Sunday Sermonette: Laying down the law

Acts 15 represents an important event in the history of the Christian church. It's probably a reasonably accurate description of what happened, either witnessed directly by the author or told to him firsthand. The apostles have been struggling with how to reconcile evangelism to the gentiles with Jewish law and tradition, so at a church council in Jerusalem they decide to make a partial break with Torah law, decreeing that it is not necessary to be circumcised to join the Christian community, nor to follow much of the law with four exceptions:

". . . abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood." 

 KJV has "fornication," rather than sexual immorality, but apparently the Greek is not specific. The other three items may seem a bit mysterious, but essentially they require people to break with certain pagan practices. "Food polluted by idols" means sacrifices to pagan gods. The bit about blood and strangled animals has to do with the Jewish dietary laws, which required animals to be slaughtered by cutting their throats so the blood would drain out. Note that this decision directly contradicts numerous statements by Jesus as recorded in the gospels that people should follow more of the Torah law, but obviously it was necessary in order to recruit gentile converts.

 

Nowadays of course many Christians do eat blood, in the form of blood sausage. Modern secular slaughtering is normally by a blow to the head, and while the blood is drained it is not done thoroughly and non-kosher meat does contain a modicum of blood. This prohibition is not observed by most Christians and in fact they are likely completely unaware of it, the exception being Jehovah's Witnesses, who take it so seriously that they will not accept blood transfusions and in fact would rather die.

 

15 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” ² This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. ³ The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

⁵ Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

⁶ The apostles and elders met to consider this question. ⁷ After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. ⁸ God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. ⁹ He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? ¹¹ No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

¹² The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. ¹³ When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. ¹⁴ Simon^[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. ¹⁵ The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:

¹⁶ “‘After this I will return
    and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
    and I will restore it,
¹⁷ that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
    even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’^[b]—
¹⁸     things known from long ago.^[c]

¹⁹ “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. ²⁰ Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. ²¹ For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers

²² Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. ²³ With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

²⁴ We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. ²⁵ So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. ²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

³⁰ So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. ³¹ The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. ³² Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. ³³ After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. ^{[34] [d] 35} But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.

Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas

³⁶ Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” ³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, ³⁸ but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. ³⁹ They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Footnotes

1. Acts 15:14 Greek Simeon, a variant of Simon; that is, Peter
2. Acts 15:17 Amos 9:11,12 (see Septuagint)
3. Acts 15:18 Some manuscripts things’— / ¹⁸ the Lord’s work is known to him from long ago
4. Acts 15:34 Some manuscripts include here But Silas decided to remain there.

 

A new plague

 You might have expected a Juneteenth post, but what can I say? Slavery was bad, glad it's abolished.

 

If you lived in the Boston area 15 years ago, and even if you didn't, you may remember the case of Philip Markoff, the so-called Craiglist killer. He was a Boston University medical student, with a wedding date set, who developed a hobby of making dates with sex workers at Boston area hotels and robbing them at gunpoint. One of them resisted, and he shot her dead. The guy was obviously a psycho to begin with, but he also obviously had a lot to lose, so why did he do this?

It turns out he had a massive amount of gambling debt. As a matter of fact the cops arrested him while he was on the way to the Foxwoods casino with his fiancee. (He killed himself in jail awaiting trial.) 

If you live in Connecticut now, or even if you don't, you might also know about the New Haven chief of police, who embezzled $80,000 from the evidence locker because, you guessed it, he had a gambling problem. The argument for legalizing gambling was always that it was happening anyway, you might as well let the state get some of the proceeds instead of the mafia, and you can regulate it. Uh huh.  The mafia didn't advertise heavily during every sportscast, it didn't employ evil scientists to figure out exactly how to stimulate the dopamine receptors to keep people addicted and compulsive, and it didn't offer gambling opportunities on your (nonexistent) smartphone or at every convenience store.

 

As of 2024 (and I'm sure the numbers are higher now) more than half of adults buy lotteryckets, about 1/3 gamble in a casino at least once a year, and more than 1/4 bet on sports. Obviously approximately 100% of them lose money. Of those people, literally 70% to 80% or more report serious gambling problems including lying to hide their behavior, feeling withdrawal symptoms if they tried to stop, and 84% had financial problems resulting from their gambling. If you do the multiplication, that's something like 35-40% of the entire adult population.

Now you can't watch any major league sporting event without not only advertisements promoting gambling, but the announcers touting gambling in between play calls. Several cases of corruption have already been proved and I'm pretty sure that's just the tip of the old iceberg. The sports leagues are digging their own grave if people lose faith in the integrity of the game. This has got to stop.

 

 

A bitter pill indeed

I'm reading Science Under Siege, by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez. You probably know of them as a climate scientist and public health physician who engaged in vaccine development. You probably also know that both of them have been subjected to continuous and mendacious attack by right wing lunatics. 

 

It's tough to read because it's just so depressing, but it's important. Not that there's much in there I didn't already know but seeing it all pulled together and the connections among various atrocities delineated is illuminating. I may be inspired to comment on more of the content, but what strikes me today is the important, if not dispositive role of Russian meddling in our present predicament. The Russian economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel (Russia has been called a gas station with an army), so a major motive for Russian interference in our political discourse, and its meddling to get Orange Julius elected, is denial of anthropogenic climate change. George W. Bush's friend Pooty Poot also uses antivax propaganda as a way of roiling the political climate and getting right wing nut jobs elected generally. We can thank Vladimir Putin for RFK Jr.

 

What is so infuriating is that the corporate media seems utterly unaware of this. They have allowed themselves to be used by Russian propagandists, and they seem to have no self-awareness that this is still going on. Or maybe they do and it's okay with them.  Mann and Hotez extensively document these claims, so if you want to deny them I'll give you the citations. But believe me, there's absolutely no doubt about it. 

Wednesday Bible Study: What we don't know

My discussion in the last two Bible posts is a reminder that events in the first century CE, and indeed for most of the time since, were far less well documented than more recent history. There were no newspapers or nightly news, no reporters of any kind. The vast majority of the population was illiterate. Rulers and officials of course received information and sent orders in writing, but the vast bulk of this material did not survive. So we have little or no independent information by which to judge the veracity of anything Luke tells us.

 

The only other substantial account of events in Judea at the time is by Flavius Josephus, a leader of the Jewish uprising of 66 CE who surrendered to the Romans in 67 and defected, becoming a Roman citizen and an associate of Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus. Josephus wrote a history of the Jewish uprising, and he also wrote The Antiquities of the Jews, which purports to be a history of the Jewish people for the benefit of Greeks and Romans. Antiquities mentions Jesus twice, quite briefly, but it is not clear whether the version we have today is authentic. The oldest extant manuscripts date to the 11th Century and were produced by Christian monks. 

 

Regardless, Josephus is regarded as unreliable because his underlying motive was to increase respect for the Jews among his audience. His account of the execution of John the Baptist differs in many respects from the Biblical accounts. His mention of Jesus is quite puzzling because he (or Monks who interpolated the material later) describe him as the Messiah and a wise teacher who was executed by Pontius Pilate, but says nothing more about him. Josephus mentioned Jesus's existence once more as the brother of James and says he was "called the Christ." One would think that the Messiah merited a bit more attention than that! 

Anyway, here's the next chapter, about which there is little to say. It contains another preposterous miracle, some more persecution, and some random wandering about. As I say, there is no way to confirm whether any of this happened, or was even plausible.

 

14 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. ² But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. ³ So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. ⁴ The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. ⁵ There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. ⁶ But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, ⁷ where they continued to preach the gospel.

In Lystra and Derbe

⁸ In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. ⁹ He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed ¹⁰ and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

¹¹ When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” ¹² Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. ¹³ The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

¹⁴ But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ¹⁵ “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. ¹⁶ In the past, he let all nations go their own way. ¹⁷ Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” ¹⁸ Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

¹⁹ Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. ²⁰ But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

The Return to Antioch in Syria

²¹ They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, ²² strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. ²³ Paul and Barnabas appointed elders^[a] for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. ²⁴ After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, ²⁵ and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.

²⁶ From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. ²⁷ On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. ²⁸ And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Footnotes

1. Acts 14:23 Or Barnabas ordained elders; or Barnabas had elders elected

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sermonette: An ugly miracle

Before we get to chapter 13, I should clarify that it is possible that in the previous chapter Luke conflates Herod Antipas with his successor Herod Agrippa, who did indeed die in Judea, apparently suddenly, although as far as I can tell the historical record contains no more specific account of his death. However, Agrippa died in 44 CE. If we accept Mark's date for the nativity, that would be well over a decade after the crucifixion. If we accept Luke's dating, it would be more like 6 years. Either way, although Luke doesn't give us much in the way of chronological information, it seems implausible that much time has elapsed. The real point is, this was written around 85 CE (more or less) and the author may have been a child at the time of the events it describes, or not yet born. He has only a vague understanding of the historical context.

 

In Chapter 13, for some reason the apostles all seem to have more than one name, and as it turns out we learn for the first time that Saul is also called Paul. And from here on, without any explanation or specific indication, he stops being Saul and becomes Paul. The first act of the newly christened Paul is to miraculously strike a man blind to demonstrate his supernatural powers. (For some reason no subsequent pope or apostle has possessed this power.

 

At the synagogue in Antioch, for some reason Paul recites a summary of the story of Exodus and the Deuteronomistic history. Presumably the congregants are already familiar with this, but we frequently see apostles doing this in Luke/Acts. For any Jewish audience, almost everyone at the time was illiterate and uneducated, and many people may not have had this story down pat. And of course, he is also reaching out to a gentile audience who would not know the story. So he keeps repeating it.

 

13 ¹ Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

On Cyprus

⁴ The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. ⁵ When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.

⁶ They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, ⁷ who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. ⁸ But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. ⁹ Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, ¹⁰ “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? ¹¹ Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”

Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. ¹² When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

In Pisidian Antioch

¹³ From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ From Perga they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down. ¹⁵ After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak.”

¹⁶ Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! ¹⁷ The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; ¹⁸ for about forty years he endured their conduct^[a] in the wilderness; ¹⁹ and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. ²⁰ All this took about 450 years.

“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. ²¹ Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. ²² After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’

²³ “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. ²⁴ Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. ²⁵ As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

²⁶ “Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. ²⁷ The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. ²⁸ Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. ²⁹ When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. ³⁰ But God raised him from the dead, ³¹ and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

³² “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors ³³ he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:

“‘You are my son;
    today I have become your father.’^[b]

³⁴ God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’^[c]

³⁵ So it is also stated elsewhere:

“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’^[d]

³⁶ “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. ³⁷ But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.

³⁸ “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. ³⁹ Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. ⁴⁰ Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:

⁴¹ “‘Look, you scoffers,
    wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
    that you would never believe,
    even if someone told you.’^[e]”

⁴² As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. ⁴³ When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

⁴⁴ On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. ⁴⁵ When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.

⁴⁶ Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. ⁴⁷ For this is what the Lord has commanded us:

“‘I have made you^[f] a light for the Gentiles,
    that you^[g] may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’^[h]”

⁴⁸ When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

⁴⁹ The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. ⁵⁰ But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. ⁵¹ So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium. ⁵² And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Footnotes

1. Acts 13:18 Some manuscripts he cared for them
2. Acts 13:33 Psalm 2:7
3. Acts 13:34 Isaiah 55:3
4. Acts 13:35 Psalm 16:10 (see Septuagint)
5. Acts 13:41 Hab. 1:5
6. Acts 13:47 The Greek is singular.
7. Acts 13:47 The Greek is singular.
8. Acts 13:47 Isaiah 49:6

 

Armchair diagnosis

There's intense interest in the blogosphere and Bluesky in the physical and mental health of Cheeto Benito, although the corporate media, including the New York Times, suddenly and completely lost all interest in the question of presidential health and capacity when Joe Biden decided not to seek reelection. Up until that exact second it was the single most urgent issue facing the nation. Very strange.

 

Anyway, I'm not a real doctor, I'm a doctor of philosophy, but in this situation that gives me an advantage. I'm not bound by official medical ethics, which make M.D.s highly reticent about proposing diagnoses for people they have not personally examined. First, what is pretty clear is that Cheeto has heart failure. That accounts for the swollen legs, the slow halting gait and the lack of stamina. You may have noticed that he is now doing his increasingly infrequent public appearances sitting down. He also has significant osteoarthritis, which is pretty much inevitable for a man his age. His hunched posture also suggests osteopenia All of this adds up to a substantial risk of falling, which could easily put him in a nursing home with a hip or lumbar fracture. However, it isn't likely to kill him any time soon -- people can live a long time with those conditions.

The swollen, discolored hands are a bit of a mystery. The swelling could be from heart failure, although the hands are not usually affected in that way. The discoloration is not as obvious to me as it seems to be to some people, but I'll believe it's there. I do not agree with the frequently seen assertion that this is the result of some sort of IV infusion. Skillful venipuncture does not normally produce bruising or swelling, and if it did, they wouldn't do it on his hands where the result would be visible. It's conceivable that this is Kaposi sarcoma, but he wouldn't ordinarily be at risk for that unless he's immunocompromised for some reason. However, it would also explain the swollen hands and contribute to the swollen legs.

 

That would also explain why he has apparently gotten whole body imaging. If he is receiving lecanemab to slow the progress of Alzeheimer's, that would explain MRI imaging of his head, but not the rest of his body. Kaposi or some other form of cancer would explain the whole body CT scan that he apparently recently received. Whatever is going on, he's obviously in bad shape, but again, all this won't necessarily kill him very soon.

Mentally, of course we know that he has a severe personality disorder -- narcissism and psychopathy, severe enough to distort his perception of reality. I do not actually believe that his manifest dementia is Alzheimer's, I think it's a form of frontotemporal dementia, which is manifest in his loss of executive function and the exaggeration of his pre-existing personality traits. It's also steadily eroding his vocabulary and causing him to perseverate on a limited range of ideas. This is progressing slowly however and again, he can probably live with it for a while, although his behavior will grow increasingly erratic.

 

As I always say, I don't make predictions, but I will say in this case that it's likely to just slowly get worse, but slowly enough that the New York Times will never notice. The possibility of a catastrophe is there at any time, however.  So don't hold your breath.

 

Wednesday Bible Study: Pure fiction

Luke is just making shit up now and we can prove it by comparing his novel to the historical record. If you want to believe in miracles you can believe in Peter's miraculous escape from prison. But you can't believe the account of the death of Herod, because we know what really happened.

 

Just as a reminder, this king Herod is not the guy called Herod the Great who was supposedly king when Jesus was born, according to Matthew, but a successor, called Herod Antipas. Antipas is the same guy who had John the Baptist executed, according to the gospels, and who ruled while Jesus was crucified. He died in 39 BC, so the timing is about right, because according to Luke Jesus was born six years later than Matthew had it, after Herod the Great was already dead, so this would be about 3 years after the crucifixion. We can't tell exactly how much time has elapsed, as Luke doesn't mark the months or years for us, but the date is plausible. However . . . 

 

Herod Antipas did not die while he was sitting on his throne, wearing his royal robes, and giving an address to the people. In 39 CE Emperor Caligula, following a dispute between Herod and his nephew, named Agrippa, took Agrippa's side. He stripped Herod of his throne and his property, and exiled him to somewhere in what is today France, probably Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges on the Spanish border. That's where he died, possibly because Caligula had him killed, though that is disputed. So no, the story Luke tells here is completely made up. We know that it isn't true. So there is actually no reason to believe any of this.

12 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. ² He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. ³ When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. ⁴ After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

⁵ So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

⁶ The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. ⁷ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

⁸ Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. ⁹ Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

¹¹ Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

¹² When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. ¹³ Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷ Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

¹⁸ In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. ¹⁹ After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed.

Herod’s Death

Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. ²⁰ He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply.

²¹ On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. ²² They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” ²³ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

²⁴ But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.

Barnabas and Saul Sent Off

²⁵ When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from^[a] Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.

Footnotes

1. Acts 12:25 Some manuscripts to

1. 
   

 

 

The Hard Problem

Here is a review by Kit Wilson -- actually more than a review, a summary -- of Michael Pollan's new book A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness.  I definitely recommend that you read it. I'm not going to try to summarize the summary.

 

But I will take the occasion to out myself. As much as I'm a committed skeptic, rationalist, and scientist, I have never been satisfied with claims that the phenomenon of consciousness -- our experience, our awareness of self and the world, our feelings and desires -- can be reduced to the observable and measurable processes of neurology. We do not understand where the universe comes from, why it is what it is, or most of how it works. We know a lot more than we did 100 or 200 years ago, but that has just proved to us how much more we don't know.

 

I have difficulty finding the words to explain what I believe -- that is if I actually believe anything about this. What I do believe is that it's a mystery that the methods, logic, rules of evidence that we regard as the scientific enterprise cannot solve. There is another level of reality, a property of the universe that can only be investigated and understood, if at all, by other means. 

 

No, we don't get to fill in the blank with God or any other sort of mystical belief. What I am saying is that we don't know, but there has to be more to it than physicists or cosmologists can discover with the methods currently available to them. Maybe I have some ideas but I'll leave it at that for now.

Sunday Sermonette: Is there an echo in here?

The lack of an editor is really showing here. When Peter returns to Jerusalem, the Jews for Jesus complain about him evangelizing among the gentiles, so Peter just repeats the whole story, with some elisions,  from the previous chapter. The author (ostensibly named Luke), obviously could have just said "Peter told them about this vision and the story of Cornelius, and they were satisfied." Actually the trick I would have used if I were writing this novel is to do it the other way around. 

 

"The Jews for Jesus heard that Peter was evangelizing among the gentiles, so when he returned to Judea they complained about. So Peter told them . . . ," and the entire story comes in once, placed in Peter's mouth. But this writer is a very poor literary technician.

 

Antioch, FYI, was the capital of the Seleucid empire, until the Romans conquered it in 63 BC. So at the time this ostensibly happened, it was the capital of Roman Syria. (It is located in what is today Turkey, just over the border from Syria.) So it was one of the most important cities in the Roman empire. The culture was Hellenistic, the language was Koine Greek, and in case you didn't know it, that's the language all of this was written in. The Jews at that time spoke Aramaic, so this is not a Jewish document at all. The Christian church was founded in the roman city of Antioch, by Greek speaking pagans. Just so we're clear.

 

11 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him ³ and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁴ Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. ⁶ I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. ⁷ Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

⁸ “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹ “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

¹¹ “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹² The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴ He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

¹⁵ “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with^[a] water, but you will be baptized with^[b] the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸ When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

The Church in Antioch

¹⁹ Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. ²⁰ Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. ²¹ The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

²² News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. ²³ When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. ²⁴ He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵ Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, ²⁶ and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

²⁷ During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) ²⁹ The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. ³⁰ This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Footnotes

1. Acts 11:16 Or in
2. Acts 11:16 Or in

 

Back to the 19th Century

As you likely know, Louis Pasteur developed the eponymous method of sterilizing milk in the 19th Century  -- he patented it in 1865 to be exact. It was a long time, however, before pasteurization came into common use. 

Two of the leading causes of death in 1900, gastrointestinal infections and tuberculosis, were major killers of children, and a major underlying cause of these deaths was cow’s milk. The U.S. population originally was predominantly rural, but by 1900 most people in the northeast lived in cities, and by 1910 the same was true in the west and Midwest. Cow’s milk had to come into cities like New York from farms tens of miles away, at a time when there was no refrigeration. The milk was often contaminated with pathogens that killed the children who drank it. 

Even 25 years after Pasteur's patent, milk was not normally pasteurized. Then a German immigrant in New York City, a wealthy merchant named Nathan Strauss, learned about pasteurization. In 1892 he used his own money to establish a pasteurization plant in Manhattan’s East Village, and in 1893 he established “milk depots” in low income neighborhoods to sell pasteurized milk below cost. He also established a second plant to provide pasteurized milk to an orphanage on Randall’s Island, where the mortality rate was something like 15% a year. The death rate immediately dropped substantially.

Strauss’s efforts attracted the attention of scientists and physicians, and incited a campaign to outlaw the sale of unpasteurized milk. This came to the attention of president Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1907 appointed a commission to study the matter. The report came back the following year with the conclusion that pasteurization would save many lives.

As you will perhaps not be surprised, given the public reaction to public health mandates more recently, the campaign to mandate pasteurization provoked a furious backlash, including from most milk producers. Why they thought it was good business to kill their customers I cannot say. Many in the general public also opposed the ban on raw milk, claiming that pasteurization negatively affected nutrition and taste. (It doesn’t.) Nevertheless Chicago did ban the sale of raw milk in 1909. New York got around to it after a typhoid epidemic in 1913. Nearly all major cities followed suit in the next few years, and the infant and child mortality rate plummeted.

That, along with safe drinking water (another story, with a similar outline), and vaccination, are the most important reasons for the enormous increase in life expectancy in the 20th Century. Children used to die routinely, and now they don't. Or at least, they haven't been up until now, but Robert Kennedy Jr. is trying to change that. Not only does he oppose vaccination, he has advocated for unpasteurized milk. Too bad for all those people in Idaho who have gotten sick from it. As the linked story tells us, "Symptoms of infections from bacteria that can be in raw milk include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration. Complications can be severe, especially in people at higher risk such as young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems." 

 

Every senator who voted to confirm that homicidal maniac is an accessory. 

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