Criminalized NT?

This blog looks at the US Congress criminalizing the Christian New Testament. Before that, we look at app updates to the TT and BRB. Finally, a headline review including a plague of hail in the USA.

Last Updates

This week we have finished off our planned updates to all of our public websites and web apps. This has taken much longer than planned, but has also involved a review of content, which was not part of the original plan.

The last 2 of those apps are the TT and BRB. These are our 2 apps that get the most use. This is where our manuscript work gets public attention. We usually update theses apps each week, so we have been a little more careful with these updates.

Early last fall the conversion work began with a from-scratch rewrite of the code that processes the markup we use for our Bible manuscripts. This has allowed Ryan to add more types of markup. This is working with relative ease, just as intended last fall.

So with today's release, the rest of the internals of these apps have been replaced with mostly new code. Most of the code is now shared between these apps. They are now mostly styled from the same set of style sheets. This is a major win going forward. Other future Bible related apps will be modeled on these 2 existing apps.

Besides changing code, there have been other changes made to the function of these apps. Let me review some of the key changes that you might notice.

BRB (brb.paleo.in)

Our BRB app is the oldest of our apps. When this was first built the internet was a very different place. Phones were not a thing, and much of the installed base of desktop PCs was itself antique. So code was designed around fitting into the smallest possible footprint. Everything had to work on computer gear from the 1990s. Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser held everything back.

Even the URLs for the books in the BRB used 3 letter codes. This allowed typing URLs with few letters, for example. These days URLs are mostly hidden, and when they are visible they tend to be long form strings. They are rarely simply typed in.

So in this update, the URL handling system has been changed to use long form book names. This is in a pattern commonly used for Search Engine Optimization. For a concrete example, 1 Peter had a url path of "/fpe" which is now "/1-peter".

Note that for years we have used the word "First" instead of the more conventional digit 1. These days we are picking our fights more carefully, and we have no reason to be unconventional with these names. The digit 1 is the modern conventional notation for the first section of Bible book names.

We have adjusted all of our uses of book names to always use the digit 1. We are now never using the word first nor the letter f. This is in both our tooling and file names too. So this has caused a bunch of unseen work behind the scenes.

URL Reroutes

A new component in the new build environment manages movement of page names. So old urls like /fpe correctly and automatically remap to /1-peter. So, say, all old blog posts that linked into the BRB with the old 3 letter forms will still work.

This is true for websites too. So pages can be moved around and the tooling is now there to reroute URL references from old pages to their new location.

Front Page Handling

Years ago, when we first conceived of the BRB, we were very concerned with regular Bible reading. Bible reading is a first-principle spiritual discipline. Anyone with a walk of faith should know the Bible well. As it is such a large book, this means everyone of faith should have a regular reading pattern.

We now focus that concern in the Sabbath Reads app, which provides an annual reading plan tied to content. As we settle the organization of inspired text, that app will of course settle down too. So the BRB and TT apps are not the places for doing that sort of regular reading.

In the original design of the BRB and TT apps, the front cover had some minor function for helping someone with a regular reading plan. If you up-swiped the front cover it would return to the page last seen when the app was closed. This was a complex function related to the history subsystem, itself a nasty form of in-app tracking.

This function did not work particularly well when someone was a regular user of Lots. Lots tend to jump around, so there was no clear last place to be discovered in the history. All of that early function basically does not work in real life, especially as we normally use these apps.

So the front page on these apps has been rethought. Tapping the cover brings up the option that controls the color of the front cover. This is now an obvious function for the front cover. Swiping left and right work as expected. Swiping up and down on the front cover has no special function.

Page Layout

When we worked on the Canon Bible app we found we needed to identify the book name at the top of the pages in that app. This was because sub headings were needed when the book name was unknown to a typical Protestant user of that app.

We liked the layout enough that the BRB is now also indicating book number, name, and chapter at the top of each page. Circled book numbers as used in the Canon Bible are also now present in the BRB app. This helps drive home the idea of an inspired sequence. It helps anyone who regularly uses these apps to know where they are within the larger read.

Lots Changes

The lots functions in these apps have not fundamentally changed. All the fundamentals of the math and how numbers map to addresses remains the same. The About pop ups provide the audit tables so it is possible to manually check the code.

But, we took this opportunity to rework many of the details of these functions. The first big change is that the code is now coming from a single library. That library is shared between both of the apps.

Of course in the BRB there is a chapter lot and in the TT there is a story lot. In the code library this is a trivial difference and is easily handled.

The lots system now runs the history function at the same time. So the only event that triggers an entry in history is to push one of the lots buttons. This is of course still tracking use, but not as invasively as the old history system.

Of course none of this goes back to our web server. If someone's phone is stolen, that history could be learned by the thief, but that seems like a minor problem to the bigger issues of loosing a phone.

The history code was rewritten from scratch, at about 1/10th of the old size. History is now only tracking the use of lots. This is being done for the very real use case of doing lots on a device away from home. The history can later be used to review a lot set and write up any sort of diary entry in some other diary system.

The layout of the history itself has been upgraded. The big difference is the history always has new entries displayed at the bottom of the page. No more jumping around in time. The history also starts scrolled to the bottom, where the most recent entry is added to the list of entries. Scrolling up scrolls back in time. It is functioning like an accountant's ledger. There are other detail changes which you can check out for yourself.

Testing

Of course with such a major rewrite there is always the possibility of regressions. We have crawled through all of the functions and they appear to be running correctly. We will be monitoring for bugs that we might have missed in testing. Expect updates over the next few weeks as these apps settle down.

Criminalizing Christianity (antiwar.com)

Last week I dealt with some of the student protests that had been erupting over genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. By some counts over 200 campuses have had such protests.

Such protests are always going to be trouble. The BLM and Antifa movements can and are simply infiltrating these protests with their agents acting as students. Many of the arrests at Columbia were of non-students. From those people, the Zionist deep state can create all manner of violence and trouble. The Zionist controlled media itself can always spin the reasons for the protests however they want.

There has been a steady stream of horrific videos coming from cell phones at those protests. Seems American officials at many different levels of government have unleashed their attack dogs on students and staff at these institutions. (Curiously, these attacks on students and staff are in ways they will not wield against illegal invaders.)

The US House of Representatives has stepped in to this mess. They have voted to criminalize criticism of Israel. The link above is to one of many such articles covering that vote.

I picked this particular link because the author of the article brings up the main point, if the Senate agrees, and this becomes law, the US Government will have just criminalized Christianity within the USA. The founders of the USA are rolling over in their graves.

From the main prophetic flow we are looking at, prophetic pharaoh is coming against his American, Christian, slaves. Would we expect anything different? Making life harder across time is a characteristic of the Exodus accounts involving pharaoh and Mizrahim.

As a memorial to the death of Christianity, I thought it appropriate to hit some of the worst passages that are causing so much trouble. We may not be able to do this legally in the USA much longer.

Abraham's Blessing (BRB)

When the president of Columbia University was hauled before Congress at the start of this event, she was threatened with the story of Abraham's blessing. The link here is to the story in the BRB.

The logic used in congress was that if the Columbia University president failed to go along with Palestinian genocide then she would bring curses on Columbia University as per this story.

She might indeed be bringing on curses, but not at all because of that story in Genesis 12, and not from Joshua himself. Let me explain.

The logic of this story works only on the assumption that modern Israel is the unique heirs of Abraham and so the unique heirs of this promise. Even though that university president was lawyered up, she was woefully unprepared to answer Biblical questions.

A curious problem is that most people who are considered well educated from the current western academic world are unprepared for handling even the most obvious and simple high level promises given in the Bible. Any well taught Bible 101 class would have covered this in detail.

Modern academia grew out of monasteries. By loosing that heritage they have lost the tools to deal with the religious side of modern Israel. As Israel shifts to the right, this skill will be increasingly more important. Skill in this area is what Congress wants very much to criminalize. There are many dark secrets that undercut pharaoh buried in those pages. The NT is not the only place where trouble lurks.

Good Answer?

There are several different ways that Columbia University president could have answered her accusers. Let me give a simple and a more complex answer.

The easiest way to answer is to note that the personal names of the Palestinians in Gaza include famous biblical names like Abraham and Ishmael. On this evidence alone, they are naming their children this way because they are heirs of Abraham via Ishmael.

What is going on in Gaza is a civil war between Abraham's heirs. Taking the wrong side in a family feud is still supporting Abraham's heirs. Support for the Palestinians has no bearing on the promises to Abraham, nor the curse of coming against them.

The complex answer is to point off to a larger work like Bible Tribes. Bible Tribes blows this argument away. The USA itself is one of the lost tribes, so this is still a civil war between tribes that are heirs of Abraham. The world itself is now mostly Abraham's heirs, so that promise of a curse for those who come against Abraham is without effective modern application.

Amalek

Of course the next layer of the argument springs from pharaoh and his officials citing Amalek in their war with the Palestinians. This is a geographic argument, built on the assumption that modern Israel is retaking ancient lands that they lost long ago.

This is not a quick argument to refute. First off, pharaoh is proof texting something that he already plans on doing. Proof texting is a term we apply to anyone who has made up a plan of action and then looks for support from within the text of the Bible for that action. People using this strategy often pick passages not likely to be inspired, as we see here.

This proof-texting strategy is always the wrong strategy, though it works with nitwit audiences. In order to show trouble with this strategy we must show trouble with the story of Amalek instead of attacking that wrong strategy.

Amalek is at the tail end of a Biblical contradiction. We can go back to the beginning and find how Joshua normally deals with people like pharaoh who want to kill. We do this by looking at the first killing recorded in the Bible and see where that leads. Here is the link.

Cain Kills Abel (Genesis 4:8 BRB)

The link here is to the story of Cain killing Abel. This is in the intellectual heritage that becomes modern Benjamin. So this is not just a proof-texting argument in reverse. This story is fundamental to the questions of what did god really say.

This is the heart of the problem of the editors and the Jewish and the Christian religions which carry those edits to the world. Their divine purpose is to carry false teaching so every generation, and every person, must be faced with the problem of what did god really say. Are we to just listen to the serpent as did Eve?

This story is very early in the overall narrative of the Bible. This story explains what happens to murderers. In this case, Cain is the subject. If you read down through the next few verses you will see what happens to Cain. He becomes a "restless wanderer" on the earth. These days we have a technical term for this, we call them refugees.

There is an interesting parallel here between dead in Gaza and dead Abel. The detail is how the ground called out over the blood of dead Abel. The matched headline is found in the mass graves left behind in Gaza. The bodies being found there show indiscriminate killing of people in Gaza by the invading forces. Those forces, of course, funded by the US Congress.

To the extent that Israel is now killing the righteous in Palestine, we can expect those killers to themselves become refugees again. This is in keeping with my own personal prophetic. If they do not repent, they will be loosing the land again. This is a good starting story that trumps Amalek. (HT to Ray McGovern for this interesting answer to Amalek. He is a weekly guest of Judge Nap.)

John 8 (BRB)

At the other end of the spectrum we find all sorts of passages in the New Testament dealing with the Jews. In particular, the Pharisees. You should know this from your Bible 101 class. This is a group of religious teachers found in the NT. This is the group that caused Joshua so much trouble and ultimately killed him.

You should recognize the term is a plural on the same root name for Egypt's pharaoh. By the choice of this term the inspired writer is calling them little pharaohs. They behave like little Egyptians and carry the theology of ancient Egypt.

The chapter is full of details that explain this religion. This chapter is often quoted by people attempting to explain the modern expression of this religion to Christians who want to learn a little more. This is the most dangerous of chapters that the US Congress is trying to banish.

Ryan currently has filter marks in that chapter. So we already ban parts of that chapter ourselves. Does this make it palatable to the thought police? Probably not. We think several passages in that chapter were already added by Ananias in order to tone down a very strong rebuke of that religion.

By verse 33 the chapter turns to their claim of being descendants of Abraham. This is of course the same point used against the president of Columbia University. She could have turned to this story if she wanted to refute this point. (Her lawyers probably advised against such a strategy.)

Notice how the number of distinct ideas are coming down to a short list. This should not be very hard for a University president to master.

From verse 33 forward we can read about how Joshua answers that claim. If you are familiar with the nature of the editor's voice in passages you can see the contradictions within this chapter. Joshua is explaining why they are not heirs of Abraham. An editor adding back that they are Abraham's descendants. The voice flips back and forth.

By vs. 39 Joshua gets to his final point, you are not children of Abraham, and this can be tested by your actions. Because you kill, you are not heirs of Abraham. By trying to kill Joshua, they demonstrate that they are not Abraham's offspring. Curiously, Abraham himself took the same land and he did not kill.

So the students taking the side of the Palestinians are now on the side of the heirs of Abraham. Those heirs are fighting a group that is outside of Abraham, as measured by their own actions against people in Gaza. Now does the curse of coming against Abraham have a modern application? To whom?

By vs. 44 Joshua returns to the story of Cain and Abel. In the BRB you will read that they are the sons of "accusation." This is sometimes rendered Satan. As a community, when they go around wanting to kill people, they are demonstrating by their action that they are in that same heritage as Cain.

This is but 1 of several stories that are hinting at events in 70 AD. Cain lost his land and became refugees. So would the killers of Joshua. In this historical example it would take 40 years.

There are many more places in the NT where this battle over what did god say is expressed as the battle with the precepts carried in the Jewish religion. I need to leave those as an exercise.

No wonder Congress wants it criminalized.

Plague of Hail

One of the plagues on Egypt is called the plague of hail. The story of that plague begins in Exodus 9:22. We seem to have had one of those in the USA across April 25 through 28, 2024.

The timing follows the US Congress deciding to fund Israel and Ukraine. Depending on who is reporting and how it is counted, the total was around $95B for those 2 war fronts. Once signed by Biden, the weather between Texas and Iowa went crazy. Let me show you the steps.

House Approves $95B (The Guardian)

The link here is to the April 21, 2024, report of the US House passing a $95B aide package for both Ukraine and Israel.

Senate Approves $95B (CNN)

2 days later the US Senate approved the same aid package. The link here is to the CNN article that breaks down how everyone voted.

Biden Signs, April 24, 2024 (CNN)

The link above is to Biden signing that aide package into law. This on April 24, 2024.

Theoretically speaking, the congressional districts represented from the supporting votes can be expected to see manifestation on the ground. One bill, like this, may not have strong correlation, but over time, support for the war in Congress may map out areas of nuclear destruction once we get to the fighting parts of World War III. This is all part of the collapse of pharaoh's Egypt.

Now, watch the weather starting the next day.

US Tornado Outbreak, April 25-28, 2024 (Wikipedia)

The link here is to the Wikipedia page that summarized the outbreak. This outbreak ranged from Texas up to Iowa and included both EF3 and EF4 tornados.

This is a plague of hail and it times directly after the actions of the US Congress.

This pattern should grow stronger with time. Anyone who cares should be able to map out where the worst effects of nuclear war will be felt. This is beyond my scope here today, but for those who want to dig deeper on this check out the 4th congressional district of Oklahoma.

Another Boeing Whistle Blower Dies (trendingpoliticsnews.com)

Because of family history dealing with Boeing I have been tracking news with Boeing. In a previous blog I mentioned the death of one of the Boeing whistle blowers. The link here is to another whistle blower death. This time by disease.

Know that fast acting poison is used when an assassin does not want others to know this was a wrongful death. So the type of death does not prove anything either for or against Boeing. Boeing is not likely to be found legally at fault. But we need to still pay attention. This is how loss of Joshua's favor expresses itself against places like Boeing.

Because Boeing is a defense contractor, likely supplying weapons, or at least parts of weapons, to Ukraine, we can expect that they would suffer brand damage and loss of favor for being involved in an unjust war. NATO is the aggressor, out to take Russia's wealth following published plans from the late 1990s. Conquering Russia is part of the Zionist goal of ruling all of Earth.

Instead of seeing Boeing's troubles as isolated, we might need to start viewing them as under judgment because of their other lines of business. We will continue to watch for headlines related to trouble with American defense contractors in a general sense.

10th Anniversary of Odessa (warnews247.gr)

The link here is to an article in Greek. Use your browser's translation tools to read it in English. This website is one of the good sources of news on the Ukraine war.

The article here is remembering the events 10 years ago on May 2, 2014, when the war in Ukraine started. After the coup in Kiev, a trade union group in Odessa was burned to death by people supporting the new illicit Ukrainian government.

The Russians are now stating publicly that they intend to free Odessa from the events that started that day 10 years ago. Odessa is a port on the Black Sea. Loss of that city would make Ukraine a rump state, unable to carry on its own foreign trade without going through other countries.

Return of Odessa to Russia, if the war does not end soon, is a reasonable goal from the side of the Russians because it was historically a Russian city. Those historical events in Odessa are not as important as the Russians starting to now name that event in their current thinking about Ukraine.

Final Thoughts

As a moral imperative it is important to call out genocide as wrong. The honest students in the various protests are doing this. Most of those students don't know enough about the world to have any understanding of the drama that they are part of.

Most of those students risk death as either draftees or as civilian casualties in a soon future World War. They do not have much to loose. The ruling Elite already want them dead. It is just a matter of how.

Many of us with small voices on the Internet are doing bits to at least speak a little in their favor. That is about all I can do.

It is very likely we will not be able to discuss these sorts of topics in an open forum much longer. I have already gone well beyond what I would normally write in a blog like this. I already cut back much of my first draft.

May Joshua have mercy over all the innocents involved in this drama.

More Later,

Phil