Comparing and Combining Pagan and Christian Floors (or How I Amuse Myself on Saturday Instead of Vacuuming)

According to the Mesopotamians, the floors of Heaven each are constructed from a different stone. If you read the Bible at Exodus 24:9-10, the God of Israel is standing on a floor but not where he can be touched by Moses and others who climbed a mountain to be near him. In fact, the God of Israel is standing on a blue sapphire brick floor. This is repeated in Ezekiel 1:26-28 and Ezekiel 10:1. Could the blue sapphire floor be a lower level of Heaven? There are other gods, Anu and Igigi who are on stone floors of the upper and middle Heavens. The goddess Inanna (1500 B.C.) traveled through seven gates to get to the Underworld from Heaven (all above the earth, never touching the earth), so there is further evidence for layers of Heaven. The once huge and powerful Mesopotamian god Marduk (circa 3,000 B.C. -1,000 B.C.) may share the same floor with the God of Israel, because it is written that Marduk’s blue stone floor is visible when we look up and see the blue sky. Anyway, the floors are very good news for those going to Heaven, because you will have something more solid to stand on than clouds. It only makes sense that it would take something solid like a stone floor to support those heavy pearly gates; clouds do not seem like they would hold much weight. Most Bible versions, such as the King James version, call the floors Sapphire, but the New International Version calls the floors Lapis-Lazuli. What? Which is correct? I thought the Bible was the inspired word of God. Did God have his floors recently remodeled with Lapis Lazuli, or is this a mistake? It turns out that the stone used the most in ancient times (although both were present) was Lapis Lazuli, and many people in ancient times mistakenly called the Lapis Lazuli stone by the name of the gem, Sapphire. You would think God would have corrected the people and said, “I know you all call this rock on my brick floor Sapphire, but it is actually Lapis Lazuli.” You see, we have two very different substances here: Sapphires are made of corundum and the blue color comes from a bit of titanium and iron in it. Lapis Lazuli is a rock made of Lazurite, a silicate mineral, with sodalite lending blue color; and which often occurs as a result of contact metamorphism around intrusive igneous rocks. Oh, my, metamorphism and igneous words, they sound old, don’t they? We must ignore such talk if we are to believe the Bible literally. So, we will just say that the rock floors should be called Lapis Lazuli in the Bible, and that Heaven most likely has many floors of stone. *Some Foundation for these Heavenly Floor Notes came from Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography.

Jesus - Use Your Words!

How often have you heard a mother scold a tyke in the grocery store, pleading, “Use your words! You aren’t using your words!” Inadequate verbal expression seems to be a general failure of most societies, even within the most influential groups. It is dismaying that politicians send young men and women into battle because they call other countries “enemies,” or are not good enough with words to have peaceful and fruitful discussions. Worse yet is a Savior who could not convince all people that he was a Savior by his words, and had to perform tiny miracles (that had already been enacted by others and those original miracles happened to be written in Kings of the Septuagint by the time the authors of the New Testament were writing their stories). Anyway, the miracles still were not impressive enough for world-wide conversion to the new philosophy, soon to be religion called Christianity. Jesus was not given the gift of gab; sometimes sullen, sometimes condescending, often like a spoiled brat when dealing with his mother, and quite humorless; so he decided (or it was pre-decided) that he off himself by getting crucified, with a secondary purpose that it would be the ultimate sacrifice so that God would need no more blood from animals. Of course, animal sacrifice continued for some time after that and continues to this day in some other cultures, so once again, Jesus failed. Even with the “ultimate sacrifice,” 2000 years after Jesus supposedly died only 1/3 of the world is Christian and those numbers are decreasing. Jesus could have stayed alive and walked around his entire life, influencing people, but he did not choose to “use his words,” which is one of the first lessons we teach preschool aged children. Instead, Jesus believed a bloody violent killing/suicide was the way to be the best role model he could be. (I'm having a bit of trouble with my old computer and had to put this into HTML version.)