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 26 Dec 2010 @ 22:58
2 Kings 23
Josiah Renews the Covenant
1 Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 He went up to the temple of the LORD with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the LORD. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD—to follow the LORD and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. 7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the LORD, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
8 Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. 9 Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10 He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. 11 He removed from the entrance to the temple of the LORD the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court[c] near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the LORD. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.
15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. 16 Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.
17 The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”
The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”
18 “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19 Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the LORD’s anger. 20 Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.
21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed. 23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the LORD. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
26 Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his anger. 27 So the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’[d]”
28 As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
29 While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo. 30 Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father
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26 Dec 2010 @ 22:56
2 Kings 22
The Book of the Law Found
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.
3 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the LORD. He said: 4 “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the LORD, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. 5 Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the LORD— 6 the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. 7 But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.”
8 Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple.” 10 Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.
11 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: 13 “Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”
14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophet Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter.
15 She said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16 ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. 17 Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all the idols their hands have made,[a] my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ 18 Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: 19 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse[b] and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. 20 Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’”
So they took her answer back to the king.
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23 Dec 2010 @ 01:28
Zionism is a bad form of fascism. Yahweh is not a goddess, Lilith is
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22 Nov 2010 @ 12:08
Science has got to the stage of maturity where it is abandoning the study of things in isolation and beginning to see the interConnectedness of everything. This is the merging of Science and mysticism and is exemplified by Complexity Theory, Chaos Theory, Emergence, SyStems etc.
I would like to point out something connected to these developments.
Things taken in isolation and treated separately are likely to be seen as Linear. But Nature is interconnected and relies on things affecting and feeding back on each other. Nothing is really isolated. To take a classic example of the billiard balls on a table. If the Billiard Hall is near to an underground (Tube) Railway then when trains go by they may affect the perfect functioning of the Newtonian equations. Such things are useful abstractions but in the real world everything is affected by everything else. Sometimes this is significant and sometimes not. Hence the new disciplines mentioned above. To put it succintly: Things taken in isolation appear to be Linear, but this reductionism needs to be supplemented by the realisation that interConnected things are Non-Linear. Nature is essentially Non-Linear
"Experiments" , the core of the scientific method, are exercises in separation, abstraction and ultimately alienation. They derive from alienation and in turn produce it.
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13 Oct 2010 @ 08:13
Throughout the history of the theory of numbers, primes have been studied with an emphasis on the stand-alone prime numbers such as 23 and 37. That is, the individual isolated prime number, of which it is easy to prove that there are an infinite number. The other sort of prime number, twin primes such as 17,19 are similarly thought to be infinite but this is just a conjecture and has not been proven yet.
A few years ago I put forward a number of my own conjectures regarding the twin primes. I speculated about what I called "Points of Symmetry" whereby the twin primes were connected by a sort of symmetry [link]
It seems to me that instead of looking at all prime numbers as being chaotic, almost random and without much order, we should build on what is there. The fact that twin primes exist and there seem to be an infinite number of them suggests a high level of organization. I would like to point to four things specifically, even at the risk of repeating myself.
(1) The Goldbach Conjecture, if true,implies that every prime number is equidistant from two other prime numbers.
(2) I have conjectured on the basis of this fact, and some supporting evidence, that every pair of twin primes is equidistant from two other pairs of twin primes.
(3) I now add a further conjecture which seems to be supported by the facts: every stand-alone prime is equidistant from a twin-prime and another stand-alone prime.
(4)Finally, if you look at magic squares, particularly odd ones such a 3x3, 5x5, 7x7 etc. it is noticeable that there is often a striking symmetry in the lay-out of the twin primes.
In conclusion,I would say that in trying to understand prime numbers it may be time that we studied the obvious patterns that are there, particularly those presented by the twin primes and their points of symmetry.
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3 Jul 2010 @ 07:01
Association is a process and technique which recently i have suggested can be used for aiding searches and connected technology, and which can provide an alternative to the traditional logic and syllogism of Greek thought. It is manifested in such diverse systems of thought as Plato's Forms and Jung's Archetypes and in itself creates the possibility of psycho-spiritual technologies.
Psycho-spiritual Technologies
21 Feb 2010 @ 16:40, by John Grieve
Heart and Soul Technologies
Whereas any practical application of a scientific theory is termed a technology, it should be possible to establish what I term "psycho-spiritual technologies", if it is indeed possible to unite conventional quantitative science with qualitative mysticism.
Also, as many writers have pointed out, while the physical, material technologies which are extensions of the human body have proliferated and reached unthought of heights, the same is not true of the powers of the human mind/ soul/ spirit.
If humanity is to grow up and mature, as is obviously a critical need at the present moment, psycho-spiritual technologies must be acknowledged for what they are.
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20 Jun 2010 @ 12:46
Our civilization is based on the Aristotelian concept form associated with Logic and Syllogism. As pointed out in previous articles this is not the only possible or historically validated form. Indigenous societies seem to have used another system based on images and the Laws of Association ( rather than the Laws of Logic). This system was characterised also by connections with so-called occult sciences and magic. It should be possible to harness this knowledge ( and clearly the human mind does work by Association and images) to create a search engine which searches by a method of association. We are not just talking about a thesaurus or lexical database but a system of inter-related ideas and images. There is much detail to be worked out, but the basic idea indicates a shift in the direction of our civilization's cogitative function which promises to go forward by recapitulating what was lost when we entered on our present over-rational and logical trajectory. More >
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19 Jun 2010 @ 21:02
Re-inventing the wheel is a waste of time and resources and when millions of people are doing so it becomes a serious case of extravagance. Therefore I put forward this proposal for a model of what i term a metasite. This is not a new term but i'm using it in a specific sense which is new. You set up a site (in fact NCN already exists and could be the paradigm for this) and you link it to already existing other sites which are chosen for their excellence in certain areas. For example, for instant feeds and comment you would go to Twitter, for breaking news a site that excelled in that, for networking Facebook, for programming emulators you would go to appropriate ones, and there are dozens on the web. In this way somebody could pick 'n' mix a personalized array of features which included common features such as blogs and chat rooms and messaging and set up their own site which utilised the resources of lower level sites. Whether this is legal or not i do not know and it might be imaginally called a parasite (if you will excuse the expression). I think this is what is already gradually emerging in the form of shared and integrated sites and systems and databases. It would be like a client/server at a higher level of sharing resources. In this way innumerable made to measure sites could be constructed without vastly over-duplicating resources and services. what do you think? More >
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18 Jun 2010 @ 03:27
Over the last few years I have had a number of ideas on how to improve existing search engines and develope new ones. I am looking for interested parties to co-operate on implementing these ideas, particularly people with qualifications in Search Engine Software Technology. If you would like to get involved please contact me on grievejohn@hotmail.com More >
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18 Jun 2010 @ 02:36
I enjoy programming in Applesoft BASIC and 6502 machine code/ Assembler and to this end I employ suitable emulators/ simulators. It occurred to me that there might be other current or would-be programmers out there who might be interested in joining a group of like-minded people.We would set up an internal NCN group and provide links to all the relevant emulator/ simulators as well as providing assistance with know how and swapping notes and stories. Before setting up such a group I am testing the market to see if there is a demand for this group. Programming is fun and the results are worth the effort.
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