Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are here in Singapore! This is quite rare, in fact, apparaently, the first time it is displayed in Asia. They are usually housed in Jerusalem.


See  http://www.livinglegacy2009.com/eng/index.html  for more details ;)

However, the Dead Sea Scrolls are more than very old copies of (something to do with the Bible).

------------

We did not always have the Dead Sea Scrolls with us. In fact, it was a chance discovery sometime in 1947 to 1956 in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea (hence the name).

Prior to their discover, the oldest surviving copies of the Old Testament we have was the Masoretic Text (don't worry about the name, its just a name derived from a group of people), which dated to the 9th Century (ie: about 1000). We know that Jesus lived in the 1st Century, which means that there as almost a 900 year gap between the oldest copy of the Old Testament and the life of Christ. In fact, the New Testament had copies much older than the Old Testament.

Which laid us quite open to criticisms. The chief among them was the charge that the prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament must had been written after Christ so as to fit into His life. And it is quite difficult to prove them wrong if the oldest copy of the prophecies we have is 900 years too late.

But the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls totally changed this. You see, these scrolls are dated to as late as 150 BC. In other words, they are up to 150 years before Christ was even born. Which totally shatters the theory that the prophecies were written after Christ's life. Afterall, there are already copies in existence before He was born.

The prophecies are authentic prophecies.

There is another significance.

There is always this idea that multiple copying would introduce error into the manuscripts. Who knows if the manuscripts we have contain the same words or even the same idea as whatever the original author intended. Furthermore, it was done before the era of Printing presses...

Which sounds like a sound objection

Until you realise that the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Texts agree with each other to an astonishing extent.

In the process of copying, the scribe are so careful about the accuracy, that even 1000 years was unable to change the texts.

In other words, we can be quite confident that whatever we have is really what the original authors wrote...

------------

So, to whoever is going to see the exhibits (Secell I think), this is the reason it is called a Biblical treasure ;)

Have fun :)

Tasting

A little confused...

Those who had tasted the goodness of our Lord, those who had seen the Real things.. Would they turn their backs on them? Apparently so.. But I wonder, why? Why would anyone who had seen and possessed pearls exchange them for mere beads?

Or is it the lies of the human heart again? Or just natural myopia? Or the law of undulation? Or attrition? Or disillusionment?

Protect us, my Lord from these..

Worldviews

Recently, I read one of the best argument about evolution that I had ever seen. And it is not from a scientific source - it comes from the layman, who is also well versed in philosophy of some sorts. I think the master stroke of the argument (apart from the argument itself) was leading it to conclusions that it can support, rather than extrapolating the argument. In other words, it rejected literal creationism, countered Parley's argument from design but not the possibility of God (or gods). It knocked out an intellectual foundation for God, but left it open to faith.

I thought that it might be challenge-able at some points (perhaps the origin of life which was left out of the discussion?), but it was probably not wise to do so since his knowledge of evolution itself was so much more in depth than mine was. Probably he knows things about it that he haven't mentioned.

Which bugged me for a while. Until I remembered a lesson that LT taught me quite a while ago.

It is never about the skirmished. Look beyond that and see the war itself.

It is a war of Worldviews.

Worldviews are basically the views that people have about the world. They are the assumptions inherent when people talk about things. For instance, there is the Hedonist worldview which believes that pleasure / happiness is the ultimate goal. So a hedonist would say things like "If it makes you happy.." There is also a Pragmatic worldview. The Pragmatist would say things like "If it works.."

Perhaps I should refine this a little. No one consistently have any of the worldviews. People are too fluxy (constant change-y) for that. Everyone however, exhibits them at various points in time. Most people have one or two favorite ones, and those are their most important worldviews.

So, what worldview does Evolution and Multiverse (Multiple Universe) support? It is that of Naturalism! Or at least, it is a step towards Naturalism.. It promotes the idea that there need not be a God. Notice that it is not full fledged Naturalism, which demands there to be no transcendent God, but it is a step towards it.

How then do we deal with a Naturalist worldview? Question Reason! It is by Reason that you come up with these conclusions, but why do you trust Reason? If Reason or Consciousness came about Randomly... Why then should it mean anything? Why can't it be merely perceived to mean something, rather than actually meaning something? (For a fuller discussion, see Lewis's Miracles)

Of course, it is logically possible to concede this and reject meaning as meaningless. That can't be debated, it is completely sound in itself, but.. it has the substance of explaining everything by leaving out everything important (see Chesterton's Orthodoxy).

Worldviews.. There aren't that many contentions if you look at them in terms of worldviews. Of course, sometimes, you do have to get down to answering the question itself, but quite often, you just have to question the conclusion which the contentions drive you to..

Hope this helps :)

Harmony

PM Lee gave Religious Harmony and development quite a highlight in his National Day Rally Speech. Our major newspapers all gave it quite significant coverage..

Which set me thinking. What exactly is the nature of Religious Harmony?

Lots had been said about the nature of Tolerance, so I won't delve into that. Lets instead look at the nature of Secularism though..

To be secular is to have the governance independent of religion (Separation of Religion and the state). In other words, religious bodies will not have a privileged position when it comes to influencing policies. Neither will a supposed divine edict (Holy books anyone?) be an authority in deciding the outcome of debates.

In that case, what has authority? Common sense and Reason, common moral values, a tinge of pragmatism perhaps?

Now, for purposes of this post and due to lack of time, I shall not go into the nature of Reason and Values. I will just make one point from a Christian's (that is, my) point of view.

Now, if Christianity is true, then surely what it teaches are in the long run, the best ways. In which case, if by secular debate we weed out the poorer choices, then what is left? Hopefully, only the better policies are left. But won't this eventually be the policies which the Christians would propose as well?

Shouldn't both come to the same conclusion if both are true?

Of course, not everyone would accept that the Christian route. Some would not believe that it is a true way. But as a Christian, shouldn't one come to the same conclusion using both methods? One can solve a maths problem by using both algebra and models, because both are valid methods of solving the problem. And both have the same conclusion.

In that case, is it valid to come to a Christian conclusion first, then find the reverse reasoning using the secular route - and from there, to convince people using the secular argument? Some may feel that it is a bit of a cheat - almost like peeking at the answers, then finding the steps to the answer. Yet, how is the final answer invalid, unless you can debate it on its own grounds - that is, the secular arguments? And surely that is the only valid way to argue against it, not to denouce it as a religious statement without even realizing (or perhaps acknowledging) that it stands on 2 foundations, not just 1.

Perhaps the best thing about true things is that... they are true ;)

Race

Feeling Fluxy..


Problem with being in a Rat's Race is that even if you win, you are still a Rat.

Worse is if you are an Eagle, chain up your wings, and take part in the race, and when (or is it "if"?) you win, you think that you are the best rat.

Is the best rat any better than an Eagle?

Shine

Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord..

Shine, Jesus Shine, fill this land with the Father's Glory
Blaze, Spirit Blaze, set our hearts on fire
Flow, River Flow, flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth your word
Lord and let there be light

See

Taken from Ms Teo's blog =p

http://fanaticfandom.blogspot.com/2009/08/delicious-author.html

The Man Who Taught Me To See


Indeed, I thank God for professors and writers who devoted tremendous creative energies to render credible the existence of trees and water and souls and love and God. C. S. Lewis, who died the same day as John F. Kennedy in 1963 and who taught English at Oxford, walked up over the horizon of my little brown path in 1964 with such blazing brightness that it is hard to overstate the impact he had on my life.

Someone introduced me to Lewis my freshman year with the book, Mere Christianity. For the next five or six years I was almost never without a Lewis book near at hand. I think that without his influence I would not have lived my life with as much joy or usefulness as I have. There are reasons for this.

He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. To this day I get most of my soul-food from centuries ago. I thank God for Lewis’s compelling demonstration of the obvious.

He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively—even playful—imagination. He was a "romantic rationalist." He combined things that almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. In shattering these old stereotypes, he freed me to think hard and to write poetry, to argue for the resurrection and compose hymns to Christ, to smash an argument and hug a friend, to demand a definition and use a metaphor.

Lewis gave me an intense sense of the "realness" of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things ("quiddity" as he calls it). He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world—things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror.

He exposed the sophisticated intellectual opposition to objective being and objective value for the naked folly that it was. The philosophical king of my generation had no clothes on, and the writer of children’s books from Oxford had the courage to say so.

You can’t go on "seeing through" things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to "see through" first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To "see through" all things is the same as not to see.

Oh, how much more could be said about the world as C. S. Lewis saw it and the way he spoke. He has his flaws, some of them serious. But I will never cease to thank God for this remarkable man who came onto my path at the perfect moment.


(from Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper)

Recommendation

For those of you who has the patience to read and think through... Here is a solid read:

www.abettercountry.livejournal.com

Recommended by Paula (You people remember her? ;))