Who would have thought that Jehovah’s Witnesses were not alone in identifying the archangel Michael with Jesus? That the idea is also found in the writings of Martin Luther and John Calvin? That a host of other theologians have said it too? It was news to me.

Really enjoyed this exhaustive article. Were it not for the Michael/Christ identification running afoul of trinitarian concerns, I think few would care about how JWs define this. It would just be a relatively insignificant quirk of the faith. That’s why I was surprised to see Luther, Calvin and others also make the connection and am not quite sure how they did so without arousing those concerns. It must be they have changed over time?

On higher criticism, I noted separately how Luke Thomas Johnson likened it to a sort of Trojan Horse. Under the historical-critical method, he said, the theologian cannot talk about miracles as Jesus’ resurrection or virgin birth, therefore that restraint has a way of becoming an implied denial.

See link here to chapter 6, by  G. Chryssides 

https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph-detail?docid=b-9781350302716&pdfid=9781350302716.0012.pdf&tocid=b-9781350302716-chapter6

of the book:

The Archangel Michael Beyond Orthodoxies: History, Politics and Popular Culture

which is found: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350302716

Jesus and Socrates--The Parallels: Part 1

Both Socrates and Jesus had a way of buttonholing people, prodding them to think outside the box. Both attracted a good many followers in this way. Both were outliers to the general world of their time. Both were looked upon askance for it. Both infuriated their ‘higher-ups’—so much so that both were consequently sentenced to death. Their venues were different, and so we seldom make the linkage, but linkage there is. As a result of auditing a certain Great Courses lecture series, I found more parallels than I ever would have imagined. Nearly all subsequent points are taken from the lecture “Jesus and Socrates,” by J Rufus Fears.

They were both teachers, Jesus of the spiritual and Socrates of the empirical. They both refused pay, a circumstance that in itself aroused the suspicion of the established system. (Victor V. Blackwell, a lawyer who defended many Witness youths in the World War II draft days, observed that local judges recognized only one sort of minister: those who “had a church” and “got paid”—“mercenary ministers,” he called them.)

Fears may be a bit too much influenced by evolving Christian ‘theology’—he speaks of Jesus being God, for instance, and the kingdom of God being a condition of the heart—but his familiarity with the details of the day, and the class structure and social mores that both Jesus and Socrates’ transgressed against, is unparalleled. Jesus reduces the Law to two basic components: love of God and love of neighbor. This infuriates the Pharisees and Sadducees, because complicating the Law was their meal ticket, their reason for existence. After his Sermon on the Mount, “the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching, for he was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.” Depend upon it: the scribes didn’t like him. Socrates, also, did the Sophist’s work for them, the paid arguers who ‘made the weaker argument look the stronger’ He did it better than they. They were jealous of him.

Neither Jesus nor Socrates encouraged participation in politics of the day. Jesus urged followers to be “no part of the world.” Socrates declared it impossible for an honest man to survive under the democracy of his time. Both thereby triggered establishment wrath, for if enough people followed their example, dropping out of contemporary life, where would society be?

Jesus and Socrates –the Parallels , Part 

Both Jesus and Socrates were put to death out of envy. Both had offended the professional class. Both became more powerful in death than in life. Both could have avoided death, but didn’t. Socrates could have backtracked, played upon the jury’s sympathy, appealed to his former military service. Jesus could have brought in witnesses to testify that he never said he was king of the Jews, the only charge that make Pilate sit up and take notice.

Both spoke ambiguously. In Socrates case, he was eternally asking questions, rather than stating conclusions. His goal—to get people to examine their own thinking. In Jesus case, it was “speak\[ing\]to them by the use of illustrations” because “the heart of this people has grown unreceptive, and with their ears they have heard without response, and they have shut their eyes, so that they might never see with their eyes and hear with their ears and get the sense of it with their hearts and turn back and I heal them.” He spoke ambiguously to see if he could cut through that morass, to make them work, to reach the heart.

What if Jesus were appear on the scene today and enter one of the churches bearing his name, churches where they don’t do as he said? Would they yield the podium to him? Or would they once again dismiss him as a fraud and imposter, putting him to death if he became too insistent, like their counterparts did the first time?

If Jesus is the basis of church, Socrates is no less the basis of university. His sayings had to be codified by Plato, his disciple, just as Jesus’ sayings had to be codified by some of his disciples. Thereafter, Plato’s student, Aristotle, had to turn them into organized form, founding the Academy—the basis of higher learning ever since. Professor Fears muses upon what would happen if Socrates showed up on campus in the single cloak he was accustomed to wearing, “just talking to students, walking around with them, not giving structured courses, not giving out a syllabus or reading list at the start of classes, not giving examination” at the end. Would they not call Security?

Jesus and Socrates—the Parallels: Part 4

…And if by some miracle, Socrates did apply for faculty, which he would not because he disdained a salary, but if he did, you know they would not accept him. Where were his credentials? Yes, he had the gift of gab, they would acknowledge, but such was just a “popularity contest.” Where were his published works?

Similarly, where were Jesus’ published works? Neither Jesus nor Socrates wrote down a thing. It was left for Jesus’ disciples to write gospel accounts of his life. It was left for Plato to write of Socrates’ life. If either were to appear at the institutions supposedly representing their names, they would not be recognized. Shultz, the chronicler of early Watchtower history, recently tweeted that when he appends a few letters to his name, such as PhD, which he can truthfully can, his remarks get more attention than when he does not. He says it really shouldn’t be that way, but it is what it is. Both Jesus and Socrates would have been in Credential-Jail, neither having not a single letter to stick on the end of their name. It wouldn’t help for it to be known that each had but a single garment.

Today people are used to viewing “career” as the high road, “vocation” as the lower. Vocation is associated with working with ones’ hands. Fears turns it around. “Vocation” represents a calling. Jesus was literally called at his baptism: the heavens open up, and God says, “This is my son in whom I am well-pleased.” Socrates had a calling in that the god Apollo at Delphi said no one is wiser than he. Socrates took that to mean God was telling him to go out and prove it. “Career,” on the other hand, stems from a French word meaning “a highway,” a means of getting from one place to another, considerably less noble than “a calling,” a vocation.

We who are Jehovah’s Witnesses are quite used to pointing out that religion has run off the rails. What is interesting from these parallels is the realization that academia has no less run off the rails. Both have strayed far from their roots, and not for the better. Both have devolved into camps of indoctrination.

******  The bookstore

In the main, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no problem with “micro-evolution,” the stuff of bird beak variations that Darwin found on the islands. Where they object to it, it is because of correctly anticipating the truckloads of dogma that atheists will drive through the door it cracks open. 

One can always argue with “macro-evolution” but there hardly seems a point. Plenty of religious people will say: ‘Yes, God created life and he did it by means of evolution.’ Better to focus on ‘abiogenesis,’ the origin of life. Did it happen on its own? Or did it require the “spark” of God? Standing up to macro is probably worth doing, but nothing gets the job done like standing up to spontaneous abiogenesis. This is what the most recent Watchtower publications do, such as ‘The Origin of Life: Five Questions Worth Asking.’ The last book to seriously take on macro was 40 years ago: ‘Life—How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?’

I wrote a book recently entitled: ‘A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen.’ (searchable on Amazon) An appendix section examines the progress that scientists specializing in origin of life have made. As much as I would like to say, ‘just buy the book,’ most of that material is available free, in less polished form, at https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2023/10/he-beat-you-with-nothin-cool-hand-luke-and-the-atheist-search-for-lifes-origin-part-1.html

It fits in the Workman’s Theodicy book because a successful quest to show life came about on its own makes any theodicy, even the theodicy that works, little more than a work of fiction.

I put three appendixes into the work, all items that are relevant to the theme but don’t easily fit into the main narrative. One is the origin-of-life investigations. Then, there is an item on slavery and those who say the Bible condones it. Lastly, there is coverage of a recent book by Benjamin Labatut entitled ‘When We Cease to Understand the World.’ That piece of historical fiction curiously intertwines themes of advance mathematics, quantum physics, world war, and madness. Somehow it seemed to have a place, especially for its contention that the madness took on serious form around the time of the First World War, something that especially resonates with Witnesses. It also fits for its suggestion that when humans pour of full strength all they have to offer (mathematics, quantum physics) it does not negate the ‘man is dominating man to his injury’ verse of Ecclesiastes 8:9 but merely accelerates the chaos. That too fits into the Witnesses’ narrative that God’s universal sovereignty is the prime issue before all creation today.

******  The bookstore

Not too long ago we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Buffalo. FLW is regarded as an artist who brooked no interference from his clients. In one bedroom, the built-in bed was 4 feet long. When the clients complained, he told them it was their own fault. They had insisted upon a closet, so he put it at the head of the bed. Couldn’t he have extended the tail end another two feet? he was asked. There was room. No, he could not, he said, that would mess up the lines of the house.

He also had a phrase of “client-proofing” the house, building in furniture in such a way that it would be impractical for clients to bring in their own. And lastly, this particular client had a lot of books, but FLW wanted them tucked away for appearance sake. He concealed a bookshelf area around the chimney/heat grate which was also concealed. “Wouldn’t that harm the books?” my wife asked. “Not his problem,” the guide answered.

Few clients wanted to see Wright ever again after his work was finished. However, Darwin Martin, the Buffalo client, was an exception. A self-made man, he was in awe of Wright’s talent. When he died, Wright said he had lost a great friend, “and I think he was a better friend to me than I was to him.” This is because, after an initial creative spurt, Wright’s personal life fell into scandal, so that people crossed the street when they saw him coming. Martin saw him through, continually lending him money (which was never repaid), and thus made possible the second half of Wright’s career in which he designed even more ambitious things.

At the guide’s mention of scandal—it involved ditching his family to take up with another woman, a most peculiar one—something clicked. Yet, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and wracked my brains trying. It seemed as though it didn’t involve Wright directly, only someone who was taken in a defrauding by his new weird wife. Wright was taken in by this cultish woman, also, and they prevailed over their own utopian community. The guide was no help to me. She kept track only of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural life, not his private life which got strange.

At last it dawned upon me the next day. It was Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. She had defected to the West in the late 60s. The Indian embassy where she requested asylum, then the Italian embassy where she was quickly transferred, didn’t even know that Stalin had a daughter. A manuscript she had smuggled of life under her father’s Soviet Union made her wealthy. But, raised communist, she knew nothing of money nor how to manage it. unscrupulous ones managed to syphon it all away, the greatest of whom was Wright’s strange wife and the society she ran. She died, if not in poverty, then at least in very modest circumstances. I’ll tell the tour guide about it, should I see her again.

Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are a nightmare to maintain. The architect designed them beyond the technical capacities of the time. Martin’s company, the Larkin Soap company, where he served as right-hand man, at one time the highest paid employee in all America, went out of business during the Great Depression. In time, the house fell into disrepair. It surely would have met the wrecking ball had not another architect bought it just for the sake of preservation. The back quarters—the conservatory and carriage house—actually was demolished, leaving only the home proper. Later, these items were rebuilt to true specifications so that the visitor cannot tell they are not original.

You can’t take pictures inside, however you can stroll the grounds at any time. Had I been permitted to take pictures, I might have shown how Wright liked to “hide the corners” of a room. Take a 15 foot wall, for instance, and build twelve feet of it up front, protruding. It has the effect of concealing the end pieces not protruding. Wright grumbled that Americans “lived in boxes.” He didn’t want his designs to reflect that.

I might, had pictures been permitted, documented how Wright brought the outdoors in via the use of outdoor materials extended inside. And, I probably would have shown the compressed (lowered) ceilings in places where Lloyd didn’t want people to linger—the front porch, for example, where people were either to leave or enter, but not remain. Figuring a man’s home was his castle, Wright worked to conceal the front doors, conveying that you don’t come to visit without an invitation. The ceilings of hallways were compressed, too. People were not to remain there. They were to pass through quickly to join the life in one room or the other.

And yes, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is inspired by Wright’s career, our guide confirmed. This conflicts with the view of another architect I knew who said it wasn’t. However, he probably meant to convey that it was not a biography of the man. It clearly is inspired by him. Wright’s radical breakaway from Louis Sullivan, his former employer, to form his own unique American architecture free from Roman or Greek influence, parallels exactly Howard Roark’s rejection of his day’s traditional architecture. Now that I think of it, Roark was used to channel Ayn Rand’s own peculiar ‘objectivism’ philosophy, and the latter Wright also was attracted to offbeat things and a strong woman who championed them. Maybe there are more parallels than I first thought. Ah, well—a project for another time.

******  The bookstore

You have to have a high tolerance for profanity if you are going to listen to Ani Difranco. Fortunately, I do. In a world in which the f-bomb has become the new “um," one either gets used to it or resigns oneself to not coming out of the Kingdom Hall. I even opined once about Ani that she might be the next Bob Dylan, with the footnote that she is a lot cruder than Bob, but then, it is a cruder age, isn’t it?

So, I was not unduly put off by her song lyrics to a friend that he should “just give up and admit you’re an asshole.” I liked the forthrightness of it. (It may be that the “he” is a “she,” for the singer was lesbian in her early years before going straight and thus infuriating many of her fans.)

And if that one did just give up and admit to being an asshole, what consequences might ensue? Not so bad as one might think: First, “You would be in some good company." Next, the line that his friends would probably forgive him. or maybe she is "just thinking of me." And then she says that she takes the person "as is."

Um—isn’t this setting the bar a bit low? I could be wrong and I freely admit I don’t pick up on every nuance of contemporary song. I was easily the oldest person at that concert the kids brought me to. Not to be dogmatic. Since people can be so much worse, maybe simply admitting you’re an asshole is the new sainthood. Maybe it’s just me who recalls a time when you actually had to do good things to be christened a saint. It does seem to be though, at least to me, one more evidence that that crazy long list of negatives (19 adjectives!) at 2 Timothy 3:1-5 does indeed have special relevance in our time; It's not just the way people have always been.

It is one of her favorite songs, she says. It represents the beauty of forgiveness.

That is a beautiful quality. Trouble is, it tends not to work with an asshole who remains an asshole and who thinks that just admitting he is an asshole is enough. There is something evocative in the lyrics of a generation that demands to be loved but does not attend to what might make them lovable. Forgiveness is a central theme of the Bible, too, but it works best when the basis for forgiveness is understood and the one who is forgiven does not take that forgiveness for granted but makes changes.

******  The bookstore

Jehovah’s Witnesses think the first century congregation represents a major unfolding of God’s purpose toward humankind. It represents just how “Abraham’s seed” is to bring blessings to “all the nations.” (Genesis 12:3, 18:18) Galatians 3:8 ties that seed to the early congregation. It is a new page in God’s handbook, that some from humankind would rule with Christ to bring blessings to the earth, the “twelve tribes.”

Jesus makes with the twelve, who have stuck with him through all his tribulations, the new covenant to be part of this kingdom. (Luke 22:30) It is “reserved in the heavens for you.” (1 Peter 1:4) The focus of the New Testament is on this new development, that some are called to heaven, to rule over the earth. “Have you begun ruling as kings without us?” Paul addresses the unruly Corinthians. “I really wish that you had begun ruling as kings, so that we also might rule with you as kings.” Plainly, not everyone can be a king. Plainly, there needs be ones to be kings over. Enter Revelation 21:

Revelation 21:3-5 picks up on how the seed will fulfill that promise to Abraham of bringing earthly blessings by means of his seed. There, that heavenly arrangement, called “New Jerusalem” (‘old ‘Jerusalem was the seat of government for God’s ancient people) descends from heaven to benefit “mankind” and “peoples.” Those “peoples” and “mankind” don’t go up to the New Jerusalem; rather, the New Jerusalem descends to them.

Paul does refer to a gathering of the “things of the heaven” and “things on the earth” at Ephesians 1:10.

1 Corinthians 15:24-26 relates how, once the kingdom has succeeded in bringing death to nothing, that kingdom itself will be handed over to Christ’s “God and Father.”

Revelation 7:9 tells of a “great crowd” gathered who will survive the great tribulation.) Witnesses associate this group with the “other sheep” of John 10:16.) No sense in gathering them when the great tribulation is yet centuries off. So most of the NT focuses on those with the heavenly hope.

This either resonates with a person or it doesn’t. Jehovah’s Witnesses appreciate that God put humans on earth, which he told them to fill and multiply, because he wanted them there, not because he wanted them somewhere else. The “covenant for a kingdom” is a major revelation in just how he will succeed in that, undoing the negative effects of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. The New Testament is primarily messaging to and from those with and about that heavenly hope.

Jehovah’s Witnesses love the earth, appreciate it as the gift he gives to mankind. (Psalm 115:16) They don’t hope to leave it. They hope to live forever on it once it is restored to God’s original purpose. They appreciate Jesus promise (of the “Lord’s prayer”) that once God’s kingdom comes, his will is to take place “on earth, as it is in heaven.’ (Matthew 6:9) Blessed a the meek, he says. Why? Because they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5)

******  The bookstore

There is a speaker who uses his own children to illustrate the verse. He doesn’t use them specifically, but he has several of them, and the application would not likely have occurred to him otherwise.

‘Say your child approaches mom for an ice cream bar at 4PM, clearly not ice cream time,’ he says. ‘Mom says no. Unperturbed; the child then approaches dad with the same question. Dad says no.’

Searching for someone to tickle her ears—tell her what she wants to hear—but so far, her search is unrewarded. 

He continues: ‘But, if she can find a grandparent . . . ‘

Ah yes, in that case her search will pay off in spades. 

The illustration is a favorite with his children and whenever he travels to give a public talk, they want to know if it is the one where he talks about the ice cream.

As for me, I many times used to explain that if they were to "not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled” and the verse was written long ago, perhaps it also was fulfilled long ago. If so, that would account for how most church teachings are not found in the Bible, at least not straightforwardly. It is the attempt to read them in that causes people to tear out their hair in frustration.

******  The bookstore

"When reparations are made—only after Job has carried out the above instructions and interceded for his former tormentors—there is no question that Job has won his case. He went from everything to nothing and he goes back to everything. His lawyer got him twice what the insurance company said, not to mention (42:13) seven additional sons and three additional daughters.

"Here, [Harold] Kushner chokes. Most today at least would do a double-take. Just how *replaceable* are children? Kushner’s Job-like time-of-trial came when he and his wife lost their son to prolonged and painful illness. Though they subsequently had other children, it’s not as though these were *replacements*. Even the suggestion of replacements in Job’s case strikes him as repugnant.

"How to work this one out? It may be as when, decades ago, an African Branch representative of my faith visited the States and repeatedly made the observation that back home, “life was cheap.” Not that he wished it that way; it was just an unpleasant fact that people adjusted to because they had no choice. Maybe that reality also defined the ancient time of Job.

"This is the same Branch representative who gave a few talks in large assembly and teased his American audience about being “so spoiled.” He marveled how each family here had their own “washing up machine.” He marveled at how each adult not only had his or her own car, but also a garage in which to put that car. “In Africa, four families would live in that garage,” he said.

"Maybe his words supply the answer. The backdrop of Job surely was closer to the backdrop of then-Africa than to America. Maybe to people not spoiled by washing up machines and garages in which to put their cars, maybe to people who have adjusted to life being “cheap,” maybe such people are less inclined to rail at God for deceased children; having long-ago adjusted to the reality that such things happen. Maybe such people thank God for the new children but do not blame him for the ones departed."

From the book: 'A Workman's Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen'--available at Amazon

Did they tell Charles Darwin that God was picking flowers?

Charles Darwin’s favorite child, Annie, contracted scarlet fever at age 10. She agonized for 6 weeks before dying. Also a casualty was Darwin’s faith in a beneficent Creator. The book Evolution: Triumph of an Idea, by Carl Zimmer, tells us that Darwin “lost faith in angels.” That’s an odd expression. Why would it be used?

Did they tell him that God was picking flowers?

Is there any analogy more slanderous to God than the one in which God is picking flowers? Up there in heaven He has the most beautiful garden imaginable. But it is not enough! He is always on the watch for pretty flowers, the very best, and if He spots one in your garden, He helps himself, even though it may be your only one. Yes, He needs more angels, and if your child is the most pure, the most beautiful, happy, innocent child that can be, well….watch out! He or she may become next new angel. Sappy preachers give this illustration all the time, apparently thinking helps.

The picking flowers analogy is nowhere found in the Bible. However, there is a parable parallel in all respects EXCEPT THE MORAL AT THE END. It is the one Nathan told to David after he had taken Bathsheba as a wife and killed her husband.

“The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,  but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!”             (2 Samuel 12:1-7)

This analogy appeals to us. It is just. The man is not expected to take comfort that the king stole his wife. No, he deserves execution! So how is it that preachers have God doing the same, expecting it will comfort? Of course it will not! The man who stole the sole lamb deserves to die! Preachers make a horrific mess trying to extract themselves from the moral corners their doctrines unfailingly paint them into.

How different history might have been had Darwin known the truth about death. Not just Darwin, but every one of his time, as well as before and after. Instead, fed a diet of phony pieties….junk food, really…..he and others of inquisitive minds searched elsewhere in an attempt to make sense of life.

******  The bookstore

“In the absence of a workable theodicy, when people have no clue as to why a God of love would permit evil and suffering, God takes many shots. He took one in an episode of the TV whodunnit series, Dr. Blake. An elderly priest had been murdered. Upon solving the crime in his customary way: with unusual insight, unusual empathy, and unusual flare for getting under his superiors’ skin, Doc Blake finds occasion to enter the church alone at the end of the episode. Is he there because the idealistic younger priest exhorted him not to let his wartime experiences destroy his relationship with God? Nope. Though one anticipates that outcome for a moment, he is not there to make peace with God. He is there to tell God off.

“Yes, I know. It’s been a long time since I was last here,” he begins, after a long introspective silence, during which one imagines repentance. “A funeral, in case you’ve forgotten.” [Uh oh. God—forgets?] “It’s all right. I didn’t come expecting an answer this time [either]. Though I imagine Father Morton [the murdered priest] did. Did he know he was losing his mind [which caused him to reveal confidential confessions in public sermons, which in turn caused a not-too-penitent church member to kill him, lest he be compromised next]?”

“Did he kneel right here and ask you for your help? I’m sure he did. And what did you give him? A sign? Or nothing? All these children—your children—begging you for help. What father ignores his children?” The episode is entitled, “The Sky is Empty.” It is a title that has nothing to do with the plot itself but appears selected only to drive home the “lesson” at the end: there is no God.

“Thing is, it’s not a bad question, that final one. It should be answered. In the absence of a satisfying theodicy, it cannot be. That is why it borders on criminal to withhold that theodicy. With it, the question would not even have had to be asked. The good doctor would have known what can and does happen in a world whose forebears have deliberately severed themselves from God.”

From ‘A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen’