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      I am including this brief statement on the front page of my website at the present time because I am in the process of doing some editing of the pages on this site, and wish to clarify a few things.

      As I indicate in my introduction, I belong to the radical stream of tradition within both earlier Judaism and the church which followed later. The material gathered on this site is a reflection of that tradition. As I describe myself in my introduction, I am a 'disgruntled radical.' Occassionally this 'disgruntled' radicalism shows itself in confrontational remarks and commentary that crop up in various pages on this site.

      There is no way to avoid confrontation in matters of truth and fact. If people take offence at a truthful statement or a plain and simple fact, well things must happen. However, I want to edit this site to limit the number of confrontational statements, and perhaps even 'dilute' certain confrontational remarks to lessen the possibility of offence as much as is possible.

      For example, on the page discussing the Bible code, I insist that you just cannot trust a 'soul saving zealot' because they will try any methodology that works in their drive for conversion, even employing methods that are questionable (the end justifies the means). Furthermore, I interpret the Bible code in political terms (getting more votes for the religious right). While these may be valid points, I would like to edit the page and find some 'nicer' way to make the same point. Until then people will just have to take offence at that page, I suppose, and here and there on other pages as well.

      I freauently bawl out Christian apologists on this site, a reflection of how much I dislike Christian apologetic arguments. However Christian apologetics can be interpreted in two ways - as a power grab and an attempt to impose a system of slavery based on falsehoods (as described by the prophet Isaiah in his discussion of the cornerstone sweeping away lies and falsehoods) or it can understood as the response of fearful and weak faith and an attempt to prop up the Bible in order to prop up faith. Whichever might be the case, the fact of the matter is that the massive weight of the evidence indicates that Christian apologetic arguments are not the way to go. Furthermore, there is a lot of 'churning' in the churches (people dropping out after a time) simply because Christian theology is riddled with ancient injustices and also because there are just so many of those apologetic rationalizations that a person can be expected to accept before their faith collapses in ruins (thus I constantly hear sermons on the subject 'do not give up, hang in there' because there is so much of this churning going on all the time). If faith is first established on the falsehood of Biblical inerrancy is built on shaky sand, and the first earthquake that comes along will destroy that house. I do not practice apologetics myself, and will create problems for apologetics on this site (reflected in that angry remark on the page concerning false prophecy, where I state that Christian apologetics will be 'getting sorrier and sorrier over time'). If you are an apologist, you will just have to wince until I can find someway to say the same things without being angry (perhaps rewriting these comments sometime when I am in a jolly mood, rather than while I am fuming about Holy War bible passages or some other such thing, that often provokes me.)

      On the page discussing the Christ myth, I suggest that Churches use oppressive tactics and fight dirty. While there may be some truth to this statement, at the same time I was quarrelling angrily with those same churches, so it goes both ways. I have some regrets about this page, and while I feel that I need to make a point about the debate concerning 'the historical Jesus' I would like to find someway to edit that portion of the page. Until then, they will just have to wince as they read it.

      This site is evolving and as my thinking evolves and changes, some pages will not always keep up, so you might find some inconsistencies here and there. For example, on the page discussing the Christ myth, I suggest that Matthew took Mark literally and misinterpreted a mistranslated passage in Isaiah, thus coming to the conclusion that Christ was born of virgin. This does not agree with my position described on the page discussing the virgin birth because my thinking has evolved and the later page, discussing the origins of this story, reflects my later thinking on the matter. Similarly my thinking has evolved concerning false prophecy and thus two points of view are found on the page (the scribes discredited the prophets, the scribes considered themselves and false prophets to be prophets in line with Levitical Holy War ideology. The latter line of thought evolved as I was expanding the page, and now certain inconsistencies in thought seem to be present on the page for that reason. It will have to be edited at some future time.)

      As another example of the same sort of thing, you can consider my page discussing the late dating of the Torah. In the book of Isaiah, the prophet is disputing with the religious people of his day, and he speaks about them as though he were talking to a third party (he does not address them directly, but rather talks about them to some invisible third party). I do some of the same thing on this page, talking about that church to some invisible person, and this is the language of an outsider. As I have become aware of these things, I have decided that I want to edit such commentary out of my manuscripts as much as possible, since there is already enough 'confrontation' in my way of discussing the Bible without adding any more after this fashion. Until this editing gets done, people will have to take extra offence.

      Some offence is unavoidable, but any chance of extra offense I want to avoid. I am also striving to have a civilized dialogue, even with those with whom I am in strong disagreement, and if there needs to be angry debate, I would prefer to sit on the side lines and let my opponents do the angry debating themselves, for personal reasons (living with anger is something I intensely dislike, and do not want in my life anymore.)

      So this cover note is just my way of announcing that this site will be edited over time to minimize these very sorts of things I allude to above, and until then just ignore such extra commentary as you might find on these pages. You see some things just anger me while I am researching. I get angry at Augustine, and would like to prophecy to Augustine face to face (but he is long gone). For this reason my language is strong in my theological summation, which is an expression of my feelings on the matter. As well, I do not consider Augustinian 'Bible harmonization' to be a proper way to construct a theology (the Bible is obviously not harmonious, but rather composed of sources and variant traditions.) I particularly protest again the notion of "Levitical animal sacrifice' being employed as a template to understand the meaning of the crucifixion (the Levitical doctrine of atonement). There are several reasons for my protest. First, I belong to the radical school of the prophets and the early church, and we assign a different meaning to the crucifixion. While I could (possibly) accept 'sin sacrifice' as a metaphorical picture of the crucifixion, I find myself always put in the position of protesting against the doctrine and rejecting it, because it seems to follow that this doctrine excludes all other interpretations and demands that it be employed exclusively, and this very dogmatic exclusiveness of this notion sparks a reactionary response in me that causes me to catagorically reject that doctrine. Furthermore, it seems to be the case that the Levitical animal sacrifice doctrine, in addition to being exclusive and excluding by its very definition (a sacrifice cannot be optional and still retain its meaning) is also a cause of great injustice (those who do not participate are damned, not for reasons of true justice, but simply for dogmatic reasons, on the grounds that they did not participate in the Levitical animal sacrifice. Thus we get the classic Augustinian doctrine that states that even the best person is damned 'apart from the sacrifice of Christ' for 'even the unsaved good burn in hell,' and even unbaptized babies, so exclusive and exclusionary is this dogma. It sparks a strong reactionary response in me, and so you will find that I am often adamant about rejecting that dogma catagorically, because if you cannot have that doctrine and mercy and justice at the same time, then I would much rather have mercy and true justice myself. It is mercy that Yahweh requires, and not sacrifice.

      I get angry angry at Ezra-Nehemiah and so some strong language surfaces in my discussion on the page discussing the dating of the Torah. I hate injustice and morbidity in thinking about God, and this surfaces on my theological summation page and in other places as well (never damn people for no good reason, I insist, and for this reason I protest against classic Christian theological propositions, because they are riddled with intolerant injustice. Once again this emotion surfaces in my writings in spots, and there is already enough offence for traditional theologians in my position, without adding any more. Nevertheless, I believe that I can somehow tone things down a bit on this page and still make the point I want to make. I discuss Holy War ideology on many pages, and sometimes I am fuming with anger as I do my research and my writing and it surfaces in the final product. People can be seen as victims and for this reason bawling someone out for being fearful and absorbing Holy War ideology is counter productive. You see in my mind I am breaking chains, but it does not do to get angry and bawl out someone while you try and break their chains. So I do wish to edit this site as much as possible to limit and eliminate giving any added offence, since the matters I discuss are in and of themselves offensive enough to many people in the church (and this type of offense is unavoidable, providing extra incentive to avoid whatever type of offense is avoidable).

      At the same time as I wish to be doing this work outlined above, and edit this site, I also have to work for a living like everyone else, and I also a large number of rolls of microfilms that I must laboriously scan through page by page in order to complete my newspaper gif page, so this could all take sometime. Until then, just pass over any extraneous remarks you might find on any pages on this site. The edited versions will appear in the near future.