(I appreciate your respectful attitude in this exchange, GBA. Thanks.)
I see your point, but outright deception would never work. Subtlety is the way now and always has been.
With the benefit of hindsight, I saw that every time I was tripped up it was done with a lot of truth and just a little lie. Little, but extremely significant.
When the “visitation” (? sorry, but I don’t know what to call it) took place, “Jesus” forgot something:
“it is said: you shall have no gods except Me, do not follow other gods, gods of peoples round you, but men have transgressed My Father’s first Commandment declaring their freedom openly by means and encouragements of the black beasts, upon whose heads will lie the blood of many;
“do not call My Name in vain, is the following Commandment;”
*****
Now, I go to double-check and I find:
Exodus 20
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
What think you? Was it perhaps another “Jesus” who’d had a bad day and made a mistake?
I lead with Proverbs 3:5 and say that I think I don't understand everything and that as I learn more, my understanding changes, so take my opinion for what it's worth.
My understanding is that the second one is covered all He said in that same paragraph and prior. He already covered it, so He moved on.
For what it's worth, the people that I thought would be most interested in this material were the very ones who seemingly are the most horrified by the idea of God speaking to us this way, in our time, in our own current language, to undo centuries of confusion.
Wow, did I get that wrong! That was one of the most surprising things to me, but I better understand why now, after reading so many posts here on the religious forum.
On the other hand, she, herself, had a lot of trouble with all of it, too, in the beginning, which was something that started to drive me crazy once it became fairly obvious (to me as a reader) what was happening.
I've had some doubts of my own along the way, and I still haven't finished reading it, but I have no personal reason to not accept it at face value and many reasons it's easy for me to accept it as is.
Thanks for the help and feedback!