Word Pictures

“Look at what you hear.”

For the past few years, my Biblical studies have been heavily influenced and guided by a desire to understand the Bible in the way it was understood around the First Century CE. I want to see how it fits together like Peter and Stephen and Paul saw. I want to have a fire in my heart like John the immerser. And, more than anything, I want to read and live out the Text like my Rabbi, Yeshua and be just like him.

This way of pursuit has radically changed my filters. Where before I read merely to find applicable content (which made much of the histories, genealogies, laws, and prophecies of the Old Testament seem incomprehensible or inconsequential), I now read for context. Before, I thought “the devil is in the details”; now, I see God there.

For example, reading Matthew 11:28-30 for applicable content doesn’t do much for me. I come away hearing that Yeshua gives rest, but not knowing how to get it. Why would he brag on his humility? What is his yoke? How do I encourage my weary friends who need rest? What do the previous paragraphs matter? I’m perplexed, so I move on…

On the other hand, reading the same passage for context reveals just how applicable his words are.

The Hayflick Limit

On the subject of a human age limit, dubbed “The Hayflick Limit” after a discovery made over fifty years ago:

In rich countries, more than 80% of the population today will survive past the age of 70. About 150 years ago, only 20% did. In all this while, though, only one person lived beyond the age of 120. This has led experts to believe that there may be a limit to how long humans can live…

…Other scientists used census data and complex modelling methods to come to the same conclusion: that maximum human lifespan may be around 120 years. But no one has yet determined whether we can change the human Hayflick limit to become more like long-lived organisms such as the bowhead whales or the giant tortoise.

(Via TheConversation.com)

 

On the subject of a human age limit, dubbed “Truth” after God declared it thousands of years ago

Then The Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

[Gen 6:3]

If the Bible is the Word of God, shouldn’t its claims match up with science?  Yes, it should; and, it does.  It just takes a while for science to catch up.

As a wise teacher once said, “There is nothing new under the sun…”