Category Archives: Gospel

The Spade vs. The Scripture: 5 Surprising Ways Archaeology Reinterprets the Bible

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For generations, the Bible served as the undisputed topographic map of the ancient world. Its narratives of patriarchs, plagues, and promised lands were treated not merely as scripture, but as literal, chronological accounts of the past. However, over the last half-century, an “archaeological revolution” has turned the soil of the Levant into a complex palimpsest of evidence that often refuses to align with the ink.

The spade of the modern researcher has unearthed a religious and social landscape far more porous and pluralistic than the sanitized versions of the later biblical editors. This is not a story of the Bible being “disproven,” but rather a fundamental reinterpretation of its nature. By testing the text against the physical reality of stratigraphy, pottery typology, and carbon-14 dating, we find that the “Historical Wheat” is often inextricably bound to “Mythical Chaff”—revealing a past that is far more human, messy, and evolutionary than the traditional Sunday school narrative suggests.

The Israelites Who Never Left: The Truth About Canaanite Origins

The Book of Joshua paints a cinematic picture of a swift, scorched-earth conquest. It tells of a foreign people invading from the outside, collapsing the walls of fortified cities like Jericho, and dividing a conquered land among twelve tribes. Yet, the archaeological record is stubbornly silent regarding such a cataclysm.

Excavations across the Judean and Samaritan highlands reveal no widespread layer of ash or destruction during the traditional period of the conquest. Most notably, the “fallen walls” of Jericho—a staple of biblical imagery—show no evidence of destruction during the era the Israelites were supposedly at the gates. Instead, the archaeology points toward a far more subtle “Internal Development.”

As the heavyweight of the field William Dever and scholar Joshua Schachterle observe, the early Israelites were not foreign invaders, but a subset of the indigenous Canaanites who gradually formed a distinct social identity from within. The shift was one of social evolution rather than military takeover. “Ancient settlements found in the land of Canaan show no sign of armed conflict,” Dever notes, suggesting that the “Israelites” were essentially Canaanites who moved into the highlands, adopted a new religious focus, and eventually wrote a retroactive history of conquest to forge a cohesive national origin story.

The 1,000-Year Anachronism: Abraham’s Camels

Chronological discrepancies often provide the clearest lens through which to see when a text was actually compiled. In the Book of Genesis, the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—are depicted as owners of domesticated camels as they traverse the 18th or 19th centuries BCE. For centuries, this detail was accepted as a factual window into the Bronze Age.

However, recent carbon dating conducted by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University has identified a glaring anachronism. Their research shows that domesticated camels were not introduced to the Southern Levant until approximately the 9th century BCE—a full millennium after the patriarchs were said to have lived.

This is what scholars call “direct proof” that the biblical text was compiled centuries after the events it purports to describe. The authors were projecting the domestic realities of their own 8th or 7th-century world back into a legendary past. It is an effect much like a medieval painter depicting a biblical figure in 14th-century plate armor; the animal in the story tells us more about the author than it does about the subject.

When God Had a Wife: The Mystery of Asherah

Modern monotheism presents the God of Israel, YHWH, as a solitary and jealous figure. Yet, the archaeology of the ordinary Israelite tells a story of a messy, syncretic religious landscape. In 1968, William Dever discovered a series of Hebrew inscriptions that fundamentally challenged the concept of ancient Jewish monotheism. The most jarring found in an Israelite cemetery, read: “Blessed may he be by YHWH and his Asherah.”

Asherah was a well-known Canaanite mother goddess. The fact that this inscription—and subsequent others—was found in a cemetery, a place of sacred rest for common people, suggests that the belief in a goddess consort for YHWH was not a fringe cultic practice, but a standard feature of early Israelite religion.

This reveals that early Judaism functioned under “henotheism”—the belief that while many gods exist, one’s own is the primary deity. The transition to the strict, solitary monotheism of the later prophets was not a revelation from a mountain top, but a long, contested historical process that only solidified in the waning years of the Israelite monarchy.

The Exodus Silence: Missing Millions in the Sinai

The Exodus is the foundational “creation story” of Israel—a mass migration of 2.5 to 3 million people fleeing Egyptian slavery. However, the dust of the Sinai is remarkably stingy with its secrets. Despite the enormous scale of such a population movement, there is a total absence of archaeological evidence—no pottery, no encampments, no refuse—to support a large Israelite presence in Egypt or a mass movement through the Sinai Peninsula.

Scholars like Carol Meyers and Stephen Russell have moved toward a school of thought often called “Biblical Minimalism,” suggesting that the Exodus is a “mythologized history” or a creation of the Jewish community during or after the Babylonian exile. Meyers notes, “There is no archaeological evidence, either for a large Israelite presence in Egypt or for a mass exodus.”

For the historian-journalist, the “silence” in the desert suggests that the Exodus was never meant to be a literal census report. Rather, it served as a powerful cultural origin story, forged in a time of national crisis to provide hope and identity to a people who felt themselves to be “strangers in a strange land,” even if that land was one they had never actually left.

The “House of David” Breakthrough: Where Archaeology Agrees

While the spade often prunes the more extravagant branches of the biblical narrative, it also anchors certain figures in the bedrock of reality. For years, “minimalist” scholars questioned if King David was anything more than a legendary figure akin to King Arthur. That changed in 1993 at Tel Dan with the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele.

This basalt stone, found in “secondary use” (literally built into a later wall, showing how ancient people used their history as building blocks), contains an Aramaic inscription from a regional king. Most significantly, it mentions a victory over the “House of David” (bytdwd). This provided the first extra-biblical proof that the Davidic dynasty was a real historical entity.

However, archaeology also serves as a reality check on the scale of that dynasty. While “Maximalists” argue the biblical account of a grand empire is accurate, scholars like Israel Finkelstein point out that 10th-century Jerusalem was likely a “typical hill country village” rather than a grand imperial capital. David was a real king, but he was likely a regional chieftain rather than the master of the sprawling empire described in the later, more propagandistic books of Samuel and Kings.

Faith, History, and the Search for Meaning

The tension between the “historical wheat” and the “mythical chaff” is not a sign of the Bible’s failure, but an invitation to a more sophisticated reading of it. Archaeology has proven that the Bible is not a “history book” in the modern sense; it is a collection of memories, propaganda, and profound theological reflections written long after the dust of the events had settled.

If archaeology shows us that the Bible’s power does not reside in its literal accuracy, we are forced to ask: What is the nature of truth? Is a story “true” because it can be verified by carbon-14 dating, or because it has shaped the moral and cultural architecture of a civilization for three millennia? The spade doesn’t destroy the scripture; it simply clears away the dust to reveal the human hands that wrote it—reminding us that the search for meaning is often found in the space between what happened and what we chose to remember.

The Spade vs. The Scripture: 5 Surprising Ways Archaeology

The Spade vs. The Scripture: 5 Surprising Ways Archaeology Reinterprets the Bible

For generations, the Bible served as the undisputed topographic map of the ancient world. Its narratives of patriarchs, plagues, and promised lands were treated not merely as scripture, but as literal, chronological accounts of the past. However, over the last half-century, an “archaeological revolution” has turned the soil of the Levant into a complex palimpsest of evidence that often refuses to align with the ink.

The spade of the modern researcher has unearthed a religious and social landscape far more porous and pluralistic than the sanitized versions of the later biblical editors. This is not a story of the Bible being “disproven,” but rather a fundamental reinterpretation of its nature. By testing the text against the physical reality of stratigraphy, pottery typology, and carbon-14 dating, we find that the “Historical Wheat” is often inextricably bound to “Mythical Chaff”—revealing a past that is far more human, messy, and evolutionary than the traditional Sunday school narrative suggests.

The Israelites Who Never Left: The Truth About Canaanite Origins

The Book of Joshua paints a cinematic picture of a swift, scorched-earth conquest. It tells of a foreign people invading from the outside, collapsing the walls of fortified cities like Jericho, and dividing a conquered land among twelve tribes. Yet, the archaeological record is stubbornly silent regarding such a cataclysm.

Excavations across the Judean and Samaritan highlands reveal no widespread layer of ash or destruction during the traditional period of the conquest. Most notably, the “fallen walls” of Jericho—a staple of biblical imagery—show no evidence of destruction during the era the Israelites were supposedly at the gates. Instead, the archaeology points toward a far more subtle “Internal Development.”

As the heavyweight of the field William Dever and scholar Joshua Schachterle observe, the early Israelites were not foreign invaders, but a subset of the indigenous Canaanites who gradually formed a distinct social identity from within. The shift was one of social evolution rather than military takeover. “Ancient settlements found in the land of Canaan show no sign of armed conflict,” Dever notes, suggesting that the “Israelites” were essentially Canaanites who moved into the highlands, adopted a new religious focus, and eventually wrote a retroactive history of conquest to forge a cohesive national origin story.

The 1,000-Year Anachronism: Abraham’s Camels

Chronological discrepancies often provide the clearest lens through which to see when a text was actually compiled. In the Book of Genesis, the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—are depicted as owners of domesticated camels as they traverse the 18th or 19th centuries BCE. For centuries, this detail was accepted as a factual window into the Bronze Age.

However, recent carbon dating conducted by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University has identified a glaring anachronism. Their research shows that domesticated camels were not introduced to the Southern Levant until approximately the 9th century BCE—a full millennium after the patriarchs were said to have lived.

This is what scholars call “direct proof” that the biblical text was compiled centuries after the events it purports to describe. The authors were projecting the domestic realities of their own 8th or 7th-century world back into a legendary past. It is an effect much like a medieval painter depicting a biblical figure in 14th-century plate armor; the animal in the story tells us more about the author than it does about the subject.

When God Had a Wife: The Mystery of Asherah

Modern monotheism presents the God of Israel, YHWH, as a solitary and jealous figure. Yet, the archaeology of the ordinary Israelite tells a story of a messy, syncretic religious landscape. In 1968, William Dever discovered a series of Hebrew inscriptions that fundamentally challenged the concept of ancient Jewish monotheism. The most jarring found in an Israelite cemetery, read: “Blessed may he be by YHWH and his Asherah.”

Asherah was a well-known Canaanite mother goddess. The fact that this inscription—and subsequent others—was found in a cemetery, a place of sacred rest for common people, suggests that the belief in a goddess consort for YHWH was not a fringe cultic practice, but a standard feature of early Israelite religion.

This reveals that early Judaism functioned under “henotheism”—the belief that while many gods exist, one’s own is the primary deity. The transition to the strict, solitary monotheism of the later prophets was not a revelation from a mountain top, but a long, contested historical process that only solidified in the waning years of the Israelite monarchy.

The Exodus Silence: Missing Millions in the Sinai

The Exodus is the foundational “creation story” of Israel—a mass migration of 2.5 to 3 million people fleeing Egyptian slavery. However, the dust of the Sinai is remarkably stingy with its secrets. Despite the enormous scale of such a population movement, there is a total absence of archaeological evidence—no pottery, no encampments, no refuse—to support a large Israelite presence in Egypt or a mass movement through the Sinai Peninsula.

Scholars like Carol Meyers and Stephen Russell have moved toward a school of thought often called “Biblical Minimalism,” suggesting that the Exodus is a “mythologized history” or a creation of the Jewish community during or after the Babylonian exile. Meyers notes, “There is no archaeological evidence, either for a large Israelite presence in Egypt or for a mass exodus.”

For the historian-journalist, the “silence” in the desert suggests that the Exodus was never meant to be a literal census report. Rather, it served as a powerful cultural origin story, forged in a time of national crisis to provide hope and identity to a people who felt themselves to be “strangers in a strange land,” even if that land was one they had never actually left.

The “House of David” Breakthrough: Where Archaeology Agrees

While the spade often prunes the more extravagant branches of the biblical narrative, it also anchors certain figures in the bedrock of reality. For years, “minimalist” scholars questioned if King David was anything more than a legendary figure akin to King Arthur. That changed in 1993 at Tel Dan with the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele.

This basalt stone, found in “secondary use” (literally built into a later wall, showing how ancient people used their history as building blocks), contains an Aramaic inscription from a regional king. Most significantly, it mentions a victory over the “House of David” (bytdwd). This provided the first extra-biblical proof that the Davidic dynasty was a real historical entity.

However, archaeology also serves as a reality check on the scale of that dynasty. While “Maximalists” argue the biblical account of a grand empire is accurate, scholars like Israel Finkelstein point out that 10th-century Jerusalem was likely a “typical hill country village” rather than a grand imperial capital. David was a real king, but he was likely a regional chieftain rather than the master of the sprawling empire described in the later, more propagandistic books of Samuel and Kings.

Faith, History, and the Search for Meaning

The tension between the “historical wheat” and the “mythical chaff” is not a sign of the Bible’s failure, but an invitation to a more sophisticated reading of it. Archaeology has proven that the Bible is not a “history book” in the modern sense; it is a collection of memories, propaganda, and profound theological reflections written long after the dust of the events had settled.

If archaeology shows us that the Bible’s power does not reside in its literal accuracy, we are forced to ask: What is the nature of truth? Is a story “true” because it can be verified by carbon-14 dating, or because it has shaped the moral and cultural architecture of a civilization for three millennia? The spade doesn’t destroy the scripture; it simply clears away the dust to reveal the human hands that wrote it—reminding us that the search for meaning is often found in the space between what happened and what we chose to remember.

the Bible

For generations, the Bible served as the undisputed topographic map of the ancient world. Its narratives of patriarchs, plagues, and promised lands were treated not merely as scripture, but as literal, chronological accounts of the past. However, over the last half-century, an “archaeological revolution” has turned the soil of the Levant into a complex palimpsest of evidence that often refuses to align with the ink.

The spade of the modern researcher has unearthed a religious and social landscape far more porous and pluralistic than the sanitized versions of the later biblical editors. This is not a story of the Bible being “disproven,” but rather a fundamental reinterpretation of its nature. By testing the text against the physical reality of stratigraphy, pottery typology, and carbon-14 dating, we find that the “Historical Wheat” is often inextricably bound to “Mythical Chaff”—revealing a past that is far more human, messy, and evolutionary than the traditional Sunday school narrative suggests.

The Israelites Who Never Left: The Truth About Canaanite Origins

The Book of Joshua paints a cinematic picture of a swift, scorched-earth conquest. It tells of a foreign people invading from the outside, collapsing the walls of fortified cities like Jericho, and dividing a conquered land among twelve tribes. Yet, the archaeological record is stubbornly silent regarding such a cataclysm.

Excavations across the Judean and Samaritan highlands reveal no widespread layer of ash or destruction during the traditional period of the conquest. Most notably, the “fallen walls” of Jericho—a staple of biblical imagery—show no evidence of destruction during the era the Israelites were supposedly at the gates. Instead, the archaeology points toward a far more subtle “Internal Development.”

As the heavyweight of the field William Dever and scholar Joshua Schachterle observe, the early Israelites were not foreign invaders, but a subset of the indigenous Canaanites who gradually formed a distinct social identity from within. The shift was one of social evolution rather than military takeover. “Ancient settlements found in the land of Canaan show no sign of armed conflict,” Dever notes, suggesting that the “Israelites” were essentially Canaanites who moved into the highlands, adopted a new religious focus, and eventually wrote a retroactive history of conquest to forge a cohesive national origin story.

The 1,000-Year Anachronism: Abraham’s Camels

Chronological discrepancies often provide the clearest lens through which to see when a text was actually compiled. In the Book of Genesis, the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—are depicted as owners of domesticated camels as they traverse the 18th or 19th centuries BCE. For centuries, this detail was accepted as a factual window into the Bronze Age.

However, recent carbon dating conducted by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University has identified a glaring anachronism. Their research shows that domesticated camels were not introduced to the Southern Levant until approximately the 9th century BCE—a full millennium after the patriarchs were said to have lived.

This is what scholars call “direct proof” that the biblical text was compiled centuries after the events it purports to describe. The authors were projecting the domestic realities of their own 8th or 7th-century world back into a legendary past. It is an effect much like a medieval painter depicting a biblical figure in 14th-century plate armor; the animal in the story tells us more about the author than it does about the subject.

When God Had a Wife: The Mystery of Asherah

Modern monotheism presents the God of Israel, YHWH, as a solitary and jealous figure. Yet, the archaeology of the ordinary Israelite tells a story of a messy, syncretic religious landscape. In 1968, William Dever discovered a series of Hebrew inscriptions that fundamentally challenged the concept of ancient Jewish monotheism. The most jarring found in an Israelite cemetery, read: “Blessed may he be by YHWH and his Asherah.”

Asherah was a well-known Canaanite mother goddess. The fact that this inscription—and subsequent others—was found in a cemetery, a place of sacred rest for common people, suggests that the belief in a goddess consort for YHWH was not a fringe cultic practice, but a standard feature of early Israelite religion.

This reveals that early Judaism functioned under “henotheism”—the belief that while many gods exist, one’s own is the primary deity. The transition to the strict, solitary monotheism of the later prophets was not a revelation from a mountain top, but a long, contested historical process that only solidified in the waning years of the Israelite monarchy.

The Exodus Silence: Missing Millions in the Sinai

The Exodus is the foundational “creation story” of Israel—a mass migration of 2.5 to 3 million people fleeing Egyptian slavery. However, the dust of the Sinai is remarkably stingy with its secrets. Despite the enormous scale of such a population movement, there is a total absence of archaeological evidence—no pottery, no encampments, no refuse—to support a large Israelite presence in Egypt or a mass movement through the Sinai Peninsula.

Scholars like Carol Meyers and Stephen Russell have moved toward a school of thought often called “Biblical Minimalism,” suggesting that the Exodus is a “mythologized history” or a creation of the Jewish community during or after the Babylonian exile. Meyers notes, “There is no archaeological evidence, either for a large Israelite presence in Egypt or for a mass exodus.”

For the historian-journalist, the “silence” in the desert suggests that the Exodus was never meant to be a literal census report. Rather, it served as a powerful cultural origin story, forged in a time of national crisis to provide hope and identity to a people who felt themselves to be “strangers in a strange land,” even if that land was one they had never actually left.

The “House of David” Breakthrough: Where Archaeology Agrees

While the spade often prunes the more extravagant branches of the biblical narrative, it also anchors certain figures in the bedrock of reality. For years, “minimalist” scholars questioned if King David was anything more than a legendary figure akin to King Arthur. That changed in 1993 at Tel Dan with the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele.

This basalt stone, found in “secondary use” (literally built into a later wall, showing how ancient people used their history as building blocks), contains an Aramaic inscription from a regional king. Most significantly, it mentions a victory over the “House of David” (bytdwd). This provided the first extra-biblical proof that the Davidic dynasty was a real historical entity.

However, archaeology also serves as a reality check on the scale of that dynasty. While “Maximalists” argue the biblical account of a grand empire is accurate, scholars like Israel Finkelstein point out that 10th-century Jerusalem was likely a “typical hill country village” rather than a grand imperial capital. David was a real king, but he was likely a regional chieftain rather than the master of the sprawling empire described in the later, more propagandistic books of Samuel and Kings.

Faith, History, and the Search for Meaning

The tension between the “historical wheat” and the “mythical chaff” is not a sign of the Bible’s failure, but an invitation to a more sophisticated reading of it. Archaeology has proven that the Bible is not a “history book” in the modern sense; it is a collection of memories, propaganda, and profound theological reflections written long after the dust of the events had settled.

If archaeology shows us that the Bible’s power does not reside in its literal accuracy, we are forced to ask: What is the nature of truth? Is a story “true” because it can be verified by carbon-14 dating, or because it has shaped the moral and cultural architecture of a civilization for three millennia? The spade doesn’t destroy the scripture; it simply clears away the dust to reveal the human hands that wrote it—reminding us that the search for meaning is often found in the space between what happened and what we chose to remember.

The Buried Gospels: 5 Mind-Bending Revelations from the Nag Hammadi Library

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In December 1945, beneath the limestone cliffs of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, a local farmer named Mohammad Ali was unearthing fertilizer when his shovel struck a large, red earthenware jar. Fearing it might contain a malevolent spirit, he hesitated; but driven by curiosity, he shattered the clay. Instead of a jinn, he discovered thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices—a silent library that had been interred for over fifteen centuries. These manuscripts, now known as the Nag Hammadi Library, did more than fill a historical gap; they resurrected a lost, mystical landscape of early Christianity that the institutional church had sought to erase from the human record.

These “buried gospels” offer a radical vision of existence that bridges the gap between ancient Coptic wisdom and the cutting-edge inquiries of modern philosophy. They invite us to reconsider the very nature of the divine, the self, and our responsibility to the living world.

1. The Divine is Hiding in Plain Sight

Traditional Western theology has long favored a “transcendent” God—a distant judge presiding over a separate, celestial realm. The Nag Hammadi texts, however, unveil a God of profound immanence. In this framework, the divine is not a destination to be reached after death, but a presence that permeates the very fabric of the material world.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus famously rejects the idea that the “Kingdom” is a geographical location in the sky or the sea. Instead, he asserts that the Kingdom is a present reality that is simultaneously “inside of you and outside of you” (Saying 3). This shifts spirituality away from a quest for the “beyond” and toward a deep, immediate recognition of the sacredness of the “here.” It suggests that we are not strangers in a secular universe, but participants in a single, unified reality.

“Jesus said: I am the light that is above them all, I am the All… Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” — Gospel of Thomas, Saying 77

2. Sin Isn’t a Moral Failure—It’s a Misunderstanding

Perhaps the most transformative revelation within the Nag Hammadi texts is the dismantling of the traditional concept of sin. In the Gospel of Mary, sin is not presented as a legalistic transgression or an inherent stain on the soul. Instead, it is described as an ontological error—a state of “missing the mark” regarding one’s true nature.

To understand this, we must look to the original Greek terms: hamartia, often translated as “sin,” literally means “missing the mark,” while metanoia, or “repentance,” signifies a “turning about of the mind.” In this light, “sin” is simply an act born from the habits of a “corrupted nature” that has forgotten its divine roots. This ancient perspective finds a startling ally in the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, a “moral anti-realist” who argued that “good” and “evil” are merely human labels born from “mutilated and confused” perceptions. For both the Gnostic and the Spinozist, the solution to human suffering is not penance, but the cultivation of adequate knowledge.

“There is no sin. It is you who make sin exist, when you act according to the habits of your corrupted nature.” — Gospel of Mary

3. Mary Magdalene Was the True Philosophical Successor

The discovery of these texts has effectively shattered the “prostitute” myth—a character assassination formalized by the Church in the sixth century. The Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip portray Mary Magdalene not as a marginal follower, but as the “Apostle of the Apostles,” a visionary leader who possessed a uniquely direct understanding of the Savior’s esoteric teachings.

The Gospel of Philip goes so far as to describe a relationship of profound intimacy and “sacred union,” stating that Jesus “loved her more than all the disciples” and would “often used to kiss her on the mouth.” This intimacy was not merely romantic but intellectual and spiritual; it sparked a recorded conflict with Peter and Andrew, who questioned why a woman should receive secrets they were ignorant of. This friction serves as a timeless metaphor for the tension between institutional authority, which relies on tradition, and visionary authority, which relies on a direct, unmediated experience of truth.

4. The Ancient Architecture of Immanence

These ancient insights bridge a 1,500-year gap to the Enlightenment, specifically to Spinoza’s “Architecture of Immanence.” Spinoza’s famous formula Deus sive Natura (“God or Nature”) mirrors the Gnostic concept of the “return to roots.” Both systems propose that all formations, creatures, and elements of nature are “interwoven and united,” acting as transient modes of a single, eternal Substance.

Crucially, both the Gospel of Mary and Spinoza’s Ethicssuggest that “ascent” or “salvation” is not a journey through space to a higher heaven. Rather, it is a change in understanding—a cognitive shift from perceiving the world as a collection of separate objects to seeing it as a unified, sacred whole. This lineage of thought provides the foundation for a modern ecological theology. If nature is not a mere resource but a direct expression of the divine essence, then our care for the planet becomes an ethical and spiritual imperative.

5. The “Nous”—An Internal Eye for the Unique Essence

The Nag Hammadi texts describe a specific mechanism for spiritual vision called the Nous. According to the Gospel of Mary, the Nous is the faculty of conscious awareness that sits “between the soul and the spirit.”

This faculty corresponds to Spinoza’s Scientia Intuitiva, or the “third kind of knowledge.” Unlike logical reason, which deals with properties shared by many things, the Nous provides an immediate, holistic “glance” at the unique essence of a singular thing. This is the “treasure” mentioned in the gospels. To see through the Nous is to see the “divine ground” of your own being—to recognize your own eternal necessity within the infinite flow of God. It is an ascent of consciousness that transforms the individual from a “stranger” in the universe into a conscious participant in its eternity.

“Lord, when someone meets you in a moment of vision, is it through the soul that they see, or is it through the Spirit?” The Teacher answered: “It is neither through the soul or the Spirit, But the nous between the two which sees the vision… There where is the nous, lies the treasure.” — Gospel of Mary

Silence and the Forward Look

The enduring power of the Nag Hammadi Library lies in its refusal to offer us a God we can hold at arm’s length. By placing the divine in the splitting of wood, the lifting of stones, and the very structure of the human mind, these gospels transform our daily perception into an act of worship. They suggest that the “treasure” we seek is never further away than our own awareness.

If all things are truly interwoven and return to a single root, then the way we treat a forest, a neighbor, or our own minds is the way we treat the Divine. Recognizing this immanence is not merely an intellectual exercise; it is the path to a profound “rest” beyond the fluctuations of time.

I go now into Silence.

Nature and God

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ature and God

I have been enlightened ,humans have existed a very long time, much longer than modern science understands ,,however humans evolved ,,,Any! entity. If they wanted to leave a message they would not right a book they would embedded that in our DNA. We are very sophisticated and complex there have been trillios of humans and no entity would only save some and not all there is emerging evidence that we have been here millions of years ,not, housands perception it’s not reality a awarement is reality.
,,
ira Warren Whiteside

ira  Warren  Whiteside thank you

My Wife, My Family , My Stroke (Perception is Perception:Awarement is Reality)

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IMG_1099-0 IMG_1098

Six years  earlier the doctors had told my wife(Theresa) she had 18 months to live, she was diagnosed Stage 4 cancer. She is now is full remission.  A women like her mother, she never drank and never smoked.

On June 3, 2014 I had a brain stem stroke(PONS)

I have always told my daughters “Men are idiots”, and apparently I have proven it, here is an example:

5:00 Monday evening my arm start twitching and doesn’t stop.

7:00 Monday arm still twitching, my wife(beautiful, wonderful, courageous  and wise) Tessie, says “Let me take you to the hospital”, of course like any normal “man” I say “Nah it no big deal”

11:00 PM Monday. I take a conference call and notice my left arm and leg are a little numb, obviously I take an aspirin and go back to bed.

5:00 AM Tuesday I plan to catch flight , my wife intervenes and I stay home.

7:00 AM Tuesday I take another conference call, by now I am limping and can’t hold a cup of coffee in my left hand.

8:00 AM Tuesday My wife now says we are going to the  hospital.

8:30 AM Tuesday in hospital I am informed I had a Pons (Brain Stem Stroke) I can now no longer move my left leg or arm and have pretty slurry speech. As a bonus the doctors tell me if I had come in within 5 hours of the first symptom , they may have been able to help, but now it too late.

10:00 PM Thursday My daughter Christina notices the nurses had taken off my bracelet and then had administered a second injection of Lantus(Long Acting Insulin) , unfortunately I didn’t focus on what she pointed out. I would regret not listening.

11:00 PM Thursday I pass out in a diabetic coma in front of my wife and daughter(Victoria), after frantic activity I end up in the ICU, back to square one.

Many illnesses happen in slow motion, this episode of unconsciousness(coma) came very suddenly, if it were not for Tessie’s calmness , control , faith in God and knowledge I am sure I would not be here.

The nurse were unsure what to do , apparently they had given me an extra dose of insulin and very slow to respond.

My wife Theresa(Tessie) with  Victoria’s help literally had to keep me alert and practically drag me to the ICU over the nurses objections.  You know its bad when the nurses are asking you wife for the “Power of Attorney”, which of course she had already given them, and they had lost it. 

 

…..25 days later (Diabetics Coma, ICU, Rehabilitation, multiple brain scans , seizure scans, seizures, diarrhea) I am released on the condition I use a walker. Since then I have graduated to a cane,. My wife had stayed with me 25 days the entire time.

I am very lucky I am left with hemiparesis(weakness left side) and double vision(right side)

For 25 days …….. , 25 DAYS …….. my wife(Theresa)  and my entire family never left my side(day of night):

Theresa(Wife, Soul Mate, My everything), Christina(Daughter #1, The Rock). Victoria(Daughter #2, Brainiac ),Julia(Grandaughter #1, Angel sent from heaven),Brandon(Son in Law),Jack (Grandson #1),Jacob(Grandson #2)

Life Summer 2010

 

 

Tessie and our family at St Mary’s in earlier times.

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As a man, husband, father and grandfather I have tried to be up to the tasks in providing for my family, sometimes meeting them many times falling short, in my eyes.

My wife led a family effort that as I write about it  and remember it I  am overwhelmed and  tearful. I wish I could say I deserve this , but I can’t I was not good enough.

 

The reality is that we grow older we grow wiser, not through knowledge alone, but through experience.

Apparently Pavlov was “more right” then Plato(Allegory of the Cave). Perception is not reality, Awarement is reality and it come through pain.

This experience has given me the opportunity to eliminate any remnants of ego and permanently instilled a sense of humility. Countless time during my 25 day stay, my family(ALL OF THEM) helped my dress, eat , go to the bathroom(with diarrhea).

As I said one point I went into a coma , low insulin and needed to receive emergency treatment and go to the ICU, it was one  many very traumatic experiences and my wife Tessie never faltered, kept her faith and strength and brought me back.

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Epilogue: At one point I had to prove my cognitive skills were still intact, being that my wife and daughters have a small consulting company Actuality Business Intelligence we collaborated on creating an assessment and power point on how to improve the rehabilitation scheduling system and patient/therapist flow, from my perspective anything that made rehab like work was good.

 

To be clear my hospital room was family “Grand Central Station”

 

Theresa(Tessie),

This post is dedicated to you , I love you with all my heart and soul, forever and ever. God has truly blessed me with you as my soul mate and to receive your love and care.

Your eternally grateful husband  –  Ira

 

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Ira Warren Whiteside

11/25/2014

 

 

 

 

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Awarement or Perception is Perception “Awareness is Reality” Part Duex

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Recently our friend Andy Leonard had an interesting post. regarding his faith, changing priorities and achieving what I believe is “Awarement”, which I found inspirational and thought provoking.

“Awarement” is the established form of awareness. Once one has accomplished their sense of awareness they have come to terms with awarement.

As I have experienced many of us who are driven to love and provide for our families can get caught up in creating a “Perception” of ourselves to achieve greater income, normally through titles or recognition by our peers, and this can compete with our family time, due the “perception” it has higher priority.

As we gain success we achieve an Awarement of success and thereby a perception of success. however as times goes on and events overtake us our Awarement is changed due to our own self perception evolving, so the reality that was our perception is revised. “Perception is reality” I don’t think so.

My own transformation was few years back when Tessie and I faced death and through the grace of God moved past it.

Perception is Perception “Awareness is Reality”

If I might suggest I have also studied some of the The Gospel of Mary as found in the Berlin Gnostic Codex, and find them helpful.

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excerpt – – – –
8) And she began to speak to them these words: I, she said, I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to Him, Lord I saw you today in a vision. He answered and said to me,

9) Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure.
10) I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit?

11) The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision and it is […]

I have included some of Platos teachings and writings in my exploration and understanding of “Awarement” via the Allegory of the Cave

Ira

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Last but no least I also find Yoda quite interesting.

"Do, or do not. There is no try."

"Karo yaa na karo, koshish jaisa kuch nahi hai."