City of the Stump

Recently I was reunited with a childhood friend. I hadn't seen this person in 20 years. It turns out that, like myself, this child of independent Baptist missionaries was badly burned by the premillenial dispensational legalism with which she had been spoon-fed as a child. I took the opportunity to share a bit of my own journey being reborn out of that propaganda of the mind. I recently sent her some verses and snippets from Josephus hoping to rekindle her interest in finding real closure to the doctrine that she had simply swepted under a rug all these years after leaving the church. As I was reading snippets of Josephus I saw something verp ironic. Surely others have already seen this before but I am posting it for those of you have not read it.

Josephus writes,
"This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind. And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down"--Flavius Josephus. The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem. BOOK VI. Containing The Interval Of About One Month. From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced To The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus.. Book VI. Chapter 1.1

That bit about how the Romans cut down all the trees is very ironic when you consider that crazy Jesus guy who said things like, "The ax is already at the root of the trees."