Review: The Dragon King: First Emperor of China (Chronicles of the Watchers, #1) - Brian Godawa

The Dragon King: First Emperor of China by Brian Godawa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I start by saying I have not previously read any of Godawa's novels of this nature. I did read his When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, the Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed which was the historic appendixes from each of the novels in the "Chronicles of the Nephilim" series. So that book was nothing like these novels are.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I RARELY read fiction, preferring deeper studies into things like history, theology and ancient cultures. Well, I guess that is why I enjoyed this story so much, because it was jam packed with all of those topics.

East meets West in this historically driven story of a few Greeks making contact with an Asian culture they never knew even existed. And the things they find there astonish them. Dragons, giants, true spiritual beings unlike the myths they were so accustom to in their homeland.

Review: Making Sense of the Millennium - Douglas Wilkinson

Making Sense of the Millennium by Douglas Wilkinson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was unfamiliar with this author when I began, but little by little started thoroughly enjoying his writing style and pace. The book deals with a LOT more than just the Millennium, so the title can be a bit deceptive. I thought it was going to be millennial heavy, but it was not, it was a concise look at eschatology as a whole, focusing particularly on historic beliefs by Amillenialist and Premillennialists, comparing their views, and weeding out many of their illogical issues.

I love the way he slowly builds and builds upon topics relating to and leading up to the ideas of the millennium, as it lays a very well-laid foundation before he turns to dealing with the logical millennial conclusion in the latter section.

Review: Judaism's Strange Gods by Michael Hoffman

Judaism's Strange Gods by Michael A. Hoffman II
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

OK, I will admit up front, I did not thoroughly finish this entire book. The first portion of the book lays the foundation for the thrust of the book, and the rest becomes page after page of quotes, proofs and other evidence of the strange beliefs of Judaism.

Prior to this, I had read a handful of books and resources showing how those who are Jews today are of no relation to the bloodline of Abraham and the OT Israelite Hebrews, but are in fact simply converts to the religion over the years. So I was already familiar and pretty convinced of the lack of a Jewish "race" today.

Just prior to reading this book, I had read Judaism and Christianity unMasked - Vol 3: The Semite or Rabbi After 70 AD by Jerry Wayne Bernard, where he spoke of the difference in biblical Israelites and Jews, and the origination of the Jew being post Babylonian captivity. Well, this book by Hoffman falls along the same lines and goes further to show how different and diametrically opposed Judaism is from OT biblical Israelite beliefs.

Culturally Understanding the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pt 4

In the prior three parts I have been looking into the cultural aspects and understandings of the actual surface level story of the prodigal son. How would those listening in the first century have understood the finer points of the story? By understanding how they understood it, we can better understand it. Now I wish to examine the underlying story, the application side as it was being directed and applied to those hearing it at the time. Sadly this is not the angle or depth that is taken by most commentators that I examined. The cultural and historical application of it seems to have almost been totally lost in mainstream teachings. As mentioned before, most simply see this is an example of how God welcomes and loves any repentant sinner that comes to him.

The problem I have with that assessment is that it does not fit the relevance of what is being said, to whom it is being said, and doesn’t fit the players in the story. If you recall, this chapter contains three parables, this being the third in the trilogy of stories.  The chapter starts by stating:

And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:2 ESV)

So, we know some of the main people being addressed here by Yeshua are the Pharisees as usual. One thing that people seem to gloss over in the story is that it is two sons and a father - the father and two children already related to him. The father figure in the story represents Yahweh, and the sons are children of God – part of his family in the beginning. And one of the children forsakes the family and leaves.

The Pharisees listening to this story represent those two tribes of Israel that are still serving and maintaining a covenant relationship with Yahweh. They are the older brother in the story. That alone should assist in revealing that the younger son is not representative of just sinners returning to God in general. The one returning is one that beforehand was in close covenant with God – not a stranger to God and the covenant as everyday people coming to God would be.

Culturally Understanding the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pt 3

In the first two parts we looked at the prodigal son himself. His request, his leaving, he ruin and his return. After his return, the attention is then turned to the older son who returns home to the celebration.

"Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. (Luke 15:25-28a ESV)

In their culture, the eldest brother is the one responsible for assisting in the reconciliation process between the father and younger brothers if the need arose. This older brother should have stepped in way back at the begging of the story, and tried wholeheartedly to stop the younger brother from doing what he was doing in breaking the father’s heart to begin with, but he did not.

The older brother was obviously not doing his duty – he was not being respectful to the father or loving to the brother. Now that the brother has returned, he is more upset and refuses to even join the party. In doing so he is showing his hatred of his brother, as well as disrespecting the father himself, and he deserves punishment now himself.

Culturally Understanding the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pt 2

In part one we began looking at the prodigal son parable, covering through where he has left his people, cut all ties and rights to them, took everything he owned and lived recklessly and lost everything. He had nothing left, nowhere to go and of course could not simply call his parents to come and pick him up.he  He knows going home would mean dealing with the ridicule of the rest of the village, as well as that of his brother who now has the rights of the rest of the father’s possessions.

These options are not ones he can bare to deal with, not at this point and time at least. Instead, he chose another route:

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. (Luke 11:15 ESV)

It is the fact that pigs are mentioned here that most commentators say he was living, spending, and now working among the Gentiles. The word here translated as hired in our text, is often translated as “joined to” and comes from the root word meaning to glue or attach. It is used elsewhere to refer to everything from dust clinging (Luke 10:11) to joining oneself with a prostitute (1 Cor. 6:16).

Culturally Understanding the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pt 1

Most people familiar with biblical stories, have heard of the well-known parable commonly referred to as the Prodigal son, which is found in Luke 15:11-32. Now most all bible scholars will tell you that you should never push the symbolism or story line of a parable too far, and that the main thrust of the message is more important that all of the little details one can try to pull from it – and this is true.

And while this is a fairly simple story as far as the amount of details we have, there is still a lot that can be missed simply because we are of a different cultural background than the original hearers.

Lately at our church we have been learning more and more about the cultural surroundings of the first century writings, especially the Hebrew mindset behind them. This same Hebrew understanding needs to be applied to the parables, like this one.

There would be points and details that they would have immediately grasped and story gaps that they would have filled in simply because of their background and understanding. So, I would like to dig into this story a bit, and examine this story in light of some of the cultural surroundings and understandings that may escape us, and to fill in some pieces that we may miss.

Review: The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America: The Missing Skeletons and the Great Smithsonian Cover-Up (Richard J. Dewhurst)

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America: The Missing Skeletons and the Great Smithsonian Cover-Up by Richard J. Dewhurst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was a lot more in this book than I had assumed. For the most part, this whole book is story after story, news clip after news clip, historical document after document, giving testimony to just find after find of "giants" amount the "mound people." These mound people being inhabitants of the North American continent way before the American Indians.

The stories of these findings are so many, it is near impossible to try to ignore them or pass them all off as just a bunch of hoax stories. The evidence is just too overwhelming. Sadly, most in the American (and world) public arena have no clue such history exists. Aside from just the giants found, the thousands of average size people at the same time seemed to have more advanced systems of town life than we might assume.

The bulk of the stories are from the last 150-200 years, so we're not talking ancient history and myths, we're talking reported accounts of these things being uncovered just in the times since Englishmen came to this continent and started digging and plowing things up. I was just overwhelmed by the amount of data contained here.

The Battle is the Lord’s: Where are the Men? Part 4

Well, I ended the last part making the statement that one of the last major rebellions against tyranny and oppression, one of the last major battles for truth and freedom, took place in the middle of the nineteenth century. Properly referred to as the War Between the States – or as it is more commonly known by the inaccurate title of the Civil War. 

Following the war, the government “thinkers” and humanistic “educators” knew that in order to prevent a future war where the people would again take up arms to fight against government tyranny, they needed to weed out the spirit of truth and justice, and to replace it with submission and passivity in the people.

The way they set out to accomplish this was through a compulsory state education system. You see, up until a little while before that time, our country did not have any state sponsored public schools.
In the 1620’s, when the Pilgrims and Puritans came to this country seeking religious freedom, they were products of the Protestant Reformation. So, for the roughly 220 years from 1620 to 1840, American education had a distinct moral character, and stemmed from an almost entirely Christian and Calvinistic orientation.

Review: The Bible's Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing from Your Bible (Joel Hoffman)

The Bible's Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing from Your Bible by Joel M. Hoffman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Overall an interesting read, though with some issues. First, the title, while meant to engage and intrigue the reader, is kind of presenting a false assumption. He is assuming that most any biblical sounding writing should have been included in the "Holy Scriptures," regardless of its content or acceptance in culture and history. While he does not push that issue throughout the book, the implication is still there, and the book falls short of making the case for that implication.

Basically, the book examines a handful of extra-biblical historical writings, and how their inclusion in today's accepted biblical books would have added to the biblical narrative. His analysis of such writings as the Book of Adam and Eve, Apocalypse of Abraham, Book of Enoch, and writings of Josephus provided some interesting insights.