That Old Kingdom of "Heaven" Canard

First to define a canard:
1) An unfounded report or story.
2) A groundless rumor that has not been fact checked.

In simple terms, the canard answers the oft repeated question: "Why does the Gospel of Matthew use the term 'Kingdom of Heaven', where Gospel of Luke uses 'Kingdom of God'?"

The ubiquitous answer has seemingly always been: "Because Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, and Luke was written for a Gentile audience, and the Jews were too conscious of the special sanctity of God's name." That's pretty much the way I've heard it all my life.

To use a more technical term: Reverential Circumlocution, which is stated thus:

Jesus operated fully within the Hebrew matrix, language and people of His day. He dressed, ate, drank, worshipped, and lived as a Jew.

The Hebrew way of talking about the Lord was a deep reverence for the Name of God given by Himself to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Jews would held the Name in such high regard that they refused to say it, which developed "circumlocutions:" substitute words that every Jew knew meant the holy Name.

One of these end around ways of saying the Name was to use the word for "heaven."
The Kingdom of Heaven-Bible Guide Online

There's usually a statement that goes with this to the effect of: "And that's how all the Jewish teachers talked and wrote in the first century."

I have yet, after 50 some odd years, to see any evidence that would back this claim up. Evidently Dr. Pennington, Assistant Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, hasn't seen the evidence either.

I do not have space here to elaborate upon the many problems with this common view, but suffice it to say that this reverential circumlocution explanation for Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven” proves indefensible. ...
Additionally, while circumlocutionary techniques are undoubtedly in use in the first century, there is no evidence that “heaven” was being used for this purpose during that time.
Jonathan T. Pennington, The Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew

Simply looking at the words Jesus spoke reveals the counterintuitive nature of the old canard.
βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν (kingdom of the heavens). Notice the word Ouronos, the primal Greek god of the sky. Jesus seems to be showing un-Jewish type respect for Greek Cosmology here.

But then people will object: "Jesus was speaking Aramaic"!
Apart from the fact that I completely reject the notion that Jesus couldn't or didn't speak Greek, the Aramaic is even more troublesome to the old canard. Because Šamem would be the word for heaven, a Northwest Semitic god. Ba'al Šamem is equated with Roman god Jupiter. Beelzebub is the intentional mangled form that pious Jews used to avoid speaking of Ba'al Shamen or Jupiter or Zeus for that matter, since Jupiter and Zeus are pretty much identical etymologically deriving from the Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter (meaning "O Father Sky-god")

This all raises another question: Was Jesus speaking in common Jewish manner, or was he speaking in a foreign manner, and perhaps about a God foreign to Jewish thinking?

Did the nay-sayers and accusers have a basis for claiming that Jesus did miracles and cast out demons by the power of the God who they referred to as Baalzebub?
-------------------------------------------------

Sorry, I know this is too simple and even childish, but isn't the Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth, and the Kingdom of Great Britain, the same thing? Does that apply here?

reply to post by charles1952

Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth, and the Kingdom of Great Britain, the same thing? Does that apply here?

The Kingdom of Great Britain, also referred to as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, that existed from 1707 to 1801.
en.wikipedia.org...

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926[a]) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states, known as the Commonwealth realms, and their territories and dependencies, .... She is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and, in some of her realms, carries the title of Defender of the Faith as part of her full title....At present, in addition to the first four aforementioned countries(United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,), Elizabeth is Queen of Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
en.wikipedia.org...

I would have to say no, since there is no Kingdom of Great Britain, as of 1801. Elizabeth II is Queen of a whole lot more than just the territory of the former Kingdom of Great Britain.

As for the question applying here, I don't think Jesus mentioned Queen Elizabeth II or the Kingdom of Great Britain. Hold on while I check my concordance.......Nope, can't find either one.


After careful thought, I've come up with a way to draw an analogy at least:

Imagine a preacher shows up in London preaching a "new good news" saying, "We live in a constitutional monarchy, and Elizabeth is the Queen! Spread the news!"

Such a person's teaching would be totally unoriginal, and really not noteworthy at all. Such a picture of futility in teaching is what is implied by the notion that Jesus was a typical 1st Century Jew, saying typical 1st Century Jewish things. What would be the point? I don't think there was any particular shortage of Rabbis and Pharisees.

From my understanding, "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" can be used interchangeably.

My own personal opinion is that the book of Matthew might have stressed the word "Heaven" instead of "God" because the Bible says that the "new Jerusalem" will last forever.

Once the Millennial period is over and everyone is judged, the new heaven/earth will come down from heaven to continue Christ's reign forever.

If you read the book of Matthew closely, you can tell that references for the Kingdom of Heaven are used both to describe Israel and Heaven.

reply to post by pthena

Notice the word Ouronos, the primal Greek god of the sky. Jesus seems to be showing un-Jewish type respect for Greek Cosmology here.

I ran across an interesting verse last night while doing a word search in the Septuagint for "voice", which in Greek is φωνή pronounced, fo-nay'.
It was in Deuteronomy where a list of all the great things that the Lord had done for the Israelites was being gone over, including a statement that He had made His voice audible from heaven.
Oh, from heaven? Does that mean that maybe there are more than one "heaven", and that it meant the heaven on top of the normal heaven which would reach just to the level of the top of whatever was the highest mountain of the area?
A standard translation from the Hebrew would be,
Deuteronomy 4:36,
From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.
(2011 NIV)
while the Greek version is,
εκ [ON] του [THE] ουρανου [HEAVEN] ακουστη [WILL BE AUDIBLE] εγενετο [THERE WAS] η [THE] φωνη [THE VOICE] αυτου [HIS] παιδευσαι [TO INSTRUCT] σε [YOU] και [AND] επι [UPON] της [THE] γης [EARTH] εδειξεν [SHOWED] σοι [TO YOU] το [THE] πυρ [FIRE] αυτου [HIS] το [THE] μεγα [A GREAT] και [AND] τα [THE] ρηματα [WORDS] αυτου [HIS] ηκουσας [YOU HEARD] εκ [ON] μεσου [THE MIDST] του [THE] πυρος [OF THE FIRE]
(Joshua Dickey )
It seems to be differentiating between "voice" in Heaven, and "words" on Earth.
The first is heard from above the mountain, and can be heard but not understood by humans, while the second is heard on earth (on the mountain itself?) and were understandable to the listeners.

Originally posted by Deetermined
From my understanding, "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" can be used interchangeably.

My own personal opinion is that the book of Matthew might have stressed the word "Heaven" instead of "God" because the Bible says that the "new Jerusalem" will last forever.

Once the Millennial period is over and everyone is judged, the new heaven/earth will come down from heaven to continue Christ's reign forever.

If you read the book of Matthew closely, you can tell that references for the Kingdom of Heaven are used both to describe Israel and Heaven.

This.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a literal dimension in my opinion, where God resides is the highest of all the dimensions, which is why He can see everything and know everything, He can look down upon the lower dimensions just as we can look down upon a fish pond (an analogy you are familiar with).

As mentioned above we will be reunited with this Kingdom of Heaven, God's literal Kingdom, the Kingdom is the place (dimension) that will be given to the heirs of God/Christ. Don't want to be one of the good people that do what their told? (as David Bowie says in his latest album), well you will be assigned a dimension, each dimension will contain a Kingdom, some will be glorious, some will be good, some decent, some not so amazing, some utterly boring, etc, etc, etc, "seventh heaven", I believe it has a meaning, perhaps 7th dimension, no way to know until you ask God in person.

reply to post by pthena

Dear pthena,

Thank you, that was a hilarious response.

For those of you just observing, I was asking if the Kingdom of Heaven was just another way of saying God's Kingdom. Pthena then, by pretending to take me literally, was able to educate and amuse us, all at the same time.

Nice work.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952

by pretending to take me literally, was able to educate and amuse us, all at the same time.

What I've noticed about my own behavior, when it comes to posting new threads, is that the first couple of people who respond get the full "defensive" treatment from me.

It takes me a while to mellow out. I was a little sad when I saw that you had placed yourself in the unenviable position of "first responder".

"Oh no!", I exclaimed, "Not Charles1952! He's never done me harm! Why, oh why must he suffer the 'with both feet' treatment?"

reply to post by Deetermined

From my understanding, "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" can be used interchangeably.

This is where I have to admit that I haven't kept up with all the changes in dispensational teaching. It used to be taught (1970s) that the two terms distinguish between the earthly rule over physical Israel and the spiritual rule over those who have been "born again".

This way of thinking seems to have been slowly changing. See footnote 3 of Dr. Pennington's essay:

The only other popular view was that of the classical Dispensationalists. They argued that there is a temporal difference in meaning between “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven.” This view proves quite untenable biblically and has since been abandoned by most modern (“progressive”) Dispensationalists.
footnote 3

The progressive dispensationalists have dropped the temporal difference and yet still seem to hold on to the old canard which is the topic of this thread, such as this:

Matthew avoids using the term “God,” which was reserved, to be used in the their synagogues and religious meetings. The Jews in place of saying, “God,” would substitute the phrase, “the name.” Matthew, writing his gospel to Jews and aware of their culture, used the term “kingdom of heaven” instead so it would be acceptable, not offensive to his Jewish readers.
Let Us Reason Ministries

I'm planning on doing a follow up post on the Greek word Theos, because it seems to have no precise meaning, in and of itself, so therefore would have been a better choice of word to use if Jesus was intending to "not offend" Jewish sensitivities.

My own personal opinion is that the book of Matthew might have stressed the word "Heaven" instead of "God" because the Bible says that the "new Jerusalem" will last forever.

Only in dispensational teaching is it assumed that the Book of Revelation was going to be written, where the term "new Jerusalem" comes from. Others take the view that Jesus only spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem during his ministry and never mentioned any "new" or "rebuilt" city.

If you read the book of Matthew closely, you can tell that references for the Kingdom of Heaven are used both to describe Israel and Heaven.

Mt.21:42-43 Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.

Added note: On the Name of the City:

The name “Jerusalem” is variously etymologised to mean "foundation (Sumerian yeru, ‘settlement’/Semitic yry, ‘to found, to lay a cornerstone’) of the god Shalem",[32][33] the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.
Jerusalem

Why in the world would a supposed city dedicated as holy to a monotheistic god keep the name of the god Shalem? Is Shalem the true god?

Why would the "new Jerusalem" still be called by the name of Shalem for all eternity?(see Revelation)

Prophets have proposed name changes: see Jeremiah 3:17
kis·sê Yah·weh, The Throne of Yahweh.
So Revelation seems to totally contradict Jeremiah.

The kingdom of heaven is within you, is used in numerous settings and even gnostic. It means your subconscious, and your inner knowing, and exploring your spirit.

The son of man becomes the son of God, the inner and outer alligned as spoken of in gospel of Thomas. This all alludes to right and left hemisphere combined, pituatary and pineal united so thalamus/third eye will open. Conscious and subconscious in high frequency, loving and positive allignment then you will co-create, your world will change and you can help others better, including healing.

Baptism/water equals meditation!

reply to post by pthena

Simply looking at the words Jesus spoke reveals the counterintuitive nature of the old canard.
βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν (kingdom of the heavens). Notice the word Ouronos, the primal Greek god of the sky.

Well, I don't think Jesus intended for the Bible to be written down in Greek.

But then people will object: "Jesus was speaking Aramaic"!
Apart from the fact that I completely reject the notion that Jesus couldn't or didn't speak Greek, the Aramaic is even more troublesome to the old canard. Because Šamem would be the word for heaven, a Northwest Semitic god.

Well, if " Šamem" happened to be the word for an ancient Semitic deity, I think its more likely that the deity was named after the Aramaic word for "heaven". It doesn't mean it was an intentional reference to that particular deity.

This all raises another question: Was Jesus speaking in common Jewish manner, or was he speaking in a foreign manner, and perhaps about a God foreign to Jewish thinking?

Highly unlikely, as Jesus kept referring to Israelite religious beliefs and Old Testament figures such as Moses and Isaiah. Also, Jesus recited the shema thereby confirming that he held the same monotheistic beliefs as the Israelites of his time.

Did the nay-sayers and accusers have a basis for claiming that Jesus did miracles and cast out demons by the power of the God who they referred to as Baalzebub?

The nay-sayers were the ones who intended to find fault with Jesus. They couldn't accept that Jesus performed miracles with powers granted by God, so they attributed it to demons. And we know Jesus' rebuttal that left them stumped... "how can Satan drive out Satan"

reply to post by jmdewey60

Does that mean that maybe there are more than one "heaven", and that it meant the heaven on top of the normal heaven which would reach just to the level of the top of whatever was the highest mountain of the area?

There is a reason that I chose Dr. Pennington's essay as the rebuttal to the canard. I read it all, it's basically a synopsis of his book, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew (Leiden: Brill, 2007) I probably won't be buying the book itself, but he does seem to have a fresh look at usages, notice the plural use,

(4) Kingdom of Heaven

As we have already observed, the most common use of heaven in Matthew is in his unique and important phrase “the kingdom of heaven.” In each of these thirty-two occurrences the form is always plural (tw/ n ou vranw/ n) and, like the references to “the Father in heaven,” is part of the singular versus plural pattern observed above. Additionally, closer examination reveals that many times Matthew uses “kingdom of heaven” as part of a contrast between the heavenly and earthly realms (e.g. 17:24-18:5; 4:1-11).
www.sbts.edu...

Just an interesting side note, when it comes to "local" manifestations of the divine, (think holy of holies), I found something of great interest while comparing the Roman Primal god Caelus who would correspond with Ouronos.

The divine spatial abstraction Caelum is a synonym for Olympus as a metaphorical heavenly abode of the divine, both identified with and distinguished from the mountain in ancient Greece named as the home of the gods. Varro says that the Greeks call Caelum (or Caelus) "Olympus."[15] As a representation of space, Caelum is one of the components of the mundus, the "world" or cosmos, along with terra (earth), mare (sea), and aer (air).
...
Some Roman writers used Caelus or Caelum[32] as a way to express the monotheistic god of Judaism. Juvenal identifies the Jewish god with Caelus as the highest heaven (summum caelum), saying that Jews worship the numen of Caelus;[33] Petronius uses similar language.[34] Florus has a rather odd passage describing the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem as housing a "sky" (caelum) under a golden vine, which has been taken as an uncomprehending attempt to grasp the presence of the Jewish god. A golden vine, perhaps the one mentioned, was sent by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus to Pompeius Magnus after his defeat of Jerusalem, and was later displayed in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.[35]
en.wikipedia.org...

So the second temple must have had something like a blue dome tent or canopy in it. And if the golden vine ended up in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, then Herod the great would have been recognized by the Roman god under that very same golden vine that was formerly in the holy of holies, Messiah indeed!

reply to post by pthena

Only in dispensational teaching is it assumed that the Book of Revelation was going to be written, where the term "new Jerusalem" comes from. Others take the view that Jesus only spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem during his ministry and never mentioned any "new" or "rebuilt" city.

While individual Jews must come to Christ for salvation, God is still not finished with Israel as a nation. The Bible tells us that in the end times, Israel will finally recognize Jesus as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10). Jeremiah 33:8, Ezekiel 11:17, and Romans 11:26 predict that in the end times Israel will be regenerated, restored, and regathered in their homeland.

Read more: www.gotquestions.org...

reply to post by Unity_99

My son knows more about the "third eye" and such things because he was a student of Swami Kriyananda, who just recently passed away. He was the disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda

Here's a quote from the Ananda Washington website:

Yogananda’s teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar, sent him to the West saying, “The West is high in material attainments, but lacking in spiritual understanding. It is God’s will that you play a role in teaching mankind the value of balancing the material with an inner, spiritual life.”

Yogananda brought to the West the teaching of Self-Realization. He said that “Self-Realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.”
www.anandawashington.org...

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

Well, I don't think Jesus intended for the Bible to be written down in Greek.

I cant think of any reference to him saying the Septuagint should be burned. It wasn't until the 2nd century CE that the Jews turned against the Septuagint in favor of their own Targums

Well, if " Šamem" happened to be the word for an ancient Semitic deity, I think its more likely that the deity was named after the Aramaic word for "heaven".

I think that a look at linguistics may show that our own abstract words come from the gods, rather than the gods being named for some theoretical pre-existing language.

Take the word "theoretical" that I just used, it comes from the unknown origin word THEOS, which is Greek for God. It is surmised that THEOS comes from a root word meaning to observe, or watch, so by observing or watching or contemplating the gods we arrive at theories about how and why things happen, and also, we come up with "nomenclature"

Jesus kept referring to Israelite religious beliefs and Old Testament figures such as Moses and Isaiah. Also, Jesus recited the shema thereby confirming that he held the same monotheistic beliefs as the Israelites of his time.

I frequently quote dispensationalist literature. That does not make me a Dispensationalist. The shema most likely pre-dates Judaic monotheism, it merely affirms monoltery

reply to post by pthena


The bible is just a code for eastern, especially ancient alchemist taoism! The precious pearl is mentioned there, and your Chi or abdomen, ie free will and inner journeys, astral.

Text In simple terms, the canard answers the oft repeated question: "Why does the Gospel of Matthew use the term 'Kingdom of Heaven', where Gospel of Luke uses 'Kingdom of God'?"

reply to post by pthena


@ pthena

There really is no way that any translator can get into the mind of an author without the author stating his meaning. All else is guess work at best. Matthew uses the word "Kingdom of heaven over thirty times in his book while John uses it only once in his five books and that is in Revelations. Mark, Luke, Paul, Peter and James use "Kingdom of God" House of many mansions, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven. Fathers house, and City of God are all the same meaning as far as the layman can understand.

The kingdom of Heaven was not given to mankind till after Jesus died and the reason for this is that the new covenant was signed by the blood of Christ Himself. Till that time all spirits of dead souls were kept in the compartments of Sheol (Abraham's Bosom). The Kingdom of Heaven is believed to be the city of New Jerusalem which was given to mankind the same day that Christ Jesus died. As Jesus died and descended into Sheol, He led those who were righteous out of Sheol and into the Kingdom city "New Jerusalem". These are the first of the resurrected, reborn, into celestial bodies with their celestial spirits.

The celestial body must be fed the food and water of life which is found only in the garden of Eden (New Jerusalem). All souls have a spirit but not all souls are reborn and given a celestial body. Those who are not resurrected into their celestial body are naked spirits and remain terrestrial (In Hell) till the end of this age. A spirit cannot be in the kingdom of God nor in Hell without being judged first. This shows the Christian that once a soul dies it is immediately judged and sentenced. This was the reason that Jesus promised his companion in death that he would be with Him in paradise that very day. Paradise being in New Jerusalem and in the third heaven.

As you may understand, Jesus had never revealed exactly where the Kingdom of heaven was while He was alive except to say that it was in the third heaven. By this it could be understood that the Kingdom of God is actually in heaven and not in this terrestrial world. That would be one reason that it was used several ways for our understanding. It does distinguish the Christian doctrine from the Judaic doctrine. The Judaic structure looks for a renewal of this present earth and present New Jerusalem as the world government. Jesus taught that the Christians look towards a celestial New Jerusalem and celestial new earth as the world government. The Apostles show this as they understood it from Jesus and that is that the Kingdom of God is in the celestial heaven and not this terrestrial earth as the Jews teach.

My suggestion is to get "un hung up" on semantic buffoonery.The King James 1st edition of 1611 has over 50,000 known errors.To try to prove or disprove the existence of the kingdom of God BY the bible is futile.The "bible serves one purpose...a witness. ..to cause the religious mind to worship it's WORDS and NOT the creator God.It doesn't matter if The Truths of the scriptures are translated right or wrong that is not how anyone is going to commune with the creator anyways.Yahoshua(Jesus) even told the pharisees(and all the modern day pharisee) and they still couldn't "hear"/understand when he said.

"YOU search the scripture THINKING that in Them YOU have life YET you FAIL to come to me who they are written of".Is the scriptures useless ..GOD forbid.Is it the "word of God" as the religious believe.. GOD FORBID!Those religious theories are so convoluted it's a miracle anyone believes or understands any of it(literally..they don't) it says so right there in the scriptures(The parable of the soils and seed)!

What a plan.Inspire some writings that man will turn into religion and worship IT....to CURE them of religion!!!The semantics of the scriptures is a red herring walking down a rabbit trail that leads nowhere.It proves or disproves nothing.As for the kingdom of God/heavens..Yahoshua said very clearly what and where it is.It definitely ain't "somewhere out THERE!When the pharisees asked (those guy ask a lot of questions they don't want to hear the answer to..so they don't hear) he said The kingdom of God COMES(yes a little Lords prayer connotation) WITHOUT observation..it is neither here nor there..it is IN your midst.

Here's the rubdown..he wasn't trying to tell them to go into themselves to find their "inner God" to ascend into the higher dimensions blah blah..he was laying the basics of..gulp..Quantum Physics!!
Do you think God may just "know" what that is!!The most important experiment of quantum physics is the double slit and boils down to this.When you shoot an electron through a double slit it is a wave WHEN and only when it is NOT observed then it is neither here nor there in any fixed place in time /space....yet when it IS observed it is a particle (what we think is matter which is 99.999999...% space!!)
Looking for the kingdom of God or "heaven" only causes it to be particle of matter which is an illusion of solid matter at best.The mere act of trying to observe it(contain it..define it)causes it to not be what it is ..how's that for metaphysics!!No this isn't sacred science or any of that other BS over spiritualizing spirit crap.You can't lift yourself up by your own bootstraps let alone ascend into a higher dimension by meditating,channeling,prayer,church going ,scripture studying, good deed, and nice thoughts..etc etc ad nausem

The basic reality is you can do NOTHING to cause it or experience it and the nano second you "try" to do something it pops into a mostly empty particle.Again..effin brilliant plan by the Creator.There is an "age" (everyone's is different) when mankind will give up..completely.. and see the futility in it all.The basic unchangeable inevitable fact that there is a God..and YOU ain't him!! and that God is 100% in control of everything no matter how deluded you are to the contrary.
There are billions of theories that discount/count the existence of God..ALL caused by GOD! It should be (but won't) be very obvious God doesn't want anyone foolish enough to search for what can't be found to find anything!!(I love that circular spiral reasoning God has built into everything).
So how do you Find God..it's the obvious(or more accurately the opposite)..You don't!This is the consternation many who scoff at the scriptures have with that Jesus guy.He can say some profound things then a WHOLE bunch of contradictory things...or are they...of course they are!!..when they are "particles".!!

The most significant parable (of the soil and seed) when the disciples asked him why the hell do you teach in these incomprehensible parables his answer was ..so those that see will become BLIND and those that hear will become DEAF...wut up wit dat Jesus!!..hmm..sounds just like God to me.
The fact is the parable of the soil and the seed is the most significant parable because ..it's a MATH equation!!There goes the creator doing math again.This time it's the groundwork.The Fibonacci sequence and Phi...whuda thunk God was smarter than Einstein(even though he was an idiot compared to Tesla).

Yep.. God is a nerd physicist..he actually made EVERYTHING by it..he doesn't do magic at all.He doesn't have a gig at the Magic castle raising "marks' from the dead.There is an absolute order to everything..It's a MIRACLE!!!..nope ..it's math ..bone simple stupid a 5 year old can figure it out 0+1=1 math..and infinitely complex in the same existence.The kingdom of God/heaven..it is "in"your midst.It comes WITHOUT observation..and of course those that seek will find when they don't look ahha..it all makes so much sense!

reply to post by Rex282

My suggestion is to get "un hung up" on semantic buffoonery.

Flashback!
I remember the old college days. Every time someone seemed to be loosing an argument, they would end up saying, "Well that's just semantics, we really agree!" Sort of a debate ending trump card.

The historical setting was the recent election of S. I. Hayakawa to the U.S. Senate, and the re-issue of Alfred Korzybski's book, General Semantics, with new forward by Hayakawa. I do believe that the word "semantics" became much more widespread than did the actual theories in the book.

The most significant parable (of the soil and seed) when the disciples asked him why the hell do you teach in these incomprehensible parables his answer was ..so those that see will become BLIND and those that hear will become DEAF...wut up wit dat Jesus!!..hmm..sounds just like God[sic] to me.

I'm familiar with the Isaiah passage, it used to bug me, ..., alot! It does kind of show something about the Old Testament god character:

Isaiah 6 WEB
8 I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!”

9 He said, “Go, and tell this people,

‘You hear indeed,
but don’t understand;

and you see indeed,
but don’t perceive.’

10 Make the heart of this people fat.
Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;

lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and turn again, and be healed.”

11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

He answered,

“Until cities are waste without inhabitant,
and houses without man,
and the land becomes utterly waste,
12 And Yahweh has removed men far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

So the prophet's mission seemed to be to yammer away hypnotically until people got tired of hearing anything, so that they would end up utterly ruined and devastated.

Contrast that with Jesus:

Mark 4 NIV
20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

33 With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.

Seems to me that even though Jesus referred to Isaiah, he was not equating his mission to that of Isaiah, probably mentioning the fact that he was speaking to people who had already suffered the effects of Isaiah.

Text My suggestion is to get "un hung up" on semantic buffoonery.The King James 1st edition of 1611 has over 50,000 known errors.To try to prove or disprove the existence of the kingdom of God BY the bible is futile.

reply to post by Rex282


I have a first edition of the 1611 KJV bible as well as the 1560 Geneva bible and an assortment of other bibles. You say that the first edition 1611 KJ bible has over 50,000 known errors. Would you be so kind as to give me the source of your statement? What I need is certified scholarly evidence that what you refer to as error is not what linguists call edited. I have heard that statement many times in my near ninety years of life and have not found the actual scholarly proof of the matter as yet.

You are correct in that trying to prove the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven is futile simply because the entire matter of proof does not exist in theology although there may be grains of provable history and archaeology also shown. That is why we call it theology. It would not matter which bible you chose to show your belief it would always be a matter of belief based upon assorted manuscripts. The key to this division in theology is not to denigrate the opposition but to try to understand his or her reasoning.

All literature is based upon the understandings and opinions of the authors and without at least trying to understand the author or authors it leads to an unfair mind set. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter and James are but a few authors of the biblical literature and each author has something to add to the entire understanding of their purpose. If we shun one then we deprive ourselves of that opinion or knowledge and it could lead to a misunderstanding of the entire purpose of all.