We have not, however, answered our question: 'Why do the Scriptures so

completely turn away from classical and pagan usage?'  The answer is that

Babylonian mythology, like most of the myths which are of Satanic origin,

twisted the record of Genesis 1:2 away from the thought of an overthrow and a

judgment, to a creative act and intention.  Tablet VII of the Creation

tablets, now in the British Museum reads:

'At that time the heavens above named not a name,

Nor did the earth below record one.

Yea, the deep was their first creation.

The chaos of the sea was the mother of them all'.

The cuneiform word for 'deep' is tiamat, which corresponds with the

Hebrew tehom 'deep' in Genesis 1:2.  Where the Scriptures speak of waste and

desolation consequent upon vengeance and judgment (by the analogy of the

faith, see Isa. 34:11 and Jer. 4:23), pagan mythology invests these

desolations with creative activity.

Janus, who is referred to as 'the god of gods' in the most ancient

hymns of the Salii (Macrob., Saturn), and from whom all other gods had their

origin, 'Principium Deorum' (Bryant); says of himself:

'The ancients ... called me Chaos'! (Fasti).

Against this perversion of truth, the overshadowing hand of God is

outstretched, preventing the writers of the Scriptures, or of the LXX from

furthering this blasphemous distortion.  We believe that Ephesians 1:4 can

only be translated 'before the overthrow of the world', and those who

unwittingly adopt and advocate the translation 'before the foundation of the

world' go contrary to truth, side with Babylonian myth, run counter to the

concordant method, and ignore the medical usage of the term katabolism.  Here

we rest our case, and believe without reserve or a glimmer of doubt that the

Church of the Mystery was chosen in Christ before the overthrow of the

angelic order that came to an end as described in Genesis 1:2.

Papyri.  One of the most important writing materials used by the ancients was

the papyrus sheet.  The oldest written papyrus known to be in existence is,

according to Kenyon, an account sheet belonging to the reign of the Egyptian

king Assa, which is conjecturally dated circa 2600 B.C.  Recent discoveries

have brought to light an enormous quantity of inscribed papyri, which have

shed considerable light upon New Testament Greek.

'The papyri are almost invariably non-literary in character.  For

instance, they include legal documents of all possible kinds: leases,

bills and receipts, marriage-contracts, bills of divorce, wills,

decrees issued by authority, documents suing for the punishment of

wrong-doers, minutes of judicial proceedings, tax papers in great

number.  Then there are letters and notes, schoolboys' exercise books,

marginal texts, horoscopes, diaries etc.

'The first great impression we receive is that

the language to which we

are accustomed in the New Testament is, on the

whole, just the kind of

Greek that simple, unlearned folk of the Roman

Imperial period were in

the habit of using' (Deissmann, Light from the

Ancient East).

Of the language employed by Paul, Deissmann says: