People didn't really read back then like they do now. Like, everything wasn't precise, but rather worked through contextualized rather than denotative meaning and structure. Like, there'd be no people telling one another to define what a word means, and then sticking to that definition. People understood things through their relation.
A good example is Socrates talking to Euthyphro. Like, a lot of people misinterpret it, saying that Socrates is looking for a precise definition, when in fact, Socrates is not questioning his definition, but the ethical dilemma of testifying against your father, and thinking such a thing is Pious. The fact is, Piety is already understood by the audience--just like the notion of Good in Phaedo--and it's not what's being defined, but rather the impiety of thinking you have to destroy your father for nothing.
Socrates was not a Nihilist, and we tend to actually ascribe the methods of the Sophists when trying to understand the Greeks. And so with everything else. A lexicon in these days would be so rare, and it would only be understood in the most loose ways. Not something defined so precisely it becomes useless.
This is found in all strains of Philosophical understanding, from Lao Tsu and Confucius, to the Founding Fathers, to even men like Christ and Plato. The issue was always an assumption of "The Way" not baseless skepticism into it, through rigid empiricism, which is something new.
Amelia and Joan
How do I write such perfection?
It is like another hand has written it for me?
Yet, there it is in my handwriting,
There it is in my original drafts...
Curiously, I am that good of a writer.
It's like a word, which isn't mine,
Comes to my mind, and writes perfection.
It is the providential guidance of the Holy Spirit.
That is all I can say...
For His thoughts are not my thoughts;
And He has given liberally to me,
So that I may one day meet my Bride
Mercy, and kiss her with Peace,
And consummate my tongue through Wisdom.
An Example of my Mind Palace
Ezekiel 28 is the King and Prince of Tyre and Ziddon.
Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls with the Trojan Horse.
Homer wrote the Iliad, and probably meant to convey the Siege of Tyre.
Agamemnon is Nebuchadnezzar, and Alexander scraped the foundations
Of Tyre, and built a causeway and took Egypt for nothing. According to Prophecy.
Cambyses II took Egypt, and brought Pythagoras and the Egyptians down, to fulfill the 40 year captivity.
As did Titus when he sacked Jerusalem, and took the Jews into Captivity
It fulfilled the 40 year captivity. Jesus prophesied of the Temple's destruction;
The wailing wall still stands, is it indeed a part of the Temple
Or is there going to be a new destruction?
The Temple was outlaid with gold, and was white.
Jesus said the Pharisees were Whitewashed Tombs
Just like the Temple was whitewashed.
In Ezekiel, there will be a new Temple, and it seems heavenly.
Our Body is a Temple, and is the container of the Holy Spirit.
Haggai implored the rebuilding of the Temple, and tithing is necessary to keep prosperous.
This is proof of Dispensation, what the Temple is, and therefore the priesthood and law.
Do not sacrifice, if the Jews make a third temple. It is error, let Christ remain your sacrefice,
Or you will be caught like those who remained in Jerusalem were, surrounded by the Abomination of Desolation.
The Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, are typed in The King, Prince and Ziddon.
Also, they are typed in Moab, Egypt, Philistia, Assyria and Babylon.
Greece and Persia are the two main empires of latter days;
Islam and Communism is the religion of Persia, and Secularism and a Free Market is the religion of Grecia.
The Four Beasts in Daniel are divisions of those empires; the Iron Jowled Beast being the Antichrist Kingdom.
The poor are more important to tithe to, but do pay a shepherd.
Blessed are those who mourn, and also the poor.
Do not gain the world, and lose your soul.
Under Oath
The LORD is good, to perfect you
If you take His word into your stone heart.
Be under no Oath, but rather speak
The truth in your soul.
What I do, that hurts others
It is my sin, and that drives me to Christ.
For trust me when I say I am not perfect;
But we must desire the righteousness of God
To be happy, and perfected in peace, love and joy.
An Interpretation of Dymer
So while Dymer lay upon the grassy knolls
He lay there, dead among the valley's waste,
And had he known what were good wisdom's role
He would not have chased that awful, lusty wraith.
For, the life is fervent charity: not hate
Turned into one languished, dreadful, selfish loll---
So seek heaven's peace like a Comely Maiden's love.
On C. S. Lewis’ Epic Poem Dymer
Reading it, I get disgust---
It is only jealousy.
And I have a mind to understand
Why people hate what I do write.
It is because I failed at doing what he accomplished.
Realizing that, I submerged myself into the poem
And felt the youthful zeal, and strong affect
Of a wonderful youth writing his epic poem.
I felt my first burgeons of epic poetry
And what I hated I then loved
Because I realized what he did was what I wanted to do---
And that is why people hate me, too,
Is that snobbish acumen.
So, give me the mercy I gave Mr. Lewis
And you may find what is my weakest
Is indeed my strongest.
Like I did with him.
Modern Stupid
It says:
Myth: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.
Fact: Thomas Edison merely invented a way to keep it turned on.
Me: So, he invented the light bulb, because what use are they, if they don't stay turned on?
Myth: Lemmings commit mass suicide.
Fact: Lemmings don't commit suicide, they just explode in population, and end up dying on their migrations into oceans or over cliffs.
Me: Then lemmings commit suicide, because nobody's going to say a Rodent can have an existential crisis. What exactly are they doing, following each other to their deaths? And why do you think the metaphor works in the first place?
The Hunchback
Pushed onward from Dymer to Dymer
The armies assailed by the Red Headed Hunchback's
Maddened prophecies. The sky drew black as shod.
I looked on, as Alexander and his Huns
Outflanked the Phalanxes.
I saw where his victim lay slain
And I saw his teeth there like fangs.
On Plagiarism in Sermons
Plagiarism is such a difficult subject to navigate. Like both Keats and I can have similar themes about the Fall, but we didn't plagiarize each other. It's just the way Fall is, only a few things can be said about it. Which gets into Biblical Exegesis, there shouldn't be too many variations on the subject, because the Bible has one meaning. So, Matthew Henry, Jay Vernon McGee and myself will have a very similar thought process about what the Bible means, because that's just how meaning is.
Not saying these people [who read verbatim premade sermons] aren't plagiarists, but you have to be careful with defining it, because you can essentially outlaw all speech. Like the book Atticus copyrighted some pretty simple platitudes that happen a lot in text conversations, and surely nobody's plagiarizing Atticus when they find those phrases.
It's not all cut in dry. Simply, human thought is limited, so people will eventually come to similar ideas, even removed from each other by millennia or leagues.
And then you add to that, we comprise billions of bits of information we've found all our lives, to make us find what and how we came to all those ideas, you'd essentially outlaw free speech by proxy of making it all subject to someone's copyright.
What gets copyrighted are specific word patterns and ideas unique to you. Which the point of copyright and trademark is to help people make a living off their own inventions, not to essentially steal it from everyone else. As, the internal combustion engine had hundreds of variations, and what was copyrighted was each unique variation, not the process of internal combustion, which cannot be copyrighted.
On Jesus Being Emblematic
Jesus is not symbolic. He literally died, raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where He's seated at the right hand of the Father, in a resurrected body of the New Man.
It seems like [I'm] saying the Bible is symbolic. In a sense, [one] can believe that about the Old Testament, but a matured faith should lead you to the conclusion that it's not just symbolic, but actually physically happened too.
Augustine believed the Old Testament is symbolic. You are saved by Jesus, not by your belief in the Bible's inerrancy, although it helps to believe the Bible's true. But, the more important aspects of the faith, is belief in the Moral Law passed down to us, as that creates the conditions for peace and liberty and joy.
And also, you must testify that Jesus Christ is Come in the Flesh. Not merely a symbol or emblem, but was God's Son manifested in the Flesh, the Divine Word of the Holy Trinity.
B. K. Neifert 