The Council of Nicea (Part II)

I blogged last week about the Council of Nicaea, and I pointed out that one of the big discussions centered around the divinity of Christ, what I didn’t say was that the two sides were: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost were the three persons of the Godhead, or that God the Father and God the Holy Ghost were the two persons of the Godhead, and that Christ could not be considered co-eternal (and therefore not co-equal) with them.

It occurs to me to wonder why it is that, in discussing a religion that bills itself as monotheistic, the argument was not so much about the nature of our one God, but, it seems, more along the lines of, does our God have two persons or three? I am reminded that some years back, a good friend of mine asked the question, “Are you created in God’s image?” Upon receiving an affirmative response, he went on, “Are you three persons? Wouldn’t that make you schizophrenic?” It’s an amusing set of questions, but it does bring up an interesting point. Many of us are both fathers and sons and have spirits in us, but we don’t consider ourselves to be three people. Sigmund Freud developed the idea that we each have an id, an ego, and a super-ego. Do these three components of our psyche correspond to the three persons of the Trinity? I would venture to say no, for the following reasons: The id, as defined by Freud, was concerned with basic human needs, it is an urge-driven, primal, instinctual part of the brain. The super-ego is the result of outside influences, such as environment, upbringing, and social values. The ego bridges the gap between the gap between the id and the super-ego. Now, other than the fact that the sacrifice of Christ bridges the gap between what we should do and what we actually end up doing (provided that we live faithful lives), I see only one similarity between Freud’s three components of human psychology and the three persons of the Trinity: the number three.

I can’t help but wonder if Emperor Constantine presiding over the Council may not have had an effect on the discussion. He had been raised a polytheist, and might have had a difficult time accepting a single God. Then again, he was exploring new possibilities, and he may very well have been completely dissuaded from the religion(s) of his upbringing; we have no way of knowing. It’s possible that he was more ready to accept such a thing than any of the bishops present were willing to believe. It’s difficult to say how many of those present actually bought into the idea of God in three persons and how many just felt that, after so many years of state-sponsored persecution, they could finally catch a break, if only they could make their beliefs palatable to the emperor. Obviously, I don’t know one way or the other, but it does seem that the Trinity was a convenient compromise between monotheism and polytheism.

In any case, Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Scripture teaches us, time and time again, that God is One. In Isaiah 29:23, God is referred to as the Holy One of Jacob; Isaiah refers to God as the Holy One of Israel several times (Isaiah 1:4, Isaiah 10:20, Isaiah 12:6, Isaiah 17:7, Isaiah 30:15, Isaiah 43:3, Isaiah 48:17, Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah 55:5, and Isaiah 60:9); God is also referred to as the Holy One in 2 Kings 19:22, Job 6:10, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 71:22, Psalms 78:41, Psalms 89:18, Isaiah 10:17, Isaiah 40:25, Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34, Acts 3:14 (although that passage specifically refers to Jesus), and 1 John 2:20; God is referred to as One Lord in Deuteronomy 6:4, Zechariah 14:9, and Ephesians 4:5 (also, in Mark 12:29, Jesus quotes Deut. 6:4). There are many other passages that refer to God as being One, besides those I have mentioned here.

The Council of Nicea (Part I)

In A.D. 325, Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine called a council of bishops to determine, once and for all, what exactly was the core belief of Christianity. Whether he had any business calling such a council could be questionable, but, he may have been the only interested party with the resources to do so. He offered to cover travel expenses for all the bishops that attended, along with a limited number of staff. He had some experiences with Christianity; in A. D. 312, he is said to have had a vision of a cross and the words, “In hoc signo vinces” (under this standard {or ‘in this sign’}, thou shall be victorious {or ‘thou shall conquer’}). Constantine had crosses painted onto the shields and breastplates of his troops, and they were, indeed, victorious. His mother, Helena, is said to have been a very devout and generous Christian. Some believe that she, during a pilgrimage, discovered the cross with the sign still on it saying, “King of the Jews.” There is, however, no indication that she herself ever made such a claim.

Anyway, Constantine invited over three thousand bishops of the church to attend this council. It’s hard to say how many of them showed up. One of the attendees, Athanasius, wrote a letter in which he asserts that there were 318. Some other estimates are less. The point is, only about ten percent of the known church bothered to attend. I can imagine that there were probably many that prayed about it, and felt that God was leading them not to go. I can imagine that there were many who simply thought about it, and, realizing that the Roman Empire was, traditionally, not a friend to the church, could not see any wisdom in going. In point of fact, Constantine had only outlawed persecution against Christianity two years earlier. Now, why does an Emperor, marching troops under the standard of the cross, allow the church to be persecuted? Hard to say, but one can certainly understand the trepidation of the church leaders, and their reluctance to put themselves in Constantine’s hands. Having said that, many of those bishops who attended the council had personally suffered persecution, but they came anyway.

One of the big points of discussion was the deity of Christ. One of the bishops, Arius, contended that, since Jesus was begotten of the Father, he had a definite beginning, and therefore could not be considered co-eternal with the Father, and, furthermore, should not be deified. Arius was very much in the minority. In the initial vote, four other bishops voted with Arius; after some discussion, only two continued with Arius. It should be noted that Arius had been anathematized (excommunicated) by a vote of approximately 100 Egyptian bishops about four years earlier. The Council eventually settled on verbiage that said that Jesus was homoousios, or consubstantial, with the Father, that is, that Jesus and the Father were of one substance, because Colossians 2:9 says that in Him (in Jesus) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If you stop and think about it, though, the confusion seems to come from the idea that before Mary became pregnant, Jesus didn’t exist. That’s easy to think that way, since we don’t really know at what point a person’s life begins. Some people say that a life doesn’t begin until the baby draws its first breath, others say life begins at conception, while others say that there are a number of lives waiting for conception so that they can obtain a physical body to go with their essence. The last group, understandably, preaches that contraception is therefore a sin, because one is preventing a living soul from obtaining a flesh-and-blood body. I don’t know that I would go that far, at least, not for most of us, but there are a number of Scriptural passages that indicate that Jesus existed long before Mary did.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:14 goes on to say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” In his first epistle, John writes to the church, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. “ Let me first point out that John 1:14 refers to Jesus as the only begotten of the Father, but it also says that He was made flesh, which suggests that He was something else before. Of course, John 1:1 says that Jesus (or the Word) was in the beginning. So, in verse fourteen, John isn’t so much suggesting, as alluding to his earlier point. Now, in 1 John 5:7, he again refers to Jesus as the Word, rather than the Son, because at that time, Jesus had returned to His earlier state. He was no longer the flesh-and-blood Son, He was again the Word.

To be continued…

Pharisees and Publicans

It is interesting that when Jesus walked the earth, He is said to have come to save the world, and yet, in His dealings with the Pharisees, He was impatient at best, and seems to have already written them off as being beyond saving, even before He began His ministry. A lot of that, of course, comes from the fact that Jesus knew the hearts of the people He dealt with, publicans and Pharisees alike.

In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a publican who went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee essentially spent his prayer time bragging to God about what a good man he was, while the publican begged for mercy. Jesus said that the publican went home justified, but the Pharisee didn’t. This gives us some insight into Jesus’ attitude towards Pharisees, although I don’t think Jesus was implying that all Pharisees were like the one in the parable, but that the attitude portrayed was not what the people of the time would have expected from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were religious leaders, and they were expected to be pious and holy, examples of all the best things of their religion. Jesus, of course, realized that, although some of them may have been exactly that, many were not.

In Luke 7, it tells that one of the Pharisees, a man named Simon, invited Jesus to dinner. A woman came in and kissed Jesus’ feet, and anointed them with ointment. Simon “spake within himself” that if Jesus were a prophet, He wouldn’t let this woman touch Him. Now, it seems fairly obvious to me that the phrase indicates that Simon didn’t say this aloud, and yet, Jesus knew what he was thinking. Furthermore, it seems fairly clear that He also knew what the woman was thinking, although she said nothing. Granted, her actions showed a willingness to serve, and an acknowledgement of His position. Jesus went on to lecture Simon about how her sins, which were many, were forgiven her, and that she could be trusted to love Him much—in fact, He said that her sins were forgiven because she loved much.

In John 9, a blind man is healed by Jesus, and the Pharisees attempt to dissuade him from giving Jesus credit for his healing. This man wasn’t about to deny his healing, though. He told them flat-out, “If this man were not of God, He could do nothing.” Their response was, “Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” as if they had not been born pretty much the same way the formerly-blind man had.been. It’s remarkable that the reaction of the Pharisees to such a notable miracle was to try to deny it, disprove it, and then, failing that, make accusations against the One who preformed it. I can understand skepticism, and I would imagine that God can, too, but these guys were so determined not to believe. No wonder Jesus generally didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

The Pharisees were also critical of the fact that Jesus spent so much time with “sinners.” Of course, if you understand that Jesus came to bring salvation, it makes sense that He would start with those who were most in need of it, even before you consider how much more willing they were to accept what He was offering. The Pharisees simply assumed that these people were easily misled, since they didn’t know the law. Jesus, correctly, pointed out that if the Pharisees would search the Scriptures, they would learn of Him, but they were so secure in the own righteousness that they would only consider those passages that seemed to contradict Jesus’ claims (for example, there is a Messianic prophecy in Micah that says that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, but the nativity story was not well known and the conventional wisdom was that Jesus had been born in Nazareth).

In Luke 19, Jesus invited himself to the house of a publican named Zacchaeus, and many murmured against Jesus, because they believed that Zacchaeus was a sinner. Jesus, again, knew his heart, and knew that, although Zacchaeus’ occupation (publicans were tax collectors) was despised, it was not inherently dishonest. Zacchaeus may well have been the exception to the rule, but Jesus judged him by his heart, not by his reputation.

In Matthew 9, Jesus explained to the Pharisees that the sick need a physician, and that He had come to call sinners to repentance. The Pharisees should have been flattered by the fact that He didn’t suggest that they needed to repent, although clearly they did, but they had a hard time with the idea that one who claims to be righteous can spend so much time with undesirable people. It’s not as though it rubs off. Granted, one can be unduly influenced if one surrounds oneself with the wrong kind of people, but Jesus wasn’t worried about them changing His mind; He wanted to change theirs.

The point is, Jesus didn’t spend much time with religious people, because He knew that their hypocrisy ran deep. He made Himself a friend to those who were not religious, and who were willing to accept the Truth without trying to square it with what they thought they knew. We, of course, need to get fellowship with other people that believe what we believe, but we also need to show ourselves friendly to those who have not yet come to know what we know. We do need to be careful to not let them drag us down, but we should be trying to help them up. Jesus is our example, after all.

After Death

            Sometimes people get very concerned about what happens to their body after death.  Some of that concern I can understand; I mean, does one’s spirit leave the flesh right away, or do they stay tied together until judgment?  I think that the real reason people get concerned about that is, if the two are joined until some indefinite time in the future (indefinite to us, of course, God knows when that will be), then what happens when bodies are cremated?  If it is not yet time for judgment, but the body has been destroyed, is the spirit then condemned to walk the earth until the appointed time? 

            The Bible tells us that when Christ returns, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we that are alive and remain shall rise to meet them in the clouds.  That would suggest that spirit and flesh are tied together; that the spirit sleeps in the grave waiting to be freed from the body.  This is supported by the fact that all through the Old Testament, and even in the Gospels, people were buried in physical graves.  Abraham bought a field to bury Sarah in, Jacob placed Rachel’s body in a grave, and asked to be buried in the Promised Land, Elisha was buried, Lazarus had a grave, and so did Jesus.

            At the same time, Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about giving his body to be burned.  In that context, it’s doubtful that he was actually giving instructions for the treatment of his remains after his death, but he does talk about it in a positive light.  There is a definite implication that he feels that it is a good thing to do, whether that would be his choice for his own body or not.  Also, we know that there were occasionally people who died in fires through no fault of their own.  At least a few of those bodies must have been left as nothing more than a small pile of ashes; would God punish those people because of their cause of death?

            I have to admit, I don’t really know what happens in between death and judgment.  I know that the Bible talks about sleeping also 1 Corinthians 15:6, and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15), and normally when we think of sleeping, we think of the body being asleep.  It seems to me that, in this case, what we’re really talking about is that the spirit is not conscious, it is completely unaware of what is happening.  The soul, once the body is dead, really doesn’t know whether the flesh is buried, cremated, or, for that matter, fish-food.  Is there an attachment?  I’m guessing not, but I think that the soul, being unconscious, simply stays with the body, if the body is intact, or stays wherever the body was at the time of death.  Of course, part of the confusion comes from trying to tie an immortal soul to a physical place.  The soul is not a physical thing, it does not take up any physical space, and trying to establish it’s physical location is a lot like trying to nail water to the wall.  Body and soul are one as long as the body continues to draw breath, but once it becomes a corpse, there is really no reason why the spirit should remain chained to it. 

            This one thing I do know:  I don’t care what happens to my body once I am dead.  If my friends and family chose to bury me, cremate me, toss me in the ocean; I don’t think I really care.  I’m convinced that I won’t be aware of what they do to “me,” anyway, so why should I care?  Someone wise once said that they didn’t want flowers at their funeral, and indicated that if you felt that they deserved flowers, you should have the flowers delivered while the recipient was still alive to appreciate them.  I’m not really big on flowers, but I appreciate the sentiment.  If there’s something that you want to do for me, you should do it while I’m alive.  Once I’m dead, there is no changing anything.

Left Behind?

I have noticed, just in the last few years, that a lot of people have become very interested in what is going to happen after the rapture of the body of Christ. You may be familiar with the “Left Behind” series of books, some of which have been turned into movies. From what I understand, Tim LaHaye spent ten years researching the Book of Revelation, and then got Jerry B. Jenkins to fictionalize the timeline that he had developed. While I will admit that the series is, apparently (I haven’t actually read any of them, although I did watch one of the movies), entertaining, and certainly not any worse than most fiction, I just can’t help but think that there are better ways that we could be spending our time.

Let me ask you a question: If you were an astronaut, training for the first manned mission to Mars, would you spend your free time reading books about Venus? Or, to put it another way, if you were a volunteer on your way to Haiti, would you be studying Canada? Or, if you were about to go on a missions trip to a remote island in the South Pacific, would you try to learn all you could about Zimbabwe before you left? Perhaps more importantly, would you be reading books about Canada or Zimbabwe written by someone who had never actually been there?

I don’t mean to sound impassive or unsympathetic, but it’s hard for me to get all worked up over what happens here on earth after the rapture: I don’t plan on being here! There has been a lot of discussion back and forth over whether it’s possible to miss the rapture and still go to Heaven—after all, God is the God of second chances—but, honestly, do you think that it will be easier to get right with God after the church goes home? Besides that, what happens if something should happen to you before the rapture? You could get hit by a drunk driver tonight. Accidents happen all the time.

I saw a bumper sticker once that said, “People who plan on getting saved at the eleventh hour often die at ten thirty.” This is a reference to a parable that Jesus told about workers in the field, and the lord of that property paid each of them the same amount, even those that started work at the eleventh hour. The point of the parable is that it doesn’t matter at what stage of your life you give your heart to Jesus, as long as you remain faithful once you make that commitment, but the point of the bumper sticker is that you have no promise of tomorrow.

My point is that we don’t know when the rapture will be. I believe that it will happen in my lifetime, but so did John Newton. I have attended the funerals of many people who believed that they would live to see the rapture. On the other hand, there are some who have studied Revelation and have concluded that the rapture is still a long way off, as evidenced by the many prophesies that remain, as yet, unfulfilled. I personally that God is a great God and that He could fulfill many prophesies in a matter of hours (to be honest, I suspect that there will be more than a few people at judgment who will say, “But God, you said this would happen before the rapture,” only to have it explained to them exactly how they misinterpreted the prophecy).

The bottom line is, we should be doing all that we can to make sure that we are ready now, rather than worry about what might happen if we are not ready at the appointed time, or even worry about the signs pointing to the appointed time. As long as you are ready, it doesn’t really matter when the rapture will come, or what will happen afterwards.

What Is Your Weakness?

There is an old story about a water bearer who had two pots, one of which was cracked. I’m not going to recount the story here, but I will provide a link if you are not familiar with the story and would like to read it. The point of the story is that we each have our own strengths and weaknesses, and we shouldn’t feel superior or inferior to others because of a given strength or weakness. Your weakness is, of course, none of my business. The Bible does say to confess your faults one to another, but, quite frankly, I have enough weaknesses of my own to deal with. I’d rather not deal with yours.

Apostle Paul wrote once about the different members of the body. He asked the question, “If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?” His point was that different members of the body have different purposes. We need our eyes to see, ears to hear, hands to hold things, feet to walk, etc. By the same token, the Body of Christ has many members, and God has given each of us different abilities. We can easily see the importance of a good pastor, but how many of consider the importance of the one who comes in and cleans the church after service? Would you want to attend a church where the bathrooms never got cleaned? How long would it take before the entire building smelled? There are also people in the church to whom God has given a caring spirit. Many times you don’t pay much attention to these people, but when things are not going well for you, they have an encouraging word that helps get your heart right. They don’t have a position or a title in the organization, but the pastor wouldn’t be able to maintain the flock without them.

Casting Crowns did a song awhile back called, “Stained-Glass Masquerade” in which they posited that we have a bad (very bad) tendency to try to act perfect. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that, because I am a Christian, I should not have any faults. If that were the case, however, then James 5:16 wouldn’t make any sense. Sometimes God covers our faults, but sometimes He shows our faults off to others so that they can see what marvelous works can be wrought by Him through even such miserable wretches as we are. Matthew 5:16 says to let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven. At first glance, that doesn’t seem very fair: If I’m doing the work, then why does He get the credit? Keep in mind, though, that if you are doing your work properly, then God will allow you to do things that you simply aren’t capable of doing on your own. Not necessarily what we would normally term ‘miracles,’ you understand, just things that you personally just aren’t good enough to do. Do you remember the story of Gideon? God kept telling Gideon that he had too many soldiers; if God allowed Israel to defeat an army that only outnumbered them by three-to-one or so, then the Israelites might start thinking that they could fight wars on their own. Even so, we have been given weaknesses by God so that we (and those around us) recognize it when God is working through us—God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.

Of course, Scripture also teaches us that we are not sufficient of ourselves even to think as of ourselves. Many of us have higher beings working through us without us even being aware of it. Unfortunately, many of those times, it isn’t God or His angels that are propelling us. It requires a great deal of time spent praying and seeking God to be sure which Spirit one is being led by.

Also remember that Scripture teaches us that we have all fallen short. If you start thinking that you can’t make a mistake, then you need to remember that you are still just a cracked pot. If you start thinking that you are just the worst person in the world, then you need to remember that the rest of us are cracked pots, too. The only reason that we have value is because God has granted us value. You are somebody because God loves you, not because of anything you can do.

The Women In Christ's Lineage

I want to make a couple of points before I really get into the topic at hand. First, for those of you not familiar with the term, ‘transliteration,’ it refers to trying to find a collection of letters in the alphabet used by one group of people, that will roughly correspond to the name of a person or place in another language used by a different group of people—particularly if the two groups of people use different alphabets. You may have noticed a number of different spellings for the name of the leader of Libya: Muammar Khadafy. His last name sometimes starts with a ‘Q’ or a ‘G’. The reason for this is that the national language of Libya is Arabic, and Arabic does not use the same alphabet that English does. In fact, Arabic uses many sounds that are not adequately represented by our alphabet (as does Hebrew). You may have also noticed that many names are spelled differently in the Old Testament, as opposed to the New Testament. This is because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but the New Testament was written in Greek. Of course, many of the people in the New Testament were Hebrews, so their names were written using the Greek alphabet when pen met paper (papyrus?) for the New Testament. To be honest, transliterating names almost always involves some distortion, although a conscientious transliterator will strive to minimize the distortion. It is inevitable that some names converted from Hebrew into English, and the same names converted from Hebrew into Greek, and then into English, are going to have differences.

Secondly, in ancient times, women were often considered to be more or less second-class citizens; they were frequently left out of historical narratives. Even the Bible makes several references to women without bothering to mention their names. Think about it: What was the name of the woman at the well? How about the woman that was healed of an issue of blood? The woman with the pot of oil that never failed? I’m sure you can think of other examples as well. It was unusual that a man was mentioned in Scripture without being named, unless he had a very minor role in what was going on, but women were treated differently.

Matthew chapter 1 lists the genealogy of Christ from Joseph’s side of the family. Joseph wasn’t really His father, but, this lineage establishes that Jesus came from a line of kings (adopted sons of kings have been known to inherit the throne, but no one except Joseph and Mary knew that Jesus was Joseph’s adopted son, anyway). David, King of Israel, is mentioned, along with David’s son and successor, Solomon. After Solomon, Jesus’ lineage traces through the kings of Judah rather than Israel, but it is clear that Jesus was of Royal blood, and, had Israel (and Judah) not been under Roman occupation at the time of His birth, He would have had a physical throne here on Earth. Having said that, though, there are five women listed in Jesus’ lineage (four of them listed by name). These women were great women of faith.

The first woman mentioned in Jesus’ lineage is Thamar—spelled Tamar in the Old Testament. Tamar was the wife of Judah’s oldest son, Er, who died childless. As a result, the middle son, Onan, was required to marry her in order to raise up an heir for his late brother. Onan got greedy and tried to take advantage of his sister-in-law/wife while taking pains to ensure that no heir was produced (meaning that, when Judah died, whatever he had would be split three ways between the son of Onan and Tamar, Onan, and Shelah. These splits were generally not done evenly—the eldest got a bigger share. This means that the son of Onan and Tamar would end up with more of Judah’s stuff than Onan would); God took him. So, Judah’s youngest son, Shelah, was supposed to marry Tamar, but Judah, having already lost two sons, for reasons that were not entirely clear to him, after they married this woman, was understandably concerned at the idea of his youngest (and now only) son marrying Tamar. Judah delayed the wedding. But time passed, and the marriage still wasn’t happening, and Tamar wasn’t getting any younger, so she tricked Judah into himself doing the act that resulted in producing heirs to replace Er and Onan (those heirs being Pharez and Zarah). This, apparently, was very important in God’s plan; as I said, Tamar is one of very few women mentioned in Christ’s lineage. And, by the way, since Judah was only one generation removed from Israel (who only had one daughter, Dinah), I think that it’s safe to say that Tamar was not born of Israel.

The second woman mentioned is Rachab—spelled Rahab in the Old Testament. Rahab hid the spies that Joshua sent in to case the city of Jericho before the attack. She indicated to the authorities that had left the city through one of the gates shortly before, and urged them to hurry out after them. When the searchers returned from their fruitless search, she then helped the two spies escape the city. In return, they promised that she, and her family, would not be harmed when the city fell.

The third woman mentioned is Ruth. Ruth was born a Moabitess, but she converted to Judaism. She, like Tamar, became a young, childless widow, and ended up having to marry a near-relative of her late husband (he had no surviving brothers), but not until after she had plainly and confidently stated to her mother-in-law Naomi that where Naomi went, Ruth would go, and that Naomi’s God would be Ruth’s God. Ruth continued to take care of her mother-in-law, and did not abandon her.

The fourth woman mentioned is Bathsheba, and she isn’t mentioned by name. She is referred to as “her that had been the wife of Urias”—wouldn’t it have been easier for the writer to spell out her name? Bathsheba’s first husband, Uriah, was a Hittite. The Hittites were among the peoples that Israel was supposed to kill or drive out of the Promised Land when they came up out of Egypt, but did not. Now Uriah was fiercely loyal to Israel, even if he was not an Israelite by birth. It occurred to me to wonder if Bathsheba were a Hittite, too, but, the name Bathsheba comes from two Hebrew words, and her father, Eliam, has a Hebrew name, also, so it would seem that she was the first woman mentioned in Christ’s lineage that was actually an Israelite.

The fifth woman is, of course, Mary. I don’t think I need to say anything about her, except maybe that her name has been distorted by the transliteration from Hebrew to Greek to English. Whenever her name is transliterated directly from Hebrew to English, it is written as Miriam. She was named for Moses’ sister, the prophetess.

Consider, for a moment, that of these five women, three of them were not Israelites by birth. All of them shared in the belief system of the Israelites, but three were converts. Of course, with the understanding that, among other things, Jesus was a Light unto the Gentiles, it makes sense that His lineage was not purely that of chosen people.