I was on Facebook and a friend sent me a message about a page on FB where a group is claiming to have found the 2 Witnesses. Here is the message:
Hi everyone. There’s a 30 day Challenge going on at facebook.com/wefoundthem where a group is challenging internet users to help them spread the message that they found the Two Witnesses spoken of in Revelation 11 and they can prove it. So, I’m helping them with the challenge J They have a neat video and free info pack so it’s worth checking out. Here’s the site again http://www.facebook.com/wefoundthem
So, what do you all think? Have you studied Revelation 11? Who do you think are or were the 2 Witnesses?
All opinions appreciated. This groups message is "interesting" ...
Sandalphon is an archangel in Jewish and Christian writings. Sandalphon figures prominently in the mystical literary traditions of Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, notably in the Midrash, Talmud, and Kabbalah.
Sandalphron and Metatron are evolved human angels, Metatron is the name that was given to Enoch after he had been translated from a body of corruptible matter into a glorious body of incorruptible light, and Sandalphron, who is erroneously thought by some to be Metatron’s twin, is in fact Elijah’s angelic name after he was carried up to stand before Enoch and was also transfigured.
The coming Elijah/Sandalphron, the Jewish Messiah, is not the twin of our heavenly Father Enoch/Metatron, but is the duplication of our heavenly Father, who gives his immortal body of glorious and brilliant light, in order that we might live.
Enoch was in the valley of man for three days (Three thousand years) before he was reborn on earth as the man Jesus, who was filled with his spirit as he rose from the baptismal waters.
Soon, Elijah, who has now been in the valley of man for three days, will come to his chosen earthly Temple, the elements of which chosen body, will become so excited by his presence, they will ignite, transforming that body of corruptible matter into a glorious incorruptible body of blinding light.
Malachi 3: 1-2; The lord Almighty answers, “I will send my messenger to prepare the way for me. Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger you long to see will come and proclaim my covenant.� But who will be able to endure the day when he comes? Who will be able to survive when he appears?
We are now at the close of the sixth day, and soon, comes the great tribulation, which is the war to end all wars, after which, the Sabbath, the Day of the Lord will dawn, in which the risen body of our saviour will take the thrones that have been prepared for them, and through his risen body, he shall rule the world with Justice for a thousand years, and then comes the end of this age, when fire will descend from heaven and incinerate all physical life-forms on this planet.
But again, I don't believe that the two symbolic witnesses of Revelation are revealed in this truth.
That's an interesting collation of Midrash and the book of Revelation. I'm not sure how well it stacks up with conventional Christian theology, though. It looks more like Wikipedia than Barth/Küng/Moltmann/Theissen.
When you say christian theology, which branch of christianity are you referring to? The theology of the so-called christianity which follows the false Jesus of the universal church, and all her daughter bodies that have come out of her after being spawned by the spirit of the anti-christ which refuses to acknowledge that Jesus came as a human being, born of the flesh as are ALL human beings, which church was established by the non-christian king Constantine in 325 AD, some three hundred years after the Apostolic Church of the true Jesus was established in Jerusalem?
Or the theology of the true Church, which can be found in the holy scriptures of God, which theology reveals that you dont have to have been and eternal and immortal god to be raised from death, crowned with divine glory, and given the gift of eternal life, but a human being born of human parents as is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of the Man Jesus, who is the first of many brothers who are to be born the "Son's of God," not by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by the spirit of our Lord God and Saviour which descended in the form of a dove and filled his chosen successor with his spirit, as the heavenly voice was heard to say, "You are my beloved in whom I am pleased. THIS DAY I have begotten thee." See the more ancient authorities of Luke 3: 22; before they were changed by the universal church of Constantine.
In Luke 3: 22; (In place of “Thou art my beloved son in who I am well pleased.�) The following authorities of the second, third, and fourth centuries read, “This day I have begotten thee,� vouched for by Codex D, and the most ancient copies of the old latin (a, b. c. ff.I), by Justin Martyr (AD 140), Clemens Alex, (AD. 190), Methodius (AD. 290), among the Greeks. And among the Latins, Lactaitius (AD 300), Hilary (AD) Juvencus (AD. 330), Faustus (AD. 400) and Augustine. All these oldest manuscripts were changed completely. They now read, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.� Whereas the original variant was, “Thou art my Son. This day I have begotten thee.�
I mean mainstream Christian theology - as taught in Universities and other places of learning around the globe.
That's the theology that takes the text in all the variants as we have received it (including the most ancient manuscripts) rather than taking a theory about what it might have been before someone might have artificially adjusted it, and using only that redaction.
The expression "so called" usually indicates an attempt to denigrate or patronise another person or that person's faith. I think it best not to use it. When combined with "true church" it implies sectarian attitudes which worry me.
I don't know of a Church established by a non-Christian King Constantine in 325AD. I know only of the Church established by Jesus' followers in the years immediately after his crucifixion and resurrection. I do know of Constantine - an Emperor (not a King) who became a Christian during his lifetime, probably under the influence of his mother. There is full discussion of him, his history, and his actions in Prof Sir Diarmaid Macculloch's excellent 'A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.' I've read many books on Church History - that has to be by far the best in terms of detail, analysis, and readability.
Regarding Luke 3:22 and alternative readings thereof: my library here includes this commentary by G.W.H. Lampe (who was Ely Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Canon of Ely Cathedral, and is a highly regarded academic scholar in the UK):
Luke 3: 22 The reading of most MSS, reproducing Mk, combines the beginning of the Messianic (royal and Davidic) salutation in Ps 2: 7 with language which echoes Isa 42: 1, 44:2, alluding to the 'Servant of the Lord', who is called 'beloved' in Isa 42: 1 as cited in Mt 12: 18 (cf Isa 44:2). The 'Western' text continues the quotation of Ps 2:7 'today have I begotten thee'. The latter proof-text (cf Heb 1:5) is applied in Ac 13: 33 to the Resurrection; it is perhaps unlikely that Lk would have used it here of Christ's baptism. It is improbable that the "Western" reading was corrected in the interests of orthodoxy; Ps 2:7 is a constantly used proof-text in the later Church and there is no evidence that it was thought to express an adoptionist Christology. More probably the 'Western' reading is due to assimilation of the familiar words of the Psalm. The text has not been assimilated to Mt, whose wording differs in minor respects.
I think Lampe makes it quite clear that both readings are known, and offers a mainstream answer. I'll live with that.
First of all, you must understand how the universal church of 325 AD, was founded and from what it was founded and upon what foundation it was built: because you are not referring here to the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, but rather, to the universal church of Constantine.
Not only did the apostles not teach the Jesus of the universal church, neither did they teach the false doctrine of the trinity, nor the so-called unbiblical immaculate conceptions, of Jesus and his mother Mary.
A belif system that says, the Holy Spirit was the Father of Mary, who then impregnated his daughter, who then bore to him, (While remaining a virgin forever) his son, who had pre-existed from all eternity and who was the co-creator of the cosmos, who was in fact his grandson, having been born of his daughter, who was taken to heaven before her body began to decompose, where she is now worshiped as the daughter of God, the wife of God, and the mother of God the creator of the cosmos.
Your belief was finally formulated by the universal church of King Constantine after having evolved over 300 years from those who had fallen away from the truth as taught by the apostles.
The universal church of King Constantine was formed from a rag-tag group of quarrelling and insult hurling religious bodies that called themselves Christians. King Constantine, finally sick to the stomach with their constant bickering, called together all the heads of those quarrelling bodies to the first ever “World Council of Churches� where, under the dominating presence of the non-christian and almost certainly theologically illiterate King Constantine, the universal church was established in 325 AD, some 300 years after the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ had been established in Jerusalem.
In the days of the Apostle Paul who in 1st Timothy 1: 1; says: “From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by order of “GOD OUR SAVIOUR’ and Christ Jesus ‘OUR HOPE.’� The people were already beginning to fall away from the truth, and following another gospel that was not taught by the word of God or the apostles.
In his 2nd letter to the Corinthians 11: 4; Paul says, “You gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit (The Lie) and a gospel completely different from the spirit (Of Truth) and the gospel you received from us.�
Then in Galatians 1: 6; Paul says again, “I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the truth and are accepting another gospel.
So, What was that other gospel that was leading the people away from the truth and away from the Jesus as preached by the Apostles, to another false Jesus?
That gospel was the word of the anti-christ that refused to acknowledge that Jesus had come as a human being, and instead, they believed that he was a spirit, who, like some Hologram, would appear and disappear at will.
Even in the later days of John, the false teaching that Jesus was not of the seed of Adam from which every human being who has, or ever will walk this earth, has descended, and had not come as a human being, but as a spiritual being, was already beginning spread throughout the world, and concerning that evolving falsehood, John had this to say.
1st letter of John 4:1-3; “My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the spirit, (My words are spirit) but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere. This is how you will be able to know if it is Gods spirit/word: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus came as a human being has the spirit who comes from God. But anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the enemy of the anointed one, the Anti-christ etc.�
2nd letter of John verses 7-10;.“Many deceivers have gone out all over the world, people who do not acknowledge that Jesus came as a human being. Such a person is a deceiver and an enemy of Christ.�
If you would care to open your eyes, I"m sure that you will have little difficulty in finding the teaching of the anti-christ that Jesus was not a true human being, which has been spread ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Over the centuries the false teaching of the anti-christ continued to evolve, as the followers of the anti-christ became more enlightened and harder to deceive. In Alexandria, by the second century, Docetism, the concept that Jesus had existed as a spirit rather than a human being, had all but theoretically been stamped out.
But still, there persisted the belief that their false Jesus, although seen as a sort of human being, did not have our normal bodily needs, such as eating, drinking and having to go to the toilet, and Clement the bishop of Alexandria, wrote: “It would be ridiculous to imagine that the redeemer, in order to exist, had the usual needs of man. He only took food and ate it in order that we should not teach about him in a Docetic fashion.� Satan must have had some trouble trying to tempt this false Jesus of theirs into turning stones into bread.
Their Jesus was not the Jesus as taught by the apostles, but that other Jesus, taught by the Anti-Christ, who unlike we mere HUMAN BEINGS, did not need to eat, drink, or go to the toilet, as was taught by one of the great teachers that the members of the universal church, love to use as one of their authorities when trying to defend one of their their false doctrines.
Saint Clement of Alexandria, who was a saint in the Martyrology of the Roman universal church, in support of the great lie, speaks of the time that some imaginary midwife, who was supposed to be at the birth of Jesus, told some woman by the name Salome, that the mother was still a virgin after the birth and that her hymen was still intact, and that this supposed Salome, stuck her finger into the mother’s vagina to check, and her hand immediately withered up, but the baby Jesus reached out and touched her hand and healed it.
Down to the 17th century Clement was venerated as a saint. His name was to be found in the Martyrologies, and his feast fell on December 4. But when the Roman Martyrology was revised by Clement VIII (Pope from 1592 to 1605), his name was dropped from the calendar on the advice of his confessor, Cardinal Baronius. Pope Benedict XIV in 1748 maintained his predecessor's decision on the grounds that Clement's life was little-known; that he had never obtained public cultus in the Church; and that some of his doctrines were, if not erroneous, at least highly suspect.
"ERRONEOUS--HIGHLY SUSPECT," matey, you can say that again----and again ------- and again. But by then the falsehood was firmly established and its seeds had taken root in all the nations of the world. The Lord now has need of some good gardeners, to help root out those noxious weeds.
From the book, “Jesus the Evidence� by Ian Wilson. P. 138 and 142.
All bracketed interpolations in BLUE are mine.
If christianity had an unorthodox champion in Constantine, he for his part had acquired an extraordinary assortment of subjects in those who called themselves christians in his time. There were bitter divisions between the traitors, who had betrayed their fellow christians, surrendered christian books, and offered pagan sacrifices during the recent Roman persecutions, and those who had suffered mutilation and hard labour rather than do so.
There were equally deep divisions between christians from Rome and those from Alexandria and those from Antioch. In Alexandria, Docetism, the concept that Jesus had existed as a spirit rather than a human being had theroretically been stamped out. Nonetheless there persisted the belief that Jesus must have been to much a god, THE GOD, to have the normal bodily needs of Man, and Clement the bishop of Alexandria, wrote: “It would be ridiculous to imagine that the redeemer, in order to exist, had the usual needs of man. He only took food and ate it in order that we should not teach about him in a Docetic fashion.� (Satan must have had some trouble trying to tempt this false Jesus of theirs into turning stones into bread.)
Constantine, who had just won the eastern half of the Empire, thereby at last achieving his cherished goal of unity, suddenly found himself in the midst of this seething dispute between two rival groups of (So-called), Christians, with epithets such as “maniacs, eels, cuttlefish, atheists and wolves,� being hurled at each other. The extent to which Constantine, of no great education, even understood the theological issues is by no means clear, but he tried to pacify the protagonists by sending an identical letter to both Arius and Alexander, almost unctuously pleading for ‘equal forbearance’ and reconciliation.
“Constantine the victor, Supreme Augustus, to Alexander and Arius….how deep a wound has not only my ears, but my heart received from the report that divisions exist among yourselves….having enquired carefully into the origin and foundation of these differences, I find their cause to be of a truly insignificant nature, quite unworthy of such bitter contention. . . Restore my quite days and untroubled nights to me, so that joy of undimmed light, delight in a tranquil life, may once again be mine.�
Unfortunately, from a distance even Constantine was unable to smooth such troubled waters. Nor was there any supreme ecclesiastical authority to whom the matter could be referred. No one “Pope� as such existed, the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch each being recognised as having supreme authority within their geographical regions, but no supremacy over all (The so-called) Christendom.
Accordingly, to resolve this and other issues (Such as the date of Easter, another bitter source of contention), Constantine decided personally to summon all the (So-called) Christian leaders to the first ever ‘World Council’. The appointed date was early summer of 325 AD, the venue the pleasant lakeside town of Nicaea, today Iznik in north-western Turkey, where Constantine had a suitably commodious palace.
From the very circumstances of the time, it was bound to be an extraordinary gathering, With (so-called) Christianity having spread so far as Britain in the West and India in the East, for some of the delegates the journey took several weeks, if not months. When the assembled, it was to set eyes on each other for the first time in many cases, though for several, such as Bishop Pamphnutius, sight was denied because they had been viciously blinded during earlier persecutions. The hermit Jacob of Nisibis arrived in goatskins, accompanied by a persistent horde of gnats. Another delegate was the saintly Nicholas from the city of Myra in Asia Minor, who was the prototype of the Christmas Santa Claus. Also present of course was Arius. Although the Bishop of Rome excused himself as too old to travel, he sent two priests to represent him. Before this bizarre and unprecedented assembly Constantine, dazzlingly robed and dripping with gold and Jewels of a decadence earlier emperors would have abhorred, took his place on a low, wrought gold chair.
It was at this point in history, and before this assembly, that a decision was to be made that would have he most profound consequences for believers in Jesus Christ to this day. In the simplest of terms, the point at issue was whether Jesus was a mere human being (Acts 3: 13; "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of your ancestors, has given divine glory to his servant Jesus.) and was now (Incontestably divine) who had been brought into existence to serve God’s purpose-to act as the ‘word’ of God (Deuteronomy 18: 18; YHVH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, says to Moses; "I will send them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will tell him what to say, and he will tell the people everything I command. He will speak in my name etc.) at a particular time in the early first century AD, or whether he had been God for all eternity, ‘of one substance with the Father (As those in the West expressed it), If the latter, then he was effectively a supraterrestrial entity easily compared with Sol Invictus, but light years removed from the Jesus envisaged by Arius and the Antiochenes.
Although reports of the exact proceedings of the Council of Nicaea have not survived, from those contemporary accounts that do exist it would seem that Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, representing the Antiochene party, forcefully espoused the Arian view, confidently expecting that they would win the day. To try to provide a formula on which the whole gathering would agree, Eusebius of Caesarea read out the statement of belief which he was accustomed to employ at baptisms within his own diocese.
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of all that is seen and unseen, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God, god from God, light from light, life from life, only begotten son, firstborn of all creation, before all ages begotten from the Father, who for our salvation was incarnate and lived among man.�
It is important to recognise that while the distinctions implied by capital letters today did not exist in Constantine’s time (As mentioned earlier, only uncials were employed then) as set out above they convey what Eusebius and the Antiochenes essentially intended. To most catholics the words will have a familiar ring because at every mass they recite almost the same formula. For many present day Christians the words more than adequately impart a divinity to Jesus, particularly in quite illogically accrediting him first born of all creation. But to the fourth century Alexandrians, as was made clear by the brilliantly eloquent Arch-deacon Athanasius (Acting as spokesmean for his aged bishop Alexandria), it simply did not go far enough, and was not sufficiently precise. It made Jesus appear less than God himself.
For the judgment of Solomon on the issue, the only appropriate recourse was to Constantine, almost theologically illiterate, but politically a superb man manager. Exactly what swayed Constantine in that crucial moment we shall probably never know. There can be little doubt that for him the deification of a man was nothing particular special. He had his father Constantius deified, and would be accorded the same honour after his own death, and would surely have expected Jesus to be a superior entity in the divine hierarchy. He might well also have taken into account Alexandria’s strategic and commercial advantages. What-ever his motives, Constantine ruled in favour of the Alexandrian. Eusebius’ formula was heavenly edited to accommodate the Alexandrian view, and while affirming that the standpoint of the Antiochenes was entirely reasonable, Constantine urged all council delegates to sign the revised formula as a statement of faith on which all Christians should in the future agree.
For all those who signed, there was the inducement of an invitation to stay on at Nicaea as Constantine’s guests for his twentieth anniversary celebrations. For all who refused there was immediate banishment. Among all concerned, it would appear to have gone entirely unnoticed that the formula they were about to impose on all future christians contained not one jot of the ethical teachings that the human Jesus had once preached. Perhaps not unexpectedly, all but two of the most die-hard Arian Loyalists signed. But from the none too truth face-saving letter Eusebius of Caesarea sent back to his home diocese, it is clear how uneasy he felt about the extent to which he had compromised the fundamental principles of what he had been taught about Jesus.
Other signatories, who were equally swayed into acquiescence by their awe of the forceful Constantine, felt exactly the same. Only on returning home did Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris of Chalcedon and Theognis of Nicaea summon the courage to express to Constantine in writing how much they regretted having put their signatures to the Nicaea formula: “We commited an impious act, O Prince,� wrote Eusebius of Nicomedia, “by subscribing to a blasphemy from fear of you.�
But it was too late. An overwhelming majority of christianity’s highest dignitaries had put pen to parchment, and even though the Arian controversy would rumble on for another two or three centuries, effectively there was no turning back. Although no gospel regarded Jesus as God, and not even Paul had done so, the Jewish teacher had been declared “very God� through all eternity and a whole (False) theology would flow from this.
Continuing from the book, “Jesus The Evidence,� by Ian Wilson. P. 144.
The Middle Ages, for the Jews at least, began with the advent to power of Constantine the Great. He was the first Roman Emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of the Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire, a right conferred on them by Caracalla in 212 AD. As (The so-called Christianity of Constantine’s church) grew in power it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews.
But if times were again difficult for the Jews, for the Christian Gnostics and other fringe groups they were impossible. The books of Arius and his sympathizers were ordered to be burnt, and a reign of terror proclaimed for all those who did not conform with the new official (So-called) Christian line.
"Understand now by this present statute, Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians, you who sre called Cataphrygians. . . . with what a tissue of lies and vanities, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inextricably woven! We give you warning . . . .Let none of you presume, from this time forward, to meet in congregations. To prevent this, we command that you be deprived of all the houses in which you have been accustomed to meet . . . . and that these house should be handed over immediately to the catholic/ i.e. universal church."
Within a generation, hardly leaving a trace of their existence for posterity, the great majority of these groups simply died away as successive Christian emperors reiterated the politics that Constantine had pursued.
Although I have writen this in another thread, I repeat it here in case you have not read, or do not read the Thread in question.
The universal church of Constantine, was allowed by the Lord to be established in order that the world would be blind to God’s word and deaf to the message that is revealed therein, in order that their minds would be so dull as not to turn to God and be healed, while yet in their sin.
Isaiah 6: 8; Then I (The spirit or the heir to God’s throne which develops within the great androgynous expanded and pregnant of Eve, “The Son of man,� who revealed himself through his obedient earthly servant Jesus) heard the Lord say, “Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?�
I answered, “I will go! Send me!� So he told me to go and give this people this message: “No matter how much you listen, you will not understand. No matter how much you look, you will never know what is happening.� Then He said to me, Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot hear, or see, or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed.�
Jesus the faithful and obedient servant to our Lord God and saviour, through who, the son of Man who IS IN heaven, filled with his spirit and sent him to speak in his name, and to say only that which the spirit of the Son of Man commanded him to say, said in John 12: 40; “He (God)has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted and I (God) should heal them.
It was the will of God that the universal church of Constantine should be established to rule his stubborn flock (Israel).
Zechariah 13: 7, The Lord Almighty says, “Wake up Sword, and attack the shepherd who works for me! Kill him, etc.
Zechahiah 11: 12; “If you are willing, give me my wages. But if not, keep them.� So they paid me thirty pieces of silver as my wages.
The Lord said to me, “cast it unto the potter: that goodly price that I was priced at by them.� So I took the thirty pieces of silver---and cast it to the potter in the house of the Lord. -------------------
And the Lord said to me, “Now take the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For I will now raise up a shepherd in the world, which shall not visit those that are cut off, neither shall he seek the little ones, nor heal them that are broken, nor feed them that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws to pieces.
Woe to that idol shepherd that leaves the flock! The sword shall be on his arm, and upon his right eye: His arm shall be clean dried, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.�
O! You shepherd of the darkness who claim God sent You out
And even though we know that’s true, that fact I wouldn’t flout
For God commanded Zechariah, “Throw my wages ‘cross the floor,
Those thirty bits of silver, for I’ll guide this flock no more
A worthless shepherd now I’ll raise to guide this stubborn flock
And he will be a useless one, of him I’ll take no stock
For he’ll not feed my little ones, nor search for them that’s lost
But he eats the meat of the fattest sheep. And their hoofs? He tears them off
That worthless shepherd, he is doomed for abandoning my flock
His power, will I destroy by war, his arm will wither dry, then drop
And his right eye will I turn Blind, that’s why he’s never seen
The passage where I speak of him, Zechariah eleven—twelve to seventeen.
Again, the intent of the Lord is righteous, in raising up the worthless shepherd, and given them over to believe the lie, in order that only those who would endure in the truth of his word, would win the victory, while the intent of the church was to seek out and devour and become bloated on the fat of the lambs of God’s flock.
Zechariah 13: 7, The Lord Almighty says, “Wake up Sword, and attack the shepherd who works for me! Kill him, etc.
All bodies must die then go off into judgment, even the religious bodies that have burned the pagans at the stake, who have murdered, how many thousands of women, who were accused by their husbands as witches, knowing that the church who forbade them to divorce their wives would burn or drown them as witches instead. And how many atrocities were perpetrated during the inquisition? There is not enough room in this entire forum to record the sins of the church of Constantine, which has fulfilled the purpose for which God allowed it to be established.
But now has come the time for her to be judged, and no matter how righteous we become in the twilight of our years, no matter how repentant we are for the sins of our past, and no matter how many tears we shed in the passion of our despair, we must all pay the blood price for the mistakes of our past, even those who are judged while alive and the elements of their physical bodies become so excited they burn up, and disappear. But it is the hope of God, that his children will hear his call and come out of her, and that only the empty shell will be destroyed.
Revelation 18: 4 to 8.
Come out of her my people, do not share in her sin.
You must not share her punishment, her judgment day has come
Her sins are piled to heaven and God recalls her evil ways,
She says I am no widow and I’ll never see the grave
Because of that in just one day disease will strike her down
Plagues and famine she’ll receive until the day she’s burned
You must pay her back two fold for all that she has done
Fill her cup as she filled yours, but make it take as strong
For all the glory she has claimed and all her luxury
Must be repaid this very day with pain and misery.
S-word wrote:First of all, you must understand how the universal church of 325 AD, was founded and from what it was founded and upon what foundation it was built: because you are not referring here to the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, but rather, to the universal church of Constantine...
You are imputing as fact that which differs fundamentally from what is taught at the major universities, colleges, and seminaries. While you are of course free to do so, please do not tell me that I must understand that. I understand very well, but unfortunately, differently.
I have to choose between almost 2000 years of scholarship with a long list of very learned and wise people whom I can read and study (and have done), or a person about whom I know nothing other than postings on an internet forum.
Ian Wilson, whom you quote at some length, is a British journalist - not a theologian, nor a historian. Faced with his account of history, or that of Macculloch, you will excuse me for preferring that of the established and respected Professor - who presents a rather different picture.
May I recommend Macculloch's A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years - it really is an excellent presentation of the background and events.
The other text that I have found particularly "open" in its opinion and analysis is Der historische Jesus. Ein Lehrbuch by Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz. It is available in English translation for those who do not speak German.
Would you care to reveal to all who will read these posts, just who you believe to be the worthless shepherd that God rose up to after he had been paid his majestic wage of thrity pieces of Silver?
Zechariah 13: 7, The Lord Almighty says, “Wake up Sword, and attack the shepherd who works for me! Kill him, etc.
Zechahiah 11: 12; “If you are willing, give me my wages. But if not, keep them.� So they paid me thirty pieces of silver as my wages.
The Lord said to me, “cast it unto the potter: that goodly price that I was priced at by them.� So I took the thirty pieces of silver---and cast it to the potter in the house of the Lord. -------------------
And the Lord said to me, “Now take the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For I will now raise up a shepherd in the world, which shall not visit those that are cut off, neither shall he seek the little ones, nor heal them that are broken, nor feed them that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws to pieces.
Woe to that idol shepherd that leaves the flock! The sword shall be on his arm, and upon his right eye: His arm shall be clean dried, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.�
Did you happen to watch TV News on Christmas Eve, and see the big stone throwing brawl between the two religious factions in the church of the Nativity?
The Church of the Nativity is the oldest Church in the Holy Land still in use. The first Church was built over the Grotto of the Nativity in the 4th century A.D, under the patronage of the Roman Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena.
The tradition of the church of Constantine teaches, as biblical truth, the Milk Grotto is where Mary hid while Herod’s solders were slaughtering the innocents in the streets of Bethlehem of Judaea, and that she suckled the baby Jesus, to keep it quite, before her escape to Egypt.
According to the doctrines of the church of Constantine, Mary spilt some milk while feeding the baby Jesus, and that milk turned the stones in that area white, and today, women who have nursing problems, or couples who are infertile, can go there and pray to their heavenly goddess, who is the mother of their eternal and immortal god, who was the co-creator of the cosmos and who came to earth as their immortal and eternal god, where he entered the womb of some supposed human virgin, where there, he created a human like body for himself, which was not of the seed of Adam from who every human being who has ever, or will ever walk this earth originated; in which body, the alien hybrid walked the earth disguised as a human being.
It is believed by those poor deceived souls of the church of Constantine and other denominations, who have been sucked in by her lies, that if those people care to purchase a small bag of the white powder from those rocks, which had magically turned white by the mother’s milk of Mary, that white powder has the magical power to heal their problems.
This is in total contradiction to the truth as revealed in God’s word. But if they, who are so gullible as to believe the unbiblical teaching of the bride of the anti-christ, that a mortal virgin conceived in her womb the son of an alien life form that pre-dated the creation of the cosmos, and the human like body of the son of that alien, which was forming in the womb of their so-called virgin, was actually an eternal and immortal god, who himself was the co-creator of the cosmos, then they will believe any rubbish that she is prepared to dish out for them.
Matthew is not concerned as to where the holy family actually lived, only that the child was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, he then skips forward in time, to speak of the wise men, who are believed to have been Astronomer/Astrologers from Mesopotamia, who had seen the star that had heralded the birth of the promised Messianic King of Israel, and even if they had left their own country that very day, to travel to Jerusalem, which is more than highly unlikely, we know from biblical records that it would have taken them some four months to reach there, and by then, the family, according to Luke, had returned to their home in Nazareth,
Ezra 7: 8-9; “They left Babylonia on the first day of the first month, and with God’s help they arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month.� A four month journey.
Luke is more concerned with the approximate 2 month period that the family was in Bethlehem of Judaea. He speaks of the birth of the child in the stable of an Inn, and the visit of the shepherds, who were out in the fields, where they would not have been in the middle of winter of late December, where they saw the baby in the manger wrapped in swaddling cloth etc.
Luke 2: 21; A week after Jesus was born he was circumcised according to the law of Moses. Then came the time, for Mary to perform the ceremony of purification as the law of Moses commanded.
(Leviticus 12: 3-4; “On the eighth day the male child shall be circumcised. Then it will be thirty three days more until she is ritually clean from her loss of blood and then can she enter the tent/temple and perform the ceremony of purification.)
After she had performed everything according to the law of Moses some 33 days after the baby was circumcised, they returned to the home of Mary in Nazareth, to where the wise would later travel and it was not in the manger, but in the HOUSE where the young child then was, they showered the young child with gifts, which included Gold, frankincense, and very expensive Myrrh.
Leviticus 12: 8; poor families who cannot afford a lamb shall bring two doves or two pigeons one of which, would be used as the burnt offering etc.
According to the teachings of the universal church of the non-christian and theoretically illiterate king Constantine, which was established in 325 AD, some 300 years after the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ was established in Jerusalem, Mary who was supposedly given these gifts which included gold, Frankincense and the very expensive myrrh, while still in Bethlehem of Judea, before she presented her offering in the temple at Jerusalem, must have pretended to be too poor to buy a lamb for a burnt offering, which was the offering required from those who could afford it. How deceptive would that have been, but then, that’s what the church of Constantine would have you believe, about the mother of Jesus.
In Luke, you will find no mention of Jesus the "young child", or of the wise men, who came to Israel near on a year after his birth. As Luke is concerned only with the time period when Jesus was still a "baby"; then he jumps to the period when he was about 12 years old, where he confounded his parents at that tine, who were Mary, and Cleophas/Alpheaus, the carpenter, who is the father of James the younger, who is the brother of Jesus, and it was there in the Temple that Jesus said to his parents, who knew who his biological father was, “Why did you have to search for me, surely you knew that I had to be in My Father’s house?" It went right over the head of Mary, who couldn’t understand what her son was on about, but she stored that memory of that episode in her mind.
Matthew 2: 7; So Herod called the wise men to a secret meeting and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. Herod may have directed them to bethlehem of Judaea as the birth place of Jesus, but when the left the palace of herod, the star that they believed was the same star that they had seen in the east, appeared once again, "And O what Joy was theirs." The star went ahead of them and guided them, not to the manger in Bethlehem of Judaea, but to the House in Nazareth where the child was with his parents.
Matthew 2: 16; When Herod realised that the wise men from the East had tricked him, and were not returning to reveal the whereabouts of the promised king, he was furious.
Having eyes and ears throughout Israel, he knew to what area the wise men and their entourage had travelled, and He gave orders to kill all the boys in (Northern) Bethlehem and its neighbourhood, who were two years old and younger—this was done in accordance with what he had learned from the visitors about the time when the star first appeared.
If the age of the children who were to be slaughtered, was two years and below, which age was determined in accordance with what he had learned from the visitors about the time when the star that had heralded the birth of Jesus, first appeared. How long before Herod gave the command to kill the innocents, had the wise men seen the star that had heralded the birth of Jesus?
You do realise that they was another town called Bethlehem in those days, which town today is called “Beitlahm� which town was only a few kilometres from Nazareth and the beautiful Helenistic city of Sepphorus, that suffered so much damage in the great riots of the peasants in 4 BC, shortly before Herod died after a failed suicide attempt, which I believe was an option given to him by Caesar Augustus.
When one of Herod the Greats heirs, Herod Antipas returned from Rome in the spring of 3 B.C., after the "Will" of his father had been ratified by Augustus, he rebuilt Sepphorus as his chosen city for ruling over Galilee. I very much doubt that the true reason for the uprising of the peasants in the district of Bethlehem of Galilee would have been recorded by the Roman historians of that day.
You may continue to believe the world wide teaching of the Anti-christ, (The worthless shepherd that God rose up in this WORLD, or you can fight to win the victory over this world, and be invited to sit beside of Brother Jesus, in the throne of Godhead to the most High in the creation, the throne of our Father, who is the Father of Jesus, the throne of our God, who is the God of Jesus. See John 20: 17.
An interesting exposition, but one that does not fit with mainstream theology.
You seem to be conflating random folk myths with misinterpreted history with eisegesis of selected passages of the Bible. While the process of debate allows you to do that, I do not feel compelled to provide answers. I have offered some suggestions which reflect the scholarship of the academic world. It is now your choice whether to investigate them, or not.
The worthless shepherd that God rose up in this WORLD, or you can fight to win the victory over this world, and be invited to sit beside of Brother Jesus, in the throne of Godhead to the most High in the creation, the throne of our Father, who is the Father of Jesus, the throne of our God, who is the God of Jesus. See John 20: 17.
You do seem to have an agenda of your own, rather at variance with the great majority of God-worshipping Christians.
