Here is my e-mail (late) from last week:
Hi everyone!
Sorry to be getting you this the day before we meet and I send you another one...
Things of Note as Possibilities for the Group
If you aren't following the March for Science, friend of the group, one Randall Hayes, posted this on their page. It's taking place at a church, but I don't think any of us will combust if we go to it.
Next, Lisa Duke mentioned this to me, and I think it is certainly worth a look - we've had guest speakers before and talked about having more. Well, here's a possibility. From her e-mail:
"If you don't already know Dave Warnock, he is a former preacher who deconverted and then, within the last year, has a diagnosis for ALS.
He is giving talks about what he calls Dying Out Loud so it's death from a secular perspective.
His assistant says:
'Since it's a reasonable driving distance away, all he would need would be the 2 hotel nights (~$85/night). Honorariums are appreciated but we let the group decide what they find reasonable. All profits go towards future costs of travel for the Dying Out Loud message, etc.'"
Shelving Update
As for the shelving update, I've received word that we can probably get in two days of work on the shelves in October - I'll talk to management at the IRC about it, but I think we need to see how things go on the 12th, first. That having been said, we really need at least one table saw, one chop saw, a table to set the table saw on, and some saw horses. Several people have said that they have the items that we might need, but I am wondering who among us can commit to bringing them that Saturday. I'll be there, but the best I've got is a crappy little jigsaw that's not going to do much of anything. (sad face)
So, please, if you're going to be able to be there, please, click this link, RSVP, and comment beneath about what you can bring as far as tools, etc.
Notes
Secular Sunday
September 28, 2019
Attendees:
· Ann Brady
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· Bill Sparks
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· Sean Bienert
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· Charles
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· Jabari
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· Stephanie
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· Lynne
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· John
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· Brian
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· Staci
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· Bobby
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· Pearl
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· Pam
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· Molly
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· Will
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· Joe
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· Chris
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· Derek
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· Keeler
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· Adrienne
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· Richard
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· Karen
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Announcements:
Team Rubicon – donations for the Bahamas. PBGreensboro.com for participatory government. Book club – Mere Christianity. Next Saturday. See Meetup site. Next video night – Mazes and Monsters. IRC shelving Oct. 12 will be cutting and staining the wood. Assembly tentatively November 9th. This is also on the meetup site. Pride day – Will. Will gave out free hugs at Pride. Some of the people were very, very happy to have a dad hug. It sucks that there is the void there for affection. We gave out a bunch of literature and buttons.
Discussion Notes:
Charles is leading the discussion today. Topic is when was Jesus born. 2 sources, Matthew and Luke. Neither of them give us an exact date for this. The Bible is not history. They are strictly theological. It is up to us to figure it out. Dionysius, in 525 calculated the date which was accepted by the church and the Roman gov. (which was by then, Christian) made that year 1. There is no year zero because the Romans did not have the numeral zero.
Brief history: starting with David (who we aren’t sure was historical) was about 1000 BC. The kingdom broke up after David. Judea was the main tribe in the south. At the end of the 8th cent BCE the Assyrians destroyed the 10 tribes in the north. They marched as far as Jerusalem. They exacted a ransom according to both the Bible and the Assyria history which Judea paid. This is when the prophets started talking about god’s plan. Micah chapter 5. He prophesized that Bethlehem would be the place where a ruler will come who will defeat the Assyrians. This is the only place where Bethlehem is mentioned and it was NOT a messiah and he was ONLY going to defeat the Assyrians.
The Romans made Herod the king of a large part of the middle east (Herod the Great). He had 4 sons and the Romans, on the death of Herod, made his 4 sons tetrarchs. Herod Antipas, 4 BCE – 39 AD ruled Galilee. Herod Herculaus 4 BCE – 6 AD ruled Judea, only ruled 10 years. Romans took over the administration of Judea. Quirinius was the governor and held a census.
After Quirinius, Pontius Pilate ruled from 26 AD to 36 AD and was fired for being too cruel. Josephus tells us that he crucified hundreds of people and there were a great many rebellions. In 66 – 74 the Jews did revolt and were defeated and the temple was destroyed.
All the gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem. 72 – Mark, 82 – Matthew, other 2 later. The two that talk about the birth of Jesus were completely different (Matthew and Luke).
December 25th was adopted as his birthday because of other holidays that were already in place.
Isaiah also made a prophesy about Emmanuel who would also crush the Assyrians. He was Hezekiah according to the Jews, also not a messiah.
The Septuagent (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) was in general circulation from 200 years before Jesus and was probably what the authors of the New Testament were reading and most familiar with. It translates ama (young woman) as virgin, which is incorrect.
Matthew: Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem and she was pregnant by someone else. Joseph didn’t want her to be stoned to death so he was going to divorce her quietly. Angel Gabriel comes to visit him 3 times and tells him not to divorce her because god is the father of the baby. The wise men come to King Herod and ask directions to the new born king. Herod issues an edict to kill all the infant boys. But before he can, the wise men get to Bethlehem and give him gifts. There is no mention of him being king except in Matthew. The story about the killing of the innocents was the story of Moses. The second time the angel comes he tells Joseph to leave and go to Egypt. The 3rd time he tells Joseph to go back to Israel, but don’t go to Bethlehem, go to Galilee because one of Herod’s sons is ruling in Bethlehem at the time and it isn’t safe.
The genealogies in Luke and Matthew are completely different.
Luke starts similarly to Abraham and Sarah story (old man, old woman, have a baby). Luke starts by saying that Zaccariah and Elizabeth (old) are going to have a son, who turns out to be John the Baptist (during the time of Herod the Great). Elizabeth’s cousin is Mary, who lives in Nazareth. In Luke, Gabriel goes to Mary, not Joseph and tells her that even though she’s a virgin she’s going to have a baby. She goes to see her cousin Elizabeth (70 miles away). Elizabeth is 6 months pregnant and her baby leaps in her womb. So 10 years later (Mary pregnant for 10 years?) Quirinius calls a census which the Bible calls it a world wide census. Joseph takes Mary who is now 9 months pregnant to Bethlehem for some reason for the census. They have Jesus in a manger and then later take him to Jerusalem to be circumsized and performed the normal purification rituals.
Matthew and Luke seem almost to have been writing to two completely separate audiences. Luke didn’t seem to care about Matthew’s version of the story.
Topic for next time – marriage, profanity, raising children as non-religious. Which topic do we want? Looks like it might be profanity.
