Dwaine E. Dunning: 1ST-CENTURY INFLUENCES on Instrumental Music?

Brother Dunning's statements are in the shaded boxes. Our reviews will be in black and other quotations in blue. Any false statements or mis attributions are unintentional. If you find any please be gentle enough to correct me and I will comply quickly. One fellow called me a maliscious liar, neurotic, psychotic and more for blaming him for a Catholic Encyclopedia quote.

THERE IS NOT A SHRED OF INFORMATION THAT GOD'S PEOPLE EVER SANG AND PLAYED INSTRUMENTS AS WORSHIP. People have missed the point that the King, kingdom and Temple were to "worship the starry hosts" after the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai and their firing God. The non-military industrial complex were confined to the synagogues beginning in the wilderness.

THERE IS NOT A SHRED OF INFORMATION OF MUSIC WHICH IS NOT CONNECTED TO Lucifer the singing and harp playing prostitute as the Musical Enchanter in the garden of Eden, of warfare, of pagan animal sacrifices where NOISE was for exorcism, by prostitutes or Sodmites. Other than that there is no history of a male singing and playing prior to David.  This was something left to women and young girls.

Dwaine E. Dunning simply assumes and makes up history.

The deliberating SOWING OF DISCORD and breaking up of congregations is the ongoing quest of instrumentalists to draw EVERYONE into the heresy: The story of Genun or Jubal is one of the world's oldest warning (including the Book of Enoch) that Satan led him into seducing people away from the Living Word with the use of music and USING women in lust-creating situations. After his fall he needed to seduce others into what he recognized as a fatal failure.

Victor Knowles 2003 Pepperdine DANCING AT ARM'S LENGTH----wrong! A partial review of continuing effort to take captive "a cappella" churches.

Together for Greater Ministry Impact '04: The latest gasp at a UNITY FORUM under the auspices of COMMERCIALISM. Pro-Instrumental preachers called in to speak for "a cappella" churches of Christ. Goal to build 5500 instrumental churches.

Don't miss the link at the bottom which defines "worship" as "menial bondage" and "chief musician" as overseer or slave driver. The Jews were under bondage, you know, so why would anyone want to bring believers back under what MARKED the Israelites and Mount Sinai and the mark would not be removed until they turned to Christ and away from theatrical performers--themselves.

This has not had spell check or proof-reading but this is todays effort. You are not obligated to read all of this but I have attempted to supply several notes for every point which can be used as proof-text to add instrumental music. We just don't believe any arguement from first century culture has any bearing on the Bible-based practices of the early churches. They did exactly what Paul told them to do so they needed no cultural reasons for their practices.

Read what Thomas Aquinas and most early church writers said about singing versus teaching.

Non-Instrumental Position Must Be Destroyed: Introduction EXTENSIVE UPDATING 10/25/04

Instrumental Music Will Untie the Gordian Knot #2

1ST-CENTURY INFLUENCES on Instrumental Music? #3

See Was Instrumental Music Only For Israel #4

Making Melody in the Heart #5

Ray Downen challenging the WORSHIP word. #6 Paul's word for the ONE ANOTHER assembling themselves is a form of the word SYNAGOGUE. The synagogue was a school of the Bible and never had a praise service. Paul's unique "in the spirit" worship word is to GIVE HEED to God in Christ by reading and giving heed to His words which are Spirit and Life.

Subject:

A Lengthy Axe-grinding Session (3) Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 22:07:42 -0500 From: "Ray Downen Joplin MO 64802-1065" <outreach@sofnet.com> To: <"Worshippers"@sofnet.com>, "(GroupD)"@sofnet.com, "(GroupDJ)" <(outreach@sofnet.com)>

<< Here's chapter 3 of Dwaine Dunning's book about Christian use of musical instruments in their assemblies -->>

WHAT ABOUT 1ST-CENTURY INFLUENCES?

Dwaine E. Dunning quotes but does not point us to the resources. I have tried to fill in the blanks. This is important because if you are a reader you may want to reject both the writer and the reviewer as authority. However, iit was not the first century but the entire Jewish history and clear Biblical statements which left the early Christians with no urge for instruments. One can suspect that Paul's "singing" passages were to dispell any pagan urge for what Albert Barnes calls "the lust of the ears."

Many people ridicule depending upon historical writings. However, the instrumental position did not begin with any attempt to justify the unjustifiable. No one before about 1878 used the "psallo" argument to give such profound authority that it would forgive sowing discord among brethren.

There are no MUSIC words in the Old or New Testament in a "worship" sense. None. Paul to Rome, Colossae and Ephesus warned against the "wineskin" worship which would have been the practice of many of the Christians in all of these places as well as Corinth.  Most pagan festivals and theater were the religion of the Greeks.  Their temples used wine, women and music to seduce customers and fleeced them before they could get out of town. Most temples involved temple prostitutes.  Apollo worshipped at Delphi and other places was the PATTERN John used in Revelation 18 to identify the Mother of Harlots.  Apollo or Apollyon unleashed the "locusts" which in the legends were the MUSES who had been sent underground by the Mother of the gods.  When they were unleashed their task was to separate those with the Mark of the Word from those MARKED or pierced or stung by the Locust's scorpion stingers: they used music to lull you to sleep and gave you a fatal sting.  The agents under the Mother of Harlots (Rev 17) are the rhetoricians, singers and musicians. John said that they were SORCERERS who had deceived the whole world.

ALL of the singing and musical words speak of ENCHANTMENT or SORCERY which is the use of sound to unlock the emotions and "sting" the rational or spiritual mind so that it CANNOT know when it is being deceived. Why would John identify these all time and end time MUSICAL PERFORMERS as sorcerers if there was NO NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING.  The fact is according to Jesus, some clergy are NOT PERMITTED to read black text on white paper because they have lost the love for TRUTH and God sends them strong delusions: the WRATH God pours out is the Greek ORGE which means that when you see singers, jesters and buffoons occupying the "holy places" you KNOW that it is time to pack up and run for your lives.

In order to be united among people with diverse backgrounds, Paul totally erradicated the "music" concept and continued to preach the Synagogue model. This permitted the Jesus form of worship "in spirit" or in the mind: spiritual means rational. The "in truth" part involved using the Word of Christ, Spirit or "what had been written." To teach "the gospel" it would be necessary to continue to lay the foundation as Peter and Stephen did in their "model" sermons. By teaching the Psalms or poetic historical record they could better learn the entire movement of the Word in the lives of people:

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Romans 15:4

Here is what Bible students believed:

"Hebrew music... was used in the luxurious times of the later monarchy the effeminate gallants of israel, reeking with perfumes, and stretched upon their couches of ivory, were wont at their banquets to accompany the song with the tinkling of the psaltery or guitar (Am. v1. 4-6), and amused themselves with devising musical instruments while their nation was perishing... music was the legitimate expression of mirth and gladness, and the indication of peace and prosperity." (Smith's, Music, p. 590).

"That chant to the voice of the lyre, accompanying the voice of the lyre with the human voice, giving vocal expression and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without words. The word, which Amos alone uses in this one place, describing probably 'a hurried flow of unmeaning, unconsidered words, in which the rhythm of words and music was everything, the sense, nothing; much like most glees. The E.M. 'quaver' has also some foundation in the root, but does not suit the idiom so well, which expresses that the act was something done to the voice of the lyre, accompanying the music, not altering the music itself." (Barnes, Albert, Amos, p. 303).

The written Word of God was not "grab bag" for song and sermon: it was the Divinely provided "curriculum" which must be taught as it has been taught. Even Jesus did not violate that law. The story is in the Bible: if it is "tilted" by culture then we might be able to arm wrestle the Words of Christ to the ground. Culture had nothing to do with it because there is no musical concept in Paul's writings. The operative word is teach which means preach which means to "learn." If we want to insert "music" into Christian worship then we can get lots of pagan literature in favor.

God granted the King, Monarchy and Temple AS a curse and final sentence of captivity and death. The kings would carry out the captivity sentence and the Babylonians would execute the death sentence CONTITIONALLY IMPOSED because of the Musical Idolatry at Mount Sinai.  The temple was like ALL OTHER pagan temples because that is what they REQUESTED and what God abandoned them to. No singer or musician could enter into the Holy Place which was typicalof the body of Christ without getting instantly executed.  In Hezekiah's reform that meant that they could not enter the type of the polluted "church house" even to clean out the garbage.

Jewish culture also favored instrumental performance upon beds of ivory where a father and his son went in to the same "sacred prostitute." They favored daily "contributions" from the poor and stealing wine. They were, in fact, "rising up to play" in continueing the Egyprian, musical, effeminate worship repeated at Mount Sinai. Smith calls music in worship idolatrous and that is what lost them the Covenant of Grace.

The Holy Place was a carnal type of the spiritual body or church of Christ. To enter the Holy Place much like the Synagogue for the people who were not part of the MONARCHY officialdom and priesthood, you had to have animal sacrifices done to the crash of loud instruments. Then the sacrifice had to be washed along with the "priest" and then they could go into the presence of the Menorah or "seven spirits of Christ," the Bread of fellowship and then to the incense altar looking into the Most Holy Place.

There was no "music" in the Temple: it is called "sounding" and "instruments of music" has no foundation in any Biblical text. The sounding in the temple is called noise but not music. It signalled the beginning and ending of the burning part of animal sacrifices. And this temple "worship" was not Law worship but "like the nation's worship" because that is what the elders insisted upon as they fired God in imitation of their fathers who repudiated Him with instrumental worship of the calf at Mount Sinai, and as the Israelites had done for over 400 years in Egypt. This Egyptian form of worship was "worse than the pagans" and God rescued them to protect His own name from being polluted in Egypt. The Isralites used musical idolatry at Mount Sinai to turn the "promised land" into "the killing fields" because they trusted their kings and musical Levites to win victory.

"At the dedication of the later edifice, the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music, so as 'to make one sound;' but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing, what was aimed at was not musical harmony, but a powerful crash of jubilant sound. We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship, as ordered by Moses, which could be justly characterized as instrumental music." (George Girardeau, p. 29).

It is not correct to say of the Synagogue that "singing there was always a cappella. "There was no praise service in the synagogue" and one cannot find what we call SINGING. The Jews called it cantillation or SPEAKING or SAYING using the inflections of the voice which made hearing easier. The synagogue consisted almost totally of READING the Bible and prayer which was also usually a Biblical hymn.

The Qahal or synagogue or assembly in the wilderness was only for the same such instructions. Therefore, they could signal the assembly with the silver trumpets but they COULD NOT make the sounds called the ALARM or TRIUMPH OVER. This included the idea of blowing instruments and 'making a joyful noise before the Lord.' This was a warrior's taunt song and NEVER worship.

If the Synagogues faced North it may because the living waters came form Mount Hermon. And the Synagogue was involved with teaching the Living Word and never with what we would call worship in rituals.

Scholars believe that there were only about 10 to 12 thousand "sectarian" Jews. The Sadducees were the civil leadership sect at the temple and were therefore in control of the instrumental music. This was always the case: the instrumental burning music was headed by civil Levites under the king and commanders of the army.

The Pharisees were decidecly anti-temple people. Because they made a choice not to continue the near-dead sacrificial system with music, they "made a choice" and were therefore sectarians. That they were not sincere means that they were much like us.

Therefore, any north-south orientation may have been to distinguish them from the temple sectarians which were more like the Babylonian sectarians whom Israel had opposed during the captivity.

Most of the people had never participated in the Temple rituals when it ceased to be the "mustering place" for war-age males.

In an article on the Synagogue we quote:

"Since the Babylonian Jews were unable to participate in the worship of the cultus as in former days, the exile marked an important turning-point in their religious developmemt. Open-air meetings by the Kabar irrigation-canal replaced gatherings in the Temple and its precincts, a non-sacrificial worship emphasized confession, fasting, prayer, and the reading of the Law, and initial improvisations were developed to the point

where the faithful community aimed at as great a spiritual differentation from the pagan Babylonians as was possible.

With the development of house-gatherings and the increased importance attached to the knowledge and observance of the Torah, there was laid the basis for subsequent synagogue-worship, an institution that owes its origin to the diligence of Ezekiel." (Harrison, R. K., Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmans, p.414).

"The Synagogue-worship, developed by and after the exile, largely substituted the book for the symbol, and thought for the sensuous or object appeal" (Int Std. Bible Ency., Worship. p. 3111).

The opening in the Tabernacle also faced east perhaps because that was the direction of travel.

The Temple faced east because it was a "like the nation's" national temple for a new nation permitted by God when Israel's elders fired God and demanded a king like the nations so that they could worship like the nations. This is why the women sang for Tammuz in the temple and the men bowed to the sun in the East.

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lords house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Ezek 8:14

See the Ishtar/Tammuz cultic worship.

This would be inside the Nicanor Gate to the court of women.

Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. Ezek 8:15

And he brought me into the inner court of the Lords house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Ezek 8:16

This would probably be inside of the four gates (a-h) at about point 4 where only people of Levi were allowed.

Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Ezekiel 8:17

This has root words and documented pagan practices (and pictures) to show that it was the nose flute made from willow or some other branch (As kids we hammered the bark until it would slip off a hickory branch and made flutes). Click for the snotty details.

Zemowrah (h2156) zem-o-raw'; or zÿmorah zem-o-raw' (fem.); and zÿmor zem-ore' (masc.): from 2167; a twig (as pruned): - vine, branch, slip

For the Lord hath turned away the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches. Na.2:2

From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. Is.24:16

Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low. Is.25:5

The branch of the terrible ones or the noise of the strangers is just this:

Zamiyr (h2158) zaw-meer'; or zamir zaw-meer'; and (fem.) zÿmirah zem-ee-raw'; from 2167; a song to be accompanied with instrumental music: - psalm (-ist), singing, song

Of the Faithful who never fell into the musical worship of Tammuz/Ishtar or of the Sun (Shamash) from the East:

And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writers inkhorn by his side; Ezek 9:3

And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. Ezekiel 9:4

When Israel sinned beyond redemption with musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, God "turned them over to worship the stary host." This was the Molech at "the king's music grove" in Jerusalem and the same wandering stars (planets, Sun and Moon) as Chiun in Israel condemned for their musical idleness at Mount Gerezim. God MARKED them with the Law.

God terminally turned them loose the moment they fired Him and demanded a king like the nations which, according to God, was so that they could worship like the nations.

Now, God has put His MARK upon the foreheads (mind?) of those who would not engage in the musical worship of Tammuz/Ishtar (Easter) or engage in the men's Sun Rise Services.

Of those who improvized and innovated in Israel ike David:

And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Ezekiel 9:5

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary.

Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. Ezekiel 9:6

The people of Judah were going in musical processions "to the house of the Lord." They were going to sacrifice children in the arms of Molech. God then warned the Jews by telling them how He would utterly destroy the Assyrians:

And there shall be upon every lofty mountain and upon every high hill, water running in that day, when many shall perish, and when the towers shall fall. Isaiah 30:25

And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven fold in the day when the Lord shall heal the breach of his people, and shall heal the pain of thy wound. Isaiah 30:26 LXX

Behold, the name of the Lord comes after a long time, burning wrath; the word of his lips is with glory, a word full of anger, and the anger of his wrath shall devour as fire. Isaiah 30:27 LXX

And his breath, as rushing water in a valley, reach reach as far as the neck, and be divided, to confound the nations for their vain error; error also shall pursue them and overtake them. Isaiah 30:28 LXX

Primarily the clergy and rich loved the religious festivals because of the wine confiscated from the poor and because:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! Jeremiah 7:21

For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, Jeremiah 7:22

but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. Jeremiah 7:23

But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. Jeremiah 7:24

From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. Jeremiah 7:25

But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers.' Jeremiah 7:26

When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. Jeremiah 7:27

Therefore say to them, 'This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. Jeremiah 7:28

The Septuagint continues to warn the Jews MARKED by the beast Molech and in musical processions to Jerusalem by warning the Assyrians:

Must ye always rejoice, and go into my holy places continually, as they that keep a feast? and must ye go with a pipe (meaning to pollute), as those that rejoice into the mountain of the Lord, to the God of Israel Isaiah 30:29 LXX

and the Lord shall make his glorious voice to be heard and the wrath of his arm, to make a display with wrath and anger and devouring flame: he shall lighten terribly, and his wrath shall be as water and violent hail. Isaiah 30:30 LXX

For by the voice of the Lord the Assyrians shall be overcome, even by the stroke where with he shall smite them. Isaiah 30:31 LXX

And it shall happen to him from every side, that they from whom their hope of assistance was, in which he trusted, themselves shall war against him in turn with drums and with harp. Isaiah 30:32 LXX

And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. Isaiah 30:32KJV

This is why God excluded the "people's congregation" when the "sounding" instruments made a great crashing noise. They were put outside the gate or "outside the camp" which is where we have to go if we want to meet Jesus.

First, let's say it over and over: the Temple was not worship center for the people. Only "muster-age" men were required to attend three times in a year. Individuals making a personal sacrifice--as opposed to the national rituals--did so after the national ceremony was over. The trumpets of God (religious) and the instruments of David (under king and commanders of the army) did no play for "congregational worship."

At most times it was the king's chapel and was to give glory to a "like the nation's" temple.

Hezekiah who would love to "play the harp in the temple all diay" was so foolish that he showed the Temple's glory and got his gold stolen.

"The trumpets were assigned a number of complicated signals, which implied their ability of blowing legato, staccato, and trills, and tonguing, all in unison, not 'simultaneously,' but 'as with one mouth.' Moreover, these apocalyptical trumpets bear different names: trumpets of assembly, of battle, of the slain, of ambush, etc.

In generally, they were used to terrorize the enemy into panic (Judges 7:19-20). This function was, for all practical purposes, identical with that of the trumpets of Revelation.

In the temple the signals of the trumpet introduced every ceremony and every sacrifice." (International Dictionary of the Bible, p. 472-3, Abingdon).

"The instruments were used as worship to God and to give glory and elat to the earthly kingdom. They were tolerated by God as were many other things during this period, that he did not approve.

The establishment of the kingdom itself was an act of rebellion against God" (David Lipscomb, Queries and Answers, pp. 226, 227, and Gospel Advocate, 1899, pp. 376, 377).

The synagogue was ever an educational institution: there were never any "worshiping" institutions for the masses of non-clergy, non-governmental people. You don't worship at houses Jesus said when you have been redeemed from animal sacrifices by His own blood. Paul said that Jesus would be found "outside the camp" or outside of the city gates suffering for people. He would not be out ther singing, dancing, clapping and having his body parts stroked. Paul also said that "church" must consist of only those things which edify or educate.

One Implication of the East

When Israel "rose up to play" in musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, God turned them loose to worship the stary hosts. The meaning of The East is related to the beginning point in Babylonia where 'like the nation's' worship began and Israel choose for themselves.

b. AD 347, Antioch, Syria d. Sept. 14, 407

From John Chrysostom, detail of a 12th-century mosaic; in the Palatine Chapel, Palermo

Editor's Note 7: dia gar touto epishmainetai. The meaning is: Stephen was accused of speaking against "the customs,"-sacrifices, temple, feasts, etc.

Therefore he significantly points to that critical conjuncture from which these "customs" date their introduction: namely, the Provocation at Horeb.

Prior to that, he tells of "living oracles," life-giving precepts:
after it, and as its consequence, sacrifices, etc.,
those statutes which were not good, and ordinances by which a man shall not live, as God says by Ezekiel.

Not a word of sacrifice till then: and the first mention is, of the sacrifices offered to the calf. In like manner, "they rejoiced,"

"the people ate and drank, and rose up to play:"
and in consequence of this, the feasts were prescribed: kai eufrainonto, fhsin: dia touto kai eortai.-'Epishmainetai might be rendered,

"he marks," "puts a mark upon it" (so the innovator, who substitutes, touto kai Dauid epishmainomenoj legei): we take it passively, "there is a mark set over it-it is emphatically denoted." In the active, the verb taken intransitively means

"to betoken or announce itself,"

[See Box Below to show how long the Jews were MARKED and why]

In the Treatise adv. Judaeos, iv. §6. tom. i. 624. C. St. Chrysostom gives this account of the legal sacrifices: "To what purpose unto Me is the multitude of your sacrifices? etc. (Isaiah i., 11, ff.)

Do ye hear how it is most plainly declared, that God did not from the first require these at your hands? Had He required them, He would have obliged those famous saints who were before the Law to observe this practice.

Why Sacrifices permitted. The temple was allowed, according to Stephen in Acts 7 because of the weakness of David which was mortal fear of a Holy God:

Then wherefore has He permitted it now?
In condescension to your infirmity. As a physician in his treatment of a delirious patient, etc.: thus did God likewise.

For seeing them so frantic in their lust for sacrifices, that they were ready, unless they got them, to desert to idols:

nay not only ready, but that they had already deserted, thereupon He permitted sacrifices. And that this is the reason, is clear from the order of events. [These were daily rituals with money collections and instrumental music according to Amos: They had been marked]

After the feast which they made to the demons, then it was that He permitted sacrifices: all but saying: `Ye are mad, and will needs sacrifice:

well then, at any rate sacrifice to Me. -(What follows may serve to illustrate the brief remark a little further on, Kai h aixmalwsia kathgoria thj kakiaj.) "But even this, He did not permit to continue to the end, but by a most wise method, withdrew them from it ...

Where? Revelation 18 identifies Jerusalem as Sodom

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Re.11:8

For He did not permit it to be done in any place of the whole world, but in Jerusalem only.

Anon, when for a short time they had sacrificed,
he destroyed the city. Had He openly said, Desist, they, such was their insane passion for sacrificing, would not readily have complied.

But now perforce, the place being taken away,

He secretly withdrew them from their frenzy." So here: "Even the captivity impeaches the wickedness (which was the cause of the permission of sacrifice.")

The animal sacrifices and its musical noise was not related to the worship of their God. Rather, it was an expression of their love for Jerusalem even above God Himself. Therefore, they did not perform musical sacrifices in Babylon which was the home of musical idolatry. Psalm 137 shows that they hung their harps on the willows because musical joy was no longer possible. Click Here to see more on Psalm 137.

JUMPING AHEAD TO SHOW THAT JERUSALEM (SODOM) OR "THE JEWS" STILL FOLLOWED FABLES AND HAD THE MOUNT SINAI MUSICAL MARK PLACED ON THEIR HEAD BECAUSE THEY STILL INNOVATED OR IMPROVIZED RATHER THAN ALLOWING GOD TO DO HIS WORK THROUGH HIS WORD. We repeat: "the people ate and drank, and rose up to play:" and in consequence of this, the feasts were prescribed: kai eufrainonto, fhsin: dia touto kai eortai.-'Epishmainetai might be rendered, "he marks," "puts a mark upon it" (so the innovator, who substitutes, touto kai Dauid epishmainomenoj legei): we take it passively, "there is a mark set over it-it is emphatically denoted." The MARK was put on many Israelites at the Musical Idolatry at Mount Sinai where the innovated and returned to the BEAST worship practiced for their captivity duration. Being frantic or charismatic or esctatic is really a drug dependancy: musical beat, hand clapping and dancing induced endorphins (morphinne within) the people and literally shut down their rational minds. They were MARKED on the forehead. And, as condemned at Gerezim by Amos, they are frantic for the religious festivals but they make no difference in their lives in the market place. The MARK OF THE BEAST typified by being INNOVATORS or IMPROVISERS and being too frantic or hyped up would not be removed until people turned to Christ: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Isa 1:16 We know that the mark was that of the Beast because God turned them over to worship the bull demons under various names. Worship of the Lord is giving attention to the TRUTH so that we can worship IN SPIRIT. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Ac.13:15 Paul said, however, that they were MARKED in the forehead or mind: But their minds were blinded (turned to stone): for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 2 Cor 3:14 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 2 Cor 3: 15 Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 2 Cor 3: 16   Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3: 17 But we all, with open face (unmarked or veiled) beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor 3:18 And to worship in Spirit and in Truth, Paul instructed Titus how to worship. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Titus 1:4 Not giving heed to Jewish fables (JEWISHNESS, the marked), and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. Titus 1:14   Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Eph 5:19 Giving Attendance is Worship In Truth. If we are not blinded by being a "Jewish" disciple then we "worship in spirit." Prosecho (h4337) pros-ekh'-o; from 4314 and 2192; (fig.) to hold the mind (3563 impl.) towards, i.e. pay attention to, be cautious about, apply oneself to, adhere to: - (give) attend (-ance, - ance at, -ance to, unto), beware, be given to, give (take) heed (to, unto) have regard. External singing was a secular or pagan practice: reading or chanting was a religious practice. Singing is not worship because it gives heed to the composer, song book, song leader, microphone phallic symbols but not the word of God. Because it innovates God MARKS it.

And in Jerusalem, the women "lamented for Tammuz" in the Temple while the men bowed to the Sun God in sun rise service or Easter, or Ishtar. This was similar to the worship of Israel while in Israel. When they rejected the Covenant of Grace, God turned them back over to worship the host of heaven once He got them in the wilderness.

"Hathor ruler of the desert." The Greeks also called Hathor Aphrodite-Urania so she is al-Uzza, just as she is identifiable with Ishtar. She has stars at the point of her horns, ears, on the forehead and on her body. "May the golden give life to thy nose, may the ruler of the stars be united with thee". As the "golden one", Hathor is the sky-cow who bears the sun eye between her horns and nurses the infant Horus-Re.

"Hathor maintained a special presence in Sinai on the high places such as Serabit, where the nomadic mining tribes worshipped her. (Maspero 354, Petrie 85). In Egyptian inscriptions, "Qadesh beloved of Ptah" appears as the Syrian and Canaanite fertility goddess known from terra cotta figurines from many sites in Palestine. Hathor is also known as The Lady of Byblos and is thus Ashtarte or Athirat

Remember that in Egypt the Israelites wanted to go out of Egypt and worship they had to "go to the East" which was another place to worship. However, all of these pagan views originated in Babylonian and probably further into Persia and India the Naga or Nagash Serpents were worshiped.

Therefore, when people worship the "wandering stars" or planets and try to "ascend up through the seven heavenly spheres with music" then God turns them over to that form of worship:

Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Acts 7:42

Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. Acts 7:43

Molech . . . Chiun--"Molech" means "king" answering to Mars [BENGEL]; the Sun [JABLONSKI]; Saturn, the same as "Chiun" [MAURER]. The Septuagint translates "Chiun" into Remphan, as Stephen quotes it (Ac 7:42,43). The same god often had different names.

Mr. G defended adding instrumental music in writing to Alexander Campbell by this logic:

"Music exerts a mysterious charm upon man--it takes captive the citadel of life--carries him out of himself, and leads him where it will. The shrill fife and the rattling drum, inspire the soldier just about to enter into battle, with a zeal and daring which no hardship can overcome, and no danger intimidate, and causes him to rush headlong into the thickest of the combat, regardless of consequences.

If martial music thus inspires the worshipers of Mars, will sacred music do less for the humble followers of the meek and lowly Jesus--the worshipers of the true and living God? No!

Being "out of himself" was the charismatic ecstasy which Paul condemned as madness: acting like a maniac.

Next, Mr. G agrees with Paul about comparing speaking in tongues to the instrumental music during battle. You don't want the soldiers to think; you want them to charge headlong into self destruction. This was one of the early defenses of adding instrumental music to "church." And, so the mind-manipulating and money collecting nature of music has always been known.

Molech is the Ammonite name; Chiun, the Arabic and Persian name, written also Chevan. In an Arabic lexicon Chiun means "austere"; so astrologers represented Saturn as a planet baleful in his influence. Hence the Phoenicians offered human sacrifices to him, children especially; so idolatrous Israel also. Rimmon was the Syrian name (2Ki 5:18); pronounced as Remvan, or "Remphan," just as Chiun was also Chevan. Molech had the form of a king; Chevan, or Chiun, of a star [GROTIUS]. Remphan was the Egyptian name for Saturn: hence the Septuagint translator of Amos gave the Egyptian name for the Hebrew, being an Egyptian. [HODIUS II, De Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus. 4.115].

The same as the Nile, of which the Egyptians made the star Saturn the representative [HARENBERG]. BENGEL considers Remphan or Rephan akin to Teraphim and Remphis, the name of a king of Egypt.

The Hebrews became infected with Sabeanism, the oldest form of idolatry, the worship of the Saba or starry hosts, in their stay in the Arabian desert, where Job notices its prevalence (Job 31:26); in opposition, in Am 5:27, Jehovah declares Himself "the God of hosts."

This is what was worshiped in Israel and condemned by Amos and Hosea

Amos 5:25-27 25 "Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts. (RSV)

An old woodcut showing Jewish Star and Sun Worship

Yes, God said that they could CALL the assembly by 'blowing' but they could not sound an ALARM which included blowing instruments AND rejoicing DURING the assembly which was the Qahal, synagogue or church in the wilderness. As far as I know they "all" say that instruments of music were not used in the synagogue because the goal was "teaching and admonishing one another with the Biblical text."

And of the shofar:

"Only in Ps 150:3 is it (shophar) mentioned with most of the other really musical instruments. Hence, we must conclude that the function of the shophar was to make noise--be it of earthly or of eschatological character--but not to make music.

After the destruction of the temple and the general banishment of all instrumental music,
the shophar alone survived, just because it was not a musical instrument." (Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, p. 473, Abingdon).

Under the Law, the instruments were not instruments of "music" but of "sounding" or of singing. Again, music is not an operative "worship" word in the dispensation of God toward mankind.

I don't know of any evidence that people were summoned to the synagogue with brass instruments. I believe that the Shofar was used outside of the sacrifices specificially because it was NOT a musical instrument. See the Shofar and hear how they summons was like a church bell.

We use church bells or buzzers but don't use trumpets. I suppose if someone wanted to blow a bugle to wake the town and call them to church no one would object. However, when the teaching began we would tell the buglar in the name of common decency to cease and desist.

We know that the trumpets blown only by priests of the family of Aaron were to summon the congregational gathering. However, Numbers 10:7 specificially outlaws the word "alarm."

Our only high priest is now in heaven: when he next blows the only authorized trumpets you had better have your bags packed or you will go naked into the darkness.

No: The synagogue was to QUARANTINE the common people FROM the Jerusalem temple where God restricted the NATIONAL animal sacrifices.

The temple had no Godly purpose. The musical warrior Levites made a great crashing sound when the priests were slaughtering and burning thousands of innocent animals. The people were EXCLUDED when the SOUND began and if in the area they had better be worshiping in the sense of fall on their face. This is the LITERAL meaning of worship. This bowing to God is now done in the NEW PLACE of the human spirit which is the Most Holy Place where God meets us through prayer and the Word--just like the synagogue. NO MUSIC IN SCHOOL, children.

There was no praise service in the synagogue assemblies (redundant statement.). Not the temple but the courts had always been the focus of community life in Jerusalem. If you wanted to sell a sick lamb you went to the temple court. If you wanted to expound on some issue you went to the courts as "city square." They probably had shoe shine boys, prostitutes, food peddlars and tourist guides. After the destruction of the temple the synagogues outside of Jerusalem became more important as a daily gathering place. You could come and go and even speak if the "presiding elder" gave you permission. You could find a rabbi to teach you more about the law or the fine points of Jewish tradition. Jews still meet at the wailing wall but no one is "preacher, song leader or prayer leader." People pray for themselves, you know, unless someone prays for God to work with you.

Of course, there were no altars. In the link above we can see that it could serve as a modern church or assembly place: except the women sat by themselves. Sacrifices with its attendant instrumental noise was integral to animal sacrifices, Jerusalem and the temple. This would be like holding Senate in Washington, USA. If someone defeats the country there is no need for the Senate to meet and therefore no ceremonies.

Paul in describing "teaching" or "preaching" the inspired literature defined the method of singing in the synagogue.

Jesus didn't call it a holy place except as originally agreed to by God at the dedication of the first temple. The temple, for the congregation, was a focal point or place toward which still-carnal people could direct their prayers. Then, God would hear from heaven. As a "house of prayer" it had no role because the common people could not enter.

Again, the temple was capital of the Jewish State. Its rituals were "state rituals" for the king, clergy and representatives of the people. The common people who made sacrifices were permitted to do so after the state or national sacrifices with the instrumental sounding finished and the gates were again opened for them.

The Herodian Temple was again the centre of Israelite life. It was not only the focus of religious ritual but also the repository of the Holy Scriptures and other national literature and the meeting place of the Sanhedrin, the highest court of Jewish law during the Roman period.

I might need to look up a birth record but I would not endorse whatever "religious ritual" the functionaries of the Civil State concocted. The Saducees were in charge of the Temple and civil government and the priesthood was bought as "highest bidders." The entire system was center of pollution and would shortly be torn down for the final time.

We have shown that when Jesus was teaching in the temple courts that was because THAT'S WHERE THE PEOPLE WERE. At the same time the CLERGY was not involved in musical worship but of seeking to destroy Jesus.

Most instrumentalists want to have Paul worship like a Jew when He said that He worshiped according to the "Way." They appeal to Paul's visits to the temple to prove that he worshiped with and approved instrumental worship. If so then he approved of animal sacrifices which were intimately tied to instruments: end one and you end the other.

I have done an extensive review of this false charge and you can find it beginning here. There are several sections and the blue links at the bottom of the pages define what each paper covers. Begin by clicking here.

It certainly helps if you can READ those words in black text on white paper.  No Jews who had grown up around the synagogue or school of the Bible or no Gentile who was familira with pagan musical "worship" would have had any NEED to speak against that which no moral person ever participated in.  They didn't do a diatribe against ritual prostitution either.

The "Jewish" heritage would inform anyone that only mature males from the tribe of Levi could serve as Levites. Only descendants of Aaron could serve as priests. Even today, Rabbis want to be "Kohans" to be authentic. Anyone not of this tribe would be instantly killed if they tried to enter the holy precincts of the temple. That was true even when there was a sacrificial system left where the Levites served the Priests who "bore the burdens" for the people. The Levites did not serve God but the temple state.

The Warrior Levites served the priests which means HARD BONDAGE. God had quarantined this LIKE THE NATION'S WORSHIP to Jerusalem--an old Jebusite High Place and seat of continuing idolatry under Solomon--by restricting sacrifices to the temple. The temple, in turn, had been given to David as an ALTERNATE altar because he was too fearful of God to return to Gibeon.

When the temple was destroyed any Jewish schoolboy understood that there was NO LEGITIMATE role for "musical noise" to play. We know for a fact that Dunning's MUSICAL JEWS hung up their harps and did not add instruments into a liberal, German synagogue until the year 1815. Then, as always, the instrument divided the congregaton and a law suit was filed and a new, liberal synagogue was built. They had to hire a Gentile organist because it was always UNLAWFUL for them to play instruments on the seventh day Sabbath. Click to read the story. The synagogue was a gathering for those following the prophets and the prophets CONDEMN music as worship.

Ezekiel claims that when the Levites took on priestly roles as priests and musicians in Israel (Gerezim covered by Amos) they helped destroy the total nation. In Ezekiel 40f he describes an "idealized teample" where the Levites are demoted from their clergy roles and again made servants. Josephus records this and when the Levites again wanted to don the linen garments and be restored as singers to give glory to the king and court, Josepus again warned them they they would again destroy the nation and they did.

6. Now as many of the Levites, (26) which is a tribe of ours, as were singers of hymns, persuaded the king to assemble a sanhedrim, and to give them leave to wear linen garments, as well as the priests

for they said that this would be a work worthy the times of his government, that he might have a memorial of such a novelty, as being his doing.

Nor did they fail of obtaining their desire; for the king, with the suffrages of those that came into the sanhedrim, granted the singers of hymns this privilege, that they might lay aside their former garments,

and wear such a linen one as they desired; and as a part of this tribe ministered in the temple,he also permitted them to learn those hymns as they had besought him for.

Now all this was contrary to the laws of our country, which, whenever they have been transgressed, we have never been able to avoid the punishment of such transgressions.

See the Catholic Restoration of the Levitical singers

When the Jews lost their city, temple and animal sacrifices they automatically stopped using "instruments of noise" because they never had any role to play in the personal worship of the people as congregation.

Dwaine E. Dunning: Although Psalm 137 tells us neither voices nor instruments were raised in song during the Babylonian captivity, this was obviously as a device to show that the Jews at that time mourned the loss of their temple and homeland. The songs of Zion were heard again after those captives returned home to Zion

Isreal's temple worship was "like the nations" because that is what the elders demanded and what God permitted when they "fired" Him as King.

They mourned for their city and temple because they viewed it as unlawful to make the instrumental noises during animal sacrifices outside of the city. When they returned and tore down houses to build a wall, this was seen as a treat to those who remained in the land. When the returning Jews "mounted" the walls with levitical musicians this created joy in some but sorrow in others. This created such a disturbance that the temple restoration was delayed about 14 years. Again, Nehemiah's reforms repeated David's plague-stopping ritual and by his authority. Furthermore, they added the temple musicians which represented the king and commanders of the army and civil leadership. The "congregation" did now worship with instruments.

Jesus said that truth had been revealed in parables from the foundation of the world. This was to hide the truth from the professional RETAILERS who would take credit for the prophecies. The willow connected to the hung harp points directly to ORPHEUS worship because he is the father of musical, charismatic (homosexual) worship. God had restricted the sacrifices to Jerusalem and condemned the outlying altars because things can get out of control when people get intoxicated over slaughter of animals. Music at those sacrifices would have rapidly destroyed the nation and it finally did.

Dunning can get no mileage out of this unless he is willing to SACRIFICE Jesus all over again and assuredly sacrifice the harmony Jesus prayed for based on His WORDS.

Click to read some background on the willow tree at the river which carries the message of DIVINING or ENCHANTING by the use of the harp.

Kabar or Chebar is derived from:

Chabar (h2266) khaw-bar'; a prim. root; to join (lit. or fig.); spec. (by means of spells) to fascinate: - charm (-er), be compact, couple (together), have fellowship with, heap up, join (self, together), league.

Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. Ho.4:17

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Psa 58:4

Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely. Ps.58:5

Dwaine E. Dunning: That Jewish culture was full of use of musical instruments is indicated by translating the titles of Hebrew Psalms (the psalms of the Old Testament). Several of these psalms were written to popular airs of that day. Other titles show a profusion of "set pieces," or recognized musical forms, and an almost bewildering profusion of instruments available in those days. In the psalms we read of praising God with three different kinds of harps, with trumpets, with flutes, and an impressive array of percussion instruments.

We have collected all of the Psalms including singing or instruments. Most of the Psalms were to be sung which means to be SAID or SPOKEN and not "musicated" which would mark them as a male or female prostitute. Those with named instruments all have destructive meanings. We have color coded the Psalms which include:

The blue text below indicates psalms which are from a person seemingly lost and often calling down God's judgment upon the enemy -- often personal enemies. The bold black text shows that these are redundant. For instance, Psalm 33 includes both the psaltery and timbrel. The psaltery meaning vile and the timbrel a woman's instrument. The timbrel was not allowed in the temple. Other colors indicate a processionals, new moons, symbolic, vengeance, arousal or awakening the harp, fear of being cast off, historical warning, prophetic.

NONE of them relate to the WORSHIP of the people. You should understand that the Psalms are a poetic version which fits with the first five books of the Old Testament. Thise were composed to TEACH the people and not used by the effeminate in AROUSAL rituals. This is why restricted them to SPEAKING, TEACHING or ADMONISHING and excludes EXTERNAL singing (an arousal practice) and melody (a warfare concept which must be contained).

There is no word for "musical" in the Old Testament outside of paganism. The operative word is "sounding" to make a great, crashing noise during animal sacrifices. The Psalms were praises or prayers. They were written as personal, poetic expression. Only much later did they receive the musical notations at the headings. Even today, we sing them with a new musical notation but our song books are not inspired.

Dwaine E. Dunning: It might well be noted that all three families of instruments (percussion, string, and brass) had their origin by divine command. This is made clear in Psalm 81. Lest any reader should think what the psalm says might indicate that use of these instruments was David's idea, we note that three distinct words are use there to indicate that it was by God's express command. Thus we see that the early church, composed so largely of former Jews, had a number of excellent reasons to favor their own use of musical instruments, and no stated reason to oppose or restrict their use. If they chose to not use musical instruments at home or in assemblies, the inspired Word makes no mention of that fact.

It takes a lot of "medicine" to cure the notion that Psalm 81 proves that God commanded instrumental music. Therefore, we direct you to this article.

Look at what the passage really says:

First: That which was invented by David:

Psalm 81: 1 Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
Psalm 81: 2 Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre.

Second: that which was commanded by God for the festivals and new moons. We have abandoned that by being in Christ:

Psalm 81: 3 Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast;
Psalm 81: 4 this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.

Like all pagans who worshipped the sun, moon and 'wandering stars' or planets, this was the way that it was done.  However, if they wanted to do paganism they thought that God wanted it.
We have noted that God abandoned the national worship to Astrial deity worship: the stars, moon and planets. This is what they wanted and what God gave the.  However, the national sacrifices were not remotely related to the conscience or spirit. Therefore, Paul tells Dunning not to do that or you will be lost:

Col 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was AGAINST us, which was CONTRARY to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Col 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Dwaine E. Dunning: God had commanded Israel to use musical instruments. Their culture was full of them. Their temple worship included musical instruments. We wonder why anyone would think that Jewish Christians might have scrupled against use by the church of musical instruments.

Well, Jews before they became Christians had not worshiped with singing and musical instrument. The least educated knew that this was a civil-temple ritual just like the other nations. Again, the people were excluded "outside the camp" when the instrumental SOUNDING rather than music sent out the noise which could be heard all over Jerusalem.

If NONE of the Jews had scruples one wonders why they made no issue about instrumental music. Paul's correctives against instruments is directed to the pagains: Orphics and Dionysics.

Dwaine E. Dunning: On the contrary, when circumstances became favorable, there's every reason to suppose Christians who had formerly been Jews would expect to make use of what they were normally used to in expressing praise to God. The early church could not build church buildings where bulky or expensive musical instruments might have been stored and used. Meetings were normally held in homes or rented public buildings when it was safe for them to be seen to be meeting.

History disputes this. There were no bulky instruments designed for "church buildings." Lots of people had harps or twanged on bows or blew bone flutes or ram's horns, beat on brass pans or suspended planks or twirled bull roarers. Everyone could afford an instrument and the small children could transport them to the "church house." Clement and the other writers speak of personal instruments and the Classics indicate that an instrument would be part of a school boy's resources. When church buildings became available they were much like synagogues. They were "family life centers" or schools for prayer and study. The synagogue, like many early churches, was open and busy about every day in later times.

MARTYR, Justin "Simply singing is not agreeable to children (Jews), but singing with lifeless instruments and with dancing and clapping is. On this account the use of this kind of instruments and of others agreeable to children is removed from the songs of the churches,  and there is left remaining simply singing." (Justin Martyr, 139 AD)

MARTYR The use of music was not received in the Christian churches, as it was among the Jew, in their infant state, but only the use of plain song." (Justin Martyr, 139 AD)

"Justinus , he observes, saith that the use of instruments was granted to the Jews for their imperfection, and that therefore such instruments have no place in the church. We [Bellarmin and the Catholics] confess indeed that the use of musical instruments agreeth not alike with the perfect and the imperfect, and that therefore they began but of late to be admitted into the church. Belarmin lived from 1542 to 1621." (George Girardeau, p. 65)

So, it might have been but wasn't because these were spiritual believers and knew that instruments were for children as Jesus indicated when He implicated the grown up Jews with being pipe-playing children just hopping around in the market places.

Dwaine E. Dunning: Since the earliest Christians had been Jews, and since non-Jews were not evangelized in early years of church history, it's harder to analyze the effect on the early church of Greek and Roman religious and cultural influences. But it is known that Greeks used flutes much as the Israelites used harps, as accompaniment for almost any event or experience

One Hebrew word is translated into "trim your vine" (see the Branch as singing with instruments), take your inheritance, play the flute, pollute and prostitute. The flute is connected to the FLUTE-GIRLS which meant prostitutes or flute-boy which meant a sodomite. The concept of 'don't get drunk with wine' is seen in many Greek versions as "don't get FLUTED DOWN or PIPED DOWN with wine." The flute-girls or boys played the flute without which it was hard to really get drunk. If the homosexual symposia wanted to discuss some issue they sent the flute-girl away because she would cause them to drink too much for rational discourse. The flute-girls were then abused by the STRAIGHT while the males were sodomites.

Galli or Click Here

singular GALLUS, priests, often temple attendants or wandering mendicants, of the ancient Asiatic deity, the Great Mother of the Gods, known as Cybele, or Agdistis, in Greek and Latin literature. The galli were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.

Together with priestesses, they celebrated the Great Mother's rites with wild music and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration, or exhaustion. Self-emasculation by candidates for the priesthood sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship.

The name galli may be Phrygian, from the two streams called Gallus, both tributaries of the Sangarius (now Sakarya) River, the waters of which were said to inspire religious frenzy.

Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 1 Co.11:14

but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 1 Cor 11:15

There is nothing good that Dunning can find from flute music among the Greeks. For instance, most of the "gods and goddesses" and their "ministers" were homosexual. However, the end-blown flute was so unseemly that Athene is said to have cast it away. The minstrels who wanted to perform for the dead girl were fearful of the dead and needed to appease her as indeed the music recorded by Amos 5 an Isaiah 5 were the Marzeah which was a musical "festival for and with the dead." This was demon worship. Jesus cast the flute players or minstrels out "more or less violently" as one EJECTS DUNG. Fittingly, in Athens, the officials who administered the flute-girls meaning prostitutes also regulated the dung heap and the cemetary.

Many of the musical terms and names of instruments are Greek. The Greek influence was largely from Egypt where the Israelites learned their musical idolatry continued even at Mount Sinai. However, this is whistling in the cemetary because it has nothing to do with what they did "in church." And history is absolutely complete that except when in open warfare with the Arians they sang their own propoganda with lyres there was no instrumental music in the churches because there was no role for music to play in the history of God's dealing with mankind. Noise or sounding is not music.

Dwaine E. Dunning: Harps were the 1st-century guitars. The word guitar is derived from an earlier musical instrument available to early Christians called a "kithara." Those smaller and portable instruments were no less common then than guitars now are. But they were not the instrument of choice for formal occasions. We are not aware of any Greek or Roman influence which would have opposed use by Christians of musical instruments.

No one with approval uses instrumental music AS worship in the entire Bible. You simply cannot have ever read the Word with "feeling" and not grasped the universal homosexual connection even wandering around the temple. The historical scholars associate instrumental music, 100% of the time, with pagan, sexual or homosexual worship festivals.

"Hebrew music... was used in the luxurious times of the later monarchy the effeminate gallants of israel, reeking with perfumes, and stretched upon their couches of ivory, were wont at their banquets to accompany the song with the tinkling of the psaltery or guitar (Am. v1. 4-6), and amused themselves with devising musical instruments while their nation was perishing... music was the legitimate expression of mirth and gladness, and the indication of peace and prosperity." (Smith's, Music, p. 590).

The entire pagan use of instrumental music as a "mind-altering" weapon to collect money for the "fat-heads and simpletons" by, as Lucian says, "playing a flute" and making the fools believe that it was "worship." Blowing the flute would make the "fat heads and simpletons" give up their money. Take a look at a pattern for modern "musical symposia."

The Didascallia was an ancient document of those who called themselves THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. I have an a.d. 205 version called the Apostolic Constitutions for your edification if YOU cannot find anything. An actor or guitar player could not be a member of the church of Christ. Only after long repentance could they enjoy fellowship.

Thee thanks through Christ,

who has given us an articulate voice to confess withal,
and added to it a suitable tongue as an instrument to modulate withal,
and a proper taste, and a suitable touch, and a sight for contemplation,

and the hearing of sounds, and the smelling of vapours, and hands for work, and feet for walking.

And all these members dost Thou form from a little drop in the womb;

and after the formation dost Thou bestow on it an immortal soul,
and producest it into the light as a rational creature, even man.

The Greek resources and word definitions along with the Bible connects the rhetoricials, sOPHISts (serpents), singers and musicians as practicing SORCERY. Because they produce nothing either good or lasting but create gender-bleed in the victims, they were called PARASITES. If one

(1) come, whether it be man or woman, or charioteer, or dueller, or racer, or player of prizes, or Olympic gamester, or one that plays on the pipe, on the lute, or on the harp at those games, or a dancing-master or an huckster,

(2) either let them leave off their employments, or let them be rejected. If a soldier come, let him be taught to "do no injustice, to accuse no man falsely, and to be content with his allotted wages:"

(3) if he submit to those rules, let him be received; but if he refuse them, let him be rejected. He that is guilty of sins not to be named, a sodomite, an effeminate person, a magician, an enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, an user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, one that makes amulets, a charmer, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, an observer of palmistry; he that, when he meets you, observes defects in the eyes or feet of the birds or cats, or noises, or symbolical sounds.

The Greek and Roman culture would have delighted if Christians used musical instruments. In fact, Romans 14 shows how to remove the conflict between groups which had come out of the two major pagan, instrumental music sects. The way to create unity for the assembly time or meal fellowship time would be to "speak what had been revealed" with "one mouth."

In fact, when instruments were added it was not Bible influence as the Catholic Encyclopedia proves, but the pagan culture from which they plucked music, candles, fans and lots of other idols.

Dwaine E. Dunning: However, when we come to the influence of philosophy, there are two immediate and very strong elements of opposition. They should be considered. 1) GNOSTICISM, already much on the scene during the time of the apostles, opposed anything of physical (material) nature since this was contrary to what was "spiritual." Gnostics might have opposed Christian use of musical instruments with the claim that such instruments were not spiritual but rather were physical.   Some "Gnostics" today do so, apparently not aware that they are thinking like Gnostics rather than Christians

Well, Dunning just fabricates what he wants on that one. It was JESUS who walked on the sand and didn't leave tracks. The Gnostics have their true origin in EVE who was wholly seduced in sexual terms in order to KNOW whatever it was that God knew. The serpent was not a snake but a Musical Enchanter. The product was Cain (from a musical note) who fathered Jubal or "Jubilee" and the enchanting crew.

The Gnostics sought to KNOW by some mystical connection with the gods or their EXPERIENCES. Music was peddled as the "house" of the gods or the voice of the Gods. Sophia as the Mother of the Gods and Zoe were the feminist opponents to the masculine Godhead. The evidence is very clear in contradicting Dunning.

Click for the first document and then the second for the belief that Zoe was the mother-sister of the little ignorant 'jehovah.' He was forced to form a Musical Worship Team in order to worship Sophia and Zoe. Zoe was known as the BEAST and "female instructing principle." In the Greek Eve is called ZOE.

The "shows" were often obscene and any spiritual person would not attend them. However, eating and sexual intercourse and boxing and horse racing were features they opposed. None of these were suitable for spiritual worship by any enlightened person.

"We know the Gnostics used sexual practices to bind the flesh and the divine together (Rev. 2:20). In most ancient pagan religions the act of procreation was a mystery (often a musical drama); they thought fornication and in some instances homosexuality linked them to the world of the gods. Apparently, this sexual aspect of Gnosticism was incorporated with Jezebel's teaching which Jesus condemned (Rev. 3:20). The apostle Peter was aware of this problem." (Trombley, p. 176).

"Ephesus was famous for its shrine of Diana, where thousands of sacred prostitutes believed fornication brought believers into contact with deity in much the same way the Gnostics used authentia (authority) to bind the flesh and the divine together.

When these women converted to Christianity they had to unlearn these pagan practices. 'Virtually without exception, female teachers among the Greeks were courtesans, such as Aspasia, who numbered Socrates and Pericles among her students. Active in every major school of philosophy, these hetairai made it evident in the course of their lectures that they were available afterwards for a second occupation. But the Bible teaches that to seduce men in such a manner was indeed to lead them to slaughter and the halls of death (cf. Prov. 2:18; 5:5; 6:27; 9:18). The verb authentein is thus peculiarly apt to describe both the erotic and murderous." (Trombley, p. 177).

This was the sexual authority which is exercised any time any women stands over or "preaches with a tune" in church. You simply cannot get around the simple fact of fallen mankind.

Musical training was used by the Greeks along with athletics to train students. However, the general view that theatrical performers (their Hollywood Star system) was that actually "performing" instrumental music was the work of a slave or a prostitute. From the Ancient Near Eastern Texts downward, musical skills and sexual perversion were "gifts of the gods." This god or demon (fish/man) was Ea. His name is equivalent to Lamech who was the pre-flood father of the musicians, warriors and prostitutes. Therefore, temple singers were "the harem of the gods."

On the contrary, Gnosis does not mean learned knowledge but experienced knowledge. The kind of "knowledge" which comes with the "fleshly feelings" during instrumental and vocal performance becomes a "learned response."

When the instrument plays
I "feel" and therefore "know."
When the instrument plays we, like Pavlov's dog, just salivate.
This machine-induced feeling has higher authority than the Word of God.

The Vineyard movement and the rise of "musical worship teams" is modern Gnosticism. Some claim to "lead the worshipers into the presence of God" and others claim that "we are mediators between man and God." All charismatic effects including music is Gnosticism.

Dwaine E. Dunning: Both Paul and John vigorously opposed Gnostic thought. This philosophy was founded on a notion which forced anyone who accepted it to deny that Jesus had come "in the flesh." Their position was that since flesh is material, flesh is evil and cannot be spiritual. So if Jesus was actually in the flesh, then He was not God and was not good. There is a strong overtone of this ancient and corrosive doctrine in an insistence that musical instruments, being material, must inhibit spirituality if they are used in our assemblies.   The same "logic" argues against Christian use of musical instruments at any time for any purpose. Thus, although influences from Jewish and Greek and Roman religions and culture favored use of musical instruments, in the introduction of Gnosticism we see a strongly negative influence which might possibly account for opposition to use of musical instruments by some Christians.

Was John and Paul then in error for opposing Gnostic influences?

Where is the glory and power of God? It is gone. So, what are they doing about the loss? Some are re-imagining God as Sophia, Gnostic goddess of wisdom. Certainly she can empower them!? Hardly. 1 Corinthians 3:19 "For the wisdom (4678 - sophia) of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness."

Like the witch of Endor whose instrument or "familiar spirit" was an old wine or water skin, not everyone could be a god manipulator. Therefore, not all instruments were homes of the gods or demons. The evidence is well documented that the FLUTE-GIRLS were prostitutes. ANY male who would both sing and play an instrument was MARKED as drunk or a Sodomite who did double duty a the Symposia.

There was no such thing as musical harmony other than singing in octaves. One wo RECITED homer would never use an instrument. That is until the LESBIAN women introduced both a tune and instruments and thereby dishonored Homer as musicians dishonor God. Even so, a MELODY which does not speak of HARMONY might consist of three or four notes. One CHANTED one note and sustained it with the same note on the harp. "Melody as tunefulness belongs to the 19th century." Britannica.

Most pagan religions flowed out of Persia and into the Middle East.

"In nomadic encampments music emphasized every event in man's life, embellished social meetings, incited the warriors, encouraged the desert traveler, and exhorted the pilgrims to the black stone of the Ka'bah (in Mecca), a holy shrine even in pre-Islamic times. Among the earliest songs were the huda' from which the ghina' derived, the nasb, sanad, rukbani, and the hazaj, a dancing song. In the markets of the Arabs, particularly the fair at the western Arabian town of 'Ukaz, competitions of poetry and musical performances were held periodically, attracting the most distinguished poet-musicians. Their music, more sophisticated than that practiced in the nomadic encampments, was related to that of the qaynat ("singing girls"), who performed at court, in noble households, and in scattered taverns.

Cultural contact with Byzantium was strong in the kingdom of Ghassan, where, in the 7th century, five Byzantine qaynat were known to have performed songs of their homeland at court. The culture of the other Arabic kingdom of al-Hirah under the Lakhmid dynasty was closely connected with that of Persia under the pre-Islamic Sasanian empire. The Sasanians esteemed both secular and religious music. In the belief of the Mazdak sect (a dualistic Persian religion related to Manichaeanism, a Gnostic religion), music was considered as one of the four spiritual powers.

In the king's entourage musicians occupied high rank. Some became famous, such as Barbad, to whom is attributed the invention of the complicated pre-Islamic system of modes. The compositions of Barbad, who became a model of artistic achievement in Arabic literature, survived at least until the 10th century. Britannica On Line Members

However, we know that even the modern DEVIL WORSHIPERS in Iraqu use music even though Islam denounces it.

Certainly, all pagan religions favored musical instruments.

"Knowing for the Gnostic went beyond mental recall; it meant active reunion with one's divine source through all kinds of ecstatic experience--dreams, visions, speaking in tongues, etc. In this return to the divine source, one is liberated from the bodily prison." (Roetzel, Calvin J., The Letters of Paul, John Knox Press, Atlanta, p. 83

"In all types of Gnosticism the highest goal of the spiritual life is the obtaining of divine substance for oneself. The Christian faith distinguishes itself from this seemingly devout but actually selfish piety by locating the focus of Christian life

not in the accumulating of spirituality or spirit for oneself,
but more mundanely, in giving oneself to the neighbor.

In Gnosticism the goal of spiritual life is the emptying of oneself in order to be filled with divine substance--it is vertical;
in the Christian faith the goal is the emptying of oneself for the human neighbor--it is horizontal.
This difference of directions in energy determines the difference in types of evidence. Special 'spiritual experience' (gnosis) 'puffs up,' but Christian love 'builds up' (1 Cor. 8:1b)." (Bruner, p. 275)

When people believed that their instrumental skills are a supernatural gift, and when musical teams compose their own songs they do so to replace the Psalms of God. They learned that from the Gnostic:

"In Gnostic circles religious poetry arose to compete with the Old Testament Psalms. Some Catholics therefore distrusted the composition of hymns after this pattern, on the ground that they might smack of heresy. Yet from at least the second century hymns were written by the orthodox which, like their Gnostic counterparts, employed the forms of Greek poetry... Until near the end of the fourth century, in the services of the Catholic Church only the Old Testament Psalms and the hymns or canticles from the New Testament were sung:

the other hymns were for personal, family, or private use. Gradually there were prepared versical paraphrases of the Psalms, hymns with lines of equal length, and hymns which were acrostic." (Latourette, p. 207).

"But considerable prominence was given to the hymns by the Gnostic, Bardesans, who composed a psalter of 150 psalms. However, the 59th canon of the Synod of Laodicea, 360 A. D., enjoined that

'No psalm composed by private individuals nor any uncanonical books may be read in the Church, but only... the Canonical Books of the OT and NT." Int Std Ency., p. 2494A

Because the most backward could understand Paul to say SPEAK and the prescribe "that which is written" or the Word of Christ, there would be NO PLACE for instruments.

To Ephraim pertains the high and unique distinction of having originated-or at least given its living impulse to-a new departure in sacred literature; and that, not for his own country merely, but for Christendom.

From him came, if not the first idea, at all events the first successful example,
of making song an essential constituent of public worship,
and an exponent of theological teaching;
and from him it spread and prevailed through the Eastern Churches, and affected even those of the West.

To the Hymns, on which chiefly his fame rests, the Syriac ritual in all its forms owes much of its strength and richness;

and to them is largely due the place which Hymnody holds throughout the Church everywhere.

And hence it has come to pass that, in the Church everywhere, he stands as the representative Syrian Father, as the fixed epithet appended to his name attests-" Ephraim the Syrian,"-the one Syrian known and reverenced in all Christendom.

Open warfare errupted with the Arians and others invented their own songs and paraded through the streets with lyres. This was not a worship service.

b. AD 329,, Caesarea Mazaca, Cappadocia

d. Jan. 1, 379, Caesarea; Western feast day January 2; Eastern feast day January 1

Basil, detail of a mosaic, 12th century; in the Palatine Chapel, Palermo

"In competition with pagan musical art, congregational singing began to wane. Basil states that he had 'the Psalms rendered by skillful presentors after the manner of the triumphal Odes of Pindar, the congregation joining at the closing verse, with the accompaniment of lyres." Int Std Bible Ency., p. 2494A

"Psalmody thus came to be increasingly the monoply of trained singers, and the 15th canon of the Council of Laodicea, 360 AD, proscribed that 'no others shall sing in the church save only the canonical singers...who go up into the ambo and sing with a book." (Int Std Bible Ency, Psalms, p. 2494a)

 

A good example is Psalm 150 where many instruments are named. However, some of them were not permitted in the temple. And the Psalmists demands that "everything that has breath" should praise God. Now, we know that a harp does not have breath or spirit or soul. So, might we not conclude that Psalm 150 is allegorical much like trees praising God because the Israelite "fellers" had been removed because of musical idolatry. Or how about trees clapping their hands.

Dunning cannot find ANY evidence to back up his claim. In a well-documented sense instruments were not permanent in churches until the 13th century. These were placed in the cathedrals and were used by the professionals. With ten fingers they discovered early forms of HARMONY. As late as the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia instruments could not be performed in the Sistine chapel. This was the Pope's chapel and the TRUE worship outside of the Mass was, like among the Jews and all national states, for the LEADERSHIP. If you could not play an organ in the presence of the Pope then how could you attempt to worship the TRUE Christ with instruments?

Poems tend to be poetic.

If you want to keep in touch with reality you wil see Psalm 137 as a poem and not a literal command of God:

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Jesus never spoke to the masses except in parables in order to fool the fools. Do you believe that He literally meant to pluck out our literal eyball when it lookst lustfully at Sister Singers "standing in the holy place" singing their own composition? Then, Jesus allowed for only two such sins. How can you understand Jesus and not understand the figurative meaning. Do we drink the literal blood and eat the litera flesh of the literal Jesus? Are we to be cannabals?

Being a scholar, Clement understood that that the "serpent" image in the garden of Eden was the Naga Adepts. Ezekiel 31 calls Assyria the "tallest Tree" in Eden. He also knew that the names of Jubal, Jabal, Tubal-Cain and Naamah spoke of the musical warriors and, according to Josephus, Naamah was the enchantress. Just like today, musical performers claim to be inspired which means that their messages are from God, the "world's oldest profession" was not the prostitute but the prophets who, like those God sent as a sign to Saul, would conjure you up instructions from the "gods" which spoke from their istruments.

"And every improper sight and sound, to speak in a word, and every shameful sensation of licentiousness&emdash;which, in truth, is privation of sensation--must by all means be excluded; and we must be on our guard against whatever pleasure titillates eye and ear, and effeminates. For the various spells of the broken strains and plaintive numbers of the Carian muse corrupt men's morals, drawing to pertubation of mind, by the licentious and mischievous art of music." (Clement of Alexandria, Instructor, Eerdmans, p. 248)

Chapter XIII.-Origin of Idolatry. Also See The Sons of God.

"But when all these things were done, men turned again to impiety; [There is a similar chapter in Homily IX. 7, but in a discourse: on the following day.-R.] and on this account a law was given by God to instruct them in the manner of living.

But in process of time, the worship of God and righteousness were corrupted by the unbelieving and the wicked, as we shall show more fully by and by.

Moreover, perverse and erratic religions were introduced, to which the greater part of men gave themselves up,

by occasion of holidays and solemnities, instituting drinkings and banquets,
following pipes, and flutes, and harps, and diverse kinds of musical instruments, and indulging themselves in all kinds of drunkenness and luxury.Hence every kind of error took rise; hence they invented groves and altars, fillets and victims, and after drunkenness they were agitated as if with mad emotions.

By this means power was given to the demons to enter into minds of this sort, so that they seemed to lead insane dances and to rave like Bacchanalians; hence were invented the gnashing of teeth, and bellowing from the depth of their bowels; hence a terrible countenance and a fierce aspect in men, so that he whom drunkenness had subverted and a demon had instigated, was believed by the deceived and the erring to be filled with the Deity.

These aren't myths but actual, extant documents. See how Nimrod used his female worship team to do what Lamech's family had done before the flood. Alexandria had about 50,000 documents from all over the world. Unfortunately, most were destroyed but tablets have been discovered which begin about the time of the flood.

Chapter XVII.-On the Saying of the Saviour, "All that Came Before Me Were Thieves and Robbers."

Hermes: Born with the dawning, at mid-day he played on the lyre, and in the evening he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo on the fourth day of the month; for on that day queenly Maia bare him.

When Zeus had an affair with Mnemosyne, he coupled with her for nine consecutive nights, which produced nine daughters, who became known as the Muses.

They entertained their father and the other gods as a celestial choir on Mount Olympus.
They became deities of intellectual pursuits. Also the three Charites or Graces were born from Zeus and Eurynome. From all his children Zeus gave man all he needed to live life in an ordered and moral way.

Hermes, the herald of the Olympian gods, is son of Zeus and the nymph Maia, daughter of Atlas and one of the Pleiades.

Hermes is also the god of shepherds, land travel, merchants, weights and measures, oratory, literature, athletics and thieves,

and known for his cunning and shrewdness.
He was also a minor patron of poetry.
He was worshiped throughout Greece especially in Arcadia. Festivals in honor of Hermes were called Hermoea.

Originally Hermes was a phallic god, being attached to fertility and good fortune, and also a patron of roads and boundaries. His name coming from herma, the plural being hermaiherm was a square or rectangular pillar in either stone or bronze, with the head of Hermes (usually with a beard), which adorned the top of the pillar, and male genitals near to the base of the pillar.

The offspring of Hermes are believed to be Pan, Abderus and Hermaphroditus. Hermes as with the other gods had numerous affairs with goddesses, nymphs and mortals. In some legends even sheep and goats. Pan, the half man half goat, is believed to be the son of Hermes and Dryope,

Clement never permitted any instrument in the assembly: he spoke clearly of private feasts where only the lyre was permitted in the homes where friends might be gathered. This is because of the universal understanding that music INCITES to wrath and lust.

Yes. Man can be "alarmed" or "brought to attention" by certain sounds created by a machine. The silver trumpets were given to be like "P.A. Systems" to signal perhaps 3 million people when and how to move, attack and panic the enemy or rejoice over the defeated enemy. These trumpets and the loud rejoicing could not be used to "panic" the congregation when they assembled which was only for instruction (Num. 10:7).

Judas would try to triumph over Jesus with this instrumenta and vocal rejoicing which was mocking. When the people assembled they did not "teach and admonish with a musical band" but the human voice driven by the human heart is the only instrument which has breath or spirit and can therefore speak God's message. Clement understand that poems are poetic and that bashing out baby's heads could not be literal and noted:

Therefore He cried to humanity, "Let every breath praise the Lord," because He cares for every breathing thing which He hath made.

For man is truly a pacific instrument;
while other instruments, if you investigate, you will find to be warlike, inflaming to lusts, or kindling up amours, or rousing wrath.

In their wars, therefore, the Etruscans use the trumpet, the Arcadians the pipe, the Sicilians the pectides, the Cretans the lyre, the Lacedaemonians the flute, the Thracians the horn, the Egyptians the drum, and the Arabians the cymbal.

The one instrument of peace, the Word alone by which we honour God, is what we employ.

We no longer employ the ancient psaltery, and trumpet, and timbrel, and flute,
which those expert in war and contemners of the fear of God were wont to make use of also in the choruses at their festive assemblies; that by such strains they might raise their dejected minds.

And what is the choir which plays? The Spirit will show thee: "Let His praise be in the congregation (church) of the saints; let them be joyful in their King." ( Ps. cxlix. 1, 2.) And again he adds, "The Lord will take pleasure in His people." ( Ps. clxix. 4.)

Editor's Note: [Observe the contrast between the modest harmonies he praises, and the operatic strains he censures. Yet modern Christians delight in these florid and meretricious compositions, and they have intruded into the solemnities of worship. In Europe, dramatic composers of a sensual school have taken possession of the Latin ceremonial.]

For temperate harmonies are to be admitted; but we are to banish as far as possible from our robust mind those liquid harmonies, which, through pernicious arts in the modulations of tones,

train to effeminacy and scurrility.

But grave and modest strains say farewell to the turbulence of drunkenness. \
Chromatic (progression of semitones) harmonies are therefore

to be abandoned to immodest revels, and to florid and meretricious music.

1. Not even the "goddess" Athene would blow the flute because it was usually "set and engraved" as a phallic symbol. Looked about like the boys and girls "standing in the holy place" with microphones designed like the phallus. If horses can be "seduced" with wind instrument attacking the "business end" nerve endings don't you suppose that an instrumentalist can do that "in church." The pagan priestesses knew that and therefore 'music' is a pagan practice associated with prostitution even in the Bible. Does Dwaine E. Dunning approve what would be appropriate only for animals.

2. The sistrum was Miriam's instrument. Miriam was a prophetess of Hathor, the female cow counterpart to Osiris represented by the golden calf. The Israelites rose up to play and this was musical idolatry. We are told that all of the Israelites brought their abominations with them from Egypt. Miriam was no exception. However, God made sure that we could grasp that Miriam was not a "prophetess" with the power to speak for Jehovah God by afflicting her with leprosy for making the claim that she was that kind of prophetess.

"Hathor leaves the sacrificial cycle to Isis and Osiris and despite being liable to volatile emotions remains the loving creatress. "The gods play the sistrum for Hathor, the goddesses dance for her to dispel her bad temper." As the joyful Goddess of fertility, dance, song and inebriety Hathor personifies - sex drugs and rock and roll - the very spirit and energy of the modern age. Her festival of inebriety was no mere drunken debauchery, but a state of ecstasy engendered in honour of the goddess - pacifying her and the participants alike .

We gladden Thy majesty daily

And Thy heart rejoices when Thou hearest our songs

We rejoice when we behold thee

Every day, every day.

 

For thou art the mistress of jubilation

the mistress of music, the queen of harp-playing,

whose face shines each day,

who knows no sorrow.

 

Our hearts are uplifted by the sight of thy majesty.

For thou art the possessor of the garland of flowers,

the leader of the choral dance

The bestower of inebriety (exhilaration) that knows no end!

3. The Bible also recognizes musical instruments as those adapted by David for "David's" praise. These are ALWAYS contrasted to the trumpets of God. David's instruments and "sounders" were under the KING AND COMMANDERS OF THE ARMY. The temple rituals were "like the nation's" rituals with animal sacrifices which God permitted as part of His judgement of doom pronounced at the Musical idolatry at Mount Sinai.

4. No. People love to lie about Clement.

Chapter IV (The Instructor 2:4.) is explicitly titled 'How to Conduct Ourselves at Feasts' and describes the excesses of pagan revelry witnessed at public Festivals." (Yep, Rubel Shelly, p. 98-99). We might point out that most of the evidence for various forms of non congregational singing are taken from non-church assemblies.

"He speaks not of what was then in use in Christian churches, but of what might lawfully be used by any private Christians, if they were disposed to use it; which rather argues that instrumental music, the lute and the harp, of which he speaks,

was not in use in the public churches. (Joseph Bingham, Antiq. of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, p. 485).
Nothing therefore has Clement written which would favor organs and their present-day use even the least, yea directly the contrary. (Suicer's Thesaurus, Vol. 2, p. 502).

Here is the whole document.

5. Both Peter and Jude spoke vividly of the musical fall created by Lucifer (Zoe) with musical instruments (the king of Tyre in the OT, the king of Babylon and the end-time Babylonian whore: Lucifer is bisexual). The ten thousand of His hosts God will come with are directed specificially at those who seduced people away from the Word by mix-sex choirs and instrumental music.

Paul warned about the potential division in Rome between the vegetarian, Orphic, instrumental music influence, and the Dionysic, meat-eating, wine-drinking influence. His Divine prescription was:

WE then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities (diseased scruple) of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Romans 15:1

Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. (instruction) Romans 15:2
For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. Romans 15:3

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Romans 15:4

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: Romans 15:5

That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:6

The word PLEASE has a meaning:

Aresko (g700) ar-es'-ko; prob. from 142 (through the idea of exciting emotion); to be agreeable (or by impl. to seek to be so): - please.

Airo (h142) ah'ee-ro; a prim. verb; to lift; by impl. to take up or away; fig. to raise (the voice), keep in suspense (the mind); spec. to sail away (i.e. weigh anchor); by Heb. [comp. 5375] to expiate sin: - away with, bear (up), carry, lift up, loose, make to doubt, put away, remove, take (away, up).

anaireô, (v. haireô meaning heresy): --take up, anelontes apo chthonos having raised the victim from the ground, so as to cut its throat (cf. aueruô), Od.3.453.

2. take up and carry off, bear away, esp. prizes

Nasa (h5375) naw-saw'; .. desire, ease, exact, exalt (self), extol, lade, lay, lift (self) up, lofty, marry, magnify... stir up, / swear, take (away, up), * utterly, wea

Creating "spiritual anxiety through religious rituals" is the laded burden Jesus died to give us REST from.

This is quite identical to the demand to TEACH the Spirit (Ephesians 5) and The Word of Christ (Col. 3). The command is not to "sing" but to teach. This was not a "musical command" because external "melody" speaks of the "hair yanking" and "bow-string twanging" of war used to "grind the enemy into a fine power to make them panic.

When they sounded the censure of Jesus "on the Zither" one can imagine the enemy approaching with each warrior "twanging" his bow-string (zither) and blowing trumpets to melt your heart like a slow marching British army advancing on you with bagpipes grinding you into powder (sop) and forcing your legs to make a coward of you.

Paul used the Greek hi-tek words for the ancient Familiar Spirit or empty wineskin used to get "the voice of angels" or demons which they could peddle (too bad, no CDs). The booming and clanging are quite direct quotes from the Greek classical writers defining the oracles of the pagans. Uncovered women prophesiers got the message in a gone-mad voice caused by gas from the fissures or wine, and slobbering (like David's praise) from chewing laurel leaves which even make my deer and cattle go mad. The priest-interpreter answered the question often by unsealing envelopes with the request and the poet-musician put it into musical format.

Paul also, like Clement, equated speaking and singing our of "their own spirit" to speaking to "god" (14:2) or just speaking into the air (14:9) to the lifeless instruments of the warrior. He also uses the term "carnal weapon" which is an "intellectual" weapon defined by the same Greek word for musical instrument.

Paul told us not to make melody externally by a direct command to keep in 'in the heart."

The only worship "culture" using instruments was not God-desired worship. The pagans saw instrumental as the paganism "out of which they had just come." The Jews understood this and did not see synagogue (church) as worship center but school, yea, university. The Jews also knew that once the secular temple was destroyed by God (again) instruments in association with Yahweh had no rationale.

King and Commanders of the Army moved the Levites from warrior musicians to temple-state musicians which was removed from Gibeon to which David could not go and to which even Solomon went to "seek the Lord."

And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy. 1 Chr. 15:16

Sounding is not "music" but like a church bell. It is a word like the Shema which means to give attention to. This was to signal the incidental non-official Israelite to fall on their face but never to "sing congregational with instrumental accompaniment."

Shama (h8085) shaw-mah'; a prim. root; to hear intelligently (often with impl. of attention, obedience, etc.; caus. to tell, etc.): - * attentively, call (gather) together, * carefully, * certainly, consent, consider, be content, declare, * diligently, discern, give ear, (cause to, let, make to) hear (-ken, tell), * indeed, listen, make (a) noise, (be) obedient, obey, perceive, (make a) proclaim (-ation), publish, regard, report, shew (forth), (make a) sound, * surely, tell, understand, whosoever [heareth], witness.

Here are uses of musical instruments in tabular form: music was a secular, pagan, warfare or prostitution instrument. The temple was capital of a "like the nation's" temple-state and it was never "worship center" for the common people except God did permit to "pray toward" the temple but He would hear from heaven-not from the temple. The loud instruments during the burning phase by the military Levites who bore the burden of the thousands of carcass remains was to signal the beginning and ending of the process:

Noise to accompany work, worship, merrymaking and military activities (Gen. 31:27; Exod. 32:17, 18; Num. 27:17; Judg. 11:34, 35; Isa. 16:10; Jer. 48:33)

Specific acts such as the collapse of the walls of Jericho (Josh. 6:4-20), inauguration of kings (1 Ki. 1:39, 40; 2 Ki. 11:14; 2 Chron. 13:14; 20:28), instrumental music for the court (2 Sam. 19:35; Eccl. 2:8), instrumental music for feasting (Isa. 5:12; 24:8-9), instrumental music to stimulate prophetic gifts (2 Ki. 3:15), instrumental music for soothing of personality disturbances (1 Sam. 16:14-23). Rarely is there any connection between instrumental music worship except to signal the beginning and ending of sacrifices. Even then, worship as ritual was something carried out by the priests and was not a "congregational" act.

Note, the instruments stimulate to prophecy which was a "song with instruments" from God as a sign of judgment. See the Elisha story.

Like the rest of this article, I doubt that Dwaine E. Dunning has ever heard anyone suggest that there was a "fanatical" culture opposed to instrumental music. Everyone knows there was not. People played instruments just as today. Some, like David, may have stolen away to the sheep and chanted their poetry and given an interlude by strumming down the strings but they knew that when they "went to school" in the synagogue there was no more place for instrumental music or singing than their would have been for sexual intercourse which was also part of their old "worship" culture.

Instrumental music and sexual intercourse (sacred whores: singers were "the harem of the gods.") were companion parts of the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, which Israel warned by Amos and other practices warned against, and which Stephen repeated to help get himself murdered by the "clergy" who as predicted in Psalm 41 would use Judas (the agent of Satan) to blow the wind instruments and make a loud, rejoicing sound over Jesus (mocking). The Dead Sea Scroll translation makes the musical warefare positive.

Nevertheless, In Victory, we see contemporaries of Jesus declaring that, like Clement who may have read more history than Dwaine E. Dunning,

I will groan with the zither of lamentation

in all grief-stricken mourning and bitter complaint

until iniquity and wickedness are consumed

and the disease-bringing scourge is no more.

 

Then will I play on the zither of deliverance

and harp of joy,

on the tabors of prayer and the pipe of praise

without end.

All of the Dead Sea Scroll resources see musical instruments as allegory for the human voice. Paul sees the armor as spiritual and the double-edged sword (lips) as the Word of God. Other writers before and after Jesus allegorized instruments because, as we have said, poems tend to be poetic rather than literal prose.

17 For by Him it was wrought, and He was resting in the Son, and for its salvation He will take hold of everything.
18 And the Most High shall be known in His Saints, to announce to those that have songs of the coming of the Lord:
19 That they may go forth to meet Him, and may sing to Him with joy and with the harp of many tones: (the lips and heart: below)
20 The seers shall come before Him and they shall be seen before Him,
21 And they shall praise the Lord for His love: because He is near and beholdeth.
22 And hatred shall be taken from the earth, and along with jealousy it shall be drowned:
23 For ignorance hath been destroyed,

because the knowledge of the Lord hath arrived.

And later:

1 Open ye, open ye your hearts to the exultation of the Lord: 2 And let your love be multiplied from the heart and even to the lips,
3 To bring forth fruit to the Lord, living [fruit], holy [fruit], and to talk with watchfulness in His light.
7 Teach me the Psalms of thy truth, that I may bring forth fruit in thee:
8 And open to me the harp of thy Holy Spirit, that with all its notes I may praise thee, O Lord.

We have shown that THERE WAS NO SINGING during this period. They grasped that Paul said SPEAK or TEACH the Word of Christ, the Spirit or "that which is written." There WAS NO MUSIC in the sense Dunning wants to find approved or rejected. During this time we KNOW that they chanted Psalms. We know when singing SECULAR SONGS was added and for which purpose. We know that instruments were added in the competing cathedrals close to the FAIR TOWNS to suck in the seekers just as they were added in the post-civil war to collect money.

Well, we have shown from Dwaine E. Dunning's un-attributed sources that this is not remotely the truth. From the seduction in the garden of Eden (by Assyrian the tallest tree) to the end-time Babylonian whore religion, musical instruments are the devices or weapons used to teach lies and to condition a reflex which associates "worship" with feelings other than with the mind (spiritual). And behind it all was Lucifer, the harp-playing prostitute alive and well in many churches believing material like Dunning has presenting to their own destruction. Music and experiental knowledge (gnosis) is the Gnostic way of much of today's "worship."

The scholars who wrote from beginning to end associate musical instruments "as worship" with Satan's way to "take away the key to knowledge." There are not anti-culture frieks about music as they were about sex: they understood that music and sexual arousal were "locked at the hip" and men like Clement could simply visit a "church house" and see that the "spirit" aroused by the 'booms and clanges' of instrumental music is not from the Holy Spirit. One can judge the tree by its fruits.

Surely this is profoundly fact. And they undoubtedly still roasted the fatted calf with music and dancing (they are usually grouped in the classics) for a party. However, they knew that there was a time in synagogue or church to sit down, shut up and let Christ speak for a few moments through His Word or Spirit.

They also had drugs and wine used with instrumental music to get an insane "high" which they were convinced was the "god within." Philo coined that one: Enthusiasm was Enthus O mania or being mantic or mad or "inspired" by having the "god" indwell. But believers had this outlawed in 1 Cor. 14.

This is the Christian Church or "High Church" view inherited from a direct chain leading through the church of England and back to Catholicism. This gives them the authority to "fill in the blanks" or "divine oversights." This is the LAW OF SILENCE. We know as sure as hell has fire that to introduce sense-stimulating or carnal (lifeless) instruments we are predetermined to sow discord among the brethren and shut off the "flow of water" from the Word of Christ.

And yet, people can do it on an "ex cathreda" pronouncement from the high church Vicars of Christ that "it simply didn't matter." What presumptious nonesense.

The Jews at the time of Paul couldn't see their own musical, idolatrous history either. As a direct result of the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai their eyes had been closed and ears plugged. Paul says that the only way to be able to see the message is to "turn to Christ" and you simply cannot even see or hear Christ when a choir or instruments are performing. Jesus declared that the truth had been withheld from the professionals (Isa 48) from the foundation of the world (Mt. 13) so that they could listen to Jesus or even read His Word today and not grasp a word of it.

God and the inspired revealers have spoken: we just cannot hear. A sure sympton is to make life-altering pronouncements about what God wants while not directing us to any resource. Why? Why, because as Bill Swetmon blinded the eyes at Freed Hardeman, we know that what we are stating is directly contradicted by our adduced "proofs."

There is no anti-instrument law. If you have a "make cell phone calls from pull-offs" we have a law which says: "Thou shalt not use cell phones while thou art driving they car on the speedway."

Try telling the Patrolman what you tell God: "But You Didn't Say 'Thou Shalt Not Phone from They Rocket-Powered death machine'."

Brother Dunning is clearly using The Law of Silence to condemn those who just do what is commanded and do not do what is not commanded because of some knowledge of the Bible and history.

Do you remember that when Jesus wanted to restore the girl who was not "dead" in the musical superstitious sense? The text means that "He cast them out 'more or less violently.'" The musical worship team was involved in "marrying and giving in marriage" and in funerals. They attempted to appease the spirit of the dead girl so that as a "demon" she would not damage them for their slight in life. Did you know that this was the reason they sent flowers?

The clergy was like little children piping hoping that Jesus would sing and dance. The background is that the children continued in games what had, in more illiterate days, been part of a fertility cult of "marrying and giving in marriage" and the funeral rituals.

The state festivals, funerals, the theater and the temple, therefore, used many of the same rituals and--

"They resemble each other also in their pomp, having the same processional to the scene of their display from temples and altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood, with music of pipes and trumpets, all under the direction of the soothsayer and the undertaker, those two foul masters of funeral rites and sacrifices." (Tertullian, de Spectaculis, Ante-Nicene, III, p. 84).

"the 'spectacle' most noted of all, and in highest favour is called a dutiful service... For, formerly, in the belief that the souls of the departed were appeased by human blood, they were in the habit of buying captives... and immolating them in the funeral obsequies. Those, therefore, whom they had provided for the combat, and then trained in arms as best they could, only that they might learn to die, they, on the funeral day, killed at the places of sepulture... Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices; and these are idolatry: for idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed; the one as well as the other is service to dead men. Moreover, demons have abode in the images of the dead...

for the purple robes, the fasces, the filiets the crowns, the proclamations too, and edicts, the sacred feasts of the day before, are not without the pomp of the devil, without invitation of demons." (Tertullian, de Spectaculis, Ante-Nicene, III, p. 85). Terullianus, b. 155 - 160 Carthage - d. 220? AD

AND MORE: that all entertainment religion is IDOLATRY: Paul outlawed these "pleasures" when the ekklesia, synagogue or school of the Bible met: must have missed Romans 15?

For such is the power of earthly pleasures, that, to retain the opportunity of still partaking of them,

it contrives to prolong swilling ignorance, and bribes knowledge into playing a dishonest part. To both things, perhaps, some among you are allured by the views of the heathens who in this matter

are wont to press us with arguments, such as these: commands

(1) That the exquisite enjoyments of ear and eye we have in things external are not in the least opposed to religion in the mind and conscience; and

(2) That surely no offence is offered to God, in any human enjoyment, by any of our pleasures, which it is not sinful to partake of in its own time and place, with all due honour and reverence secured to Him.

But this is precisely what we are ready to prove: That these things are not consistent with true religion and true obedience to the true God.

The Bible is alive about the evil effects of music on the mind while God wants to meet us there in a space now filled with a "team" and a 200 horsepower pipeorgan. If you tried that in the temple you would fall down dead. Are we so truly legalistic that we DEMAND GOD give us a law which says THOU SHALT NOT USE THY ZITHER AS WORSHIP? Can't we see the spirit without forcing God to restore a system of legalism?

The command is to "teach and admonish one another." Now, if one needs a LAW prohibiting instruments while the preacher preaches then common sense has fled. The writer would never permit it.

The Seeker Center of Agrippa, that of Apollo (Apollyon, Abbadon has risen again) at Delphi, and the one used by Lucian of Samosata to poke fun of the "worship centers" constructed to, as Jesus warned, making pretentious prayers and stealing widow's houses.

Alexander, on the other hand, preferred his native place, urging very truly that an enterprise like theirs required congenial soil to give it a start,
in the shape of 'fat-heads' and simpletons; that was a fair description, he said, of the Paphlagonians beyond Abonutichus;

they were mostly superstitious and well-to-do; one had only to go there with someone to play the flute, the tambourine, or the cymbals, set the proverbial mantic sieve a-spinning, and there they would all be gaping as if he were a god from heaven.

Distributed by: Ray Downen respectfully on this day of the Lord. 417/782-0814 2228 Porter Joplin Mission Outreach. Mail address is P O Box 1065 Joplin MO 64802-1065. Internet home page addr = http://www.sofnet.com/~outreach

See another E-Mail Response to show that the "chief musician" translates a word which means OVERSEER. He drove everyone in ministering to the priests during the burning of the sacrifice and of the huge quantity of animal carcasses. He was slave driver to force the building of the Temple. The word translated "worship" really means meniel bondage.

His "musical" role was filled in every pagan temple in the world.

Dwaine E. Dunning Number One: An AXE at the root of the MUSIC tree. killing off those who, like Daniel, will not bow to instrumental music. Review of Ray Downen's E-mail. Added: R. Christopher Heard, Southern Methodist University Annoints Rubel Shelly and C. Leonard Allen as THOUGHT LEADERS in churches of Christ to defend Dunning's views of Scripture.

Dwaine E. Dunning Number Two: Using the Sword Youthful Friar and Alexander the Great will Solve Music Problem--See James O'Kelly and a similar Methodist attempt to Restore a Catholic or High Church structure.

Dwaine E. Dunning" Number Three First Century Influences on Instrumental Music

Dwaine E. Dunning" Number Four Was Instrumental Music Only for Israel.

Dwaine E. Dunning" Number five Making Melody ln the Heart

E-mail Review by Kenneth Sublett (tired and retired engineer)

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