Lion's Den

This blog is a trip report for our recent Tabernacles Week. The highlight was understanding what really saved Daniel from the Lion's Den. Also, app updates and a headline review.

Schedule

This year's annual holiday for Tabernacles started at sunset on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and ran through sunset on Tuesday, August 11, 2026.

We had reservations at a campground on the shore of Mineral Lake, in Washington State. This is near the west entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. We chose this particular area because 20 years ago we had an encounter with a UFO in that same general location. Some long time readers here have seen photos and heard that story.

In any case, when we went to look for a campsite, there were not many that had availability for a tent site for the whole scheduled week. The only one we could find in the area that was still available for all of our scheduled dates was the "Lion's Den" campground at Mineral Lake. Since Mount Rainier is a very popular tourist destination, I would guess we needed to make reservations in January if we wanted better selection for campgrounds. The Lion' Club owns this particular campground. It is a low budget place. We were told most campers are there in order to go fishing in the lake.

The town itself was once a lumber camp. What is now the campground was once a lumber mill. There is a steam train that runs from Elbe, WA, to a spot very near the campground. We could easily hear the whistle. The steam shop for that train is also pretty close to the campground.

The campground has almost no trees, so there is a very nice view of the lake itself. Last week I posted on Telegram a photo taken from our campsite, for readers here who may want to see what it looks like.

The Plan

Our plan was to read through the current draft of The Testimony. That text has grown some so the reading schedule was a little aggressive. But there is not much else to do for the week, and we are into the text. We figured if we ran long, we would just finish up back at home in the shop. So it was a reasonable plan.

We got checked in on time that Tuesday afternoon. Our campsite was equipped with water and electricity. We were up from the lake and mostly alone, which sometimes matters for lots sessions. The toilets, modern concrete pit toilets, were about a football field hike from our campsite.

By Wednesday morning our tent and canopy were setup, we were settled in and our read through The Testimony began.

Major Discovery

In less than 1/2 hour into that morning's read, the major discovery of the week had happened. Let me explain the theoretical problem, and what turns out to be the actual solution.

Divine Name

Our biggest outstanding technical issue is how to deal with the issue of the Divine Name across the text of the Old Testament. In the New Testament that name is less trouble. In traditional Bible's "Jesus" is that name. We translate that name as Joshua, because the Aramaic spelling for Jesus is the same as the Aramaic spelling for Joshua son of Nun.

The Old Testament is much more difficult. The BRB has some notations which show where Ryan is making divine name substitutions. So he has been indicating were the name "Joshua" was likely originally found in the running text of the Old Testament. In the TT, the substitution is fully made, and Joshua shows up there as the Old Testament Divine Name.

Our discovery this Tabernacles week was a major advance on our understanding of that name. But, let me explain our understanding so far.

Names, of course, almost always transliterate between languages. Because Hebrew and Aramaic languages are so similar, names are also very similar. Indeed, names are nearly always spelled the same in both languages.

Curiously, and importantly, the Hebrew and Aramaic texts passed by history do NOT follow any of the normal transliteration patterns for the Divine Name. This is strange because normally both of those texts track names nearly perfectly.

That those texts would disagree on the divine name spelling is a major clue that there is foul play afoot. Yahweh in the Hebrew is something like Master in Aramaic. Master, itself, transliterates to "Maria" which is even more strange since it is nearly a known New Testament name.

That strange Hebrew/Aramaic word pair mismatch is where we substitute Joshua. We expect Joshua to be the term that eventually passes audit. That substitution already passes audit in the commandments and on the Shepherd's Staff exhibit.

Remember, outside of names, all other words are translated based on meaning. Titles go through a translation process whereas names do not. In the base text that we start from, the Divine Name, so by substitution, Joshua, is often followed by some sort of titling. "Joshua of Hosts" is an example. The most common title is god, as in "Joshua God."

What About God?

In English the term "God" is a technical term. It is NOT a name, so it goes through translation. The underlying Paleo root for this term is "Wa-Lu." This root is spelled the same in Hebrew and Aramaic, accepting different suffixes. So is it a technical term, as in English, or is it also name?

As we started into our read, from the very first few paragraphs, something dawned on me. Since that God term is spelled the same between Hebrew and Aramaic, it is behaving like a name, NOT a technical term. Certainly not like God is a technical term in English. Maybe this term should be added into the names annex for the Paleo Lexicon?

"Wa-Lu" is the root. "Wa-Lu-Fe" is much more common. "Elohim" is the normal English transliteration, with a conventional Hebrew final letter of Mo. So there is plenty of evidence that at least at times this IS treated as a name.

Considering this term as a name would then mean phrases like "Yahweh Elohim" becomes either "Joshua God" or even stranger, "Joshua Elohim."

Alf

Note that "Alf" is another, more strict, possible transliteration of "Wa-Lu-Fe." "Alf" was used as the name for a space alien character in a TV sitcom many, many years ago. Old time readers here might remember that character.

Since double names are a marker for editors, maybe the divine name Joshua is being followed by an imaginary, made up, name.

"Imaginary Alf" is what I voiced when I first started discussing this possibility with Ryan.

What I was proposing was that it is improper to add the name Alf to the name Joshua. I was beginning to think that an editor, like Solomon, probably did this at some time in history.

If this initial hunch was correct, it should be possible to read through the historical narrative of the Old Testament and it should be possible to only read "Joshua," without the term "Alf" and the story should otherwise make sense.

We started reading the text this way and it really started to pop. Joshua is the main agent in the New Testament. If his name is used alone in the old, without any sort of secondary titles, then Joshua becomes the main agent across all of inspired scripture.

In the end, dropping Alf will turn out to be correct. But there was another round of understanding still to come. This second round deals with the precise Paleo word definition for Alf. What, exactly, is a god?

Paleo Spelling

We have previously defined God, so "Wa-Lu" as the "first-shepherd." This because Wa is the first letter of the alphabet and Lu is the shepherd's staff. The secondary definition would thus be "Ta-Ku" so closes, or without, likeness or comparison.

But, Wa is a star. Though it has a 3d object, a sundial, for tracking time, the star itself is ephemeral. It is an idea. It is not a normal thing like all the other objects in the alphabet.

Understanding this nuance on Wa implies there is an alternative definition for the term God. "Imaginary-Shepherd" is perhaps the best English phrase. The secondary definition would be God "ends-growth."

This definition would imply that all gods are "imaginary shepherds." Having gods will stunt or end spiritual growth.

Note this is definitional, so there is nothing else that need be said. When the inspired writer uses this term, the god in question must be imaginary.

This would also strongly imply that Joshua is NOT a god. Nowhere in inspired text would we ever expect Joshua to be called out as a god. Certainly not by an inspired writer. Some character within the story might be doing this, but of course, incorrectly.

Joshua's name should thus always stand alone. We would never expect "Joshua God" nor "Joshua, God of Jacob" nor any other similar phrase to show up in author or narrator's voice anywhere in the inspired text.

So my first hunch at "imaginary Alf" was just pointing at the Paleo Spelling for "Imaginary Shepherd." That hunch was essentially a prophetic word pointing at the problem.

Dropping God

So we started in to proof read the Old Testament and started checking all the places where "Joshua" or "God" was showing up. "Joshua" as a stand alone, single name made much sense.

It also became quickly apparent that outside of what becomes Abraham's family, every other nation or people group have "imaginary shepherds" that can never take any real action in the world. Only Joshua is able to take real action. All gods, by definition of the word, are imaginary constructs. It is never proper to call Joshua a god. It is never proper to call him God.

We would eventually find a specific story that essentially proves this idea. But before getting to that story let me return to the campground.

Massive Edit

We were taking turns reading paragraphs and it was pretty obvious exactly where "god" had been added by editors when the Divine Name itself was being changed.

For the editors, the "god" term marks the highest level of spiritual being. There are fights within the text of who is the most important god.

There is a stereo type for old cattle ranchers. They often named their ranch dog "Dog." The same happens in the text. "Elohim" is happening when someone named their god "God."

Ultimately, for the editors, it is the "god of Israel" who is the highest spiritual being. The specific name itself is disputable, either Yahweh in the southern kingdom or Elohim in the north.

Solomon would be the first editor and he almost certainly changed the divine name from Joshua to Yahweh. Other editors would presumably follow along. Perhaps later editors add Alf to Yahweh? We don't know the exact history. In any case, it has been a very, very long time since Joshua was used as the divine name in public copies of the Old Testament.

Once we figured this out, each of us could read out in real time the corrected English that should be used when "god" was showing up in the text. People of faith know Joshua by name. Nobody else knows that name. No one who knows Joshua would call him "god" since Joshua is not an imaginary shepherd.

We were very quickly into nearly perfect agreement about how the inspired story must have originally been written. We could finally see through word level edits.

The Old Testament is going to read just like the New Testament. Joshua is the main agent across all of inspired text. Anyone who does not know Joshua uses "god."

Work Ahead

When we do reading like this, Ryan normally takes screen shots on his tablet and then uses the tablet's pen to mark the correction on that screen shot. He then comes back later to run through his list of screen shots which then drives updates to the master manuscript files which then show up in the apps.

Ryan was generating screen shots at a rate we'd never seen before. Divine Name references are common. All of them have been changed by editors.

Both of us were incredibly excited about how the entire manuscript should clean up once this editing pass is fully entered into the computer.

Distracted

In that process we lost our situational awareness. This was not good on hot summer days in a campground with a view of a lake, but without trees.

By Friday, we were both sunburned. Ryan was burned rather badly on the tops of his feet. He had been wearing sandals. The toilet was the better part of a football field hike from our campsite. Even if we stayed carefully under our canopy, we could not escape the sun when we went over there.

That evening we decided to break camp early on Saturday morning and return home. There, we could continue with our reading, but out of the sun and in the comfort of the shop.

By Saturday afternoon, we were now lifted out of the Lion's Den. By Sunday we returned to our read. We were off pace, but wanted to continue.

Beyond the historical narrative, the tampering of the editors gets more difficult to undo. Prophetic writings are particular targets for the editors because they involve personal stories of real people who knew and interacted with Joshua. Editors took the authority of prophets to create theology. So working through the prophets is more difficult than historical narrative from Judges and Kings.

There are places, though, where the prophets now suddenly make much more sense. Little did we know what was waiting for us in the Book of Daniel.

Lion's Den

The link here is to Daniel 6 in the BRB. This is the story of Daniel surviving the Lion's Den. Interested readers may want to read it themselves. You may also want to try some other translation, you'll still see what is evident in the BRB.

By Chapter 6, Daniel is working for the king. His peers do not like how well Daniel is doing. So they set a trap. They get the king to issue a decree. For 30 days, anyone who would petition any god, or any man, except for the king, would be thrown into the den of lions.

Daniel reads the petition and then continues his custom daily prayers to Joshua.

Nearly everyone who reads this story today, normally thinks that Daniel is ignoring this decree and praying anyway. This becomes a scriptural basis for why following god is thought to be more important than following kings. Modern readers think Daniel was rescued by Joshua as an exception to the king's decree. This is flat out wrong.

If you read what Daniel says when he is brought up from the Lion's Den you can see that Daniel makes a point. Daniel was not guilty before Joshua, which is why Joshua sent an angel and calmed the lions. Daniel also makes the point that he is not guilty before the king himself. Daniel is explaining that by praying to Joshua he had NOT broken the king's decree.

Why would this be so?

Daniel knows the definition. A god is an "imaginary shepherd." Joshua is not one of those. Joshua is also not a man. Since Joshua is neither a "god" nor a "man" Daniel was free to pray to Joshua as always. He did not break the king's decree. This is why Daniel was innocent. He was innocent before the king because of the definition of the word "god."

What we found in the Lion's Den story was confirmation of the story we had found at the Lion's Den campground. Joshua is NOT a god nor is he a man. To call him god is incorrect.

Son of Man

Even more interesting, the overall plot of the Book of Daniel hangs on this very point. The Book of Daniel is establishing the unique nature of Joshua in a chapter before it moves on to the nature of the incarnation which will happen for us in the New Testament.

After the Lion's Den, Daniel then introduces a term used to describe Joshua's incarnation state as the "son of man." This expression is used to indicate that he will be like a man to everyone who meets him. But, Joshua in the New Testament is not really a man in the most general sense.

More to Come

There are many, many other interesting stories which I expect to cover in weeks to come. As of this week, Ryan is through making updates to the TT covering material from Genesis and Exodus. More soon.

Assyrian Deportation

For readers here who may want to peek ahead, think about the story of the field commander during the Assyrian Deportation. That commander knows that gods are imaginary. He knows Solomon's temple is to Yahweh, so there is an imaginary shepherd in Jerusalem. He rightly makes the claim to the men on the city wall that no god had been able to defend any other city from from his army. The same will be true of Jerusalem, since Yahweh is imaginary.

What that commander miscalculates is the nature of Joshua who is defending a remnant in Jerusalem who still knows Joshua.

The overall story of the Old Testament is the history of the various remnants who know Joshua. Usually, this was only a few people. At times the remnant was measured in thousands. These are the groups that Joshua interacts with and defends.

Unlike imaginary shepherds, sometimes Joshua steps in and changes the flow of history. Most of the Old Testament narrative is about the places and times when Joshua stepped in and changed history.

For that remnant in Jerusalem, Joshua stepped in and defended Jerusalem against the Assyrians. "For the sake of David" is the expression. This marks the key soul in that remnant.

App Updates

As this blog goes out, Ryan is making a few other changes to our scripture app. Let me review those.

Story Grid

The link here is to the Story Grid app. There are 2 main adjustments to note. The first is that the row of content from the minor prophets has now moved up by 2 rows to the Ha row. This seems to do a better job of putting the prophets into something of a historical order.

Awareness of Joshua seems to ebb and flow across history. It peeks at the time of crossing the Jordan River. It never reaches that level of faith again.

It gets particularly bad when Solomon builds a temple to Yahweh. At the time of Solomon, awareness of Joshua seems to shift into small communities. The minor prophets appear to come from that era, when there are prophets around who can speak for Joshua.

Isaiah and Jeremiah are the prophets who pick up the Assyrian and Babylonian deportations. Daniel and Ezekiel are the last of the prophets and are found in the Babylonian captivity. So these prophets are now generally organized in historical order.

Prophetic Writing Trouble

I should note that in our recent reading, we found the prophetic writings are the most difficult to correct in terms of Divine Name. These writings appear to need a 2 step process. First, fix the Divine Name and then check if the containing stories make any sense relative to Joshua.

Editors appear to have hated some of these writers and their messages, so they significantly altered, so bulked up, that type of writing. Isaiah is particularly difficult. Though Isaiah is often quoted in the New Testament, there is no obvious plot. Isaiah may not be recoverable without the audit. Some of the minor prophets are similarly difficult.

Job

The other change this week is moving Job down by 2 rows. This lands him on the last row before the New Testament material. Fixing Divine Name references in Job also changes the plot, making that book very interesting. I will return to Job at some point in the blog once Ryan is caught up.

Job is following the Ne row. His early disaster is a seed planted. By the end of the book he has a double portion. So a seed like harvest. Job appears to provide amazing commentary on what it means to run a Joshua focused fellowship in an otherwise Zionist world.

Tobit, Esther and Job are the last 3 books of the Old Testament. They are taking place well out to the east, and not in Canaan. All 3 demonstrate faith in communities that are otherwise hostile. Tobit demonstrates a well lived faith walk in that sort of community. Esther, herself, appears to demonstrate how to live when nearly everyone around are sexual predators. If all writers sit in the throne room, then she has a well deserved seat.

These 3 writings become the context for the New Testament. New Testament era believers were also a remnant in a hostile environment.

Match Dates

Last Friday, so 13017-07-17 (2026-08-07) was the date that matches the 17th day of the 7th month at the 150th day as informed by Noah's Flood. I have previously indicated that we may have a 3 year advanced prophetic date series ahead of a Noah flood replay starting early in 2029. If this is correct, then last Friday would be a natural watch date. I had called it out earlier, but not in last week's blog.

The main headline for that date was the signing of a mutual defense treaty between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This does appear to be an important headline match, but this treaty was strangely introduced.

It looks like the signatory countries did not release the text of the treaty in order to make it look like they wanted to defend themselves from Iran. So in this view they would defend themselves from Iranian attacks on US bases, especially in Saudi Arabia.

It was also strange that Saudi Arabia is in a low grade war with Ansar Allah in Yemen. Though neither Turkey nor Pakistan are coming to help Saudi Arabia against Yemen. So what sort of treaty is this?

Instead, this looks to be a mutual defense treaty in order to defend each other should they be attacked from Israel and/or the USA.

This view makes more sense. It appears to be preparatory to a larger regional war, perhaps 3 years from now, when Israel is removed.

There were no obvious headlines for the last year of Amaziah's reign on 2026-08-11, nor the start of Jehoahaz's reign on 2026-08-12.

Watch Dates

Peeking ahead, the last year of Jehoahaz's reign replays on 2028-08-26. We will return to that next week.

Shop Work

We were continuing our TT read from Tabernacles into this week. I expect to be back on the names related lexicon work next week.

Headline Review

The following caught my attention this week.

Russian Navy

The link here is to a post on Telegram detailing recent changes in Russian naval doctrine. From now on, Russia will respond in kind should the west seize Russian ships. This is an attack on the Lloyd's shipping insurance cartel in London, so prophetic Babel.

Russia is now pushing back on prophetic Babel over who controls the ships. Eventually, Babel is defeated.

Suez Moment

Many commentators are beginning to see how Trump has created for himself a situation in Hormuz that is similar to the 1956 war over the Suez Canal. This is the general 70th anniversary, when we would be expecting something like Suez to happen again.

Wikipedia CIA Controlled

The Wikipedia cofounder has been public recently about how the CIA and others are controlling content on Wikipedia. Hivites ultimately debate and hide truth. This has been a problem since Eden. Should we be surprised that this pattern goes on even now?

Chris Martenson on Oil

We continue to track closely the situation with oil. Chris Martenson is the best. He was a guest on another channel this week. Short answer is that futures markets are still being manipulated most nights in order to keep prices down, demand up, and using up normal buffer supplies. This is creating an unnecessary shortage. Major oil company CEOs are now warning of the problem.

X Continues to Falter

X continues to make algorithmic changes to allow Zionists to control the platform. The link here is another example. Masses of bad actors, say paid housewives in Israel, can effectively ban any account they wish. People of faith, so those who know truth, are always a remnant. X stands no chance of being a place for truth.

X Outright Banning

The link here is to a post on Telegram detailing the banning of perhaps the most important man in Yemen. Again, Zionists control X, that platform is not useful.

Trump's Catering Truck Fiasco

This link is to a Youtube video with Larry Johnson. This is one of many on the topic of Trump's return from the NATO summit in Turkey. Seems he boarded Air Force One as usual, along with his staff and reporters. Then he snuck out in a catering truck and returned to the USA on a military plane.

Trump is mostly being accused of cowardice over this. Other reports indicated the Iranian FM said that Trump is doing a nice job of destroying the USA on his own. Why would Iran want to take him out?

USS Abraham Lincoln Trouble

The link here is to a Sonar 21 article detailing some of the issues on board the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Initial reports called this a mutiny with 7 dead. Current reports are now toned down to problems with multiple suicides.

Citing sources, this article suggests the natural suicide rate is higher than the numbers currently reported, suggesting the current news accounts are false.

I strongly suspect the military is doing narrative control. We may learn more in 20 years when someone on board now eventually writes a book. Until then, we will never know for sure.

The US Navy is essentially part of the Babel Navy, so these ships should be plagued as part of the stories in Revelation dealing with the fall of Babel and loss of ships. So this is an interesting headline, even if not that severe in terms of loss of capability.

Russians Are Cat People

Survey says, Russians like cat videos too. Maybe Daniel's lions would be friendly to them also? Not sure if they get the Divine Name problem.

More Later,

Phil