Author Archives: Peter Kirk

Contents of the ancient lead books revealed!

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On Tuesday I reported on what was being billed as “the major discovery of Christian history”, a new discovery said to be “as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls”: 70 books made of lead, said to be from the 1st century AD and of Christian origin. Today I am excited to read about the contents of these books, which have been revealed by Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church. Thanks to Jeremy Myers of TILL HE COMES for the link.

"Priceless" Christian relicsThis is indeed a sensational revelation, fully justifying the hype “the major discovery of Christian history”. It seems that these books contain the oldest and most reliable texts of much of the New Testament. And these texts differ from the ones we have had up to now in some startling ways. Read Alan’s post to find out more.

Now of course Alan’s post completely contradicts the one by Jim Davila supposedly proving that these lead books are forgeries, which I quoted in my earlier post today. But both Alan’s and Jim’s posts are dated April 1st. Which of them is an April Fool? I will leave it for you, my readers, to decide.

"The major discovery of Christian history": a forgery

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On Tuesday I reported on what was being billed as “the major discovery of Christian history”, a new discovery said to be “as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls”: 70 books made of lead, said to be from the 1st century AD and of Christian origin. But even by the next day the credibility of this discovery was coming into question, as I noted in a comment, because of revelations about the identity of David Elkington who was publicising this matter.

One of three photographs of the ‘copper codex’Now there seems to be proof that these books are forgeries, or at least that one of them is. Elkington asked Peter Thonemann, who is a Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford, to examine three photographs of one of the discovered books (this one is apparently made of copper or bronze, not lead) showing some writing in Greek. Jim Davila of the blog PaleoJudaica has posted Thonemann’s reply to Elkington and copies of the photographs.

In his letter to Elkington Thonemann gives a full transcription and translation of the Greek text, which is meaningless as it stands. But he has discovered the source of this text. This leads him to the conclusion:

The text on your bronze tablet … has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text … a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so.  …

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman …

This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years.  I would stake my career on it.

Strong words indeed from a scholar. If this one book is a forgery, then it is reasonable to suppose that the others allegedly discovered with it are also forgeries. I suppose it is possible that someone has mixed genuine antiquities with forgeries. But if they have they have so greatly compromised the value of the genuine ones as to make them worthless.

So let’s forget this sorry story, except perhaps as a warning not to be carried away by unverified hype.

Thanks to P.J. Williams of Evangelical Textual Criticism for the link to Davila’s post.

A new way to communicate: Google's Gmail Motion

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Google has today announced the beta version of their new Gmail Motion product, billed as “A new way to communicate”. The basic point is that a webcam, now built into most laptops, can be used detect and analyse users’ gestures, and these can be used to control the Gmail program – so rendering obsolete the keyboard and mouse.

Google staff demonstrate Gmail MotionThanks to The Church Mouse on Twitter for retweeting this announcement.

Will this product really revolutionise the world? Or will it prove as ephemeral as a mayfly in April, or as some previous Google announced products like Google Animal Translate? Maybe by tomorrow we will be able to give it a more serious evaluation.

Seriously, there is a real idea here. A webcam can surely be used to follow fingers and so replace a mouse or a trackpad, just as on a touch screen smartphone, although the resolution of current webcams may be insufficient. Decoding of more complex gestures, perhaps even of sign languages for the deaf, would surely be possible in principle. But in practice this may prove just as tricky as voice recognition. So I won’t be throwing away my keyboard and mouse just yet.

Earthquake shakes England!

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Blackpool TowerThe BBC reports that an earthquake hit Blackpool in north west England at 3.30 this morning. So far there are no reports of damage or casualties, but it is still early. The iconic Blackpool Tower is believed to be still standing. But as this is a low lying coastal area we can only hope that there will not also be a tsunami. We are safe 40 miles away in Warrington.

So has Mark Stibbe’s prophecy been fulfilled?

Or is this an April Fool?

Probably neither. I’m sure the BBC report is genuine, and I have added nothing but speculation. But “the 2.2 magnitude tremor” was very slight, and the real reason for no reports of damage is that very likely there wasn’t any. Also Wikipedia lists several earthquakes more powerful than this in the UK each year, including two already this year. So there is no prophetic significance to this morning’s event.

Art from N.T. Wright's old home saved for tourists

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N.T. Wright, the world renowned theologian and former Bishop of Durham, may be enjoying his new job as a research professor at the University of St Andrews – which is probably best known today as where Prince William met his bride Kate Middleton. Auckland CastleBut Wright (no relation I think to Chris Wright who I quoted earlier today) is very likely missing his old home, Auckland Castle, which

has been the home of the Bishops of Durham for over 800 years

– but apparently no longer. The BBC reports that the castle is to

become a leading public heritage site, bringing tourism and economic regeneration to the North East.

The works by Zurbaran have been at Auckland Castle for 250 yearsBut there is good news:

Plans to sell off 17th Century paintings which hang in the home of the Bishop of Durham have been shelved after a £15m donation.

Church Commissioners said selling works by Spanish Baroque artist Francisco Zurbaran would have funded Church efforts in poorer areas.

But the donation by investment manager Jonathan Ruffer means the paintings can stay in Auckland Castle.

The Church of England is acutely short of money. So it is not surprising that they decided to sell these assets to fund “Church efforts in poorer areas”. But it would have been a major shame for these wonderful paintings to be taken away from where they

have hung in Auckland Castle, in a room specifically designed and built for them, for 250 years.

So God bless Jonathan Ruffer for providing the £15 million needed to save them. I trust that this money doesn’t disappear into the church’s coffers but is indeed used to fund its work in poor areas.

George Warnock, Latter Rain Pioneer

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Update 5/24/16: I have just heard that George Warnock passed away yesterday, age 98. More to follow.

George H. WarnockI have heard quite a lot, recently as well as longer ago, about the teachings of George Warnock. He is best known for his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles, which is featured by Wikipedia among others as one of the main sources for the controversial charismatic teachings about Latter Rain and the Manifest Sons of God.

I had thought of George Warnock as a person from church history. So I was a little surprised but very pleased to discover that he is alive and well and living in his native Canada, or at least he was in 2007 at the age of 90. I also discovered that he has a personal website, which includes complete texts of all his writings, which “may be copied and pasted, reprinted and distributed – without charge.”

It seems from his biography on that site that George has spent most of the 60 years since he wrote his book working as a carpenter. He offers some interesting Reflections Along the Way, which explain why he did not continue to be involved in the Latter Rain and Charismatic movements.

This George is not to be confused with Adrian Warnock’s son, born in 2007, who may in the future take after his father and the older George as a Christian author, but is a bit young for that at the moment. I don’t think the Canadian George is related either to Adrian or to to the Methodist minister blogger Dave Warnock.

The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the ChurchGeorge Warnock’s website includes the text of his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the Church, with a preface by the author from 1980. I have only skimmed the book, and I will not attempt to defend all of Warnock’s exegesis. But in many ways it seems ahead of its time, a forerunner of the charismatic teachings of the last 20 years or so. Here are some extracts:

The Church of Christ is literally filled with carnal, earthly-minded Christians who sit back in ease and self-complacency and await a rapture that will translate them out of the midst of earth’s Great Tribulation at the beginning of the Day of the Lord. To this generation of world-conformers God speaks in no uncertain terms: “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.” (Amos 5:18). In the vast majority of evangelical circles we are taught that any moment all God’s people shall be caught up, raptured, to be with the Lord in the air–to escape the Great Tribulation which soon shall visit the earth. It is not true. The saints shall be “caught up” all right; but “every man in his own order.” (1 Cor. 15:23). What that order is does not concern us right now; but the fact remains, we are nowhere taught that the saints are going to escape the hour of Great Tribulation by way of rapture. …

Sudden cataclysmic judgments shall fall upon the earth, the ungodly shall be “taken” suddenly as in a “snare,” but the righteous shall be “left” in a place of safety. (From Chapter 6, The Blowing of Trumpets)

This is exactly what I have been saying.

Then, apparently outlining the teaching on the Manifest Sons of God:

We are sure of this, however, that the Church is being robbed of her glory in not knowing that there is rapture for her even now, while waiting for Rapture, and there is resurrection here and now while we wait for Resurrection. There is no doubt whatever that God holds many secrets for future revelation concerning the order of events and the nature of the Resurrection. But in this we are confident: before this cherished rapture or resurrection takes place, there is to arise a group of overcomers who shall appropriate even here and now their heritage of Resurrection Life in Jesus Christ. God has placed His only Begotten at His own right hand in the heavenlies, until all his enemies have been placed under His feet. (Ps. 110:1; 1 Cor. 15:25,26.) There He shall remain, in obedience to the Word of the Father, until there ariseth a people who shall go in and possess their heritage in the Spirit, and conquer over all opposing forces of World, Flesh, and Devil. We are not inferring that the saints will go about in glorified bodies. But we are speaking of the saints reaching out and appropriating even here and now in their earthly temples the very Life of Christ, of entering into their heritage in the Spirit, of participating in the Melchizedek priesthood and kingdom, and of living the very spotless, immaculate life of the Son of God Himself in virtue of His abiding presence within. (From Chapter 14, The Feast of His Appearing)

Warnock goes on to suggest that these “overcomers” might be preserved from physical death, but avoids making this a definite teaching. He perhaps gets a bit carried away when he describes how “They shall be completely triumphant over all the powers of darkness that are arrayed against them”. But it seems clear that he is teaching, as I do, that this overcoming life is not for a select few but for any believer who lays hold of it.

I wonder, how many of the people who use the phrases “Latter Rain” and “Manifest Sons of God” as brushes to tar their fellow believers with have actually read books like George Warnock’s? If they did, they might discover that these doctrines are not major demonic deceptions, but good biblical teachings, which may at times have been exaggerated by the over-enthusiastic, but remain important for God’s purposes today.

Election: not to be saved but to save others

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Calvinist and “Reformed” Christians teach that God elects, or chooses, some people (most would hold that this is a small minority of people) to receive his grace, forgiveness and eternal salvation – and that those he decides not to elect have no choice, but are abandoned to the hell that they deserve as punishment for their sins.

Chris Wright : Langham Partnership InternationalChristopher J.H. Wright, also known as The Rev. Dr. Chris Wright, International Director of the Langham Partnership, has a different take on this, in his 2010 book The Mission of God’s People (p. 72):

Election [ie the choosing] of one is not rejection of the rest, but ultimately for their benefit. It is as if a group of trapped cave explorers choose one of their number to squeeze through a narrow flooded passage to get out to the surface and call for help. The point of the choice is not so that she alone gets saved, but that she is able to bring help and equipment to ensure the rest get rescued. “Election” in such a case is an instrumental choice of one for the sake of many.

In the same way, God’s election of Israel is instrumental in God’s mission for all nations. Election needs to be seen as a doctrine of mission, not a calculus for the arithmetic of salvation. If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham (which is exactly how Paul describes the effect of God’s redemption of Israel through Christ in Galatians 3:14).

Thanks to Mark of Every Tongue for quoting this, and to Jeremy of Till He Comes for linking to Mark’s post.

Indeed! God didn’t choose us Christians to be snatched away to heaven and saved, so that we can gloat as we watch the rest of humanity suffering tribulation on earth and eternal torment in hell. He selected us for a mission – and I use the word in the popular sense of “Mission Impossible” as much as in the Christian jargon sense. That is, God chose us to be members of his team, with the task of rescuing those who are bound for hell and transforming this world into his kingdom.

This, as I wrote yesterday, is the purpose of our salvation. But it goes back further than that: it is the purpose for which God

chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ …

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NIV 2011)

We are called to be his sons (including women as well as men), manifested in this world. I don’t agree with the more extreme aspects of Manifest Sons of God teaching, especially as most of the descriptions of it I can find are from its enemies – although I was interested to read that, in line with what I have written,

The rapture, according to this doctrine, will be of the wicked – not of believers.

Nor do I accept the idea that this is something for only a chosen few. However, I agree with the basic principle behind this teaching, that God is raising up today a task force of believers empowered by the Holy Spirit to make the kingdom of God a reality in this world. This is God’s calling for everyone he has chosen to receive his grace, everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. Don’t settle for second best!

Salvation is not deliverance from hell

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The furore about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins has drawn a lot of attention to hell. But surely we Christians should be focusing our attention elsewhere. For John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766John Wesley was surely right when he wrote (as quoted by John Meunier):

By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.

— From John Wesley’s “A Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”

Sadly far too many people still have this “vulgar notion”, coupled with an unbiblical longing for a Rapture to take them quickly away from this world. Our biblical calling is quite different: not just to seek the personal restoration which Wesley writes about, but also to work towards the restoration of our world according to biblical principles.

New discovery "as important as Dead Sea Scrolls"?

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The BBC Today Programme has a report In pictures: Biblical bounty?, an illustrated outline story that

Ancient sealed books, discovered in a Jordanian cave, may shed new light on the early years of Christianity.

Ancient sealed books, discovered in a Jordanian cave, may shed new light on the early years of ChristianityThe books have survived because the pages are made of lead. But all this seems rather speculative given that “the text in Ancient Hebrew” is mostly in code. The link with early Christianity seems to be in some of the images, but these can surely be interpreted in other ways.

The BBC reports some extravagant claims about this discovery:

the books may have been made by the followers of Jesus a few decades after his crucifixion. … “as important as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls” … “the major discovery of Christian history”.

Well, we will have to see. If the text can be decoded and confirms the claims about who wrote these books and when, then indeed this could be a discovery of the first importance. But failing such confirmation the books will be no more than a historical oddity, worthy of a place in “a Jordanian museum” but not of worldwide attention.

UPDATE after half an hour: There is more on this story in another BBC report, which is largely about how these books have ended up in Israel and how the Jordanians want them back. The following may be of particular interest:

Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

“As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image,” he says.

“There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem.”

It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were.

“It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls,” says Mr Davies.

Evangelical Alliance responds to Rob Bell "Love Wins"

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Rob Bell: Love WinsThe Evangelical Alliance (here in the UK) has just published a response to the publication of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. The response is in two parts: a review of the book by Derek Tidball, and a Statement which reads like a press release.

I mentioned this book in my post of a few days ago Heaven, Hell and Bell. I still haven’t read the book. But both the review and the statement seem to be a very sensible take on this controversial issue.

It was interesting to read, in the Statement section of this response, a summary of the conclusions of the Evangelical Alliance’s 2000 book The Nature of Hell. I particularly liked this part of the summary:

absolutist assertions that these and other categories of non-professing people are saved risk being at least as arrogant as absolutist assertions that they are damned. The destiny of such people is God’s to determine, and it is determined by his grace alone.