Dr. Heiser, I am a big believer in letting people know when they have blessed their life. So this note is to express my sincere gratitude for your work. I am 87 years old and have studied the Bible all my life, informally and formally in a Southern Baptist seminary and later under tutelage as an Anglican priest. I am also a retired Professor of Psychology.
Last Fall, God took me to your You Tube lectures and I had an Epiphany. Two important areas of my life were kicked up many notches. The first is my deeper understanding when I am ministering the Eucharist. The second is a totally new approach to the Old Testament.
On your web page you said that you had little time to read e-mails, so I will just cut to the chase. With a little chagrin I have to confess that each time I elevated the Body and Blood for consecration, I was always privately pondering "What sins are these sins for which we are atoning?" Unfortunately as a psychologist, I knew we could psychologize away any human failing.
Then listening to you, the aha moment came. We are not atoning for sins (plural) but for the sin (singular). In the Garden, our progenitors, as Elohims, joined the human race up on the rebel side of the War of the Elohims. And, this is really what the entire Bible is about! Thus, in the Eucharist, while asking "for the forgiveness sins," I could surreptitiously be thinking "for the forgiveness of the sin."
After listening to you, I also think the puzzlement of why it took a human sacrifice to propitiate the sin became obvious. Dr. Heiser naturally this is just the skinny of what you have pulled together for me. I do think you have helped me synthesize a life-of-study beyond anything I could have imagined.
As a bonus, I can now read the Old Testament with new eyes. It has become for me the story of Yahweh’s attempt to keep His little chosen tribe away from the rebel Elohims. I see now where over thousands of years, He tried everything from Divine Mercy to Divine Wrath--but to no avail. (The one success perhaps was to get the archetype of the Passover into their collective unconscious.)
As God has blessed me throughout my life by leading me in chapters, at the same time He was preparing me by taking me to you, he took me to St Faustina and, soon to be, Saint John Paul II. The Lord then asked me to join these two in daily praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
You probably are aware, but just in case, it goes:
On the large bead before each decade:
Eternal Father,
I offer you the Body and Blood,
Soul and Divinity,
of Your Dearly Beloved Son,
Our Lord, Jesus Christ,
in atonement for our sins (I think sin)
and those of the whole world.
On the ten small beads of each decade, say:
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion,
have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Dr. Heiser, I hope you can see how my Epiphany with you prepared me for a whole new calling.
My wife and I live in a beautiful log cabin on a ridge surrounded by an acre of wood land.
Thus we have our own little private monastery in which to carry on this new work.
Again, you have my deepest gratitude,
Donald L. Clark Ed.D FAACoP
Anglican Priest, retired
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
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