(Corresponding Podcast – Follow Podcast) Before Spirit Was Spiritualistic: Philosophical Materialism from Genesis to Jesus ← This is the title of a series of talks we hosted and published over seven Saturdays, from April 8 to May 20, 2023. What’s the series about? It’s about Jesus and his philosophical predecessors and successors and how they […]
Tag Archives: author Lois Roden
The Not To Be Attitudes
Blessed are the poor in spirit, but woe to those who make humility a protector of sin. Blessed are the pure in heart, but woe to those who take refuge in good intentions. Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who compromise truth to avoid conflict. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for […]
Jeremiah Against Orthodoxy (Ancient and Modern)
The message of the prophet Jeremiah repudiated the orthodoxy of his day, and it repudiates the orthodoxy of our day. In doing so, it also positively teaches us some valuable lessons. Before getting into that, though, let’s go over a few important facts about Jeremiah. The When – Jeremiah delivered his message during the last […]
Who May Travel Into Yahweh’s Tent?
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) I’ve recently been writing about a philosophy within ancient Israel that understood Yahweh to be the God of Truth and truth itself to be the supreme principle. This was actually part of the materialist school in ancient Israel. If you aren’t familiar with ancient Israelite materialism, I recommend reading/listening to the […]
Zoom Series from Oct. 11-17 (2022) – The Personality of God: An SDA Pillar Doctrine
UPDATE: The series referenced in this post is now over. You can watch recordings of all the meetings in the playlist embedded below. **** We have a series of Zoom Meetings that’ll start in just a couple of days on an incredibly important topic: The Personality of God. This was a major doctrine in early […]
God: A Purely Material Person
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) So, it’s the Day of Atonement, and we’ve covered a lot in seven blog posts/podcasts over the past 10 days starting with Dirt You Are (Israelite Anthropology). Fittingly, today we’ll be talking about the subject that is holiest of all, the person of God Himself. In our last post, we covered […]
Jesus: A Purely Material Person
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) In our last post, we saw that Jesus and his early followers had a materialistic understanding of human nature. They believed and taught that bodily resurrection is the only hope for a future life (a doctrine that is fundamentally inconsistent with the idea that we have immaterial souls). In this post, we […]
Resurrection: The Only Hope of Future Life
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) In the past few posts, we’ve seen that ancient Israelite ideas of death were rooted in their ideas of human nature. Death, to them, consisted neither of “soul wakefulness” nor of “soul sleep” (that is, if by “soul” you mean what most people mean – a non-physical “self”). Rather, they saw […]
To Dirt You Will Return (Israelite Anthropology)
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) In this post, I’ll answer the question from the end of our last post: What did ancient Israelites think about death? Before getting started, I should repeat a qualification I made a few posts back. I’m generally referring to “what ancient Israelites believed” on these subjects, but please keep in mind […]
Cognitive Kidneys (Israelite Anthropology)
(Podcast Version – Follow/Subscribe) Have you ever had a hard time wrapping your brain around a new idea? You just keep racking your brain, but get nowhere! Then someone comes along with a completely different background and a different education, and to them, it’s a no-brainer. You can see that they understand it so much […]