How Things Start

They start with an empty space.

'Empty beach, empty streets, sun goes down alone...' Don Henley: The Boys of Summer.

Om Na-Ma Shi-Va-Ya Om (That's seven sounds there; and that's the note system, and the color system, and the...).

'Shi' - no; 'Va' - thing.

Thing.

Meanwhile...

...A couple of silly little kids. That's us down here.

Actually I think the lyrics say 'nobody on the beach, etc.' 

The Book of Daniel begins with a most unusual set of ideas, for the 'Hebrew' Bible.

A dark horse...

Daniel is just a little kid, see - a child, literally, and taken by the officers of Nebuchadnezzar and trained to speak Chaldean Babylonian (whatever that was, some kind of thing not 'modern' Aramaic but also called 'Aramaic' by scholars). He is among some children taken who had the confidence to 'stand before the king' and who 'had an understanding of science.'

Now I'm not sure what the original manuscripts say, that is I don't know what the original word they were using there was, but the KJV uses the modern word 'science.'

Which is interesting.

So Daniel becomes extremely learned in not just Hebrew matters but also in Chaldean magic and astronomy and astrology as the Babylonians back then had their form of it.

He is not regarded by Jews as an actual Jewish prophet.

He is, on the other hand, regarded by Christians as almost, the prophet for our times.

The Book of Daniel says that Daniel was explicitly taught personally by God Himself.

Now just what does that mean?

Why should it be that Daniel should be taught by God Himself?

Should not the Hebrew people be cared for by God Himself - instead, at that time, they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel, in fact, continues in the court of the Babylonians right through the life of Nebuchadnezzar and then on into the reign of Cyrus the Great. He doesn't ever go back to the Hebrew people.

Manning Laneway Festival
yesterday.

Hmn.

And God, not Moses, or the Laws of Moses, taught Daniel.

Daniel does however, show faithfulness to his earliest traditions, and refuses the food of the Chaldeans and convinces them that they should permit him to eat what he had been raised on.

Essentially this does appear to be grains and water, rather than the meat and the wine that Nebuchadnezzar had ordered his officers to give the kids in order to make them as strong as the Babylonian (or Chaldean, in the account) youth.

But Daniel has an understanding of science. Chaldean meat was 'heavily spiced' and that, my friends, is principally because unlike us today, they did not have fridges.

So Daniel 'has an understanding of scientific things.'

He even gives the Chaldean officers an experiment to run to see whether he and his friends would be healthy on their normal food compared to what the Chaldean kids were being fed.

It does not say explicitly in the standard modern Bible anywhere, the specific techniques to use to get into direct touch with advanced beings such as the kind that Enoch clearly was engaging with and going on trips with, and using their technology to travel around in.

Or does it?

Well, it does but only using the faintest of touches to do so.

I think the most important thing is the first foundation of faithfulness. Do you have that to begin with? Daniel did.

And then, God taught him stuff.

God knew what he was like to begin with.

At the Manning Laneway Festival...
For the Autism Employment Project:
'Safe Drone Flying Awareness and
Bush-Fire Safety.' 

'Knowing stuff' that includes or involves very advanced high-level tools and techniques is a learned process - if you are going to be able to implement things entirely by yourself.

The Hebrews must have been fairly smart, and the Chaldeans were not only smart but powerful and militaristic as well. God-knowledge level however, was way more advanced still than both of those two. Both of.

And Jews don't like it.

...I definitely have a bunch of little Earth-technology drones.

And that is all I am saying for right now. 

 

PRESS RELEASE