Musings of a Twisted Mind|Here you will find thoughts on current events, sports, politics, court system, theology, and other things.

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Texas is considering adding to the high school curriculum more emphasis on how religion influenced American History. Such as the founders’ faith and how Christianity impacted the early nation.

Over the past several months, much of the debate has centered on proposals highlighting the religious beliefs of the nation’s founding fathers. Some require that students “identify major intellectual, philosophical, political, and religious traditions that informed the American founding, including Judeo-Christian (especially biblical law);” explain the significance of religious holidays and observances such as Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, and the annual hajj; and describe religious motivation for immigration and influence on social movements, including the impact of the first and second Great Awakenings.

Of course there is opposition:

Texas Freedom Network, an organization of religious and community leaders advocating for church-state separation, fear students in public schools classrooms may learn that the United States favors one faith over other faiths.

“Some board members and the non-expert ideologues they appointed to a review panel have made it clear that they want students to learn that the founding fathers intended America to be an explicitly Christian nation with laws based on their own narrow interpretations of the Bible,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, according to The Associated Press.

But others argue that the proposed standards do not declare the United States to be a Christian nation. Rather, they provide understanding that the biblical world view of the founding fathers was a big influence in shaping the principles on which the nation was founded.

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This will be extremely interesting to get a look at.

Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections — some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.

By the middle of the fourth century, when the Codex Sinaiticus was written, there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities, according to the Web site where the Codex is posted.

The Bible comes from the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, where a scholar named Constantine Tischendorf recognized its significance in 1844 — and promptly took part of it, Garces explained.

“Constantine Tischendorf was in search for ancient manuscripts, so he appreciated the age and value of it,” Garces said.

He took a handful of pages to Germany to publish them, then returned in 1853 and in 1859 for more. On that last trip, he took 694 pages, which ended up in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Soviet government decided to sell them in 1933 — to raise money to buy tractors and other agricultural equipment.

The British government bought the pages for £100,000, raising half the money from the public. Garces called that event one of the first fundraising campaigns in British history.

Film footage from the time shows crowds of people turning out to see the manuscript, which was considered a national treasure, he said.

Okay so I’m an ancient historian… And I like the old name…

You know one of the very important principles of democracy and elections is that there are no ballots in the boxes before there are votes.

Another is, fake ballots are not added afterwards.

And when there’s more votes then people living in an area, that a clear sign of an irregularity.

Oh and also you don’t slam the door shot on people that have been waiting in line to vote.

One has to wonder even more about an election that has more ballots then voters plus has reports of people being shot out. Plus has candidate observers thrown out. Plus has people voting the exact opposite of how they voted historically. Plus has someone that actually thinks he represents God.

Oh and lets blame foreigners. Yep…

Lets take a look at the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Ok let’s look at the first part: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. In Britian at the time, there was religious tests on who could serve in the government and who could attend universities. If you were not a member of the Church of England you could not do either. And tax money went to the Church of England for their expenses. And in some places, you could find yourself in jail if you were not a member. How did you prove your membership? Attend one communion for the year.

Next is or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; That’s pretty clear. The government has no power over what the person believes or does not believe concerning God. And it cannot prevent someone from worshipping as they see fit because the government doesn’t like it. The government is quite simply to keep its nose out of a person’s religious beliefs.

Third we have or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; The government cannot stop someone or the media from criticizing the government. Frankly that’s the only kind of speech that the government would be afraid of. And thus the government must keep its hands off the person’s views or the media. It cannot pass laws that dictate what people can and cannot say.

Fourth we have or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,People can come together and talk to each other without fear of the government coming and telling them they cannot. At the same time, the assembly has to be peaceful so its not a mob to come together and lynch someone. People are allowed to freely communicate with one another as a group in peace.

Finally, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. We have the right to inform the government when they are doing something wrong. We cannot be thrown in jail for doing it. And we cannot be killed.

So San Diego, do you want to be part of the United States or do you want to be part of China?

If human culture seems obsessed with sex lately, it’s nothing new. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known artistic representation of a woman - a carved ivory statue of a naked female, dating from 35,000 years ago.

The figurine, unearthed in September 2008 in Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany, may be the oldest known example of figurative art, meaning art that is supposed to represent and resemble a real person, animal or object. The discovery could help scientists understand the origins of art and the advent of symbolic thinking, including complicated language.

“If there’s one conclusion you want to draw from this, it’s that an obsession with sex goes back at least 35,000 years,” University of Cambridge anthropologist Paul Mellars told LiveScience. He was not involved in the new finding. “But if humans hadn’t been largely obsessed with sex they wouldn’t have survived for the first 2 million years. None of this is at all surprising.”

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• First-century burial grounds near Rome’s main airport are yielding a rare look into how ancient longshoremen and other manual workers did backbreaking jobs, archaeologists said Monday.The necropolis, which spanned the late 1st century into the 2nd century, near the town of Ponte Galeria came to light last year when customs police noticed a clandestine dig by grave robbers seeking valuable ancient artifacts, Rome’s archaeology office said.

  Most of the 300 skeletons unearthed were male, and many of them showed signs of years of heavy work: joint and tendon inflammation, compressed vertebrae, hernias and spinal problems, archaeologists said. Sandy sediment helped preserve the remains well.

  Also excavated was a skeleton of a man whose lower jaw was fused to his upper jaw.

  Study indicated “how for all of his life this individual was fed, likely through the care of his family” with liquids or semisolids “introduced through a hole made through his teeth,” the archaeology statement said.

  The man lived into his 30s, a decent age at the time. Experts took that as evidence that the lower classes cared for the disabled.

Most scholars believe that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Ramses the Great aka Ramses II. Ramses had a reign of nearly 70 years. He had 52 sons and nearly as many daughters. It paid to be a Pharaoh with a harem.

There is a major problem with identiying him as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The Pharaoh with at least a 40 year reign was not the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He was the Pharaoh before the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Because the 40 year reigning Pharaoh died while Moses was in Midian.

Now Ramses II’s successor, Merneptah, left a stelae proclaiming how he went into Canaan and destroyed all kind of cities and one other thing. He destroyed the people Israel and cut off their seed completely. This indicates that the Hebrews had already left before Merneptah became Pharaoh.

So Ramses could not be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Seti I only had a 13 year reign. Now you can say 40 just means a long time BUT I don’t think it can mean 13 years. That is way to short.

There is only one other Pharaoh with a reign of at least 40 years that is in the same period as the Exodus. That is Thutmose III. He ruled from 1479-1425. Except for one little detail, his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, seized power in 1479 and ruled until the 1450s. She was the daughter of Thutmose I and was forced by Thutmose II to marry him to legitimize his rule when she was 13 years old in 1493. Now wouldn’t Hatshepsut who defied all traditions of Egypt and ruled as a woman on her own not be a good candidate to be the Pharaoh’s daughter of Exodus 2?

If this is correct, this shows that there are actually 4 Pharaohs during the period described in the book of Exodus. Thutmose I is the one that issued the decree that all male babies be killed. Thutmose II didn’t do much concerning the Hebrews, Thutmose III chased Moses into Midia. And the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Amenhotep II who ruled from 1425 to 1400.

So why don’t the scholars accept this? Because archaeologists have decided that the dates of destructive layers in Canaan do not match this date.

Now it amazes me that a bunch of scholars that never read the Bible literally will take this as their argument against a scenario that fits the description of Exodus perfectly. So the Bible is not to be read as historically reliable except when it matches what they think it should be.

It is beside the point that I think the dating of the archaeologists is wrong.

I think the only reason these scholars refuse to accept Thutmose III as the 40 year reigning Pharaoh is because the conservative evangelicals do. They cannot possibly agree with the evangelicals so they come up with a Pharaoh that does not match the Biblical account but will match archaeology after they play with the dating data of the excavations. After all in the past, the same archaeology data put the destruction layers during the appropriate time.

Discovered originally in 1964, doubts were cast on its true owner. But…

• A new investigation by the Utrecht Old Testament scholar Marjo Korpel demonstrates that the seal must have belonged to the infamous Queen Jezebel. Korpel reached this conclusion after more careful investigation of the symbols that appear on the seal.

One of the claims by the Progressives is that Conservatives are ignorant. We take the Bible too seriously. Its also something they take pot shots at the church in the developing world like Africa. “They’re backward right now. Wait until they learn and then they will be like us”

What do you suppose the Catholic Church thought of those “foolish” reformers throwing away 1000 years of Church tradition to go back to the basics? Before they started setting them on fire and all the other fun stuff that was done back then.

I imagine a civil questioning would have went something like “Why on why would you want to go back to that primitive church? And use the book that we have outgrown? Look at the great wealth we have that can be used for the splender of God. And people should be happy and indulgences give them peace of mind for themselves and loved ones.”

Of course I doubt such an encounter occurred. What with them killing each other and trying to kill.

But doesn’t that sound like progressives today? Just replace indulgences with something else.

In the distant past and in some cases in the present in certain places in the world, women did not enjoy the status they have today. In Greek culture, women were by and large second class citizens. They spent their entire lives under the care of a male guardian. First, under her father and then under the husband that her father chose for her. And if she would spend her entire life unmarried and her father died, he would will her to a guardian. And if he didn’t, then a guardian would be chosen.

And in the Greek world, husband and wife didn’t go out on the town. No the only time that women were permitted to leave the house was if relatives invited her. Otherwise, the only one going to a party was the husband. And when a party was held at her home, the woman was required to withdraw into a central room known as a gynaeceum where only her nearest relatives were permitted.

Now Rome which built its empire ontop of the Greek Culture allowed some more freedom. Women still were under the control of a male guardian. But if she was lucky enough to have her father die without leaving her under the guardianship of someone, she actually had the right to choose her own guardian. AND if she found that guardian to be less then ideal, she could change her guardian but only if she wasn’t willed to someone.

But if she was married, she was really considered the property of her husband. She could enter into no contracts, could not act as witness except in cases of treason or witchcraft, could not adopt or be adopted, or hold public office.

Because she was left uneducated, women had the benefit of being able to plead ignorance of a law broken. Men could not.

Over time, Rome began to move away from the idea of a woman as the property of her father/husband. And later Roman law allowed the family to choose between the old system of everything belonging to the husband or the new system where the husband and wife shared everything except the dowery.

Wealthy women in Rome were to stay in the home while the husband worked during the day. She would plan dinner parties while he was a way and order her slaves around.

Poor women on the other hand, had to do the work around the house that the wealthy woman’s slaves did. And when she might join her husband in the fields.

But education remain elusive for women because the men distrusted the idea of what an educated woman might bring to the table. Some of the wealthy women were lucky however and did learn more then dancing (something they were allowed to learn). In fact some even learned Greek Philosophy but it was because they were not forced into a central room when their husbands had company. Instead they could listen and learn what their husbands were talking about.

And wealthy women also because they were not isolated like their Greek counterparts, could actually go to the theater. And there’s even evidence that there was a Women’s club during the final days of the Roman Republic. And there was even a Women’s protest recorded by Livy over a law against luxury.

But despite these gains, women were never permitted to choose their own husbands. And men viewed marriage as a means to political power and not because they were attracted to or even liked the woman. And the state viewed women as simply a way to keep the population coming. There was never an idea that girls should be educated. Their only hope was to pick up what they overheard.