support for the view that he believed Jesus would return in his lifetime:

We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.

This verse by itself is pretty ambiguous, but it does lend support to other verses which imply that Paul believed Jesus would return soon.

Psalms and Proverbs

Come on One Year Bible! You’ve been pretty good so far with the divisions. Yeah, sometimes you divide in the middle of a topic, but usually the divisions are pretty reasonable. Which brings us to today’s reading from Proverbs:

Don’t demand an audience with the king
or push for a place among the great.
It’s better to wait for an invitation to the head table
than to be sent away in public disgrace.

Just because you’ve seen something,

Dividing a reading in the middle of a sentence? Come on! I mean, I know you weren’t the ones to divide the verse in the middle of a sentence, but you could have at least grouped the two verses together.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 14:11-16:15 1 Thessalonians 2:10-3:13 Psalm 80:1-19 Proverbs 25:1-5

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

We’ll keep this quick since I have caught my husband’s cold.

The dialog Jeremiah sets up between himself and God is an interesting one. In this conversation, Jeremiah is the merciful one; he wants to pray for the people to be spared, but God will not let him. God, on the other hand, is bent on punishing the people.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons for this. The obvious and boring one is that Jeremiah wants to defend himself against his attackers. He wants to be able to say something like, “I did all I can; I want to save you all, but God won’t listen.” The more interesting reason I have thought of is that this is a literary device. Each time Jeremiah asks for God to spare the Judah, God can emphasize the degree to which Judah has failed him. Essentially, the dialog between Jeremiah and God acts as a frame for the explanation of Judah’s sins.

In any case, after some more back and forth about the coming doom and gloom (including a pronouncement that Jeremiah should not get married or have children since they will just suffer), there is a bit of hope. The exiled, punished people will someday be brought home again.

New Testament

1 Thessalonians continues to be very personal. Paul talks about the persecution of the believers and his inability to visit them.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today we get some insight about the likely authenticity of these so called proverbs of Solomon:

These are more proverbs of Solomon, collected by the advisers of King Hezekiah of Judah.

Remember that, if we take the Biblical record of kings somewhat seriously, there was something like a couple hundred years (or more?) between Solomon and Hezekiah. Given that period of time, it seems unlikely that all, or even most, of these proverbs are authentic. Instead, it seems more likely that statements of wisdom were attributed to Solomon over the years because he had a reputation for wisdom.

Also, amusingly, all of the proverbs today are about the awesomeness of the king. If this actually was the kind of wisdom Solomon was sharing, it was rather self serving.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 12:1-14:10 1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:9 Psalm 79:1-13 Proverbs 24:30-34

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Just one minute! I thought we were reading Jeremiah, not Job. Jeremiah brings his case before God to ask why the wicked prosper. However, God’s answer is quite different than in Job. In Job, the answer to this question was “I am totally awesome and powerful, and you just don’t get it.” In Jeremiah, God’s answer to the question is that he has abandoned his people.

The result of all this is that Judah and its neighbors will all be destroyed, but they will be restored if they turn to the Lord.

After that God takes Jeremiah through a rather exercise. God tells Jeremiah to buy a loin cloth, wear it, and bury it. Later, God tells Jeremiah to dig the loin cloth up. To no one’s surprise, it is decaying and useless. The point of this exercise is to show how God will rot away the pride of Judah. In that discussion, we get this… interesting bit of imagery:

As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord.

After that we read more fairly standard ranting.

New Testament

New letter! Let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say about it:

1 Thessalonians is Paul’s earliest surviving letter and thus the oldest Christian document in existence. Written from Corinth about 50 CE to a church that Paul, with his companions Timothy and Silas (Silvanus), had recently founded, it is remarkable chiefly for its eschatology, particularly the urgent expectation of Christ’s Parousia and the resurrection of the dead.

… 1 Thessalonians is remarkable in showing how quickly essential Christian ideas had developed and how thoroughly apocalyptic Paul’s message was. Referring to the Parousia in now fewer than six different passages, at least once in each of the letter’s five brief chapters, Paul makes the imminence of Jesus’ return his central message. 

Harris comments that this letter also contains a good dose of Paul’s standard self-justification of his authority even though he seems to have a friendly relationship with the Thessalonian church.

The Wikipedia article notes that some people consider some passages in the letter to be interpolations by later authors.

On to today’s content! Greetings are followed by praise for the believers in Thessalonia. Their faith in the face of hardship has earned them quite the reputation amongst believers in the region. Paul then recalls his visit and the way he and his companions lived while there. Amongst other things, we learn that they had not been treated well at Philippi and they worked to earn their keep while in Thessalonia.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverbs talk about the evils of laziness. The message culminates in the lines,

A little extra sleep, a little more slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit;
scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.

These lines show the difference between an agrarian economy and a modern economy. While it is certainly true that laziness can bring ruin in a modern economy, we have come into a world where it is much easier to overwork. As a farmer, the amount you could work was limited by the seasons and by the available light. Yes, you might have to work as hard as you possibly could during the times you could work, but there were times when you could not work at all.

Applying this advice to a modern worker, however, could be disastrous. These days, it is possible to work to the point where you destroy your health, well being, and relationships with others. Both the nature of the work and modern conveniences such as electricity make this possible. In that setting, taking this advice too much to heart would be damaging and unhealthy.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 10:1-11:23 Colossians 3:18-4:18 Psalm 78:56-72 Proverbs 24:28-29

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Epistle to the Colossians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Much of today’s reading consists of a rant against idols. It makes me wonder, how would Jeremiah respond to a world where three major world religions (including his) do not worship images of their Lord (well, Christianity is questionable on that point). Would he find some other equally straw man way to dismiss the claims of Christianity and Islam? Or does he really believe that it is the worship of idols which makes the other religions of his time so obviously false?

Jeremiah, like most of the Biblical authors, clearly misunderstands what idols stood for (they were understood to be symbols of the gods they represented, not the gods themselves). However, he could at least claim that his religion was unique amongst those he was familiar with in not worshiping an image of their God. Modern religions are on much more equal footing when it comes to their claims. (And that, in my opinion, weakens the claims of all of them.)

New Testament

Today we get the Colossians version of the passages on submission. This version has less detail, so it’s easy to see why this isn’t the version that’s commonly quoted.

Whoever divided the New Testament books into chapters choose an odd place to put the split between chapters 3 and 4 of Colossians. The split occurs just after slaves are admonished to obey their masters. The first verse of chapter 4 tells masters to treat their slaves well. This clearly goes with the previous material.

After that, Paul gives some encouragement and then closes the letter. Tomorrow, a new letter!

Psalms and Proverbs

Some good advice:

Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause;
don’t lie about them.
And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me!
I’ll get even with them!”

Reference links:

Jeremiah 8:8-9:26 Colossians 3:1-17 Psalm 78:32-55 Proverbs 24:27

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Epistle to the Colossians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Today I want to focus on the end of the reading:

This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I, the Lord, have spoken!

“A time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will punish all those who are circumcised in body but not in spirit—the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, the people who live in the desert in remote places, and yes, even the people of Judah. And like all these pagan nations, the people of Israel also have uncircumcised hearts.”

I believe we may have found another one of those passages which deeply influenced Paul. Paul uses both the idea of boasting only in one’s knowledge of the Lord and the imagery of being circumcised in body but not in spirit.

Paul’s use of this imagery in Jeremiah is interesting. First, it helped provide a connection between the Hebrew scriptures and the message that he was preaching. By giving his message the shine of tradition, he probably was giving it additional legitimacy.

The the existence of this Pauline imagery in Jeremiah also points out a larger point, one that I think that Christians often miss. Many of the ideas which are considered Christian actually come from the Jewish tradition that Christianity spun off of. The ideas of Jesus and Paul are not nearly as radical as they seem. The ideas that seem radical when compared against the New Testament caricatures of the Pharisees often have root in Jewish tradition. Whether it’s the idea that religious observance is pointless if the heart is not in the right place (as both Jeremiah and Isaiah express) or the idea that people should not boast about their own strengths but instead should boast about their relationship to the Lord, many seemingly Christian ideas evolved from a Jewish context. (And many of the ideas that did not evolved from Greek philosophical thought.)

New Testament

Paul describes the way that believers should shape themselves.

Psalms and Proverbs

I think we’ve done this, but it’s hard to know how preparation of fields translates into modern parlance.  In any case, I think we can start our house.

Do your planning and prepare your fields
before building your house.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 6:15-8:7 Colossians 2:8-23 Psalm 78:1-31 Proverbs 24:26

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Epistle to the Colossians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Judah is evil, evil, evil. Amongst their misdeeds: rejection of the Lord, idolatry, insincere religious worship. For this they will be invaded and suffer.

New Testament

This is one of those statements which may very well have a sensible interpretation, but can be altogether too easily abused (e.g., to deny evolution or democracy).

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

In context, this verse seems to be implying that people should not have their heads turned by the ideas that come from human thinking. They should not follow those ideas if they contradict what they have learned from Paul and/or Jesus. That does not mean that ideas from other humans should be rejected. Anyone who thinks about it for a minute would realize that is silly since the Bible does not even talk about all moral issues, let alone all ideas that are applicable to human well being.

Psalms and Proverbs

A good proverb:

An honest answer
is like a kiss of friendship.

Reference links:

Jeremiah 4:19-6:14 Colossians 1:21-2:7 Psalm 77:1-20 Proverbs 24:23-25

Overview of the Book of Jeremiah Overview of the Epistle to the Colossians Overview of the Psalms Overview of the book of Proverbs

Old Testament

Gloom and doom. Disloyalty and destruction. God hates everyone in Jerusalem and will destroy them all. Really, nothing particularly noteworthy.

New Testament

Believers must continue to stand firm in the truth that Paul taught them. Paul’s God given mission is to preach about Jesus, even if it means he must suffer.

After that we get an interesting bit,

I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself.

Now, it may be that “understand” is only an approximation to what Paul is getting at, but I find this statement interesting because so many contemporary Christians claim that no one can understand God’s mysterious plan. Yet here is Paul seemingly saying that the believers should have “complete confidence” that they understand this plan. Curious.

After that, we read a statement of how the believers should continue to deepen their faith and build their lives on Christ.

Psalms and Proverbs

Judges should be fair.