Galilean Gospel 3: DOGMA: NEST of VIPERS

Vipers? 

▶In this episode: In this episode We'll explore sources of dogma, influences on specific Biblical commentary, dogma that directly contradicts Jesus' Gospel. 

How dogmas keep us from Jesus' Gospel delivered through His Incarnation, His Word and deeds. There are 255 infallibly declared dogmas of the Catholic Church. Here's a nice PDF if you want to read them all. 

85 “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone. 

All denominations or systems that call themselves "Christian" have dogma. All Bibles have commentaries that are mostly dogma-based. Some directly contradict what Jesus said.

▶Unless and until we remove all preconceived, often ill-conceived, unRevealed (Jesus never said or did that) long-embedded beliefs before we approach Jesus in prayer or reading, how will we ever understand Him?

▶ Yes. VIPERS 

THIS PODCAST IS NOT MONETIZED. LINKS:
Contact: kyriedicentis@gmail.com
CLOUD OF UNKNOWING Evelyn Underhill edition - free
HERETIC'S REDDIT HOME
Revelations of Divine Love [free PDF] Julian of Norwich
What the Gehenna?
The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross

Transcript

Vipers? Does that seem extreme? There are multiple symbolic interpretations of "nest/brood of vipers," unsymbolically, it is in the nature of some snakes to nest in and live in rocks, such as in those piled outside a tomb dug into a wall, as was common in Jesus’ time and place. Some of those snakes were vipers, deadly, and by their presence could keep a body from being entombed, and so block their designated way to the sleep of death awaiting resurrection, as was a common belief amongst the Hebrew people.

Jesus said in the first verses of Matthew 23:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

You serpents, you brood of vipers, by what means can you escape from the condemnation to hell?” 

He also described for the people the fault of the scribes and Pharisees:

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees settled themselves in Moses’ seat. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For what they preach; they do not practice.

They bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, laying those on men's shoulders.  But they themselves will not lift a finger to remove them. 

The Scribes and Pharisees were told they kept people from God; the endless rituals and costly sacrifices were a barrier between them and the approval of HaShem (God) just as the Temple curtain separated all but the High Priest from the Holy of Holies in which Shekhinah—the spirit of God—resided.

Compare Jesus’ statement:  “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses” with this introduction to the 255 dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church:

---“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”---

Between the people and the Lord stood and still stands the barrier of THE CHURCH, which is now not a word for the group of followers of Jesus, but a corporal body of men. That is, the faithful do not follow Jesus, they follow the pronouncements of men who have stated they are speaking for God just as the scribes and Pharisees were speaking for Moses. 

But what did Jesus say about passing on His teaching?

 "Go then, preach the good news about the Kingdom. Lay down no rules beyond what I determined for you, nor propagate law like a lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it." Gospel of Mary

Sounds straightforward. “Tell them what I said and no more.” Yet, among the 255 dogmas promulgated by men claiming to speak for God we find:

---121. God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.--- 

WAT? God, for all time determines to PREDESTINE, as in before He even creates them, to “eternal rejection” - does that mean hell? Not sure. But they are rejected forever—before they are made in a womb—because God already knows how they will sin.

What did Jesus say?  

“And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” John 12:32

If you think I cherry-picked dogma 121 to make a point, you’re right, I did. Dogma, wherever it is found, as created by humans for whatever purpose, is for the most part, not the Word or Teaching or Actions of the Lord.

Can this really affect how we understand Him? His words are the same when we read them, aren’t they?

Not really, depending on what English translations you read, but that’s another podcast. For this one, consider that commentaries accompany scripture portions of Canon, and dogmas heavily influence those commentaries. Readers of  study Bibles with extensive notes find the notes adhere to the dogma of the denomination, not to the words in Scripture. But they don’t know that, users of study Bibles are uneducated in the Gospels, hence, the need for a study Bible.

Moving on from the Catholic church, let’s look at two verses from the highly respected Nelson Study Bible, NKJV, with no less than 66 editors and contributors, over 90% of whom have advanced degrees from a variety of theological programs. These represent a wide swath of the dogmatically sola scriptura, scriptural infallibility set of believers. This Bible includes specific and separate notes on each of these 2  verses. (For those reading the transcript, the emphasis is theirs.)

Mat 5:21

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’

NOTE: 

5:21 You have heard refers to the teaching of various rabbis rather than to that of Moses. Jesus was questioning the interpretation of the Jewish scholars, not the Old Testament itself.

Not Moses’ teaching, but various anonymous rabbis? Yet, the same NKJV verse at the Blue Letter Bible site gives links within the text to Exodus 20:13, Thou shall not kill, which Moses himself told the people as a direct quote from God. Also noted is Deuteronomy 5:17, which is essentially a repeat of the Ten Commandments from the Exodus passage.

You would think at least 1 of all those scholars would have known “You shall not murder” was, indeed, something Moses said. 

The arguments about the use of the word “murder” here, instead of “kill” seem to be eternal, also. I don’t want to spend 20 minutes rehashing it. But in this context, since Jesus is quoting Moses, the Hebrew here is rendered in English rāṣaḥ. 

In the book of Exodus, it appears 18 times in 18 verses. It is always translated  into English as “kill” except for a single time when it was translated “murder.” This time. 

Biblical Hebrew doesn’t seem to have a single word that means “slay intentionally.” 

The Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon translates the word: “to kill, to dash to pieces, to kill many, to act the homicide.” An example:

Exo 21:14

“But if a man acts with premeditation against his neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you shall take him from My altar, that he may die.  

They describe what we call murder, sometimes in a phrase, but always in multiple words. In the Ten Commandments, there is one simple English word not justified by the Hebrew. 

Enough of  that. Next is the verse that directly follows the one above:

Mat 5:22

“But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.

NOTE:

5:22 The scribes and Pharisees said that a person who referred to another asRaca, meaning empty head, was in danger of being sued for libel before the council (or the Sanhedrin).  On the other hand, Jesus said that whoever calls another a fool will have to answer to God. That is not to say that calling someone a fool will condemn a believer to eternal punishment in hell. Rather Jesus was saying that to utter such words is to place oneself in a worse condition at the time of judgement.

They aren’t liable to hell even though Jesus said they were liable to hell in the NKJV?   (The actual word is gehenna, but the NKJV uses “hell” for several words they think mean endless punishment.) 

Then they tell us Jesus didn’t really say that, and what Jesus really meant.  Which amounted to “Don’t call people names or you’ll have to move back in line before you get into Heaven.” That is, name-calling is no big deal.

Dogma is a nest that houses many a viper,  diverting people from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  As Scripture must be infallible and Jesus is correcting it, Jesus’ meaning must be twisted into something that not only doesn’t contradict the Old Testament, but allows people to sin, to become angry and call others denigrating names.

This is the definition of the word “antiChrist.”

 Were these commenters trying to get black men hung from trees or a young gay man stoned to death tied to a fence? They certainly did not foresee that name-calling, characterizing a person or group as other or lesser or unworthy or dangerous, is how things like holocausts happen. Which is why we listen to God through Christ, because we are so often clueless about the consequences of heedless sin.

They lied. I think we all know who Jesus said the father of lies is. We could say they simply want people to come to and stay in their churches, and it’s too, too hard to walk that narrow path and never lie or call someone a name or refuse to kill a stranger if you get drafted.

But then, they are preventing people from knowing Jesus. Intentionally.

VIPERS  

PART TWO

I know, I didn’t say there was a part one, but this is the hard part for us. Can you take dogma you have always believed and set it aside enough to objectively consider what He said and did during the Incarnation?

There are many of the 255 that the Church set aside long ago, but they just stopped mentioning them as they had declared themselves infallible, so, like the people commenting in the Nelson NKJV, they couldn’t just say, Jesus came to give everyone the real Gospel and well, it’s just not ok to kill people.  

But what if to truly understand, we have to put aside the idea Jesus was born of a virgin with no human biological father? That He was not divine during the Incarnation? What if the Nicene Creed had the dogma removed that didn’t reflect Jesus’ Incarnate words or action?

Nicene Creed: 

I believe in one God,  the Father almighty,  maker of heaven and earth,
 of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.  For our sake, He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried.  He ascended into heaven
 and  his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit and life in the world to come.

Amen. 

What if we forget the idea that Jesus was a victim, the “lamb of God” Who came to “take away our sins?” What if, without all the commentary and preconceptions, Jesus Incarnation was  something more, different, and very simple to understand?

Mark 1:38
 [Jesus] said to them, "Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for."

John 18:37
Jesus answered, "For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."

I want us to look at the Incarnation as if we are some random Gentile who never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. We stop at an inn and sit at a table for dinner near another where a few men are talking over wine and bread and soup. We overhear: 

“... so then John was arrested and  this Jesus came to Galilee telling everyone a message from God, ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand…’ ”