Friday, December 03, 2021

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Micah 4-5

A few years ago, I wrote about Isaiah 9:1-7, and much of what I said there is relevant to chapters 4 and 5 in Micah. I won't repeat everything I said in those posts. See here regarding issues like the origins of the Israelite monarchy in 1 Samuel 8 and some material that Isaiah and Micah have in common. In another post, I explained why we shouldn't think Isaiah 9 was fulfilled by Hezekiah or some other Jewish king of the Old Testament era. Some of what I said there is applicable to the material in Micah. Since there's so much overlap between what's said in Isaiah and what's said in Micah, those posts from a few years ago provide a lot of background for this post.

Micah 5:2 is often singled out in discussions of prophecy fulfillment, but the remainder of the chapter and the previous one should get more attention than they usually do. Chapters 4 and 5 are both eschatological and messianic. Chapter 4 opens with a discussion of Yahweh ruling the nations forever from Jerusalem in "the last days", and chapter 5 concludes with a reference to his executing vengeance on the nations. Both are addressing what will happen "in that day" (4:6, 5:10). Some of the same or similar themes are found in both chapters, and they often shed light on one another.

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Enfield Miscellany (Part 6)

(See part 1 here for an explanation of what this series is about. Here are links to the other parts: two, three, four, and five. I'll be citing the Enfield tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'll use "MG" to reference a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to designate one from Playfair's. MG44A refers to tape 44A in Grosse's collection, and GP10A refers to 10A in Playfair's, for example.)

Hazel Short's Other Experiences

She's typically discussed in the context of a levitation of Janet Hodgson that Short witnessed on December 15, 1977. The other events she witnessed don't get much attention. An article published several years ago reports:

Hazel, now 65, said: “I was once invited into her [Peggy Hodgson's] house, it was a boiling hot summer’s day outside but inside it was like a freezer, ice-cold.

“Peggy, Janet’s mum, led me through to the downstairs toilet and stuck to the wall was the toilet brush and a bottle of bleach.

“I will never forget what I saw and felt in that house. “It’s just a surprise that the story has taken this long to be turned into a film.”

She seems to be saying that the toilet brush and bottle of bleach were sticking to the wall in a paranormal manner.

Monday, November 29, 2021

Luke 1:56 And The Importance Of Bracketing

In a post about Luke's census account a few years ago, I mentioned the value of bracketing the first three verses of Luke 2 to highlight the fact that Jesus and his family don't enter the narrative until verse 4. Bracketing is often helpful in understanding Biblical passages and working through some of the issues involved. And Luke's material on Jesus' childhood provides us with another example.

As I mentioned in a post earlier this year, Joseph's presence in Nazareth in Luke 2:4 makes more sense if you read 2:4 in the context of 1:56. But people typically don't do that, since the material between 1:56 and 2:4 is distracting them from 1:56 and what led up to it. If you bracket the material about Mary and Jesus in 1:26-56 and the material about Jesus and his family starting in 2:4, you'll have a better understanding of some aspects of what's going on. You can read the post linked at the beginning of this paragraph for an explanation of how 2:4 makes more sense in light of 1:56. Luke had good reason to present the material as he did. The paralleling of John the Baptist and Jesus, going back and forth between the two, accomplishes some good things. But it's helpful to also bracket the material I've mentioned above and read that bracketed material together.

And it helps to do the same in other contexts. A major example outside of Luke that I've often cited is John 7:53-8:11. That passage shouldn't be included in John's gospel, but when it's present, it's important to bracket it to assist in reading 8:12 in light of 7:52 and what led up to it.