W’s Post Scripts: Have faith in the proven Science of Christ! (8)
“Find herein a ‘canny’ crumb” (Mis. xi) or insights fsrom Cobbey Crisler or others on citations for
“Truth”
the Christian Science Bible Lesson for July 22-29, 2019
I’m sending this email of some spiritual sense application ideas from Cobbey Crisler and others hoping that you “find herein a ‘canny’ crumb… (to) become footsteps to joys eternal.” (Miscellaneous Writings, xi:15.)
Warren’s (W’s) PS#1— Ken Cooper wrote a backstory monologue from the perspective of Elijah.” (I Kings 19:1-18, B10).
Ken wrote: “Please find following the link for Elijah at https://youtu.be/s4afuAK7qbM
The loving question from God “What doest thou here” is the command to shift thinking from the mortal to the immortal, to recognise the simple truth that God exists in the spiritual real(m) and that’s where we dwell when we listen and pray. As regards the dream of material living “the Lord was not there”. In the midst of any of the varied turmoils that might seem to beset us, we can claim as God is infinite, all good, the turmoil becomes nothing to us, for “God is not there”. When God speaks, that is the only voice. We need not fear. His Word is the truth of our being. When we hear His voice, we know the Truth, and are free.
I have attached the pdf versions
I have also attached a poem "The Truth of Unconditional Being". [John 8:32, B20]
These offerings from Ken Cooper are available to be downloaded as PDFs [in the upper right of CedarS online version] and can be printed as you wish in either color or black ink.
W’s PS#2— Cobbey Crisler on John 1:1-3 (citations B1 and S6): “In the beginning”
“John 1:1. John starts off unlike any of the preceding gospels. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He starts off, as a matter of fact, as only one other book of the Bible begins. Notice Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. " Do you think the early readers of his gospel would have recognized that? Do you think that was John's intent? That it should be recognized?
“There is something that is a major clue to studying the Bible. That is, when you get the remotest hint of an Old Testament verse in the New Testament, don't ignore it or put it aside. It’s there for a very deep reason. It probably holds the key to the meaning of the New Testament event, or the author would not have included it. By no means make the mistake which Professor Davies, Professor Dodd, Professor Albright and many others of our top New Testament scholars say we often make. That is, when you find a verse in the New Testament which comes from the Old Testament, either an exact quote or a paraphrase, don’t just go back to that verse. Read the context around it. Study the environment; get deeply involved in the thought and intent of the Old Testament passage. You may be more closely at-one with what the author in the New Testament means. In other words, what do you have? You have a blend of the whole Bible that way. You find that Old and New Testaments become inseparable, which is virtually the view, I think, that the authors of the New Testament take. The account of the "Walk to Emmaus" in Luke 24: 13-35 shows how much Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament to show how much the New Testament fulfills Old Testament prophecies.
“It also seems clear to me that Jesus, in his approach to mankind, from his outlook, his acts, his attitudes, his words as well as works, embraced universal humanity. You'll find hints of it passed down from his early students to their students, and so forth. But more than this, Jesus of Nazareth was a Bible student to surpass all Bible students. Therefore, if he knew in his own thought when an event affecting him or others of his period were the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy, or a lesson should be learned from a new/old truth that came out of the reservoir of the Scriptures, then he would so state it.
“But sometimes he allowed it to remain hidden. It would force his hearers, as well as his readers in this century, to become Bible students with him if they wanted to understand what he was saying. He embraces universal humanity. He addresses and communicates particularly to Bible students. As far as Jesus' comprehension of the word "Christian" is concerned, it probably would be fair to say that he would insist that Christians become Bible students just to comprehend what the word meant. What does that say to us today? Does that mean we should be reading these books, this collection, this library called the Bible? Specifically, our focus today is on the New Testament and one of the gospels? Should we be reading it as if it were a novel? Is that how Jesus felt his life and mission should be conveyed?
…
“John 1:1 starts his gospel off, "In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek is, en arche hin ho logos. Does arche look familiar to you? It is the root word in "archeology." It's an exciting word. It doesn't just mean when things begin or when they have started in a human way, so much as, translated by some scholars, as "the first principle" of things.
“For instance, when Jerome, in about 400 A.D. translates the Greek Bible into Latin, here’s how he does those opening words. "In principio," which, of course, is our root of our word "principle," in principio. He could have used another Latin expression which is "ab initio, " which would have meant at the initial phases of things, but instead he chooses a Latin word which has a dual meaning which could be “principle," the first principle, the origin, the basis of things.
“If we choose that particular Greek meaning for the opening of both Genesis and John, then it gives it an entirely different connotation. If, in principle, God created the heaven and the earth, or in principle, was the word, it starts out like many mathematical or scientific textbooks which start out with the statement of principle. Everything else derives from it.
“But then we come to a word which John uses in the first chapter and uses again in successive chapters but never with the same connotation. It stands out in its uniqueness and it is so emphatically important to the author that we have to just dwell on it somewhat and see what it might mean.
“Let me give you a partial history of the word. What automatically occurs to you as the meaning of logos? We take this word, "Word," and identify it with logos. This is likely being written at some point during the 1st century A.D. Way back in the 6th century B.C., Heraclitus at Ephesus was attempting philosophically to explain continuity amid all the flux around him. He resorted to logos as the eternal principle of order in the universe, the kind of reliable, unchanging law and order. This is several centuries prior to John's use of it. (Interestingly enough, people think that the Gospel of John may have been written there.)
“From that period, we can trace the word logos through many, many different concepts. Zeno (of Elea, c 490 – c 430 B.C.), a Greek philosopher used it in the connotation of right reason, of reality within the mind, pure thought. Which leads me to what Professor Dodd has said, "It is only in Greek that a term is available which means both thought and word, and that's logos." Only in Greek have you that term that can convey both thought and word. So, when you’re talking about logos, even from the standpoint of word, if we are not giving to it what really is behind it, we're losing something of the message, aren't we?
“Why does the additional concentration on thought add to the definition of word? When you go behind the word to the thought, you're dealing with ideas, concepts, and the meaning. It is where all human languages finally give up their fragmentation and meet, and become one, in a Pentecostal day of infinite communication. The "word" is but an instrument which we must meet at the thought or at the meaning. Then, no barriers, especially language barriers, can stand between us and comprehension of one another, of the universe, its laws, and the source of those laws.
“Dodd continues: "In Origen’s commentary on the 4th gospel which is being written, again very early in the history of the Christian church. In reading Origen's commentary, there are interpretations in there, in the Greek that he's writing, which absolutely depend upon taking logos not only in the sense of word, but it alternates without warning with the other sense of rational principles. So, the continual indication of this word principle is something that is significant."
“Do you know where we use logos in the English language? Biology, physiology. Logos is the one that has been used to define the sciences in the English language. This was the comprehension at least of the lexicographers who developed our own language of the Greek term. Look how it's lasted even in our language. We use it all the time without realizing it, taking it for granted. Is there a scientific connotation, then, that "In the beginning,” "In the first principle of things,” there is a scientific unvarying, inalienable, order that's ruling. And that it's not only being uttered as an expression or word, but behind it is the immense thought that also must be based on the same principle. Notice in Verse 1of Chapter 1 that it all related with and to God.
“John 1:3 continues with a statement that is quite absolute, "All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Is there any reservation for qualifications? "All things were made by him. That is [an] enormous commitment to make at the beginning of a book. The theology of this book is therefore committed right squarely on what principle if we're now defining the theological principle on which the Bible is based? Not only oneness of God, but the fact He's one, also means He's all. "All things were made by Him.” Everything is created by Him. That also poses problems, because all we have to do is open our eyes and look around us. And what we see, we'd rather not think was created by God. But as of now, we've just started the book. So, let's see what the style of the author is and his theological commitments. "All things were made by Him.”
“He doesn't leave it there. The very next sentence adds, “Without him was not any thing made that was made." Why is he saying that? Why y Him,” doesn’t that take care of the other part? What is the difference? What’s the distinction that he is implanting in his readers' thought right at the beginning of the book? "All things were made by Him.” What would you call that? That kind of statement is an absolute, but is it also an affirmation. It's a real solid plus. This is a plus of the theological view of John. "All things were made by Him."
“What have we got now? Denial. Here is how we're going to deal with the minus element. The minus element is without Him, "without him was not any thing made that was made.” Any hint of a minus existing after the all-things-were-made-by him being declared, is removed, because it is the other side of the same coin.
“The plus, the minus, the affirmation, the denial is a mathematical approach. Dealing with the plus, dealing with the minus and ending up with one, not dualism. One, so there’s no doubt that the key to the gospel is monotheism. It challenges the reader’s thought to see if he’s there at that altitude before he continues any further in the gospel. It forces the reader to get to that height in order to remotely commu
|
nicate with what's in the gospel.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
W’s PS#3—transcribed from W’s notes on Cobbey Crisler talks on Genesis 1 (B2):
“Genesis chapter 1 was written in response to the Hebrew people’s crisis of exile.
“Verse 2 attempts to explain how creation occurred as well as how a new beginning could occur out of the vacuity of nothingness of exile. To the post-exilic authors of Genesis 1 “the earth was without form and void” – or “Toe-who” and Boe-who” – the translated names of the Babylonian mythical leviathan-like, sea monster and their mythical behemoth-like, land monster. The modern day myth is that we evolved from the sea to be dry land creatures with a refined further way of animal thought and life. Human thought was dark much like “darkness on the face of the waters.” … Spirit is the root of the whole word inspiration… No advance can occur in life without inspiration—so “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”… This happens also when Jesus is baptized, coming “straightway out of the water,” as part of a divine announcement. He sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him.” (Matthew 3:16) Consequently, one recognizes that if Spirit represents the motive of his career, it’s an inspired career…
“It’s how the entire Bible begins (Genesis 1:2) because “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” It’s almost as if in Jesus’ baptism, we’re getting this genesis of God’s creation, that first chapter, applied on earth. The Spirit is moving on those waters in which Jesus is standing. There is a Spirit genesis here. Look at what happened in Genesis 1 in those brief verses when creation is depicted for us.”
Verse 3 (from a bumper sticker that Barry Huff enjoyed seeing) “The Big Bang theory: “Let there be light” and BANG! It happened!”) “Light (“or” in Hebrew, “phos” in Greek) was created before the stars… The motif here is that of the creation of the world by the WORD and a differentiation between the light and light-bearers.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Verse 4 records the first Quality Control-check—“it was good.”
Application ideas:
“Any lack of originality is only a lack of knowledge about your true origin.”
Compare the development of any right idea in business or otherwise to the mental model of creation in Genesis 1:
Verse 3 = the dawning of the light or idea
Verses 4-6 = the analysis (compare and divide as on the first day)
Verses 7-10 = the decisive, solid manifestation of the idea (dry land appears)
Verses 11-12 = investment in the idea and its productivity
Verse 13 = exposing the idea to light universally, marketing it
Verse 14-31 = diversification (lights for seasons, living creatures multiplying, male & female)
Verse 2:1-3 = rest (not inertia, but success of the idea and its continuing yield)
“Searching the scriptures does require scuba diving or at least snorkeling because there’s a need for both clear vision and inspiration.
Verse 26. Here in a book noted for its monotheism we find plural words relative to God. (“Let US make man in OUR likeness…”) Father-Mother (F-M) must be together indivisibly or we have more than one God. If there’s indivisibility in the original there must be indivisibility in the product.
Verse 27. To have Male-Female (M-F) in the product means that it’s in the original.
On IMAGE, Clemet of Alexandria wrote: “In our view, image of God is not an object of sense, but a mental object, perceived not by the senses, but by the mind.” But in Genesis 2:7 the mental model is dropped and in the material account of creation God forms man out of dust—the very OPPOSITE view.
This mimics the opposite view of male and female that is widely promoted in which sex promises us all satisfaction in physical unity—but does it deliver? The very definition of sex is division, not indivisibility. “The sensualist’s affections… and pleasures” would put one through lots of fitful, mental contortions that Mary Baker Eddy describes as “imaginary, whimsical, and unreal” (Science and Health, 241: 8).
(Transcribed from notes taken by Warren Huff during several Cobbey Crisler talks from the margins of W’s Bible.)
W’s PS#4—Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 33:9 (B3) instantaneous healing with no relapse
Psalms 33:9
Chapter 33, Verse 9, we’ve already alluded to. The swiftness of God’s treatment. It’s not a process, according to the Bible. It’s not recuperation. It’s not convalescence, or gradual recovery. “He spake, and it was [done],” In case we have had room in our thinking for a possibility of relapse, it is stated, “He commanded, and it stood fast.” No side effects, no after effects.
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
W’s PS#5—the evolution of the First Tenet as researched by the Mary Baker Eddy Library
FIRST TENET
Current edition of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy |
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life. |
1879 “Tenets and Covenant” |
1st. — As adherents to Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to Life eternal. |
1887 “Tenets to be Signed by those Uniting …” |
First. — As adherents of Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to Life. |
1892 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”) |
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the scriptures as our guide to eternal Life. |
214th edition of Science and Health(1901) |
1. As adherents of Truth we take the inspired Word of the Bible for our guide to eternal Life. |
251st edition(1902) |
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to Eternal Life.From The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity |