The one man behind Israel's triumph over a nuclear Iran

If you browse through my Iran posts, which run a span of 36 months from 2012-2015, you will see repeated mention of Israel, "the Little Satan" which the Islamist regime in Iran is determined to destroy as a Zionist Entity. In a sense these posts were anticlimactic, as almost all the work done behind the scenes to destroy Iran's nuclear capability had already been completed under Mossad director Meir Dagan--and at the same time, the work done by American President Obama to allow Iran to re-arm had not yet come to fruition.  This book gives all sorts of details regarding what are widely recognized as Israeli victories in their undeclared covert war against Iran's nuclear program. If they are even close to being true, it demonstrates that covert warfare can accomplish the same goals as conventional warfare, with far fewer casualties and considerably less collateral damage.

Update: This Video mentions some details on the Mossad's similar campaign against the Iraqi nuclear program.

Revive Indiana Really Does Jump the Shark. But That is not All. There's More, So Much More.

A thousand days after launching what was originally to be a one-week revival, Kyle Lance Martin returned to his homeland of Elkhart County, Indiana to "Fan the Flame" with another week of meetings at Maple City Chapel and Clinton Frame Mennonite Church. In this video you can watch what happened at the tail end of "Day 1005." After Kyle had spent the previous hour laying out his vision for what "more" might look like, and the closing song had been sung, Kyle came back up and announced that a "sister" named April felt led to "release tongues" over the audience, and he asked a man named Adam to "interpret" so that all would be "in biblical order," using "a safe, biblical model." You can see Kyle tell the backstory here.

So, a woman comes forward, stands silently for a minute, and then begins babbling through her sobs the same staccato syllables, over and over. More silence. Then she ends by saying in English, "We just want more of You God." After another interlude, Adam takes over. "Oh my children (2x) How much I love you (2x) Oh, children, I paint the day every morning for you, and every evening I paint the sky for you. I love you so. I have things for you each new day--new things. Oh my children, what I have in store for you. Oh, how much I love you my children."

Kyle then came back up and encouraged the audience to "ask the Lord for the interpretation of what you just heard . . . Everything you heard pointed to the Lord. Nothing you heard contradicted Scripture."

But it just ain't so, bro. Scripture says, "women are to be silent in the assemblies." In fact, it's right there in the very same passage that encourages members of the assembly to speak orderly in tongues. I think it's highly significant that it was a woman who felt "led by the Spirit" to "release tongues" on the assembly.  And that it was a woman who told Kyle, "Let's do it." And I would almost be willing to bet that just about every interpretation Adam ever comes up with has "My children" in it several times.

Now, the reader may recall that I devoted several weeks, nine years ago, to examining this passage right here on the pages of this blog, and I'm not advocating the muzzling of women in the assembly. But to say that something doesn't contradict Scripture, when it in fact does so to its face, raises red flags. To say that justification is by faith alone, without works, contradicts Scripture to its face. To claim the blessing of heaven on that which contradicts Scripture isn't going to work for eternity.

I have to say one thing for Adam, he did a good job of attempting to match his interpretation to the message: lots of repetition. But linguistically speaking, there simply wasn't any correlation between "the tongue" and "the interpretation." Yes, they represented different "gifts:" the tongue, a gift for producing a meaningless message; the interpretation, a gift for producing a meaningful platitude. But what's the point? We could have completely skipped April's contribution and gone directly to Adam's. The church was no more edified with the tongue than it had been without it.

Here's a test. Have three people watch the video of April's "tongue" and give their inspired "interpretation" of it. What do you think are the odds that all three will be identical?  To the thinking person, this is all a lot of nonsense. Sure, Paul encouraged tongues; but at the end of the very same chapter, he banned women from speaking in church. If the one still applies today, why not the other? Kyle had no answer to that question; he didn't even bother raising it.

Now shift the scene. It's three weeks later, and just across the state line into Michigan. Riverside Christian Fellowship is a church that, like Maple City Chapel, was founded by conservative Mennonites, but doesn't carry on their name. A church that tries to hold on to what was important of that which has been passed down to them, and let go of what wasn't. It's a half-week of revival meetings, and the pews are packed. Even Amish have come in from the surrounding area. But it's not Kyle Lance Martin from Time to Revive speaking--it's Israel Wayne from Family Renewal, preaching sermons based on his books Questions God Asks and Questions Jesus Asks. And his message strikes a decided contrast to that of Kyle Martin. When Israel talks about salvation and works, he doesn't see any need to warn against mixing the latter in with the former. In fact, he speaks of salvation as a coin with two sides: on one, faith, and on the other, works. To claim one to the exclusion of the other is like a quarter with two heads or two tails: it's fake. A faith that does not produce works is of no saving value; Works that spring not from faith are no redeeming worth. Israel says, "Jesus didn't have a problem with his disciples obeying him too much; he had a problem with them obeying him too little."

After four days, Israel packed up and headed home with his family of twelve. There was no extending the revival, no taking the church out into the streets. No meetings in businesses and at Amish league football games. No baptism truck. But neither was there rushing people through a marked Bible, reading Ephesians 2:8-9 but skipping over verse 10 (which says we were created to do good works). No printing off an instant Birth Certificate and assuring people that because they had prayed a prayer, they were now in the kingdom of God.

Interestingly enough, both Kyle and Israel talked a lot about the way they were raised in the churches they went to, and how there seemed to be something lacking, something not right about it. Bear with me here, I'm going to try not to be too simplistic. But for Kyle, the solution was basically to get a woman to teach him how to babble, and a man to transpose that babble into English. For Israel, it was getting Dietrich Bonhoeffer to teach him the cost of discipleship. Both preached "more;" but only one submitted his preaching to the what the Word actually says. And there is certainly nothing of the cost of discipleship in "I make the sun to rise and set for you, and I have more in store--oh, so much more."

Preaching about the costs of discipleship probably won't get kids to leave their schools to hear you. It won't bring thousands of people out to march around downtown Goshen behind you. It won't get you wall-to-wall coverage on a local Christian rock station. But it may just result in actual disciples.

Israel had a message for the Riverside Church. It combined two letters to the leadership of the church in Ephesus: Paul's, and that of the risen Christ. Paul told the Ephesian pastor to "Remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." --ESV

Jesus told the Ephesian pastor, "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent."  --ESV

The Ephesians passed down the right doctrine, and proved those who taught it. But in the process they missed the whole point, which was love. Yes, it's important not to mishandle Scripture. Yes, it's important to teach the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that make us feel good. It's important to stand for the truth, and not compromise. But the whole point is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Lose that, and you've lost it all.

Persecution Update: of Produce and Pronouns

It's been two and a half years since the bulk of my Indiana Revival Reports, but I've continued to follow Kyle Lance Martin and Time to Revive, as they held extended meetings in Florida, Ohio, Dallas, and now Wisconsin. An interesting update came out in a recent sermon in Wausau: at about 1:40:40 in this video, Kyle Martin tells about the Michiana farmer who lost a majority of his wholesale business after putting peel-away gospel stickers on 600,000 of his watermelons. I saw some of those rejected watermelons, donated by the crate to a local food pantry, the sticker still on them. They tasted just fine.
Like a frog in a teakettle, American Christians are experiencing such a gradual loss of their liberty that most young adults have no idea how much their country has changed just in their lifetimes. Thirty years ago, for example, women were typically addressed as either Mrs. or Miss; those titles have almost universally been replaced by Ms.--not, as far as I know, due to a single court decision--definitely not to an act of Congress--but the social pressure to conform to the new normal has sufficed to snuff out two words that were, not all that long ago, among the most commonly spoken ones in our vocabulary. And now, a six-year-old is investigated for calling a friend 'he' when he now prefers 'she'. Two even more common words are in immanent danger of disappearing themselves.

Elizabeth Elliot lived among naked savages in Ecuador--well, they were still naked savages when she met them, but contact with incarnated Christianity was rapidly changing that. She ate what they ate, lived where they lived, spake as they spake, and even let her daughter run wild with their children--but she drew the line at dressing as they dressed: a single cotton string around the waist, or--if they really wanted to dress up--one around the upper arm as well. She didn't want to just identify with their culture--she wanted to uplift it. And as they saw the three incarnate Christians wearing clothes, they all started wearing them too--and have ever since.

Christians just aren't going to be socially acceptable to a depraved and fallen culture. They needn't bother to even try to keep up with the decline. Any who continue trying to comply with the culture's escalating demands are just hoping that the crocodile they feed will eat them last.

The most embarrassing article in National Geographic--and a nice poem

In a past post, I mentioned that the National Geographic Magazine had become a propaganda arm of the US Military by 1943. Today I discovered that only about five years earlier, in what National Geographic is now calling "among the most embarrassing [article] in National Geographic’s history," NGM had served as a mouthpiece for Hitler. Free-lance American correspondent and photographer Douglas Chandler provided for the February 1937 issue a 9000-word article entitled "Changing Berlin," with "47 pages of dramatic images showing swastika-draped buildings and reverential descriptions of a city under Nazi rule."

But note, his submission was fully in conformance to NGM editorial standards: to include only stories “of a kindly nature” and strictly apolitical. One wonders where those standards had gone only five years later, and if perhaps a misplaced sense of guilt was behind the change.

During the War in Europe, Chandler became a literal mouthpiece for Hitler, railing against Jews and Bolsheviks on short-wave broadcasts aimed at America. After the war ended, he was hunted down and brought back to the US to stand trial for treason. Convicted, he served a fifteen-year "life sentence" before being released to return to Europe.

The editors at the National Geographic Society had a lot of explaining to do when irate letters began to pour in from listeners who had heard Mr. Chandler repeatedly mention his connection to the National Geographic Society during his propaganda broadcasts. Apparently no such apologies were ever made in defense of their pro-USA propaganda articles.

Now, while I am at making this month's post, I want to share with my readers a poem published over half a century ago (perhaps written a quarter-century before that), and apparently never yet posted to the Internet. I say apparently, because in recent years search engines have become so sure of what their customers are looking for that simply entering in a character string no longer ensures that any or all online sources containing that string will come up in the results. But here it is:

In the solemn stillness of an early dawn is heard
The crystal-throated reveille of a waking bird.
Donning golden slippers arises then the Day
And flings across the morning sky her crimson negligee.

Enchanting now, she saunters forth to spread abroad her charm
And shakes perfume from every flower to smooth upon her arm.
She paints the children's bodies brown, their faces rosy fair,
And with soft fluting of the wind breathes kisses through their hair.

Shrill piccolo of the cricket warns that night at last has come!
She gathers up her flowing skirts and hastens quickly home.
But looking up into the sky, a wary child might find--
She left her veil of mauve chiffon trailing far behind.

--Helen Wessel, Natural Childbirth and the Christian Family. pp. 3-4. Fourth Revised Edition, (c) 1983, Harper & Row Publishers

P.S. Sure enough, this poem in the same form can be found online in the original 1963 edition--IF one knows where, and how, to look. The book was contemporaneously published under a similar title, Natural Childbirth and the Family, as well as under the later and even more innocuous title The Joy of Childbirth. All likewise online, but apparently now out of print.

P.P.S. I just noticed, in proofreading this prior to publication, that, in addition to omitting the final letter of 'early', resulting in the nonsense reading of "earl dawn," I had committed the scribal error of homeoteleuton, skipping from 'up' in the antepenultimate line, to 'into' in the penultimate, with the resultant loss of the end of one line and the beginning of the next. Note that this was probably influenced by the plausibility of the new reading, "gathers up into the sky."

Is Mike Pearl being honest?

This blog has been hard on Mike Pearl's theology, but generally supportive of his child-raising teaching. This article, for example, (other than the crude language) is a real gem. I recommend that every parent read it regularly. What follows is not an attack on Mike Pearl's teachings on child-raising; it is a caution that no matter how careful you are, there is no guarantee that all of your grandchildren will rise up and call you blessed, or desire to walk in your ways. And folks, we may as well admit it; if Mike Pearl won't, I will. Let this not be an opportunity to gloat, but to try to learn how to do even better at passing on the torch to the next generation. And to go into marriage with our eyes wide open.

Mike has said that his five grown children are all the credentials he needs as an authority on child raising. And anyone wanting to know about his five children--and their children--can read the "Meet the Pearls" page on his website, nogreaterjoy.org.

But there's something fishy about the "Meet the Pearls" page. Over the course of the previous four years, it remained unchanged right up until September 2015. It seemed high time for an update on the number of grandchildren, since three of their children had announced a 'newest' member way back in 2011. But when the page was finally updated, something chilling happened. Yes, Shalom had two more children--the rest had left bearing--but what had happened to the three of Gabe's? Of what follows, that in bold had been quietly deleted from his update.

Gabriel Pearl is the firstborn son of Mike and Debi. He is a leader in the community, a man of integrity, and a fine example to the many young men whom he employs and teaches. Gabriel is a builder, hunter, and “volleyball king” of the community. Lori is right beside him on every project, from the volleyball court to the deer stand. Gabe and Lori are parents of Jocelyn, Laife and their newest addition, Joshua Gabriel.

You see, several months after their fourth child, Liam (Mike and Debi's unacknowledged* 21st grandchild), was born, Gabe's wife Lori left him, took the kids back to her parents' home near Columbus, started working, and changed her name. We could say they got a divorce, but--following Mike's no-license policy--they'd never been legally married. Thus there was no legal impediment for her to leave him, nor for Gabe to add another wife, Elizabeth, in April of 2017.

Now, the fact that his oldest son is 'divorced and remarried' may not be a direct reflection on Mike Pearl's childrearing credentials. And it's certainly an awkward situation to find himself in. But a lack of honesty does impinge on his credibility. And it's a concern that, like Arthur Blessitt and Pat Williams, Mike Pearl has gone online to cover up a failed marriage, even to the point of deleting mention of three of his twenty-one grandchildren--and pretending that the last one* hadn't even been born.

That's not being honest.

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From the archives: first version of "Meet the Pearls" page,  Dec. 2011 - Aug. 2015

Michael & Debi Pearl

Michael and Debi Pearl were both raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in good homes, by parents who were faithful to point them to God. Mike, a graduate of Mid-South Bible College in Memphis, has been active in evangelism and the work of the ministry since he was a teenager. He worked with Union Mission in Memphis for 25 years, while he and Debi also ministered to the many military families in Memphis and pastored churches. They moved to rural Tennessee where they continued in the work by holding Bible studies in local homes, which eventually led to regular meetings of the local body of believers, and by starting the prison ministry. God eventually led them into the ministry of writing on child training and family relationships, which they now feel is their life’s work and calling. In addition to the child training ministry, the work of the prison ministry, missions, Bible studies, and family life is still ongoing. The Pearls have been married since 1971, and have 5 children and 18 grandchildren. The Pearl children have always been involved in their parents’ ministry, and in their adulthood continue to be involved in some way in ministering where they are.

Rebekah (Pearl) Anast

Rebekah Anast is the firstborn child of Michael and Debi Pearl and author of the book Rebekahs Diary. Her husband Gabriel is a web designer. Gabe and Beka are so much alike we get them confused sometimes. They enjoy biking and exploring the high desert of New Mexico with their six children, Joseph Courage, Ryshoni Joy, Hannah Sunshine, Elijah Music, Chaiyah Eve and newest addition Alitsia Rin.

Gabriel Pearl

Gabriel Pearl is the firstborn son of Mike and Debi. He is a leader in the community, a man of integrity, and a fine example to the many young men whom he employs and teaches. Gabriel is a builder, hunter, and “volleyball king” of the community. Lori is right beside him on every project, from the volleyball court to the deer stand. Gabe and Lori are parents of Jocelyn, Laife and their newest addition, Joshua Gabriel.

Nathan Pearl

 

Nathan and Zephyr reside in TN along with their four children. Nathan is the Pearls’ third child. Like his dad, Nathan has a love for study, writing, and awful puns. He is also a builder, and invests a lot of time in the young men of the community. Zephyr is Nathan’s best buddy, and if you need a rock-bottom price on anything Zephyr knows where to find it. Nathan and Zephyr also own Cane Creek Coffee, which offers high-mountain, naturally-grown coffee and Amish soy candles. They discovered this coffee while traveling around the Honduran countryside, and could not live without it.

Shalom (Pearl) Brand

Shalom is Mike and Debi’s fourth child. She is married to Justin Brand, auto mechanic and metal artist. Justin and Shalom often accompany Mike and Debi on their seminars, making arrangements, driving, and selling books and audio materials. Shalom has always been the most energetic person in the family and the cheerful mediator in any situation. Daughter Gracie is as cute as a bug and just as energetic! Laila Truth looks just like her mama. The newest member of the family is a little boy, Parker Ford.

Shoshanna (Pearl) Easling

Shoshanna is Mike and Debi’s fifth child. She is married to James Easling, inventor and builder. They are the owners of The Bulk Herb Store, Thread Tree, Shoshanna Gardens, and Well Tell Me. James and Shoshanna live in middle Tennessee with their son, Jeremiah James, and daughter, Penelope Jane, where they operate their businesses. They are in love with each other and life in general, and dont seem to be able to stop smiling.
------------------------------------------------------

The following version has been on the site since September 2015. The other changes to the Pearl children's biographies are: 

and (deleted: newest addition) Alitsia Rin. 

deleted: Nathan and Zephyr reside in TN along with their four children. . . . Nathan and Zephyr also own Cane Creek Coffee, which offers high-mountain, naturally-grown coffee and Amish soy candles. They discovered this coffee while traveling around the Honduran countryside, and could not live without it. 
added: Nathan and Zephyr and their four children live in Hawaii. 

deleted: the newest addition is 
added: is all boy and loves dirt bikes. Roland and Hudson are the latest additions.

Michael & Debi Pearl

Michael and Debi Pearl were both raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in good homes, by parents who were faithful to point them to God. Mike, a graduate of Mid-South Bible College in Memphis (now Victory University), has been active in evangelism and the work of the ministry since he was a teenager. He worked with Union Mission in Memphis for 25 years, while he and Debi also ministered to the many military families in Memphis and pastored churches. They moved to rural Tennessee where they continued in the work by holding Bible studies in local homes, which eventually led to regular meetings of the local body of believers, and by starting the prison ministry. God eventually led them into the ministry of writing on child training and family relationships, which they now feel is their life’s work and calling. In addition to the child training ministry, the work of the prison ministry, missions, Bible studies, and family life is still ongoing. The Pearls have been married since 1971, and have 5 children and 20 grandchildren (and counting!). The Pearl children have always been involved in their parents’ ministry, and in their adulthood continue to be involved in some way in ministering where they are.

Rebekah (Pearl) Anast

Rebekah Anast is the firstborn child of Michael and Debi Pearl and author of the book Rebekahs Diary. Her husband Gabriel is a web designer. Gabe and Beka are so much alike we get them confused sometimes. They enjoy biking and exploring the high desert of New Mexico with their six children, Joseph Courage, Ryshoni Joy, Hannah Sunshine, Elijah Music, Chaiyah Eve and Alitsia Rin.

Gabriel Pearl

Gabriel Pearl is the firstborn son of Mike and Debi. He is a leader in his community, a man of integrity, and a fine example to the many young men he employs and teaches. Gabriel is a builder, hunter, outdoorsman, and “volleyball king.”

Nathan Pearl

 

Nathan is the Pearls’ third child. Like his dad, Nathan has a love for study, writing, and awful puns. He is also a builder, and has invested a lot of time in the young men of the community. Zephyr is Nathan’s best buddy, and if you need a rock-bottom price on anythingZephyr knows where to find it. Nathan and Zephyr and their four children live in Hawaii.

Shalom (Pearl) Brand

Shalom is Mike and Debi’s fourth child. She is married to Justin Brand, auto mechanic and metal artist. Justin and Shalom often accompany Mike and Debi on their seminars, making arrangements, driving, and selling books and audio materials. Shalom has always been the most energetic person in the family and the cheerful mediator in any situation. Daughter Gracie is as cute as a bug and just as energetic! Laila Truth looks just like her mama. Parker Ford is all boy and loves dirt bikes. Roland and Hudson are the latest additions.

Shoshanna (Pearl) Easling

Shoshanna is Mike and Debi’s fifth child. She is married to James Easling, inventor and builder. They are the owners of The Bulk Herb Store, Shoshanna Gardens, and Well Tell Me. James and Shoshanna live in middle Tennessee with their son, Jeremiah James, and daughter, Penelope Jane, where they operate their businesses. They are in love with each other and life in general, and dont seem to be able to stop smiling.

------------------------------------------------------

And finally, Gabe's article lauding his wife on the ngj website.

Lori in better days . . .

• 
  
• December 15, 2007
• 
  

  
  

She Can Bring Home the Bacon…Venison

By Gabriel Pearl

Fog caused by the heavy dew from the night before was making it hard to see in the early dawn light. Looking at the sky through the thick canopy of trees, I guessed it was about 20 minutes before sunup. The wind was light but steady, drifting down the valley we were in. We had a large poplar tree about 3 feet in diameter to our backs. I was debating whether I should go ahead and put a new tape in my brand-new, high-definition Sony camcorder when I heard a little sound. It was faint and seemed to come from up the hill. I didn’t think it could be a deer, because we had just walked off that ridge in the pre-dawn twilight not 10 minutes before, and even though we tried to be quiet, we definitely snapped a few twigs; yet there was that crunch again. I was sure now that I heard it, and that it was close. As I strained to see through the thick atmosphere, suddenly the huge rack of a buck distinguished itself from the fog. You never get over that first-sight thrill.

It was mid November, the time of year in Tennessee when people don their ridiculously orange vests and hats, get up in the morning 2 hours earlier than anyone should be up, and excitedly go out to sit in the cold woods without moving until every bone in their body is sore from sitting in one spot, just in hopes of seeing a deer. We call it deer season, and I love every bit of it.

I was blessed to marry a woman who not only understands my love for the woods, but likes to get out and deer hunt with me sometimes. But duties at home have kept her mostly out of the woods for the last few years, so you can imagine my excitement when her sister happily volunteered to babysit, freeing my wife to go with me on opening morning of rifle season. We decided the night before that I would just carry the camera, and she would do all the shooting. Our living room looked like a sporting goods store, with camouflage, deer calls, and gear spread out all over the floor.

I must admit that I was thoroughly zonked when the alarm clock went off, but after a microwaved bacon biscuit and a horrible cup of instant coffee from the local gas station, we were ready to go.

The piece of property we hunt on is over 600 acres of prime deer and turkey habitat in middle Tennessee, surrounded by creeks, rivers, and cornfields. I leased it about 4 years ago, with hopes that careful management might produce trophy bucks one day. What I mean by managing it is simply: We don’t shoot any young deer (less than 3 years old). Anywhere from 4 to 6 is getting old for a deer.

I consider myself a dedicated hunter, out there every year and throughout the season, sitting high in tree stands nearly every day, waiting for that trophy buck. So far, I’ve taken only 1 trophy buck on this new piece of property, and that was last year.

As a rule, I usually try to walk to my tree stands to keep the deer from knowing that I’m coming, but Lori is 7 months pregnant, a condition not really conducive to long walks in the dark with rubber boots on, so I opted to drive the 4-wheeler as close as possible. I turned the lights off about the last 400 yards and squinted my eyes in the early twilight to stay in the middle of the logging road.

Now here we were, sitting at the base of this old tree with a trophy buck walking our way. With one glance I could see the buck was 4, maybe 5 years old, definitely a mature 8-pointer. I couldn’t believe it. He was scent-checking a small tree only about 25 feet away. In a hushed, excited whisper, I told Lori, “Don’t move, there’s a buck.”

“Where?” she silently mouthed. She was looking up the ridge to her left, but just at that moment, the buck began to walk out into clear view. At 20 yards away now, it walked behind a large tree. That was the chance she was waiting for. I proudly watched as she seized the moment and brought her .308 up to her shoulder in one swift motion. The safety, normally silent, broke the morning silence with a faint snap. That was all it took. This deer had not made it to his ripe old age by being stupid. Peering around the edge of the tree with only his eyes and ears sticking out, he quickly picked out our camouflaged forms sitting against the tree. In a flash, he threw up his tail and began to run up the valley away from us. As a last ditch effort, I whistled as loudly as I could in hopes of startling him into stopping to investigate the sound. At 80 yards, he stopped for a brief second to look back. That was all she needed. Lori had been following him in the scope the whole time, and as quickly as it started, it was over. I got some kind of woman!

(c) 2007 No Greater Joy from https://nogreaterjoy.org/articles/she-can-bring-home-the-bacon-venison/ 

Used by permission.

The former Lori Pearl, now in her new life as a working single mom:

photo posted to numerous websites

*On the back cover of his 2015 book, The Bible on Divorce and Remarriage (in which he says a divorced and remarried person should repent of it before the church), Mike says that he and Debi have "more than twenty grandchildren." 

UPDATE July 2018: Shoshana announced on Instagram that she and James have entered a government-approved civil union, for the purpose of estate planning.

Was Noah the First Albino?

Albinism continues to be the only topic which consistently draws the most people to this blog, month after month, so I've developed a label for it. Today, we address the question, Was Noah the first albino?
The pseudopigraphal Book of Enoch contains the following account:

And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore a son.
And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful.
And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright.
 And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of righteousness. And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah.
And he said unto him: 'I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious.
And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth.
And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.'
And when Methuselah heard the words of his son, he came to me to the ends of the earth; for he had heard that I was there, and he cried aloud, and I heard his voice and I came to him. And 1 said unto him: 'Behold, here am I, my son, wherefore hast thou come to me?'
And he answered and said: 'Because of a great cause of anxiety have I come to thee, and because of a disturbing vision have I approached.
And now, my father, hear me: unto Lamech my son there hath been born a son, the like of whom there is none, and his nature is not like man's nature, and the colour of his body is whiter than snow and redder than the bloom of a rose, and the hair of his head is whiter than white wool, and his eyes are like the rays of the sun, and he opened his eyes and thereupon lighted up the whole house.

Thus it is that some people see albinistic traits in Noah. Since Lamech and his wife Batenosh (according to accounts contemporary with the Book of Enoch) were first cousins, it would have been Enoch who originated the albinism gene, passed it on to Methuselah and one of the parents of Lamech's wife, and thus through both of them to Noah, the first full albino.

I don't put any stock in this story. If Noah were albino, then all three of his sons would have been half-abino, and likely half of his grandchildren. Then, when they married each other, albinism would have broken out in a big way among his great-grandchildren. Suffice it to say that Noah may have been the first blue-eyed blond, and passed that trait on down to several of his great-grandchildren. But I don't even think that theory is sufficient to account for the existence of this story.

Furthermore, there are several different gene mutations that contribute to the various forms of albinism, each one probably arising independently. It's unlikely that Noah had them all.

Is Mike Pearl an Annointed Preacher?

Now, even asking that question will probably turn off some of my readers, but it's just a title, okay? The real purpose of this post is to critique Michael Pearl's approach to exegesis, which is sadly flawed. This isn't the first time I've addressed this question, but perhaps it will be my last.

Now that what was once known as the Cane Creek Community Bible Baptist Church has gone defunct, Mike directs his preaching energies into the video camera set up at "The Door," his small storefront studio in Lobelville, Tennessee. I'll confine my commentary to the opening minutes of his first video, where he begins to expound on Romans 1:1-17.

Mike starts out his Door series by promising, "You're going to learn things about the Bible you never imagined were in it." Alas, we just saw one of the red flags warning us of a cult: Special Revelation.

And Mike does not disappoint, either: Only three minutes into his sermon, he informs us that the Apostle Paul must have been the son of a Roman, "maybe even a Roman soldier."

And this, less than a minute after saying, "The Authorized Version is what we will be studying. We're not going to correct it or change it, We're going to believe every word that's in it, just like it's written."

But what does the Authorized Version say about Paul's father?

"But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question."  --Acts 23:6

Paul's father was no Roman soldier; he was a Pharisee from Jerusalem. We read in the same chapter of Acts that Paul's sister's family lived in Jerusalem. Whatever Paul's father was doing in Tarsus when Paul was born, we don't know; but we do know him to be a Jew, specifically a Benjamite. 

Now, how could Michael Pearl possibly make such a blatant mistake?  I don't want to say, but I will say this: he's not a Bible Teacher worth following.

The Zodhiates and Miller Sentences

Okay, here's the straight scoop; there will be a lot of details provided later. First of all, Philip Zodhiates won't be going to prison quite yet. By filing an appeal, he was able to bail out for the duration of the appeal process, however long that may be. The specific sentence he's appealing is 36 months for conspiracy to commit international parental kidnapping, with enhancements for coordinating and obstructing, and 36 months for accessory, to be served concurrently, and 1 year supervised release on both charges, to be served concurrently. He was also assigned the minimum fine of $100 for each charge. This was the minimum sentence.

 Timo has been fined $100 and released for time served to 1 year parole in Pennsylvania, where his family will be living until that is over. This was actually below the minimum sentence, both the government and the court having taken into account his 6 weeks of 'hard time' served in Nicaragua.


Timo, freshly changed out of shackles and prison orange, with his family outside the federal courthouse in Buffalo. Refusing to leave his wife's side for their youngest son's birth was the impetus of his 10 months imprisonment. Photo provided.
By the way, all of Timo's financial needs have been supplied, and he has two jobs to pick from waiting for him.

I will start with Timo's sentencing, since that was the shortest--but I won't be able to resist making some mention of the previous hearing along the way.

It's been noted that the Mennonite community has come out in force for these Miller Kidnapping Trial proceedings--with the glaring exception of those related to Philip Zodhiates. It makes one wonder, if Lisa Miller ever comes to trial, whether any Mennonites will see fit to show up--or maybe they will, if at the time she's caught she is still living as a Mennonite. Well, at any rate, about 100 Mennonite men, women, and children (mostly men) showed up this time, barely fitting into the gallery of the courtroom.

I suppose we should start with the Status Conference held last August 27 before Hon. Richard J. Arcara in Buffalo. The Prosecution informed the court that it considered defendants Timothy Miller and Lisa Miller to be fugitives who would not appear. This despite the fact that Timo's lawyer, Jeffrey Conrad, had been in constant contact with the court regarding Timo's willingness to appear if needed, but desiring to have Mr. Conrad represent him in the mean time so he didn't have to keep flying back and forth from Managua for every last hearing. This is quite common; even some of the lawyers involved in this case, spread out as they are across four states, have often appeared by telephone. But once the government declared Timo a fugitive, his name started appearing on wanted lists--Interpol, for instance--which has an office in Managua.When local authorities in Nicaragua came looking for Timo, they were assured that he was quite willing to come with them, if they just contacted him personally.

But they had a strange way of doing that.  Two weeks later, Timo was dragged off his bicycle on a city street and hauled off to Managua's notorious Chipote Prison. When friends arrived to visit him, they were told he wasn't there. This run-around was to continue for the next five days, until his wife was finally allowed in to see him.

TO BE UPDATED . . .

So sorry, folks, I'm taking so long to finish this. I probably bit off more than I could chew, so I'll break into the detailed narrative to give the upshot: Timo was sentenced to time served and a year of supervision; Philip was sentenced to 3 years, on bail pending his appeal. Ken was finally released from federal prison on March 6, 2018.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2018

Timo's year of parole has ended, but he's keeping a rather low profile at present, so I don't have nay news of his latest whereabouts. Having served out their sentences, he and Ken are no longer active participants in the story. But Philip is. As noted above, Philip Zodhiates had appealed his sentence to the Second Circuit, which was unsuccessful, and he has been scheduled to be sent to prison. His lawyer, Robert Hemley, has appealed the case now to the United States Supreme Court, and requested the imprisonment be further stayed pending the outcome of that appeal. So now the case is in the hands of the Supreme Court.

UPDATE DECEMBER 8, 2018
Philip Zodhaites is now in a federal prison in Kentucky. After federal appellate judges refused to hear Zodhiates’ last appeal in October of this year, his attorneys began to prepare an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and asked the court for a stay of sentence pending the filing and the court’s ultimate decision. Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg turned down the request for a stay of sentence, Justice Neil Gorsuch decided to place the petition for the stay of sentence on a list of conference items for January 4 of next year, allowing all the justices to vote on the matter. In the meantime, it appears, Zodhiates will remain in federal prison. The composition of the Supreme Court has certainly changed since this case was first brought before a judge, and that may make all the difference. I'm almost certain, for instance, that before this legal battle is over there will be one less homosexual advocate on the Court. But we'll see.

Update December 22, 2018
Since any people come directly to this page from a link, I'm writing here to let you know that I put up a new post today with links to an interview with Philip, in which he disclosed some of the financial cost of his legal battle: he's spent over a million dollars on lawyers, and some of his customers apparently have been taking advantage of his situation not to pay him what they owe for his services. He also states that Lisa Miller's lawyers could have done a lot better job keeping her in legal custody of Isabella.

Whatever Happened to Flight 370? And what can be done about it?

Back in 2009 when I started writing on air disasters, even a plane flying into the middle of the ocean could expect to be found within days, its black box recovered even from the bottom of the abyss. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has changed all that; three years after it disappeared from radar, no crash scene has ever been identified, nor will it probably ever be found using currently available technology. When whoever was at the controls of MH370 made its final turn into the Indian Ocean, it was with the intention that the plane never be seen again.

I have written on this air disaster before, both five days and nine months after it was first reported. I haven't had anything further to report, until now. While I stay with my original theory that MH370 was hijacked, I've let go of my secondary theory, that the USA was behind its disappearance; I've now run across a much more likely theory.

There is no question, now, that some sinister person was at the controls of MH370 at the time the transponder was turned off just after clearing Malaysian traffic control; the only question has been, who? The general consensus seems to focus on the pilot, based mainly on three lines of evidence:

1. The plane had to have been taken over by someone aboard. Since Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was the last voice heard just before the plane went dark, under this scenario he took control of the plane, dismissed the copilot, locked the cockpit door (another unintended consequence of post-9/11 regulation is that a member of the flight crew can now hijack his own flight unimpeded), turned off all communication devices, flew the plane into radar dead zones along international borders, and turned left to fly southward across the Indian ocean until the plane's fuel was exhausted. Prime evidence for this scenario is that Zaharie had cleared his social calendar following the flight.

2. The Inmarsat satellite system picked up ACARS signals that, as interpreted, indicated that MH370 continued on a southern track until 8:19 am.

3. A piece of a Boeing 777 wing floated ashore Reunion Island in July 2015. A part number inside the piece was traced back to the airplane lost on March 8, 2014. Another identified piece of the aircraft was found on Pemba Island in June 2016.

Now, taken together, these three lines of evidence are extremely damning. There is now only one other scenario that fits the evidence, and it hugely fails Occam's Razor. It was proposed in a book I read recently by Jeff Wise. Its scenario is that the two Ukrainian nationals aboard MH370 were Russian agents disguised as scuba divers, who used their carry-on oxygen tanks to stay alive while commandeering the plane via its. The agent inside the electronics control center turned off oxygen to the cockpit and decompressed the plane, resulting in the deaths of the flight crew. He then not only reprogrammed the autopilot, but tampered with the ACARS signal in such a way as to send a false signal that the plane was headed south, when in fact it was headed northeast, toward the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan--which it reached after several hours, at the end of its fuel endurance, having evaded the military radars of several more countries along the way. To compound the difficulty of this scenario, the Russians would then have had to dispose of all the crew and passengers' bodies, and part out the plane so they could then dump pieces of it at an appropriate location in the Southern Indian Ocean--where submarines would have had to broadcast phony pings from the plane's black boxes. Jeff Wise didn't have a convincing reason why Russia would go to all this work, and all evidence that has come to light since his book came out has made his scenario less and less likely.

I'm going to go with the pilot-suicide theory, and note that the overwhelming majority of deaths attributed to pilot suicide--not even including the 9/11 flights--resulted from Muslim pilots flying their planes into the ocean. Now that it's so easy for a pilot to fly his plane into the sea, this is what I would recommend: Putting a device outside the cockpit by which cabin crew can communicate directly with authorities, and rolling back regulations that make the airline cockpit such an impenetrable fortress, so that non-suicidal crew members can not only report the attempted murder-suicide, but actually do something to thwart it. In the meantime, you may want to avoid flying with certain flag carriers.

Update 2019: The Atlantic wraps up the story with all the available evidence compiled to date, especially the flotsam being found wherever Gibson looks for it.

The sad tale of a potential paeodophile child psychologist who practiced at Wheaton College

In this modern world's news cycle, we are continually deluged with stories about people who got caught doing something bad. We don't always take the time to think of what this may be telling us.

Today I found a website dedicated to reporting on some of the hundreds of teachers who have been arrested for sex crimes: specifically, college professors who used their computers to download and/or sell child pornography. It's quite an extensive list, with lots of pediatricians, child psychologists,  and early childhood educators, but of the dozens of names the one the jumped out to me was Donald Ratcliffe, child psychology professor at Wheaton College. Run a search on his name and college, and you will find this video, on "children are important."

He actually thought that viewing hard-core child pornography--vicariously enjoying the pleasure of torturing children--would keep him from becoming a full-blown paedophile. Meanwhile, he was teaching the importance of meeting the spiritual needs of children through his books and lectures.

What are the signs of a mind so twisted? Very few of these professors were found out because they were actually caught molesting a child, but many of them had been doing so for years--one man even adopted a baby specifically for the purpose of being able to molest him with regularity. What they all had in common was that they started out by watching porn--due to the capabilities of today's internet technicians, that's as far as some of them got before getting caught. Others were actually in the business of producing hardcore child porn before it finally found them out.

The government officials who investigate these crimes face two major threats: one, that they may end up losing their jobs when they catch someone so high up the chain of command that no one will dare to prosecute him.  We're talking someone above the level of a college president, because there's one of them on the list. Someone so highly placed that anyone who tries to bring him down will at the very least lose his job; more likely his life.

Secondly, they face the risk of becoming drawn into the very pit from which they are endeavoring to pull others. No doubt several of these professors were first exposed to abusive pornography through their studies--Alfred Kenzie certainly felt the need to dabble in it to develop his celebrated human sexuality curriculum at Indiana University. He was under investigation for trafficking in paedophilia at the time of his death in 1956.

Well, child pornography, at least as practiced by those lower on the ladder, enjoys no legal protection in Donald E. Ratcliff's county, state, and country. Wheaton College summarily dismissed him; Brenda, his wife and co-author of his final book on the spirituality of children, divorced him and married a Californian; their three children, whom the book's introduction credits with "overlook[ing] our failures" in parenting, disowned him; and even though he escaped having to go to prison, he will be haunted for the rest of his life by the label of sexual predator, with its onerous attendant restrictions. What he claimed at the time to be harmless-even therapeutic--has ruined his life. But how many more like him are still out there, waiting for an investigator to take the time to find them out?

Who killed whom when the giant died? An exercise in textual reconstruction

[NOTE: I guest-posted this on Nazaroo's blog back in 2011. Now that his blog is being shut down, I'm moving it here. You can read my other such posts by searching on 'Nazaroo'.]

And there was againe a battell in Gob, with the Philistines, where Elhanan the sonne of Iaare-Oregim a Bethlehemite, slewe the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staffe of whose speare was like a weauers beame. 

So the original KJV at 2 Samuel 21:19. Much ink has been spilt attempting to justify the KJV's interpolation of the brother of in order to keep the text from reading as the Hebrew does, that Elhanan, rather than David, killed Goliath. But what most KJV proponents fail to mention is that the lack of 'brother' is not the only textual problem in this verse. There are only a couple ways to reconcile this verse with 1 Chronicles 20:5--

And there was warre againe with the Philistines, and Elhanan the sonne of Iair, slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spearestaffe was like a weauers beame. 

Disregarding all the spelling variations, the core of both verses reads thus:

Elhanan the son of Jair slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam.

To which Samuel adds "Oregim the Bethlehemite" and Chronicles adds "Lahmi the brother of". 

So the KJV stopped short of interpolating the whole plus from Chronicles into Samuel--Lahmi is not named. Or is he--but as the killer, not the killed? Let's look at the Hebrew.

2 Samuel 21:19b
WYK ALXNN BN-Ya3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yari weavers house-of-the-bread: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1 Chronicles 20:5b
WYK ALXNN BN-[K:YA3UR] [Q:YA3IR] ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready, brother-of Goliath the-Gittite; and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

In these transcriptions I have added vowels only for the name of Elhanan's father, which is found in two forms (K and Q) in the Masoretic text of Chronicles. The Masoretes themselves obviously recognized a corruption here, but couldn't settle on how to fix it.

Note that the last word in the verse, ARGIM, is an element in the extra of 2 Samuel, where it is tacked on to Jair's name. Note also that the word LXMI, which is an element in the name Bethlehem ("House of Bread"), is given as an extra in 1 Chronicles for the name of Goliah's brother. Furthermore, the name Jair is spelled two (or four) different ways in the two texts, and all cases are Hebrew hapax legomena: Jair is always spelled differently in the Hebrew Bible than either verse has it, whether Q or K.

Clearly there are three different places where the two verses need to be reconciled, not just one. I propose, therefore, the following possibilities for reconstructing of the source for both verses (the changes could have happened in a different order, especially with the first possibility):


 Possibility #1: Only Samuel is corrupted; Chronicles has the correct reading

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1. The last word of the verse was copied into the first half, probably due to skipping to the next line of text, so that both lines now end with the same 7 letters:
H-MLXMH B-GUB 3M-FLSTIM WYK ALXNN BN-YA3UR ARGIM
ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.

2.The  text suffered loss of the word אֲחִי AXI (the brother of), by homoeoteleuton I ... I :

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ARGIM ATh-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3. A 'helpful' scribe changed the unheard-of name Y3UR to the equally unheard of plural form Y3RI, both of which are cognates of a word that means 'wood' (in the British meaning of 'forest'):

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM ATh LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Woods-of-Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

4. Another 'helpful' scribe changed ATh-LXMI to BITh-H-LXMI, changing the meaning again: 

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

5. A final scribe put the ATh back in where it now belonged, tidying up the grammar to yield the Samuel reading: 

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

That's a lot of changes to hypothesise! And it doesn't even account for the K-Q variants in the Masoretic text. Let's try for a simpler solution.


Possibility #2: Both verses are equally corrupted forms of the archetype.

Reconstruction A: The original text read:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI ATh AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite: the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1a,b. While the Samuel scribe dropped  אֲחִי AXI, the Chronicles scribe dropped אֵת ATh, the Hebrew indicator of a following direct object :

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI [S:Ath][C:AXI] GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite[S:] [C:the-brother-of] Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2a. In Chronicles, a 'helpful' scribe re-inserted ATh in place of BITh H-:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ATh LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir: Lehmi the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2b. In Samuel, ARGIM got duplicated after YAIR, as explained above:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ARGIM BITh H-LXMI Ath GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir Weavers Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3a,b. Finally, the Chronicles scribe changed the spelling of YAIR to Y3UR, while the Samuel scribe changed the spelling to Y3RI to better fit the corrupted context.

WYK ALXNN BN-Y[S:3RI][C:3UR]  . . . thus yielding the final readings in only three steps each.

Other reconstructions are possible, but this one best passes Occam's Razor: three steps, to account for three differences between the texts, prior to the Masoretes taking over the transmission of the two texts. So what was Goliath's brother's name? Well, according to this reconstruction, we don't know, and we can only guess that Elhanan's father was a man who spelled his name the same way that four other Jairs in the OT did. It's also possible that this was the Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem mentioned in both books, but that would involve a greater level of corruption in the transmission.

These three corruptions, by the way, must have been very early. The Septuagint reads exactly like the Hebrew, even down to a reasonable approximation of the names.

The Targum for Chronicles isn't much help. It reads: "David, the son of Jesse, a pious man, who rose at midnight to sing praises to God, slew Lachmi, the brother of Goliath, the same day on which he slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear-staff was like a weaver's beam."

The other ancient versions supply the word 'brother' in Samuel, although, as did the KJV, they may well have just moved it in from Chronicles. 

The Syriac also paraphrases somewhat, while translating the invented name in Samuel:
Samuel: Elhanan the son of forest a weaver, a Beth-lehemite, slew a brother of Goliath the Philistine, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
Chronicles: Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi of the descendants of the giants, who was the brother of Goliath the mighty man of Gath, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam. 

The Vulgate also translates Elhanan and Jair/Jaare-Oregim: 
Samuel: God-given the son of Forest Weaver, a Bethlehemite, struck the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear wood was like a weaver's beam.
Chronicles: God-given the son of Forest struck Lehmites the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the wood of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.


[ADDED] CONCLUSION:
Sam Gipp uses one aspect of this textual problem to ridicule "modern" translations that don't have 'brother' in Samuel. But he totally disregards the other aspects, thus avoiding a real solution to the problem. There is a real problem here--one that has a real solution--but the KJV and its devoted advocates don't have it.