Personal Bible Notes: Exodus Through Deuteronomy

Refer to my 9/25/18 post about the margin notes in my Bible, and why I decided to share them on this blog.  

These are my notes for Exodus:

Chapter 15: This poem is four movements: 1 & 2 looking back, 3 looking forward, 4 the coming of God’s Kingdom at the end.

Movement 1 is 1-5, movement 2 is 6-10, movement 3 is 11-16, movement 4 is  17-18.

16:29: God gave the Sabbath to Israel.

20:8: Christians are not required because it is a sign of the covenant with Israel.

21:22-25: The value of the unborn child.

31:13:  The Sabbath is a sign between God and Israel only.

32:8: compare with Gal. 1:6.

34:14 “jealous”: Jealous to protect what is His.

Notes for Leviticus:

2:1 “anyone”:  Hebrew “living being.”

Chap 11:  “detestable to you”: not detestable to God.

Chap 18: These are pagan practices Israel is to NOT follow, including sexual immorality.

Chap 20: Starts a new context from 19. More pagan practices that Israel is NOT to follow because it will make them like the detestable pagans.

Chap 26: “If, then” covenant.  IF Israel obeys, THEN God blesses; IF Israel disobeys, then God punishes.

Notes for Numbers:

13:32-33: This is an outright lie to discourage the people. The Nephilim were wiped out in the Flood.

21:5: “spoke against God”: see 1 Cor. 10:9.

Notes for Deuteronomy:

1:39: Children don’t know good from evil.

4:2:  Don’t add to, or subtract from, God’s Word.

4:8: Only Israel has the Law.

4:24: Jealous to protect what is His.

5:3: The covenant was not with those prior to Moses.

5:15: The reason for the Sabbath; only between Israel and God.

17:6-7: Witnesses needed for execution.

17:17: Against polygamy.

18:22: The test of a prophet.

22:5 a woman not to wear men’s clothing:  This possibly means not to wear a warrior’s/soldier’s clothing, as per Josephus 4:8:43.

32:16, 17, 21: note the parallels/synonyms: “foreign gods,” “demons,” “so-called gods”

Think About It

There is nothing ini the world so damaged that it cannot be repaired by the hand of Almighty God. I encourage you to know this because without this certainty we should all of us be mad.

Hercule Poirot, Appointment with Death

Personal Bible Notes

I have a lot of margin notes in my Bible, which I’ve either come up with my own thoughts about a passage or gathered ideas from the many commentaries I’ve read or sermons I’ve heard over the years.

I decided that I needed to copy all these notes down in the event I ever lose my Bible, so that I can write them in any future Bible.  Today I was working on my notes in Genesis and I thought perhaps my readers may benefit from them, so as I collect them I will be posting them for anyone who may be interested.  Now, mind you, these are just my notes and not the commentary notes at the bottom of the pages in my Bible (which is The Apologetics Study Bible).

So with that said, here are my notes for Genesis.

1:3 “then”:  Starts earth time.

1:26, et. al. “image”: reflection of God’s spiritual nature.

1:28: “God blessed them”: Reason why he did not curse them later?

2:2 “rested”:  Rested to demonstrate that His task was complete.

2:3 “holy”: “holy” means “set apart.” Set apart for what? Not told.

2:4 “LORD”: YHWH — God’s personal name for relationship.

2:9 “knowledge of good and evil”: The power to decide what is or is not one’s best interests.

2:15 “work it”: Hebrew means “cultivate” — this becomes worship.

2:15 “watch over it”: Hebrew means “keep” it — this is spiritual service.

2:18 “helper”: One who comes along side as God is Israel’s helper.

2:24 “This is why”: Defines marriage.

3:3 “or touch it”: Eve added this.

3:6 “too”: Hebrew means “took away,” “carried away,” “removed.” This tells me she was alone when she took it from the tree and took it to Adam.  He was not there when she talked with the serpent.

3:17: God did not curse Adam & Eve as he did the serpent.

3:21: “God made clothing out of skins”: animals were sacrificed by God.

4:1,2: Hebrew implies a twin sister to Cain. “had a male chid”: “had” means “acquired.” Hebrew is a play on words with Cain meaning “faithful to God.” Abel is really “Hebel” in Hebrew, meaning “steam” — passing away quickly, and probably given after death vs a birth name. Hebrew implies Abel had 2 sisters, i.e. triplets. 

4:3 “Cain presented some”: i.e., not the best.

4:7: “If you do right…”: Refutes Calvinism.

6:2: “sons of God”: Augustine and Chrysostom started the idea they were human.

8:22: refutes the idea of man-caused climate change.

9:1: Directed only at Noah and sons, not to everyone in the world.

9:3:  Eating animals is now okay.

9:22: Old Jewish tradition says that Ham castrated Noah to prevent a 4th son to share inheritance, which is why Noah cursed Ham’s 4th son.

12:8 “worshiped Him”: Hebrew means public proclamation of truth, i.e. “public reading.” Luther said “preached the name of the Lord.”

22:11, 12 “the Angel of the LORD”… “from Me”:  Theophany, pre-incarnate Jesus. Obviously the “Angel” is God.  

22:14 “will be provided”: Word is ambiguous; could also mean “will be seen”— both are true. 

24:50: “answered” is singular but two are there. Literally, they were together but Laban answered for his father, usurping his father’s role. That’s why Laban’s name is first.

25:27 “quiet man”: literally “upright, blameless”

27:45 “Then I will send for you”: Sent nurse, as noted in 35:8.

31:29:  “the God of your father”: Not Laban’s God!

31:53: Laban is an idolater.

35:8: Deborah had been sent to tell Jacob that Esau had “cooled”

37:3 “robe of many colors”: Hebrew literally means long coat with full sleeves, as with royalty.

38:9 “whenever”: i.e., this happened often, not just once; God gave him a chance obviously.

38:15 “covered her face”: A veil was what a bride wore on her wedding night; prostitutes imitated this.

41:16: God interprets dreams, not man.

48: 2 “sat up in bed”: “leaned on top of his staff” is more accurate.

Gail Riplinger’s “New Age Bible Versions”

I read this book the first time when I bought it back in 1996 because the title intrigued me. By the time I finished it I had decided that the author was seriously in error. A few years later I decided to go through it in detail to mark errors and even began to write a review. Time has a way of getting away from me and I never got it properly done.

So, back in January 2013 I began a chapter-by-chapter review of this book with the object of posting it on this blog. My objective was to look at each individual claim Riplinger made against each individual passage from “new” Bible versions when compared to the KJV.  It was an arduous task to get through the first 23 Chapters!

Chapter 23 finishes on page 350 of the book. There are a total of 42 chapters, and epilogue, and three appendices. I have decided to end this quest due to the horrendous amount of time it takes when the rest of the book has the exact same problems as the 23 chapters already finished, so one will not learn anything new about the author even though you won’t get to see the non-problems with the specific passages she addresses.

The main problems with Riplinger are pretty much summed up as follows:

She uses excessive diatribes and rhetoric, as well as just plain foolishness.

She exudes paranoia.

She uses much vitriolic nonsense.

She abuses scripture by taking passages out of context.

She either fails to understand context or simply disregards it.

She misrepresents other versions.

She promotes conspiracy theories.

She makes unwarranted assertions, suppositions, and assumptions

She claims to know what Satan is thinking.

She makes complaints about writing style.

She makes ad hominem attacks and unsubstantiated claims against people and organizations who have connections to new Bible versions.

She claims other versions are hiding references to Satan.

She is very dishonest in her claims, especially when handling texts used for comparisons.

She lacks understanding of basic logic.

She lacks understanding of word definitions.

She exudes extreme anti-Catholic bigotry and paranoia.

She claims that Roman Catholic meanings are in new versions.

She dogmatically claims that her interpretation of Revelation is the correct one.

She libels people and organizations.

She practices eisegesis.

She has a lack of understanding Greek.

She makes many proven-false charges.

She practices much equivocation.

For quick reference to those interested in this topic, here are links to all the chapter reviews already posted:

An Examination to Come

Introduction

Chapters One and Two

Chapter Three

Chapters Four and Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine, Part 1

Chapter Nine, Part 2

Chapter Ten, Part 1

Chapter Ten, Part 2

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16, Part 1

Chapter 16, Part 2

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Good, Bad, and Ugly

The Good:

Why did God create satan if He knew Satan would cause evil?

“Social Justice” is NOT a Gospel issue.

The Church, Sexual Immorality, and Fake Christianity.

Ham’s sin, Canaan’s curse, and the African experiment.

Laughter is Good Medicine.  Look closely at the memes!

The Gigantic Problem Beneath the Really Big Problem.

Why the Apocrypha Isn’t in the Bible.

The Bad and/or Ugly

Prayer, by Tim Keller.  More bad teachings from Keller; don’t buy the book.

Now it’s Satan’s fault that the Catholic bishops and priests were caught. I guess if Satan didn’t expose them, then everything would have been okay?!?s. Another take says it looks like the victims are being used as Satan’s accusers.

Teachings coming from The Gospel Coalition are getting worse by the day.

If your pastor does this sort of nonsense, find another church. This isn’t an issue which needs to be brought to anyone’s attention in the assembly.

I couldn’t care less about the issue of prayer in public schools; if you fight for prayer, then who’s God will be prayed to?  But homosexuality, abortion, as well as the “transgender” lie are indeed important moral issues. These “Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists” and Anglicans are all worshipping another god and a socialist, apostate “Jesus."

Pat Robertson: another rank false prophet who leads people astray. Jesus will probably say to him at the end, “I never knew you.”

Matt Chandler just can’t keep to the Christian faith without attacking those who disagree with his politics; he is betraying Christ.  Chandler really seems to not understand what the Bible teaches! He is pure seeker-sensitive/market-driven mentality.

Eastern Orthodoxy — Don’t even try to tell me this is Jesus’ church!

Bill Johnson, and his ilk, betray Jesus by leading people into occult practices.

Music In the Assembly

Two weeks ago (the last time we were at the assembly at which we currently worship) we walked into the auditorium to hear, very loud, some female CCM singer’s recording blaring.  I couldn’t understand what her virtual screaming was about, but I can tell you it is totally inappropriate for churches to do this!! For the next 20 minutes, until the service began, my wife and I wore earplugs (she keeps them in her purse because this assembly continues to have their band microphoned totally unnecessarily) and people were practically yelling at each other in conversation. It is unconscionable that any pastor or music leader would subject their congregation to this.  But this is the second time we’ve encountered such nonsense since we began attending in early 2015 (but we’ve missed many Sundays, so who knows….?)

Today one of the songs we sang (new to me) was certainly not designed for congregational singing, due to the difficult tune and the bridges for the band. While the lyrics were okay, it was definitely designed for performing, and therefore should not have been used, let alone with the loud band.

Another song, new to this assembly (because the song leader sang the first verse first for us to learn it) was another performance song, albeit with an easier tune.

Church leaders are driving away older members of their congregations while appealing to the younger generation who have been raised with loud music (and most of them are becoming hard-of-hearing). This is so very wrong. If anyone in your assembly needs ear plugs, then your are WRONG in what you are doing.

Too much of a spectator mentality has entered the assembly.  Many modern songs promote the band and song leader while the singing in the assembly is either drowned out, or that many don’t even know the songs. Then when there is “special music” with soloists or small groups (and sometimes even the choirs) the “audience” applauds them when they finish, as if they were there for a concert performance.  This applauding nonsense often takes place in our assembly when the pianist plays for the offertory. Does she play well? Certainly, but she was not playing to entertain!

The spectator mentality entered the Church through the seeker-sensitive and market-driven ideology which has betrayed Christ by focusing on non-believers.  Many new buildings are constructed with the auditorium resembling a concert hall, with stadium seating, huge stages, massive amounts of stage lighting, etc. This is a horrid ideology!

Whereas the leadership and overall teaching at this assembly is good, we have begun to attend only every other week due to the volume and caliber of the music.  If things don’t change (and I have complained about the volume, obviously to no avail, and the last time they had the canned music for pre-service I commented about it to the music leader, who laughed me off), we may have to start an impossible search for a solid, non-legalistic, fundamental assembly out of town (already searched in town).

Pastors and “worship” leaders: is this really what you want your assembly known for?  Is this ideology really worth having members leave?