Well, we've had countless snafoos with President Trump. First there is the problem of what the word "would" meant. Trump says he meant to say "wouldn't". The only problem is the word "wouldn't" doesn't fit in with the context with the rest of what Trump was saying. But I made a mistake in the previous blog below this one. I talked about "From the end of WW II to 1980" and it looked like I was saying the economy was languishing during this time. What I meant to say was that this is the base mark to measure from before Reagan's economic policies took effect. I can now see how my mind was working but it came out rather awkwardly. But I'l leaving it as it was. But then there is the problem of whether "no" rally mean "No". The reporter who asked him the question about whether Trump is going to address the election meddling problem maintains that the President meant "No' in response to her question and she says Trump repeated that "No'" to her looking right at her. And then Trump moved on to another question. But there is wiggle room as to what the President meant. Maybe he did mean "I won't answer any more questions on that topic", which in his own way is just as bad. Then yesterday there was another Presidential misstatement. Everyone was surprised by Trump's twitter announcement that he's invited Vladimir Putin to the White House. Maybe we should paint the White House a bright canary yellow just for the occasion. One lady I talked to this morning says if she were in the White House she'd paint it a baby pink. Maybe I'd paint it lavender. Anyhow- - -Trump is definitely "as yellow as a summer squash" as the saying goes, when it comes to Putin. As far as I know Congress hasn't taken action on the Doug Cavana hearings yet. They are skipping their summer recess, you know. Mc Connell wants to have the Justice sworn on by the beginning of the new Court term on the first of October. I think it would be an excellent idea to go ahead and take their vacation and get a take on what the people actually feel on issues.
I have no problems on an employer asking you what you earned on your previous job. But I at the same time would say I have every right to talk with fellow employees about what my salary is as opposed to theirs. Comparing notes is one of the primal drives of self preservation. This is why I'm against the "No competetion" rule in schools. Comparing your grades to so and so is one of the fundamental ways in which you gauge your place in society. It's like comparing genitals in the shower. People do it as a matter of course to see how they measure up.
Now they are saying that all twelve boys on that Thai soccer team knew how to swim. From what I heard they even thought about swimming out before the tide got too high. I also heard that rather than fight for the first to leave the cave, they were afraid to go first for fear of what might happen to them and they looked around for a volenteer guinea pig to go first and see how they fare.
I wanted to talk about the Book of Acts in the new testament. I have told you my biggest hurdle in belief in Christianity and the Church (the two seem to go hand in hand) is that I can accept people thought they saw Jesus after he died. I'm sure this sort of thing occurs a lot where you see someone that looks like someone else and you convince yourself it was the person who died. Or for that matter it could have been an angel. Justin Martyr did not even believe in a physical resurrection, just like the Jehovah's Witnesses don't. They believe it's all a spiritual thing. In the first speech at Pentacost in the Book of Acts, Peter says "Look at our brother King David. He died and his grave is with us to this day. This can be for no other reason than to say that the general resurrection has not occurred yet or basically "Nothing has changed". But I have a problem with the events occuring in the Book of Acts how and when the book claims they did. It claims that the first martyr Stephan was martyred in AD 37 or after the church had been around seven years. St Paul had his conversion in AD 41 and was "three years in Saudi Arabia being instructed by the Lord". Then from AD 44 to Ad 58 or fourteen years later (according to Galations) St Paul has his main ministry. I want you to focus on these year perameters. Because in that time the Church "began in Jerusalem and spread to Samaria and then went eventually to Rome itself" where Paul had not yet visited. I'll get to the rest of what I was going to say later but right now I feel like taking an extended break.
So what about all of these "faithless" people who want to late-date the book of Acts and the epistles of Paul? One TV evangelist about twenty years ago remarked about the "tunnel"that the Church went into about 58 AD and it emerged about 120 AD. I would say at least that and maybe 135 or so when Andonius Pious became Roman Emperor who was more tollarent of Christianity. You hear a lot about Christianity after 135 AD, which is also the year of the second War of Jerusalem where the city was entirely taken over by the Romans. I would note that the New Testament was written in Greek and not Latin, as one would suppose. Also most of the "Churches" spoken of were either in Grece or Asia Minor known as Turkey. The"Churches" center around the ministry of Apolonius of Tyanus who died either 100 AD or very soon afterward. This is probably a coincidence but it's an interesting one. St Paul speaks of visiting the school of Tyanus in his ministry about the time when there would have been a lot of action in that area but in 58 AD it's unlikely that "school of Tyanus" was established. Also Acts gets the order of two false Messiahs mixed up. It's almost as if he were looking "way back" in history when indeed the second of the two false messiahs hadn't even tried to revolt yet, Thudas of Galalee. I would also say that since Justin Martyr wrote his Dialog to the Greeks or whatever apology of Christianity- - - he referred to "the memwires of the disciples of Jesus" without referring to the Gospels either by number or by who wrote them. I find this interesting. Paul spoke of "The gospel" in the singular and by Justin's time it was "the memuires of the disciples". That's a little less vague but still not exact. Interestingly, Justin never seems to have written before AD 144 when Marcion was excommunicated because Justin is always anti Marcion. It's nice to fill in the cracks in our Chronology. Sixty or seventy years is a pretty big hole to fill
I would suggest that the book of Acts and the Epistle were written decades after it was claimed that they were. Of course as you may know Nero is never spoken of in a negative light inthe Bible but only as "Caesar". We hear of "Christians in Caesar's household". It's hard to imagine Christians in Nero's household. It's almost as though these NT writers were not even conscious of the Burning of Rome or blaiming the Christians for it. Indeed if the New Testiment WAS written inthe time of Domecian inthe eighties- - - it would be unusual. Nobody dared utter a word about anything on religion at the time of Dometian. It was in that sixty or seventy year "tunnel" period.
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