October 25, 2009, 1:20 pm by dc-agape.

I have a new post up at my back-up blog entitled “The End is Near!!!“

Posted in Dead Sea Scroll, Traditions of Men, Readings | Print | 31 Comments »

October 24, 2009, 4:58 pm by dc-agape.

Well you might be wondering what has happened in the last week.  I am attempting to adjust the domain host and improve spam filtering.  In that process I have hit a few snags. 

The first snag is that writing blogs in the new Word Document 2008 format does not allow for exporting the posts to a new site.  Even though I am attempting to keep blog.dc-agape.com as the main posting site, 1 & 1 hosting is not very user friendly.  I am not allowed access to by blog to introduce widgets or gadgets to improve comments or other neat options.

The second snag is that I am attempting to write two journal articles for my PhD program and an NSF grant proposal.  The articles aren’t that bad, I am still collecting data (lots of it), but the NSF grant is a huge load.  It is due by Dec 8, 2009 and I am attempting to get funding to visit a polymer facility in Pohang, Korea (POSTECH)!  If I get approval I will be in Korea for 2 months this coming summer.  It will allow me to proceed with my research in a completely different perspective and possible lead to a better understanding of chromatographic molecular recognition.  So my writing time has been cut short, and my research time even shorter.

I hope to have both snags worked out shortly.  Then I can get back to posting closer to a daily system.  The back-up site for my posts and the posts I will be writing until this blows over is:

http://dearcannonist.wordpress.com 

Sorry for the trouble!

Posted in State of Mind | Print | 6 Comments »

October 17, 2009, 9:10 am by dc-agape.

This Scroll starts by claiming to “speak out freely” about various saying, parables, and riddles.  The term “speak out freely” is directed to those who are willing to hold fast to what is taught.  These include those who are devious, stiff necked, and even the Gentiles.  This sounds so familiar, yet we can be certain that it was written nearly a century for Jesus is teachings.  Is this not exactly what Jesus did?  So the Judaism had forms of religion that were evolving into Christianity. 

The next paragraph is so what fragmented but has a very interesting interpretation.  It would seem to be saying that there’s only one source for the desire of knowledge.  It even uses the words “Light” and “Illumination”.  This light and illumination is from the “angels from those we praise”.  This seems to indicate that light and illumination come only from YHWH.  But it is the origin of knowledge that this paragraph is referring to.  Interesting, if applied to Christianity, that wisdom and knowledge are equal and both come from YHWH.  How I wish Christians would take this to heart.  Knowledge is not evil; knowledge is from the one they worship.  In that case, there is nothing wrong with learning new things.

The next paragraph is actually rather simple but in a surprising way.  It basically says those that do not learn and from the past will repeat the past.  The only way to avoid this cycle is to know “this secret of the way things are.”   But what exactly is the secret of the way things are?

The rest of the scroll is devoted to explaining the secret of the way things are.  Unfortunately, it starts with a prophecy that has not occurred.  It claims that time will come when all evil has been eliminated from this world.  We will know when this occurs because there will be no more sin or folly.   It claims, it this prophecy, that the end of sin and folly cannot be averted!  I certainly can’t wait for that time…  But it’s if since this was written over 2000 years ago, the chances of that happening now are very slim.

The next paragraph tells how all cultures space and nations are similar.  This similarity is in the rejection of evil, the desire for truth, freedom from its oppression, freedom from theft, and possibly some more that have been fragmented away in time.  So the author(s) of this Scroll understood that all humans desire the same thing.  They also understood that all of these things cannot be stopped.  Evil occurs, falsehood is spread, oppression and theft continue to happen.  Even the “righteous” have fallen short of fulfilling these eternal desires.  And the reason for this is that the “righteous” have not sought the true secret of the way things are.

Since the wisdom of YHWH is secret, YHWH knows all secrets.  Not only does he know them all, but he “stands behind every thought”.  The “secret” is that all things are controlled by YHWH.  Even the times of our birth, the test of our heart, the limits of our deeds, and the actions of the Gentiles are controlled by YHWH.

So is there more to this secret?  From this Scroll the answer seems to be yes. One must understand that the stars, the day, the night the rivers in the seas, the rains, and even the mounds were created for humankind. The most important thing to keep in mind is that humans have the ability to understand knowledge, insight, and great intelligence.  The Scroll claims that we were created to pursue true knowledge and wisdom.  But YHWH locked this knowledge and wisdom up away from humankind so that we would have to search for it.

The final paragraph comes from a completely different scroll and does not seem to have much to do with the earlier part of the Scroll.  It speaks of YHWH having patience, great anger and splendor.  It ends by claiming YHWH to be the leader of Israel, honored by the people who are splendid and blessed when the period of wickedness is over.  

Posted in The Book of Secrets, Dead Sea Scroll, Readings | Print | 32 Comments »

October 16, 2009, 9:51 am by dc-agape.

This post I want to introduce the shorter Scrolls that have survived that deal with the life and beliefs of the Jewish Sectarian Association.  This group is not the Sadducees, Pharisees, nor Essences that you might be familiar with.  They have similarities to these three better known Jewish “denominations” of the 1^st century BC, but they are less political (similar to the Essences) yet more fundamental (like the Sadducees) and more importantly the Yahad (unity – the writers name for themselves) are similar to the Zealots and the Sicarii (they were prepared for a Messiah that would come and destroy the Romans (and all Gentiles).   Since these Scrolls do not lead well to placing the Yahad into one category I will take the position that they were independent of all the other Jewish groups present from the 2^nd century BC until the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  

There are number of shorter Scrolls that I want to cover over the next couple of weeks.  The first one is called The Book of Secrets.  This will be followed by The Charter for Israel in the Last Days.    To describe the Yahad’s tendency towards being a Masonic or even Sicarii group I want to cover the Scroll titled the War of the Messiah.  I also want to cover this Scroll titled A Vision of the New Jerusalem.   Following that will be the Scroll titled The Coming of the Melchizedek.   The three last short posts will be prefaced with a guide entitled “A Reader’s Guide to the Qumran on Calendar Texts”.  These three short Scrolls are entitled Calendar of the Heavenly Signs, Synchronistic Calendars, and Priestly Services as the Seasons Change.  In total this series of short Scrolls will take about 10 days to cover.

The Book of Secrets

This Scroll is only four pages long.  It is rather fragmented.  This Scroll is of the same form of “Wisdom books” like the Books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.  As the title implies there is a secret hidden in this Scroll.  That secret is that wisdom only comes from YHWH.

The Charter for Israel in the Last Days

This Scroll is also only four pages long.  Is not nearly as fragmented and seems to be in rather good shape.  This Scroll is about what will happen when the Messiah comes to redeem Israel.  It is very Christian like, and shows that at least some Jews had specific believes about the results of the “begetting” of the “son of God”.

The War of the Messiah

This Scroll is two pages long and when discovered created quite a controversy.  As more research was placed on the meaning of this document, the Yahad were determined to believe that the Messiah would be victorious and bring Israel to become a leading nation in the world.

A Vision of the New Jerusalem

This Scroll is five pages long but many parts are missing.  The quality that stands out the most in this text is a similarity between the New Jerusalem of the Yahad and the New Jerusalem described in the Book of Revelation.

The Coming of the Melchizedek

This Scroll is barely a page long and is somewhat fragmented.  The author ff this Scroll intended it to be a true interpretation of the jubilee year, which occurred every 49 years.  When I get deeper into the scroll I will explain how the jubilee year and Melchizedek are related.

A Reader’s Guide to the Qumran on Calendar Texts

This guide is to attempt to explain the difference between a lunar year and a solar year.  During this period of time (2^nd century BC to 1^st century AD) some nations, and even groups within the nations, were using one or the other of these methods of marking time.  To understand the next three Scrolls the full understanding of this difference is helpful.

Calendar of the Heavenly Signs

This Scroll is written in a way that is rather confusing to the fact that it is actually an almanac.  But since such documents had not been created at this time the format is rather odd.  What it does do is described how the solar year and the lunar year are related.

Synchronistic Calendars

This Scroll is so fragmented that it can only be described as being as being four pages long.  What it does do is synchronize the rotation of the priestly family between the solar year and the lunar year.

Priestly Services as the Seasons Change

This Scroll is a single paragraph.  What it does do in that short paragraph is explain the other three month-long seasons relates to both the solar year and the lunar year.

In conclusion, some of these Scrolls will seem extremely boring.  Fortunately, they are also very short.  Together these Scrolls actually give great insight into the Jewish histories of the 2^nd and 1^st centuries BC.  When I finished these shorter Scrolls undo plan on moving on to a couple of the longer ones.  These would include Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, the Book of Jubilees, Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll.  I’ll just have to seeing if I actually make it to all of these before deciding to move on to the Nag Hammadi Library.

Posted in Genesis Material, Dead Sea Scroll, Introduction | Print | 3 Comments »

October 14, 2009, 9:59 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 21

This post will be the final post from the Gospel of John.  John does not write about the ascension of Jesus.  I will say more about this in the next paragraph.  He also writes a prophecy of Jesus that took place in his own lifetime…and just happens to have taken place before he wrote this Gospel.  That will be one of the major topics of this post.  The third most interesting thing that occurs in this Gospel is the number and locations of Jesus’ appearances after his crucifixion.  John, the only Apostle to be an eyewitness to everything that happened to Jesus, only records three visits. 

John ends his Gospel having left out the ascension of Jesus.  As far as John is concerned, this event, if it happened, was not import enough to record.  The other possibility is a John was not present at the ascension.  But it seems difficult to believe, since our only sources come from two men: John Mark (a follower of Peter while in Rome) and Luke (a follower of Paul).  In both these reports the ascension of Jesus is recorded as having happened in the presence of all the believers.  So what is John not include this very important Christian concept?  Why is it not important?  Of all the miracles, attributed to Jesus, is not the ascension of Jesus by far the most important?  It almost seems as if, the apostles themselves, either did not experience witnessing this, or but nothing about it!  It is only the followers of the original disciples that record this event.  Even the Gospel of Matthew does not record the event.  Relying on secondhand (or third hand) records seems very dangerous to the non-believer.  Stories always get manipulated, distorted, or exaggerated with extended retelling.  This seems to be the same case.

In the Gospel of John the prophecy and the death of Peter is record.  Unless, the death of Peter is a later addition, the date of writing this gospel can be insured to have occurred after Peter’s death in 67 AD.  As a result, recording a prophecy after the prophecy has occurred weakens the power of the prophecy.  Adding that this book was recorded some 35 to 40 years after the prophecy, the memory of the specific words Jesus used should be taken into account.  To make matters worse, our records of how and when Peter died are sketchy at best.  The truly are Traditions of Men and not sanctified holy script.

John ends his gospel with an interesting twist:

John 21:25 Jesus did many of the things as well.  If every one  of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

This most certainly is an exaggeration.  Recording the events of a ministry that lasted less than four years would not create that many books.  But we are told:

John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down.  We know that his testimony is true.

This is a very odd addition to a personally written document.  Basically he is saying, since I wrote these down they must be true.  To  the non-believer, this is arrogant, this does not prove the trustworthiness of the document, and adds nothing to validate the testimony given in this Gospel.

To the non-believer these issues are not solved by faith.  They only add more confusion, lack of unity in the Gospels, and create more questions that cannot be answered.  If these Gospels were inspired by an all-powerful Holy Spirit it would seem that these problems would not have occurred.  If these Gospels were inspired by the loving YHWH, who wants everyone to believe, these problems would not occur.  Instead, we have different stories (not different perspectives), Tall Tales, differing accounts, disorganized chronology, and difficulty tracing Jesus’ actual route used in his ministries.  I do hope that I get the chance to make a full scale map showing an organized chronological description of Jesus’ ministries.  Unfortunately, it will be very difficult since only the Gospel of John describes the additional trips to Jerusalem.

This is my last post from the New Testament for the time being.  My next posts will be from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I have still not decided which order I will present the scrolls that I want to focus on.  But They Will Include: the Book of Secrets, Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, Charter for Israel in the Last Days, the Book of Jubilees, Work with the citation of Jubilees, the Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll.  This may seem like a large number of documents to cover before I start back into the Nag Hammadi Library.  But no actuality, many of these scrolls are either very short or very fragmented.  The total number of pages covered in the seven scrolls is actually only 105 pages.  Many of the pages are introduction to the scrolls.  Since the meaning of the scrolls are not as complex as the gospels, and that print type is much larger than in the New Testament, the pages should not take that long.  In actuality, only the Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association, the Book of Jubilees, Secret of the Way Things Are, and the Temple Scroll have any length to them at all. 

Posted in Contradictions, Gospel of John, Dead Sea Scroll, Traditions of Men, Tall Tales, Readings | Print | No Comments »

October 12, 2009, 9:06 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 19

This post will describe some of the issues with John’s account verse the Synoptic Gospels and the Traditions of Men.  My last posts covered some issues with the prophecies about Jesus; death, events that occurred before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate.  This post will be an introduction to the problems in the records of the four Gospels about Jesus’ death and burial.

I will start in the Gospel of John, for obvious reasons:

John 19:35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true.  He knows that you tells the truth, and testifies so that you may also believe.

So we have one man’s testimony that proves these events occurred.  As of I pointed out before the Gospel of Luke is at least a third hand record of the events (the disciples → Paul → Luke).  I’ve also pointed out that the Gospel of Mark and the second hand (Peter → John Mark).  The Gospel of Matthew is a little more complex but there is no record of Matthew being at the events described in chapter 19 of the Gospel of John.  In fact, Matthew would seem to have been one the deserted Jesus at the rest:

Matthew 26:56 but this has all taken place that writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

Even looking at all four gospels we see that only the number of people witnessed the crucifixion.  In the Gospel of Matthew it was only Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James Joses, and mother of Zebedee’s sons.  In the Gospel of Mark it is the same Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, but this time the only other name mentioned is a woman named Solome (possibly the wife of Zebedee).  In the Gospel of Luke no actual names are mentioned:

Luke 23:49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these events.

If we want to be generous we can claim that all the apostles for their based on this verse.  But is that true?  No other gospel records it this way; in fact, the others mention names and do not make it apparent that anyone else witnessed the death of Jesus.  In the Gospel of John the only people mentioned are Jesus’ mother, her sister Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and we assumed the Apostle John.  From reading these four gospels, we have no idea who was actually witness to the crucifixion!  The only one we can be certain of is Mary Magdalene.  Yet we have no record of these events from Mary Magdalene’s perspective.  Worse, is that we have only one Gospel that could be held up as a true eyewitness, the Gospel of John.  As a result, in actuality we do not have two eyewitness accounts of the events occurring during the crucifixion.

So what about the burial of Jesus?  That one seems to be more accurate.  Starting with the Gospel of John we see that .Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were responsible for the burial of Jesus’ body. They even brought 75 pounds of spices to prepare the body for burial.  In the Gospel of Matthew again it is Joseph of Arimathea, but Nicodemus seems to not be present.  Instead, Mary Magdalene and another Mary were present.  In the Gospel of Mark, it is even more confusing.  Again, Joseph of Arimathea was involved, Nicodemus is again missing, Mary Magdalene is prominent, and this time we understand that the other Mary was the mother of Joses.  For some reason, even though in the Gospel of John, Joseph had already prepared the body, both of the Marys and Solome came after the Sabbath to repeat the preparations for burial.  In the Gospel of Luke, we are told that only “the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee” followed Joseph of Arimathea to the tomb.  Again, they left to prepare spices and perfumes for the burial of the body.  Wouldn’t be pretty obvious to anyone following Joseph and Nicodemus carrying both a dead body and 75 pounds of spices that the body of Jesus had been prepared for burial?  Would not the odor of 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes be obvious to the women?  Why in the Synoptic Gospels would there be this tremendous difference from the only eyewitness account.

Posted in Gospel of John, Contradictions, Readings | Print | No Comments »

October 9, 2009, 5:38 pm by dc-agape.

John Chapter 19

This post will describe some of the issues with John’s account verse the Synoptic Gospels and the Traditions of Men.  My last post covered some issues with the events before the Sanhedrin.  In this post I want to introduce some questions about the events before Pilate and Herod.  I will have to leave the events of Jesus’ death and burial till the next post. 

Since only four Gospels have been canonized since 320 AD, we have four “eye-witnesses” to the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. But as it turns out some issues do crop up with this Traditional view of events.  Some “eye-witness” accounts add things that the other “reports” leave out, others suggest unforgettable events that are eliminated from all the other reports.  In the events with Pilate and Herod just such things occur.

In the Gospel of John (the only eyewitness to the “trial”) there is not a single mention of Herod!  Without the non-eyewitness accounts of the trial we would not believe today that Herod was involved or that he was even in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death.  In fact, only the Gospel of Luke (recorded by a follower of Paul) was Herod even mentioned at all.  Neither the Gospels of Matthew (another “actual” witness) or Mark (the most likely first gospel recorded) describe Herod’s involvement in the trial of Jesus.  Why would John, Mark, and Matthew leave out such an event?  Herod was the second most important person in the Roman occupation of Israel…leaving him out would be like leaving out the Ambassador to Iraq when describing the formation of the Iraqi constitution!  More importantly, why would Paul (through Luke) add something that Matthew, Mark, and John left out?  To believe that Paul was at the trial would again attempt to make the lifespan of the occupied Israeli longer than the average lifespan of a Roman Citizen (40 years).  For Paul to have died in ~60 AD he would have had to be less than 15 years old or have been much older than the average person when he died.  Since we are told that the Sanhedrin was made up of elders and chief priest, a young Paul would not have been in attendance.  So the Gospel of Luke is actually third-hand knowledge at best, not the most authoritative source! So actually for the events of the trial we have only one actual source…the Gospel of John.  The other three Gospels are merely Traditions of Men recorded as Authority.

So what does this mean for Christians?  It is actually very simple:

John 19:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.  But my kingdom is from another place.”

The Kingdom of God (Jesus) is not of this world…Christian have no say in the governance of the world’s nations!  There cannot be a Christian Nation here on this planet, for Jesus himself, told Pilate that his kingdom did not exist on Earth.

There are two other troubling issues with the Gospel account of Jesus’ trial.  That would be of the “custom” to release a prisoner on the Passover holiday.  Two problems exist with this “custom”: first, no record of such a custom exists in Roman or Jewish histories of the time, and second, Barabbas (a known rebel) would not have had the option of parole!  Why is it that neither the Roman nor the Jewish histories tell us about this custom?  Were all the records from both nations destroyed or tampered with?  There aren’t any!  Not a single one records this custom.  The historical accuracy of the Gospels is questionable at best, but when they cannot be verified by outside sources, it certainly begins to look a lot like a mythology.  The concept that a known traitor to Rome would be released by a Roman overseer of Israel seems unlikely.  The Roman Empire looked very unfavorably on political enemies.  In fact, crucifixion was the choice way to eliminate the slaves, pirates, and the enemies of the State.  As a result of this information, Jesus would not have been crucified; he was not an enemy of the State as Pilate decreed.  But Barabbas would not have been freed, either, for he was an enemy of the State!

To the non-believer the accuracy of these Gospels is highly unlikely.  With John being the only source of information about these events, the missing verification, and the contradictory evidence John does provide, it was highly unlikely to have taken place the way it is recorded in the Gospels.  When you add the unlikely lifespan of these “authors” to the mix the tales become even bigger – they become Tall Tales from a superstitious group of religious hopefuls.  The only person who knew the truth about this part of Jesus’ life and recorded these events – died as an old man in Ephesus.  But even the events of the crucifixion are to be questioned.  I will do exactly that in the next post.

Posted in Important Questions, Contradictions, Traditions of Men, Gospel of Mark, Readings | Print | 1 Comment »

October 8, 2009, 8:14 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 19

This post will describe some of the issues with John’s account verse the Synoptic Gospels and the Traditions of Men.  Since only four Gospels have been canonized since 320 AD, we have four “eye-witnesses” to the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. But as it turns out some issues do crop up with this Traditional view of events.  Events before the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, his death, and burial are a jumble of different “points-of-view”.  Some add things that the other “reports” leave out, others suggest unforgettable events that are eliminated from all the other reports. 

Let’s start with the Sanhedrin. The Synoptic Gospels tell us that Peter followed Jesus into the Sanhedrin.  Only the Gospel of John tells us that John was the one who got Peter in!  The Synoptic Gospels forget that John was even there.  If the Gospel of John did not exist, we would believe that Peter (by himself) just strolled right on in behind Jesus…but this is not what happened.  Why would all three of the Synoptic Gospels leave out such a detail?  We are told in the Gospel of John that Peter need special permission to enter!  We know that only Peter (and John) followed Jesus to the Sanhedrin:

Matt 26:56 But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.  Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

So from the beginning of the Sanhedrin trial the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke are just hearsay.  At least the Gospel of Mark is recorded by a close friend of Peter, while the Gospel of John is as close as we can get to a first-person eyewitness account (recorded 20 -50 years after the events).  That would certainly explain why John is suspiciously left out of the Synoptic Gospel.  The Synoptic Gospels were not written by men who were actually at the scene of the events.

On the topic of recording these Gospels, one must remember the life expectancy of citizens of the Roman Empire was less than 40 years and may have been as low as 25 years!  Even for John (or Peter to transcribe to John Mark) to have written this Gospel the date of the 50 is pushing the limits of sanitary conditions.  For John (or Peter) to still be alive in the 50’s he would have had to be between 15 – 18 years of age when he began to follow Jesus.  For John to have written his Gospel in the 80’s and to have died 68 years after the crucifixion John would have lived twice as long (possibly up to 4 times as long) as the average citizen of Roman and he was not even a Citizen!  A modern example of this is not someone living to be 120 years old, no it would be living to the age of between 140 – 280 years of age. 

Well it doesn’t look like I will reach the other questions about these events in this post.  But just bringing these two perspectives up I think initial the reason that most non-believers have difficulty believing the written word of the only source material we have about the life and times of Jesus.  It certainly leads to a suspicion of the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Now of course the True Believer, will say that there was nothing wrong with a 15 year old following Jesus, and becoming the most important man in the early Church (Peter or John).  But claiming that these men lived into their 60’s is pushing the limits of credibility.  And as to my first point, about eyewitnesses, the True Believer would only say that they were told how the events occurred by Peter and John.  But if that were the case, why record hearsay as authoritative documentation?  Should not the Gospels explain that only two of the Apostles actually witness the events leading up to the crucifixion (and the crucifixion itself)? 

Posted in Gospel of John, Contradictions, Traditions of Men, Inerrancy - My Ass, Readings | Print | 3 Comments »

October 7, 2009, 9:05 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 19

I am going to split this chapter into two separate posts.  One will be about the “prophecies” that where fulfilled in Jesus’ death.  The second post will describe some of the issues with John’s account verse the Synoptic Gospels and the Traditions of Men.  Four prophecies were fulfilled in the Gospel of John.  Yet once again, for prophecy to be accurate…freewill must be suspended.  Or Scripture must be taken out of context to make it fit the circumstances. Let us see which is more likely.

The first prophecy is this one:

John 18:24 “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another.  “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”  This happened that the scriptures might be fulfilled which said, “They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” So this is what the soldiers did.

This passage is supposed to come from the Book of Psalms 22:18.  Surprisingly this is exactly what that verse says.  But if one reads the entire Psalm one sees that this was not about Jesus.  Take a look at this beginning:

Psalms 22:2 Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, but night, and am not silent.

Psalms 22: 20-21 Deliver my life from the sword, the precious life from the power of the dogs.  Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

Only by taking this Psalms out of context can one apply specific verses of this Psalms to the death of Jesus.  Verses 20-21 specifically indicate that King David was concerned about evil men, while dogs, lions, and wild oxen.  Obviously, Jesus was not exposed to dogs, lions, or oxen.  So grabbing one verse in claiming that it is prophecy is only taking that verse out of context.  But even if we give the benefit of the doubt to this being a prophecy a bigger problem occurs.  This particular prophecy relates to how the soldiers treat Jesus’ clothing.  Is there obeying prophecy they have no freewill.  They did not get to choice to fulfill this prophecy.  As a result, YHWH at any time can suspend freewill.  Hence, we can never tell if we are acting under freewill or under YHWH suspension of freewill.

Another possible prophecy fulfilled in this chapter is this one:

John 18:28 later, knowing that all was now complete, and so that the scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I’m thirsty.”

This supposed prophecy comes from Psalms 69:21 which says:

Psalms 69:21 they put gall inlet food and gave the vinegar for my first.

But let’s take a look at the following verse is in this Psalms:

Psalms 69:22-25 Let the table set before them become a snare; may become a retribution and a trap.  Many there eyes the darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.  Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger over take them.  May their place the deserted, that there be no one to dwell in their tents.

Is this the loving Jesus?  This is a direct combination to the “prophecy” verse.  Should we believe that in the last moments of Jesus’ life he became as vindictive as the most vile human nature can provide?  Or should we realize that this verse was taken out of context.  Again, the other possibility is that the guards had no freewill.  They had to obey the prophecy.  Once again this would indicate that YHWH can and does suspend freewill arbitrarily.  Hence, we can never tell if we are acting under freewill or under YHWH suspension of that freewill.

The third prophecy is found in this verse in John:

John 19:34 instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bring a sudden flow of blood and water.

Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.  They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grief bitterly for him as one grieves for firstborn son.

Again, this “prophecy” has been taken out of context.  This verse talks about the people who have pierced Jesus as the ones who mourn.  No indication that the Romans mourned Jesus’ death.  They certainly did not mourn with the bitterness of the loss of a firstborn son.  Again, if we give the benefit of the doubt to this being a fulfill prophecy we end up with freewill being arbitrarily denied.  Hence, we can never tell if we are acting under freewill or under YHWH suspension of that freewill.

The final supposed prophecy is here:

John 19: 36 these things happen so the scriptures would be fulfilled: (delete that “not one of his bones will be broken,”

This prophecy comes from the book of Exodus 12:46:

Exodus 12:46 “It must be eaten in one house; take none of the meat outside of the house.  Do not break any of the bones.  The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.

The crucifixion occurred outside so the beginning of the verse has already been compromised.  The last sentence of the verse has also been compromised, the whole community did not celebrate this event.  So once again a “prophecy” has been taken out of context.  Again, if we give the benefit of the doubt to this being a fulfill prophecy we end Up with freewill being arbitrarily denied.  Hence, we can never tell if we are acting under freewill or under YHWH suspension of that freewill.   

To the non-believer, these so called “prophecies” are very suspicious.  There without doubt taken out of context, and as a result, are questionable at best.  Worst though, is the concept that they are true prophecy.  If they really are prophecy, and numerous people during the crucifixion of Jesus had their freewill removed.  Even if this removal was only temporary, this indicates that YHWH can do so at any time, for any reason, and we (puny humans) are completely helpless in these cases.   The whole argument of freewill becomes a mute topic with this understanding.    If humans can be manipulated as play toys to a supreme being at any arbitrary moment freewill does not exist.  The concept of prophecy only strengthens this concept.  For prophecy indicates that the future has already been recorded.  Prophecy also indicates that the outcome of our choices have already been recorded.  Hence, it may feel like we have freewill, but in the end we are just actors on a stage as indicated by Shakespeare:

Jaques:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143

Posted in Gospel of John, Contradictions, Freewill, Readings | Print | 1 Comment »

October 6, 2009, 5:25 pm by dc-agape.

Thanks to the Chaplain at The Apostate’s Chapel I have found a poll that I can try here at dc-agape.  Tell me what you think!

Posted in State of Mind | Print | 1 Comment »