Grailhunter's Classroom

[Grailhunter]

Hello I am Grailhunter, so says the sign on…LOL I will be conducting a lesson thread here that involves general information as well as addressing the false beliefs that have crept up in Christianity.

I will be addressing false beliefs first because in some ways they are more influential than the scriptures in that a person with a mind full of false beliefs cannot even read the scriptures and understand them because of the preconceived notions that are running around in their heads that act as overriding redirects back to the false beliefs. So I have to deal with false beliefs first before I can expect anyone to learn the truths of Christianity.

Most false beliefs are easy targets to identify because they are words and phrases that are not in the scriptures. And in fact most of the theological words and phrases that are not in the Bible are powerful false beliefs. The problem; These words and phrase are familiar and are near and dear to some. ….and to some….the most important part of Christianity. So unraveling these false beliefs can be shocking and painful to many.

I call my ministry the Johnny Appleseed of Truth. I am not a preacher….too much stress. I am a speaker and I fill in for Sunday school. I call my ministry the Johnny Appleseed of Truth. And that is how I do it….sharing the seeds of Christian truth. But I do it as Christ described…..seeds….
Matthew 13:1-9

My responsibility is to provide the truth so Christians at least have the opportunity to be shown the truth….that ends my responsibility. Unlike a preacher that is concerned with what people believe or if they believe him, I am not involved with that or concerned with that. The seeds do what they do and the acceptance of these truths are between the person(s) and God.

I have done the work and gave it to you for free….from there if Holy Spirit puts it in your heart to be interested you have all the information you need to go look it up yourselves.

If you do not believe me…..No harm no foul….If you do not check it out you simply miss your opportunity to know the Truth. I do not mind answering questions but I do not debate on this forum due to its restrictive rules so take the information and check it out….or don’t….not my concern. I will ignore any attempt to debate.

The first false belief I covered was the word Trinity. It is a pretty long essay and you can find it at….
https://christianforums.net/threads/how-to-defend-the-trinity.87711/page-43

Or go to Apologetics posts 663-667

 

[Grailhunter]

Fornication

This word is another prime example of why we should not make up words and stick them in the Bible, because they cause misunderstandings and false beliefs that can span over a thousand years. The word fornication is not in the scriptures nor is its definition.

This stems indirectly from the Greek word porneia which mostly pertains to prostitutes. Which was not a negative term in the Greco-Roman culture. But the Christian religion thought differently. The New Testament was written mostly in Greek, a Pagan Language. When the Apostles were writing the New Testament they were tasked with using a Pagan language that did not reflect Christian morals. So the Christians adjusted the Greek words and definitions to convey their thoughts. There are variances to the Greek word porneia that define various sexual activities…. all of which are in the scriptures and all of which Christianity considers sinful.

The false beliefs associated with the word fornication started a long long time ago. If you noticed there was no wedding ceremony or vows in Eden. And then you can read the rest of the Bible and find no requirement for wedding ceremonies or vows. Yep! That is right the Bible does not state a requirement for a wedding ceremony to be married in the Old or New Testament. People formed marriages as God described… For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 Neither the Old or New Testament state a requirement for wedding ceremonies. It was about1500 years after the biblical period that Christianity developed a requirement for weddings ceremonies and vows, and that is a fact. You think; What about the Wedding in Cana? Actually the words wed or wedding do not appear anywhere in the scriptures. The event in Cana was called a marriage. More on this in the “History of Marriage.”

Christianity has lumped a lot of Greek words for sinful sexual activities into the word Fornication as seen in some definitions of the word below, but again the word does not appear in any scripture.
Some examples:
noun
πορνεία
prostitution, whoring, harlotry, whoredom,

συνουσία
fornication, coition, intercourse, copulation

From the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
illicit sexual intercourse adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc. sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. Sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; Mk. 10:11-12 The worship of idols of the defilement of idolatry, as incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols etc

But Fornication is not a translational error it is man-made word that made its way into the 16th and 17th century translations of the Bible, but still this word did not originate in these Bibles. When the Greek text was translated into the Latin Vulgate, (circa 404 AD) the word pornia and its variants were translated to the Latin word fornicatio. Then translated into the English word fornication and was used in the original Tyndale, Geneva, and King James Version of the Bible.

Like I said, part of the problem was that the New Testament was an attempt to write Christian moral standards using a Pagan language…ie the Greek language that did not have words that reflected Christian standards. The Greeks - Romans did not have the same moral standards that Christians had. For example; If you told a Roman solider that he sinned, it meant that his arrow missed the target….no moral implication. So the Christians writers were taking Greek words and adjusting them to have moral definitions. Why?

Well in this case, in the Greco-Roman culture various sexual activities were not considered immoral. It did not matter if it was temple prostitutes or orgies. Married Roman men were free to have sex with who they wanted…female or male. By Christian standards this was a disgusting arrangement. In the Roman culture adultery was not a sin, rather it was illegal to have sex with someone else’s wife. So Christian writers were tasked with conveying sexual morality to a culture that was without sexual morals and their language reflected the absence of words to describe sexual immorality. Now was all this confusing to the translators of the scriptures, it is a matter of debate.

Like I said, Porneia in the Greek society is mostly a reference to prostitution which was not wrong in their culture. For example pornography, is an ancient Greek word that means writings or paintings of prostitutes and many Roman homes had murals of sex acts and or prostitutes on their walls.

But in the actual scriptures the Greek word Porneia and its variances appear several times. In all cases the Christian writers were using them to point out some form of sexual immorality.
Examples:
πορνείας·… porneias … Sexual immorality
πορνείᾳ … porneiai … Sexual immorality in the plural
πορνεῦσαι … To commit sexual immorality involving sexual acts
πορνείαν … Idolatry involving sexual acts
πόρνος … A person that practices sexual immorality
πόρνοι … Refering to as a group of the sexually immoral
πορνεῖαι … inflectional, more or less dirty thoughts

Appearing in these scriptures….
Matthew 5:32, 5:19, Mark 7:21, John 8:4, Acts 15:20, 5:29, 21:25, Romans 1:29* 1st Corinthians 5:1, 5:9, 5:10, 6:13, 6:18, 7:2, 10:8, 2nd Corinthians 12:21, Galatians 5:19, Ephesians 5:3, Colossians 3:5, 1st Thessalonians 4:3, Jude 1:7, Revelation 2:14, 2:14, 2:20, 2:21, 9:21, 14:8, 17:2, 17:4, 18:3, 18:19, 19:2

But in no case does sexual immorality simply apply to two unmarried people having sex, for a very good reason. The New Testament does not have a lot to say about romantic love. But to say that Porneia-fornication, is sex outside of wedlock would be inaccurate, since the Bible has no requirements for wedding ceremonies or vows. For most of history marriages were formed by the union alone. In other words when a coupled joined this consummated the marriage. So in fact for most history…two unmarried people would have sex to be married.

The evolution of the word Fornicate or Fornication
Fornicate comes from a Latin root word fornix, which means arch or vaulted ceiling. In Ancient Rome, it was known that prostitutes would wait for their customers out of the hot sun or rain in areas that had cover… vaulted ceilings. The Latin word fornix became a euphemism for brothels and the Latin verb fornicare referred to a man visiting a brothel. Meaning a man being serviced by prostitutes.

So then St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the scriptures used a variant of that….fornicatio and lumped all the Greek variances of porneia under that word.

The first recorded use of the word fornicate in English is in the 14th century, in a poem called the Cursor Mundi.

The first English Bibles to use the word fornication was the Bishop’s Bible---Church of England 1568, the Catholic Bible called the Douay-Rheims Bible (early 1600’s) and then the Protestant Bibles followed suite examples; the Tyndale Bible Geneva Bible and the King James Version of the Bible, 16th and 17th centuries respectively.

So the bottom line, marriages in the Bible were formed by the physical act of joining. This is a biblical and historical fact. Even if the Hebrew families held a marriage celebration, there was no Hebrew word for wed or wedding nor any biblically stated requirement for ceremonies or vows....just the Bridal Chamber where the couple consummated their marriage. Modern Jews still use a symbolic bridal chamber that is more of a canopy.

The fact that it is the union that forms a marriage still exists in civil laws. In most states and countries a couple that does not have sex after the wedding ceremony (consummate) can get their marriage annulled.

Fornication is a well known case study in how man-made terms and phrases that are false can have a powerful and detrimental affect on not only the meaning of the scriptures and perceptions but also the understanding of history itself. The word fornication is one of the reasons why a lot of Christians believe that wedding ceremonies were required in the Old and New Testament. As well as justify the condemnation of couples that have lived together for years.

For example; a man and a woman fall in love and have sex and then from there on remain together, from the biblical perceptive, they are married. But Christians, believing various false beliefs can condemn them because of what they think Fornication means…two people that have not had a wedding ceremony having sex and living together, ergo the term shacking up.

 

[Grailhunter]

Continued Fornication

Then people believing that they are “living in sin” may make the couple feel unwelcome in church and could turn them away from Christianity. Which are the only sins that occurred here. The sin of gossip, the sin of falsely accusing people of a sin, and the sin of turning them away Christianity. And then calling their children bastards.

Had a preacher tell me once that the normal attraction that couples in love feel for each other is lust and so all marriages are formed by lust. Of course he was wrong but this actually is a long standing false belief. Strangely enough there was a time when the Church believed that the desire a husband and wife had for each other was a sin. In affect contradicting God because He described the process that is correct…. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. God designed men and women to be attracted to each other and form marriages and families. No sin occurs in the process that God designed.

There was also the belief that the “apple” in Eden was symbolic of sin, so the fall of mankind was linked to women and sex. So then according to Augustine (circa 354-430 AD) the sex act being designated as sinful would mean that the sin of Adam and Eve would be passed on to babies, calling it Original Sin. Which is another manmade term that does not appear in the Bible, but has been taught to Christians. Original Sin is another false belief. This produced the belief that babies can go to hell. And was the driving force for infant baptizing.

It is better explained that Adam and Eve and their offspring promulgated the nature of man to be sinful. Mankind took after Adam and Eve’s character but it was not sex that caused it, no more than a son having his father’s nose. It is not because sex is evil that caused the son’s nose…rather a trait of his parent.

Of course adultery and casual sex is a sin, ie one night stands and or whore mongering, prostitution, etc which are sins that are mostly defined in the Bible and in general are defined in modern translations as sexual immorality.

 

[Grailhunter]

The History of Marriages

I call my ministry the Johnny Appleseed of Truth….So truth is the focus and exposing false beliefs is my top priority….And this is one of many false beliefs that are popular….so lets get it straight….

Martin Luther was a Catholic that was out to reform the Catholic Church. And marriage was on that list of items to correct the Catholic Church on. He preached sermons praising marriage beginning in 1519 and several years later wrote his first formal treatise attacking the value of vows of celibacy and arguing that marriage was the best Christian life. In the process he fell in love with a Nun and eventually married her….Katharina von Bora

Marten Luther “The Estate of Marriage” 1522….
How I dread preaching on the estate of marriage! I am reluctant to do it because I am afraid if I once get really involved in the subject it will make a lot of work for me and for others. The shameful confusion wrought by the accursed papal law has occasioned so much distress, and the lax authority of both the spiritual and the temporal swords has given rise to so many dreadful abuses and false situations, that I would much prefer neither to look into the matter nor to hear of it. But timidity is no help in an emergency; I must proceed. I must try to instruct poor bewildered consciences, and take up the matter boldly.

This is pretty long so here is the link
https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/Reformations441/LutherMarriage.htm

Now for many this will be a little shocking….for one he does not mention wedding ceremonies put he talks about polygamy saying.. "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture.”

The first requirement for Christian wedding ceremonies to be married occurs in the mid 1500’s. His “Estate of Marriage” was written in 1522 so that is why he does not mention weddings. Shortly after the Protestants made wedding ceremonies a requirement and shortly after the Catholic Church made wedding ceremonies a requirement but of course they only recognized weddings conducted by Catholic priests.

The first documentation for the model of Christian weddings and vows was by Thomas Cranmer in his Book of Common Prayer. 1549

So how did Christians get married before this? To start with lets take it back to the Bible.

You can read the Bible from cover to cover and you will not find a requirement for a wedding ceremony in the Bible….Old or New Testament.

The Jews had a process that involved payment for the bride but no ceremony required or described. The bride price or bride dowry was part of the Jewish customs where women were property. Property of father and then the perspective husband. The process started usually between the fathers where they agreed on a bride price….sometimes between the father and husband. Either way the father was expected to deliver a virgin daughter….if not, according to the Mosaic Law she could be killed and her body left at the father’s doorstep. The significance of the virginity of the bride continued on to modern times.

The father’s control over who and when his daughter married continued on until the Catholic Church forbid it in the 13th century, but the custom of paying a bride price continued on in Christianity until well into 19th century. Particularly in the upper class, history records such arrangements between Kingdoms particularly when marriages involved wealth, land, and power. Of course outside of Christianity the practice continues.

After the bride price was paid the father handed his daughter over to the man…then the marriage was consummated in the bridal chamber…if there was one….and it actually was as the name implys. No vows or wedding ceremonies required. But in some cases there was a marriage contract and some families celebrated the event.

So why doesn’t the Bible require a wedding ceremony? Probably because wedding ceremonies, one way or another come from Pagan customs and cultures.

So when Christ was talking about Weddings, Wedding Feast, Wedding garments, wedding guests, the ten virgins with lamps etc….where did this come from?
You will not find any of it in the Old Testament. In between the testaments, when the Jews were under the rule of the Persians they developed their own wedding ceremonies and receptions…feasts. Scholars believe it was because the Jews admired Persian weddings and celebrations. The Jewish weddings had an Old Testament theme and it is pretty well represented by Modern Jewish weddings, except the bridal chamber is replaced by a canopy called the Chuppah.

But after Alexander the Great conquered Persia the Greeks and then the Romans persecuted the Jews, killing and crucifying tens of thousands of them, the Jews felt that their misfortunes were due to them embracing Pagan customs so they distanced themselves from Pagan customs…that included wedding ceremonies.

During Christ’s time Jewish weddings mostly fell out of favor because of the Pagan connections with Persia. Then during the Middle Ages Jewish weddings became popular again.

Well what about the wedding at Cana? The Bible does not tell us if it was a Jewish wedding or a Pagan wedding….The Bible does not tell us who the bridegroom or bride was. All we know was that Christ and Christ’s mother was there and wine was so important that Christ performed a miracle at his mother’s request to turn water into superb wine. So it is not too far fetched to believe it was a Jewish wedding.

So how did Christians get married back in the day? They married just like they did in the Old Testament….they took a wife, the union being the consummation of the marriage. The father still chose when and who his daughter married and there could still be a bride price and they could have a celebration. Did the fathers always pick their daughter’s husbands and receive a bride price? Probably not and it probably it did not always occur in the Old Testament.

No weddings! The Jewish-Christians probably did not have many. The Gentile-Christians probably did, we just do not have any documentation of it. Gentile Christians were Pagans that had converted to Christianity, they converted their religious beliefs but they did not abandon their various regional customs and traditions and seasonal holidays. Weddings were popular with Pagan cultures. Still no requirement for weddings but it is very likely that Christian weddings were conducted by Gentile Christians. But still the first documented Christian wedding does not occur until the 9th century.

Like I said in the mid1500’s the Protestants made it a requirement to have a church wedding ceremony. And like I said, soon after the Catholics followed suite. But just to be clear, again Christians and Catholics had wedding ceremonies all along….just not required or well documented. The funny? Up to the 1500’s Catholics did not allow weddings inside church buildings. But then after the 1500’s they required all weddings to be inside a Catholic church and then at the Council of Trent in 1563 the Catholic Church made marriage a sacrament.

So what are some of the ramifications of all of this?….It means….That the common belief that two single people having sex is a sin….is false. It is not a sin as long as they remain together.

Which means…men and women should only have sex with one person in their lifetime….and when they do, it formed a marriage.

Which means that….people that have casual sex are committing adultery, because they were married the first time they had sex.

Which means that….today people do not have to have a wedding ceremony to be married.

Which means that….common terms like shacking up or living in sin are false accusations of sin….Weddings are a Christian custom.

On the other hand….if you are a Catholic or a Protestant church member, you are required by the church to have a wedding, and if you do not, you are in violation of the church, but not the Bible.

Should unmarried couples be allowed in the church? Yes. The hope being that Christian association will convince them to have a wedding. But if that church has a requirement for couples to have a wedding ceremony they should not be members of the church until they have a wedding.

Personally I believe in the requirement to have a wedding….the bigger and the fancier the better.

What about the Pagan connection that wedding ceremonies have. It is a fact that modern Christian weddings and receptions have Pagan customs imbedded in them. Things like the bridal wedding veil, the train on the dress, the vows, the tiered cake, the bride and groom cutting the cake together, saving a piece of the cake, throwing rice, bells, cans tied behind the car etc. I think the custom carrying the bride across the threshold is Jewish. The bedroom representing the bridal chamber.

When Christ chose to offer salvation to the Pagans….some Pagan customs came with them. The Bible did not make restrictions on this and this was right and not surprising. But then again as time went on the Pagan customs were Christianized.

 

[Grailhunter]

The Christian Greek

I have touched on this topic before but I am not sure if people understood it. And there is enough information about it to fill a book so I am only going to be able to give you some basic facts and if you are interested in it you will have to take it and look into it yourself.

The surviving examples that we have of the New Testament shows that it was mostly written in Koiné Greek. There were other languages like Aramaic and Hebrew but only minimally so for the purposes of this essay I am focusing on the Koiné Greek.

Christians that want to get into a deeper study of the Bible may get into a word study-a word analysis. They usually look the word up in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance or a Lexicon or the internet, and for most words this will lead to accurate information. But there are topics that these sources will not give you accurate information and could even lead to a false understanding or a false belief. Why?

It was initially caused by differences in morality, between the Christians and the Pagans—Greco-Romans. I have spoken about the challenge the Apostles had with writing the New Testament in Koiné Greek because it was a Pagan language that did not have words that expressed Christian morals. This is no surprise! No reason to expect a Pagan language or society or culture to have Christian morals.

So the Apostles had to improvise and at times the early translators would just insert more modern words. It is pretty involved and that is why I simply call it Christian Greek….let me give you an example…The topic being Hell and Hades, I have a full essay on this so I will try to keep it brief with short absolute statements that will be explained in detail in the essay on Hell and Hades.

The fiery place of eternal punishment is a New Testament thing.
God never threatened the Israelites with a fiery place of eternal punishment and Satan does not show up in the OT as a demon. For that reason the Jews did not believe in a Hell or a devil and still do not believe in them today. So if you have a Bible that has the words Hades or Hell in the OT….you need to get another Bible because it is wrong.

In the Bible the fiery place of eternal punishment does not show up until the NT. The problem is that the Koiné Greek did not have a word for a fiery place of eternal punishment so Christ would either use an example like Gehenna which was a fiery trash dump or He and the Apostles would use the word Hades and some translators would insert the word Hell which did not exist for another 7 centuries after the biblical era.

Hades was actually mythological Greek god that reigned over an underworld prison of sorts which was nowhere near as bad as the fiery place of punishment, but that was the closest Greek word that they had so they used it.

Here is another example…
A Roman named Romulus Packumus LOL tells his friend that he is going to get a prostitute for the evening and asks if he should get a temple prostitute or one down at the squire way? His friend says that the ones down on squire are more expensive, better looking, and more enthusiastic. So Romulus goes down and has a prostitute. And then he goes home where he has murals on the walls and maybe the floors of prostitutes and people having sex…which was common in Roman homes. Now keeping in mind that the Romans have no concept of sin as wrong doing…to them the word sin means their arrow missed the target….no religious connection. So what he did was completely legal and more than socially acceptable whether he was married or not…it was normal. So what did the Christians do with this?

First the word sin…the Koiné Greek word Hamartia derives from the Greek verb hamartanein, meaning "to miss the mark" The Christians change the context and definition of this Greek word and incorporated it into the “Christian Greek” redefining the Greek word for sin as wrong doing and a transgression against God.

The Greek word for Prostitute πουτάνα, means the same in the Greek as it does in English, but Prostitution was acceptable in the Roman culture and considered a norm. The Christians changed the context of this word and redefined it as a sin. And if he was married the same goes for adultery, except adultery was a legal issue in Roman law.

Now there are different types of sexual sins that are actually listed individually in the scriptures….
πορνείας·… porneias … General sexual acts
πορνείᾳ … Porneiai … Sexual acts in the plural
πορνεῦσαι … Sexual activities.
πορνείαν … Sexual activity connected to a Greek god or temple.
πόρνος … A sexual person, male or female
πόρνοι … Referring to a group having sex…orgy?
πορνεῖαι … Sexual thoughts

These are all normal in the Roman culture but then the Apostles did not change the words they changed the context of these words and defined them as sexual sins. And incorporated them into the “Christian Greek.”

Then in modern Bibles these words are mostly lumped into the phrase “sexual immorality” In older Bibles like the Geneva Bible and the King James Bible these words are lumped into the word fornication. Fornication is not a Greek word nor is it a biblical word, it comes from the Latin.

Fornication was coined in the Latin around the 4th century and it is based on a connection to prostitution. This word makes its way into the older Bibles with an additional meaning….two single people having sex being defined as a sin. Lumping all the Greek words together reduces the accuracy of the scriptures but defining two single people having sex as a sin skews the reality of the time period, a lot of it.

Since the beginning of the biblical record and even recorded histiory, two single people having sex formed a marriage. There is no biblical requirement for a wedding ceremony. It was the Protestants in the mid 1500’s that first required a wedding ceremony to be married and the Catholic Church soon followed suite. But still religiously and legally the union forms the marriage, because you can have a wedding put if you do not have sex, you can get the marriage annulled. The union forms the marriage.

The definition of fornication… The consensus of modern dictionaries states that fornication is consensual sexual intercourse between people who aren't married to one another.
So the definition of fornication is saying that everybody in history sinned when they formed a marriage, because they were single when they had sex to form a marriage. Some modern definitions define fornication as casual sex, which would be more accurate but still it was not necessary to put a non-biblical word in Bibles. But still it has become part of Christian terminologies – the Christian language. Just as other non-biblical theological words and phrases that cause inaccuracies and false beliefs. I have a essay on fornication and will get into that later.

But back to the point of the Christian Greek, you can see that the Christians were taking Greek words and redefining them. They really did not have much of a choice….but as it is in modern times if you look up a Greek word you are going to get the Christian Greek definition for it, like it is a matter of fact. Christian Greek has created it own placebo history and resource references.

And there were other words that were redefined to the Christian Greek. Jesus is another word that came about in the 17th century. No one knows where it came from and it translates to nothing in Koiné Greek, but yet if you look it up nearly all sources will tell you it was translated from the Greek word Ἰησοῦς – Iésous, this is false. Iésous is not a name it is a Greek word that means healer and it can not be translated from Yeshua or to Jesus. Keep in mind that there are no J’s in the scriptures….Yahweh, Yeshua, Yob, Yacob, Yericho etc. besides, do you think no one knew Christ’s name until the 17th century??!!

Again we have a Christian language that permeates the resource material to the point that for the “average Christian” it can be confusing and hard to find the truth. You ask a simple question about biblical Greek and you get a Christian Greek explanation for it like it is actually Koiné Greek.

Between this language shuffle and theological literary style of the biblical time period where any one Apostle would speak to either extreme of a topic it can make it confusing….ever notice that when people debate on this forum they can throw seeming opposing scriptures at one another that came from the same Apostle….no wonder we have so many denominations!

Like I said it is a complicated topic and it takes a lot of study to get a handle on it. But just keep an eye out for it because you will run into it. And as always keeping things in perspective something as simple as the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance is more than 95% accurate. You just need to ask yourself is there a reason to expect that this Christian word or term or even this Christian morality to be in the Greek language.

 

[Grailhunter]

Hell and Hades

So you do not get the wrong impression from the git-go….there is a Hell
….but…As Paul Harvey would say, Stay tuned for the rest of the story!

Hell and Hades….are not mentioned in the Old Testament for a very good reason. If you have a Bible with these words in the Old Testament….buy another Bible or make corrections

The word Hell does not appear in the Old or New Testament, because the word did not exist in the any of the biblical periods. The word Hell is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word hellia, which in time moved into the Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, hel, helle, circa. 725 AD.

Nothing like Hell is described in the Old Testament and then of course God never threatened the Hebrews/ Israelites / Jews with a spiritual destination of punishment. So the Jews in the Old Testament did not know of or believe in a Hell….and as it is, modern Jews do not believe in a Hell or a devil today. Knowledge of a place of punishment does not come about until the knowledge of the devil comes about…that is the New Testament. Satan is mentioned in the Old Testament but his role in the storyline is not defined. So that is why the Jews do not believe in a devil.

Hades --- translated from a Greek word --- cannot appear in the Old Testament because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, long before the Greek language existed, so a Greek word is not going to appear in a Hebrew text. So what is Hades? It is a little complex and I am sorry about that. The Apostles were tasked with writing the New Testament in Greek (mostly) and it was a Pagan language, from a Pagan culture and society. So it is no surprise that it did not include Christian terms and meanings. So the Apostles had to take Greek words of close definitions and adjust them by the context of how they were used in the Scriptures. Definitions on the fly! LOL (See Christian Greek) But as it was the Jewish language nor the Greek language had a word for a spiritual place of eternal fiery torment. So Christ and the Apostles had to improvise.

Christ used the illustration of Gehenna in the Valley of Hinnom…the burning trash dump….to describe Hell and He also referenced the fire and eternal torment at different times. The Apostles used the Greek word ᾅδης translated Hades in English…and I am bypassing the Latin because it does not matter…that was translated into more modern (725 AD) languages as Hell. But actually in the Greek language ᾅδης or Hades in the English… is the name of a Greco-Roman god….that presided over a realm called Hades that was not as much a place of torture but more of an underworld prison. It was the closest Greek word the Apostles could come up with to represent a place of eternal punishment.

Gehenna, the Aramaic name for a section of the Valley of Hinnom was a Roman trash dump that the Romans kept on fire intentionally for sanitation purposes ….and so as it was it was used as an analogy of Hell.

Shoal is an entirely different topic. In the beliefs of the Hebrew/ Israelite / Jewish people Shoal is not well defined or even consistent. For the most part they believe everyone goes there. For the Old Testament Jews Shoal was the final destination for everybody, good or bad. Since Yahweh did not promise them Heaven or threaten them with “Hell” Christians more or less just dropped the belief in Shoal….but there is no biblical reason to believe it no longer exists or is not a possible destination. I will address the whole conscience thing later.

But back to the question, Why was Gehenna changed to Hell? Gehenna was never actually a place of eternal punishment, it was an analogy or an illustration of an eternal fiery place of punishment. So a more correct understanding was probably needed when the languages could support it.

As I have said, the word Hell is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word hellia, derived from the Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, hel, helle, circa. 725 AD.
So the word Hell and its description becomes available in various languages.
725 AD….before Bibles like the Tyndale Bible, or the Geneva Bible, or the King James Bible are translated….in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In between this time you have the era of Shakespeare and the poets that impacted the Bibles as well as general Christian concepts of Hell.

Most Christian imagery of Hell as in the details comes from….The Divine Comedy an Italian narrative poem by Dante Aligieri, begun circa 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature.

and

Paradise Lost an epic poem by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verses. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books It is considered to be Milton's master piece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time.

Although they took some literary privileges, the word Hell and the biblical descriptions filled the need for having an accurate definition and imagery to understand the concept. So when the Bibles were translated the words Hell or Hades were inserted into the scriptures with these Bibles. The concept was always there….Christ and the Apostles were referring to an eternal fiery place of punishment….they just did not have a good word for it in the languages they had available in the biblical era.

 

[Grailhunter]

********************The History of God’s Name*********************

My ministry is about confronting false beliefs and understandings….but the Truth can be shocking.

Some of the Paleo-Hebrew scriptures contained God’s written name. At that time, very few copies existed and most were kept in the Temple and were only read my priests. At some point “someone or some group” apparently decided that even the priests should not see or read the true name of God, so they removed it. There are no historical names associated with these modifications. The reason for it and who did it is a matter of speculation. The best explanation I have heard was from a professor at Cambridge college and she said that at times, more peaceful times, young Israelite men were required to memorize the Torah, so they removed God’s name so that it would not be uttered casually. True or not I think it is at least a good guess because they followed through in the New Testament to hide Christ’s name. But that does not explain the sequence of events that totally erased any personnel identifier of Yahweh from the scriptures…

So it appears that God the Father’s name was pulled from the scriptures during the copying process and replaced by what is called the Tetragrammaton -- YHWH, written as יהוה in the Hebrew scriptures. The oldest inscription found of the Tetragrammaton is around 840 BC. From there, it slowly made its way into other copies over the following centuries. The ancient copy and distribution process was a very slow process with many differing copies existing at the same time, meaning copies with God’s name and copies with the Tetragrammaton existed at the same time.

The Tetragrammaton was used to represent His name. This is a personal identifier, probably one designed to help the high priests remember how to pronounce His name correctly when it was appropriate. Yahweh intended for His name to be pronounced in reverence. He never told His people not to pronounce His name, just not in vain. It would be an insult to God for His name never to be spoken or written, and then forgotten. And then that is what happened, His people erased His name from the scriptures and then lost it from memory…..for a long time.

Many scholars believe that it probably sounded like e-Yahweh, the Hebrew Y having an “e” tang to it. The Hebrew alphabet does not include most of the vowels, as they say…A, E, I, O, U. but not that simple because there are vowel sounds in the language. So if you take the A and E out of Yahweh you have YHWH, it is that simple….Right? No…The most proper name for God is pronounced with and O and a V… Eh-ho-va….Yehovah…. again the e-tang…written יְהֹוָה They found written evidence of this in 2017. But I just use Yahweh because more people recognize it and avoids using God’s name casually.

But the Tetragrammaton YHWH was not carried over to the Septuagint that was commonly used. The excuse given for the removal of Tetragrammaton; That it was too holy to appear in the holy scriptures. (I recommend that you do not buy that explanation!) Certainly God was not offended by His own name and the Tetragrammaton that they replaced it with was a literary symbol or abbreviation of God’s name and it posed no offence. But still “they” decided to remove that too. Removing God’s name from the Old Testament scriptures was evil! The people of the time period never knew this was done. When the Jewish priests read the scriptures in the temple they never said God’s name out loud anyway, so they would always say LORD or GOD. Then today the Jews even have issues with the word God….writing it as G-d. That is hilarious! So the people never knew that the scriptures were being changed. So after the alteration, God’s name was not there to pronounce anymore. In effect, not only was his name removed but He was given a generic designator….God.

Today, when you read the Old Testament, and you see the word “LORD” or the word “God” you are reading a substitute word for God’s name or even the Tetragrammaton. As it is the Tetragrammaton absorbed several names for God the Father in the Old Testament, including the names that started with “El” like Elohim and also El, El is a more casual name for Yahweh. As far as the phrase “Lord God” sometimes this is not only a substitution, it is also a rearrangement of the words and an alteration to their meanings. In the phrase “Lord God” the word Lord is the title and God is the person, making Yahweh’s name God is a huge modification of meaning. In the actual scriptures it was either YHWH your God, YHWH, or “Lord YHWH” or “God YHWH.” Where God was the title and YHWH was the person, like President George Washington. Replacing the phrase Lord YHWH with the words “LORD God” caused many people to think that God was Yahweh’s name, not a title or a description. Which does not workout, not only for accuracy but also functionally. The Hebrew word can only be used to describe a position because the word has multiple meanings that designate positions in three references. The Hebrew word used for a false god, Yahweh, or the goddess are the same Hebrew word and the Hebrew language does not have upper and lower case letters. For this reason the scriptures did not refer to Yahweh with the single word God because it could refer to other gods. Just like the bumper sticker “IN GOD WE TRUST” if a Hindu owns the car…which God? The Hebrew word for God denotes a position not a particular person. How many ways did this cause confusion?

The changes that were made were sweeping as well as the problems and confusion that it caused. For example, to remove God’s actual name from the Old Testament was a huge modification, in the process they had to remove, substitute, add, and modify, and sometimes change the meanings of the words, as well as rearrange the words, particularly if the word God was already there. For example, if the scripture read God YHWH, they would rearrange the phrase and insert the word LORD. So in our Bibles it reads LORD GOD. If only the name YHWH was there they would remove His name and put the word GOD or LORD there. The Septuagint was in Greek so they used either KURIOS OR THEOS or both, by the time they were done, they had removed God’s name 6828 times and when you count each step of the modifications (which I consider sacrilegious) 1. The removal of God’s name. 2. Insertions of a substitute word. 3. The possible rearrangement words. You are looking at over 14,000 possible individual alterations to the Old Testament scriptures.

When translated to the English Bibles KURIOS THEOS appeared as LORD GOD. So at this point God the Father’s name is long gone from the scriptures, Old and New Testament. Guess who would want God’s name removed from the scriptures? And as it is most Christians are oblivious to all these alterations to the scriptures.

This constituted no less than a massive degradation of the scriptures and it took considerable planning and effort. Again the explanation given; God’s name was too sacred to be in the Holy Bible. If you are not buying this and you think it is something that Satan would want....you are right! There was a reason that this was done and I will explain. And if God’s name was in the Old Testament 6828 times, do you think He wanted it in there?! And after that is it right for us to make any modifications to the scriptures that we want?

Why was so Satan concerned about this? It is all about power. The power of the True name of God and the energy and power that the pronunciations of His name possesses and its affect on us, and the world. A world filled with Bibles with God’s name in it…..but no more! God the Father’s name, never to be written or uttered again!
Well maybe! There is an effort to put Yahweh’s and Yeshua’s names back in the Holy Bible….they are called Sacred Name Bibles.

 

[Grailhunter]

The history of God's name continued...

Then when it was time for Rome to take the helm of the scriptures they embraced these changes because it helped validate their “own” definition of the Trinity. Once the God that had a name was removed from the scriptures and the meaning of the word God was changed from a title to a personal name, they could then manipulate the term “God” to define the one person God formula. Since there was no longer a name to identify a singular God, then God could be the name of all three Gods in Christianity, implying that the term “God” had always meant “three Gods in one.” Standard Christian doctrine defines “God” as three persons in “one God” and then defines God as “one” and then “one and only.” If God’s name, Yahweh, was there it would be more difficult to rationalize that the name Yahweh meant, Yahweh + Yeshua + the Holy Spirit. So with His name being God in the Old Testament and it appearing as God in the New Testament it made it much easier to perpetuate a false doctrine.

Since the three person God concept is not a working model in the Old Testament, or in other words, since God does not function as a trio in the OT….nor is He described as a trio…. nor does He describe Himself as a trio, or mention or communicate with the other two Gods in the Old Testament ....they needed away of working around the truth...so their term for Him had to be the same in the Old and New Testament “the one and only God.” Once the word God was defined as a person rather than a title, all the false doctrine promoters had to do was associate the word Trinity to the word God. The Church knew that God’s name had been removed but they were not about to put it back in there because the word “God” as a name worked much better for them when they were defining the God Yahweh, and the God Yeshua, and the God Holy Spirit as one. This way, regardless of what the scriptures said they could twist the truth. And as funny as it is a lot of Christians do not think this is a big deal! Since they believe God’s name is God it is still in there!! LOL

In the end the only thing the people had to work with was the word Jehovah, which showed up four times in some translations. It is a deception and a distracter. Jehovah is the product of the J slam….the word Jehovah did not did not exist during the Old Testament period. I address this with the explanation of the “J” slam where they changed all the Y’s to J’s

So now a days, some people think that God is His name. Kind of like having a hall of past presidents and under each picture, just the word “president” is inscribed…like they don’t have names….LOL… Voilà! 46 presidents in one president. In this modern age of green and our non-confrontational society, when they read the bumper sticker “In God We Trust” it never dawns on them, that it could mean any god from any religion. This all plays into Satan’s hands because he thinks he is a god too, so this politically correct generic phrase plays into his hands!

Ever watch a commercial and can’t figure out what the point of it was?
Well here is the point.
Yahweh is the name of God the Father.
Yahweh is the name of the only Israelite/Jewish God in the Old Testament.
The Jewish religion is about one God not three. Three Gods would be sacrilegious to them.
God is not the name of Yahweh. God is a Divine Position.
The belief in “one God” is the belief in Yahweh, not Yeshua and the Holy Spirit.
Yahweh wants His name written and pronounced in reverence.
It was wrong and possibly the work of the devil to take Yahweh’s name out of the Old and New Testament and substitute it with the words God or Lord.
Yahweh and Yeshua deserve to have their names in the Holy Bible.
Removing Their names skews the understanding and meaning of the scriptures.

Yahweh is the God of the Old Testament Israelites and here are the scriptures to prove it. The scriptures are clear on the point….one God and no other and He is alone.

"Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me." Isaiah 43:10

"Yahweh, He is God; there is no other besides Him." Deuteronomy 4:35

"Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!" Deuteronomy 6:4

"I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me" Isaiah 46:9

"You are great, O Lord God; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You" 2nd Samuel 7:22

"Yahweh, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other." Deuteronomy 4:39

"See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me" Deuteronomy 32:39

"There is no one like Yahweh our God." Exodus 8:10

"You are great, O Lord God; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You" 2nd Samuel 7:22

"For who is God, besides Yahweh? And who is a rock, besides our God?" 2nd Samuel 22:32

"Yahweh is God; there is no one else." 1 Kings 8:60

"You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth." 2 Kings 19:15

"O Lord, there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You" 1 Chronicles 17:20

"You alone are Yahweh." Nehemiah 9:6

"For who is God, but Yahweh? And who is a rock, except our God" Psalm 18:31

"You alone, Lord, are God." Isaiah 37:20

"'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me." Isaiah 44:6

"Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none." Isaiah 44:8

"I am Yahweh, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God." Isaiah 45:5

"Surely, God is with you, and there is none else, No other God." Isaiah 45:14

"I am Yahweh, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:18

The History of the True name of the Messiah

Buckle up and hang on to your hats!!!
Yeshua, Yoshua, Yob, Yacob, Yames, Yeremiah, Yericho, Jerusalem is Yerusalem pronounced Yerushalayim these are some of the words that have been modified by the J slam.

I am sure the history of God’s name was shocking…. Well, what comes next will be shocking information for even the most well versed Christians! Even though what happened to God’s name in the Old Testament was not initiated by the Christians, they did perpetuate it in their translations by continuing to use the designators of “God and Lord” with no concern for accuracy.

The understanding of God and Faith is based on the scriptures, so small errors can be devastating. A study of this topic will result in about a dozen explanations for it and there is no agreement on how, who, or when it all came to be, but the larger point is that there is power in the names of the Gods and that power residing in the sound of Their names. Satan knew this and this is why he had Yahweh’s name removed from the Old Testament scriptures. Likewise it was his plan to withhold Christ’s name from the New Testament. Withholding His name would reduce the power of the scriptures, but also he knew by removing the name of the Messiah, he could possibly stop Salvation! Because the scripture says that only one name could be called upon for Salvation (Acts 4:12) What if you do not know it?

As in the Old Testament, having Christ’s name in the scriptures would invoke a power and a presents on Earth that Satan did not want, so he had to make sure it did not appear in the Bible! As long as Satan could keep the names of the Gods out of the Holy Bible he could limit the power of the scriptures and have power over the translations of the Holy Bible as well as power and influence over the churches of God and what they preached. So either removing or changing their names was one of his primary objectives. How did he do this…did he convince religious leadership that only the most holy of Christians should know the names of the Gods. As far as the writers of the New Testament….the Apostles….they came from a culture that not writing God’s name was standard procedure. So how much did Satan have to influence them? Not sure.

 

[Grailhunter]

History of God's name continued...

To confuse matters even more, when it came time to translate the Holy Bible to English, he convinced them to make another sweeping change. Get rid of the evidence!....the J Slam! They changed the Y’s to J’s in the Old and New Testaments. (This required thousands of additional alterations.) This could not have happened before the 1400’s, because before that, the letter “J” nor its sound existed in any language and really was not in use until the 1600’s.

Some believe it was the popularity of William Shakespeare that influenced the J Slam…(not to be confused with the great vowel and consonant shifts) As well as the poetic language in the King James Version of the Bible. And even the name Jesus that seemed to appear out of nowhere around the same time period. It this true? The time period is right but the evidence is lacking.

Either way this is a unilateral event, because both the Protestants and the Catholics did it nearly at the same time. Conspiracy to deceive? I will leave that for you to decide. Me? I believe Satan had a hand in it. You have to understand, the Bible that you have, does not have the names of the Christian Gods in it! Why would the Holy Bible be written without the names of the Christian Gods in it!? Why!?

This event is not done arbitrarily, there is a pattern, the “J’s” are not just distributed throughout the Bible, they mostly target the first letter of the names of people, places, and things, but the most important target was names of the Gods. Any person or place or thing that had a “Y” as the first letter of the word, was changed to “J” Besides the removal Yahweh’s name this constituted thousands of more alterations to the Bible, for no other reason than to deceive. To make this clear, the letter “J” nor its sound, ever appeared anywhere in the True scriptures.

So then the dilemma of Christ’s name. When they wrote the New Testament they substituted Christ’s name with a Greek word? Part of this is humorous but mostly sad because it denotes the intelligence level of the people that were studying and debating these things for centuries, because they should have noticed some obvious things. LOL The word in the scriptures for Christ is Ἰησοῦς or transliteration Iēsous. And they have been trying to say that it translate to Jesus….Well no one knows where the word Jesus came from, it first appears in the 17th century and Ἰησοῦς cannot be translated from Yeshua or to Jesus. And they have been discussing this for how long? Well here is the problem LOL

What does Ἰησοῦς-Iēsous mean?
According to linguist the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, the name Iēsous comes from Hebrew/Aramaic and means "healer or physician.

Well this is not a name it is a Greek word. They should have noticed that no one in history is named Iēsous LOL Because it is not a name, it is a word. And if they thought for a moment….who would think that Miriam…. Christ’s mother, would name here Son with a Greek name much less a Greek word. LOL Someone should have noticed this!!!

No literary history for Jesus; This is a fact, at the time the protestants were writing their Bibles, the word Jesus did not appear or have an intrinsic meaning in English or in any other language. The name Jesus came out of nowhere and before the 1600’s was never known as a word or a name. The first time that name ever appeared anywhere was probably in Bibles like the King James Version of the Bibles. But not the first printed KJV’s. At first the word Iēsous was used in the KJV’s as it was also used in the Geneva Bible. The word Jesus came out from somewhere after the first prints of the KJV’s.

Christians are taught that Jesus was a common name in the Old and New Testament. That is a lie! It was Yeshua that was a common name and it appears in the Old Testament as Yeshua or Yoshua….or Jeshua or Joshua after the J slam.

Historians and linguists are not even sure where the word Jesus came from. Some believe it is a more modern derivative of Zeus to English with the added J. Its closest phonic similarity in the Greek, is Gesus which means Earth pig or dirt pig! The translated Greek or Latinized names for Jesus are pronounced “hey-soos” meaning “hey horse or hey beast.” There is no reason for this! The English language contains the letter “Y.” It is just as easy to say and spell Yeshua and Yahweh as it is to say Jesus and Jehovah. Considering the importance of Their names, and the devastating effects, satanic influence is the most probable cause. I know this sounds alarmist, but the only other explanation would be the total break down of the competency of the translators and linguists with an intent to deceive over a period of millenniums. Still back to the same conclusion….evil! It appears that even the Romans knew Christ’s name and on that sign above Christ’s head on the Cross was written; Yeshua the Nazarene, King of the Jews. Written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. And the name Jesus could not have appeared on that sign.

Actually the only legitimate debate is if Yeshua was sometimes called Yehoshua because these names are kind of like Ed and Edward. Yeshua means “he-rescues or saves” and Yehoshua literally means “Yahweh is Salvation.” This makes a little more sense then hey horse or earth pig, and it is no mystery, that Yeshua appears several times in the Old Testament. (Just look for Yeshua with the Y replaced with a J...Jeshua or Joshua.) But the bottom line is, His mother yelled “Yeshua!” when she called Him to dinner and unlike hey-horse, the name Yeshua has Divine power.

The Truth was lost due to Satan’s influence, because he wanted the names of the true Gods out of the scriptures and he wanted to erase the one name that could be called upon for Salvation. So when translating the scriptures the Church interjected an alphabetic symbol, sound, and pronunciation that did not exist in the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek alphabet, language, or phonics …Jesus. The insertion of the Letter “J” was a sweeping corruption of the scriptures, and we can see the extent of this deceit because it affects any person’s name in the Old and New Testament that was mistranslated to start with a “J.” Jehovah, Jesus, Jacob, Joshua, Jesse, Job, Jeremiah, John, James, Joseph and even cities like Jerusalem and Jericho are all mistranslations. Just ask a Jew how Jerusalem is pronounced. For centuries Satan’s deception was successful but today none of this is really a secret, just not noticed by those that are “taught” their religion and are really not interested enough to care. These facts regarding the names of the Gods, Yahweh and Yeshua, as well as all of those that had their names changed by the substitution of the letter “J” can be easily verified in any popular Exhaustive Concordance or Biblical Dictionary and the Lexicons will give you more information. Look it up for yourself! Christ’s mother never heard of a name pronounced Gez-us, unless someone sneezed.

It is this topic and others that nails down that fact that the one God formula for the Trinity is not only wrong, but a deception. “Three Gods United” not “Three Gods in one person” ….the study of theology will reveal that it does not take much to skew the truth. But in this case it took an extreme amount of effort over millenniums to get the job done. People do not live that long so it cannot be a plan of any human or human group. The Truth is that the Trinity is Three Gods United. Now how does this effect Salvation? Is knowing the True names of the Gods important? I would say so, and now you know. The fact that the names of God the Father and God the Son are not in the scriptures does not mean that the Holy Bible you have is useless. Personally I write the names of God the Father and God the Son at the top of the some of the pages.

So as it is, in Heaven Yahweh God Almighty sits on a throne and His Son a God, Yeshua sits to His right on a throne.

 

[Grailhunter]

What have we learned since the close of the biblical era?

What have we learned since the close of the biblical era? And should we have learned anything after the close of the Bible?

Should we not have advanced, explored, and invent?
Should we have stayed at the level of understanding where our planet was flat and the sun and stars revolved around it?
Believed that stars could fall to the earth?
Diseases, and mental illnesses and PMS are caused by demons?
Traveled by horse and buggy?
Still had slaves?
Should we still own women?
Treat women as second rate members of Christianity?
Kill our children for misbehaving?
When we go to war should we kill all that breaths including women and children, but keep the virgins for ourselves?

Well the cat is out of the bag so to speak. We have learned a lot of things about morality and the universe. But where did this knowledge come from.

Did God give us the spirit of creativity and reason and exploration? Did God give us the ability to reason from right and wrong? Is the Holy Spirit involved with this?

Up to the year 1892 our homes were lit by candles and oil lamps. In 1892 Thomas Edison (and others) invented the light bulb. By the early 1900’s the electrical grid was spreading around the world and the light bulbs came on. From that time in less than a hundred years we had invented vaccines for Polio, Smallpox, Measles, and Tuberculosis….we had performed the first heart transplant. We had harnessed the power of the atom, and put men on the moon. All in less than a hundred year from the time of candles and oil lamps.

Now there are some Christians that think that none of this should have happened.
From time immemorial slavery was what sustained the economic systems and work force and culture. Nearly all cultures practiced slavery, the Jews practiced slavery and the Mosaic Law regulated it and Christ and Apostles did not denounce slavery and Christians practiced slavery until the late 19th century. Should Christians still own slaves?

Pretty much the same goes for women, it was not just the Jews that mistreated women and saw them as property. But from the beginning in Judaism a man’s wife was listed along with his belongings in what people call the Ten Commandments. In the Old Testament adultery was essentially a property crime and mostly pertains to women. Wives could not have sex with anyone but their husband. But her husband could have sex with other women as long as he took them as his wife or paid for a concubine. A woman that committed adultery was generally executed in accordance with the Mosaic Law, because after having sex with someone else she was of no use to her husband. Property as the expression goes…damaged goods. Men were only executed if they had sex with another man’s property… his wife.

Now in the Christian scriptures there are verses that site the equality of women in God’s eyes but, as a whole Christianity did not take note. Christ and the Apostles did not denounce polygamy or concubinage so Christianity practiced both for centuries. Catholic clergy had what they called concubines in the Middle Ages….Because they were forbidden to have wives. Eventually the rule went to celibacy.

I have met few concubines and they seemed happy with the arrangement. Who would have guessed? Anyway Christianity finally caught on as a whole that it was wrong. So too the practice of fathers picking their daughter’s husband and receiving money for it.

But that did not help the status of women in Christianity and society as a whole. And it is not just Christianity, Christians stood with Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists in keeping women in a second rate status. Should they be proud of that? Women should know their place….is the rule of thumb by many Christians even today. How sad!

But things are changing, but like slavery it was not the churches that motivated the morality of ending slavery, it was society. And it was in the early 20th century that women fought for the right to vote and hold political offices and then the right to smoke in public. The 19th amendment to the Constitution.

On July 2, 1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law which bans employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin or sex.

Since then women’s rights have continued to increase and again not necessarily with the support of Christianity. Within Christianity female preachers and priests are forbidden or discouraged. We are kinda dragging them along kicking and screaming on this topic.

While technology moved like a freight train….advancements in morality moves painfully and even sadly like a snail. Mom you should remember to know your place. So sad that the religion of morality has such a hard heart, sniff necks, and so blind to fairness that they mostly have to be forced to accept the moral advancements, by society.

Part of this is due to the “Bible only” concept that is an enigma of sorts where they pick and choose what they consider biblical. According to the Bible there was no reason to stop slavery, polygamy, concubinage, or require a wedding to be married. It is more like Bible Only with a filter.

Then again, since Christianity has allowed society to take over the helm as a moral guide, things have not always been good. The New Age leftist society is redefining the Bible and morals and it is not good.

The morals of my ministry, the Johnny Appleseed of Truth are love God and each other and be good and do good….we should do good and be fair to women. It is a matter of having the wisdom to know how to be good and do good for women….still waiting for the light bulb to come on.

 

[Grailhunter]

************The Mystery of the Last Supper************

Thursday-Friday

Passover---The Feast of Unleavened Bread----Hag Ha-Matzot.
Passover is one 24 hour period in the seven day Feast of Unleavened bread. The Jewish Passover occurs each year on the evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

One thing we know for sure, Christ was not crucified on the day He ate the His Last Supper. But the Jews would have normally been eating the Passover meal on the day Christ was crucified, that would be Friday before dusk.

Over the centuries there have been some confusion on which day the Last Supper occurred, and the circumstances of its occurrence. So before we go on let me explain. Traditionally in this time period, on the eve before the Passover the sacrificial lamb was slain and butchered ritually. The blood was collected ritually and applied to the doorways. (This is the Passover part of the ritual of the plaque of the first born, but this changed…Deuteronomy 16:2-6 The change was that the sacrificial lamb was slain at the doorway of the tabernacle….and then the Temple….This means that in the biblical era the Passover was a gathering of Jews at the Temple…

Then the entire lamb was cooked over a fire and eaten entirely, with unleavened bread. (The sacrifice could be either an unblemished goat or lamb. You can read about this ritual in Exodus chapter 12.) This is not exactly what happened during the evening of the Last Supper. But the Gospels use the term Passover meal to refer to the Last Supper and also reference the Passover lamb being sacrificed on Thursday evening, from there, confusion ensued. Neither the Jews or Christian call the Jewish Passover meal the Last Supper they are two different meals.

The Jewish Passover which lasts around 7 days, that year occurred on Saturday April 8th 30 AD, and started at dusk (As the Full Moon rose) on April 7th. “The Jewish day” starts at dusk. So the Jewish Sabbath and the beginning of Passover occurring on the same day, that year, at dusk. Confusing? Our days shift at midnight…Jewish days shift at dusk…dusk begins the new day.

Computerized astronomical calculations (NASA) shows a full Moon on the evening of April 7th when the Passover began at dusk. So the Passover for that year occurred on the Jewish Sabbath...Saturday but started on Friday at dusk. Two Holy events occurring on the same day. Some refer to this as a High Holy Day, High Day, or High Sabbath for the Jews. John 19:31 The Lambs would have been killed on Friday, the afternoon of the 7th of April. But Christ would not be alive Friday evening. So in this instance there was an honorary Passover meal for Christ that we call the Last Supper because it was Christ’s last supper. As I said, we know that Christ did not eat the Last Supper on the day He was crucified. If we look at Matthew 16:21-25 and Yeshua's disagreement with Peter, we can see that He knew what was going to happen and when.

He was the symbolic and divine sacrificial lamb and He was slain around 3:00 pm on the 7th of April, around the time that the actual sacrificial lambs were being slain. The Passover dinner for Him was held on the evening of the 6th of April...Thursday and they had a sacrificial lamb. The next day, the actual Passover lambs would be slaughtered and eaten on Friday before dusk for the Passover dinners. Christ was the sacrificial lamb for the New Covenant and He was crucified during the day on Friday, about the time the sacrificial lambs for Passover were being killed. So Christ would not be observing the normal processes of the Passover and the Passover meal, and as it turned out, the same was true for the Apostles because they would be in hiding, not sacrificing lambs at the Temple. They may have arranged for food to be brought to them, but they probably were not sacrificing lambs while Christ was being crucified.

The meal that Christ attended was a meal that the Gospels refer to as the Passover meal, a Seder meal, put it was not the actual Jewish Passover meal. As I explained, the next day was the Jewish day of preparation for the Passover...Friday...and the Jewish Passover meal would occur then. This was the day that Christ was slain. Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, and 42, all confirm that the day that Christ was crucified was on the Day of Preparation, which was Friday, April 7th 30 AD. John 18:28 also proves that early Friday morning, the day of Christ’s crucifixion, when Christ was taken to the Praetorium the Apostles had not eaten the actual Passover meal yet. The morning cock had crowed for Peter John 18:27 So when Christ was before Pilate in the Praetorium the Apostles did not enter because they did not want to be defiled because they wanted to participate in the actual Passover meal before the start of Passover. John 18:28 Another mystery solved....

Why April 7th 30 AD?
The death of Herod is well documented, so is the date of his successors. So in order to include the story of the Herod, the Magi, the Star, and death of the innocences, Christ's birth has to happen before Herod's death. March 12th 4 BC. Now if you go to add this up from Christ's birth to the day of his Crucifixion, keep in mind that you lose 2 years between 1 BC and 1 AD. No year zero, so one year passes between April 1 BC and April 1 AD. So in 30 AD Christ would have been 33 years old, give or take a few months.

We can consider April 3rd 33 AD, but Christ would be 36 years old and since it was said that Christ started His ministry when He was 30 years old, that would make His ministry 6 years long. So odds are, it is 30 AD.

Now the calculation for Passover is based on the cycle of the moon. And goes like this...Passover will occur on the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Most of the time that is in April on our calendar. Then Easter is the next Sunday after that.

So Christ is crucified on Friday April 7th 30 AD and then the Passover starts that evening at dusk along with the Jewish Sabbath. That night has a Full Moon. And this goes along with the double Sabbath tradition, ie Passover falling on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday. Keep in mind that the Hebrew month always started on the New Moon, so the Passover would “always” occur 15 days later….that does not mean that the Passover would always occur on the Sabbath Saturday, because the new month did not reset the days of the week. (Jewish Sabbath Saturday…different than the Christian Sunday.)

 

[Grailhunter]

Let’s talk about Salvation

The message of Salvation is simple and clear, all things considered, that is a miracle in itself.

No matter what anyone says keep in mind the 1st century Christians….how many could read and what did they know? The early Christians did not have a Bible to read. Christians as a whole did not have Bibles in their hands until the 17th century. And the 1st century Christians had a lot less information.

They were told what to do and they did it. Back then the term follower was not just walking behind someone. It meant a believer that did what they were told to do and they believed that was “The Way” to heaven. They knew that following Christ meant a whole new moral life. They knew that following Christ was a life commitment.

The early Christians that believed in Christ knew it went far past a mere thought. It was a commitment. They knew that they might not understand why they were told to do certain things involving salvation, they just did it out of obedience. They knew that Christians would be known by their fruits.

Their love of God, their moral conduct, and their compassion for one another would be the Christian Standard. Meaning that Christ expects us to be the light of the world, an example for all to see.

The early Christians chose to believe in Yeshua as the Son of God a full-fledged God …. Savior and Messiah that had walked among them. They believed that He was the Lamb of God that sacrificed Himself for their sins.

They were instructed on the morals of Christianity and they were told to repent of their past lives and sins and commit to the morals of Christianity.

Some believe that in the interest of preaching one Gospel some of the early Christians stood and recited out load a statement of faith before being baptized. And that this statement came forward as the Apostle’s Creed.

So you hear the Gospel and YOU believe in Christ as the Savior and believe He has the power to save you from Hell….Saved…simple term…you are saved from Hell….LOL…not saved from Heaven.

Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Probably better to be baptized in the name of the Messiah Yeshua.

Repent…what is repentance? Some define it as turning a 180 degrees around from your formal self. But that is not the definition, that is the end result of salvation. And repentance is not about penance or self suffering or self loathing. Once you are saved there in nothing to loath about. Now people say that YOU have nothing to do regarding your salvation….that is false. YOU choose to believe in Christ. In respect to repentance YOU realized that you have done wrong and have not been living a righteous life and YOU decide to learn the right WAY. And YOU decide to honestly try to be good and do good.

So then YOU chose to be water Baptized

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark 1:4

What is the difference between that and a Christian baptism? Lets see….

Romans 6:3-5 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

Along with the beliefs that in water Baptism we die in Christ, you should know that the person that emerges from the water is a new person from the perspective of God. Meaning, completely and totally a new person, consequently the Trinity has no memory of the old person, their sins, or their poor character or the evil deeds that they had done. It is the proverbial, instance of starting out with a clean slate. This belief has some historical precedence in the early Church, for one, some would wait until they were near death to be baptized, thinking that way their soul would be free of sin when it came time to face judgment. It has been said that Emperor Constantine did this.

There is a psychological side of this because some people have trouble forgiving themselves. That is why it is so very important to understand and believe in the power of baptism. Not all of us come from a strong Christian up bringing. Some come to Christ with broken lives and horrible deeds. Things so horrible they think they could never be forgiven. But after baptism as far a God is concerned, none of it happened.

With baptism a person dies with Christ and all his or her sins die with them, never to be remembered by God again. --- And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins---Like that person never existed. So with that the person is free to move forward with their walk with Christ. Also it denies Satan any venue to accuse you of not being good enough to be a Christian.

YOU choose to participate in the Bread and Wine ritual.
The next thing is the bread and wine ritual….communion. For the early house churches, the meal was part of the services and this ritual was performed. Paul talked about these meals and he also warned that…. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 1st Corinthians 11:28-30 So this ritual is more than physical it has spiritual ramifications.

John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

John 6:53-58 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, the one who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread that came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died; the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

 

[Grailhunter]

Lets talk about salvation continued

And we know that it is important to Christ because He said that if you do not perform this there is no life in you and you do not abide in Him or Him in you and will He raise you on the last day? The truth is, the Bible does not say why this ritual was so important and we do not know what all it does. All we know is that Christ told us to do it and explained the ramifications if we do not. So it is probably a wise choice to do it. Particularly when Christ said Truly truly, He was getting very factual….not a parable or symbolism.

This ritual was performed by Christ Himself at the Last Supper and became an important ritual within all of Christianity.

So after this our sins are between us and Christ. --- so work out your salvation with fear and trembling; --- our walk with Christ begins. We do our best to be good and do good, and we will fail. WE will repent and CONFESS OUR sins and He is faithful to forgive us. Christ owns the system and forgiveness comes from Him. We do this faithfully and when it comes time for Judgment Day there won’t be much to talk about except how wonderful Heaven will be

So that is the process but still some wonder if they are really saved even though they go through the process and that is the thing it is more than a process it is belief and faith. Belief in Christ that He is a God and our Savior. Belief in the significance of Repentance. Belief in the power and significance of Baptism….Belief in the Bread and Wine ritual. Some preachers say that baptism and the Bread and Wine ritual are not spiritual and has no power….Just a public display of obedience. If that is what you believe…do not waist your time.

Put there is a public display when you change. Repentance is the realization that you have not lived a righteous life and maybe you did not believe in God and other things and your intent is to change….change in that YOU honestly attempt to be good and do good. If you were not changed, you are probably not saved. But YOU can reconsider and start over. But the bottom line, Christianity is not like signing up for a club and go about your business as usual.

So then the person puts on the cloak of Grace and they are presented before God the Father as perfected through Christ. Christ redeemed us and that redemption removed us from that Old Testament system of sin and tally that God kept for all. No salvation in the Old Testament. Old Testament sacrifices did not forgive sins, did not remove them from God’s memory, they appeased God to prevent the wrath of God. Christ redeemed us from that system…..He purchased us with His Blood. Although because of Grace we are perfect in God the Father’s eyes, we know we are going to sin. But God the Father does not see that, the cloak of Grace prevents that. God the Father has zero tolerance to sin, if He could see our sins we could not have a relationship with Him. The Grace of Christ perfects us, that is why the veil in the temple tore in two the moment Christ died on the cross. So now we can have a direct relationship with Yahweh. This brings the following scripture into focus….Therefore you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Be good and do good.

 

[Grailhunter]

The misunderstanding regarding works

For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from works
This is not what the scriptures say but it is what a lot of people remember and it is how they apply Christianity to their lives and to the Commandment that we should love one another, as well as the responsibilities of Christians ….Which is why some are resistant to my motto to Be good and do good.

The scripture actually says…
For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Romans 3:18

This scripture is actually referring to the observance of the Mosaic Law. And this leads to a curse for Christians that try…..but that is another topic.

But the case in point is that some people equate the word works to the Good Deeds of Christians. How did this confusion start?

The Greeks have a few words for works and Good Deeds so you have to look at the context that the words are used in. And do not always relay on the translations….look it up for yourself.

In the beginning of the Protestant reform they were struggling with the Catholic Church’s control and requirements for salvations, and all the rituals as well as the klondike doctrines that still dog Protestantism to this day.

Martin Luther was not alone in the reform effort because other groups had already broke away from the Church. But history shows him as the central figure at the beginning of the reform and the leader that lost control of it and it went from a reform to a schism.

And of course he rejected the Church’s claim of total authority over salvation ….and rightly so. But like many he keyed on the…. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from works…portion of the scripture and did not associate it to the Mosaic Law but any good Christian activities.

Luther's central claim is that faith alone justifies (that is, makes a person righteous in the eyes of God) the one who believes in Christ as a result of hearing the gospel. This faith affects the imputation of Christ's righteousness that covers the sins of the believer.

So people took it that Martin was not big on Good Deeds or charity….But actually that could not be more wrong and he wrote on Good Deeds and charity, but history marginalized his interest in such things.

So how people took it?…as time went on a lot of Christians did not believe that Christians needed to do anything. And rejected the scriptural beliefs as well as Martin’s teaching that Christians have responsibilities. That there are things we should do for others that pleases the Lord.

So now a days you will hear people say that Good Deeds have nothing to do with salvation. And they are right, Good Deeds do not save you….they are right …. sort of. On this topic it would be good to read James 2:14-26 and more importantly about the sheep and the goats Matthew 25:31-46 and pay close attention to the last two verses….. Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either. And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life.

So does this mean that saved Christians that do not help others will end up in Hell or that Christians that do not help others were not saved to begin with? Either way people that do not have compassion for those that need help and actually do not help them will go to Hell for it. It is a serious matter. So it is true that Good Deeds do not save you but not doing Good Deeds can land you in the place of eternal fiery torment forever.

A lot of Protestants ignore these verses or find a way of explaining them away. As time went on it kinda shot them in the foot in a couple ways. For one it led a lot of Protestants to think that no action is required of Christians, not even going to church and of course not giving to the church. The early Christians risked their lives to gather and worship the Lord….now a days a lot of Christians do not even try.

But still they paid attention to the scripture that said you can tell who the Christians are by their fruits. So they did produce something. Over the centuries they produced a long list of man-made sins so that they could show they were Christians by what they did not do. This line of thinking would mean that the most righteous Christian would live in a closet and never come out. A religion of don’t doers…..certainly a lazy man’s religion.

When Christ would much prefer that you exhaust yourself doing good. And if you stumbled along the way He would pick you up, pat you off and send you on your way because He is pleased with what you are doing. And in the end the conversation with Christ will be pleasant.

So love God and love one another and obey God and give to the church and charity and certainly help those you can and those that Christ places in you path and you will gather riches in heaven.

One last note; At times you may be too poor to give to the church. But still it is important to go to church and if a penny is all you can afford to give, be sure to give a penny because it tells God something…like He did not know already…and it also tells others at your church that you need help. And don’t forget what Benjamin Franklin said….Time is money. You can give time to the church and others too.

Be good and do good.
The Johnny Appleseed of Truth

 

[hawkman]

As in the Old Testament, having Christ’s name in the scriptures would invoke a power and a presents on Earth that Satan did not want, so he had to make sure it did not appear in the Bible! As long as Satan could keep the names of the Gods out of the Holy Bible he could limit the power of the scriptures and have power over the translations of the Holy Bible as well as power and influence over the churches of God and what they preached. So either removing or changing their names was one of his primary objectives.

In your opinion who has more power satan or God ?

 

[Grailhunter]

In your opinion who has more power satan or God ?

Well you probably know that answer. God Almighty.
But the better question is....What does God allow Satan to do? I mean He could of annihilated Him from the beginning and He did not. When Satan took Yeshua to the mountain top....did Yeshua allow him to do it. When Satan was offering the nations of the world...Did God allow him to have power over the nations?

 

[hawkman]

Well you probably know that answer. God Almighty.

You are correct .

Did you know that God knows our thoughts and our hearts ?

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Matthew 9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?

1 Chronicles 28:9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

When I pray and say the name Jesus or cry out I know that I am heard by the Almighty God because He knows my thoughts and my heart .

Does HaShem know the thoughts of your heart Grailhunter ?

 

[Grailhunter]

You are correct .

Did you know that God knows our thoughts and our hearts ?

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Matthew 9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?

1 Chronicles 28:9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

When I pray and say the name Jesus or cry out I know that I am heard by the Almighty God because He knows my thoughts and my heart .

Does HaShem know the thoughts of your heart Grailhunter ?

The bug a boo about the names are important because Yahweh and Yeshua deserve to have their names known and in the Bible.

Some people know the names Yahweh and Yeshua but few know the details.

Do you like the name HaShem? HaShem and EL where the more casual names for Yahweh.

 

[Josef]

Hey All,
WoW! Where to start. Grailhunter, Why did Jesus allow Satan to take Him to the mountain top?
Why did Jesus allow Satan to tempt Him at all?

"As long as Satan could keep the names of the Gods out of the Holy Bible he could limit the power of the scriptures and have power over the translations of the Holy Bible as well as power and influence over the churches of God and what they preached." Quote from Grailhunter

Do you believe Satan had any power to control or manipulate the Holy Bible? If so, what makes you think this?

What about the Wedding in Cana? Actually the words wed or wedding do not appear anywhere in the scriptures. The event in Cana was called a marriage. More on this in the “History of Marriage.” Quote from Grailhunter

How is a marriage ceremony different from a wedding?
Jesus turned water into wine (His first miracle) at the reception. I believe you are way off base here. To quote Shakespeare, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Well Shakespeare never really said it, Juliet did. Well Juliet is a fictional character. So she never actually said it. So who said that line? Just because a particular word for something doesn't exist, it doesn't mean a particular action did not take place. I could say the word urinate doesn't exist in Scripture. So that means they didn't do it. Do you see how absurd that is? You are trying to manipulate Scripture to make it say what you need it to. Why? Are you trying to manipulate me? That is exactly how false doctrine gets into the church.

In your essay on the crucifixion, you give actual dates. Why does a particular date (April 7th) matter? Are you using the dates for further manipulation? What calendar are you using to formulate these dates?

Your essays make me suspicious. I am probably not alone. I'm just a dumb heathen gentile (ugh). I calls em as I sees em.

I will stop and give you a chance to respond.

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz

 

[Grailhunter]

Do you believe Satan had any power to control or manipulate the Holy Bible? If so, what makes you think this?

WOW you say. Alrighty then!
What can we agree on?

Is Satan a schemer?
Does Satan tempt us?
Can he put thoughts in our mind?

So then how does he tempt us? I would probably need a list for that.
How did he tempt Eve? How did he tempt Adam?

Sometimes Satan will reason with us and make us think we should do something because it is good….when it is not.

As far as removing God’s name from the scriptures and hiding the name of Christ, the Jews were already in Satan’s wheelhouse. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
Exodus 20:7

The scriptures were originally written with God’s name in them over 6,000 times. As time went on the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews came to think that God’s name was to Holy to be pronounced out load or be written. (We do not know if they ever said his name out load.)
“came to think” The question is, did they have a little help with that? Did Satan reason that with them? Who knows for sure? But do you think Satan would want a book with God’s name in it over 6,000 times covering the earth? And that is not counting the New Testament…. Yahweh and Yeshua.

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain….
What did Yahweh mean by this? Did He mean that He did not want His name ever pronounced or written in sacred texts? And then forgotten?
Well overall this is how the Jews took it. Does that make any sense? NO.
Did God or Satan remove His name from the scriptures? NO.
Men did it. No we cannot blame this one on the women.
Did Satan use their reverence of God to do away with God’s name? I do think that is a possibility.

It was men that put the ink to the paper and it was men that had custody of the scriptures and it was men that made changes to the scripture as they moved along in history. And as we see Yahweh did not stop them.

When it came time to write the New Testament….most of them were Jews.
So they already had this “God’s name is to Holy to be pronounce or be written in Holy texts” thing going on in their heads. So they did not use Christ’s name in the New Testament. Again is Satan working this? Maybe..maybe not. Was he doing a dance of joy!? Probably.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
2nd Corinthians 7:3

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
2nd Corinthians 11:14-15

But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Matthew 16:23

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Ephesians 6:11

https://www.openbible.info/topics/tricks_of_the_devil

https://www.openbible.info/topics/schemes_of_the_devil

How is a marriage ceremony different from a wedding?

I’m thinking you can figure this out.

First off the event as Cana was not called a marriage ceremony or a wedding ceremony. No ceremony in the scriptures for Cana or any marriage.

Through all of the biblical era and most of history marriages were formed by a couple joining....

What is the difference between two people forming a marriage by having sex…and people gathering in a church and the couple standing in front of a preacher with their family and friends watching and saying vows of commitment and being pronounced husband and wife?…and I am thinking you know how the rest of this goes including the wedding reception.

And the requirement for this did not happen until 16th century when the Protestants made it a requirement to have a wedding ceremony to be married.

As far as the Marriage in Cana, the words wed or wedding do not appear in the scriptures and that includes the event of a ceremony and vows in the scriptures. No ceremonies in the scriptures.

But I did say that the marriage in Cana was probably some form of a wedding as we understand it. But still no actual representation of a wedding ceremony there.
The event in the scriptures for Cana was about the reception not the actual wedding ceremony.

Now that you have accused me of manipulating you….Do not ever talk to me again. Because you are tempting me to respond to you in such away that would violate the rules of this forum.