JR28: Paul's Easy Salvation

A: You've said that Paul's Temple teachings were very different from your own Kingdom teachings -- so much so that when your great-nephew "Mark" read what Paul had written in the letter called First Corinthians, he blew a gasket and started work on his own version of your teachings. Why was Mark so upset about Paul's Temple teachings?  

J: Mark knew that one of my basic teachings had been about the Jerusalem Temple and the stranglehold the Temple and its priests exerted on regular Jewish people. It was much the same equation as Martin Luther faced when he decided to go public with his rejection of Papal and Vatican corruption in the early 1500's. Luther didn't reject the idea of faith in God -- far from it. But he rejected a number of official claims made by the Church. He thought the Church was no longer representing the ideals of true Christian faith. So he protested. 

A: This was part of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.  

J: Yes. But Luther was protesting from within the Church, not from outside it. He was an Augustinian monk and priest, highly educated and highly devout. He held a doctorate in theology. So he wasn't easily dissuaded from the idea -- once he saw it -- that the Church wasn't "practising what it preached." I had the same problem with the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly hierarchy in my time. Once I saw the problem, I wasn't easily dissuaded. Much to the chagrin of my aristocratic family. 

A: You've said your mother was descended from the priestly bloodline. That must have given your family a lot of status, a lot of authority. 

J: My family was somewhat on the fringes of the power and authority that priestly families were entitled to. This was partly due to the fact that my mother's line wasn't descended from the "first son of the first son." We were related to the "junior sons," so to speak -- pretty good as far as pedigrees go, but not "the best of the best." Another factor was our geographical location. I wasn't born and raised in Jerusalem -- one of the hotbeds of Jewish political intrigue. I was born and raised in the city of Philadelphia, on the other side of the River Jordan. It was a Hellenized city, but also quite Jewish in its cultural norms, so I was raised with a strange mix of values and religious teachings. That's what allowed me, when I reached adulthood, to be more objective about trends in Jewish thought -- by that I mean the blend of religious, political, cultural, and social ideas that were intertwined in people's hearts and minds. I was far enough away from the Temple -- physically and geographically -- to be sceptical about the grandiose claims being made by the Temple priests.  

A: In the Gospel of Mark, it's quite apparent what the author thinks of the Temple. Mark shows you visiting all sorts of Jewish and Gentile locations to teach and heal, but the one place you don't visit till the end is Jerusalem. Things start to go badly for you as soon as you get to David's city. This is a strange claim to make if you're trying to promote the idea that Jesus is the prophesied Saviour of the Jewish people.  

J: Well, my great-nephew did think I was an important teacher, a rabbi who could help the Jewish people become free from oppression, but his understanding of my role was not the traditional Jewish understanding of who -- or what -- the Messiah would be. Mark was a very spiritual fellow -- a free thinking Jewish scholar who made his own observations and his own decisions. He got a little carried away, I think, with the idea that I was an important teacher, but on the whole he embraced my ideas about the Kingdom and did his best to live them. 

A: Mark wrote his gospel before the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. 

“Jesus said: Grapes are not harvested from thornbushes, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. A good person brings forth good from his treasury; a bad person brings forth evil things from his mind’s corrupt treasury, and he speaks evil things. For out of the excesses of his mind he brings forth evil things” (Gospel of Thomas 45 a-b). The photo shows a marble Mithraic relief, (restored), from Rome 100-200 CE on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Mithraic Mysteries, in so far as we know what they entailed, showed uncanny similarities to the teachings of Paul. The teachings of Jesus, meanwhile, explicitly rejected the occult practices and secret rituals of mystery cults. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: Yes. And this is an important detail to bear in mind. Paul and Mark both wrote their comments about the Temple before the Temple was physically destroyed. This fact is important to bear in mind, especially when you're trying to understand what Mark is saying. Mark was seriously -- and I mean seriously -- pissed off about Paul's "moveable Temple." For Mark, as for me, the only way to free the Jewish people to know God and be in full relationship with God was for us to confront the harm and the hypocrisy of the Jewish Temple -- a huge, bloated, phenomenally expensive physical structure that had robbed people of their livelihood through high taxes and ongoing dues, payments, sacrifices, and obligatory pilgrimages. Herod the Great spent a fortune -- a literal fortune -- on his building projects. His children continued his habit of profligate spending on status symbols to impress the rest of the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the widows and orphans and foreigners we were supposed to look after -- according to Exodus -- were going hungry and selling themselves into slavery because of their poverty. This was unacceptable to me and to many others. I certainly wasn't alone in being outraged at the unfairness, the hypocrisy, the status addiction, and the corruption. 

A: Chapter 13 of Mark has long puzzled Christian scholars. It's viewed by reputable scholars such as Bart Ehrman as a "little apocalypse" because it seems to prophesy the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. They use this chapter as part of their proof that you yourself claimed to be an apocalyptic prophet. How do you respond to that?  

J: Without wishing to be harsh, I'd say these biblical scholars need to refresh their memory on what the earlier Jewish prophetic books and Jewish apocalypses actually said about the role of the Temple in the prophesied End Times. It's clear that highly revered earlier writers such as First Isaiah and Second Isaiah and Zechariah believed the physical Temple on Mount Zion (i.e. Jerusalem) would be absolutely central to the ideal future restoration of Judah in the End Times. Yet Mark uses imagery from apocalyptic texts like Daniel to turn these predictions on their head. Mark 13 shouldn't be called the "little apocalypse": it should be called the "anti-apocalypse" because of the way it intentionally subverts and repudiates the prophecies of Zechariah. Mark may be attacking Paul's theology throughout his own gospel, but he uses well-known Hebrew prophecies to do it. Mark's own Jewish audience would have understood these references. They would have understood that Mark was openly attacking traditional Jewish teachings about the future End Times when God would one day return and "fix everything."  

A: Traditional teachings that Paul continued to endorse in his letters (1 Corinthians 15).  

J: Yes. Paul enthusiastically taught his followers about the coming End Times -- a traditional Jewish teaching in itself -- and on top of that he added a wonderful new theological guarantee. He promised people that if they gave themselves over fully to a belief in Christ, then God's Spirit would be able to live inside of them in the "Temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20). Paul took the sacredness of the Jerusalem Temple and made it "moveable," an inner sanctuary of purity for the Spirit, just as the Essenes had already done in their Charter (1QS 3 and 1QS 8). He didn't try to undermine the importance and authority of the Jerusalem Temple. He actually added to it (as the Essenes had done) by elevating it to an inner mystical state that could only be known to true believers who followed Paul's teachings. This is a simplified version of Paul's Temple theology, but you get the picture. He's offering his followers the ultimate in "easy salvation." "You no longer have to go to the Temple; the Temple will come to you." 

A: And once you have the Temple, you can access all those spiritual goodies that Paul promises (1 Corinthians Chapters 2, 12, and 14).  

J: It's a theology that's very appealing to people who want all the benefits without doing the hard work.  

A: I've said it before and I'll say it again -- your teachings are much harder to stick to than Paul's are. It's impossible to follow your recommendations for connection with God without making spiritual commitment a regular part of everyday life. Once a week on Sundays -- or twice a year at Christmas and Easter -- won't do it. You ask a lot of regular people.  

J: Only because I have faith in you. Only because I have faith.

JR27: Paul's "Temple" versus Jesus' "Kingdom"

J: Today I'd like to talk about the starting place for understanding the many differences between what I taught and what Paul taught. 

“Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world. I came to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunk. I found not one of them to be thirsty. My soul was saddened by the sons of men for they were mentally blind. They do not see that they have come into the world empty and they will go out of the world empty. But now they are drunk. When they sober up they will repent” (Gospel of Thomas 28). Photo of Komombo Temple, dedicated to Sobek and Horus, Aswan, Egypt. Author Dennis Jarvis. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

A: Sounds good to me.
 
J: I've mentioned before that Paul and I had different motivations, different purposes behind our respective religious movements.* One of the few things we had in common was a strong sense of conviction. Paul believed in his cause, and was willing to argue for it. I believed in my cause, and was willing to argue for it. We both had strong opinions. We just didn't have the same opinions.
 
A: Part of Paul's cause involved arguing against your cause.
 
J: Definitely. Paul rejected -- even feared -- my teachings on the nature of the Kingdom. He was sure my Kingdom teachings would lead to anarchy. Widespread civil and social disobedience. His fears were shared by others.
 
A: Why was he so afraid?
 
J: Well, Paul, like so many others then and now, had allowed his brain to become focussed -- riveted -- on the perfection of Divine Law. Of course, he thought it was Divine Law he was giving all his time, energy, and devotion to, but really it was human law, human authority. He didn't see it this way, though. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in aggressively attacking me because he was protecting Divine Law. He believed that Divine Law justified -- gave sanction to -- his actions.
 
A: Where have I heard that before?
 
J: Rigid, perfectionistic thinking is a symptom of imbalance and dysfunction in the wiring of the biological brain. It's common in bullies throughout the world.
 
A: Paul spends a lot of time in his letters telling the people of his churches that they don't need to follow Jewish laws on food and circumcision. If he believed so much in the law, why was he dissing it? It doesn't make sense.
 
J: It makes perfect sense if you understand that Paul wasn't trying to protect the "praxis" laws of regular Jewish people -- laws about "petty little daily practices," as he saw them. To him these minor practices were nothing, they were of no consequence. He wasn't interested in the small stuff, the things that matter to regular people on a day to day basis. He was after the big stuff. The End Point. The Omega. The be all and end all. He was after the Power.
 
A: What power?
 
J: The power that he and many others close to him believed was woven into the fabric of Creation. The power to command the universal Law of Cause and Effect.
 
A: That sounds seriously creepy. And not even very Jewish.
 
J: Well, as we've talked about, there were different schools of religious and philosophical thought that used the sacred Hebrew texts, and these schools fought fiercely among themselves. In the 1st century CE, there was no agreement on what it meant to be a pious Jew, just as today there's no agreement on what it means to be a pious Christian. Most people forget that there was a civil war among Jews in Judea in the 60's CE. Sure, the Romans came in eventually and torched everything in Jerusalem. But before the Romans sent in their troops, the Jews were doing a fine hatchet job on themselves. This mood of dissension among Jews was already brewing when I was teaching and healing in Galilee. It's part of the reason I left my home in Philadelphia (modern day Amman) and went to Galilee. There was a measure of religious sanity that still existed there.

 
A: The Bible claims that Paul was a Pharisee.
 
J: In Philippians Chapter 3, Paul is very clever about the claims he makes for himself. He says that according to Jewish laws of bloodline, he's a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Big deal. Lots of people could make that claim. He says that according to prevailing Jewish customs around religious authority, he's a Pharisee -- a sort of rabbi/lawyer/teacher who deserves to be treated with respect for his religious knowledge. Then comes the clincher: he says that according to "zeal" (zelos in Greek) he was an early persecutor of the church and according to "righteousness" he was blameless in his actions against the church. When Paul talks about "zeal" and "righteousness," he isn't talking about "beliefs" or "opinions." He isn't saying he was just really enthusiastic or really committed. He's saying he had "the zeal" inside of him. He's saying he had a piece of Divine Law inside of him, a spark of God inside of him that was guiding him, commanding his thoughts and actions. He's saying he was a "vessel of humility" into which God had poured the divine substance called "zeal." Zeal is a kind of love, therefore -- a love for the Law. Devotion to the Law. Obedience to the Law. Adoration, even, of the Law. It sees the Law as a quasi-divine being. Sort of an embodiment of the Divine desire for orderliness in Creation. More than just a philosophical structure. An animated, conscious entity, if you will. Wisdom -- Sophia -- was also envisioned in this way as a semi-divine female being.
 
A: Plato talked about the Laws in this kind of weird anthropomorphic way.
 
J: Yes. And so did the Essenes. The Essenes were very much a fringe cult within Judaism. They had the most highly developed mystical rituals, the most "out there" beliefs about God and Creation and occult magic. They were also highly devout, highly wealthy, and highly powerful. They were a scary bunch. And Paul was greatly influenced by Essene teachings about God, the Spirit, the indwelling Temple, and occult ritual.
 
A: Would you say that Paul was an Essene? An accepted member of the yahad?
 
J: No. He wasn't teaching pure Essene thought. But he was influenced by their thought. He also had strong links to another important school of thought that's harder to track. He blended ideas from Essene thought and Hellenistic thought to create his "new and improved" version of the Law of Cause and Effect. By the time he began his "mission to the Gentiles," he was no longer interested in mainstream Judaism, with its focus on Mosaic Law. He'd "moved up" on the spiritual ladder of ascent, on that ever so narrow and hard-to-find ladder of spiritual hierarchy. He'd found an enticing and intoxicating blend of occult magic and hidden knowledge -- the kind of hidden knowledge reserved only for a few select apostles. He was drunk on the idea that this new knowledge would lead him to power -- power over evil entities.

A: What evil entities?

J: The corrupted versions of Law and Wisdom and Life -- their "evil twins."

A: Their evil twins? This is sounding like some of the "contemporary horror" dramas that are so incredibly popular in books and movies and TV shows these days.
 
J: Same old, same old. It's just a dysfunctional, distorted version of the Law of Cause and Effect when taken to occult extremes. It goes like this: "Well, if there's a Perfect Law, a semi-divine being who brings only virtue and righteousness to people of virtue, then, logically speaking, there must be an evil twin of Perfect Law -- a powerful semi-divine being who sows vice and corruption in the world." It's a nice, neat, simple mathematical formula to explain why evil exists. Sons of Light versus Sons of Darkness, as the Essenes clearly formulated it. What could be easier to understand?
 
A: It's so easy to see what you're saying by looking at Paul's Letter to the Romans. Romans is filled with paranoid, dualistic, judgmental thinking. Paul tells people in gory detail how they can fight the evils of Law, Sin, and Death, and overcome these evil cosmic forces through the power of Christ's name.
 
J: Yes. For Paul, Mosaic Law had become the evil twin of the pure Essene Temple Law. Sin was the evil twin of Wisdom (implying by analogy to Wisdom's femaleness that Sin was also female). And Death was the evil twin of Life. Paul called this evil trinity Law, Sin, and Death.
 
A: On my God. That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It explains how Paul could go around telling people they wouldn't die if they believed in Christ -- a promise that soon proved to be a lie, because some of Paul's followers had already died, and he had to answer for it in his letters.
 
J: It's popular these days for theologians to make excuses for this kind of apocalyptic promise, excuses based on the naive assumption that people in the 1st century CE "just didn't know any better" and "can't be blamed for believing in salvation from death." This, I'm sad to say, is hogwash. No balanced, mentally healthy individual is going to accept the idea that human beings can escape physical death and continue to live for centuries on Planet Earth the way their mystical forebears had (e.g. Methuselah). It's just goofy. It's what Paul promised his followers in the beginning of his mission, but it's goofy. In his Letter to the Romans, he has to go through huge theological contortions to try to salvage people's belief in him. It's a pretty sad way to go, if you think about it.
 
A: Promises, promises.
 
J: You know what works best in the Gospel of Mark? The fact that there are no "Cause and Effect" promises. Everything's messy. Everything's unpredictable. Shit happens, but so what? It can't take away your courage or your faith or your trust in God or your desire to help other people. Even shit can be turned into very useful fertilizer.
 
A: So your Kingdom is about turning shit into fertilizer, and Paul's Temple is about the quest to stop shitting at all?
 
J: And you say I have a way with words!


* Please see also "Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom" and "Mark's Themes of Understanding and Strength"
 

JR26: Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom

A: For the last couple of days, ever since you introduced the idea that Pauline Christianity has always been in some ways a Materialist religion, my head has been spinning, and I've been trying to figure out exactly what you mean. I can feel that it's right in the part of my self that's intuitive, but the rest of my head hasn't caught up to my intuition yet. So can we take it from the top?

"They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming?He replied: It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying,’Look, it’s over here’ or ‘Look, it’s over there.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it” (Gospel of Thomas 113). Each autumn, this walnut tree yields its harvest to those among God’s creatures who need it most. They receive these gifts without any reliance on human prayers or covenants. There’s wonderful freedom in trusting God to do what God does best when you don’t take on the burden of believing you’re somehow responsible for maintaining the laws of Creation. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: No problem.

A: How 'bout we start with some definitions? And by the way, I'd just like to comment once again on the fact that you're a true philosophy geek, you know that? Your face lights up like a Christmas tree every time you get to talk about a juicy philosophical dilemma. I can sure see how you ended up being a radical theologian in your time.

J: I was a much more successful philosopher than I was a carpenter. Honest to God, although I had to work as a tradesman to pay for my room and board, I'm pretty sure some of my handiwork could have ended up on "Galilean DIY Disaster."

A: Measure once, cut twice?

J: I'm not a natural when it comes to tools. I think like a designer, not like an engineer. I would flunk out of civil engineering, I'm sure of it. But redesigning the layout of a home so it supports a person's soul needs -- that I can do.

A: My father, the retired engineer and all-round handyman, would think you're a wuss. But you're so much like most of the other male physicians I know -- great with healing, great with academic study, not so good with the toolkit. (For the record, my ex is a physician, and we socialized with other people who were in medicine. So I know -- or rather, knew -- a lot of the male physicians around here.) Anyway, back to the philosophizing.

J: Okay. Well, the philosophy of Materialism is based on the theory that matter -- by that I mean baryonic matter -- is the only thing that exists. It's a WYSIWYG understanding of reality -- what you see is what you get. What you see is atoms and molecules and measurable substances and Newtonian laws. Therefore, according to this theory, all things in Nature -- including mind, thought, consciousness, even love -- can be explained solely by looking at the small little parts that make up the whole. It's the idea that macroscopic reality -- the daily reality that human beings live and work and breathe in -- is just a bigger version of the microscopic reality of atoms and molecules and gravitational forces, etc. Of course, as researchers in various scientific disciplines now know, there are huge gaps between the "macro" theories and the "micro" theories. At the subatomic or quantum level, the universe is a weird, weird place. At the other end of the scale -- the cosmological or grand universal scale -- the universe is also a weird, weird place. Only at the immediate level of reality, if I can call it that -- the level where human beings happen to live a fairly safe and predictable Newtonian kind of life -- only here is a Materialist philosophy even remotely justified.

A: How does Materialism understand God?

J: A person who embraces Materialist belief in the natural laws of "cause and effect" may or may not believe in the existence of God. Many, if not most, Materialists are atheists. Atheists, of course, believe that existence can be explained entirely on the basis of scientific research. No God is required. However, it's entirely possible to be a religious Materialist, a Materialist who believes in God. Deism is a good example of this.

A: Deism is a belief system that says there's a God, one God who created the universe, but that this God later stepped away from his Creation and doesn't participate in an active way in our lives or our suffering. God is the Great Clockmaker who made a perfect timepiece and now lets it run without interference. However, there's still an acceptance of the idea that God will reward virtue and punish vice in the afterlife. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were all Deists . . . Tell me again why Deism isn't the same as Pauline Christianity and Platonism?

J: It is Pauline/Platonic Christianity. Deism is what you get when you strip away later church doctrines about ritual and sacraments and prayer to saints (intercession) and belief in Marianism and belief in holy relics and belief in holy Crusade and belief in papal infallibility. Deism is Pauline thought in its purest form -- a belief in the inviolability and perfection of Divine Law. Divine Law that governs "cause and effect" in the material world.

A: But Paul goes on and on in Romans about the inherent peril of "the law," how knowledge of the law led him into sin.

J: Paul isn't attacking all Law. He's attacking the laws he no longer agrees with. Paul spends all his time in his letters talking about the "new and improved" Law -- the Law that he himself is teaching. The New Covenant. It's easy to forget that Covenant is Law -- nomos in the Greek. Nomos was a complex idea that included both human authority and divine authority. When Paul talks about the "new covenant," he's talking about a new version of Divine Law. A new version of the Law of Cause and Effect. "If you do this (believe in Christ), then according to the inviolable Law of Creation, you must receive this (salvation plus a reserved parking spot in Heaven)." It's a reductionist philosophy. Just as Materialism is a reductionist philosophy. Everything is reduced to a simple "cause and effect" formula.

A: Just as Wisdom teachings in the Ancient Near East were a "cause and effect" formula: if you obey the instructions on the "virtue lists" and disavow the behaviours on the "vice lists," God is required to reward you because the Law says so.

J: Paul, clever manipulator that he was, observed that there was a "niche market" of people who'd become disillusioned with the certainty of Wisdom teachings. Obviously there was something missing from the formula if slaves were still slaves and women were still being punished for being women. The Hellenistic cities of the Roman Empire were filled to bursting with resentful slaves and restless, intelligent women. Who better to target if you're planning to launch a new religious movement? Slaves with money and women with money. You don't need to slog through the trenches and carry out years and years of missionary work -- you just need to get yourself some patrons with deep pockets. Paul doesn't even deny his reliance on patrons.

A: One staggering fact that jumps out in the Gospel of Mark is the fact that you have no patron. Nor do you seem to want one. This would have shocked readers in 1st century CE Roman-held regions.

J: Part of my objective was to refuse to "play by the rules."

A: In the end, so many of these religious debates and religious conflicts boil down to "the rules" -- the law, the covenant, the nomos. But all these rules . . . they're external. They come from outside the inner self. They pretend to be objective. They pretend to be based on observable realities from nature. Yet enforcement of them relies on brute force, on rote memory, and on loyalty to patrons or other important religious/political leaders . . . at least I think that's right. Is that right?

J: Yes. The one thing Paul doesn't want is for people to know how to tap into their own inner wisdom, their own inner guidance. He doesn't want them to know how to hear God's quiet voice in the still, clear night. He doesn't want his "community of fellowship" to find actual freedom. He only wants them to believe they have freedom (exousia) through the proper use of conscience (suneidesis). He wants them to be willing slaves. Slaves who won't rock the boat of authority.

A: This is really sick, you know that?

J: Of course it is. There's a reason these teachings have spontaneously led to generation after generation of abuses -- abuses against the poor, the environment, against other Christians, not to mention countless non-Christians. Also abuses against God. These abuses are the "weeds" that have grown from the "seeds" that Paul intentionally planted.

A: Is this why Paul never mentions healing miracles in the letters he himself wrote?

J: Yes. Paul can't afford to have his community of hagiasmos and koinonia (holiness and fellowship) distracted by the idea that God is deeply committed to ongoing healing, communication, and relationship with all people through the Kingdom within. The Kingdom within, of course, is the core self -- the soul. The good soul. That's how God connects with all God's children -- through the good soul that everybody is. God can and does communicate by other means, too, but the one connection that can never be taken away is the soul connection. You can cut out somebody's eyes so they can't see any more signs (and, unfortunately, this has been done). You can cut out somebody's ears so they can't hear any more external messages. You can cut out somebody's tongue so they can no longer speak the prayers they long to sing aloud. All these abuses have been perpetrated "in the name of God" at one time or another. But nobody can cut out the connection to the soul. You'd have to carve out the entire brain and central nervous system of a person in order to fully quench the soul connection, the body-soul nexus. Obviously this would lead to death.

A: Hey! It's another thing to add to the Jesus' Seminar's pot for the question of "Why Jesus Pissed People Off So Much That He Got Himself Crucified."

J: Paul works very hard to ensure that his followers believe in a Kingdom that's on the outside -- "out there" in the Materialist world of cause and effect. "Out there" where they have no control over any of it themselves. Even more brilliant, Paul insists the Kingdom of God isn't here yet. It belongs to some maybe-not-so-distant Day of Judgment. So not only is the Kingdom a materialistic reality outside the self, but it hasn't even "arrived" yet [1 Corinthians 15]. This prompts regular people to be thinking about the future instead of the present. This encourages them to shift their focus, their attention, and even their relationships to the future. To the future "effects" of today's "causes." People are so busy worrying about the future that they can't hear God's voice today.

A: Therefore they can't hear the guidance they long for.

J: The guidance they want and need.

A: I like your version of the Kingdom teachings much better.

JR25: Getting Close to God: Finding the Kingdom Within

A: Some readers are probably very surprised that a mystic and an angel are spending so much time talking about academic research and academic sources. How would you respond to that?

J: I respond the same way today as I responded 2,000 years ago. My basic attitude is a pretty tough one: you can't get close to God if you don't do the work. You can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation. You can't get close to God by snubbing everything God is saying to you in the world around you.

A: The idea that you can't get close to God if you don't do the work is a pretty universal spiritual idea. Teachers from a number of different faith traditions have said much the same thing. Various schools of Buddhism are all about teaching the correct way to do the work. But the second idea you present -- the idea that you can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation -- that's a much less common idea among spiritual teachers. Tell me more about that.

"A man said to him: Tell my brothers that they have to divide my father's possessions with me. Jesus said: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and said to them: I am not a divider, am I" (Gospel of Thomas 72). Photo credit JAT 2014.

 J: Basically it's the idea that if you want to get close to God, you have to start with the only piece of Creation that God has given you complete control over: your own biology. Your own brain, your own body, your own body-soul nexus. This little piece of Creation is all you get. The rest belongs to other people -- to other souls and to God the Mother and God the Father. You get one little piece of Creation to command -- one little Kingdom to be in charge of -- and it's your job as a human being and as a soul to look after your little corner of Creation. It's a big job. Much bigger than most human beings realize. It takes time. It takes commitment. It takes courage. It takes knowledge. More than anything, it takes full acceptance.

A: What do you mean by "acceptance"? Do you mean people have to be resigned to their misery? Do you mean they have to accept the status quo?

J: No. I mean the exact opposite. I mean that if they want to get close to God while living here as human beings, they have to accept that God believes in them. They have to accept that they're not filled with corruption and sin. They have to accept that they're not here -- here on Planet Earth -- as some form of cosmic punishment or karmic journey. They have to stop seeing the glass as "half empty" and start seeing Creation in a positive light. This includes a commitment to seeing themselves -- their core selves, their souls -- in a positive light. They have to stop feeling so damned sorry for themselves.

A: A lot of pious people I've met -- mostly Christians, but not exclusively so -- remind me a lot of a fictional character from a science fiction/satire mini-series that ran many years ago called "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything." [Edited at 6:15 p.m.: Oops - make that "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." "Life, the Universe, and Everything" was a sequel to Douglas Adam's later "Hitchhiker" novel]. The character was Marvin the Robot. Marvin was always going around feeling sorry for himself. "Oh, poor me!" "Woe is me!" He saw himself as a victim -- victim with a capital "V." I found it hard to like Marvin, to be honest, because all he did was whine.

J: Pauline Christianity encourages people to whine. "Oh, poor me, I'm tainted with original sin, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just a victim. It's not my fault. It's Adam's fault. If Adam hadn't screwed up and made God so angry, then I wouldn't have so many problems today. I'll do my best, Lord -- honest! -- but please don't expect too much of me, because, after all, I'm full of inner corruption and sin, and I'm doing the best I can -- honest! I promise to go to church every week so you can cleanse me of my sins, but as for the rest of the week . . . please remember that I'm just a frail, weak, ignorant human being who can't possibly resist temptation and can't possibly understand your mysteries! You've decided to make all life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, so who I am to argue with your wisdom?"

A: Thomas Hobbes.

J: Yes. Thomas Hobbes -- the pessimist's pessimist. Also one of the great Materialist philosophers who rejected outright the relevance of the soul to a functioning, non-chaotic society. He had it all backwards because of his own psychological dysfunction.

A: Progressive Christianity, as this new movement calls itself, is edging in the direction of a Materialist religion -- a religion founded on Newtonian science where the words "soul" and "miracle" are considered embarrassing and irrelevant.

J (smiling): Orthodox Western Christianity has in some ways always been a Materialist religion, despite the oxymoron-like quality of this phrase.

A: How so?

J: How often does Paul use the word psyche (soul) in his 7 known letters (8 if you count Colossians, as I do)?

A: Uh, hardly ever. When he does, he describes the soul in an eerie blend of Platonic and Jewish apocalyptic ways.

J: And how often does Paul talk about healing miracles? By that I mean the kind of healing miracles described several times in the Gospel of Mark.

A: Never. Paul doesn't talk about healing miracles. He talks about sin and salvation and eschatology and Spirit and chosenness for those who believe in Christ. But he doesn't talk about healing miracles.

J: What about the Roman Catholic Church's take on healing miracles?

A: Oh, they keep a tight, tight rein on miracles. Nothing can be called an "official miracle" unless the Vatican approves it according to very strict criteria.

J: What's one of the key criteria?

A: The healing had to take place after somebody prayed directly to a saint. Or a saint-to-be.

J: It's a closed shop. A closed system. The Vatican has control over all the definitions. It's not a true miracle unless it goes through the doors of the Church. Which doesn't happen very often. It therefore forces people to look at the world around them in non-miraculous ways. In Materialist ways.

A: Huh?

J: Think of it this way. Christian orthodoxy has insisted since the beginning that God is to be understood as transcendent -- far, far away from this earthly realm, detached from all emotion, detached from day to day concerns with human suffering, distant, serene, uninvolved with the petty concerns of the corrupt material world. This is actually Plato's idea, but the Church long ago embraced it, and it's officially part of Church doctrine, so the Church has to take responsibility for this choice. How does this translate for pious Christians? How does it make them feel about the world around them?

A: Well, on the one hand, they're told by Genesis that they're in charge of the world and can do whatever they like to it. It's supposed to be a "good Creation." On the other hand, they're told that God isn't actually "in" this good Creation, but is somewhere else -- far, far away in a transcendent realm of pure Mind. I suppose that idea makes it easy for people to make excuses for their behaviour when they mistreat the environment and mistreat other creatures. Something along the lines of "Oh, it's just a bunch of corrupt, material 'stuff' that doesn't matter to God, so it's okay for me to take what I want and leave a big mess behind." . . . Okay, I'm starting to see what you're getting at. This kind of anthropocentric religious thinking is a form of "state sanctioned Materialism."

J: Yes. Two thousand years ago, there was no distinction between the political state and the religious state. The two were totally intertwined. So it mattered what religious leaders said about the environment, about the Earth, about the world around us. It mattered that religious leaders told pious followers to ignore all the lessons, all the truths that were being conveyed to them through "the eyes of Nature," as it were. It mattered then, and it still matters today. God isn't transcendent. Never was, never will be. God does have feelings. And God feels everything that happens in Creation. Everything.

A: Materialists don't take God's feelings into account. They don't believe God has feelings (many of them don't even believe that God exists). They don't ask themselves how God is going to feel when they pour toxic sludge into the groundwaters. Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to ask this question.

J: Just as Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to take full responsibility for the care, healing, and core integrity of their own little piece of Creation: their biological body.

A: Their Kingdom. Their own Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Only when you fully understand and respect the core integrity and the core wonder of your own Kingdom will you be able to understand and respect the core integrity of other people, other creatures, and God. That's what empathy is -- the ability to understand that your neighbour's Kingdom is different but equal to your own. The healing of the Church must begin with a complete overturning of all doctrines that repudiate or undermine the true worth of the soul.

A: The United Church of Canada doesn't even have an official doctrine of the soul, though the Articles of Faith tell us in one breath that we're responsible for all our choices (Articles 2.3 and 2.4) and in the next breath tell us that all people are born with a sinful nature (Article 2.5). Talk about a lose-lose situation!

J: My point exactly.

JR24: Paul Versus Mark #1: Suggested Reference Books

A: For those who want to independently pursue the differences between Paul's theology and Mark's theology, where would you recommend they start?

J: I recommend they get a small number of well researched books to begin with. Preferably something they can write notes in. If they can only afford one book, I suggest The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, edited by Michael D. Coogan. It comes with some good essays in the back, along with good maps. The NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) translation is sometimes not as accurate as the RSV (Revised Standard Version) translation, but on the other hand, it strives to incorporate inclusive language, which, in my view, is a positive thing.

Some of the research books I use in my research

 
A: Do you recommend recent paraphrases of the Bible such as The Message?

J: No. Definitely not. The point of this exercise is to be as objective as possible about the actual content of the original writings of Paul and Mark, the actual cultural and religious context, and the actual intentions or motivations of Paul and Mark. Any translation of the Bible that smooths over all the bumps and scars of the original Greek documents will hide the very information we're looking for. Since the goal of books such as The Message is to emphasize the spiritual message while getting rid of the awkward, confusing bits, these interpretations of the Bible can't be used for this kind of research exercise.

A: What about the King James Version of the Bible?

J: The King James Version is just a translation like any other translation. It has no special claim to being "the" correct version of the Bible in English. It wasn't even the first English translation, which a lot of fans don't know. Apart from the fact that it's hard to read because it's written in 400 year old English, there's also the reality that the editors of this Bible didn't -- of course -- have access to recent research findings. The editors did the best they could with what they had at the time. But using a 400 year old translation of the Bible is on a par with using a 400 year old medical textbook to cure all your ills. There were some pretty strange medical remedies 400 years ago. And there were some pretty strange translations of Greek words in the KJV.

A: If readers have a chance to pick up some other books, which books would you suggest?

J: It's helpful, if possible, to have a good Concordance. A Concordance helps you track the usage of specific Greek words in the New Testament and specific Hebrew words in the Hebrew Scriptures. It's a useful research tool.

A: What else?

J: A synopsis chart that shows the parallels among the four gospels is very handy. It saves you from reinventing the wheel when it comes to comparisons among the stories included in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

A: For anyone who's interested, the Synopsis (Greek for "seen together") that I use is Synopsis of the Four Gospels, English Edition, edited by Kurt Aland (New York: American Bible Society, 1982).

J: I also recommend a general introduction to the study of the New Testament for those who are getting their feet wet for the first time. You don't have to believe every single word the modern author writes, but you'll get a feel for some of the vocabulary, some of the major questions in biblical research, some of the major "names" in biblical research. I recommend books written by non-evangelical Christians because evangelical Christians rarely approach biblical scholarship with academic objectivity. Choose an introductory book carefully. If you're a person who needs a lot of visual information in order to make sense of a new topic, then pick a book with good illustrations and maps. If you're a person who learns in mathematical ways, then pick a book with lots of charts and tables. Each person needs to find the introductory book that works best for his or her own learning style.

A: Based on my own experience, I'd also say "Don't go for the thickest book with the most pages and the longest bibliography!" It's too much at first. It's too confusing. Pick a shorter book written for a lay audience or for an introductory undergraduate course. That way you'll actually be able to learn something!

J: I like what your Dad said, too.

A: Oh, yeah. That's right. Good point. My 87 year old father, undaunted by all the technical jargon in my Master's paper, used Wikipedia every time he came across a theological term he didn't understand. He read my paper twice, then start arguing with me about it! He said he found Wikipedia quite useful for explaining theological ideas he'd never heard of before. Scientific American is usually more his style. And Maclean's. He enjoys reading Maclean's.

J: Maclean's doesn't mind tackling theological topics from time to time.

A: Especially right before Easter, when hot Christian topics sell best, as my New Testament professor loved to point out. It was the Maclean's March 31, 2008 cover story on "The Jesus Problem" (by Brian Bethune) that tipped me off to Barrie Wilson's book How Jesus Became Christian (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2008). I was so relieved to finally have a respectable professor I could quote in my papers, a professor who thought, as I already did, that Paul and Jesus weren't teaching the same thing at all. Wilson gives lots of good historical background in his book, and bravely goes out on a limb to say that the author of Luke + Acts wrote his two books to try to stitch together Paul's Christ Movement and Jesus' own movement. His book is definitely worth reading -- though for the record I don't agree with Wilson's focus on the Gospel of Matthew.

J: Which we'll get to.

A: Eventually, yes, if we can ever stop talking about other stuff!

JR23: The Author's Research Bibliography

A: On Thursday evening I was having dinner with someone who's very dear to me, and she made the fatal mistake of asking me why I'm upset with the United Church of Canada. Boy, did she get an earful! I think I exhausted her with my exhaustive analysis of the differences between Paul and Mark. However, she kept asking for clarifications, so I kept giving them. She was very surprised at the stark differences between what Paul wrote and what Mark wrote. Many years ago she was quite involved with the Alliance Church (though she's long since given up on evangelical Christianity), and for several years in her younger days she worked in a Christian bookstore. Despite her extensive exposure to Christian teachings and easy access to books and other research materials, she had no idea that Paul's letters were written before Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Nor did she have any inkling that Mark's theology differs from Paul's on all major points. She immediately saw the significance, though. And she seemed genuinely pleased to learn that Paul's "oppression", as she called it, isn't the only option available to her as an "unchurched" person. So I thought perhaps you and I could begin to do some on-line exegesis, some on-line commentary, on the specific differences between Paul's theology and Mark's theology. Are you game?

J: Sign me up.

Bunyan's Holy War (from Hemera Technologies 2001-2003)

A: I've already done extensive research on this topic with your help, but from the point of view of academic integrity and bibliographic acknowledgement, I'll take a few minutes to list the books that have been helpful to me in my research . . . on second thought, I think I'll just cut and paste the Bibliography from my Master's cognate paper. That would be a lot faster. [see below]. For any socio-historical criticism or source criticism keeners out there, it's good to know that I've taken two semesters of Koine Greek -- not enough to make me fluent, but enough to help me find my way around a lexicon, a good concordance, a Greek-English interlinear, and helpful collections such as The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and The Anchor Bible Dictionary. I also gratefully incorporate findings from archaeology (I love Biblical Archaeology Review!), neuroscience, and psychiatry into my biblical research . . . Okay, now that I've pasted the bibliography into this post, Blogger has slowed down to a crawl that even a snail could beat, so I think I'll stop and post this "as is." Anyone who wants to check a full bibliographic reference can refer back to this post as we go along.

And yes -- I had to wade through Plato's writings on my own to see what he had to say about the soul, so when you hear me complain about the negative influence of Plato on Christian thought, it's because I had to read it firsthand. There's nothing like a dose of Plato's mega-narcissism to make a person want to barf.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Beauregard, Mario and Denyse O’Leary. The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. New York: HarperCollins–HarperOne, 2007.

Berlin, Adele and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Bremmer, Jan. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. 1977. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Clagett, Marshall. Greek Science in Antiquity. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994.

Coakley, Sarah. "Introduction – Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite." Modern Theology 24, no.4 (2008): 531-540.

Coogan. Michael D., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, College Edition. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Cook, Stephen L. The Apocalyptic Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003.

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Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We don’t Know About Them). New York: HarperCollins–HarperOne, 2009.

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JR22: Why You Need To Know Yourself (Mystical Commentary on Saying 67)

A: Can you please explain as simply as possible WHY it matters that each person has a unique soul blueprint and WHY it's important for each person on a spiritual journey to uncover the specific details of his or her own unique blueprint?
 
J: Let's use an imaginary person as an example to make this simpler. I'm going to call this imaginary person Jane Tamaguchi.
 
A: Okay.
 
J: Like all human beings, Jane is a soul. She doesn't have a soul. She is a soul. She's an angel -- a child of God. Like all angels, she was born as a soul long before she decided to incarnate as a human being. Soul energy isn't visible in the third dimension -- the dimension that human beings live in during their temporary lives as incarnated souls -- but soul energy can be felt in the third dimension.
 
A: Can you give some examples of "feelable" soul energy? (I think I just invented a new word.)

J: Yes. When you feel a deep sense of connection with another person, that's soul energy. When you feel empathy for other creatures, that's soul energy. When you feel committed, romantic, monogamous love, that's soul energy. When you give or receive forgiveness, that's soul energy. When you're willing to trust in a loving and compassionate God, that's soul energy.
 
A: Those are all emotions. Positive emotions. Uplifting emotions.

Thomas 67: “One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” (Translation by Stevan Davies.Photo credit JAT 2015.)

J: Yes. All souls are intensely emotional in a positive, uplifting, creative, intuitive, loving way.
 
A: So much for Christian angelology, which says angels have no emotions of their own and are simply instruments of God's work and God's will.
 
J: Yes. That's another Christian doctrine that should go the way of the 8-track recording system.
 
A: But angels also have minds, as you've said previously. They have minds plus emotional hearts.
 
J: Yes. Christians have long believed -- based largely on theories of the soul put forward by Plato, Aristotle, Tertullian, Augustine, and others -- that the soul itself consists of a single indivisible substance. Arguments raged as to the exact nature of this substance. But the basic idea was that the soul was made of just one thing because -- as the theory went -- the soul couldn't really be a soul if it could be "divided" into two or more substances. It should go without saying that this is a ridiculous supposition. There are no analogies anywhere in nature or in the quantum world for a complex lifeform made of a single element such as pure hydrogen or pure gold. All lifeforms, whether they exist in the third dimension or in higher dimensions, are extremely complex. A soul is a quantum being whose "biology" is far more complex than that of any 3D creature -- which is pretty much what you'd expect for children of God who were born in the fourth dimension, and who will spend most of their eternal existence in parts of the "implicate order" that can't be seen or measured by human beings in the third dimension.
 
A: So people just have to take it on trust? On blind faith?
 
J: I wouldn't say that. Individuals who want to take the time to do intensive research into quantum physics and quantum biology will soon discover that the universe being studied by today's scientists is extremely complex. This isn't the cosmology of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. It's breathtakingly complicated and interconnected. There's plenty of room in there for a modern doctrine of the soul that doesn't in any way violate the laws of quantum biology.
 
A: Okay. So tell me about Jane. Who is she as a soul?
 
J: Jane is a female angel, and for the purposes of this discussion she's heterosexual.
 
A: I know what this means for human beings. But what does this mean for angels?
 
J: It means exactly what it sounds like. All angels are one of two sexes: male or female. Just as with human beings. There are no "in-between" sexes or alien sexes. All angels are either male (the same sex as God the Father) or female (the same sex as God the Mother). This is pretty much what you'd expect by looking at life on Planet Earth.
 
A: Some creatures on Earth are able to reproduce without a sexual partner. Komodo Dragons, for instance.
 
J: There are different modes of reproduction for creatures that live on Planet Earth. Reproduction is part of the 3D biological package. It isn't part of the 4D soul package. We'll come back to that at a later time.
 
A: But sexual orientation is part of the 4D soul package. Why is sexual orientation necessary for angels?
 
J: Because each angel has a soulmate. One true eternal love partner. A divine spouse. The one partner in all of Creation who's a perfect match in every way, including intimate, private ways. Each angel in God's Creation is paired with his or her perfect eternal partner. For many angelic couples, the perfect partner is of the same sex. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
 
A: So God the Father and God the Mother are not a same-sex couple themselves, but it's okay with God if their children choose a same-sex partner to share eternity with.
 
J: Yes. God's children are not carbon copies of their divine parents. God's children come in every size and shape and colour imaginable. Yet every soul couple is blissfully happy, blissfully complete. This is what God the Mother and God the Father want for their children -- bliss. Everybody's different. Yet everybody's happy. It's the perfect divine family when you think about it.
 
A: So Jane has a specific sex -- female -- and a specific sexual orientation -- heterosexual. What else does she have?
 
J: She has a soul body. Her soul body has a unique size and shape that's perfect for her. Her soul body probably doesn't look too much like her current human body, but that's okay. She's very happy with the soul body she has.
 
A: What else?
 
J: She has a soul mind. As a soul, she's pure consciousness -- by that I mean she has full awareness at all times of her own thoughts and her own feelings and her own choices and her own needs and wishes. Part of her unique mind lies in the way she thinks, the way she learns, the way she remembers, the way she expresses herself. These attributes lie within the soul mind. Jane doesn't "know" everything. Nor does she want to. She has certain interests that are hard-wired at the very core of her consciousness, and these are the things she learns fastest and remembers best.
 
A: Can you give an example of what Jane might be interested in as a soul, as an angel?
 
J: Okay. Let's say for argument's sake that Jane is a gifted musician.
 
A: There are some angels who are more musically gifted than other angels?
 
J: All angels enjoy music to some extent. But not all angels want to spend most of the day in classes devoted to advanced musical performance and interpretation skills. As with all things in Creation, it's a continuum. All angels appreciate music. But some angels want to devote most of their time to it. Which means they can't be devoting their time to other interests, other skills. There's only so much time in a day, even for an angel.
 
A: What other interests does our imaginary Jane possess as a soul?
 
J: Jane likes to be around a lot of other angels. She gets very lonely if she can't hear other angels singing. She's happiest when she's with a big group of noisy, laughing angels.
 
A: Are there any angels who are more quiet in temperament, who wouldn't feel comfortable in large groups?
 
J: Yes, lots. And that's okay, too. These angels are quiet, but not in any way unfriendly or unloving. They just need more quiet than other angels do. Nothing wrong with that.
 
A: Let's give Jane a third unique attribute. What would you suggest.
 
J: She doesn't like the colour red.
 
A: Huh? 
 
J: All angels appreciate the fact that everything in Creation is beautiful and deserving of respect. So Jane respects the colour red, and she's happy for her friends who love all things red. But angels have their own taste, their own "likes" and "dislikes." And Jane herself is under no divine obligation to like red. It happens that she doesn't. God the Mother and God the Father respect the fact that Jane just doesn't happen to like red. On the other hand, she can't get enough black. She's crazy for black.
 
A (grinning): I know a certain male angel who happens to love black! And a particular shade of charcoal grey.
 
J: Yeah, I do like those colours. Can't deny it.
 
A: Okay. So we have our angel Jane, who's passionate about music, loves to be around large groups of people, isn't fond of the colour red, but likes black. Jane decided a while back to incarnate as a human being on Planet Earth (her choice), and right now she's 35 years old, is working as a nurse, is taking night school courses so she can apply to law school, and lives with a female partner who has painted the bedroom red. Tell me about Jane's current brain health.
 
J: All the things we talked about -- Jane's true soul interests -- are hardwired into her human DNA. That's the junk DNA that geneticists are puzzled by. Her soul's blueprint is hardwired into her brain and central nervous system. Her brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, thalamus, basal ganglia, and glial cells contain coding that's unique to her, unique to her true soul personality. If Jane were to make conscious choices that "matched" or "lined up with" her core blueprint, her biological brain would function smoothly. It would function the way it's supposed to. Her mood would remain stable. Her thinking would be logical and coherent. Her memory would be pretty good, especially around music and musical interpretation! She would have excellent social functioning. All in all, she'd be pretty happy, healthy, and well adjusted.
 
A: Okay. But right now Jane isn't making conscious choices that "line up with" her own soul's core identity. She's working as a nurse, not as a musician. She's around lots of people, which is good, but the people aren't singing. She's in a lesbian love relationship. And every night she has to go to sleep in a room that isn't healing or calming for her as a soul. What's happening inside her brain at this point?
 
J: There's a software conflict. On the one hand, the so-called "primitive" parts of Jane's brain are saying "I want to craft music, I want to find a loving male partner, I want to be around the colour black." Meanwhile, Jane's forcing the outer cortical layers of her brain to make different choices -- choices that seem logical to her peers or to her family, perhaps, but which make no sense to her core self.
 
A: So how's Jane doing?
 
J: Her brain is pretty messed up. There are competing signals from the different regions of her brain and central nervous system. The signals contradict each other. By now she's feeling confused and upset with her life, and she doesn't why. Things seem okay on the outside. But on the inside she's not happy. She may be having trouble with headaches or poor sleep or depression or one of the many other signs of imbalance that can emerge via human biology.
 
A: A lot of these medical issues would begin to clear up if Jane were to seek professional counselling and appropriate medical care to help her uncover the choices she's making that aren't working for her.
 
J: Yes. Jane has been making choices based on other people's priorities rather than her own core priorities -- the priorities of her soul. Over the long term, her poor choices have begun to affect her health and her happiness.
 
A: Can she force herself to "be" a nurse and "be" a lawyer if her soul isn't wired for healing or for case analysis?
 
J: No. This is what I meant when I said the soul isn't malleable in the way that clay is malleable. Jane can only be who she is. If she tries to be somebody she's not -- if she tries to be a lesbian nurse-lawyer who wears red power suits -- her biological brain will begin to sustain serious damage from the continuous push-and-pull of her internal "software conflict." She'll literally fry her own brain from the inside out.
 
A: Okay. That's pretty clear. Be yourself -- be the person God knows you to be -- so your brain and body will function the way God intended.
 
J: Simple in fact. Simple in reality. But not always easy to implement.
 
A: At least it gives people a starting place on the journey. At least it helps them understand where they're going and WHY. It helps so much to understand WHY.
 
J: Insight is one hell of an amazing miracle.