nourishing obscurity

Not happy taking Churchmouse, Catholics or anyone else who is a believing Christian to task as there is enough assault and battery going on as it is but in this case, I must take Churchmouse to task over the Nephilim.

It is written of in the Old Testament, which is not, in terms of his argument, apocrypha and while I agree the apocrypha is not to be trusted, when it corroborates what is already in the accepted canon, then it adds potential weight.

Genesis 6:4:  There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Numbers 13:33:  And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

I need better than a charge of ‘Nephilim conspiracy theory’ as a debunking of what was in those two books.  As for ‘a whole series of doctrines have been built around this word, in spite of the fact that the word only appears rarely’, since when does the number of references denote truth or otherwise?  It’s been mentioned, just as with Simeon’s and Levi’s sin and that makes it worthy of consideration.

The notion of the antediluvian nephilim explains a hell of a lot and that choice of words is deliberate.  It explains bloodlines, the old families, the ascendancy of the monarchs and the lost nature of royalty – again go to the OoL Belgium post for evidence of that.  if anything, it is a supportive argument for the need for the Grace of God, which Christians believe comes through Jesus in his role as the Christ.

Certainly the opposition are hellbent in emulating that Christ motif, whilst at the same time denying it.  And I’d agree with Churchmouse that a whole cottage industry of conspiracy theory has been based on it, much of which can be consigned to the dustbin but it still doesn’t make the nephilim not so.

This is interesting:

… when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men

Churchmouse, being far more of a biblical scholar than I, might point out that this refers to good demi-people, not bad, the nephilim being seen today as largely bad.  The thing is that it had largely gone wrong pre-Flood, as far as we can tell and a new start seemed to have been indicated.  That it went bad later as well is one of those things we could argue over forever.

It suggests to me that if the nephilim went bad or were bad, as in anunaki, then somehow they survived the Flood.  If they were good, then either they were on the ark or not.

Though this is Wiki,perhaps it’s still worthy of consideration:

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning of Nephilim as “giants.”^[1] Many suggested interpretations are based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root n-ph-l “fall.” Robert Baker Girdlestone ^[2] argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem, implying that the Nephilim are to be perceived as “those that cause others to fall down.” Adam Clarke took it as passive, “fallen,” “apostates.” Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form “ones who have fallen,” equivalent grammatically to paqid “one who is appointed” (i.e. overseer), asir, “one who is bound,” (i.e. prisoner) etc.^[3][4] According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, the basic etymology of the word Nephilim is “dub[ious],” and various suggested interpretations are “all very precarious.”^[5]

The majority of ancient biblical versions, including the Septuagint, Theodotion, Latin Vulgate, Samaritan Targum, Targum Onkelos and Targum Neofiti, interpret the word to mean “giants.”^[6] Symmachus translates it as “the violent ones”^[7][8][9] and Aquila‘s translation has been interpreted to mean either “the fallen ones”^[7] or “the ones falling [upon their enemies].”^[9][10]

There’s another aspect:

Evidence cited in favor of the “fallen angels” interpretation includes the fact that the phrase “the sons of God” (Hebrew, בְּנֵי הָֽאֱלֹהִים; literally “sons of the gods”) is used twice outside of Genesis chapter 6, in the Book of Job (1:6 and 2:1) where the phrase explicitly references angels. The Septuagint’s translation of Genesis 6:2 renders this phrase as “the angels of God.”^[22]

Churchmouse is more concerned, in his argument, with what they were:

Look at the last sentence — ‘mighty men … men of renown’. Wouldn’t that allude to men who were in positions of temporal power, not physically oversized?

… whereas I’m more concerned with who they are, from where?

If someone has a cogent argument that they are other than fallen angels and that the ruling class do not have some conenction with them, I’d like to hear it.  This one is presented as is.  It does mention Roswell in the sidebar so you make your own mind up:

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Consider this:

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A reminder of life in former times is in a book by Gerald and Sheila Young: The History of a Moorland Village and life was indeed tough:

As fuel was dear, porridge was boiled for breakfast in the morning and if, as frequently happened, there was nothing but porridge again for dinner, it would be poured into a bottle then corked and placed in the cottagers’ beds to be kept warm until they returned at midday. Dry oat bread and a pint of mint tea, sweetened with treacle, was the customary evening meal.

There was talk of the Chartists:

Some days after the riot, a monster Chartist meeting was held on the moor, and the streets were filled with a violent mob, hurling stones and brickbats … a body of dragoons presently galloped to the scene of the disturbance.

When I speak of the left in disparaging terms, it’s for their disregard of the need for businesses to provide employment and the need for business-friendly condituions in the country as a first priority. What should follow on from that though is the pushing for better working conditions. You don’t put the cart before the horse though.

Unlike many on the centre-right, I’m not anti-unions, as the worst excesses of the magnates and other bosses do need to be curbed. But of course, just as women have taken over in the workplace in all the middle level jobs, so union bosses took over the country, holding it to ransom and thus we had things like the closures in Liverpool due to their actions.

Entrenched positions give no ground whatever. The only reason I’m so anti-feminist, to the extent I don’t want to even hear one open her harpy mouth any more is that they are so entrenched and so into narrow, sectional interest instead of caring for, or at least understanding other people in the society that they turn off the very people they’re trying to convince.

And yet I can feel their concerns.  Last evening’s Father Brown was wince-inducing, concerning unwedded mothers in a Catholic society and the appalling institutions under unChristian nuns with severe faces who put the girls to hard labour after removing their children by force.  That was so appalling that never in a million years could it be called Christian.  The crimes committed in that name beggar belief.

The lack of any understanding of the other side is the sticking point.  I’d not be so anti-feminist – there are many wrongs which needed and still need addressing – if it were not for the feminists’ carry-on itself, their mindless manner and unconcern for anyone else in it.  Ditto with the media and feminists over the Saatchi thing.  I was never going to support Saatchi himself and said so in the post.  It was just the utter whitewashing of Nigella which people were quite happy to perpetuate to avoid responsibility, whilst she herself conceded her role in it, which I was down on.

There are two sides to every question.

Ditto with bosses – those not giving a damn for the humans in their employ are going to suffer a Chartist movement. Workers who want far too much, via union bosses, are going to bring a business down. And it needs not lip service but genuine concern for the other side or at least an understanding of their position. This is where the decimation of Christian values has done so much damage to the society but the secularist or atheist can never see that in his prejudice against a God he neither understands nor wants to.

There are some excellent precepts in the bible and if followed, e.g. love thy neighbour, it would reduce a lot of the aggro.  Back to the local area:

During the past 50 years, there have been profound changes in the lives of residents. These changes occurred mainly because of the progressive closure of all the textile and paper mills, shops and the decline in other local operations.

Progressive? Doesn’t sound too progressive to me. Whilst conceding times move on, there’s a good way to do it and a bad way:

However, we are only too well aware of the continuing threat of over-development in and around the village, despite the restrictions of the conservation area … some developers, planners and sadly, some authorities see virgin landscapes and picturesque villages as an ideal setting.

There’s a huge development going on and a scathing assessment of the newbies by the established residents. The massive building projects at the lower levels nearer the valley have caused great fracture in the local community. I go past them every day. They’re not monstrosities as such but they are cloned. There seems no common sense or sense of variety with British entrepeneurs – every box, nice though the facade is, is the same in every respect.

I saw this in Australia. The red brick of the 50s was seen as dowdy and the new cream-brick and half timbering came in – those houses are dire and shoddy. In the 70s, there was a move ‘back to nature’ so the cloned houses all became the ubiquitous brown brick and today no one would want to live in them. Planners and developers, for some reason, can never get it right.

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I was half way through putting this into the comments to the Summary Justice post but then decided it was off topic, or at least a diversion from the main theme so I turned it into a new post.

In that post is the phrase- e.g. the 72 virgins bit and I thought (again) 72 eh?

Did you ever wonder why 72?

Why not 10?

…or 12?

….or any other random number?

The ranters who dream of getting hold of 72 houris obviously never think about it; well, they can’t think can they

72 is, however, an interesting number as Omar the tentmaker knew-

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!

The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute:

There are lots of other references to 72 in the various mythologies around the world as well as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

And from that link you will see that Omar Khayyam was referring to the 72 sects of Islam which will be consigned to hell.

But, again, why 72?

Whenever numbers appear in the Scriptures, as they do frequently, they must be there for a reason. 72 is commonly cited but there are others.

For example 153 in the New Testament.

After the resurrection Jesus tells the disciples to cast their net on the right of their boat and they subsequently draw in 153 fish.(John 21)

That is a very precise number.

The same story appears early in Luke’s Gospel but the catch is described as a great number of fish.(Luke 5)

Why the difference? And why did the net begin to break in Luke’s tale but not in John’s story?

It is also, in fact, interesting and mysterious mathematically and cosmologically.

In his book Man and His Symbols the famous psychologist C G Jung said of numbers:

The very numbers you use in counting are more than you take them to be. They are at the same time mythological elements (for the Pythagoreans, they were even divine); but you are certainly unaware of this when you use numbers for a practical purpose.

Ah, numbers; sweet mystery of life

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The silly season is definitely upon us and looks like being a long one.  I remember starting blogging in the middle of one, along with a crop of new bloggers of whom three or four have survived, still accessible from the blogroll.

Bits and pieces today I’m afraid.

High heels are sexy – duh!  Did it take a study about it?

“They make me look, and feel, more attractive.” Newly published research suggests this perception is accurate, but perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.  It’s not the artificially increased height that turns heads. Rather, it’s how such footwear changes the mechanics of a woman’s gait.

Duh again.   I happen to love flats on women anyway and would not confuse her with a man in most cases unless she was butch as in the pic above.  Do you find that hands-on-hips thing and muscly legs attractive?  Where’s the softness?  Whither the femininity?  But we’ve said all that before.

The Saatchi thing – it’s back to them to resolve and I’d say their relationship has been redefined but still the women journos [read feminist] are carrying on about it, completely ignoring the real cause, heavily into denial and focussing exclusively on the male reaction. Men do not react that way for absolutely no reason.

Girls – as long as you play that denial game, domestic violence will continue.  There are two in every conflict.  Accept responsibility for your part in it.   If you went with an alpha male in the first place, then you need to know what he’s like.  If he’s controlling, which the head of an empire tends to be, then don’t go with him.  But you will, won’t you, for the money/power?

And if you do, then you can’t do that Anne Boleyn carping thing.  While he was well out of order in the reaction, Nigella at least seems to have been the only one in this who knows she went too far.

I know you ladies don’t like this but it’s so.  Formula: action causes reaction causes consequences.

Duckmarine – this sounds lunacy.   Didn’t follow it closely but did they launch off a ramp with passengers on board?  In that design?  Are they mad?  And was there supposed to be a lot of skylarking and screaming as part of the package?  Heavy vehicle head-first into water – what the hell did they expect?  Someone of limited brain had a brilliant idea for a lark, did he?

I’d expect what happened previously.  And who the hell designed that thing?  Where’s the front-end buoyancy, where the rocker in the undersides?  Who authorized it – non-nautical penpushing bureaucrats?  Company directors?  Taking to the water is not a game – there are canal and river trust regs, harbour regs and RYA regs.

The reality of parliament – Witterings highlights Sarah Wollastan:

What Sarah Wollaston has learnt is that representative democracy and elements of direct democracy do not – and will never be allowed to – mix because the political elite will never, ever, allow their central control of both the political system and those they are meant to serve to be subverted.

For Wollaston to be frustrated at what she has found since her arrival at Westminster suggests a certain naivety on her part in expecting a leopard to change its spots. It is indeed unfortunate and a tad disappointing that Sarah Wollaston has not realised that she is part of a rigged system of democracy and – in effect – suffers from exactly that which those she represents, experience on a daily basis.

A commenter wrote:

As much as you might sympathise with the concept she’s highlighting, it does rather make you want to shout ‘Well bloody DO something about it then!!’ in her face….?

Trouble is, she can’t.  Nor can anyone.  In a system which parachutes the ‘right sort of person’  the PTB want, she is, by definition, going to be both ambitious and compliant.  They don’t call it Chief Whip for nothing.

‘I was right on gay marriage and polygamy’

Outrage as Liberal [conservative] Senator says he’s been ‘proved correct’ on link between same-sex marriage and polygamy.

Hey, well done sir – stick it to them as you’re sticking to your guns.  And what an effing stupid question from the journo – have your views changed since last year, everyone else’s have.  They all waver in the breeze, do you?  No of course he hasn’t changed, you nong – this is an eternal issue, a bedrock thing which never alters, whether it’s the year dot or today – it is neither dependent on whim nor on community ‘fashion’.  It’s simply wrong and he is being vilified for saying it.

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Soccer’s not my game but it’s most of the world’s and who would stand in the way of that?

The sports PTB like great big drug-fuelled spectacles with lots of infrastructural costs on white elephants which they then fleece the spectator and taxpayer to fund – all that’s true.  Should they not do it though?

The London Olympics were highly suss with all those miraculous golds and the egregiously satanic opening and closing ceremonies.  Should the Olympics not have been though?

It certainly brought people out of their hidy-holes and will go down as ‘Britain’s’ best ever Olympics.  Most people I know look forward to seeing the footage of Brazil and I look forward to the Brazilian women’s volleyball team.  Should it not go ahead because that money could have gone to the poor and needy?

Should we have gone to the moon [if we did]?  Is there any point to major architectural wonders such as York Minster?  Should we not strive for anything and the money saved be given to the poor, even though it’s diverted into bureaucratic fatcat pockets?

In short, should we do nothing and achieve nothing, have nothing to remember because the money could be used better?

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Some years back, I was shocked to read about someone I’d known who’d got into the clutches of a cult and was found dead sometime later. She’d ‘fallen off’ a carpark upper level to her death below. She was just into her thirties.

The court concluded they didn’t know but a relative was involved in this cult and she’d communicated to some people, friends, her fear of this relative and that he was trying to get her into it. She apparently didn’t want. Her father was a public figure and wealthy by his lights.

At the point I knew her she was into Tarot and I’m not suggesting the cult was – they were into the passing through fire and the ancestral spirits thing, the esoteric, arcane knowledge of the ancients and all that – adepts, grand masters, temples.

What has been abundantly clear with many cults is that they’re interested in people with money or people who are easily influenced, vulnerable. Someone searching via Tarot is on the lookout for something, she or he is into something more. Therefore, she or he is more susceptible than perhaps the average chav out there.

There was an episode of Father Brown just now and it was freaky. From the first few seconds, when the Polish housekeeper girl of 20 odd went to the temple of this sect, it was obvious what it was all about. Sex is always on the agenda, is it not? And equally obviously, they could not persuade her back with reason. If someone is empty or has a hole in the personality and someone comes along to offer a way to fill it, it’s difficult for pure reason to prevail.

However, that was not what struck me the most. What did was where the priest confronted the adept in his temple and as the former accuses the latter of charlatanism, the latter reminds the father that he believes in spirits too, in the ‘other world’. That actually shut the priest up momentarily.

So what it then came down to was good and evil spirits. A gnostic, often soft and gentle, openminded and tolerant of anything is contrasted with the stern, imperious Christian whom the gnostic believes follows the demi-urge, the destroyer of worlds. It’s the most subtle of suggestions.

In the show, Father Brown and the girl’s basically non-religious bit-of-a-lad try to convince her but they come over as harsh, unfeeling, even cruel, whilst the Adept comes over as infused by light, the bringer of peace and happiness, dressed in robes with the symbols of dualism dotted about on the fabric.

It was also obvious, because it was a Father Brown episode, that they’d get her back but in real life, as with that girl I knew – it did not end like that. It’s at these times I feel far closer to the secular than the spiritual or at least,one should keep a reasoning head running.

I trust no cults, whether purportedly Christian, pagan, some new religion, the ancients, whatever. One can’t trust humans coming to you with their version of the truth but I do believe you can trust socio-political words such as in the Sermon on the Mount. Seems many others still do too and they are the underpinning of what was once our society.

I equally distrust pomp and high circumstance in the church, the gathering of riches, the speaking in gobbledegook and I’m sure, as my work colleague, a regular churchgoer of a certain age says – there are many in the church who are not Christian. I further distrust those like the PCists who come to us with what seems oh so reasonable – don’t you want peace and love like us, James – but we see the result of PCism all about us now.

In an episode of Morse set in Italy, concerning forged artworks, the villain who’d been running a cult turned to Morse and said something along the lines of, ‘It must be awful living with your level of distrust, Morse.’

Perhaps.

Seems to me you can believe in something and it can even transform your life but you still need to keep a hard head about you as there are plenty of serpents about in the guise of your friend. Wait for them to speak, see where they’re headed but be prepared to do a 180 and go back to that which you know you can trust.

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# We shouldn’t assume that the Woolwich killers are somehow representative of all Muslims, because they certainly are not. Most of them are far too busy running paedophile gangs to even contemplate terrorism.

# When I see lovers’ names carved into a tree I wonder why lovers would take knives on a date.

# Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a feminist to fish and she will accuse you of patronising her, claim she knew how to do it anyway and that even if she didn’t, she could easily work it out without the help of a man.

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The radio’s on here and some feminist is pontificating about how men are rotten, violent people. Some are but I couln’t comment any further until I saw this pic they’re all talking about:

I just heard through the door and some talkback female is now on saying he should be charged etc. – what utter, utter bollox. Look more carefully – he has his hand over her mouth.

Now what does that tell you? In the previous post here, my very first question was what had she done to provoke him. Rossa came in with all sorts of alternatives.

But look at that pic above and you can see she was clearly mouthing off and wouldn’t shut up and that’s what he’s done – tried to get her to shut it. All right, it’s none too subtle and maybe it should not be in public but this beat-up about hands round her neck strangling her is simply not so.

Now, apparently they went home and that was that but of course, the PC brigade want the cops called, the whole drawn-out legal bit. And some woman is on now saying ‘it’s clear’ he’s abusing her.

Utter BS! A man abusing does not place a hand across a mouth like that – he punches or pushes. Yet this woman has now started on about her own abusive relationship.

WTF has that to do with anything? I’m very sorry for her but WTF has it to do with Saatchi in this instance? This is what we’re going on about here – the media ganging up with the western feminist so that any reaction whatever from a man and she pulls a very willing law down on him.

No acceptance of their own roles, no sharing of the guilt – all their way. And no, sorry – it is not misogyny to take feminists to task for what they do. It is taking feminists to task for what they do. That’s all. Taking proper women to task too at times. Nigella, clearly not a feminist, is not the active party in all this hysteria, is she? she seems to me to be a proper woman.

Maybe there has been abuse and only she can say – not the media, not us, not some family friend. If she chooses for that to come out, then fine. If there has been none, also fine.

………..

Having said all that, let me add, between you and me, that Saatchi is out of order here. One does not do that to any lady in public, no matter how provocative, even if we were not under PC tyranny today. A man shouldn’t do that, full stop, period. It is demeaning and publicly humiliating.

This is his crime, his lack of chivalry, not violence and I’m down on him for that, as would most men probably be.

And his punishment? Sent to the doghouse, divorced, whatever – her choice. He has introduced that into a private relationship, it’s nowt to do with any other busybodies, including me, including the law. Ball’s in her court as to whether she continues with him.

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Find out here:

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Difficult concentrating on blogging with Queens and Spain.

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… controlled aggression and inordinate response can be quite effective. They only work though when the rule of law is strong.

This needs examples – you’ll maybe not morally agree but they are efficacious.

You might recall a Somali [or whatever] hijacking of a Russian ship. The Russians stormed the ship, ovepowered the hijackers, took them back to their boat, handcuffed them to the railings and sank the boat.

We therefore come to the moral question.

Was that murder? Was it justified? It was certainly inordinate response but the pirates don’t attack Russian shipping now. To me, [maybe it was my years in Russia] it was a simple logical response to an aggressive act. In Russia, that produces a strong pecking order and issues arise only when that is challenged. They’re far more conscious of ‘one’s place’ over there.

Not for a second am I suggesting all is well in Russia – there are too many issues I can’t even start. However, there are very strong views on family, on pecking order and this is difficult for our relativist society to either understand or condone. There’s a certainty to it and Russian’s love certainty.

Same with those little vipers, Pussy Riot. Everyone’s going on about the inordinate response. I don’t agree – they got off lightly, the penalties for desecrating a church or state monument are far more than they got. As for that hunger strike, they took her to hospital. Hell, I’d obviously report it if it were me but she could starve – it was her choice.

Same with Politkovskaya. She was messing with Basayev and other enemies of Russia, she was not neutral and was not a good lady in her dealings. Litvinenko was in the middle of it and there was strong evidence Berezovsky was in there too. It was patently not as reported by our captured press.

Now you can call that being a heartless bstd but I say it reduces the terrorism quotient. Almost all Russians decry the line being crossed into sheer cruelty in Chechnya, when men became beasts on both sides] and Kosovo was a nightmare, hell on earth so I’m not going down that path at all.

But I am saying that the law of turn the other cheek is taken out of context to say nations should lie down and let themselves be overrun. The individual within that society has every right – a right created by founding fathers and soldiers who fight and die for that country – to find justice and that’s what our system more or less once delivered on most issues.

Not now.   Now there is a deliberate turning on its head of justice, in order to make people insecure and therefore malleable. The rule of law, as many have said, has been replaced by the rule of laws. The PC loonies and crims are in charge. Those in thrall to higher powers are in charge.

We must return to the rule of law and that does not mean via some Hitler or Nick Griffin. It means through someone more or less decent being preselected, someone with only a few skeletons. Not a Messiah but someone denying his own messiahship – simply a good man.

But can a good man ever become a political leader? Would he want to?

All of which raises the spectre of Turkey.  Is that the rule of law?  Is Shariah Law just?   Not when it’s meant to support iniquity, e.g. the 72 virgins bit and involves cutting off of limbs, noses etc.  Not when it produces civil war such as the one looming now between Sunni and Sh-ite – that’s another question.   What most people, I believe, are referring to is a twofold process of statutory penalties which don’t alter – for murder, robbery, rape and they don’t vary all that much … but far more than that – they are accepted by the people as just.

Where people think they are unjust, there is a process available to hear dissent.  Those millions in France protesting against the destruction of the family should be allowed their protest.  Equally, those who support the unnatural pretence at ‘marriage’ should be allowed their protest.  Voltaire.  It really is as simple as that.  I’d suggest that that is completely different to Somali pirates hijacking someone’s boat and taking them hostage.

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QUESTION:

You’re on duty by yourself (don’t ask why, you just are and your Sergeant hates you) walking on a deserted street late at night.
Suddenly, an armed man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife and lunges at you. You are carrying your police-issue Glock and you are an expert shot, however you have only a split second to react before he reaches you.

What do you do?

ANSWER:

British or Australian police officer: Continue…

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