“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
onomasiology
noun
the study of nomenclature
a branch of lexicology concerned with the names of concepts
the study of words and expressions having similar or associated concepts and a basis (as social, regional, occupational) for being grouped
a branch of linguistics concerned with the question “how do you express X?”
Used in a sentence
The onomasiology of Trump enemy nicknames will one day be a scholarly sub-specialty.
Used in another sentence
Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be prior (i.e. an idea, an object, a quality, an activity etc.) and asks for its names.
How the Gab AI “Gabby” illustrates the idea of onomasiology
Shown in an image of text
MUSIC!
A Bhutanese folk song about onomasiology (seriously)
Some musical, medical journalism featuring Heart!
THE STUFF
More math and computer stories, featuring that annoyingly happy woman with a British accent.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
From the throats of herons and lost wolves, we learn of a mistake made by the gods. They gave us red-winged birds and vesper sparrows who make songs of leaf-light and flying. The gods thought we’d be so happy— all that fruit, one big garden, our nakedness in sun and water. They never counted on our needing a sound for longing, too. They gave that to the loon, to wild dogs whose teeth throb from the light of the moon; they poured it into the long necks of birds. How could they have known? Where in our bodies would they have moored the slender cry of the crane who calls out that night is closing the sky, taking away the glinted green of the frogs’ moist backs, the dazzle the sun makes of every hair, of every shining wing?
MUSIC!
A “deep house” electronica playlist called “Orectic Mix”……..
Epic orchestral video found by searching on “orectic music”
THE STUFF
SO – for “Action April” we are taking two weeks to study something called the Principle of Least Action.
Here is the second of TWO videos covering the topic.
Not sure I’m buying this, as my colleague, Prof. Suspicious Cat, has questions similar to those mentioned in the video, about the significance and interpretation of the role of the diffraction grating, and its potential behavior in lensing at odd angles.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
lepid
adjective
pleasant
charming
amusing
jocose
And also when capitalized (Lepid)
a brand of the statin drug atorvastatin from India
Used in a sentence
Naming a statin drug “Lepid” is – well – interesting, amusing, and maybe even lepid.
MUSIC!
Searching for lepid and music led to a single song by “Lepid” called “Shill”, but looking for a video of that one let to “The Shill Song” – which is funnier.
We continue to mourn the untimely passing of our beloved compatriot DePat, known in real life as Susie Sampson, and also as author Patricia Holden.
Until we have a dedicated author for the Tuesday daily open thread, I will be posting “placeholders” like this one, which may or may not be spiced up with additional content.
We now have a dedicated author for Tuesdays – TradeBait! (Or TradeBait2 as he is officially known to the software.) Please welcome him on April 1, 2025, when he begins!
Gudthots will take DePat’s old Thursday daily open thread.
This will be the last Tuesday placeholder – hopefully for a long, long time. Thank you all and God Bless!
W
Is the Rapture in the New Testament?
Aubergine
The more I research the Bible, the more convinced I become that there is some force, entity, or group, embedded even in Christianity itself, that doesn’t want the real truths of the Bible to ever be known.
It started when I found the mistranslation, found in almost every version of the Bible, of Jesus’s clear statements of “I am.” He used the name of God, given to Moses by the Man Himself, more than once; but in translation it has been watered down to “I am He,” or “it is I.”
Here that is in Matthew 14, when Jesus walks on water:
25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, [c]“Be of good cheer! [d]It is I; do not be afraid.”
See that little letter ‘d’? If I click on that, it comes up with the reference “Lit. I am.”
LITERALLY I AM.
But translated as “It is I.” WHY? This appears in almost every Bible translation, with a couple of exceptions. Here is one outlier; the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition:
26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It is a ghost! And they screamed out with fright.
27 But instantly He spoke to them, saying, Take courage! I Am! Stop being afraid!
It happens again in John 18 in the Garden of Gethsemane:
4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was about to happen to Him, went to them and asked, “Whom do you want?” 5 They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” Jesus said, “I am He.” And Judas, who was betraying Him, was also standing with them. 6 When Jesus said, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 Again He asked them, “Whom do you want?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you want Me, let these men go on their way.”
All those italicized “He’s” are added. And if you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense with them anyway. They come looking for Jesus, He says “I am He” and they all fell down on the ground? Why? They were looking for the man. BUT, they were all Jews; they knew what “I AM” meant full well, so they fell to the ground before God in terror of what they were doing when Jesus said it.
Changing “I AM” to “I am He” sure waters down down the impact, doesn’t it?
And now I come to the Rapture.
I was challenged recently about the actuality of the Rapture, and whether it appears in the Bible. If you ask Google “is the Rapture in the New Testament,” here is the answer from AI:
The idea of the rapture is described in the New Testament, but the word “rapture” does not appear in the Bible.
This is essentially a lie, and I can prove it.
The concept of the rapture is introduced in the Bible in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, and Matthew 24:40-42.
Thessalonians 4
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen [a]asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who [b]sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are [c]asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Corinthians 15
51 Behold, I tell you a [a]mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Matthew 24
40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what [a]hour your Lord is coming.
My chief point today appears in the verse from Thessalonians, and these words in bold:
7 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Thessalonians was written in Greek. The Greek Text Analysis of “caught up” reveals ἁρπαγησόμεθα. Well, that’s Greek to me!
That Greek word is harpazo (ah, English letters), which means to snatch or take away. Elsewhere in the Bible the same word is used to describe how the Spirit caught up Philip near Gaza and brought him to Caesarea (Acts 8:39) and to describe Paul’s experience of being caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2-4). So it would seem that the word is being used to describe people being “moved” from the Earth to “the clouds.”
A Greek to Latin translator reveals that the Greek word ἁρπαγησόμεθα in Latin is rapimur. The word “rapimur” for “caught up” in Thessalonians first appears in the Latin Vulgate Bible, translated by Jerome in 382. He was commissioned by Pope Damasus to translate the Four Gospels into Latin from the best available Greek texts, and by the time Damasus died in 384, he was mostly finished. In a letter to Pope Damasus in 383, Jerome wrote:
“You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ from one another, you would have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is one of love, but at the same time both perilous and presumptuous; for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to change the language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to the early days of its infancy?”
In the English language, we derive many words from Latin roots. The Latin word “rapimur” is the root word of…you guessed it…
RAPTURE.
The Rapture as a concept would not really be pushed to the fore until John Nelson Darby analyzed Bible translations in the 1830s. But the word that is the root of the word “Rapture” appeared in 384 in Jerome’s translation. I don’t think the “Harpazo” would have quite the same ring to it!
So there you have it. The word “Rapture” IS in the New Testament.
I find this prevarication to be as sly as ole Bill Clinton’s “depends on what the meaning of “is” is!” And both of the above examples, found across Christian belief and thought, make me wonder WHY and WHO? Because this isn’t just pagans and non-Christian sources. This is almost everywhere, even in Christianity itself.
FUN FACT
When the Gutenberg Bible was printed in the 1450’s, it was an edition of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible. So the first books ever printed with moveable type contained the word we derive Rapture from.
*******IN FAIRNESS TO GROK AI*******
I thought to head over and ask Grok about the word rapture in the Bible. Lo and behold, it told the truth!
Does the word Rapture appear in the New Testament?
Yes, the word “Rapture” does appear in the New Testament, but not in the way you might think. The English word “Rapture” as commonly understood today—referring to the event where believers are caught up to meet Jesus Christ in the air—doesn’t appear explicitly in modern English translations of the Bible. However, the concept is derived from the Latin word raptura, meaning “a carrying off” or “seizure,” which comes from the verb rapere (“to snatch” or “to seize”). This Latin term was used in the Vulgate, a 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible, to translate the Greek word harpazō (ἁρπάζω), which means “to snatch away” or “to catch up.”
The key passage associated with the Rapture is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (New Testament), where Paul writes: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (ESV) In the Greek text, “caught up” is harpagēsometha (from harpazō), and in the Latin Vulgate, it’s rendered as rapiemur (from rapere). This is where the term “Rapture” originates.
So, while “Rapture” as an English word isn’t directly in the New Testament, the idea and the root word it’s based on (harpazō) are present, particularly in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The modern use of “Rapture” to describe this event became popularized in English-speaking Christian theology much later, especially through 19th- and 20th-century dispensationalist teachings.
Does that clarify things for you? Let me know if you’d like me to dig deeper!
WELL, HANG ON THERE ABOUT GROK!
So, down in the comments, I told a story about asking Grok about the Rapture. I decided to move it up here, as it adds more to the AI part of the story:
I was telling a friend about the progression I went through in writing today’s post, and during that conversation, she and I stumbled upon a disturbing possibility. It went like this:
After my friend stated she didn’t believe there would be a Rapture, I, who have never studied it in depth, went looking for info. I first asked Google if the Rapture appeared in the New Testament. The answer I got is in the post above.
I went about doing my research, using various online sources, and my Bible (hard copy).
I wrote a draft of the above post in WordPress. It was in drafts, not scheduled for publication yet.
During the AI discussion here on the Tree, para wrote about using AI for research, and mentioned Grok. I hadn’t asked Grok anything about the subject of the Rapture in the Bible, so out of curiosity, I went and asked. I got the answer I put at the end of the post.
Now here’s the possibility my friend and I considered; Grok’s answer to my query is very close to the research I had written into drafts before I asked the question, and is completely different from the answer I got from Google AI. Did Grok “read” my research, not yet “published,” before answering?
This possibility disturbed my friend greatly, and it sure made me wonder.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
hauberk
noun
long chain-mail coat
long mail shirt
long tunic made of chain mail
coat of mail; especially, the long coat of mail of the European Middle Ages, as contrasted with the habergeon, which is shorter and sometimes sleeveless
Used in a sentence
By the 10th century, the hauberk was common among well-armored warriors, often paired with a helmet.
Shown in a picture
Featured in a video, but not by name
MUSIC!
Listen to some traditional folk music while watching a woke-looking modern Renaissance festival type gal make decorative chain mail!
THE STUFF
So what if space was actually a bit like chain mail? Sabine talks about it!
So have we really found the point where math turns into physics?
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
wallflower
noun, adjective
a color which is yellowish red
an attribute of being colored yellowish red
a light purple color marketed by Sherwin-Williams
a genus of flowering plants, Erysimum, in the family Brassicaceae (mustards)
a shy, unassuming person
Used in a sentence
Whether wallflower is yellow-to-red or purple seems to depend upon the circumstances.
Shown in a picture
Shown in a different picture
But wait! Some wallflowers show the other wallflower!
MUSIC!
Wallflowers. Just can’t get away from them!
But wait! There’s moar!
THE STUFF
So what do you think about going to Mars? I can tell you, the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was incredibly enthusiastic. I was cheering BIG TIME. But let’s look at it more critically – both sides of the question. We’ve learned from Trump – always cover the downside. Listen to the critics, and think about what they say.
