Saturday, May 25, 2013

Oh Lord, We All Are So Impressed Down Here

Monty Python - The Meaning Of Life. Haven't seen it? Get to it ASAP.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Who Was Jesus?

Who Was Jesus?

There are many articles written on how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament Prophecy, but when I have examined it I have found it to be quote mining and deceptive. Literally partial clips were taking out of context to "prove" Jesus was the Messiah. The book of Matthew is quite horrible for doing this.

Here is an article from a Jew's point of view as to why they cannot accept Jesus as divine. It really gave me pause. I had never heard this before when I was a minister.

The Bible gave a warning about a dangerous, false prophet who would arise to test our faith in G-d. In Deuteronomy 13, G-d describes this false prophet as a member of the Jewish people (v. 2, 7) who would tell true prophecies and would have the power of miracles. G-d Himself would give this false prophet the power to perform miracles and reveal prophecy, but the false prophet would try to seduce the people away from G-d's Law and towards strange gods unknown to Judaism. The purpose would be to test whether we are truly committed to living under the Law, or whether we will be dazzled and fall for the temptation to join a false path to salvation (v. 3-6, 7-8, 11). In this Biblical passage, G-d repeatedly commands the Jews to kill this false prophet, lest the evil spread and destroy many souls.

To be accepted by the people, the false prophet would sometimes pretend to be a righteous Jew who fulfills the Law, but at key moments he would turn against certain details of the Law in order to make the breach (v. 6, 7). This is the reason that verse 1 commands us not to add or subtract any details from the Law, and verse 5 warns us to remain steadfast with all the traditions of the Law.

In Deuteronomy 17, this false prophet is also described as someone who would rebel against the authority of the judges of the Jewish people, and who should be put to death for his rebelliousness (v. 8-13, esp. v. 12). Who are the judges? The highest court in Israel was the Sanhedrin, which was established by Moses (Exodus 18:13-26; Numbers 11:16-29), and which lasted more than 15 centuries. The members of the Sanhedrin were the rabbis known as "Pharisees" (Pirushim, "those with the explanation"). G-d gave permanent authority to these judges to interpret the Law and G-d's Word, and it is a commandment to follow their decisions without turning even slightly to the right or the left (Deut. 17:11). But the false prophet would challenge the authority of the Sanhedrin, thus revealing himself to be an evil man.

In the book of the prophet Daniel, this false prophet is described as a king (the eleventh horn on a terrible beast) who would wage war against the Jews (the "holy ones"; see Deut. 14:2 on this term) and would change the Law including the calendar and the holidays (Daniel 7:8, 20-25). Elsewhere, this false prophet is described as a king who would disregard the G-d of his fathers, exalting himself as a god and giving honor to this new god-head (Daniel 11:36-39).

The man known today as "Jesus" fulfilled all these prophecies. He became a "king" (over the Christian church) who changed the original Law, doing away with the Hebrew calendar and the Biblical holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos the Festival of Tabernacles, Passover, etc.). He disregarded the one, infinite G-d of the Hebrew Bible in favor of a new "trinity" that included himself. And he repeatedly broke the Law by committing terrible sins, while openly challenging the G-d-given authority of the rabbis of the Sanhedrin.

Naturally, Jesus did sometimes pretend to respect the Law, but whenever he thought he could get away with it, he turned right around and broke that same Law. In Matthew 5:17-19, he declared that he came to fulfill the Law, and in Matthew 23:1-3 he defended the authority of the rabbis. But the rest of the time, he rebelled against the Law—thus showing that his occasional words of piety were meant only to hide his evil agenda. The following sins of Jesus are recorded in the "New Testament":

Jesus repudiated the laws of kosher food (Mark 7:18-19). [Compare this to the prophet Daniel's strict adherence to kashrus, in Daniel chapter 1.] He repudiated the laws of honoring one's parents, and called on his followers to hate their parents; he also dishonored his own mother (Matthew 10:34-36; Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 14:26). He violated the Sabbath by picking grain, and incited his disciples to do the same (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-26). 4) He again violated the Sabbath by healing a man's arm, which was not a matter of saving a life, and he openly defied the rabbis in his total repudiation of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-13; Mark 3:1-5). [Compare this to G-d's view of violating the Sabbath, in Numbers 15:32-36, Nehemiah 10:30-32, and dozens of other places throughout the Bible.] Jesus brazenly defied and disobeyed the rabbis of the Sanhedrin, repudiating their authority (This is recorded in many places throughout the New Testament, but look especially at Matthew 23:13-39 and John 8:44-45).

The Talmud (Babylonian edition) records other sins of "Jesus the Nazarene":

He and his disciples practiced sorcery and black magic, led Jews astray into idolatry, and were sponsored by foreign, gentile powers for the purpose of subverting Jewish worship (Sanhedrin 43a). He was sexually immoral, worshipped statues of stone (a brick is mentioned), was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness, and refused to repent (Sanhedrin 107b; Sotah 47a). He learned witchcraft in Egypt and, to perform miracles, used procedures that involved cutting his flesh—which is also explicitly banned in the Bible (Shabbos 104b).

The false, rebellious message of Jesus has been thoroughly rejected by the vast majority of the Jewish people, as G-d commanded. Unfortunately, however, this same message has brought a terrible darkness upon the world; today, over 1.5 billion gentiles believe in Jesus. These lost souls mistakenly think they have found salvation in Jesus; tragically, they are in for a rude awakening. Truth and eternal life are found directly from G-d, through performing His Law. Any "mediator" only separates man from G-d:

"G-d is not a man, who can lie, nor the son of man, who relents... He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers 23:19).

Who Was Jesus?

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Eyewitness Support For Jesus

For a better resolution, click on picture.