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Meta Chronology
Meta Chronology
The right of Paul Launchbury and Steve Cooper to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the authors. The authors do not, however, want to place obstacles in the way of individual Bible students who wish to test our thesis against Scripture. We would allow, without express permission, the copying of texts from this book for the purposes of private study and research, provided that such copies consist of no more than one chapter on any one occasion. May God bless all who read and meditate upon his words! ISBN to be confirmed.
The NIV is the standard translation referred to, with others used for their particular emphases. For details of additional, less mainstream, translations referred to in the text, see the Select Bibliography.
Contents
page
5 13 23 34 44 53 69 83 93 99 121 122 185 236 245 260 277 278 291 303 335 337 Prologue 1: Introduction to this field of Biblical studies 2: Visions of the Throne Room Lay-by 1: The Chariot Lay-by 2: Other probable references to Throne Room
experiences
3: Visions 4: Important questions arising from these visions Stepping-stone 1: What does the Bible say happens when you are dead? 5: Metachronology 6: Gods mastery of time 7: The Lord Jesus Stepping-stone 2: Is the Nicaean Creed really the last word on the Trinity for Christians? 8: The angels Stepping-stone 3: Where does that leave the devil and his angels? 9: Evil spirits Lay-by 3: What is spirit? Lay-by 4: The medium at Endor Lay-by 5: The sons of God 10: Lets talk about some scriptures that could challenge our view 11: Some concluding thoughts Epilogue: Where do we go from here? Selected Bibliography
Prologue
book, many passages of Scripture will never look the same again!
eyond our (kind of) Time presents a new mode of understanding the Bibles picture of Gods relationship to mankind, time and immortality. After you have read this
The central core of this book developed over a period of some thirty years, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Out of this study and reflection on matters of time, God and mortals, came a picture in which many hitherto difficult-to5
understand Bible texts fell neatly into place. In 1995 I issued an outline thesis, in a very limited print run, on the basic themes developed in more detail in this book. This limited circulation document was distributed through Epsis Theological Monographs, a division of my consultancy, which unfortunately closed in 1997 by reason of ill health. The cover carried the statement: For
It was a great pleasure to me therefore when, some time ago, Steve Cooper and I renewed an acquaintance that had lapsed for a while. It was an even greater pleasure to discover that he had ideas for developing my concepts in much the same way as I had been considering, and was keen to start work! This book is the fruit of our collaboration.
Now, some eleven years after the original for evaluation outline was circulated, much has happened in this field, in both the scientific and theological areas. The relevance indeed the
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potential of research into time-related phenomena is illustrated by the status of the current researchers in the field. For example, in 2002 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) held an Advanced Research Workshop in the Slovak Republic, May 21-24, under the overall title of The Nature of Time: Geometry,
Physics and Perception. A quick trawl though the internet will turn
up a great number of workers in this field and the flow of articles on time-related topics in journals, such as New Scientist, has continued at a brisk pace; (To say nothing of science fiction, which has a habit of having prescience in it somewhere!) there is huge interest in this field.
My original studies were, of course, concerned only with those aspects of time which relate to God, Jesus and faithful people who trust in them. This book maintains the same focus on a larger scale.
Incidentally, as a few eyebrows have been raised on seeing the title of our book, it was based on a comment by Professor James Barr in his book: Biblical Words for Time; 1962, SCM Press; pg 145, where we read: It would perhaps be possible in theory to maintain that before the creation of the world there was not something other than time, but time of another kind.
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He also writes (ibid): If, then, there is some reason to suppose that Genesis meant that time began with creation, then there is at least some case for talking about eternity as a reality other than time. (Our emphases in both quotations) Professor Barr held chairs in theology and New (but more frequently Old) Testament studies in several universities in the UK and USA during his career. He is perhaps best known as the author of the outstanding work, The
For those wishing to know more of current thinking in the God and Time area I would just like to mention, among the many books that have appeared during those 11 years, three as useful background reading: