Ronald V. Huggins

This is a list of odds and ends of things I have done which, for the most part, got on the internet at someone else's instigation. The reason I compiled it was to be able to remember what I might have said or written where and when.  Some of these are listed simply because I don't have a copy. I'll probably add some that I do have a copy but that appear on other peoples' websites. I compiled this list here a couple of years back but did not publish it openly because its primary intention was for my private use.    When my computer was stolen several years ago I lost access to an earlier blog and had to start anew.  So if that happens again, I will lose everything on this blog that is not published.  So, in order to prevent that from happening to this list, I am publishing it now.  If anyone finds the links I provide here helpful, then that's fine. The material is arranged with the things that are most recent going back from there.  Given its previous...

 On 25 Feb. 2024, U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire and died outside Washington’s Israeli embassy in protest of the Israel-Hamas conflict. The following day Time Magazine posted a piece by Solcyré Burga and Simmone Shah entitled “The History of Self-Immolation as Political Protest,” Time Magazine (Feb. 26, 2024). In the article Burga and Shah assert: Self-immolation was also seen as a sacrificial act committed by Christian devotees who chose to be burned alive when they were being persecuted for their religion by Roman emperor Diocletian ​​around 300 A.D. My first thought as someone who taught Church History for many years, was “What on earth might they be referring to? Although I thought that there may have been some Christian, sometime, somewhere who may had done so, it certainly never was a Christian practice. More often in the early Church it was other people burning Christians not Christians burning themselves. It was true that Christians were often very fear...

1. Oil Defilement: The Essenes regarded oil as a defilement, such that “ anyone who accidentally comes into contact with it scours his person” ( Jewish War 2.123, cf. Damascus Document xii.16).   Jesus urged those who were fasting not to “ look dismal, like the hypocrites,” who “disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting,” but rather to “put oil on your head and wash your face.” (Matthew 6:16-17).   2. Hierarchy:   The Essenes were in general very big on hierarchical ranking, especially in their separated communities. If a higher-ranking member so much as touched a lower-ranking one he had to bathe, “as after contact with an alien” (Josephus, Jewish War 2.150, cf. Damascus Document XVI.5-6 and 4Q279, Community Rule III.19-25).   This naturally also affected who the Essenes in their various rankings would sit down and eat with and who they would not (Community Rule [1QS] V.10-19). Jesus, in contrast, rejected such ranking, insisting...

                                  "The Enneagram: False History and Occult Roots," Bibliotheca Sacra  179 (Apr-Jun 2022): 146-62.   "The Enneagram's Occult Remainders: Two Key Examples,"   The Worldviews Newsletter (Summer, 2023): 4-7. The PDF of the newsletter is free, but you have to go through the process of adding it to cart and "purchasing it." You can then download it. Also here "The Enneagram's Occult Remainders: Two Key Examples," The Worldviews Newsletter (Summer, 2023): 4-7. The article as a stand-alone without the rest of the newsletter. This is posted on my academia.edu account. If you have a problem downloading you can make your own account for free and download whatever is available there for free. "The Enneagram's Occult Remainders: Two Key Examples," This is an online text version at ARC.  The Apologetics Research Center.  Priority Talk with Greg...