Questioning Paul

Chapter 8

part 3

 

Based upon these statements, it would be a fool’s folly to assume that Paul was lampooning Rabbinical or Roman Law as opposed to Yahowah’s Towrah. Moreover, since it is universally accepted that the Galatians were Gentiles, the fact that they were never "under or subject to" Rabbinical Law is proof in itself that Sha’uwl wasn’t condemning his people’s religious traditions or Oral Law. So while it is bone-chilling to recognize that Sha’uwl—Christianity’s founding father—has committed Scriptural and Spiritual suicide by criticizing the Torah, what’s particularly distressing is to consider how many souls he has taken with him.

Sha’uwl told his audience that all they needed to do was believe him. But then, one or more of Yahowsha’s Disciples, or someone they had taught from Yaruwshalaym, spoke to the Galatians about the role the Torah plays in establishing a relationship with God, in helping us come to know Yahowah, and understand His plan of salvation. They would have done what Yahowsha’ did, which is to explain everything He stood for from the perspective of the Torah, so that His sacrifice could be understood, trusted and relied upon. But when the insecure Sha’uwl got word of this—that God’s Word had been elevated over his own—he panicked, and went into attack mode. As is the case with all insecure individuals, he slandered his opponents, which at this point included God, and elevated his status by saying that he was the ultimate truth-teller—the one who could be believed.

 

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Now that Paul has laid the foundation of his thesis – "the Torah enslaves" –we are confronted with a trilogy of statements whereby the enslaved are associated with "nature," with "false gods," with "the inadequate initial constitution," and with "the observance of special days, months, and years." Therefore, bereft of a transition away from Paul’s belittlement of the Torah, and in the midst of his crusade against God’s Word, we are compelled to at least consider the probability that Paul is now associating some very unsavory things with Yahowah’s Scriptural foundation.

The next three pronouncements advance a singular thought. Here is the first of them through the eyes of the Nestle-Aland’s McReynolds Interlinear: "But then indeed not having known God you were enslaved to the in nature not being gods." Or if you prefer...

"Certainly (alla – to the contrary and by way of contrast) on the other hand (men – indeed) then (tote) not having known, perceived, or acknowledged (ouk oida – not having been aware of) god (ΘΝ), you were enslaved (douleuo) to (tois) nature (physis – the laws of the physical and natural world; from phuo – your birth and how you were begotten) not existing as (me ousin – not being or corresponding to) gods (theois – deities)." (Galatians 4:8)

Oh my, how much farther into the slime of this man’s mind are we going to sink? God did not design us to be slaves, ergo, we were not begotten as slaves to nature. Not knowing God does not enslave us, nor does just being aware of God liberate us.

And if that were not sufficiently asinine, Yahowah’s Covenant children do not become "theois – gods," making many divinities. And just because "gods," as in multiple divinities, sounds similar to "god’s" as in belonging to the one and only God, Paul wrote theois, which is the plural form.

My former business partner, speaking of someone like Paul, said: "You can fix a lot of things, but you cannot fix stupid." And that is what we are dealing with here.

Also, while pagan gods and goddesses were often associated with nature, the Greek and Roman religions practiced in Galatia were considerably more sophisticated. So with this statement, Paul was demeaning the intelligence of his audience which would have done nothing but irritate them.

But that’s a lot better than irritating God. If you recall, Sha’uwl deployed "stoicheion – elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology" in Galatians 4:3 the same way he used "slave to nature" in his previous statement. So now, making sure that his audience would also make this same connection, he wrote...

"But (de) now (nyn) having known (ginosko – having become personally familiar with) god (ΘΝ), but (de – and or) more (mallon – instead, to the contrary, or by contrast), having been known (ginosko – having been recognized and understood) under (hypo) god (ΘΥ), how (pos) have you returned, changing your beliefs (epistrepete – you changed your ways, your faith, your religion, and your opinions, reversing course) back (palin – again and again repetitively) upon (epi) the (ta) incapacitating and incompetent (asthenes – feeble and weak, powerless and infirmed), and (kai) worthless, belittling, and terrifying (ptochos – lowly and little, destitute and impoverished; from ptoeo – to terrify and to diminish and pipto – to fall, crouching in submission before dying) elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology (stoicheion – simplistic and basic initial precepts of the supernatural powers associated with the cults of the earth, water, air, and fire, and the deification of the sun, moon, planets, and stars representing the underdeveloped, inadequate, simplistic, and improperly formed first step) which (ois) back again (palin – repetitively) and again from above (anothen – from heaven and for a very long time) you are choosing (thelete – your are desiring and taking pleasure in, wanting) to be controlled as a slave (douleuein)..." (Galatians 4:9)

Just a moment ago, Paul was telling believers that they had become gods, but now they are incompetent and worthless. However, while this may sound like another contradiction, remember that Paul has consistently portrayed Yahowah as impotent and inadequate.

So that you don’t think that I’m being unfair to Paul, the Interlinear associated with the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition renders the same statement: "now but having known God more but having been known by God how you returned again on the weak and poor elements to which again from above to slave you want."

Beginning at the beginning, considering the fact that most people’s written expressions convey vastly more information that their verbal proclamations, and recognizing that Sha’uwl has consistently misquoted and contradicted Yahowah, there is no chance whatsoever that anyone came "to know God" based upon his preaching. The same is true of his writing, even today, and as a result, God does not know a single Pauline Christian. So Paul had this wrong.

Beyond this, "mallon – more" is inappropriate in the context of the Covenant. What’s most important is us coming to know God and then, once we know Him, the next most important thing is to understand what He is offering so that we can respond accordingly. It is only then that God reciprocates and comes to know us as His children. However, the last thing we should desire is for Him to know us better than we know Him. The more closely we examine Him, the better He looks, but the same is not true for us. The entire purpose of the Set-Apart Spirit’s Garment of Light is to replace the darkness in our souls with His Light so that as our Father, He sees Himself in us. So Paul had this wrong.

We can quit our job, we can move to a different state or country, we can change political allegiances, we can even divorce our spouse, but we cannot disown our children. The same is true with God. So while each of us are given the opportunity to ignore, reject, or accept the Covenant, should we embrace its terms and conditions, we are Yahowah’s sons and daughters forever. That is His promise, a vow memorialized among the Covenant’s benefits. So when it comes to the revolving door to heaven, Paul had this wrong as well.

Paul is, of course, suggesting that when the Galatians believed him they were saved, but by rejecting him they were doomed. His pivotal term is intriguing in this regard. Epistrepte, which was translated "have you returned, changing your beliefs," is a compound of "epi – upon or against" and "strepho – to turn on one’s self, no longer caring for oneself by changing one’s mind." It is defined by various lexicons as "to change faith or religious beliefs toward true worship and obedience." So since God is opposed to religion, since God does not want to be worshipped, and since He places no value in faith, Paul is once again wrong. And it only gets worse from here.

In Galatians 4:1 through 4:5, Paul not only directly associates stoicheion with the Towrah, he demeans the Torah by calling it childish, enslaving, controlling, works based, overbearing and thus oppressive, in addition to being mythological: "So I say, as long as the heir exists childish and immature, he is no different than a slave, belonging to the lord and master who owns and controls everyone and everything. (4:1) Certainly, he is under the auspices of foremen who control the workers and administrators until the previously appointed time set of the Father. (4:2) And also, in this way, it follows that when we were infants, under the elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology, the simplistic and basic initial precepts of the supernatural powers associated with the cults of the earth, water, air, and fire, and the deification of the sun, moon, planets, and stars of the universal system and world order (stoicheion), we were subservient slaves. (4:3) But when came the fullness of the unspecified time, the God sent out the Son of Him, originating from a woman, having been under Towrah (nomos) (4:4) in order that the ones under Towrah (nomos) he might buy back in order to the son set we might receive back and obtain from." (4:5)

So in Galatians 4:9, after all of these derogatory comments, and after establishing this connection between "stoicheionreligious mythology" and the "nomosTowrah," Paul calls Yahowah’s Testimony "asthenesincapacitating and incompetent" as well as "ptochosworthless, belittling, and terrifying." In this regard, Paul could not have been more wrong.

But that was insufficient. He went on to claim that the "religious mythology" to "which they had returned again and again" came "from above," as in from God in heaven. And that by "choosing" God’s "elementary teachings," they were "deciding to be controlled as a slave..." The opposite is true.

And this is also true: to Sha’uwl the Torah remains an enslaving object of scorn to be rejected.

A man on a mission, Sha’uwl ripped the heart and life out of the Torah, rejecting the Shabat, the Miqra’ey, and the Yowbel: "Days you keep watch and months and seasons and years." He is repudiating Yahowah’s instructions to keep the Shabat, the seventh day, special. And in this way, God’s promise and plan become unknown. Worse, he is denouncing Yahowah’s instructions to observe the Mow’ed Miqra’ey at their designated times in the spring, summer, and fall seasons, meeting with God in the first, third, and seventh months of the year. By so doing, there is no hope of salvation. And finally, the reference to years is designed to negate the observance of the Yowbel, designating the time when debts are forgiven and slaves are freed. As a result, Paul’s devotees remain clueless regarding the Towrah’s purpose and the date of God’s imminent return. For Christendom, Paul’s statement was devastating and irrecoverable. All Christians would die.

Those reading along referencing an English bible or even the Nestle-Aland Greek rendition of Paul’s epistle may have noticed that the ninth verse appears to conclude the sentence with a question mark, leaving us to believe that the tenth verse is independent of the ninth’s diabolical hypothesis. However, Papyrus 46 corrects the first word of what would otherwise have been the next sentence, changing "paratereisoe – you are observing and attending" to "paraterountes – by observing and attending," thereby combining these thoughts. In so doing, Sha’uwl’s statement goes from bad to worse because he is saying that we choose to be controlled and enslaved by Yahowah’s Towrah by observing and attending the Shabat, the Miqra’ey, and the Yowbel.

Therefore, corrected to reflect the oldest extant codex, this same concluding statement reads:

"...by observing and carefully attending (paraterountes – by closely examining so as to be present, by taking a stand being perceptive through careful consideration, by paying unremitting attention to, by looking for benefit in by attending; from para – from, beside and near and tereo – to carefully attend), days (hemera), and (kai) months (menas – using moon phases), and (kai) seasons (kairos – appropriate or opportune occasions, proper or specific times), and years (eniautos – annual solar cycles or eras)?" (Galatians 4:10)

According to Paul, by observing Yahowah’s "days," His "months and seasons," and His "years," and therefore by accepting Yahowah’s Invitations to Meet with Him and attending His Feasts is one of the ways God enslaves and controls humankind. It was the next logical step in Sha’uwl’s thesis. Having separated the Ma’aseyah from the Torah, he is now separating mankind from God.

More deceitful, deadly, destructive, and damning than any words ever written, those Paul scribed 1,963 years ago have precluded billions of souls from knowing Yahowah. Christians do not observe the Shabat, attend the Miqra’ey, or understand the Yowbel – and thus cannot engage in a relationship with God and cannot be saved. They do not know what these days, months, seasons, and years represent. Most find them despicable.

Paul’s message was translated by Jerome in the Latin Vulgate to say: "But then indeed, not knowing God, you served them who, by nature, are not gods. But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known by God: how turn you again to the weak and needy elements which you desire to serve again? You observe days and months and times, and years."

Copying the Catholics, the Authorized Protestant King James Version said something fairly similar: "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years."

The NLT’s liberal interpretation is more in keeping with Christianity’s antagonism for the Torah, and especially Yahowah’s instructions regarding His Sabbath, Invitations to Meet, and Yowbel Redemptive years. "Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years."

While the New Living Translation is dead wrong, they have accurately conveyed Sha’uwl’s intended message. He is obviously demeaning the heart of the Torah: Yahowah’s Sabbath (where we learn that we cannot work for our salvation), His seven Invitations to be Called Out and Meet with God (where we are freed from death, our sins are forgiven, we are adopted into the Covenant, and are enriched and empowered), and His Redemptive Year of God’s Lamb (where souls are freed and debts are forgiven). So in his first denunciation of specific aspects of Yahowah’s Word, the wannabe Apostle has renounced the essence of God’s plan of reconciliation and salvation.

On my first pass through this material, I was focused on translating one verse at a time, and thereby lost sight of the context within which these thoughts were encapsulated. And at that time, I was predisposed to render each of Paul’s statements as consistently with Yahowah’s overall message as the words themselves would allow. So I evaluated this trilogy of verses as if Paul was assailing pagan traditions and festivals, especially those observed by the Persians, Romans, and Greeks, whereby they worshipped gods predicated upon the natural and physical world.

And while I will share where that thought process led, as it is always beneficial to understand the nature of religious counterfeits, I must now admit that my "metanoeo – attitude, perspective, and thinking has changed" based upon a more contextual, careful, and complete review of Paul generally and Galatians specifically. Based upon what he has said thus far in Galatians 2:16 through 4:7, and what he will say in verses 4:21 through 4:31, the inescapable conclusion is that all of this represents a singular doctrinal statement. According to Paul: "the Torah enslaves and must be rejected."

Here then is a summation of this devastating trilogy of Pauline statements. And while I understand that we have gone over this before, second only to properly conveying the meaning of the words themselves, context provides the basis for understanding:

"So I say, as long as the heir exists childish and immature, he is no different than a slave, belonging to the lord and master who owns and controls everyone and everything. (4:1) Certainly, he is under the auspices of foremen who control the workers and administrators until the previously appointed time set of the father. (4:2) And also, in this way, it follows that when we were infants, under the elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology (stoicheion), we were subservient slaves. (4:3) But when came the fullness of the unspecified time, the god sent out the Son of him, originating from a woman, having been under Towrah (nomos) (4:4) in order that the ones under Towrah (nomos), he might buy back in order to the son set we might receive back and obtain from. (4:5) But because you are sons sent out the god, the spirit into the hearts of us shouts, ‘Abba’the Father. (4:6) So as a result, you no longer exist as a slave, but to the contrary a Son. But now if a Son and an heir by the chance casting of lots through a god. (4:7)

Certainly on the other hand, not having known or acknowledged god, you were enslaved to nature, not existing as gods. (4:8) But now having known god, but what’s more, having been known under god, how have you returned, changing your beliefs back upon the incapacitating and incompetent, the worthless, belittling, and terrifying elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology representing the inadequate, simplistic, and improperly formed first step which back again and again from above you are choosing to be controlled as a slave (4:9) by observing and carefully attending days, and months, and seasons, and years?" (4:10)

As affirmation of this abomination, Paul first introduced the concept of our "inheritance," in Galatians 3:18, whereby he disassociated the Torah from God’s "promise to Abraham to forgive us." Subsequently, Paul asked, "So why then this Towrah?" clearly referring to the Word of God, as he would have no reason to explain the origin of human edicts. By the 19th verse, Paul spoke of the Towrah existing only "until the prescribed Messenger’s arrival" – the opposite of what the Messenger, Himself, said.

Then in the second half of the 21st verse, the man with the audacity to contradict God’s Word while claiming to be His Apostle, claimed that no one has been made right with God based upon the Towrah, which further undermined any attempt to pin the blame for man’s enslavement on worldly schemes. "Scripture" remained the subject of the 22nd verse, where Paul used hypo to speak of "but to the contrary, the writing imposed restrictions, completely shutting the door on heaven, imprisoning everything under error and evil," just as he used hypo in the first three verses of the fourth chapter to speak of us being childish slaves under the control of oppressive authority figures—themselves apparently representing the Torah’s tendency to enslave.

So it was in the midst of this that we were confronted with Galatians 3:25, "But now having come the Faith, no longer do we exist under an old fashioned and strict disciplinarian," whereby a direct comparison was made to Galatians 4:1-3: "So I say, as long as the heir exists childish and immature, he is no different than a slave, belonging to the lord and master who owns and controls everyone and everything. (4:1) Certainly, he is under the auspices of foremen who control the workers and administrators until the previously appointed time set of the Father. (4:2) And also, in this way, it follows that when we were infants, under the elementary teachings and rudimentary principles of religious mythology, we were subservient slaves." (4:3) Therefore, Sha’uwl’s "lord and master" is the "Towrah," effectively destroying any chance we had of redeeming his testimony by subsequently disassociating the "foremen," "managers," "mythological region," or "enslavement" from being associated with the Torah.

Stroke by stroke, word by word, Paul is building his case against Yahowah, His Word, and His plan of reconciliation and salvation. And he will stop at nothing, including demeaning the Disciples, misquoting Scripture, contradicting Yahowsha’, and twisting God’s Word, to establish himself and his doctrine. It is Paul versus God and all of His witnesses and prophets. If Paul hasn’t become the Adversary, he is, at the very least, his messenger.

Men are enslaved by other men and their religious and political schemes, not by nature or by God. Moreover, Yahowsha’ did not come to liberate anyone from the Torah, but instead to fulfill the Torah’s promises and thereby provide eternal salvation.

We come to know Yahowah through the Towrah and the Prophets, and yet Paul has only presented mutilated snippets of five verses thus far from them—all of which he has twisted. And there is no reason to assume that his preaching (at least in content) would have been any better than his writing.

Coming to know Yahowah as He presents Himself in the Torah, results in God coming to know us. Yahowah doesn’t, however, know those who don’t know Him. Respecting Yahowah and His revelation results in being valued sufficiently by God to be adopted into His family. But those who don’t revere God enough to study His Word (a.k.a., the Towrah) are excluded from His family.

Those who don’t know and understand the Towrah remain particularly susceptible to Paul’s doctrinal delusions. And that poses a particularly difficult problem for Christians because they have been conditioned by Paul to ignore the Towrah. They don’t, therefore, know what they are missing, and they miss the fact that by demeaning it, Paul was contradicting the God he claimed to represent.

This presents a conundrum. If we encourage Christians to study the Towrah before rejecting Paul, they will not be open to it and thus will remain adverse to Yahowah and His plan of salvation. And yet, the most effective way to encourage Christian’s to reject Paul is to compare this man’s letters with God’s teaching. Those who are rational will adjust their perspective, thinking, and attitude, recognizing that it is irrational to believe that God inspired a man to contradict Him.

After falsely testifying that the recipients of his preaching knew God and were also known by Him, the wannabe Apostle backtracked, suggesting that the Galatians were now orphaned. If that were true, then our salvation would be predicated upon our fidelity as opposed to God’s provision, and our spiritual rebirth would be temporal, not eternal. If this were possible, heaven would have to be equipped with a revolving door. And for Paul’s pleading to have any merit, so would hell.

But this egomaniac’s errant theology pales in comparison to his abysmal attitude toward God. By asking the Galatians "how can you ‘return’" to "the initial teachings (a.k.a., the Torah), Paul is implying that his preaching was vastly superior to Yahowah’s teachings. And by calling God’s plan a "worthless and incompetent initial step," he is suggesting that only a fool would choose to trust God’s solution over his.

To which the man who played his audience as if they were fools, said that by choosing to observe the Torah, such individuals were choosing to be controlled as if they were slaves. That means that rather than freeing His children from bondage in Egypt, Paul would have you believe that Yahowah’s domineering persona dragged His people away from the liberty they enjoyed in the Promised Land and then forced them to serve as slaves in Egypt.

But let’s pretend for a moment that Sha’uwl’s view of Yahowah is correct, that God was a despicable deity, that He was completely incompetent, even counterproductive, and that His plan was incapable of freeing anyone, much less saving them. Who then was Sha’uwl speaking on behalf of? Was Sha’uwl going to save his believers based upon his authority and power, or were they going to have to rely on the same mean-spirited, counterproductive, and unreliable God Sha’uwl repeatedly demeaned?

If you have not studied, and thus do not intimately understand, the spirit behind Yahowah’s special day, the Sabbath (where we learn that we cannot work for our salvation and come to appreciate the nature of God’s plan), the purpose of Yahowah’s seven special monthly meeting times, or Invitations (wherein God delineates the path to salvation, adoption, and heaven), or Yahowah’s Yowbel years (whereby we are asked to forgive all debts and free all people as a way of acknowledging that we appreciate what God is willing to do for us), then please invest the time to read the first two volumes of Yada Yah found at www.YadaYah.com.

Rather that facilitating our freedom from man’s works-based religious schemes, rather than providing the means to our salvation, rather than enabling our adoption into our Heavenly Father’s family by way of His Covenant, Sha’uwl would have you believe that we become "controlled and enslaved by observing and attending certain days, months, seasons and years. And yet the most important elements in Yahowah’s plan of adoption and of salvation are delineated thereby. The very days, months, seasons, and years Yahowsha’ observed and attended have been recast as God’s means to control and enslave His creation. When it comes to twisting, even inverting, Yahowah’s Word, and revising, even contradicting, His plan, this is as bad as bad ever gets.

By connecting the message presented in verses nine and ten, as is required by reason and the evidence found in the oldest surviving manuscript of Galatians, it becomes impossible to overlook Paul’s hatred of the Torah, and specifically his antagonism toward "observing and attending" Yahowah’s set-apart times for us to meet each week and year. This passage cannot be seen as anything other than an assault on the Sabbath, Passover, Un-Yeasted Bread, First-Born Children, Seven Sabbaths, Trumpets, Reconciliations, Shelters, and the Yowbel years, whereby the self-proclaimed "Apostle" would have those who believe him reject the core aspects of God’s plan even though each element was described as an "eternal and everlasting prescription" in the Torah.

Therefore, for Paul to be right, the God whose plan he had rejected and demeaned would have had to have given Paul the authority to contradict Him. But that would make Paul the opposite of Yahowsha’ and more competent than Yahowah. Moreover, since Paul claims to speak for Him, it should be noted that the endorsement of a god who needs correcting is as useless as is the advice of that god’s apostle.

I’ve always wondered how Christians reconcile the fact that Yahowsha’ meticulously observed the Sabbath, the seven Miqra’ey, and the Yowbel, and that He endured Passover and Unleavened Bread to save us. Yet in complete conflict with the Ma’aseyah’s example, Christians justify Sunday worship, Lent, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas based upon Paul’s promises. And that means that Paul, not "Jesus Christ," is responsible for the faith of Christianity and serves as its founder and guiding light.

While it is undeniably obvious that Paul was telling the Galatians not to observe any of the key elements of Yahowah’s plan of salvation, and to ignore the relationship between these and Yahowsha’s life, that is not to say that there weren’t other "days, months, times, and years" worth denouncing. For example, the Galatians, as Celtic Gauls, would have been heavily influenced by the Druid religion as well as the Babylonian belief system by way of the Persian influence in the region. Even Greek mythology was spread throughout Galatia during the conquests of Alexander of Macedonia. But by this time, the Galatians were also Romans—and thus compelled to honor the Roman pantheon—which had come to include seeing certain men as gods. Octavian Augustus, for example, had rebuilt a temple in their midst to the Phrygian goddess, Cybele, calling it the Monumentum Ancyranum, or the Temple of Augustus and Rome in Ancyra, to venerate himself. It retains the extant text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, "The Deeds of the Divine Augustus," on its interior walls.

According to Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas were called "Zeus and Hermes" during one of their visits after they had participated in the healing of a lame man. Pagan priests offered sacrifices to them. But when they refused, Paul alleges that Jews from Antioch persuaded the crowds to drag him out of town to stone him. And if true, which I doubt, it would make these people highly impressionable.

In the context of worshiping Zeus (king of the gods) and Hermes (messenger of the gods), it would have been appropriate for Paul to do what he did not do: denounce the assimilation of Roman, Greek, and Babylonian mythological holidays, and the celebration of them instead of observing God’s instructions as Christians have done. For example, Dionysus, the god of grapes and wine, died each winter and was said to be resurrected each spring. This "renewal" became an annual religious festival celebrating the promise of resurrection from the dead. Held over the course of five days each Spring, the Dionysia set the stage for the Christian replacement of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and FirstFruits, with Palm Sunday ("Passion Sunday"), Maundy Thursday ("institution of Communion"), Good Friday ("death and burial of Jesus Christ"), Holy Saturday (where "Jesus rested in the grave"), and Easter Sunday occurring during the last week of the Babylonian festival of Lent.

Similarly misguided practices are observed today in astrology, especially with the horoscope. As evidence of this, those who promote astrology say: "Days of the week are also associated with Sun signs and Planets and have their own Lucky Days," to which some list each astrological sign along with its propitious time. And then they claim "numerology can help you predict your Lucky Days, and the destiny of your life based upon your birthday number, because it is your life number." Recognizing that all of this was conceived in Babylon, and assimilated into Judaism during their captivity, it’s worth noting that had Paul not been so fixated on demeaning God’s Word, there were aspects of the Babylonian religion which were incorporated into rabbinical Judaism which were deserving of criticism.