weisman

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 14, The Bad Figs

Over our last two presentations in this series we have covered perhaps only two pages of Charles Weisman’s book, What About the Seedline Doctrine?, and have had a few long digressions. But we hope to have shown that in relation to many words found in the New Testament, Weisman had used the same methods of interpretation which had crept into the early universalist church, which were adopted from Gnosticism and Greek Philosophy, but which are not at all Christian.

So last week, in Part 13 of this series, subtitled Children of Wrath, we addressed a claim by Weisman that where Christ referred to His adversaries as children of the devil, He was only speaking metaphorically and telling them that they were mere followers of the devil. Making that argument, the first flaw is that he seems to have purposely ignored the fact that Christ was speaking in reference to Cain, and not to the serpent of Genesis. So if Christ was implying that His adversaries were mere followers of the devil, why would He make a reference to Cain as their father, and not to the serpent itself?

So while he made that assertion, Weisman then sought to show that being “children of the devil” was only a metaphor by comparing the phrase to similar metaphors which appear in the epistles of Paul or in the gospel accounts. Among these are the phrases children of wrath, children of light, children of the world, child of hell, children of disobedience and son of perdition. So we began to examine each instance that Weisman had cited, and a few that he did not cite, where these and similar phrases appear. Doing that, we found that these phrases certainly were used by the writers of Scripture to describe a class of people other than the children of God, a class which has no offer of mercy, forgiveness or redemption, nor any part in the promises of God. Weisman failed to examine those phrases in their original Biblical contexts, and therefore he expected his readers to take for granted his implication that they are all just metaphors describing people who are merely disobedient, rather than people who in fact could never really be obedient in the first place because they are literally not of God.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 13, Children of Wrath

In our last presentation addressing Charles Weisman’s book What About the Seedline Doctrine?, we began to answer his contention where he said that “The Jews… that Jesus was talking to in John 8 were true Israelites. They were not hybrids like those called ‘Jews’ today, and they were not the seed of the serpent or of Cain.” Later in this fourth chapter of his book, Weisman states, speaking of the words of Christ, that “Words may be spoken figuratively, symbolically, allegorically, poetically, typically, or anti-typically.” But he fails to mention anything of understanding words in their original historical context, which is an important aspect of understanding any real-life narrative or discussion from the past. None of the Judeo-Christian commentaries upon which Weisman has relied, as his citations throughout this book indicate, had ever interpreted the words of Christ or his apostles through the proper historical context of the captivities of Israel, the relatively small remnant which returned to Judea, and the history of that remnant over the 450-year period from the time of Ezra to the birth of Christ. Weisman, as well as the mainstream commentators, all take it for granted that the people of Judaea at the time of Christ were all Israelites, and that is certainly not true.

In his voluminous Antiquities of the Judaeans, in Book 13, Flavius Josephus described in detail how the high priest John Hyrcanus, around 129 BC, had conquered several of the cities of Palestine which had formerly belonged to Israel and Judah, but which were occupied by the Edomites since the 6th century BC. In that same book, Josephus later described how in the days of Alexander Jannaeus, a successor of Hyrcanus, he had done that same thing in 30 other towns or regions in Palestine, during his long rule as high priest in Jerusalem, from 103 to 76 BC. Both of these rulers had forcibly converted the Edomites whom they had conquered to Judaism, the Edomites accepted the conversion, and that is also explained by Josephus. These passages are cited and described in detail at Christogenea, notably in Part 12 of the commentary on Romans: The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 12, 06-27-2014: Jacob and Esau.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 12, Children of the Devil

In our last presentation from Weisman’s book, where we are still in chapter 4 , The Role of Cain, under the subtitle Of Your Father the Devil, we actually only presented one paragraph from the bottom of page 31. There Weisman claimed that Christ, in His discourse with His adversaries as it is recorded in John 8:41-44, did not mean father where he said father, but was instead using the word metaphorically. However the answers which John attributed to the Jews themselves reveal that they understood Christ to have been speaking plainly and literally, and the words of Christ in the surrounding dialogue also demonstrate that He was speaking plainly and literally, where He was clearly referring to the origin of His adversaries and not merely to what they believed.

So we had a necessary and long digression to explain that the origin of such allegorical interpretations of the plain words of Scripture are found in early Greek philosophy and in Gnosticism, and that early Church Fathers were following the philosophers and Gnostics in their own interpretations of Scripture, in spite of the plain meanings of words and the clear intent of the speakers, Christ and His apostles.

At the end of that last program, we also heard from a friend who has been involved in Christian Identity circles for a very long time, perhaps over 40 years. So according to our friend Michael, as we heard towards the end of our presentation last week, Charles Weisman did indeed admit to having some Jewish ancestry in a quip which he had made at a dinner party over 20 years ago, and the Christian Identity pastors and teachers and their wives in the circles in which he traveled had chosen to cover it up because they were impressed with his supposed learning. But here we have proven that if Weisman was indeed learned, he consciously chose to spread lies instead of the truth.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 11, Gnostic Heresies

In our last discussion Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine?, which was Part 10 of this series, we discussed the The Nature of Cain, and how it is that when he was challenged by God to do good, but then immediately went out and killed his brother, that also serves to prove the circumstances of his birth, that he could not do good because “sin lieth at the door”. We also discussed how and why both Cain and Abel were making sacrifices in the first place, since Cain’s rejected sacrifice was the catalyst for his having been challenged, and having killed Abel. Weisman imagined that Yahweh was offering Cain acceptance, but that is not the case at all. Yahweh, being God, certainly knew that Cain was going to fail. His challenge to Cain and Cain’s failure are not an exercise in vanity on the part of God, but rather they serve as a lesson to us, that a bastard will always do evil in the end. The fact that Abel was even making a sacrifice to Yahweh after Cain had done so also serves to illustrate the reasons for Cain’s disqualification, once it is examined within the context of later Scriptures and statements made by the apostles concerning the patriarchs Enoch and Noah. By the act of making a sacrifice Abel was asserting his own claim as rightful successor to his father.

Following that, Weisman began to address the statements which Christ had made to His adversaries in John chapter 8, and he cited verses 41 through 44 of the chapter. Doing that, he made the assertion that in those words of Christ the word father does not really mean father. But if he had cited more of the passage, the overall context would have proven Weisman to be wrong. In fact, even the part he did cite proves him to be wrong, as the Jews themselves certainly did understand Christ to have been speaking about their ancestry, where they answered Him in verse 41 that “We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.” Of course they were wrong, because they were Edomites, something which is also established in the overall context, but if the Jews understood the word father to be literal, and Christ answered along those same lines, how does Weisman claim that the word father is not literal, but only figurative?

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 10, The Nature of Cain

Once again, there were many extemporaneous remarks in this program which did not make it into my notes. In one, I mentioned Melchizedek in conjunction with Paul. I did not mean to leave any impression that Melchizedek was contemporary with Paul, but only that Paul had described Melchizedek, referring to his explanation that Christ was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Of course, the only other Melchizedek mentioned in Scripture was contemporary to Abraham.

In our last discussion of chapter 4 of Weisman’s book, we showed that on four occasions, and a fifth, Weisman had lied about the substance of the genealogies which are provided in the Bible. We also spoke at length on Genesis 4:1, and showed that it is a corrupt witness, that interpretations of it and even the actual substance of it were debated in ancient times, and that if it is corrupt and it is not corroborated by any other witness, then it is useless for the purpose of formulation of doctrine because it is unreliable. Since it is the only witness that Cain was a natural son of Adam, the supposition must be open to debate because it is an unreliable witness. To the contrary, there are many witnesses in Scripture and in early Christian apocryphal writings which insist that Cain was not the natural son of Adam. The words of our Redeemer and His apostles also serve to prove that Cain was not Adam’s natural son.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 9, Decoding Genesis 4:1

Once again, and right from the beginning, there were many digressions and topics discussed which did not make it into these notes. But I did add a few things we discussed extemporaneously which were related more directly to Weisman’s arguments.

In my opinion we have already destroyed Charles Weisman’s supposed refutation of Two-Seedline in several different and significant ways. But we are not even halfway through his book, and to be fair we must finish presenting all of Weisman’s arguments, and answer them all with the appropriate evidence wherever we believe they are wrong.

In our last presentation, I think we exposed three major failures in Weisman’s arguments at the end of chapter 3 where he had insisted that the giants of Genesis chapter 6 and later Scriptures were only the offspring of the unions between the sons of Cain and the daughters of Seth.

First, he failed to read the text of Genesis 6:4 properly, as it explains that giants were in the earth both before and after that event, so if the verse is read correctly, Weisman must answer how giants were already in the earth “in those days”, as Yahweh did not create any giants in Genesis chapter 1.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 8, Fallen Angels and Giants

I think we have already established in multiple ways that Charles Weisman must have had some sort of agenda, because even though he admitted the truth of several of the fundamentals of what we call Two-Seedline, he nevertheless sought to dismiss it rather than to consider the elements which he himself admitted. For example, he had professed that the serpent must have been an intelligent being with its own order contrary to the order of God, but then he goes on to make suggestions that will ultimately lead to the conclusion that the devil is merely the flesh.

Doing this, he removed many scriptures from their proper context and used them as support for his arguments, even when those scriptures actually help to prove our Two-Seedline positions once they are fully and properly considered. For example, as we addressed pages 19 to 23 of his book, under the subtitle “The Serpent, Devil, and Satan”, we saw where Weisman failed to distinguish those words as they appear in each passage which he had provided as an example in their proper grammatical form. Then he proceeded to assert the notion that all evil emanates from God, and that is not true. As we examined his examples for that assertion, we saw that there are two types of evil, evil which is evil in the eyes of man as he suffers the consequences of or the punishments for his sin, and evil which is evil in the eyes of God, which is rebellion against God by man. God cannot be blamed for that later evil, because God is without sin. When men break the laws of God, men are the parties responsible for the resulting evil, and God cannot be blamed for the sins of men. Weisman’s failure to make this distinction is deceptive.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 7, Evil for Wicked or Good

Here we shall continue our address of chapter 3 of Charles Weisman’s book, which is simply titled “The Serpent”. As I had said before we began this endeavor in our last presentation, because this is probably the most important chapter in his book, we may present and address every single paragraph, so that none of our detractors can claim we purposely missed anything which they may then imagine that we cannot answer.

At the beginning of his chapter on “The Serpent”, we have already discussed most of the points made by Charles Weisman where he had presented a list of uses of the words satan and devil as they are found throughout the Scriptures. His biggest mistake, in my opinion, was his failure to distinguish between these words where they appear as simple nouns or adjectives or where they appear as a Substantive along with a definite article. The word diabolos is an adjective which can mean slanderer. But when it appears with a definite article it is used as a noun to describe a particular slanderer. Then where the definite article appears with a noun, it is referring to a known, particular instance of the given noun, rather than to just any instance. In other words, satan or a satan, without the definite article, describes anyone who at one point or another may be an adversary, but the satan, with the definite article, describes a particular and already known entity which is an adversary. Weisman exploited his examples of the use of these words by not explaining that difference. So thus far in his arguments in this chapter, Weisman has lied by omission.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine?  Part 6, Demons, Devils and Satyrs

Once again we had many extemporaneous comments and explanations, and not all of them made it into our notes.

In our last presentation we came to the end of chapter 2 of Weisman’s book, and saw in one of his arguments towards the end of his section subtitled “The Enmity” that Weisman agreed with us when he tried to explain it. He admitted that the serpent was an intelligent individual, a person, who had its own order in the world which was contrary to the order of God. Of course, this could not be true of a simple snake created on the 5th day of Genesis chapter 1. So Weisman admitted that the basis for our so-called Two-Seedline belief is true, while at the same time he continued to deny Two-Seedline.

Now we begin to shall address chapter 3 of Charles Weisman’s book, which is simply titled “The Serpent”. Here he offers a lot of conjecture and what we may consider to be straw man arguments, however some Two-Seedline teachers or pastors of the past did indeed hold at least some of the more absurd concepts which Weisman argues against. Once again, I believe we shall see that Weisman’s arguments have no merit once we explain the basis for what we believe. Because this is probably the most important chapter in his book, we may present and address every single paragraph, so that none of our detractors can claim we purposely missed anything which they may then imagine that we cannot answer.

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 5, Decoding the Enmity

This is not to be construed as a complaint, but this refutation of the lies of Charles Weisman is taking much longer than I initially expected. However it must be done in detail if we are going to sufficiently demonstrate exactly why he is wrong, and precisely why his arguments were often dishonest. So while we thought we could finish Weisman’s discussion of the enmity of Genesis 3:15 in our last presentation, we did not. Hopefully with this presentation we can conclude that, and then finally move on to chapter 3 of his book, which is titled The Serpent.

We have already discussed much of Weisman’s argument concerning “the enmity”, and how he had used, or rather, abused, three passages of Scripture to somehow prove that the enmity between the serpent and the seed of the woman was ended at the Crucifixion. In this endeavor, Weisman cited two passages from Paul, which are Colossians 2:15 and Hebrews 2:14-15, and one passage from John, found at 1 John 3:8.

First, it can be established that Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians was written only a short time before his epistle to the Colossians, and that both were written during the two-year period while he was in captivity in Rome. This is explained in a paper at Christogenea titled Ordering and chronology of the epistles of Paul, and it is beyond the scope of our purpose to present it again here.