God and [your name here]

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri 

Image Credit & Copyright: Gordon Mandell

God of Israel knows every star in Omega Centauri by name (Ps 147:4).

God of Israel knows every human by name.


ADAM
The first creation story talks about humans in general as "mankind" in the Sixth Day of Creation

"So God created mankind in his own image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them." 
Gen 1:27 NIS

But right after that he already has a God given and today very widely known and famous name "Adam"
 וייצר יהוה אלהים את־האדם עפר מן־האדמה ויפח באפיו נשׁמת חיים ויהי האדם לנפשׁ חיה׃

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Gen 2:7 

Hebrew adam comes from adamah, soil, and is related to adam, reddish, red Edom (reddish Nubian sandstone). The connection is probably to the fertile reddish soil of Holy Land created by erosion from the Eocene limestone formed in the bottom of Tethys Sea.

For the sumerians "soil" is mud or clay from that huge river valley often flooded in prehistoric times..

The Hebrew word adam means thus also "man" so that the Son of Man is Ben Adam and we are all bne adam. Adam is also a personal name.


ANIMAL SPECIES
God asks Adam to give names to His creatures in that wonderful Garden of Eden:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
Gen 2:19-20

And so it is also today, people give names to God's creatures and so the species are called differently depending on the language of the name-giver.


EVE
And the man also gives name to that wonderful creature, the Mother of Life, hebrew Havva

  “This is now bone of my bones
   and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
   for she was taken out of man.”
Gen 2:23

Havva, Eva, Eve



GOD GIVEN NAMES
Sometimes God Himself gives the name ot a person:

The angel of the LORD also said to her: 
“You are now pregnant
   and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
   for the LORD has heard of your misery."
Gen 16: 11


Sometimes God gives a new name:
Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.
Gen 17:3-5

The God given name of John the Baptist has powerful memories attached to it:

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John."
...
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”
They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”
Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
Luke 1:11-13, 59-64


CHRIST GIVES NAMES
And there is this secret name on the white stone that Lord Jesus Christ gives!

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.
Rev 2:17

MANY PEOPLE
There are many people and many names today and at times we may feel a bit insignificant as Woody Allen in the movie Ants.

Perhaps you feel a bit lost in the groud if your name is Muhammad (probably the most common first name in the world) Or if you live in Korea and your surname is Kim, Lee or Parker (half of Koreans have one of these surnames).

But you are still unique among the seven billion humans in several ways. God of Israel has given you unique facial features (for identical twins are rare), color of your eyes, fingerprints (all criminals know this), DNA and so on.

God identifies you by your name, He knows who you are. "Where are you, Adam?" and that unforgettable moment at Garden Tomb "Mary!" - nothing else was needed for Mary of Magdala to recognize the caller.

But now, this is what the LORD says—
   he who created you, Jacob,
   he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine."
Isaiah 43:1


BUT WE ARE SO MANY?
May you say "Really, Mikko, do you think that Almighty would know me by my name? After all, there are  8175133 stories in New York and I am only one of them."

Well, not only does God of Israel know every human being that ever existed by name.

He also knows all the stars in the Universe by name.

And there are many of them!

Praise the LORD 
   How good it is to sing praises to our God,
   how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
   he gathers the exiles of Israel.
  He heals the brokenhearted
   and binds up their wounds.
  He determines the number of the stars
   and calls them each by name.
 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
   his understanding has no limit.
 The LORD sustains the humble
   but casts the wicked to the ground.
Psalm 147:1-6

God and Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman (b. 1938) as God in Bruce Almighty

I do not think that God minds Morgan Freeman playing Him - he does it pretty well.

It is true, the movie Bruce Almighty (2003) was rather pointless - at least I do not remember the point - but Morgan Freeman was dignified, reserved and authorative in a way that does not seem like acting but rather seems to be his true personality.  (The sooner the expensive sequel Evan Almighty is forgotten the better).

Emperor penguines on the march

The major almost divine look at those magnificent animals in The March of the Penguins (2005) would not be the same without Freeman as the narrator of the English version.

The President gives the bad news in Deep Impact

When Paramount Pictures and Dream Works chose Morgan Freeman to play the role of the President of the United States in Deep Impact (1998) they knew what they did. In fact, Freeman as the President is probably more memorable in this divine catastrophe movie than the amazing special effects of a major tsunami hitting the costal cities of United States

Maggie (Hilary Swank) and Eddie (Morgan Freeman)

The overwhelming presence of Morgan Freeman is difficult to hide. He really had to work in order to hide it and to become a regular small guy Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris in the powerful  Million Dollar Baby (2004) for which he deservedly received the Academy Award.

Morgan Freeman is probably one of the reasons why North Americans chose African-American Barack Obama Barak as their president with such an overwhelming vote. The white Americans instinctively feel the moral and spiritual power in Freeman and sense that this is genuine and not some low greedy character acting for money and fame.

Almost amighty Paul Shannon pulling the ropes in Chain Reaction

The power of Freeman's presence shines through in the movie Chain Reaction (1996) giving the film tension and depth as he acts the role of an almost divine being in those big gray organizations that the often so paranoid Americans feel are pulling the real ropes behind the scenes.


Morgan Freeman acting the role of God?

Iconoclastic movements in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not happy with any images of God and it is forbidden in the Torah to worship images of God. But Christianity rejected iconoclasm and icons are filling both Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries around the world.

So, to cast Morgan Freeman as God visible is in the spirit of St John of Damascus (676-749) who argued that Incarnation, the conception of virgin Mary and the birth of God as man in Bethlehem, gives us permission to portray images of God. But not to worship them.

We believe that Jesus Christ is man and God and He says "who has seen me has seen Father".
John 14:9

So Morgan is portrayed as God in this spirit of humanity rejecting extreme iconoclastic claims.

He does it rather well in Bruce Almighty, don't you think, and very convincingly as the almost divine mortals, lthe President of the United States or the head of the secretive C-Systems Research facility.

Well, to make the record straight, here is another excellent man made image of God. van Eyck brothers put the focus where it should be when imagining God - in the man, Jesus Christ.

Image of God the Father in Ghent altarpiece 

Hubert and Jan van Eyck 1432

God Projection

God Projection signifies people who project divinity into something else instead of God.

In other words, when projecting God to something people give godly attributes such as deep wisdom, eternity, establishing of natural laws, creativity, complex and deep planning or purposed to something else than God.

Thus we can say that Communism is an ideology that raises materialistic atheism to the principal faith system of the society. Intellectual communists project in their philosophy God into matter. And so it is matter that gives birth to existence, pushes historical processes forward and influences both natural world and humanity.

The World Spirit of Hegel was projected into matter by Karl Marx.

Modern day scientists, cosmologists and biologists alike, project God into a supremely complex and fine tuned system of natural laws, mathematical formulations and processes in physical and biological reality that produce the world as we know it.

The projecting of God into natural laws is very attractive as such theories can be tested and evaluated and examined in scientific way.

So a "Science believer" who does not believe in a personal God but sees the Natural Laws as the true god has always an answer to the difficult problems of life and existence and such things: one day science and only science will give us the answer. Today we are ignorant and are not ashamed to say so.

Probably there are other kinds of projections in the hearts of human beings where the Almighty, the
Wise one, answers to the deep questions and insecurities of life. For example, I could imagine a person so deeply involved with money matters that Mammon becomes his or her god.

Why these projections?

Because God has created us people so that we would live in close contact with Him.

So when we reject Him and turn our back to the God of Israel - or when we do not know Him in the first place, the only God there is - we look for substitutions.

God Projections have one good point that is common to them all - they are something that human mind can comprehend and handle.

Real God is problematic, He tries to be our Boss and we do not like it and are afraid of a person who knows too much about us.


"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."
John 1:9-13 NIS

...
I wish to dedicate these words to emeritus professor Tuomo Mannermaa who gave us students unforgettable lectures about modern times and streams of thought in Western World.  His exceptionally powerful teaching has inspired me in so many different ways.  Projection of God into matter is originally his analysis of Communist materialistic atheism.

Here I just point the same tool, kind of sawbuck, at the atheist  science believers who are not materialists but give all glory to the divine Laws of Nature that just exist. In a very cold cosmos...

Beauty, charm and intelligence

Jessica Gomes and a delphin

What is beauty?

The international beauty Jessica Gomes is no random product of lucky mutations. She is a charming human being created by the One who knows what is beauty (even she may herself not know her Creator).

Maybe you laugh at this and ask "what has Love to do with this"? (For God is love). Perhaps you think that beauty is a chance byproduct of natural laws and that the world does not need any gods to be beautiful?

If you think so, or maybe just assume so without even thinking, excuse me for smiling at you and your sad lack of faith that makes you so stupid when you think you are so smart!

Look at the dolphin. The streamlined beauty of her silvery body, the charm of her movements and her intelligence are well known to humans since ancient times. Dolphin shows, where these magnificent creatures dance and rotate and flip flap and jump according to the will of their human trainers are very popular. God of Israel has created a master piece that has existed in the oceans of this planet long before our time came to take it under our harsh totalitarian rule.

God's creations are holy and even when they show His sense of humour they invite respect and admiration. The intelligent design of dolphins is obvious but it combines with a perfect sense of style and beauty. The charming mammal is truly at home in its watery environment moving there with great speed, accurac and grace - unless trapped by our nets and hooks or driven crazy by our waste and poisons we dump to their home in such a selfish manner.

And more than that. This is not just theory about the deeper foundations of the existing world. For God has made this very personal and given to us, created as His images, the ability also to be artistically creative, charming and intelligent and produce pieces of art, sculpture, paintings, buildings, landscapes. He has made some of us good designers who do their best to combine esthetics, beauty and charm, with functionality, purpose and practicality.

Few surpass the German people in this.  God gave them many gifts (which they have not always used for the best purposes and general good, but often have.)

Evolutionary fight for survival, the fierce commercial competition of car markets where so many companies have recently perished or are fighting for survival, has led to an outstanding product that illustrates my point - the new BMW  Z4 series.

BMW Z4 2011 is a beauty and a beast

Click on the picture and admire! The new BMW Z4 succeeds in combining impeccably good taste, slender lines and shapes, harmony and classic beauty with enormous power and road handling praised by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and the Stig. And they know what they are talking about.

Don't be stupid, believe in God of Israel!

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles."
Romans 1:21-23 NIS

Creation and Rod Steward

Rod Steward

Creation of the physical world is much more than just the product of rather random events in an environment ruled by natural laws that mysteriously just exists. Biological evolution is much more than the product of rather random mutations in a genetic environment that mysteriously just exists.

Rachel Hunter and Rod Steward

Tthe amazing power the voice of Rod Steward has had on women is comparable to the amazing power of female beauty that people like Rachel Hunter, his ex-wife, have on men.

Why on earth women like the raspy voice of Rod Steward and get weak knees when he is Sailing and almost cry when he tells how First Cut is the Deepest?

What evolutionary advantage this world famous British singer has over me and the millions other guys who know better than trying to impress a lady with my singing voice (I do not like that pretty ladies laugh at me...)

Why Rod Steward's songs penetrate the heart of women and give him what we men call great luck among the prettier genre?

Bob Marley (1945-1981)

Bob Marley is said to have had some difficulties with his wife as so many women were truly interested in him and the shelter of his single bed. Indeed, is this love? Quite a character this Jamaican was and not exactly on the top of the most sportive and politically powerful persons among men. Yet, his singing meltsd so many hearts of women.

Of cours, Rod and Bob affect also millions of men but in a different manner, lacking this female ownership trend - I want that Jose Carrera, Pavarotti or... the list is long.

To prove my point, here is one of the great female heart-breaking singers of our time

Julio Iglesias

El Amor!  Just look at the expressions of the ladies in the clip and you get the point.

So why music, song? What practical purpose it has in the evolution of humanity and in the battle for survival? Mammoths and tigers and bears are not afraid of trubadours?

Music, male voice, romance, because God of Israel not only loves, He is love!

"God is love"
1 John 4:16

---
I so much agree with that Catholic priest, whatever was his name, who said

"I am not the product of Intelligent Design. God has loved me into existence"

Masterpiece of creation - Jessica Gomes

Jessica Gomes

Sports Illustrated 2008/9

God of Israel has created a particularly beautiful human being - Jessica Gomes.

Jessica's exceptionial beauty inspired bodypaint artist Joanne Gair and when the amazing results of her creative painting work were published in Sports Illustrated they caused quite a stir around the world.

Joanne Gair at work

Sports Illustrated 2008/9

The movie "Shallow Hal" reminds us that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Yet, there is something about Jessica Gomes that most people would define as exceptional beauty, not just beauty. But what it is? And why on earth are women beautiful? What practical benefit beauty brings to human race? Selection in the process of regeneration?

Leonardo da Vinci brought together many subtle visual details to create the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa that seems to tell as much as it hides what is in her mind. The painting of the face of an Italian beauty has fascinated humanity ever since but it is quite difficult to define what exactly makes this portrait so different from all other portraits of beautiful women.

Similarly, it is very difficult to explain what exactly creates the classic and noble impression of Jessica Gomes or what is beauty.  The impression we get is part comparison with others ("this is no Marilyn Monroe...") and a sum of many different details that together create in our minds the impression of an international beauty. Not only the shape of head, symmetry of facial features, hair or architecture of her nose, eye brows, lips, chin and other such things. Beauty definitely includes also such rather esoteric and non-scientific aspects as her character as shown in the photo, and funny subconscious questions of ownership like what kind of wife she would be, can she cook, is she nice to animals, does she understand quantum physics, good at tennis? And for us men there is always that evolutionary question "would she like someone who looks, talks, behaves like me and who has no money for fancy cars?" 

Classic female beauty and character

Sports Illustrated 2008/9

Even when we are unable to explain it we do get an impression of beauty and character. The feeling is shared as probably most of humanity would agree that Jessica Gomes, an Australian model of Singaporean Chinese and Portuguese heritage, is a rare beauty compared to other women living on this planet. There are some more beautiful, some less beautiful, in our personal scales and system of preferences. But the verdict is in in the popularity of her pictures and her choice as a model.

God of Israel has truly created a masterpiece - a living human being.

But why?

If life is only what evolution believers sometimes suggest, in principle a fight for the survival of fittest in a given environment,  there is no need for any gods to do the work from Big Bang to Jessica Gomes.

Personally I think that evolutionary theory has difficulty in explaining the purpose of the exceptional beauty of Jessica Gomes for much less female attraction is needed for the reproduction system to work.  Normal man needs basically only those three simple signs, two red dots and a black triangle, and is ready to go on to impregnate the lady.

So why this unnecessary delicacy, this great attention to every detail in the womb of Jessica's mother, from shaping her nostrils to the coloring of her eyes? Just a change genetic combination of racial features? But even so, why beauty?

It all seems so unnecessary in the real world if everything we need is to reproduce our species, to eat and drink and whatever.

I think that evolution believers are wrong and are missing the important point - life is not all about the survival of the fittest or catching the best partner for continuing our race.

It is beauty because of beauty.

God of Israel LOVES us and has created so much beauty, and also the ugliest beast so that we see the difference, noise and music, bad smell and jasmin flowers, romance and tears of separation, competition by handsome rich fellows for the hand of that beautiful lady.

Yes, God loves Jessica Gomes whom He has created.

And God loves us also by letting us admire her exceptional beauty emphasized by the human artist, fashion modelers, make-up artists, hairdressers and physical fitness trainers and... photographers, of course, thank God for them too!

just look at the happy face of young Louis Amstrong in this youTube song and you agree with him
What a wonderful world!


Also God saw that it is good (Genesis 1)

Ussher's chronology otherwise quite good

The chronology of the world from the days of Creation was calculated very accurately almost to the hour by Archbishop James Ussher in 1654 and added to the Bible in 1675 by Thomas Guy. The night October 23 4004 B.C.

Except for that day of creation his chronology is otherwise quite good.

Ussher's chronology overview

The unhappy 4004 B.C. is scientific theory, learned guess, founded on the best and in fact only known source of information in 17th century academic world - the Bible.

That year is very problematic and I call it Devil's Stamp 4004.

17th CENTURY ACADEMIC DATING OF THE WORLD
But the dating of events in world history after that is based on careful study of all the known sources James Ussher was able to find in the libraries of his time.

There was no other known dating method for early history than the genealogies of the Bible and Ussher did his best studying them and calculating and calculating dates...

Bible was a kind of Sphinx at those days, an old, quiet, impressive, mysterious book filled with the names of strange rulers and countries and generations of people long ago with whom the people of Israel came into contact.

Except for the cryptic references in the Bible almost nothing else was known about these people in the ancient Near East.

MODERN DATING METHODS AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORLD
In the 19th century began the modern scientific era and human race learned new methods for dating old things. New ways of researching ancient cultures, layered deposits of archaeological sites, exploration and survey of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Italy and the entire world. Relative dating was developed towards the end of the 19th century by Sir Flinders Petrie giving us a solid foundation of Egyptian chronology.

 Willard Libby (1908 – 1980)

Absolute dating has many methods. Willard Libby truly revolutionized our understanding of cultural history and prehistory by applying newly developed atomic sciences to chronology and demonstrated in Chicago in 1949 radiocarbon dating. This can suggest dates to organic samples almost 50.000 years old!

The birth of scientific geology in the Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology 1830-33 totally revolutionized dating of the surface of the earth and replaced James Ussher's educated guess 4004. But the rise of Geology did not so much affect later parts of his chronology.

PLAIN OF SINEAR
The chronology given by James Ussher to events after Adam and Eve are surprisingly good and near the mark as we understand the things today.

Even that year 4004 B.C. is not without meaning although it has led many to believe that the this is a Biblical date.

It is not from the Bible, it is the devilish addition Genesis 1:1 (+)

About two hundred years of careful digging, exploration, studying, dating, comparing and disputing events in the history of the human race has created a rough consensus among the academics.

The first high culture upon earth with the building of cities and the invention of writing rose in the plains of Sinear on the 4th millennium before the birth of Christ.

Exactly as the Bible says, the cradle of urban high civilization is the Land of Sinear where people start to build houses from mudbricks.

Not from stone like in the Land of Canaan where mudbrick houses are found mostly in the Jordan valley.

The Tower of Babel, once just a legend, is today understood by serious academic researchers of Sumer and Babylon as Gates of Heaven, high towers, on which gods descended from up and ascended back blessing, protecting and sometimes cursing the citizens of Eridu and other Sumerian and Babylonian cities.

The people called them ziqqurrat. Some of them are still standing.

All what was needed in the 19th century was Sir Austin Layard and others just to go and take a look.

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:1-4 KJV

Ah, you want to quarrel with me? Take a look at the entire world, not just to Eastern Mediterranean, and you see how wrong you are?

Eh... What do you mean, Yellow River cultures in China, Indus River cultures, or some Far Eastern culture in Indonesia, Burma, and Vietnam?

Nope. There is nothing older out there than Sumer where human inhabitants on this planet invented writing.

Oh, you meant Central America, perhaps the Maya with their fabulous calendar and no wheels?

Nope.

Well, let us quarrel if you like and I am ready to learn new things if I am wrong in claiming, that the Bible chronology of Sumer is not that far off the mark and that there it started, the building of cities. (and yes, I do know Çatalhöyük)

It started in the plains of Sinear.

As the Bible tells us (with its fascinating hints and touches on Sumerian culture)

Scientific dating of events during those four millennia starting with Uruk and Sumer and Predynastic Egypt and other ancient Near Eastern and other civilizations varies as learned men and women argue about their dating.

But the Ussher chronology is surprisingly good for this time in human history in the Mediterranean region.

Taking into account that on oldest parts it is based on only one source

The Word of God

which is the Truth!

Devil's Stamp - 4004

Ussher's chronology overview

Satan is truly skillfull, the enemy of our souls, accuser, murderer and liar.

Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
John 8:43-45 KJV


Take this, for example:

At the very last verses of the Bible there is this terrible threat:

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
Revelation 22:18-19 KJV


Devil has succeeded fabulously and achieved something quite amazing, fooling the chosen ones:

First, someone has added human created stuff to the Bible

Then we have so many pious Christians today who keep to this addition to the point that they are shocked and doubt the eternal salvation of anyone daring to challenge it!

Is that not something? Only the Master of Lies is capable of such fooling of the chosen ones.

Maybe you are one of the many so skillfully tricked?


Let us be very careful and accurate now in the presence of such a Big Lie

Let us pray that the Spirit of Truth would guide us to truth also in this matter as promised by our wonderful Shepherd Lord Jesus Christ.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
John 16:13-14 KJV


Is this a matter of salvation?

Of course not driectly. But there are souls that get the impression from creationists today that truth is not important. This can prevent them from coming to Christ.

But it is not nice that Christians keep opinions that are known to be utterly wrong and outdated information about the world God of Israel has created.

THE ADDITION
The fateful addition to the Bible was made in 1675 A.D.

In that year a Bible was printed in London that had on the margins the chronology of the world determined by Irish Archbishop James Ussher.

That Bible was printed by Thomas Guy, a British gentleman and God fearing Member of Parliament.

He was an important man and established Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals and the Foundation and financed the building of Guy's Hospital in 1721. Both are still operating today and are a great blessing to the citizens of London.

Thomas Guy (1644–1724)

Thomas Guy (1644–1724) was born in Southwark. His father was a lighterman and owned coal store. Our Thomas started working in book shops and as a 24 year old lad he established his own shop in Lombard Street (1668).

He concentrated on selling Bibles and since the English ones were quite bad quality he imported them from Netherlands. Later Oxford University Press allowed him to print Bibles there and so Thomas Guy became an important distributor of the Word of God in England.

Competitors accused Thomas for being stingy and that he pays way too low salaries to those working in his bookshops. Maybe the salaries were low but he donated huge amounts of money to good purposes. He made his fortune by investing wisely.

Guy bought shares in South Sea Company for 42.000 pounds. The ships of this company were involved in slave trade from Africa and human trafficking paid well. So when he later sold the shares their value had multiplied and he made quite a fortune. Thomas never married and left big part of his heritage to Guy's Hospital. (info from Wikipedia)

So Mister Thomas Guy printed beautiful Bibles in Oxford. But since 1675 he added to them Bishop Ussher's Chronology from his accurate dating of creation and historical events of the Biblical world. He used over twenty years and studied over 10.000 books in the process.

James Ussher (1581 – 1656)

Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland

“In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.”James Ussher "The Annals of the Old Testament" 1650. Second part 1654.

Very accurate, indeed!

In the right margin of the book Ussher calculates that this is the Christian year 4004 B.C.

And so the Devil added to the well-meaning printed Bible of Thomas Guy that little innocent and truthful looking thing

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” *4004 B.C.
Genesis 1:1 (+)

NOT NEW OLD CHRONOLOGY
People liked it. Guy's fine Bibles were best sellers in the entire country and so Ussher chronology printed in them gained the stamp of divine truth.
And it was top science of the day! The highly respected and clever James Ussher, later Archbishop of Ireland, had done his best and the academic world of the time was truly impressed.

Of course, this chronology is not Ussher's invention; he just made it very accurate. It is based on Biblical genealogies and the Jews had used such chronology since the Roman period. Today is Sivan 15. 5771 since the creation of the world.

Famous astronomer Johannes Kepler preferred the year 3996 B.C.

Martin Luther used the rounded number 4000 B.C..


SPREADING THE DEVIL'S STAMP
The sickness was spread from Guy Bibles to other English Bibles and then all over the world.

The wonderful Bible Society was established in 1804 in an old London tavern. Already during the first year they translated the Gospel of John to the language of Canadian Mohawk Indians and that was the beginning!

Sun never set in British Empire of Queen Victoria and Christian missionary work reached all corners of the world. Bible was translated to so many languages and it reached the furthest corners of our planet, may God be praised!

But many of them had the Stamp of Devil 4004.

Bible Society work has been blessed from heavens
"By 1904 we had supplied nearly 181 million copies of the Scriptures, spent nearly £14 million on the translation, production and distribution of Scriptures, and employed 1,000 colporteurs and Biblewomen – over half of them in India and China."
Bible Society

Still in the 1970'ies the Gideons - may God bless them - distributed to hotels Bibles with Ussher chronology.

Well, Thomas Guy was the first one to add to the Holy Bible something and others followed him.


Everybody agreed that the chronology is correct in those days, in the 18th century.


THE BIG BANG THAT ALMOST DESTROYED WESTERN CHRISTIANITY
Satan is very skillful.

The Stamp of the Devil 4004 B.C. almost destroyed Western Christianity in the 19th century.

See, eventually the truth wins.

John Thomas Scopes (1900 – 1970)

(In the Scopes Monkey Trial 1925 Ussher's chronology was used as important evidence against the accused High school biology teacher John Thomas Scopes (1900 – 1970). A good 2004 study of Ussher and the Scopes trial by Doug Linder can be found here.)

Shallow Hal

celebrity profile

Gwynneth Paltrov in Ask Men

The movie Shallow Hal (2001) is surprisingly deep.

Gwyneth Paltrov as Rosemary Shanahan is like the warm beating heart of this cinematic allegory about our ability to see the truth in each others and in the world we live in. Her enchanting performance creates a quiet, pleasant and quite touching female presence so full of intelligence, understanding, human sensitivity, honesty and genuine humility.  While she is stunningly beautiful she still succeeds to act convincingly the role of an ugly duckling already so beyond obesity that even the strongest steel legged chair breaks under her enormous weight.

Rosemary and Rosemary, depends who is looking

The truth this movie so nicely studies is that everpresent male quest after femaly beauty. Evolutionary theorists find so difficult to explain why woman is beautiful. What practical good it is for humanity in the harsh game of survival that women are so prettty? (and so concerned about it,.too)

  Jack Black

Beauty really is in the eyes of the beholder Jack Black as "Shallow" Hal Larson learns when he is touched in a special way in a stuck elevator. He plays well the normal everyday guy in all of us men and makes us smile at ourselves on the way.

Jason Alexander as Mauricio Wilson succeeds in creating that other reality in us without the magic touch, without vision of inner beauty and life deep embedded in fear that the truth about oneself, that wagging tail we all have and that toupee, will be found out by some lady with devastating consequences to our self-esteem..

Joe Viterelli in Analyze That

Joseph "Joe" Viterelli (March 10, 1937 – January 28, 2004) as Rosemary's father Steve Shanahan creates in this movie a quite believable human being hoping for the best and shattered, once again, by the truth about us - the men in this world.

We humans have our view of the world and concept of the truth which is on one hand highly personal and on another hand communal, part of our being social animals. The play takes place on a board where we are deeply influenced by what others think of us and what we think of them, how we see human beings, and this is so nicely examined in Shallow Hal.

However, this "seeing" is not limited to human relations and our faith has its own eyes, we see what we see and are blind to what we are blind to.

For one person the enormous galactic nebulas and star cradles are amazingly beautiful and magnificent works of God, while someone else can only here the tinkling sounc of cosmic rays and cannot grasp what others see in that fat lady.

This is not brain versus emotions, reality versus wishful thinking.

Gwynneth is beautiful and what Hal sees is the truth.

We are all convinced of this and her obesity - while such a show stopper in the beginning - turns out to be just a feature in the totality, the physical dwelling of her spirit.

This is a deep subject - cognition, perception....

The romantic comedy Shallow Hal is surprisingly deep.

Faith has its own eyes," wrote St. Augustine