The Backyard Professor

The Naked Archaeologist

The guy who is on the History channel calling himself "The Naked Archaeologist," had a special recently with Dr. Barklay and the 2 silver scrolls discovered at Jerusalem dating 600 B.C. These scrolls have been discussed by BYU scholar William J. Adams in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and other scholars have shown had religious writing of scriptures on them, a perfect Book of Mormon theme. I have done some videos on these on my YouTube site, where I have many dozens of videos on the Book of Mormon now. You can see it by typing all one word - thebackyardprofessor. Or, just go here:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=TheBackyardProfessor

Bill Hamblin's new analysis of recent Archaeological Temple

Here is a fascinating look into some recent archaeological information on the ancient temple in the Palestine area from Dr. William J. Hamblin. Enjoy!

http://web.mac.com/hamblinwj/Research/Things_Unutterable/Entries/2008/4/27_New_Ancient_Model_Temples.html

Why you will NEVER get it from only reading an English translation of the Bible

Are you familiar with the translation of the Lords prayer from the
Aramaic by Klotz? All the Semitic languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Arabic, use a root system which allows one word to hold multiple
meanings. Thus, a tradition of translation arose that led to each
word of a prophet being considered on many different levels of
meaning. The prayer of Jesus-sometimes called the Lord's Prayer, is
also known as the Abwoon, Father-Mother of the Cosmos. Here is a
translation from the Aramaic by Neil Douglas Klotz.

"O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
focus your light within us. Create your reign of unity now. Your one
desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms. Grant
what we need each day in bread and insight. Loose the cords of
mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others'
guilt. Don't let surface things delude us, but free us from what
holds us back. From You is born all ruling will, the power and the
life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.
Truly-power to these statements-may they be the ground from which
all our actions grow. Amen."

The Book of Adam And Our Own Book of Moses!

A note from Joe Steve Swick III which I find intriguing, as I am sure you will also!

Then began these men to call upon the name of the Lord, and the Lord blessed
them; And a book of remembrance was kept, in . . . which was recorded, in
the language of Adam . . . . which was pure and undefiled . . . . [the]
prophecy that Adam spake, as he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost. - see
Moses 6: 4-9

All religions have preserved the remembrance of a primitive book, written in
hieroglyphs by the sages of the earliest epoch of the world. Simplified and
vulgarized in later days, its symbols furnished letters to the art of
writing, characters to the Word, and to occult philosophy its mysterious
signs and pantacles. This book, attributed by the Hebrews to Enoch, seventh
master of the world after Adam; by the Egyptians to Hermes Trismegistus; by
the Greeks to Cadmus, the mysterious builder of the Holy City: this book was
the symbolical summary of primitive tradition, called subsequently Kabalah
or Cabala, meaning reception. - Eliphas Levi

There exists an occult and sacred alphabet which the Hebrews attributed to
Enoch, the Egyptians to Thoth or Mercurius Trismegistus, the Greeks to
Cadmus and Palamedes. This alphabet, which was known to the Pythagoreans, is
composed of absolute ideas attached to signs and numbers, and its
combinations realize the mathematics of thought. - Eliphas Levi

Killing, Sacrifice & Understanding Christ Better

Isn't it rather an odd notion that so much killing, death, and sacrifice is associated in the ancient Israelite rituals? Why would God demand death and killing? The late Leonora Leet (Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah) has proposed that what is being sacrificed with animal sacrifice is the human's willing participation to sacrifice our animal nature within ourselves so the Spiritual Nature can begin to take over. I have found (from another dear friend's brilliant mind and her sharing this with me) another interesting little ditty that may bring a little more light to this fascinating topic.

As an additional note, there is a Hebrew word for kill, ChaBaZ which means
to sacrifice, to kill, also a name of the white stage of the Great Work. (this in reference to Alchemy) Its gematric value is 17.

I agree that in order to regain higher consciousness one must kill all presently held concepts of who and what we are and who and what "God" or "Christ", as mental images, are.

Other words with the value of 17 are:

HHVA, The Hoa, "the He", a reference to Kether, the Crown on the Kabbalah Tree of Life.

HaZaH, to dream, sleep; to rave.

ZeBeCh, to slaughter, to sacrifice.

I A V, J. E. V. , the initials for Jehovah, Eloah Va'da'ath (this method of Gematria is called Notiqarion). A divine name in Tiphareth, the sphere on the Kabbalah Tree of Life which means "Beauty."
So this killing out of presently held notions of deity is necessary for a fuller understanding and awareness of  "Christ".

A Note on the Shema - Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear O Israel: the Lord your God the Lord is one [echad]

The common Kabbalistic reading is:

"Hear O Israel: YHWH Elohaynu (Limited, Immanent Deity) [and] YHWH
(Unlimited, Transcendent Deity) are One [and the same]."

Or perhaps:

"Hear O Israel: YHWH (Unlimited, Transcendent Deity) [and] Elohaynu
(Limited, Immanent Deity) (both the Immanent and) YHWH (the Transcendent)
are One [and the same]."

Regarding this, Leet makes another significant observation:

"The central gnosis of sacred science, then,...

Margaret Barker's Biblical Scholarship Appreciated

In FR 19/1, Michael Heiser refers to Margaret Barker via a reference to Brant Gardner essay and claimed that: "Barker's argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible refers to sons of an El-derivative deity (El, Elyon, Elohim), those sons are heavenly beings. When the text speaks of Yahweh or the "Holy One" having sons, those sons are human beings. Barker's "crucial distinction" (p. 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 1:10, where "sons of the living God (El)" are clearly human beings. The Mormon material I have read has not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption. (Heiser, FR 19:1, page 262, note 73)" I responded to this on the MAD Boards, noting that Barker in fact did not miss Hosea 1:10,

Throne of God in Genesis account Before the Creation

The Throne of Glory at the Creation

Rashi, (R Schlomoh ben Yizchak - b1040 C. E.) the medieval Jewish commentator and scholar, commented on the creation account in Genesis that what was hovering (merachephet) over the waters during the initial stages of creation was not the Spirit of God, but rather the throne of God.(1) He said Kiseh’ hakavod ‘omed ba’avir umerachef al peni hamayim beruach piv shel haqadosh baruch hu’ - “The Throne of Glory was standing in the air and hovering over the surface of the water by the breath of the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He.“2) This is quite a remarkable insight which I believe is elaborated on in the Zohar in interesting ways. This is one of those esoteric interpretations which is not in the scripture, but is assumed knowledge of those who are, so to speak, “in the know.” One of those underlying fun little ditties which is generally not known, yet is believed by the mystical Jews. How it changes or helps our understanding of creation is very interesting to note.

I find it interesting that he lived before the great flowering of the Zohar, yet understood this idea of the Throne of God, even from before the

The "Missing" Nazarene Prophecy in Matthew Possibly Found!

The "Missing Prophecy"

A previously unknown passage in a copy of the book of I Samuel found at Qumran may help explain the mysterious "missing prophecy" referred to in the nativity story in the gospel of Matthew. In the first two chapters of that story, Matthew recites five vignettes associated with the birth of Jesus and concludes each by quoting from Hebrew Scripture to show that this was done "to fulfill what had been spoken by the LORD through the prophet." Four of those references are easily found in the traditional Old Testament - that the Messiah would be born of a

virgin11 and would be called Immanuel (Isa. 7:14); that Bethlehem would be his birthplace (Mic. 5:2); that he would come out of Egypt (Hos. 11:1); and that there would be mourning over Herod's slaughter of the children of Bethlehem (Jer. 31:15).

John Tvedtnes on Hebrew notes on Ten Commandments

In the 10 commandments and the one to not eat of the tree of knowledge, we are dealing with a negative command, i.e., "don't do."  Commandments preceded by the negative particle lo' are stronger in nature than those preceded by 'al (and sometimes also using the particle -na).  The former imply that there are consequences for disobedience.  The latter suggest that there are no consequences for going against the advice being given.  Indeed, the 'al negatives are usually treated as polite requests by translators, i.e., "please don't do X."  The particle -na does not always appear with 'al but it sometimes occurs without it in affirmative requests.