FIRST READ: ROME’S PERSECUTION OF THE BIBLE
http://www.wayoflife.org/files/4ef3f30d5ea4253059dc014c8c9f6db3-79.html
A Brazen Claim that Rome Had a Role in
Producing the King James Version!
By Shaun Willcock
This really – really – takes the cake. A travelling Bible exhibit, called “Passages”, which is set to open in the Vatican in October, claims that the Roman Catholic institution made a significant contribution to the production of the King James Version of 1611, the most accurate and faithful Bible version of all time and the Protestant Bible!
“The announcement [about the exhibit] was made at the Vatican Embassy [in Washington, D.C.] to highlight the Catholic contribution to the best-loved English text, the 1611 King James Version, which draws about 80% of its majestic language from an earlier translation by a Catholic priest.”1 Read that statement again! This exhibit claims that the great King James Version is based on an earlier translation of the Bible by a Roman Catholic priest! “How in the world could anyone claim such a thing?” you say. “How could they possibly dare to make such an absurd claim?” Here’s how: according to the exhibit (and to Rome), it was William Tyndale who was the “Roman Catholic priest” who gave us 80% of the King James Version! But this is a shocking falsehood.
Yes, it has been accurately estimated that between 80% and 90% of the King James Version is the work of William Tyndale; for the KJV translators used about that much of Tyndale’s own English translation of the Scriptures when they produced the KJV. His work was so accurate that the KJV translators could carry over that much of his version, lock, stock, and barrel, into their own matchless translation!
And Tyndale had been (at one time) a Roman Catholic priest. But what’s the historical truth? It is that this godly man, whom Rome now wants to hold up as her own faithful priest who did so much for Bible translation, became converted to Christ, ceased to believe or preach the doctrines of Rome, ceased to practice as a priest in communion with Rome, directly disobeyed the law of the Roman Catholic “Church” by translating the Bible into English, and had to smuggle copies of his Bible into England because of the violent opposition of the “Church” authorities! He was so loathed by the “Church” of Rome for daring to translate the Bible into English, that it had him strangled and burned at the stake when he was finally betrayed and caught!2 This was Rome’s contribution to the production of the King James Version!
In all Rome’s excitement about the “Passages” exhibit, what is very conveniently overlooked is that after his conversion to Christ, Tyndale branded the pope of Rome as Antichrist, and wrote much against Popery, including a book entitled The Practice of Prelates, in which the corruptions of Popery were powerfully exposed, and other books in which he also exposed Popery, such as The Obedience of a Christian Man, The Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, a commentary on the epistles of John, and A Treatise Upon Signs and Sacraments. Were such works the writings of a priest of Rome? Hardly.
He hated the Harlot “Church” and loved the Word of God, and longed to see it in the hands of every Englishman. Never must Tyndale’s immortal, soul-stirring words be forgotten, spoken in a debate with a Romish priest who said that it would be better to be without God’s laws than the pope’s laws. To this shocking statement, Tyndale replied: “I defy the pope, and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth a plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” Was this the language of a Roman Catholic priest? – a man who defied the pope of Rome and all his laws? No – this was the language of a true, Bible-loving Christian, whose eyes had been opened by the Holy Spirit to see that Popery was the devil’s own religion, which sought to hold back the Word of God from the people.
Rome had no intention of ever giving the Scriptures to people in their own languages! – and loathed Tyndale with all its might for daring to do so. They burned his books; the Romish bishop of London burned copies of his Bible translation; and they hunted for him tirelessly so that they could have him put to death. Eventually they were successful: Tyndale was betrayed by a Papist Judas, cast into prison
(during which time Romish priests had many disputations with him), and finally strangled to death; his body then being burned.
This was how the monster “Church” of Rome “contributed” to the King James Version! Indeed, what Rome did to Tyndale and his Bible version reflects Rome’s attitude to the Bible through the centuries. Its entire history has been one of hatred for the written Word of God. Throughout the centuries it burned copies of the Bible, and burned those who translated it; for centuries it kept the Bible in Latin, which hardly anyone could read; it even placed the Bible on the Index of Forbidden Books in the Vatican! Long before William Tyndale, when John Wycliffe produced his English version of the Bible, he was condemned as a heretic by Rome for doing so; and their hatred was so great for him that,
decades after his death, they dug up his bones and burned them. Rome forbade the reading of his translation. And during the next hundred years people were burned alive, with Wycliffe’s Bible tied around their necks. As we have seen, they later brought about the death of Tyndale. And then Tyndale’s associate John Rogers, who produced the Matthew’s Bible, much of which was substantially Tyndale’s work, was also martyred for his work. And then the Geneva Bible, which was the most popular version in English before the KJV came into being and superseded it, was produced not in England but in Geneva, because of the persecution of Christians in England at the hands of the Roman Catholic queen, Mary, known to history as “Bloody Mary.”
And then, just a few years before the publication of the KJV in 1611, Rome’s Jesuits tried to blow up King James and his parliament in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot, and is commemorated annually as Guy Fawkes Day.3 If they had succeeded, doubtless the production of the KJV would have been derailed, as the plot involved setting up a Papist on the throne of England after James was killed.
In the words of a brother in Christ who wrote to me about these things, “The Whore on the Tiber has really taken the cake this time. With her mouth dripping with the blood of Tyndale and Rogers... she claims she contributed! With the smoke of the Gunpowder Plot still reeking in her skirts, she fails to recollect that if she had had her way there would not have been much of King James left to ever see or give his name to the version/translation of the Scriptures begun with his approval!”
This was Rome’s true contribution to the production of the English Bible! How could a religious system which so hates the Word of God now brazenly claim to have had a positive role in the production of the wonderful King James Version? She can do so, knowing she can get away with it because of the utter ignorance of history of most of the world today!
A little bit about the exhibit itself. It is a multimillion-dollar, high-tech, interactive museum of the Bible, consisting of thousands of biblical manuscripts and texts. It is sponsored by Steve Green, an American businessman whose family has amassed the world’s largest collection of ancient biblical manuscripts and texts. Green, described as an “evangelical” and a Baptist,4 nevertheless evidently had no scruples about making use of the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. for the announcement of his museum, nor of (perhaps ignorantly) falsifying history by permitting the claim to be made that there was a Roman Catholic contribution to the production of the KJV. He made it clear that the museum has no theological agenda, saying, “It’s a museum, not a ministry.”
So how did it come about that the Vatican came to be associated with an interactive museum put together by a Baptist? Scott Carroll, the director of the Green Collection and of the travelling exhibition, said the collaboration with the Vatican came about through his friendship with a former Vatican official, and because he discovered an aspect of the collected artifacts that captured the interest of the Vatican. And what was that? “I thought of something that we have that the Vatican Library does not have. It was the KJV,” he said. Furthermore, he said he discovered several items within “Passages” which (according to him!) show the Roman Catholic contribution to the King James Bible! He said one of the more remarkable aspects of the collaboration is that it reflects on the ecumenical premise of “Passages”. The translation of the KJV in 1611, he claimed, is “largely considered a Protestant event, but it’s not. Many Catholics read the KJV.”5 What an outright falsehood! The Roman Catholic institution had absolutely nothing to do with the production of the KJV, but plenty to do with seeking to prevent it ever seeing the light of day! And as for many Papists reading the KJV, this is simply false.
Some may read it out of curiosity, some may read it for its contribution to the English language or for some scholarly purpose as part of research, but any Roman Catholic who reads the KJV as if it was an acceptable translation of the Holy Scriptures would be directly violating his “Church’s” teaching. Carroll added that Vatican leaders were very interested in hosting the travelling exhibit in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the King James Version being observed this year. Of course they were! What an opportunity for Rome to falsify history and claim what is not hers! The Vatican officials must have been licking their lips in anticipation of the ecumenical mileage they could get out of hosting this naive Protestant’s exhibition.
In this, the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Protestant Bible, the magnificent, matchless King James Version, Rome is seeking to take the credit for it! What brazen wickedness! We urge all true Bible Protestants to make known the TRUTH about the King James Version, by acquainting themselves with its true history, and making the facts known as widely as possible. There are various books and pamphlets which can be obtained, containing this true and remarkable history; get them, read them, familiarise yourselves with the truth, and pass them on! Don’t let Antichrist take the glory for what belongs to Christ Jesus alone!
April 2011
Materials concerning the King James Version, available from Bible Based Ministries (see our
website or the printed catalogue for details):
CDs by Shaun Willcock:
The Preservation of the True New Testament Text (set of three CDs) (Catalogue No. 80)
The Translation of the True Text: the King James Version (set of three CDs) (Catalogue No. 89)
The Corrupt Text and False Bible Versions (set of three CDs) (Catalogue No. 227)
The King James Version Archaisms (Stock No. 49)
Pamphlets:
The Incomparable King James Version by Shaun Willcock
The Authorised Version by J.C. Philpot
Recommended Books Available from Other Sources:
The King James Version Defended by Edward F. Hills
The Revision Revised by John William Burgon
The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels by John William Burgon
The Causes of Corruption of the Traditional Text by John William Burgon
Which Bible? True or False? Counterfeit or Genuine? three books edited by David Otis Fuller
An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Received Text by Frederick Nolan
A Bible Society Deserving the Support of All Christians:
The Trinitarian Bible Society
Tyndale House Dorset Road London SW19 3NN UK
www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org
___________________________________________________________________________________
Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel. He runs Bible Based Ministries. For other
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Thursday, 21 April 2011
What Happened To The Pentecostal Movement?
What Happened To The Pentecostal Movement?
By Wayne Greulich | Reposted April 19, 2011
"The love of money, power, fame, control, materialism, and outright narcissism by some of today's contemporary gospel preachers and 'using' Christians to obtain these excesses, is certainly a major contributing factor to the death of authentic Christianity, this article clearly mirrors what is happening in Evangelical Africa." Kato Mivule
A number of people have decried the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement as being the doorway through which the current corruption has entered the modern church. There is an element of truth in this, but it is not entirely accurate.
I was born into a Pentecostal church 56 years ago, was raised there, was educated in one of their colleges, and pastored 3 of their churches. I think this gives me a degree of knowledge and familiarity with the movement and its history... I also had the privilege of meeting with and conversing with some of the Pentecostal pioneers while they were still alive. In addition, I have owned a number of Frank Bartleman’s books for years. This is not to put myself forward as an expert, but to let you know that what I say next is not said from a vacuum of ignorance, assumption, and speculation.
The Pentecostal movement was born out of the holiness movement. Many of those who were involved in its birth were people of holiness who had died to self, had picked up their crosses and were following Jesus Christ as He directed them by His Spirit and His Word. The multitudes of transformed lives, the miracles, and the persecution were very real. We can thank God for those pioneers who – under the move and hand of God – paved the way for a renewed freedom and move of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Church.
The problems which arose were not with the move of the Spirit or with many of those who sought the Lord and came into the Baptism and life of the Spirit. Mostly the problems arose – as they do today – from those who wanted to avoid the cross. These were people who wanted the blessings of life in the Spirit, but who did not want to die to sin, flesh, and themselves.
As early as 1907, Frank Bartleman wrote of his dismay over these types of people who infiltrated the Pentecostal movement. Many flocked to Pentecostal movements all over the continent seeking the blessings of the spirit, but not wanting holiness, confession of sin, brokenness before the Lord, and taking up of the cross. We have the same root problem with us today. The modern church is filled with selfish, sinful people who want God’s blessings, but who do not want to go the way of the cross.
The problem has been further compounded by those false preachers, prophets, and teachers who refuse to preach the cross and what it costs to be a follower of Christ. Instead today’s “Christian” heaps to himself preachers, teachers, and prophets who tickle his flesh and make it feel comfortable – those who have become experts at creating a brand of “christianity” which seems to marry the flesh with the Spirit. This CANNOT be, however, since the flesh and the Spirit are enemies against each other. Scripture makes it clear that one must follow one or the other – God or mammon.
It is the shame of many Pentecostal/ Charismatic churches – although, not all (... the mistake of generalizing) – have abandoned the preaching of the cross, holiness, separation from the world, and the true full Gospel. Much of the modern church has abandoned the Christ of the Bible in favour of a “new and improved Christ” who has no cross, but only “love;” who has no holiness, but only “grace;” who has no justice, but only “blessings;” and who is not Judge, but merely a cosmic Santa Claus.
How we need those who will die to self, take up the cross, and be witnesses of the true Christ! How God longs for those who will live godly in Christ Jesus – in spite of the persecution! How we need those who choose to reject the world, who hate sin, who fear none but God; those who will do what He wants, speak what He says, and be molded into the image of Christ by the Word and the Spirit that Christ may have human representation of Himself to a lost and dying world. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. May God help us. Brothers and sisters, work while it is yet day, for the night is coming when no man can work. Labour faithfully with Him. Fear not what man thinks or what man can do unto you, but fear Him who is your Redeemer and your King.
MICHAEL Replies:
I also have been pastor in a “pentecostal” church for 44 years. We do not like the handle “pentecostal" because in most people's mind it conjures up all the excesses and extras introduced by by wolves who have not spared the flock..."
http://www.johnthebaptisttv.com/
By Wayne Greulich | Reposted April 19, 2011
"The love of money, power, fame, control, materialism, and outright narcissism by some of today's contemporary gospel preachers and 'using' Christians to obtain these excesses, is certainly a major contributing factor to the death of authentic Christianity, this article clearly mirrors what is happening in Evangelical Africa." Kato Mivule
A number of people have decried the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement as being the doorway through which the current corruption has entered the modern church. There is an element of truth in this, but it is not entirely accurate.
I was born into a Pentecostal church 56 years ago, was raised there, was educated in one of their colleges, and pastored 3 of their churches. I think this gives me a degree of knowledge and familiarity with the movement and its history... I also had the privilege of meeting with and conversing with some of the Pentecostal pioneers while they were still alive. In addition, I have owned a number of Frank Bartleman’s books for years. This is not to put myself forward as an expert, but to let you know that what I say next is not said from a vacuum of ignorance, assumption, and speculation.
The Pentecostal movement was born out of the holiness movement. Many of those who were involved in its birth were people of holiness who had died to self, had picked up their crosses and were following Jesus Christ as He directed them by His Spirit and His Word. The multitudes of transformed lives, the miracles, and the persecution were very real. We can thank God for those pioneers who – under the move and hand of God – paved the way for a renewed freedom and move of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Church.
The problems which arose were not with the move of the Spirit or with many of those who sought the Lord and came into the Baptism and life of the Spirit. Mostly the problems arose – as they do today – from those who wanted to avoid the cross. These were people who wanted the blessings of life in the Spirit, but who did not want to die to sin, flesh, and themselves.
As early as 1907, Frank Bartleman wrote of his dismay over these types of people who infiltrated the Pentecostal movement. Many flocked to Pentecostal movements all over the continent seeking the blessings of the spirit, but not wanting holiness, confession of sin, brokenness before the Lord, and taking up of the cross. We have the same root problem with us today. The modern church is filled with selfish, sinful people who want God’s blessings, but who do not want to go the way of the cross.
The problem has been further compounded by those false preachers, prophets, and teachers who refuse to preach the cross and what it costs to be a follower of Christ. Instead today’s “Christian” heaps to himself preachers, teachers, and prophets who tickle his flesh and make it feel comfortable – those who have become experts at creating a brand of “christianity” which seems to marry the flesh with the Spirit. This CANNOT be, however, since the flesh and the Spirit are enemies against each other. Scripture makes it clear that one must follow one or the other – God or mammon.
It is the shame of many Pentecostal/ Charismatic churches – although, not all (... the mistake of generalizing) – have abandoned the preaching of the cross, holiness, separation from the world, and the true full Gospel. Much of the modern church has abandoned the Christ of the Bible in favour of a “new and improved Christ” who has no cross, but only “love;” who has no holiness, but only “grace;” who has no justice, but only “blessings;” and who is not Judge, but merely a cosmic Santa Claus.
How we need those who will die to self, take up the cross, and be witnesses of the true Christ! How God longs for those who will live godly in Christ Jesus – in spite of the persecution! How we need those who choose to reject the world, who hate sin, who fear none but God; those who will do what He wants, speak what He says, and be molded into the image of Christ by the Word and the Spirit that Christ may have human representation of Himself to a lost and dying world. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. May God help us. Brothers and sisters, work while it is yet day, for the night is coming when no man can work. Labour faithfully with Him. Fear not what man thinks or what man can do unto you, but fear Him who is your Redeemer and your King.
MICHAEL Replies:
I also have been pastor in a “pentecostal” church for 44 years. We do not like the handle “pentecostal" because in most people's mind it conjures up all the excesses and extras introduced by by wolves who have not spared the flock..."
http://www.johnthebaptisttv.com/
FROM JESUS CHRIST TO JUDITH CHRIST : GENDER NEUTRAL BIBLES AND THE FEMINIZATION OF SCRIPTURES
JESUS CHRIST OR JUDITH CHRIST
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/judith_christ_bible.htm
TESTING THE FAITH
Was Jesus Christ
really a woman?
New version of Gospels changes gender of 'Son of God' to female
________________________________________
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A publisher is touting a new edition of the Gospels that identifies Christ as a woman named Judith Christ of Nazareth.
LBI Institute says its version, Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, takes Thomas Jefferson's edited Gospel one step futher by "correcting" the gender of Christ and God.
"This long-awaited revised text of the Gospels makes the moral message of Christ more accessible to many, and more illuminating to all," says Billie Shakespeare, vice president for the publisher, in a statement. "It is empowering. We published this new Bible to acknowledge the rise of women in society."
WND sought comment from the LBI Institute's Stephen Glazier, but he did not return messages.
The new version, according to the publisher, revises familiar stories, tranforming the "Prodigal Son" into the "Prodigal Daughter" and the "Lord's Prayer" into the "Lady's Prayer."
A passage compiled from Luke 2, with corresponding verses at the beginning of each sentence, says: "4 And Joseph went to Bethlehem. 5 To be enrolled with Mary, his wife, who was then pregnant. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn child. 21 And her name was chosen to be Judith."
A passage on the crucifixion, from John 19, says: "17 And She bearing her cross went forth. 18 There they crucified Judith."
A resurrection passage from Matthew 28 states: "1 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Judith who was crucified." 6 "She is not here; for She is risen."
The book's foreword says, "The Jefferson Bible is faithfully followed by the present book, with the corrections in the name and gender of Christ, the gender of God, and some of the parables."
The publisher explains Jefferson used extracts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John rather than the complete books, in order to tell a "linear, complete, organized story" that emphasizes the moral teachings of Christ.
The foreword says, "Events in the Gospel that do not relate to the moral teachings of Christ are often omitted. However, the basic narrative of Christ's life, death and resurrection is maintained."
Reader reviews on the book's Amazon.com page included these:
•"One star because there is nothing lower. May the Lord have mercy on the writers!"
•
•"A friend with a Hebrew doctorate noted to me: 'There is no feminine form of the name Jesus (or Joshua). Judith is the feminine form of the name Juda - or Judas.' How perfectly fitting!"
•Reading the other reviews here, I can't believe that this is being touted as being an advance for women's rights. That is just not true. God sent his only SON, not his daughter. It is also true that God loves all of us, male and female the same. He created each of us as we are. We should not strive to become something we are not. This book truly offends me. I agree with the other reviewer, those that produced this book will be held responsible for those they deceive. I pray for each of them.
•May the Lord God punish the author of this translation and its publishers if they do not withdraw this heretic bible from print Amen.
'I will make you a fisher of PEOPLE': New gender-neutral Bible translation angers conservatives
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367570/New-Bible-translation-causes-controversy-addition-women-gender-neutral-language.html
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:19 PM on 18th March 2011
One of America's most popular bibles has caused a stir after bowing to political correctness by introducing women and gender-neutral language in its latest translation.
The New International Version Bible (NIV), used by many of the largest Protestant faiths throughout the U.S., has come under fire by conservative groups who argue the changes to the language may alter the theological message.
For example the 2011 version uses 'people' instead of the more traditional 'men' in some cases.
Controversial: The latest translation of the New International Version Bible has drawn criticism from groups who say the changes alter the theological message
In older prints Mark 1:17 reads: 'And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."'
In the new version the verse reads: '"Come follow me," Jesus said. "And I will send you out to fish for people."'
Similarly John the Evangelist declares in the 2005 version: 'If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.'
New version: The 2011 NIV version uses 'people' instead of the more traditional 'men' in some cases
In the new translation brother AND sister appears in this verse.
The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), an organisation that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church, has decided they would not endorse the next text before it even hit the shops.
In the 2005 version Revelation 3:20 reads: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.
This has been replaced with: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me,' in the 2011 version.
The CBMW argue that 'that person' has a 'very cold, impersonal feel in comparison to both "them” and “him.”
'That is not how we speak when we want to maximise the warmth and intimacy of our relationship with someone in English,' they said.
'“That person” is how we speak about someone we don’t know. '
Similar concerns led the Southern Baptist Convention to reject the NIV's previous translation in 2005.
The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths. The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.
The new version doesn't always use gender neutral language however.
WHAT'S CHANGED?
2005: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.
2011: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.'
2005: 'And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."'
2011: '"Come follow me," Jesus said. "And I will send you out to fish for people."'
2005: 'For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.'
2011: 'For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being.'
2005: 'If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.'
2011: 'If any brother or sister sins against you, rebuke the offender; and if they repent, forgive them.'
2005: 'If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues...'
2011: 'If anyone of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues...'
It takes reader sensibility into account by not using inclusive terms for some of the most familiar verses where that might sound jarring.
For instance, Matthew 4:4 is rendered, 'Man shall not live on bread alone.'
This in itself is a change from the previous version, where the same phase read, 'People do not live on bread alone.'
'I think that clause has entered into standard English,' translator Douglas Moo explained of the move back to the more traditional 'man.'
'People know it who don't know the Bible.'
Moo said the translators hope that the phrasing of the new NIV is so natural that the average reader won't be aware of any of the gender language concerns that are debated by biblical scholars and linguists.
The change back to the generic 'man' in verses like Matthew 4:4 is applauded by the CBMW, but linguist Joel M Hoffman, author of And God Said — How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning, said it is simply incorrect.
'Anthropos (the Greek word in the original text) means 'person,' plain and simple,' he said. 'It's as much a mistake as translating 'parent' as 'father''.
He also doesn't accept the argument that 'man' is understood in English to refer to men and women.
'If you walk into a church on Sunday morning and say, "Will every man stand up?" I would be shocked if the women stood up, too.'
The news comes after changes to an updated translation of the New American Bible were announced last week.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said certain words had to be replaced because they had come to mean different things in modern speech.
The word ‘booty’ has been changed to the ‘spoils’ of war in the new version as it has come to mean ‘bottom’ or ‘sexual intercourse’.
'Holocaust’ has also been replaced with ‘burnt offerings’ and 'cereal' to 'grain'.
New Gender-Neutral Bible Stirs Controversy
By Anne Eggebroten
WEnews commentator
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Many religious women and men herald a new, non-sexist translation of a popular version of the Bible, yet a strong-willed conservative critic cries foul.
(WOMENSENEWS)--James C. Dobson, psychologist and radio personality has come out against Zondervan Publishing House's new edition of its popular New International Version Bible.
The good news is that Zondervan, the world's largest publisher of Bibles, has decided to replace words such as "men," "sons," and "he" (when referring to believers) with "people," "children," and "they" in its new edition, Today's New International Version New Testament with the new language was released this spring and now in bookstores. The complete, inclusive version is expected to be completed in 2005.
The bad news is that Dobson, whose 90-second radio spots are heard on 2,000 stations in the United States, is throwing his weight against these changes. He says they dilute "the masculinity intended by the authors of Scripture" and result in "obscuring the fatherhood of God," as he recently told USA Today.
Actually, Zondervan's is "the last translation to get on the gender-accuracy train," says Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, a group working to overcome sex bias in Christian churches. But still the new edition is notable because, with some 150 million Bibles in circulation, the New International Version is second in popularity to only to the King James Version--which reads exactly as it did when it was published in 1611.
Other translations go much further, changing masculine references to God and Jesus--such as "He," "Father" and "Son of Man"--to gender-neutral terms. For example, "The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version," Oxford University Press, 1995, changes the Lord's Prayer to "Our Father-Mother in Heaven . . ." The "Inclusive New Testament" by Priests for Equality, 1994, offers "Abba God in heaven . . ." For "Son of man," the messianic title Jesus often used to refer to himself, Oxford uses "the Human One" and Priests for Equality translates "the Chosen One."
With so many Bible translators and major publishing houses committed to giving the Scriptures a voice that appeals to women today, one wonders why James Dobson is holding out for a male God and men-only in passages that describe the early Christian community. Is the command "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . ." so fragile that it is impaired by loss of the masculine tone?
A look at Dobson's politics provides some of the answers. After the success of his early books, "Dare to Discipline" in 1971 and "The Strong-Willed Child" in 1978, he founded Focus on the Family, a conservative group that teaches parents how to discipline children, maintain strict gender roles and fend off sex in the media. He now has television and radio programs heard around the world.
As right-wing politics gained ground in the 1990s, Dobson became a voice as well-known as preacher Jerry Falwell and conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson. In the culture wars, he and his organization defended "family values" against such "immorality" as divorce, gay marriages, extramarital affairs and legal abortion. Focus devotes over $4 million annually to lobbying and otherwise influencing public policy.
Dobson's fear of neutering the Bible may be genuine. After all, such notable Christians as C.S. Lewis held to a theology in which God's power had some masculine essence, in relation to which all Christians play a passive "feminine" role.
Many thinking men, however--such as scholar Ken Barker, who served on the translation committee for Today's New International Version--feel comfortable changing men-only phrases to more inclusive ones. "We want to communicate clearly God's truth to the people of the 21st century," he says.
Dobson's opposition may lie either in power politics or in the idea that any change threatens respect for Scripture as the inerrant, eternal word of God. He is not alone in this feeling. An Israeli friend tells me, "We can't change one word of the Torah, not one comma"--but at least the Hebrew scriptures are an original ancient text, not a recent translation, as is the King James Version. The Vatican also opposes changing "men" to "people" in Bible translations, though many U.S. Catholic congregations are already using inclusive versions in worship.
But most likely, Dobson's resistance comes from a messy mixture of ideas and emotions--love of the past, inability to abandon eons of entrenched male privilege, fear of empowering women and fear of changing the magical holy words.
When I was mother of a 2-year-old, I bought Dobson's "The Strong-Willed Child" and sought advice on how to cope with tantrums and willfulness. But after some reading, I grew skeptical. His prescriptions for breaking a child's will seemed like boot camp in the Army. For children as young as 15 months, he recommends, "two or three stinging strokes on the legs or bottom" for disobedience. He equates a child's self-will with original sin but somehow thinks that parents, unlike God, should be able to win this battle and produce docile children. Fortunately, I found other books with very different philosophies, and as my children grew older, I began to admire their strong wills. After all, how would a weak-willed child make it in this world? Would he or she become a teen who could "just say no"?
Dobson's books have since gotten more political and polemical. His "Children at Risk: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids," 1990, says we are engaged in a "Civil War of values." He opposes sex education in public schools, childbearing outside of marriage, divorce, homosexuality and gay rights. "When did parents begin to lose control of our children to government bureaucrats and an 'anything goes' culture?" he asks.
While other men grow and learn, Dobson remains stubborn in resisting even an inch of change in Bible translations. His behavior looks only slightly related to deep respect for the Bible. Instead it appears bound up with his other political positions, which are rooted in fear, a sense of losing control and wanting to preserve power.
Anne Eggebroten is author of "Abortion: My Choice, God's Grace," New Paradigm Books, Pasadena, Calf., 1994.
Understanding Feminists and Their Fantasies
http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2002/dec02/psrdec02.shtml
The feminist movement has had an immense effect on American culture, laws, education and social relationships. A principal tenet of the doctrine of Political Correctness, feminism is the prevailing dogma on university campuses and in the book industry. The feminists are powerful enough in the media, in schools and colleges, and in politics and government to intimidate most of their opposition, especially men.
The best book that methodically challenges the feminist ideology is Carolyn Graglia's Domestic Tranquility. She does a brilliant job of refuting the feminist ideologues' tiresome tirades. Check out any library under "women" and you will find that Mrs. Graglia's book is pitted against hundreds of feminist volumes. Phyllis Schlafly's The Power of the Positive Woman, published in 1977, is long since out of print and was censored by the libraries when it was in print.
But refuting feminist ideology is not enough. It is necessary to have intelligent critiques of feminist behavior, hypocrisies, language, and political and social activism. We need exposés of the ripple effects of their ideology in the laws that were changed during the last generation, in their proposals that were defeated, in debates in legislatures, in the scripting of television programs and movies, in the social experimentation in our armed services, in day-to-day social relationships, and in the changing attitudes and roles of men and women.
A few brave women have tackled limited parts of this movement; e.g., Suzanne Fields' wonderful columns in the Washington Times, some delicious dissections of feminist hypocrisies by Ann Coulter, Christina Hoff Sommers' dissertations on the feminists' war against boys, and several books exposing the double standards in the military. Criticisms of feminism are conspicuously absent from the writings of otherwise prolific male authors and commentators, and the few who have tried it have suffered career-damaging retaliation.
Years ago, I subscribed to a newsletter of timely jokes written by a successful practitioner of clean one-line comedy. I got tired of the abundance of jokes about dumb wives and wrote the author that I would cancel my subscription unless he gave equal time to jokes about feminists, whose antics and remarks are far funnier. He never answered me -- he didn't dare face the wrath of the feminists, knowing they have no sense of humor.
My new book called Feminist Fantasies (just published by Spence Publishing Company in Dallas) is the first book that tackles the feminists where the rubber meets the road -- on the battlefields of television and radio talk shows, in legislative hearings, and in college courses. The book consists of 92 of my essays on feminism written over the past thirty years chronicling how the feminists spewed their anti-family message in the media, in state capitols, and on university campuses. These essays show how their destructive dogmas took root in our culture and led many young women down the primrose path to a lonely, barren life.
The St.Louis Post-Dispatch ran a four-column news article this year about an aging feminist, a 30-year member of the National Organization for Women, who is still pouting because in the 1960s she was called a stewardess instead of an airline attendant. She showed the reporter her scrapbook of treasured pictures -- not of any grandchildren, but of Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and Florence Kennedy. Pathetically, she fantasizes that the Equal Rights Amendment will make her happy.
Feminist Fantasies provides a unique look at feminism from the battlefield where the action is -- where I've been for the past thirty years. It takes you inside the controversies of the feminist movement from its heyday in the 1970s through its second and third waves. No other book explains how feminist dogma has been translated into political strategy and tactics, federal and state legislation, litigation to invite judicial activism, movie and television scripts, newspaper features, military regulations, college courses and school textbooks. No other book provides a reasoned criticism of feminist follies in every aspect of the culture.
Feminist Fantasies shows how the feminists captured the media, including its famous talking heads, and converted television into a maker of social trends rather than a reporter or a mirror of real life. I trace the feminist campaign to reinvent the family in their own image through television talk shows and sitcoms, movies made by Hollywood and for television, music from opera to rock, newspaper news and editorials, art, advertising, and business magazines.
Feminist Fantasies tackles the contradictory goals of feminism: equality plus preferential treatment. It explains the feminists' devious devices to achieve power in the workplace through deceitful sloganeering such as "comparable worth" and "glass ceiling." It exposes how the feminists define equality as access to tax-funded abortions and same-sex marriages. It tells about their campaigns to restructure the American legal system, to pursue their global goals, to enforce double standards, and to use academia to locate and train recruits for their cause. It describes the feminists' identity crisis.
Feminist Fantasies should be must reading for every young woman. It's a vaccine against the contagious disease of feminism. I dare the Women's Studies departments of colleges and universities to use it to balance the scores of feminist books customarily assigned to brainwash female students. The foreword by Ann Coulter underscores this book's importance.
This book shows how the longtime feminist goal of a gender-neutral society was the motivation behind the campaigns for the Equal Rights Amendment and for the feminization of the military. Feminist goals are incompatible with the combat readiness we need in times of war, a priority that has taken on a new urgency because of events since 9/11. The brave firefighters who charged up the towers of the World Trade Center, and our Special Forces who dared to enter the caves in Afghanistan, need our help to defend themselves and their work against the feminists who despise macho men.
The feminists' goal is to eradicate from our culture everything that is masculine and remake us into a gender-neutral society. We see their handiwork in textbook revision and in the constant haranguing by the language gestapo to force us to use such gender-neutral idiocies as he/she. We see this in the war on boys through abolishing recess, overprescribing Ritalin, and the zero tolerance policies that forbid them to play cops and robbers. We see this in the sex integration of Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel, which was a battle not for sex equality but to eliminate macho men. We see this in the implementation of Title IX, which is used not to give women equal opportunity in colleges but as a vehicle to abolish wrestling teams and other sports in which men outperform women.
The feminists showcased their goal in the New York Times Sunday Style section on November 3, 2002. The headline was "She's Got to Be a Macho Girl," and the subtitle was: "In a role reversal, teenage girls are the aggressors when it comes to boys." The article boasted about "the trickle-down effects of feminism" which have taught teenage girls to initiate sex "in a more aggressive manner." One high school senior pontificated: "No one is a stay-at-home mom anymore. Women don't have to wear skirts. We are empowered and we can do whatever we want."
The feminists constantly intimidate men with their assault on the English language. When Mitt Romney, campaigning for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, called the histrionics of his Democratic feminist opponent "unbecoming," the feminists exploded in tantrums of accusations that he had used a sexist word. Actually, since unbecoming means unattractive and creating an unfavorable impression, the word is most apt to politely describe a feminist politician. As Harry Truman used to say, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Feminist Fantasies offers hope and moral support to women who want to liberate themselves from feminist dogmas and build a traditional family. The book does not recite platitudes on how to be a good wife and mother. Instead, it provides intellectual ammunition to help young women refute their contemporaries who disdain marriage and motherhood. My lectures on hundreds of college campuses, which attract large crowds, prove that students have never heard the facts and arguments about feminism that I have the nerve to present to hostile audiences.
Understanding feminism requires knowledge of how the feminists coopted our culture and built their political power. Feminist Fantasies tells this never-before-told history through critical commentaries that contemporaneously addressed feminist issues during the past thirty years. No other book in print deals head-on with feminism like Feminist Fantasies.
How the Feminists Built Their Power
If you wonder how the feminists are able to wield so much clout with politicians, the explanation is in a new book called Guide to Feminist Organizations. As Midge Decter says in her foreword, this book is long overdue, and we thank Capital Research Center and author Kimberly Schuld for providing such a useful tool.
By setting forth the facts about 35 feminist groups, this guide clarifies how the radical feminists built their political power so that they are falsely touted by the media as the voice of "women," even though all polls show that the big majority of women reject the label "feminist." The feminists did it by organization, networking and lots of money, much of which came from leftwing foundations, corporations headed by weak-kneed executives, and grants of taxpayer funds.
The feminist groups detailed in the guide include the noisy activist organizations, the decades-old women's groups that had respectable reputations until they were captured by the feminists, the think tanks that grind out dubious data to fortify feminist follies, and the abortion-propaganda groups masquerading under the euphemism "women's health." Networking keeps them "on message" and well-funded. Feminist organizations even demand that government fund their ideologies and themselves, and transfer to feminists the power they think that men now enjoy.
These groups may appear to have different missions, but they have a common ideology: Women are victims of an oppressive patriarchal society, and all men are guilty both individually and collectively. Women's problems are not personal but societal, and require constitutional, legislative or litigious remedies.
First among these activists is the National Organization for Women (NOW), which spent $5,292,025 in 2000. Loud and brassy, NOW lobbies for feminist and pro-abortion legislation, organizes protest rallies, initiates lawsuits, and always backs Democratic Party candidates and proposals. The NOW agenda supports all abortion rights including partial-birth abortion, gay and lesbian rights, worldwide legalization of prostitution, and unrestricted access to pornography in libraries. According to the guide, "NOW revels in attacking Christianity and traditional values, conservative ideas and men," with Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Promise Keepers their favorite targets.
NOW gave unquestioning support to Bill Clinton despite his shabby sexual shenanigans. Tammy Bruce, former president of the Los Angeles NOW, spilled the beans about how Clinton bought NOW's support with taxpayer grants for "tobacco control" from the Department of Health and Human Services: "California NOW and National NOW received three-quarters of a million dollars ($767,099) during the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky scandals."
The League of Women Voters abandoned its former credibility and became a federally funded lobby to expand the size of government so that it can accommodate expensive feminist programs. The League, which spent $4,620,246 in 2000, supports gun control, abortion access, universal health care, more environmental regulation, and increased power for the United Nations.
The American Association of University Women turned itself into a vehicle to promote off-the-wall feminist hypotheses that aren't taken seriously even in the academic world. AAUW spent $9,512,044 in 2000.
The feminists use the YWCA to teach radical feminism to the next generation. The Girl Scouts went feminist after they took Betty Friedan on their board; they dropped "loyalty" from the oath, began a condom-friendly sex-ed program, and made belief in God optional.
Most of the activist feminist organizations have 501(c)(3) sister groups with interlocking directors. They pursue the same agenda, including government-funded daycare, paid entitlements for family leave, unrestricted access to abortion, comparable worth, lesbian rights, affirmative action, universal health insurance, and anti-male implementation of Title IX. As the Guide states, "It's hard to see where NOW political lobbying ends and NOW Foundation education activity begins."
Funding for feminist foundations comes from many sources that ought to know better. NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund has raked in corporate donations from a long list topped by ABC, AT&T, American Express, Chase Manhattan, Colgate-Palmolive, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, New York Times Foundation, Revlon, Saks, and New York brokerage houses; from Ford, Rockefeller and other wealthy foundations; and $1,678,252 in government grants since 1996 given by the Clinton Administration. NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund boasted income of $7,318,269 in 2000.
Such vast amounts of money are used to develop political clout and enable the feminists to raise and spend millions of dollars in political campaigns. EMILY's List, which contributes only to Democratic pro-abortion feminist candidates, spent more than $20 million in the 2002 election cycle and is the largest political action committee, twice as large as the union that is second largest.
This political money has translated into a stranglehold on the Democratic Party and sycophantic cheerleading for radical feminist politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and their clones running in 2002. Follow the money and you will understand why Democratic Senators don't dare to cast any vote or make any off-hand remark that could be construed as interfering with the feminist or pro-abortion agenda. EMILY's List website boasts that Tom Daschle said, "The reason I'm here today as Senate Majority Leader can be said in two words: EMILY's List." Rep. Nancy Pelosi said, "I know that I would not ... be the Democratic Whip of the House without the work that was done by EMILY's List."
Hooray for Hootie!
At last we have a real man who can resist the histrionics of the pushy feminists. It's so refreshing to know that somewhere there is an American man willing to stand his ground -- on any issue -- and tell the feminists he is not going to knuckle under to their nagging, extortion, pressure tactics or media tantrums.
William Johnson, known to friends as Hootie, is the president of the Augusta National Golf Club located in northeastern Georgia which has hosted the world's most famous golf tournament, the Masters, ever since 1934. A pushy outfit called the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) has been trying to force the all-male golf club to alter its admissions policy and admit women. The feminists are not appeased by the fact that women can play golf on the Augusta National course; they demand to be members of the club.
Hootie responded by saying the club will not submit to pressure to change its admissions policy from an "outside group with its own agenda." Calling NCWO's tactics "offensive and coercive," he added, "We will not be bullied, threatened or intimidated. We do not intend to become a trophy in their display case."
Bully for Hootie! He probably read the Supreme Court's decision in Boy Scouts v. Dale, wherein the high court upheld the right of private associations to set their own membership rules.
The New York Times says that Hootie "counterpunched with harsh words and a complete resistance to bowing to the demands." The reporter must have been shocked, shocked that any man has the nerve to counterpunch against the feminists (even though the feminists have been claiming for years that they want to be treated like men instead of ladies).
The NCWO manifested its malicious streak by going to Coca-Cola, IBM and Citigroup to demand that they terminate their corporate sponsorship of the Masters tournament unless the Augusta National Golf Club changes its policy. The NCWO got easy help from its feminist friends in the media who then targeted only Hootie, but not the NCWO, as "defiant" and "angry" (words of the Associated Press), and as "defiant" and "combative" (words of the New York Times).
Hootie then announced that the club would cancel commercial advertising on the televised 2003 Masters tournament in order to protect the corporations from the feminists' wrath. The Masters tournament already gets the highest television ratings, and its fans will cheer the delightful prospect of watching a sports event without any commercials.
Maybe Hootie suspected that the corporate executives wouldn't have the stamina to stand up to the feminists. He's probably right. Most corporation executives get wobbly in the knees when the feminists start chanting their mantra "discrimination" and accusing the men of "sexism."
The feminists tried to use Tiger Woods, who won the Masters in 2002 for the third time, as a prop in their publicity stunt to advance their special-interest agenda. When asked what he thinks about Augusta National's rules, Tiger replied with the good sense that has made him a star and a role-model: "They're entitled to set up their own rules the way they want them."
British golfers also kept their eyes on the ball. A spokesman for the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which runs the British Open at Muirfield where women are excluded as members, commented, "We take the Open to the best links in the British Isles. We don't engage in social engineering."
Under the Clinton Administration, the feminists made athletics one of the arrows in their campaign to emasculate America. They co-opted Title IX for their own agenda, sabotaging its original purpose of ensuring equal educational opportunity for women and turning it into a weapon to force the abolition of scores of college men's wrestling, track and gymnastics teams.
The feminists have been crowing that recent achievements by women athletes are the happy result of Title IX. But when a reporter asked for a comment on Title IX from Jennifer Capriati, one of the best women tennis players in the world, she replied, "I have no idea what Title IX is. Sorry."
The name of the National Council of Women's Organizations is a misnomer because it's not a "women's" council, it's a feminist council. The all-women's organizations I belong to wouldn't belong to it.
The NCWO has typical feminist goals such as Senator Barbara Boxer's current passion: ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). NCWO members are probably hoping to be named to CEDAW's Article 17 Committee of "experts" to monitor compliance so they can harass Hootie with UN backing.
NCWO's extremist feminist goals also include affirmative action for women, ratification of the long-defunct Equal Rights Amendment, pro-abortion and pro-gay rights legislation, government wage control camouflaged as "pay equity," the Clintonista feminists' use of Title IX, and government babysitting services. Its goals parallel those of the National Organization for Women and Eleanor Smeal's Feminist Majority, two of its member groups.
________________________________________
Phyllis Schlafly, the president of Eagle Forum, was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies' Home Journal. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, the Equal Rights Amendment. She is America's most articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, and she has lectured or debated on over 500 college campuses. She is the author or editor of 20 books on subjects as varied as politics (A Choice Not An Echo), family and feminism (The Power of the Positive Woman), child care (Who Will Rock the Cradle?), nuclear strategy (Strike From Space and Kissinger on the Couch), education (Child Abuse in the Classroom and Turbo Reader). Her monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report is now in its 36th year. Her syndicated columns and daily radio commentaries can be read and heard live on Eagle Forum's website: www.eagleforum.org. Mrs. Schlafly is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University, received her J.D. from Washington University Law School and her Master's in Political Science from Harvard University. The mother of six children, she was the 1992 Illinois Mother of the Year.
The Impact of Feminism on the Family
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/feminist2.html
Gloria Steinem sounded the war cry, “We don't just want to destroy capitalism,” she said, “We want to tear down the whole f____ patriarchy.”
As the women's movement turned fanatical and ugly in the 1960s and 70s the focus began to shift from reform and equal opportunity. The feminist leaders - humorless, militant, pugnacious, and angry with their particular lot in life, launched programs that were anti-God, anti-capitalism, anti-family, anti-birth, anti-heterosexual and fostered a virulent hatred of anything having to do with males. They no longer wanted to equalize the status of women, but instead wanted to irreversibly alienate women from men and vice versa.
“The fiction of fatherhood is a giant religion called Christianity.”
-Jill Johnston in Lesbian Nation
Home and traditional family values are no longer accepted answers to the questions, "Who am I?" and, "What am I here for?" The preeminent purpose for some women have become their careers, and they decided against the value of home and family.
Taken over by radical leftists committed to adultery, lesbianism, and the perpetuation of "self" over motherhood and family, the women's movement led by the National Organization of Women (NOW), became an adjunct of the Democratic party. The Democratic Party left millions of evangelicals and pro-family Christians when they lurched to the left under George McGovern and his successors. During the 1970s, the Democratic Party abandoned its centrist pro-family base and became captive to the special interest of the radical left, including the feminists, extreme environmentalists and gay rights activists.
Radical feminists linked all the Marxist causes together by writing, "We want to destroy the three pillars of class and a caste society - the family, private property, and the state." [Peter Collier and David Horowith, Deconstructing the Left: From Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, 1991].
To accomplish their goals, organizations such as the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, and the People for the American Way, the Gay-Lesbian Caucus, and their ilk have arisen to champion unrestrained sex, homosexual rights, abortion on demand, while they attack Christian beliefs, conservative organizations, and all the traditional family structures of America. Feminism is an evil monster!
Dissolving the Family
Betty Friedan, founder of NOW, referred to traditional family life as a "comfortable concentration camp" from which women needed liberation. Sheila Cronan, one of the feminist movements most respected leaders and spokeswomen said, "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking marriage."
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s they launched an all-out assault on our nation's time-honored laws protecting the marriage union. Divorce was presented as an easy way out for the frustrated, disappointed or adventuresome.
Mel Krantzler, writing in Creative Divorce, stated: "To say goodbye is to say hello ... hello to a new life - to a new, freer, more self-assured you. Hello to new ways of looking at the world and of relating to people. Your divorce can turn out to be the very best thing that ever happened to you." That was a widely held professional opinion for almost a decade.
Within a few years, they and their Radical Left allies succeeding in overturning all fifty of the nation's "fault" divorce statutes and replacing them with what is called no-fault divorce. It was understood as an effort to secure for women the economic, political and social rights and protections that men have always enjoyed. A spate of pseudo-scientific studies assured parents that children were resilient and would recover quickly from the effects of divorce.
In their zeal they also stripped away from women, especially mothers with children, many of the economic and legal protections they had historically enjoyed in this nation, thus creating a whole new underclass in American society: the abandoned housewife.
The number of displaced homemakers rose twenty-eight percent between 1975 and 1983 to more than three million women. Another twenty percent increase from 1983 to 1988 brought that number to more than four million. An astonishing sixty-one percent of those women suddenly left alone had children under the age of ten at home. Often without job skills and stranded without alimony or child support, as many as seventy percent of these women make less than ten thousand dollars a year, and fifty percent are employed at minimum wage or less. It is, thus, readily apparent why a full seventy-five percent of all Americans living below the poverty line in the United States are women and their children.
[Sylvia Ann Hewlett, A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation in America (New York: William Morrow, 1986)]
Promise Keeping Men are Threatening to NOW
A million men willing to put their wives and families first is very frightening to Patricia Ireland, head of the National Organization of Women (NOW). The men of Promise Keepers promise to love their wives, their children, and their neighbors as themselves, in keeping with the teachings of Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament. Why that should be threatening to Ireland and others of her ilk is apparent. One only has to look at their lifestyles for the answer. Non-Christians have no understanding of God's plan for our lives. What they DO have is a great deal of fear about the subject.
In more recent years feminism has turned more to a fight for abortion rights, lesbian rights, environmentalism and witchcraft. Gone are concerns about equal pay, assertiveness, and expressing one's individuality. In their place are women ensconced in bitterness, hatred, and resentment.
It is frightening for Ireland, and for Karen Taggart of the Washington, DC Lesbian Avengers, who said about the Promise Keepers, " we'll show them that lesbians are everywhere. We'll show them that lesbians have super powers" Taggart is truly afraid that the men of Promise Keepers have tapped into just such a super power that will render her message irrelevant to women.
What is it exactly that Promise Keepers promise that is threatening to NOW?
The men of Promise Keepers promise:
• To honor Jesus Christ and obey His word.
• To pursue relationships with other men, provide one another with spiritual strength to keep his promises.
• To practice spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity.
• To build strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.
• To support his church.
• To reach beyond racial and denominational barriers.
• To influence the world by witnessing and obeying, loving God and loving his neighbor as himself.
Abortion Kills a Child
Militant feminists searching for power found the absolute best way to exercise their control was in the area of reproduction. Abortion became the single greatest avenue for militant women to exercise their quest for power and advance their belief that men aren't necessary. They don't need men to be happy. They certainly don't want males to be able to exercise any control over them.
The real message of the 'Dan Quayle' Murphy Brown episode was that women don't need men. shouldn't desire them, and that total fulfillment and happiness can be achieved without men or husbands. Abortion thus became the ultimate symbol of women's emancipation from the power and influence of men.
With men being precluded from the ultimate decision-making process regarding the future of life in the womb, they are reduced to their proper, inferior role.
Gender feminists rallied in Beijing China in 1995 for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. The Beijing document -- the text of which was heavily influenced by Bella Abzug and other radical feminists -- includes over 200 references to "gender" in various contexts, i.e., "gender equality," "mainstreaming a gender perspective," "gender diversity," etc.
However, "husband" and "wife" are nowhere to be found in the 121-page document, and the terms "mother" and "family" were proposed to be changed to "caretaker" and "household." Clearly, the effort to change the semantics associated with the family is the first step in altering the way the world thinks about the family.
The roles defined by nature for men and women had become clouded in feminists minds and has led to all kinds of confusion, suspicion, and distrust between the sexes.
Women were liberated from the home, from their husbands, from their children - from having to bear children at all. Fathers were liberated from their authority. Children were liberated from limits, from rules, even their parents. And the entire population was liberated from moral and ethical standards. Yet it turns out that those things were precisely what held society together. "Family values" have been so scorned that we are left with neither families nor values. What do we have? Rampant illegitimacy and sexual disease, widespread divorce, and a generation of unloved, undisciplined, and uncared-for kids.
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/judith_christ_bible.htm
TESTING THE FAITH
Was Jesus Christ
really a woman?
New version of Gospels changes gender of 'Son of God' to female
________________________________________
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A publisher is touting a new edition of the Gospels that identifies Christ as a woman named Judith Christ of Nazareth.
LBI Institute says its version, Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, takes Thomas Jefferson's edited Gospel one step futher by "correcting" the gender of Christ and God.
"This long-awaited revised text of the Gospels makes the moral message of Christ more accessible to many, and more illuminating to all," says Billie Shakespeare, vice president for the publisher, in a statement. "It is empowering. We published this new Bible to acknowledge the rise of women in society."
WND sought comment from the LBI Institute's Stephen Glazier, but he did not return messages.
The new version, according to the publisher, revises familiar stories, tranforming the "Prodigal Son" into the "Prodigal Daughter" and the "Lord's Prayer" into the "Lady's Prayer."
A passage compiled from Luke 2, with corresponding verses at the beginning of each sentence, says: "4 And Joseph went to Bethlehem. 5 To be enrolled with Mary, his wife, who was then pregnant. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn child. 21 And her name was chosen to be Judith."
A passage on the crucifixion, from John 19, says: "17 And She bearing her cross went forth. 18 There they crucified Judith."
A resurrection passage from Matthew 28 states: "1 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Judith who was crucified." 6 "She is not here; for She is risen."
The book's foreword says, "The Jefferson Bible is faithfully followed by the present book, with the corrections in the name and gender of Christ, the gender of God, and some of the parables."
The publisher explains Jefferson used extracts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John rather than the complete books, in order to tell a "linear, complete, organized story" that emphasizes the moral teachings of Christ.
The foreword says, "Events in the Gospel that do not relate to the moral teachings of Christ are often omitted. However, the basic narrative of Christ's life, death and resurrection is maintained."
Reader reviews on the book's Amazon.com page included these:
•"One star because there is nothing lower. May the Lord have mercy on the writers!"
•
•"A friend with a Hebrew doctorate noted to me: 'There is no feminine form of the name Jesus (or Joshua). Judith is the feminine form of the name Juda - or Judas.' How perfectly fitting!"
•Reading the other reviews here, I can't believe that this is being touted as being an advance for women's rights. That is just not true. God sent his only SON, not his daughter. It is also true that God loves all of us, male and female the same. He created each of us as we are. We should not strive to become something we are not. This book truly offends me. I agree with the other reviewer, those that produced this book will be held responsible for those they deceive. I pray for each of them.
•May the Lord God punish the author of this translation and its publishers if they do not withdraw this heretic bible from print Amen.
'I will make you a fisher of PEOPLE': New gender-neutral Bible translation angers conservatives
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367570/New-Bible-translation-causes-controversy-addition-women-gender-neutral-language.html
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:19 PM on 18th March 2011
One of America's most popular bibles has caused a stir after bowing to political correctness by introducing women and gender-neutral language in its latest translation.
The New International Version Bible (NIV), used by many of the largest Protestant faiths throughout the U.S., has come under fire by conservative groups who argue the changes to the language may alter the theological message.
For example the 2011 version uses 'people' instead of the more traditional 'men' in some cases.
Controversial: The latest translation of the New International Version Bible has drawn criticism from groups who say the changes alter the theological message
In older prints Mark 1:17 reads: 'And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."'
In the new version the verse reads: '"Come follow me," Jesus said. "And I will send you out to fish for people."'
Similarly John the Evangelist declares in the 2005 version: 'If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.'
New version: The 2011 NIV version uses 'people' instead of the more traditional 'men' in some cases
In the new translation brother AND sister appears in this verse.
The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), an organisation that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church, has decided they would not endorse the next text before it even hit the shops.
In the 2005 version Revelation 3:20 reads: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.
This has been replaced with: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me,' in the 2011 version.
The CBMW argue that 'that person' has a 'very cold, impersonal feel in comparison to both "them” and “him.”
'That is not how we speak when we want to maximise the warmth and intimacy of our relationship with someone in English,' they said.
'“That person” is how we speak about someone we don’t know. '
Similar concerns led the Southern Baptist Convention to reject the NIV's previous translation in 2005.
The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths. The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.
The new version doesn't always use gender neutral language however.
WHAT'S CHANGED?
2005: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.
2011: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.'
2005: 'And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."'
2011: '"Come follow me," Jesus said. "And I will send you out to fish for people."'
2005: 'For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.'
2011: 'For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being.'
2005: 'If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.'
2011: 'If any brother or sister sins against you, rebuke the offender; and if they repent, forgive them.'
2005: 'If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues...'
2011: 'If anyone of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues...'
It takes reader sensibility into account by not using inclusive terms for some of the most familiar verses where that might sound jarring.
For instance, Matthew 4:4 is rendered, 'Man shall not live on bread alone.'
This in itself is a change from the previous version, where the same phase read, 'People do not live on bread alone.'
'I think that clause has entered into standard English,' translator Douglas Moo explained of the move back to the more traditional 'man.'
'People know it who don't know the Bible.'
Moo said the translators hope that the phrasing of the new NIV is so natural that the average reader won't be aware of any of the gender language concerns that are debated by biblical scholars and linguists.
The change back to the generic 'man' in verses like Matthew 4:4 is applauded by the CBMW, but linguist Joel M Hoffman, author of And God Said — How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning, said it is simply incorrect.
'Anthropos (the Greek word in the original text) means 'person,' plain and simple,' he said. 'It's as much a mistake as translating 'parent' as 'father''.
He also doesn't accept the argument that 'man' is understood in English to refer to men and women.
'If you walk into a church on Sunday morning and say, "Will every man stand up?" I would be shocked if the women stood up, too.'
The news comes after changes to an updated translation of the New American Bible were announced last week.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said certain words had to be replaced because they had come to mean different things in modern speech.
The word ‘booty’ has been changed to the ‘spoils’ of war in the new version as it has come to mean ‘bottom’ or ‘sexual intercourse’.
'Holocaust’ has also been replaced with ‘burnt offerings’ and 'cereal' to 'grain'.
New Gender-Neutral Bible Stirs Controversy
By Anne Eggebroten
WEnews commentator
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Many religious women and men herald a new, non-sexist translation of a popular version of the Bible, yet a strong-willed conservative critic cries foul.
(WOMENSENEWS)--James C. Dobson, psychologist and radio personality has come out against Zondervan Publishing House's new edition of its popular New International Version Bible.
The good news is that Zondervan, the world's largest publisher of Bibles, has decided to replace words such as "men," "sons," and "he" (when referring to believers) with "people," "children," and "they" in its new edition, Today's New International Version New Testament with the new language was released this spring and now in bookstores. The complete, inclusive version is expected to be completed in 2005.
The bad news is that Dobson, whose 90-second radio spots are heard on 2,000 stations in the United States, is throwing his weight against these changes. He says they dilute "the masculinity intended by the authors of Scripture" and result in "obscuring the fatherhood of God," as he recently told USA Today.
Actually, Zondervan's is "the last translation to get on the gender-accuracy train," says Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, a group working to overcome sex bias in Christian churches. But still the new edition is notable because, with some 150 million Bibles in circulation, the New International Version is second in popularity to only to the King James Version--which reads exactly as it did when it was published in 1611.
Other translations go much further, changing masculine references to God and Jesus--such as "He," "Father" and "Son of Man"--to gender-neutral terms. For example, "The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version," Oxford University Press, 1995, changes the Lord's Prayer to "Our Father-Mother in Heaven . . ." The "Inclusive New Testament" by Priests for Equality, 1994, offers "Abba God in heaven . . ." For "Son of man," the messianic title Jesus often used to refer to himself, Oxford uses "the Human One" and Priests for Equality translates "the Chosen One."
With so many Bible translators and major publishing houses committed to giving the Scriptures a voice that appeals to women today, one wonders why James Dobson is holding out for a male God and men-only in passages that describe the early Christian community. Is the command "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . ." so fragile that it is impaired by loss of the masculine tone?
A look at Dobson's politics provides some of the answers. After the success of his early books, "Dare to Discipline" in 1971 and "The Strong-Willed Child" in 1978, he founded Focus on the Family, a conservative group that teaches parents how to discipline children, maintain strict gender roles and fend off sex in the media. He now has television and radio programs heard around the world.
As right-wing politics gained ground in the 1990s, Dobson became a voice as well-known as preacher Jerry Falwell and conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson. In the culture wars, he and his organization defended "family values" against such "immorality" as divorce, gay marriages, extramarital affairs and legal abortion. Focus devotes over $4 million annually to lobbying and otherwise influencing public policy.
Dobson's fear of neutering the Bible may be genuine. After all, such notable Christians as C.S. Lewis held to a theology in which God's power had some masculine essence, in relation to which all Christians play a passive "feminine" role.
Many thinking men, however--such as scholar Ken Barker, who served on the translation committee for Today's New International Version--feel comfortable changing men-only phrases to more inclusive ones. "We want to communicate clearly God's truth to the people of the 21st century," he says.
Dobson's opposition may lie either in power politics or in the idea that any change threatens respect for Scripture as the inerrant, eternal word of God. He is not alone in this feeling. An Israeli friend tells me, "We can't change one word of the Torah, not one comma"--but at least the Hebrew scriptures are an original ancient text, not a recent translation, as is the King James Version. The Vatican also opposes changing "men" to "people" in Bible translations, though many U.S. Catholic congregations are already using inclusive versions in worship.
But most likely, Dobson's resistance comes from a messy mixture of ideas and emotions--love of the past, inability to abandon eons of entrenched male privilege, fear of empowering women and fear of changing the magical holy words.
When I was mother of a 2-year-old, I bought Dobson's "The Strong-Willed Child" and sought advice on how to cope with tantrums and willfulness. But after some reading, I grew skeptical. His prescriptions for breaking a child's will seemed like boot camp in the Army. For children as young as 15 months, he recommends, "two or three stinging strokes on the legs or bottom" for disobedience. He equates a child's self-will with original sin but somehow thinks that parents, unlike God, should be able to win this battle and produce docile children. Fortunately, I found other books with very different philosophies, and as my children grew older, I began to admire their strong wills. After all, how would a weak-willed child make it in this world? Would he or she become a teen who could "just say no"?
Dobson's books have since gotten more political and polemical. His "Children at Risk: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids," 1990, says we are engaged in a "Civil War of values." He opposes sex education in public schools, childbearing outside of marriage, divorce, homosexuality and gay rights. "When did parents begin to lose control of our children to government bureaucrats and an 'anything goes' culture?" he asks.
While other men grow and learn, Dobson remains stubborn in resisting even an inch of change in Bible translations. His behavior looks only slightly related to deep respect for the Bible. Instead it appears bound up with his other political positions, which are rooted in fear, a sense of losing control and wanting to preserve power.
Anne Eggebroten is author of "Abortion: My Choice, God's Grace," New Paradigm Books, Pasadena, Calf., 1994.
Understanding Feminists and Their Fantasies
http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2002/dec02/psrdec02.shtml
The feminist movement has had an immense effect on American culture, laws, education and social relationships. A principal tenet of the doctrine of Political Correctness, feminism is the prevailing dogma on university campuses and in the book industry. The feminists are powerful enough in the media, in schools and colleges, and in politics and government to intimidate most of their opposition, especially men.
The best book that methodically challenges the feminist ideology is Carolyn Graglia's Domestic Tranquility. She does a brilliant job of refuting the feminist ideologues' tiresome tirades. Check out any library under "women" and you will find that Mrs. Graglia's book is pitted against hundreds of feminist volumes. Phyllis Schlafly's The Power of the Positive Woman, published in 1977, is long since out of print and was censored by the libraries when it was in print.
But refuting feminist ideology is not enough. It is necessary to have intelligent critiques of feminist behavior, hypocrisies, language, and political and social activism. We need exposés of the ripple effects of their ideology in the laws that were changed during the last generation, in their proposals that were defeated, in debates in legislatures, in the scripting of television programs and movies, in the social experimentation in our armed services, in day-to-day social relationships, and in the changing attitudes and roles of men and women.
A few brave women have tackled limited parts of this movement; e.g., Suzanne Fields' wonderful columns in the Washington Times, some delicious dissections of feminist hypocrisies by Ann Coulter, Christina Hoff Sommers' dissertations on the feminists' war against boys, and several books exposing the double standards in the military. Criticisms of feminism are conspicuously absent from the writings of otherwise prolific male authors and commentators, and the few who have tried it have suffered career-damaging retaliation.
Years ago, I subscribed to a newsletter of timely jokes written by a successful practitioner of clean one-line comedy. I got tired of the abundance of jokes about dumb wives and wrote the author that I would cancel my subscription unless he gave equal time to jokes about feminists, whose antics and remarks are far funnier. He never answered me -- he didn't dare face the wrath of the feminists, knowing they have no sense of humor.
My new book called Feminist Fantasies (just published by Spence Publishing Company in Dallas) is the first book that tackles the feminists where the rubber meets the road -- on the battlefields of television and radio talk shows, in legislative hearings, and in college courses. The book consists of 92 of my essays on feminism written over the past thirty years chronicling how the feminists spewed their anti-family message in the media, in state capitols, and on university campuses. These essays show how their destructive dogmas took root in our culture and led many young women down the primrose path to a lonely, barren life.
The St.Louis Post-Dispatch ran a four-column news article this year about an aging feminist, a 30-year member of the National Organization for Women, who is still pouting because in the 1960s she was called a stewardess instead of an airline attendant. She showed the reporter her scrapbook of treasured pictures -- not of any grandchildren, but of Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and Florence Kennedy. Pathetically, she fantasizes that the Equal Rights Amendment will make her happy.
Feminist Fantasies provides a unique look at feminism from the battlefield where the action is -- where I've been for the past thirty years. It takes you inside the controversies of the feminist movement from its heyday in the 1970s through its second and third waves. No other book explains how feminist dogma has been translated into political strategy and tactics, federal and state legislation, litigation to invite judicial activism, movie and television scripts, newspaper features, military regulations, college courses and school textbooks. No other book provides a reasoned criticism of feminist follies in every aspect of the culture.
Feminist Fantasies shows how the feminists captured the media, including its famous talking heads, and converted television into a maker of social trends rather than a reporter or a mirror of real life. I trace the feminist campaign to reinvent the family in their own image through television talk shows and sitcoms, movies made by Hollywood and for television, music from opera to rock, newspaper news and editorials, art, advertising, and business magazines.
Feminist Fantasies tackles the contradictory goals of feminism: equality plus preferential treatment. It explains the feminists' devious devices to achieve power in the workplace through deceitful sloganeering such as "comparable worth" and "glass ceiling." It exposes how the feminists define equality as access to tax-funded abortions and same-sex marriages. It tells about their campaigns to restructure the American legal system, to pursue their global goals, to enforce double standards, and to use academia to locate and train recruits for their cause. It describes the feminists' identity crisis.
Feminist Fantasies should be must reading for every young woman. It's a vaccine against the contagious disease of feminism. I dare the Women's Studies departments of colleges and universities to use it to balance the scores of feminist books customarily assigned to brainwash female students. The foreword by Ann Coulter underscores this book's importance.
This book shows how the longtime feminist goal of a gender-neutral society was the motivation behind the campaigns for the Equal Rights Amendment and for the feminization of the military. Feminist goals are incompatible with the combat readiness we need in times of war, a priority that has taken on a new urgency because of events since 9/11. The brave firefighters who charged up the towers of the World Trade Center, and our Special Forces who dared to enter the caves in Afghanistan, need our help to defend themselves and their work against the feminists who despise macho men.
The feminists' goal is to eradicate from our culture everything that is masculine and remake us into a gender-neutral society. We see their handiwork in textbook revision and in the constant haranguing by the language gestapo to force us to use such gender-neutral idiocies as he/she. We see this in the war on boys through abolishing recess, overprescribing Ritalin, and the zero tolerance policies that forbid them to play cops and robbers. We see this in the sex integration of Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel, which was a battle not for sex equality but to eliminate macho men. We see this in the implementation of Title IX, which is used not to give women equal opportunity in colleges but as a vehicle to abolish wrestling teams and other sports in which men outperform women.
The feminists showcased their goal in the New York Times Sunday Style section on November 3, 2002. The headline was "She's Got to Be a Macho Girl," and the subtitle was: "In a role reversal, teenage girls are the aggressors when it comes to boys." The article boasted about "the trickle-down effects of feminism" which have taught teenage girls to initiate sex "in a more aggressive manner." One high school senior pontificated: "No one is a stay-at-home mom anymore. Women don't have to wear skirts. We are empowered and we can do whatever we want."
The feminists constantly intimidate men with their assault on the English language. When Mitt Romney, campaigning for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, called the histrionics of his Democratic feminist opponent "unbecoming," the feminists exploded in tantrums of accusations that he had used a sexist word. Actually, since unbecoming means unattractive and creating an unfavorable impression, the word is most apt to politely describe a feminist politician. As Harry Truman used to say, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Feminist Fantasies offers hope and moral support to women who want to liberate themselves from feminist dogmas and build a traditional family. The book does not recite platitudes on how to be a good wife and mother. Instead, it provides intellectual ammunition to help young women refute their contemporaries who disdain marriage and motherhood. My lectures on hundreds of college campuses, which attract large crowds, prove that students have never heard the facts and arguments about feminism that I have the nerve to present to hostile audiences.
Understanding feminism requires knowledge of how the feminists coopted our culture and built their political power. Feminist Fantasies tells this never-before-told history through critical commentaries that contemporaneously addressed feminist issues during the past thirty years. No other book in print deals head-on with feminism like Feminist Fantasies.
How the Feminists Built Their Power
If you wonder how the feminists are able to wield so much clout with politicians, the explanation is in a new book called Guide to Feminist Organizations. As Midge Decter says in her foreword, this book is long overdue, and we thank Capital Research Center and author Kimberly Schuld for providing such a useful tool.
By setting forth the facts about 35 feminist groups, this guide clarifies how the radical feminists built their political power so that they are falsely touted by the media as the voice of "women," even though all polls show that the big majority of women reject the label "feminist." The feminists did it by organization, networking and lots of money, much of which came from leftwing foundations, corporations headed by weak-kneed executives, and grants of taxpayer funds.
The feminist groups detailed in the guide include the noisy activist organizations, the decades-old women's groups that had respectable reputations until they were captured by the feminists, the think tanks that grind out dubious data to fortify feminist follies, and the abortion-propaganda groups masquerading under the euphemism "women's health." Networking keeps them "on message" and well-funded. Feminist organizations even demand that government fund their ideologies and themselves, and transfer to feminists the power they think that men now enjoy.
These groups may appear to have different missions, but they have a common ideology: Women are victims of an oppressive patriarchal society, and all men are guilty both individually and collectively. Women's problems are not personal but societal, and require constitutional, legislative or litigious remedies.
First among these activists is the National Organization for Women (NOW), which spent $5,292,025 in 2000. Loud and brassy, NOW lobbies for feminist and pro-abortion legislation, organizes protest rallies, initiates lawsuits, and always backs Democratic Party candidates and proposals. The NOW agenda supports all abortion rights including partial-birth abortion, gay and lesbian rights, worldwide legalization of prostitution, and unrestricted access to pornography in libraries. According to the guide, "NOW revels in attacking Christianity and traditional values, conservative ideas and men," with Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Promise Keepers their favorite targets.
NOW gave unquestioning support to Bill Clinton despite his shabby sexual shenanigans. Tammy Bruce, former president of the Los Angeles NOW, spilled the beans about how Clinton bought NOW's support with taxpayer grants for "tobacco control" from the Department of Health and Human Services: "California NOW and National NOW received three-quarters of a million dollars ($767,099) during the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky scandals."
The League of Women Voters abandoned its former credibility and became a federally funded lobby to expand the size of government so that it can accommodate expensive feminist programs. The League, which spent $4,620,246 in 2000, supports gun control, abortion access, universal health care, more environmental regulation, and increased power for the United Nations.
The American Association of University Women turned itself into a vehicle to promote off-the-wall feminist hypotheses that aren't taken seriously even in the academic world. AAUW spent $9,512,044 in 2000.
The feminists use the YWCA to teach radical feminism to the next generation. The Girl Scouts went feminist after they took Betty Friedan on their board; they dropped "loyalty" from the oath, began a condom-friendly sex-ed program, and made belief in God optional.
Most of the activist feminist organizations have 501(c)(3) sister groups with interlocking directors. They pursue the same agenda, including government-funded daycare, paid entitlements for family leave, unrestricted access to abortion, comparable worth, lesbian rights, affirmative action, universal health insurance, and anti-male implementation of Title IX. As the Guide states, "It's hard to see where NOW political lobbying ends and NOW Foundation education activity begins."
Funding for feminist foundations comes from many sources that ought to know better. NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund has raked in corporate donations from a long list topped by ABC, AT&T, American Express, Chase Manhattan, Colgate-Palmolive, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, New York Times Foundation, Revlon, Saks, and New York brokerage houses; from Ford, Rockefeller and other wealthy foundations; and $1,678,252 in government grants since 1996 given by the Clinton Administration. NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund boasted income of $7,318,269 in 2000.
Such vast amounts of money are used to develop political clout and enable the feminists to raise and spend millions of dollars in political campaigns. EMILY's List, which contributes only to Democratic pro-abortion feminist candidates, spent more than $20 million in the 2002 election cycle and is the largest political action committee, twice as large as the union that is second largest.
This political money has translated into a stranglehold on the Democratic Party and sycophantic cheerleading for radical feminist politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and their clones running in 2002. Follow the money and you will understand why Democratic Senators don't dare to cast any vote or make any off-hand remark that could be construed as interfering with the feminist or pro-abortion agenda. EMILY's List website boasts that Tom Daschle said, "The reason I'm here today as Senate Majority Leader can be said in two words: EMILY's List." Rep. Nancy Pelosi said, "I know that I would not ... be the Democratic Whip of the House without the work that was done by EMILY's List."
Hooray for Hootie!
At last we have a real man who can resist the histrionics of the pushy feminists. It's so refreshing to know that somewhere there is an American man willing to stand his ground -- on any issue -- and tell the feminists he is not going to knuckle under to their nagging, extortion, pressure tactics or media tantrums.
William Johnson, known to friends as Hootie, is the president of the Augusta National Golf Club located in northeastern Georgia which has hosted the world's most famous golf tournament, the Masters, ever since 1934. A pushy outfit called the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) has been trying to force the all-male golf club to alter its admissions policy and admit women. The feminists are not appeased by the fact that women can play golf on the Augusta National course; they demand to be members of the club.
Hootie responded by saying the club will not submit to pressure to change its admissions policy from an "outside group with its own agenda." Calling NCWO's tactics "offensive and coercive," he added, "We will not be bullied, threatened or intimidated. We do not intend to become a trophy in their display case."
Bully for Hootie! He probably read the Supreme Court's decision in Boy Scouts v. Dale, wherein the high court upheld the right of private associations to set their own membership rules.
The New York Times says that Hootie "counterpunched with harsh words and a complete resistance to bowing to the demands." The reporter must have been shocked, shocked that any man has the nerve to counterpunch against the feminists (even though the feminists have been claiming for years that they want to be treated like men instead of ladies).
The NCWO manifested its malicious streak by going to Coca-Cola, IBM and Citigroup to demand that they terminate their corporate sponsorship of the Masters tournament unless the Augusta National Golf Club changes its policy. The NCWO got easy help from its feminist friends in the media who then targeted only Hootie, but not the NCWO, as "defiant" and "angry" (words of the Associated Press), and as "defiant" and "combative" (words of the New York Times).
Hootie then announced that the club would cancel commercial advertising on the televised 2003 Masters tournament in order to protect the corporations from the feminists' wrath. The Masters tournament already gets the highest television ratings, and its fans will cheer the delightful prospect of watching a sports event without any commercials.
Maybe Hootie suspected that the corporate executives wouldn't have the stamina to stand up to the feminists. He's probably right. Most corporation executives get wobbly in the knees when the feminists start chanting their mantra "discrimination" and accusing the men of "sexism."
The feminists tried to use Tiger Woods, who won the Masters in 2002 for the third time, as a prop in their publicity stunt to advance their special-interest agenda. When asked what he thinks about Augusta National's rules, Tiger replied with the good sense that has made him a star and a role-model: "They're entitled to set up their own rules the way they want them."
British golfers also kept their eyes on the ball. A spokesman for the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which runs the British Open at Muirfield where women are excluded as members, commented, "We take the Open to the best links in the British Isles. We don't engage in social engineering."
Under the Clinton Administration, the feminists made athletics one of the arrows in their campaign to emasculate America. They co-opted Title IX for their own agenda, sabotaging its original purpose of ensuring equal educational opportunity for women and turning it into a weapon to force the abolition of scores of college men's wrestling, track and gymnastics teams.
The feminists have been crowing that recent achievements by women athletes are the happy result of Title IX. But when a reporter asked for a comment on Title IX from Jennifer Capriati, one of the best women tennis players in the world, she replied, "I have no idea what Title IX is. Sorry."
The name of the National Council of Women's Organizations is a misnomer because it's not a "women's" council, it's a feminist council. The all-women's organizations I belong to wouldn't belong to it.
The NCWO has typical feminist goals such as Senator Barbara Boxer's current passion: ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). NCWO members are probably hoping to be named to CEDAW's Article 17 Committee of "experts" to monitor compliance so they can harass Hootie with UN backing.
NCWO's extremist feminist goals also include affirmative action for women, ratification of the long-defunct Equal Rights Amendment, pro-abortion and pro-gay rights legislation, government wage control camouflaged as "pay equity," the Clintonista feminists' use of Title IX, and government babysitting services. Its goals parallel those of the National Organization for Women and Eleanor Smeal's Feminist Majority, two of its member groups.
________________________________________
Phyllis Schlafly, the president of Eagle Forum, was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies' Home Journal. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, the Equal Rights Amendment. She is America's most articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, and she has lectured or debated on over 500 college campuses. She is the author or editor of 20 books on subjects as varied as politics (A Choice Not An Echo), family and feminism (The Power of the Positive Woman), child care (Who Will Rock the Cradle?), nuclear strategy (Strike From Space and Kissinger on the Couch), education (Child Abuse in the Classroom and Turbo Reader). Her monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report is now in its 36th year. Her syndicated columns and daily radio commentaries can be read and heard live on Eagle Forum's website: www.eagleforum.org. Mrs. Schlafly is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University, received her J.D. from Washington University Law School and her Master's in Political Science from Harvard University. The mother of six children, she was the 1992 Illinois Mother of the Year.
The Impact of Feminism on the Family
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/feminist2.html
Gloria Steinem sounded the war cry, “We don't just want to destroy capitalism,” she said, “We want to tear down the whole f____ patriarchy.”
As the women's movement turned fanatical and ugly in the 1960s and 70s the focus began to shift from reform and equal opportunity. The feminist leaders - humorless, militant, pugnacious, and angry with their particular lot in life, launched programs that were anti-God, anti-capitalism, anti-family, anti-birth, anti-heterosexual and fostered a virulent hatred of anything having to do with males. They no longer wanted to equalize the status of women, but instead wanted to irreversibly alienate women from men and vice versa.
“The fiction of fatherhood is a giant religion called Christianity.”
-Jill Johnston in Lesbian Nation
Home and traditional family values are no longer accepted answers to the questions, "Who am I?" and, "What am I here for?" The preeminent purpose for some women have become their careers, and they decided against the value of home and family.
Taken over by radical leftists committed to adultery, lesbianism, and the perpetuation of "self" over motherhood and family, the women's movement led by the National Organization of Women (NOW), became an adjunct of the Democratic party. The Democratic Party left millions of evangelicals and pro-family Christians when they lurched to the left under George McGovern and his successors. During the 1970s, the Democratic Party abandoned its centrist pro-family base and became captive to the special interest of the radical left, including the feminists, extreme environmentalists and gay rights activists.
Radical feminists linked all the Marxist causes together by writing, "We want to destroy the three pillars of class and a caste society - the family, private property, and the state." [Peter Collier and David Horowith, Deconstructing the Left: From Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, 1991].
To accomplish their goals, organizations such as the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, and the People for the American Way, the Gay-Lesbian Caucus, and their ilk have arisen to champion unrestrained sex, homosexual rights, abortion on demand, while they attack Christian beliefs, conservative organizations, and all the traditional family structures of America. Feminism is an evil monster!
Dissolving the Family
Betty Friedan, founder of NOW, referred to traditional family life as a "comfortable concentration camp" from which women needed liberation. Sheila Cronan, one of the feminist movements most respected leaders and spokeswomen said, "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking marriage."
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s they launched an all-out assault on our nation's time-honored laws protecting the marriage union. Divorce was presented as an easy way out for the frustrated, disappointed or adventuresome.
Mel Krantzler, writing in Creative Divorce, stated: "To say goodbye is to say hello ... hello to a new life - to a new, freer, more self-assured you. Hello to new ways of looking at the world and of relating to people. Your divorce can turn out to be the very best thing that ever happened to you." That was a widely held professional opinion for almost a decade.
Within a few years, they and their Radical Left allies succeeding in overturning all fifty of the nation's "fault" divorce statutes and replacing them with what is called no-fault divorce. It was understood as an effort to secure for women the economic, political and social rights and protections that men have always enjoyed. A spate of pseudo-scientific studies assured parents that children were resilient and would recover quickly from the effects of divorce.
In their zeal they also stripped away from women, especially mothers with children, many of the economic and legal protections they had historically enjoyed in this nation, thus creating a whole new underclass in American society: the abandoned housewife.
The number of displaced homemakers rose twenty-eight percent between 1975 and 1983 to more than three million women. Another twenty percent increase from 1983 to 1988 brought that number to more than four million. An astonishing sixty-one percent of those women suddenly left alone had children under the age of ten at home. Often without job skills and stranded without alimony or child support, as many as seventy percent of these women make less than ten thousand dollars a year, and fifty percent are employed at minimum wage or less. It is, thus, readily apparent why a full seventy-five percent of all Americans living below the poverty line in the United States are women and their children.
[Sylvia Ann Hewlett, A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation in America (New York: William Morrow, 1986)]
Promise Keeping Men are Threatening to NOW
A million men willing to put their wives and families first is very frightening to Patricia Ireland, head of the National Organization of Women (NOW). The men of Promise Keepers promise to love their wives, their children, and their neighbors as themselves, in keeping with the teachings of Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament. Why that should be threatening to Ireland and others of her ilk is apparent. One only has to look at their lifestyles for the answer. Non-Christians have no understanding of God's plan for our lives. What they DO have is a great deal of fear about the subject.
In more recent years feminism has turned more to a fight for abortion rights, lesbian rights, environmentalism and witchcraft. Gone are concerns about equal pay, assertiveness, and expressing one's individuality. In their place are women ensconced in bitterness, hatred, and resentment.
It is frightening for Ireland, and for Karen Taggart of the Washington, DC Lesbian Avengers, who said about the Promise Keepers, " we'll show them that lesbians are everywhere. We'll show them that lesbians have super powers" Taggart is truly afraid that the men of Promise Keepers have tapped into just such a super power that will render her message irrelevant to women.
What is it exactly that Promise Keepers promise that is threatening to NOW?
The men of Promise Keepers promise:
• To honor Jesus Christ and obey His word.
• To pursue relationships with other men, provide one another with spiritual strength to keep his promises.
• To practice spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity.
• To build strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.
• To support his church.
• To reach beyond racial and denominational barriers.
• To influence the world by witnessing and obeying, loving God and loving his neighbor as himself.
Abortion Kills a Child
Militant feminists searching for power found the absolute best way to exercise their control was in the area of reproduction. Abortion became the single greatest avenue for militant women to exercise their quest for power and advance their belief that men aren't necessary. They don't need men to be happy. They certainly don't want males to be able to exercise any control over them.
The real message of the 'Dan Quayle' Murphy Brown episode was that women don't need men. shouldn't desire them, and that total fulfillment and happiness can be achieved without men or husbands. Abortion thus became the ultimate symbol of women's emancipation from the power and influence of men.
With men being precluded from the ultimate decision-making process regarding the future of life in the womb, they are reduced to their proper, inferior role.
Gender feminists rallied in Beijing China in 1995 for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. The Beijing document -- the text of which was heavily influenced by Bella Abzug and other radical feminists -- includes over 200 references to "gender" in various contexts, i.e., "gender equality," "mainstreaming a gender perspective," "gender diversity," etc.
However, "husband" and "wife" are nowhere to be found in the 121-page document, and the terms "mother" and "family" were proposed to be changed to "caretaker" and "household." Clearly, the effort to change the semantics associated with the family is the first step in altering the way the world thinks about the family.
The roles defined by nature for men and women had become clouded in feminists minds and has led to all kinds of confusion, suspicion, and distrust between the sexes.
Women were liberated from the home, from their husbands, from their children - from having to bear children at all. Fathers were liberated from their authority. Children were liberated from limits, from rules, even their parents. And the entire population was liberated from moral and ethical standards. Yet it turns out that those things were precisely what held society together. "Family values" have been so scorned that we are left with neither families nor values. What do we have? Rampant illegitimacy and sexual disease, widespread divorce, and a generation of unloved, undisciplined, and uncared-for kids.
Good Friday is a Myth; Jesus Died on a Wednesday!!
Good Friday is a Myth;
Jesus Died on a Wednesday!!
http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Prophecy/3days3nights.html
by Roy A. Reinhold
I was quite blown away recently to hear Hal Lindsey state on his national radio program that he has come to believe that the scriptures show a Wednesday crucifixion. Perhaps you ought to examine the evidence and decide for yourself; be like the Bereans who were complimented in scriptures for examining the teaching of Paul in light of the scriptures to see if it was so. There is clear, concrete evidence in the scriptures for a Wednesday crucifixion; you be the judge.
3 DAYS AND 3 NIGHTS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH
One of the most common questions asked by new Christians is, "How could Jesus have been in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights if He died on a Friday afternoon and rose before sunrise on a Sunday?" Most Christians duck the question, since at most they can only come up with one day and two nights (Friday nighttime, Saturday daytime, and Saturday nighttime in our measure of days). If they add in the Friday daytime they get two periods of daytime, even though Jesus would have died in the late afternoon on a Friday. This late afternoon death is consistent with the Passover lamb being killed between the two evenings of Jewish teaching. The lamb was killed between 3 and 6 PM on the afternoon of the 14th of Abib/Nisan and prepared, because the 15th was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was an annual Sabbath observance (the first and last days of Unleavened Bread were annual Sabbaths in addition to the normal weekly Sabbaths). This search of the scriptures is important, not because it affects salvation, but because it answers the questions posed on whether Jesus kept His Word, and whether the Bible is true in this matter. A legitimate concern and question for all Christians!!
"On the fourteenth day of the first month--between the two evenings (at twilight)--is the Passover to Yahweh (YHVH). And on the fifteenth day of this month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh (YHVH); seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work. But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to Yahweh (YHVH). On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work." Leviticus 23:5-8
The above text confirms that the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are annual Sabbaths, to be observed as a day of rest in addition to the weekly Sabbaths. These days would occur on the 15th and 21st of Abib/Nisan. The Passover meal was an important religious observance in which to remember that the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their houses kept them alive when the angel of death passed by, and that God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The Passover is a perpetual observance to celebrate pasing from death to life. These ancient events foretold the blood of Jesus being spilled for our sins, and our passage from death to eternal life, by the everlasting covenant of the blood of Jesus. They also foretold that Jesus would die as the national Passover Lamb, exactly on the 14th of Abib/Nisan and that the day following was an annual Sabbath.
What follows is a close examination of the biblical record, in which Jesus was killed on the 14th of Nisan in the afternoon, and the next day was the annual Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We shall also see from the biblical record that this annual Sabbath did not fall on the weekly Sabbath, in the year that Jesus died.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matthew 12:38-40
But later on two came forward, and said, "This one (man) stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days." Matthew 26:60-61
Now on the next day, which is the one after the day of preparation (after the eve of the Sabbath), the Chief Priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate. And they said to him, "Sir, we recall that the deceiver said when he was still alive, 'After three days I will arise.' Therefore, command to guard the tomb until the third day, lest his disciples should come and steal Him away in the night and say to the people that he has risen from the grave, and the last deception be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have guards; go guard it just as you know how." Then they went to guard the tomb; and together with the guards, they sealed that stone." Matthew 27:62-66
The above verses show that Jesus had openly taught that the major sign that He was the Messiah was that He would die and three days later rise again. Even more clearly, He said that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. This promise meant that 72 hours would pass from His death to His resurrection and that this would be the sign for the Jews that He was who He said He was (the Messiah). The Friday crucifixion with a resurrection before sunrise on Sunday morning totals approximately 36 hours. If we understood Jesus to mean that within three days and three nights He would rise again, then any period short of that would suffice. But He taught that after three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, then He would rise again. This logically would necessitate the crucifixion on a Wednesday, then the daylight and nighttime periods of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would be three days and three nights. We count from either His actual death shortly after 3 PM or from the time His body was laid in the tomb, shortly before the annual Sabbath began, although I believe we should count the 72 hours from the time the body was laid in the tomb.
You'll notice that the above text from Matthew 27 recorded that the chief priests met with Pilate the next morning after the crucifixion to get permission to post a guard and seal the tomb. The Bible records that this was the day after the day of preparation. This day of preparation is the 14th of Abib/Nisan, when the homes were scoured for any leavened bread within the house and a preparation of food was readied for the Passover meal, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42]. Therefore, the grave of Jesus was not sealed until the morning of the 15th of Abib/Nisan, on the annual Sabbath. In the text from John 19:31, we learn that the body of Jesus needed to be removed from the cross because the Sabbath was about to begin and that Sabbath was a high day or annual Sabbath. This is consistent with the other verses which teach that the day of preparation was the day that Jesus died. Now we only need to determine whether the annual Sabbath and weekly Sabbath fell on the same day, which would lead us to the conclusion that Jesus died on a Friday afternoon, shortly after 3 PM as commonly taught. If not, then He died on another day of the week.
But the Jews (Judeans), because it was the day of preparation (evening of the Sabbath), they were saying, "These bodies should not pass the night on their crosses, because the Sabbath say is approaching, for that Sabbath was a high day (an annual Sabbath)." And they asked Pilate to break the legs of those who had been crucified, and they would be taken away (die quickly). John 19:31
And Nicodemus came also, who had come before to Yeshua (Jesus) by night; and he brought with him spices of myrrh and aloes for Yeshua (Jesus), about a hundred pounds. And they took away the body of Yeshua (Jesus) and wrapped it with linen and with spices, just as is the burial custom of the Jews (Judeans). John 19:39-40
And Joseph (Yosef) took the body and wrapped it in a sheet of pure linen; and he placed it in his own new tomb, which was cut in stone. Then they rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb; and they departed. And Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) were there, sitting opposite the tomb (grave). Matthew 27:59-61
And Joseph (Yosef) bought linen, took Him down (from the cross), wrapped Him, and placed Him in a tomb that was hewn out in rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. And Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and Miryam (Mary) the mother of Joses saw where He had been laid. Mark 15:46-47
And it was the Preparation Day (the eve of the High Sabbath), and the Sabbath was about to begin. Now these women who had come with Him out of Galilee were approaching; and they saw the tomb and how His body had been laid. And they returned and prepared sweet spices and ointments. Then on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. Luke 23:54-56
In totality, the above verses together give us the complete picture of what happened after Jesus' death, how His body was prepared for burial, and who observed this process. It is extremely important to notice that none of the above texts alone gives the complete story, and that you have to read all together to get the whole story. Joseph took Jesus' body after receiving permission from Pilate, bought a linen sheet, and bound the body with Nicodemus' assistance. Nicodemus had brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, which they bound with the body. The tomb was near where Jesus was crucified, and belonged to Joseph who had carved this tomb out of rock. It was a new tomb that had never before been used. Also, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses accompanied the body from the cross and watched the entire process of burial. When Jesus' body was laid in the tomb, then Joseph, assisted by Nicodemus, rolled a large stone in front of the tomb opening and left. Finally, the two Mary's left and prepared spices and perfumes, before resting on the Sabbath. Up to this point, we have no evidence that the annual Sabbath and weekly Sabbath did not fall on the same day as traditionally taught.
The next collection of verses will explore the role of the women in preparing spices and perfumes with which they intended to anoint the body of Jesus.
And they returned and prepared sweet spices and ointments. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week at early dawn while it was dark they came to the tomb; they brought the sweet spices, these they had prepared. And there were with them other women. And they found that the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Luke 23:56, 24:1-2
But at evening in the Sabbath that was beginning the first day in the week, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) came that they might see the tomb. And behold there was a great earthquake; for the angel of MarYah (YHVH=Yahweh) descended from heaven and he came and rolled away the stone from the entrance; and he sat upon it. But his appearance was like lightning; and his clothing was white as snow. And from the dread of him, those who were keeping watch were shaken and they became like dead men. Matthew 28:1-4
And when the Sabbath was over, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and Miryam (Mary) mother of Yaqov (James) and Salom (Salome) bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint Him. But in the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb when the sun arose. And they were saying among themselves, "But who will roll away the stone for us from the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large. Mark 16:1-4
Now in the first of the week, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) came to the tomb in the very early morning while it was still dark. And she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. And she ran and she came to Shimon Kaypha (Simon Peter) and to that other disciple whom Yeshua (Jesus) had loved, and she said to them, "They have taken away our Lord from the tomb, and I don't know where they have laid Him." John 20:1-2
You may have to reread the above verses to notice that the women who had watched Jesus' body being laid in the tomb, prepared perfumes/ointments and spices. The Mark 16 text says that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary bought spices AFTER the Sabbath and prepared them. While the Luke 23 text states that the women prepared spices and then rested on the Sabbath. This is consistent with an annual Sabbath on Thursday, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. We know that these are the same women because the Bible verses all relate that Mary Magdalene was involved in all these events. However, two other Mary's are mentioned, one the mother of James and Salome, and the other the mother of Joses. In all cases, Mary Magdalene was involved. Therefore, the women saw Jesus' body being laid in the tomb on a Wednesday afternoon, they rested on the annual Sabbath on Thursday, and bought spices on Friday. They prepared the spices on Friday and then rested according to the commandment on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. After the weekly Sabbath, they intended to anoint Jesus' body with the perfumes and spices. Therefore both intuitively and by evidence, we have proven that Passover was on a Wednesday, and that Jesus did as He had said, which was to rise again after three days and three nights. What remains to determine, is whether Jesus rose as the weekly Sabbath was ending or at sunrise on Sunday?
You'll notice through a comparison of the four gospels that Mary Magdalene and the disciples went to the tomb a number of times. In some it was still dark, and in some it was already light. It wasn't until it was light on Sunday that they actually discovered that He had risen, in the first visits the tomb was empty. The above text in John 20, tells us of the first visit by Mary Magdalene when it was dark, the tomb was empty, and she had not been told that Jesus was risen, and only saw the stone rolled away. I will leave it to the reader to compare the applicable verses in the four gospels to reconstruct the various visits to the tomb. However, there is one verse which seems to tell us that Jesus rose on the first day of the week.
Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. Mark 16:9
(Peshitta Aramaic NT) But at the beginning/dawning of the first of the week, He had risen and appeared first to Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) from whom He had cast out seven demons. Mark 16:9
The above text would seem to conclusively prove that Jesus rose early in the evening on the first day of the week, what we would call Saturday night. Some commentators have speculated that verses 9-20 of this chapter were later added since they weren't in any of the early manuscripts. Whether or not that is true, the reader ought to know that the meaning of a verse may be altered by the addition of a comma or a deletion. The original text did not have these punctuation marks in the Greek text, so they were added later. If a comma is added after risen, the verse takes on an entirely different meaning. Now after He had risen, early on the first day of the week He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. This change is not altering scripture since it was not written with punctuation marks. This makes the verse consistent with all the four gospels, where Mary Magdalene visited the grave, shortly after the Sabbath ended, and saw the empty grave with the stone rolled away, but did not see an angel or see Jesus. It was later, when the sun had risen on Sunday morning that she came with Mary the mother of James and Salome back to the tomb, saw an angel who told her that he had risen, and then saw Jesus. One can imagine that Mary asked Mary Magdalene, "Who would roll away the stone?" as they approached the tomb, since Mary Magdalene had not mentioned that she had been there earlier and saw the empty grave. Then she went and told the disciples that she saw the angel and saw Jesus. What any reader should realize is that the Holy Spirit gave us the four gospels with fragments of the story in each, and it takes a study of all together, to arrive at the complete picture. The following verse clearly shows us that Mary Magdalene came to the grave as the weekly Sabbath was ending.
Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. Matthew 28:1 (NASB)
Bishop Papias was an early church bishop in Syria and he wrote that the book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, and then translated into Greek by the apostles. Irenaeus and Clement also mentioned seeing the original Aramaic of the book of Matthew. We have some precedence and evidence that at least some of the new testament books were first written in Aramaic, and translated by the apostles into Greek, and Matthew is one of them. I say all of this because the Peshitta Aramaic of Matthew 28:1 in Aramaic is much clearer than the Greek.
(smoother English from the Peshitta Aramaic NT) But in the evening, in the Sabbath, when the first of the week was beginning/dawning, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) came to see the tomb.
It is obvious that "at/in the Sabbath" where the beginning of the first of the week was near, that it is making the point that it was at twilight that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb. The twilight period belongs half to the day ending and half to the next day beginning. The verse drives home the point that this was Saturday evening, but that the twilight period still belonged to the Sabbath (i.e. within 1/2 hour after sundown). There were no streetlights then, and no flashlights, so if the full moon had not yet risen, then when it got dark, it got really dark, really fast. The 2 Mary's had just enough time to look around and leave. No one can read the Peshitta Aramaic of Matthew 28:1 and mistake it for any other understanding than that the Mary's arrived at the tomb at twilight on Saturday evening and the stone had already been rolled away.
Note: some people try and make a trivial argument that the word "nagah" literally means beginning of daylight and cannot mean metaphorically the twilight. They are mistaken. Why? because Matthew 28:1 says it was still in the Sabbath and the Sabbath ended 1/2 hour after sundown. The context is clear that "nagah" is being used metaphorically for the beginning of the first day of the week.
Why didn't the 2 Mary's try to anoint the body of Jesus on Friday, since they had prepared the spices and perfumes on Friday before the weekly Sabbath began? It is because in Matthew 27:62-66, Pilate had given the Roman order to have the grave sealed on Thursday morning, and they had put the Roman seal on it and posted guards until the 3 days were complete. Therefore, if the 2 Marys had tried to annoint the body on Friday, they would have broken the law and been arrested. They waited until after the 3 days, so as to avoid arrest. The apostles were all in hiding at the time, fearing possibly their own arrest, so it fell to the 2 Mary's to annoint the body.
The fact is that the Last Supper celebrated with the bread and wine by Jesus and the disciples took place on the evening of the fourth day of the week (we would say Tuesday evening) and was not the Passover seder meal. Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday and was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights. He rose from the dead late on the Sabbath. Finally, He revealed Himself to Mary Magdalene and the disciples on the first day of the week, shortly after sunrise. Of course this means that we have a Palm Saturday and not a Palm Sunday. It also means that Jesus performed the sign He said He would, and that Sunday being the Lord's day is a fabrication of the bishop of Rome. Bishop Sixtus instituted this teaching at Rome shortly after the death of the Apostle John, and later Bishops of Rome perpetuated the error he brought into the church. In due time, even the keeping of the Passover remembrance on the evening 24hours after the Last Supper was outlawed with excommunication.
One will also note that the lamb for Passover was selected on the 10th of Abib/Nisan, and this did not occur as traditionally taught, but on the weekly Sabbath prior to the Passover. As the Lamb of God, Jesus was selected as the acceptable lamb for slaughter following the triumphal entry, when the chief priests met to determine His death on the Sabbath. He was laid in the tomb as the annual Sabbath was beginning, when the Passover seder meal was eaten. On the following weekly Sabbath, as it was ending, Jesus rose from the dead. This is consistent with His teaching where He said He was Lord of the Sabbath.
There have been many noted believers in a Wednesday crucifixion, from the time of the early church until now. These include Epiphanus, Victorinus of Petau in 307 AD, Lactantius, Wescott, Cassiodorus, and Gregory of Tours. Later, Finis Dake and R.A. Torrey also believed in a Wednesday crucifixion. We now know that the Bible teaches a Wednesday crucifixion, so the reader now must face the facts of the Bible as compared to the traditions of men. At the same time, I say that this does not determine salvation, for I know that there will be millions who have believed the Friday crucifixion hoax and I will see them in heaven one day. Also, a superficial reading of the gospels does tend to lead one to the conclusion of a Friday crucifixion, when read separately, so one cannot blame the majority of believers for this false belief.
The learned reader might say that the Passover as kept today cannot fall on a Wednesday, in the Jewish calendar. That is the case today, but then neither does Firstfruits (wave offering) or the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) occur on the first day of the week in the Jewish calendar. The reason is a matter of history. There was a controversy between the Phariseean and Sadduceean way of keeping these important feast days. At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were the high priests and kept the days according to our present Christian understanding from the Torah. For example, the Sadducees believed that Firstfruits always fell on the first day of the week, which meant that Pentecost also fell on the first day of the week. While the Pharisees believed that Firstfruits fell on the 16th of Abib/Nisan, the day after the annual Sabbath, leading to Pentecost on various days of the week. At the time of Jesus, the Sadduceean keeping of the feasts was in effect, but after the dispersion, the more numerous and stricter Pharisees perpetuated their understanding of Judaism. They were the ancestors of modern day Orthodox Jews and are the keepers of the calendar today. Their rules have supplanted the days as kept in the time of Jesus, even though these are minor rule changes. Please feel free to comment on this article by e-mail.
Good Friday is a myth II
Jesus (Yeshua) was Crucified
on a Wednesday Afternoon (part 2)
http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Prophecy/3dayspt2.html
By Roy A. Reinhold
As a result of receiving many e-mails concerning the article, The Friday Crucifixion Hoax, Jesus Died on a Wednesday, I've decided to add this part 2, to point out the explanation for ALL individual verses that readers have raised. There is not one verse that disproves the Wednesday afternoon crucifixion of Jesus. While that's a strong statement, you be the judge.
First, let's review the scenario proven in part 1. The Last Supper was held on a Tuesday evening (24-hours before the Passover seder meal). On Wednesday the 14th of Nisan/Abib, Jesus was crucified, and died late in the afternoon. Joseph of Arimathea received permission from Pilate and took down the body of Jesus from the cross, probably with Nicodemus' help. The scriptural record states that Joseph and Nicodemus worked together. Nicodemus had brought about 100 lbs. of myrrh and aloes. They wrapped the body in a sheet (shroud) and bound it with the myrrh and aloes. It was already getting dark, so they had to hurry, because the annual Sabbath was beginning, the first day of Unleavened Bread on the 15th of Nisan/Abib, which was a Thursday. Watching all this a short distance away were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses. Joseph had a new garden tomb that had never been used nearby. They laid the body of Jesus in the tomb and rolled the stone over the entrance to the tomb. The next morning the Jewish leaders met with Pilate and received permission to seal and guard the tomb, so that his disciples couldn't steal the body and say Jesus had risen from the dead. They sealed the tomb and posted guards (on Thursday). The women including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joses, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices on Friday and prepared them. They bought spices on the day after a Sabbath (the annual Sabbath), and after preparing them on Friday, rested on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. As the weekly Sabbath was ending late on Saturday afternoon, Mary Magdalene and one of the other Marys' came to the tomb to anoint the body. Since it was already almost dark, or was dark, all they saw was that the stone had been rolled away and no body was there.
Summary: Jesus died on Wednesday afternoon and was laid in the grave as the annual Sabbath was beginning. He was in the grave Wednesday night, Thursday day, Thursday night, Friday day, Friday night, and Saturday day. Therefore, He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights. He was resurrected late on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. Therefore, He rose on the third day. Also, it was after 3 days and 3 nights. Those are the incontrovertible facts from the scriptural record.
I'd like to face the most troublesome verse first (Luke 24:21), that of the two men walking to Emmaus on Sunday, who were later joined by a stranger who explained all the scriptures to them. We know they were walking on Sunday, the first day of the week, because it is clearly stated so in Luke 24:1, where the sequence of events started. Here are 3 translations of Luke 24:21:
(KJV) But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.
(NKJV) But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.
(NASB) But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
Yes, the walk to Emmaus was on Sunday, but it is a misunderstanding and mistranslation that Sunday was the third day since the crucifixion. Instead of writing down the verse in Greek, which most of you don't know, I decided that I ought to use what others have shown concerning this verse (Luke 24:21), which will have greater weight with you.
The Greek word for "since" after "the third day" in Luke 24:21 actually means "away from". Away from is the same as our "after". Yeshua died late on a Wednesday afternoon and was laid in the grave at sundown on Wednesday as Thursday was beginning. He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights on Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Friday night and Thursday day, Friday day, and Saturday day using our reckoning of days and nights. He rose as the Sabbath was ending. So He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights and rose after 3 days and 3 nights while the Sabbath was ending. So He rose on the third day. Sunday is therefore the 4th day. The actual literal Greek translation of Luke 24:21 is:
But surely also together with all these things, it brings a third day away from which all these things occurred.
Translators take the cumbersome literal translation and make it flow , taking some liberty with it, but trying to retain accuracy. The 4th day is "away from" the third day. So it is apparent that the verse is literally saying they were walking and talking after the third day, which was Sunday. However, have other translators understood this point too? Yes, let's look at 3 of them. (Luke 24:21)
Moffatt Translation--by James Moffatt
....but he is dead, and that is three days ago!
The New Berkeley Version in Modern English-- Gerrit Verkugl
Moreover, three days have already passed, since all these events occurred.
The Syriac New Testament Translated Into English From The Peshitto Version -- James Murdock
...and lo, three days have passed since all these things have occurred.
The Syriac Reading can be confirmed by 2 of the oldest manuscripts in Estrangelo Aramaic: the Sinaitic Palimpset and the Curetonian Syriac.
There is exceedingly ample evidence that the correct translation for Luke 24:21 is that the KJV should read, "today is after the third day since these things were done." As the information above shows, the oldest and multiple original manuscripts show that "away from" is the correct word for since, and shows us that they were talking about Sunday being the 4th day since Yeshua was laid in the grave. That troubled them, because He has clearly said many times that He would rise on the third day, after 3 days and 3 nights. He would fulfill the sign of Jonah, as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the great fish, so Yeshua would be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. These two disciples were challenged in their faith, because it appeared that Jesus' many prophecies concerning His being raised from the dead had failed. They were going back to Emmaus in defeat, when a stranger joined them. This stranger explained to them all the prophecies concerning the Messiah from the Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament). They did not recognize that it was Jesus, the risen Messiah talking to them. Only when they sat down to eat and He blessed the bread and gave it to them, were their eyes opened and they recognized Him as Jesus. He then instantly disappeared from them.
The next set of verses raised by readers all say the exact same, that He would rise on the third day. The answer is that He did rise from the dead on the third day, late on Saturday afternoon. First a verse that tells us that He rose as the Sabbath was ending on Saturday afternoon.
Matthew 28:1 (KJV) In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
Matthew 28:1 (NASB) Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
The dawning of a new day in the biblical and Jewish day reckoning is at twilight as it is getting dark, not first light in the morning. The Sabbath ended at sundown, and the two Marys came to look at the gravesite after the Sabbath ended. Jesus had already risen. Therefore, the Bible teaches He rose on the third day, on the Sabbath, regardless of what your tradition or any later creed states. Now let's show all the verses where Jesus said He would rise on the third day, or those afterwards that state He did rise on the third day.
Matthew 16:21 (KJV) From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Matthew 17:23 (KJV) And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
Matthew 20:19 (KJV) And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.
Matthew 27:64 (KJV) Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.
Mark 9:31 (KJV) For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.
Mark 10:34 (KJV) And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.
Luke 9:22 (KJV) Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.
Luke 13:32 (KJV) And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.
Luke 18:33 (KJV) And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
Luke 24:7 (KJV) Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
Luke 24:46 (KJV) And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
Acts 10:40 (KJV) Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly;
1 Corinthians 15:4 (KJV) And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
All of the above verses state a prediction that He would be raised on the third day, or that some feared it coming true, or afterwards stated that it had come true. [Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; 27:64; Mark 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 13:32; 18:33; 24:7; 24:46; Acts 10:40; and 1 Corinthians 15:4]. The scriptural facts show that Jesus rose from the grave late on the Sabbath, late on Saturday afternoon. This was 3 days and 3 nights AFTER He had been crucified, and it was also the third day. The first day being Thursday; the second day being Friday; and the third day being Saturday. Somehow we modern people have trouble juggling the concept of the biblical day running from evening to evening, with that of the civil day from midnight to midnight.
Actually, Luke 13:32 above is often translated differently, where instead of the word "perfected", they translate it as "reach my goal." The verse thens tells the story of Jesus saying that He would cast out devils and heal the sick for the next two days, and then reach Jerusalem on the third day. That's what happened, and in context, the KJV translation is less satisfactory.
There are yet a few other verses that apply to the Wednesday crucifixion, so let me show them for you so that you don't have to search for them and send them in an e-mail. :-)
Matthew 24:63 (KJV) Saying, Sir, we remember that the deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days, I will rise again.
Matthew 26:61 ..able to destroy this temple of God, and build it in three days. (after 3 days).
Mark 8:31 ....and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Mark 14:58 ...and in three days I will build another made without hands.
Mark 15:58 ....to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.
John 2:19-21 ...and in three days I will raise it up.
All these verses are answered the same way. Jesus did rise from the grave on the third day, late on the Sabbath. He did rise after three days; Thursday, Friday, then Saturday. It was 3 full days and 3 full nights AFTER He died. There are NO verses that cannot be reconciled to the Wednesday afternoon crucifixion. The verse Yeshua so often referred to from Jonah, was where Jonah was in the great fish 3 days and 3 nights.
Jonah 1:17 (KJV) Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40 (KJV) For as Jonas was three days and three night's in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40 (NASB) For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Pastors are also fond of using allegories and allusions to teach a concept or doctrine, and perhaps Luke 2:46 ought to be a direct allusion to the 12-year old Yeshua (Jesus) being found AFTER 3 days.
Luke 2:46 (NASB) And it came about after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking questions.
Why should this story be a direct allusion to be used by pastors to teach the resurrection? Note that in Luke 2:41, that the feast they went to was the Passover. So Yeshua disappearing for 3 days was a direct showing of what would later occur in His life. And it was done at the same feast, and He did appear to His disciples who were to be the teachers. He had disappeared for 3 days and 3 nights from His parents as a 12-year old, and was found AFTER 3 days. In the same way, when crucified, disappeared for 3 days and 3 nights through death, and was hidden from friends, family, apostles, and numerous disciples, and then revealed to them after 3 days.
What does this all mean?
We've discussed every verse that touches on the subject. There is no problem and no verse that disproves the Wednesday crucifixion. Rather, they all work together to corroberate the whole scenario. I am 100% sure that Yeshua (Jesus) died on a Wednesday afternoon as the scriptures teach. Whether you have the courage to accept that and turn from believing in an erroneous scenario (Friday crucifixion) is up to you. It is hard to buck the crowd and much easier to just go along. Whether anyone else believes that is up to them. I cannot force people to believe God (through the written Bible).
Why is this all so important. The truth will win out, and the scriptures promised that all would be restored before His return. Even though the church wrongly taught error in the Friday crucifixion for centuries, the evidence will win out. The word of God will not return void, and it is time we believe the truth and not man-made fables.
There are many well-known christians who are on television, and others who have written many books, who likewise don't believe the Friday crucifixion. Some haven't examined all the evidence in detail, and so guess that maybe it was on Thursday. However, others believe the Wednesday crucifixion. The point is that all of them are afraid or reluctant to teach it or bring it up openly. Why? Because they are afraid of losing a following, or losing donations, or losing book sales. It's OK with me, because why should a person make this knowledge a central point of contention in their life? People throughout the ages have wrongly believed in a Friday crucifixion and were genuinely saved. So I don't blame these well-known christian leaders for just avoiding the subject.
More important is the corollary, that this removes any basis for honoring Sunday. The sabbath is and has always been the 7th day. However, anyone can worship on Sunday and God our Father accepts them without reservation. Even the Roman Catholic church has written extensively that they created Sunday as the day of worship and that there is no scriptural basis for it, it is by tradition only. Their writings point out that since protestant churches follow their traditional teachings of honoring Sunday, then protestants are acknowledging that the Roman Catholic church has precedence and authority over them. There is no reason to honor Sunday, since Yeshua rose as the sabbath was ending, on the 7th day. The only point it brings up is the commandment, remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. That's why I bring up the sabbath and Sunday point.
Don't run to your pastor to prove the Wednesday crucifixion and the resurrection late on the sabbath. The fourth commandment is not church law, it is an individual's requirement. A person can keep the sabbath day and go to church on Sunday. After all, keeping the sabbath means to refrain from normal work, don't shop, spend time with your family, and spend time with God. What this knowledge will do is allow you to know the truth and answer non-christians who often see the error propagated by the institutional church. Knowing the truth should also motivate you to keep the sabbath day. Revelation 12:17 speaks highly of believers in the end-times, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.
Jesus Died on a Wednesday!!
http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Prophecy/3days3nights.html
by Roy A. Reinhold
I was quite blown away recently to hear Hal Lindsey state on his national radio program that he has come to believe that the scriptures show a Wednesday crucifixion. Perhaps you ought to examine the evidence and decide for yourself; be like the Bereans who were complimented in scriptures for examining the teaching of Paul in light of the scriptures to see if it was so. There is clear, concrete evidence in the scriptures for a Wednesday crucifixion; you be the judge.
3 DAYS AND 3 NIGHTS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH
One of the most common questions asked by new Christians is, "How could Jesus have been in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights if He died on a Friday afternoon and rose before sunrise on a Sunday?" Most Christians duck the question, since at most they can only come up with one day and two nights (Friday nighttime, Saturday daytime, and Saturday nighttime in our measure of days). If they add in the Friday daytime they get two periods of daytime, even though Jesus would have died in the late afternoon on a Friday. This late afternoon death is consistent with the Passover lamb being killed between the two evenings of Jewish teaching. The lamb was killed between 3 and 6 PM on the afternoon of the 14th of Abib/Nisan and prepared, because the 15th was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was an annual Sabbath observance (the first and last days of Unleavened Bread were annual Sabbaths in addition to the normal weekly Sabbaths). This search of the scriptures is important, not because it affects salvation, but because it answers the questions posed on whether Jesus kept His Word, and whether the Bible is true in this matter. A legitimate concern and question for all Christians!!
"On the fourteenth day of the first month--between the two evenings (at twilight)--is the Passover to Yahweh (YHVH). And on the fifteenth day of this month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh (YHVH); seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work. But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to Yahweh (YHVH). On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work." Leviticus 23:5-8
The above text confirms that the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are annual Sabbaths, to be observed as a day of rest in addition to the weekly Sabbaths. These days would occur on the 15th and 21st of Abib/Nisan. The Passover meal was an important religious observance in which to remember that the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their houses kept them alive when the angel of death passed by, and that God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The Passover is a perpetual observance to celebrate pasing from death to life. These ancient events foretold the blood of Jesus being spilled for our sins, and our passage from death to eternal life, by the everlasting covenant of the blood of Jesus. They also foretold that Jesus would die as the national Passover Lamb, exactly on the 14th of Abib/Nisan and that the day following was an annual Sabbath.
What follows is a close examination of the biblical record, in which Jesus was killed on the 14th of Nisan in the afternoon, and the next day was the annual Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We shall also see from the biblical record that this annual Sabbath did not fall on the weekly Sabbath, in the year that Jesus died.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matthew 12:38-40
But later on two came forward, and said, "This one (man) stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days." Matthew 26:60-61
Now on the next day, which is the one after the day of preparation (after the eve of the Sabbath), the Chief Priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate. And they said to him, "Sir, we recall that the deceiver said when he was still alive, 'After three days I will arise.' Therefore, command to guard the tomb until the third day, lest his disciples should come and steal Him away in the night and say to the people that he has risen from the grave, and the last deception be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have guards; go guard it just as you know how." Then they went to guard the tomb; and together with the guards, they sealed that stone." Matthew 27:62-66
The above verses show that Jesus had openly taught that the major sign that He was the Messiah was that He would die and three days later rise again. Even more clearly, He said that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. This promise meant that 72 hours would pass from His death to His resurrection and that this would be the sign for the Jews that He was who He said He was (the Messiah). The Friday crucifixion with a resurrection before sunrise on Sunday morning totals approximately 36 hours. If we understood Jesus to mean that within three days and three nights He would rise again, then any period short of that would suffice. But He taught that after three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, then He would rise again. This logically would necessitate the crucifixion on a Wednesday, then the daylight and nighttime periods of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would be three days and three nights. We count from either His actual death shortly after 3 PM or from the time His body was laid in the tomb, shortly before the annual Sabbath began, although I believe we should count the 72 hours from the time the body was laid in the tomb.
You'll notice that the above text from Matthew 27 recorded that the chief priests met with Pilate the next morning after the crucifixion to get permission to post a guard and seal the tomb. The Bible records that this was the day after the day of preparation. This day of preparation is the 14th of Abib/Nisan, when the homes were scoured for any leavened bread within the house and a preparation of food was readied for the Passover meal, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42]. Therefore, the grave of Jesus was not sealed until the morning of the 15th of Abib/Nisan, on the annual Sabbath. In the text from John 19:31, we learn that the body of Jesus needed to be removed from the cross because the Sabbath was about to begin and that Sabbath was a high day or annual Sabbath. This is consistent with the other verses which teach that the day of preparation was the day that Jesus died. Now we only need to determine whether the annual Sabbath and weekly Sabbath fell on the same day, which would lead us to the conclusion that Jesus died on a Friday afternoon, shortly after 3 PM as commonly taught. If not, then He died on another day of the week.
But the Jews (Judeans), because it was the day of preparation (evening of the Sabbath), they were saying, "These bodies should not pass the night on their crosses, because the Sabbath say is approaching, for that Sabbath was a high day (an annual Sabbath)." And they asked Pilate to break the legs of those who had been crucified, and they would be taken away (die quickly). John 19:31
And Nicodemus came also, who had come before to Yeshua (Jesus) by night; and he brought with him spices of myrrh and aloes for Yeshua (Jesus), about a hundred pounds. And they took away the body of Yeshua (Jesus) and wrapped it with linen and with spices, just as is the burial custom of the Jews (Judeans). John 19:39-40
And Joseph (Yosef) took the body and wrapped it in a sheet of pure linen; and he placed it in his own new tomb, which was cut in stone. Then they rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb; and they departed. And Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) were there, sitting opposite the tomb (grave). Matthew 27:59-61
And Joseph (Yosef) bought linen, took Him down (from the cross), wrapped Him, and placed Him in a tomb that was hewn out in rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. And Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and Miryam (Mary) the mother of Joses saw where He had been laid. Mark 15:46-47
And it was the Preparation Day (the eve of the High Sabbath), and the Sabbath was about to begin. Now these women who had come with Him out of Galilee were approaching; and they saw the tomb and how His body had been laid. And they returned and prepared sweet spices and ointments. Then on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. Luke 23:54-56
In totality, the above verses together give us the complete picture of what happened after Jesus' death, how His body was prepared for burial, and who observed this process. It is extremely important to notice that none of the above texts alone gives the complete story, and that you have to read all together to get the whole story. Joseph took Jesus' body after receiving permission from Pilate, bought a linen sheet, and bound the body with Nicodemus' assistance. Nicodemus had brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, which they bound with the body. The tomb was near where Jesus was crucified, and belonged to Joseph who had carved this tomb out of rock. It was a new tomb that had never before been used. Also, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses accompanied the body from the cross and watched the entire process of burial. When Jesus' body was laid in the tomb, then Joseph, assisted by Nicodemus, rolled a large stone in front of the tomb opening and left. Finally, the two Mary's left and prepared spices and perfumes, before resting on the Sabbath. Up to this point, we have no evidence that the annual Sabbath and weekly Sabbath did not fall on the same day as traditionally taught.
The next collection of verses will explore the role of the women in preparing spices and perfumes with which they intended to anoint the body of Jesus.
And they returned and prepared sweet spices and ointments. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week at early dawn while it was dark they came to the tomb; they brought the sweet spices, these they had prepared. And there were with them other women. And they found that the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Luke 23:56, 24:1-2
But at evening in the Sabbath that was beginning the first day in the week, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) came that they might see the tomb. And behold there was a great earthquake; for the angel of MarYah (YHVH=Yahweh) descended from heaven and he came and rolled away the stone from the entrance; and he sat upon it. But his appearance was like lightning; and his clothing was white as snow. And from the dread of him, those who were keeping watch were shaken and they became like dead men. Matthew 28:1-4
And when the Sabbath was over, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and Miryam (Mary) mother of Yaqov (James) and Salom (Salome) bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint Him. But in the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb when the sun arose. And they were saying among themselves, "But who will roll away the stone for us from the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large. Mark 16:1-4
Now in the first of the week, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) came to the tomb in the very early morning while it was still dark. And she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. And she ran and she came to Shimon Kaypha (Simon Peter) and to that other disciple whom Yeshua (Jesus) had loved, and she said to them, "They have taken away our Lord from the tomb, and I don't know where they have laid Him." John 20:1-2
You may have to reread the above verses to notice that the women who had watched Jesus' body being laid in the tomb, prepared perfumes/ointments and spices. The Mark 16 text says that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary bought spices AFTER the Sabbath and prepared them. While the Luke 23 text states that the women prepared spices and then rested on the Sabbath. This is consistent with an annual Sabbath on Thursday, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. We know that these are the same women because the Bible verses all relate that Mary Magdalene was involved in all these events. However, two other Mary's are mentioned, one the mother of James and Salome, and the other the mother of Joses. In all cases, Mary Magdalene was involved. Therefore, the women saw Jesus' body being laid in the tomb on a Wednesday afternoon, they rested on the annual Sabbath on Thursday, and bought spices on Friday. They prepared the spices on Friday and then rested according to the commandment on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. After the weekly Sabbath, they intended to anoint Jesus' body with the perfumes and spices. Therefore both intuitively and by evidence, we have proven that Passover was on a Wednesday, and that Jesus did as He had said, which was to rise again after three days and three nights. What remains to determine, is whether Jesus rose as the weekly Sabbath was ending or at sunrise on Sunday?
You'll notice through a comparison of the four gospels that Mary Magdalene and the disciples went to the tomb a number of times. In some it was still dark, and in some it was already light. It wasn't until it was light on Sunday that they actually discovered that He had risen, in the first visits the tomb was empty. The above text in John 20, tells us of the first visit by Mary Magdalene when it was dark, the tomb was empty, and she had not been told that Jesus was risen, and only saw the stone rolled away. I will leave it to the reader to compare the applicable verses in the four gospels to reconstruct the various visits to the tomb. However, there is one verse which seems to tell us that Jesus rose on the first day of the week.
Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. Mark 16:9
(Peshitta Aramaic NT) But at the beginning/dawning of the first of the week, He had risen and appeared first to Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) from whom He had cast out seven demons. Mark 16:9
The above text would seem to conclusively prove that Jesus rose early in the evening on the first day of the week, what we would call Saturday night. Some commentators have speculated that verses 9-20 of this chapter were later added since they weren't in any of the early manuscripts. Whether or not that is true, the reader ought to know that the meaning of a verse may be altered by the addition of a comma or a deletion. The original text did not have these punctuation marks in the Greek text, so they were added later. If a comma is added after risen, the verse takes on an entirely different meaning. Now after He had risen, early on the first day of the week He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. This change is not altering scripture since it was not written with punctuation marks. This makes the verse consistent with all the four gospels, where Mary Magdalene visited the grave, shortly after the Sabbath ended, and saw the empty grave with the stone rolled away, but did not see an angel or see Jesus. It was later, when the sun had risen on Sunday morning that she came with Mary the mother of James and Salome back to the tomb, saw an angel who told her that he had risen, and then saw Jesus. One can imagine that Mary asked Mary Magdalene, "Who would roll away the stone?" as they approached the tomb, since Mary Magdalene had not mentioned that she had been there earlier and saw the empty grave. Then she went and told the disciples that she saw the angel and saw Jesus. What any reader should realize is that the Holy Spirit gave us the four gospels with fragments of the story in each, and it takes a study of all together, to arrive at the complete picture. The following verse clearly shows us that Mary Magdalene came to the grave as the weekly Sabbath was ending.
Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. Matthew 28:1 (NASB)
Bishop Papias was an early church bishop in Syria and he wrote that the book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, and then translated into Greek by the apostles. Irenaeus and Clement also mentioned seeing the original Aramaic of the book of Matthew. We have some precedence and evidence that at least some of the new testament books were first written in Aramaic, and translated by the apostles into Greek, and Matthew is one of them. I say all of this because the Peshitta Aramaic of Matthew 28:1 in Aramaic is much clearer than the Greek.
(smoother English from the Peshitta Aramaic NT) But in the evening, in the Sabbath, when the first of the week was beginning/dawning, Miryam Magdalitha (Mary Magdalene) and the other Miryam (Mary) came to see the tomb.
It is obvious that "at/in the Sabbath" where the beginning of the first of the week was near, that it is making the point that it was at twilight that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb. The twilight period belongs half to the day ending and half to the next day beginning. The verse drives home the point that this was Saturday evening, but that the twilight period still belonged to the Sabbath (i.e. within 1/2 hour after sundown). There were no streetlights then, and no flashlights, so if the full moon had not yet risen, then when it got dark, it got really dark, really fast. The 2 Mary's had just enough time to look around and leave. No one can read the Peshitta Aramaic of Matthew 28:1 and mistake it for any other understanding than that the Mary's arrived at the tomb at twilight on Saturday evening and the stone had already been rolled away.
Note: some people try and make a trivial argument that the word "nagah" literally means beginning of daylight and cannot mean metaphorically the twilight. They are mistaken. Why? because Matthew 28:1 says it was still in the Sabbath and the Sabbath ended 1/2 hour after sundown. The context is clear that "nagah" is being used metaphorically for the beginning of the first day of the week.
Why didn't the 2 Mary's try to anoint the body of Jesus on Friday, since they had prepared the spices and perfumes on Friday before the weekly Sabbath began? It is because in Matthew 27:62-66, Pilate had given the Roman order to have the grave sealed on Thursday morning, and they had put the Roman seal on it and posted guards until the 3 days were complete. Therefore, if the 2 Marys had tried to annoint the body on Friday, they would have broken the law and been arrested. They waited until after the 3 days, so as to avoid arrest. The apostles were all in hiding at the time, fearing possibly their own arrest, so it fell to the 2 Mary's to annoint the body.
The fact is that the Last Supper celebrated with the bread and wine by Jesus and the disciples took place on the evening of the fourth day of the week (we would say Tuesday evening) and was not the Passover seder meal. Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday and was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights. He rose from the dead late on the Sabbath. Finally, He revealed Himself to Mary Magdalene and the disciples on the first day of the week, shortly after sunrise. Of course this means that we have a Palm Saturday and not a Palm Sunday. It also means that Jesus performed the sign He said He would, and that Sunday being the Lord's day is a fabrication of the bishop of Rome. Bishop Sixtus instituted this teaching at Rome shortly after the death of the Apostle John, and later Bishops of Rome perpetuated the error he brought into the church. In due time, even the keeping of the Passover remembrance on the evening 24hours after the Last Supper was outlawed with excommunication.
One will also note that the lamb for Passover was selected on the 10th of Abib/Nisan, and this did not occur as traditionally taught, but on the weekly Sabbath prior to the Passover. As the Lamb of God, Jesus was selected as the acceptable lamb for slaughter following the triumphal entry, when the chief priests met to determine His death on the Sabbath. He was laid in the tomb as the annual Sabbath was beginning, when the Passover seder meal was eaten. On the following weekly Sabbath, as it was ending, Jesus rose from the dead. This is consistent with His teaching where He said He was Lord of the Sabbath.
There have been many noted believers in a Wednesday crucifixion, from the time of the early church until now. These include Epiphanus, Victorinus of Petau in 307 AD, Lactantius, Wescott, Cassiodorus, and Gregory of Tours. Later, Finis Dake and R.A. Torrey also believed in a Wednesday crucifixion. We now know that the Bible teaches a Wednesday crucifixion, so the reader now must face the facts of the Bible as compared to the traditions of men. At the same time, I say that this does not determine salvation, for I know that there will be millions who have believed the Friday crucifixion hoax and I will see them in heaven one day. Also, a superficial reading of the gospels does tend to lead one to the conclusion of a Friday crucifixion, when read separately, so one cannot blame the majority of believers for this false belief.
The learned reader might say that the Passover as kept today cannot fall on a Wednesday, in the Jewish calendar. That is the case today, but then neither does Firstfruits (wave offering) or the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) occur on the first day of the week in the Jewish calendar. The reason is a matter of history. There was a controversy between the Phariseean and Sadduceean way of keeping these important feast days. At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were the high priests and kept the days according to our present Christian understanding from the Torah. For example, the Sadducees believed that Firstfruits always fell on the first day of the week, which meant that Pentecost also fell on the first day of the week. While the Pharisees believed that Firstfruits fell on the 16th of Abib/Nisan, the day after the annual Sabbath, leading to Pentecost on various days of the week. At the time of Jesus, the Sadduceean keeping of the feasts was in effect, but after the dispersion, the more numerous and stricter Pharisees perpetuated their understanding of Judaism. They were the ancestors of modern day Orthodox Jews and are the keepers of the calendar today. Their rules have supplanted the days as kept in the time of Jesus, even though these are minor rule changes. Please feel free to comment on this article by e-mail.
Good Friday is a myth II
Jesus (Yeshua) was Crucified
on a Wednesday Afternoon (part 2)
http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Prophecy/3dayspt2.html
By Roy A. Reinhold
As a result of receiving many e-mails concerning the article, The Friday Crucifixion Hoax, Jesus Died on a Wednesday, I've decided to add this part 2, to point out the explanation for ALL individual verses that readers have raised. There is not one verse that disproves the Wednesday afternoon crucifixion of Jesus. While that's a strong statement, you be the judge.
First, let's review the scenario proven in part 1. The Last Supper was held on a Tuesday evening (24-hours before the Passover seder meal). On Wednesday the 14th of Nisan/Abib, Jesus was crucified, and died late in the afternoon. Joseph of Arimathea received permission from Pilate and took down the body of Jesus from the cross, probably with Nicodemus' help. The scriptural record states that Joseph and Nicodemus worked together. Nicodemus had brought about 100 lbs. of myrrh and aloes. They wrapped the body in a sheet (shroud) and bound it with the myrrh and aloes. It was already getting dark, so they had to hurry, because the annual Sabbath was beginning, the first day of Unleavened Bread on the 15th of Nisan/Abib, which was a Thursday. Watching all this a short distance away were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses. Joseph had a new garden tomb that had never been used nearby. They laid the body of Jesus in the tomb and rolled the stone over the entrance to the tomb. The next morning the Jewish leaders met with Pilate and received permission to seal and guard the tomb, so that his disciples couldn't steal the body and say Jesus had risen from the dead. They sealed the tomb and posted guards (on Thursday). The women including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joses, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices on Friday and prepared them. They bought spices on the day after a Sabbath (the annual Sabbath), and after preparing them on Friday, rested on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. As the weekly Sabbath was ending late on Saturday afternoon, Mary Magdalene and one of the other Marys' came to the tomb to anoint the body. Since it was already almost dark, or was dark, all they saw was that the stone had been rolled away and no body was there.
Summary: Jesus died on Wednesday afternoon and was laid in the grave as the annual Sabbath was beginning. He was in the grave Wednesday night, Thursday day, Thursday night, Friday day, Friday night, and Saturday day. Therefore, He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights. He was resurrected late on the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. Therefore, He rose on the third day. Also, it was after 3 days and 3 nights. Those are the incontrovertible facts from the scriptural record.
I'd like to face the most troublesome verse first (Luke 24:21), that of the two men walking to Emmaus on Sunday, who were later joined by a stranger who explained all the scriptures to them. We know they were walking on Sunday, the first day of the week, because it is clearly stated so in Luke 24:1, where the sequence of events started. Here are 3 translations of Luke 24:21:
(KJV) But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.
(NKJV) But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.
(NASB) But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
Yes, the walk to Emmaus was on Sunday, but it is a misunderstanding and mistranslation that Sunday was the third day since the crucifixion. Instead of writing down the verse in Greek, which most of you don't know, I decided that I ought to use what others have shown concerning this verse (Luke 24:21), which will have greater weight with you.
The Greek word for "since" after "the third day" in Luke 24:21 actually means "away from". Away from is the same as our "after". Yeshua died late on a Wednesday afternoon and was laid in the grave at sundown on Wednesday as Thursday was beginning. He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights on Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Friday night and Thursday day, Friday day, and Saturday day using our reckoning of days and nights. He rose as the Sabbath was ending. So He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights and rose after 3 days and 3 nights while the Sabbath was ending. So He rose on the third day. Sunday is therefore the 4th day. The actual literal Greek translation of Luke 24:21 is:
But surely also together with all these things, it brings a third day away from which all these things occurred.
Translators take the cumbersome literal translation and make it flow , taking some liberty with it, but trying to retain accuracy. The 4th day is "away from" the third day. So it is apparent that the verse is literally saying they were walking and talking after the third day, which was Sunday. However, have other translators understood this point too? Yes, let's look at 3 of them. (Luke 24:21)
Moffatt Translation--by James Moffatt
....but he is dead, and that is three days ago!
The New Berkeley Version in Modern English-- Gerrit Verkugl
Moreover, three days have already passed, since all these events occurred.
The Syriac New Testament Translated Into English From The Peshitto Version -- James Murdock
...and lo, three days have passed since all these things have occurred.
The Syriac Reading can be confirmed by 2 of the oldest manuscripts in Estrangelo Aramaic: the Sinaitic Palimpset and the Curetonian Syriac.
There is exceedingly ample evidence that the correct translation for Luke 24:21 is that the KJV should read, "today is after the third day since these things were done." As the information above shows, the oldest and multiple original manuscripts show that "away from" is the correct word for since, and shows us that they were talking about Sunday being the 4th day since Yeshua was laid in the grave. That troubled them, because He has clearly said many times that He would rise on the third day, after 3 days and 3 nights. He would fulfill the sign of Jonah, as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the great fish, so Yeshua would be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. These two disciples were challenged in their faith, because it appeared that Jesus' many prophecies concerning His being raised from the dead had failed. They were going back to Emmaus in defeat, when a stranger joined them. This stranger explained to them all the prophecies concerning the Messiah from the Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament). They did not recognize that it was Jesus, the risen Messiah talking to them. Only when they sat down to eat and He blessed the bread and gave it to them, were their eyes opened and they recognized Him as Jesus. He then instantly disappeared from them.
The next set of verses raised by readers all say the exact same, that He would rise on the third day. The answer is that He did rise from the dead on the third day, late on Saturday afternoon. First a verse that tells us that He rose as the Sabbath was ending on Saturday afternoon.
Matthew 28:1 (KJV) In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
Matthew 28:1 (NASB) Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
The dawning of a new day in the biblical and Jewish day reckoning is at twilight as it is getting dark, not first light in the morning. The Sabbath ended at sundown, and the two Marys came to look at the gravesite after the Sabbath ended. Jesus had already risen. Therefore, the Bible teaches He rose on the third day, on the Sabbath, regardless of what your tradition or any later creed states. Now let's show all the verses where Jesus said He would rise on the third day, or those afterwards that state He did rise on the third day.
Matthew 16:21 (KJV) From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Matthew 17:23 (KJV) And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
Matthew 20:19 (KJV) And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.
Matthew 27:64 (KJV) Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.
Mark 9:31 (KJV) For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.
Mark 10:34 (KJV) And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.
Luke 9:22 (KJV) Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.
Luke 13:32 (KJV) And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.
Luke 18:33 (KJV) And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
Luke 24:7 (KJV) Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
Luke 24:46 (KJV) And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
Acts 10:40 (KJV) Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly;
1 Corinthians 15:4 (KJV) And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
All of the above verses state a prediction that He would be raised on the third day, or that some feared it coming true, or afterwards stated that it had come true. [Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; 27:64; Mark 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 13:32; 18:33; 24:7; 24:46; Acts 10:40; and 1 Corinthians 15:4]. The scriptural facts show that Jesus rose from the grave late on the Sabbath, late on Saturday afternoon. This was 3 days and 3 nights AFTER He had been crucified, and it was also the third day. The first day being Thursday; the second day being Friday; and the third day being Saturday. Somehow we modern people have trouble juggling the concept of the biblical day running from evening to evening, with that of the civil day from midnight to midnight.
Actually, Luke 13:32 above is often translated differently, where instead of the word "perfected", they translate it as "reach my goal." The verse thens tells the story of Jesus saying that He would cast out devils and heal the sick for the next two days, and then reach Jerusalem on the third day. That's what happened, and in context, the KJV translation is less satisfactory.
There are yet a few other verses that apply to the Wednesday crucifixion, so let me show them for you so that you don't have to search for them and send them in an e-mail. :-)
Matthew 24:63 (KJV) Saying, Sir, we remember that the deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days, I will rise again.
Matthew 26:61 ..able to destroy this temple of God, and build it in three days. (after 3 days).
Mark 8:31 ....and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Mark 14:58 ...and in three days I will build another made without hands.
Mark 15:58 ....to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.
John 2:19-21 ...and in three days I will raise it up.
All these verses are answered the same way. Jesus did rise from the grave on the third day, late on the Sabbath. He did rise after three days; Thursday, Friday, then Saturday. It was 3 full days and 3 full nights AFTER He died. There are NO verses that cannot be reconciled to the Wednesday afternoon crucifixion. The verse Yeshua so often referred to from Jonah, was where Jonah was in the great fish 3 days and 3 nights.
Jonah 1:17 (KJV) Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40 (KJV) For as Jonas was three days and three night's in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40 (NASB) For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Pastors are also fond of using allegories and allusions to teach a concept or doctrine, and perhaps Luke 2:46 ought to be a direct allusion to the 12-year old Yeshua (Jesus) being found AFTER 3 days.
Luke 2:46 (NASB) And it came about after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking questions.
Why should this story be a direct allusion to be used by pastors to teach the resurrection? Note that in Luke 2:41, that the feast they went to was the Passover. So Yeshua disappearing for 3 days was a direct showing of what would later occur in His life. And it was done at the same feast, and He did appear to His disciples who were to be the teachers. He had disappeared for 3 days and 3 nights from His parents as a 12-year old, and was found AFTER 3 days. In the same way, when crucified, disappeared for 3 days and 3 nights through death, and was hidden from friends, family, apostles, and numerous disciples, and then revealed to them after 3 days.
What does this all mean?
We've discussed every verse that touches on the subject. There is no problem and no verse that disproves the Wednesday crucifixion. Rather, they all work together to corroberate the whole scenario. I am 100% sure that Yeshua (Jesus) died on a Wednesday afternoon as the scriptures teach. Whether you have the courage to accept that and turn from believing in an erroneous scenario (Friday crucifixion) is up to you. It is hard to buck the crowd and much easier to just go along. Whether anyone else believes that is up to them. I cannot force people to believe God (through the written Bible).
Why is this all so important. The truth will win out, and the scriptures promised that all would be restored before His return. Even though the church wrongly taught error in the Friday crucifixion for centuries, the evidence will win out. The word of God will not return void, and it is time we believe the truth and not man-made fables.
There are many well-known christians who are on television, and others who have written many books, who likewise don't believe the Friday crucifixion. Some haven't examined all the evidence in detail, and so guess that maybe it was on Thursday. However, others believe the Wednesday crucifixion. The point is that all of them are afraid or reluctant to teach it or bring it up openly. Why? Because they are afraid of losing a following, or losing donations, or losing book sales. It's OK with me, because why should a person make this knowledge a central point of contention in their life? People throughout the ages have wrongly believed in a Friday crucifixion and were genuinely saved. So I don't blame these well-known christian leaders for just avoiding the subject.
More important is the corollary, that this removes any basis for honoring Sunday. The sabbath is and has always been the 7th day. However, anyone can worship on Sunday and God our Father accepts them without reservation. Even the Roman Catholic church has written extensively that they created Sunday as the day of worship and that there is no scriptural basis for it, it is by tradition only. Their writings point out that since protestant churches follow their traditional teachings of honoring Sunday, then protestants are acknowledging that the Roman Catholic church has precedence and authority over them. There is no reason to honor Sunday, since Yeshua rose as the sabbath was ending, on the 7th day. The only point it brings up is the commandment, remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. That's why I bring up the sabbath and Sunday point.
Don't run to your pastor to prove the Wednesday crucifixion and the resurrection late on the sabbath. The fourth commandment is not church law, it is an individual's requirement. A person can keep the sabbath day and go to church on Sunday. After all, keeping the sabbath means to refrain from normal work, don't shop, spend time with your family, and spend time with God. What this knowledge will do is allow you to know the truth and answer non-christians who often see the error propagated by the institutional church. Knowing the truth should also motivate you to keep the sabbath day. Revelation 12:17 speaks highly of believers in the end-times, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.
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