Christianity at the beginning

 

How the Christian movement managed to survive and thrive in the first hundred years?  How did it inspire the believers long term and how did the children not abandon it?  Other than the gospels and epistles, there is almost nothing written about the people.  They were tiny in number, maybe 10,000 people by 100AD. What did those early churches have?

There were no sermons, a later invention.  A big speech given like Peter at Pentecost to a crowd was unusual. It is thought early church spread by quiet networking. Music was not a big thing in ancient Rome.  The early Christians met in their homes built around a central courtyard.  Worships would remind one more of home devotions than church today.

Nobody went around saying, “Come hear our great preacher, our wonderful music, this Sunday.”

            Jesus died in about 33 AD and the first gospel, Mark, wasn’t written until at least 56AD.  For a generation, there was no written New Testament scripture. Even 100 years after that, a church might have only a partial hand-copied gospel and a couple of epistles.  How did these people not wander off the reservation with their beliefs? Secular historians think their beliefs evolved or there was a secret text somewhere. That’s unlikely.  We know they had confirmed beliefs from the earliest days and a confused person who doesn’t know what to believe will hardly bring about persecution of the authorites. Moreover, a religion won’t last if it doesn’t remind people constantly of what they are to do. The kids will walk away if it doesn’t solve or put in perspective life’s problems.

An answer is buried in Acts 2:23ff. Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified…But God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. (vs. 24)…And they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. (vs. 42-43), praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number…(vs. 47)

            From the earliest days, Romans said they had the Resurrection.  This was attested to by Julio, the prefect that succeeded Pontius Pilate.  He wrote home to Rome about a new group of Jews, harmless but weird.  They believed that their leader had risen 3 days after he died.  Romans snickered at this.  In 3 days a dead body will start to stink badly.  Roman soldiers knew death! But if Jesus was raised, why? Did they simply say he was sinless? Then he would just save  himself from God’s eternal wrath and find a place in heaven The grave, Peter and the Christians insisted, “could not hold him.” Hence Jesus must be God. And  so we have just answered the first of the two fundamental questions of Christianity —Who was Jesus of Nazareth? And why did He die and rise again? 5 simple words even a child can memorize, Jesus Died For My Sins” That answers the other fundamental question, “What does this mean for me?” As soon as you say that you have also said that Jesus is God.  A 3^rd party person can’t forgive anybody. They aren’t part of what happened.  But the Jews held that God could forgive; all sins offend God.  He alone can forgive all sin.

So the Christians had some apostles right there teaching them (if one lived in Jerusalem), the 5 functions of the church just like we do today (Acts 2:42ff), and the Holy Spirit doing power and wonders that were visible (Magic to an unbeliever.  It wouldn’t convert but grabs the attention.)

            But they really did have the New Testament.  Not written, but “This is the New Testament in My blood.”  Jesus established a New Testament or Covenant that superseded the Old Covenant of Moses, which had sacrifices to atone/forgive transgressions of the Law. Sacrifices were the atonement--a sacred act, ordained and commanded by God, physical elements, required the believers faith, worked forgiveness and sometimes brought other things inexplicable from God.  Forgiveness makes one close to God. A covenant is required for a relationship.

  Jesus came forward with this New Covenant in the Lord’s supper, a sacrament like the OT sacrifices to remind that every day, every second God saved them. Was it really blood and body they believed they ate and drank? They must have—the Romans were horrified by what they heard. Cannibals! Perhaps a Roman asked, what are you doing in there?” Christian: “we are eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ!” Cannibalism, the Roman concluded—the worst form of barbarianism! But what if the Christian had replied “well, we kind of figuratively think this.” The Romans would have just rolled their eyes and laughed. In the Lord’s Supper, Christians became forgiven and then amazingly, bonded with God’s family of believers.  Jesus picked up the bread at Passover and announced flatly that it was His body, given for them.  When you invited someone to share bread in that society, it was to say, “you will be part of my family for the night.”  When we line up to eat his body and we are pledging to be part of His family.  And then Jesus took the Passover cup of blessing and pronounced, “This is the New Covenant in my blood.”  He must have shocked his disciples. Asking someone to share the cup with you was what grooms did to ask a bride if she agreed to a marriage.  In communion, you are saying, Yes, I’ll share your life.  Week after week, the Christians did this, cementing themselves to each other and their Savior. 

The Christians were reminded of forgiveness, but how does one progress in faith & draw near to God? Baptism and the Spirit.  Once again, a Sacred Act requiring faith, forgiving sins—a sacrament. To be baptized one has to confess and turn away from sins. And so, years later, Paul would tell the Roman Christians (Rom. 6:3-4)  “we are buried with him in Baptism. and. “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.” Dead to sin, alive to God. Our sins forgiven, we are again bonded to Jesus and to God’s family as in Communion. The Holy Spirit, given as God’s sealing gift through repentance at Baptism, will raise one to walk with Him. Early church fathers wrote that people were sealed by baptism. ‘Sealed’- you aren’t getting away, now a child of God.  God comes after you in your troubles, whether they are your own fault or not. Nothing in the known universe beats such certitude.

This established what is called orthodox Christianity.  If all they had had was the memory of their leader rising from the dead, within a generation that would have become distant. If sacraments had no real power, they would become dull rituals over time.  The movement would have died out. Later, books were written by the apostles but then other fraudulent books came along too.  Which was right? The Christians measured everything that was said against the fundamentals they knew.  That was Orthodox Christianity—orthodox “square in measure”.

But how did Christianity spread? Knowing God loved you and saw you from the very beginning, saved you, gave you faith to respond, and now puts His Spirit inside you, changes everything  All the world was then and is now searching for God.  The Christians weren’t.  “God found me! Sealed me forever.” Did they have troubles? Consider what’s been unearthed.  There are about 30 house churches discovered and some plaques and stones with names on them—church members.  2/3 of the names were women who in those days were treated like sub-humans. Half the names were just a single name, likely slaves. There were enormous struggles.  The Hebrew word for struggle means also to wrestle.  When  life is a struggle, one wrestles with God in prayers. “Why, God, did you do this?  Why did you make me this way? Help me, please.” Jesus wrestled with God as well, in Gethsemane.  Did God take away his death? No but Jesus became closer to God because of his struggle.  God often does not heal a situation but brings one closer in relationship. A new door is opened or a new way of knowing God to be close arises.  Through our struggles we learn empathy for others, we become experienced in the difficulties of others, we become a wonderful witness with love and joy, seeing God’s love for us behind us all. That is how the early church grew and how modern churches can grow.  Share your life with others.  Listen to their situations. Share the Good News with Love and Joy. This is a kind of compassion that supersedes the worldly politics of giving handouts and favors.

            Think of their prayers. Maybe they went like this.

Lord, it’s me again, your faithless friend. Don’t you ever get tired of hearing all the dumb and evil stuff I’ve done? Without You, I’m lost.  I’ll never get through this life. And why did you make me the way I am?  Do You really have use for me?

Now Lord, I’m scared.  It’s worse than a pandemic.  They are coming after us and killing us in sadistic ways just to watch us die. I don’t know what’s coming next.Yet, I didn’t start this, You did, dear Lord. Your Spirit found me, I didn’t find you. You called me and saved me. You paid for me with Your body and blood. And I’m so messed up with my situation here, but You hold the plan. You care for me.  You Did It All. You won’t let me go. Dear Lord, I’d rather walk through the valley of death with You than dance on my own mountain. Lead me through this mess. Baptize me with the fire of your Spirit so that I can’t shut up telling Your story. And in the end, I know you’ll weave my little life into Your story and you’ll take me home with You. Amen.

And then came the Word, writings so beautiful and profound it makes one memorize it. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among men, full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God; the only God who is at the Father’s side has made Him known. Come unto Me all you who are labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. The Spirit and the Bride says, “come.” And let anyone who hears say “come.”He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come Lord Jesus.  There, for Christians was the story again. He wins.  We win. Amen.

John Wise, forerunner of the forefathers

 

John Wise was born in Essex, Massachusetts colony in 1652 of an indentured servant father, who had gained passage to Boston by enslaving himself for 7 years.  These were the earliest days of New England when it was entirely agricultural, a far-out place of a guaranteed hard life.  Young John was exceptionally smart and attended the first college of America, Harvard, getting a degree in Divinity and became pastor at Ipswich, just north of Boston. He was a parson pig farmer as well.  He immediately became the community leader.  At one point a number of men on a ship were reported to have been overwhelmed by pirates. Wise led a community prayer and concluded, “Lord if there is no other way to bring these men home safely, allow them to rise up against the pirates and kill them.”  The next day, the crew came walking home, having done just that.

 British kings were always suspicious of the Puritans of Massachusetts, and James II appointed Sir Edmund Andros governor in 1680.  Massachusetts had a legislature, but Andros abolished it and began to tax.  Wise led a protest, got arrested and was defrocked.  Angry Ipswich citizens wrote the crown that their governor was out of control and James II recalled Andros. Thereupon, pig farmer Wise was elected to a commission to reorganize state government. But more than that, he sued the judge who had acted as a puppet for detaining him against habeas corpus of the Magna Carta. Wise won. When the Salem witch trials began Wise penned that they violated due process of law and the trials should be stopped.  He argued that the Bible gives you the right to face your accuser and  testimony cannot be coerced (Prov.18).

In 1710, Increase Mather published a pamphlet advocating a hierarchy to rule churches in Massachusetts.  Wise disagreed and published his own ideas of more democratic and autonomous churches and helped defeat Mather’s proposals.  Seven years later he published A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches, a work that outlined his liberal concepts concerning both civil and church governments. Strongly influenced by Whig political theory, it had a significant influence on patriot leaders of the American Revolution. In Vindication, he claimed that all are God’s children, whether slave or free, worthy of protection by leaders and the law.  He argued that any tax without representation of the people taxed was not right.  He was a very readable author. Wise and Ipswich are sometimes labeled “the birthplace of the American Revolution.” Massachusetts native, President Calvin Coolidge said that Wise’s Vindication was like a text in governing for the Founding Fathers.

Finally we might ask how many pastors do we know today or Christians who would stand up for Rights and protest illegal taxation to the point of being thrown in jail.  Religion and free speech have been protected so long in America.  But elsewhere in the world they often aren’t. One reason they exist in USA is due to men like John Wise.

The Muhlenbergs

Woodstock may be one of the most historic places in American History--not Woodstock, NY, but the one in Virginia. Because one Sunday morning, Jan. 21, 1776, at the Lutheran Church there, Rev. John Peter Muhlenberg gave what seemed like a normal sermon.  Text was Eccl. 3, “To everything there is a season…” He preached, “In the language of the holy writ, there was a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away.” He continued, “There is a time to fight, and that time has now come!”  At which point he pulled open his clerical robe to reveal a fresh continental army uniform. The congregation gasped.  He gave the benediction and walked down the aisle.  At the narthex he turned and shook the doorway and said, “Who is with me?”  That day 300 parishioners from the relatively small church in the Virgina countryside, volunteered to become the 8^th VA Regiment. 

            John Peter was born to middle class Pennsylvania German parents. He worked as a store clerk and then enlisted in the British colonial army.  Bilingual, he served next to the German dragoons, who nicknamed him “Teufel Piet” (devil Pete), because he was a fierce fighter.  In 1767 he attended Philadelphia Academy and was ordained a Lutheran pastor. His first parish was in Bedminster, NJ.  After a visit to England, it was impressed upon him that the Church of England badly needed pastors in VA.  Since his theology was the same, he was dual-ordained as an Anglican.  Thereupon, he found a small Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia to serve.

            Frederick, his brother and also a pastor, questioned whether it was right for Pete to fight, indeed to mix politics and faith.  “I am a Clergyman it is true,” Peter wrote back, “but I am a member of the Society as well as the poorest Layman.  Liberty [freedom to practice faith] is dear… Shall I then sit still and enjoy myself at Home when the best Blood of the Continent is spilling?...[S]o far am I from thinking that I act wrong, I am convinced it is my duty to do so and duty I owe to God and my country.” They agreed to disagree until a year later, Frederick watched the British burn down his own church before his very eyes. (Original British theory was that colonial dissatisfaction was due to non-Anglican pastors)  Fred enlisted too.

            General Pete’s regiment was first assigned to the South but then moved to Valley Forge under Washington.  General Nathaniel Green was Muhlenberg’s commander and he fought in Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth after 1777.   In October 1783, when Washington moved in on Yorktown to entrap Cornwallis, Muhlenberg’s by now well-trained fighters helped General Alexander Hamilton’s bayonet charge and takeover of Redoubt #10.  That capture allowed artillery to be moved close-in and defeat the British army. He and the Woodstock Lutherans returned as war heroes to Virginia. Pastor Muhlenberg was given the rank of Major General and assigned to his native Pennsylvania. 

Evidently Fred rethought his ‘no politics’ stance.  He ran for Congress and became the first Speaker of the House in 1789. He often wrote about the duty we all owe to fight for Liberty.  Peter was also elected as an at-large Congressman from Pennsylvania. His statue stands with Washington and Jefferson amid the Hall of Heroes in front of the Senate Chamber in the US Capitol building.  (If you haven’t been there, it is often used for television interviews of Congressmen by the media.)  The early colonists like the Muhlenberg brothers came together and looked to God, not government, to guide public affairs.  God gave inalienable rights and no government should try to take them away. 

America--history of the anthem

 

June 14 commemorates both the founding of the American Army and Flag day. The 2^nd Continental Congress approved an Army on June 14, 1775 to defend the 13 colonies against British abuses.  Through reorganizations of the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution, the Army continued and is the oldest branch of the Department of Defense.  Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. But the era which brought these dates to prominence were enormously celebrated was a period after the War of 1812, called The Era of Good Feeling.  The name is an understatement. Americans had just won a war against the greatest power on earth, unassisted by allies, and it was a crazy win.  Ft. McHenry of Baltimore had held against all odds and Francis Scott Key had written his stirring poem that would later become the national anthem. Disease and a hurricane had driven the British from Washington. Jackson had made a defense near New Orleans with mostly 4000 common citizens and a few pirates and beat back an invasion fleet with 10,000 British regulars fresh from defeating Napoleon.  And it came as the 2^nd Great Awakening of Christian faith thanked God’s unbelievable grace for leaving USA independent, the only republic in the world. When Jefferson and Adams died the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of Independence, it was hailed as providential.  Daniel Webster spoke in Boston commemorating their lives as “an American Constellation in the heavens.”

            Rev. Samuel Francis Smith heard that speech.  He was a seminary student at Andover Theological Seminary.  He was later reading some German patriotic hymns and got the idea to compose one for the United States.  “Seizing a scrap of waste paper I began to write, and in half an hour, I think, the words stood upon it, substantially as they are sung today.”  The tune of the Royal British national anthem, “God Save the King” was impudently appropriated for America.

1.“My Country! ‘tis of thee,                     4.Our fathers’ God! To Thee,

            Sweet Land of Liberty,                           Author of Liberty,

            Of thee I sing.                                       To Thee we sing.

            Land where my fathers died,                  Long may our land be bright                 

            Land of the pilgrims’ pride,                    With freedom’s holy light;

            From every mountainside                       Protect us by Thy might,

            Let freedom ring!                                   Great God, our King!

Part of the magic of this song is that Smith wrote it in first person singular, “my country”.  A classmate of Smith’s at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, went on to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Years later, he wrote, “What is Fame? It is to write a hymn which sixty million people [then US population] sing, like Samuel Smith did.”

            Jackson’s victory day, January 8 was commemorated Second Independence Day and singing of America became the common practice.”When you hear it played on the piano, it feels like a hymn…with an orchestra it becomes regal and majestic. ” ‘My Country ‘Tis Of Thee’ is really about putting, not a monarch, but the nation itself and God’s guidance at the center of our imaginative lives.”—country music artist, Tim McGraw.  At the Union Camp Saxton, 1862, Smith’s hymn was the first thing sung by freed slaves when Emancipation was proclaimed. It was the last thing sung to dying soldiers among TR’s Rough Riders in Cuba, 1898.  It gave Martin Luther King his peroration at the March on Washington, 1963. But best of all, it’s a reminder to all who sing it, that USA was born of ideas, chief among which was dependence on God’s Grace.

How genocide happens

 

THE 2020 RIOTS, CONGRESSIONAL POWER PLAYS, RULE By EXECUTIVE ORDERS POINT TO PARTISANSHIP. Is that a problem? While I don’t accuse any of genocidal behavior, we need to understand the Holocaust and how it happened.  In March 1942 80% of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive.  By Feb. 1943, only 20%.  That year of mass murder didn’t occur in concentration camps but were performed by very ordinary men, mainly in the forests of eastern Europe. Poland was the nexus. In the aftermath of the war, numerous psychological studies by criminologists were done to try to understand this.  There is a type of “authoritarian personality” which is anti-democratic, obsessed with authority, has aggressiveness towards out-groups, lacks introspection, tends towards stereotyping, and preoccupied with sex and power and toughness.  These are cruel people who were typically the Nazis who first volunteered, but not the vast majority of common Germans who killed the Jews in ‘42.  Just a few SS men were among them.  Other studies suggested that some of the killers were “sleepers” to violence, say, someone who does not question authority, but this has been mostly disproven.  The people who did the genocide were those not desirable for Germany’s army.  They avoided the draft, were too old or very young, middle class people with jobs as salesmen, dentists, factory workers, etc. who did not want to be part of the army. But the Nazis and Himmler who ran both the SS and police created them.  When the war got into full swiing, it became apparent that the military needed as many men as it could get.  Police forces were raided for soldiers and then for police that would occupy the conquered territories. Most had almost no training.  It was these Order Police that massacred most of the Jews. At first they were sent to hunt down Bolsheviks for extermination and implicated Jews, Gypsies, and others as bad, rebellious people in conquered lands. The SS officers played on the patriotism of these clueless men but often told them they would not have to do any of the executions if they were weak.  Most of them agreed, however, not that they were interested in career advancements or appeal to superiors.  True, some Poles also helped the Nazis.  Most of the Jews lived in among small villages and identification was difficult. Nazi soldiers were subject to a lot of propaganda.  3 threats they deemed: Christianity which was spread by Jew Paul; liberalism which admired the uprising of racially inferior (French Revolution); and Bolshevism, advanced by Jew Karl Marx.  Jews were a racial mixture, it was asserted(untrue) who had sold out Germany in WW I.  And Nazisim was obsessed with racial purity.  But many of the Order Police were Christians and didn’t believe much of the propaganda. Moreover, the early Nazi pamphlets didn’tcall for genocide, just removal of Jews from Europe.

            What caused genocide? First, a demonization campaign. Then Jews were removed from Germany to Poland and Latvia (Latvians especially disliked Jews) Distance makes dislike and lack of sympathy.  There were stories of the Order Police running into someone they knew from Germany and being totally sickened.  But mostly the Germans didn’t know who they were killing.  Secondly, SS and some other diehard anti-semites did a lot of the initial trigger pulling, while Jew hunts and guarding was done by the Order Police. When a few try to guard a lot of others, it breeds discontent and threats from the captives, and this leads to desperation and lack of empathy of the guards.  As time went on, more and more of the Order Police were willing to join in the killing.  Obligation to the battalion and a desire to look good in front of comrades seems to have been a large issue. But after the war, they said they were just following orders, a convenient excuse, not born out by cross-interviewing.

            So what?  Well, imagine if some group started labeling en mass an out-group “white supremacists” or some name that is uncompromisable—demonization and dehumanization. Thus hatred is condoned  If the  out-group doesn’t believe in Critical Race Theory or some other doctrine they are shunned and persecuted. Partisanship allows no dialog between sides. The majority grabs power at all levels and Congress rams legislation through. The demonized groups are herded into states of their color. Desire for place in the Party or solidarity with comrades makes some ordinary people commit atrocities. We've seen this in Rwanda, Soviet Russia, China, Middle East and a host of other places.

            If the reader wishes to investigate further, Christopher Browning, historian at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington wrote a thoroughly researched book on the subject complete with interviews of former unprosecuted Order Police Battalion 101 members and Poles to witness the same events.  

Midway

 

God is wise and in not telling us the future of events on earth.  We usually can’t handle it. Saul knew full well, God had picked David as future king and spent the remainder of his life fighting it. Hezekiah got another 15 years of life and then squandered it.  But the Navy boys didn’t squander their opportunity in the decisive, historic victory in the battle of Midway.

            The disaster at Pearl Harbor was missed by military intelligence, and nobody felt worse for it than Capt. Ed Layton who was commander of HYPO, a military intel group in Honolulu.  He offered to resign, but Adm. Chester Nimitz asked him to stay on.  We now know that Layton and Capt. Joseph Rochefort had missed the attack because Washington, DC, high command had not let them see diplomatic messages.  Rochefort was a brilliant, eccentric officer who often wore slippers and a bathrobe over his uniform.  He often spent days sequestered with a code.  He and Layton had met on assignment in the 30s to the Tokyo embassy and knew fluent Japanese.  USA had decoded part of the Nippon’s JN-25b code. HYPO deduced that the next likely attack was Midway, 1300 miles NW of Hawaii.  Gaining its air field, Japan could bomb and then invade Hawaii. They also found evidence for an attack on Alaska.  Washington disagreed.  They had the same messages and thought Solomon islands were likely--to cut off  Australia and New Zealand and invade there. It came down to identifying target “AF”. Who was right? Nimitz trusted his Pacific HYPO guys and withdrew the Enterprise near to Midway.  But such was a neglect of his orders to return to Hawaii.  Yorktown was in Hawaii and he ordered a frantic fix of the crippled carrier.  What we now realize is that the Japanese Army and Navy were arguing.  The Army wanted to invade Alaska.  With only 30,000 non-natives it would be a cakewalk. Nippon’s.Navy was intent on going for the kill of America’s Navy with a trap set at Midway.  High command decided both attacks would happen simultaneously.

            Nimitz told HYPO they’d have to come up with “proof” to convince DC that a strike was due at Midway. Jasper Holmes, an engineer at Hawaii University, had been reactivated and had just joined HYPO.  He had a plan.  Have the Midway base broadcast, without encryption, that they had an emergency with their desalination water plant. Sure enough, Rochefort intercepted a coded Japanese message to include extra water with the invasion fleet.  Plus, there was a surprise—exact date of the attack, June 4, 1942.  Then Rochefort worked on another more heavily encrypted message containing the battle plan, route, etc.  By luck he found the code-breaker and thus Nimitz knew the battle plan.  The Admiral had 3 fleet carriers and six small sea carriers and the airbase.  Japan had 4 fleet carriers and a dozen sea carriers, far more destroyers and battleships. And they mistakenly thought, secrecy.

            With advance notice, Midway sent its planes aloft and was ready with anti-aircraft guns.  As they held off the bombing raid, planes attacked the widely dispersed (for secrecy) Japanese fleet.  But inexperienced US pilots and pitiful American torpedoes that wouldn’t detonate, plus Japan’s skilled fighter pilots won resoundingly.  The Nipponese badly disabled Yorktown.  Then they received word that Midway had been on alert and not much hurt by the raid.  So another round of land bombs was being re-armed on returning planes.

             Then came America’s Dauntless.  Dauntless Douglas Dive-bombers under Lt. Dick Best and Wade McClusky, squadron commanders, targeted the Kaga and Asagi (flagship). Kaga took several hits and because the Japanese were re-arming, bomb stacks, fuel hoses lay all over the lower decks. These erupted in massive fires.  Best then targeted Asagi.  His own DSB Dauntless put a 500-lb. bomb down the elevator of the ship causing a terrific explosion. Japanese carriers had cost-saving wooden decks and thus were at risk for fire.  A third carrier, the Soryu, was also destroyed. Hence returning Japanese pilots, with no place to land, had to ditch in the sea.  The following day, the Dauntlesses destroyed the Hiryu and the Japanese called a retreat. They had lost 6000 men and half their Pacific fleet.  Nipponese naval dominance never recovered after Midway. With Yorktown unsalvageable, the United States now had just 4 Pacific fleet carriers vs. Japan’s 4.  In the next 3 years, Japan would build 3 more.  But USA built 24. And the Japanese Army found themselves stranded without Navy support on two Aleutian islands after Midway.

            Layton, Rochefort, Holmes, and Best all came from small town America—small towns with big churches—and each of them was influenced by Protestant faith.  As Dick Best said, “You never know when your end is coming so live as much as you can.”  He fought Midway with tuberculosis and was discharged later that year.  Layton became a Rear Admiral; Holmes, head of the HU math department. Cryptoanalyst, Joseph Rochefort  died in 1976 and peers took up cause that he be decorated (He had not. Did the Navy have to have someone to blame for Pearl??).  Posthumously, he was awarded the President’s Medal of Freedom. Richard Halsey “Dick” Best, the super pilot, fought through his TB, and outlived them all.  He died in 2001.  “Live as much as you can.”

           

 

 

Flavius Josephus--a fairly truthful historian

 

This story with Christian evidence unnoted by many historians came to my attention from my son who had purchased “The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus”.  Flavius Josephus [FLAW vee us Joe SEEF us] was a Jew who was born 4 years after Jesus’s death and went on to become a prolific writer of firsthand accounts of the revolt of the Jews in the 60s AD as well as much we know about Jewish culture. His mother was royal, Hasmonean, related to Herod the Great. His father, Mattias, was a priest and so Josephus Ben-Mattias became one too.  His life was roughly 33 years of training for the priesthood followed by captivity and then citizenship and return to status when he wrote his histories. Compared to other ancient “historians” he is a rarity,quite factual.  Others, in service to kings wrote propaganda.  But Josephus wrote to defend Judaism and Jews and this colors his text.  Yet he was looked upon as a sell-out by Jews of his day.  He studied Sadducees and Essenes but decided to become a Pharisee, like the apostle Paul. Banus, an Essene was his close friend. 

            After a revolt in 64 AD, Josephus went to Rome to plead for release of 3 priests, sent there for trial by Proconsul of Palestine Felix.  That was the year of the burning of Rome.  Emperor Nero’s wife, Poppaea, was a God-fearer (Gentile who admired Judaism).  So while Jews and especially Christians were being persecuted, the priests were released. Josephus realized that Rome was undefeatable and the Romans realized he was good at diplomacy.  But upon returning to Jerusalem, he was persuaded to side with another revolt.  The following year his forces were defeated by Vespasian.  He was captured in a cave and certain to be executed.  But he had a dream that Vespasian was to be emperor and told his captor about it.  Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, growing fond of his attempts to quiet the Jews.  In 69 AD, Nero was voted out of the Consulship by the Senate and he committed suicide, thus ending the Julian line of emperors without heir.  Vespasian returned to Rome and became emperor just as Josephus had predicted.  He left behind his son Titus to quash rebellion, and Josephus with him, who tried to convince Jerusalem not to resist. It didn’t work.  Jerusalem was totally destroyed by the Romans. Half of Palestine’s 2 million people were killed. Vespasian granted Josephus citizenship and Titus gave him a land grant, but he retired to Rome to write as he was viewed as an egotistic opportunist traitor by the Jews.  He adopted Flavius, the Vespasian family name and died in 103 AD.

            Josephus became a highly educated writer who wrote about the Hasmonean dynasty that ended with the Herods, the Jewish rebellion and life after the Temple.  Very briefly he mentioned another. “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him[self] both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate at the suggestion of the principle men among us, had condemned him to the cross on [Roman date of  April 3, 33AD].  Those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named for him are not extinct at this day.” (Antiquities,ch.3, vs. 3)

            The truthful Josephus, unlike fellow Pharisees, admired Jesus, acknowledged him to be the Christ, but without understanding the implication of that, was not a Christian himself.  He considered Christians as another Jewish sect, not bringing up the animosity for Christians that arose after 70 AD among both Romans and Jews.