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Bible and Theology

#416: Does Archaeological Silence Disprove the Exodus?

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #416, on the subject of Does Archaeological Silence Disprove the Exodus?.

This is a continuation of a response to the article Ten Reasons Why the Bible’s Story of the Exodus Is Not True, requested by a Facebook contact.  The introductory article was #415:  Can the Exodus Story Be True?

After stating that no scholars believe the event happened (having conveniently eliminated from consideration any that do), the article offers as its first reason that there is “No evidence in history or in the ground,” that is, neither any historical accounts nor any archaeological evidence supporting the event.

Of course, the statement that there are no historical accounts begins by excluding the Bible itself from consideration.  That’s not entirely unfair.  After all, the question is whether the Biblical account is corroborated elsewhere.  We might, however, wonder where else it might have been corroborated.

We are told that the Egyptians themselves did not record the departure of millions of slaves and the embarrassing destruction of their army and death of their pharaoh in pursuit.  While this may seem a problem, the Exodus account gives us events that were embarrassing on many levels.  According to Exodus, before God delivered Israel from Egypt He made a point of upstaging the entire Egyptian pantheon.  To us those plagues seem like somewhat random disasters, but in that time and place they were demonstrations that God’s power exceeded the power of any of the separate gods of Egypt.  For the simplest example, darkness over the entire land meant that God’s power exceeded the power of Ra, the Sun God.  For this story to be recounted in detail, they would be publishing the fact that the gods they worshipped, and indeed the gods whose recognition gave authority to the priests and to the Pharaoh himself, were inferior to the God of Israel.  There is every reason to believe that Egypt took steps, what we would today call public relations damage control.

Beyond that, as Israel entered the land they claimed as their own, they destroyed the civilizations that existed there.  They didn’t destroy all of them, but then Assyria and Babylon came through and finished the job.  By the time of Nebuchadnezzar, there were no countries in the region with historic records to compare.  Israel was the only “little” nation to survive.

We also do have what can reasonably be thought to be cross confirmation.  Assuming that the Book of Joshua was written independently of Exodus, in Joshua 2:10 Rahab of Jericho states that the people of that city were terrified of the Jews because they had heard about God drying up the Red Sea so they could cross.  That means that whether or not God parted the Red Sea, forty years later the people in the Middle East believed it had happened.  That Israel destroyed those civilizations utterly does not invalidate their own report that that knowledge existed.

As to the lack of archaeological evidence, the argument from silence is always dangerous, and the more so when used in archaeology.  The fact that we have not found evidence of some event or site is not proof of anything.  As one archaeologist put it, the sites that will have survived at all preserve less than 5% of everything that once was; those which we have identified are fewer than 5% of that, those which we have begun to investigate are fewer than 5% of that, and the amount of each of those which we have actually uncovered is less than 5% of the total.  For those not good at math, 5% of 5% of 5% of 5% is roughly six in a million.

Of course, that doesn’t prove that the biblical accounts are true, only that they can’t be falsified by this argument.

The famed pioneering middle eastern archaeologist William F. Albright began his career with the belief that nothing in the historical records of the Bible was true.  Over the course of his career he discovered so many things that confirmed not only that reported sites, such as King Solomon’s stables, existed, but that they were exactly where and when the Bible stated they were.  By the end of his career, the early historical books of the Bible were references he used to help locate dig sites.

Of course, the Exodus account is considerably older than that–which is a factor in why archaeology supporting it is so rare.  So, too, is the fact that our Israelites were reported to be nomads, constantly on the move, living in tents, creating no permanent buildings.  There was very little that would have lasted long enough to become archaeological evidence.  About the only thing that might have survived would be the bones of the dead, by now buried so deeply under so much insignificant coverage that no one would know where to look, or what they found if they did.  Even so, there have been finds that possibly corroborate the events, such as ancient Egyptian chariot wheels in the Gulf of Aqaba, one of the suspected sites for the crossing of the Red Sea.  Liberal scholars will generally say that since the miracles never happened, there is another explanation for those discoveries; but if you argue that there is no evidence and ignore such evidence as might be relevant, that’s a losing argument.

So the argument from silence, it seems to me, is essentially saying that if no one else knows the secret it must not be true.  History is filled with secrets and coverups, many of which are true.

Bible and Theology

#415: Can the Exodus Story Be True?

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #415, on the subject of Can the Exodus Story Be True?.

A Facebook contact sent me a link to an article, Ten Reasons Why the Bible’s Story of the Exodus Is Not True, and asked for my comments on it.  After some consideration, I determined that the only effective way to tackle such a massive undertaking was to create another web log miniseries.  Here it is.

The first point that must be considered is the early statement “…most experts and scholars dismiss the story as mythology.”  Although the article does mention that there are what it calls “literalists” who believe that the events happened, it cites none of them in its presentation, and this reflects a very particular form of bias among liberal scholarship.  We might call it a litmus test.

I heard Reverend David Redding talk about his own journey to faith, in which he ultimately confronted the question of whether the miracles reported in the Gospels actually occurred.  He noted that C. S. Lewis believed in miracles, which was interesting.  Lewis was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and a respected writer in the field of myth and legend.  However, liberal Bible scholars insisted that he was no scholar precisely because he believed in miracles.  (He wrote an excellent book on the subject, Miracles:  A Preliminary Study.)  Therein lay the problem:  no credible scholars believed in miracles because a belief in miracles automatically disqualified you from being a credible scholar.

Thus in citing scholars for the article, the author sticks to “credible” liberal scholars and ignores anyone who believes that the miraculous might have happened, dismissing them perfunctorily.  I note, for example, that a professor from Hebrew Union is cited.  Hebrew Union is liberal enough, as Jewish institutions go, that they conferred a degree on Dr. Marvin Wilson, as such authorizing him to teach at any synagogue.  Dr. Wilson is no liberal, but he is an Evangelical Episcopalian who was chairman of the Biblical Studies department at the Evangelical school Gordon College.  Conservative Jews are not comfortable with his rabbinic ordination.  He, incidentally, believes that the Exodus did occur.

Liberal scholars begin with the belief that miracles cannot happen and therefore never did happen, and that because of this any claimed historic accounts which contain them must be false.  It then becomes the task of the “scholar” to explain not how these things happened but how these documents which make impossible claims about supposed historic events came into existence.  You have a problem of presuppositions:  since these books contain records of impossible events requiring divine intervention to have occurred, they must be false, and we have to find another way to explain them.  The article begins from the assumption that the account is false, and looks for ways to demonstrate it, rather than approaching the evidence in an open and fair way.

In fairness, the article raises what must be called “practical” issues, and this series will attempt to address them in the articles ahead.

As a final caveat, I am not an Old Testament scholar.  My studies are very much focused on the New Testament; my Hebrew is limited to a few words which I cannot even spell because I do not know the Hebrew alphabet.  I studied these questions half a century ago, have lost all my books, and am working predominantly from memory.  I will recommend the work of Josh McDowell; his More Evidence That Demands A Verdict provided excellent insights into several of these issues and got Jeff Zurheide and me through a very grueling Old Testament Origins course (OT337) with Dr. G. Lloyd Carr back then.  He has written more since then, but I have not had the privilege of reading it.

Bible and Theology, Music

#414: The Song “You Should Have Thanked Me”

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #414, on the subject of The Song “You Should Have Thanked Me”.

I am not entirely certain when I wrote this.  My inclination is that it was the late 70s or early 80s, largely because I wrote it on a piano and in the key of C with a lot of major seventh chords–but later than a lot of other songs that fit that description.  It was written with three backup vocals, but has never been so performed or recorded.  This recording is of a live performance at the Silverlake Community Church in Upper Deerfield, New Jersey, where I would frequently visit on Sunday mornings and usually be invited to sing something.  It was recorded in June of 2011.  It’s a WMA format, so it might take a moment to download.

I like a lot about the song, the concept, the message, the way it’s constructed musically and lyrically, and I ranked it number 21.  The performance held it back–partly because it’s a solo performance so it doesn’t have the backup vocals.  I ranked that 30th.  But it’s a solid performance with only a couple of minor mistakes.  I’m also quite pleased with the improvised introduction (although the volume difference between my talking and my singing is rather large).  On the downside, that sound throughout that resembles spilled groceries tumbling down a staircase is the contribution of a dear brother named Rich who apparently decided that the song he had never heard would be enhanced if he used the opportunity to teach himself to play drums on the trap set on the other side of the sanctuary.  I think that I was unaware of this at the time.  Tristan did not list the song, which put it at number 29.

You Should Have Thanked Me.

So here are the lyrics.

You should have thanked me (For loving you}.
You should have praised me (For all I do).
I came through for you
In ev’rything I put you through.
You should have thanked me (For loving you}.
You should have praised me (For all I do).
You should have thanked me.

When skies are overcast
You think that you can’t last.
Oh, don’t you know I’ll bring you through?
When things are lookin’ bad
Why do you look so sad?
Oh, don’t you know what I can do?

Consider it all joy, each trial has been given in love.
I’m making you ready for your place in heaven above.

I’m your Father.
You know I’ll take care of you.
‘Though it looks bad you know that I’m perfecting you.

You should have thanked me (For loving you}.
You should have praised me (For all I do).
You should have thanked me (For loving you}.
You should have praised me (For all I do).
You should have thanked me.

I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way.  I will continue with additional songs in the future.

*****

Previous web log song posts:

#301:  The Song “Holocaust” | #307:  The Song “Time Bomb” | #311:  The Song “Passing Through the Portal” | #314:  The Song “Walkin’ In the Woods” | #317:  The Song “That’s When I’ll Believe” | #320:  The Song “Free” | #322:  The Song “Voices” | #326:  The Song “Mountain, Mountain” | #328:  The Song “Still Small Voice” | #334:  The Song “Convinced” | #337:  The Song “Selfish Love” | #340:  The Song “A Man Like Paul” | #341:  The Song “Joined Together” | #346:  The Song “If We Don’t Tell Them” | #349: The Song “I Can’t Resist You’re Love” | #353:  The Song “I Use to Think” | #356:  The Song “God Said It Is Good” | #362:  My Life to You | #366:  The Song “Sometimes” | #372:  The Song “Heavenly Kingdom” | #378:  The Song “A Song of Joy” | #382:  The Song “Not Going to Notice” | #387:  The Song “Our God Is Good” | #393:  The Song “Why” | #399:  The Song “Look Around You” | #404:  The Song “Love’s the Only Command” | #408:  The Song “Given You My Name” | #412:  The Song “When I Think”

Next song:  To the Victor

Bible and Theology

#413: The Abomination of Desolation

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #413, on the subject of The Abomination of Desolation.

I received a question by private message.  I prefer to answer questions publicly, partly so that more can benefit and partly so I don’t have to answer them again, so I am copying it here:

Have another biblical question for you.  What is the desolating sacrilege?  I have always been puzzled by this verse in Mark.  Is it in fact referring to the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans?

It should be said that there are interpreters who believe that it in fact refers to events still in the future, and that is not impossible.  However, there are at least three reasons to believe that it is about the destruction of the city in the first century.

The reference appears in Mark 13:14, and is paralleled rather closely in Matthew 24:15, and particularly the words my questioner cites as “desolating sacrilege” which is usually referenced as “the abomination of desolation”.  Looking at the context, in Mark 13:1 the disciples comment on the grandeur of the temple, and in the next verse Jesus declares that the entire structure is going to be totally demolished.  Two verses later the disciples ask when that is going to happen, and Jesus launches into a teaching which we think is about the end of the world but which if it is answering the question that was asked and not the question that the disciples thought they were asking is actually about the destruction of the temple.  The same sequence happens in Matthew 24:1ff.  Thus when we get to the abomination of desolation, it logically is still about that destruction.  Titus and the Roman Legions wrought that kind of devastation in 70 A.D., and so the prediction is consistent with that event.

We have the same circumstance launching the same question and the same teaching in Luke 21:5ff, and that gives us our second reason.  Following all three accounts, they go through the same pattern up to the statement that the one who endures will be saved, in Mark 13:13, Matthew 24:13, and Luke 21:19, and in Matthew and Mark the next verse is the one in question here.  However, in Luke 21:20 the following text translates (my translation) to “Yet when you see encircling Jerusalem by armies, then know that her devastation is impending”, and the next verses in all three accounts tell us to flee to the mountains.  It thus seems that Luke has replaced “abomination of desolation” with “Jerusalem besieged”–but Luke fairly commonly replaces phrases that would have particular meaning to a Jewish audience with words expressing the same concept to those in the greater Greco-Roman world.  Thus if we honor Luke’s understanding, what Mark and Matthew called “the abomination of desolation” was understood to refer to the siege of Jerusalem, which again fits the events of A.D. 70.  Some will say no, Luke is talking about something else, but since in the next verse he is back on track with the others either we have to say that Luke’s Gospel is in error here, or Luke has provided us with the correct meaning of that phrase.

What might be most telling, though, is that next part, where all three Gospels tell us to flee from Jerusalem.  The problem is that once the city is surrounded, it’s too late to escape.  However, history tells us that Titus brought his legions to Jerusalem and surrounded it, but then was called to withdraw due to a different problem, leaving the city for a brief period, then returning and finishing the job.  It was probably the case that devout but unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem believed that the withdrawal of Titus was the hand of God saving them, but Christians had this prophecy and so would have known to leave.

It might be suggested that a similar siege will occur in the future, but warfare has changed since then and such a siege is unlikely as a military strategy in the modern world.  The circumstances seem to be very particular to that event, and thus we should probably understand Jesus as predicting the first century destruction of Jerusalem.

As a footnote, we don’t have much in the way of historic confirmation of the fact that the Christians did leave Jerusalem at that time, and the suggestion has been made from that that Luke interpreted the statement after the fact to make it fit the events.  However, C. S. Lewis has somewhere noted that this is irrelevant.  By the end of the century the book was certainly in circulation, so either Christians did exit the city or they had to explain why having been warned in advance they had failed to do so, and on a naturalist viewpoint Luke would have been very foolish to include a prophetic command that had not been followed.  Therefore Luke is either providing the warning in advance or explaining after the fact why it was that Christians knew to flee the city at that time.  Either way, the pre-existence of the prediction (before the event) is confirmed.

I hope that helps.

Bible and Theology, Music

#412: The Song “When I Think”

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #412, on the subject of The Song “When I Think”.

I have long had a sort of love/hate relationship with this song.

It started when I was writing it.  I fought with the second and third verses for quite a while, and when I was finished fighting I was still quite unhappy about it.  I thought that the the second verse should be about Him always being there, and the third about being brought back, but from the first notes I knew this was a deathbed song, and it seemed obvious that the third verse had to establish that to lead into the fourth, and I could not get the words to work that way with the verses in that order.  Meanwhile, the second half of the second verse just always struck me as trite, and the third as a touch awkward, and I couldn’t make them better than that.

Plus, it was a deathbed song, and I was a bit uncomfortable as someone who struggled with suicidal tendencies related to clinical depression singing about dying.

Still, I included it on the program for the last concert of The Last Psalm.  We had the vocalists for it, and I did not know whether I would ever have the right combination for it again.  It was probably the only time the song was ever sung for an audience the way I envisioned it.

Not long after The Last Psalm dissolved, Jeff Zurheide asked me to play in Jacob’s Well.  In the interim I had written a song that I thought was perfect for that band–three vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and a solid upbeat feel with a good message.  (That song comes later on the list.)  He said no.  He wanted to do this song–a song I had not yet decided that I liked, and completely wrong for the band.  Jacob’s Well had no female vocals, no piano.  I didn’t see it–but it wasn’t my choice, so Jacob’s Well did an arrangement that was not at all what I envisioned for the song.  It did not endear the song to me.

I might have sung the song for myself sometimes; I might have done it solo somewhere.  No other band ever did it.  In fact, it could have slipped into oblivion itself had it not been for that request from Jess Oldham that I produce a disk of Last Psalm songs and I was scratching around trying to find songs I could record that had at some point been part of that band’s repertoire.

Even then, it gave me more unhappiness.  It was obvious that the soprano, which soared to an F on the fourth verse, was entirely out of my range, so I had to rearrange vocals so that that became the tenor and the top part was what had been the alto.  Even then, though, it was trouble.  I had written it in the key of F, and as I tried to record what was now the soprano there were so many Cs my voice gave out.  I had to go away and come back, pitch the whole song down to the key of D, and record the vocals with A as the highest note.  So it didn’t sound as bright as the original, and frankly it would be more difficult for any of the instruments to play it in this key.

All that said, there is something about the song that touches something, and ultimately I would pick this song to be played at my funeral.  It says something worth saying.

This recording is four vocals over midi instruments.  I ranked the song twenty-eighth for the music and lyrics, twentieth for the performance and recording quality; it did not make Tristan’s list, putting it twenty-eighth overall.

When I Think.

So here are the lyrics.

When I think of what You’ve given me
I just want to praise Your name.
When I think of what You’ve been for me,
I’m so glad You’ve stayed the same.
All my trials are over now.

When I think of how You’ve brought me back
Ev’ry time I’ve gone astray–
When I thought I’d really blown it bad,
You had something nice to say.
All my trials are over now.

When I think of how You’d be right there
Ev’ry time I’d need a friend.
And You’ve shown me that You always care
Right up to this very end.
All my trials are over now.

Now I know You’re gonna take me home
Now to live with You above,
Holy Father and Your Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, live in love.
All my trials are over now.

In my last words I would like to say
You should do as I have done:
Always follow, trust, love, and obey
Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.
All my trials are over now.
All my trials are over now.

I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way.  I will continue with additional songs in the future.

*****

Previous web log song posts:

#301:  The Song “Holocaust” | #307:  The Song “Time Bomb” | #311:  The Song “Passing Through the Portal” | #314:  The Song “Walkin’ In the Woods” | #317:  The Song “That’s When I’ll Believe” | #320:  The Song “Free” | #322:  The Song “Voices” | #326:  The Song “Mountain, Mountain” | #328:  The Song “Still Small Voice” | #334:  The Song “Convinced” | #337:  The Song “Selfish Love” | #340:  The Song “A Man Like Paul” | #341:  The Song “Joined Together” | #346:  The Song “If We Don’t Tell Them” | #349: The Song “I Can’t Resist You’re Love” | #353:  The Song “I Use to Think” | #356:  The Song “God Said It Is Good” | #362:  My Life to You | #366:  The Song “Sometimes” | #372:  The Song “Heavenly Kingdom” | #378:  The Song “A Song of Joy” | #382:  The Song “Not Going to Notice” | #387:  The Song “Our God Is Good” | #393:  The Song “Why” | #399:  The Song “Look Around You” | #404:  The Song “Love’s the Only Command” | #408:  The Song “Given You My Name”

Next song:  You Should Have Thanked Me

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#411: Quest Concludes

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #411, on the subject of Quest Concludes.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus Versers, in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I am posting the seventh, Re Verse All,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the twenty-sixth and final mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 150 through 156.  It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book.  Previous entries were:

  1. #354:  Versers Reorienting, covering chapters 1 through 6;
  2. #355:  Versers Resettling, for chapters 7 through 12.
  3. #357:  Characters Connect, for chapters 13 through 18.
  4. #359:  Characters Engage, for chapters 19 through 24.
  5. #361:  Characters Explore, for chapters 25 through 30.
  6. #364:  Characters Learn, for chapters 31 through 36.
  7. #365:  Characters Travel, for chapters 37 through 42.
  8. #367:  Versers Encounter, for chapters 43 through 48.
  9. #370:  Characters Confront, for chapters 49 through 54.
  10. #373:  Nervous Characters, for chapters 55 through 60.
  11. #376:  Characters Arrive, for chapters 61 through 66.
  12. #379:  Character Conundrums, for chapters 67 through 72.
  13. #381:  World Complications, for chapters 73 through 78.
  14. #383:  Character Departures, for chapters 79 through 84.
  15. #385:  Characters Ascend, for chapters 85 through 90.
  16. #388:  Versers Climb, for chapters 91 through 96.
  17. #390:  World Facilities, for chapters 97 through 102.
  18. #392:  Characters Resting, for chapters 103 through 108.
  19. #395:  Character Obstacles, for chapters 109 through 114.
  20. #397:  Verser Challenges, for chapters 115 through 120.
  21. #401:  Characters Hiking, for chapters 121 through 126.
  22. #403:  Versers Innovating, for chapters 127 through 132.
  23. #405:  Versers Converge, for chapters 133 through 138.
  24. #407:  Versers Integrate, for chapters 139 through 144.
  25. #409:  Characters Cooperate, for chapters 145 through 150.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 151, Beam 116

I wanted Beam to be forced into a fight before he reached the surface, and I was running out of time, but this seemed the way to do it.  I realized that just about anything that I could set up Dawn could handle without blinking an eye, but I needed it to be Beam who fought.  Having the Manner charge from across the room made it an easy situation.

I knew that Lauren would pray for the wounded man as soon as she got there, and that the result would be the arrival of the medbot, but by having Beam call for the medbot before she got there no one would be surprised at its arrival.

Chapter 152, Hastings 231

I started with the fact that Lauren wanted to know what happened to the gunshot victim and that Beam wanted all the versers in one apartment but had to squeeze three times the capacity into the space, and followed the thread to the place where Sophia wanted to know about healing magic, which to Lauren meant faith in Jesus.

Chapter 153, Takano 58

When I started this chapter I thought it would be Tommy’s reflections as she walked; then I remembered that I wanted to include a speech by Beam inviting the people who lived there to come with them.  Thus I didn’t get as far as I anticipated.

I have no idea whether none, some, or all of the other group is going to join them, but at this point I don’t have to decide.  Beam will have to know when he tries to do lunch.

I feel like this is dragging.  When I brought Lauren and Tommy together I thought the book was almost finished and that it was going to be short, in terms of chapters.  It is now one of the longer ones, chapter-wise.  That’s good in the sense that it might give me time to write the next one, but I’m hoping these chapters are worth reading.

Chapter 154, Beam 117

I knew that Beam was going to reach the outside, but then get killed; I even knew roughly how he would get killed, but not exactly where or when.  At this point I was putting the final pieces on that, and setting up the fact that Lauren was going to have to take over the part about creating a world outside.

Chapter 155, Hastings 232

I knew for a long time that the top of the ramp would be inside a building.  I had considered a warehouse, but it seemed to me that warehousing would not make sense here–there might be warehouses for some goods on the surface, and there might be warehousing for some goods on the lower levels, but the entrance would have to be a traffic hub, and therefore a huge garage and repair facility.

The idea that it was night and raining was a solution to an unanticipated problem.  Beam had bought dinner and it made sense for him to envision a picnic on the lawn on a sunny day; he was never going to get outside, because he was about to be versed out trying to hotwire a door.  If that happened while the food was still in his carts, they would go with him, and Lauren would be faced with feeding the multitude.  Thus I had to have a reason for Beam to feed the people before they stepped out of the hangar, and a dark rainy night was an effective deterrent.  I’m not sure what day will be like, but I think I don’t need to answer that in this book.

Chapter 156, Takano 59

This was strange, because I felt as if the ending had dragged on for a long time, and then quite abruptly in two chapters it was over.

I already know how Lauren opens the door, and what she begins doing from here, but I’m going to have to write some book nine chapters since I think Lauren and Tommy will skip book eight–but I’m not certain of that, as I’m not sure whether I want book eight to be Kondor, Slade, and Brown.  I’ll have to read over the opening chapters I have for each of them and make a decision, but then, they are all at cliffhangers from book six, and dropping any one of them out of the scene until book nine might be unfair to the readers.

It was always the case that Beam was going to electrocute himself trying to do something with one of the high-voltage boxes on the surface of the planet.  The player on whom he was based was trying to tap power to recharge some kind of robot by breaking into a box intended for something else along an electrified fence.  I couldn’t think of a way to make that work, but electric doors on the garage provided me with a solution.

As I was finishing this final behind-the-writings post, I settled on the name In Verse Proportion for the next.  I had already decided that it would include Bob Slade in an industrial revolution era of the parakeet world, Joe Kondor still in the Twin Rivers Caliphate, and Derek Brown aboard the lost colony spaceship.  I’ve also worked out the gather, which will use The Farmland Beta from Multiverser:  The Second Book of Worlds, probably in Slade’s world, which is a bit higher tech level than the book but should work admirably.

I was just over a week from publishing the last chapter of this book when it struck me that in book nine I expected Lauren to settle the people in a primitive camping community in a meadow by a lake, and that Con Verse Lea would be a good name for it, so I marked some of the preliminary papers with that.  At this point I had not more than some very basic ideas framing the opening of those stories.

This has been the twenty-sixth and final behind the writings look at Re Verse All.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.

Bible and Theology

#410: When to Pray

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #410, on the subject of When to Pray.

I often mention that I’ve been studying the Bible since I had The Golden Book of Bible Stories as a preschooler, and I was saying grace before meals and prayers before bed back then as well.  However, the issue of when a believer should say prayers and spend time in scripture sometimes arises, and although I addressed this some in What Does God Expect? it is worth revisiting here.  We are instructed to “pray without ceasing”, but few of us manage even to approach that, and even with the notion of a constant attitude of prayer, specific times of prayer and study still seem necessary.

It was apparent that I was more immersed in the Bible than most of my peers when in eighth grade the local Presbyterian church we had only recently begun attending selected me as one of their two representatives on the NBC radio Bible quiz, and we advanced to the finals.  I inherently recognized the importance of reading and understanding scripture, and immersed myself in it frequently.  I recall one occasion on which I was applying a highlighter to a copy of the Revised Standard Version while riding in a school bus to a marching band competition.  Yet it wasn’t until I was in college that I recognized the importance of regular prayer and study.  By “regular” at that time I meant “daily”, with some kind of prayer list, a minimum amount of time, a specified reading plan, and a scheduled timeslot.  I have learned much about each of those aspects, and adjusted them many times over the decades, but it is that last that I thought to address here.  I received advice on it from many quarters, although not much of it was all that helpful.

Many who have been dynamic figures in the faith have pressed the notion that every day should begin not merely with, “Good morning, Lord, I’m awake now, thank you,” but with an extended time in prayer and study.  Someone has said that if he is anticipating a particularly long and busy day, he gets up three hours earlier to spend the extra time in prayer.  I admire people who do that, and if you can, knock yourself out.  I am not a morning person, and when I have tried to do devotions early I have generally found myself falling asleep on top of the Bible.  I had to accept that morning devotions did not work for me.

The second option was obvious:  always make sure you get your devotions in before bed.  This suffered a similar fate, and although it was usually easier for me to push myself to stay up later than to get up earlier, there were still many times when I was struggling to stay awake while reading and praying.  The additional complication was that as long as I was single I could try to stay up later and pay the penalty in morning weariness, but once I was married my wife was always calling me to come to bed, and I realized that this was complicating my married life.

Malcolm Smith had some excellent advice on this.  It doesn’t matter when you pray and study, as long as you do, and a regular schedule will help ensure that you do.  For some people with rigorous schedules, securing a private room during the scheduled lunch break is a viable option.  Alas, never having had that kind of structure, I had to carve the time from my home life for most of my life.

That made it a bit hit-or-miss, that there would be days when I did not get to pray more than–well, over the years I’ve learned to pray when I hear sirens, when I’m driving long stretches alone, and at other odd moments.  Establishing prayer triggers is helpful in this regard, and if you see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle that’s a good reason to pray even if they are not coming for you.  This is the value of “grace” before meals and prayers before bed and other “ritual” prayers, that they remind us we should always be praying and call us to do so at this moment.  But that’s not the same as putting aside time to spend with God, and the latter is important.

As life is now, it’s rare that I have two consecutive days with schedules at all similar.  As a consequence, I have developed an attitude that whenever I have a reasonable opportunity to get alone for an hour, I open my prayer list, start a timer, and start praying.  If I get interrupted, I usually try to pause the timer and return to it at my earliest opportunity.

I don’t always get the full hour into the day, but that’s fine.  This isn’t a law; it’s a privilege.  I don’t always eat breakfast, or lunch, or indeed a decent scheduled meal to which I can attach a name.  Life is like that.  Spending some of it with God is a priority, but it’s not a requirement.  I make the time when I can, and go from there.

I also try to include in my day other activities that have me focused on my faith–such as writing this article.  Exactly what you do with your quiet time doesn’t have to be much more consistent than exactly what you eat at your mealtimes.  What matters is focusing your life on Christ.  Doing so through specifically focused times helps that, but if it doesn’t always work out God is not upset.

Books by the Author

#409: Characters Cooperate

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #409, on the subject of Characters Cooperate.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus Versers, in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I am posting the seventh, Re Verse All,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the twenty-fifth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 145 through 150.  It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book.  Previous entries were:

  1. #354:  Versers Reorienting, covering chapters 1 through 6;
  2. #355:  Versers Resettling, for chapters 7 through 12.
  3. #357:  Characters Connect, for chapters 13 through 18.
  4. #359:  Characters Engage, for chapters 19 through 24.
  5. #361:  Characters Explore, for chapters 25 through 30.
  6. #364:  Characters Learn, for chapters 31 through 36.
  7. #365:  Characters Travel, for chapters 37 through 42.
  8. #367:  Versers Encounter, for chapters 43 through 48.
  9. #370:  Characters Confront, for chapters 49 through 54.
  10. #373:  Nervous Characters, for chapters 55 through 60.
  11. #376:  Characters Arrive, for chapters 61 through 66.
  12. #379:  Character Conundrums, for chapters 67 through 72.
  13. #381:  World Complications, for chapters 73 through 78.
  14. #383:  Character Departures, for chapters 79 through 84.
  15. #385:  Characters Ascend, for chapters 85 through 90.
  16. #388:  Versers Climb, for chapters 91 through 96.
  17. #390:  World Facilities, for chapters 97 through 102.
  18. #392:  Characters Resting, for chapters 103 through 108.
  19. #395:  Character Obstacles, for chapters 109 through 114.
  20. #397:  Verser Challenges, for chapters 115 through 120.
  21. #401:  Characters Hiking, for chapters 121 through 126.
  22. #403:  Versers Innovating, for chapters 127 through 132.
  23. #405:  Versers Converge, for chapters 133 through 138.
  24. #407:  Versers Integrate, for chapters 139 through 144.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 145, Beam 114

I didn’t really have much to write on this but to keep the group moving.  The book Lauren is reading is of course her Bible.

Chapter 146, Hastings 229

I knew Beam was going to have more confrontations, but that these would not be terribly interesting story-wise if they were always from his perspective.  The notion that some other tribe was occupying the buffet made for a good conflict which Lauren could both observe and resolve without being at the front of things.

Chapter 147, Takano 56

I knew that the space would become more crowded as they approached the surface, and decided that level six was a good spot for the real complications to begin.  The maintenance control room seemed a logical spot, as it would be spacious enough.

Chapter 148, Beam 115

I needed Tommy to practice, and Beam to recognize that she was not secretly a powerful ninja, and also to recognize some other things about them.

Having Beam discuss the problems ahead with Bron seemed the best option.

Chapter 149, Hastings 230

Since Tommy would be needed to lead the people back to the ramp, I figured I could put Bron in back and have some exchange of information between him and Lauren.  I also set myself up for her to teach him some magic, but of course we have that issue that the god of this world honors magic but tries to push people toward technology, so magic is wonky.

Chapter 150, Takano 57

I was filling Kyler in on some of what was happening in the story, and he commented that based on the personality of the person on whom the character was based he was pretty sure that Beam would have been flirting with Tommy.  That’s a problem for me, because I have no talent for flirting with younger girls, but apparently he does, so I was going to have to figure out how to work in that he was flirting somewhat effectively without pretending I know how to do that by writing it.  I’m still not sure how that’s going to work, but it starts with Tommy wondering about it.

I wrote part of it, then decided I was out of my depth, printed it for Kyler who was perhaps equally stymied, and then sent a message to friend Cassandra, who had helped with the question of how to get Tommy involved with her peers in the suburban world.

Ultimately I used a lateral break to get out of the flirting question; the discussion of physical training was really there as an escape.  I was still waiting to hear from my friend.  I had not heard from her before I finished the book.

This has been the twenty-fifth behind the writings look at Re Verse All.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.

Music

#408: The Song “Given You My Name”

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #408, on the subject of The Song “Given You My Name”.

For years my wife complained that I had never written a song for her.

She was, technically, right.  Although we had Sue Kirkegard (nee Adams) and Jackie Lund perform it at our wedding, I had written Joined Together for Dave and Jes Oldham.  Jan’s favorite wedding song, God Said It Is Good, was written for Rick and Debbie Van Norstrand.  I’d written several other wedding songs for various people, including one for my sister (which I thought particularly good, but unless I can get a copy of her wedding video it’s probably lost forever).  I’m sure she inspired every one of those songs, but they weren’t actually written for her.

This song remedied that.  I’m not sure when I wrote it, exactly; we had been married a long time.  Yet its simple message is exactly right.  This one is for Janet.

This recording is one made actually in my kitchen, if memory serves, so I would have a recording of it.  Since it really was just for me and her, I didn’t do any retakes; but it’s good enough and gets the point across.

Given You My Name.

So here are the lyrics.

Life is full of many blessings that we often fail to see.
You have been the greatest blessing that could ever come to me.
You are lots of fun to be with, but it isn’t just a game:
You’re my wife, the one I love, I’ve given you my name.

There are times when something little seems to get us in a fight,
And it’s clear before it’s over neither one of us is right.
Let’s give in and get together, and forget about the blame:
You’re my wife, the one I love, I’ve given you my name.

When I say that you’re pretty, believe that it’s so:
Your beauty is in my eye.
I’ll stay here forever if you never go,
Together until we die.

Yes I know we’re getting older as the years go flitting past;
Things we thought would be forever have already failed to last.
All the world and we are changing, yet still this much stays the same:
You’re my wife, the one I love, I’ve given you my name.

I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way.  I will continue with additional songs in the future.

*****

Previous web log song posts:

#301:  The Song “Holocaust” | #307:  The Song “Time Bomb” | #311:  The Song “Passing Through the Portal” | #314:  The Song “Walkin’ In the Woods” | #317:  The Song “That’s When I’ll Believe” | #320:  The Song “Free” | #322:  The Song “Voices” | #326:  The Song “Mountain, Mountain” | #328:  The Song “Still Small Voice” | #334:  The Song “Convinced” | #337:  The Song “Selfish Love” | #340:  The Song “A Man Like Paul” | #341:  The Song “Joined Together” | #346:  The Song “If We Don’t Tell Them” | #349: The Song “I Can’t Resist You’re Love” | #353:  The Song “I Use to Think” | #356:  The Song “God Said It Is Good” | #362:  My Life to You | #366:  The Song “Sometimes” | #372:  The Song “Heavenly Kingdom” | #378:  The Song “A Song of Joy” | #382:  The Song “Not Going to Notice” | #387:  The Song “Our God Is Good” | #393:  The Song “Why” | #399:  The Song “Look Around You” | #404:  The Song “Love’s the Only Command”

Next Song:  When I Think

Books by the Author

#407: Versers Integrate

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #407, on the subject of Versers Integrate.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus Versers, in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I am posting the seventh, Re Verse All,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the twenty-fourth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 139 through 144.  It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book.  Previous entries were:

  1. #354:  Versers Reorienting, covering chapters 1 through 6;
  2. #355:  Versers Resettling, for chapters 7 through 12.
  3. #357:  Characters Connect, for chapters 13 through 18.
  4. #359:  Characters Engage, for chapters 19 through 24.
  5. #361:  Characters Explore, for chapters 25 through 30.
  6. #364:  Characters Learn, for chapters 31 through 36.
  7. #365:  Characters Travel, for chapters 37 through 42.
  8. #367:  Versers Encounter, for chapters 43 through 48.
  9. #370:  Characters Confront, for chapters 49 through 54.
  10. #373:  Nervous Characters, for chapters 55 through 60.
  11. #376:  Characters Arrive, for chapters 61 through 66.
  12. #379:  Character Conundrums, for chapters 67 through 72.
  13. #381:  World Complications, for chapters 73 through 78.
  14. #383:  Character Departures, for chapters 79 through 84.
  15. #385:  Characters Ascend, for chapters 85 through 90.
  16. #388:  Versers Climb, for chapters 91 through 96.
  17. #390:  World Facilities, for chapters 97 through 102.
  18. #392:  Characters Resting, for chapters 103 through 108.
  19. #395:  Character Obstacles, for chapters 109 through 114.
  20. #397:  Verser Challenges, for chapters 115 through 120.
  21. #401:  Characters Hiking, for chapters 121 through 126.
  22. #403:  Versers Innovating, for chapters 127 through 132.
  23. #405:  Versers Converge, for chapters 133 through 138.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 139, Hastings 227

I had debated on what level Lauren and Tommy would encounter Beam, and had shifted in my mind from level four to level eight.  At the last moment I decided that it would be really odd for Lauren and Beam to have adopted the same day/night schedule, so I decided that the girls would be having dinner at the point where Beam was going to stop for lunch.  That meant an odd numbered level, and I went with level nine.  Lauren still has to decide to travel with Beam, which I’ll have to work out in the next chapter.

It was sort of a last minute decision to have Tommy in the hall when Beam arrived.  I had long known that when the confrontation occurred Lauren could easily raise her psionic shield (she doesn’t know absolutely that it would work, but it has been reliable in the past), but by putting Tommy out of sight I prevented her from doing so immediately.

Chapter 140, Beam 112

I needed to bring the two groups together cautiously.  The notion that Tommy’s graffiti distracted Beam giving the girl the chance to get back to Lauren before the confrontation was kind of abrupt.

The idea that Beam suspected Tommy of being a ninja was abrupt but logical.  After all, Beam wouldn’t take someone along who didn’t contribute in some significant way, and he is a bit awed by Lauren’s powers so he assumes that Tommy must offer something significant to that.

The television reference is to a Tom Baker Doctor Who episode, The Ribos Operation in The Key to Time series, in which the Doctor identifies a young man as a thief and Romana (Romana 1) makes the comment about his honest face and gets that response.

I knew the kawanaga was a ninja weapon, but didn’t expect anyone to recognize it as such so soon–but Beam’s gaming experience would have meant that, like Lauren, he was exposed to such weapons, and the more so because he was a more serious gamer than she was.  Of course, he doesn’t really care if she’s a ninja for the reasons that matter in game, but rather because he thinks that if she is that gives her hidden skills of which to be wary.

Chapter 141, Takano 54

I put Lauren and Tommy on rear guard partly so they could talk about their relationship with Beam.  I moved into the concerns about the computer mostly for fill, but it had occurred to me before that Tommy’s computers might be infected by whatever was bringing down the central system, and I wanted that to occur to her.

At this point I thought I should shift to running the three viewpoint characters in turn, but I had already decided that as they approached the surface they were going to encounter more groups of people, and it kind of had to start with level eight and Beam had to be the front man for it.

Chapter 142, Beam 113

I had not intended to get involved in an effort to fix the main computer, and for plot reasons I know it’s going to fail, but once Tommy started asking about the system problems, which really was inevitable, it just naturally led to a consideration of whether they could be repaired.  The notion of obtaining a clean copy of the basic operating system by ordering a new computer was valid, but won’t work because of the auto update feature that’s been incorporated in more recent computers.

This chapter was supposed to be the confrontation with another tribe, and instead turned into the computer discussion.  I’m not sure how the confrontation is going to play, particularly as it looks as if it has to be done from Lauren’s perspective, and she’s in the rear.

Chapter 143, Hastings 228

I struggled with how to convey the population problem, but it actually worked better with Lauren deducing the problem than it would have with me trying to have Beam confront multiple groups of residents.

I sort of stumbled into the mattress store idea.

Chapter 144, Takano 55

Once I had the mattress store idea it was obvious that Tommy would lead the way to get there.  It also gave me more spotlight for her, making her a more significant part of the group, and probably also showing Beam that she contributed something to the team.

This has been the twenty-fourth behind the writings look at Re Verse All.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.