Jesus Is Not God Nor The Literal Son Of God

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbeB_GikaqWOzdU7CQyqdVVifzsr7Ducg3ZX9ut13O1nQW0CgxUeLs9uGiBDOyilEf1Lx9RLrEYmbFA9VSfd7IyP280bZYigU9TFBhu-Ncra27lF53xBTjrNa3mYQykhF9QKqYWw0rFk/s1600/sadarlah+english.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbeB_GikaqWOzdU7CQyqdVVifzsr7Ducg3ZX9ut13O1nQW0CgxUeLs9uGiBDOyilEf1Lx9RLrEYmbFA9VSfd7IyP280bZYigU9TFBhu-Ncra27lF53xBTjrNa3mYQykhF9QKqYWw0rFk/s1600/sadarlah+english.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All four Gospels record Jesus as saying, <i>“Blessed are the peace-makers; they will be called sons of God.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The word ‘son’ cannot be accepted literally because in the Bible, God apparently addresses many of his chosen servants as ‘son’ and ‘sons.’ The Hebrews believed God is One, and had neither wife nor children in any literal sense. Therefore, it is obvious the expression ‘son of God’ merely meant ‘Servant of God’; one who, because of faithful service, was close and dear to God as a son is to his father.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Christians who came from a Greek or Roman background, later misused this term. In their heritage, ‘son of God’ signified an incarnation of a god or someone born of a physical union between male and female gods. This can be seen in Acts 14: 11-13, where we read that when Paul and Barnabas preached in a city of Turkey, pagans claimed they were gods incarnate. They called Barnabas the Roman god Zeus, and Paul the Roman god Hermes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, the New Testament Greek word translated as ‘son’ are ‘pias’ and ‘paida’ which mean ‘servant,’ or ‘son in the sense of servant.’ These are translated to ‘son’ in reference to Jesus and ‘servant’ in reference to all others in some translations of the Bible. So, consistent with other verses, Jesus was merely saying that he is God’s servant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Additional problems with Trinity</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To a christian, God had to take human form to understand temptation and human suffering, but the concept is not based on any clear words of Jesus. In contrast, God does not need to be tempted and suffer in order to be able to understand and forgive man’s sins, for He is the all knowing Creator of man. This is expressed in the verse:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘And the Lord said: ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people that are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; for I know their pains.’</i> (Exodus 3:7)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">God forgave sin before Jesus’ appearance, and He continues to forgive without any assistance. When a believer sins, he may come before God in sincere repentance to receive forgiveness. Indeed, the offer to humble oneself before God and be saved is made to all humankind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘And there is no God else beside Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside Me. Look to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.’</i> (Isaiah 45:21-22, Jonah 3:5-10)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Biblically, people can receive forgiveness of sins through sincere repentance sought directly from God. This is true at all times and in all places. There has never been a need for the so-called inter cessionary role Jesus plays in attaining atonement. The facts speak for themselves. There is no truth to the Christian belief that Jesus died for our sins and salvation is only through Jesus. What about the salvation of people before Jesus? Jesus’ death brings neither atonement from sin, nor is it in any way a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Christians claim that in the birth of Jesus, there occurred the miracle of the incarnation of God in the form of a human being. To say that God became truly a human being invites a number of questions. Let us ask the following about the man-God Jesus. What happened to his foreskin after his circumcision (Luke 2:21)?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Did it ascend to heaven, or did it decompose as with any human piece of flesh? During his lifetime what happened to his hair, nails, and blood shed from wounds? Did the cells of his body die as in ordinary human beings? If his body did not function in a truly human way, he could not be truly human as well as truly God. Yet, if his body functioned exactly in a human way, this would nullify any claim to divinity. It would be impossible for any part of God, even if incarnate, to decompose in any way and still be considered God. The everlasting, one God, in whole or in part, does not die, disintegrate, or decompose: <i>‘For I the Lord do not change.’</i> (Malachi 3:6)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Did Jesus’ flesh dwell in safety after his death?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unless Jesus’ body never underwent ‘decay’ during his lifetime he could not be God, but if it did not undergo ‘decay’ then he was not truly human.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that God is not man</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘God is not a man’</i> (Numbers 23:19)</li><li><i>‘For I am God, and not man’ </i>(Hosea 11:9)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>Jesus is called a man many times in the Bible</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘a man who has told you the truth’</i> (John 8:40)</li><li><i>‘Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.’</i> (Acts 2:22)</li><li><i>‘He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed’</i> (Acts 17:31)</li><li><i>‘the man Christ Jesus’</i> (Tim. 2:5)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>The Bible says that God is not a son of man</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>‘God is not a man nor a son of man’ (Numbers 23:19)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><b>The Bible often calls Jesus ‘a son of man’ or ‘the son of man.’</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘so will the son of man be’</i> (Matthew 12:40)</li><li><i>‘For the son of man is going to come’ </i>(Matthew 16:27)</li><li><i>‘until they see the son of man coming in His kingdom.’</i> (Matthew 28)</li><li><i>‘But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority’</i> (Mark 2:10)</li><li><i>‘because he is the son of man’ </i>(John 5:27)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />In the Hebrew scriptures, the ‘son of man’ is also used many times speaking of people (Job 25:6; Psalm 80:17; 144:3; Ezekiel 2:1; 2:3; 2:6-8; 3:1-3). Since God would not contradict Himself by first saying He is not the son of a man, then becoming a human being who was called ‘the son of man’, he would not have done so. Remember God is not the author of confusion. Also, human beings, including Jesus, are called ‘son of man’ specifically to distinguish them from God, who is not a ‘son of man’ according to the Bible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that Jesus denied he is God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Jesus spoke to a man who had called him ‘good,’ asking him, <i>‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’ </i>(Luke 18:19)</li><li>And he said to him, <i>‘Why are you asking me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’</i> (Matthew 19:17)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Jesus did not teach people that he was God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Jesus had been telling people that he was God, he would have complimented the man. Instead, Jesus rebuked him, denying he was good, that is, Jesus denied he was God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that God is greater than Jesus</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘My Father is greater than I’</i> (John 14:28)</li><li><i>‘My father is greater than all.’</i> (John 10:29)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Jesus can not be God if God is greater than him. The Christian belief that the Father and son are equal is in direct contrast to the clear words from Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Jesus never instructed his disciples to worship him</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘When you pray, say Our Father which art in heaven.’</i> (Luke 11:2)</li><li><i>‘In that day, you shall ask me nothing. Whatsoever you ask of the Father in my name.’</i> (John 16:23)</li><li><i>‘The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.’</i> (John 4:23)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>If Jesus was God, he would have sought worship for himself</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since he didn’t, instead he sought worship for God in the heavens, therefore, he was not God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Jesus worshipped the only true God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’</i> (John 17:3)</li><li><i>‘he continued all night in prayer to God.’</i> (Luke 6:12)</li><li><i>‘Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve’</i> (Matthew 20:28)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>How did Jesus pray to God?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father’</i> (Matthew 26:39)</li><li><i>‘During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.’ </i>(Hebrews 5:7)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Who was Jesus praying to when he fell on his face?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Was Jesus crying in tears to himself pleading to be saved from death? No man, sane or insane, prays to himself! Surely the answer must be a resounding ‘No.’ Jesus was praying to ‘the only true God.’ Jesus was the servant of the One Who sent him. Can there be a clearer proof that Jesus was not God?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Quran confirms that Jesus called for the worship of the Only True God</b><br /><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“It is Allah Who is my Lord and your Lord; then worship Him. This is a Way that is straight.”</i> (Quran 3:51)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>Disciples did not believe Jesus was God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Acts of the Apostles in the Bible details the activity of the disciples over a period of thirty years after Jesus was raised to heaven. Throughout this period, they never referred to Jesus as God. For instance Peter stood up with the eleven disciples and addressed a crowd saying:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.’</i> (Acts 2:22)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For Peter, Jesus was a servant of God </b>(Confirmed In Matthew 12:18)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.’</i> (Acts 3:13)</li><li><i>‘God raised up his servant’</i> (Acts 3:26)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When faced by opposition from the authorities, Peter said, <i>‘We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus’</i> (Acts 5:29-30)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The disciples prayed to God just as they were commanded by Jesus in Luke 11:2, and considered Jesus to be God’s servant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘they raised their voices together in prayer to God. ‘Sovereign Lord,’ they said, ‘you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.’</i> (Acts 4:24)</li><li><i>‘your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.’</i> (Acts 4:27)</li><li><i>‘of Your holy servant Jesus.’ </i>(Acts 4:30)</li><li><i>‘I am indeed a servant of God.’</i> (Quran 19:30)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that Jesus was God’s servant</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘Behold, My servant, whom I have chosen, in whom My soul is well pleased.’</i> (Matt 12:18)</li></ul><br />Since Jesus is God’s servant, Jesus can not be God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that Jesus could not do anything by himself</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘The son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing.’</i> (John 5:19)</li><li><i>‘I can of mine own self do nothing.’</i> (John 5:30)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Bible says that Jesus did not consider himself equal with God and that God performed miracles through Jesus & Jesus was limited in what he could do:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.’</i> (Matt. 9:8)</li><li><i>‘a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst.’</i> (Acts 2:22)</li><li><i>‘he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.’ </i>(Acts 10:38)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Christ was God, the Bible would simply say that Jesus did the miracles himself without making reference to God. The fact that it was God supplying the power for the miracles shows that God is greater than Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Also, Jesus was limited in performing miracles</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>One time when Jesus tried to heal a blind man, the man was not healed after the first attempt, and Jesus had to try a second time</i> (Mark 8:22-26).</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once a woman was healed of her incurable bleeding. The woman came up behind him and touched his cloak, and she was immediately healed. But Jesus had no idea who touched him:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’</i> (Mark 5:30)<i>‘</i></li><li><i>He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.’</i> (Mark 6:5)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Quite obviously, someone with such limitations can not be God. The power of miracles was not within Jesus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that at times of weakness angels strengthened Jesus</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">God, however, does not need to be strengthened. Human need to be strengthened; God does not because God is All-Powerful. If Jesus had to be strengthened, he must not be God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him – in the garden of Gethsemane’</i> (Luke 22:43)</li><li><i>‘Then the devil left him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him’ </i>(Mark. 1:13)</li><li><i>‘And he was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him.’</i> (Mark 1:13)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b><b>The Bible says that Jesus wanted God’s will to be done</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘not my will but Yours be done.’</i> (Luke 22:42)</li><li><i>‘I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.’ </i>(John 5:30)</li><li><i>‘For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.’</i> (John 6:38)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Are some members of the coequal Trinity subservient, and less than equal, to other members? Even though they have different wills (‘I do not seek my own will’), do they obey without question the others’ commands (‘the will of Him who sent me’)? Jesus admits to subordinating his own distinct will, yet according to the Trinitarian doctrine they should all have the same will. Should one of the triune partners have to forgo his own will in favor of the will of another member of the Trinity? Should not they all have the exact same will?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says Jesus regarded himself and God as two</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father.’</i> (John 8:17-18:)</li><li><i>‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.’</i> (John 14:1)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Jesus was God, He would have not have regarded God’s testimony as separate from his own.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says that Jesus is subordinate to God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.’</i> (1 Corinthians 11:3)</li><li><i>‘When he has done this, then the son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.’</i> (1 Corinthians 15:28)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus grew in wisdom & learning</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>But God is All Wise & does not need to learn: Jesus grew in wisdom, but God is all wise ‘Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite.’</i> (Psalms 147:5)</li><li><i>‘And Jesus increased in wisdom.’</i> (Luke 2:52)</li><li><i>God does not need to learn, but Jesus learned: ‘Although he was a son, he learned obedience’</i> (Heb. 5:8)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jesus had limited knowledge, but god’s knowledge is infinite. Since Jesus did not know, he was not all-knowing, and therefore, he cannot be the God whose knowledge is all-encompassing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>'No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father.’</i> (Mark 13:32)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus was tempted, but God cannot be tempted</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>’tempted in every way – just as we are’</i> (Heb. 4:15)</li><li><i>‘for God cannot be tempted by evil’</i> (James 1:13)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Since God can not be tempted, but Jesus was, therefore, Jesus was not God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus’ teachings were from God, not from himself</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><ul><li><i>‘So Jesus answered them and said, ‘My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me.’</i> (John 7:16)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jesus could not have said this if he were God because the doctrine would have been his.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus died, but God cannot die</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Bible teaches that Jesus died. God cannot die. Romans 1:23 and other verses say that God is immortal. Immortal means, ‘not subject to death.’ This term applies only to God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus lived because of God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘I live because of the Father.’</i> (John 6:57)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jesus cannot be God because he depended on God for his own existence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus’ powers were given to him</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘All power is given unto me.’</i> (Matt 28:18)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">God is all-powerful, no one gives God His powers, otherwise He would not be God because He would be weak. Therefore, Jesus could not be God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus was taught & commanded by God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things,’</i> (John 8:28)</li><li><i>‘The Father, who sent me, he gave me a commandment.’</i> (John 12:49)</li><li><i>‘I have kept my Father’s commandments.’</i> (John 15:10)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No one can teach God, otherwise God cannot be All-Knowing and would owe His teacher. Since Jesus was taught and commanded by God, Jesus cannot be God himself. The teacher and the student, the commander and the commanded are not one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that God made Jesus ‘Lord’!</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ.’</i> (Acts 2:36)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">‘Lord’ is used in many ways in the Bible, and others beside God and Jesus are called ‘Lord.’ For example:<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li>property owners (Matt. 20:8)</li><li>heads of households (Mark 13:35)</li><li>slave owners (Matt. 10:24)</li><li>husbands (1 Pet. 3:6)</li><li>a son called his father Lord (Matt. 21:30)</li><li>the Roman Emperor was called Lord (Acts 25:26)</li><li>Roman authorities were called Lord (Matt. 27:63)</li></ol></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />‘Lord’ is not the same as ‘God.’ ‘Lord’ (the Greek word is kurios) is a masculine title of respect and nobility used many times in the Bible. If Jesus was God, then for the Bible to say he was ‘made’ Lord would make no sense.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus was lower than angels</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘But we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus.’</i> (Hebrews 2:9)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">God, the Creator of angels, can not be lower than His own creation, but Jesus was. Therefore, Jesus was not God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that Jesus called the Father ‘my God’</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’</i> (Matt. 27:46)</li><li><i>‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.’ </i>(John 20:17)</li><li><i>‘the temple of my God the name of my God the city of my God comes down out of heaven from my God.’</i> (Rev. 3:12)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jesus did not think of himself as God, instead Jesus’ God is the same as ours.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says that God cannot be seen</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><i>But Jesus was seen by others ‘no man has seen God at any time.’</i> (John 1:18)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bible says twice that Jesus was accused of being God</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But he denied it: According to the Bible, on only two instances the Jews opposed Jesus on the basis that he pretended to be God or equal with God. Had Jesus, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, claimed to be God, he is likely to have been opposed on this basis more frequently.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because in these two instances, when charged, in the one case, with making himself God, and in the other, with making himself equal with God, he denied the charges. In reply to the charge of being an equal with God, he says immediately:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>‘The son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do’; and directly after ‘I can of mine own self do nothing.’</i> (John 5:19, 30)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />In answer to the charge of making himself God, he appeals to the Jews in substance thus: <i>Your own Scriptures call Moses a god, and your magistrates gods; I am surely not inferior to them, yet I did not call myself God, but only the ‘son’ of God</i> '(John 10:34-36).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is unlikely to have been Jesus’ actual response. Hastings in ‘The Dictionary of the Bible’ says, ‘Whether Jesus used it of himself is doubtful.’ Grolier’s encyclopedia, under the heading ‘Jesus Christ,’ says, ‘it is uncertain whether the Father/Son language (Mark 18:32; Matt. 11:25-27 Par.; John Passim) goes back to Jesus himself.’ A University of Richmond professor, Dr. Robert Alley, after considerable research into newly found ancient documents concludes that:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">‘The (Biblical) passages where Jesus talks about the Son of God are later additions. what the church said about him. Such a claim of deity for himself would not have been consistent with his entire lifestyle as we can reconstruct. For the first three decades after Jesus’ death Christianity continued as a sect within Judaism. The first three decades of the existence of the church were within the synagogue. That would have been beyond belief if they (the followers) had boldly proclaimed the deity of Jesus.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Assuming Jesus did say that he was ‘son’ of God. What did it mean? We first need to know the language of his people, the language of the Jews to whom he was speaking.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bible says God had many ‘sons’</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, most people think there are no other verses that contradict or give equal divine sonship to other persons in the Old or New Testament.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Jesus to be called son of God, does not make him a true son of God, otherwise Adam, Jacob, Ephraim and many more should also be considered as been sons of God as such they should be worshiped too according to such method.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li>Adam: ‘Adam, which was the son of God.’ (Luke 3:38)</li><li>Jacob is God’s son and firstborn: ‘Israel is my son, even my firstborn.’ (Exodus 4:22)</li><li>Solomon: ‘I will be his father, and he shall be my son.’ (2 Samuel 7:13-14)</li><li>Ephraim: ‘for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.’ (Jeremiah 31:9)</li><li>Is God’s firstborn, common people are called the sons of God: ‘Ye are the children of the Lord your God’ (Deuteronomy 14:1)</li></ol></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Suorce: Adenino Otari | <a href="http://www.thedeenshow.com/90-verses-that-say-jesus-is-not-god-nor-the-literal-son-of-god/" target="_blank">The Deen Show</a>]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>

Jesus Is Not God Nor The Literal Son Of God

All four Gospels record Jesus as saying, “Blessed are the peace-makers; they will be called sons of God.” The word ‘son’ cannot be accepted ...

Jesus Is Not God Nor The Literal Son Of God

All four Gospels record Jesus as saying, “Blessed are the peace-makers; they will be called sons of God.” The word ‘son’ cannot be accepted ...

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The Resurrection Story

<div class="_5k3v _5k3w clearfix" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; zoom: 1;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3y5hHZBNbW-8LpenBzTGr0YJ8s3hxOGBvsK0IufFzoxeVmGL262qdiZZMFv926zfymuFVBaM3UCq4kz7pM1PQilSvv0JnKxofYpOcZ3xctudXn01wDdTHJR5A7qZDD3VP8tPjm8GRrKGC/s1600/Resurrection.jpg" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="auto" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3y5hHZBNbW-8LpenBzTGr0YJ8s3hxOGBvsK0IufFzoxeVmGL262qdiZZMFv926zfymuFVBaM3UCq4kz7pM1PQilSvv0JnKxofYpOcZ3xctudXn01wDdTHJR5A7qZDD3VP8tPjm8GRrKGC/s280/Resurrection.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Roboto;">Let's check these out!</span></div><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>Who went to the tomb?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-2 Marys; Mark-2 Marys and Salome; Luke-at least 5 women; John-Mary Magdalene.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>What was seen?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-Earthquake with angel sitting outside on the recently-moved stone; Mark-Stone already moved and a young man sitting inside; Luke-Stone already moved with two men standing inside; John-Stone moved. No one seen on 1st visit, but two angels sitting inside after two earlier visits.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>When did the woman/women leave to go to the tomb?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-Towards dawn; Mark-Very early; Luke-At early dawn; John-Still dark (NB. John states it was still dark when Mary arrived at the tomb).</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>What did man/men/angel/angels say?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-Jesus was risen and disciples to go to Galilee; Mark-As Matthew; Luke-Jesus had risen: John-Asks why Mary is crying.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>What do the women/woman do next?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-they run away but meet Jesus who repeats angel's instruction; Mark-They flee and SAY NOTHING TO ANYONE. This obviously contradicts the other three in which the women do go and tell the disciples (original Mark ended at 16:7); Luke-They go and tell disciples; John-Mary meets Jesus and they talk.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><strong><span>What is 1st conversation with the risen Jesus?</span></strong><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif"> Matthew-Women on way from tomb; Luke-The two disciples on road to Emmaus; John-Mary Magdalene.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><span><strong>The time between the resurrection and ascension?</strong> </span><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif">Matthew-At least the time to reach Galilee (60-70 miles north); Luke-clearly one day only (see 24:13,33,36,50 - it is made very clear that Jesus rose, made all his appearances and ascended back to heaven on the same day); John-at least a week accepting John 20 as the original end to the Gospel, but with the John 21 appendix this means it was even longer as this has a Galilean appearance; Acts-40 days.</span></span></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">An attempt to reconcile John's visit of just Mary Magdalene whilst still dark with the Synoptics where there are several women and it is daytime, is by saying John's was an earlier one, ie. the one in the Synoptics was a second one. However this cannot be so as John has Mary Magdalene seeing the empty tomb (20:1) and in the Synoptics when the women go to the tomb they ask about who would roll the stone away (Mark 16:3). However Mary Magdalene was with them (Mark 16:1) and she had already seen the stone had been moved away and there -fore they would already know this from her 1st visit.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">Furthermore, Luke makes any appearance at, or journey to Galilee absolutely impossible as it has everything happening in the area of Jerusalem with the disciples being told to stay there until Pentecost, and the conclusion being Jesus' ascension from nearby Bethany.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">This is made clear - in Luke the first appearance is to the two travelling to Emmaus (10 miles West of Jerusalem) and 24:13 states this was "that very day"; the two then go "that same hour" to the eleven in Jerusalem (24:33); Jesus then appears whilst they are still explaning what they had seen (24:36). Jesus then tells them to STAY IN JERUSALEM UNTIL PENTECOST (24:49).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">As Luke 24:51 has the ascension on the same day as the resurrection this prevents any Galilean appearances by Jesus to the eleven as in Matt and John.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">Luke's account makes nonsense of Matt having Jesus tell the women to instruct the disciples to go up to Galilee (Matt 28:10) if he was going to see them himself later that day (as in Luke and John), and furthermore see them in Jerusalem. Also, Luke makes it clear that the eleven were told to stay in Jerusalem from the day of the resurrection to Pentecost, but Matt has them traveling up to Galilee (28:16) as does John (21:1ff). Important to note is Mark 16:7, ie. that the women 'said nothing to anyone' - all three Gospels contradict this by them telling the disciples which then leads into their accounts. Because of Mark 16:7, this is really made impossible.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">Luke also has Jesus appearing to "the eleven" on the same day as the resurrection (24:33-36), but John states Thomas was missing on this appearance and it was a week later that Jesus actually appeared to all eleven - with Thomas then being present (20:24,26).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif">In stark contrast to the Gospel accounts saying Jesus rose physically, Paul makes it clear he believed Jesus rose as a spirit and not physically- 1 Cor 15:44,45,50. The early Christian dummies couldn't even agree on this - </span><strong><span>pathetic!</span></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Roboto;">[Source: HolySmoke.Org]<strong> </strong></span></div></div>

The Resurrection Story

Let's check these out! Who went to the tomb?  Matthew-2 Marys; Mark-2 Marys and Salome; Luke-at least 5 women; John-Mary Magdalene. What...

The Resurrection Story

Let's check these out! Who went to the tomb?  Matthew-2 Marys; Mark-2 Marys and Salome; Luke-at least 5 women; John-Mary Magdalene. What...

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The Jesus Of The Gospels

<div class="_5k3v _5k3w clearfix" style="line-height: 20px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; zoom: 1;"><div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kslvVf-k7bAYYk3Qy8nYoqW2kOrPtGKtD0UznvAPGv6hW1RSLh9aRW0gIIa2wDZIcxLJfte4tTjlT5XUpU4ItnmQLclhndtxkazHBUW17YIsSbXEDwdwzU6O3AZWtEvWhWoqCv02GCo/s1600/humanity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="auto" height="uto" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kslvVf-k7bAYYk3Qy8nYoqW2kOrPtGKtD0UznvAPGv6hW1RSLh9aRW0gIIa2wDZIcxLJfte4tTjlT5XUpU4ItnmQLclhndtxkazHBUW17YIsSbXEDwdwzU6O3AZWtEvWhWoqCv02GCo/s280/humanity.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Jesus of the Gospels </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Jesus of the Gospels is hardly the character that Christians like to present, eg. he used violence - John 2:15 (and apparently encouraged it; before his arrest he told his disciples to buy a sword; this was used immediately afterwards - Luke 23:36,49-50; if he was the omniscient Son of God, he would have known this was to happen). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>His purpose was to break up families - Matthew 10:34-35, Luke 12:51-53. He taught the gospel was not available for certain races - Matthew 10:5-8, 15:24. </li><li>He was ignorant of the Scriptures he quoted - Mark 2:26 (In fact the priest was Ahimelech, not Abiathar - see 1 Samuel 21:1,6). </li><li>He was cruel to animals - Matthew 8:1-4 ('the offering' Jesus commanded was a bird being sacrificed - Leviticus 14:2-5), 8:28-34. </li><li>He treated his mother with contempt - John 2:4, He suffered fits of temper, not justified by the situation - Matt 21:18-19, 23:13-33 (In the John 7 outburst, in John 7:37, the Greek is 'to screech like a raven'). </li><li>He was hypocritical - Matthew 5:22 (Compare his action in Matthew 23:17), Matthew 6:14 (Compare Matthew 10:14-15), Matthew 7:1 (Compare John 5:30, 8:26). </li><li>He lacked sympathy for other people's suffering - Matthew 8:21-22. He rejected his own family - Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:32-35. He had contempt for other religions and their adherents - Matthew 12:30, 23:2-33, John 8:44,55. </li><li>He deliberately taught in a way so people would not understand him (and therefore be saved from going to eternal hellfire)- Mark 4:9-12. He encouraged people to desert their families - Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29. </li><li>He taught people to hate* their families - Luke 14:26 (*The Greek here means 'active ill-will' or 'persecuting spirit'). He taught that suffering was to show God's glory - John 9:1-3. </li><li>He ignored a woman pleading for his help: only after she asked him three times did he condescend to help - Matthew 15:22-28 (Here he alludes to Gentiles as "dogs"). </li><li>He taught that ill-health and human suffering was the result of sin, or for the purpose of glorifying God - Mark 2:5,11,12, John 5:8-14. </li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And furthermore, he clearly seemed to have thought that his second coming/the end of the world, ie. the final judgement (etc, etc) was only a short time away, eg. he told the high priest that he would see his return - Mark 14:61-62, he told three disciples that they would see his return - Matt 16:28, he told the disciples he would return before they had preached throughout Palestine - Matt 10:23.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, when Jesus told his disciples about the end of the world (Mark 13:3-27), he told them that the generation living at that time (ca. 30 AD) would still be alive when "all these things", (ie. the Second Coming, the Final Judgement, the end of the world, etc, etc) took place (Mark 13:30). Despite saying all this, only seconds later he then told the disciples that no one - including himself - knew when the end would come (13:32).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, he foretold that he would be buried for 3 days and 3 nights in Matthew 12:40 - but Friday evening (Mark 15:42-46) to before Sunday daybreak (John 20:1-2) is not 3 days and 3 nights. Mark 15:42 states he was buried after sundown on the Friday, ie. the sabbath (this is Saturday in Jewish reckoning - something quite impossible to have happened anyway).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Gospels repeately say how Jesus' death etc 'fulfilled' the Old Test scriptures (eg. Luke 24:27), but nowhere in the Old Test does it say the messiah is to be killed, buried and resurrected after 3 days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With regard to the end of the world etc, Jesus stated that there would be an "abominating sacrilege" (Matthew 24:l5, Mark 13:14) which would cause a tribulation (Matt 24:16-28, Mark 13:15-23) and IMMEDIATELY after this (Matthew 24:29), he would return to usher in the Final Judgement (Matthew 24:29-31).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now Luke has in the parallel passage, the "abominating sacrilege" as the Fall of Jerusalem (Luke 21:20; as can be seen by Luke 21:21-23, the author of Luke does equate "the abominating sacrilege" with Jerusalem's destruction). However, Jerusalem's destruction (particularly as described in Luke) occurred in 70 AD - isn't Jesus' return (which was supposed to occur "Immediately" afterwards), somewhat overdue ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And its on a clown like this that Christians base all their hope - and expect others to do likewise!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Source: HolySmoke.Org]</div></div></div>

The Jesus Of The Gospels

The Jesus of the Gospels  The Jesus of the Gospels is hardly the character that Christians like to present, eg. he used violence - John 2:15...

The Jesus Of The Gospels

The Jesus of the Gospels  The Jesus of the Gospels is hardly the character that Christians like to present, eg. he used violence - John 2:15...

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What The Bible Actually Says About Jesus' Crucifixion And Resurrection?

<div class="_5k3v _5k3w clearfix" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; zoom: 1;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6UsmWSE3YLQgqa8t46Oejjgx7UOzxO6tGu9O0F2TfiuUiUwVSD1V3hBQ2wyWOgcBh8sTqJ_gr2bKLlOdeVVErldx6gyguvtGRUdl8Uw6dZCTrt8QgKkWT0zOUNxRkSyMW1LgfMF1oO1QX/s1600/Resurrection-23.png" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="auto" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6UsmWSE3YLQgqa8t46Oejjgx7UOzxO6tGu9O0F2TfiuUiUwVSD1V3hBQ2wyWOgcBh8sTqJ_gr2bKLlOdeVVErldx6gyguvtGRUdl8Uw6dZCTrt8QgKkWT0zOUNxRkSyMW1LgfMF1oO1QX/s280/Resurrection-23.png" width="280" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION WERE NEVER PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE'S OLD TESTAMENT</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br />The sections of this article are:</span></span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">1. Ample Prophesies in the Old Testament about the Messiah getting saved from crucifixion.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(a)  Psalm 91 is not just limited to the foot striking the rock!</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(b)  The Crucifixion is Symbolic in the New Testament.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(c)  Indisputable errors and contradictions in the Crucifixion and Resurrection Accounts!<br /><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">2.  Isaiah 53 and its mistranslations.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(a)  Isaiah 53's symbolic speeches - Detailed analysis on every verse. pulsar.gif (2171 bytes)</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(b)  Isaiah 53:12.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />3.  The crucifixion would've broken at least one bone and refuted John 19:30-40!</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />4.  Islam denies the crucifixion and much of the Bible agrees. Jesus was never "disfigured" to a point "beyond human likeness!"</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />5.  GOD Almighty Changed His Mind a lot throughout the Bible.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />6.  The Jews' view on Isaiah 53.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />7.  Conclusion. (Must read)</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br />8.  Rebuttals.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(a)  Detailed rebuttal on Isaiah 53.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(b)  Rebuttal from the New Testament.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">1.  Ample Prophesies in the Old Testament about the Messiah getting saved from crucifixion:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">You would expect that major events such as the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, that make up the entire case for Christianity, to be at least prophesied in the Bible's Old Testament clearly, without any ambiguity, and without any deliberate mistranslations and lies.  But the Truth and the sad reality for the believers in the crucifixion, who are too also desperate to prove trinity even though the word itself, "trinity", doesn't even exist in the entire Bible, is that these major events, the crucifixion and the resurrection, were never mentioned in the entire Old Testament.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">The following Biblical verses that further refute the crucifixion and resurrection lies:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong>Being lifted and saved</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Luke 4:10-12]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">10 For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect and guard you.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">11 And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">12 Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Matthew 4:5-10]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple,</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">6 and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">7 Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">8 Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">9 “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">10 “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Please check: Psalm 91 clearly confirms that Jesus never got crucified.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">There are few points to notice in these verses:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">1.  Notice how satan referred to Psalm 91 regarding the protection of Jesus.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">2.  Notice how Jesus confirmed that Psalm 91 was indeed speaking about him by saying "the Scriptures also say..." (Luke 4:12 and Matthew 4:7).</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">3.  As we will see in the sections below, Psalm 91 is not just concerned with preventing Christ or the Messiah from striking his feet against the ground.  This is the least point the chapter is concerned with.  The chapter concentrated heavily on:<br /><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">(see the following sub-section's points)</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong>Psalm 91 is not just limited to the foot striking the rock!</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">The following table contains all of Psalm 91 and detailed analysis about its key verses.  Notice how the New Testament in Luke 4:10-11 and Matthew 4:5-6 and in many other places completely misquoted and misunderstood Psalm 91.  Psalm 91 and its verses are not just concerned about Jesus' striking of his feet against a rock (Psalm 91:12).  That is a lie and a clear fabrication! [1] [2]  This piece is very minor in the chapter, because the chapter is more focused on:</div><ul style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will hear his cries (Psalm 91:15) and will save him (Psalm 91:3).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will cover him with His Protection (Psalm 91:4).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ will then not have any fear in him (Psalm 91:5).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ will then observe with his own eyes the punishment of the crucified ones (Psalm 91:8).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">No harm (this includes crucifixion!) or disaster will even come near Christ (Psalm 91:10....this even contradicts him getting beaten up before crucifixion).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will send down the Angels to protect him and lift him (Psalm 91:11-12, 14, Isaiah 52:13).  Not even his foot will strike the ground from his enemies pushing, grappling and punishment.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ's call will be HEARD, and he will be delivered and honored (Psalm 91:15, Isaiah 52:13).  No way would these verses be valid if Christ got crucified.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">His life will be prolonged (extended) and he will live to even see his offspring (Isaiah 53:10 and Psalm 91:16, which by the way contradict Jesus never got married and had children.  In Islam's Noble Quran's 13:38, however, it is quite possible that Jesus Christ had wives and children).</li></ul><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong></strong>[Isaiah 53:12] <strong>His life will overpower death </strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">"Death" in Isaiah 53:9 is proven to be symbolic using the Hebrew Lexicon and several English translations, and it never meant a literal death.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: justify;"><strong>Important Note</strong>:  Psalm 91 is speaking as a number of Prophecies that WILL take place.  Notice how the verses are speak of future events that WILL TAKE PLACE.  Never once throughout the entire New Testament were the Angels sent to save Jesus from striking his foot against a rock.  This, again, clearly proves that the NT is indeed false and corrupt. </div><br /><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 5px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 15px;"><div style="margin-top: 1em; text-align: justify;"><strong>Here is Psalm 91 that Luke 4:10-11 and Matthew 4:5-6 link to Jesus:</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pay attention to the red text below, especially in Psalm 91:11-12, 15 and the others</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Psalm 91]</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. [a]</div><div style="text-align: justify;">2. I will say [b] of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">3. Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">4. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">5. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">6. nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">7. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">8. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">(According to the Noble Quran and the original writings of the Disciples of Jesus, Jesus was not crucified, and he watched the crucifixion of the doomed person.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, according to the Apocalypse of Peter that was discovered in Egypt, Jesus sat on the tree and watched the crucified one getting crucified.  Peter witnessed this and wrote the Apocalypse.  Not only that, but while Christians insist that the book is a Gnostic one, but according to Wikipedia.org, "It is unclear whether this text advocates an adoptionist (Jesus was Divine) or docetist (Jesus' body and crucifixion were an illusion) christology". So there is no proof that the book is Gnostic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">9. If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge-</div><div style="text-align: justify;">10. then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">11. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">12. they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Jesus died on the cross and got buried, then his feet would've struck the ground and the stones on it from bringing him down, throwing him on the floor and burying him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">13. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">14. "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">15. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Footnotes:</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Psalm 91:1 Hebrew Shaddai</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Psalm 91:2 Or He says</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>There is no question!</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is no question that the emphasized parts above, especially in Psalm 91:11-12, 15 and others, clearly and indisputably agree with the Noble Quran and Isaiah 52:13!  Jesus was neither crucified nor resurrected, and he was protected and lifted by GOD Almighty.  Also, the New Testament, again, confirms that Psalm 91 is referring to Jesus Christ.</div><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 25px;"><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will hear his cries (Psalm 91:15) and will save him (Psalm 91:3).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will cover him with His Protection (Psalm 91:4).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ will then not have any fear in him (Psalm 91:5).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ will then observe with his own eyes the punishment of the crucified ones (Psalm 91:8).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">No harm (this includes crucifixion!) or disaster will even come near Christ (Psalm 91:10....this even contradicts him getting beaten up before crucifixion).</li><li style="text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty will send down the Angels to protect him and lift him (Psalm 91:11-12, 14, Isaiah 52:13).  Not even his foot will strike the ground from his enemies pushing, grappling and punishment.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Christ's call will be HEARD, and he will be delivered and honored (Psalm 91:15, Isaiah 52:13).  No way would these verses be valid if Christ got crucified.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">His life will be prolonged (extended) and he will live to even see his offspring (Isaiah 53:10 and Psalm 91:16, which by the way contradict Jesus never got married and had children.  In Islam's Noble Quran's 13:38, however, it is quite possible that Jesus Christ had wives and children).</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>His life will overpower death</strong> (Isaiah 53:12).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Death" in Isaiah 53:9 is proven to be symbolic using the Hebrew Lexicon and several English translations, and it never meant a literal death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Important Note:</strong>  Psalm 91 is speaking as a number of Prophecies that WILL take place.  Notice how the verses are speak of future events that WILL TAKE PLACE.  Never once throughout the entire New Testament were the Angels sent to save Jesus from striking his foot against a rock.  This, again, clearly proves that the NT is indeed false and corrupt.<br /><br /></div></blockquote><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong>Lifting up those who bow down:</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 145:14]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 146:8]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Isaiah 52:13]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Please check: Jesus bowed down to GOD Almighty begging Him to save him from the crucifixion.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">GOD Almighty Saving His annointed King and saving those who take refuge in Him:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 20:6]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">6  Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed king. He answers him from his holy heaven. The power of God's right hand saves the king.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 17:7]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 18:3]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 9:13]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me! Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Psalm 30:1]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[A psalm. A song. For the dedication of the temple. Of David.] I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong>Note:</strong>  The Psalms of David, while they are narrated by him, but they do contain many prophecies about the coming of Jesus Christ or the Messiah.  The New Testament had made many references to many of the Psalms verses and linked them to Jesus Christ.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">It is also interesting to know that King David was never killed by his enemies.  Therefore, the speech in Psalm 9:13 and Psalm 30:1 refer to a live man and not a man who died.  Notice how David said:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">1.  "I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">2.  "Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death".</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">The two quotes indicate that David cried out to GOD Almighty for help, and GOD Almighty lifted him from the enemies' defeat and death.  In other words, David was victorious and was never killed or put to death by them.  Remember that King David was never killed by his enemies.  He was lifted up by GOD Almighty and was made victorious over them.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Therefore, it is also safe to say that GOD Almighty's Commands about "saving" and " sending down the Angels to lift up" Christ from his enemies, in Psalm 91 and the rest of the Psalm verses above, also undoubtebly prove that Jesus Christ indeed never got crucified and was indeed saved from crucifixion and death.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><strong>For more on this please check</strong>:</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Psalm 91 clearly states that Jesus Christ will never get crucified.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Psalm 116, 117 and 118 indesputably prove that Jesus Christ never got crucified.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">Jesus in Hebrews 5:7-8 cried out to GOD Almighty to be saved and "he was heard".</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">[Source: Answering Christianity]</div></div>

What The Bible Actually Says About Jesus' Crucifixion And Resurrection?

THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION WERE NEVER PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE'S OLD TESTAMENT The sections of this article are: 1. Ample Prophesie...

What The Bible Actually Says About Jesus' Crucifixion And Resurrection?

THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION WERE NEVER PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE'S OLD TESTAMENT The sections of this article are: 1. Ample Prophesie...

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Serious Problem With Luke's Cencus

<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOW8Or8HMgQZu_UIY5PAh29kcA1RsnUz77hJclrDcrQKoYfkDFWge7Nf8KNwf7cVhhe5SonTkAFUP5Z0QNZVVfRqw2AoQXAkUuV-K_ZgIJqd_008DUKqiYALaxKav9beR2HXnhdVwdcTdK/s0/roman+cencus.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 0em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="415" heigh="auto" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOW8Or8HMgQZu_UIY5PAh29kcA1RsnUz77hJclrDcrQKoYfkDFWge7Nf8KNwf7cVhhe5SonTkAFUP5Z0QNZVVfRqw2AoQXAkUuV-K_ZgIJqd_008DUKqiYALaxKav9beR2HXnhdVwdcTdK/s0/roman+cencus.jpg" width="100%"/></a></div><div style="font-family:helvetica,sans,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:1.3em;text-align:justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><h1 style="font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center;"></h1><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Excerpted from God, Reason, and the Evangelicals</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987), </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">pp. 145-49, Copyright held by N. F. Gier</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">          Much has been said about Luke's excellence as an historian.  Luke did indeed emulate the models of historical narrative which were current in his day.  But to claim that Luke is a consummate historian by modern standards--as many evangelicals do--is a position which cannot be maintained.  In a letter to me, F. F. Bruce concedes that conservative apologists have been too eager to declare Luke's inerrancy.  So eager was W. M. Ramsey to prove Luke correct about the enrollment in Bethlehem that he, according to Bruce, "unwisely damaged his well-founded reputation as a very considerable scholar."  In his Anchor Bible commentary Catholic scholar J. A. Fitzmyer lists other historical mistakes in Luke's writing and offers the most definitive argument against Ramsey's claims about the famous Christmas census.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          There is no record of Caesar Augustus' decree that "all the world should be enrolled" (Lk. 2:1).  The Romans kept extremely detailed records of such events.  Not only is Luke's census not in these records, it goes against all that we know of Roman economic history.  Roman documents show that taxation was done by the various governors at the provincial level.  As we shall see later, the property tax was collected on site by travelling assessors, thus making unnecessary Joseph's journey away from what little property he must have owned.  Gleason Archer quotes a census expert who claims, without documentation, that "every five years the Romans enumerated citizens and their property to determine their liabilities.  This practice was extended to include the entire Roman Empire in 5 B.C.E." [1]  This goes against the fourteen-year cycle which Archer himself uses to argue that Quirinius was pulled from his busy duties in Asia Minor to do a Syrian census in 7 B.C.E., fourteen years earlier than the one recorded in Josephus and Acts 5:37.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          Many have joined Archer in the hypothesis that Quirinius had an unrecorded term as Syria's governor during the time of Jesus' birth.  Some misuse the "Tivoli" inscription which they say proves that some Roman official served twice in Syria and Phoenicia.  First, the name is missing, so this is no proof that Quirinius is involved.  Second, the inscription has been mistranslated.  It should read:  "legate of Augustus for a second time" not a second legate in Syria as the harmonizers insist.  Archer does not refer to the Tivoli inscription directly; but still argues that since Luke knew of the census of 6 C.E., he correctly called this one Quirinius' "first" (prote).  But Fitzmyer shows conclusively that the grammar clearly indicates that this was the first census in Judea, not Quirinius' first enrollment. [2]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          It has long been known that Tertullian held that S. Sentius Saturninus, not Quirinius, was governor at the time of Jesus' birth.  Saturninus ruled from 9-6 B.C.E., the period most likely to be Jesus' birth time.  P. Quintilius Varus was governor during the next most likely period of 6-4 B.C.E.  M. Titius was in Syria ca. 10 B.C.E.  Quirinius himself was very much occupied during this time, having been assigned to the campaign in Cilicia in Asia Minor from ca. 11-3 B.C.E.  Archer's theory is that Quirinius was given a special assignment to do the census in the interval between Saturninus' and Varus' terms.  There is of course no extant evidence for this, but this does not seem to be necessary for the harmonizing that takes place in evangelical "historical" theology.  In fact, there is much to say against it.  Fitzmyer paraphrases one authority:  "...It was unheard of that a proconsul would become a legate...twice in the same province." [3]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          F. M. Heichelheim speculated that Herod himself took the census to which Luke refers.[4]  Realizing the problematic nature of his solution, Heichelheim takes great pains to qualify his pro-Luke interpretation.  He describes Luke 2:1-5 as "an extremely difficult passage," and then proceeds to give it an interpretation that has no basis in the text.  Heichelheim uses the 4th Century church historian Eusebius to support Joseph's presence in Bethlehem at the census.  Eusebius speculated that Joseph's family "most probably had a small holding near Bethlehem up to the reign of Domitian."  Heichelheim interprets the idios in "each to his own (idios) city" as meaning the private possessions of the Jewish royal family, who would collect the poll and land taxes and send them to Rome.  This rendering of idios is supportable, but it is not compatible with Jesus' own use of the word.  In each of the places where we find the famous saying "a prophet has no honor in his own country (en ten idia patridi)" (Jn. 4:44; Matt. 13:57; Mk.  6:4), the adjective idios is used in a way quite different from Heichelheim's proposal.  And from the context it is also clear that Jesus claimed the country of his father to be Galilee and the town to be Nazareth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          Heichelheim's thesis is highly speculative and open to the following general objections. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(1) Given the conflicting genealogies of Matthew and Luke (which cannot be gratuitously solved by giving one to Mary), the descent of Joseph from David is highly problematic.  </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(2) The idea of Joseph owning property in Bethlehem stands in stark contrast to his destitute status and Jesus' birth in a strange stable. (The property would at least had a few shacks on it.) Matthew does have Mary and Joseph living in a house in Bethlehem (2:11), and only after the flight to Egypt do they settle in Nazareth.  </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(3) It would not have been necessary for Mary, nine-months pregnant, to make the arduous three-day journey.  </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(4) Not all descendants of David would have owned property in Bethlehem, and yet Luke would still require them to return from distances far greater than from Galilee.  </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(5) E. W. Barnes states that "any such census under Herod is highly improbable, inasmuch as it would be made for purposes of taxation; and Herod managed, and showed great skill in managing, his own finances." [5]  Finally </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(6), even if there had been a Herodian census, Luke would still have been wrong about Augustus' universal census and wrong about Quirinius administering it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          In Josephus' account of the census in 6 C.E., he explicitly states that those people taxed were assessed of their possessions, including lands and livestock.  In other words, the census takers were also the tax assessors.  In Egypt these tax assessors went from house to house in order to perform their duties.  With this in mind, let us look at a crucial error in Luke's account.  Luke has Joseph and Mary making a three-day journey away from their home in Nazareth to register in theiralleged ancestral home Bethlehem.  But an Egyptian papyrus recording a census in 104 C.E. explicitly states that "since registration by household is imminent, it is necessary to notify all who for any reason are absent from their districts to return to their own homes that they may carry out the ordinary business of registration...." [6]  Unlike Matthew, who does not mention a census nor Nazareth as Mary and Joseph's home, Luke describes Nazareth as "their own city" (Lk.2:39).  If the rules of this Egyptian census applied to Palestine, then Joseph and Mary should have stayed in Nazareth to be enrolled.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          Imagine a system of taxation based on people returning to their ancestral homes, going back a thousand years in the case of Joseph.  By this time the Jews were spread out all over the known world.  Can we seriously believe that the Romans would have required them to come back to Palestine, carrying everything they owned?  How would the tax officials have assessed their land?  In The Rise of Christianity the former Bishop E. W. Barnes remarks:  "The Romans were a practical race, skilled in the art of government.  It is incredible that they should have taken a census according to such a fantastic system.  If any such census had been taken, the dislocation to which it would have led would have been world-wide.  Roman historians would not have failed to record it." [7]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          In his famous book entitled Jesus, Charles Guignebert states:  "It is all outside the plane of reality....It is incredible that such an unusual and disturbing proceeding, as the census spoken of by Luke must necessarily have been, should have escaped all notice in Josephus...."  Guignebert continues:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">         "We will not unduly stress the peculiarity of the mode of census taking implied in our text, but it is to be noted that it is a very strange proceeding.  The moving about of men and families which this reckless decree must have caused throughout the whole of the Empire is almost beyond imagination, and one cannot help wondering what advantage there could be for the Roman state in this return, for a single day, of so many scattered individuals, not to the places of their birth, but to the original homes of their ancestors.  For it is to be remembered that those of royal descent were not the only ones affected by this fantastic ordinance, and many a poor man must have been hard put to it to discover the cradle of his race.  The suspicion, or rather, the conviction, is borne in upon us at first sight that the editor of Luke has simply been looking for some means of bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, in order to have Jesus born there.  A hagiographer of his type never bothers much about common sense in inventing the circumstances he requires" [8]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">          We can now understand why Jesus never mentions his birth in Bethlehem; and that, except for the birth stories, Jesus is always connected with Nazareth.  The writer of John apparently does not know of Jesus' alleged birth in Bethlehem.  Nathanael does not know it (7:46) and no one answers the challenge of thecrowd when they say "Is the Christ to come from Galilee?  Has not the scriptures said that the Christ...comes from Bethlehem?..." (7:42).  In Evidence That Demands a Verdict evangelical Josh McDowell challenges skeptics to assess the evidence for the Christian faith.  McDowell uses the mistranslated Vatican inscription and ascribes it to Quirinius without good scholarly reasons.  He even cites the Egyptian papyrus above, but astonishingly enough implies that it required people to return to their ancestral homes.9  Concerning the birth stories of Jesus, the evidence demands this verdict:  most of the details are legendary and Jesus was in all probability born in the Galilean town of Nazareth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Note</b>: Simply for the sake of balance I offer a defense of Luke's census by Ronald Marchant.  To his credit Marchant summarizes the objections to historicity mentioned about, but nonetheless offers a quite convoluted defense. Click <a href="http://www.ibri.org/04census.htm">here</a> for his article, linked to the fundamentalist Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute.  I find at least three major problems:<br /><br />1) Marchant assumes the Joseph owned land in Bethlehem;<br />2) that Quirinius somehow had authority in Judea when two other governors ruled during the most likely times of Jesus' birth; and<br />3) that the Egyptian census of 104 CE supports the idea of returning to ancestral homes.. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>ENDNOTES<br /><ol><li><i>Gleason Archer, An Encyclopedia of Biblical Differences (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), p. 366. Such an empire-wide census, if it did indeed happen, would still have been  too  late for Archer's 7 B.C.E. date.</i></li><li><i>Joseph A. Fitzmyer The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to Luke. Two Volumes. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1981, 1985), p. 401..</i></li><li><i> Ibid., p. 403.  Fitzmyer also counters Archer's attempt to demote Quirinius to something less than an official legate.Fitzmyer shows that the use of hegemon as real legate is found also in  Josephus (p. 402).</i></li><li><i>Tenney Frank, , ed., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1938), vol. 4, pp. 160-62.</i></li><li><i>E.W. Barnes, The Rise of Christianity (London: Longmans, Green, 1947), p. 75.</i></li><li><i> Quoted in Fitzmyer, p. 405.  Check<a href="http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/ancdocs.html"> this link</a> for a copy of an Egyptian census declaration. Look under K. C. Hanson's Collection of Ancient Documents (Greek).</i></li><li><i> Barnes, p. 75.</i></li><li><i>Charles Guignebert, Jesus (London: Kegan Paul, 1935), pp. 99, 101.</i></li><li><i>Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (San Bernadino, CA: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1972), vol. 1, p. 73. </i></li></ol></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt 30pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -30pt;">[Source: <a href="http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm">uido.edu</a>]</div></div>

Serious Problem With Luke's Cencus

Excerpted from God, Reason, and the Evangelicals (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987),  pp. 145-49, Copyright held by N. F....

Serious Problem With Luke's Cencus

Excerpted from God, Reason, and the Evangelicals (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987),  pp. 145-49, Copyright held by N. F....

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Echad In Shema

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM212e3kIXd4stg2otCIPbXNlNxzayluc8PvKRpX6Xf-CoZWdLfgBi99h6enmfDPsOko8HDXbiLczcICkTexOdxk0-OP0B_tTJcFCGn25R8mZVuDkMpitUlh2DwpeC_Q-QMyIVBTfNe8k/s1600/torah-with-glasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM212e3kIXd4stg2otCIPbXNlNxzayluc8PvKRpX6Xf-CoZWdLfgBi99h6enmfDPsOko8HDXbiLczcICkTexOdxk0-OP0B_tTJcFCGn25R8mZVuDkMpitUlh2DwpeC_Q-QMyIVBTfNe8k/s280/torah-with-glasses.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">“Echad” in the Shema</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/images/2-shema.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A case is often argued by some Bible expositors that the Hebrew adjective echad means a "compound unity." Thus, they say, the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) literally means:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD our God,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is a compound unity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This translation is then taken to be primary evidence that the Jewish Bible teaches the triune nature of God. In my view this interpretation of echad in the Shema isn't correct. There are three reasons why.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>First</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Echad has a spectrum of meanings in the Hebrew Bible. To say it means "compound unity" puts the word in a tiny box that doesn't match its varied uses by the biblical writers. It's like saying the word elohim only refers to the true God. When, in fact, elohim is used for false gods or goddesses, angelic beings, the judges of Israel, the king of Israel, and the Messiah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Second </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The "Shema" (="Hear"; Deut 6:4) is not a creedal jewel suspended in mid-air. It exists within a theological context. It exists in the early, foundational chapters of Deuteronomy, and Deuternomy exists as the final chapter of the Chumash, the Torah. The specific placement of this crucial passage must have a bearing on how we interpret it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Third </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeshua told his disciples that he and the Father were "one" (John 10:30). He didn't define their oneness here. Later when he prayed to his Father on behalf of his disciples, he asked that they "may all be one, just as we are one" (John 17:21-22). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whatever this oneness may entail, we assume it doesn't mean his disciples would enter into metaphysical unity with the transcendent deity, as in Neo-Platonism or modern New Age pantheism. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Paul provides one definition of the unity of Yeshua's disciples: "The one who joins himself to the Lord [Messiah] is one SPIRT with him" (1 Cor 6:17). Elsewhere, he writes of those who "are standing firm in one SPIRIT, with one MIND striving together for the faith of the Gospel" (Phil 1:27). See <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/spirit/synonyms.html">Synonyms of RUACH/SPIRIT</a>. Elsewhere, he equates this SPIRIT with the "new man" or new nature: the nature of the Messiah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">What Does</span> <img border="0" src="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/images/echad-heb-eng.gif" /> <span style="font-size: large;">Mean?</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Hebrew adjective echad occurs 970 times in the Tanakh. (Its feminine form, achat, is included in this total.) <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html#T1">[Note 1]</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"One"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By far, the most common meaning of echad (600+x) is the simple cardinalnumber "one."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place [maqom echad]. (Gen 1:9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He took one of the man's ribs [achat mitzalotayv]. (Gen 2:21)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The man has become like one of Us [ke-achad mimmennu]. (Gen 3:22)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are all sons of one man [ish echad]. (Gen 42:11)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The youngest is with our father today and one is no more. (Gen 42:13)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"First" </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In its first appearance in the Bible echad is an ordinal number and means "first":</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And there was evening and there was morning, the first day [yom echad]. (Gen 1:5b)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some expositors say "yom echad" alludes to the composite nature of the day, since it consists of an evening and morning. Yet the subsequent days are also made of an evening and a morning, but they are numbered the "second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth" days of the week (Gen 1:8, 13, 19, 23, 31). This pattern shows that echad in v. 5b means "first," not "compound (day)."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ordinal echad occurs elsewhere in Genesis:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The name of the first [ha-echad] is Pishon. (2:11)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the first day [be-echad] of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. (8:5b)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up. (8:13)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Same"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Echad can signify "the same" or "one and the same."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Behold, they are one people [am echad] and they all have the same language [safah achat, fem.]. (Gen 11:6)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They both had a dream the same night [layelah echad]. (Gen 40:5)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pharaoh's dreams are one and the same [halom echad hu]. (Gen 41:25)"Singularity"</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Echad can denote oneness as "singleness."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[The Passover] is to be eaten in a single house [bayit echad]. (Exod 12:46a)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The [menorah] was a single [achat] hammered work of pure gold. (Exod 37:22b)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They...cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes [eshkol anavim echad]. (Num 13:23)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not a single word [davar echad] has failed of all He promised, which He promised through Moses His servant. (1 Kgs 8:56b)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Look to Abraham your father,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When he was one [single man] I called him,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then I blessed him and multipled him. (Isa 51:2)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I will remove the iniquity of that Land in a single day [yom echad; same as Gen 1:5b] (Zech 3:9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Undivided Oneness"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At times, echad denotes a unity of purpose or effort, or a shared condition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The people answered with one voice [kol echad].(Exod 24:3)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then I will give to the peoples purified lips,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">That all of them may call on the name of YHVH,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To serve him with one shoulder [shechem echad]. (Zeph 3:9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart[lev echad]. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">(2 Chron 30:12)Genesis 2:24</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This passage is a common focus of attention in discussions of the Shema.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Adam and Eve] shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)Some expositors propose that our First Parents' oneness of flesh is a compound unity consisting of each other's physical being. But the verse points to the opposite. Before her creation, Eve was "in" Adam (Gen 2:22). Upon creation, she became a separated, though obviously related, distinct person.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then God reversed the operation and rejoined them in a new way, in marriage. They are no longer apart: they are one single body. Eve is not now "in" Adam, but "with" him as his counterpart [kenegdo, v. 20b]. Their unity is not composite, but singularly whole. The two, as male and female, are now one Human—one, single "Adam" (Gen 3:22, 24).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ezekiel 37</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, in Ezekiel 37 God plans one day to bring together the two rebellion-split houses of Israel and Judah. There will not be a king in the Northern Kingdom Israel and a king in the Southern Kingdom Judah. God will take their two "sticks" or "rods" (symbols of their authority) and rejoin them as one scepter under "David," the future Messiah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I will make them an undivided nation [goy echad] in the Land . . .</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One single King [melech echad] will be king for all of them,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And they will no longer be two nations, </div><div style="text-align: justify;">And they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms. (Ezek 37:22)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some believe this union of the two kingdoms is also a compound or composite unity of two parts. But that's precisely not the point here. Their once individual, self-willed identities will disappear; they will become one nation, indivisible, under God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As originally intended, the one people will be ruled by Messiah, The One King.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Uniqueness"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, echad has another nuance of meaning that sheds light on the Shema.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We saw above that echad usually denotes the number "one" (as opposed to two, three, or 10 million). There is something about one thing that is like no other—a solitary "one-ity" that highlights uniqueness, one-of-a-kind-ness. Several things are unique in the Bible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">King David, in overwhelmed prayer, after being given the privilege of leading God's redemptive program on earth, asks the Lord:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who is like Your people Israel, </div><div style="text-align: justify;">a unique nation [goy echad] on earth? (2 Sam 7:23)In the future, God will return to Har Zetim with his armies and radically change Jerusalem's geography. And that</div><div style="text-align: justify;">will be a unique day [yom echad; same as Gen 1:5b]</div><div style="text-align: justify;">which is known only to the LORD . . . . (Zech 14:7)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And on that Yom Echad . . .</div><div style="text-align: justify;">YHVH will be king over all the earth;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">in that day YHVH will be Echad [the only one], </div><div style="text-align: justify;">and his name Echad [the only one]. (Zech 14:9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Song of Songs, the young man describes his singularly peerless, inimitable, incomparable beloved:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My dove, my perfect one, is unique [achat; fem.] (Song 6:9a)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Yachad — The Real Word for Unity</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When commentators declare (without making qualifications) that "echad means compound, composite unity," they haven't done the thorough lexical study. For example, the standard Hebrew word to denote joining, unity or togetherness is yachad, not echad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He was King in Yeshurun,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the heads of the people were gathered,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tribes of Israel together [yachad]. (Deut 33:5)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My heart is turned over within Me,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All together [yachad] my compassions are kindled. (Hosea 11:8b)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Behold, how good and how pleasant it is</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For brethren to dwell together in unity [gam yachad]! (Ps 133:1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Dead Sea Scrolls document The Community Rule (1QS, The Manual of Disciple), the group of priests and their disciples abiding at Qumran is called The Yachad: the Union, the Comm-Unity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the rule for the men of the Yachad... (5:1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">... the Yachad of the eternal covenant (5:5)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whoever enters the council of the Yachad enters the covenant of God (5:7-8)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How to Translate the Shema</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In light of these sample passages, we must be open to reading the Shema with an open mind about what echad denotes. What are our options? What makes most sense, within the Bible?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is first.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is one [God].</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is the same [as whom?]</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD alone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is a single [Being, Deity, Elohim].</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is a unified [Being, Deity, Elohim].</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD is unique, one and only [God].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Given the theme of YHVH's centrality in Deuteronomy (see below), and given the command aspect of the Shema ("and you shall love YHVH your God"), the sense of uniqueness seems most appropriate in this verse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is how some Jewish versions render the Shema:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Isaac Leeser: Hear, O Israel! The Lord, our God, is the One Eternal Being.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jewish Publication Society (1917): Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Joseph Hertz: Hear, O Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD is one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jewish Publication Society (1985): Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Echad occurs in Deuteronomy at: 1:2, 3, 23; 4:42; 6:4; 12:14; 13:12; 15:7, 7;16:5; 17:2, 6, 6; 18:6; 19:5, 11, 15; 21:15, 15, 16 [Heb v. 17]; 24:5, 5, 11; 28:7, 25, 55; 32:30.]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Septuagint (LXX) renders the Shema literally, except it does not transliterate the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). Rather, it substitutes "Lord" without an article ("ho") as though the word is God's proper name.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/images/shema-lxx.jpg" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">[akoue israel, kurios ho theos hemon kurios heis estin]</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Hear, Israel: Lord our God Lord is one."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He is God of Gods </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Bible never denies the reality of other "gods" (elim, elohim), though it calls them demons (Lev 17:7; Deut 32:17; 2 Chron 11:15). The commandment "You shall have no other elohim before me" is thus quite meaningful, else God would not have said it. [Consider the study <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/monotheism/context-elohim.html">Elohim in Biblical Context</a>.]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All parts of the Hebrew Bible have a unified testimony:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who is like You among the gods, O YHVH? (Exod 15:11a)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who is a god like You . . . ? (Micah 7:18a)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For great is YHVH, and greatly to be praised;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He is to be feared above all gods.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For all the gods of the peoples are idols. (Ps 96:4-5a)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">YHVH your God is Elohim of elohim,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And Lord [Adonim] of lords [adonim]. (Deut 10:17)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Shema in Historical Context</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The jewel of the Shema is mounted in an intricately crafted setting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The book of Deuteronomy is the concluding "Law of Moses." It depicts the time when Moses is preparing the Second Generation to enter Canaan (without him). Their parents had escaped from Egypt and most died in the wilderness. He is instructing the children in their national history and teaching them God's torah about who He is and what they should do as His people in the Land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Beyond this moment, in the wider biblical context, Israel is about to join a centuries-long battle with the people of Canaan and their primary god, Baal, son of El and Asherah (Astarte).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Egyptians had numerous deities, whom the LORD humbled in the Ten Plagues. Following their decimation, he gave a spiritual banner to new-born Israel: "I am YHVH your God who brought you out of Egypt ... you shall have no other Elohim (God or gods) before me" (Exod 20:2, 3).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For more details on the Ancient Near Eastern pantheons, see <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/divinecouncil-ch2.pdf">The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible</a> [PDF, 26 pages].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Forty years later, in full view of the western hills of Canaan, Moses now gives the Second Generation the foundational doctrine about their unique ancestral God and about them, his unique people.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What great nation is there that has a god so close at hand</div><div style="text-align: justify;">as is YHVH our God whenever we call upon him? (Deut 4:7)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Has anything as grand as this ever happened:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">or has its like ever been known?...</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Has any god ventured to go take for himself one nation </div><div style="text-align: justify;">from the midst of another ... as YHVH your God did for you in Egypt</div><div style="text-align: justify;">before your very eyes? (Deut 4:32, 34)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It has been clearly demonstrated to you that YHVH alone is God </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[YHVH hu ha'elohim ein od milvado] </div><div style="text-align: justify;">in heaven above and on earth below;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">there is no other [ein od]. (Deut 4:35)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I��n effect, Moses then takes the premiere doctrine of the Decalogue and forms it into a national banner for the Second Generation to march under as they enter into Canaan:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shema Yisrael—Hear, O Israel!</div><div style="text-align: justify;">YHVH is our God. YHVH is Unique, He is the One and Only God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other elohim are idols and demons.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because of this, you shall love YHVH your God with all your heart </div><div style="text-align: justify;">and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deut 6:4-5 my paraphrase)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html#T2">[Note 2]</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Five Shemas</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But this is not the only "Shema Yisrael" in Deuteronomy. There are others in this pre-Canaan primer for the Second Generation. And each one encourages the people to listen, obey, and trust the Lord their God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. (Deut 5:1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you . . . (Deut 9:1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel! You are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be fainthearted. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, for YHVH your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. (Deut 20:3-4)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel! Today you have become the people of the LORD your God. (Deut 27:9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Within the historical, pedagogical setting of Deuteronomy, the Shema Yisrael in 6:4 shines as a banner of faith in the unique God. It also reminds the hearers that His uniqueness and love for them should rightly produce reciprocal love for Him. [See <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/7th-shema.html">The Seventh Shema</a>.]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Shema in Later Times</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some six centuries after Moses and the national entry into Canaan, a later generation was apostacizing from the Lord. To bring them back, the prophet Elijah (whose name means "My God is YHVH") called for a spiritual Identity Contest on the mountain of Carmel [1 Kings 18:20-40]. His question to the people was very simple:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Who is the true God? </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is it Baal, the fertility/storm god of the Canaanites?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[whom most Israelites are fawning over] </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Or is it YHVH, the Lord, the God of our fathers? [paraphrase, v. 21]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the flaming conclusion of the contest—when Baal failed to send fire from heaven, but YHVH did—the wavering people made loud confession of the ancestral faith:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"YHVH hu haElohim, YHVH hu haElohim —</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yahveh he is the true God, Yahveh he is the true God...</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[implied: Baal is not!]" </div><div style="text-align: justify;">(1 Kings 18:38)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Shema, long before given through Moses, was now vindicated. A generation in peril chose it as their own creed and bowed the knee to the one, true, unique God. Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, in some future era, prophet Zechariah foresees a time when the God of Israel is the only deity recognized on earth. In an apparent allusion to the Shema, he predicts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LORD will be king over all the earth;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">in that day the LORD will be the only one (or "one") [YHVH echad] </div><div style="text-align: justify;">and his name the only one [shemo echad] (Zech 14:7, 9)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Hebrew and Ugaritic scholar Cyrus Gordon notes that Greeks in the 6th century BCE, at the time of Zechariah, called their Creator god "The One." Perhaps Zechariah's message contains a contemporary anti-Hellenist polemic along the lines of:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only YHVH, the God of Israel, will be "The One"... </div><div style="text-align: justify;">and his name "The One" [contra any gods of the Greeks].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[C.H. Gordon, "His Name is One," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 29 (1970): 198-99]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Context, Context, Context</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus, in the whole expanse of Israelite history, the Shema declares YHVH's singular uniqueness as Israel's God. She was to listen (shama) to that declaration and obey (shama) its implications, and love the One who chose to reveal himself to her.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is no internal evidence in the Hebrew Bible that any generation of Israelites understood the Shema as a reference to a compound unity in the Godhead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nor is there such evidence in the New Testament. [See the parallel idea that Yeshua is "unique," as is God, in the study <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/ntstudies/yachid.pdf">HaYachid—The Unique Messiah</a> (PDF).]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Yeshua and the Shema</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When a Torah scribe asked Yeshua which was the foremost commandment in the Law of Moses, he quoted the Shema and its appended command:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The foremost is, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your understanding, and with all your strength."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">(Mark 12:28-30)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He added the command to love one's neighbor found in Leviticus 19:18 as a corollary of loving God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The scribe responded by affirming Yeshua's answer. Then he shifted focus to what seems to be a veiled reference to monotheism—perhaps to tempt Yeshua to make a statement about his identity. <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html#T3">[Note 3]</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rabbi, teacher, you have truly stated that He is one, </div><div style="text-align: justify;">and there is no one else besides him . . . (v. 32)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeshua didn't take the bait. Instead, "When Yeshua saw that he had answered intelligently [about the command to love], he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God' " (v. 34).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeshua didn't take this discussion of the Shema as an opportunity to affirm a theoretical compound unity in the Godhead or his place in it. Rather, he pointed the scribe to the extraordinary passage in Psalm 110:1, which speaks of a "Lord" who sits next to YHVH.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">YHVH said to my Lord [Adon],</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sit at my right hand,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until I put your enemies beneath your feet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then Yeshua tested him with an exegetical question about that Lord's identity: "How is it that the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? [Ps 110:1] David himself calls him 'Lord': and so in what sense is he his son?" (Mark 12:25-37).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The scribe and his theological comrades apparently could not, or dare not, answer Yeshua. Instead, "No one was able to answer him a word . . ." (Matt 22:46).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeshua's diverting attention from the Shema to <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/texts/ps110-list.html">Psalm 110:1</a> is a significant move. In fact, Psalm 110:1 is the most quoted Hebrew text in the NT, more than Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22. He set the exegetical agenda for all his followers—and for Israel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In essence, Psalm 110:1 is the other Shema in Hebrew Scripture. The one that completes the revelation of the one God to his people and to all peoples on earth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeshua's shift of emphasis could become a vision-changing lesson for modern interpreters to follow his example—instead of the example of their teachers and rabbis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Source: Hebrew Bible Study By <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html" target="_blank">Paul Sumner</a>]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Notes</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(1) According to J.R. Kohlenberg & J.A. Swanson's Hebrew English Concordance to the Old Testament (1998), echad occurs 970 times in the Tanakh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testamentsays echad occurs 962 times. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Inexplicably, Abraham Even-Shoshan's Hebrew Qonqordantzia Hadashah Le'Torah Neviim Ukhtuvim says echad occurs only 699 times. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(2) Here are renderings of the Shema in some Christian English Bibles.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, is the LORD is one. (New International Version, 2011)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD. (King James Version, 1611)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. (New Revised Standard Version, 1989)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (New American Standard Bible and English Standard Version)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attention, Israel! GOD, our GOD the one and only! (The Message, 2002)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel, listen to me. The LORD is our God. The Lord is the one and only God. (New International Reader's Version, 2014)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(3) The statement by Yeshua, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), begs to be interpreted in light of this discussion of echad. In context, it seems clear that he was affirming a unity of purpose, will, and power with God the Father. His Father, who is "greater than all" (v. 29), had given him authority and divine power to keep all his sheep safe within the protected sphere of eternal life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He asked his Father that his disciples "may all be one, just as we are one" (John 17:21-22). What all their unity may be, it does not mean they become united into the one Deity, as in New Age pantheistic religion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Notwithstanding the accusations of the Jerusalem theologians that Yeshua, "being a man, [made himself] out to be God" (v. 33), he stood his ground that, as "Son of God" (v. 36), the Father was "in" him—not that he was God the Father. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[Compare the study <a href="http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/monotheism/2-lords.html">The Two Lords</a>.] </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><br />

Echad In Shema

“Echad” in the Shema A case is often argued by some Bible expositors that the Hebrew adjective echad means a "compound unity." Thu...

Echad In Shema

“Echad” in the Shema A case is often argued by some Bible expositors that the Hebrew adjective echad means a "compound unity." Thu...

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