The Nobel-Peace-Prize director regrets giving the prize to Obama back in his first year, and he came out with this story right in the wake of Obama's celebrating the Iran deal:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/200781
It's been a while since ISIS declared its own state, and I suppose it has one. I don't know what the situation is aside from the group's digging-in without serious opposition from the West or anyone else. The group has been allowed to form it's own nation, and the West is welcome by everyone to come uproot it, but it has not. Don't you find that suspicious? It took many months for the US to deliver a couple of aircraft to Iraq to combat ISIS. That is a telling thing, meaning that the US wants ISIS to dig in. That's what's been going in. In the meantime, Russia has been digging-in to support Assad, and the two sides have had meetings, not together, to figure out how best to proceed against the other. Just as Putin was supporting Assad with smart bombs, the price of oil tumbled to well under $50, with some "fearing" it could become half that much. Oil at $50 is how you know that oil at $100 or $150 is a sham when they say prices depend on supply and demand. No one expects the price of a world need to double or triple based on supply and demand. Only the naive believe / repeat that storyline.
The oil deal between Kurdistan and Iraq has soured, but Kurdistan is still strong enough to fend off an Iraqi military attack, leaving Kurds the option of neglecting the deal and selling oil as it wishes. It came out in the news that Israel has been purchasing about 80 percent of its entire oil needs from Kurdistan. Was there an Israeli factor in the Bush war against Iraq?
In Egypt, the Israel-tolerating secularists still hold power over the Muslim Brotherhood, and have been executing some Brotherhood leaders. Hamas is still nothing, and Hezbollah is still but a big mouth. Obama is taking pride over his "diplomatic" victory with Iran, but any deal made by Obama is mainly a secret that no one is likely to understand until the full fruits thereof come falling down. Hopefully, they won't be nuclear bombs. It's too early to celebrate this Iran deal, and frankly no one is celebrating it but Obama's inner circle whose main motive is to get Obama some "legacy."
The quickness of the electronic-deduction world since 1995 was a wonder. However, I am very surprised at the relative slowness of the cashless society. There are some signs that cash is being made less popular. Banks, for example, have much less on hand (in my area, anyway), and yes, cash is used much less often in regular purchasing, but there seems to be no obvious war against cash. It's more of a subtle but systematic effort to make it the buyers' last choice. Debit-card deduction has become much faster now. It will make buyers much happier to see the cash register done away with. When the Veri-chip failed by 2010, it signalled that the shakers of the skincode had concluded the world not yet ready for it. It may mean that they will need to wait for another generation. Will it be the next generation, or the one after that? What sign can we have that the last seven years are about to begin?
Some non-Christians will say that when Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, it was deceptively written by his disciples after 70 AD to make it appear like a prophecy. But they can't say the same for the prophet Daniel, who predicted the same. When Jesus quoted Daniel, did the disciples make that up too? Do his disciples strike us as lying imposters? When you read the New Testament, do the writers strike you as fabricators of one grand hoax?
Some unbelievers have said that Daniel was written after the prophetic facts, after the Romans came to power, for he predicted that the Greek empire would be followed by one more terrible, and that was true. But he also predicted that the Roman empire would continue to the end in a divided form, but that didn't start to happen until the 5th century. Was Daniel written after the 5th century? No, for in the first century the New Testament writers quoted Jesus mentioning Daniel's "abomination of desolation." Jesus said that the Church would see this abomination in the holy place, and that this would be the sign for Israel to start taking cover.
Daniel has no further world empire after the Romans. Was Daniel written, say, in the first century BC, when for example Julius Caesar was becoming a world menace? Even so, how did Daniel 9 know that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem? Was Daniel 9 an add-on into the book, written after 70 AD? Daniel 9 is the chapter predicting the Messiah at the very time of Jesus. Did Christians add Daniel 9 to the book? Very doubtful. However, I've never read anyone's treatment on the earliest-known time for the existence of the book of Daniel. If there was evidence that it was written in the 5th century BC, the Enlightenment may have covered it, for the Enlightenment had a mission to destroy Faith. If Christians added chapter 9, the Jews would not have. The Jewish Bible includes chapter 9. Daniel 9 therefore proves that someone knew, in BC times, that the Messiah would arrive in the first century AD.
Some Christians have decided that Daniel was referring to the profaning of the temple by Vespasian and Titus, and that the middle of the last seven years (Daniel 9:24-27) was in 70 AD. But if this is the correct view, it was obviously a false prophecy, for neither the return of Jesus nor the eternal restoration of Israel took place in the 70's. Those who teach this view destroy faith in Daniel.
If someone wants to entertain the notion that Daniel 9 was fabricated after 70 AD, why would the same prophecy have Israel's eternal restoration with the Messiah (verse 24) if it didn't happen? No one would fabricate only half the truth. The notion makes the 70 "weeks" senseless. In an after-the-fact fabrication, why bother to start off with a 70-week period with the promise of Messiah if, after the last week, the Messiah is not on his eternal throne as promised?
There is "destruction" in 9:26, and a future desolation at the temple (he doesn't call it a temple building necessarily) at another, unspecified time by the so-called abomination. Jesus spoke of both events. If, when Jesus spoke of the abomination, he meant the same event as the destruction, which seems logical, then we need to view it all as a fabrication or false prophecy, for Jesus predicted that the Temple building would have its stones overturned, and it happened that way. The temple was not burned only, but the stones were knocked down. If Christian fabricators put these words in his mouth after 70 AD, then we would need to conclude that the same fabricators put the other words in his mouth concerning the abomination and related messianic restoration, but it was just concluded that the fabricators would not make such a story up for the purpose of matching the events of 70 AD, for not only would the trick have been realized by all, but there was no messianic restoration of Israel in the 70's.
If someone wants to hold to the idea that the abomination was a false prophecy that will never come to pass, the one thing such a person can't do is argue that the abomination was fabricated to match 70 AD. If someone wants to argue that the abomination was a true prophecy that pertained to 70 AD, the person is obviously in error. But intelligent people, supposedly, do hold that view.
You will find the stones prediction of Jesus in Matthew 24:2, and his mention of the abomination in 24:15. It can seem to a reader (all history knowledge aside) that both verses are referring to the same event. But the verse-15 statement comes with the Return of Jesus in verse 30, and that didn't happen in relation to 70 AD. Therefore, the writer of Matthew was not fabricating chapter 24 to fit any real history that he or others in his Christian circle knew of. They wouldn't have made such a prediction starting off with the desolation of the sanctuary if the rest of the prediction was obviously unfulfilled. No one in their time, the intended readers, would give them any credibility.
They had something very "ridiculous" in the prediction that they themselves, if they were imposters, would have considered impossible: the return of Jesus from the clouds. But it's Daniel 7 that has the Messiah returning in the clouds, and the Christians didn't write that, did they? Clearly, Daniel has the Messiah returning as a so-called "son of man" from the clouds with the express purpose of removing the abomination from Israel. You can't separate these two events by any significant time; if he comes to deal with the abomination, the abomination must still be in Jerusalem at his Return. I don't know what ails modern Christians claiming that the abomination was in 70 AD, and yet view the Return to their future. We hope they come around to their senses.
It can be seen that the early Christians were in-tune with Daniel's Messiah from the clouds. Can we argue that the Christian imposters had no choice but to teach the ridiculous because Daniel had predicted it while Jews of the first century considered Daniel reliable? It's a possibility when ignoring some facts. Or, as an alternative view, Daniel was a true prophet who heard from God, and Jesus was a true Messiah that will truly perform the "ridiculous" return from the sky. Which alternative sits best with you? Go ahead, face both alternatives squarely, and see where your faith ends up. Toy with the idea that Christians were imposters, but it won't work.
It's hard for the Christian-imposter theory to hold water, and so some will say that the Apostles were self-deluded believers, sincere but wrong. That holds no water either, for if they were wrong, the only scenario remaining is that they fabricated the Resurrection as a hoax...which doesn't fit the sincere-but-wrong category. Fabricating a Resurrection, and going far to preach it for self-gain, is a big-time hoax, plain and simple. The thinker really has no choice but to believe that the apostles were telling the truth. Many non-believers in our world have never read the Bible to apply thought to it, and most simply assume that it's religious garbage, or well-motivated fantasy at best.
If there was no Resurrection, then Jesus was an ordinary man with a spectacular view of himself as a chief prophet or messiah. The apostles, dismal at his sudden / unexpected death, were embarrassed amongst their countrymen for trying to convince them that Jesus was the promised one. But if they invented the resurrection only to spare themselves embarrassment, they would have left it at that, saying that He disappeared in the sky, with no further agenda on their part. But as their agenda was long-lasting, passionate, and successful even into Rome, a non-believer has no choice but to argue that their fabrications were of an ambitious program, with motives far beyond the embarrassment argument. At some point, they decided as a group to frame their dead leader as the one, true Messiah, and they preached their fabrication with great gusto and fearlessness. Instead of staying away from the authorities with their cult thievery, they moved right into Rome, the arena of the caesar. Weren't they afraid that one of their disgruntled members might try to expose their money-making racket?
For those who can't bring themselves to believe that Jesus was who he claimed, there is another way to look at the early churches. In this picture, the only fabricators were the first apostles, and afterward came the sincere-but-wrong believers, created by the imposters. The imposters would not have made imposters after themselves, but would have made sincere believers so as to rob their donations at every opportunity. But if they were sincere, they would not have put words into Jesus' mouth, if He did not speak them. Either Jesus spoke them, or they were put into his mouth by liars. The only reasonable picture is that Jesus spoke the end-time words in Matthew 24, for neither the imposter picture, nor the sincere-but-wrong one, allows for words put into Jesus' mouth in regards to Matthew 24. Yes, imposters could put words into his mouth, but the words in Matthew 24 are a solid reflection of Daniel, who pre-dated the apostles, and who predicted the correct timing of the Messiah...wherefore the Messiah's apostles were not imposters. If it's a true prophecy, they were true apostles. If you really want to know the truth, rather than assuming what seems logical from certain points of view, you'd look intently into Daniel 9.
There is no evidence in any of the New-Testament letters that the temple had been destroyed by the time of writing. No one mentions the fulfillment of Daniel 9:26 (destruction of Jerusalem) with only verse 27 left to be fulfilled. It is therefore roundly believed that the NT letters were written before 70 AD, especially as most of the 12 apostles would be expected to be old men by then, or passed away.
It's not just Matthew that speaks on the return of Jesus from the sky, but Paul too (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Let's also assume that Jesus, or whoever put words into his mouth, got lucky with the overturned-stones prediction. We can say that, in taking from the Daniel-9 prophecy, the Christians added, with a guess, that the stones would be knocked down, and they got lucky. But even so, what would make them predict the temple destruction not very long before it happened? Let's argue that they believed the Messiah would be set up after 70 weeks, and realizing that the weeks, which begin in Daniel's days, could not be literal weeks, they viewed each one as seven years long, which brought the 69th week smack to the time of the Crucifixion. For imposter Christians and their Jesus hoax, this would have been a convenient coincidence, and yet we never read from any New Testament writer that they were addressing Daniel 9 in any way. No NT writer used Daniel 9 to reinforce faith in Jesus, a surprising thing, actually. If Daniel 9 had been a big part of the apostolic teachings, one would think that Matthew, in the chapter-24 area, would have mentioned it. It would have taken but one sentence, such as: "Daniel predicted the Messiah at just the time that Jesus appeared in Israel."
The 70 weeks were not a coincidence, were they? Daniel's weeks were Intended by God to be secretly seven years each with the purpose of enlightening Christians in due time as to what the prophecy referred to: Jesus. Were the apostles kept blind to Daniel 9? It seems inconceivable. I've never taken this issue to task before. Perhaps due to a centuries-long taboo on Daniel 9, the apostles decided to leave it alone. Perhaps the Jews, for centuries earlier, had decided that Daniel was a false prophet, or at least mistaken in Daniel 9. But as Jesus taught that Daniel was a true prophet, shouldn't the apostles have used chapter nine with some priority for convincing some of the hardest converts?
Daniel 9 doesn't say that the Messiah would be "cut off" at the end of 69 weeks, but says only that he'll be cut off afterward. There's a bit of room for play there in regards to timing. In any case, no matter what date one uses for the start of the 70 weeks, they do bring one at-least close to 30 AD if each are seven years long. That's significant, isn't it? Shouldn't the whole world be noticing? Poor Daniel, who had no idea what he was talking about when using "weeks." I feel sorry for him, and others of his time, who were waiting out merely 70 literal weeks for the Restoration, which never came on that schedule. For centuries, Daniel looked like a false prophet to the Jews who read him, and even the Christians seemed blind to that potent prophecy.
It looks like the Christians respected Daniel, and firmly believed in what he had predicted, yet they didn't mention Daniel 9 so far as we know. Wouldn't they have read it, since Jesus emphasized Daniel's end-time prophecies? Surely, they would have gone through all of Daniel with a fine-tooth comb to gather up whatever gleanings could be had on the timing. They were all interested in the Return, were they not? (But Peter knew, and taught, that Jesus predicted his old age, putting the Return roughly at 70 AD at the earliest.)
If the apostles respected Daniel, it wasn't because they were imposters, for imposters would view all the prophets as imposters. No one that respected God would fabricate the Resurrection as a hoax for personal gain, the worst blasphemy I can think of, a sin much greater than the sins they preached against.
Daniel 9 says that the destruction of Jerusalem would take place by a ruler who lives after the 69th week. The reader is compelled to see him in the 70th week. But how can a ruler in 70 AD live in the 70th week if that week's blessings to Israel have not yet arrived as of 2015? If the ruler was Vespasian and/or Titus, as most believe, including me, it compels the reader to view the final week as a seven-year period that includes 70 AD. It compels the reader to view it as a false prophecy, a promise without the fulfillment. The goodies never materialized for Israel, and the Christians, too, were disappointed. If they were reading Daniel 9, surely the Christians would have expected Jesus' return at the site of the destroyed Temple. Not just poor Daniel, but poor, mesmerized Christians.
There is a solution if the "ruler" that Daniel speaks of was Intended (by God) as satan. Or, we can take the position that the imposter apostles took the view that the ruler was satan (acting through the emperor) in order to have the opening for a claim that the 70th week was at some later time i.e. after the lifetime of Vespasian or Titus (both dead by 81 AD). In that case, a gap between the 69th and 70th Week was created by the imposters, even though the Daniel text gives no definite indication for it. The natural inclination is to view the 70th week immediately following the 69th.
I do see a gap where Daniel says that war and "ruins" will continue to the end (verse 26), followed by the mention of the 70th week, but this is a subtle thing that readers can miss. They might assume that the war and ruins are within the 70th week, all in regards to Titus' invasion. But if the prophecy be true, there is no choice but to view a gap. Is that really justified? It would be some years yet before God would put out Revelation...through the last-surviving apostle, apparently. Revelation would help to explain some things, and mentions (11:1) the outer court of the temple trampled upon by the Gentiles. That is, after Titus destroyed the temple, and all dust had long settled, we have invading Gentiles predicted on the outer court alone, not in the inner court, nor in the temple. What does that mean? Why such a choice of words?
The imposter Christians needed a gap between the 69th and 70th, and they needed to view Daniel's "ruler" as satan living beyond the lifetime of Titus. So they fabricated the book of Revelation, which, in chapter 12, has satan the dragon belonging to the Roman empire. In chapter 13, a satan-look-alike beast revives something of the Revelation-12 dragon, and the 13-beast is at the end of history, making for a gap between the 12-dragon and the 13-beast. To put it another way, the 13-beast is the 12-dragon at another time. The 12-dragon is placed in the generation of Jesus and the apostles, and the 13-beast is placed at the return of Jesus at an unknown date. The 12>13 transition can be construed as the ruler of Daniel in 70 AD versus the abomination of desolation in the 70th Week at some future but unknown / undecreed date. In this way, the imposter Christians were able to explain away the absence of the 70th Week in the lifetime of Titus.
We now turn to Daniel 12, which, we may assume, was written after the 70-Week prophecy of Daniel 9. In 12:8, Daniel is distressed, and receives Direction to leave the distressful prophecy alone, to just go on and live his life and pay it no heed. He is told that it pertains to a time far off from his time, which indicates to the deeper readers that the weeks could never have been intended as literal weeks. In 12:12, the prophet predicts that the Restoration of Israel will come merely 45 or 75 days (I choose 75) after the end of the 70th week. That is, the Restoration is to be 1290 days after the abomination sets himself up on an edge of the sanctuary. This "edge / extremity" has not been explained, so far as I have read, in regards to the Titus invasion. It's a funny part of the prediction, unexpected. What is Daniel talking about? Why is he being specific as to a particular location within the temple or temple grounds wherein the abomination will apply? Why would the location at an extremity be important for people seeing the fulfillment, as opposed to an abomination in the central parts of the sanctuary? What difference does it make? Or, how can the Gentiles trample the outer court but not the inner court?
Because, the Romans left the western wall standing that surrounded the temple grounds, and it remains standing to this day. It is not the western wall of the Temple building, but of the outer courtyard surrounding the temple building, the extremity. Daniel had no way to know that the Romans would leave that wall standing. God was planting a sign for you and I, whom the devil would like to fool, indicating that the abomination will apply at the Western Wall. As it didn't happen in relation to the Titus invasion, it is to be expected in the future at the modern Western Wall, the so-called Wailing Wall, the only sanctuary that the Jews of Jerusalem now have, for the rest of the temple grounds is controlled by the Arabs. No matter what words English Bibles use for the term, the Hebrew means "edge / extremity." It was the wall around outer court.
There was an ancient word in Hebrew for "temple building," but neither Daniel nor Jesus used it. Jesus said the abomination would stand in the "place holy," as the Greek puts it, not necessarily referring to the so-called Holy of the Mosaic building. If this was putting words in His mouth after the Titus invasion, then the apostles were scheming to make Jesus look trustworthy. Their purpose would have been to make Titus appear like the fulfillment of Daniel. But does that work? No. I've already explained why not, and the argument is reliable. If the apostles thought, or wanted to teach, that Titus was the abomination, then they would not have put words into Jesus' mouth that come later in Matthew 24, where, as a result of this abomination, Jesus comes back from the sky. For that did not happen in relation to Titus. If the apostles were scheming to fool their believers concerning a return from the sky at some later but unknown time (creating a carrot-on-a-stick situation), they would not have put words into Jesus' mouth that He returns immediately after the tribulation of Israel caused by the abomination, for that would make the hoax survive for only three or four years after the abomination.
Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4, says that Jesus returns to destroy the abomination, though Paul doesn't use that term. There is no other interpretation; Jesus always comes to destroy the abomination. If the date of the Return was unknown in the first century by the apostles, ditto for the date of the abomination. The latter wasn't referring to Titus, was it? If it was, there would have been authorative writings saying so.
So, it wasn't Christian imposters who devised a gap between the 69th and 70th weeks, but we might like to know why God would use 70 weeks when it's already been many more. Why not mention only 69 and then add that the Messiah returns after it at an unknown date? Because, the Purpose of the prophecy was to reveal that the first coming of Jesus, at the 69th week, was the true Messiah. If the text then added that the coming of Messiah wouldn't be for an unknown time after that, it would have been confusing. I suppose we could say that God wanted the two Comings a secret until after the Resurrection. But the prophecy does add a 70th week, and we have little choice but to view it at an unknown date as per the finalizing of all prophecy.
We can't say that the apostles were sincere but wrong concerning the Resurrection. Either they saw Him alive afterward, or they did not. But even if we argue that there was a Jesus look-alike or twin brother that was used, it doesn't fly, for the apostles claimed that they saw Jesus vanishing while rising into the sky. Either it was real, or they fabricated it. We can't argue that they were hallucinating. The world has several reasons to simply ignore this "fantasy," first and foremost because it sounds like a fantasy.
When Joseph Smith (Mormon leader) claimed to find plates with a new message for Christians, he claimed that the plates were taken away into Heaven. This was his means of not having to provide the plates as proof for his claims. Most of us are not so dumb as to believe Joseph, but we do believe that the resurrected Jesus was taken to Heaven on the word of the apostles. Are we just being dumb? Joseph took the money of his followers, and the same was taking place "at the feet of Peter." Did the apostles fabricate Jesus' exit in the sky so that they wouldn't have need to produce him alive before all their "suckers"?
This is where the gap between the last two weeks becomes important, for it requires that Jesus leaves the earth after the Resurrection. If He remained on earth, there could be no return from the clouds predicted by Daniel. Old-Testament readers intent on knowing the details of the Messiah were of the opinion that the he would first arrive from the sky as a blessed one to fend off all of Israel's enemies. This is where they had it wrong. This is the area that God kept under a shroud. The first coming as the suffering servant was the Great Plot to be protected, to surprise even the devil, I suppose. This first coming versus the second was not to be spelled out, and yet when one reads carefully in hindsight, both comings do appear subtly. He would come out of Bethlehem, yet from the sky. He would be a ruler, yet die for sins. And Isaiah has Him bringing salvation to the Gentiles; it was not the idea firstly of the imposter Christians stretching their money-making scheme as wide as possible.
The exit of Messiah claimed by the apostles was required. All of them, before they met Jesus, if they had the notion that the Messiah would come one time to die for sins, also had the notion that he would simultaneously become the world ruler. When Jesus kept telling them that he had to go away, to come back again, they'd say, "wah?" They didn't understand it, didn't want to know about it. Isaiah 53 has a "servant" of God dying for the sins of Israel. Not everyone knows that. No one has claimed that Isaiah 53 was written after the death of Jesus. But Isaiah 53 claims that the same sacrificial servant will rule the earth. To the Jews who believed the prophet, it looked like he would be resurrected to rule the earth at the time that he also dies. But the apostles use sound logic when teaching that time is needed after the Resurrection to save people yet unsaved. Imagine if all there was was a Resurrection and immediate rule over the peoples without chance for salvation in all the world. That's illogical.
There must have been some Messiah-expectation buzz in Israel as the time of Jesus approached. Herod was willing to kill a mere infant or child due to the gravity that Jews placed upon the return of Messiah. He himself took seriously the claim that Jesus would become king of the Jews, and this Herod was very willing to kill even the messiah of God if it meant keeping his precious throne. Stupit! The religious leaders were spot-on when they told Herod that Messiah would come out of Bethlehem. They knew Micah 5:2 even though it's a brief mention of the messiah. It says that out of Bethlehem there would arise a ruler of Israel whose origins are ancient. What could that have meant to the readers? Was someone in the old days to be brought back to life through a second mother? Was someone in the old days in Heaven all along, coached in the meantime to become the Messiah from the sky? The Jews whose spiritual capacities excelled beyond those of the chief priests came to understand what Micah meant by an ancient messiah: Jesus was God Himself. God didn't say it outright through Micah, but that's what he meant.
Did the religious leaders expect the messiah to appear from the clouds over Bethlehem in order to fulfill Daniel too? There's been a lot of people claiming that the apostles manufactured the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem. Aside from the birth there, the new Testament gives the impression that this town was completely unrelated to Jesus. For non-believers, it stands to reason that the apostles fabricated his birth there purely to match prophecy. But then we would be right back to the imposter-apostle scenario. What good was Micah 5:2 to anyone if no one has proven that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? If all the world has is the word of the New Testament writers, is that good enough to place the birth there? But if by other means we can prove that the apostles were true, then we naturally take Matthew at his word. However, it's also possible that others inserted their own words into some of Matthews writings.
Actually, we don't really know that Matthew wrote all or part of the book. In the same way, the "word" Mark" is not in the gospel of Mark. But that's another story, and you would do well not to allow any undertones of Wikipedia's articles on the Gospels upset you. Beware "most modern scholars" in Wikipedia articles on Biblical topics. Do these scholars include twisted believers? Too many Wikipedia articles on Biblical books and themes take the position that God is NOT the author of Scripture. Should such people have a voice in religious matters? As long as God's enemies rule the world, they will seek to be the primary voices for the way in which the masses should understand Scripture. Expect smog, pollution and acid rain at Wikipedia's Biblical topics.
Isaiah must have been having a bad week when writing on the Messiah ruling over the kings of the earth. He must have forgotten that he recently wrote of the messiah dying for the sins of Israel. It was a novel concept too, hard for him to forget, the idea that a man would die, rather than a lamb or bull. But, anyway, he forgot that he had the messiah dying, for he then has him alive not many statements later. Poor Isaiah, he had too much wine. But no. A messiah isn't a messiah if he's dead. So why didn't Isaiah call him a messiah rather than a "servant"? Because, the messiah has his beard pulled out as one of the things He'd suffer as the sacrifice of God. He's humble in his humiliation, and willingly takes the torture. It's not about his role as king yet. It's an introduction to the lowly Jesus. And the Gospel writers portrayed him in just that way. Why? Was it because they were imposters making a faked Jesus (not true-to-life Jesus) look like he was matching all the prophecies?
How do we explain that the religious leaders knew of, and perhaps believed in, Micah 5:2, but completely ignored Isaiah 53, the death and resurrection of Messiah? If there was expectation in Israel's leadership positions for the coming of Messiah, wouldn't they have incorporated Isaiah 53 especially within their whole-blown concept of Messiah? But, as Jesus claimed, they were blind. Their powerful positions made them willfully blind. Upon hearing the report that Jesus was alive again, they claimed that the apostles were fabricating it, even though they (the leaders) knew from Isaiah that the Messiah had to be resurrected. Prophecy will be filed in Court to Judge the world.
Note that Jesus did not go show himself to the religious leaders. Why not? Because, obviously, the program of God was to deny salvation to the world at large, and grant it secretly only to a relative few. God would find a way to make the chosen ones believe in the face of an "impossible reality." And that's what happened to me. My mind argued that Jesus was improbable, but God broke through and showed Himself, at which point Jesus became the logical reality. How did I miss it? Why makes us incapable? Mainly, the near-2000 years since Jesus. Modernism teaches us to ignore a religious teacher in robe and sandals, far away, that long ago. Modernism laughs at those duped by the apostles. How can we be such idiots? But that's exactly the situation that God has created for the glory of the idiots, when Jesus appears to shame the modernists.
In case you've wondered why God hasn't just appeared to all, with the natural effect of curing the world instantly, the Program has been to hide himself from the world at large. This might make you more than bewildered, to the point of angry. But wait. Appearing before all, for the curing of the world, is exactly what He intends to do. If we look to God, checking for any pity for the people whom have died horrible deaths, I don't think that God has pity in the main. When Jesus was checked for such pity, he said that, unless we repent, terrible things might happen to anyone of us. There is no sense trying to whitewash God in this regard. The truth is, he's angry and disturbed by the human race, and he doesn't care for the deaths of most. There may be times when he weeps over the situation, but he can't weep continually. Daily, mankind rubs him the wrong way; daily, he endures insult to injury. It may be true that he just goes away for periods of time, away from the din.
You might argue that the promised Return was nothing but a carrot on a stick to keep the wallets of believers open and flowing for as far as the apostles could stretch their victims, yet the believers never get their promised Return. It's a logical argument, 1985 years later, and still no Return. It has the power to blind everyone. This is why prophecy, and the way it's worded, is important for believers, for a Christian suffering doubts can hang on the prophecies. We have Isaiah to inform us that the Sacrifice, Resurrection and eternal Throne was not a new idea with the apostles, and we have Daniel 9 to inform us of the timing, early in the first century, of the coming of "Prince Messiah." And we also have the devil -- or Wikipedia articles on Biblical topics -- to confuse us, make us incapable of seeing truth clearly.
In 9:25, Daniel implies that there will be 483 years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the arrival of Prince Messiah. There is no other way to interpret his 69 "weeks," for Daniel would not have fabricated the prophecy to mean 69 literal weeks, less than 1.5 year. It was God's trick to use "weeks" so that no one would know (until later) what was Intended. God's Christian Program had to be a secret while simultaneously granting Christian doubters something to hang on to for healthier faith. Have you been hanging on Daniel 9, or have you been falling prey to modernism, which, year after year, is becoming harsher toward Faith? If the question on Jesus' true nature doesn't concern you, you are not likely desired by God. If you want Jesus to be the Messiah but are unsure, God has seen it. His concern is: how much do you desire Jesus, and why?
The 1985-plus years since Jesus will convince the abomination that the Christian prophecies are not to be respected. With a world filled mainly with non-believers living happily and as usual, he will pay Revelation no heed. It is natural to expect that the mark of the beast will not have an obvious 666, but something akin to it that Christians can use to hang off of, in order to trust Revelation. And we have already seen the subtle 666 in the Universal Product Code on most-everything we now purchase. It is even very logical to view the inclusion of the Revelation 666 (chapter 13) as a warning that the Return will be soon after the issuing of the Universal Product Code. Surely, the time to watch is now. And yet the Return may not be for a generation or more.
My claim is that Daniel 11 was written to inform believers when the start of the 70th Week has come to pass, when we see the fulfillment of 11:21-25. There is purpose in alerting us to this thing, for it gives Christians three or four years to prepare for the 666 onslaught. I don't think it's coincidental that Revelation 12 tends to time the 666 in the middle of the week i.e. the same time as the abomination's appearance in Israel. It begs the question of whether the 666 will be en forced in Israel only. I truly have no idea on how to answer that question, yet it concerns the very heart of my post-tribulation book.
The military machine of the abomination, according to Daniel 11:25-31, will move from Egypt into Jerusalem only over a period of about 1260 days, or significantly less but not quickly over mere weeks or months. There will be some years to prepare for his onslaught, for anyone still intent on being a Christian "idiot." The super-intelligent ones (confident that they have rightly rejected Jesus) will not be watching events for to match them to the prophecies. "Watching" doesn't mean that our sole responsibility is to watch. The watchman doesn't continue to watch only when the enemy horses are spotted coming in. The watchman, with the rest, start to perform what they had pre-planned in an effort to win the war. And our war will be against the masters of the 666...unless the 666 is in Israel only.
I have been very concerned, to the point of feeling sick about it, should my message in the post-trib book prove to be all in vain due to an Israel-only 666 system. The book tends to argue in favor of all people, in all nations, to consider preparations against a global 666 system. While I warn that preparations should not be too early or too costly until the right time, I know that some have already moved away to their country properties, with further expenditures. Revelation 13:16 says that "all men" will be forced to receive the mark of the beast. But it then goes on to elaborate, saying both employer and employee, both small and great, both rich and poor, which can change the context of "all men." Rather than meaning all men of all nations, it can mean all sorts / classes of men, from poorest to richest.
Let's take the scenario where the abomination is an Arab, say the leader of ISIS. And he enters Israel and forces the populations there, and perhaps in the whole of the ISIS empire, to receive the number of his name, which is 666. We might then need to conclude that the 666 in the Universal Product Code is a complete coincidence, unrelated to the leader of ISIS...unless ISIS is secretly led by the West, the creators of the UPC. In any case, the point is: as the UPC has a built-in 666, one has reason to believe that the 666 will be a Western-global system, not just in Israel. But, unfortunately, the Revelation text doesn't satisfy me on this question, and there appears to be no other scripture to be of help in that regard.
When we go to the Church in Revelation 12, it doesn't say whether it's global or local to Israel. The Revelation-12 church is split into two parts, those who escape the beast into the wilderness, and those whom are made war against by the same beast. The implication may be that the second group doesn't get the Protection. The distinction is there for a reason. God pointed out those who escape and are nourished for 1260 days, out of the serpent's reach, but also "the rest" who seem to be more vulnerable. It sounds like a directive to flee into the wilderness when the 666 system arrives, yet, in Matthew 24, Jesus instructs the people of Judea to flee into the wilderness when the abomination has camps on all sides of Jerusalem. One could argue that this 666 will be in Israel only, to control the nation -- both Arabs and Israelis -- after it has been subdued.
Why would the early church leaders fabricate this 666 system if their motives were to make their living off of the donations of believers? Insecurity, and the need for long-term preparations, doesn't have the effect of opening their purses wider to the apostles.
Suppose that it wasn't a fabrication. Would God give that prophecy before 70 AD? If He did so, believers would be urged to view the abomination as the Titus invasion. A little later, Christians in 75 AD would be thinking that the 1260 days had come and gone, but without the promised Appearance to throw Titus into the lake of fire. And moreover, no 666 anywhere to be seen, long after Titus died. That's one way that you can know that Revelation was not written prior to 70 AD.
Was Revelation a fabrication after 70 AD? What would be the purposes? If, as they say, Revelation was written 90-95 AD (as I think too, based on 17:10 where emperor Domitian is the "one is"), then the Christian leaders were fabricating another invasion of the temple even as the temple lay in ruins. Such a thing would be senseless to anyone living in those days. No Christian leader in his right mind would predict an invasion of the temple while it already lay in ruins, if he wanted the Jesus-hoax to be successful. But if the re-destruction of the temple were much later, in another era, after it has been rebuilt, we then have reason to believe that Revelation was not a fabrication, but written by Someone who knew the distant future.
There was no Jewish temple even after the Muslims built the Dome of the Rock. It sat square as a rock upon the Jewish Temple Site, mocking the Jews and "proving" that God was really the Allah of Mohammed. And, poor Christians, it had been several centuries since the book of Revelation, and now what? Not a Jewish temple, but a Muslim one. Oye.
Then came the year 1,000. Christians may have been thinking that, maybe now is the time. And in 1100, the "Christian" Crusaders wrestled Jerusalem from the Muslims. Was the Messiah about to come? Oh, those wonderful Crusaders, ushers of the Messiah, they must have been. It was a time for Christian heads to look up. But when, after the dust had settled, the Muslims were the victors, in rejoicing they fueled their belief that God was really Allah, not YHWH of the Jews. And they taught their children to hate Christians and disrespect the Jews, until the Jews, or whatever hybrids they were, took Jerusalem too easily, in 1967, within the ominous shade of furious Arab neighbors. It was another time for Christian rejoicing. And the disgust that Arabs have for Israel spills over to Christians in support of Israel to this day. But the fault lies with Arabs who think their god is superior when in fact he doesn't exist. Arabs built the Dome in Jerusalem all apart from Allah's help.
With modern Israel in control of Jerusalem, it spoils the Muslim boast that Allah is the true, mighty God. It's not enough for some Arabs if a Palestinian state in Old Jerusalem were to be formed with a global referee, for this would not glorify Allah. In the minds of many Arabs, the only way for the offended Allah to deal with this is to come pounce on Israel with the meanest-ever bloodshed the world ever did see. Then the Muslims could walk proud with Allah once again (not all Muslims think this way). We need to ask whether this situation TODAY, as we speak, formed and ready to pounce, is coincidental, or part of prophecy. All the mechanisms and the fuel are in place for another invasion of the temple, only now, the only temple the Jews have is the temple extremity. Had not the Jews taken Jerusalem in 67, this nasty situation would not have been fueled. But here we are, nearly 50 years later, brute Arabs not yet satisfied, not yet appeased, not yet tolerant. The West is putting on all the appearances it can to show some affinity with Arabs, but to no avail when it comes to the brutes.
Now that news has come out to reveal that Israel has been purchasing most of its oil from Kurdistan, news reports of bombed oil pipelines in Kurdistan have also been heard. I am not up to speed on all the reports in this regard. Kurd oil to Israel is what may cause militant Arabs to emphasize the overthrow of Kurds. Changes in Iraq are virtually non-existent over this year. The long-awaited "Mosul operation," to liberate it from ISIS, still hasn't taken place. This week, they are saying that it'll be in two months from now. In winter?
True religion doesn't produce brutes, and some Muslims point this out, good for them. The concept of Jesus was to produce people in support of one another as opposed to the competitive spirit in the world, where man competes for money and beautiful women, then devolves further into emptiness, dissatisfaction, and finally beastliness without the Spirit. Why is it that the "good things" in life prove to be unsatisfactory? Having money and multiple estates alone is not good enough for the rich, probably because big houses and expensive furniture don't talk or love back. The rich think they need some fame, recognition, power, something to make them feel good. The beautiful woman talks back, but why does a man use her with great passion at first, and then discard her before long for something else? Was she not the answer to his feel-good? Does she become an emotional "problem" because the man wants her for carefree feel-good, making her feel cheap? When will she ever learn not to entertain such men? The world (and worldly women) now respects the dancer, the singer, the circus performer, the crocodile wizard, the Olympic athlete, the wild, the different, the trend setters, the witty, the entertainer.
The winners get the beautiful women, so long as the men have "established" themselves with good money too, revealing that the insides of beautiful women are lacking something when unwilling to help a "lesser" man to establish himself. The beautiful woman needs it all right now, and she's going to use her beauty to get it. She thinks. And the handsome man who realizes that women everywhere fuss over him, and give him attention, will come to use women for the feel-good, though it's not his problem alone, because the woman fusses over him for her feel-good too. But this doesn't last, for the initial potency dies off.
Let's Play
The Resurrection of Jesus doesn't hold promise for eternal life in itself, but life in the Spirit. Not only "with" the Spirit, but IN the Spirit. If I have God right with this, I think He's creating the greatest-possible contrast between end-time life in the world verses post-Armageddon life with the Spirit dropped down for all men to "seize" upon. The idea is to expose the difference in people between the two systems, but this contrast requires a Spirit-less world on this side of Armageddon. Even Christians now have only a small taste of the Spirit at most times, so small that He's not always felt by the senses. Is this for the purpose of Contrast, to one-Day show us why the best the world can do doesn't come close to what God can perform?
There must be something about the indwelling Spirit of God that satisfies. But if we trust Jesus' report on the matter, the Spirit also enlightens, teaches, trains, guides, comforts and protects. The world has it's own teachers, trainers and guides, but God is offended because He expects people to realize that He's more reliable in every department. The message of Jesus is that the one who cancels his worldly affairs to be trained by the Spirit will end up with something, whereas the others end up with worse than nothing.
To what does the Spirit lead? The world has no idea because it has never dressed itself with Him. How can the world compare between the best it has to offer and the best that God has? Instead, the elite assume that God is either non-existent, lame or uninterested in what man does. And that's what they have taught the poor. The rich therefore aspire to be God, to teach and guide the poor, to assure their means to make a living, but not to become too rich because they're needed for labor. The poor will remain donkeys if the rich have their way, and we all know that the poor do not rule the nations. But Jesus chose the donkey as his symbol, because he had affinity with the poor.
To what does the Spirit lead? To a cell phone or computer? Shouldn't God be more imaginative than that? Does God know that humans talking person-to-person is much better than speaking by email, chat or cell phone? Why were people amazed by the ability to chat on a computer? It's of far less quality than speaking in person? The world values human interaction, but has it settled for low-quality interaction? Can the Spirit make human interaction better than the world's? Now we are on it. The Spirit is for interaction between beings, and allows one to communicate with God just as though there were a direct line to Him. But the world doesn't want this. If it wanted it, it would try it, and find God. Instead, it wants the Internet and other cheap interaction, but for this to work, it needs to deceive people into thinking that something cheap is simply marvelous. Christians suffer in a world like this. We are stained by the rust in the wobbling wheels of this world. We want something better all about us, but the world has disappointed, and that's what God wants us to learn in the "history lesson" of this age.
The greater the abilities of this world to satisfy, the less it satisfies, because men are innately stupid without the Spirit's guidance. The Spirit showed me how stupid I was just by entering into me. The light was shining on my stupidity, upon the beast that I was, upon the beast that I'll always be apart from his Spirit.
Probably, "beast" is used in revelation to indicate stupidity. The message is, the devil is stupid. He deceives, which is stupidity. He seeks to harm people by deceiving them, and glories whenever he can accomplish a great deceptive scheme. That's the stupid in full-blown arrogance. An arrogant stupid is hard to tolerate. You wouldn't have him over for dinner. Yet Revelation informs us that the condition of the end-time world will be to love this devil. He'll package himself as something he's not, and deceive the peoples to his own entertainment. He'll bring the world to a romantic affair upon the heights, and then push it off the cliff. But isn't this really the deception of God? Isn't God calling for peace and safety in the world for contrast on the Day of HIS destruction? Does God deceive and destroy too? Yes. Can He be furious and cruel? Yes.
What would you prefer, a devil that kills good people and bad, or God that kills the murderers and thieves for the sake of the good? Will God continue to be brutal when the evil are dealt with and either gone or repaired?
Is it possible to have the Spirit and yet be evil? Yes. Having access to the Spirit doesn't make ones decisions. The Spirit guides, but the person decides. The Spirit is Commissioned to guide us into truth, goodness and love of God, but the human spirit wants enjoyment and gratification with or without God. It is ready to displease God for some goodies. It's true that all work and no play is drudgery. We need play, and God has created the playful kitten. All sorts of creatures, when first confronted with life, play with one another. There can be no play without interaction, unless one plays on the computer. Playing requires the submitting of one to the other, both in tune. Unless musical instruments are submitting to one another, there can be no music. Submission is being a team player. Not submitting is rebellion. What would you rather have? Are you the rebel that submits with no one?
Do you submit with the one who hates God? Should you be? Does loving your enemies mean that you should be in tune with them? Interacting with them? Playing with them? Do they relish in your interacting with them knowing you haven't got a chance in converting them? Eating with sinners is not the same as interacting with them. You can eat with sinners and criticize them, just as Jesus did. Criticizing is not interacting. Jesus is the biggest critic I have ever seen. He even criticized his own disciples continually. But our world about us has taught toleration, and not to criticize even the queer. The world is being taught to respect the queer until he's no longer thought queer. Is that the way we should flow too?
You don't get loved by criticizing today. The world will assure that you get pain from them if you criticize. But the apostles realized that criticizing can be done gently, with love, even with non-believers. Christians don't call it criticizing because it's a "bad" word. They call it "teaching" or "admonishing." Jesus and the apostles distinguished between "judging" others and constructive criticizing. Jesus criticized as a doctor healing a patient, but at times he lambasted his religious enemies in what could be construed as judging them by the Christian definition of the term. When all evil has been eradicated, there will be nothing left but play. God made play between humans. Christians need to play with one another. They can enjoy one another in all sorts of play. When you join the Christian coffee house, be sure to play well so that those you play with enjoy you. Then you will want to play all the more, and your face will change into one that's more prone to smiling and looking happy. Jesus had something to say about disfigured, religious faces that the priests would wear, especially when they were fasting.
Holiness is not about keeping a strenuous face with no play. It's about doing right. You can do right with cheer, gladness, abundance of life, even giddiness if you so desire. If your fellow Christian suspects that there's something wrong with you for being too playful, that one needs to be tickled to death until his/her smilies come back out. Let it be your grand challenge. Or, if you want, you can cry about all the things you haven't got, and ask others if they would please cry with you. Which would you prefer?
I'm not ignorant of the real pains that people have that tend to keep them from becoming playful. There are some nasty realities in the lives of some that stick closer than a parasite. But one can argue that playfulness is needed most by such people, all the more reason why you can be more on the delightful side rather than on the low-key side. You'll need to define your own playfulness. My definition is to interact with people in an enjoyable experience. But there are pitfalls when doing so. The other person may not find you enjoyable, and if too many find this, you can retreat into more of a pity-party than a celebration. And that's where grace comes in, and mercy, and love, to be gracious to others when they disappoint you, and for the one wanting to be disappointing not to be too much so. So, if you are greeted by someone cheery that doesn't make you feel very cheery because they have egg on their faces, or because they're wearing Walmart shoes, play along and make their day. It's positive interaction leading to healthy play.
James revealed that Christian churches had their own class warfare to deal with. There's nothing that the rich class love more than clowns i.e. something to make them laugh. Not all of us are good-enough comedians to make them laugh, however, but the point is, the rich-class Christian will like you, if you wear Walmart shoes, if you are happier than they. They will be drawn to your attitude, and you can become their guiding light. When they start to open up to you, you will realize that the rich are not necessarily better people, especially if they think they are.
There is a fine line between being acceptably playful and a notorious clown. You don't want to be telling "jokes" that might insult. My definition of playfulness isn't about telling jokes or wanting to make people laugh hysterically. Playfulness is interaction. When you take your sweet date to dinner and you reach your hand across the table to put it on hers, and she accepts, that's playing. Playing is not at the casino. There is risk in playing. When your wife is angry because you complained about the piece of shell in the scrambled eggs, you find a way to approach her from behind, slip your hands around her waist, and play. Play sends all the bad feelings away, unless the other person doesn't want to play yet. Kittens can't play if they harbor ill toward one another. Kittens grow up to become turf-war chiefs, but Jesus came to teach us not to grow up like that.
Sometimes I feel fantastic, not always. On a fantastic day, the first person I meet might ruin it all for me. That happens. Sometimes, the irony of life gets to be too much to handle well. The brute beast comes out and growls. Never mind kick the cat, you might want to bite your wife's head off if she even remotely looks at you. We all deal with irony differently. Just as things start to go well again, when all is calm and in control, an irony comes along and sticks itself right down the center of my brain, splitting my personality in half for another spell. I don't know whether to roar or cry, so I might do both all in the same ten seconds. Why did God make this dog-eat-dog world filled with irony and people who spoil my fantastic mornings? God could have chosen a better way for mankind, and that's when I start to think about all the wars and profanities, and I start to wonder about God's love for the human race. Does he really love us? I ask that question only when I'm unhappy. It's the sort of dark thing that happens to a thermometer when dipped into hot tar. You can't take God's temperature when you're upset. It will always come out looking black. On a good day, God looks much better, which only serves to prove that your emotions can paint the the way you perceive God. If God is defined by whatever happens in your life, you may be painting the wrong picture.
If you're often angry, chances are you will be sore at God for making you angry. Chances are, the devil is having a party with you, Christian, when things go hairy, and God made him able to do that. Instead of blaming the devil, you blame God. The blessings you were looking forward to have been spoiled by a long list of never-ending unpleasantries, and so how can we be pleasant to any significant degree when we as Christians are the center of the devil's dart board? Be playful? Yes, but wear your helmet. On the next fantastic morning you have, get your helmet on before speaking to the first person, and let any unsightly attitudes bounce off of it. If you expect it, it won't bother you, because you've prepared yourself for it. Be a rubber ball that everything bounces off of. That's called go-your-way forgiveness and never-mind-it grace.
If the bad attitude rubs off on you because you weren't prepared for it, don't copy it with someone else. We Christians are the receivers of bad attitudes, and the evaporators too. The worldly person will receive the bad attitude and pass it on to someone else, but we reduce the frequency when we are using grace. If the community is becoming a better place, grace is at work. But grace and toleration are not quite the same. Having grace on a bad attitude shot from some twisted soul to our nerve center not only hurts, but stirs us to anger. Toleration teaches not to be angry because it's not really wrong. There is no basis for anger if it's not a wrong attitude. Grace doesn't mean that we accept the wrong attitude as fine and dandy, no problems, go-your-way and be happy. Bad attitudes are a reminder that we would rather not be living here.
An example of a bad attitude is the dentist who fixes a tooth without freezing, in 15 minutes flat, and then does 40 more minutes of work when he made you think it would take 15 more, and finally charges you $400 for less than an hours work, not breaking out in a fast breath let alone a sweat. There is evil like this everywhere, and to boot, the dentist told you he saw two dark spots in two teeth that need fillings the next time you come, soon. To make sure, you'll need two x-rays, each taking a few seconds, at $30 a pop. He has an expensive sports car parked in the back that he drove to work today, his fourth car. Should you spit at his secretary as you walk out the door? Should you accept his prices as right and normal? After all, he has a lousy job sticking his fingers into peoples' saliva every day for 35 years.
I use a comparatively massive drill that shakes by bones. It can take 30 minutes to get a 4-inch hole in a concrete-block wall by drilling several 1/2" holes in a circular shape, then chiseling out the rest. It's tiring work, but I don't get but a tenth of $400 for it, even if I take ten minutes to plaster it over once the pipe is passed through. Yet the dentist, after he makes the hole, merely plasters it in. I am fully experienced at plastering holes. Plastering a small filling in a tooth is not work by my definition. If he went to school for ten years to learn all about teeth, it doesn't justify $400 per hour minus his secretary and nurse costs. His business overhead is cheap as compared to a small store packed with items. His place of work can be half the size (half the mortgage) of a small store. If God is angry with this, he may suspend judgment for a later time, but that's not the same as toleration.
This is not to say that God doesn't practice tolerance, though I prefer to call it long-suffering, hoping the situation will change. This attitude is his testimony that he's not brutish by nature. If he were tolerant in the sense of indifference to sin, then it would be testimony that he were unmindful of the pain caused by sin. Sin always involves pain and injury to someone, including Himself. Surely, if the head of the house is pained, the children will be too, but, in the case of the modern world, the children are the willful sinners.
The brutality of God is always against the brutality of man. It's not God who acts first with brutality, followed by the brutality of man. Brutality for brutality, ounce for ounce, is not injustice. But why should the brutality of previous generations be paid for by the end-time generation? That's why God will need to permit the murders of some Christians at the hands of the brutal beast. But why should all the world pay for a rotten few within this beastly circle? We already have the answer in Revelation, where all the world "worships" this anti-Christian stupid. We have yet to see what level of passion this worship refers to, but the text seems to be revealing that the people will recognize anti-Christianity as one of his main characteristics. Therefore, they will all be lumped in with him.
But never mind. Let it come to pass never-minding, and be interactive through it all. I'm not crazy about that term, and prefer "playing together" because it sounds human. Playing together means to stay close and liking it all the while. The "love of most will grow cold," the opposite of playing together. Go out together. Get together to become closer. It's not as though we were Jesus with two years to train the disciples for a drastic mission. That was a crash course, and Jesus had little time for play. His Calling at the time didn't call for play. But play he will in the next age. Enjoyment is the fruit of his suffering. The world will not have the monopoly on play.
Wikipedia's Pollution
Here's an example of Wikipedia at its smoggy best:
...Thus the proclamation of Jesus in Mark 1:14 and the following verses, for example, mixes the terms Jesus would have used as a 1st-century Jew ("kingdom of God") and those of the early church ("believe", "gospel"). More fundamentally, some scholars believe Mark's reason for writing was to counter believers who saw Jesus in a Greek way, as wonder-worker (the Greek term is "divine man"); Mark saw the suffering of the messiah as essential, so that the Son of God title (the Hellenistic "divine man") had to be corrected and amplified with the "Son of Man" title, which conveyed Christ's suffering. Other scholars think Mark might have been writing as a Galilean Christian against those Jewish Christians in Jerusalem...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark
It must be trash day. I can smell it. Instead of Mark (or whoever he was) simply writing down the events and sayings of Jesus as best he could remember them, or as best he could acquire them from certain sources, he's a construction worker, according to the Wikipedia writer(s), framing his words for a predisposed blueprint. It gives you the impression that the Gospel writers were making things up as suited their purposes. It's destructive on your faith, and those who do these things will pay the price.
We don't know what sort of character(s) controls each of the Wikipedia articles on Biblical books. In Matthew's article, the writer was just producing a stylized (liberal) version of Mark when in reality the writer(s) may have dug up more-correct information than Mark had provided. Where Mark uses "man" and Matthew uses "angel," Matthew is changing Mark's word, according to the Wikipedia writer, for the purpose of being more stylish, more tickling to the ears. Is there no other explanation? What if Mark's choice of word was the alteration from the norm? Perhaps Mark had not found sufficient evidence to prove that it was an angel, and was therefore more cautious.
Wikipedia says that most scholars date Matthew after 70 AD. But Wikipedia's article uses "CE" instead of "AD," a potential sign that the writer is in rebellion against Christ. "CE" is the new wave ever since Christ became overly offensive to the modern generation. I went over all four Gospels with a fine-toothed comb when incorporating all four as one story to my chronological best. I didn't notice one thing that could date Matthew to a period after 70 AD. Wikipedia mentions nothing in support of "most scholars" after it claims "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90 CE, with a range of possibility between 70 to 110 CE. A pre-70 date remains a minority view." I'll bet that Matthew's "abomination" text has something to do with "most scholars"' viewpoints on the particular dating. By having Matthew written after the war, they can, by implication, turn the prediction of Jesus more into a fabrication by Christians than a true prophecy. By viewing Biblical texts from a human standpoint, they might have convinced themselves that Jesus "knew" of the temple destruction beforehand because Matthew's author put the words into his mouth after the event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew
If one clicks on the Roman-Jewish-war link at the Matthew article, one can find Ananus, son of Ananus, ruling Jerusalem by force at the time of the initial revolt in 66 AD. The elder Ananus was Caiaphas' father-in-law, as you can verify at Caiaphas' article, or by clicking the link, "son of Annas" at the Ananus ben Ananus page. In the war article, you can find that the younger Ananus delighted in killing James, identified by Josephus as the brother of Jesus Christ. That murder happened before 70 AD. Joseph Cabi, reflective of "Joseph Caiaphas" and the "Cavii" Illyrians, had been the high priest prior to Annas above, though some seem to be saying that he was the priest preceding Ananus ben Ananus.
In the Jewish revolt, a fellow leader along with Ananus ben Ananus was Eliezar ben Hanania, but as another Eleazar was the name of the father of Caiaphas' father-in-law, Eliezar ben Hanania looks like a close relative of that father-in-law. In case you're interested, there is a Quadratus, governor of Syria, in the article on Nedebaios, Hanania's father, ho may have been related to Quadratus Bassus (born 70 AD). The father of Nedebaios was Josephus (likewise a high priest), son of Camydus.
I am not the one to discuss the war at this point because I know little about it. At Wikipedia's article, I don't see any evidence that Jerusalem was trampled by the Gentiles for 42 months. Titus was able to enter the city within a few months in 70 AD, and then returned to Rome while leaving Lucilius Bassus in charge. The latter's article has nothing on his parents or children, saying only that he had previously been a prefect of Ravenna, beside the Maschi's of Rimini.
Of great interest, the gold Maschi lion is used on a black Shield in the Compton Coat. Around the Compton lion are three helmets in the colors of the Mynett helmets, relevant because Amyntes was the great-grandfather of Julius Bassus, of age to be the father of Lucilius Bassus. In all my Bassus' discussions, I've not known of this Lucilius. Comptons are said to have had a Contune location in Berkshire while Berks/Burghs are definitely from John de Burgo of Conteville, making Contune suspect with the Conte / Conteville bloodline. In fact, the Cunone location (Huntingdonshire) of Comptons smacks of the Conans and Conte-related Cone's suspect in the pine cones of Maschi's. Cone's, in Mynett / Compton colors, were first found in the same place (Kent) as Mynetts. Plus, it was recently suggested that Conte's trace to COMPsa (i.e. like "COMPton"), otherwise called, Conza. Comptons and Cone's both use a white crest.
The Comptons were looked up after finding Campdens...because I was looking for a surname that could possibly stem from "Camydus." Camdens are interesting for sharing the fitchee crosses in black with the Tarves surname. As Chives' lived in Tarves, it's notable that the Camden Crest shares the pennant (different design but same code) with Cowes'. Comptons were first found in the same place (Devon) as Chives' and Albins/Aubens, and there was one Lucceius Albinus character of the Romans in charge of Judea for a couple of years until 64. There is some evidence that this Albinus was a descendant of king Massena: Following his time in Judea, Albinus was chosen by Nero to be governor of Mauretania Caesariensis...Following Otho's death, Albinus was rumored to have styled himself as a king using the title 'Juba'." King Juba of Mauritania had previously been a descendant of Massena, and even married Glaphyra Archelaus, a mother of the Herod-Maccabee line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucceius_Albinus
While a DUMNonii peoples were founders of Devon, Jesus, son of DAMNeus, succeeded Ananus ben Ananus. Camdens share the fitchee with MacDonalds, whose Gaelic variations smack of the Irish DAMNonn. Camdens are also "CAMPden," and are in Campbell colors while the latter were first found in the same area as Scottish MacDonalds. Campbells share gyronny pattern with Titus'. See also Comps/Camps.
http://www.free-coat-of-arms.com/
In Jesus' Wikipedia article, the writer actually enters a possibility that he was Jesus Christ, and in many ways such as this, the rude world of "Biblical scholars" advanced by the anti-Christian conspiracy are changing the image of Messiah and his apostles. The same bloodlines who had part in quashing Christianity in ancient times are still at it today.
You can write 1,000 articles on Jesus and have them on the Internet, but you won't get the high profile that Wikipedia gets. The world is being educated on Jesus by the serpents. It's everywhere.
As high priest, Jesus Damneus was followed by Yehoshua ben Gamla (whose first name was essentially the Hebrew version of "Jesus"). His surname smacks of Gamala, or the Cammell variation of Campbells. He is said to have been a friend of Josephus the historian, who became close to the family of Titus when the Jewish revolt was quashed. Josephus was himself a military leader in Galilee.
Lucilius Bassus was a Roman legatus appointed by Emperor Vespasian to the Iudaea Province in 71 AD. Assigned to finish off the last remnants of the Great Jewish Revolt in the province, he led the legion Legio X Fretensis, destroying the Jewish strongholds Herodium and Machaerus on their march to the siege of Masada.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucilius_Bassus
The family of Quadratus Bassus, whom I've traced to Quade's and therefore to Cowes (Hampshire), had become Roman puppets in Judea by 102. Quade's, once I discovered them to be a branch of Cowes', were simultaneously found to be kin of Wights / White's (Cowes is on the Isle of Wight). For example, Scottish White's use QUATRefoils, clear code for QUADRatus liners. One branch of English White's were first found in the same place (Gloucestershire, beside the Dumnonii) as Camdens, while the other English White's were first found in the same place as Conte's. Note how the latter White's share, with Nero's, blue vair on a chevron upon a red Shield. The Jewish revolt began under Nero.
There are connections to be all over the place here. The Were's were likewise first found in Devon, but were likely of the Were river flowing through Durham, where Conte's and White's were first found. The Were bend is colors reversed from the same of Albins/Aubins (Devon), and the latter's bend is in the colors of the MacAbee's/MacCABE's, potentially a line from Joseph ben Cabi. The MacAbee's were first found in the Campbell / MacDonald theater, but also beside the first Alexanders who share crescents in the colors of the Death crescents. Compare the Death Coat to that of Comptons. The Durham White's not only use a "death" motto code, but "Loyal" too, suspect with the motto of Margesons/Mackesys, kin of Margys/Mackie's, the latter first found on the coast from the first-known MacAbee's and Alexanders. In fact, Margys/Mackie's (branch of Mackays and therefore of Quade's) were first found in Ayrshire while Ayers share the quatrefoil with White's.
Did you spot the green trefoil, an Albin/Aubin symbol, in the Death Crest? The Deaths are suspect by their Darth variation from Arthurs and Artems/Aitons, both first found in Berwickshire with Levi-beloved Aide's/Ade's (Quade's?). Plus, the king-Arthur myth, "Le Morte d'Arthur," was code for both the Deaths and the Morte's/Motts that share the same crescents. Deaths were first found in the same place as Mynetts, and the Death crescents are in the colors of the Mynetts helmets, wherefore Deaths/Darths trace with Arthurs to ARTEMidoros, son of Amyntes. You need to ignore most heraldic write-ups as deliberate deception, trust my decade of experience (full-time work) on the topic. There has been a cover-up on what the lines under discussion trace to.
I didn't know until now that Ananus ben Ananus, the son of a chief instigator in the murder of Christ, was alternatively, "Ananus ben ARTANus." What can this mean? That Annas was also called, Artanus? Why should that be? It just so happens that while Artemidoros was the great-great-grandfather of Quadratus Bassus, the latter's family ruled in Cilicia, beside Syria, where Seth, father of Annas above, lived. "Seth" is suspect from the peoples who named Sadducees (Annas was a Sadducee), and is listed with Shaws, kin of Ayers. As both Shaws and Ayers are identified by me as Numidians, what about tracing the two to Albinus above, governor of Mauritania? The Shaws (from Aures) use the Ayer quatrefoils as trefoils, the Albin/Aubin symbol. How about that. A new potential lead.
The Albin / Albino surnames have thus-far been traced to Senecio Albinus, adopted by Umbrius Primus of Compsa/Conza. Here's how Albinus entered the discussion in the 3rd update of August: "The Haught Crest even shares the white bull head with ALBINS/Aubins (Umbers have a white Crest too), looked up just now because Umbrius Primus adopted Marcus Nummius Umbrius Primus Senecio ALBINUS. Such a coincidence. The blue crosses of Albins are of the type used (in blue) by Mea's/Meighs sharing the Campbellford / Fessy / Macclesfield cross." I didn't know the Compton / Campden surnames at the time, at least not with familiarity. The Mea's/Mee's (share the raven with Margys/Mackesys), first found in the same place (Nottingham) as the Annas surname, can be in the "me" motto term of Margesons/Mackesys. The Mea's/Mee's use "Numine" in the motto while Margesons/Mackesys share a white-on-black lion with Newmans. The latter's motto is highly suspect with the MacAbee's/MacCabe's.
The Campbellfords and related Comforts share the peacock, symbol of Paws and Paws/Pauers, and then Chippings/Chepyns (an "orle") use a gold "lion's paw" suspect with the gold Maschi / Compton lion because the Chipping/Chepyn fleur-de-lys are used by Masci's (Massena branch). Chippings/Chepyns can be suspect with Chapmans/Chepmans, first found in the same place with Capone's (look like Camp/Comp kin), because Quints, suspect from the Caepionis bloodline, use another lion's paw. The Camdens are said to be from Chipping Campden (Gloucestershire). The engrailed Camden fesse can therefore be a colors-reversed version of the engrailed Meschin fesse.
The Newmans can even be suspect with the Nummius surname of Senecio Albinus. The latter was born roughly a century after Lucceius Albinus was ruler in Mauritania. Newmans (share "fides" with the Arms of Fanano, beside Marano) can also be suspect with the namers of Newport on Wight. The latter island is not far along the English coast from Thanet, where Massins/Masons were first found, a Massena line with certainty, and suspect as the very epitome of Freemasonry. Mauritanians are suspect with Mortons and therefore with the Morte variation of Motts. They trace with Motts/Mottins (beside the Meu river of Mea's/Mee's) to Modena, where Albino's were first found, and where Marano is located that produced the Marano/MAURITANo surname. You see, we have apparently found the root of the Albins/Aubins and Albino's in Nero's man (yes, Lucceius Albinus) to rule Jerusalem.
Wikipedia says that Glaphyra had no children with Juba, but sometimes children are simply left unspoken by historical documents. One Glaphyra line traces to Clavers (bars gemel) suspect with a version of the Meschin Coat, and sharing the tower with Murena's/Moratins and Comets. Dutch Clavers (clovers) look to be using a version of the Mackay and Macey Coats, and so let's add that Maceys (mace, potential Maccabee symbol) share the gauntlet with Fane's/Veynes', first found in Monmouth, location of CHEPstow, and beside Gloucestershire, where Meschin-suspect Camdens were first found, but also beside Glaphyra-suspect Clapton of Somerset. Clappers/Claps, sharing a vair-filled Shield with Campens/Champagne's (suspect from Campania, location of Compsa), were first found in the same place (Sussex) as Margesons/Mackesys. The Clapper Crest, "A pike naiant proper," links to Sadducee-suspect Geddes. The Propers share a key in Crest with Clavers. Dutch Clappers use "mallets." And, by the way, the large Clapper square is called a "quarter" while Quarters use a similar square.
As the Luce's (same place as Clavers) share the Geddes / Clapper pikes, might they have been from "Lucceius." Luce's (in Orne / Horn colors) are said to be from Passeis in the Orne area of Normandy. Lacys trace easily to Skiptons and therefore to general Scipio at Placentia.
As Comets are in the colors and format of Comyns, they became suspect with the Conteville's, but in this picture, Comets should be placed under suspicion as a Camydus line. The Claver tower is highly suspect with the same of Plunkets and therefore with Plancia Magna (descendant of Glaphyra), whose Perga location may have named John de Burgo. One can expect a merger between the Burgo line and the namers of Conteville, i.e. suspect from Compsa/Conza. The Cons'/Conns and Conys have a Coat much like the Clavers, and Caens may be using a "perimus" motto term in honor of Umbrius Primus i.e. of Compsa. Caens/Canns share a fretty Shield with Modens, first found in BERKshire, where the Contune location of Comptons is located.
As per the following discussion, note that Placentia-suspect Place's (Norfolk, same as Luce's and Clavers) have a COUNTERchanged lion in the so-called PASSant position, an heraldic code that can be suspect with the namers of Passeis, Norman home of Luce's. My claim is that there was a fundamental merger between the Laevi and the Ananes, which should explain why the Place lion is in the design of the Levi lion. The Laevi have become highly suspect with Laevillus, who married Quadratus' daughter. Passeis is in Orne, home also of Seatons that trace to the Sidicini, from Teano of Campania i.e. near Compsa. Geddes are suspect from the Sidicini too, for multiple reasons. The Place lion design is not quite like that of Comptons, but is exactly like that of Margesons/Mackesys, and the latter use it in colors reversed from the same lion of Passe's/Pascals, the Levi lion too. The red, spread eagles of Passe's can be those of Chills/Childs and Tarents, suspect with Cilnius Maecenas, husband of Terentia.
Margesons and Margys became suspect with Marjory Carrick, part of the Saraca-fish line from emperor Caracalla (concurrent with Senecio Albinus), brother of Geta whose name traces well to the Gaetuli Numidians. The Gettels even share a raven with Margys/Mackie's, first found in the same Numidian-suspect place as Carricks who in-turn have a "Garde bien" motto while Gettels are shown properly with Gard-like variations. It's not a coincidence that Marjory married Adam KilCONquhar ( Mrs. Comyn was his mother) while Mackay-related Adams/Caws use the ANNAN(dale) cross. The Biens, in the Carrick motto, can be using a version of the Deck/Dagger Coat (squirrel) while the latter are suspect from the Ticino, home of the Laevi. Mackays use a dagger as code for Daggers. The white escutcheon of Geddes has been suspect from Sidicini / Sadducee liners in Placentia, or with the white square in the Arms of Placentia, which may officially be a square as code for the Dagger-related Square's/Squirrels. The Carricks descend from a Gilbert, while Gilberts use both the Arms of Carrick and a squirrel. These combined "coincidences" tell one heck of a story concerning the lines of the greedy killers of Christ to Scotland, to Freemasonry, and to the quashers of Christianity in modern educational channels.
The Gilbert motto can be suspect with Chedwicks, Chaddocks and Haddocks, all from Lancashire. The first two of the three share the Geddes escutcheon, and while Gilberts use "Teg" in their motto as code for Deck/Daggers liners, Chedwicks use "decus."
How did Numidians get to Modena? Probably by the invasion of the Placentia area by Hannibal, for he had the Numidian cavalry with him. That was well before the life of Lucceius Albinus. The very formation of Maccabees proper of Israel, from a king-Massena line, is my claim aside from the Hannibal invasion into Modena, where Hannibal's army waged war with the Maccabee-suspect Boii. I have yet to figure out what relationship Modena (Mutina at the time) had with Modi'in of Israel, home of the first Maccabees, but it suggests that Maccabees had presence in Modena from before the time of the Boii in 218 BC, the year of Hannibal's first invasion of northern Italy. He invaded the Trebbia river at great expense and pains of his army, and it just so happens that the Trebbia flows at Placentia, where the "Hanni"-like and Annas-suspect ANANES Gauls lived. Annas was also, ANANUS. Coincidence? And the namers of "Caiaphas" may have been the namers of Syphax, a north-African (may have been Numidian) ally of Hannibal.
Massena had betrayed his alliance with Hannibal to join the Hannibal-battered Romans camping out at newly-founded Placentia (army barracks at first). This alliance with general Scipio of that area and time (about 50 years before the appearance of the first adult Maccabees) is what makes it attractive to trace Maccabees to him.
Senecio Albinus lived in Campania, at Benevento, a place like the Benvenue-and-similar variations of the Biens. It can be suggesting that Albinus got into cahoots with the Laevi / Sadducees suspect in the Caracalla > Carrick line. There is a Benevento surname that's new to me, a red lion COMbattant with a red bear. Benevento's look linkable to the Bene's/Vans/Vains, likely part of the Fane/Veynes line to the namers of Fanano. In this picture, BeneVENto may have been named by Fanano liners in cahoots with Bien / Bene liners. There is a Fano location beside Ravenna, the latter being where Lucilius Bassus was from, and then Caracalla was a Bassianus on his mother's side. Albinus was favored by Caracalla's family.
The Bene's/Vains are part of Clan Chattan, but in the last update, Chattan liners were discovered with a Maccus line to Aberdeen's Caddenheid entity. Bene's/Vains were first found in Aberdeenshire.
In his capacity as Roman Consul, Senecio Albinus followed on the heels of Publius Septimius Geta, Caracalla's brother. After Albinus, the post was held by another Septimius liner:
Gaius Septimius Severus Aper (c. 175 - 211/212) was a Roman aristocrat. He was appointed Consul Ordinarius in 207 with the otherwise unknown Lucius Annius Maximus [Annius?].
Aper came from Leptis Magna [same as Caracalla's father] and was probably a grandson of the Consul Suffectus of July 153, Publius Septimius Aper. Aper is possibly the same person called Afer in the Historia Augusta, who at the end of the year 211 or 212 was executed on command of the emperor Caracalla.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Septimius_Severus_Aper
The Heffers were looked up, checking for any possible links to known Caracalla liners. The three lions in pale of the Heffers immediately brought the three Maghen lions to mind because Maghans are suspect with Plancia MAGNA, which suddenly makes her name feasibly identifiable with Leptis Magna (now a part of Libya). The "mon" motto term of Heffers is highly linkable to Mona = Isle of Mann, for Maghens are also Manns. The Heffer lions can be the Place lion too just because Albinus liners are suspect in Placentia circles. The two Heffer surnames combined show super evidence for their being a branch of Averys/Everys, and from this, one can go to the same-colored Ivers/Eure's, an obvious merger with Hanans!!! It's reasonable to identify Hanans with the Ananes of Placentia, and so "Plancia" may even be a Placentia liner. As the Plocks/Placks/Pluknetts from a Plunkett location.
Irish Heffers (blue lion, Caiaphas suspect) use gold-on-green crescents, symbol of English Coffers/Coffare's, and then while Irish Coffers/Coffee's (same colors) have a Crest tracing to the Arms of Taranto, the Motels, said to be from Taranto, share a white horse with Coffer-colored Cafferys/Caffertys! As Taranto is across the sea from Libya, it looks like Apers / Afers evolved into Coffers / Cafferys and Heffers too. If Taranto named Terentia, it can trace Cilnius Maecenas to Modena/Mutina, where Motels can themselves trace. But the big story is that Ananus/Annus looks closely related to Geta Aper/Afer, and so let's not miss that Annandale's are in Geddes colors.
There are a lot of Magna terms in history that just mean "big," but the Magna surname of Plancia probably goes back to something in the field of Sadducee make-up. LEPTis Magna looks like the mythical Lapiths may have named it, whom I see in the Lepidus family. Lapiths included mythical AscLEPios, whose rod is in the canton square of Quarters. The nine strings on the Quarter harp suggest the Muses, largely of mythical Coronis, a Lapith, and mother of Asclepios. The String surname, in Quarter colors, was first found in the same place, Nottinghamshire, as Annas'. Nottinghamshire is along the Trent river, feasibly from the Terentia line, which can explain why Strings share three spread eagles with Tarents. It's interesting that while Quarters use the same lion as Sutys, kin of Side's/Sudys, the STRing-like Sitters/SIDEwells share the same upright, black lion as Sutys / Quarters, wherefore Strings may be from Sitric, grandfather of Maccus, the latter being an apt name for a trace to "Maecenas." Plus, Maccus was sometimes called, Magnus. I'm seeing a PatMOS line to the Muses of Leptis Magna through to Maccus of the Scottish Isle's, the sea-faring channels of MacDonalds.
Coronis was the crow line to the Cyrenians at the eastern half of Libya, where Muses lived as Amazons, otherwise known as Meshwesh/Mazyes, the peoples who apparently named the tribe(s) that king Massena belonged to. I've traced Coronis and Asclepios to Chora and Skala on PATmos, while PATents share the green griffin head of Strings. Strings are said to be from an Eaton location while Eatons/Eatings trace well to Etna in the Scylla (i.e. Skala-related) or Messina part of Sicily. Quarters came up due to the quarter square of Clappers/Clapps, whom in this case can be from a child between Glaphyra and Juba.
Look at the Heeding variation of Hede's (Arms of Fanano?), and compare its fesse and white-on-blue crescents to that of NONs (listed with Nevins), for this can identify Hede's as NUNeaton liners. I suppose that this may trace Eatons to Hede, between the Meu river and Dol. While Nons were first found in the same place as Carricks, the Non motto can link to the motto of proto-Carrick Craigs (more white crescents).
Sitters/Sidewells claim to descend from a Saxon Seawald character, while Sewells, who possessed Eatington and are said to descend from "Siwald," were first found in Warwickshire, the same place as NunEATON. The bees in the Sewell Coat can be those of Bessins and Bistone's, for Bistones were an ancient peoples from Cyrene whom had an erect sword (symbol of the Biston surname) for their sacred religion (spit). The Showell variation suggests the Shows honored in the Numidian-suspect Nimo's. See also Shovels/Shoulers/Showlerssuspect with Schole's who in-turn share the Patent Coat. As Shows have a Shaw-like variation, the Seawald Saxons can trace to Shawia Numidians (not far from Leptis Magna). However, Maccus had apparently joined the Anglo-Saxons of Britain so that the trace to Numidians is likely through his ancestry. Compare Sewells to Coronis- and Massey-suspect Crone's, for Maccus met the Anglo-Saxons in Cheshire, home of Masseys. Note that Scottish Crone's (MacDonald theater) share a lozengy-filled Shield with Schole's and Patents, wherefore the Scayle variation of Schole's traces to Skala on Patmos. Shovels and Sewells not only share the white chevron with each other, but with Hebrons, important because Eschol was an ancient site in Israel's Hebron area.
I didn't mean to get off-topic of the Wikipedia articles on Biblical writers. It just happened. I wanted to say that, we need to be honest when looking at what the Biblical canon is. I wonder how many versions of Matthew there have been. I happen to believe now that the three magi were inserted into Matthew by a Gnostic Christian. If you want to see a good example of Gnosticism in early Christianity, see the Gospel of Thomas at Wikipedia. Anyone was able to take any Gospel account, and add to it. Whether or not the additions would be accepted depends. In the earliest times, if additions were made, many wouldn't have known it for lack of anything at the local Bible store to compare it with. What Bible store? If they received a copy of Matthew with the magi, they may have concluded that the apostles gave it their thumbs up. But how can magi follow a star and conclude that it stops over this building versus that building? Impossible, if it's a regular star. If it wasn't a regular star, throngs would have been following it. Did the star stop at night to give the magi some sleep? Forget it. Stars and magi have to do with astrology, and that's a mystic bag not of Christianity. Those who inserted the magi wanted believers to think that God accepted astrological thought.
One can wipe away half the New Testament, and salvation in Jesus will yet remain. The Message will yet remain sufficient to give us an understanding of the Way. It's not difficult. Jesus, forgiveness of sins as per faith in Him, and add a good lifestyle pleasing to God. Can you grasp that? Of course you can. But we have the letters of Paul, Peter, John and James to boot, and these letters were harder to add to, for a letter is a personal message not to be changed, but a Gospel book is a compilation of events and statements that can be added to or subtracted from. What made the writer of Mark offer a shorter gospel than the writer of Matthew? To each compiler, their own length. John said the books of the world could not contain all that Jesus did, and he had to stop somewhere. I now wish they would have added 10 times as much, but in the beginning, the New Testament as a whole was daunting, hard to grasp in its entirety.
Can we trust everything in the account of John the Baptist? Does it matter much? Can we trust everything in the 40-day fast of Jesus? Does it matter much? Do we toss the entire Bible out if we find one problem such as the three magi? Of course not. The family tree of Jesus in Matthew versus Luke is not entirely the same. Does it matter much? Matthew's genealogy claims to know the great-grandfathers of Joseph, husband of the virgin Mary, and it goes back to Zerubbabel and the kings of Judah. Was this wishful thinking or some fabrication to make Jesus the rightful heir to the Jewish throne? Does it matter much? No one should abandon Jesus just because some parts of the accepted Bible look non-Inspired.
I speak this way because the Wikipedia's of the world are hoping to have you lose faith in Jesus by banging up the Biblical texts in many ways. Here's from the Thomas article:
Another argument for an early date [first century versus second] is what some scholars have suggested is an interplay between the Gospel of John and the logia of Thomas [the latter is the false gospel]. Parallels between the two have been taken to suggest that Thomas' logia preceded John's work, and that the latter was making a point-by-point riposte to Thomas, either in real or mock conflict. This seeming dialectic has been pointed out by several New Testament scholars, notably Gregory J. Riley, April DeConick, and Elaine Pagels. Though differing in approach, they argue that several verses in the Gospel of John are best understood as responses to a Thomasine community and its beliefs...
John's gospel is the only canonical one that gives Thomas the Apostle a dramatic role and spoken part, and Thomas is the only character therein described as having apistos (unbelief), despite the failings of virtually all the Johannine characters to live up to the author's standards of belief. With respect to the famous story of Doubting Thomas, it is suggested[39] that John may have been denigrating or ridiculing a rival school of thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas
In other words, these stooges are speaking for the devil, saying that John fabricated the Thomas account solely as personal means to combat the school of Gnostics that provided the Gospel of Thomas, etc. That's the sort of battle that's out there on Biblical thought. The war has existed since the beginning. It's not new. The next sentence in the article adds: "In another apparent contrast, John's text matter-of-factly presents a bodily resurrection as if this is a sine qua non of the faith; in contrast, Thomas' insights about the spirit-and-body are more nuanced" In other words, John may have fabricated the bodily resurrection of Jesus to fight the Thomasites. The writer of that article needs to give his thick head a shake. If even the apostle John was a fabricator of Biblical events, then, surely, Jesus was no true messiah. That's the message of that thick skull. It's offensive, an attack.
If John or the others were seeking to combat the Thomasites, we would probably have heard about them or their teachings in the epistles. The epistles of John don't seem to have any battle with Gnostics, probably because such teachings took some time to develop. They may not have existed in the apostolic era. But the anti-Christs of the world would have you think that the gospel of Thomas predated John's gospel so that John can be made to appear as a fabricator of "truth." One really needs to ask why the Gnostics chose "doubting Thomas" for a chief source of their "true" gospel.
In reality, Thomas was not the only doubter that day. Instead, he was the outspoken one, letting his mind be known. For him, the resurrection of Jesus was so fantastic for his joy that, before he banked on it, he wanted absolute proof, not merely the word of the women nor of Peter. Being gone from the tomb was not necessarily evidence that He was resurrected. Peter saw no Jesus in the tomb, but he did see the burial cloth folded neatly, and he believed. He had stayed the night in the same house / place as Jesus on many occasions, and saw how Jesus folded his bed sheets. He knew the sheet-folding signature of Jesus. Besides, if the Romans took the body, with or without the priests involved, they are not predicted to take the time to fold the burial cloth.
The sort of Christians that Paul railed against at times can be found in the article below: "The Gospel of the Hebrews is the only Jewish-Christian gospel which the Church Fathers refer to by name...it probably began circulating in Alexandria, Egypt in the first decades of the 2nd century and was used by Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian communities there. The communities to which they belonged were traditional, conservative Christians who followed the teaching of the primitive Christian church in Jerusalem, integrating their understanding of Jesus with strict observance of Jewish customs and law, which they regarded as essential to salvation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_According_to_the_Hebrews
That "gospel" took great liberties in fabricating words from Jesus. In all honesty, what I'm reading at the article as supposed words from God do not ring true, not just because they are different than what I'm used to. The Hebrew gospel also has a new entry in regards to the Resurrection, stating that James, His brother, was a firm believer in the Resurrection from the time of the "last supper," yet there is no evidence that James was at the last supper, nor at the Mount of Olives immediately after the last supper. Nor is he mentioned at the crucifixion, though it can be assumed that he was there. Instead of handing Mary (mother of Jesus and James) over to James, Jesus called to John from upon the cross, and directed him to take care of Mary (in His absence). The other apostles were not so sure of the resurrection on that first night of betrayal, but James, in the false gospel, shines in this regard. These things are fabrications, evidence of liars within the Christian churches, and it appears that they were seeking to win James over to their cult. Do we now throw the other New Testament writings out along with the Hebrew gospel?
Some of the false brothers that Paul railed against may have become the following in due time: "The Nazarenes were similar to the Ebionites, in that they considered themselves Jews, maintained an adherence to the Law of Moses, and used only the Aramaic Gospel of the Hebrews, rejecting all the Canonical gospels. However, unlike half of the Ebionites, they accepted the Virgin Birth." There is a very strange mix, rejecting what we call the New Testament but accepting the virgin birth regardless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_(sect)
The article goes on to quote Jerome, saying that "the Nazarenes of Beroea, a city of Syria, " use the gospel of Matthew, the one now in the New Testament. This might explain some of the questionable things in Matthew. Another item I find unInspired is where Matthew quotes the Old Testament, "out of Egypt I called My son," saying that it was fulfilled by Jesus when in fact the OT text does not refer to Him. And it's Matthew that says Jesus "shall be called a Nazarene." This doesn't necessarily mean that the Nazarene sect wrote all of Matthew, or any of it, but the possibility is that it did insert some things into the book previously written.
Those who insist today that every word in our New Testament is a word directly from God are at fault. Such a view makes you more their monkey than a thinker. Christians look apish (not very intelligent) when they insist that every word in the Bible is Inspired. Thinkers whom have witnessed the Biblical problems can't take you seriously as an authority to depend on. I am not necessarily saying that faulty texts are therefore erroneous and untrue. If Jesus said to the thief hanging beside him, "today, we will be in paradise," while a gospel writer getting second-hand information quoted Him as saying, "today, you will be with me in paradise," it's not to be viewed as a lie, fabrication or untruth just because the words differ. But was Jesus in paradise on the day of the crucifixion, that is the question. Did he truly make that statement in any words? Does it matter? Do we toss out the entire Bible if someone slipped that statement in as a fabrication?
Some of you will throw up hands and say that we can't know what's true from what's not. That's not so. If you didn't get fooled by the camp demanding you believe in complete Inspiration, you would not be shocked to discover it, and your thinking would cater keener senses when reading. In reality, all of the textual problems, and some of the doctrinal contradictions, can be explained by the entry of man-made texts, and this fact gives the enemy less to fight with. If every word in the Bible is deemed the word of God while contradictions / inconsistencies can be found, then the devil gets the upper hand by pointing out the problems, and claiming much better that God wrote none of it, therefore. But if the Biblical problems are due to human input and the inabilities of writers to know every last word used by the speakers, then all Biblical problems combined pose no threat to the parts that are true and Inspired.
Here's the obvious, Biblical truth: Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, died for our sins that we might receive the Holy Spirit and be saved from the devil's powers. No one can say the Bible doesn't say that. There was no New Testament in the days before Jesus died, and yet salvation went out to those, already, who trusted in him, and appreciated his words above all else. Salvation and producing fruit doesn't depend on a perfect Bible. One would be very wrong to conclude that nothing in the Bible can be trusted if some things can be proven to be false or not-quite true to reality.
Wikipedia has no power to ruin our faith by merely pointing out the differences in words from one account to the other. But if Wikipedia can convince you that the apostles were fabricating texts, faith is in dire jeopardy. Therefore, make a distinction between the apostles and modern scholars. Not all modern scholars can be trusted. In some cases, "most modern scholars" can be heretical. Finally, it's God who decides whether your faith survives to the end, despite all the evil tactics abounding, providing that He sees you valuing your faith. When Jesus felt abandoned by God, he screamed in passionate concern. Others who feel that God is no longer in their lives can take a different attitude, such as: goodie, there is no God after all, I'm sure. I can therefore go back to enjoying life as I once did.
On the Gospel of John, the ancients had no problem viewing if from the apostle, but Wikipedia is quick to point out, "According to most modern scholars, however, the apostle John was not the author of any of these books" (the gospel, the three letters, and Revelation). O goodie, I get to make fun of Wikipedia again. The writer adds: "[John's] insistence upon Jesus as a divine being walking the earth in human form renders it highly problematical to scholars who attempt to evaluate Jesus' life in terms of literal historical truth." Poor scholars. John poopooed on their human view of Jesus. Only the scholars who seek "literal historical truth" have a handle on the real Jesus. Don't you find it rude that Wikipedia allows writers like this to teach on John, massacring the gospel in the meantime? Don't you think that a normal Christian writer, who values John's viewpoints, should have the primary opportunity to have the Wikipedia article on the gospel of John?
Here's the writer massacring John: "Therefore, scholars are no longer looking for the identity of a single writer [for the gospel of John] but for numerous authors whose authorship has been absorbed into the gospel's development over a period of time and in several stages." if they can convince you that the apostle didn't write the gospel, it's a major victory for the devil. But if you know your gospel of John, and you haven't got a rabid view of the Incarnation, you also know that the apostle wrote it. He makes it very clear. But the Wikipedia writer(s) insists that the gospel was written near 100 AD, making it less likely for John to have been the sole author. I can't disagree more. It is doubtful that John would wait so long to compile the events of Jesus' life.
The writer of the article even attempts to lump John in with the Dead-Sea scrolls, a dead give-away as per the cactus stuck up in his rump. The writer is very bothered, and bothersome. He fails to tell what a wonderful job John had done to expose Jesus' private times, and the wholesome intimacy that He had with his disciples. At one point, the writer of the gospel tells that he was leaning in contact with the body of Jesus at the last supper, very comfortable in union. You can find the event in 13:23. Jesus was not aloof, not a snob, even though he was God. No other Gospel writer expounds so much at what was said and done at the last supper. John was there. He may not have remembered the conversations word-for-word, but we trust his account to be mainly correct.
The author with the cactus where it shouldn't be continues to bang the reader with the idea that John was written in fragments over many years. How would he know that? Why emphasize what he cannot know? Why waste space on what he doesn't know? Well, for him, it's not a waste of space, but the very message he wants to command. And that's why Wikipedia can be a great funnel for pouring devil juice down the throats of Christians.
The author of John is only revealed as the disciple beloved of Jesus, though not by name. John appears to be utilizing humility in this way. He makes it plain, near the end of the gospel, that the one beloved of Jesus is John the apostle. Here is from another article: "Since the end of the 1st century, the Beloved Disciple has been considered to be John the Evangelist. Scholars have debated the authorship of Johannine literature (the Gospel of John, First, Second, and Third epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation) since at least the third century, but especially since the Enlightenment. Some modern scholars now believe that he wrote none of them." You are to believe that modernists are smarter than the ancients, but just look at the writer's use of "Enlightenment," as if this was the new intelligence for modern scholars to judge Biblical questions by. Actually, the Enlightenment created all the questions because it's purpose was to dethrone Jesus, and kill Him all over again. Wikipedia is a great tool for killing the Messiah all over again, and Wikipedia will not go unpunished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beloved_Disciple
If you read the article above, it can be plainly seen, despite the prickly cactus that tends to get into the way, that the beloved disciple was living at the same time as Jesus. What profit is there to remove John as the author of the gospel, therefore, and to make, for example, James the author? The man with a desert shrub stuck to his bosom even mentions that John and Jesus may have been having a homosexual affair. Why even mention it, Mr. Prick? And he doesn't stop there: "Another school of thought has proposed that the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John really was originally Mary Magdalene." Why not go throw yourself over a cliff, see if you can land on Judas, cactus first. What a waste of an article. Shame.
He goes on to form the impression (in the readers' minds) that Jesus belonged to a wider religious organization typical of a commune, and then quotes a quack taking a similar position wherein the beloved disciple "was probably a literally sophisticated member of the (surprisingly extensive) high priestly family clan." To these idiots, the beloved disciple needs to be something strange and new because it couldn't possibly have been something so logical as one the apostles. The idea is to desperately destroy all credible writings on the topic of Jesus, and turn them into something you shouldn't rely on. Rather than having you believe that an eye-witness to Jesus' daily ministry had written John, they would have you believe that a more obscure disciple wrote it.
Back to the Gospel-of-John article where Jesus' was more a product of the Greek philosophers than a Son of God: "This prologue is intended to identify Jesus as the eternal Word (Logos) of God.] Thus John asserts Jesus' innate superiority over all divine messengers, whether angels or prophets. Here John adapts the doctrine of the Logos, God's creative principle, from Philo, a 1st-century Hellenized Jew." How offensive that the writer boasts a certainty for the linkage between John's claims and some other person totally unrelated to Jesus. It's obvious that the Logos was the idea of Jesus himself. John's simple message was that Jesus was the Word or Law of God in flesh form. What is it about Painful Prick that he can't understand this simple thing, or comprehend that John had the idea all apart from the philosophers? Why does Poisonous Prick seem intent on connecting Jesus to other teachers? Because, it makes for a view of Jesus that is far less than the Son of God. It's the way the anti-Christs have always sought to kill Jesus all over again.
Look at how he frames his words, to create doubt: "This section opens with an account of the Last Supper that differs significantly from that found in the [other Gospels]. Here, Jesus washes the disciples' feet instead of ushering in a new covenant of his body and blood." He uses "differs significantly from" instead of "adds greatly to," and then uses "instead of" rather than "along with." He's trying to evoke contradiction when there is none. He ignores the explanations in the text itself and makes up his own. For example, "This account of foot washing might refer to a local tradition..." But Jesus tells why he washed Peter's feet. Why not leave it at that? Because Twisted Prick is intent on linking Jesus to some other religion.
"Following on from the 'higher criticism' of the 19th century {Enlightenment period], scholars such as Adolf von Harnack and Raymond E. Brown have questioned the gospel of John as a reliable source of information about the historical Jesus." So what? Why mention it? There are millions of people taking the same view, and it's all known. But if you write an article on the Gospel of John, shouldn't you treat him with respect until it can be proven that he doesn't deserve it? What possibly could Harnack and Brown have up their guns to shoot John down? There is simply nothing in that Gospel worthy of punishment...unless it offends someone that Jesus should be portrayed as the eternal king that does away with this world. Ahh, that's the real underlying sentiment of all the world's pricks. They would rather see God dead and their world lasting forever.
Why is it that the only opinions counting are those of "scholars." Some Biblical scholars have as there very purpose to shoot down the heart of the New Testament. You shouldn't assume that "Biblical scholar" refers to someone who loves Jesus. Amongst scholars, there is every opinion imaginable between black and white. But so far, having read fairly deep into the article, the writer(s) has not quoted any scholar who takes Jesus for what's he portrayed to be by John. The scholars of choice for another Wikipedia article on Jesus are sure that the gospel news of Jesus is based on a lie. "Early 19th century scholars offered three types of explanation for these miracle stories: they were regarded as supernatural events, or were "rationalized" (e.g. by Paulus), or were regarded as mythical (e.g. by Strauss)." What about the scholars who believe that the miracles were miracles? Shouldn't they be part of the article's opinionating?
Later in the John article, it appears that another writer gets to have a small part of the script who assumes that John the apostle wrote the gospel. But the article quickly goes to the fiends. This time, John is anti-Semitic because he claimed that the Jews opposed Jesus. That is, John reported animosity between Jews and Jesus, and the idiot scholar who thinks this was not true, who rather thinks that John was using an anti-Semitic ploy, gets a mention in the article. Please tell what is so unimaginable about the Jews actually hating Jesus? Why do the scholars prefer to read all sorts of things into the reports of John, believing anything but the reports themselves? Because, they are bent on twisting the story, believing John to be a liar, or wishing to portray him as such.
Next, the article makes daft comparisons between John and Gnosticism. Well, they both include people that breath the air, so, John must have been a Gnostic. I see. The Gnostic section doesn't really have a cannon ball to shoot at John, no real weight whatsoever, but, the point is, the section is there, with it's own title, and that's called subliminal messaging. The reader sees it and receives a subliminal message even if the arguments used in support are useless. John is now a Gnostic. Will he devolve further into something worse if the writers think they can get away with it? You bet.
The article is nothing but a full-fledged attack on Jesus, and Wikipedia is responsible because such a thing should not be utilized in an article supposedly on the Gospel of John. The anti-Christian writers should keep their opinions to themselves concerning their particular views of Jesus, and not use similar sentiments from other scholars to pass off their own messages. The article should tell the main details of the gospel without attacking Jesus, a very offensive thing to do. There are blogs and debate forums where such opinions can be shared.
It goes on, assuming that differences between gospels is reason for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "The teachings of Jesus in John are distinct from those found in the synoptic gospels. Thus, since the 19th century many Jesus scholars have argued that only one of the two traditions could be authentic." In other words, because they are not telling the same things, one of the two must be false. If that's how a modern scholar rationalizes, he would do much better not to open his mouth for to reveal his ignorance.
I have a red shirt and a green shirt, therefore one of them is false. Does that sound like genius? Hardly. The article continually uses the word, "differ(ent)," as though John's being of a different nature is categoric proof of inferiority or outright fabrication. "A distinctive feature of the Gospel of John is that it provides a very different chronology of Jesus' ministry from that in the synoptics. E.P. Sanders suggests that John's chronology, even when ostensibly more plausible, should nevertheless be treated with suspicion on the grounds that the Synoptic accounts are otherwise superior as historic sources." In some respects, John gives a fuller or more-detailed picture, which is not the same as contradictory material. The fault finder says: "In John's Gospel, the public ministry of Jesus extends over rather more than two years [which I agree with]...The synoptics, by contrast, only explicitly mention the final Passover, and their accounts are commonly understood as describing a public ministry of less than a year." That's funny. I have never read before that the ministry of Jesus was less than a year, and so where does this writer come from who says it's "commonly understood" to be such a short period? He comes from strange land where the people have the purpose of denying Jesus his claims. In a normal land, the people would see the two-plus years in John and assume the same for the synoptic gospels. In a normal land, there would be no cause to suspect that either John or the synoptics were fabricating the time line. But in the strange land, every opportunity to point out apparent fabrication is taken and stretched to its limit.
The use of "different" by the Pricks of the article is left mainly undescribed. Are the differences really contradictions, and, if so, are they serious enough to warrant the accusation? One should not assume that the text of any gospel must be lineal with time. It's fine to have a later event mentioned before an earlier event. The synoptics give the impression that Jesus went immediately from the baptism to the 40-day fast, but John adds detail denying it for some days. I see no contradiction because immediately can be flexible, either on the same day, the next, or even 10 days afterward. In the section, "Cleansing of the Temple," the article points out that the event is late in John but early in the synoptics. There are two ways to explain this, neither one being especially favorable to the possibility of fabrication. Jesus may have cleansed the temple twice, that being some evidence that his ministry was more than a year long.
Here's a claimed contradiction: "Mark's explicit claim that the Last Supper was a Passover meal is contradicted by his statement that Joseph of Arimathea bought a shroud for Jesus on Good Friday; which would not have been possible if it were a festival day." That's a desperate stretch. Although I don't recall reading that Joseph purchased the shroud, he could have obtained it from anyone that he knew rather than at the equivalent of a modern retail store. The account of Joseph, late in John 19, doesn't say that he purchased the linen sheets wrapped around Jesus. Can you understand why the anti-Christs would wish to plug holes in the Passover account of the Crucifixion? Have you understood what great evidence the Passover Crucifixion is for Jesus = Messiah?
How possibly could the Gospel writers have fabricated the crucifixion on Passover, since everyone in Jerusalem, including the enemy priests, would have been able to point out this fabrication??? If the apostles wanted to be taken for liars, all they needed to do was to claim a crucifixion on Passover, if it didn't happen then. It is very hard to argue that the Murder of the Lamb was not a Passover event. The scholars should put down their demonic weapons and take note of True Enlightenment. For Jesus, if he was a false messiah, would not have arranged his death on Passover merely to fulfill the Mosaic Law. Besides, it was not for Jesus to chose the day of his death. When he saw that it came on Passover, he knew that it was the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law. And so should the dark Biblical scholars who claim to have the light of their superior intelligence on Biblical matters.
You can't say that the Mosaic Law was written after the Crucifixion. If they killed Jesus on the 14th of Nisan, which is exactly the claim of the Gospel writers, then they killed him on the very day that the Mosaic Law calls for the slaughtered lambs for the Passover feast. If they killed him on the 15th, that too is acceptable to fulfill the Mosaic Passover. There is controversy on whether Jesus died on the 14th or 15th, and the John article points this out (without also telling how amazing it is that the religious leaders had killed him at Passover):
In the Jewish calendar, each day runs from sunset to sunset, and hence the Last Supper (on the Thursday evening), and Jesus' crucifixion (on Friday afternoon), both fell on the same day. In John, this day was the 14th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar; that is the day on the afternoon of which the Passover victims were sacrificed in the Temple, which was also known as the Day of Preparation. The Passover meal itself would then have been eaten on the Friday evening...In the Synoptic accounts, the Last Supper is a Passover meal...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John
The argument is flawed, and you shouldn't be fooled by it. The time to slaughter the lambs could not have been on the evening after Jesus died, for in our best understanding of the Gospel accounts, He ate the slaughtered lamb the night before. The lambs, according to Moses, were to be slaughtered in the evening of the 14th. I don't know whether the days began at sunset in the days of Moses, for it seems that the next day, after the slaughter, was the 15th in those days. The Jews today eat the Passover meal on the 15th, and it seems to have been the same in Jesus' day. But Moses said that the lambs were to be eaten on the evening of the 14th. Might there have been two camps of Jews in Jesus' day, one that ate Passover on the 14th, and others on the 15th? In any case, Jesus ate it on the 14th. Here's Exodus 12:5-8 and 17-18:
The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.
...Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+12
But then we read that Unleavened Bread was on the 15th:
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at dusk is the LORD's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD; seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread (Leviticus 23:5).
It seems that the Feast of Unleavened Bread was in memory of the slaughtered lamb on the 14th, and that, for one reason or another, the Israelites afterward ate the slaughtered lamb on the 15th. Or, perhaps they continued to eat the lamb on the 14th but then had a continuation of the feast the next day. In any case, the original Law was a slaughter and meal on the 14th. Clearly, Jesus died in the same 24-hour period as lambs were slaughtered, and as the Feast of Unleavened Bread took place. It may be that some Israelites, by Jesus' day, ate the lamb during Unleavened Bread. John says that the day after Jesus died was the Passover Sabbath, tending to indicate that the Jews were eating the lambs on the 15th i.e. the evening on the day Jesus died.
The priests arranged to have Jesus killed before that Sabbath, and in their rush, killed him on the same day as lambs were slaughtered according to Moses. John 19:31 says that the Jews did not want the bodies on the cross on the Sabbath, and that's the verse wherein we read that the day after Preparation Day was a Sabbath. John makes it clear that Jesus died on Preparation Day, and I do not see how the other Gospels contradict this when saying that the apostles ate the Passover meal the night before Jesus died. If the Jews ate it on the evening of the 15th, it was they, not Jesus, that were in the wrong.
Here's Wikipedia: "The rituals unique to the Passover celebrations commence with the Passover Seder when the 15th of Nisan has begun." Or, "[The Passover seder] is conducted on the evening of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar throughout the world. " But Moses said that it should be eaten on the evening of the 14th. Here's from the Wikipedia article on Passover:
...the first day of Passover only begins after dusk of the 14th of Nisan and ends at dusk of the 15th day of the month of Nisan. The rituals unique to the Passover celebrations commence with the Passover Seder when the 15th of Nisan has begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover
Apparently, they still officially start the Passover on the 14th, but eat the lamb on the 15th. Later, in the section, "Date and duration," the article contradicts itself: "The Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan..." Later still, the article tries to make the Mosaic Passover a copy of some earlier event, thus denying that it had origins in the commands of God. This is typical garbage from modernists seeking to undermine, or questioning, all that is Biblical. It is fine to question all things, but to invent alternative scenarios based on disbelief of the Biblical text deserves a questioning on the motives for the alternative scenarios. True Biblical scholars should recognize the cosmic-sized "coincidence" of Jesus being killed on the 14th of Nisan, and from that outlook they should not dare question whether the Mosaic Law was of God or not.
Both the Gospel-of-John and the Last-Supper articles at Wikipedia say that, according to John, the supper was eaten on the 14th instead of on Passover (15th), and the articles include the charge that John's account is inconsistent with the other Gospels. The idea seems to be to make John seem wrong. But John would not have gotten such a thing wrong. The bigger question is why the articles mention this apparent inconsistency in the first place, or why they make it an issue without giving a viable solution, such as the one I've given above. The other Gospels DO NOT SAY that the last supper was on the 15th of the month. They merely say that it was the Passover meal, and that can of course take place on the 14th. Why would this solution be unacceptable to the objectors at both articles?
Mark says that the Crucifixion was at the 3rd hour (assuming 9 am), and Luke says the sixth hour. Is that really a problem? Is it necessarily an error? But both of them have it on Preparation Day, the day to slaughter the lambs. Isn't that the bigger story? How can anyone be so closed and, yes, stupid, as to make light of this hour problem while neglecting the crucifixion's time of year? The crucifixion was a process that lasted several hours. Perhaps Mark was indicating the time that the decree was issued for the crucifixion while Luke was speaking to the point where they raised Jesus on the cross. Mark wasn't wearing a watch. It may have been the 4th hour though he guessed the third. Luke may have gotten his information from someone who merely guessed that it was the sixth hour; it could have been the fifth. Is this really a problem?
We read: "...Robinson points out that all the synoptics are agreed that, when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem in the week before his death, he already has a number of followers and disciples in the city, notably Joseph of Arimathea, and the unnamed landlord of the upper room, who knows Jesus as 'the Teacher'." This is quoted as somehow problematic, whereas it serves as evidence that Jesus had previously been in Jerusalem, more evidence that the Ministry was more than a year long. Robinson's statement left out Nicodemus whom Jesus met at the first of three Passovers in Jerusalem. Two Passovers later, Nicodemus helped to place Jesus in a tomb. Where's the problem? When the skeptics stretch their arguments, it means that you, an ordinary person, can pounce on the scholars and show what they are truly made of. It's important to understand that "Biblical scholar" applies even to the blind Pharisees.
You don't need to be a scholar to form a good explanation for some of the Biblical irregularities. There is a good argument to be made in the irregularities as a whole, that while the differences show the gospel writers not fully copying one another, yet the accounts are, in the main, consistent or complimentary rather than contradictory. If they all copied one another, there would be one account only, but where there are four accounts with satisfactory parallels, it serves as better evidence for authenticity.
In the section, "Date of the crucifixion," the claim is that John has the crucifixion on the 14th day of the Jewish month rather than on the 15th. From this, using the assumption that Jesus died on a Friday, which is not necessarily correct, some have decided that Jesus died on Friday, April 3, in the year 33. This is incorrect for multiple reasons, especially as Jesus didn't make it close to 33. Here's from the article: "Colin Humphreys and W. Graeme Waddington favor the date of Friday April 3, 33 from a combination of astronomical and historical reasons, which would have been the 14th rather than the 15th of Nisan." The online Jewish-calendar calculators say that April 3 of 33 was Sunday, the 16th of Nisan, but even that entry may need adjustment by ten days because the calculator pages both say that they don't adjust for the missing ten days. One calculator page puts it this way: "Warning! Results for year 1752 C.E. and earlier may be inaccurate. Hebcal does not take into account a correction of ten days that was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII known as the Gregorian Reformation."
https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?gd=3&gm=4&gy=33&g2h=1
In the page below, "Passover dates 26-34 A.D," claimed as dated from the U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department, has April 3, 33 on Friday the 13th of Nisan. One would trust that these dates are accurate because they are concluded from mathematically-predicted lunar phases (Passover is always at the full moon). The page has the following in its chart for the 14th of Nisan:
26 A,D...Sun. Apr. 21
27 A.D...Fri. Apr. 11
28 A.D...Wed. Apr. 28
29 A.D...Mon. Apr. 18
30 A.D...Fri. Apr. 7
31 A.D...Wed. Apr. 25]
32 A.D...Mon. Apr. 14
33 A.D...Sat Apr. 4
34 A.D...Thurs. Apr. 22http://www.judaismvschristianity.com/passover_dates.htm
If that's correct, it tends to rule out 29 AD as the year of Crucifixion due to the Monday. Catholics would tend to chose 30 AD for its Friday, and Protestants holding to the "three days and three nights" doctrine would chose 31 AD for its Wednesday. 32 AD is not an option, in my opinion, because John has Jesus appearing just before a Passover, and dying two Passovers later, for a total of a little more than two years. Some who claim that Jesus died in 32 make the mistake of viewing the three Passovers as three years long. But for anyone to stretch it to 33 is clearly worthy of questioning on his motives. There is no good reason, that I have read, to question the Gospel claim that Jesus appeared in the 15th year of Tiberius, which most interpret as 29 AD, though I've read that Tiberius began a joint rule with Augustus in 12 BC, possibly making his 15th year in 27. If Jesus appeared in 29, a Crucifixion on Wednesday in 31 AD seems perfect.
The calculators give Monday (March 24) for the 14th of Nisan in 31. However, the chart above has Wednesday April 25, not March 24 for the 14th of Nisan. That's a difference of 32 days. When asking for the Jewish date on April 3, 33, the same calculator is only two days different from the same chart. As per the chart's April 7 in 30 AD, the calculator gives the 18th of Nisan, four days different. The chart's date for 29 AD is likewise fours days earlier than what the calculator gives. It appears that the missing ten days are not playing much into the calculator results (otherwise the dates might be more than two or four days off). The 32-day irregularity for 31 AD may be part of a trick to thwart Christians because the powers-that-be know that 31 is the year of choice for the good Biblical scholars (the ones not dimmed / twisted by liberal thought).
The 32-day difference seems to be explicable from to the addition of an extra 29-day month between Nisan and the month (Adar) before it. This extra month is standard practice in the Hebrew calendar, done roughly every three years. However, if one asks for dates in the early parts of March, the calculator gives dates for Adar, the usual month before Nisan instead of the extra month (Veadar) before Nisan. It seems that the calculator was rigged to ignore the extra month for 31 AD. How then, do we explain that the modern lunar scientists have the 14th of Nisan 32 days after the calculator date. If there was an extra month in 31, and if the calculator acknowledged it, wouldn't the calculator's March 24 date be bumped up 29 days to April 22? Was it deliberate that the programmers of the calculator left the extra month out? After all, it's a Jewish-calendar calculator, and Jews know about Jesus in 31 AD only too well.
If we ask for the Jewish date for April 28 of 28 AD, which is supposed to be the 14th of Nisan (chart above), the calculator gives the 16th of Iyar, the month after Nisan. It appears that the calculator locates an extra month -- wrongly -- in the year 28 (it's wrong if the chart is correct). What good is having a faulty calculator? Didn't the people who programmed them have a way to correct for these irregularities? Both calculators below give the same 16th of Ayar for April 28, 28. If it's wrong, it suggests that different groups are getting their calculators from the same source.
http://www.hebrewcalendar.net/htdocs/main.en.html
https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?gd=28&gm=4&gy=28&g2h=1
The 16th of Iyar is again the date provided for the chart's date of April 21 in 26 AD, meaning that the calculator people had an extra month in that year too. When, as in this case, extra months are added in two of three years (26 and 28), with the second year being 28, it's expected that the next extra month won't be added until three years later, for the back of Strong's Concordance says that seven extra months are added every 19 years, which is, on average, an extra month every 2.7 years. They do not add an extra month every two years over six years, therefore, but, as I said, if they add two extra months over three years, they will wait three years before adding another extra month.
Actually, I think I am wrong in pegging which years have the extra months. I was misinterpreting the information on the last day of this week's update, and didn't get a chance to look deeper into what things can be gleaned. I'm working on this problem for the next update.