Chapter and Verse Divisions Keep You From Understanding Many of Words of the Bible

Chapter and verse divisions act like stop and yield signs for Bible readers. They slow down at verse markers and come to a full stop at chapter divisions. While they are very useful for locating specific texts, they often destroy the contexts in which verse and chapter divisions were inserted. One example is the first story in the Bible.

● The story begins at Genesis 1:1 and ends at Genesis 2:4a.

● The first sentence of the story begins in verse 1 and ends at the end of verse 2.

● The first chapter ends with the work done by the Creator on Day Six.

● The insertion of the chapter 2 division separates Day Seven from the other six days.

● The end of the first story in the Bible is in the middle of a verse (2:4a).

● Verse 2:4b is actually the beginning of the second story in the Bible.

With the insertion of chapter and verse divisions, the first story is viewed as “The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth,” but when we view it in its original context it is “The Story of the Creation of the Kingdom of the Unnamed God.” Those are two very different stories and most Bible readers have never heard “The Story of the Creation of the Kingdom of the Unnamed God.” So, who inserted chapter and verse divisions and when did they do it?

Chapter Divisions

Stephen Langton (c. 1150 – 9 July 1228) was a Roman Catholic and Archbishop of Canterbury between 1207 and his death in 1228. He is credited with having divided the Bible into the standard modern arrangement of chapters used today.

Hugh of Saint-Cher (c. 1200 – 19 March 1263) was a French Dominican cardinal and noted biblical commentator. He developed a different system of chapter division, but Langton’s system is the one found in most Bible translations today.[i]

Verse Divisions

Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus wrote the first Hebrew Bible concordance around 1440 and it played a major role in determining verse locations after the invention of the printing press. The concordance was first printed in 1523, and its system became the standard for the Old Testament.[ii]

Santes Pagnino (1470–1541), an Italian Dominican friar, leading philologists and Biblical scholar, divided the New Testament chapters into verses.[iii]

Robert I Estienne (1503 – 7 September 1559), a 16th-century printer and classical scholar in Paris, was the first to print the New Testament divided into standard numbered verses. He was a former Catholic who became a Protestant late in his life. His system became the standard for the New Testament.

Identify the Context First

Before reading your Bible, scan the words and identify the flow of the story. Stories usually have beginnings and endings that are pretty easy to find.

● The first story in Genesis is about the acts of an unnamed god.

● The second story is about the acts of Yahweh the god.

● The first story is about the creation of the heavens and the earth.

● The second story is about the making of the earth and the heavens.

When you read the story, ignore verse markers, and let the flow of the story guide you. If you are studying a text that is very important to you, go online, find the translation you like, copy it, paste in your word processor and then literally remove the chapter and verse divisions. This makes it much easier to concentrate on the story as it unfolds right before your eyes.

Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with others.

May your life be blessed with an abundance of TOV,
Jim Myers

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Saint-Cher

[ii] https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/chapter-and-verse-of-the-readings-14257

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santes_Pagnino

How to Create Order in the Midst of Chaos

Chaos is defined as a state of extreme confusion,

disorder and unpredictable behaviors in which chance reigns supreme.

The chaos we are witnessing today in America is driven by “conflicting versions of what reality actually is” – embedded in streams of information people delivered through mass media and social media devices.

Chaos is created through tsunamis of conflicting information. Creating order requires focusing on the specific pieces of information within those waves, identifying what type of information it is and identifying the source of the information.

Making accurate distinctions between types of information

increases certainty and decreases confusion.

As certainty increases chaos decreases.

We are dealing with three types of information:

● Fact based information.

● Institutional truth based information.

● Personal opinions.

Our brains treat all types of information as if they are of identical value, that’s why creating chaos is easy and it spreads like a wildfire through the masses.

● Fact based information are statements based on things that anyone with functioning sensory organs can perceive.

● Institutional truths are statements backed by institutional authority that are believed to be true.

● Personal opinions are statements made by individuals that are not fact based or institutional truths.

Almost all of the chaos we are experiencing today is linked to conflicting “institutional truths” that originated in political, economic and religious institutions. The primary institutional truths generating conflicts and creating chaos today are money, god and rights.

  

In biblical stories gods are sensory perceived entities, not things that must be “believed in.” In our world, gods are not sensory perceived entities -- groups of people do not see them with their eyes or hear them with their ears. Religious conflicts are really conflicts over “institutional truths about gods.”

Below are a few patterns history has documented many times about people that control religious and political institutions.

● They have institutional and personal agendas.

● They use both forms of human power – persuasion and physical force -- “to promote and protect their Institutional truths” and “to destroy opposing institutional truths.”

● As their institutions gain power and wealth, they invent new stories to legitimize, perpetuate and extend their dominance.

Transparency is an absolute requirement for decreasing chaos.

● Commit to making your belief system large enough to include all of the facts, open enough to be examined and questioned, and flexible enough to change when errors or new facts are discovered.

● Identify who exercises institutional power.

● Identify who benefits from actions of institutions.

● Identify who is hurt or harmed by the actions of institutions.

● Identify who created the institution and why it was created.

● Identify institutions that support it and those that oppose it.

● As you discover accurate information, share it with others.

Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with others.

May your life be blessed with an abundance of TOV,
Jim Myers

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What is the Greatest Commandment in the Bible?

This is one of the most Jewish – and most famous – teachings of Jesus. It begins with a Pharisee, who is also a lawyer, asking Jesus a question to test him.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Torah?”

Jesus said to him:

“’You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like it:

‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

On these two commandments hang all the Torah and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:35-40

Look at the graphic above and you will see that the Hebrew letters are hanging from the line above them. When we write English words, we set the English letters on a line. In both languages, the line serves the same purpose – it supports the words hanging from it or setting on it.

“The Torah and the Prophets” are the names of the first two sections of the Jewish Bible today. They were two different groups of scrolls in the first century. The point Jesus made was this:

These Two Commandments are the Line

That God hung all of the words of the Scriptures on:

Without “loving God with all of your heart

and loving your neighbor as yourself,”

the words of the sacred scriptures collapse.

Jesus simply repeated the Creator’s Vision & Values for Humanity we saw in Genesis 1, but he did it in his own words:

Protect and preserve your life and your neighbor’s life,

make your life and your neighbor’s life more functional

and increase the quality of your life and your neighbor’s life!

Obviously, if just people that value the words of their Bibles did this:

A lot of people would not be destroying and threatening each other’s lives,

making each other’s lives less functional, decreasing each other’s quality of life

and creating chaos instead of order in the world!

I would like to know how many of the people creating the chaos we are witnessing today "believe in the God in Genesis" or "believe in the Jesus of Matthew, Mark and Luke?" 

Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with others.

May your life be blessed with an abundance of TOV,
Jim Myers

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The Creator’s Vision and Values for Humanity

The Creator’s Vision & Values for Humanity is embedded in the stories of the Sixth and Seventh Days in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. It is one of the most powerful texts in the Bible and has influenced lives for over 2500 years. One of the most powerful phrases in the Bible is also in it – “the image of God.” Those words played a major role in the founding of the United States of America!

Below is a quick summary of key parts of the Creator’s vision:

1. Gender equality of females and males. They are two parts of ADAM (Hebrew word for “humanity”). They are counterparts created to work in harmony together as equals that are adequate for each other in every way. Equality and Male and Female working in Harmony are Lives 1^st Values.

2. Fathers and Mothers that work as a Team. They are to bring forth the next generation of children and be the caretakers, protectors, teachers and mentors. They are to meet all of their needs of the children – physical, psychological, and emotional. Parenting is a Lives 1^st Value.

3. Impulse Control and Self-Discipline. Humans are created with an Earth soul like the animals and the Spirit of the Creator. They have instincts that are driven by early appetites, desires and longings, while also being driven by the Creator’s Spirit to do things like the Creator that are TOV – protect and preserve lives, make lives more functional and increase the quality of life. Freewill and the Capacity to Do Things that are TOV are Lives 1^st Values.

4. Eat Green Plants and Fruit from Tree. Humans are to eat plant-based diets of green plants, herbs and fruit from trees. All of those things are to produce seeds that reproduce their own kind. A Plant-Based Diet is a Lives 1^st Value.

5. Co-Shepherds of all Life on Earth. Humans are endowed with godlike roles of acting as the Creator’s vice regents and Co-Shepherds -- exercising power like a shepherd exercises power over its flock by doing acts that protect and preserve lives, make lives more functional and increase the quality of life. The Shepherding Model for Exercising Power is a Lives 1^st Value.

6. Reflect the Image of the Creator on the Earth. Humans are collectively created “in the Image of the Creator” – ADAM. “The image of the Creator requires the presence of male and female humans – the minimum requirements for creating a new human life. Reflecting the “image of the Creator” requires male and female working together doing things that measure TOV -- protect and preserve lives, make lives more functional and increase the quality of life. Reflecting the Image of the Creator on Earth is a Lives 1^st Value.

7. Recall and Teach the Creator’s Vision. Humans are to gather, recall and teach the Creator’s Vision on the Seventh Day. They are to let the entire community hear the ancient words read aloud weekly, do their best to make it a reality in their lives, and pass it down from one generation to next. Sharing the Creator’s Vision is a Lives 1^st Value.

Of all people on earth, the Jewish people know the power of holding fast to a vision of God. They held his vision of restoring them to their homeland from 450 BCE until 1948 CE – before it became a reality.

How would you like to live in a world described in the Creator’s vision? In many ways, it reminds us of descriptions of what Heaven is supposed to be like. The Creator’s vision is about life on Earth while we are alive. It is about what the Creator wants all people to experience while they are alive!

Words become thoughts,

thoughts become mental images,

mental images become plans,

and plans + actions become realities.

In closing remember this, the man and woman created in Genesis 1 never say or do anything. They are not Adam and Eve. The words the Creator spoke about them are his vision for what human lives should be like. From the perspective of the Creator’s vision – Adam and Eve blew it! But by reading their lives in light of the Creator’s vision, readers learn much more about to live their lives. That’s what the stories were written to do!

Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with others.

May your be blessed with, and bless others with, an abundance of TOV,
Jim Myers

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We have the Power to Reflect the Image of the Creator or an Image of Wild Predatory Animal!

In the first story in Genesis, the Earth is a dry thing located inside a solid dome called “The Heavens” – but that’s not all “she” is. She is actively involved with the Creator in creating several very important things and she is one of the seven sacred spaces in story.

● The Creator spoke to the waters inside the solid dome and told them to “gather into one place.” The waters did it and the place they had previously covered became the first “dry thing” to exist. The Creator named it “Earth.”

● The Creator spoke to the Earth and told her to cause grasses, plants and trees to sprout. She did it.

● The Creator placed the sun and moon in the solid dome “to give light to the Earth.”

● The Creator spoke to the Earth again and told her to bring forth and an “Earth soul” for animals. She did it and then the Creator made the animals. The Earth soul gave them appetites, desires and longings linked to the Earth – the sacred space in which they must live. They ate the grasses and plants the Earth caused to sprout and grow; and that the sun and moon provide light for.

● The Creator spoke to the Earth again and told her to bring forth an “Earth soul” for humans. She did it and the Creator created the human. The Earth soul gave humans appetites, desires and longings linked to the Earth – the sacred space in which they must live. Human also ate food the Earth caused to sprout and grow; and that the sun and moon provided light for.

● The Creator also created humans “in his image.” This linked humans to the Creator and empowered them to do things like him – create new things by changing things that exist, speak and do things that are TOV (good for life) -- and he gave humans freewill. This empowered humans with the capacity “to speak and do things that are RA (bad for life).

● The Creator also endowed humans with a godlike function -- serve the creation by functioning as the Creator’s vice regents. In other words, function together as the representatives of the Creator to the rest of creation.

The rabbis developed methods for reading, studying and discussing the Hebrew text of the Bible -- halakhah and aggadah.

● Halakhah consists of laws, commandments, personals morals and spiritual discipline. 

● Aggadah uses narratives to reveal meaning, values, and ideas that affect lives. 

The first stories in the Bible are examples of aggadah. Let’s review some of the meanings, values, and ideas revealed above about humans:

● We have earthly appetites, desires and longings (like animals) that must be satisfied in order for us to survive as individuals and a specie.

● We have instincts (like animals), but we can exercise impulse control and self-discipline.

● We have freewill to plan and do things that protect and preserve lives, make lives more functional and increase the quality of life – reveal the image of the Creator.

● We have freewill to plan and do things that destroy and threaten lives, make lives less functional and decrease the quality of life -- reveal the image of a wild predatory animal.

You will get much more from reading stories in the Hebrew Bible, if you can find the meanings, values and ideas that are embedded in them.  

For those of us with Christian biblical heritages,

doing this literally transforms our understanding of

what Jesus taught and the purpose of his movement.

Thank you for reading this and please share and discuss it with others.

May your be blessed with, and bless others with, an abundance of TOV,
Jim Myers

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* SOURCES & RECOMMENDED READING

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/aggadah-or-haggadah-jewish-virtual-library

● BHC Bible Study Text of Genesis

● The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John W. Walton.

How to “BS Check” a Belief

Most people I know, select belief model in picture #2” when they read the word “Earth” in Genesis 1:1. Actually the Earth God created is in picture #3. Find out how to do “BS Checks” to make your beliefs much more accurate at

https://mailchi.mp/e266ec6e53bd/how-to-bs-check-a-belief

Lessons about Good and Evil from a Concentration Camp

The tensions created by the presence of good and evil can be seen within all humans and in all groups – from the highest to the lowest. Even at the bottom of the abyss, they are clearly exposed and laid open in the horrible conditions that exist in concentration camps.

Look for the appearances of good and evil in the stories below. Who is doing them to whom? Identify the relationships between them. How do those not directly involved react? The following stories are told by prisoners who were there. The first three stories are told by Witold Pilecki, a Polish man who volunteered for an audacious mission – to assume a fake identity, intentionally get captured and sent to Auschwitz. At that time he was a thirty-nine-year-old Polish resistance fighter – and he is not Jewish.

First Story

“On either side of the entrance into Auschwitz, newly arriving prisoners walked past a line of German SS guards, who were often smoking and laughing among themselves. On this day, they ordered a prisoner to run over to a fence post beside the path. The man, confused, staggered off only for the guards to gun him down. The column of prisoners came to a halt, and the guards dragged out ten more men from the crowd and shot them, too. “Collective responsibility for the escape,” one of the SS guards announced.

Second Story

New prisoners that made it past the German SS soldiers were led into a brightly lit parade ground surrounded by rows of brick barracks, the windows unbarred and dark. A line of men in striped denims, wearing blazers with the word KAPO on their arms were waiting for them. The kapos were also prisoners, but they were supervisors over other prisoners – and they carried clubs.

One of the kapos ordered the new prisoners to fall into ranks, where they relieved them of their watches, rings, and other valuables. Next, a kapo randomly selected a prisoner and asked what his profession was. “A judge,” the man replied. The kapo gave a cry of triumph and struck him to the ground with his club. Other kapos immediately joined in striking at the man’s head, his body, his crotch, until all that was left of the prisoner was a bloody pulp on the floor. The first kapo, his uniform splattered with man’s blood, turned to the other prisoners and shouted, “This is Auschwitz Concentration Camp, my dear sirs.” Then the other kapos began singling out doctors, lawyers, professors, and Jews to give them their first of many beatings.

Third Story

Implicit in and from the tortured prose of Witold emerges a recognition that the horrors of the camp might never be comprehensible -- even to a prisoner like himself who had suffered within its walls. There is a sense that Witold’s orientation had shifted in the passages below. No longer does he feel the need to make his readers understand “an evil that defied comprehension.” Instead he asks them to look within themselves for that which they could share with those who suffer. “I have listened to many confessions of my friends before their deaths. They all reacted in the same unexpected manner. They regretted they hadn’t given enough to other people, of their hearts, of the truth . . . the only thing that remained after them on Earth, the only thing that was positive and had a lasting value, was what they could give of themselves to others.”

Fourth Story

The next two stories are told by Viktor Frankl. Three young Hungarian Jews hid the SS Commander in charge of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the woods. Then they went to the commandant of the American Forces who had just liberated the camp and told him they would only tell him where the man was hidden if the American promised that absolutely no harm would come to the German Commander. It took a while, but the American finally promised and they took him to the man.

Why would three former prisoners of Auschwitz, who were also Jewish, do anything for that man? A fellow prisoner, who was also a doctor in the camp, told them something no one else knew. “The SS Commander had paid no small sum of money from his own pocket in order to purchase medicines for his prisoners from the nearest market town.¹ His actions saved lives, some of whom were Jewish.

Fifth Story

From the stories above, it is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing.

Human kindness can be found in all groups,

even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.

The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s influences. On the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards.

I remember how one day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved me to tears at that time. It was the human something which this man also gave to me — the word and look which accompanied the bread.

Conclusion

I want to end by focusing on the words of Frankl -- it is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. However when we consider the fact that everyone at Auschwitz belonged to one or more groups – and members held expectations about how are supposed to behave -- profound lessons about good and evil emerge.

Take another look at the stories above. Identify the people that did good or evil acts. Identify the groups to which they belonged. How would their acts of good or evil be viewed in light of “membership expectations”? How would the person have been viewed if he had not behaved that way? See what thoughts about good and evil emerge as you explore the above questions.

I will share what I saw when I did that exercise in next email. I would like to hear yours too. CLICK HERE to share them with me. Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with others.

May Your Life be Blessed with Health, Safety and Strong Transparent Relationships,
Jim Myers

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* SOURCES & RECOMMENDED READING

● The Volunteer: One Man, An Underground Army, And the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather © 2019; HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.

● Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl © 2006; Beacon Press; Boston MA.

● Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen; © 1996;  Random House, Inc., New York.