The Cultural Divide Between the Ancient Near East and the Wealth of Modern Knowledge/Information -- Where Do We Get Our Answers From Today? What Expands Our Minds the Most Today?

Ancient Israelites used to rely heavily on biblical writings for information about the world, such writings constituted a Holy Answer Book to questions both large and small:

How did heaven and earth and the things in them come to be? See the Creation story.

Why do the sexes love each other so much? Why do women experience great pain during childbirth? Why does it take so much effort to grow crops to feed ourselves instead of us being able to live in a luxurious garden with fruit and green plants we can pluck and eat at will? Why do snakes go on their bellies? Why do humans hate them so much? Where did death come from? Why do humans have the god-like attribute of great knowledge but return to the dust like animals instead of enjoying the other god-like attribute, immortality? Why do humans wear clothes? See the Garden of Eden story.

Where do rainbows come from? See the Flood story.

Will there ever be another Flood like the one in Noahʼs day? —a question of grave concern to people who believed that creation arose in the midst of primeval waters and continued to be surrounded on all sides by water that was held back by divine power, and should that divine power release its grip then creation would be reduced again to its original watery “empty and void” state. See the Creation and Flood stories.

Why are there so many different languages and tribes spread out upon the earth? See the Tower of Babel story.

How did Israel come to have this glorious land of Canaan? See the Exodus story.

Non-Israelite nations invented their own legendary answers as to why the world was the way it was. Where do rainbows come from? A Babylonian legend in The Epic of Gilgamesh says rainbows are the lapis lazuli necklace of Ishtar that she placed in the sky to remind her never to flood the world again. Why do spiders spin webs? Because a seamstress named Arachne challenged the Greek goddess Athena to a spinning contest which the mortal won, but was a little too sassy about it, so the goddess changed her into the very first spider, and said, “O.K., now you can spin all you want.”

Additional answers provided by Israelite legends include the following:

Why are there two great lights (literal Heb. “great lamps”) in the sky that appear and disappear at regular intervals? God provided them so we can measure the time between religious festivals (the Hebrew word for “seasons” in Genesis 1 is used in the Pentateuch to denote religious festivals). The Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, explains the lights in the sky the same way, as timekeepers put there by their high god, Marduk, so that humans can tell when the next religious festival in his honor was due to be celebrated.

Why is every seventh day a sacred day of rest? Because God rested on the seventh day of creation.

Biblical writings also provided answers to questions like, Why are we at odds with a particular nation? Because itʼs in their blood, their eponymous ancestors behaved badly toward us so itʼs little wonder that their descendants still do. Why did we kill and enslave people living in the land of Canaan? Because the alleged son of a son of Noah, named “Canaan” was allegedly cursed along with all of his descendants, the Canaanites, to be the slaves to Noahʼs other sons.

Hermann Gunkel (1862—1932), a German Old Testament scholar, wrote The Legends of Genesis, the first part of his massive commentary on Genesis, in which he points out many cases of OT authors attempting to produce answers to questions of both a global and tribal nature, “The Varieties Of Legends In Genesis”

“The answers to such questions constitute the real content of the respective legends…

“Why has Japhet such an extended territory? Why do the children of Lot dwell in the inhospitable East? How does it come that Reuben has lost his birthright? Why is Gilead the border between Israel and the Aramæans? Why does Beersheba belong to us and not to the people of Gerar? Why is Shechem in possession of Joseph? Why have we a right to the holy places at Shechem and Machpelah? Why has Ishmael become a Bedouin people with just this territory and this God? How does it come that the Egyptian peasants have to bear the heavy tax of the fifth, while the fields of the priests are exempt? The usual nature of the answer given to these questions by our legends is that the present relations are due to some transaction of the patriarchs: the tribal ancestor bought the holy place, and accordingly it belongs to us, his heirs; the ancestors of Israel and Aram established Gilead as their mutual boundary, and so on. A favorite way is to find the explanation in a miraculous utterance of God or some of the patriarchs, and the legend has to tell how this miraculous utterance came to be made in olden times. And this sort of explanation was regarded as completely satisfactory, so that there came to be later a distinct literary variety of ‘charm’ or ‘blessing.’”

“Along with the above we find etymological legends or features of legends, as it were, beginnings of the science of language… Ancient Israel spent much thought upon the origin and the real meaning of the names of races, mountains, wells, sanctuaries, and cities. To them names were not so unimportant as to us, for they were convinced that names were somehow closely related to the things. It was quite impossible in many cases for the ancient people to give the correct explanation, for names were, with Israel as with other nations, among the most ancient possessions of the people, coming down from extinct races or from far away stages of the national language… Early Israel as a matter of course explains such names without any scientific spirit and wholly on the basis of the language as it stood. It identifies the old name with a modern one which sounds more or less like it, and proceeds to tell a little story explaining why this particular word was uttered under these circumstances and was adopted as the name. We too have our popular etymologies. How many there are who believe that the noble river which runs down between New Hampshire and Vermont and across Massachusetts and Connecticut is so named because it ‘connects’ the first two and ‘cuts’ the latter two states! Manhattan Island, it is said, was named from the exclamation of a savage who was struck by the size of a Dutch hat worn by an early burgher, ‘Man hat on!’… Similar legends are numerous in Genesis and in later works. The city of Babel is named from the fact that God there confused human tongues (balal, Gen 11: 9); Jacob is interpreted as ‘heelholder’ because at birth he held his brother, whom he robbed of the birthright, by the heel (Gen 25:26); Zoar means ‘trifle,’ because Lot said appealingly, ‘It is only a trifle’ (Gen 19:20,22); Beersheba is ‘the well of seven,’ because Abraham there gave Abimelech seven lambs (21:28 ff.); Isaac (Jishak) is said to have his name from the fact that his mother laughed (sahak) when his birth was foretold to her (18:12), and so forth.

“In order to realize the utter naĩveté of most of these interpretations, consider that the Hebrew legend calmly explains the Babylonian name Babel from the Hebrew vocabulary, and that the writers are often satisfied with merely approximate similarities of sounds: for instance, “Cain” (Kajin) sounds like the Hebrew for “gotten” (kaniti, ‘I have acquired/gotten,’ hence the legend arose that when Cain was born to Eve she said, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen 4:1); Reuben from rah beonji, ‘he hath regarded my misery’ (Gen 29:32), etc. Every student of Hebrew knows that these are not satisfactory etymologies…

“More important than these etymological legends are those whose purpose is to explain the regulations of religious ceremonials… [For instance, circumcision was common in the ancient world but we Israelites] perform the rite of circumcision in memory of an alleged covenant between our God and our eponymous ancestor Abraham, and also in memory of a story involving Moses, whose firstborn was circumcised as a redemption for Moses whose blood God demanded (Ex 4:24 ff.)… The stone at Bethel was first anointed by Jacob because it was his pillow in the night when God appeared to him (Gen 28.11 ff.), therefore we continue to anoint it today. At Jeruel—the name of the scene of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Gen 22:1-19—God at first demanded of Abraham his child, but afterward accepted a ram, so we likewise sacrifice animals to redeem our first born. And so on…

“Why is this particular place and this sacred memorial so especially sacred? The regular answer to this question was, Because in this place the divinity appeared to our ancestor. In commemoration of this theophany we worship God in this place. Now in the history of religion it is of great significance that the ceremonial legend comes from a time when religious feeling no longer perceived as self-evident the divinity of the locality and the natural monument and had forgotten the significance of the sacred ceremony. Accordingly the legend has to supply an explanation of how it came about that the God and the tribal ancestor met in this particular place. Abraham happened to be sitting under the tree in the noonday heat just as the men appeared to him, and for this reason the tree is sacred (Gen 19:1 ff.). The well in the desert, Lacha-roi, became the sanctuary of Ishmael because his mother in her flight into the desert met at this well the God who comforted her (Gen 16:7 ff.). Jacob happened to be passing the night in a certain place and resting his head upon a stone when he saw the heavenly ladder; therefore this stone is our sanctuary (Gen 28:10 ff). Moses chanced to come with his flocks to the holy mountain and the thorn bush (Ex 3:1 ff.). Probably every one of the greater sanctuaries of Israel had some similar legend of its origin.

“Other sorts of legends… undertake to explain the origin of a locality. Whence comes the Dead Sea with its dreadful desert? The region was cursed by God on account of the terrible sin of its inhabitants. Whence comes the pillar of salt yonder with its resemblance to a woman? That is a woman, Lotʼs wife, turned into a pillar of salt in punishment for attempting to spy out the mystery of God (Gen 19:26). But whence does it come that the bit of territory about Zoar is an exception to the general desolation? Because God spared it as a refuge for Lot (19:17-22).”

“Answers” like those above are no longer assumed to be true.

We moderns have learned the benefits of investigating questions using all possible comparative historical, linguistic, and scientific means, even leaving questions open if those means fail us.

Instead of relying primarily on biblical writings to supply answers, moderns rely on electronic devices that connect us with countless scholarly resources, a worldwide library of ancient and modern writings and images at our fingertips, including sights from space and deep inside matter. Such devices show us the outermost regions of the cosmos as well as whatʼs inside our bodies, illustrating how it works, and even tell us the weather a week in advance. Such devices teach as well as entertain (functions more often served in the past by biblical stories). They also keep us in touch with one another. They have become humanityʼs new place to turn to, like Bibles used to be. Thereʼs much more to read about today and learn than what the Bible says.

Ever since investigations of nature via observation and experimentation, and later, since the invention of telescopes and microscopes, we have turned more toward the cosmos as something that can continually expand our minds and lead to never ending exploration. Studying the book of nature has proven to be a far more fascinating and mind-expanding experience for far more educated people today, than, say, studying the books of the Bible.

We continue to discover new Lego-like ways to stick atoms together and produced new chemicals, new organisms, as well as new machines, new computing devices and robots.

We continue to discover new ways to smash together sub-atomic particles and explore the results.

We continue to discover new ways to gaze upon and measure the effects of stellar explosions, the effects of galaxies colliding with one another, even the effects of entire clusters of galaxies colliding with one another, to discover new energies and forces at work and how they interact.

We continue to discover new ways to study the past, as well as new ways to think about the cosmos and its possible futures.

We also continue to discover new Lego-like ways to stick together stories and characters from the worldʼs writings both past and present to forge fascinating new ones.

Those are what expand the minds of educated moderns today.

Or, as Robert G. Ingersoll, Americaʼs “Great Agnostic” put it to conservative Christians in his day, “We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your moldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this yearʼs fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.” (“The Gods,” 1872)

Israelites and Canaanites. How Different Were They?

Conservative Christians admit that the divinely inspired laws of the Babylonian King, Hammurabi, predate the alleged time when Moses received divinely inspired laws. The Laws of Hammurabi were believed to have been directly inspired or handed down by a god. A picture shows King Hammurabi receiving them, or receiving inspiration directly from a god standing beside him, the sun god Shamash. Later on the Israelites claimed that their leader, Moses, received laws from Yahweh.

Proto-Canaanite script, with its predecessor and main offshoot. From F.M. Cross, “The Origin and Early Evolution of the Alphabet,” Eretz Israel, 8. Jerusalem, 1967

There were also stories about gods directing people how they wanted their temples built that preceded tales in the Bible about Yahweh directing a king of Israel how His temple was to be built. See Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology. The author is a professor at a conservative Christian seminary who concludes that “Satan” was making ancient people do the things that Satan knew in advance that God was going to make his people do later. So the professorʼs hypothesis is that Satan was counterfeiting Godʼs moves in advance. Without employing such a hypothesis itʼs obvious that much of the OT simply fits its milieu, its time, place and culture. Niehausʼ book was quite a source of frustration for a Christian at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary who wrote a paper critiquing it, and concluded the following:

“Niehaus frames his book with bookend chapters that state clearly what he is setting out to show, in particular that demonic activity may be attributing to the similarities seen in the almost parallel appearing texts of other ANE cultures. However, for the reader who comes to the text in most cases from a faith background, Niehaus does not offer an easy path at all to reach the conclusion that God has indeed shown Himself unique and sovereign against the backdrop of the(not real) gods of the neighbors of His covenant people Israel. The majority of the book leaves the reader unengaged as they are not shown a true contrast to what they want to know to be biblical supremacy, showing the covenantal love of the Creator of the universe for His children. Instead, the feeling a reader may walk away with is one of frustration with the lack of differentiation.”

---

Even conservative Christians who date the time of Moses as early as possible, are forced to admit that many aspects of these ancient Israelite tales reflect earlier ideas in the ancient Near East, i.e., earlier creation stories, earlier stories of receiving laws from a god, and earlier stories of babies left in rivers who grow up to be great leaders. The “baby left in a river story” of Moses is similar to that of Sumerian king Sargon I left in a caulked basket in the Euphrates. Even the ancient Greeks had a story about the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, being left in the Tiber but without a basket.

In William Deverʼs book, What Did the Bible Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, he writes that archaeological investigations of Moses and the Exodus have been

“discarded as a fruitless pursuit… the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness. A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C., where many scholars think the Biblical traditions concerning the god Yahweh arose. But archaeology can do nothing to confirm such a figure as a historical personage, much less prove that he was the founder of later Israelite region.”

About Leviticus and Numbers he writes that these are

“clearly additions to the ‘pre-history’ by very late Priestly editorial hands, preoccupied with notions of ritual purity, themes of the ‘promised land,’ and other literary motifs that most modern readers will scarcely find edifying much less historical.”

Dever writes that

“the whole ‘Exodus-Conquest’ cycle of stories must now be set aside as largely mythical, but in the proper sense of the term ‘myth’: perhaps ‘historical fiction,’ but tales told primarily to validate religious beliefs.”

What Did the Bible Writers Know and When Did They Know It is not easy reading. But Dever recommends an anthology by the Biblical Archaeology Society, published by Prentice Hall entitled Ancient Israel, edited by Hershel Shanks — a book that is very readable. Those testifying for Deverʼs book (on the back cover) are: Paul D. Hanson, Professor of Divinity and Old Testament at Harvard University; David Noel Freedman, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of Michigan; Philip M. King, Professor at Boston College and author of Jeremiah; William W. Hallo, Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University; and Bernhard W. Anderson, Professor of Old Testament, Boston University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Like Dever, the above scholars are not a bunch of minimalists nor radical revisionists. But their opinions demonstrate that a literalistic inerrantistic reading of Exodus is not widely held.

See for Instance

• Archaeology and the Exodus by Rabbi Ken Spiro

• As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Whilting

• Another good book is, It Ainʼt Necessarily So by Matthew Sturgis which is an excellent introduction to the current state of archaeological discovery, focusing on its divergence from traditional biblical interpretation.

• In short, the Pentateuch reads like a story “about” Moses, written in the third person, and from the point of view of later editors (as demonstrated by many little phrases scattered throughout the Pentateuch) rather than being a story written entirely by Moses. In fact, whomever wrote the Pentateuch, they did not make any great effort to disguise the fact that Moses “wrote” only select portions, not the whole books, just sections mentions within them. See my online article

• Myth of a Massive Exodus of Hebrews from Egypt and their Overnight Genocidal Conquest

• The Cultural Divide Between the Ancient Near East and Today

• Exaggerations of Biblical Proportions

---

Archaeologically speaking, the change from “Canaanite” to “Israelite” appears to have been gradual, more evolutionary than revolutionary. Did full scale massacres occur? Or are the stories in the book of Joshua yet another instance of biblical hyperbole? Note especially how “Canaanit-ish” the ancient Israelites were, or, how much Canaanite thought and culture lived on via the Israelites:

The Hebrew language is in fact a “language of Canaan,” as says the prophet (Isaiah 19:18), a conclusion amply confirmed by ancient inscriptions. In scholarly terms, Hebrew is a “southern dialect of the Canaanite language.” From its earliest appearance until the Babylonian destruction, Hebrew was written in the Canaanite alphabet.

As with language and the alphabet, so with culture generally: Ancient Israelite culture was in many respects a subset of Canaanite culture. The most powerful and extensive demonstration of this last statement comes from the body of literature uncovered at the site of Ugarit.

The Canaanite King Kirta of the Ugaritic epic with the same name, was called out by his own son who is shown speaking like a Hebrew prophet calling out rulers for their lack of solicitude for widows, orphans, and the poor:

• When raiders lead raids,
• and creditors detain (debtors),
• You let your hands fall slack:
• you do not judge the widowʼs case,
• you do not make a decision regarding the oppressed,
• you do not cast out those who prey upon the poor.
• Before you, you do not feed the orphan,
• behind your back the widow” (vi 49-51).
• — Context of Scripture 1.102 vi 25-53

Another clay tablet reveals something of the Canaanitesʼ family values:

ʽStarting from today I Yaremano give up all my properties to my wife Baydawe and two sons Yataleeno and Yanhamo. If one of my sons treats his mother Baydawe meanly, he must pay five hundred pieces of silver for the king. Beyond that he should take off his shirt, leave it on the doorʼs lock and go into the street. But the one who treats his mother Baydawe with respect and consideration, his mother will give him all the properties.ʼ

SOURCE

---

The Israelites shared with their neighbors the eastward orientation of their tabernacle and temple, the placement of important cultic objects within them, the designation of areas of increasing holiness, rules for access to the Holy Place and Holy of Holies, as well as practices like circumcision and sacrificial offerings. [Dr. Bealeʼs admissions, and heʼs a biblical inerrantist and Evangelical Christian]

They agreed with their ancient neighbors that it was important to appease a high divinity via building a temple, saying prayers, giving praises, having priests and sacrifices, all important to a nationʼs blessing and protection granted from its high god. For instance, after Babylon had been plundered by the king of Assyria, the next king of Babylon interpreted the invasion as a punishment sent by Babylonʼs high god who had been angered by his peopleʼs lack of righteous behavior and lack of worship of Marduk:

“[The citizens of Babylon] had oppressed the weak, and handed the weak into the power of the strong. Inside the city there was tyranny, receiving of bribes, people plundering each otherʼs things, sons cursing fathers in the street, slaves cursing masters, they put an end to offerings [to the gods], they laid hands on the property of the temple of the gods, and sold silver, gold and precious stones. . . . Marduk [the high god of Babylon] grew angry and devised evil to overwhelm the land and destroy the peoples,”
—cf. W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 5.

Ancient cultures also praised their high moral gods in ways very similar to how the Hebrewʼs praised theirs. In a ritual for the Babylonian New Year festival, the Babylonian high god, Marduk, was invoked in this fashion:

• “My lord is my god, my lord is my ruler, is there any lord apart from him?”

• Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II prayed at his accession to Marduk:

  “Everlasting lord, master of all that exists, grant to the king, whom you love, and whose name you name, all that is pleasant to you. Keep him on the right way…You have created me and entrusted to me the dominion over all peoples. O lord, let me according to your grace, which you pour over them all, love your exalted might, and create in my heart fear of your divinity.”

• And in the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, the high moral god Marduk is depicted as:

  “The trust of the land, city and people. The people shall praise him [Marduk] forever…At his name the gods shall tremble and quake…Who administers justice, uproots twisted testimony, In whose place falsehood and truth are distinguished…Who uprooted all enemies… snuffed out all wicked ones…his name shall be the truth!” (Tablet VI:135—36, 146 and VII:39—40, 43, 45, 54).

  He [Marduk] shall be ʽLord of All the Godsʼ…No one among the gods shall [make himself equal] to him.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VI:141 and VII:14

• He [Marduk] established the holy heavens… creator of the earth above the waters, establisher of things on high…who made the worldʼs regions…He created “places” and fashioned the netherworld.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:16, 83, 89, 135

• He [Marduk] patterned the days of the year…established the positions of Enlil and Ea [referring to the rotation of stars in the sky]…made the moon appear, entrusted (to him) the night…assigned to the crown jewel of nighttime to mark the day (of the month)…[Marduk] d[efined?] the celestial signs [for religious festivals]…the doorbolt of sunrise…the watches of night and day.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet V:3, 5, 8, 12—13, 23, 44, 46 [Compare Genesis 1 that tells of Yahweh creating the sun and moon for “signs and seasons,” literally for religious festivals in Yahwehʼs honor, same as in the earlier tale in Enuma Elish. The same Hebrew word translated as “seasons” appears elsewhere in the Pentateuch meaning religious festivals.]

• He [Marduk] made mankind…creatures with the breath of life…creator of all people.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VI:33,129 & VII:89

• He [Marduk] shall be the shepherd of the [Mesopotamians], his creatures.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VI:107

• Creation, destruction, absolution, punishment: Each shall be at his [Mardukʼs] command.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VI:131-32

• His [Mardukʼs] word is truth, what he says is not changed, Not one god has annulled his utterance.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:151—52

• Word of him [Marduk] shall endure, not to be forgotten.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:31—2

• Let them ever speak of his [Mardukʼs] exaltation, let them sing his praises!
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:24

• His [Mardukʼs] beneficent roar shall thunder over the earth.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:120

• [Marduk,] who crossed vast Tiamat [sea goddess] back and forth in his wrath, Spanning her like a bridge at the place of single combat.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:74

• He [Marduk], profound of wisdom, ingenious in perception, Whose heart is so deep that none of the gods can comprehend it.
  —Enuma Elish Tablet VII:117—18

[Quotations from Enuma Elish trans. by Benjamin R. Foster, From Distant Days: Myths, Tales and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1995)]

There are Bible verses that are very similar to all of the praises of Marduk above, including treading down the waves of the sea and defeating monsters.

Further Reading

• Canaanite Religion, Israelite Religion

  As well as this piece:

• The Rise of Monotheism and Israelʼs Theological Worldview [Key Articles That Sum Up What Scholars Are Discussing]

Sharing the Good Nudes, and Bad Neuters, of Christianity (& God's love for harp playing male virgins)

Abstract

Everything You Wanted To Know About Nude, Virginal, Castrated Men in the Bible, and Men “Undefiled by Women.” And Mosesʼs command not to “come at your wives” before meeting God. (Though I donʼt know if that applies to Southern Baptists heading for their annual convention.) Includes mention of the Adamites and the Skoptzie, along with Augustineʼs answer to the question, “What if all men should abstain from all sexual intercourse, whence will the human race exist?” All that and more below.

Sixty residents of the Seminole Health Club nudist camp near Miami comprise a Christian mission that worships twice a week in the nude. According to leader Elijah Jackson, “Weʼre not trying to start a cult here, but I think nudity adds something to Christianity.” — News of the Weird, “Weird Clergy”

In the past another group of Christians worshiped in the nude called “Adamites.” They believed that Jesusʼs grace allowed them to draw closer to God in their nakedness, unlike Adam and Eve who were ashamed and withdrew from God in the garden because of their nakedness. They also cited the verse in which Job reminded his listeners that we all entered and exited life naked, and used that to argue that we will all face God naked. Besides which King David lost his robe in a religious dancing frenzy and danced naked for the Lord. The only trouble I can see with worshiping naked in church is having to set the temperature neither too hot nor too cold and keeping the seats from getting sticky.

Christians who worship naked, and the Bible verses they focus upon, are not to be confused with Russian Skoptzie Christians who focused on Jesusʼs words, “Some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat. 19:12) The Skoptzie avoided the “lust of the eyes” and “of the flesh,” via the use of a knife. All for the kingdom. (Another example of a Christian who made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven was the early church father Origin. Incidentally, he believed in the restoration of all things, except perhaps for the thing he cut off.) Will we behold in heaven naked dancing genital-less men — made eunuchs either on earth by their own hand, or transformed into genital-less angel-like beings after death by God?

The author of Revelation mentions “144,000 men… not defiled with women; for they are virgins,” who are granted a prominent place in front of Godʼs throne to play their harps. Thatʼs what God likes most I guess, harp playing male virgins. (Revelation 14: 2-4)

Old Testament authors seem to concur with at least the necessity of celibacy in the presence of Yahweh, since Exodus 19:15,17 taught that Israelite men must “NOT to come at your wives” prior to “meeting the Lord.”

Paul likewise hailed celibacy as a holy virtue, but added, concerning those who could not rise to practice such a virtue, “it is better to marry than to burn” (a verse not often heard at Christian marriage ceremonies today, I wonder why, itʼs biblical):

“It is good for a man NOT TO TOUCH A WOMAN. For I would that all men were even as I myself. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. [i.e., celibate] But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn… I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. Are you loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. The time is short: it remains that they that have wives be as though they had none… He that is unmarried cares for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit, that you may attend upon the Lord WITHOUT DISTRACTION.” (1 Corinthians 7:1,7,8-9,26-27,29,32-35)

But Augustineʼs commentary on Paulʼs verses is especially ripe:

“In the first times, it was the duty to use marriage. chiefly for the propagation of the human race. But now, in order to enter upon holy and pure fellowship. they who wish to contract marriage for the sake of children, are to be admonished, that they use rather the larger good of continence. But I am aware of some that murmur, ‘What if all men should abstain from all sexual intercourse, whence will the human race exist?’ Would that all would. Much more speedily would the City of God be filled, and the end of the world hastened. For what else does the Apostle Paul exhort to, when he says, ‘I would that all were as myself;’ or in that passage, ‘But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remains that both they who have wives, be as though not having: and they who weep, as though not weeping: and they who rejoice, as though not rejoicing: and they who buy, as though not buying: and they who use this world as though they use it not. For the form of this world is passing away.’” (Saint Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, Sections 9-10)

---

The Latest “Nudes” On the Christian Nudist Experience

Christian Nudist Convocation, Planning their Summer 2008 conference:

The periodic Christian Nudist Convocation took place in July at the Cherokee Lodge nudist camp in Tennessee, and according to a dispatch in Nashville Scene, the group evokes skepticism not only from most Christians (who dislike the flaunting of naked bodies, even if innocently done) but from most Cherokee Lodge members, who see them as too intense for naturismʼs laid-back attitude. One CNC attendee acknowledged that many Christians would not approve of Cherokee Lodge, but to him “Itʼs Jerusalem.” Another compared his work at nudist camps to missionary work: “Some people get sent to Africa, some people get sent to South America and the Lord was like, ‘I want you to go to nudist resorts.’ And Iʼm like, ‘Wow, what an assignment.’”
SOURCE: News of the Weird

“Christian nudists to build village in Florida”
by Phil Barnoti Wahba (Columbia News Service Dec. 6, 2005), www.azcentral.com

Jonathan Palmiter was enjoying a recent Sunday morning stroll through a lush yard full of trees and Spanish moss—naked as was Adam in the Garden of Eden. A 59-year-old born-again Christian, Palmiter was visiting Natura, a development 40 miles north of Tampa, Fla., that, when it opens up next summer, will become the first nudist community for devout Christians in North America.

Natura is being developed over five years and will house as many as 200 people in 50 family houses on 100 acres of land, with room for up to 100 recreational vehicles, according to Daniel Bellows, chief executive of the development. He even envisions a self-contained village with home-schooling and a strip mall.

Christian nudism might sound like an oxymoron, but for thousands of devout followers, living and worshipping naked is at the core of their faith. No one knows how many Christian nudists there are in North America, but the advent of Natura will increase their visibility.

Nathan Powers, a 50-year-old Texan, begins his day praying naked in his backyard. Nakedness intensifies his dialogue with God, he said. “I feel closer to God. Itʼs an act of humility. It is absolutely spiritual.” To reconcile being a good Christian with their need to be nude, many of the faithful turn to prayer and follow their own spiritual path. Some are led away from their particular denominations. Parker, who organizes the annual “Christian Nudist Convocation” in Virginia, a coming-out event for closeted nudists, was raised a Southern Baptist. He is now independent, turned off by Sunday sermons he said were “too hypocritical for one afternoon.”

The lifestyle of these Christians doesnʼt necessarily make them lefties of the 1960s free-love, live-and-let-live mold. They tend to be deeply conservative on issues like homosexuality and premarital sex, and Republican, differing only from other Christians in their need and desire to be naked whenever possible.

“Naked Before God,” cover story in Nashville Scene. Christian nudists hit the church-and the hot tub-for three days of wet and wild worship in the backwoods of Tennessee by Elizabeth Ulrich

The compatibility of Christianity and nudism is detailed in “Nakedness and the Bible,” a self-published book by Canadian author Paul Bowman. The book cites key biblical events, including Godʼs order to the prophet Isaiah to go naked for three years, and states that, contrary to popular belief, Jesus was naked when he washed the feet of his disciples, when he was baptized and when he was crucified and resurrected. “Nakedness and the Bible” states that nothing forbids nonsexual nudity and that misinterpretations of the Bible stem from faulty translations of ancient Hebrew words for nudity. For example, Jim T., Naturaʼs spiritual adviser, and his wife, Shirley, believe the apostle Paulʼs call for modesty targeted ostentation, not nudity. Besides, said Shirley, 55, women in church wearing “designer clothes and $90 haircuts” are the immodest ones.

Christian nudists have long organized their own services and prayer groups. Carolyn Hawkins of the American Association for Nude Recreation, which was founded in 1931, said most of its 270-member clubs offer Sunday services, including one in North Carolina where they are led by a member who is a Baptist minister. Nathan Powers, a 50-year-old Texan, begins his day praying naked in his backyard. Nakedness intensifies his dialogue with God, he said. “I feel closer to God. Itʼs an act of humility. It is absolutely spiritual.”

Jonathan Palmiter was enjoying a recent Sunday morning stroll through a lush yard full of trees and Spanish moss—naked as was Adam in the Garden of Eden. A 59-year-old born-again Christian, Palmiter was visiting Natura, a development 40 miles north of Tampa, Fla., that, when it opens up next summer, will become the first nudist community for devout Christians in North America.

---

Transgender Televangelist: Sister Paula Nielsen the worldʼs first and only transgender televangelist. Unfortunately, Sister Paulaʼs show is only available on the cable system of — you guessed it — West Hollywood.