The Real History Of The Druids

For the past year, I have been reading two books by Ronald Hutton (not non-stop): "Blood and Mistletoe - The History of The Druids in Britain" and "Stations of the Sun". I wanted to pull out some choice quotes specifically from "Blood and Mistletoe" to emphasize one thing -- our understanding of the Druids is a lot less solid than many understand.
I particularly have in mind the writers of Armstrong splinter-churches' published material and the many definitive (and outright false) claims they make therein. Because of course I do.

I am going to try to not make this one of my long and drawn out posts, even though I would really like to. The entire point is to illustrate how claims about Druids are not as solid as they might appear. This includes certain holiday traditions. They are speculations at best.

It's worse than you might suspect. Our understanding of the ancient Celts is so shaky that Hutton wonders if there even were Druids as we have come to know them.

"There is a real possibility that a thorough study of the material evidence for ritual in the Iron Age will produce conclusions regarding the nature of the Druids - or whether the whole category of 'Druids' should be discarded by specialists in the period - that can be sustained or generally accepted. Furthermore, it is true that only an archaeologist - or team of archaeologists - can undertake this task. To date, however, it has not been achieved."
(p. 73)

Of course, Hutton is not seriously denying there was a priestly caste among the Celts. His point is, the entire case for Druids is built upon a very small number of records left by the Romans and Greeks, and those records are questionable.
Only two of those sources could possibly have been eye witnesses to Druids: Julius Caesar and Cicero. Both of whom were known to write whatever suited their needs at the time. The later works all copy from these two, but mostly Caesar. So, you see, the sources are very few indeed and they inter-relate.
It was the Greeks and Romans who called them Druids, and the word Druid itself seems to come from a Latin base word. What if that isn't even the right name? It was the Romans and Greeks who told us what Druids do, versus for example the Bards. What if that was wrong? We have nothing else at all from the Druids. Archaeology has given us nothing truly uncontested besides the Coligny Calendar. We might have been using the wrong name this whole time and saying the wrong things about what they did this whole time. But then again it might right. Without records from the ones we call Druids, there is no way to know for certain.

The only other material we have are the Irish and Welsh folklore. (Scottish folklore about Druids is taken from Irish, which effectively makes it Irish, and the British didn't care for writing about the Druids until about 1490.) They mention Druids quite a lot. One might wonder, what of them?

"...Irish and Welsh texts have always been considered less trustworthy [than the Roman and Greek], as the surviving versions were all produced centuries after the conversion of the peoples concerned to Christianity, a process usually presumed to involve the abandonment of Druidry. As such they represent retrospective accounts of a long-vanished culture..."
(p. 74)

The folklore, if understood correctly, is no better than speculation and guesses by a different culture hundreds of years after the fact. It might contain bits of truth, it's possible, but which bits are the truth and which are not? Much of the time, we do not know. Maybe none of it is. Anything is possible in the game of speculation.

One of the odd things about Irish and Welsh medieval folklore is that they don't agree with each other. Just for one example, in Welsh folklore the festival at the start of winter is not called Samhain at all. Yet, both say Halloween comes from their tradition. How can they both be accurate when they don't agree? It requires two separate yet related traditions. The implications of this are far-reaching. (For more about Halloween traditions, I recommend "Samhain Was Not On October 31")

Hutton speaks of how, until the 1980s, Irish and Welsh folklore was presumed to be based on stories that originated in pre-Christian times and preserved in an oral tradition. That was called into question by textual criticism and archaeology.

"During the 1980s these attitudes [that folklore survived from pagan times] began to wane among specialists, under the impact of the two main scholarly tools that could elucidate the matter: textual analysis and archaeology. The former drew attention to the fact that the medieval Irish epics showed none of the familiar features of orally transmitted stories, so apparent in other works from early literature such as the poems of Homer. The Irish works are mostly in prose, not verse, and lack a formulaic structure, or the repetition of key phrases, or alliteration, rhyme, metre, assonance and other devices used to commit works to memory. They bear, in fact, every sign of works that had been composed as literature from the beginning. Archaeologists discovered that the royal centres that featured in the stories had indeed existed in pagan times, but not as the residential halls confidently portrayed by the medieval writers. They had instead been complex ceremonial centres, often open to the sky. The later authors either knew of their former importance because of a lingering tradition that had not preserved an accurate record of their form or purpose, or else were simply making guesses based on the sight of ruins in the landscape. ...
This begs the question of why medieval Christian Irish writers would have tried to recreate the stories of a pagan and prehistoric world; but it is one which has now been effectively solved. It is clear that by the seventh century Irish monasteries had already become some of the powerhouses of Western civilization, outdoing the inhabitants of Britain in their knowledge of Greek and Latin texts and production of manuscripts. They were familiar not only with the Bible and other important early Christian writings but with some of the most celebrated works of pagan Greece and Rome. During the succeeding half millennium they worked hard both to produce a great literature of their own and to locate themselves within the broad framework of European history as established by classical writers. In this wholly successful venture, they drew on ideas and images from the Bible and other Christian texts and from classical Greek and Latin works, mixing them up with a great deal of native tradition. We have no real idea, however, of how much of this tradition was genuine and how much was invented for lack of anything better. ...
The passages referring to Druids - which are more numerous than those in the classical texts - all fall into this category of data that may be either authentically remembered or the product of medieval fantasy."
(pp. 75-78)

So, the Irish and Welsh folklore, which so many Armstrongist writers believe tells us accurately about the Druids, is not really so solid after all. They were written by Christians, for Christians. Some parts may be accurate but other parts are definitely very inaccurate. There is good reason to doubt everything the folklore says about Druids. Maybe not throw it all out, but definitely take it with an entire shaker of salt.

What you and I as casual readers get from the learned experts depends on what author you read, and what that author wanted to get from it in the first place.

"So this is how an Iron Age Druid is fashioned: from selected parts of Greek, Roman, Irish or Welsh texts usually mixed with archaeological data. The process of selection made to compose the result is more or less an arbitrary one, determined by the instincts, attitudes, context and loyalties of the person engaged in it. Virtually none of the ingredients employed have the status of solid material, judged by any objective standards of textual or material evidence, and the little that has that status is not sufficient to produce a detailed or finished result. This is the case today, as has been suggested by the survey made above of recent publications, but it has been equally true ever since the inhabitants of Britain began wanting to have Druids in their thought-world again about half a millennium ago [around 1490]. The manner in which these ancient and medieval images of them have been put to use is therefore a perfect case study of the way in which the modern British have liked to think and feel: about humanity, nationhood, morality and the cosmos. The raw materials for the construction of ancient Druids, so frustrating for a prehistorian or ancient historian, have resulted in a wonderful subject for a student of modernity."
(p. 106)

In England, savage Druids is what they wanted and so that's what they got. In Wales, noble Druids is what they wanted and so that's what they got. In the German History of Religions School, what authors like James Frazer and Franz Cumont wanted was Christianity copying from paganism and so that's what they got - and that's what you get reading Armstrongist literature. This is what Hutton means by "a wonderful subject for a student of modernity". What people mold the Druids into tells us far more about them than the Druids. And that is usually the motive for bringing up Druids in the first place. It often has far less to do with the ancient Celts and far more to do with how Druids can be employed to better understand or even try to change what is happening in our own time, for better or worse.

All of this goes a long way to explain how we got epic failures like the old claims that Samhain was the name of a Celtic demon-god, now solidly abandoned, to mention but one of many wild and unsubstantiated claims that "everyone should knows is true". It's because the historical record is spotty, and authors have given us what those authors wanted to find in the first place.

"This means that, when later ages took an interest in Druids, there existed no single, authentic and authoritative portrait of them. Instead there were a number of competing options, between which modern people could choose according to their own tastes, needs, purposes and prejudices. As a result to an extreme extent, Druids have always been a contested subject. Anybody who has sought to write about them, whether to dismiss them, disparage them, abhor them, admire them or imitate them, has had to do so despite some feature of the evidence. The fact that the traditional literary sources have been so few, so well known and (from quite and early date) so readily available, has made this appropriation and disputation all the more widespread and intense. The many-faced and controversial nature of the sources has provided easy opportunities for people to employ Druids for the wide range of purposes discussed above. At the same time they render any such employment open to challenge, provoking further debate and redeployment in a seemingly limitless process."
(p. 765)

I think Hutton is quite right about this. He makes a solid case which I see playing out before us in Armstrongist literature to this day, even though Armstrongist authors are not really experts and are just borrowing the bits they want from any source that suits them.

I want to emphasize again, Hutton never denies there were ancient Celts, or that they had an entire society including priests, or that they warred with the Romans and etc etc etc. He isn't even dismissing popular claims outright just because the case is weak. A running theme throughout the book is (and I paraphrase here), "It could be true but it could be false, we aren't sure". Hutton isn't trying to build a specific Druid. He is more interested in what evidence we have. The book is about the evidence itself - what it is, where did it come from, who wrote it, how did we find it, and etc. And he is bluntly honest about it. (I think that's why I like him so much.)
So, if what you read here today makes you think Hutton is denying the evidence, that is a misunderstanding of what I am saying to you. He simply tells us the truth about the strength of the evidence - some things are definitely true and many things are definitely false, but we aren't sure about the rest of it.

What is the real history of the Druids? We don't know. We could already have it ...or not. This is going to have to wait until archaeology can settle things definitively.

Remember that the next time you read a post like "Is the Occult Influencing Your Family?" by Mr. Jim Tuck of the United Church of God, or "The Plain Truth About Christmas" by Herbert Armstrong, or any number of other publications with strong claims about the Druids. The case is not nearly as open and shut as they might want it to appear.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Sin And The Law

Anyone who has read my earlier posts know I was raised in a mixed-faith family. Being raised like this, I was always aware of systems outside Armstrongism. One of my big problems is, both systems I grew up with are quite legalistic. To me, church = laws, and God = angry. Even after leaving Armstrongism and Old Covenant law behind me and accepting a system of grace in the completed work of Jesus Christ, I struggle to this day over my upbringing. And let me tell you about what a failure that makes a person feel like inside where it really counts. Because there is this thing called "sin" in me, and any law points that out, and I am aware of it, and I hate it, but the way to solve this "sin" is far beyond me. Quite literally! Because sin is part of my nature, and nothing in this nature can solve this nature.

I am painfully aware of Paul's lament:

(ROM. 7: 21-24) 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

How I feel that right this very minute, as I type. I had a terrible past couple days. Someone did wrong by someone very close to me, and I was pretty angry about it. I confronted them, and they were belligerent and unapologetic. That absolutely filled me with anger. I am angry still.

I know my attitude is wrong. To be this angry inside is to flirt with Matthew 5: 21-26. I know I have failed to represent Jesus. I know I am failing to love. I want to do something that is wrong -- but I don't want to want to do something wrong. (Yes, I wrote that sentence correctly. Had to triple check it.) I wish I did not feel like this. I wish my instinct was not to handle things this way. I pray and I pray for God to remove this attitude from me, yet there it is. Events replay in my mind, ruminating, preventing my sleep. It makes me think about all my many failures. And I wonder to myself, how can God ever use a person for good when this is inside them?

This is the problem with the law I grew up with. It can only show us our weaknesses. It cannot ever do anything about it. It cannot change us. It cannot wish for us to do better. Try to keep it. Don't try to keep it. It's all the same. The heart remains beyond its reach. The law doesn't want to kill us. It simply has no choice. The law demands we do the very thing we cannot do. The law is not the problem; we are. The weakness of the law is the weakness in us, but the strength of sin is the law (I COR. 15: 56). We cannot solve this problem on our own.

This is what Paul was trying to tell us. We are utterly incapable in and of ourselves to solve this issue. Mankind needs something else.

(ROM. 7: 24-25)  24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

God through Jesus. That is the answer.

(I COR. 15: 56-57) The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(HEB. 7: 18-19) 18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

The law is the power of death, because of us, but Jesus the power of life.

This answer requires faith, because He made this promise for the future. He isn't going to change this world right this minute. We have to trust Him in order to follow the Spirit. We have to trust Him in order to be His disciple. Have you ever tried to follow Romans 12: 19? I bet you have. I have! And let me tell you, when someone does you properly wrong, it is one of the hardest things there is. Keenly you feel your true nature in that moment. It requires faith to choose the Lord's way, knowing you may never see the benefit of this choice in this lifetime over the immediately gratifying way of nuclear wrath, knowing you may one day even come to pray for forgiveness for the very ones you long to burn utterly to the ground. It means battling over justice vs mercy - knowing that to get justice from a God of justice when you are wronged means you also receive justice for what you've have wronged. It's a humbling thing.

Does Christ crucified mean we have been fixed now? Clearly not. If by "fixed" you mean we are perfected. Paul was writing some time before his death. Was he not a Christian? Of course he was. Yet, there he was, struggling with the sin inside him, same as me. What did Paul have, then? As a Jew born in the Old Covenant period, he had the law, all of it. What was his conclusion about the law? From the law he had awareness of his sin and failures, but not righteousness. So, from the law he received only condemnation. The law forbade him from drawing close to God. From this, he had the truth that he needed someone outside himself to resolve his issue. And he had the answer: God through Jesus. What Paul needed, what we all need, is the righteousness of God in us and credited to us. We have no righteousness of our own, and following laws isn't how we get it (or rather, trying and failing to follow laws). Righteousness is in God alone and faith is how we obtain it. In this hope, we draw near to God.

The law demands we do what we cannot do. Why demand it do what it cannot do? How is that the solution? It is not.

Does not looking to the Old Covenant law mean we have no standards or requirements for righteousness? A moral free for all? Absolutely not. We do have standards and requirements. But those standards and requirements are not centered on Old Covenant law anymore, they are centered on the Holy Spirit. There is law. The law is love and faith.

And yet, here I am, still failing at it.

(ROM. 7: 19) For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

But in my failing, I cannot let myself lose hope and give up. I look to One who can save me from myself. (Although I do not understand why He wants to.)

There is some good to come of all this. My sin testifies that God alone is righteous and His judgments just and true. I have earned judgment. As have we all. That's the riddle of forgiveness - in order to get it you have to not deserve it in the first place. His will is going to come about in the end, and my failings will prove He alone is truly worthy of honor. How can anyone accomplish anything good through a heap like me? He can do even this. I am not certain how and I am even less certain why, but I believe He is capable.

(II COR. 12: 9a) ...My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.

So, my motivation is no longer vain fearfulness in the law but thankfulness in salvation, allowing the Holy Spirit to work. Discipleship is a lifestyle.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Review - Is the Occult Influencing Your Family

While doing a quick overview of Armstrong splinter church websites for a recent article on tithing, I noticed many seem to be much less doom and gloom than in years past. I was going to praise them for it. Then, I decided to check if the the same old church I remember was merely hidden beneath the surface. I did a search for Halloween on the UCG website. First thing that came to mind. It is that time of year, after all. Sorting for date, there are so many recent ones. No surprise they're all negative. I don't mind if they side against Halloween. Halloween has so much going against it these days. What I mind is why they side against it. Do the articles absolutely have to be so filled with misinformation?

Today, we are going to do an article review. I am going to review "Is the Occult Influencing Your Family?" by Mr. Jim Tuck of the United Church of God from September 12, 2025. All of the bolded quotes come straight from that article.

In 2024, I wrote the post "Samhain Was Not On October 31st". I will admit it was long and densely packed. Today's post will be more summarizing.

Ready?  Here we go!

"Halloween can be traced back all the way to the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain."

FALSE

The origins of Halloween are known, and they are in All Saints Day not Samhain. Not only are the origins of All Saints not in Samhain, but it is not in the Celts in any way.
Bear in mind throughout this review, we are talking about origins.

The people who say things like "it can be traced" have not really traced. How can I be so bold? Look through as many books, articles, videos, etc, as you want. There won't be any truly ancient primary source or trusted secondary source information proving the claim. That's because there is no such evidence. It does not exist. Therefore, it cannot be traced as the author said. Best you can get are medieval Irish legends, tertiary commentators, opinions, or worse. Yet, that doesn't stop thousands of websites from claiming this as an obvious fact.

The Druids left no records whatsoever. All we have are questionable records written about them by the Romans and Greeks. What they wrote says nothing of the sort. No mention of Samhain, or costumes, or ancestor worship etc at all. Not once. So, people link Halloween to Samhain with a bit of sleight of hand. Halloween as we see it today is compared to much more recent accounts of Samhain, and conclusions are extrapolated backward into the past.

But Halloween is very different than it was even 200 years ago, and we cannot trust recent depictions of Samhain because there is too much absolute garbage written about the Celts from the 1600s to the 1900s. The vast majority is imaginary nonsense and forgeries. Don't believe me? Look up Edward Williams, aka Iolo Morganwg. One person makes up tales and another references it until the whole false account is accepted as true (I wrote about this in "Layers of Deception"). But it's all imaginary. In the absence of real details, people make things up. It's all in Ronald Hutton's book "Blood and Mistletoe: The History of Druids in Britain".

Ronald Hutton tells us, in his book "Stations of the Sun", p.411:

"The notion of a distinctive 'Celtic' ritual year, with four festivals at the quarter-days and opening at Samhain, is a scholastic construction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which should now be considerably revised or even abandoned altogether."

This doesn't say Samhain itself did not exist, it just means swaths of the currently accepted details around it are recent additions. Celts in various areas celebrated the end of summer in so many different ways, there was no single Samhain. Not only that, but it is possible there was originally no organized Samhain celebration at all. The earliest mention of samhain is in a document from the 1200s AD. There is absolutely no indication there was a celebration of any kind. It was quite matter of fact. Summer ended and winter began (samhain means summer's end). It is reasonable to assume there was a harvest festival, because that seems to be universal, but if it was so organized as to be called a "holiday" is not certain.

Now, if we have no ancient source material, and if Halloween is very different than it was, and if Samhain is very different than it was, and if most of what you may have heard about Samhain was made up in the past few hundred years, then how can we trace Halloween back to Samhain using those claims? We cannot.

This we can do: trace Halloween's origins to the Catholic Church in Italy. And that's precisely what I did in "Samhain Was Not On October 31st". The history of All Saints Day is well documented. It had nothing to do with the Celts or the Druids.

"Samhain was seen as a time when the boundaries separating the spiritual world and the real world were reduced."

FALSE

As I said, the only contemporary records we have of the Druids come from the Romans and Greeks. Almost all of those say the Druids believed in reincarnation. It was central to their whole way of life. If the ancient accounts are accurate, then the Druids believed souls were re-embodied in this world rather quickly after death. In other words, there was no spiritual world where the dead were. If the ancient accounts are not accurate, then the Druids believed souls were re-embodied in another world quickly after death. From archaeologists digging up graves with items needed for the next life, this second way seems to be the correct one. Either way, there is no good reason to accept that the ancient Celts believed in a spirit world where disembodied souls are and that it came close to earth on certain days. That might be what recent stories say, but there is no reason to accept that is what actual Druids believed. That is the kind of thing that was likely made up later on by Christians who believe in a spirit world where disembodied dead ancestors are.

What people are doing is looking at medieval Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folk legends (but mostly Irish) and concluding they came from the Druids. Not so fast. That has not at all been established. It's one thing to say something could be, it's another thing entirely to say something definitely is. Hutton mentions this in his book ("Blood and Mistletoe" pp.616-631). In one place, Hutton says specifically:

"Within the narrower world of scholarship, folklore rapidly lost ground as a discipline as its doctrine of survivals was discredited, while archeology gained in strength; so a view of prehistory that relegated Druids to the margins was upheld." (p. 620) [emphasis mine]

The idea that medieval folklore and customs are survivals from the Druids was once very popular, and is still with us to this day, but it is based on opinions and inferences not actual proof. In fact, it is often contradicted by proof. On top of that, the Druids themselves keep being refashioned. There was a clear and well documented push in the 1600-1800s to remake the Druids in the image of Judeo Christianity. Ronald Hutton's walks us through this in excruciating detail in his book "Blood and Mistletoe: The History of Druids in Britain".

Point being, relying on folklore is a risky gamble at best, especially when that folklore doesn't agree from area to area and age to age.

In the 9th century A.D., the Catholic Church began to influence and displace old pagan rituals within the Celtic regions. 

FALSE

The Catholic church began to influence the Celts in the British Isles in the 500s, not the 800s. And in France much earlier yet. Did the Catholic Church displace (and by that I mean coopt) old pagan days? Sometimes, in some areas. It's true! But there is no evidence for it in this case, with the Celts of the British Isles. This is simply a baseless conclusion built on wishful thinking.
Here is how All Saints Day actually went:

• In 609 AD, Pope Boniface IV created a memorial for the dioceses of Rome of all Rome's martyrs on May 13.
• In 735 AD, Pope Gregory III created a memorial for the diocese of Rome of all departed saints in Heaven on November 1, as part of his dispute with the Byzantine Emperor.
• In 835 AD, Pope Gregory IV expanded the all saints memorial to the whole church.
• Late 800s AD, first recorded mention of samhain.

Look at those dates. Is 609 in the 9th century? No. Is 735 in the 9th century? No. Is 835 in the 9th century? Yes! But what happened in 835? Pope Gregory IV took a local day that had existed for 100 years and applied it to the whole church. That's it. We know who created it, when they created it, and why. And it all happened prior to the first extant record we have of Samhain.

As I said, the earliest mention of Samhain is in an 13th century manuscript of a dictionary called Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary), which claims to be from the late 800s. I have to take it at its word to put it as early as I have. The mention comes in the entry for the word Gamuin, a year-old calf. It's a farming reference. Hence why the entry for samhain (samuin) is so matter-of-fact. It merely intends to say summer ends and winter begins. So, the first mention of samhain isn't really a mention of Samhain at all. We have to go even later for that.
It could be argued the first mention of samhain was in the Annals of Ulster. The Annals of Ulster is a 15th century compilation of much earlier works (about 1480 AD or so). The earlier works are technically older than the Sanas Cormaic, but the Annals of Ulster itself was written much later. So, take your pick which one you want to call the first mention of samhain.
It's the same thing in both of them -- samhain was purely a matter-of-fact mention of the beginning of winter. There is no reference to any celebration at all.

I want to point out one final timeline contradiction here. The official line from Armstrongism is that the Catholic Church with all its traditions is secretly a continuation of an ancient Babylonian religion. If we are playing a game of who is older, Halloween or Samhain, then the Halloween wins. I reject all of this, too, because it is equally baseless. I bring it up to shine light on the game being played.

The entire claim that Halloween comes from Samhain rests on Samhain being such a popular celebration the Pope was all but forced to coopt it. Yet, no mention of Samhain exists until after All Saints was created. The first mention is a farming reference which could possibly be 300 years after All Saints. So popular that we can't find a trace of it! And if you read my articles, you know Samhain wasn't on November 1 in the first place. So, how strong a claim do we have here? Absolutely not strong in any way.

I go over this in great detail in "Samhain Was Not On October 31st".

"At the behest of Pope Gregory VI, “All Hallows Day” was assigned to the date of November 1, the first day of the Celtic new year."

FALSE

He means Pope Gregory IV (4), not VI (6). Pope Gregory VI was Pope from May 1, 1045 until his resignation on December 20, 1046. He didn't do much of anything. I will accept this is merely a typographical error.
However, Pope Gregory IV is still wrong because it was Pope Gregory III who assigned the feast of All Saints to November 1 in 735 AD. In the 8th century, not the 9th. What Gregory IV did was expand that day from only the area of the city of Rome to the entire western church. It wasn't a new day; it was 100 years old by that time. And it wasn't done to coopt any pagan day; it was done to coopt Christian days. It was simply done to unite the various memorial traditions from around Christendom into one.

I remind you again, November 1 was not the first day of the Celtic new year.
The Celts did not use the Roman calendar. Druids did not have a November. What calendar the Celts in the British Isles used is not known, but we do have an example of one from France. The Coligny Calendar was a lunar calendar, unlike the Roman in many respects. We can be certain the Celtic calendar and the Roman did not align. Point being, the Celts did not have any day that regularly aligned with November 1, or any other Roman date for that matter.
And to which Roman calendar are you referring, the pre-Julian, the Julian, or the Gregorian? It makes a difference! With the Roman calendar changing and losing time, any hope of alignment goes completely out the window.

Truth is, no one knows when the Celtic new year was. The best guess is in the Fall, the next candidate is mid-summer, the Coligny Calendar has nothing to indicate, and Pliny said it was on the 5th day of the month but he doesn't say which month. To definitively say it was on November 1 is simply false.

Wrong Pope, wrong century, wrong calendar, wrong date, wrong new year, wrong details. I mean, seriously. Do better!

"When the lines were blurred between the worlds of the living and the dead, Celts used the opportunity to honor and worship their ancestors. However, many were concerned about accessing darker evil spirits’ influence on those in the real world. This is why many Celts dressed their children as demons. They believed it would confuse the evil spirits."

FALSE

We have no ancient evidence that Druids did any of this.

We have a shell game going on here. Notice the author says "Celts" not "Druids". Two related but different things. All Druids were Celts but a tiny fraction of Celts were Druids. It's the Druids we're interested in, because origins. We have no record from the Druids. There is no way for anyone to come up with these details.
So, the author punts to Celts instead. The Celts are still here to this day. They've been Christians since the 500s AD. I myself am part Celt. Appealing to Celtic folklore is not necessarily the same as tracing back to the Druids. Remember, we're talking origins here!

We've already discussed the "blurred lines between the worlds of the living and the dead", but the Halloween costumes we see today do not come from the Druids or Samhain. The costumed trick-or-treat traditions we know today is really an American invention of the early 1900s.
But did they get their inspiration from ancient pagans? Unlikely. The most likely inspiration is from medieval Christian traditions. Celtic Christians, that is.

The history of dressing in costumes and going door-to-door is rather interesting. It comes from the Christian practice of Guising, Masquing, Souling, and Mumming. You can read more about these things in "Samhain Was Not On October 31" and "Christmas Eras Tour - Part II". These are the all but certain inspirations for our modern Halloween traditions.
Other related practices that may or may not have given some inspiration are Catterning and Clementing, where people, especially children, would go around begging for food and drink at feast days in November.

We are talking about dates hundreds of years after the Christianization of Celts in Britain and almost a thousand years after the Christianization of Celts in France. These traditions appear to be thoroughly Christian. Folklorists can speculate they came from earlier traditions, but this can never be proved out. The Greeks and Romans make no mention of Celts doing these things.

These traditions are not at all exclusive to Halloween, either. Many of the customs we think of as Christmas or Halloween traditions today were done throughout that autumn and early winter season even as recently as a century ago. People will correctly say, "at Allhallowstide, people used to dress up and go door to door," but what they leave out is the fact that these things happened at multiple holidays through the year. That some have migrated to Halloween since does not mean they began there. This line of thinking trick-or-treat happens at Halloween, and Halloween is the same time as Samhain, therefore trick-or-treat comes from Samhain is just not how history worked out.

Did some pagans also dress up? Certainly! But commonality does not prove causality. It is not reasonable to punt to speculative stories about traditions in distant times when we have well-documented records of traditions available in the target time and place.

And even after all this, we must be clear that every one of these are later additions. All Saints Day did not start with these traditions. I say this over and over here - you cannot take something as we see it today and assume things going backwards in time.

CONCLUSION

I think that's enough for today. Point made.

Mr. Jim Tuck is probably an upstanding fellow. I don't know him, but I believe he means well. I am not singling him out. He simply had the misfortune of writing the most recent article I found on a website. Nothing about today's article is intended as a dig against him.
But it is against the abysmal claims and lack of sources across the board in Armstrongist material. I do not blame Mr. Tuck for this. He probably got his claims from other UCG articles that didn't do their homework either. I can think of no one who needs ABD more.

It's hard to believe in this day and age - 17 years now I've been doing this and it's the same thing every time - I am still finding terribly researched and cited articles from Armstrongists. The ABD article on Samhain has been out for a year. Ron Hutton's books have been out for many years. Information is readily available. It just doesn't get used. A church like UCG has time and resources to devote to digging up history - history that has been there for centuries - yet they won't. I mean, ABD does it for free in our spare time. Surely a church could do this better than we can. The later we get in time, the less excuse there is for being so very wrong all the time!
And if you want a second opinion, I still wholeheartedly recommend you read "Samhain and Halloween" over at the God Cannot Be Contained blog.

Mr. Tuck wanted you to make sure you aren't letting the occult into your life. A noble goal! One I agree with. But how can one protect against the occult with bad information and outright falsehoods? They want us to believe telling our kids about Santa is wrong because it's not true, but this equally false information is very good? Or worse yet, God's truth? How can I possibly accept this? Especially when he closes with, "We are challenged to not allow ourselves or our children to be tainted by the false ideas of man". Hello!!

I am not writing this article in some attempt to convince you Halloween is all goodness and light. It's not! Not anymore anyway. But when I say that, I don't accompany it with false information! At least, I try very hard not to. I tell you the truth a best as I can. Costumes and jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treats do not come from the Druids, best as I can determine from the best information we have available. Even so --- Halloween has without a doubt been to a large degree turned into something ugly that should be approached with caution. Ugly because of the Druids? No! Ugly because of people alive today!! Don't go blaming the Druids for this.
Observe Halloween if you will, there is freedom in Christ, but in all sincerity I appeal to you, much as Jim Tuck did, to really consider your celebration and avoid the gore and murder and demonic and occult. You can have an even better Halloween without any of that sort of thing. There are plenty of ways to pull this off! I try to have a funny Halloween. Very kid-friendly. I try to make people laugh rather than scream, and I give treats to parents. They love it!

Jim Tuck and I want mostly the same things. My question is - why can't we be against the ugly parts of Halloween AND tell the truth about it at the same time?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Third Tithe

If you are here to read an article on third tithe, chances are you are from an Armstrongist church or you have somehow come in contact with one. For those unfamiliar with Armstrongism, they preach mandatory tithing. As Bereans Did has multiple articles on tithing (see our Categories page). Those articles compare and contrast what the Bible says and what ancient Israel did versus what the Armstrongist splinter churches practice currently. That's what we do here.
Today, I want to look at that third tithe. We will focus on the two main proof-texts used, from Deuteronomy 14 and 26. We are going to put the third tithe through the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet. Will it survive?

But before we begin, let's get something straight....

Tithing, as a system, was unique to the Old Covenant. Regardless of what someone might tell you about Abraham and Jacob tithing, there was no law for them (or us). What Abraham and Jacob did and what the Old Covenant law says to do are not the same. For example, Abraham gave a tenth of war spoils (then gave the rest away) whereas in Israel spoils were either not tithed at all or they were given at a far lower fraction than tenth. And Jacob negotiated his tithe as a reciprocity for God blessing him first. In Israel, it was non-negotiable. Just because Abraham and Jacob did a thing does not mean we must do that thing, else we would all be offering burnt sacrifices. Trying to bind tithing on us by referencing the priesthood of Melchizedek is also a dead end for the same reasons. Melchizedek accepted war spoils from Abraham. There is no mention of any other tithe there. No law. No precedent. No further examples. To say, "Jesus is in the order or Melchizedek," cannot bind anyone to anything beyond what the story of Melchizedek tells us. Melchizedek was not a priest of the Old Covenant. What Israel did with spoils and funding the priesthood when they left Egypt and what Israel did a century later are not the same. That is simply a fact. My point in this is - trying to shoehorn an Old Covenant law into the New Covenant will fail.
I am not a proponent of required tithing in the New Covenant era. I am opposed to any taking of law from the Old Covenant and by fiat moving it forward into the New Covenant (see our article "Confusing the Covenants"). Does tithing set a decent example of giving? Only when properly understood! Tithes were not gifts, they were mandatory, and accompanied with an oath. The system today is freewill giving. In the early church, people would sell extra land and items and give it all to the church. That's more than a tenth. And Peter once said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you". That's giving of a completely different sort. The Lord loves a generous giver.

I know some out there might think I am only here to do anything and everything I can to trash the idea of third tithe. I promise you that is not the case. That is not how the As Bereans Did patented gauntlet works. I am only interested in investigating the issue from the whole and best evidence I can find without insisting on a particular conclusion. In the absence of forcing a conclusion because I demand that conclusion, things turn out the way they do on their own. If it's valid then it's valid, and if not then not. The truth can take care of itself. But this I will say - if you are not prepared to challenge, or even change, your ideas, or if you search only to be affirmed, As Bereans Did articles aren't going to be very valuable to you.

BASICS

Tithing is one of the main pillars of Herbert Armstrong's doctrine. I think there are five main pillars in the system, mostly from the Old Covenant:

• Weekly seventh-day Sabbath
• Seven annual holy days
• Tithing (10% on money income) x3
• Clean/unclean meats
• End-times prophecy

See how tithing is multiplied by three there? Traditionally, Armstrongism recognizes three tithes. Yes, 30%, all off the gross. The first tithe goes to the church, the second is retained and set aside to fund the annual holy days (actually, just the Feast of Tabernacles), and the third goes to the church to assist needy church members (which is not always how it is used).

The third tithe only happens every third year. So, it's not like every year they are paying 30% of their income. In no year is the amount ever 10%, but in the third year, all total, the amount coughed up can be well in excess of 30%.

There is at least one notable splinter church, the United Church of God, who now rejects third tithe. But overall, that's how things go in broad strokes.

You can imagine what losing 30%+ of your income would do to a family. Some endure extreme poverty every third year. Canned beans have been a staple meal for some families. The alternative is simply not to pay that third tithe. Some few do get an extraordinary dispensation to skip third tithe, as this tithe was supposed to go to the poor not come from them. But to discourage people from seeking an out from the third tithe, a stream of stories are released telling tales of the unexpected blessings one receives by giving the third tithe. "You cannot outgive God," is frequently repeated. I personally attended a COG splinter church where one man would talk about blessings during the third tithe year and at the same time another man would talk about wearing shoes with holes during third tithe year. As a young man with very little to my name, I decided to skip third tithe. I felt pretty blessed by that. In addition, it was frequently said that since the third tithe is for the poor, and since most societies have a social safety net (e.g., Welfare and Social Security in the U.S.), then the third tithe was not necessary. I tend to agree with that, but if the entire reason why we're talking about this in the first place is "God's law" then how can you just bypass it?

If so many obvious blessings, then why so many attempts to circumvent it? If it was required in the unchanging law, then why try to get out from under it via social safety nets? If it was intended to go to the poor, then why require it of the poor? And why did it not actually go to the poor, all of it? It was well known that third tithe was not actually exclusively employed to assist to members in need. (That is not to say the churches did not do anything for their own poor members, but members were offered some form of assistance if requested, which was sometimes required to be paid back, rather than being handed a fair share of the third tithe.)

JEWISH PRACTICE

When talking about the Old Testament it is only natural to ask, do the Jews recognize third tithe? Yes! ...and no.

There is evidence in Rabbinical literature and some ancient sources like Josephus and Philo to support the notion of three tithes. I will start with the modern Jews and get to the ancient ones in a bit.
This from the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Tithes:

"...there were three kinds of tithes: (1) that given to the Levites as stated in Num. xviii. 21 et seq., and termed "the first tithe" ("ma'aser rishon"); (2) the tithe which was to be taken to Jerusalem and there consumed by the landowner and his family, and which was termed "the second tithe" ("ma'aser sheni"), it being taken from what remained after the first tithe had been appropriated; and (3) that given to the poor ("ma'aser 'ani"). Therefore two tithes were to be taken every year except in the seventh year: Nos. 1 and 2 in the first, second, fourth, and fifth years; Nos. 1 and 3 in the third and sixth years."
- Joseph Jacobs, M. Seligsohn, Wilhelm Bacher. (2021). "Tithe". Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14408-tithe.

To summarize, the Jews recognize three tithes but in any given year only two were taken. 

Notice the second and third tithes are the same tithe. Hence why I say yes and no. The difference is in how it is used. For two years it is taken on the three annual pilgrimage festivals to Jerusalem to be enjoyed by the one who gave it, and for one year it was collected locally and given to the local poor and the Levite.

One additional thing to bring to your attention here: there was no tithe at all in the seventh year. How can this be? Because of the Land Sabbath (EXO. 23: 10-11; LEV. 1-7, 20-22). Since tithing was primarily of the land, and because certain verses were very specific about the tithe coming from grains, then there could be no tithe in the seventh year. Granted, the tithe of the sixth year would be more. Still, all sources that I could find agree that there was no tithe at all in the seventh year, the Year of Release. Why there would be no tithe on items like cattle or fruit trees, neither of which stop in the seventh year, is unknown to me at this time. Some sources seem to suggest they did not stop, others say there was no tithe in the seventh year because it was the Year of Release.

One last thing to bring to your attention here: the tithes are not all equal in size. They are not all taken from the gross total. The first tithe was taken off the top, then the second/third tithe from what was left over. This effectively makes the second/third tithe 1/10th smaller than the one before it. Tithes were not 10% of the gross total, but 1/10th of the increase you had before you. This forces each tithe to be smaller than the previous. (See our article "Tithing - You're Doing It Wrong" for more.)

Armstrongism would be challenged by this arrangement, since the second tithe is understood as the primary means of funding the Feast of Tabernacles, and since they recognize no seventh year break, and since all tithes are taken as 10% of the entire income as a whole. How can there be a Feast without funding? (Bear in mind the unchanging law says to go three times a year, not just once.) And how can there be a Millionaire's Row or the Tsar's gold flatware or $2,500 bottles of Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac in the special baccarat decanter or television shows or ads in the Reader's Digest without a constant stream of money, money, and more money? Why become a false prophet in the first place if not to soak sheep of their money?

So, we have a dilemma - Jews or Armstrong? We need more evidence to help us decide. The two places in the Bible to get that evidence are Deuteronomy 14: 28-29 and 26: 12.

DEUTERONOMY 14

Let's go to Deuteronomy 14, but let's start in verse 22.

(DEU. 14: 22-23) 22 You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. 23 And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

Anyone from the Armstrongist system will recognize these verses. "They describe the second tithe." These verses are seen as the tithe for funding the Feast of Tabernacles, because it says this tithe is taken to "the place where the Lord places His name" (which actually refers to where the Holy of Holies was kept, but Armstrongism interprets it as meaning any and all cities where the church chooses to host a Feast of Tabernacles site).

You might be thinking I've started too soon, in the wrong section. I came here for a reason. A textual reason.

The lack of any clear thought-break between verses 27 and 28 creates some options:
1) Is 14: 28 an unbroken continuation of the prior section that starts in verse 22, thus taking from second tithe?
2) Or, does 14: 28 start a completely new idea but take from the first tithe?
3) Or, does 14: 28 start a completely new idea that institutes a separate third tithe?
All options have their supporters and their complications.

1) Second Tithe

If you side with verse 28 being an unbroken continuation, that means the tithe mentioned in verse 28 is one and the same as the tithe mentioned in verse 22. In other words, the second tithe and the third are the same tithe. This option damages both second and third tithes.

It damages the second because in that year the tithe was not to go to "the place where the Lord places His name" but it was to be stored up and given to the local Levite, the poor, and the needy. This means every third year the second tithe was not used for funding holy days. It became a local fund instead.

(DEU. 14: 28) At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates.

This damages the third tithe because there is no distinct third tithe here at all. The second tithe becomes the third.

You should know, this appears to be the option the Jews go with. This from the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Tithes:

"Every third year the tithes were not to be carried to the city of the Temple, but were to be stored at home ("within thy gates"), and "the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow" were to "eat and be satisfied" (ib. verse 29). It is to be concluded that, the seventh year being a Sabbatical year and no tithing being permissible therein, the tithe of the first, second, fourth, and fifth years of every cycle of seven years had to be brought to the Temple and eaten by the landowner and his family, while the tithe of the third and sixth years was to be left at home for the poor."
- Joseph Jacobs, M. Seligsohn, Wilhelm Bacher. (2021). "Tithe". Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14408-tithe.

A big difference exists between how the Jews view the second tithe and how Armstrongists view it. Armstrongists view it as a means to pay for the Feast of Tabernacles. Jews view it not as a means to pay for the holy days but as a bonus to be enjoyed at the holy days. The funding was entirely separate.

The biggest fault in this option is that all males still needed to go to "the place where the Lord places His name" three times each year, "and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed" (DEU. 16: 16).

2) New Idea Taking From First Tithe

Some people feel verse 28 starts a completely new idea, but it does not institute a new tithe, rather it gives modified instructions for the first tithe. This is similar to option 1. Where the Jews see the third and second tithes as being the same, some people feel the third and first tithes are the same. This option complicates the first tithe and damages the third tithe.

This complicates the first tithe because these tithes always went to the Levites. If you read DEU. 14: 29, you can see the first group mentioned to whom this third tithe was given is the Levite. Why mention the tithe should go to the Levite if the tithe already went to the Levite? Then again, the way the Bible is written, it almost makes sense. God is big on details like this. So, if the tithe was for the Levite normally but for the Levite and the poor in the third year, mentioning the Levite does fit the pattern of how the Bible is worded elsewhere.
Of course, this would mean the Levites and the Aaronic Priests lived on less in the third year. I do not find this to be a deal breaker because no matter what you do - add a tithe or modify an existing tithe - someone is going to live on less.

This damages the third tithe because there is no distinct third tithe here at all. The first tithe becomes the third.

The biggest fault in this option is the lack of historical support. I can find nothing in modern or ancient Jewish literature to support this option. I can't imagine any Levites would be in favor of this.

3) New Idea Creating A Third Tithe

Some people feel verse 28 starts a completely new idea and creates a distinct tithe in the third year. This does not complicate the first or the second tithes at all. It does not make the Levites live with less, in fact it appears to offer them even more than normal because now they get the entire first tithe and part of the third. We just need to find some support for this option.

Josephus actually writes about tithes in his book "Antiquities of the Jews":

"(22) Besides those two tithes, which I have already said you are to pay every year, the one for the Levites, the other for the festivals, you are to bring every third year a third tithe to be distributed to those that want; (23) to women also that are widows, and to children that are orphans."
-Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews", book IV, chapter 8, verse 22-23, from Early Jewish Writings https://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/josephus/ant4.html.

Isn't that odd now? Josephus clearly supports option 3 even though the modern Jewish Encyclopedia sides with option 1. I guess it's true what they say - where there are two Jews there are three opinions.

Do we have any other evidence from antiquity? Yes. Evidence comes to us from the apocryphal book of Tobit.

(TOB. 6: 8a) But every third year, I would give a third tithe to widows and orphans and to foreigners living among my people, and we would eat the festival meal together.

Armstrongists usually rail against the apocryphal books, calling them all forms of negativity. I bet they aren't doing that right now. Say what you will about Tobit, it is without a doubt an old writing. In this case, old equals good.

Additionally, Josephus and Tobit make it clear the three tithes were distinct from other requirements such as sacrificing the first fruits of harvest and cattle. The third year must have been quite the leap of faith!

The biggest fault in this option is ... well, there is no particular fault. It's pretty sound.

I am forced to side with option 3! The best candidate of the three options is #3: there is a distinct third tithe in the Old Covenant. Herbert Armstrong was actually right.
Bet you didn't see THAT coming, did ya?

But, we aren't quite done yet. Let's go to Deuteronomy 26.

DEUTERONOMY 26

(DEU. 26: 12a) When you have finished laying aside all the tithe of your increase in the third year—the year of tithing...

Even though the case for a third tithe is solid by this point, I wanted to come here anyway to look at a certain detail.
See verse 12 there, how it says, "in the third year"? Contrast that with Deu. 14: 28 where it says, "At the end of every third year". Some people who simply abandon Jewish history and attempt to define these things on their own get confused over them. Why? Why reinvent the wheel on a point like this? They aren't tithing according to what the laws says anyway, so why get hung up on a detail like this? Yet, alas, the weeds are too tempting a place to play for some.

There is quite a bit of consensus that "in" and "at the end of" mean the same thing. It had to be the same thing since all the people acted all together. What was that time? It depends on what was tithed. Different dates were necessary since the items tithed upon cannot all be stored up for the same length of time without rotting.

From the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Temple Scroll 11Q19 [p.166 of that link] mentions two dates: the Day of Firstfruits (which happens after Passover day during Unleavened Bread) and the 3rd of Av (Day of New Wine). It is unclear if there were other dates.
The Mishnah, on the other hand, lists three different dates to gather tithable items. Grain, wine, oil, and vegetables were the 1st of Tishri. Fruit trees were the 15th of Shavat. Cattle were not part of the third tithe but their day was 1st of Elul.

So, you see, it depends.

Is this a huge point to inspect? No. But I have read many articles recently and there seems to be confusion on this point. I find it perplexing that so many who bind themselves to Old Covenant law seem to be comfortable with a "make it up as you go along" approach to things. Throwing away clear Bible instruction (like what to tithe on and to whom) then striving against unclear instruction (like when the year of tithing begins and ends) seems to me to be straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

THE THIRD YEAR

There is one final detail I want to bring up. When the bible says "third year" what does it mean?

The nation of Israel worked altogether as one in cycles. There was a weekly cycle of seven days. There was a Pentecost cycle of seven weeks. There was an annual cycle of seven years. And there was a Jubilee cycle of 7x7 (49) years. These cycles were not independent per each citizen of Israel, they were communal. Everyone followed the same cycle at the same time. In Armstrongism, tithing is personal. Each person independently tithes 20% for two years then 30% on the third year, based on when they were baptized. That is not how it went in Israel. It was communal.

All Israel experienced at one and the same time an event the Bible calls "the year of tithing" (DEU. 26: 12a). The question is: was this only year 3 out of 7, or was it years 3 and 6 out of 7? As with everything else in this life, you can find articles supporting either option. When I first started researching for this post I used DuckDuckGo to search for "year of tithing" and its AI assistant told me it's year 3 out of 7. The most reliable evidence I've found since, however, sides with years 3 and 6 out of 7. Lesson: take AI with a big grain of salt.

But I want you to be aware of something here. Saying "years 3 and 6 out of 7" is not the same as saying "every third year". Why not? Because Israel was in a seven-year cycle. After year seven, it resets. I will explain.

Ancient Israel worked on a cycle of seven years. That is 1 through 7, then 1 through 7, then 1 through 7, repeatedly. When we say "every third year" it can be misunderstood as 1 through 3, then 1 through 3, then 1 through 3, repeatedly. The difference comes crashing in at year 9. In a 7-year cycle, year 9 is not a third tithe year. In an "every third year" cycle, year 9 is a third tithe year.

Perhaps this table will make it easier to visualize:

Year #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
7-Year	1	2	third tithe	4	5	third tithe	NO tithe	1	2	third tithe
3-Year	1	2	third tithe	1	2	third tithe	1	2	third tithe	1

See there? In year seven, there should be no tithe at all. In year eight, the 7-year cycle begins again. You will not have a third tithe again until year ten. There is a three-year break from third tithe in there because the system resets.
That is not the same as how an "every third year" cycle works. Armstrongism employs an "every third year" cycle. This is not Biblical!

CONCLUSION

Today we put the third tithe through the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet and ... it survived!!

Turns out the oldest sources I could find - Josephus and Tobit - are all in on the idea. This means that anciently (at least during the Second Temple period) Israel had three distinct tithes.
This is a surprising turn of events. And for anyone of an Armstrongist bent, hopefully this demonstrates the patented gauntlet is aligned true neutral.

That doesn't mean I have nothing to criticize Armstrongism for.

The system claims to demand tithes because of the law. "The law! The law! God's unchanging law!" Bear in mind Armstrongism makes many claims of following the eternal law, but frequently changes or ignores the law.
For example, the law says tithing is a 1/10 not 10%, of the increase not the total gross, and of field, orchard, garden, and flock not money income, but they ignore that. Or, when the law says three tithes not just two, but they ignore that. Or, when the law says there are three pilgrimage holy days not just one, but they changed that. Or, when the law says to whom the tithe should go but the tithe never goes to a Levite because they changed that. Or, when the law says to tithe and give the entire tithe to the needy, but they mostly ignore that. Or, when the law says a tithe-of-a-tithe is to be paid by the Levites to the Aaronic Priests, not by the people in the seats to the Ministry, but they changed that. Or, when the law says to let the land rest every seventh year, which means there can be no tithe that year, but that is entirely ignored. Armstrongism doesn't strictly adhere to any of these laws, just to name a few.
"The law! The law! ...Just not that law."

Why do we tithe? Because the unchanging law says so. But the unchanging law says exactly how to tithe. That law has changed; ignore it.

See?

And, once again I feel compelled to remind you, beloved of God, none of these Old Covenant laws apply in the New Covenant anyway. Laws do not migrate from contract to contract. And none of these laws applied to Gentiles. Gentiles were strangers to that Covenant. Gentiles need not become Jews in order to be Christians.
The New Covenant runs on freewill giving not compulsory tithing. If you opt to tithe for your giving, then tithe, but if you opt not to, then don't let anyone guilt you into tithing. Those who tell you we must all tithe are not tithing in the manner the law demands anyhow. The next time you are told you must tithe, ask if you can pay in tomatoes. I bet that doesn't go over well.

If tithe laws do not apply to us, is there any benefit in them for us? Yes!
At the outset of this article, I said this, "Does tithing set a decent example of giving? Only when properly understood!" A proper understanding is critical. The law was not written to us but it was written for our benefit and edification. Imagine you are sitting on a park bench listening to two people have an interesting conversation. Were they talking to you? No. But can you still benefit? Yes! The laws of tithing taught Israel to depend on God, to thank God, and to be generous to others. Those principles are still good! They are good for us because of the divine principal of Love rather than the Old Covenant law. Though these laws do not apply to us directly, we can still learn their lessons. Let your contemplation of tithe law bear the fruits of faith, thankfulness, and generosity. Faith and Love! It's our calling.

God bless you in this, dear reader!

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Eschatological Bias

A friend of mine was discussing Daniel and Revelation, and I just couldn't resist that old familiar urge to dig into prophecy. This is dangerous territory! And just in time for Tabernacles.

First, let's define eschatology. Someone out there might not be familiar with this word. Eschatology is the study of final things, ie. end times. It comes from the Greek word eschatos, which means the farthest or final. Few things are more central to Armstrongism than eschatology, even though most members wouldn't use that word. I think it really is the bread and butter of the whole movement.

Many people have wasted their lives trying to nail prophecy down. I do not recommend it. But this I will recommend - if you simply must dig into end times, then look into as many interpretations as possible and avoid locking yourself into any single one. Know all the possibilities, measure them all, then watch and pray to see which best matches the evidence as we go along. I'm not saying don't have a favorite. I'm just saying keep open the option of being wrong.

I know the natural inclination is to only investigate in order to try and disprove every one except your favorite, but I am not talking about disproving. I am talking about genuinely comparing and contrasting. The problem preventing most of us from doing this boils down to systems, assumptions, and bias. Ditch these three. They aren't doing you any favors.

We tend to get invested in particular eschatological systems; schemes of interpreting Biblical prophecy. Maybe that system is the only one we've ever known. Maybe it's the core of our "one true church" and thus has been elevated to "God's truth". (That is how Armstrongism would feel.) Maybe we simply refuse to review our prior footsteps for whatever reason. That particular system becomes our assumptions. It colors everything we see. We go into everything else with these assumptions. And that is called bias.

What do I mean by "systems"? There are several. They generally focus on two items: the Millennium, and the Tribulation. Are we currently before, within, or after the Millennium and the Tribulation? Or, are they symbolic and don't really exist at all? You can mix and match. Pre-Trib A-Mil, Post-Trib Post-Mil, etc etc. (Armstrongism would fall into pre-Trib Pre-Mil.)
It gets more complicated than this, but I'm not writing a dissertation here. I am just explaining how there are systems.

I ask a very difficult thing of you. There is no way most Armstrongists would so much as entertain the idea of us currently being in the Millennium. They are simply too literal. The church is not the Kingdom of God on earth, they believe, and Jesus is not here, so everything must still be future, and therefore anything pre or current is wiped off the board. The system has become the assumption by which everything else is seen. It is the bias. A bias I was once dialed into myself.
Do you see the assumptions and the bias here? Once dialed-in, a person will force all evidence to fit the system. We use terms like "difficult verses", and we have arguments with others of a different opinion. We tell ourselves how right we are, but deep inside we feel a splinter reminding us something is not quite right after all.

But think for a minute. Given the unbroken track record of prophetic failures going all the way back to Herbert Armstrong predicting the return of Christ in 1936 (we have articles on this, I suggest "All Systems Are Go!"), and given the sheer number of splinter-church members who have their own private views on prophetic interpretation (there is at least one group at every Feast of Tabernacles who everyone knows are the prophecy nerds), therefore perhaps consider the remote possibility that maybe, just maybe, the eschatological system is not so very written in stone after all. Humor me here .... perhaps a reasonable course is to take a look at what other options exist, and why they exist, even though you have a preferred system.

Herbert Armstrong was right sometimes. One thing he was right about was when he said, "A false starting point leads to false conclusions." Or something like that. I paraphrase. At any rate, it's true! He certainly came to many false conclusions because of some false assumption picked up along the way (we have articles on this, too, I suggest "An Inconvenient Plain Truth"). As the shepherd goes, so do the sheep. So, his followers have also come to many false conclusions. How many absolutely certain immediate returns of Christ has Dave Pack alone come up with in just the past couple years? Legion. Yet his dates come and go like the breeze. Why do you suppose that is? Because he has the right equation? The right equation led him to so very many incorrect conclusions? No. Worse still, it's system-wide. These failures have been happening since the Great Disappointment in 1843. Armstrong's system comes directly from William Miller's after all. But look here, it's not just the leadership, like the Packs or the Weinlands or the Thiels. It's the people in the seats, too. I've been hearing over my entire lifetime, "Three or four more years!" Over the years, I've heard more private explanations of prophecy and when Jesus is going to return than I can count. I spent most of my time at the Feast of Tabernacles with the prophecy nerds (and go-karting). Would a fully correct and functional equation keep coming to such incorrect conclusions across the board like this? Or does the evidence cry out to us that there was a false starting point? Would it not make more sense that something somewhere is off? And if so, would it not be reasonable to compare and contrast against other options?

Reviewing isn't the same thing as throwing everything you have in the garbage bin. As we always used to say, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." (I cringe typing that out.) I'm not advocating throwing things out. Quite the opposite! Look, keep your preference. Just understand what alternatives exist and why they exist is all I'm suggesting.

To be bluntly honest with you, I don't know which eschatological system is right any more than anyone else here below. Sure, I have a favorite, but I'm not betting the farm on it. For me to say, "throw out pre-Trib Pre-Mil because it's false," would be to grossly misrepresent my case. I started out saying as much. Read the third paragraph again. Keep your options open. I think that is the best and wisest course. Whichever way it plays out, it would be a shame to be taken off guard because I was staring intently in the wrong direction.

What might really bake your noodle is for me to suggest more than one system could be correct. Because it's possible things could play out in two ways. Think about it. In the Old Covenant period, there was a greater end time, with the statue dream and multiple empires, and there was a final end time in 70-136 AD. That could happen again.

Keep in mind what I've said here many times before: ALL prophetic interpretation is speculation. I'm not against speculation, but I definitely am against elevating speculation into doctrine. Don't let your eschatological systems, assumptions, and bias be your blind spot.