There are many intriguing prophecies in the Bible, which have created heated arguments. Take Isaiah 44:28, for example. If it was written in 700 B.C. as many think, it would truly be a miraculous prophecy  since Cyrus the Persian didn’t exist until the early 500s B.C. Needless to say, there is a raging debate over the dating of Isaiah.

Another puzzling prophecy is from Daniel 9:25, which seems to lay out a timeline from a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah comes. It appears to be a reference to the decree of Artaxerxes in 444 B.C. (see Nehemiah 2:1-8). If these weeks referred to in Daniel are taken as groupings of seven years, this timeline takes us up to 33 A.D., the time of Jesus. Nobody claims Daniel was alive in the time of Jesus, so the controversy has to do with the way the weeks are interpreted.

Then there is Ezekiel 26, which is a judgment on the city of Tyre. The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city. People moved from the city to a nearby island in 585 B.C.  Later, Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. tore Tyre down and use its broken structures to build a raised walkway out to the island to attack the people. Again, the controversy is on the dating of Ezekiel, because if it was written as many believe around 600 B.C., it involves miraculous prophecy.

Christians see many prophetic comments in the Old Testament as referring to Jesus. For example, Micah 5:2  suggests it will be Bethlehem from which a future ruler will be born; the indication is that he is an eternal being. Then there are the famous chapters in Isaiah (49, 50, 52, 53) that  Christians apply to Jesus – his life, sufferings, and purpose for his existence. One other interesting set of verses comes from Psalm 22, where it seems to speak clearly of someone’s death by crucifixion, a type of punishment, unknown in the psalmist’s  time.

Of course, the big question here is whether there really were such plagues, and, if so, were they natural or miraculous. Some suggest the Nile turning to blood may refer to red sediment in the late summer which comes down from Ethiopia. When that happens on occasion, frogs abandon the river and bacterial algae pollute the river. Then, when the frogs died, the area ended up with all sorts of gnats, which bred in flooded fields in late autumn.

Flies multiplied like the gnats, carried anthrax to cattle, and people were afflicted with boils from the anthrax. Then hail could be expected in January or February. Often Egypt was hit with locusts in March or April. Another plague, darkness, could have been the result of  blinding sand storms blowing in spring.

So, you can imagine Egypt suffering through disaster after disaster through one terrible year. I’m not trying to suggest there were no miracles involved, but it’s interesting to think about the natural disasters which could have hit one area over the span of a year.

There’s a papyrus called the Ipuwer text that mentions disasters like those reported in Exodus. Take a look at it when you have a chance.

Well, here we go again. This time, less controversy (see the Paul post last week). This one focuses on two peoples who often get confused in the Old Testament.

The Bible is filled with various nations, people, and places which are very confusing because they sound alike. One example of that is two groups of people: the Philistines and the Phoenicians.

The Philistines were an aggressive tribal group that occupied part of southwest Palestine from about 1200 to 600 B.C. They seem to have come from the area of Greece and Crete, ending up in colonies along the Mediterranean coast of Canaan. For a long time they attacked Israelites, and we read about some of the struggles in the stories of Solomon, Saul, and David. It was the fact that they knew how to work with iron that made them tough in battle.

The Phoenicians, on the other hand, lived further north. They were good seafaring people who achieved a golden age between 1050-850 B.C. It was the Phoenicians who set up the important colony of Carthage, which was to become a bitter enemy of Rome in later days. Sometime, read of the terrible wars fought between these two powers.  They’re credited for originating the alphabet and for pioneering the skills of glass-making as well as the dyeing of cloth. Scholars believe Solomon’s Temple and many of its furnishings were based on a Phoenician design.

Paul has a bad rap today. Many see him as anti-woman, and, in turn, they see Christianity in the same light. Is that true? Did he hate women? First, keep in mind that women were treated badly in first century; they were seen as inferior in every way to their husbands. Let’s take a look at two passages which critics of Paul and Christianity use as evidence that he was hostile to women.

The first one is 1 Timothy 2:11-12. He sounds pretty tough here – “she must be silent.” But many people see this as Paul’s dealings with a particular church at a particular time. We see an example of this just a few verses before the passage above. Take a look at verses 8-10 in which men are told to lift up their hands in prayer and women are told not to wear braided hair or pearls. People today recognize these were cultural norms that Paul was dealing with rather than eternal truths for all people of all times. Notice too that says it is okay for a woman to learn, which was quite a change from the society around Paul. In addition, verse 12 says, “I do not permit a woman”; the correct verb form actually is “I presently do not permit.” What he seems to be saying is that women should learn first before teaching others. In the same verse Paul uses an odd word for “authority.” Many scholars believe he is saying it’s wrong for women to “usurp” authority over men. If we put this all together, we get a statement from Paul something like this: “I am not presently permitting a woman to teach in a manner of usurping authority over a man.” This seems far different from the stereotypical picture of Paul as being anti-woman.

The other passage is found in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. It sounds like Paul wants to keep women silent in the churches. But go back just a few chapters to 1 Corinthians 11:5 where Paul says it’s okay for women to pray and prophesy. Again, this sounds like a particular problem Paul was dealing with in that church.

The same writer, Paul, also wrote Galatians 3:27-28, which many people see as a Magna Carta for women. So the attack on Paul and Christianity is not as clear-cut as some would believe.

Many people think of numerology, and they imagine superstitions. But the Bible uses numbers to strengthen theological concerns in an interesting fashion.

Like many ancient peoples, Hebrews believed certain numbers had significance. The following list will give you a brief idea of what they believed: 1 – God, 2 – society, 3 – heavenly, divine, Trinity , 4 – earth, worldly, 5 – man, imperfection, 6 – evil, incompleteness,  7 – perfection, 12 – harmony, completeness, 40 – completing, finishing.

Consider places where these numbers pop up in the Bible. In Genesis 1, for example, there are several repetitions in Hebrew of the number seven as God creates. In Revelation, the number of the beast is 666. You can probably see why. Then there is the number 40, used often in both the Old and New Testaments. Take a look the next time you are reading the Bible and see how often key numbers are used and repeated for a shorthand method of revealing deeper issues.

OK, we have been looking at places/people/concepts in the Bible that have puzzled people. Let’s continue with a reference to how many Israelites were counted in the Old Testament.

There seems to be a problem when the total number of Israelites is discussed during the time of the Exodus. Verses in Exodus 38 indicate  600,000 men. Later references in the book of Numbers (chapters 1 and two) also suggest a similar count. If we add in women and children, we will end up with something like 2 million people. Here’s one way to visualize this number – if all of them were walking two feet apart with 10 in each row, you’d end up with a ribbon of people 75 miles long. That doesn’t seem possible, so alternatives have been proposed. It may be that a reference, for example, to one group of Israelites as 45,000 actually means 45 families/groups/tents. If that’s the case, you would end up with a total number of Israelites around 20,000. That seems reasonable. Another way of thinking about this has to do with the importance of genealogy to the Jewish people. Maybe those vast numbers include the dead with living. If we jump ahead to Joshua 4:13 and read about the Israelites as they crossed the Jordan River, we get a much smaller number – 40,000. One other place also suggests a smaller number. Take a look at Numbers 3:40-43 where there is a census of firstborn — 22,000.

Let’s continue looking at places and terms in the Bible that have confused people through the ages.

Lost tribes of Israel

In 722 B.C. Israel fell to the Assyrian army. Many of its inhabitants were deported to the Syrian territories. This event marked the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. Assyrians had a terrible policy to prevent future unrest in territories they conquered – they deported the inhabitants and brought in others from someplace else in the kingdom.

So the question for some is simple – what happened to the 10 lost tribes? Many have attempted to trace these tribes all over the world. For example, there was something called British Israelism in the 1800s which suggested these tribes somehow had settled in ancient Britain. This idea helped the British become much more pro-Jewish, and in turn led to England’s support for a Jewish homeland after World War 1.

By the way, the people brought into the northern kingdom of Israel to replace the Jews were called Samaritans. The remaining Jews despised them and considered them mongrels, so when Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, his listeners were amazed.

Mt. Sinai

Where exactly was the mountain on which Moses received the 10 Commandments? Traditionally, it’s been located in south central Sinai peninsula. There’s an ancient monastery there that is spectacular. However, there is not one piece of hard evidence to link this site with Moses.  Other verses in the Bible seem to agree – Galatians 4:25 says “Arabia”; Exodus 3:1 plainly says Mt. Sinai is in Midian (Saudi Arabia today). Base Institute, an organization that pursues biblical archaeological claims, makes a strong case for a mountain in Saudi Arabia. You can check out their information on the Internet if you choose.

We are going alphabetically through difficulties in the Bible that have puzzled people for a long time. I’m not sure that my contributions will solve anything, but I hope they make people think.

Here we go:

Jericho

The big question here is whether the walls really did fall down as the Bible reports. Collapsed walls have been found at Jericho, but the debate goes on regarding when this happened. Was this disaster caused by the Israelites or were the walls already down when the Israelites got there? Maybe there will be an answer, but nobody knows right now.

Life spans

The early chapters of the Bible list people who have lifespans of hundreds of years. Is that possible? There are reports from other cultures of kings who had lengthy lives as well (Sumer, Akkad). I read a report that said astronomers had found cosmic rays from a recent, nearby supernova (Vela) which 20-30,000 years ago bathed the earth in radiation. The authors speculated that life spans before this event could have been much longer, but since then our genetic makeup has been damaged. Just something to think about.

We are going alphabetically through difficult Bible stories, characters, and themes. Right now we are exploring the life of Jesus.

Of course, the most crucial question has to do with the resurrection story about Jesus. Did it happen? Let’s start with the minimal facts approach, which focuses only on those data that are so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones.

So here are six of these minimal facts – Jesus died by crucifixion, Jesus’s disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them, the church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed, the skeptic James (brother of Jesus) was suddenly changed, the church started in Jerusalem, and the tomb was empty. Any theory about what happened to Jesus has to account for these six facts.

There have been plenty of alternate theories, but each seems to have problems. For example, some suggest the disciples had hallucinations, which accounted for their idea that Jesus appeared to them. But hallucinations cannot account for the empty tomb or the conversion of Paul.

Maybe the story was a legend that developed over time? But it can be established that those original disciples sincerely believed that the risen Jesus had appeared to them and taught it within a very short period of time after his crucifixion. And they started the church in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, so people in that city would not join a new organization based on a lie or deception.

Then there’s the swoon theory – Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. Instead, he was taken down alive and recovered in the tomb, later appearing to the disciples. Can you see problems with that theory?

Some time in your life you probably need to reach a conclusion about this claim because it was the focal point of writers of the New Testament. There is no room for ambiguity here. Either Jesus rose from the dead confirming his claims to divinity or he was a fraud.

Jesus is the most controversial person in the Bible. Let’s take some time to examine him. Here’s the first blog post on Jesus.

There is much speculation and curiosity over many aspects of Jesus’s life. Let’s start with his birth. What was the star of Bethlehem? From the description and from what astronomers know of the skies back then, it was not a comet, meteor, or supernova.

However, in 3 B.C. there was a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter (meaning they were close to each other) in the constellation of Leo. People who studied the stars recognized Jupiter as a lucky object and a royal star and Leo as the tribal sign of Judah. In addition, the conjunction occurred near the star Regulus, which had something to do with kingship. If you put this all together, you end up with the idea of a king connected with the tribe of Judah in southern Israel. Others note that in 7 B.C. Jupiter and Saturn formed a conjunction in the sky; Saturn had special significance as a protector of the people living in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Plus, this conjunction took place in the constellation Pisces, which astrologers believed foretold important earthly events occurring in the land of the Hebrews.

But Matthew’s account is puzzling since he uses the word “star” when anyone could see that it was two planets. The account in the book of Matthew says that the star “came and stood over where the young child was.” Astronomical calculations show that these planets never stood overhead anywhere in Judea around the time of Jesus’s birth. Why didn’t Herod and his advisers, who knew astrology, understand what was going on?