Will the Holy Spirit Really Teach Us Everything?

There are a great number of promises made in the Bible and many are quick to co-opt them when they want to make claims, prove a point, or supplement their own pet doctrines – but Biblical promises mean nothing out of context. A promise to one individual is not necessarily universal in nature or in other words, we can’t just go and steal someone else’s promises.

Abraham was given some directives that applied specifically to himself, as well as promises that applied only to specific lines of his offspring, either natural or grafted in (adopted). David and Aaron likewise received promises reserved for their lines only! Yet other promises in scripture are between specific individuals – for instance, from Yeshua to the Twelve, or from Paul to Timothy! Sadly, co-opted and removed out of time and context, there are many who use them to bolster their individual desires for blessing, to claim blessed status or to name and claim whatever it is they think they deserve – promises meant for other people or groups of people collectively!

Take for instance the promises of God towards the Nation of Israel that as long as it (the Nation as a whole) was faithful, they would suffer none of the diseases of the Egyptians, or experience barrenness, or poverty, etc. Well despite individual faithfulness, we see good people suffering because of the unrighteousness of the Nation as a whole – there was barrenness, disease, famine and poverty that impacted both the righteous and the unrighteous. The faithful Israelites couldn’t just name and claim the promise – because the promise was conditional based upon their national faithfulness.

But I have seen incredibly fertile couples who are not financially independent mocking wealthy barren couples – saying that the barrenness is a sign of “unrepentant sin.” But wait – the people with a bunch of kids are borrowers and not lenders, so why did they assume that they were the blessed when borrowing is also a sign of being cursed for unfaithfulness? Hypocrisy? Maybe, or maybe just ignorance and blindness towards the legitimacy of the blessings of others. Truth is, here in exile, as a part of an unfaithful Body of believers – we all suffer the effects of the Biblical curses, but sometimes we get the blessings – and that is a wonderful display of mercy, but in a world where even the evil get those same blessings we need to proceed with caution before attributing them to our “excellent” characters or faithful walks.

One of the most egregiously stolen promises is found in John 14 – during a private conversation between Yeshua (Jesus) and the eleven remaining disciples. It is not spoken to the world, but to his select students:

²⁵“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. ²⁶But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

We see a few very specific things tied together.

1. Yeshua reminds them of things spoken personally, to them, the eleven.

2. Yeshua promises that the Spirit will teach them personally all things (that the Spirit will do away with their confusion in the wake of what is about to happen, preparing them to go forth with the Gospel).

3. Yeshua promises that the Spirit will cause them to remember what Yeshua spoke personally to them, as a way of bringing about #2.

This is not a promise to the world and yet we hear people loudly claiming that the Holy Spirit will teach them all things whatsoever. And what is the fruit of that misappropriated promise? A Body of Believers who often attributed every flash of “inspiration” to be Holy Spirit inspired – resulting in doctrines based on nothing more than opinion and often flying directly in the face of what is written. I have encountered people who tell me that they know the true pronunciation of the Name because they heard it in a dream, but I know many people who have heard many pronunciations in dreams. I chalk it up not to a massive deception in everyone who hears the name spoken every way except “my way,” but instead to YHVH approaching us according to our understanding – resulting in our hearing, in the midst of the dream, the Name we expect to hear. I don’t discount the dream, but I do discount the hearing of a pronunciation in the dream to be authoritative or a sign of being particularly anointed.

So this is a short song I wrote about this phenomenon: “Holy Spirit, gonna teach me EVERYTHING, so I am right about EVERYTHING, and you don’t got the Spirit, because we DISAGREE.”

Yes, that was sort of rude, but when we claim that our understanding is according to the Spirit, and someone else claims the same thing while believing something else – well we are both using the “Holy Spirit Seal of Approval” to bolster our doctrines, and both cannot be right. I don’t know about you, but I have been pretty darned sure in the past that the “Spirit” was teaching me some stuff that ended up being vain imagination. I am hoping that it didn’t amount to blaspheming the Spirit – and nowadays I just don’t do that anymore. It isn’t the job of the Spirit to back me up in arguments.

So let’s go to I John 2

²⁶These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

²⁸Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. ²⁹If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

People like to use this one to say that no one needs any teachers and that the anointing really will teach us all things. If that was John’s meaning, then why write at all? Why not send a letter saying, “Well, you know, just wanted to say hi because you already know everything.”

Look at verse 27 because here is the often overlooked point, “just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”

I John is all about living together as a Body in love and respect and unity, and about not being drawn away after deceivers. It is about loving in the face of hatred and remaining faithful to the commandments and to the testimony of Messiah. Those are indeed the things that the Spirit endeavors to teach everyone whose heart is not hardened with pride.

It is not the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal the Scriptures to people who don’t read them, nor context to the people who don’t study it. It won’t teach Hebrew and Greek to people who aren’t taking classes (believe me, I’ve tried). The Holy Spirit teaches us how to develop the fruit of the Spirit which is to be had in learning to humbly abide in Him, with each other.

(Edit: A facebook friend brought up John 16 – is it about the Holy Spirit teaching us to obey the commandments – so let me cover that as well –

13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

Here is my response: Okay, so He is specifically speaking to eleven Torah observant Jews about the Spirit telling them what is to come, in context, and along with the next verse, will glorify Yeshua. In the previous verse, Yeshua declares that it will be things they could not bear to hear yet, and since we know that Yeshua taught Torah and preached the commandments, that this is going to be specifically limited to instructions to those disciples – teaching them things they cannot yet understand, things that are to come, and the glorification of Yeshua.)

Confronting Pseudo-Archaeological Memes Pt 2 – Are obelisks really… well, you know….

Do I need to say it? Have you seen the memes linking ancient obelisks with fertility gods? That they are really phallic symbols and that the reason we have one in Washington D.C is because the Washington Monument represents the “Father” of our country?

Is there any truth to this at all? Well, let’s look at the archaeological data and see.

First – let’s get the definition

Obelisk – a shaft of stone (usually granite) with a pointed top; word comes from Greek obeliskoi: which means little spits or meat skewers

Now what was the purpose of the obelisk? According to Egyptologist Barbara Watterson:

“Obelisks were cult symbols of the sun god (referring to Re), and date back to predynastic times when they were worshipped as models of the miraculous shaft of stone upon which the sun was to place itself upon first rising.” (The Gods of Ancient Egypt, 1984, pg 68)

Richard H. Wilkinson offers the following interesting tidbit about obelisks: Baboons, who were thought to greet the rising of the sun (hence their noisiness in the morning), are often featured on the pedestals of obelisks (Reading Egyptian Art, 1992, pg 73)

Re, better known to the western world as Ra, was probably the least sexually oriented god in the Egyptian pantheon. Whereas many others were incestuous, marrying their brothers and sisters, Re was a creator god who created both gods and people without any indication of fertility apart from his words, his sweat (used to create the other gods) and his tears (used to create humans). This is decidedly UNLIKE other Egyptian mythologies about the creation of humans – but we cannot take those stories into consideration in our discussion of obelisks, which were associated with the worship of Re, centered in Heliopolis.

There are currently twenty-eight surviving Egyptian Obelisks worldwide, and only eight of them are still in Egypt. None are associated in any way, shape or form, with any sort of fertility worship. Re was the sun god – he spent his days sailing across the sky in his sun barque and his nights sailing through the Netherworld in his night barque – no time or need for fertility.

I have a stack of books dealing with fertility gods and goddesses written by serious scholars, people with credentials who are subject to per review, and archaeologists and not one, not even one, mentions obelisks in reference to them.

Now, we do see obelisks in other ancient Near Eastern cultures in the form of historical monuments where histories and great victories were recorded – but still, they are not associated with any sort of fertility, they are just monuments. For example, the Black Obelisk of Shalmanesser III, an important witness to the Biblical King Jehu.

Look, I used to believe this one because it seems obvious and it was kind of funny. But the archaeology is clear – the obelisk is a sun needle, a resting place for the sun, and we cannot read more into it than that without sacrificing the truth. No real archaeologists are even debating these facts – despite many armchair theorists wanting to connect unconnected concepts for their own religious purposes. Not everything that is heathen is sexual in nature, and the obvious is quite often the product of our modern over-sexualized imagination and wishful thinking.

Always remember that anyone can make up an amusing meme or post something on the internet but that doesn’t make it true. Not only doesn’t it make it true, but like posting urban legends and spoof stories, it severely damages our witness as believers. It makes us laughing stocks – and when that happens, it causes the Name of our King YHVH to be brought to shame. If we can’t prove it, then we shouldn’t post it. The information is either there, or it isn’t – let’s do our homework.

(Note: Before anyone brings up the Asherah “pole” I would challenge them to (1) find a reference linking them to obelisks and (2) find any proof that an Asherah was actually a pole (they are merely called Asherah in scripture and we have no solid proof of what an Asherah was among archaeologists, only theories))

Kingdom Minded or Self-Seeking?

I had such a wonderful response to this yesterday on facebook that I decided to add it to the blog.

I had a wonderful sleepless night last night – sometimes that’s the way it is as we wrestle with something that we can’t put a name to. It’s been this way with me for a week now, dealing with different things, but last night I had a marvelous breakthrough in the area of being Kingdom minded.

Kingdom mindedness is something we have not seen, not ever, in the Body of Messiah. Well, maybe at the very beginning, but even then it was hampered by the Jewish laws that barred Gentiles from receiving the gospel until Peter’s encounter with Cornelius. After that – since then, it has been a struggle. Warring ethnicities became warring denominations, and warring teachers and warring movements. Even charitable organisations war against each other! And it’s because we are not Kingdom minded.

A Kingdom minded ministry is not an empire builder, nor does it see its congregants as property or simply resources – an audience that they are entitled to have. A Kingdom minded person will gladly lay down not only their life unto death for the good of the Kingdom, but also their prosperity, their honor, and their status. A Kingdom minded person is not jealous of the success of another but rejoices if the truth is being preached better and more effectively elsewhere. A Kingdom minded teacher will send students to another teacher if they are better off with someone else, or need something that they personally cannot give.

It is easier to kill for an ideal than to die for it, and easier sometimes to die for it than to live for the reality of it. We have the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the truth is that we have to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of it. We have to be willing to watch our ministries diminish and others rise up if that is the plan of YHVH. We have to be willing to labor in obscurity, to live in poverty, to be a failure in the eyes of the world, if that is what our assignment requires. We have to be willing to be hated, but we have to make sure that we have not personally inspired that hatred through our own behavior. The Kingdom minded person will do anything to avoid misrepresenting the character of the King.

The Kingdom minded individual realizes that they are not important at all compared to the Kingdom itself, the people within it, and the lost outside of it. It’s a paradigm changer in our individualistic, “What about me?” society.

Our families may even want to drive us towards success, or inspire us to greed and jealousy – but we will find ourselves fighting against God Himself if we succumb to it. Everyone has their own job, and each job is important. A Kingdom minded person cherishes the part played by each member of the body, from the eye to the hand, to even the knees. Success is doing what we are each called to do, where we are called to do it, excellently and with humility and not trying to be anything else – because we don’t need to be anything else than what we are called to do. The “Well done good and faithful servant” probably won’t be as readily heard by the people who sought to do everyone else’s work and neglect their own – but I believe will be heard loud and clear by the people who faithfully did according to their own assignments, no matter how much society tried to deceive them into thinking their role to be insignificant.

“I will make them…. to know that I loved you” – Revelation 3:9 in the Context of Acts 10 and the House of Shammai Pharisees

En Espanol here

Sadly, due to a lack of First Century context, Revelation 3:9 has been used for a long time as a “proof text” that somehow the Jews who we see in modern times are not truly Jews at all but this is a dangerous fallacy. In this letter to the ekklesia at Philadelphia, it is written:

“Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.”

To turn this into a diatribe against all Jews is pure anti-semitism, but fortunately for us, we know historically the identity of the “Synagogue of Satan” – namely, the Pharisees of the House of Shammai. During the 90 years before the destruction of the Second Temple (may it be rebuilt in our days!) the Sanhedrin council of the Jews (think Supreme Court) was controlled by a group of Pharisees known as the House of Shammai. Unashamedly anti-Gentile, they enacted 18 edicts which were called by their opposition, the more Gentile-friendly House of Hillel, as shameful as the building of the golden calf at Sinai. What was so shameful about these edicts which were so hated that we no longer even have a copy of them? They specifically made it illegal for a Jew to have close dealings with Gentiles, even those Gentiles who kept the commandments and worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – like Cornelius the Centurion. A Jew could not enter into their house (see Acts 10), nor could they eat at the same table (which was the controversy in Galatia) with someone unless they became circumcised and converted formally to the religion of Judaism. Although Hillel was very favorable to allowing Gentiles to be grafted in to the Body of believers, Shammai was not and these rulings made a literal legal wall of separation. The opinions of the House of Shammai were so distasteful to the first century Hillel Rabbis that Yevamot 16A records an instance of a man calling his own brother the “first born of Satan” for siding with the House of Shammai on an interpretation of law! (see Falk, pg 118)

John, being a Jew, knew this – and Yeshua (Jesus) also used this language throughout the gospels. So that covers the context of the Synagogue of Satan. But the accusation goes further, saying that they aren’t even Jews! Where else do we hear that language? From another member of the House of Hillel – Paul – in Romans 2

“²⁵For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. ²⁶Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? ²⁷And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? ²⁸For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: ²⁹But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

Paul states here very clearly that circumcision means nothing if a man is a transgressor of the law, and that if one keeps the law, it is as though he is circumcised. But what does this have to do with Shammai and his followers not being true Jews? Namely this – Torah clearly states that the wall of separation and the edicts of Shammai, and any racism or form of second-class citizenry in the Kingdom of Heaven is a transgression of the Law (Ex 12:49, Lev 24:22, Num 15:16, 29). In addition, it is blasphemy, because it misrepresents the equity and integrity of our great God and King – exalting instead a human bloodline. They were circumcised, but they were seriously encroaching upon the rights of the King to determine the citizenship of His own Kingdom and Paul says that they are “not Jews” and that they are lying to claim otherwise.

As for the rest, we need the context of Acts 10 and the outpouring of the Spirit on the family of the righteous Roman Centurion Cornelius and his entire household. This is very important to grasp because in my opinion we are heading into the latter day outpouring of the Spirit, the likes of which has not been seen in almost 2000 years. Right now we are dealing once more with the very situation that Peter found himself in, in both Acts 10 and Galatians 2. There is rising up a spirit of Shammai once more, just as we are seeing the spirit of Antisemitism growing stronger – they are flip sides of the same bad penny and neither one can be tolerated within the Body.

Now, Peter was raised under the 18 edicts and didn’t question them (If you want a fuller workup of this, I covered it in detail in King, Kingdom Citizen) – he really believed it was flat out wrong to go into a Gentile’s house (Acts 10:28) and it took a shocking vision from Heaven to even get him to begin to question it. It took an act of the Holy Spirit to get him to see how wrong it was. for when the Spirit fell on non-Jews, Peter had to admit that God was no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-5) but accepts everyone who fears Him and does righteousness. This was huge for a first-century Jew to admit this and in chapter 11 other Jews have a fit with him over it until they too are presented with the evidence! Paradigms, the mindsets we do not question, are hard to break and this one was REALLY hard to break.

We encounter this mindset again in Galatians 2, where we see that Peter is refusing table fellowship to the former Gentiles in response to peer pressure – years after Acts 10. In fact, as I cover in King, Kingdom, Citizen – Galatians is a book entirely about whether or not Gentiles had to become Jews in order to be accepted as full Kingdom citizens and Paul proved that they did not. The Spirit of Shammai, however, was not going to die easily and we are seeing it again in these last days. Gentiles who have turned their backs on the world, who are keeping the testimony of Messiah and are keeping the commandments of God, are being reduced by some to second-class citizens. They are being told they have no right to keep the commandments at all, or that if they do they must keep them according to the traditions of men. They are being denied an equitable place at the table, and they are being accused of boasting against the natural branches, the Jews, for even suggesting that there is equity between Jew and former Gentile within the Kingdom. They are being shamed because of a lack of pedigree, because of being born into the “wrong” bloodline.

But it is not boasting when one recognizes that God is no respecter of persons, it is instead upholding the honor of God as a God of equity. Boasting happens when one suggests that the Jews have been replaced! Replaced? May it never be – not replaced but joined together with the former Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel spoken of in Ephesians 2.

Just as Rosa Parks was not boasting against that white man when she refused to stand up and relinquish her seat, but was standing on the integrity of the Constitution, so those who insist that we are fellow citizens and not second class citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are not boasting but relying on the integrity of the Constitution of the Kingdom, the Torah.

And this is why I believe we are heading into the second outpouring of the Spirit – because once more we see those who keep the testimony of Yeshua and the commandments being kept apart from the same mindset that Hillel compared to the golden calf. It has to happen, in order for God’s honor to be upheld and His equity to be witnessed, the Spirit is going to have to fall equally upon Jew and former-Gentile believer alike, in a public and unmistakable way.

Now back to Rev 3:9b

“Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.”

This is not, as some have portrayed it, Jews being forced to worship Gentiles and admit they were right – this is God shaming those who have shamed Him in calling His honor and equity into question, in encroaching upon the rights of the King to determine His own subjects, a Father to adopt children, and a God to reward His worshipers with integrity. This has nothing to do with the former-Gentiles and everything to do with those who would misrepresent His righteous, just, merciful and generous character. God will rectify the insult – again, this isn’t about us but about Him. He will shame and put into their place those who have forfeited their citizenship by encroaching upon His authority.

The outpouring has to come, but perhaps not for the reasons we have been taught. I believe it is not merely about imbuing us with power but also about re-establishing His honor and shaming those who would, in their zeal to promote their own bloodlines, blaspheme His character.

Falk, Harvey “Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus” 1985 – specifically chapter 7

Confronting Pseudo-Archaeological Memes Pt 1 – Does IHS really refer to the Isis-Horus-Set Trinity?

(Pictured: The Egyptian “trinity” of Horus (the hawk-headed god of the sky, the personification of the living Pharaoh), Osiris (the dead god of the underworld, the personification of the mummified and dead Pharaohs), and Isis (the protector goddess). In order – son, husband, wife.)

So, I have been spending a lot of time (and a bit of money) researching ancient Egypt as a part of my Bible context studies. It is incredibly fascinating watching Egyptian mythology pop up throughout not only the first five books of the Bible (the Torah) but also in the Psalms and Prophets – really, throughout the Bible because Egypt was a big player and Israel could not get enough of Egypt! At the end of this blog, I will be sharing some of the books I have been reading.

Now, when I read books on context, I don’t waste my time with most of the stuff out there written about “Babylonian religion” because the overwhelming number of books were not written by archaeologists or scholars but by everyday people who may or may not have done their homework. I stay away from those because I don’t want to “muddy the waters” and I concentrate instead on the enormous amount of primary source material – ancient documents, inscriptions, hieroglyphics, idols, etc.

So what primary source material do we have on Egyptian mythology? Well, more than we have from any other culture – and the material is in better condition because of the climate and burial rites of the ancient Egyptians. This brings me to a claim I have been seeing out there by people who want to promote the idea that the IHS symbol we see in churches stands for the “Trinity” of Isis, Horus, and Set. We are going to look at the evidence, and when the evidence disproves the accusations, the accusations have to be discounted, no matter how interesting they are or how much trust we have invested in them.

Let me teach you about Egyptian trinities – they were Father, Mother, Son trinities. These were family units – husband, wife, and child. No Holy Spirit. Heck, the father can even be dead as a doornail. No virginity required. Virginity wasn’t something highly prized by Egyptians, especially not when people were married, and extra-especially not in their gods and goddesses and anyone who has read the texts knows that the Egyptian pantheon was anything but sexually moral and in fact, they were highly incestuous. The Egyptians not only had trinities, but they also had an Ogdoad (the eight creators of the world, also referred to as the first eight to emerge from the primordial sea) in Upper (Southern) Egypt and the Ennead (a grouping of nine gods – including Isis, Osiris, Horus, and Set).

Now, I am not going to go into great detail here, but the entire idea of a trinity of Isis, Horus, and Set is ludicrous from both the Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, and even modern standpoint because of one small problem. Set spent the overwhelming majority of his time being the mortal enemy of both Isis and Horus – his sister and nephew. The stories of the battles between Set and Horus are not for those with weak stomachs – I read them once and that is enough for me. Why were Isis and Horus perpetually warring with Set? Because Set killed his brother Osiris – the husband/brother of Isis and father of Horus. Did Isis and Horus ever hook up with Set and make amends and agree to be worshiped together? Absolutely not, and truth be told, Set was the most hated god in the Egyptian pantheon because Osiris (for the bulk of Ancient Egyptian history) was the most beloved. You see, after Set killed Osiris, Osiris became the dead god of the underworld – caring for those who had gone into the afterlife.

What IHS does stand for is a matter of debate but one thing is certain – no one at any time would have cause to worship Isis, Horus and Set together. Isis was beloved as a protector goddess, Horus was beloved as the sky god and was identified with the living Pharaoh of Egypt, Osiris was beloved as the protector of the dead – but Set was abominated by Egyptians and apart from being worshiped early on, his cult fell into disrepute and he was pretty much universally hated as the enemy of pretty much every decent god out there.

So, why did I write this? Because I see a very damaging tendency out there to attack what we hate at all costs – and even if that cost is the truth itself. Memes lie – all the time and especially about archaeology. And authors don’t always fact check before they write their books, especially if “everyone knows it’s true.” The prophet Jeremiah prophesied we would proclaim that “our father’s have inherited lies” (16:19) and it is true – but we must beware that in combating the lies we don’t fall for other lies. If we cannot verify the information from a scholarly source, from actual archaeology, how can we afford to believe it, put our faith in it, post it on social media, and preach it?

Now, I just gave you the Reader’s Digest version that is fit for children to read but now I will show you my methodology. I saw the accusation on the meme, and knowing very little hard data about Egyptian mythology I went on the internet and found conflicting information depending on agendas with no real source material given. So, that was the last time I was going to try that. I bought some books on Ancient Egyptian and ANE mythology written by people with actual credentials in the field of archaeological study. I ignored the popular and largely sensational books that offered me nothing but conjecture and went to those who were studying the primary source material and who were backed by peers in the field. Anyone can write a book, and say whatever they want! But scholars are subject to peer review, and they are not as quick as most people to destroy the data – because their peers will catch them and expose them.

Be sure to check out the related posts about the word Lord, Lord and God, Christ, Yahweh, and Amen.

So here are some of my books that are readily obtainable and pretty easy reading.

Watterson, Barbara – The Gods of Ancient Egypt. Watterson is an Egyptologist with a PhD from Liverpool University

Mercatante, Anthony – Who’s Who in Egyptian Mythology. I really liked this one and it included translations of several folktales which were incredibly helpful with my understanding of how ancient Egyptians thought. His book has the backing of Dr Robert S Bianchi, who holds a PhD in Egyptian Art.

Walton, John – Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. Not a lot of information as this book was not intended to be specifically Egyptian, but it is just such an important book that I always promote it. He holds a Masters in Biblical Studies and a PhD in Hebrew and Cognate Studies, He is a professor of Old Testament Studies at Wheaton College.

Wilkinson, Richard S – Reading Egyptian Art. This book is very cool on many levels and it is fun now being able to make out a lot of hieroglyphics. Because Isis, Osiris, Horus and Set are so important, you will find them throughout. He is an Egyptologist with 25 years in the field, Regents Professor Emeritus, PhD, Arizona State University.

For more insights on how to study the context of scripture, check out my youtube channel where I just started short weekly teachings on how and why to study Biblical context for yourself.