This is the introduction to a five part series by David Daniels on the Septuagint. This is subject is very important as the use of the Septuagint has affected many areas of study. Dr. James J. S. Johnson wrote in a 2019 Dean Burgon Society article that “There is a growing potential in Christian circles, especially within the creation science community for promoting and advocating the Greek Septuagint (“LXX”) version of the Old Testament, as if the LXX’s content was more reliable than the content of the providentially preserved Masoretic Text (MT) of the Old Testament.”
‘Perhaps you, like me, as a Christian, pay attention to certain celebrity conservatives, who take many of the same or similar viewpoints as you. You know there are differences. Where is the overlap? In diagnosing a worldview, there are various components to understanding it, as some people have or might put it, to see the map of the world. Some of them are knowledge, ethics, purpose, and epistemology, but among the others, I want to explore two of them, reality and truth, as they relate to celebrity conservatives versus true Bible believers. In general, very often true Bible believers are interested in the celebrity conservatives without their being interested in them. Part of their “fan base” are Christians, who listen to their podcasts and watch their shows. One of the celebrity conservatives, Jordan Peterson, the famous PhD professor, author, and public intellectual and speaker from Canada, doesn’t even call himself a conservative. Celebrity conservatives today might call themselves classic liberals (you can look up classical liberalism). Maybe he really isn’t conservative, but you also shrink your audience if you call yourself one. As well, “liberal” might mean you keep your job and other opportunities. Peterson does resonate with true Bible believers and they listen to, watch, and read him. When I write, celebrity conservatives, I’m especially saying, Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, the late Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, and Candace Owens. There are many others. There is overlap between their worldviews and the worldview of a true Bible believer. Before Covid hit and also before he had major health issues, my wife and I and another couple got tickets to hear Jordan Peterson in person in San Francisco, sponsored by the Independent Institute. As I was listening to him, I enjoyed many things he was saying. However, I knew he and I did not have the same worldview. I was glad he could say what he did in public, but it wasn’t nearly enough for me either. The celebrity conservatives like him are disappointing. In the last week, I was thinking about the difference between the worldviews of celebrity conservatives and true Bible believers. Even as I write this, I think about how a true Bible believer could even be a celebrity in our world. I don’t think it’s possible. The greater the celebrity status, the more you must be doing something wrong, and that includes evangelical leaders who have their own celebrity. They in part got there through capitulation and compromise. Their greater celebrity doesn’t speak well. The common ground in worldview, I believe, is that there is more proximity between celebrity conservatives and true Bible believers in their view of reality. I would say that they both attempt to function according to reality, even if it means abandoning the truth. The truth and reality do go together. They overlap completely for a true Bible believer, but they don’t for celebrity conservatives. Even actual reality and the reality of celebrity of conservatives don’t overlap identically. To stay a celebrity, like everyone else who isn’t a true Bible believer, celebrity conservatives forsake actual reality and even more so, the truth. Let me explain. I want to use Jordan Peterson as an example. Jesus either rose from the dead or He didn’t. Jesus can’t be the greatest figure who ever lived if He wasn’t truth and He lied about the resurrection. Peterson says that he’s not sure if he believes Christianity, but he tries to live like one. He’s also saying, he’s not committing to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, while living like Jesus did resurrect from the dead. He borrows a reality based upon the truth without actually believing the truth. Other conservatives do that, and it’s easy to see. The world we live in is the real world. Celebrity conservatives more than the mainstream culture try to explain positions according to reality, even if they deny much of the truth or many truths, depending how you want to put that. You may live a reality of Jesus and defend a life that fits His existence and deny the pivotal truth of His resurrection. Peterson does that. Complementarianism is the truth and celebrity conservatives borrow from a complementarian reality without the truth of complementarianism. Gender fluidity proceeds from egalitarianism. God designed men and women differently. That’s the truth. Celebrity conservatives deny complementarian truth while defending a complementarian reality. Let me get more simple. Whether you think he’s a conservative or not, let’s consider President Donald J. Trump as if he were a conservative. Trump operates according to a certain Christian reality that results in Christian support, including from true Bible believers. Trump thinks that one thing is better than another. Certain behavior is wrong. He believes that America as a standard of living better than other countries, which can be and should be protected at the border. This is one of the most fundamental conservative beliefs and it is a reality that borrows from the truth. Former President Trump doesn’t believe the truth, but he functions as though there is truth. He is a realist in that we must have standards. Things won’t be better when we can’t discern the differences of one thing from another. This is a reality according to a Christian worldview. The truth is more important. However, people who eject from reality are much further away from the truth. These either practical or positional nihilists must be rejected for something short of the truth, if that’s the choice. The path to the truth won’t come through their relativism. It can come through someone who at least embraces reality, even if it doesn’t mirror actual reality. The answer for humanity is still the truth. It isn’t the reality of celebrity conservatives.’https://kentbrandenburg.com/2021/09/12/reality-and-truth-celebrity-conservatives-versus-true-bible-believers/
What made this University of Connecticut professor of anthropology so raving mad? As strange as it may seem it was not just the preaching of the Bible that set this man off but specifically a sign that read “Evolution is a Lie”. But really, how can a professor get so upset, so in a rage over a sign!? He reacted like a Muslim when someone may say what they consider derogatory about Mohammed. Perhaps Evolution is his religion?!
Well the answer to his raging madness is spoken of in the Bible. Psalm 2:1 asks “ Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” and then 2Timothy 3:13 we are told “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” Yes, it may seem harsh but this professor is an evil raging man, a seducer, deceived and deceiving. He (1) is teaching his students that evolution is a fact and not merely a theory which is a lie and (2) he has been deceived into believing that lie himself. One would think a professor of anthropology in a well respected University would have enough self control not to go raving mad just because someone is carrying a sign saying “Evolution is a Lie”. But on the other hand who wants to be told they are teaching a lie. Therefore since evolution is taught in most if not all universities as a FACT and not a theory this sign just might set a professor off! Haw dare anyone question the theory he teaches to have the audacity to call it a lie. Who are these simpletons. I am a PROFESSOR and you? Who are YOU!?
This theory of natural evolution has gained many proponents but that doesn’t change the fact it is simply a theory and a lie from the pit of hell. Atheistic evolution has sought to replace God with naturalism or as is so often called Mother Nature. Who thought up such a story that would delude so many? It wasn’t some University Professor but none other than that personage called Satan, the Devil. He is the founder and promoter of this lie and he has been a good salesman. Today most scientists, professors and others in all walks of life accept evolution as a fact and not as it really is just a theory.
In the world today those holding to the theory of evolution are thought of as intellectuals. But if one holds to Biblical special creation they are looked upon with scorn as though they are religious fanatics and anti-intellectual. Biblical special 24 hour six day creation is considered as simply religious whereas evolution is looked upon as true SCIENCE, though the Bible describes it as “science falsely so called”!
The government well funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had the article “Too Much Faith in Schools: The Rise of Christian Schooling in Australia’ by Marion Maddox (who holds PhDs in Theology and Political Philosophy) may be read in its entirety at ( http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/03/20/3968199.htm). In this article the author mentions the 2014 debate between evolutionist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham. She stated that the debate was held in the United States “…the home of whacky Christianity.” The author went on to say that Ham and other creationists like him promoted “the idea that God created the world in six days a mere 6,000 years ago.” Think for one moment, was this author there 6,000 years ago to know for sure that the world was not created then? Does this author know where to go and read something from someone that was there 6,000 or 6 million years ago? No she doesn’t know any thing written by anyone that was there six thousand or six million years ago. Of course a Bible beliver can go to the Bible and read the words given to Moses from that One who was there but that of course would not be acceptable to the author of the article. Why would not the Scriptures be sufficient? Well, note the phrase “whacky Christianity”. Those who hold to Biblical special creation are “whacky” according to her and professors such as the one in the you tube. Could one say this of any other religion; especially Islam? It is almost assured that if Marion Maddox had stated this about Islam she would be constantly looking over her shoulder to see who was following her; if she still had a head to look over her shoulder with. But I digress.
The Bible speaks of people like the present day evolutionary professor and Marion Maddox. In Acts Chapter 17, Paul the apostle does some street preaching while in Athens. His preaching caught the special attention of two particular groups, the evolutionary atheistic Epicureans and the pantheistic Stoicks. These men had heard Paul preaching “Jesus, and the resurrection” so “they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?” Paul agrees and as he stands on Mars Hill before these men with this great opportunity to preach he not only preaches the resurrection but creation, repentance and judgment.
Consider a few points from this sermon. In Acts 17 verse 22 Paul defends the doctrine of creation by saying “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands”. Here Paul declares there to be a personal God which created all things! The atheistic evolutionary Epicureans did not think Paul was speaking about theistic evolution, as some liberal Christians do today, but they understood, and rightfully so, that he was speaking about special creation in six literal 24 hour days as presented in Genesis!
Then in verse 26 Paul announces the fact that all humans come from one couple and are therefore of “one blood”. This teaching repudiates what the world is seeking today in making same sex relationships as normal. Shock, horror, same sex humans in sexual relationships do not reproduce. Paul preached that God “…hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth…” According to Paul humans were created by God and are directly related one to another through the original couple, Adam and Eve.
In verse 29 these men learned from Paul that we are made in the image of God our Creator; “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” The non-conformist Matthew Henry in remarking on this verse wrote “God honoured man in making his soul after his own likeness; but man dishonours God if he makes him after the likeness of his body. The Godhead is spiritual, infinite, immaterial, incomprehensible, and therefore it is a very false and unjust conception which an image gives us of God, be the matter ever so rich, gold or silver; be the shape ever so curious, and be it ever so well graven by art or man’s device, its countenance, posture, or dress, ever so significant, it is a teacher of lies.”
Then in Chapter 17 and verse 30 Paul declares that God “now commandeth all men every where to repent”. What are they to repent of? They are to repent of their unbelief, their worship of man, their personal sins and of man-made idols. These were hedonistic Epicureans and pantheistic idle worshiping Stoicks to whom Paul was speaking similar to many who are living today.
Paul in verse 31 speaks about a day of judgment “in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” There will be a judgement day whether the evolutionist, atheist and religious idol worshiper thinks so or not! That judgement will be performed by Him who rose from the dead, Jesus Christ.
Now, Paul has gone full circle; beginning in verse 18 with the resurrection and now in verse 31! The Christian faith rises or falls on the truth of the resurrection! Paul handles the subject of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. For all men to be judged means they too will be resurrected just as the Lord Jesus whom he preached had been. This they could not or would not understand and believe. Their reply to Paul’s preaching was that “some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.” Oh, man may mock God today but in the end “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” at them for their mocking. As to those who would hear about the resurrection later the simple truth is they may not have that opportunity for no man is guaranteed another day. However, “certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” Praise the Lord for the few that did hear and believe! Three groups of people, the mocking, the putting off and the believing. The question is “What group are you in?
whatyareckon 