There’s a very interesting thing that the authors of the Bible do.
It’s a technique they use, and it’s very subtle.
Most of the time, we readers miss it.
In fact, most people have never heard of it at all.
But it’s real, and it can give us important clues about the meaning of Bible passages.
Here’s the startling truth about . . . the hidden pyramids of the Bible!
It’s Called What?
Sometimes the Bible uses a little-known literary form that most people have never heard of.
It’s called chiasmus.
Whatever does that mean?
We begin to get a glimmer when we consider the origin of the name.
It’s from the Greek letter Chi, which looks like the English letter X.
In a Chi—or an X—there are two lines that cross each other. If you consider just the bottom half of the letter, they form a peak.
One line goes up to the peak and the other descends down.
Like a pyramid.
And that’s what a chiasmus is like, only with words or blocks of texts instead of lines.
A chiasmus is a sequence of elements that can be divided into two halves, with the second half being a mirror image of the first, like steps leading up one side of a pyramid and down the other.
A simple example of a chiasmus is Jesus statement that the “first will be last, and the last first” (Matt. 19:30), which has an A-B-B’-A’ structure.
What’s surprising is now a knowledge of chasmus can unlock the meaning of certain portions of the Bible.
On the Cross, Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice to make it possible for us to be saved.
But what about the people who lived before he made that sacrifice?
How can they be saved? How did his death relate to them?
One outstanding question is how Jesus’ sacrifice could apply to people before it was even made.
Scripture gives us some interesting possibilities . . .
“From the Foundation of the World”?
One image that some have looked to is found in Revelation 13:8, where in some translations we read a description of Jesus as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
If this is the way that the passage is to be understood, it would seem to teach that Jesus’ sacrifice is available to people no matter when they lived in history.
In other words, although Jesus was slain in A.D. 33, from God’s eternal perspective, that sacrifice has been available “from the foundation of the world” and thus able to save anyone in world history.
Is This the Right Interpretation?
Although it’s theologically true that Christ’s sacrifice can save anyone in world history, that doesn’t mean that this is what the passage intends to say.
There is another–better–way to look at the passage.
Was St. James the Just the leader of the early Church–or was St. Peter?
Some claim that it was James, not Peter, who was the leader of the early Church after the time of Christ.
What evidence can they provide for this claim?
And what evidence is there against it?
Which James?
“James” was a common name in first century Judea, and there were several men named James who are mentioned in the New Testament.
Unfortunately, precisely how many Jameses there are many is not clear.
They are described different ways, and it is not clear whether a James described in one passage is the same as the James mentioned in another.
The James who assumed a prominent leadership role in the Jerusalem church after the time of Christ is known as “the brother of the Lord.”
This James is sometimes identified with James the son of Alphaeus, who is also identified with James “the Less.”
However, Benedict XVI noted:
Among experts, the question of the identity of these two figures with the same name, James son of Alphaeus and James “the brother of the Lord”, is disputed [General Audience, Jun. 28, 2006].
Regardless of how this issue is to be settled, there is one James in the New Testament who is clearly not the one in question—James the son of Zebedee, because he was martyred quickly (Acts 12:1-2).
Advocates of the “James not Peter” viewpoint have two major texts that they can appeal to, and neither is very good.
If Jesus died on the cross in A.D. 33 and made forgiveness possible, how does that apply to people who lived before or after this event? (Like us!)
Jesus died on the Cross so that people could be forgiven their sins.
But if he died in A.D. 33, what about all the people who lived and died before that time? Were their sins forgiven?
And if their sins were forgiven, does that mean Jesus’ sacrifice applies to all of history?
If so, does that mean that we’ve been forgiven for all of our sins—past, present, and future—so that we don’t need to go to confession?
How does this all work?
Here’s the story . . .
The Bottom Line
It may seem unusual to put the bottom line at the top of a post, but I generally find it better to state things in a straightforward, literal manner and only then (if necessary) use analogies to help clarify them.
So here’s are the literal facts:
1) Jesus’ death on the Cross made it possible for all human beings to be forgiven of their sins, regardless of whether they lived before, during, or after his time.
2) In order to appropriate that forgiveness, people have to repent and turn to God. When they do so, God forgives them, regardless of when in history they lived.
3) During this life, people have free will, so if they un-repent (backslide, fall from grace, commit mortal sin) then they have committed new sins that are not (at that moment) forgiven.
4) In order to be forgiven of these new sins, they need to once more repent and turn to God. Then they will be forgiven of the new sins they committed.
Forgiveness B.C.
Suppose there is a person living in 800 B.C. Let’s call him King Bob.
Wouldn’t it be great if scientists invented a device that would let us look into the past and see it with our own eyes? Guess what! They have!
Wouldn’t it be great if scientists invented a device that enabled us to have a clear window into the past–so that we wouldn’t just have to read about the past in books?
Instead, with the new device–let’s call it a Time Window–we could actually see events occurring in the past in real time, with our own eyes.
That would be wicked awesome, wouldn’t it!?
The exciting news is that scientists have invented this device!
That’s right! The Time Window is real!
What’s more, they invented it just over 400 years ago, so they’ve had the chance to mature the technology to the point that now it’s really, really good.
For comparison, imagine how good an iPhone would be today if Steve Jobs had invented the first one 400 years ago.
The only problem is that they missed a great marketing opportunity.
Instead of calling it the Time Window ™ they gave it a much more boring name . . . the telescope.
How the Time Window Works
The reason that the Time Window–er, telescope–lets us look into the past and see it with our own eyes is that it takes time for light to reach our eyes. The speed of light is not infinite.
Technically, this means that any time you see anything, you are technically witnessing something that happened in the past.
Since light travels so fast, however, if you see someone across the room pick up an iPhone, that happened only the tiniest fraction of a second ago. In fact, you started seeing it while it was still happening. That’s not long enough ago to make it an exciting glimpse into history.
But things get more interesting when you take a telescope and point it at something really distant.
By Jove!
For example, back in 1609, Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope at the planet Jove–er, Jupiter–and discovered that by it there were several moons.
Now the thing is, depending on where Earth and Jupiter are in their orbits, Jupiter is between 33 and 54 light minutes away from Earth.
Let’s just say it’s an average of 44 light minutes away for the sake of simplicity.
That means, it takes 44 minutes for the light from Jupiter to reach an astronomer on Earth.
So when Galileo looked at Jupiter through his telescopes and saw its moons, he was seeing where those moons were 44 minutes ago.
He was viewing actual history that occurred 44 minutes in the past!
Woo-hoo!
Party Like It’s 1879!
The same thing keeps happening when you look further out.
Back in 2008, scientists used one of their spiffy modern telescopes to capture the light in this image . . .
This is an image of the solar system HR 8799.
It’s got a single star in the middle, and we can see that it has at least three planets orbiting it.
What’s more, it’s 129 light years away from Earth.
This is an image of where those planets were in the year that the apparition at Knock, Ireland took place, that the California Constitution was ratified, and that Thomas Edison unveiled incandescent light to the public.
It’s an image of things happening in that year.
Now let’s look really far into the past . . .
An Earth-Shattering Ka-Boom
Also in 2008, astronomers captured an image of a supernova known as SN 2008D.
Here’s a time-lapse image of the supernova happening, both in x-rays and visible light. Take a moment and watch it:
Hoo-eee! It blowed up real good! (Particularly in x-rays.)
Now here’s the thing: SD 2008D is in the galaxy NGC 2770, which is in the constellation Lynx.
It’s also 88,000,000 (88 million) light years away.
That means that when you’re watching the supernova explode in the images above, You Are Watching an Event That Took Place 88 Million Years in the Past.
That’s right. Dinosaurs were roaming the earth when this event took place. It was the middle of the Cretaceous Era.
So What’s This Have to Do with God?
Historically, many people have thought that the universe was only a few thousand years old, based on the most common understanding of Genesis.
Modern science has suggested that it is much, much older.
If the above picture reveals an event that took place 88,000,000 years ago, then the view that the universe is only a few thousand years old can’t be right.
So what alternatives does we have in resolving this situation?
Here are three . . .
Option 1: We’re Really, Really Wrong
One option would be to say that we are really–desperately–wrong in our understanding of science today.
Either light doesn’t travel at the speed we think it does or SN 2008D isn’t as far away as we think it is–or something.
This cannot be ruled out on theoretical grounds. The best scientific thought of the day has turned out to be really, really wrong before.
But how likely is this?
At this point we seem to have very, very good evidence about the age and dimensions of the cosmos, about how fast light travels and how far away things like supernovas are.
Option 2: God Is Showing Us Fictions
Another option would be to say that, when the world began a few thousand years ago, God created light already en route from what appeared to be more distant galaxies.
If that’s the case, then any event we see that appears to be happening more than a few thousand light years away is a fiction.
Beyond a certain point, we’re watching God’s Imaginary Astronomy Show.
Mixed in with God’s Real Astronomy Show that’s taking place closer to home.
Hmmm.
That doesn’t seem consistent with God’s Truthfulness.
At a minimum, an advocate of this view would need to provide an explanation for why God would do this, why it wouldn’t be inconsistent with his Truthfulness.
Some have tried to mount such an explanation by saying that God created the world with an “appearance of age,” the same way that he created Adam and Eve as full-grown adults rather than babies.
That is the way Genesis seems to depict the creation of our first parents, since they are both apparently created on Day 6 of the creation week in Genesis 1, and since they are married as soon as Eve is created in the second creation narrative in Genesis 2.
If you think that God used evolution to make the bodies of the first humans (of course, he made their souls directly and immediately) then this issue doesn’t arise–at least not in the same way.
But what if you think that God literally created an adult Adam out of earth and an adult Eve out of Adam’s side? Does that provide much support for the “appearance of age” explanation of distant astronomical events?
I have never thought so.
It’s always seemed to me that, if God were to directly create the first humans as adults, there would be a very good reason for that–namely: Babies Cannot Take Care of Themselves.
Without the presence of other humans–or near-humans–to take care of our first parents, they would need to be adults (or at least teens). Either that, or God would have to run his own, direct daycare service, and Genesis doesn’t suggest that he did.
So I can see a reason why God would make the first humans as adults. That’s because of the incapacity to care for themselves that human infants have.
But that doesn’t give us any reason why God would need to plant false dinosaur bones in the ground or false astronomical images in the sky, let alone mix them up with real ones.
He could have just let God’s Real Astronomy Show play in the sky each night.
The sky wouldn’t have had quite as much stuff in it each night, but it would all have been true stuff.
Option 3: God’s Word in the Heavens and in the Bible Is True
The best approach would seem to be the classic one of saying that God’s word in nature and God’s word in the Bible are both true.
They have to be understood in harmony with each other.
Thus if we have good evidence from God’s word in nature that the universe is quite old then that helps shed light on the meaning of God’s word in the Scriptures.
This is the approach taken by the Catholic Church.
Concerning the creation narrative in Genesis 1, John Paul II stated:
Above all, this text has a religious and theological importance. It doesn’t contain significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. Research on the origin and development of the individual species in nature does not find in this description any definitive norm or positive contributions of substantial interest [General Audience, Jan. 29, 1986].
And the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
283 The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man.
These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.
With Solomon they can say: “It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
And:
337 God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine “work”, concluded by the “rest” of the seventh day.
On the subject of creation, the sacred text teaches the truths revealed by God for our salvation, permitting us to “recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God.”
Having said that, I’m looking forward to seeing more events from distant history–with my own eyes–through the amazing Time Window! (Er, telescope.)
Since it was proposed by Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Big Bang has been common in discussions of the existence of God.
The reasons are obvious. The Big Bang looks like a plausible beginning for the physical universe. Things that begin need causes. The beginning of the physical universe would need a cause, which would seem to lie outside the physical universe. This coheres well with the Christian claim that God is a non-physical being who created the physical universe.
The argument has been elaborated various ways, but that’s the basic idea.
It’s basically a version of the Kalaam cosmological argument that uses evidence from modern cosmology to support the premise that the universe had a beginning.
It even resonates with the “Let there be light” moment in Genesis.
I think that there is a proper role for the Big Bang in discussions of God’s existence, but it has to be used with some caution.
Here’s why . . .
“Let There Be Light”?
One temptation is to identify the Big Bang not just as the moment of creation but specifically as the creation of light in Genesis 1. That’s problematic because Genesis does not portray the creation of light as the moment the world came into existence. Let’s look at the text:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
In the text, the earth already exists in a formless and empty state, with a deep of waters that has a surface, which the Spirit of God hovers over. Then light gets created.
So Genesis depicts the creation of light happening when the heavens and the earth and its waters already exist. At least that is how the text depicts it. You can argue that this isn’t to be taken literally, but that only makes the same point another way: We shouldn’t be too quick to identify the Big Bang with the creation of light in Genesis. We have to be careful about mapping Genesis onto modern cosmology.
In fact, Pope John Paul II warned specifically against trying to draw scientific conclusions from the creation account in Genesis 1:
Above all, this text has a religious and theological importance. It doesn’t contain significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. Research on the origin and development of the individual species in nature does not find in this description any definitive norm or positive contributions of substantial interest [General Audience, Jan. 29, 1986].
The Moment of Creation?
There is another thing we need to be careful about, which is identifying the Big Bang as the moment of the physical universe came into existence.
It may well have been. I would love for us to find a way to prove that scientifically.
But we’re not there at present.
We just don’t understand it. The evidence shows that it happened, but not why it happened. We have very little clue about that scientifically—and there may well be no scientific answer. It may be that God just did it, and did it in a way not susceptible to scientific study.
But that’s not the only option. There are others that cannot presently be ruled out on scientific grounds. For example, the visible universe we see today may have budded off of a larger universe that we cannot see, and the moment it budded off may have been the Big Bang. There are other options, too.
Implications
If we one day get solid evidence of something physical existing before the Big Bang, what would the implications be?
From the viewpoint of the Christian faith, if there was a physical universe before the Big Bang then it would mean that God created the universe—from nothing—even farther back in time than we can currently see.
From the viewpoint of discussions of God’s existence, it would mean that one of the premises in the Kalaam cosmological argument would lose its scientific support–unless, of course, new science pointed to a beginning even further back. (And there are those who have argued on scientific grounds that the universe cannot extend back infinitely far in time.)
Losing scientific support from the Big Bang would not disprove the existence of God. It wouldn’t even disprove the Kalaam cosmological argument. It would just mean that the premise in question would have to be supported some other way.
If it were to turn out that the Big Bang was not the beginning of the physical universe then this argument in apologetics would have to be revised.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of, though. Apologetics, like the physical sciences, is subject to revision based on the evidence available at the time.
Plans are afoot, though, for a new set of scientific projects that may let us discern something about the state of the universe before the Big Bang (if there was one). More info here.
It will be interesting to see what the results of these are.
For now, though, the Big Bang still looks like the beginning of the physical universe, and it has a legitimate place in discussions of God’s existence.
It just should not be presented as if we had absolute proof of creation in time, because we don’t.
That’s something that Pius XII pointed out in his 1951 speech.
While hailing the discovery of the Big Bang, he also cautioned that “the facts established up to the present time are not an absolute proof of creation in time, as are the proofs drawn from metaphysics and revelation.”
So, while the idea of the Big Bang is consistent with the idea that the universe was created a finite time ago, and while the Big Bang may be that moment of creation, we should not present this as if it were definitively established.
The divinity of the Holy Spirit was infallibly defined at the First Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, but not everyone accepts the fact that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person–one of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Holy Spirit is merely God’s “energy” or “active force.”
In this video, Jimmy Akin shows a simple and surprising way that you can use the Bible to show both that the Holy Spirit is a Person and that he is a divine Person, alongside the Father and the Son.
Where did the feast of Pentecost come from, what happened on it, and what does it mean for us today? Here are 8 things to know and share . . .
The original day of Pentecost saw dramatic events that are important to the life of the Church.
But where did the feast of Pentecost come from?
How can we understand what happened on it?
And what does it mean for us today?
Here are 8 things to know and share about it . . .
1. What does the name “Pentecost” mean?
It comes from the Greek word for “fiftieth” (pentecoste). The reason is that Pentecost is the fiftieth day (Greek, pentecoste hemera) after Easter Sunday (on the Christian calendar).
This name came into use in the late Old Testament period and was inherited by the authors of the New Testament.
2. What else is this feast known as?
In the Old Testament, it is referred to by several names:
The feast of weeks
The feast of harvest
The day of first-fruits
Today in Jewish circles it is known as Shavu`ot (Hebrew, “weeks”).
It goes by various names in different languages.
In England (and English), it has also been known as “Whitsunday” (white Sunday). This name is presumably derived from the white baptismal garments of those recently baptized.
3. What kind of feast was Pentecost in the Old Testament?
What do baby names tell us about the reliability of the Gospels?
Suppose, one day, you’re reading a historical account of life in Alaska in the 1920s and one of the main characters in the account is named Sting.
“That’s surprising,” you think.
Suppose that Sting is portrayed as married to a woman named Oprah.
“That’s improbable,” you recognize.
Then you read that Sting has a brother named Spock.
You say to yourself: “Okay. Something is wrong here.”
What is it? And what does all this have to do with the gospels?
You might be surprised, but the names of the figures mentioned in the gospels actually provide evidence that they’re true.
Here’s the story . . .
The basic problem
Fundamentally, the problem in our starting example is that the names “Sting,” “Oprah,” and “Spock” do not sound like they come from Alaska in the 1920s.
They sound like the names of pop culture figures from the second half of the 20th century (the 1960s and after, certainly).
There is no way that these names would be plausible in an account of what life was like in Alaska between 1920 and 1929.
Your recognition of this fact shows that you know something about the names that were common at this time–and that you can spot false reports of them.
So what about the gospels?
Linguists have devoted a lot of study to the question of how parents choose the names of their babies.
It’s a regular feature of textbooks on linguistics.
There are definite–but usually unnoticed–patterns to how babies are named.
But the actual ways they are named reveal what is on their parents’ minds–or at least what’s going on in their subconsciouses.
Now here’s the thing: Recently scholars have been looking at the frequencies with which names occurred in ancient Jewish sources, both inside and outside of Palestine, in the centuries before and after Christ.
