Editor's Chair - January 21, 2004
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The beginning of it all...

The more I read and the more I research, the more I am forced to consider that there is but one accurate account of our human origins. And while human existence may predate written or recorded history, and while many civilizations since have cross-pollinated, sharing religious relics, traditions and interpretations, the absolute truth of how it all came to be seems to have been given to but one man well after civilization began and well after mankind began devising accounts of the origin of things.

That one man's account, however, neither flattered us, nor did it appeal to our senses, and so many rejected it. The rest have been left flopping around the centuries in a froth of narcissistic noumena, vainly and futilely attempting to explain it all.

Over the ages some civilizations and religions have came close to defining the absolute truth of our existence. Hence such must be deemed "almost truth." However, "almost" negates "absolute"(-ly) everything. And a counterfeit will always be but at best, an "almost."

Unlikely as it may be, the most reasonable version of creation and our existence seems to have been given to a unlikely man—a murderer--and he, Moses, was commanded to record it and teach it to his "people"—an unlikely, unremarkable nomadic amalgam of twelve ancestral tribes, the Israelites -- whose geographical origin was Ur of Chaldea, (present-day Iraq) and who had at God's imperative, migrated into Egypt, dispossessing larger and more fierce tribes before settling in Canaan, and before ultimately dispersing throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Orient.

The problem for historians has always been, which account of creation and its subsequent history was to be trusted? Which was accurate?

Utilizing all our greatest human resources throughout the ages, we have repeatedly rejected the evidence and redefined creation/history to satisfy our desires. Circumventing that one account, we've utilized legends, traditions, logic, sorcery, the stars, spirit guides, numerology — whatever — in an attempt to define and understand why we are here and where all this is going. The reality is, however, when one is dealing with "almost truth" and "almost-truth-tellers", no answer is ever quite accurate, no version of history is ever quite correct, and prognostication is mere gambling.

Meanwhile history gets rewritten by its successive victors and those who desire to control the future (with its resources).

And, if vanity--as claimed in the Bible--is indeed the weakest link in our human chain, we can never be greater than it. We will continue to explain everything and rewrite history by rejecting the truth for what we prefer. We will settle for appealing theories and reject fact. No more so than in our own society today does theory supplant fact. Darwin's theory of evolution (The Origin of Species) is taught in American schools as if evolution had met all five of the criteria imposed by scientific method. The greatest philosophers of the ages each had a theory concerning our existence. But philosophy is merely man's vain attempt to define reality apart from God. And psychology/psychiatry is but a vain attempt to define/study/assuage the pain of living without God. Evolution remains a theory simply because therein the scientific method falls apart, given the irrefutable reality of DNA, a lack of transitional forms, and science's admitted inability to observe evolution as a process. Yet, evolution is evermore taught as fact in schools worldwide.

Darwin was an academic theologian, not a scientist. A theory of evolution as an explanation of creation requires more blind trust than biblical history requires. Information concerning dinosaurs (there were NO meat-eating dinosaurs) and the origin of species was indeed included in the information given to Moses. And although Moses could not interpret such data, even with a superior Egyptian education, he was commanded nonetheless to record it. And while (according to Moses' account) God allowed Adam to name most of creation, He PURPOSELY withheld the names of all astronomical bodies. Yet mankind was quick to group and name them however, and, further, to attach a (forbidden) significance to them. And while the Three Wise Men, er, Chaldean Magi, had through such forbidden practices discerned an event of great importance occurring west of Chaldea two thousand years ago near Bethlehem in Judea, those same wise men did not also discern King Herod to be a liar—they had to be informed by angel--told in a dream AFTER they had been deceived.

Indeed, mankind in all its diverse vanity (see origin of languages at Babel et al; Nimrod, etc., Romans 8:20) was quick to attach significance to (exalt) any and everything that had been created, while simultaneously denying its true Creator. However, God's own fingerprint – that innate need to define, understand, and worship a higher power—had already been stamped inside each human created in order that some of us ultimately find our way back to Him. And define and worship we did---nature, the stars, our many gods, our versions of history, the accumulation of knowledge itself, the acquisition of multiple credentials, our efforts, our children, ourselves, our bloodlines, our leaders, our country, our athletes and celebrities, football teams, universities, corporations.


So why didn't God wait and present His account of history to a more educated, civilized, peaceful people.  For as a result of that story having been given to an unremarkable, primitive people, few have accepted it as credible. There was another aspect to its lack of appeal--the high cost of maintaining a relationship with God-—613 rules in His original Mosaic contract. Few desired so much work and sacrifice.  Most couldn't bear it.  Many turned away from Him and His burdensome rules, to more pleasurable things, and in the vacuum of His absence devised alternative accounts of creation, the flood, rituals and rules, and some devised deities to whom were attributed various aspects of existence--each society creating its own acceptable legend and oral traditions and interpretations.  It seems the more educated mankind became, the less satisfied he grew with such archaic explanations, and--later--some would ultimately take pride in the absence of any deity(s) altogether, attributing creation and history to mankind itself, mother nature, UFOs, and/or random acts of molecular division...quantum mechanics and absolute relativism.

One may perpetually argue that the Bible has passed through too many hands and too many agenda(s) to be deemed reliable as a source of truth on earth. But I must contend that any God who so audaciously declares Himself to be Creator of all of this--past, present, and foreordainer of future events--should certainly possess the ability to preserve His version of truth, despite an ego-centric creation's best attempts to diminish, deny, and destroy it?

And so, for those of us who DO believe that the God of biblical scripture is indeed that One Alpha & Omega and every thing in between as His name alone (YHVH/Eimi) declares-—our comfort and relief is that no matter what mankind may CHOOSE to believe, He makes His Word to endure--despite us. And we know that the creation, autonomous of its Creator, will never be able to satisfactorily provide an accurate explanation for why we all are here and where we are going, because we are vain—-yet vanity will never ultimately overcome His truth.  For He IS TRUTH.

All else is grasping at wind.

--Betty