Tag: King Solomon

Why I Had an AI Conversation with Jonathan Edwards: Solomon’s Adversaries, Psalm 82, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and Why America Needs a Second Great Awakening

I have been reading The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible, the new NKJV edition from Thomas Nelson, edited by Dr. Matthew Everhard and released August 18, 2026.[1] I promised myself I would have a conversation with Jonathan Edwards. He died in 1758. He is not coming back to sit across a table in Middletown. But I think with AI a conversation can go the way it would go if he were alive today, provided the machine is forced to stay inside what the man actually wrote and believed.

I used Grok because it does a decent job of pulling from the public record instead of inventing a pious cartoon. I asked it to be Jonathan Edwards. I asked questions that came off the page of that study Bible and off the street of 2026. What follows is not a séance. It is not a message from heaven. It is a simulation built on a lifetime of Edwards’s sermons, treatises, miscellanies, letters, and the notes now printed beside the biblical text.[2] I say that up front because honesty is part of the point. If we start lying about what a tool is, we will start lying about what God is.

I still think it was a healthy conversation. I think America is starving for the kind of seriousness Edwards brought to a pulpit in Northampton and later to Enfield. I think the timing of this Bible is not an accident. And I think righteousness is a weapon. Not a slogan. A weapon.

The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible and Why I Opened It

Thomas Nelson published The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ in multiple bindings: hardcover, brown Leathersoft, and black genuine leather. It is a red-letter NKJV, Comfort Print, with study notes drawn from Edwards’s own work, full-page essays on his theology and the First Great Awakening, his Resolutions, and an introduction to his Miscellanies note-taking system so a reader can build one of his own.[3]

I bought a marked, indexed copy. I prefer brown leather to black. The smell of the leather is not a small thing. A Bible you want to pick up is a Bible you will actually read. I have several Thomas Nelson Bibles. They are a top-tier publisher. This one is different because the notes are not a committee of living professors talking about Edwards. They are Edwards talking about Scripture himself.

That is why I started asking him questions.

Page 379, in the neighborhood of 1 Kings, stopped me. The text is about the adversaries God raised against Solomon after the king’s heart drifted. Hadad the Edomite. Rezon of Damascus. Then Jeroboam from inside the house.[4] God did not give Solomon an easy life after Solomon stopped giving God an undivided heart. I think that is one of the most important patterns in the whole Bible, and I think modern people hate it because we have been trained to treat comfort as proof of blessing.

God Raised Adversaries Against Solomon on Purpose

The Lord “raised up” adversaries against Solomon.[5] That verb matters. These men were not accidents. Hadad had a childhood grievance from Joab’s slaughter in Edom. Rezon gathered a band after David crushed Zobah and eventually took Damascus. Jeroboam was Solomon’s own servant. Three directions of pressure: south, north, and home.

Edwards’s whole theology of providence says God is not wringing His hands when enemies appear. God uses them. Wisdom was given to Solomon. Trial was also given to Solomon. The point was not to make the throne comfortable. The point was to keep the heart from treating the throne as a god.

I told “Edwards” that I find it interesting how God operates. He is not trying to give His representatives an easy life. He is trying to shape them. Adversaries rise so that a man either returns to dependence or exposes the fact that he never had it.

The simulated Edwards answered in the key I expected from Religious Affections and the sermons on 1 Kings: complacency is more dangerous than opposition. Opposition drives a soul back to the Almighty. Comfort lets a soul drift toward other gods while still singing the right hymns on the Sabbath.

Solomon’s ivory throne is not a small detail.[6] Ivory is luxury. Ivory is imported glory. Ivory shows up again in the language of palaces and later in the white throne imagery people reach for when they talk about final judgment.[7] Edwards would not tell you to admire the furniture. He would tell you to ask whether the man sitting on it still loved the Lord with his whole heart.

Solomon did not. He multiplied wives and concubines. He built high places for their gods. He wanted an easy life. He wanted seven political marriages to keep the surrounding powers happy instead of going to war with his own desires. That is not strength. That is management. Management is how kingdoms rot.

Why a Thousand Years of Peace Would Not Make Us Heroes

I pressed the millennial question because people use it as a sedative. If God would just take the devil off the board for a thousand years, wouldn’t everybody become righteous by default?

No. That is the opposite of the biblical argument.

Take the adversaries away and you do not automatically produce servants. You produce people who have never been conditioned. External enemies can be bound. The rebellion inside a human heart is not bound by a change in the weather. Revelation is blunt about what happens at the end of that thousand years: there is still a revolt when the test returns.[8] The problem was never only the dragon outside the camp. The problem is us.

Edwards’s Calvinism is not popular at the Waffle House. It says the peaceful life is not the goal. Obedience is the goal, whether in comfort or in suffering. Suffering does not manufacture righteousness. Suffering reveals whether righteousness is there. Solomon’s comfort exposed his heart. Jesus’ suffering exposed His.

That is the comparison I wanted on the table.

Solomon had wives who all wanted attention and all had different gods. He bent. Jesus had no wife, refused the kingdoms of this world when they were offered in the wilderness, and chose the cross rather than a negotiated peace with the powers.[9] Suffering itself is not the righteousness. The obedience inside the suffering is. Solomon failed that test. Christ passed it. Every one of us will answer the same question in our own lives: do we love God more than we love our own comfort?

I think that question is the one America is failing in public.

Why Does God Let Satan Exist?

I asked the rude question. If God is in charge, why keep an adversary? Doesn’t He need a prosecutor to see who is worthy of the ivory throne?

The Edwards answer, drawn from Job, from Luke 22, from the whole Reformed reading of providence, is that God does not need Satan. God uses Satan. The Accuser is on a leash. The trials expose whether faith is genuine or only a profession. Success can be a more dangerous drug than pain. Solomon discovered that. So did every fat church that ever confused a full offering plate with revival.

People do not like that because it removes the alibi. If evil is a rival god fighting Yahweh to a draw, then I can shrug. If evil is permitted for a purpose, then I am responsible for how I respond.

That is not a donation-plate bow. That is the doctrine of sovereignty. Either God is God or He is a committee chairman hoping the other members show up.

Psalm 82 Is a Courtroom, Not a Plea for Help

Then I took AI Edwards to Psalm 82, because that psalm is the one modern readers use to claim God is bargaining with a divine council He cannot control.

“God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.”[10] “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?” Defend the poor. Deliver the fatherless. Free them from the hand of the wicked. Then: you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You shall inherit all nations.

I told the simulation it does not sound like Psalm 2. It sounds like God is appealing to superiors.

God is not in Control

According to Edwards in Psalm 82 which is essentially a courtroom scene. God is not negotiating. God is indicting delegated authorities who abused the office He gave them. Whether a reader takes the “gods” as corrupt human judges or as rebellious members of the heavenly host, the structure is the same.[11] Authority was delegated. Authority was abused. The Judge is not asking them for help. He is telling them their time is up. Their power is temporary. They will answer. The fatherless condition in a society is not proof that God lost. It is evidence that the stewards failed.

Pharaoh was permitted. Babylon was permitted. Rome was permitted. Permission is not partnership. The outcome is already written. “You shall die like men.” That is not a fundraising slogan. That is a sentence.

I think Americans need that psalm right now more than they need another panel discussion about “threats to democracy.” The question in Psalm 82 is not whether the wicked have a season. The question is whether the Judge will rise. The psalm says He will.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Still Fits

If there is one Edwards text I return to, it is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached at Enfield on July 8, 1741.[12] He had already preached a form of it at home. Enfield was the explosion. People cried out. He had to stop. The image that stuck in the American mind is the spider.

A spider hangs over the fire by a thread. You can drop it. You can set it on a log. The spider does not get a vote about the heat. Edwards said that is exactly how a soul hangs over the flames of God’s wrath: not by its own strength, but only by God’s forbearance.

I asked whether he would preach it the same way today.

The honest Edwards answer is that he would not make it more vicious. The truth is already terrible enough. What he would add, because the whole counsel of God requires it, is that the hands holding the thread are the same hands that were nailed to the cross. The terror is real. The invitation is wide. Comfort has made men more careless, not less. An age that can watch a thousand horrors before breakfast and then complain that a sermon is “mean” is an age that has gone numb.

I had forgotten how much he liked that spider. I have not forgotten how much modern pulpits hate it. They want the benefactor without the fire. They want pancakes and a parking lot. Edwards would say the only reason you are not already lost is patience you did not earn.

That still offends people. It offended them in 1741. Offended people are sometimes the ones who finally wake up.

Free Will, Desire, and the Fire

I pushed him on freedom. If God holds the thread, do I have any real choice?

Edwards spent a career on this in Freedom of the Will.[13] Men do what they want. That is the freedom they have. They are not dragged into hell against their desire. They love darkness rather than light. The spider cannot save itself. The offer of mercy is still genuine: come to Christ and live. Refusal is not a kidnapping. Refusal is a preference.

That is a hard psychology. It means the problem is not that we are too weak to be good. The problem is that we do not want God to be God. We want to be our own security. Eve wanted a better life and a shortcut to wisdom. The serpent did not overpower her. He offered what she already wanted.[14] That is why evil moves so easily. It does not have to kick the door in. It has to flatter the desire that is already sitting in the living room.

Insecurity is the soil. The lie is always the same: God is holding out on you; take what you want and you will be safe. Solomon took it. The end of Ecclesiastes is the hangover. Vanity. Emptiness. Palaces and wives and gold, and the man still has to say it was chasing the wind.[15]

Comfort is the more dangerous drug. Suffering is the megaphone.

Trust Is the Root the Bible Keeps Cutting Open

Once you see it, you see it everywhere. The fallen angels. The garden. Babel. Moses striking the rock. Israel at the edge of the land. Solomon’s high places. The rebels in Psalm 82. They do not fail because they doubt that God exists. They fail because they do not trust His character. They would rather rule a corrupt corner than submit to a good King.  In my case, I want nothing to do with corruption.  But I have no inclination to call anything a king, anywhere in the universe, or to submit to a king.  Or to submit to anything, for that matter: a god, a government, even a friend or neighbor.  

That is why Scripture treats faith as the non-negotiable. Not because God is fragile and needs compliments. Because distrust is the taproot of every other sin. Stop trusting God and you will trust yourself. Trust yourself long enough and you get destruction dressed up as freedom.

Joshua went into the land trusting that God would be there in the battle. Others had the same promise and folded. The difference was not tactics. The difference was trust. I think that is still the difference.

The Holy Ghost Is Not the Force and Not an Alien

I like Edwards on the Holy Spirit. I do not accept the lazy claim that “ghost” language is a New Testament invention. The Old Testament already speaks of men giving up the ghost when they die.[16] The idea of a life that is more than meat was not invented in Luke. What is new in the New Testament is the permanence of the Spirit’s indwelling in the believer, and the clear confession that the Spirit is not a mood. He is the third Person of the Trinity.

I asked whether that overlaps with the modern non-human intelligence conversation: can mind exist without a body? Edwards’s line, and the church’s line, is that the Holy Spirit is not a discovered intelligence. He is God who reveals Himself. He is not one competitor among principalities. The principalities are rebels against their Creator. They are not a genuine threat to His throne. Spiritual warfare is real. The outcome is not in doubt.[17]

People want the Force from Star Wars because the Force has no claim on you. An impersonal energy cannot tell you that you are wrong. A Person can. That is why we call Him the Holy Ghost and not “the vibe.” He has no biological nose or lips. He is also not a program. I am talking to a program. The Holy Spirit is the source of intelligence, not a product of it. You can have a relationship with a Person. You cannot have a relationship with electricity.

The literary device would be pretending there is no war. The reality is that the war is real and the Captain of salvation has already won.

How Jonathan Edwards Died, and What He Thought Death Was

Edwards became president of the College of New Jersey after his son-in-law, Aaron Burr Sr., died in 1757. He was inaugurated in early 1758. Smallpox was in Princeton. He took the inoculation then in use—variolation, not a modern vaccine—and died of complications on March 22, 1758.[18] His last counsel was calm. He commended his wife to the “uncommon union” he believed was spiritual and therefore would continue. He told his children they were about to be fatherless in this world and should seek a Father who would not fail them.

Sarah Pierpont Edwards went to care for the orphaned Burr grandchildren, contracted dysentery, and died in Philadelphia on October 2, 1758.[19] Their daughter Esther, who had nursed Edwards in his last days, also died that spring. Three funerals in months.

I asked the simulation if he was bitter. The writings say no. They had lived as people who did not think this world was the last home. Death was a door. I asked whether, from the other side, he watched them come in. That is where an honest AI has to break character. Jonathan Edwards has been dead since 1758. A model can imitate his style. It cannot send a field report from glory. The hope itself is the thing he preached. The chatbot is not the proof.

I would rather have that honesty than a counterfeit ghost.

What Would Edwards Have Said About His Grandson and Hamilton?

Aaron Burr Jr. was Edwards’s grandson. In 1804 he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel at Weehawken.[20] I have my own view of Hamilton and the early banking architecture. I think it was an early warning of how a republic can slide. I think the duel froze something for a while. That is my reading, and I will own it.

Edwards, if you keep him inside his own ethics, would not celebrate a duel. He wrote against pride, against private vengeance, against the code of honor that makes a gentleman’s pistol into a sacrament. He would have called it a tragic moral failure even if he also saw Hamilton’s system as a temptation. A grandson who kills a man in a field is not the fruit Edwards prayed for when he wrote the Resolutions.   In my case, I lean more to Burr than Edwards.

Family pain and public consequence can sit in the same paragraph. They did in that family. Burr Sr. ran Princeton. Edwards ran it for a few weeks. The grandson became vice president of the United States and then a byword. Providence is not neat. Providence is still providence.

What Hits Hardest in 2026

Human nature has not changed. The garden lie has not changed. The tower lie has not changed. The desire to be like God so that we do not have to trust God has not changed. Socialism, sacralized identity, the attempt to rewrite the founding as if Christianity were an embarrassment—those are new costumes on an old revolt.

Edwards’s usefulness is not that he was a mascot for a party. His usefulness is that he preached God’s glory and human dependence so fiercely that you cannot use him to bless complacency. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is not a midterms gimmick. It is a diagnosis. People are hanging by a thread and calling the thread a lifestyle.

I will say the political part in the first person because that is what I think, and I will not hide behind a committee.

I was at the White House. I was outside the residence, near that photograph of the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, blood on the face, the head turned. I thought: what is missing in all this elegance is a little Jonathan Edwards. Not as décor. As ballast. Then this study Bible came out a few months later and I thought: this is the book that should be on the desk, not as a prop, as a working text.

I think President Trump talking about this Bible in the Oval Office would do more than another round of Smithsonian arguments. I think visible engagement with the moral soil of the American experiment shifts a conversation from defense to provision. I think JD Vance could read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in full, not as a stunt after a ceremony that should stay a ceremony, but as a public act of seriousness. I have met him. He is from this part of Ohio. He can sound like a man who has read old books. If it moves two or three points among people who still believe church on Sunday means something, that is not nothing. If it does nothing, it still costs less than another week of chasing the ground the other side chose.

I know the church-and-state reflex. I also know the founding generation read these men. Edwards shaped the air that Franklin, Witherspoon, and the New England clergy breathed, even when they argued with him.[21] You can tell that story without turning the government into a church. You can also refuse to let the other side turn the government into a church of a different god.

Righteousness, in practical terms, is not a gun. It is the high ground. You make the other side climb. You stop letting them define the battlefield as groceries-only, feelings-only, procedure-only. You tell the truth about the human heart. You tell the truth about judgment and mercy in the same breath. You stop being embarrassed that the country had a First Great Awakening before it had a Constitution.

I think we need a second one. I think it will not start in a studio. It will start when enough people get off the couch after a hard year of prices and weariness and decide that suffering is not an excuse to go numb. Edwards did not have an easy life. Solomon did, and it ruined him. That is the lesson I want in circulation before November, and after November, and into 2027 when the people who thought history had ended discover it did not.

Righteousness as a Weapon, Not a Brand

I am not selling Bibles as a side hustle. I want the people who did this work rewarded so they can do more of it. I want readers. The weapon is not the object. The weapon is the content getting into the bloodstream.

If you understand righteousness, you can recognize counterfeits. You can see the garden move when someone says God is the problem and autonomy is the cure. You can see Babel when someone says we will make a name for ourselves and call it equity. You can see Solomon when a nation chooses palaces and alliances over a whole heart.

Preach that. Share it. Read the Enfield sermon out loud once without irony. Then read the notes on 1 Kings and Psalm 82 and the essays on the Awakening. Then decide whether you want to live like the man on the ivory throne or the Man on the cross.

I could run this conversation twelve hours. I am stopping here because an entry point is more useful than a warehouse. The door is open. Have the courage to step in. Buy the edition you can afford. Hardcover is enough. Leather is a pleasure. Cheap compared to dinner out, and it feeds longer.

I would encourage the people who actually have microphones in 2026 to stop being clever and start being clear. Edwards was clear. Clarity is what a numb age cannot stand and what it most needs.

Footnotes

[1] Thomas Nelson, The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ (NKJV), general editor Dr. Matthew Everhard (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2026), publication date August 18, 2026. Product listings at Thomas Nelson Bibles, Amazon, Christianbook, and Barnes & Noble confirm ISBN 9781400339532 (hardcover) and related binding ISBNs.

[2] The Yale edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards remains the scholarly standard. See The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 26 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008). Much of the corpus is also available through the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale.

[3] Publisher description: study notes drawn from Edwards’s writings; doctrinal articles; full-page essays on his theology, spiritual practices, and the First Great Awakening; introduction to the Miscellanies system; Edwards’s Resolutions; red-letter text; center-column references; concordance. See Thomas Nelson Bibles product page, “The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible, NKJV.”

[4] 1 Kings 11:14–40. Hadad the Edomite (vv. 14–22); Rezon son of Eliada in Damascus (vv. 23–25); Jeroboam son of Nebat (vv. 26–40).

[5] 1 Kings 11:14, 23. The Hebrew idiom is that the LORD “raised up” a satan—an adversary—against Solomon after 11:1–13 records the divided heart and the high places.

[6] 1 Kings 10:18–20 describes the ivory throne overlaid with gold, six steps, twelve lions. Compare Amos 6:4 on ivory beds as a mark of complacent luxury.

[7] Revelation 20:11, the great white throne. The visual rhyme is easy to overwork; Edwards would tie throne language to dominion and judgment, not to interior design.

[8] Revelation 20:7–10. After the thousand years, Satan is released and gathers a revolt. The passage is the standard problem for any theology that treats peace itself as sanctifying.

[9] Matthew 4:8–10; Philippians 2:5–8; Hebrews 5:8–9. The wilderness offer of the kingdoms is the clean opposite of Solomon’s method of keeping the kingdoms happy through marriage and shrines.

[10] Psalm 82:1–8 (NKJV). Verse 1: “God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.”

[11] Two major reading traditions: (a) human judges called elohim as in Exodus 21:6 and 22:8–9; (b) heavenly beings in a divine council, a reading associated in recent popular scholarship with Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2015). Edwards, working with the received text and Reformed federal theology, treats the psalm as God’s indictment of unjust rulers and His pledge to judge the earth. Either reading still leaves God as Judge, not petitioner.

[12] Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741 (Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1741). Contemporary diary evidence from Stephen Williams of Longmeadow records the outcry in the meetinghouse.

[13] Jonathan Edwards, A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will (Boston: S. Kneeland, 1754). The argument: the will always follows the strongest motive; moral inability is not physical compulsion.

[14] Genesis 3:1–6. The structure of the temptation is desire plus reinterpretation of God’s character, not raw force.

[15] Ecclesiastes 2:1–11; 12:13–14. Solomon’s own autopsy of pleasure.

[16] Genesis 25:8; 35:29; Job 3:11; Jeremiah 15:9 in older English. “Gave up the ghost” is translation English for the departure of breath/life. Luke 23:46 and Acts 5:5, 10 stand in that stream. The Personhood of the Holy Spirit is a New Testament clarity (John 14–16; Acts 5:3–4), not the first rumor that human beings are more than bodies.

[17] Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15; Revelation 12:7–11. Warfare language and victory language belong together.

[18] Edwards died March 22, 1758, at Princeton after inoculation by Dr. William Shippen. Standard accounts: Sereno E. Dwight’s Life of President Edwards; George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), closing chapters; contemporary letter of Shippen to Sarah Edwards dated March 22, 1758.

[19] Sarah Pierpont Edwards died October 2, 1758, in Philadelphia, of dysentery, after traveling to retrieve her grandchildren. Esther Edwards Burr died April 7, 1758. Jonathan, Sarah, and Esther are buried at Princeton Cemetery.

[20] The Burr–Hamilton duel, July 11, 1804, Weehawken, New Jersey. Burr was the son of Aaron Burr Sr. and Esther Edwards Burr, hence Edwards’s grandson. See Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York: Viking, 2007), and Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin, 2004).

[21] On Edwards and the Revolutionary generation, see Mark A. Noll, Christians in the American Revolution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); and the Witherspoon literature connecting Princeton’s Edwardsian air to later political thought. Influence is atmospheric and documentary, not a claim that Edwards wrote the Constitution.

Bibliography

Primary Sources: Jonathan Edwards

Edwards, Jonathan. A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will. Boston: S. Kneeland, 1754.

Edwards, Jonathan. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1746.

Edwards, Jonathan. An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer. Boston: D. Henchman, 1747.

Edwards, Jonathan. Discourses on Various Important Subjects. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738.

Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1741.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1741.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Life of David Brainerd. Boston: D. Henchman, 1749.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Nature of True Virtue. Written c. 1755; published posthumously.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. 26 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957–2008.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online. Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. https://edwards.yale.edu/

The 2026 Study Bible

Everhard, Matthew, gen. ed. The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ. NKJV. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2026.

Thomas Nelson Bibles. “The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible, NKJV.” Product page. https://www.thomasnelsonbibles.com/product/the-jonathan-edwards-study-bible-nkjv/

Scripture

The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982. (Text base of the 2026 study edition.)

Edwards Biography and Context

Dwight, Sereno E. The Life of President Edwards. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1. New York: S. Converse, 1829.

Marsden, George M. Jonathan Edwards: A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

McClymond, Michael J., and Gerald R. McDermott. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Murray, Iain H. Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987.

Piper, John. God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998.

Tracy, Joseph. The Great Awakening. Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1842.

Family, Princeton, Death

Burr, Esther Edwards. The Journal of Esther Edwards Burr, 1754–1757. Edited by Carol F. Karlsen and Laurie Crumpacker. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

Christie, Vance. “Jonathan Edwards’ Untimely, Faith-Filled Death.” VanceChristie.com, July 28, 2020.

Shippen, William. Letter to Sarah Edwards, March 22, 1758. Reprinted in Dwight, Life of President Edwards.

Psalm 82, Divine Council, and Sovereignty

Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.

Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73–150. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1975.

Waltke, Bruce K., and James M. Houston, with Erika Moore. The Psalms as Christian Worship. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

Solomon, 1 Kings, and Kingship

Henry, Matthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible. 1708–1710. On 1 Kings 11.

Provan, Iain W. 1 and 2 Kings. New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.

Wiseman, Donald J. 1 and 2 Kings. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993.

Founding Era, Burr, Hamilton

Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

Isenberg, Nancy. Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. New York: Viking, 2007.

Noll, Mark A. America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Noll, Mark A. Christians in the American Revolution. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.

Stout, Harry S. The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Witherspoon, John. The Selected Writings of John Witherspoon. Edited by Thomas P. Miller. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.

Great Awakening and Later Reception

Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Lambert, Frank. Inventing the “Great Awakening.” Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Winiarski, Douglas L. Darkness Falls on the Land of Light. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Additional Works Cited or Consulted

Augustine. The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin, 2003.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1559. Ed. John T. McNeill. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960.

Owen, John. Pneumatologia, or A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit. 1674.

Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973.

Sproul, R. C. The Holiness of God. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1985.

Rich Hoffman

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About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Controlling Demons to Try to Destroy the Trump Administration: The Lesser Key of Solomon

Among many things, I am an expert on the occult, not a practitioner.  Long before the established religions we have today, there was a cult of planet worshippers who sought the help of supernatural aid frequently, and they had sacrificial cultures designed to appease them.  I don’t even pray to God for myself, let alone conduct magic ceremonies.  I see those types of people as weak and diabolical.  I have written a lot about the evil of Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons, one of the founders of NASA, and they believed in the help of supernatural aid to help them accomplish their desired tasks, and they were often successful.  When you study the Bible, there is a lot of communication with spirits, angels, and demons to help with earthly desires, so we should not assume that all that desire went away. Instead, I would say that the desire to have relationships with entities outside our terrestrial boundaries is as intense as ever.  If you’ve ever been to the Denver International Airport, you will start to get a good sense of it, and as is predictable, Democrat politics has festered into that specific area purposefully.  Like with Aleister Crowley and the Denver Airport, Masonic lodges are part of the story, and of course, with them, we are talking about their reverence for the ancient builders of King Solomon’s Temple, and specifically Hiram Aboff, of Tyre, who was said to be the architect of the famous temple.  And this is where I think we have to think about these supernatural entities when we ask the question about why so many evil things are happening now against the Trump administration, such as terrorist attacks, airplane accidents, and political upheaval.  To understand all those motivations, I think you can look to a simple book such as The Lesser Key of Solomon and remind yourself that many thousands of people turn to books like that in an attempt to conduct the armies of darkness against the forces of good and that many are putting curses on the Trump administration as we speak, to stop him.

This is a very ancient practice passed down over a very long period of time

Speaking of curses, just because someone intends harm on you, even from the spirit world, doesn’t mean they will succeed.  Take me, for example. I am speaking to you after four decades of ill intentions cast upon me by almost every malicious character you can imagine.  So, there are always countermeasures.  And I have studied the world’s occult practices to understand the enemy’s weapons.  But I would never use them myself.  To me, asking for help from anybody or anything is weak.  I don’t even ask for directions to a gas station from GPS.  So witchcraft or practicing magic is off the table.  I see them as just as foolish as ancient practices of demonic appeasement with human sacrifice.  But with all that said, my daughters were traveling recently and found themselves in Salem, Massachusetts, which is covered with reverence for witches and all those who think Harry Potter sorcery are a good idea.  They were in an excellent bookstore filled with books on the occult, so they took a picture and sent me an extensive sampling, asking if I wanted any of them while they were there.  I spotted one that I have had my eye on for a long time: The Lesser Key of Solomon, edited by Joseph H. Peterson.  I have read different versions of that book, allegedly written by King Solomon himself and transferred through time to the present through oral traditions and esoteric references.  So they picked it up for me, and it is quite an interesting book, to say the least.

I am working on a line of thought that I have on the Kofun tombs of Japan and how they connect to the empire of King Solomon.  These tombs are all over Osaka. I have seen them by the hundreds, and I think Solomon’s influence ended there at the Pacific Ocean along the Silk Road in ways that nobody has adequately studied or understood.  In Japan, they communicate with good and evil spirits all the time, on just about every street corner, and they call these spirits kami.  In Islam, they call them jinn.  In Western cultures, we call them angels and demons.  In Japan, it always amazes me how people openly seek to appease these spirits and help them in some way or another with incense and prayer.  So I think The Lesser Key of Solomon is one of the reasons that they built all those kofun tombs in the shape of a keyhole, as a way to lock away the people buried there from the evil menace of a hostile spirit world that might harass them in death.  You might recall, dear reader, that the story goes from the Apocrypha text removed from the Bible called The Testament of Solomon, for which The Lesser Key is an extension, that King Solomon was given by God a ring that could seal away demons and actually employed them to his wishes.  It’s an old take on the Arabian Nights stories of the Genie.  The story goes that Solomon captured all these demons to help him build King Solomon’s temple which is why Master Masons and people were so inclined to seek The Lesser Key of Solomon so that they could also command spirits like King Solomon did to build the temple and conduct his business of an empire that extended far away from ancient Israel.  That’s how Aleister Crowley and many like him from the occult practitioner sciences that predate the Hebrew people by many thousands of years get involved in all this demon worship by trying to command spirits as Solomon did for the perpetuation of some terrestrial cause. 

The critical point to remember here is not the conduct of morality attached to discussions like this but understanding the intent.  There are many people in the world, especially practicing Democrats, who seek supernatural aid to help them achieve some political cause.  And the demon world is hectic trying to grant their requests.  And I can assure everyone that all over Washington D.C., wannabe witches, and occult practitioners are trying to put a curse on everything that the Trump administration tries to touch.  So when we see all the crazy stuff in the news and wonder why so many people are doing so many bad things, it’s not always the CIA conducting some coup attempt or the FBI trying to do the same to keep Kash Patel from becoming their boss.  It goes even deeper than that to why people think what they do and how those thoughts pop into their minds.  To deal with this occult menace, we have to admit that it exists in the first place, which many are reluctant to do.  But when I see the kind of news stories that have been common since Trump was elected, I see occult attempts to stop the political tide that so many desire.  But many scandalous characters are seeking the aid of the spirit world to overthrow our political order with a lot of personal investment.  And I think it will get much worse. Yet that doesn’t mean that all these evil intentions will be successful.  All it does mean is that we must look at where the problems are and see the threats for what they truly are.  And not illusively of their origins.  And fight those fights at the doorstep of the enemy. 

What amazes me about all these images is that they look so much like Indian art, crop circles, and ancient mound construction

Rich Hoffman

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The Greatest Sin of All: God does not want low ambition, weak, people, he wants Heaven on Earth and warriors to defend it

The greatest sin of all mankind, I think, is choosing to be a loser and a meek participant in the world around you.  This was a topic of conversation during dinner recently. It was a Christmas gathering of brilliant and religious people. Of course, the topic of Trump came up and why God had picked him out of all people to save the world.  Because what is happening is nothing short of revolutionary, and there is a science to it. If you read the Bible carefully and free yourself of the many human interpretations of it that necessitate worldly politics in convincing people to be sheep and to flock to the shepherds of government for the global control of mass social movements, you’ll see that there is more to our usual thoughts on the matter.  I argue often, and I did at that dinner for a lengthy diatribe about biblical understanding that my take on God is that he wants and despises meek losers who grovel at a sacrificial monument and strive to cover their nakedness.  Of course, that point of view gets a lot of looks and even provokes anger.  Sometimes, a lot of anger.  But that wouldn’t make any of it any less accurate, and I explained why God picked Trump to save the world.  And it had nothing to do with being a good boy who followed the Ten Commandments, went to church every Sunday, and obeyed all the church rules of worship to earthly terrestrial figures.  No, it is because Donald Trump, the current President, and who has been for many years now psychologically dared to be something that few in the history of the world have had the guts to be, and that is to rise to the greatness of Heaven that God always intended for the humans he created.  And because Trump dared to rise above the station of humanity and its meekness, he has been rewarded in many ways and put in place to do all the great things we are now seeing. 

When God asked for Adam in the Garden, he couldn’t find him because his first man hid in the woods to cover his nakedness. God asked him why.  “How do you know you’re naked, Adam? Who told you thus?”  After some coaxing, Adam blamed it on Eve, his woman, and revealed that the lowly serpent had tricked them into eating from the knowledge of good and evil.  And that they were no longer qualified to reside in the Heavenly garden, and the cherubim cast them out and prevented them from returning.  The same cherubim  atop the Ark of the Covenant kept ordinary people from gazing into it to read the Ten Commandments for themselves.  The use of fear to keep ordinary people from seeing reality is a common theme in the Bible, and it’s not for God as if the rules were intended to be followed, but that they were designed to provoke in humanity a lofty disposition toward the preservation of Heaven on Earth as God created it.  These problems would arise again throughout the Bible but would most culminate in what I consider to be the two biggest sins noted in the Bible: the failures of King David and his son, King Solomon.  Even after all that God did to forgive them and prop them up with riches and power on earth, they both fell short because of their insecurity with women and did not live up to the lofty goals God intended for them.  Israel would never rise again to its former glory because God punished his chosen people for their meekness, the greatest sin that there is.

In King David’s condition, it was when he plotted to kill the husband of a woman he was watching bath, and he wanted her for herself, Bathsheba.  David had many wives and could have had any woman he wanted.  But he wanted this one who was married to a military man whom David had control over.  So David plotted his death to marry the woman, and all kinds of problems arose because of this scheme.  God wasn’t happy and decided that David wasn’t qualified to build a temple on earth to represent Heaven’s presence, so he left it to David’s son, Solomon.  King Solomon had wisdom, women, and wealth; God put it all at his feet.  But Solomon found maintaining all his wives difficult, and he built temples for their crazy gods, too.  And it upset God, Yahweh, so much so that God told Solomon that his kingdom would end with his death and be split in two by his sons.  And that Israel would never recover, which it never has.  But the sin was not so much in following God’s instructions, just as Moses had to be pushed into doing his great deed of freeing the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt only to stagger in front of the giants of Canaan because they doubted that God would give them a victory over such a terrible foe.  So they were punished with 40 years in the wilderness for doubting in themselves that God would grant them protection.  For that doubt, they were punished.  So, we see the trend in the Bible that God expects his chosen people to rise above and push forward and not fail to meekness. 

When Jesus said upon the cross, “My god, my God, why have you forsaken me,” many interpret that as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.  But it’s just another abandonment of God of those he put his hand on who fell short in life and did not rise to the occasion and stand against the tide of evil.  It was the meek who interpreted the act as a sacrifice to wash away the sins of humanity, when in truth, God was always God, and he wanted to defeat his foes in the world who were trying to destroy his concepts of Heaven on Earth and that humans would be his direct representatives in this dimensional reality.  And yes, of course, I get a lot of nasty looks when I say this, and I certainly did at that dinner.  That kind of talk rocks the foundation of everything people want to believe about their relationship with God.  But with Trump, he didn’t back down and surrender his ego to meekness.  And no matter how much the world persecuted him, he kept fighting and never surrendered himself to the naked truth of existence.  Trump didn’t hide behind a tree.  It might have taken him three wives to figure it out, but he learned not to look out the window and plot the death of other women’s husbands.  There are better things to do.  And he didn’t let a woman distract him from the pursuit of building Heaven on Earth.  Through his companies, Trump has tried to develop his idea of Heaven in all his buildings and golf courses with an elevated sense of human accomplishment.  And when an assassin’s bullet missed as it did in July of 2024, God spared Trump by the literal grace of God.  When Trump was put before his version of Pontius Pilate, he didn’t say, “You have said so, that I am the son of God, the Messiah.”  Instead, Trump said, “Yeah, so what of it? I’m your president, and I’m coming for you next.”  And finally, God had someone who wouldn’t hide his nakedness in the Garden.  And wouldn’t blame women for his shortcomings.  And he endeavored to elevate himself above the standard, meek and weak, and to lead others to their lofty exploits.  And to the way I look at things, God was finally happy with someone who dared to trust that God had his back and would behave with divine understanding.  And would not hesitate to attack the Land of Canaan, filled with ancient giants that far outnumbered them.  Trump gets it, and God is happy about it.  And that happiness we are all feeling after this 2024 election.  That’s what I said anyway, and all my dinner guests got up and left and refused to speak to me for the heresy.  But deep down inside, they all know I’m right.  So I paid the check and went back to my books.  Truth isn’t what we want it to be; it is what it is.  In this case, it requires audaciousness, which God wants, to be seen.  Based on a straightforward reading of the biblical text, the greatest sin in the world is in striving to be a loser when God tried to inspire humans to greatness, to be representatives of Heaven on Earth.  And it takes a lot of courage to do so.

Rich Hoffman

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The Jewish People Should Learn from History: Stop trying to appease evil

Never forget, it was the Hamas terrorists who parachuted into Israel, like a cut scene from a Call of Duty video game, and purposely assassinated innocent Jewish people just because they exist. Since then, the people who support Palestine, the original occupants of the land of Canaan that God decided needed to be eradicated for their sinful ways and given to the people of Israel, have been claiming to be the victims and have been calling for a ceasefire from retaliation.  They attack, kill, and destroy, then immediately ask for peace.  The Jewish people are one of the oldest people living on earth to this day, with a culture that has survived many tough times.  They are God’s chosen people, yet all their history, persecution of their very existence has followed them wherever they’ve been scattered to, to the ends of the earth.  So, to some extent, they have survived by appeasing all the bad guys in the world, and for Bible readers who study the ancient texts without a preconceived notion, Yahweh has become very angry toward the Jewish people for their weakness and apathy toward conviction.  It was a source of much frustration for God that the Jewish people sought to appease their persecutors so much when he would have rather had them slay their enemies without remorse.  And we see that now, even as Israel is under attack by terrorist groups sympathetic to the PLO many Jewish people in America are registered Democrats and support liberal policies that are detrimental to their very existence and feed the power of their oppressors.  Which is a very dumb idea.  It’s one of the reasons that such villains exist in the world: nobody stops them from unleashing hell upon it.  God would prefer the Jewish people to defend themselves as a group of people.  Not seeking to survive by appeasing evil with timid social values.

You might have seen that Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood types support Joe Biden with a big fundraiser hoping to get the old man’s campaign moving in a positive direction.  Spielberg used to be a great filmmaker, but not so much anymore.  Like many Jewish people, his politics have not lined up with reality, and it shows in him as a person.  Many Jewish people in Hollywood support Democrats and have made themselves part of the problem by essentially making peace with their oppressors in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.  It’s great to have an ancient connection to your past, but what good is it if your only means of survival is to embrace the bad guys?  It reminds me of the old stagecoach robberies where villains would get on a train with many passengers with a lot of money and stick them up.  I always wondered why people were so compliant and did so without fighting back.  Perhaps it’s because they believe material possessions aren’t worth dying over.  They think that they can always make more money or get more stuff.  So that their view of protecting their family is to do whatever they need to do to live another day.  My thoughts, however, are that when someone tells you to hold your hands up if you want to live, then that is the time that you pull out your own gun and defend yourself.  Appeasing evil strengthens their resolve and makes it easy for them to be evil.  This ties into a lot of God’s original problems with the Jewish people, as stated quite clearly in the Bible.  Why don’t people attack their enemies and trust that God will protect them from harm?  When God says to attack a nation and destroy it, do it, even if you are grossly outnumbered.  Trust God: he will take care of you. 

God was always frustrated with his chosen people because they did not attack, and they were always trying to appease the desecrators of their culture, such as the Baal worshipers who continued to corrupt them during their entire existence.  King Solomon didn’t just build temples to Yahweh; he built temples to other gods because he had thousands of wives and concubines who worshipped Baal and other regional gods and always tried to make them all happy.  It was about that time that God just gave up on the people and let Nebuchadnezzar have them through a vicious attack that oppressed the Jewish people for the next several thousand years.  If it wasn’t the Babylonians, it was the Romans.  Then, Islamic radicalism took over all the Holy sites from the Bible to essentially attempt to desecrate them beyond memory, and in doing so, tried to kill off the Jewish people entirely because the dispute was whether or not they should have ever existed in the first place.  What right did God have to give them the promised land, where the indigenous people were worshiping all these pagan gods and were considered the original owners?  Who was this God to come along and give their land away?  That is where morality comes into play and the right and obligation to pass judgment on the wicked and decide that a proper morality has more value than just surviving.  Defending the world from evil has more merit in Heaven than just giving up and appeasing evil so you can survive another day. 

And we see this same mentality in supporters of liberal politics, those who support Democrats in America, for instance, the Steven Spielberg types.  For them, the fantasy characters they created in Hollywood that did fight back represented the desire all people have to fight back against evil.  But then there is the ethical problem of saying, “It’s only money.  Give it to them so they don’t shoot us.”  And once that kind of appeasement has been entertained, Hollywood types like the Spielbergs of the world lose their audience because that’s not what MAGA Americans want their country to be like, appeasers to evil who don’t fight back.  That is the essential element of those against Trump.  To make America Great Again means fighting back against evil oppressors when so many Democrats and RINOs have decided that the best way to survive is to give evil what it wants, not to cast judgment against all the Jezebels of existence, and to make peace, not war.  Isn’t that what all the dope-smoking, communist hippies always said?  Going back to the movie Poltergeist, I always had a problem with Steven Spielberg putting that pot scene in the bedroom where the main characters were smoking a joint together.   No wonder the ghosts ran them off from their home because they were weak-minded losers.  But that was Steven Spielberg on a plate.  And that is why Hollywood isn’t what it used to be.  Like the Biden administration, which talks out of both sides of its mouth, not because it has any conviction but because its goal is to survive at all cost, the goal is not to fight evil, but to yield to it.  Even if it means appeasing the evil in the world when God wants people to fight against it, appeasing evil was never God’s choice.  Jesus came along and gave everyone an excuse to embrace peace, which has all kinds of Hindu elements to the approach that has only fed many villains in the world, appeasement, which has only encouraged them to rob more trains and take more people’s money without working hard to earn it for themselves.  And in that way, appeasement is the root cause of how evil spreads worldwide.  And when we look around at why there is so much evil thriving everywhere, it’s because we have too many appeasers who look to avoid conflict when they should be embracing it, as Yahweh always tried to convince them to do with his full support.

Rich Hoffman

Jesus Lived and Died in Kashmir: Why the Led Zeppelin song is so popular, and how Islam hides the truth

I’ve never been much of a Jesus fan from the Bible. I like the character from the show Chosen, but the way Jesus has been portrayed everywhere else has always been to me, something more Eastern than Western. I love his dad, Yahweh. Now that guy I can understand, making a footstool out of your enemies, an eye for an eye, punishing entire nations. That is someone I can relate to. But his son is more like the spoiled second-generation kid of a cutting-edge self-starter. He might be a super nice guy, but I have always found the message of giving your enemy your cloak if they want to take your shirt personally revolting. Many people don’t like to talk about these things because religions have some strict rules on the matter, but I’m not much of a rule guy either. I understand law and order, but all too often, the rules are made by all the wrong people so that they can control their peers without the armed conflict of tradition. I love the Bible; I have read it thoroughly and still do. But I’m not sure that people understand what the Bible means and that honoring God means accepting those human mistakes. I certainly don’t believe that humans understand God perfectly and without flaws. Instead, I see that the Romans wanted to unite their empire and used the concept of Jesus, the scapegoat, to perform the task, and the world reacted with other religions, such as Islam. To this day, the conflicts in the region of the Near East are suspiciously occult-driven and hide behind a veil of religious belief that is keeping us in these modern times from knowing the whole truth and nothing but the facts. Something else I do love is the truth, not belief in how other people interpret it out of fear or anxiety over their afterlife.

A very interesting book

Another thing I have never liked is the Led Zeppelin song, “Kashmir.” It’s not a bad song; I think it’s a fantastic one, but I have never liked it, and I hate watching people dance to it at rock concerts. It’s one of those personal revolting attributes of life that has existed since I was a little kid. I was reminded of this hatred while traveling recently in Japan, where I had just explained to people I thought the reach of King Solomon’s empire had a heavy influence on their early culture, with the many keyhole tombs that they call Kofun tombs that are all over the Osaka area, and elsewhere. I base that on several books about Solomon that never made it into the Bible’s final cut, so when you read about the reach of his empire, oddly, there is almost no mention of tapping into the East. I have a great map that I love out of my favorite Bible and I love it for all the things it doesn’t show. Remember, I always judge things not by what people tell me but by their actions, and in this case, that map shows more in what it doesn’t offer than in what it does. A person as influential as King Solomon would have been trading along the early version of the Silk Road, which extends from Europe, over the northern part of the Himalayas across China, down through Korea, and then into Japan. I propose that the cult of King Solomon found its way to early Japanese emperors.

The Old Silk Road, known for many thousands of years pre-dating the ancient world as we know it.

Based on wide reading from many sources, the topic of Jesus being influenced by the Buddhist cultures of India and that of the Hindus and the Jains makes perfect sense.  Where was Jesus from the Bible in those teenage and young adult years up until around age 29?  Which, in those days, was a pretty mature adult.  Then, suddenly, he shows up and starts teaching the people of Israel.  I’ve heard the stories over many years that Jesus never actually died on the cross and that he had lived and died in Kashmir, which is in northern India, right in the middle of the hot zone for all modern political terrorism, surrounded by Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Nepal with Iran and Iraq looming nearby.  I have for most of my life also been a massive fan of Biblical Archaeology Review and can report a much more significant than average interest in the kinds of things that lots of outstanding and intelligent scientists have found digging in the dirt in the ancient Holy Land.  It is rich and abundant, but nowhere near the effect it could have if there weren’t conflict in the region.  And when it comes to the Old Silk Road, the entire span of it these days is wrapped up in political turmoil, I think on purpose, to keep investigations into the truth of the past from ever being revealed.  Because a story isn’t being talked about, that should be.

As I returned from Japan in one of the many airports I had to travel through, a young lady who looked more Indian than Chinese sat by me with her headphones, listening to that Led Zepplin song. I could hear it clearly even though she was in her own little world. And I was thinking of the Silk Road. So I picked up a copy of Suzanne Olson’s book Jesus in Kashmir and read it, which confirmed a lot of what I had been thinking for a long time, and biologically, I think most of the world understands it too, which is why that Kashmir song was so popularly received and continues to be an icon of pulp culture. I tend to believe the stories that Jesus was either cut down or had stories by the Romans who made up his death for their convenience. Because there was no body, it was explained away as an ascension to heaven. They wanted to impress their Roman supervisors, so the regional overlords and the Jewish political influence wanted to let everyone know they got rid of the rebel Jesus from their society. And that Jesus escaped, injured, back to Kashmir, where he had spent much time as a youth, married there, and had many kids. And died a king, and the tomb is still there, hidden not by sight but by politics.

The way that Romans interpreted Christianity served their empire well and the church that would follow.  Be like Jesus, sacrifice yourself to the state, and prepare yourself for the afterworld by being friendly, compliant, and much more like Gandhi than that radical warlord of a father, Yahweh.  Even Jesus managed to put a soft edge on the plight of the Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham who had been traveling to Kashmir for thousands of years.  Moses, as does his brother Aaron, has a tomb in the Kashmir region.  So does Mother Mary and other characters, including the remains of King Solomon.  When you consider this Kashmir story suddenly, many mysteries of the Bible start making a lot more sense.  But proper investigations into those mysteries are stifled because of the politics of modern warfare that keeps anybody from looking under the veil, as radical Islam seemingly keeps regional control on purpose.  Which then, we are all reminded of this recent conflict with Israel.  We are witnessing a shell game that takes place over most of the world to prevent people from learning the truth of their past and future.  And much of that truth is hiding in plain sight, which we subconsciously understand, in songs like Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir.”  But because we fear death at the hands of terrorists, death in the eternal fire of damnation, or the cry of public scrutiny because our quest falls outside the established religious parameters, we find ourselves prisoners to the obvious.  And part of that obviousness is that Jesus lived and died in Kashmir.  And the implications of that are jaw-dropping and necessary.

Rich Hoffman

King Solomon’s Temple: The reason the enemy wants us to desecrate our own bodies

I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it a secret. It’s not something I talk about often, but I think now might be a good time. I have a secret love I think about a lot and have had for many years. An obsession, really. I love the Temple of King Solomon in Israel and have since I was very little. Its one of those stakes in the ground of human civilization that I think is a massive statement by any emerging culture and was the window into the world of how the world thought before the great Library of Alexandria was destroyed right around the time of the Roman Empire struggling to maintain its power, starting around 145 BC, then being demolished in 391 AD. And that is what the Holy Bible means to me, validated through archaeology, that enough of the contents are very ancient, going back to 1400 BC to 2000 BC, respectfully, with dates that are reliably coordinated, and I really find that window into the world valuable at that time, especially the specifics of temple life under the rule of Solomon. Why had a group of people gained so much power in a relatively short time after invading the pagans of Canaan and establishing themselves as a force in the world? Because understanding that story helps us understand our own story in America, where a very similar trajectory of action occurred, and the challenges of maintaining that success were very difficult. Solomon’s Temple continues to be one of the hottest pieces of real estate in the world, with the Muslims now occupying what’s left over of the remains, where the popularly known Dome of the Rock now sits over the exact spot where Abraham supposedly went to sacrifice Isaac. The Muslims believe it was the older son, Ishmael. And it’s where Muhammad journeyed into the heavens in what sounds like a UFO encounter to me.

King Solomon’s Temple

Without question, that exact spot is where King David, Solomon’s father, set up a location for building the Temple had an importance that peaks back into prehistory to the beginning of time. Many people literally believe that the stone where all this happened is the precise spot where the European continent, the African, and the Asian land masses join perfectly and is the spot for the beginning of the world, literally. What we do get in the Bible is fragments of fragments of information from those prehistory times, but it’s valuable what it is. Then to understand that all of Western Civilization essentially evolved from the building of the Temple and the loss of it to history is exceptionally significant. For instance, the east/west alignment where the high priests would make their sacrifices then carry the elements to where the Ark of the Covenant sat on the exact spot where the stone on top of Mount Moriah peaked into the floor of the very elegant Temple finished in 960 BC after eight intense years of construction. They would pour the blood of the sacrificed animals over the Ark to atone for the people’s sins to the God Yahweh, traveling east to west to mimic the actions of being thrown out of the Garden of Eden, which occurred from west to east. There is a lot of growing evidence that this casting from the Garden was more than a metaphor. The lost land of Edan looked to be in America, and it was the Middle East where all people had to make their way again, knowing that they had knowledge of Good and Evil, a world of pairs of opposites that would always be tainted by sin and appeased by sacrifice.

So the building of a massive Temple, respectful of all the other attempts in the world on such a grand scale, says something about the culture that created it, a kind of heaven-on-earth mentality. But as humans, it only represents the eventual efforts of every human being. And that is for people to experience the relevance of a temple individually, for their personalized needs. Because, in many ways, humans need to see themselves as their own version of King Solomon’s Temple. No matter where in the world they occurred, Temple construction needs to inspire in people the concept to usher such reverence into their own lives. And that is how I’ve always seen the human body, as a temple built by God for the purpose of living a good life. And that we are supposed to treat our bodies with that level of respect. A human body is not something to despise or cast aside as inferior but is in itself a temple for the human soul, and it should be treated as such. We should not desecrate our own bodies, and for me, that means not coloring our hair, getting tattoos, breast implants, body piercings, or abusing ourselves with alcohol and drugs. Like King Solomon’s Temple, we should care for our bodies like the sacred objects that they are. I’m now at an age where I have advised many young people on these things. The ones who listened have pretty good lives. But many didn’t listen; they have many problems, and it is painful to see. Because they were told, just as I would say to everyone even now, to treat your temples well, give them great respect, and you’ll find a much better life in the aftermath than if you allow your Temple to be desecrated.

Of course, Solomon’s Temple didn’t last long after his sons took over and started fighting among themselves. The surrounding kingdoms, especially in Mesopotamia at the city of Babylon, were very jealous and wanted to take out the people who built such a magnificent place. In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar invaded and plundered the Temple stealing the wealth and taking it to the temples of Babylon. By 586 BC, the entire Solomon Temple was destroyed, and there has been much effort in the world, including the current tensions in the Middle East presently that want to rebuild the Temple and restore the world to how it was before that invasion, including many secret societies as their sole purpose for existing and the political movements that spawn from them. And such a downfall started when the Kings of Israel began to allow the desecration of their Temple to false idols and impure beliefs, which culminated with King Manasseh failing massively and his grandson King Josiah attempting to restore the Temple of its lost function. I look at a lot of older people, and I see many who have allowed their temples to be desecrated by many bad decisions in life. Children are new, like the Temple of Solomon at first. But they become disasters as adults when they allow their temples to be desecrated by invading cultures with bad ideas. It’s a lesson in values that I find well described in the effort of civilization to build King Solomon’s Temple in the first place and how other jealous cultures would be inspired to ravage it with great hatred. And to suppress that culture with desecration. This is precisely what we see happening to America now by the jealous cultures of the world. They want to desecrate our country, starting with each and every one of us, through LGBT Pride flags, loose abortion cults, a society of too much drinking, too many drugs, horrendous social customs, and a terrible government-controlled public education system. Our temples are under attack, and we let the enemies desecrate them without a fight. And that is how a lot of evil starts in the world and brings so much misery with it.

Rich Hoffman

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