Matter over mind?

Group Delusions Aside, Sentient Robots Aren't on the Way

Erik J. Larson March 26, 2015 11:33 AM 

Our colleague Wesley Smith commented yesterday on a piece in Nature,ntelligent robots must uphold human rights." We read there:

There is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligences (AIs), perhaps in the form of robots, will become capable of sentient thought. Whatever form it takes, this dawning of machine consciousness is likely to have a substantial impact on human society.

More:

Academic and fictional analyses of AIs tend to focus on human -- robot interactions, asking questions such as: would robots make our lives easier? Would they be dangerous? And could they ever pose a threat to humankind?

These questions ignore one crucial point. We must consider interactions between intelligent robots themselves and the effect that thesee exchanges may have on their human creators. For example, if we were to allow sentient machines to commit injustices on one another -- even if these 'crimes' did not have a direct impact on human welfare -- this might reflect poorly on our own humanity. Such philosophical deliberations have paved the way for the concept of 'machine rights'.

"Machine rights"? I have to confess, when I read articles like this I have an almost visceral reaction. It amounts to a full-blown, ongoing perplexity and fascination with the capacity of otherwise intelligent people to engage in serious-sounding group delusion. To pick this apart is a little like explaining to someone why his interest horoscopes is probably untethered to any genuine scientific knowledge about the planets, the relevant laws governing their motion, and so on. I'm tempted to say, "Yes, that's right, the robots are becoming intelligent so quickly that they may soon take control. In fact, here they come now! Run for cover!"

Let's do some not-too-painful sanity checking. What is the current state of robot technology? MIT is famous for cutting-edge work on robots (cf. Rodney Brooks), and they've got a robot that is getting better at identifying large objects like plates, as distinct from, say, a salad bowl.

Meanwhile in manufacturing, the latest three-hundred-pound gadget designed to grab and manipulate plastic components (I gather) is getting so smart than when a component topples over, it can move it's claw over to pick it up.

The serious point here is that the current state of robotics tells a different tale from robots "coming alive" in the near future and taking control of human society. The technical challenges to simulating actual human intelligence are vast and daunting. If fluff articles from no less than Nature must continue to bombard hapless readers with sci-fi fantasies about the coming intelligence revolution, I suggest they should first offer the simplest form of evidence apart from sheer rhetorical emotivism.

For example, let's have a URL to an article describing an actual robotic system, leveling with the reader on the actual capabilities of the system. I offer bonus points for explaining how apparently simple problems like moving around in a dynamic environment -- a street corner! -- confounds current systems. I offer even more bonus points for explaining why the supposedly smart robot can't understand your easy conversational banter with it -- at all.

AI systems (robots' brains) and full robotic systems suffer from two limitations that show no signs of going away, now or in any foreseeable future. First, there is the inability to keep track of aspects of their environment that become relevant as a function of time -- dynamic environments, where things change as the robot moves through it, in other words, the real world. Second, there is the inability to keep track of aspects of language that keep changing as a function of time -- conversation, in plain and simple everyday terms.

The Turing Test has been debated since the inception of AI in the 1950s, and to date it shows no sign of yielding to gargantuan increases in hardware performance via Moore's Law, or advances in algorithmic techniques, such as convolutional neural networks, or so-called Deep Learning. An enthusiast with the stripes of, say, Ray Kurzweil overwhelms the uninformed with scientific-looking graphs showing exponential progress toward superintelligence. Yet a simple graph of improvements on the Turing Test over the years would be decidedly flat, and downright embarrassing.

I wonder what Bill Gates or Elon Musk or any other luminary enthralled with the current rhetoric about a coming AI would say to such a graph? The smart money is on looking at the problem without sci-fi goggles, separating it from other, narrower problems where human intelligence is decomposable into a set of representations and algorithms that admit of automation, and clarifying the actual landscape so that other, serious scientists and interested parties can productively discuss the roles of computation and human thinking in society.

It's a myth that the dividing line between man and machine is essentially temporary, and that all problems once thought solely in the purview of human intelligence will eventually yield computational solutions. We're going backward with the Turing Test, for instance, as the latest Loebner Prize competition demonstrated: Eugene Goostman simulates a vapid, sardonic 13-year-old Ukrainian speaking broken English to fool a few people for a few minutes (who no doubt are performing backbends to reduce their own standards of conversation with actual persons, in hopes of a history-making moment with a mindless chatterbot).

There's no real response to what I've just said. I mean, no one seriously thinks computers are making substantial let alone exponential progress on actual natural language interpretation or generation in non-constrained domains -- yet by sleight of hand, ignorance, overenthusiasm, blurry vision, dyspepsia, or what have you, provision of seemingly related examples (chess, driverless cars, Google Now for recommendations, or Siri for voice recognition, perhaps) keeps the parlor tricks alive, and claims of inexorable progress continue.

There is progress on computation, of course, but it has little to do with the machines themselves acquiring actual intelligence. It has everything to do with researchers in computer science and related fields continuing to use their own creative intellects to find clever ways to represent certain tasks that admit of algorithmic decomposition, such that the tasks can be mapped onto digital computer hardware. Our intelligence itself does not appear to be so reducible.

And so these discussions are a tempest in a teapot. Who's really preparing for the robot future? And here let's avoid equivocating between an economy increasingly dominated by dumb automation, and a world inhabited by truly intelligent digital beings. Who's worried about the latter? I mean, beyond relatively uninformed, self-styled futurists (that most coveted of social roles), or nose-against-the-glass software junkies in the Valley, binge-watching digitally-remastered editions of Blade Runner, and speculating about "dating their operating systems," as director Spike Jones offered up, memorably, complete with the sultry voice of Scarlett Johansson in his 2013 hit movie Her.

Sci-fi fantasies dressed up as serious "What if?" discussions are not new, of course. Wormholes have a basis in actual science (but probably are still not possible). I'd rather see a perpetual shouting match about the coming of time travel, like back in the Star Trek days. It'd be sci-fi still, but actually closer to reality than the imminent-smart-robots palaver today. There's a discussion to be had about computation in society, certainly, but it's not the silly one we are having.

File under 'well said' VII

Frederick Douglas"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"

Climate change?:Been there,done that.

By Colin Barras

14 September 2015

In the late 1980s, as the world's governments were waking up to the problem of climate change, the mud at the bottom of the ocean near Antarctica revealed a surprise. Earth had lived through rapid global warming before.
About 55 million years ago global temperatures spiked. Then, as now, sea levels rose, the oceans became more acidic, and species disappeared forever.
Little wonder, then, that researchers view this ancient event – known as the "Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum" or PETM – as a potential goldmine of useful information for understanding modern climate change.
We now know that the PETM was one of the most rapid and dramatic instances of climate change in Earth's history. Its causes are still up for debate, but there seem to be eerie parallels with the causes of modern climate change. What is absolutely clear is that the PETM's effects were far-reaching. It may have altered the course of life on Earth.
 published their findings in 1991. They reported that the shells of tiny planktonic fossils in the muds had betrayed the rapid temperature swings.
The PETM seems to have been caused by greenhouse gases just like modern-day climate change
More precisely, it was the oxygen isotopes locked away in those shells. At around the 55-million-year mark, the amount of "heavy" oxygen-18 in the shells rose relative to "lighter" oxygen-16.
That greater abundance of oxygen-18 is a sure sign that conditions were getting warmer. Water evaporates more readily at higher temperatures, and it's the "light" oxygen-16 that is most easily vapourised. This means that warmer water contains more oxygen-18, and the plankton living in warmer water incorporate more of the stuff into their shells.

Those planktonic shells turned out to be useful for another reason. They hinted at exactly why ocean temperatures rose.
This is because of the carbon they contain.
Today's global warming is not simply a rerun of the PETM
Like oxygen, carbon exists in different isotopic forms. At exactly the same time that the plankton shells became rich in oxygen-18, they also began carrying much more carbon-12 relative to carbon-13. The oceans must suddenly have gained a big supply of carbon-12.
This is something that generally happens after a massive injection of carbon-rich greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2) or methane – into the atmosphere.
In other words, the PETM seems to have been caused by greenhouse gases just like modern-day climate change.

But today's global warming is not simply a rerun of the PETM. Earth was a very different place 55 million years ago.
One of the biggest concerns today is that the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking because of climate change. This wasn't a problem during the PETM, because there probably was no Antarctic ice sheet. Even before the onset of the PETM, global temperatures were several degrees warmer than they are now.
All researchers agree that the unusually warm conditions lasted about 170,000 years
Some researchers think the pace of climate change during the PETM distinguishes the event from today too. A controversial study published in 2013 made the case.
Researchers examined another set of muds that formed at the bottom of the ocean 55 million years ago, this time in the north-west Atlantic. They found banding in the muds that they argued was formed by annual cycles.

When they traced the oxygen and carbon isotope blips associated with the PETM, they found that they were contained in just 13 bands. This means, they said, that the PETM temperature surge came in just 13 years.

This does not imply that the PETM came and went in little more than a decade. All researchers agree that the unusually warm conditions, with global temperatures at least 5 °C above average, lasted about 170,000 years.

Modern climate change doesn't have such a dramatic trigger

What it would imply is that global temperatures ramped up to that 5 °C figure in just 13 years. Today, in contrast, global temperatures have risen about 1 °C since the late 19th century.

If PETM climate change really were so rapid, there would be implications for the event that triggered the warming. To create such a rapid rise in global temperature, the atmosphere would have had to be flooded with greenhouse gases almost literally overnight.

Perhaps the release of gases from the melting of a huge carbon-rich comet that flew too close to the Earth would do the trick. Modern climate change doesn't have such a dramatic trigger.

But it's important to stress that many researchers strongly reject that 13-year figure.

There are all sorts of problems with the idea, says Richard Zeebe at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Most importantly, it is physically impossible for the oceans to heat up that quickly.

Most researchers think the PETM warming really took place over a long period

The Earth's oceans contain a vast amount of water, and heating it up takes time. Even if there was a massive and sudden injection of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere, the oceans simply could not heat up in just 13 years.

"You can heat up the atmosphere relatively quickly, but it takes centuries to millennia to heat up the oceans," says Zeebe.

Other researchers now suggest that the 13 bands in the rock must each represent centuries, not single years. That's if the bands are real at all: some sediment drilling experts say they might simply be an artefact of the drilling process the researchers used to extract the muds.

Most researchers think the PETM warming really took place over a  long period, but exactly how long is still up for discussion.

 One 2011 estimate suggests that the carbon was released over a period of perhaps 20,000 years.

Such a slow release is very different from today. It might indicate that the greenhouse gases came from the relatively gradual release of gases from volcanic activity.

It looks like the carbon was released into the atmosphere over about 1500 years

Research published in 2014 points to a middle ground. Gabriel Bowen at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues examined the carbon isotopes preserved in soils that formed 55 million years ago in what is now Wyoming.

Whereas the ocean sediments tell us about conditions in the PETM oceans, the soils sample the PETM atmosphere, which responds more rapidly to climate change.

The by-now-familiar surge in carbon-12 popped up again, this time preserved in carbonate nodules that grew in the soil. In this case, it looks like the carbon was released into the atmosphere over about 1500 years: a timescale that looks more similar to today's atmospheric changes.

The ancient soils also indicate the pace of carbon emissions

 The researchers calculated that something approaching 1 billion tonnes of carbon entered the ancient atmosphere each year. That is within an order of magnitude of the current annual release rate of 9.5 billion tonnes.

In light of these findings, the PETM looks like a more reasonable model for today's climate change.

When the oceans warm up a little, vast deposits of methane that are "frozen" in the seabed begin to melt

Bowen and his colleagues made another discovery in Wyoming. They realised that there were actually two distinct pulses of warming 55 million years ago.

A few thousand years before the PETM itself, a vast quantity of carbon-rich greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere from an unidentified source, again at a rate of about 1 billion tonnes per year.

The environment seemed seems to have almost brushed off this "pre-onset event". Atmospheric temperatures rose, but within a couple of thousand years they fell again. Conditions had apparently returned to normal.

The fall in atmospheric temperatures probably came about because the oceans absorbed the heat from the pre-onset event. That might have paved the way for the PETM itself.

 When the oceans warm up a little, vast deposits of methane that are "frozen" in the seabed begin to melt. The methane – a potent greenhouse gas – bubbles up, enters the atmosphere and raises global temperatures.

I think that in general the jury is still out

This leads to more ocean warming, triggers more methane release from the seabed, and causes atmospheric temperatures to rise more, and so on. Soon the planet becomes very warm, which is exactly what happened 55 million years ago during the PETM.

Something similar might be happening today. As the modern oceans warm there is good evidence that methane is once again bubbling up from the seabed. The PETM offers us a preview of where that can lead.

However, all of these explanations for the onset of the PETM are still just proposals. There is no scientific consensus on the exact cause of the PETM, beyond the fact that it clearly involved a release of greenhouse gases from somewhere.

"I think that in general the jury is still out," says Bowen.

While the PETM's exact cause is still elusive, its effects are clear

Under the more controversial scenarios, like the idea of a passing comet, the trigger for the event and the pace of climate change have very few parallels with the warming our planet is now experiencing.

Under the more plausible scenarios, like the snowballing release of methane from beneath the sea, the parallels with today are clear.

Regardless, while the PETM's exact cause is still elusive, its effects are clear.

 Even back in 1991 when it was first described, it was evident that the PETM was a killer.

Other microbes may have taken advantage of those oxygen-poor conditions

Some of the microfossil species preserved in the Antarctic sediments disappeared as the warming began. The species impacted were those that lived deep in the oceans. They experienced their most severe extinction in tens of millions of years.

Curiously, many microscopic species that lived in the shallower ocean waters actually flourished – an early sign that there were winners and losers as the climate changed.

It was probably a combination of factors that killed the deep-sea species. The warmer temperatures would have been unwelcome, but there may also have been less oxygen available in that warmer water.

However, other microbes may have taken advantage of those oxygen-poor conditions.Some oceanic sediments from the time contain high quantities of an iron-rich magnetic mineral called magnetite. Some species use magnetite in their bodies: either because of its hardness (it makes good teeth) or its magnetic properties (it can allow some species to orientate themselves with the Earth's magnetic field).

The world's coral reefs faced one of their five greatest crises since they first evolved

Iron can build up in poorly-oxygenated water, so the conditions in the PETM oceans might have led to a radiation of microscopic species using magnetite.

Seawater changed in other ways that were clearly harmful. When the oceans absorb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, the process produces a mild acid in the water, lowering the pH: a phenomenon known as ocean acidification. We know it is happening in the world's oceans today, and it happened 55 million years ago too.

Then, as now, ocean acidification was bad news for marine species that build skeletons out of calcium carbonate, because this solid mineral begins to dissolve when the pH drops. Acidification might have been a factor in the deep-sea extinction, and it also affected some shallow living species.

In particular, the world's coral reefs faced one of their five greatest crises since they first evolved 550 million years ago.

There were changes on land too.In the Arctic, plenty more rain than usual fell during the PETM, probably because stronger ocean evaporation in the tropics delivered more water vapour to higher latitudes.

Seas might have risen by as much as 30m

Geologists have also found evidence, from the styles of rock that formed 55 million years ago, that dry coastal environments were deluged by rising sea levels.

There was little ice to melt, so the sea level rise was probably modest: perhaps in the region of 5m, caused by the expansion of water as it becomes warmer. However, in a worst-case scenario the sea level rise could have been more severe.

For instance, there was magmatic activity in the north Atlantic at roughly this time. That might have warmed up the ocean crust and pushed it upwards, making the oceans shallower than usual and accentuating any sea level rise. Consider factors like this and seas might have risen by as much as 30m.

For life on land, the warm PETM conditions led to dramatic changes.In Wyoming, plant ranges shifted hundreds of kilometres north as temperatures rose. Conifers apparently disappeared from the area entirely, only returning as temperatures fell after the PETM.

There is strong evidence that about 40% of the mammalian fauna got smaller during the PETM

Some plant species disappeared from the tropics too, but there is evidence that plant diversity actually rose overall here. That may have been a consequence of both the warmer conditions and higher levels of the carbon dioxide plants use to make their food.

The PETM also marks the moment when many of the mammal groups that dominate the world today – including horses, cattle and other hoofed animals – appeared and spread across the northern continents. They probably did so probably in response to the warmer conditions.

But members of these familiar animal groups would have looked odd to our eyes.

"There is strong evidence that about 40% of the mammalian fauna got smaller during the PETM," says Ross Secord at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. "Nothing appears to have gotten larger."

Some mammals became very small indeed.In 2012, Secord and his colleagues looked at fossils of Sifrhippus sandrae, a species of early horse that lived in what is now Wyoming.

At the onset of the PETM, when horses first appeared in the fossil record, Sifrhippus was diminutive: it weighed about 5.6kg.

As the temperatures rose, Sifrhippus became even smaller. 130,000 years into the PETM, some adults probably tipped the scales at about 3.9kg: a modest weight for a domestic cat.

At the end of the PETM, as temperatures dropped, Sifrhippus grew again.

Other mammalian herbivores shrank too, and so did some mammalian carnivores.These size changes might be down to something called Bergmann's rule, says Secord. This says that warm-blooded animals tend to be relatively small in warm regions and larger in cold ones.

When atmospheric CO2 levels rise, the leaves and shoots of plants may become less nutritious

That could be because, in cold regions, it is useful to have a larger body – and a smaller relative surface area – to prevent losing too much body heat.

But Bergmann's rule is usually used to explain why animals in the tropics are smaller than those at higher latitudes, not to explain why animals grew to different sizes as a response to global warming.

Other researchers have suggested other reasons for the PETM changes in mammal size.

In 2013, Philip Gingerich at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor suggested the mammals might have been responding to changes in vegetation brought on by the PETM.

We have learned a lot about the PETM in the quarter-century since its discovery

When atmospheric CO2 levels rise, the leaves and shoots of plants may become less nutritious and harder for herbivores to digest. If that happened during the PETM, it could have led to slower animal growth, and herbivores might have begun to shrink. Carnivores, forced to target smaller prey, might have followed suit.

Peter Stiling at the University of South Florida in Tampa has investigated this. In 2007 he found that, in a high-CO2 atmosphere, oak leaves did carry less nitrogen. "As a result, herbivores often eat more to compensate," he says.

But there's no direct evidence as yet that herbivores, or the carnivores that eat them, grow more slowly and become smaller adults as a consequence.We have learned a lot about the PETM in the quarter-century since its discovery, but clearly there are plenty of questions left to answer.

Our particular branch of the primate tree had flourished to such a degree that the world really had become the planet of the apes

One of the most intriguing is whether the warming 55 million years ago was instrumental in the evolution of the first true primates: the group that ultimately gave rise to our species.

Modern primates appeared and spread at the beginning of the PETM, alongside horses and other hoofed animals. Their early fossil record is patchy, but they appear at almost exactly the same time in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa.

Within a few tens of millions of years, our particular branch of the primate tree had flourished to such a degree that the world really had become the planet of the apes. About 5 million years later, the first upright apes we recognise as our direct ancestors appeared.

Would primates have become so successful if the PETM had never happened? No one can say for sure.

Paved with the best intentions.

The Human Side of Trophy Hunting:
Wesley J. Smith September 14, 2015 9:00 AM


I am no fan of trophy hunting. But the recent hysteria that has seen bans instituted in a few African countries is causing real harm to humans.

That is the gist of the (surprising) New York Times story about how a hunting ban in Botswana has hurt villagers in their pocketbooks and threatened their safety. From the story:

Since Botswana banned trophy hunting two years ago, remote communities like Sankuyo have been at the mercy of growing numbers of wild animals that are hurting livelihoods and driving terrified villagers into their homes at dusk.
The hunting ban has also meant a precipitous drop in income. Over the years, villagers had used money from trophy hunters, mostly Americans, to install toilets and water pipes, build houses for the poorest, and give scholarships to the young and pensions to the old.

These bans are causing material harm to the villagers. It isn't as if the villagers aren't killing the animals in self-defense. In addition, when hunting is allowed, the locals engage in better conservation practices because it is in their economic interest:

Where trophy hunting benefits communities, locals are more motivated to protect wild animals as a source of revenue, experts say. But in most places without trophy hunting, they are simply considered a nuisance or danger, and locals are more likely to hunt them for food or to kill them to defend their homes and crops.
The locals want a return to the hunt.

But in Sankuyo and other rural communities living near the wild animals, many are calling for a return to hunting. African governments have also condemned, some with increasing anger, Western moves to ban trophy hunting. "Before, when there was hunting, we wanted to protect those animals because we knew we earned something out of them," said Jimmy Baitsholedi Ntema, a villager in his 60s. "Now we don't benefit at all from the animals. The elephants and buffaloes leave after destroying our plowing fields during the day. Then, at night, the lions come into our kraals."
Who cares about them? Animal rights Western activists don't, and they easily pressure our increasingly politically correct corporations into knee-jerk reactions --such as Delta, which recently banned shipping hunting trophies on its flights -- without a full knowledge of pertinent facts.

This is precisely why an "animal rights" approach to animal husbandry and welfare issues -- that focuses exclusively on the animals while ignoring the human element -- is so short-sighted.


The right way to go is animal welfare, which takes into account the human benefit as well as the potential suffering to the animals. This kind of analysis allows for nuance and flexibility based on facts on the ground. In this situation, it seems to me that the ban should be rescinded and replaced with a more tailored approach that includes the human element.

Yet more squabling over the family album.

Homo naledi as Spin Detector:
 Ann Gauger September 13, 2015 12:28 PM

You have probably seen the headlines. Numerous fossils of a new species of hominin have been found in a nearly inaccessible cave in South Africa. Intriguingly, the fossils appear to be part of a very large deposit of bones, apparently left there deliberately by their own kind. Also intriguingly, the skeletons of these individuals may have some traits that are Homo (human-like) and some that are australopithicine (more ape-like). To add further to the mystery, these fossils may be anywhere from 1 to 3 million years old, potentially making them among the oldest fossils identified as being of our genus Homo.

In reading the coverage of Homo naledi, as the species is called now, it seems clear to me that the spin put on the actual bones depends on the assumptions of the writers. What do I mean? Bones can only tell us so much. The rest is a matter of interpretation, and one's point of view inevitably tends to color that interpretation.

Let me give two examples:

The first example is how writers interpret skull size. H. naledi had a small brain compared to ours, about the size of a chimpanzee's. To some writers that seems to indicate the probable lack of high levels of cognition. Only species with brain sizes near our own are considered intelligent. The data used to support that claim are (a) our current knowledge of chimp and gorilla brain sizes, and their lack of rational, abstract thought; and (b) the claim that a gradual progression in brain size exists from australopiths to Homo erectus to Neanderthals to us, indicating a gradual progression in intelligence, which fits the evolutionary story.

There are two problems with these interpretations. First, modern humans exhibit a range in brain sizes, and those differences do not correlate with intelligence. The fossil skulls of Homo erectus, the earliest fossil judged to be "human," exhibit a range in skull size also (but see Casey Luskin's post on Homo habilis). Second, if we were to judge intelligence based on brain size, Neanderthals would be smarter than us since their average brain sizes were more than average human brain sizes. Maybe they were smarter?

H. naledi has a mixture of ape-like and human-like traits. It depends on the desired outcome which traits will be emphasized, and where H. naledi will be placed on the putative fossil tree. The discoverers have placed her squarely on the human side based on her apparent behavior and her inferred ability for long distance walking.

By her apparent behavior I mean the fact that the deposit of bones was found deep in a lightless cave with difficult access. It would take much effort and perhaps some light to make the journey. Yet many, many individuals were found in that dark cave. The discoverers, chief among them Lee Berger, have claimed this as evidence of human intelligence. Such deliberate behavior required significant effort and some danger and indicates a special care for the dead, something that until now only humans were known to exhibit. (I am counting Neanderthals as human.) Yet there are those who seek to claim this is not evidence of ritual behavior or a special care for the dead, that it may be a form of animal behavior. I suspect these people may find the small skull size more significant than the behavior, or they have some other driving motivation for discounting it. Not everyone wants to find evidence of human intelligence and care for the dead in fossils so old or in brain sizes so small, and not everyone likes Lee Berger.

To quote a piece on PBS:

[William] Jungers, [chair of the department of anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University], doesn't dispute that the H. naledi bones belong in the genus Homo and were likely deposited deliberately, but he cautions against "trying to argue for complex social organization and symbolic behaviors." There may be a simple answer. "Dumping conspecifics down a hole may be better than letting them decay around you." He suggests it's possible that there was once another, easier, way to access the chamber where the bones were found. Until scientists can know the approximate age of the Homo naledi fossils, Jungers says they are "more curiosities than game changers. Intentional corpse disposal is a nice sound bite, but more spin than substance."
Jungers is more dismissive of Berger's suggestion that we may have inherited the practice of burying our dead from H. naledi, a creature with a much smaller brain than modern humans. "That's crazy speculation -- the suggestion that modern humans learned anything from these pin heads is funny."

So back to the small skulls. The two opposing views must argue that either (a) behavior does not correlate with intelligence because skull size trumps everything, or (b) behavior correlates with intelligence and skull size doesn't matter. In addition, behavior and intelligence trump other differences in morphology. True human status is assigned regardless of shoulder and pelvis shape, or the as yet undetermined age of the fossils.

Even the way H .naledi is described by science writers reflects a certain bias. The disagreement is not due to scanty evidence but rather to interpretation. Some emphasize that the hands are more chimp-like in their fingers, and that the shoulders appear to be suited for climbing. Thus H. naledi spent time in trees, making her more australopith-like. Others emphasize that limbs and feet appear to be mostly like ours, indicating long distance walking ability, and thus assign her status as Homo.

In fact there is a dispute about whether the find represents one species or two. Berger and his coauthors claim the find represents one species. But others disagree. Jeffrey Schwarz, professor of biological anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, says this about Homo naledi and the subject of classification and preconceived notions:

...How do paleoanthropologists decide if a specimen belongs to a species - whether newly or already named - and if that species is a member of Homo? As the case of Homo habilis illustrates, it is primarily by chronology, not detailed morphology...
Enter the newly announced species, Homo naledi, which is claimed to be our direct ancestor because it has features of australopiths and Homo. Why is it a species of Homo? Because some specimens seem to be like us. Why australopith? Because other specimens have some of their features. Why do all belong to the same species? Because they were found in the same cave. but, the published images tell a different story.... Even at this stage of their being publicized, the "Homo naledi" specimens reflect even greater diversity in the human fossil record than their discoverers will admit.

What to do? As I recently advocated in the journal Science, it's about time paleoanthropologists acknowledged what a taxonomic and undefinable mess the genus Homo has become, and restudy the human fossil record without preconceived notions and the historical weight of overly used names.

In the interests of fairness, as far as I know neither Junger or Schwarz has examined the actual fossils first hand. So to give Berger and his extensive list of coauthors their chance to speak (Berger has welcomed the collaboration of many experts in their fields) I quote from their paper defining the species:

In addition to general morphological homogeneity including cranial shape, distinctive morphological configurations of all the recovered first metacarpals, femora, molars, lower premolars and lower canines, are identical in both surface-collected and excavated specimens ....These include traits not found in any other hominin species yet described. These considerations strongly indicate that this material represents a single species, and not a commingled assemblage....
The collection is morphologically homogeneous in all duplicated elements, except for those anatomical features that normally reflect body size or sex differences in other primate taxa.


This is a very interesting fossil find. I am sure what it means will be argued over extensively in years to come, as more data is collected and analyzed. However, the undisputed bias will undoubtedly be that the evolutionary story of our common ancestry with chimps is true, regardless of where H. naledi is assigned in the story.

Is our planet privileged by chance or choice?

Rare Earth Redux: Design Inference, Anyone?
Evolution News & Views September 14, 2015 3:41 AM

Something else that is special about planet Earth has been noted: its mineral content, compared to other planets. Robert Hazen, an origin-of-life researcher at the Carnegie Institute, states in an article posted by NASA's Astrobiology Magazine that Earth's mineral abundances may be unique in the cosmos. There were only a dozen or so minerals present at the birth of our solar system, he argues, but there are about 5,000 types today. Most of these, he says, can be "linked directly or indirectly to biological activity."

That much Hazen and his team knew a decade ago. Now, they have taken the concept of "mineral evolution" further, determining the probability of mineral distributions:

They discovered that the probability that a mineral "species" (defined by its unique combination of chemical composition and crystal structure) exists at only one locality is about 22 percent, whereas the probability that it is found at 10 or fewer locations is about 65 percent. Most mineral species are quite rare, in fact, found in 5 or fewer localities.
"Minerals follow the same kind of frequency of distribution as words in a book," Hazen explained. "For example, the most-used words in a book are extremely common such as 'and,' 'the,' and 'a.' Rare words define the diversity of a book's vocabulary. The same is true for minerals on Earth. Rare minerals define our planet's mineralogical diversity." [Emphasis added.]

How does this intersect with intelligent design? The minerals could be byproducts of microbial activity, not intelligence. Still, it's intriguing that life as we know it depends on a seemingly un-natural distribution of minerals.

Further expanding the link between geological and biological evolution, Hazen's team applied the biological concepts of chance and necessity to mineral evolution. In biology, this idea means that natural selection occurs because of a random "chance" mutation in the genetic material of a living organism that becomes, if it confers reproductive advantage, a "necessary" adaptation.
But in this instance, Hazen's team asked how the diversity and distribution of Earth's minerals came into existence and the likelihood that it could be replicated elsewhere. What they found is that if we could turn back the clock and "re-play" Earth's history, it is probable that many of the minerals formed and discovered in this alternate version of our planet would be different from those we know today.

This is why Hazen believes Earth's mineral signature is "unique in the cosmos." His idea resembles Stephen Jay Gould's notion that re-playing the tape of life would produce a very different menagerie of creatures.

What must strike any astrobiologist with amazement, though, is how many elements and minerals vital to life exist near the surface of the earth. The abundant elements -- carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen -- are not that surprising. But life as we know it requires other elements that are less common: potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, selenium, sulfur, and even chlorine.

That's why the typical astrobiological speculations about life on other planets, such as this evidence-free press release from Washington State University, are misleading. WSU planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch speculates about "what life could be like elsewhere in the universe" with thoughts about what might exist on Mars or Titan. Has he performed an elemental analysis of the minerals available on those worlds?


The unique availability of so many elements and minerals at the surface of the Earth could merit a design inference, when considered in addition to all the other factors that make it habitable, as discussed in The Privileged Planet. Astrobiology, like SETI and SEETI (see "Extinct Aliens Could Yield a Design Inference"), despite their confidence in Darwinism, end up making pretty good cases for intelligent design.

The chosen people?

Does Bible Prophecy Point to the Modern State  of 
Israel?:

TODAY the world nervously watches the Middle East. Rocket attacks, clashes of armed militias, and terrorist bombings are frequent occurrences. Add to this explosive mixture the very real possibility that nuclear weapons could be used. No wonder people everywhere are worried!
The world was also anxiously watching the Middle East in May of 1948. At that time, 62 years ago, the British mandate to occupy what was then called Palestine was ending, and war was imminent. The year before, the United Nations had authorized the creation of an independent Jewish State in a portion of the occupied territories. The surrounding Arab nations had vowed to prevent this at any cost. “The partition line shall be nothing but a line of fire and blood,” warned the Arab League.
It was Friday afternoon, May 14, 1948, at 4:00 p.m. The final hours of the British mandate were ticking away. In the Tel Aviv Museum, a small crowd of 350 onlookers were present by secret invitation for an eagerly anticipated announcement—the formal declaration of statehood for the modern-day nation of Israel. Security was tight, lest the numerous enemies of the fledgling State attack the proceedings.
David Ben-Gurion, the leader of Israel’s National Council, read The Declaration of theEstablishment of the State of Israel. It stated, in part: “We, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel . . . by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”
A Fulfillment of Bible Prophecy?
Some Evangelical Protestants believe that the modern State of Israel thus fulfilled a Bible prophecy. For example, in the book Jerusalem Countdown, clergyman John Hagee states: “This momentous occasion had been recorded by the pen of the prophet Isaiah, saying, ‘A nation shall be born in a day.’ (See Isaiah 66:8.) . . . It was the greatest moment in prophetic history of the twentieth century. It was living evidence for all men to see that the God of Israel was alive and well.”
Is that statement true? Did Isaiah 66:8 predict the establishment of the modern State of Israel? Was May 14, 1948, the “greatest moment in prophetic history of the twentieth century”? If the modern State of Israel is still God’s chosen nation, and if he is using it to fulfill Bible prophecies, this would certainly be of interest to Bible students everywhere.
Isaiah’s prophecy states: “Who has heard of a thing like this? Who has seen things like these? Will a land be brought forth with labor pains in one day? Or will a nation be born at one time? For Zion has come into labor pains as well as given birth to her sons.” (Isaiah 66:8) The verse is clearly foretelling the sudden birth of an entire nation, as if in a single day. But who would cause this birth? The next verse gives a clue: “‘As for me, shall I cause the breaking through and not cause the giving birth?’ says Jehovah. ‘Or am I causing a giving birth and do I actually cause a shutting up?’ your God has said.” Jehovah God makes it clear that the dramatic birth of the nation would be his doing.
Modern Israel is governed as a secular democracy that officially makes no claim to rely on the God of the Bible. Did the Israelis in 1948 recognize Jehovah God as the one responsible for their declaration of statehood? They did not. Neither the name of God nor even the word “God” was mentioned anywhere in the original text of the proclamation. The book Great Moments in Jewish History says this of the final text: “Even at 1:00 P.M. when the National Council met, its members could not agree about the wording of the proclamation of statehood. . . . Observant Jews wanted a reference to ‘the God of Israel.’ Secularists balked. Compromising, Ben-Gurion decided that the word ‘Rock’ would appear instead of ‘God.’”
The modern State of Israel to this day bases its claim to statehood on a UN resolution and what it calls the natural and historic right of the Jewish people. Is it reasonable to expect that the God of the Bible would perform the greatest prophetic miracle in the 20th century in behalf of a people who refuse to give him credit?
How Does the Modern Claim to Statehood Compare?
Modern Israel’s secular attitude contrasts sharply with the situation in 537 B.C.E. Back then, the nation of Israel was indeed ‘reborn’ as if in a day after being devastated and depopulated by the Babylonians 70 years earlier. At that time, Isaiah 66:8 was strikingly fulfilled when the Persian conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, authorized the return of the Jews to their homeland.—Ezra 1:2.
The Persian King Cyrus recognized Jehovah’s hand in the matter in 537 B.C.E., and those who returned to Jerusalem did so for the express purpose of restoring the worship of Jehovah God and rebuilding his temple. The modern State of Israel has never officially declared any such desire or intention.
Still God’s Chosen Nation?
In the year 33 C.E., the fleshly nation of Israel lost its claim to be God’s chosen nation when it rejected Jehovah’s Son, the Messiah. The Messiah himself put it this way: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets and stoner of those sent forth to her . . . Look! Your house is abandoned to you.” (Matthew 23:37, 38) Jesus’ statement came true when in 70 C.E., Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem along with its temple and priesthood. But what was to become of God’s purpose to have a “special property out of all other peoples, . . . a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”?—Exodus 19:5, 6.
The apostle Peter, himself a fleshly Jew, answered that question in a letter written to Christians—both Gentile and Jewish. He wrote: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession,’ . . . for you were once not a people, but are now God’s people; you were those who had not been shown mercy, but are now those who have been shown mercy.”—1 Peter 2:7-10.
Christians who were selected by holy spirit thus belong to a spiritual nation, their membership not being determined by birth or geographic location. The apostle Paul described the matter this way: “Neither is circumcision anything nor is uncircumcision, but a new creation is something. And all those who will walk orderly by this rule of conduct, upon them be peace and mercy, even upon the Israel of God.”—Galatians 6:15, 16.
Whereas the modern nation of Israel offers to confer citizenship upon any natural or converted Jew, citizenship in what the Bible calls “the Israel of God” is given only to those who are “obedient and sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:1, 2) Speaking of these members of the Israel of God, or spiritual Jews, Paul wrote: “He is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision that which is on the outside upon the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit, and not by a written code. The praise of that one comes, not from men, but from God.”—Romans 2:28, 29.
That verse helps us understand a controversial comment Paul made. In his letter to the Romans, Paul explained how the unbelieving natural Jews were like branches of a symbolic olive tree that were lopped off so that “wild” Gentile “branches” could be grafted in. (Romans 11:17-21) Concluding this illustration, he states: “A dulling of sensibilities has happened in part to Israel until the full number of people of the nations has come in, and in this manner all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 11:25, 26) Was Paul foretelling an eleventh hour mass conversion of the Jews to Christianity? Clearly, no such conversion has taken place.
By the expression “all Israel,” Paul meant all of spiritual Israel—Christians who have been selected by holy spirit. He was saying that the failure of the natural Jews to accept the Messiah would not thwart God’s purpose to have a spiritual ‘olive tree’ full of productive branches. This is in harmony with Jesus’ own illustration of himself as a vine whose nonproductive branches will be lopped off. Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the cultivator. Every branch in me not bearing fruit he takes away, and every one bearing fruit he cleans, that it may bear more fruit.”—John 15:1, 2.

Although the establishment of the modern State of Israel was not foretold in the Bible, the establishment of the nation of spiritual Israel certainly was! If you identify and associate with that spiritual nation today, you will reap eternal blessings.—Genesis 22:15-18; Galatians 3:8, 9.

The Watchtower Society's commentary on the Kingdom of God

KINGDOM OF GOD:

The expression and exercise of God’s universal sovereignty toward his creatures, or the means or instrumentality used by him for this purpose. (Ps 103:19) The phrase is used particularly for the expression of God’s sovereignty through a royal government headed by his Son, Christ Jesus.
The word rendered “kingdom” in the Christian Greek Scriptures is ba·si·lei′a, meaning “a kingdom, realm, the region or country governed by a king; kingly power, authority, dominion, reign; royal dignity, the title and honour of king.” (The Analytical Greek Lexicon, 1908, p. 67) The phrase “the kingdom of God” is used frequently by Mark and Luke, and in Matthew’s account the parallel phrase “the kingdom of the heavens” appears some 30 times.—Compare Mr 10:23 and Lu 18:24 with Mt 19:23, 24; see HEAVEN (Spiritual Heavens); KINGDOM.
The government of God is, in structure and function, a pure theocracy (from Gr. the·os′, god, and kra′tos, a rule), a rule by God. The term “theocracy” is attributed to Jewish historian Josephus of the first century C.E., who evidently coined it in his writing Against Apion (II, 164, 165 [17]). Of the government established over Israel in Sinai, Josephus wrote: “Some peoples have entrusted the supreme political power to monarchies, others to oligarchies, yet others to the masses. Our lawgiver, however, was attracted by none of these forms of polity, but gave to his constitution the form of what—if a forced expression be permitted—may be termed a ‘theocracy [Gr., the·o·kra·ti′an],’ placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God.” To be a pure theocracy, of course, the government could not be ordained by any human legislator, such as the man Moses, but must be ordained and established by God. The Scriptural record shows this was the case.
Origin of the Term. The term “king” (Heb., me′lekh) evidently came into use in human language after the global Flood. The first earthly kingdom was that of Nimrod “a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” (Ge 10:8-12) Thereafter, during the period down to Abraham’s time, city-states and nations developed and human kings multiplied. With the exception of the kingdom of Melchizedek, king-priest of Salem (who served as a prophetic type of the Messiah [Ge 14:17-20; Heb 7:1-17]), none of these earthly kingdoms represented God’s rule or were established by him. Men also made kings of the false gods they worshiped, attributing to them the ability to grant power of rulership to humans. Jehovah’s application of the title “King [Me′lekh]” to himself, as found in the post-Flood writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, therefore meant God’s making use of the title men had developed and employed. God’s use of the term showed that he, and not presumptuous human rulers or man-made gods, should be looked to and obeyed as “King.”—Jer 10:10-12.
Jehovah had, of course, been Sovereign Ruler long before human kingdoms developed, in fact before humans existed. As the true God and as their Creator, he was respected and obeyed by angelic sons numbering into the millions. (Job 38:4-7; 2Ch 18:18; Ps 103:20-22; Da 7:10) By whatever title, then, he was, from the beginning of creation, recognized as the One whose will was rightfully supreme.
God’s Rulership in Early Human History. The first human creatures, Adam and Eve, likewise knew Jehovah as God, the Creator of heaven and earth. They recognized his authority and his right to issue commands, to call upon people to perform certain duties or to refrain from certain acts, to assign land for residence and cultivation, as well as to delegate authority over others of his creatures. (Ge 1:26-30; 2:15-17) Though Adam had the ability to coin words (Ge 2:19, 20), there is no evidence that he developed the title “king [me′lekh]” to apply it to his God and Creator, although he recognized Jehovah’s supreme authority.
As revealed in the initial chapters of Genesis, God’s exercise of his sovereignty toward man in Eden was benevolent and not unduly restrictive. The relationship between God and man called for obedience such as the obedience a son renders to his father. (Compare Lu 3:38.) Man had no lengthy code of laws to fulfill (compare 1Ti 1:8-11); God’s requirements were simple and purposeful. Nor is there anything to indicate that Adam was made to feel inhibited by constant, critical supervision of his every action; rather, God’s communication with perfect man seems to have been periodic, according to need.—Ge chaps 1-3.
A new expression of God’s rulership purposed. The first human pair’s open violation of God’s command, instigated by one of God’s spirit sons, was actually rebellion against divine authority. (Ge 3:17-19; see TREES [Figurative Use].) The position taken by God’s spirit Adversary (Heb., sa·tan′) constituted a challenge calling for a test, the issue being the rightfulness of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. (See JEHOVAH [The supreme issue a moral one].) The earth, where the issue was raised, is fittingly the place where it will be settled.—Re 12:7-12.
At the time of pronouncing judgment upon the first rebels, Jehovah God spoke a prophecy, couched in symbolic phrase, setting forth his purpose to use an agency, a “seed,” to effect the ultimate crushing of the rebel forces. (Ge 3:15) Thus, Jehovah’s rulership, the expression of his sovereignty, would take on a new aspect or expression in answer to the insurrection that had developed. The progressive revelation of “the sacred secrets of the kingdom” (Mt 13:11) showed that this new aspect would involve the formation of a subsidiary government, a ruling body headed by a deputy ruler. The realization of the promise of the “seed” is in the kingdom of Christ Jesus in union with his chosen associates. (Re 17:14; see JESUS CHRIST [His Vital Place in God’s Purpose].) From the time of the Edenic promise forward, the progressive development of God’s purpose to produce this Kingdom “seed” becomes a basic theme of the Bible and a key to understanding Jehovah’s actions toward his servants and toward mankind in general.
God’s delegating vast authority and power to creatures (Mt 28:18; Re 2:26, 27; 3:21) in this way is noteworthy inasmuch as the question of the integrity of all God’s creatures, that is, their wholehearted devotion to him and their loyalty to his headship, formed a vital part of the issue raised by God’s Adversary. (See INTEGRITY [Involved in the supreme issue].) That God could confidently entrust any of his creatures with such remarkable authority and power would in itself be a splendid testimony to the moral strength of his rule, contributing to the vindication of Jehovah’s sovereignty and exposing the falsity of his adversary’s allegations.
Need for divine government manifested. The conditions that developed from the time of the start of human rebellion until the time of the Flood clearly illustrated mankind’s need for divine headship. Human society soon had to contend with disunity, bodily assault, and murder. (Ge 4:2-9, 23, 24) To what extent the sinner Adam, during his 930 years of life, exercised patriarchal authority over his multiplying descendants is not revealed. But by the seventh generation shocking ungodliness evidently existed (Jude 14, 15), and by the time of Noah (born about 120 years after Adam’s death) conditions had deteriorated to the point that “the earth became filled with violence.” (Ge 6:1-13) Contributing to this condition was the unauthorized interjection of spirit creatures into human society, contrary to God’s will and purpose.—Ge 6:1-4; Jude 6; 2Pe 2:4, 5; see NEPHILIM.
Though earth had become a focus of rebellion, Jehovah did not relinquish his dominion over it. The global Flood was evidence that God’s power and ability to enforce his will on earth, as in any part of the universe, continued. During the pre-Flood period he likewise demonstrated his willingness to guide and govern the actions of those individuals who sought him, such as Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Noah’s case in particular illustrates God’s exercise of rulership toward a willing earthly subject, giving him commands and direction, protecting and blessing him and his family, as well as evidencing God’s control over the other earthly creation—animals and birds. (Ge 6:9–7:16) Jehovah likewise made clear that he would not allow alienated human society to corrupt the earth endlessly; that he had not restricted himself as to executing his righteous judgment against wrongdoers when and as he saw fit. Additionally he demonstrated his sovereign ability to control earth’s various elements, including its atmosphere.—Ge 6:3, 5-7; 7:17–8:22.
The early post-Flood society and its problems. Following the Flood, a patriarchal arrangement apparently was the basic structure of human society, providing a measure of stability and order. Mankind was to “fill the earth,” which called not merely for procreating but for the steady extension of the area of human habitation throughout the globe. (Ge 9:1, 7) These factors, of themselves, would reasonably have had a limiting effect on any social problems, keeping them generally within the family circle and making unlikely the friction that frequently develops where density of population or crowded conditions exist. The unauthorized project at Babel, however, called for an opposite course, for a concentrating of people, avoiding being “scattered over all the surface of the earth.” (Ge 11:1-4; see LANGUAGE.) Then, too, Nimrod departed from the patriarchal rule and set up the first “kingdom” (Heb., mam·la·khah′). A Cushite of the family line of Ham, he invaded Shemite territory, the land of Asshur (Assyria), and built cities there as part of his realm.—Ge 10:8-12.
God’s confusion of human language broke up the concentration of people on the Plains of Shinar, but the pattern of rulership begun by Nimrod was generally followed in the lands to which the various families of mankind migrated. In the days of Abraham (2018-1843 B.C.E.), kingdoms were active from Asian Mesopotamia on down to Egypt, where the king was titled “Pharaoh” rather than Me′lekh. But these kingships did not bring security. Kings were soon forming military alliances, waging far-ranging campaigns of aggression, plunder, and kidnapping. (Ge 14:1-12) In some cities strangers were subject to attack by homosexuals.—Ge 19:4-9.
Thus, whereas men doubtless banded together in concentrated communities in search of security (compare Ge 4:14-17), they soon found it necessary to wall their cities and eventually fortify them against armed attack. The earliest secular records known, many of them from the Mesopotamian region where Nimrod’s kingdom had originally operated, are heavy with accounts of human conflict, greed, intrigue, and bloodshed. The most ancient non-Biblical law records found, such as those of Lipit-Ishtar, Eshnunna, and Hammurabi, show that human living had become very complex, with social friction producing problems of theft, fraud, commercial difficulties, disputes about property and payment of rent, questions regarding loans and interest, marital infidelity, medical fees and failures, assault and battery cases, and many other matters. Though Hammurabi called himself “the efficient king” and “the perfect king,” his rule and legislation, like that of the other ancient political kingdoms, was incapable of solving the problems of sinful mankind. (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. B. Pritchard, 1974, pp. 159-180; compare Pr 28:5.) In all these kingdoms religion was prominent, but not the worship of the true God. Though the priesthood collaborated closely with the ruling class and enjoyed royal favor, this brought no moral improvement to the people. The cuneiform inscriptions of the ancient religious writings are devoid of spiritual uplift or moral guidance; they betray the gods worshiped as quarrelsome, violent, lustful, not governed by righteous standards or purpose. Men needed Jehovah God’s kingdom if they were to enjoy life in peace and happiness.
Toward Abraham and His Descendants. True, those individuals who looked to Jehovah God as their Head were not without their personal problems and frictions. Yet they were helped to solve these or to endure them in a way conforming to God’s righteous standards and without becoming degraded. They were afforded divine protection and strength. (Ge 13:5-11; 14:18-24; 19:15-24; 21:9-13, 22-33) Thus, after pointing out that Jehovah’s “judicial decisions are in all the earth,” the psalmist says of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “They happened to be few in number, yes, very few, and alien residents in [Canaan]. And they kept walking about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. [Jehovah] did not allow any human to defraud them, but on their account he reproved kings, saying: ‘Do not you men touch my anointed ones, and to my prophets do nothing bad.’” (Ps 105:7-15; compare Ge 12:10-20; 20:1-18; 31:22-24, 36-55.) This, too, was proof that God’s sovereignty over earth was still in effect, enforceable by him in harmony with the development of his purpose.
The faithful patriarchs did not attach themselves to any of the city-states or kingdoms of Canaan or other lands. Rather than seek security in some city under the political rule of a human king, they lived in tents as aliens, “strangers and temporary residents in the land,” in faith “awaiting the city having real foundations, the builder and maker of which city is God.” They accepted God as their Ruler, waited for his future heavenly arrangement, or agency, for governing the earth, solidly founded on his sovereign authority and will, though the realization of this hope was then “afar off.” (Heb 11:8-10, 13-16) Thus, Jesus, already anointed by God to be king, could later say: “Abraham . . . rejoiced greatly in the prospect of seeing my day, and he saw it and rejoiced.”—Joh 8:56.
Jehovah brought the development of his promise regarding the Kingdom “seed” (Ge 3:15) a step farther by the establishing of a covenant with Abraham. (Ge 12:1-3; 22:15-18) In connection therewith, he foretold that ‘kings would come’ from Abraham (Abram) and his wife. (Ge 17:1-6, 15, 16) Though the descendants of Abraham’s grandson Esau formed sheikdoms and kingdoms, it was to Abraham’s other grandson, Jacob, that God’s prophetic promise of kingly descendants was repeated.—Ge 35:11, 12; 36:9, 15-43.
Formation of the Israelite nation. Centuries later, at the due time (Ge 15:13-16), Jehovah God acted on behalf of Jacob’s descendants, now numbering into the millions (see EXODUS [The Number Involved in the Exodus]), protecting them during a campaign of genocide by the Egyptian government (Ex 1:15-22) and finally freeing them from harsh slavery to Egypt’s regime. (Ex 2:23-25) God’s command to Pharaoh, delivered through his agents Moses and Aaron, was spurned by the Egyptian ruler as proceeding from a source with no authority over Egyptian affairs. Pharaoh’s repeated refusal to recognize Jehovah’s sovereignty brought demonstrations of divine power in the form of plagues. (Ex 7 to 12) God thereby proved that his dominion over earth’s elements and creatures was superior to that of any king in all the earth. (Ex 9:13-16) He climaxed this display of sovereign power by destroying Pharaoh’s forces in a way that none of the boastful warrior kings of the nations could ever have duplicated. (Ex 14:26-31) With real basis, Moses and the Israelites sang: “Jehovah will rule as king to time indefinite, even forever.”—Ex 15:1-19.
Thereafter Jehovah gave added proof of his dominion over earth, its vital water resources, and its bird life, and he showed his ability to guard and sustain his nation even in arid and hostile surroundings. (Ex 15:22–17:15) Having done all of this, he addressed the liberated people, telling them that, by obedience to his authority and covenant, they could become his special property out of all other peoples, “because the whole earth belongs to me.” They could become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex 19:3-6) When they went on record as willing subjects of his sovereignty, Jehovah acted as Kingly Legislator by giving them royal decrees in a large body of laws, accompanying this by dynamic and awe-inspiring evidence of his power and glory. (Ex 19:7–24:18) A tabernacle or tent of meeting, and particularly the ark of the covenant, was to indicate the presence of the invisible heavenly Head of State. (Ex 25:8, 21, 22; 33:7-11; compare Re 21:3.) Although Moses and other appointed men judged the majority of cases, guided by God’s law, Jehovah intervened personally at times to express judgments and apply sanctions against lawbreakers. (Ex 18:13-16, 24-26; 32:25-35) The ordained priesthood acted to maintain good relations between the nation and its heavenly Ruler, helping the people in their efforts to conform to the high standards of the Law covenant. (See PRIEST.) Thus the government over Israel was a genuine theocracy.—De 33:2, 5.
As God and Creator, holding the right of “eminent domain” over all the earth, as well as being “the Judge of all the earth” (Ge 18:25), Jehovah had assigned the land of Canaan to Abraham’s seed. (Ge 12:5-7; 15:17-21) As Chief Executive, he now ordered the Israelites to carry out the forcible expropriation of the territory held by the condemned Canaanites, as well as his death sentence against them.—De 9:1-5; see CANAAN, CANAANITE No. 2 (Conquest of Canaan by Israel).
The period of the Judges. For three and a half centuries after Israel’s conquest of Canaan’s many kingdoms, Jehovah God was the nation’s only king. During varying periods, Judges, chosen by God, led the nation or portions thereof in battle and in peace. Judge Gideon’s defeat of Midian brought a popular request that he become the nation’s ruler, but he refused, acknowledging Jehovah as the true ruler. (Jg 8:22, 23) His ambitious son Abimelech briefly established kingship over a small segment of the nation, but this ended in personal disaster.—Jg 9:1, 6, 22, 53-56.
Of this general period of the Judges, the comment is made: “In those days there was no king in Israel. As for everybody, what was right in his own eyes he was accustomed to do.” (Jg 17:6; 21:25) This does not imply that there was no judicial restraint. Every city had judges, older men, to handle legal questions and problems and to mete out justice. (De 16:18-20; see COURT, JUDICIAL.) The Levitical priesthood functioned as a superior guiding force, educating the people in God’s law, the high priest having the Urim and Thummim by which to consult God on difficult matters. (See HIGH PRIEST; PRIEST; URIM AND THUMMIM.) So, the individual who availed himself of these provisions, who gained knowledge of God’s law and applied it, had a sound guide for his conscience. His doing “what was right in his own eyes” in such case would not result in bad. Jehovah allowed the people to show a willing or unwilling attitude and course. There was no human monarch over the nation supervising the work of the city judges or commanding the citizens to engage in particular projects or marshaling them for defense of the nation. (Compare Jg 5:1-18.) The bad conditions that developed, therefore, were chargeable to the unwillingness of the majority to heed the word and law of their heavenly King and to avail themselves of his provisions.—Jg 2:11-23.
A Human King Requested. Nearly 400 years from the time of the Exodus and over 800 years from the making of God’s covenant with Abraham, the Israelites requested a human king to lead them, even as the other nations had human monarchs. Their request constituted a rejection of Jehovah’s own kingship over them. (1Sa 8:4-8) True, the people properly expected a kingdom to be established by God in harmony with his promise to Abraham and to Jacob, already cited. They had further basis for such hope in Jacob’s deathbed prophecy concerning Judah (Ge 49:8-10), in Jehovah’s words to Israel after the Exodus (Ex 19:3-6), in the terms of the Law covenant (De 17:14, 15), and even in part of the message God caused the prophet Balaam to speak (Nu 24:2-7, 17). Samuel’s faithful mother Hannah expressed this hope in prayer. (1Sa 2:7-10) Nevertheless, Jehovah had not fully revealed his “sacred secret” regarding the Kingdom and had not indicated when his due time for its establishment would arrive nor what the structure and composition of that government would be—whether it would be earthly or heavenly. It was therefore presumptuous on the part of the people now to demand a human king.
The menace of Philistine and Ammonite aggression evidently contributed to the Israelites’ desire for a visible royal commander-in-chief. They thus displayed a lack of faith in God’s ability to protect, guide, and provide for them, as a nation or as individuals. (1Sa 8:4-8) The people’s motive was wrong; yet Jehovah God granted their request not for their sake primarily but to accomplish his own good purpose in the progressive revelation of the “sacred secret” of his future Kingdom by the “seed.” Human kingship would bring its problems and expense for Israel, however, and Jehovah laid the facts before the people.—1Sa 8:9-22.
The kings thereafter appointed by Jehovah were to serve as God’s earthly agents, not diminishing in the least Jehovah’s own sovereignty over the nation. The throne was actually Jehovah’s, and they sat thereon as deputy kings. (1Ch 29:23) Jehovah commanded the anointing of the first king, Saul (1Sa 9:15-17), at the same time exposing the lack of faith the nation had displayed.—1Sa 10:17-25.
For the kingship to bring benefits, both king and nation must now respect God’s authority. If they unrealistically looked to other sources for direction and protection, they and their king would be swept away. (De 28:36; 1Sa 12:13-15, 20-25) The king was to avoid reliance on military strength, the multiplying of wives for himself, and being dominated by the lust for wealth. His kingship was to operate entirely within the framework of the Law covenant. He was under divine orders to write his own copy of that Law and read it daily, that he might keep a proper fear of the Sovereign Authority, stay humble, and hold to a righteous course. (De 17:16-20) To the extent that he did this, loving God wholeheartedly and loving his neighbor as himself, his rule would bring blessings, with no real cause for complaint due to oppression or hardship. But, as with the people, so now with their kings, Jehovah allowed the rulers to demonstrate what their hearts contained, their willingness or unwillingness to recognize God’s own authority and will.
David’s Exemplary Rule. Disrespect by the Benjamite Saul for the superior authority and arrangements of “the Excellency of Israel” brought divine disfavor and cost his family line the throne. (1Sa 13:10-14; 15:17-29; 1Ch 10:13, 14) With the rule of Saul’s successor, David of Judah, Jacob’s deathbed prophecy saw further fulfillment. (Ge 49:8-10) Though David committed errors through human weakness, his rule was exemplary because of his heartfelt devotion to Jehovah God and his humble submission to divine authority. (Ps 51:1-4; 1Sa 24:10-14; compare 1Ki 11:4; 15:11, 14.) At the time of receiving contributions for the temple construction, David prayed to God before the congregated people, saying: “Yours, O Jehovah, are the greatness and the mightiness and the beauty and the excellency and the dignity; for everything in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Jehovah, the One also lifting yourself up as head over all. The riches and the glory are on account of you, and you are dominating everything; and in your hand there are power and mightiness, and in your hand is ability to make great and to give strength to all. And now, O our God, we are thanking you and praising your beauteous name.” (1Ch 29:10-13) His final counsel to his son Solomon also illustrates David’s fine viewpoint of the relationship between the earthly kingship and its divine Source.—1Ki 2:1-4.
On the occasion of bringing the ark of the covenant, associated with Jehovah’s presence, to the capital, Jerusalem, David sang: “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be joyful, and let them say among the nations, ‘Jehovah himself has become king!’” (1Ch 16:1, 7, 23-31) This illustrates the fact that, though Jehovah’s rulership dates from the beginning of creation, he can make specific expressions of his rulership or establish certain agencies to represent him that allow for his being spoken of as ‘becoming king’ at a particular time or occasion.
The covenant for a kingdom. Jehovah made a covenant with David for a kingdom to be established everlastingly in his family line, saying: “I shall certainly raise up your seed after you, . . . and I shall indeed firmly establish his kingdom. . . . And your house and your kingdom will certainly be steadfast to time indefinite before you; your very throne will become one firmly established to time indefinite.” (2Sa 7:12-16; 1Ch 17:11-14) This covenant in force toward the Davidic dynasty provided further evidence of the outworking of God’s Edenic promise for his Kingdom by the foretold “seed” (Ge 3:15) and supplied additional means for identifying that “seed” when he should come. (Compare Isa 9:6, 7; 1Pe 1:11.) The kings appointed by God were anointed for their office, hence the term “messiah,” meaning “anointed one,” applied to them. (1Sa 16:1; Ps 132:13, 17) Clearly, then, the earthly kingdom Jehovah established over Israel served as a type or small-scale representation of the coming Kingdom by the Messiah, Jesus Christ, “son of David.”—Mt 1:1.
Decline and Fall of the Israelite Kingdoms. Because of failure to adhere to Jehovah’s righteous ways, conditions at the end of just three reigns and the start of the fourth produced strong discontent that led to revolt and a split in the nation (997 B.C.E.). A northern kingdom and a southern one resulted. Jehovah’s covenant with David nevertheless continued in force toward the kings of the southern kingdom of Judah. Over the centuries, faithful kings were rare in Judah, and were completely lacking in the northern kingdom of Israel. The northern kingdom’s history was one of idolatry, intrigue, and assassinations, kings often following one another in rapid succession. The people suffered injustice and oppression. About 250 years from its start, Jehovah allowed the king of Assyria to crush the northern kingdom (740 B.C.E.) because of its course of rebellion against God.—Ho 4:1, 2; Am 2:6-8.
Though the kingdom of Judah enjoyed greater stability because of the Davidic dynasty, the southern kingdom eventually surpassed the northern kingdom in its moral corruption, despite the efforts of God-fearing kings, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, to roll back the decline toward idolatry and rejection of Jehovah’s word and authority. (Isa 1:1-4; Eze 23:1-4, 11) Social injustice, tyranny, greed, dishonesty, bribes, sexual perversion, criminal attacks, and bloodshed, as well as religious hypocrisy that converted God’s temple into a “cave of robbers”—all of these were decried by Jehovah’s prophets in their warning messages delivered to rulers and people. (Isa 1:15-17, 21-23; 3:14, 15; Jer 5:1, 2, 7, 8, 26-28, 31; 6:6, 7; 7:8-11) Neither the support of apostate priests nor any political alliance made with other nations could avoid the coming crash of that unfaithful kingdom. (Jer 6:13-15; 37:7-10) The capital city, Jerusalem, was destroyed and Judah was laid waste by the Babylonians in 607 B.C.E.—2Ki 25:1-26.
Jehovah’s kingly position remains unmarred. The destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in no way reflected on the quality of Jehovah God’s own rulership; in no way did it indicate weakness on his part. Throughout the history of the Israelite nation, Jehovah made clear that his interest was in willing service and obedience. (De 10:12-21; 30:6, 15-20; Isa 1:18-20; Eze 18:25-32) He instructed, reproved, disciplined, warned, and punished. But he did not use his power to force either the king or the people to follow a righteous course. The bad conditions that developed, the suffering experienced, the disaster that befell them, were all of their own making, because they stubbornly hardened their hearts and insisted on following an independent course, one that was stupidly damaging to their own best interests.—La 1:8, 9; Ne 9:26-31, 34-37; Isa 1:2-7; Jer 8:5-9; Ho 7:10, 11.
Jehovah exhibited his Sovereign power by holding in abeyance the aggressive, rapacious powers of Assyria and Babylon until his own due time, even maneuvering them so that they acted in fulfillment of his prophecies. (Eze 21:18-23; Isa 10:5-7) When Jehovah finally removed his defenses from around the nation, it was an expression of his righteous judgment as Sovereign Ruler. (Jer 35:17) The desolation of Israel and Judah came as no shocking surprise to God’s obedient servants who were forewarned by his prophecies. The abasing of haughty rulers exalted Jehovah’s own “splendid superiority.” (Isa 2:1, 10-17) More than all of this, however, he had demonstrated his ability to protect and preserve individuals who looked to him as their King, even when they were surrounded by conditions of famine, disease, and wholesale slaughter, as well as when they were persecuted by those hating righteousness.—Jer 34:17-21; 20:10, 11; 35:18, 19; 36:26; 37:18-21; 38:7-13; 39:11–40:5.
Israel’s last king was warned of the coming removal of his crown, representing anointed kingship as Jehovah’s royal representative. That anointed Davidic kingship would no longer be exercised “until he comes who has the legal right, and I [Jehovah] must give it to him.” (Eze 21:25-27) Thus, the typical kingdom, now in ruins, ceased to function, and attention was again directed forward, toward the coming “seed,” the Messiah.
Political nations, such as Assyria and Babylon, devastated the apostate kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Though God speaks of himself as ‘raising up’ or ‘bringing’ them against those condemned kingdoms (De 28:49; Jer 5:15; 25:8, 9; Eze 7:24; Am 6:14), this was evidently in a sense similar to God’s ‘hardening’ the heart of Pharaoh. (See FOREKNOWLEDGE, FOREORDINATION [Concerning individuals].) That is, God ‘brought’ these attacking forces by permitting them to carry out the desire already in their heart (Isa 10:7; La 2:16; Mic 4:11), removing his protective ‘hand’ from over the objects of their ambitious greed. (De 31:17, 18; compare Ezr 8:31 with Ezr 5:12; Ne 9:28-31; Jer 34:2.) The apostate Israelites, stubbornly refusing to subject themselves to Jehovah’s law and will, thus were given ‘liberty to the sword, pestilence, and famine.’ (Jer 34:17) But the attacking pagan nations did not thereby become approved of God, nor did they have ‘clean hands’ before him in their ruthless destruction of the northern and southern kingdoms, the capital city of Jerusalem, and its sacred temple. Hence, Jehovah, the Judge of all the earth, could rightly denounce them for ‘pillaging his inheritance’ and could doom them to suffer the same desolation they had wreaked on his covenant people.—Isa 10:12-14; 13:1, 17-22; 14:4-6, 12-14, 26, 27; 47:5-11; Jer 50:11, 14, 17-19, 23-29.
Visions of Kingdom of God in Daniel’s Day. The prophecy of Daniel in its entirety emphatically stresses the theme of the Universal Sovereignty of God, further clarifying Jehovah’s purpose. Living in exile in the capital of the world power that overthrew Judah, Daniel was used by God to reveal the significance of a vision had by the Babylonian monarch, a vision that foretold the march of world powers and their eventual demolition by the everlasting Kingdom of Jehovah’s own establishment. Doubtless to the amazement of his royal court, Nebuchadnezzar, the very conqueror of Jerusalem, was now moved to prostrate himself in homage to Daniel the exile and to acknowledge Daniel’s God as “a Lord of kings.” (Da 2:36-47) Again, by Nebuchadnezzar’s dream vision of the ‘chopped-down tree,’ Jehovah forcefully made known that “the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind and that to the one whom he wants to, he gives it and he sets up over it even the lowliest one of mankind.” (Da 4; see the discussion of this vision under APPOINTED TIMES OF THE NATIONS.) Through the fulfillment of the dream as it related to him, imperial ruler Nebuchadnezzar once more was brought to recognize Daniel’s God as “the King of the heavens,” the One who “is doing according to his own will among the army of the heavens and the inhabitants of the earth. And there exists no one that can check his hand or that can say to him, ‘What have you been doing?’”—Da 4:34-37.
Toward the close of Babylon’s international dominance, Daniel saw prophetic visions of successive empires, beastlike in their characteristics; he saw also Jehovah’s majestic heavenly Court in session, passing judgment on the world powers, decreeing them unworthy of rulership; and he beheld “someone like a son of man . . . [being] given rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him” in his “indefinitely lasting rulership that will not pass away.” He witnessed as well the war waged against “the holy ones” by the final world power, calling for its annihilation, and the giving of “the kingdom and the rulership and the grandeur of the kingdoms under all the heavens . . . to the people who are the holy ones of the Supreme One,” Jehovah God. (Da 7, 8) Thus, it became evident that the promised “seed” would involve a governmental body with not only a kingly head, the “son of man,” but also associate rulers, “the holy ones of the Supreme One.”
Toward Babylon and Medo-Persia. God’s inexorable decree against mighty Babylon was carried out suddenly and unexpectedly; her days were numbered and brought to a finish. (Da 5:17-30) During the Medo-Persian rule that followed, Jehovah made further revelation concerning the Messianic Kingdom, pointing to the time of Messiah’s appearance, foretelling his being “cut off,” as well as a second destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its holy place. (Da 9:1, 24-27; see SEVENTY WEEKS.) And, as he had done during the Babylonian rule, Jehovah God again demonstrated his ability to protect those recognizing his sovereignty in the face of official anger and the threat of death, exhibiting his power over both earthly elements and wild beasts. (Da 3:13-29; 6:12-27) He caused Babylon’s gates to swing wide open on schedule, allowing his covenant people to have the freedom to return to their own land and rebuild Jehovah’s house there. (2Ch 36:20-23) Because of his act of liberating his people, the announcement could be made to Zion, “Your God has become king!” (Isa 52:7-11) Thereafter, conspiracies against his people were thwarted and misrepresentation by subordinate officials and adverse governmental decrees were overcome, as Jehovah moved various Persian kings to cooperate with the carrying out of his own sovereign will.—Ezr 4-7; Ne 2, 4, 6; Es 3-9.
Thus, for thousands of years the changeless, irresistible purpose of Jehovah God moved forward. Regardless of the turn of events on earth, he proved to be ever in command of the situation, always ahead of opposing man and devil. Nothing was allowed to interfere with the perfect outworking of his purpose, his will. The nation of Israel and its history, while serving to form prophetic types and forecasts of the future dealings of God with men, also illustrated that without wholehearted recognition and submission to divine headship there can be no lasting harmony, peace, and happiness. The Israelites enjoyed the benefits of having in common such things as ancestry, language, and country. They also faced common foes. But only as long as they loyally and faithfully worshiped and served Jehovah God did they have unity, strength, justice, and genuine enjoyment of life. When the bonds of relationship with Jehovah God weakened, the nation deteriorated rapidly.
The Kingdom of God ‘Draws Near.’ Since the Messiah was to be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a member of the tribe of Judah, and a “son of David,” he had to have a human birth; he had to be, as Daniel’s prophecy declared, “a son of man.” When the “full limit of the time arrived,” Jehovah God sent forth his Son, who was born of a woman and who fulfilled all the legal requirements for the inheritance of “the throne of David his father.” (Ga 4:4; Lu 1:26-33; see GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST.) Six months before his birth, John, who became the Baptizer and who was to be Jesus’ forerunner, had been born. (Lu 1:13-17, 36) The expressions of the parents of these sons showed they were living in eager anticipation of divine acts of rulership. (Lu 1:41-55, 68-79) At Jesus’ birth, the words of the angelic deputation sent to announce the meaning of the event also pointed to glorious acts by God. (Lu 2:9-14) So, too, the words of Simeon and Anna at the temple expressed hope in saving acts and liberation. (Lu 2:25-38) Both the Biblical record and secular evidence reveal that a general feeling of expectation prevailed among the Jews that the coming of the Messiah was drawing near. With many, however, interest was primarily in gaining freedom from the heavy yoke of Roman domination.—See MESSIAH.
John’s commission was to ‘turn back the hearts’ of persons to Jehovah, to his covenants, to “the privilege of fearlessly rendering sacred service to him with loyalty and righteousness,” thereby getting ready for Jehovah “a prepared people.” (Lu 1:16, 17, 72-75) He told the people in no uncertain terms that they were facing a time of judgment by God, that ‘the kingdom of the heavens had drawn near,’ making urgent their turning away repentantly from their course of disobedience to God’s will and law. This again emphasized Jehovah’s standard of having only willing subjects, persons who both recognize and appreciate the rightness of his ways and laws.—Mt 3:1, 2, 7-12.
The Messiah came when Jesus presented himself to John for baptism and was then anointed by God’s holy spirit. (Mt 3:13-17) He thereby became the King-Designate, the One recognized by Jehovah’s Court as having the legal right to the Davidic throne, a right that had not been exercised during the preceding six centuries. (See JESUS CHRIST [His Baptism].) But Jehovah additionally brought this approved Son into a covenant for a heavenly Kingdom, in which Jesus would be both King and Priest, as Melchizedek of ancient Salem had been. (Ps 110:1-4; Lu 22:29; Heb 5:4-6; 7:1-3; 8:1; see COVENANT.) As the promised ‘seed of Abraham,’ this heavenly King-Priest would be God’s Chief Agent for blessing persons of all nations.—Ge 22:15-18; Ga 3:14; Ac 3:15.
Early in his Son’s earthly life, Jehovah had manifested his kingly power on Jesus’ behalf. God diverted the Oriental astrologers who were going to inform tyrannical King Herod of the young child’s whereabouts, and he caused Jesus’ parents to slip away into Egypt before Herod’s agents carried out the massacre of infants in Bethlehem. (Mt 2:1-16) Since the original prophecy in Eden had foretold enmity between the promised “seed” and the ‘seed of the serpent,’ this attempt on Jesus’ life could only mean that God’s Adversary, Satan the Devil, was trying, however futilely, to frustrate Jehovah’s purpose.—Ge 3:15.
After some 40 days in the Judean Wilderness, the baptized Jesus was confronted by this principal opponent of Jehovah’s sovereignty. By some means, the spirit Adversary conveyed to Jesus certain subtle suggestions designed to draw him into acts violating Jehovah’s expressed will and word. Satan even offered to give to the anointed Jesus dominion over all earthly kingdoms without a struggle and without any need for suffering on Jesus’ part—in exchange for one act of worship toward himself. When Jesus refused, acknowledging Jehovah as the one true Sovereign from whom authority rightly proceeds and to whom worship goes, God’s Adversary began drawing up other plans of war strategy against Jehovah’s Representative, resorting to the use of human agents in various ways, as he had done long before in the case of Job.—Job 1:8-18; Mt 4:1-11; Lu 4:1-13; compare Re 13:1, 2.
In what way was God’s Kingdom ‘in the midst’ of those to whom Jesus preached?
Trusting in Jehovah’s power to protect him and grant him success, Jesus entered his public ministry, announcing to Jehovah’s covenant people that “the appointed time has been fulfilled,” resulting in the approach of the Kingdom of God. (Mr 1:14, 15) In determining in what sense the Kingdom was “near,” his words to certain Pharisees may be noted, namely, that “the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Lu 17:21) Commenting on this text, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible observes: “Although frequently cited as an example of Jesus’ ‘mysticism’ or ‘inwardness,’ this interpretation rests chiefly upon the old translation, ‘within you,’ [KJ, Dy] understood in the unfortunate modern sense of ‘you’ as singular; the ‘you’ ([hy·mon′]) is plural (Jesus is addressing the Pharisees—vs. 20) . . . The theory that the kingdom of God is an inner state of mind, or of personal salvation, runs counter to the context of this verse, and also to the whole NT presentation of the idea.” (Edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 2, p. 883) Since “kingdom [ba·si·lei′a]” can refer to the “royal dignity,” it is evident that Jesus meant that he, God’s royal representative, the one anointed by God for the kingship, was in their midst. Not only was he present in this capacity but he also had authority to perform works manifesting God’s kingly power and to prepare candidates for positions within his coming Kingdom rule. Hence the ‘nearness’ of the Kingdom; it was a time of tremendous opportunity.
Government with power and authority. Jesus’ disciples understood the Kingdom to be an actual government of God, though they did not comprehend the reach of its domain. Nathanael said to Jesus: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are King of Israel.” (Joh 1:49) They knew the things foretold about “the holy ones” in the prophecy of Daniel. (Da 7:18, 27) Jesus directly promised his apostolic followers that they would occupy “thrones.” (Mt 19:28) James and John sought certain privileged positions in the Messianic government, and Jesus acknowledged that there would be such privileged positions, but he stated that the assigning of these rested with his Father, the Sovereign Ruler. (Mt 20:20-23; Mr 10:35-40) So, whereas his disciples mistakenly limited Messiah’s kingly rule to earth and specifically to fleshly Israel, even doing so on the day of the resurrected Jesus’ ascension (Ac 1:6), they correctly understood that it referred to a governmental arrangement.—Compare Mt 21:5; Mr 11:7-10.
Jehovah’s kingly power toward his earthly creation was visibly demonstrated in many ways by his royal Representative. By God’s spirit, or active force, his Son exercised control over wind and sea, vegetation, fish, and even over the organic elements in food, causing the food to be multiplied. These powerful works caused his disciples to develop deep respect for the authority that he had. (Mt 14:23-33; Mr 4:36-41; 11:12-14, 20-23; Lu 5:4-11; Joh 6:5-15) Even more profoundly impressive was his exercise of God’s power over human bodies, healing afflictions ranging from blindness to leprosy, and restoring the dead to life. (Mt 9:35; 20:30-34; Lu 5:12, 13; 7:11-17; Joh 11:39-47) Healed lepers he sent to report to the divinely authorized, but generally unbelieving, priesthood, as “a witness to them.” (Lu 5:14; 17:14) Finally, he showed God’s power over superhuman spirits. The demons recognized the authority invested in Jesus and, rather than risk a decisive test of the power backing him up, they acceded to his orders to release persons possessed by them. (Mt 8:28-32; 9:32, 33; compare Jas 2:19.) Since this powerful expulsion of demons was by God’s spirit, this meant that the Kingdom of God had really “overtaken” his listeners.—Mt 12:25-29; compare Lu 9:42, 43.
All of this was solid proof that Jesus had kingly authority and that this authority came from no earthly, human, political source. (Compare Joh 18:36; Isa 9:6, 7.) Messengers from the imprisoned John the Baptizer, as witnesses of these powerful works, were instructed by Jesus to go back to John and tell him what they had seen and heard as confirmation that Jesus was indeed “the Coming One.” (Mt 11:2-6; Lu 7:18-23; compare Joh 5:36.) Jesus’ disciples were seeing and hearing the evidence of Kingdom authority that the prophets had longed to witness. (Mt 13:16, 17) Moreover, Jesus was able to delegate authority to his disciples so that they could exercise similar powers as his appointed deputies, thereby giving force and weight to their proclamation, “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”—Mt 10:1, 7, 8; Lu 4:36; 10:8-12, 17.
Entrance Into the Kingdom. Jesus emphasized the special period of opportunity that had thus arrived. Of his forerunner John the Baptizer, Jesus said: “Among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is. But from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press [bi·a′ze·tai], and those pressing forward [bi·a·stai′] are seizing it. [Compare AT; also the Zürcher Bibel (German).] For all, the Prophets and the Law, prophesied until John.” (Mt 11:10-13) Thus, the days of John’s ministry, which were soon to end with his execution, marked the close of one period, the start of another. Of the Greek verb bi·a′zo·mai used in this text, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words says, “The verb suggests forceful endeavour.” (1981, Vol. 3, p. 208) Regarding Matthew 11:12, German scholar Heinrich Meyer states: “In this way is described that eager, irresistible striving and struggling after the approaching Messianic kingdom . . . So eager and energetic (no longer calm and expectant) is the interest in regard to the kingdom. The [bi·a·stai′] are, accordingly, believers [not enemy attackers] struggling hard for its possession.”—Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew, 1884, p. 225.
Membership in the Kingdom of God, therefore, would not be easy to gain, not like approaching an open city with little or nothing to make entrance difficult. Rather, the Sovereign, Jehovah God, had placed barriers to shut out any not worthy. (Compare Joh 6:44; 1Co 6:9-11; Ga 5:19-21; Eph 5:5.) Those who would enter must traverse a narrow road, find the narrow gate, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, and the way would be opened. They would find the way to be “narrow” in that it restricts those who follow it from doing things that would result in injury to themselves or others. (Mt 7:7, 8, 13, 14; compare 2Pe 1:10, 11.) They might figuratively have to lose an eye or a hand to gain entrance. (Mr 9:43-47) The Kingdom would be no plutocracy in which one could buy the King’s favor; it would be a difficult thing for a rich man (Gr., plou′si·os) to enter. (Lu 18:24, 25) It would be no worldly aristocracy; prominent position among men would not count. (Mt 23:1, 2, 6-12, 33; Lu 16:14-16) Those apparently “first,” having an impressive religious background and record, would be “last,” and the ‘last would be first’ to receive the favored privileges connected with that Kingdom. (Mt 19:30–20:16) The prominent but hypocritical Pharisees, confident of their advantageous position, would see reformed harlots and tax collectors enter the Kingdom before them. (Mt 21:31, 32; 23:13) Though calling Jesus “Lord, Lord,” all hypocritical persons disrespecting the word and will of God as revealed through Jesus would be turned away with the words: “I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness.”—Mt 7:15-23.
Those gaining entrance would be those putting material interests secondary and seeking first the Kingdom and God’s righteousness. (Mt 6:31-34) Like God’s anointed King, Christ Jesus, they would love righteousness and hate wickedness. (Heb 1:8, 9) Spiritually minded, merciful, purehearted, peaceable persons, though the objects of reproach and persecution by men, would become prospective members of the Kingdom. (Mt 5:3-10; Lu 6:23) The “yoke” Jesus invited such ones to take upon themselves meant submission to his kingly authority. It was a kindly yoke, however, with a light load for those who were “mild-tempered and lowly in heart” as was the King. (Mt 11:28-30; compare 1Ki 12:12-14; Jer 27:1-7.) This should have had a heartwarming effect on his listeners, assuring them that his rule would have none of the undesirable qualities of many earlier rulers, both Israelite and non-Israelite. It gave them reason to believe that his rule would bring no burdensome taxation, forced servitude, or forms of exploitation. (Compare 1Sa 8:10-18; De 17:15-17, 20; Eph 5:5.) As Jesus’ later words showed, not only would the Head of the coming Kingdom government prove his unselfishness to the point of giving his life for his people but all those associated with him in that government would also be persons who sought to serve rather than be served.—Mt 20:25-28; see JESUS CHRIST (His Works and Personal Qualities).
Willing submission vital. Jesus himself had the deepest respect for the Sovereign will and authority of his Father. (Joh 5:30; 6:38; Mt 26:39) As long as the Law covenant was in effect, his Jewish followers were to practice and advocate obedience to it; any taking an opposite course would be rejected as regards his Kingdom. This respect and obedience, however, must be from the heart, not a mere formal or one-sided observing of the Law with emphasis on specific acts required, but the observing of basic principles inherent therein involving justice, mercy, and faithfulness. (Mt 5:17-20; 23:23, 24) To the scribe who acknowledged Jehovah’s unique position and who recognized that “loving him with one’s whole heart and with one’s whole understanding and with one’s whole strength and this loving one’s neighbor as oneself is worth far more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices,” Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mr 12:28-34) Thus, in all respects Jesus made clear that Jehovah God seeks only willing subjects, those who prefer his righteous ways and desire fervently to live under his Sovereign authority.
Covenant relationship. On his last night with his disciples, Jesus spoke to them of a “new covenant” to become operative toward his followers as a result of his ransom sacrifice (Lu 22:19, 20; compare 12:32); he himself would serve as the Mediator of that covenant between Jehovah the Sovereign and Jesus’ followers. (1Ti 2:5; Heb 12:24) Additionally, Jesus made a personal covenant with his followers “for a kingdom,” that they might join him in his royal privileges.—Lu 22:28-30; see COVENANT.
Conquest of the world. Although Jesus’ subsequent arrest, trials, and execution made his kingly position appear weak, in reality it marked a powerful fulfillment of God’s prophecies and was allowed by God for that reason. (Joh 19:10, 11; Lu 24:19-27, 44) By his loyalty and integrity until death, Jesus proved that “the ruler of the world,” God’s Adversary, Satan, had “no hold” on him and that Jesus had indeed “conquered the world.” (Joh 14:29-31; 16:33) Additionally, even while his Son was impaled on the stake, Jehovah gave evidence of his superior power: The light of the sun was blacked out for a time; there was also a strong earthquake and the ripping in two of the large curtain in the temple. (Mt 27:51-54; Lu 23:44, 45) On the third day thereafter, he gave far greater evidence of his Sovereignty when he resurrected his Son to spirit life, despite the puny efforts of men to prevent the resurrection by posting guards before Jesus’ sealed tomb.—Mt 28:1-7.
“The Kingdom of the Son of His Love.” Ten days after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, on Pentecost of 33 C.E., his disciples had evidence that he had been “exalted to the right hand of God” when Jesus poured out holy spirit upon them. (Ac 1:8, 9; 2:1-4, 29-33) The “new covenant” thus became operative toward them, and they became the nucleus of a new “holy nation,” spiritual Israel.—Heb 12:22-24; 1Pe 2:9, 10; Ga 6:16.
Christ was now sitting at his Father’s right hand and was the Head over this congregation. (Eph 5:23; Heb 1:3; Php 2:9-11) The Scriptures show that from Pentecost 33 C.E. onward, a spiritual kingdom was set up over his disciples. When writing to first-century Christians at Colossae, the apostle Paul referred to Jesus Christ as already having a kingdom: “[God] delivered us from the authority of the darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.”—Col 1:13; compare Ac 17:6, 7.
Christ’s kingdom from Pentecost of 33 C.E. onward has been a spiritual one ruling over spiritual Israel, Christians who have been begotten by God’s spirit to become the spiritual children of God. (Joh 3:3, 5, 6) When such spirit-begotten Christians receive their heavenly reward, they will no longer be earthly subjects of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, but they will be kings with Christ in heaven.—Re 5:9, 10.
“Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ.” The apostle John, writing toward the close of the first century C.E., foresaw through a divine revelation the future time when Jehovah God, by means of his Son, would make a new expression of divine rulership. At that time, as in the time of David’s bringing the Ark up to Jerusalem, it would be said that Jehovah ‘has taken his great power and begun ruling as king.’ This would be the time for loud voices in heaven to proclaim: “The kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule as king forever and ever.”—Re 11:15, 17; 1Ch 16:1, 31.
It is “our Lord,” the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, who asserts his authority over “the kingdom of the world,” setting up a new expression of his sovereignty toward our earth. He gives to his Son, Jesus Christ, a subsidiary share in that Kingdom, so that it is termed “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” This Kingdom is of greater proportions and bigger dimensions than “the kingdom of the Son of his love,” spoken of at Colossians 1:13. “The kingdom of the Son of his love” began at Pentecost 33 C.E. and has been over Christ’s anointed disciples; “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” is brought forth at the end of “the appointed times of the nations” and is over all mankind on earth.—Lu 21:24.
Upon receiving a share in “the kingdom of the world,” Jesus Christ takes necessary measures to clean out opposition to God’s sovereignty. The initial action takes place in the heavenly realm; Satan and his demons are defeated and cast down to the earthly realm. This results in the proclamation: “Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ.” (Re 12:1-10) During the short period of time remaining to him, this principal Adversary, Satan, continues to fulfill the prophecy at Genesis 3:15 by warring against “the remaining ones” of the “seed” of the woman, “the holy ones” due to govern with Christ. (Re 12:13-17; compare Re 13:4-7; Da 7:21-27.) Jehovah’s “righteous decrees” are made manifest, nevertheless, and his expressions of judgment come as plagues upon those opposing him, resulting in the destruction of mystic Babylon the Great, the prime persecutor on earth of God’s servants.—Re 15:4; 16:1–19:6.
Thereafter “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” sends its heavenly armies against the rulers of all earthly kingdoms and their armies in an Armageddon fight, bringing them to an end. (Re 16:14-16; 19:11-21) This is the answer to the petition to God: “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Mt 6:10) Satan is then abyssed and a thousand-year period begins in which Christ Jesus and his associates rule as kings and priests over earth’s inhabitants.—Re 20:1, 6.
Christ “hands over the kingdom.” The apostle Paul also describes the rule of Christ during his presence. After Christ resurrects his followers from death, he proceeds to bring “to nothing all government and all authority and power” (logically referring to all government, authority, and power in opposition to God’s sovereign will). Then, at the end of his Millennial Reign, he “hands over the kingdom to his God and Father,” subjecting himself to the “One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.”—1Co 15:21-28.
Since Christ “hands over the kingdom to his God and Father,” in what sense is his Kingdom “everlasting,” as repeatedly stated in the Scriptures? (2Pe 1:11; Isa 9:7; Da 7:14; Lu 1:33; Re 11:15) His Kingdom “will never be brought to ruin”; its accomplishments will endure forever; he will eternally be honored for his role as Messianic King.—Da 2:44.
During the Thousand Year Reign, Christ’s rule toward earth involves priestly action toward obedient mankind. (Re 5:9, 10; 20:6; 21:1-3) By this means the dominion of sin and death as kings over obedient mankind, subjected to their “law,” ends; undeserved kindness and righteousness are the ruling factors. (Ro 5:14, 17, 21) Since sin and death are to be completely removed from earth’s inhabitants, this also brings to an end the need for Jesus’ serving as “a helper with the Father” in the sense of providing propitiation for the sins of imperfect humans. (1Jo 2:1, 2) That brings mankind back to the original status enjoyed when the perfect man Adam was in Eden. Adam while perfect needed no one to stand between him and God to make propitiation. So, too, at the termination of Jesus’ Thousand Year Rule, earth’s inhabitants will be both in position and under responsibility to answer for their course of action before Jehovah God as the Supreme Judge, without recourse to anyone as legal intermediary, or helper. Jehovah, the Sovereign Power, thus becomes “all things to everyone.” This means that God’s purpose to “gather all things together again in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth,” will have been fully realized.—1Co 15:28; Eph 1:9, 10.
Jesus’ Millennial Rule will have fully accomplished its purpose. Earth, once a focus of rebellion, will have been restored to a full, clean, and undisputed position in the realm, or domain, of the Universal Sovereign. No subsidiary kingdom will remain between Jehovah and obedient mankind.

Following this, however, a final test is made of the integrity and devotion of all such earthly subjects. Satan is loosed from his restraint in the abyss. Those yielding to his seduction do so on the same issue raised in Eden: the rightfulness of God’s sovereignty. This is seen by their attacking “the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city.” Since that issue has been judicially settled and declared closed by the Court of heaven, no prolonged rebellion is permitted in this case. Those failing to stand loyally on God’s side will not be able to appeal to Christ Jesus as a ‘propitiatory helper,’ but Jehovah God will be “all things” to them, with no appeal or mediation possible. All rebels, spirit and human, receive the divine sentence of destruction in “the second death.”—Re 20:7-15.