Category: Religion and Philosophy

I Do Not Need A Drill Thank You Very Much

Grant HastingsMay 21, 2017

I have not posted a blog for some time and I have a good reason. 10 days ago I took an exam for a professional designation in my industry and the last 6 weeks of spare time has been consumed with studying. The exam was an all encompassing challenge exam covering four separate courses. I should have taken 6 to 8 months of preparation but to be fair, I only learned I could challenge the courses in December and I did not receive all the material until March. When the box of thick binders arrived all I could think was ‘what have I gotten myself into this time’. (more…)

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The Armour of God – Disarming the Imagery

Grant HastingsApril 02, 20171 Comment on The Armour of God – Disarming the Imagery

The Armour of God is such a powerful image. It is a very physical representation of our spiritual need to protect ourselves from, as it states, the fiery darts of the wicked. For today’s blog, I hope to provide some context to the imagery so that you might better understand the message. We should not read too much into the analogies that are made between the armour and their spiritual equivalents. It is not like roman armour was designed specifically with Christian principles in mind. Paul is making a comparison that may not be perfect, but it gets the point across. (more…)

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How High Are You On The Mountain

Grant HastingsMarch 26, 2017

Imagine that life’s journey is a mountain where financial, emotional or whatever other success you aspire to is at the peak, and we climb through our life towards this final goal. We often measure how well we are doing on our climb against how others are fairing. The further along someone is in a career, marriage, or in building relationships of trust, the higher up they are. Those who have developed gentleness, patience and kindness are closer to the ideal that we are all trying to achieve. (more…)

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The Academy Awards – Separating the People from the Ceremony

Grant HastingsMarch 05, 2017

I have been to all sorts of award ceremonies, some better attended than others but they are all the same. The quality of the production is almost always determined by the number of people who want to attend. Every association I have been a part of holds award ceremonies to recognize their best. The academy awards are no different than any other; the difference is simply in the number of people who want to watch. (more…)

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The Problem with Refugees

Grant HastingsFebruary 26, 2017

Much has been posted of late on social media concerning immigration and refugees. Those who oppose allowing refugees into the country will post various inflammatory claims and half truths to convince us they are protecting us from violent extremists. Those in favour are equally guilty of exaggerating the truth by trying to convince us that we are their only hope, and our economy will collapse without them. (more…)

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A Brief History Of How The Bible Came To Be – New Testament and Onward

Grant HastingsFebruary 12, 20171 Comment on A Brief History Of How The Bible Came To Be – New Testament and Onward

In my last blog, I covered the development of the Old Testament. A Brief History of how the Bible came to be: Old Testament. Today I am going to cover what we know of the development of the Bible after the time of Christ.

Languages of New Testament Times

By New Testament times, Palestine was a very cosmopolitan place with most citizens being multilingual. If you read my previous blog, you can imagine, Jews would have spoken Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian and Greek; and with the expansion of Rome, yet another foreign empire to oppress the children of Israel, they would have learned Latin as well. When you consider Jesus communicated with a Roman centurion (Matt 8:5-13), Pontius Pilate (John 18:28-38), discussed the Torah with religious leaders at age 12 (luke 2:28-52), and spoke with a Samaritan women ( John 4:4-26), it seems Jesus was likely conversant in at least the four languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin.

Languages of the New Testament Jews
Hebrew
Aramaic
Greek
Eqyptian
Latin
(more…)

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A Brief History of How The Bible Came To Be – The Old Testament

Grant HastingsFebruary 05, 20172 Comments on A Brief History of How The Bible Came To Be – The Old Testament

The Christian bible as we have it today, varied in versions as it is, went through numerous incarnations before the canon was finally established in the 7th Century AD. In this entry, I am providing a brief history of how the Old Testament came about. There are a few words that pop up when discussing the bible and I have listed them here so that you don’t get confused:

Scripture – inspired writings which may or may not be accepted as part of official canon.
Canon– list of specific scripture that are accepted as authoritative.
Vulgate – 4th century Latin translation of the bible, published in 382 AD by Jerome.
Pentateuch – also known as The Law, includes the first 5 books of the bible, also known as the torah.
Septuagint– translation of Hebrew bible into Koine Greek, also known as the Greek Old Testament
Targum and Peshitta – the Targum is the Jewish translation of the old testament into Aramaic; the Peshitta is the Christian translation, also known as the Syriac.
Extant – still in existence, surviving. Extant manuscripts are early or original manuscripts that are still in existence.
Diaspora – dispersion of Jews beyond Israel. Occurred in 600 BC and 70 AD.
Hebrew –  a Semitic language of the children of Israel; a member of the ancient people living in Israel and Palestine and descendants of Jacob.
Tanakh – Hebrew bible.
Torah – specifically means the five books of Moses, but is also used to refer to the collective Jewish scriptures.
Talmud – the spoken torah (more…)

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What is mormon scripture?

Grant HastingsJanuary 29, 20172 Comments on What is mormon scripture?

For the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, there are 4 canons of scriptures.
• The Bible
• The Book of Mormon
• The Doctrine and Covenants
• Pearl of Great Price

Most Christian religions exclusively use the bible with various differences. The Catholic Bible contains what many refer to as apocryphal books for example. Most English speaking Protestants rely on the King James Version of the Bible. The LDS church is perhaps unique in that it accepts additional books that are not related to the biblical narrative.
Here is a brief explanation of each of the texts: (more…)

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