A Nigger in which woodpile?

"There's a Nigger in the Woodpile"--a phrase the White Man has only just become aware of, ironically, from reading an article recommended by the venerable Mennonite historian Peter Hoover, whose Pennsylvania Dutch idiom has taken in the expression as a calque, "Do steckt eiats en Neger im Holzhauffe."

Now, it is very much to Peter's discredit that he used this phrase so cavalierly without translating it literally. Interestingly, I had heard the expression "skunk in the woodpile" which, having lived around both skunks and woodpiles, I took to be a literal-based metaphor, but scholars are agreed that it is actually a northern euphemism for the Southern original. The Pennsylvania Dutch, however, kept the original expression when taking it into their language, using it idiomatically for "There's something suspicious here behind the scenes." I won't go into the full usage of the phrase, as it can be looked up online (although some internet filters will restrict such research as regarding a "mature topic.")
I'll have a further critique of Peter Hoover in my next post, regarding his rejection of Premillennialism; this post will focus on the Holocaust denial in the linked article, which Peter introduced in a recent mass email as follows:

Probably about the strangest thing that has ever happened between my Jewish friends and me, is what appears at an Orthodox Jewish website on-line: 

http://nccg.org/ning/groups/judaism/questions-by-a-mennonite-about.htm

Do you see who wrote the article?  [he did]

I wrote it years ago after I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C. At first when I discovered it on-line (without my permission, but that is just fine) I was a bit alarmed. But then, the more I learned about it, the more surprising it became. This Orthodox Jewish group that published it, and that has kept it on-line for years, agreed with my conclusions, and shared all the same questions. 

When I got my first Kindle, I decided to make it a habit to download and read all the memoirs of Holocaust survivors that came available for $1.99 or less, but I soon had to give up the hobby as it became too overwhelming; there was literally about one every week. It is incredible that someone as deeply learned and widely traveled as Peter Hoover could even consider that the Holocaust Story is a Jewish fabrication, in the face of the thousands upon thousands of eyewitness testimonies to it. To me, that's the skunk in the woodpile! This willing suspension of belief is all the more incredible, with Peter being a respected historian not only of his Mennonite forefathers but also of the Russian Old Believers, concerning whom he wrote the book "The Russians' Secret."

While I continue to puzzle this out, the only theory that makes any sense is one that actually explains the situation perfectly. Peter Hoover has rejected God's chosen people, considering himself and his ilk to have fully replaced them as the apple of God's eye. Thus he not only turns away from the implication of the Scriptures that say otherwise, but even turns a blind eye to the historical fact that the Jews remain a special people--the only people, in fact, to survive intact from antiquity (although he also--no surprise--buys into the Khazar Hypothesis).

This all serves to remind us that every historian is biased, and no work of history can be taken as gospel--except the incredibly accurate Gospel Story itself.

How many metres in a cubit? The answer may astound you.

Dear Readers,
I know it's only been a day since I edited my last post (if you haven't read it yet, I highly advise it), but I just have to share what I learned today about the Egyptian cubit. If you watch the relevant minute of the referenced video, you will see that the most ancient Egyptian cubit is a function of the ratio of pi and phi in metres, out to four or five digits (.52356) over the precise 230,366½-millimetre width of each of the Great Pyramid's four sides.
This would indicate that the most ancient Egyptians were aware of the relationship of geometry to base ten out to five digits--a metre is the distance from the equator to the pole, divided by ten thousand--as well as the irrational numbers of higher mathematics. As later generations of Egyptians lost this knowledge, it stands to reason that their cubits became less and less precise--ranging as much as a centimetre off the ancient standard (and even more so by the time we get to the TNIV).
If the Egyptians at the dawn of history were capable of manipulating such abstract numbers to such precision, it lends credence to the idea that the numbers in Genesis chapter five--even more ancient--are the result of equally complex calculations. Note that in each of the nine generations enumerated, the age at which the son was begotten always ends in zero, two, five, or seven--as do the lifespans of the first seven generations. This is regardless of whether one follows the Hebrew, Greek, or Samaritan numbers. And as it turns out, two and five are among the factors of phi squared; it appears that some complicated mathematical formula was at work in producing ages that always ended in one of these two factors of phi squared, or the sum of them. And it appears that we are only now finally coming to the point in our understanding of ancient mathematics to be able to transcribe these numbers into something more useful to our purposes, which is establishing the time span between Creation and the Flood.

Added on August 19:
This video shows a tablet from ancient Babylon now understood to contain formulas of higher mathematics used to construct triangles from an entirely different perspective than has been used for the past 2500 years. Clearly Ancient Man was much more intelligent than materialist paradigm has been willing to accept. Perhaps more on that, in a later post.

How God solved a marriage problem

I came across this report from a missionary in West Africa, and was immediately struck by the biblical response of the woman toward her husband. Had she lived in "a more civilised nation," she would have been told that it were her right, yea her duty, to put herself away from such a husband at once. Instead, she chose the biblical model of winning him by her silence. And then--God intervened. Here's the story (edited slightly to provide confidentiality):

A native woman stood up at the annual church meeting this past March in a predominately Islamic region. The woman testified that she had stood in the same meeting last year to ask for prayer for her Muslim husband's salvation. He often beat her for following Christ and refusing to attend mosque. She stood up to give an update.

A few months earlier, she had told him she wanted to attend a week-long church meeting. Her husband was livid. A whole week? Who would cook his food? Clean his house? She should be in the mosque and forget church. He beat her severely -- again. Nearly all Christian women that convert from Islam are illiterate. Many make these meetings a priority to ask Bible questions because they cannot read or obtain a Bible on their own. 

This Christian woman was determined to go to the church meeting, no matter her husband's violence. Still enraged, he locked up the house as soon as she left, declaring to the neighbors that his wife would never enter his home again. To make his point, he threw the key into the river as he headed to his girlfriend's house for the week.

The lady enjoyed the conference and headed home on Friday, stopping by the local market to buy fish. She planned to have a hearty meal ready for her husband when he came home from Friday prayers at the mosque. She had no idea that her husband had already locked her out of her home for good. Arriving home, she was puzzled that the house was locked up tight. She needed to start preparing the meal, so she borrowed a pot from her neighbor and began to clean the fish.

When she cut open the fish, a key fell out of its belly. Puzzled, she examined it and remarked to her neighbor that the key looked similar to her own house key. Her neighbor urged her to try it in the lock; and it worked! She opened up the house, cleaned it, and got her husband's supper ready for him.

As the husband walked home from Friday prayers at the mosque, he saw his house open and a fire going in the outdoor kitchen. Again, he was enraged, thinking the neighbors had helped his wife break the door or the locks, but on examination, he found nothing had been harmed. When he demanded to know how she got back into their house, she told him the strange story of the key in the fish's belly. Stunned, he didn't say another word.

Until Saturday night. He asked his wife if he could attend church the next morning. After Sunday morning church service, the man asked to speak to the pastor privately. He recounted the incredulous story about his house key and said, "I want to serve the God of the Christians. He is the One who knows and has power to do what no one else can." 

That Christian woman beamed as she talked. God had answered many prayers that her husband would repent and follow Christ. In his Gospel, Matthew tells of a fish caught with a coin in its mouth for taxes (Matthew 17). In 2018, a house key in a fish's belly became a key to the Kingdom for a Muslim man. 

Our Lord is still a Fisher of Men.

"Evolutionary Hymn," A Poem by Clive Staples Lewis, annotated and explained

I came across this poem attributed to a 1954 letter from C.S. Lewis to Dorothy Sayers and published in Part 2 of his collected poems. Its online text is remarkably pure; besides capitalization and misplaced or missing punctuation marks (as well as == for 'equals'), the only variants I found are the presence of an introductory indefinite article in the title, and the majority error of "Oh" for "On" at the head of the last stanza. I give here my critical compilation:

EVOLUTIONARY HYMN

to the tune Mannheim, a parody of “Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us"

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
While there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
 By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

On then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

I was surprised that none had succumbed to the temptation to change the first instance of 'god' to 'goal', but apparently this poem has only been passed on by prudent scribes; I suspect the major variant is from the oldest cyberscript, and has only been corrected because internal evidence is so overwhelmingly against it.

You can see allusions in this poem to the Greek classics, Scripture, and Lewis Carroll. "Chop and change" is an old English idiom for 'peddle' found in early translations of 2 Corinthians 2:17, but Lewis is using it here in its modern meaning. "Jam to-morrow," referring to a promise that can never be fulfilled, is a pun on a feature of Latin Grammar immortalized by the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass.

In this poem Lewis mocks what he called "The Evolution Myth" in which every genetic change is believed to be inevitably for the better, maugre all evidence to the contrary. And he points out what evolutionists themselves are rue to admit, that the struggle to survive runs contrary to the cultural norms that are the very fibre of civilisation, there being no other evolutionary standard than that of survival by whatever means necessary.

Lewis, who started his career as an ardent evolutionist and often co-opted evolutionary theory to explain his theology, clearly became quite disillusioned by its empty promises as he entered his latter years, this poem coming out in his final decade of life.

More Problems with the "Oldest and Best" Cyberscripts

I ran across this riddle years ago in hard copy, and recently decided to go online and try a little more cybertextual criticism (earlier attempts can be found under this post). Here is a random webex that, on the basis of its several scansion problems, appears to have suffered corruption (by the way, if you can't solve the riddle, hold on--the answer will be provided in due course, after a series of clews).
I doubled all the lines to save space, and added line numbers:

1 Adam, God made out of dust But thought it best to make me first,
So I was made before man To answer God's most Holy plan.
A living being I became And Adam gave to me my name.
I from his presence then withdrew And more of Adam never knew.
5 I did my Maker's law obey Nor ever went from it astray.
Thousands of miles I go in fear But seldom on earth appear.
For purpose wise God did see, He put a living soul in me.
A soul from me God did claim And took from me the soul again.
So when from me the soul had fled I was the same as when first made.
10 And without hands, or feet, or soul, I travel on from pole to pole.
I labor hard by day, by night To fallen man I give great light.
Thousands of people, young and old Will by my death great light behold.
No right or wrong can I conceive The scripture I cannot believe.
Although my name therein is found They are to me an empty sound.
15 No feat of death doth trouble me Real happiness I'll never see.
To Heaven I shall never go Or to Hell below.
Now when these lines you slowly read, Go search your Bible with all speed
For that my name is written there I do honestly to you declare.

So, what have we here? Let's see if we can identify corruptions just from a single copy, conjecturing emendations as suggested by internal evidence:

1. In line 2, a syllable is missing: perhaps an article before 'man'.
2. Line 6 is also missing something: perhaps 'Ten thousand' for 'thousands of' and 'do' before 'on'.
3. Line 7 should perhaps read 'For purpose only God did see'.
4. Line 8 is missing something, perhaps 'then' after 'God'.
5. In line 15, 'feat' is obviously a scribal error for 'fear'.
6. Line 16 is missing quite a bit, probably by parablepsis.
7. Line 18 is the last line; further research will probably show that some scribes didn't like the Abrupt Ending and added one or another alternative endings.

So here are some alternate readings to the above variant units, found in the next webex on the search page (Webex a):

1. a So I was made sometime before man
2. a But seldom on earth do I appear
3. a For purpose only God did see
4. a The soul in me, God had fed, Until, finally, the soul had fled. I am the same As when first made.
5. a fear
6. a nor to hell far below.
7. a Short ending: The answer is one word.

Note that I made all the above conjectures BEFORE looking for variant webices. And that not all of them were resolved on the first go.  So we'll keep going.

Another webex, next one down on the list (Webex b):
1. b So I was made before man,
2. b but seldom on earth appear.
3. b For purpose wise which God did see
4. b  And when from me the soul had fled, I was the same as when first made.
5. b fear (same as a and the conjectured reading)
6. b or to hell below (the text reading)
7. b Prologue: "This riddle was written by a lady in California in 1890 in response to a gentleman in Pennsylvania who said he would pay $1,000.00 to anyone who could write a puzzle he could not solve. He failed to solve this puzzle and paid the lady the $1,000.00, a great sum at that time. An 8 year old boy figured it out." Here is the entire, cleverly worded, puzzle: What is one word and five letters that only appeared in the King James Version four times.
b Colophon: [solution redacted] mentioned 6 times.

Webex b then goes on to add a Longer Ending, appending the full references of all six times the word is mentioned in the 1611 KJV.

I found a few other textually independent webices that seem to have all derived immediately from one or the other of the above, with minor scribal errors. Due to the algorithms of the search engine, only the first couple of hits are likely to ever be electronically copied--a form of valuing number, rather than weight. But it really is incredible that even in this cut-and-paste electronic age, the same kind of errors that we see in ancient manuscripts continue to to be made: just in the above three samples we see omission, substitution, addition, transposition, and interpolation. Multiple dislocation also occurred, as we shall see shortly.  Itacism seems to be the only scribal variant to have been eliminated by the electronic revolution (thanks to Spellcheck--which, ironically, is a conserving influence on the letter level, but an innovating influence on the word level), although capitalization and punctuation still vary widely.

Ah, yes, the clews (you may have noticed that I used the archaic spelling, however current within the present lifetime). The first is that the answer can only be found in the King James Version--which, ironically, only has it two times, none in a passage rather crucial to solving it, but incorporated therein by reference; and--likewise crucial to solving the riddle--with a different form of the word two more times.

The answer will be added as an edit, before my next post. But feel free to comment until then; just be prepared to explain your answer.

And finally, dear reader, here is your author's own recension of the riddle--all 20 well-scanned lines of it--online here for the first time. The considerable textual differences from ALL the webices are largely due to it being based on a pre-internet archetype that underwent major dumbing down at the hands of less literate scribes over the decades it was transmitted in hard copy. I trust you'll see that this eliminates the need to conjecture emendations to solve the problems noted above. And that the oldest webices are far from the best, the most major rescension having occurred in their electronically inextant ancestors.

God made Adam out of dust, but thought it best to make me first.
So I was made before the man, according to God's holy plan.
My body he did make complete--but without arms, or legs, or feet--
My ways and actions did control, as I was made without a soul.

A living creature I became; 'twas Adam gave to me my name.
Then from his presence I withdrew--no more of Adam ever knew.
Ten thousand miles before me reared; I seldom from the land appeared.
I did my Maker's laws obey; from them I never went astray.

Then God some pow'r in me did see, and put a living soul in me.
The soul in me the Lord did claim, and took from me that soul again.
And when from me the soul was fled, I was the same as when first made.

So without hands, or feet, or soul, I travel on from pole to pole;
My work the same by day or night--to fallen man I give great light.
Great hordes of people, young and old, do by my death great light behold.

No fear of death doth trouble me, and happiness I cannot see.
To heav'n above I ne'er shall go; nor to the grave, nor hell below.
No right or wrong can I conceive; the Scripture I cannot believe.
Although my name therein is found, they are to me an empty sound.

And when, my friends, these lines you read, go search the Scriptures with all speed;
And if my name you can't find there, it will be strange, as I declare.

ETA: Congratulations to Lydia for identifying and explaining the correct solution: whale.
The clues are right in the riddle: What other footless creature travels ten thousand miles from the North to the South Pole, seldom appearing from land? Also, whales were famous back then for not having a grave--no whale carcasses were being found buried on land.
Now, the reason this only works in the King James is that "whale" and "whales" translates two completely different words in the KJV: tannin in the OT, and keta in the NT. The former word actually refers to a reptilian monster, and the latter simply to a large sea creature. "Whale" as a modern English word can only be a subset of the latter definition, and in fact there is nothing in Scripture to specify that the creature in whose belly Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights was a cetacean. It could have been a shark or other giant fish. So to recap, Jonah could have been swallowed by a whale, and God did make whales the day before Adam, but the Bible doesn't mention what we now know as whales specifically anywhere. Thus the riddle only works for someone wearing blinders imposed by the translation choices of the KJV editors.

So how many times ARE whales mentioned in the Bible--two, four, or six? Actually, as the Bible has been translated into pre-modern English, there are TWELVE different verses that mention 'whale' or 'whales' (including, as did the 1611 KJV, the Apocrypha), but none of them specifically referring to a cetacean:

 Genesis 1:21 And God made great whales, and every living reptile, which the waters brought forth according to their kinds, and every creature that flies with wings according to its kind, and God saw that they were good.
 Job 3:8 But let him that curses that day curse it, even he that is ready to attack the great whale.
 Job 7:12 Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?
 Job 9:13 For if he has turned away his anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him.
 Job 26:12 He has calmed the sea with his might, and by his wisdom the whale has been overthrown.
 Ezekiel 32:2 Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.
 Daniel 3:23.5 (LXX)  Then the three, as out of one mouth, praised, glorified, and blessed, God in the furnace, saying, Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever.  . . . O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
 Jonah 2:1 Now the Lord had commanded a great whale to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights.
 Jonah 2:2 And Jonas prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the whale,
 Jonah 2:11 And the whale was commanded by the Lord, and it cast up Jonas on the dry land.
 Sirach 43:25 For therein be strange and wondrous works, variety of all kinds of beasts and whales created.
 Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.