You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.

//Is this verse saying God doesn’t want you to tattoo your body? Many Christians think so, and it does read rather straight-forwardly. But why does God care?

God cares because that’s what Israel’s enemies—the Canaanites—did in their cultic funeral practices. They cut their hair, and lacerated and tattooed their bodies, all in an attempt to ward off the departing spirit by disguising themselves so they wouldn’t be recognized. God’s instruction continues:

You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard.

But does this have anything to do with today’s time? I suggest this compromise: Go ahead and ink up your biceps, but wear a nametag to the funeral parlor.

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

//Growing up, I understood swearing to be a serious sin. It was taking the Lord’s name in vain. So serious was this ban against swearing by God, that God made room for its inclusion in the Ten Commandments. But is this really what God meant by this rule?

Most scholars doubt it. Note the more precise wording of the NIV: you shall not “misuse” the Lord’s name.

In antiquity, the name of a god was sacred. A person who knew a god’s name held some power over him. In an age where an oath was binding, swearing an oath by the name of a god obligated that god to help with the request.

Now let’s go back to before the law was written, in Exodus 6:3, where God is talking to Moses: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—’God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. Oops! In what sounds like a slip of the tongue, God discloses his name. He has kept it a secret for 2,500 years, but now the secret is out, and he’ll spend the next 1,500 years until the time of Christ trying to erase his mistake.

Back to the Third Commandment. God probably doesn’t care if we let loose a little goddamn when our tight end drops an easy catch. He cares that we don’t swear an oath by his secret name, Yahweh.

I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

//These words are written by John to the city of Smyrna, one of seven cities to whom the book of Revelation is addressed. There are two ways to interpret John’s frustration:

[1] There are Gentiles in Asia Minor who are masquerading as Jews.

[2] There are Jews up in Asia Minor who have forsaken their heritage, and are frolicking with Gentile beliefs.

Most scholars lean toward [2], finding it unimaginable that John would deny Christian fellowship to Gentiles. But I’m actually not so sure. I waffle on the topic in my own book about Revelation. The fact is, Revelation is a very Jewish book, repeating age-old dreams of redemption for the Jewish nation. John never once uses the word “Christian”; he sees himself as a Jew who acknowledges Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Regardless of the way you interpret this verse, it becomes one of many in Revelation that verify that Christianity and Judaism had not yet separated. The intense schism between Jew and Christians revealed in such books as John’s Gospel does not yet exist in Revelation. Yet, Revelation and John’s Gospel share many common themes, though their eschatology, cosmology, and vision of Jesus remain so different. Clearly, one drew from the other, or both drew from a common religious language.

How is it possible, then, that scholars pretend both were written in the 90’s, in the same area of the world? Could they reflect two different views by two different competing men, arguing over the meaning of Jesus?

I find it far more likely that Revelation’s primitive cosmology precedes John’s Gospel by a dozen years or more, and that John’s Gospel reflects a “growing up,” discarding the vengeful, messianic dreams of Revelation. It’s from this perspective that I write my two books, about Revelation and John’s Gospel. 

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

//The book of James, with its focus on practical living, is a book that barely snuck into the canon. If you’ll forgive my bluntness, some Christians are more interested in receiving than doing, and that attitude would rankle James. The following verse at times appears to be glossed over like a blip across the screen:

James 1:22, But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Christianity’s emphasis on grace and belief seems commonplace to us today, but neither of these are common focal points of other religions. For example, Christianity’s parent religion, Judaism, is often criticized by Christians because its adherents often seem not to believe their own stories. Jews, however, are often puzzled by this concern, and by Christians’ lazy, unregulated practices and reliance upon grace. As a Jew, you practice your religion by doing, adhering to God’s teachings, not by believing.

By contrast, reformed Christianity is founded on just the opposite opinion. Martin Luther was known to rip the book of James, with its blasphemous teaching that we are saved by works rather than faith, from his Bible. Luther was a character; he claimed James was “an epistle of straw,” hated the book of Esther (which has no mention whatsoever of God), and said he saw no evidence of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in Revelation.

Christianity clings to the flavor of the majority of its founding writers and their spectacular claim that the Messiah has arrived, and the Messianic age of God’s favor has begun. But can we bathe in grace, just believing and enjoying, or is it our responsibility to share in supporting the Messianic age by good works?

Again they said, “Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!”

//Does any word in the Bible evoke a stronger expression of joy than the word alleluia? Surprisingly, it occurs only once in the New Testament. Do you imagine that its use is to describe the day of Jesus’ birth? His resurrection? The day of his ascension?

No. It’s in Revelation chapter 19. Heaven erupts in praise and unspeakable joy: The voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” And what is the emotion which inspires this great cheer?

It is vengeance. God has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.  She is utterly destroyed, and her smoke rises forever and ever. Alleluia!

Much as I love the book of Revelation, it can be a challenge to understand how Christians draw inspiration from it.

“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

//Have you ever wondered what mountain Jesus was pointing to as he said this?

If you read my book about Revelation, you may have noticed a mountain being “thrown into the sea” … the volcano Vesuvius. When it erupted in 79 CE, the top of the mountain blew southwest into the sea, polluting the waters. Could that be the mountain Jesus meant? I doubt it … too far away.

How about the hated Samaritan mountain? Samaritans refused to worship in Jerusalem, instead preferring their own Mount Gerizim, the original location of their own temple. They had, in fact, condensed the original ten commandments into nine to make room for their own tenth, stating the absolute sanctity of Mount Gerizim. Ecclesiasticus 50:25-26 portrays the Jews’ dislike for Samaritans:

Two nations my soul detests, and the third is not even a people: those who live [on the mountain of Samaria], and the Philistines, and that foolish people that live in Shechem.

Gerizim seems a plausible answer, except that Jesus felt no animosity toward Samaritans. Instead, perhaps we should read today’s verse in context. A few verses earlier we find Jesus staging an attack upon the Jerusalem Temple:

And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11:17)

The next morning as Jesus walked outside the city with his disciples, he pointed up to the Temple Mount, with the glorious Temple walls reaching high above the city walls, and spoke these words: If you have even a little faith, you can ask God to destroy this Temple and He will do it for you.

He did.