Mr. Smarty Pants Answer Man on God and Gods

Dear Smarty Pants Answer Man,
How do you interpret Genesis 3:5? Is God saying "They shall be as gods", or "They shall be as God"?

Answer man: The King James says "gods", while almost all other renderings use "God". The much respected New American Standard says "God". Scofield does too, with brackets showing the KJV rendering.

As the king of Siam said, "Is a puzzlement."

I have run off a bunch of online commentaries and translations to study. Many are ambiguous, even including the definition of "gods", "angels" or "divine beings". It is hard to resist trying to apply the context of the situation, which I feel eliminates the oft used "judges", later used in Psalms and John, in answer to the Jews, to whom it could more likely apply there.

I will get back to you on this. I am working on it.

By the way, must you address me as "Answer Man"?

Make it Complicated, It's Easier

I was watching a video on the planning and construction of an aircraft. Its design was to be extraordinarily complex. It seems that modern airplanes may have 6,000,000 parts, often made by a number of manufacturers, to be assembled in carefully designed processes. The number of brainy people and skilled workers is very impressive. To look at the cockpit of one of these craft is dazzling. Yet it is accomplished, and very well.

I have been in tiny churches of a few families who could not agree on basic theology. Bees can make honey and wax, that still evade the skill of man, operating on instinct alone, yet we can't convey the simplest concept to a bee.

It seems that the more complicated the task, the easier it is to perform. Whole religious systems have been formed that defy analysis. What color of fish hat to wear on each occasion, which Latin phrase to say while incense is burned, and worst of all, complex theology!

If it is complicated it can be performed, but simple truth evades billions of people. Did God really give us a complex religion for our salvation? Did the thief on the cross go to seminary?

Truly, I believe it is simple faith that trips us up. Abraham, "the father of all who believe", had a profound, but simple theology.

My pastor told a story of his youth. He had secretly bought an automobile while under aged. Later he decided to sell it, but his father read the ad. He grabbed his son and demanded, "Do you have a car?" His frightened son replied, "What kind?" This is such a typical response of those seeking escape from a "tight" situation.

When religion is confronted with the Bible, people throw up hurdles of complication to avoid it. I believe that complicated religion is false religion.

How to Kill a Woodcock

They are quiet, secretive little birds. They do no harm. I am amazed that anyone would want to kill them.

As a child, I read of a method used by hunters to distract them and then shoot them. A piece of bright cloth is tied to a thread and dangled from a tree limb. When the line is jerked the cloth dances. The birds are curious and come out of their concealment to investigate. When a woodcock is still, their natural camouflage makes them nearly impossible to see, so this strategy brings them into the open and makes it possible to kill them.

There are hunters and killers that are killing us, covertly now, but with plans for open action. Instead of a piece of bright cloth, they mesmerize with distractions beyond the imagination of those who lived a few generations ago.

I used to listen to Coast to Coast, and especially John B. Wells. Recently he was fired for going beyond the controlled media's boundaries. Since his firing, I have not listened to the program and intend never to again.

More than that I have lost interest in the controlled and edited news, except for a verifiable weather report. I am ashamed that, even skeptically, I ever listened at all. Those in the business call what we are subjected to "limited hangout". So-called controversial radio commentators seem to give us the truth about issues. This creates the illusion of freedom and hope.

I am not in doubt about America's future, any more than I am about the health of a person long dead. The Internet is not dead yet, but I am sure it will be soon, if only for technical reasons.

The victims of the Distracted Culture make it easy for their destroyers. The last words of Orwells 1984 are, "He loved big brother." Only a minority remember this. Today, instead, we love the dancing red rag manipulated by those who will kill us.

Mr. Smarty Pants Answer Man

Q. Dear Mr. Smarty Pants, Do you really believe God made the Earth in seven literal days?

A. I once subscribed to this theory, but no longer believe it. Now I know that God made the world in six literal days.

Q. Doesn't radio carbon dating prove that the earth is much older than around 6,000 years?

A. Carbon dating assumes that the ratio of C12 and C14 has not changed through time. This is typical of the belief by many scientists that "all things remain the same". When the fallacy of this assumption was pointed out to Dr. Willard Libbey, who founded carbon dating, he was trouble by it. In college I read Libbey's book on this dating method, which spoke of these reservations.

Q. If Noah only took two of each animal on the ark, what happened to the genetic line of the animals that he sacrificed in Genesis 8:20, after the flood abated?

A. Actually, Noah took seven pairs of clean animals, suitable for sacrifice (Gen. 7:2).

Q. You have been described as a "lone wolf" type of Christian. How would you answer this?

A. I have never thought of myself as a wolf of any kind. In my youth, I did aspire to be a lone Irish Setter, but now I am content to be a lone Cocker Spaniel.

If You Are Reading This, You Are Tough!

Now how would I know that? Maybe because I know how hard it is to hear about such topics as I send to you. They have been in my experience, too--believing in them, then, sometimes painfully, getting away from them. To do this I was forced to fight with some troubling scriptures, many of them fatally flawed translations.

I am aware that some refuse to even look at scriptures that put their beliefs in jeopardy. Did I tell you how I was rescued from doing that?

It was by reading a delightful book on plants, by Donald Culross Peaty, called This Flowering Earth. The author, studying to be a botanist at Harvard, was told to test his favorite ideas by doing his best to destroy them! If they were false they would be found so. Only the true ones would survive.

It seems revolutionary, but the Bible said it first: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21). I understand that the word "prove" here means "test", as in "proving grounds".

So, timidly, I learned to try my ideas for falseness. I had inherited the standard ideas that the Catholics had retained from the Babylonians and passed on to the Protestants. I began to find out if they were true to the Bible. Using the Bible, in pure form, as a guide, I found the Old Ideas (the ones that everyone "knows" are true) fell away.

There is a Viking story about a boat builder who had completed a craft along traditional lines. The next morning he found that someone had cut deep notches in the gunwales. Outraged he said "Find the one who cut up my boat! Another builder confessed that he had done it. "Trim your boat along the lines of those notches and you will find your boat, once fat as a cow, to be a beautiful swift horse." When this was done, the beautiful and swift Viking Boat was born.

So when we cut away the doctrines that man, guided by the Devil, has invented, our doctrines become beautiful and true. This of course, is done only by the tough, like you are.

Souls That Die

I don't mean "being separated from God", but dead. I admit to being caught up in this subject. Not because I fear my imminent death, but because I want to say these things while I may. If no one is stirred to look them up (online or paper concordance search) or no one cares, I am free from responsibility.

There was once a lady who put on a show of singing at Carnegie Hall. I believe her name was "Mrs. Miller". She would come on stage dressed in a Spanish costume and sing from "Carmen". She was not a trained singer. She was awful. People applauded to cover their laughter. Lines went around the block waiting to get in to hear her.

Mrs. Miller knew that she could not sing well, and that people mocked her. She said this: "People can say that I didn't sing well, but they can't say I didn't sing."

So it is with me. All I care is that people look things up for themselves, and not follow the traditions of the world.

The Temporary Victory of the Grave

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
1 Corinthians 15:55

Once again, Paul does not seem to know that the grave has no victory. As soon as we die our souls go to heaven. That's what I have been told, so it must be true.

But Paul has a very different point. It is when we are resurrected that we have victory over the grave. He says it very plainly in verse 54. I realize that this is a very upsetting idea to many. It would be to me also if I had not read the Bible's answer to the victory of the grave.

This is quite personal to me. My wife lies in her grave, not far away. Soon I will join her. We will sleep in Christ until he comes. No 15 minute trip of our immortal souls to heaven, but His resurrection will take us to heaven.

Am I "resurrection happy"? Yes, very happy.