Quotes from Brian Godawa

his enemies in chapter 19 as the "great supper of God" where the birds of prey eat the flesh of his defeated foes (19:17). While Leviathan is not included in this Revelation passage, it is the same kind of nature banquet motif as described in Psalm 74: creatures feasting on the flesh of the enemies of God. The "banquet of flesh" was a common way of symbolizing deliverance from and victory

This world was cold and brutal, like the edge of a gladius. Not many lived into their thirties or forties with all the sicknesses, thuggery, war and revolution under Roman oppression.

a truth about human society: not everyone wanted freedom. When a people willingly or unwillingly become wards of their rulers, they eventually lose their capacity for self-determination. Like helpless children, they actually prefer security in exchange for their freedom. Better the misery they know while being taken care of than the misery they do not know being freely accountable for their own actions.

For the first time in her short existence on this earth she saw the expression of a man who would give his life for her without a thought. In her eyes he saw the look of a woman who would die by his side rather than be alone. That is, after all, what she had trained for all those years. He grinned. "Pedna, let us kick some shank.

Yahweh Elohim cleared the courtroom of the myriad Sons of God. Yahweh Elohim sat alone with the satan. The judgment would not be revealed until the proper moment, because the satan had a gag order placed on him. He could not make public the court ruling until the sentence was carried out. But Yahweh Elohim had changed his mind. That sentence would not involve the Destroyer.

In response to this provocation from Judas, Caesar placed Judea under direct provincial administration from Rome. The Herodian rulership over the Jews was restricted to Galilee, but the Roman army made its presence felt with quartered troops all over the territory. They delivered harsh punishments for every minor offense. The people lived in abject fear for their lives with the grip of Imperial Rome around their throats. It was within this disarray that Demas had grown up.

Leaders of Israel, bring forth your clan heads from all the twelve tribes!" The twelve clan leaders stepped forward with trepidation. They knew this could not be good. "Hear O Israel, Yahweh our God is a holy God! And these leaders of the clans have not exercised their authority in honor of Yahweh's holiness! They have allowed Ba'al worship to thrive amidst their tribes!" The twelve clan leaders looked at one another in fear.

Commence the judgment of Yahweh." Joshua called forth a contingent of the army that had been situated by the side of the tabernacle. They came forward and grabbed the clan leaders. They dragged them over to a clearing and took twelve-foot long pikes and impaled the leaders on them. They hung them in the sun for all to see, that Yahweh might turn away his wrath.

Yahweh says to my Lord Adonai: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Yahweh sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Yahweh is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. A Psalm of David

YAHWEH ELOHIM! THY WILL BE DONE!" Behind him, a huge fifteen cubit high wall of water appeared, as if bidden by Methuselah. It surged over the desert of Dudael, swallowing up everything. Methuselah and his guards disappeared under the enormous wave as it crashed upon the last of the armies of the gods and drowned them all like ants in a rainstorm.

not mere references to the body in the grave, but to locations of the spiritual soul as well. Sheol is a combined term that describes both the grave for the body and the underworld location of the departed souls of the dead. In the New Testament, the word Hades is used for the underworld, which was the Greek equivalent of Sheol.[98]

But that is only 'natural evil,'" he waxed eloquently. "What of personal evil?" Now his words took on the calculated righteous indignation of a politician. "What kind of god would allow the heinous evils of rape, murder, genocide, and war?" Uriel snorted at the irony. At this very moment, the Accuser's ally Inanna was leading a horde of thirty thousand unholy demigods on Eden. They were planning massive rape, murder, genocide, and war.

It took seconds for the deluge to wipe the battlefield clean. A few seconds more, and the city was completely enveloped. The water smothered everything that breathed. It dissolved man-made structures as if they were sand castles. The torrential wave made its way across the plain, extinguishing everything in its path. All flesh that moved on the land died, everything in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. Elohim blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground.

Judges of Israel, each of you kill those of your men who have yoked themselves to Ba'al of Peor." Women screamed and guilty men took off, trying to escape the swords that came after them. Men were hacked and hewn by the edge of sword and axe for their abominable practices in Israel's midst. Yahweh's zeal for holiness did not end with the Canaanite heathen. It applied as much to Israel as to anyone else. Yahweh would not compromise his glory.

Jesus himself used the term Hades as the location of damned spirits in contrast with heaven as the location of redeemed spirits when he talked of Capernaum rejecting miracles, "And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades" (Matt. 11:23). Hades was also the location of departed spirits in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Hades (Luke 16:19-31).

I will sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Yahweh is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my god, and I will praise him, my father's god, and I will exalt him. Then Rahab turned back and faced Caleb again, and recited, Yahweh is a man of war; Yahweh is his name.

It was another terrible spiritual picture of the monstrous evil of idolatry that day. And it was Phineas' cleansing act that stopped the plague. From that moment on, the sickness released its stranglehold on the Israelites and faded away. Phineas would receive a promise of perpetual priesthood, because that very day Phineas was jealous for Yahweh and made atonement for the people of Israel.

Genesis 1 likewise finds its conclusion in Yahweh's taking up his rest. As developed earlier, "rest" does not imply relaxation, but more like achieving equilibrium and stability. He is making a place of rest for himself, a rest provided for by the completed cosmos. Inhabiting his resting place is the equivalent to being enthroned—it is connected to taking up his role as sovereign ruler of the cosmos.

2Pet. 2:4-5 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [tartaroo] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah.

Deut. 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." Psa. 82:1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

Abram watched the royal representatives from the cities: Nippur, Sippar, Borsippa, Lagash, Uruk, Ur, Eridu, Nineveh. They had come from all corners of the earth to participate in this massive orgy of idolatry. What could El Shaddai possibly have in mind that could bring justice upon this festering boil of villainy and spiritual rebellion? The thought passed through Abram's mind that maybe God had given up.

Hearts and souls are moved by story and he who controls the cultural narrative controls the people.

Herodian ruling class. These were the traitors that fornicated with Rome and exploited the Jewish poor. These were the wealthy who bought and paid for the priesthood of Israel, turning the holy into an abomination.

A major premise of my fictional novel Noah Primeval is that the gods of the ancient world were real spiritual beings with supernatural powers. Thus, the mythical literature and artistic engravings of the gods that have been uncovered by Mesopotamian archeology reflect a certain amount of factual reality. The twist is that these gods are actually fallen divine angelic beings called "Sons of God" (Bene Elohim) in the Bible.