In preparation for their hasty flight from Egypt we have an illustration of Hebrew ethics on a racial scale by their own confession. They tell unblushingly of how they "spoiled the Egyptians"- in plain speech, they stole from them" jewels of gold and jewels of silver and fine raiment"Worse than all this-such wholesale thievery was at the command and under the immediate direction of the deity that they worshipped! Anyhow,they say that the Egyptians pursued them,not to recover the stolen property as one might suppose that they would,but to bring back the Israelites. But that is not all of this incredible narrative;for,as they tell it, the Red Sea in a most accommodating manner facilitated the escape of the thieves by opening up all the way across and allowing them to pass dryshod to the other side, then swallowing up Pharoah and his army..... A myth once canonized is a difficult thing to get rid of,for it takes moral courage to reject such chaff...

Sukkafreestudies: THE CURSE IN EDEN: This "curse" is a triple-plated...

Sukkafreestudies: THE CURSE IN EDEN: This "curse" is a triple-plated...: THE CURSE IN EDEN: This "curse" is a triple-plated damnation against the serpent,the woman and the man. It is worth the while ...

THE CURSE IN EDEN: This "curse" is a triple-plated damnation against the serpent,the woman and the man. It is worth the while to pause a moment to dissect it,curse by curse, as set out in Gen.3..THE SNAKE CURSE" Yahveh Elohim said unto the serpent;because thou hast done this,(1) thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field;(2) upon thy belly shalt thou go,and dust shall thou eat all the of thy life;(3) and I will put enmity between thee and the women,and between thy seed and her seed,(4) it shall bruise thy head,and thou shall bruise his heel.(Gen.3:14-15).Seen the serpent naturally goes around on its belly anyhow,one may wonder where is the point in cursing him to continue to "wriggle in and wriggle out"as usual;and as to eating dust for a steady diet,this must be a mistake,for snakes are not known to eat dust,but they are known to eat birds and rabbits,rats and other snakes. We shall consider the words"enmity between thee and the woman" and "thy seed" when we have noticed the other curses in their order..THE CURSE ON THE WOMAN: Unto the woman he said(1) I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;(2) in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;(3) and thy desire shall be unto thy husband,and he shall rule over thee.( Gen.3:16).Here the choleric Yahveh simply inflicts poor Eve in her own single person with the increased pangs in child-birth and a multiplications of sorrows,which would do no credit to any kind of loving God.Also,this curse on woman was evidently limited to Eve alone; and there is no justice or reason in claiming,as some expositors insist,that Yahveh cursed all women for the simple act of one woman,any more than he did all serpents.The whole curse against Eve was really pain and sorrow in giving life,not eternal damnation after death.THE CURSE ON MAN:Unto Adam he said,because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,and hast eaten of the tree,of which I commanded thee,saying,thou shalt not eat of it(1) cursed is the ground for thy sake;(2) in sorrow shalt thou eat (of) it all the days of thy life;(3) thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;(4) and thou shall it the herbs of the field;(5) in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,till thou return unto the ground;for out of it wast thou taken;for dust thou art,and unto dust shalt thou return,(Gen.3:17-19).This is every single solitary item of the fearful "curse on man", it is no curse upon Adam(man) at all,except the one item of having to work for an honest living; all the rest of the "curse" is upon the harmless and helpless earth. There is not one word in record of sin or death or damnation as a penalty against Adam himself, much less against his posterity and all humanity. So the "curse' is been to be quite innocuous; and I pledge my word of honor that there is not another word nor the remotest allusion in all the Hebrew Bible to the whole incident of the garden and the snake. The Old Testament is as silent as Sheol(the grave) about any pretended"original sin,curse or fall"and of eternal damnation on account of that or anything else..IS IT GOD'S WORD???

Sukkafreestudies: The Sacred Doctrine of Christianity:The creeds,say...

Sukkafreestudies: The Sacred Doctrine of Christianity:The creeds,say...: The Sacred Doctrine of Christianity:The creeds,says a poet,are in number some seventy-three Christian sects or denominations,each founde...

The Sacred Doctrine of Christianity:The creeds,says a poet,are in number some seventy-three Christian sects or denominations,each founded upon chosen texts,there are in fact a much greater number,some hundreds,each quite out of harmony with all the others. Each by its sectarian votaries is fondly held to be the sole inheritor of saving truth,and can point with pride to the inerrant texts where the legacy of truth is made to it alone. But every other sect disputes this reading,and with equal assurance and no less pride can point to yet other texts of the true Testament which nullify the pretensions of all the others and leaves itself the sole and universal heir to saving truth. For are not the Christian sects, seventy-three though be their conflicting creeds,one and all of them founded upon the"impregnable rock of the Holy Scripture."As Mr. Gladstone termed it,and the belief that this book is divinely inspired in its every word;that it is the "living Word of God,"the faithful revelation of his divine will to man? Outside the sacred tome itself, no higher authority can be invoked for the inerrant truth of Holy Writ and the utter unity of that truth than the recent(AD 1870) spirit-illumined declaration of the sacred Vatican Council:"These books are sacred and canonical because they contain revelation without error,and because,written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,they have God for their author."Yet we have in the foregoing pages seen great parts of this God-written book sadly lacking in inspiration and truth;and to explain or attenuate this,one might suspect that such parts of it may be excepted from the general rule of inspiration and inerrancy. But in this they err,to believe,the Holy Ghost speaking lately through Pope Leo 13:in his encyclical Provid.Deus, where this error is roundly refuted:"it will never be lawful to restrict inspiration merely to certain parts of the Holy Scripture,or to grant the sacred writers could have made a mistake. They render in exact language,with infallible truth,all that God commanded and nothing else;without that,God would not be the author of the Scripture in its entirety."...Is it Gods word?...

Sukkafreestudies: THE "BLESSED NAME" OF JESUS: It may be noted first...

Sukkafreestudies: THE "BLESSED NAME" OF JESUS: It may be noted first...: THE "BLESSED NAME" OF JESUS: It may be noted first,in passing,that the name of the "Christ",whether God or man,was n...

THE "BLESSED NAME" OF JESUS: It may be noted first,in passing,that the name of the "Christ",whether God or man,was not, to himself and his family and people, Jesus at all. His given name in Hebrew, or Aramaic, the language in which he spoke is Yehoshua[ plain Joshua]. The meaning of the name is "Yahveh is salvation", Jesus is the later Greek form of the name Joshua. The added title "Christ"is another Greek translation or substitute for the Hebrew Scriptural word" Messiah", which mean "anointed". John, if he wrote the gospel attributed to him, himself a Hebrew but writing in current Greek, correctly explains this when he tells of Andrew's coming to his brother Simon Peter and announcing: " We have found the Messiah, which being interpreted, the" Christ"[ John 1:41]. Both words, the Hebrew Mashiach and its Greek equivalent Christos, means simply," the anointed" The Galilean bearer of this name[ Hebrew, Joshua; Greek, Jesus],by this token cannot be the virgin-born subject of the "prophecy" of Isaiah, as claimed by Matthew; for Isaiah declares that his virgin, bearing a son," shall call his name Immanuel"[ Isa.7:14, quoted in Matt.1:23]; this name as Matthew explains in the same verse,"being interpreted is, God[ EL ] with us"[ Matt.1:23], whereas Joshua[ Jesus ] means as we have seen, " Yahveh is salvation" So the virgin-born Joshua or Jesus of Matthew cannot possibly be, all other proofs aside, be the same infant as the virgin-born Immanuel of Isaiah. It has already been fully proved that Isaiah's unfulfilled "prophecy" regarding his "sign" of the outcome of the war of the two kings against Jerusalem does not at all refer to the child of Mary, 750 years later. We need not dwell again here on this prophecy of miraculous birth, but proceed to some other compelling proofs of the persistent errancy and inconsistency of Matthew and his fellow propagandists of this Jesus as the Christ. The great national hero who should come to avenge the Chosen Children of Yahveh against the Assyrians and other oppressors is not once intimated in the Hebrew Scriptures to be anything other than a human being," of the seed of David"who as a king, should re-establish the throne of David on earth, as soften promised and proclaimed by Yahveh[ e.g. Isa..11:1;Luke. 1:32, Acts 2:30]. Never once is it hinted that Yahveh himself," Man of war"though he was, would come in person to accomplish the liberation and restoration of his Chosen People, after failing so signally to save them from destruction and captivity. Nor is there so much as an ambiguous or doubtful bit of revelation that Yahveh had a son by the name Joshua, whom he would send at some time in the future to fill the role of the promised hero, and neither re-establish the throne of David on earth or set up a new religion promising a Kingdom in heaven to the disappointed expectants of the renew earthly Kingdom of Israel...is it gods word...

Sukkafreestudies: " ADAM" MEANS ONLY " MAN"....The word "adam" as th...

Sukkafreestudies: " ADAM" MEANS ONLY " MAN"....The word "adam" as th...: " ADAM" MEANS ONLY " MAN"....The word "adam" as the proper name of a man is a deception of the theologian ...

" ADAM" MEANS ONLY " MAN"....The word "adam" as the proper name of a man is a deception of the theologian translators of Genesis. The original Hebrew text says, not "adam" as a proper name, but " ha-adam"the man, a common noun. We will notice some instances of this..In Genesis[ 1:26] occurs the first mention of man, the first use of Adam:" and Elohim[ gods] said, Let us make man[ Adam] in our image, and Elohim created ha-adam[ the man] in his image[ 1:27] male and female both together. In chapter 2:it is said in the translation that Yahveh formed the beasts of the field out of the ground[ Adamah ]" and brought them unto Adam"[ 2:19], and Adam gave names,,but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him[2:20]. But the Hebrew text mentions no "Adam"; it simply reads that Yahveh brought the animals "unto"ha-adam"[the man], and ha-adam[the man] gave names,etc. In Genesis [2:7] "Yahveh formed ha-adam out of the dust of ha-adamah[the ground]. And so throughout the Hebrew Bible "man" is "adam"[ not Adam], and ground is "adamah". Man is called in Hebrew "adam", because he was formed out of the"adamah" ground. It may be instanced that the prophet Ezekiel many times represent Yahveh as addressing him as "ben-adam"[son of man],,the identical term Jesus so often uses of himself long after. As the whole of the "sacred science of Christianity" is built and dependent upon the factual existence of a "first man" named Adam, the now attenuated ghost of this mythical Adam must be laid beyond the peradventure of resurrection. The texts of the Hebrew book will themselves effectively lay the ghost. In Hebrew adam is a common noun, used to signify man or mankind in a generic sense; the noun for an individual man is "ish"and so the sacred texts makes manifest." Elohim said:"Let us make adam"[1:26], and " Elohim created ha-adam, male and female[1:27]. In chapter 2:"and there was not adam to till the adamah"[2:5];" and Yahveh-Elohim formed ha-adam[the man] and ha-adam became a living soul[2:3], and Yahveh-Elohim placed in the garden"ha-adam" whom he had formed"[2:8] and Yahveh-Elohim took ha-adam[2:15], and commanded ha-adam[2:16];and said" it is not good for ha-adam to be alone"[2:18]; and made animals and brought them to ha-adam, and whatsoever ha-adam should call them"[2:19]; and ha-adam called names; but for ha-adam he did not find a help meet"[2:20]; and Yahveh-Elohim caused a deep sleep to come upon ha-adam[2:21], and from his rib made women, and he brought her unto ha-adam[2:22] and ha-adam said and called her women[ heb,ish] was she taken[2:23]"therefore shall a man[ish] leave his father and cleave unto his issahah[2:24] and they were both naked,ha-adam and his issahah[2:25]. Chapter 3:"and Yahveh-Elohim called unto ha-adam[3:9];and ha-adam said, ha-isshah whom thou gavest me[ 3:12];and Yahveh-Elohim said to ha-isshah, the longing shall be thy ish[ 1:26-5:3-5]. In these latter version adam is used indifferently without the artical, and the translators wrote it Adam as a proper name, but all the previous and subsequent usage shows it is the same common noun for mankind[ 6:1,6:7,9]. All  through the Hebrew Bible adam,ha-adam, is for generic man;[ish] for individual man; Adam is never a proper name, except in post-exilic genealogies of Chronicles....J.WHELESS...