Strategic Book Marketing Official Blog

Article 3 by Hannah Orion

One of the aims of Secular Truthfulness is to portray a glimpse of the mentality of the writers responsible for the Bible including that of Jesus Christ (although He did not write). In this scientific age, it is getting harder to reconcile ancient biblical stories with what we know to be fact. For example, Joshua made the sun stand still in the sky for about a whole day. This we know cannot happen without worldwide consequences even the destruction of all life on the planet but still the Bible clearly states that the sun stood still. (Joshua 10:13). Take the miracle of money in the fish’s mouth for example when Jesus needed to pay His taxes he sent disciples down to collect the fish that first comes up and in his mouth collect the money for taxes (Matthew:17:27)”. This seeming miracle is easily explained away when one realises that the word fish here is a metaphor for a person, especially someone sympathetic to Jesus’ mission perhaps even a disciple. We know it stands for a person because Jesus teaches us exactly that. He said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men (Matthew:4:19)” The inference here is that ‘fishers of men’ would catch men instead of fish. How else were they going to build a diocese if they did not ‘catch’ people by enticing them with their nets of doctrine? This is not a new concept for Jesus, the imagery of fishes as men is also seen in Ecclesiastes. “For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, (Ecclesiastes:9:12).” The notion that men or people are caught in a net is consistent with other verses found throughout the Old Testament for example Ezekiel writes, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my net (Ezekiel:32:3)”. Again people are seen as being caught up in the net of religion just like fish being caught in a net and this idea is also propagated in Matthew “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind (Matthew:13:47)”. So we see that men or more precisely people are caught up in the nets of the religion and this is verifying that the fishers of men catch men or people in their nets of doctrine and such people constitute the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the fish of the miracle might well have been a person willing to give money to pay tax. So the miracle of the money in the fish’s mouth now makes more sense. It was a disciple of Jesus who was the ‘fish’ and who also gave the money for taxes. Secular Truthfulness reveals many such miracles and explanations. This is not demeaning to the miracles because the spirituality of them remain it only means that the truth of them can now be fully appreciated.