Comments on the timing of 2Timothy, 'The Closure of Acts' and Astronomical Chronology.

Dear T,

I must not defer any longer my response to you. You will understand that I find it easier to write by hand with only one eye and that affected by the other for focussing. This can only be an interim reply of course.

At length I return your SAE with the item you wanted back, but don't send any replacement -- I am surfeited with JCR   material !

I enclose my fuller treatment of The Closure of Acts, from which you will see why I did not the shorten an earlier page on the subject circulated. This is not for everyone to consider though it has been seen by three university theologians from whom I get short but polite acknowledgements.

I also enclose copies of some notes by Rowland Wicks, he gave me in the 1950s at Sunningdale. You will find these are not committal but relevant.

I should have acknowledged the study you arranged to be sent to me by Duncan McGregor of OBT. But I do not know just what to write, as I wrote to him two years ago but received no reply. I suspect he may have passed it on to Mike Penny then in USA, and he possibly did not bother with it.

It should be made clear that my change of view is only that of placing 2Timothy before Philippians and other of your ideas are under consideration. I would place Philemon first after Philippians(note the prospect of release in both) with Ephesians next and Colossians last, when Onesimus has proved himself to be faithful.

Your chart shows the top dates as 7 weeks instead of 7 years.

It has been wrong of CHW and others to talk of Israel becoming Lo Ammi at Acts 28. But I cannot accept that the House of Judah remained "the People of God" or that Judaism is acceptable to Him. It is your predjudice on this point that leads you to give credance to a Rabbi. The acceptable Judaic stance(reflected by Rabbi Thann) is in a work by Prof. Zuckermann(Mike Phelan has a copy) on which I have dared to challenge in my study "Talmud or Torah ?", a copy of which I intend to send you. The testimony of the Torah and the OT is against the Jews; they have ignored both testaments.

You should realise that a year is not a multiple of weeks or days but one revolution of the Earth round the Sun; likewise a day is not a certain number of hours but one revolution of the Earth on its axis. So the various calendars and correction factors have no effect on chronology, which is exact.

I enclose a leaflet about health products that I have found of benefit. The offer is genuine; it may or may not be of interest to you.

Yours sincerely  Maurice Lloyd   24th August 2000

Return to list.