Stars in the heavens

"Now look towards the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them."
And He said, "So shall your descendants be." - Genesis 15:5

This magnificent photo was made by Thomas Zimmer, and retrieved from http://500px.com/photo/2003025

The name Boanerges doesn't mean "Sons Of Thunder" at all!

James and John - Boanerges

For the ever-expanding Abarim Publications' Biblical Name Vault we recently had a go at the name Boanerges, which is a nickname that Jesus bestows on the brothers James and John; sons of Zebedee.

The evangelist Mark says, "And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), and James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, "Sons Of Thunder");..." (Mark 3:16-17)

We had expected to be able to effortlessly relate the name Boanerges to some Aramaic or Hebrew compound but much to our surprise, we couldn't. Some Internet searching revealed that this name has plagued scholars for centuries, and the leading theories on the etymology of this name either take a whole lot of liberties in bending Semitic verbs out of their proper compass of meaning and allowing transliterations from Aramaic to Greek that make not a lick of sense, or else, the rather bold assumptions that either Jesus had no idea what He was saying, or else that Mark was clueless about Semitic languages.

Here at Abarim Publications we rarely get nervous and we love a good challenge, so we sank our teeth in the name Boanerges and came out chewing on the other side. One thing is certain: the name Boanerges doesn't mean "Sons Of Thunder" at all.

Check out our article, and let us know if you have any objections: The amazing name Boanerges, meaning and etymology.

Halleluja in Alaska

A clip that combines Alaska AND the greatest piece of music ever made. Made my day!

See our article on the meaning of the word Halleluja

Mica’s Paradise

Once or twice a month I’ve had it with city life, and then I flee to Granny Mica (say Mitsa). Granny Mica lives about half an hour south-east of Belgrade in a cottage on the Danube. She has an enormous garden, and where her garden stops, vineyards start in all directions. Crickets chirp, and way off in the distance a dog may raise its voice, but other than that, it’s wondrously peaceful at Mica’s. She is about a hundred years old, has no running water so the toily is behind the tree in the middle of the garden, and she loves me. When I show up, with the town still buzzing in my ears, she waits for me at the gate, grabs me and presses a few big, slobbery kisses all over me. Then she sets me down next to her and sits there, watching me trying to catch my breath, while cats and dogs jump me and settle in my lap.

Granny Mica on her porch in Paradise

During the day, the trees absorb the sunlight and radiate it, glowing bright green. And in the evening a honey colored haze rises from the river. When we want to drink of cup of tea, we walk into the garden (away from the toily tree in the middle of it) and pick some nana-leaves. Pears and apples hang from trees everywhere; you can just reach out and pick one. And nothing here is ever sprayed with chemicals. Neither the tea nor the apples nor the pears nor the cherries nor the grapes that hang in big fat clusters from branches that are only disturbed by the rare passer-by.

The Dabube river is a few hundred meters away—it takes a trick or two to get there. Paths exist but they’re not marked and you have know about them, which I don’t. But that makes for wonderful walks in the cool of the afternoon, trying to find out where all the paths go.

And on my journeys I pass the occasional shed or small house, invariably occupied by ancient little ladies with brilliant, pearl white hair and the eyes of young girls. I don’t speak the language, but everybody knows I’m Mica’s guest, so they call my name from afar and wave at me, and when I approach they give me slices of pie and hands fulls of nana-leaves and cherries and pears and apples.

There are only two restrictions at Mica’s. I’m not allowed to go out exploring for a path to the river while wearing sandals and shorts. Mica and her neighbors never cease to warn me that there are snakes hiding in the grass. And then, of course I’m not allowed to eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. But who would want to do a foolish thing like that?

Me and the Toily Tree

The love of money, and the the Wall Street fan

I was wondering why my stats were dropping over the weekend. Then I realized that everybody was watching Wall Street, and the doodoo hitting the fan over there. "The love of money is the root of all evil," the Bible says. And I think that means a lot more than simple greed. I'm guessing that the Bible insinuates that exactly where agape  generates an entire world with its causes and effects, the love-of-money does the same. Of course it’s probably bad for a person when this person is in love with cash, but I’m guessing that the love-of-money is more than just that. The love-of-money is a force, like agape. It creates structures and fills people with motivations across a wide spectrum of behaviors.

The whole world filled with fruit

"In the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and sprout;
And they will fill the whole world with fruit."
- Isaiah 27:6

Source of the photo: http://www.kiboomu.com/_quick_backup/2010/07/28/teach-your-child-the-names-of-fruits-in-french-with-free-songs-and-worksheets/

Share buttons: A vote for me is a vote for you

There are several ways through which visitors may land on a site, but visitors to Abarim Publication’s main website largely come through search engines. If someone types in the search string “Chaos Theory” or “Israel meaning,” chances are excellent that they’ll end up reading our articles, but if someone types in “Julia meaning” chances are excellent that they’ll end up at any of the other popular name sites.

From one of those "other"name sites

These other name sites are largely constructed from copying each other over and over, and somewhere at the bottom of it lies one or two old baby-name books that someone, long ago, typed over and turned into a website. And that results in dozens of name-sites that simply list the commonly accepted meaning of a name, without proof or reference or even the slightest hint at how these meanings are formed. And some of them are plain wrong.

At Abarim Publications we painstakingly research the names we translate, delve into etymology and derivation structures. We list texts that use the roots of the name we’re talking about in narrative sentences, and we list possible alternative meanings. In short: our articles are much more informative and much more stimulating.

But someone who types in the search string “Julia meaning” sees an enormous list of websites that all offer articles on the meaning of that name. Search engines keep track of people’s behavior while searching. They check if a person stays on a page or moves right along, whether the person types in the same search string again (indicating that the previously viewed page didn’t satisfy) or goes somewhere else, only to return at that one really good page.

All this helps search engines to determine which page is generally accepted as a better page, and subsequently places this page higher in the search results. And sure enough, our articles on the meaning of Biblical names usually come floating to the top (that means the top 5 in search results) after some time.

But another way to determine how well a page caters to the needs of visitors is by looking at how many times this page is shared on Facebook or any other network. Google has even launched a little +1 button through which visitors can indicate that the page they’re on should be higher up in search results.



Share button scorse of the Biblical Name Vault entry-page



Here at Abarim we humbly believe that our articles serve the needs of searchers much better than those un-articles on other websites. And so we believe that we deserve lots of shares, likes, thumbs-up and plus-ones. We generally dislike shameless self-promotion, or enticement to endorse without quality in return, but we’ve taken the bold step to place a “please click here”-text underneath the submit buttons on all our name-articles. Let’s hope it’ll make a difference. We’ll leave it there for a few weeks to see if there is a positive result. If not, we’ll remove it.

But in the mean time, folks, check out our wonderful Biblical Name Vault and hammer away at those precious buttons!

Belgrade: Gay Shame, Gay Pride and the Destruction of Sodom

My hometown of Belgrade is in uproar because today the gays were supposed to have their Belgrade Gay Pride Parade. It would have been the second time; last year was the first – ever - Gay Pride Parade in Belgrade. And the whole inner city was destroyed by right-wing hooligans, but of course, the brittle relations between gays and the city became marred anyway.

Belgrade Gay Pride Parade 2010 - photo taken from the CBC news site

This morning the news reached us that the authorities decided to ban the Gay Pride Parade in Belgrade. The CNN news feed read the same and now the whole world thinks that the Serbs hate gays. Far from it. The Serbs hate to have their cities destroyed and before anyone can exercise the elsewhere ubiquitous right to congregate peacefully, those who oppose a peaceful congregation of any kind with violence against civilians and property, will have to be dealt with first. What the CNN news feed forgot to mention is that the authorities also banned the counter-demonstrations.

Our Serbian culture is very slowly transforming into a modern democracy. Perhaps capitalistic democracy isn’t the way to go but there are very few alternatives, and as long as we’re not living in a theocracy under God, capitalistic democracy seems the next best thing. Right now, Serbia is flat broke, and change is inevitable. But the large majority of us hope to God that we’ll quietly grow into something sustainable, and that there will be no more war of any kind.

I’ve been watching the news for days now – very few pro’s raise voices proclaiming sexual freedom, and very many contra’s don’t want it largely because they’re not gay and so they can’t stand the thought of it, and if they don’t like it, then nobody should.

Our Patriarch, a very wise and highly respected man, pronounced that there is no such thing as gay pride and that the parade would be a parade of shame. And then of course, there are those who remind us that Sodom was destroyed because the Sodomites practiced homosexuality.

Belgrade, we should note, was most recently destroyed by NATO bombs, not homosexuality, but it takes no great heart to sympathize with this concern. I’m usually quiet about these things because I have sufficiently studied neither the causes and effects of homosexuality, nor the range of freedoms guaranteed by the various western constitutions, to have a right to say anything about it. But we live in a democracy, and democracy, inherently, gives us freedom of religion along with the freedom to pursue happiness. And that means that if I assume the freedom to say, from a hypothetical religious platform, that homosexuality should be outlawed, I automatically insist that the practice of homosexuality must be accepted in all corners of society. Hence I find these things too complicated to comment on.

Of course, parading one’s pride while knowing for sure one will be bashed by Orthodox traditionalists or else hooligans with no sensitivities other than the desire to destroy things, seems a bit silly and ultimately counter-productive. For the same reason, the little group of Evangelicals I’m proud to belong to, doesn’t take to publically singing up-beat Jesus songs on the Wednesday mornings fruit ‘n veggie market. And perhaps it’s also the reason why the Overcharging Landlords, the Corrupt Politicians and the Underpaying Employers aren’t parading their pride in Belgrade.

But, in all humility, I have some knowledge of the Bible, and when somebody on national TV states that (a) homosexuality should be outlawed, because (b) Sodom was destroyed because of it, then I have something to say.

Sure, Sodom was destroyed (Genesis 19) but it wasn't on account of the Sodomites practicing homosexuality. The prophet Ezekiel says it this way:

"Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, abundant food and careless ease, but she didn't help the poor and the needy" (16:49).

And before anyone would want to use the Bible to condemn the matrix of behaviors that we now collectively see as expressions of homosexuality, he or she should first carefully consider the following:

In modern times the fear of being pegged as gay leads many men to live lives of emotional exile. We don't mind when our women hug or kiss each other, or even caress each other, but if guys show affection to other guys, either riots ensue or the guy in question will be helpfully moved towards what we now call the gay community. In the Bible, however, men are still allowed the celebrate intimacy without being labeled or stigmatized:

• They weep (Jacob weeps after his first kiss with Rachel - Genesis 29:11; Jesus weeps when he sees Mary weep, even when He knows He'll raise her brother Lazarus from the dead - John 11:35).
• They kiss each other (Absalom lavishly kisses his subjects - 2 Samuel 15:5; David and Jonathan kiss - 1 Samuel 20:41; Christian brethren ought to kiss each other by holy habit - 1 Corinthians 16:20).
• They decline in each other's arms (the disciple who Jesus loved declined in Jesus’ arms- John 13:23)
• They touch each other's private parts; non-sexually but intimately non the less (the word yarek literally means extremity or foundation, and commonly refers to the reproductive organs: See Ezekiel and Abraham - Genesis 24:9; and the "man" at the Jabbok and Jacob - Genesis 32:25)

In our day and age, we categorize sexual preferences or practices, but in the Bible that doesn't happen. Like everything else in the Bible, sex can be done shamefully or gracefully. Graceful sex occurs between people who are bound by an economical covenant; a husband who rules the house, and his wife who runs the house. In the Old Testament, when social structures left unwedded women, widows and orphans pretty much without care or protection, and when wars frequently decimated the male population, the husband could acquire as many concubines as he could afford. These concubines were part of the household but of lower rank than the wife. Their primary function was to produce offspring. Their "reward" was protection and belonging. Although romantic love is certainly acknowledged in the Bible, it was certainly not part of the regular marriage deal.

The only restriction was that sex had to be, like everything else, hygienic. When a woman was menstruating, she could not be approached (Leviticus 18:19). The phrase "flowing of blood" is used in the Bible mainly as an indication of murder and massacres. But when a woman menstruates, she has basically "failed" to conceive, or worse, is having a miscarriage. One who bears a child adds to life. One who lets blood flow, takes from life.

Shameful sex is any kind of sexual activity conducted with anyone not part of the above mentioned structure, or not aimed at the preservation of life, whether that is by producing offspring or by producing a strong and stable household based on love.

The Bible specifies some of these activities but these lists obviously don't cover forms of recreational sex that were invented later (sex with dolls or other artifacts, SMB, pornography, fetishes, or even the use of anti-conception devices such as condoms or devices that eventuate an effective abortion, such as spirals and certain pharmaceuticals). The pet-texts of Biblical gay-bashers all occur within these pools; they describe acts of sex that are conducted only and entirely to get rid of an itch that that has the function of preserving life. Our sex drive is the psychological equivalent of physical hunger. If ancient mankind would have devised a method to undo the sensation of hunger without having to eat for it, it would have been condemned along with shameful sex.

Shameful sex covers all forms of sexual expression that will ultimately lead to the disintegration of society, and is therefore closely akin to the failure to take care of the poor and needy.

But society evolves, even in the Bible. Where in the Old Testament men could have multiple wives and concubines, in the New Testament men were only to have one wife, or no wife at all (1 Corinthians 7:1-2, 8-9). Promiscuity of any kind is still radically condemned in the New Testament, but intimacy between people certainly isn't, and neither is a life-long friendship between men who love each other. Same-sex couples should be allowed to register their covenant if their society would deprive them of certain economical rights otherwise. They certainly should be allowed to take care of abandoned orphans, because neglecting to do so brought about the destruction of Sodom in the first place.

Their level of intimacy, however, is subject to the same regulations as that of anybody else. These regulations are part of a natural law; the same law by which we were formed, and by which we all, whether consciously or not, desire to live. We're part of it and it's part of us. It's written on our hearts and we and all the world around us are subject to it. The downside of this law is that none of us can keep it. That means that we're all entirely guilty, and will all completely die. And it doesn't really matter which part of the law we broke, or how much of it. The only way out is to let Jesus Christ fulfill the law for us, and to trust Him fully, and to allow Him to lead us towards a state in which no law can condemn us to death.

Until that happens, we'll die, and as long as we die, we'll have a sex drive, and as long as we have a sex drive, we can have sex shamefully or gracefully.

And for what it’s worth: I rather have a friendly gay for a neighbor than a hooligan, or someone who drops bombs on civilians.

Carla Anne speaks of the Scarlet Cord

Carla Anne Coroy - a gifted storyteller and teacher with contagious enthusiasm for life - explains what the story of Joshua and Rahab has to do with Easter:

"Hang on! Isn’t the Easter story in the New Testament? Isn’t the Easter story about Jesus? What do Joshua and Rahab have to do with Easter?"

Check out Carla Anne's cheerful blog:

http://www.carlaanne.com/2011/04/the-scarlet-cord/

Jees, Jude and the Book of Tit

King James

The other day a friend drew me into a discussion on the King James Bible, which, in his view, was the only true Word of God. The discussion was rather short and I believe I may have used a word or two that don't occur in any version of the Scriptures, but until my friend met me, my friend truly believed that the Word of God had been warped and obscured untill truly enlightened folks began to speak English. I bet he believed that God gave Moses the Torah in English and left him the grim task of translating it back into Hebrew.

Take the name James itself, for instance. There is no name James in the Greek Bible. In the Greek texts of the New Testament, the name English speakers know as James is really Yakobos, the Greek version of the Hebrew name Jacob (or rather Yakob). When the Bible was translated into Latin, Yacobos became Iacobus, and a later development in Latin rendered it Iacomus,which isn't all that big a leap when we realize that the b and the m sound somewhat similar in nasal languages.

But Latin evolved into French and Iacomus became Gemmes, believe it or not. When the gospel reached the lands in which people spoke proto-English, the name Gemmes was transliterated into James, and that's where it came from. But if my friend wants to pursue a purified version of Scriptures, he should speak of the Book of Yacob, and not of the Book of James. I'm proud to report that for instance the Dutch speak faithfully of the Brief (=letter) van Jacobus.

And the name James isn't the only name that was warped to fit the reach of the English tongue. The name Paul, for instance, isn't Paul but Paulos (the Dutch say Paulus - go Dutchies!). As a matter of fact, a large majority of New Testament names were Anglicized by amputating the Greek extensions. Thus the Greek name Timotheos became truncated into the rather chipper sounding English name Timothy, Matteas became Matthew, Lukas became Luke, Markos became Mark, Johnanus became John, Stephanos became Steven, Petros became Peter, and so on.

But for some unknown reason, of a few names the Greek forms were left in tact. This is remarkably inconsistent and if my friend wants to pursue some kind of purity, he may start with consistency and truncate all New Testament Greek names.

Well, if he should insist, then I guess I could accommodate him to some extent. I mean, it's perfectly conceivable that demons will flee too when rebuked in the name of Jees. And Jude sounds just as mean as Judas. But I refuse to ever read from the Book of Tit!