How Many Isaiahs Wrote Isaiah?

Depths of Pentecost ^ | March 24, 2018 | Philip Cottraux

[pcottraux]

By Philip Cottraux

Skeptics who don’t believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God have a few problems, not the least of which is that it successfully prophesies major world events before they took place. And I’m not just talking about end-times prophecies that haven’t occurred yet.

Isaiah and Daniel are the two starkest examples. I’ve already written about Daniel in my previous blog, “The Daniel Lynchpin,” which you can read here. This week I want to talk about Isaiah, why it’s come under fire by Bible critics, and resolve the “multiple authors” controversy.

Isaiah’s prophetic ministry started in around 740 BC, during a dark time in the history of the Jewish people. The Assyrian empire was growing while Egypt was shrinking, with Israel and Judah caught in the middle. The Assyrians were some of the most brutal conquerors in history. They were known to flay their enemies alive and hang the skins on the wall surrounding the capital, Nineveh. The city was also decorated with amputated arms and legs and piles of severed “head pyramids” of their victims. Perhaps worst of all, the Assyrians perfected the art of “assimilation;” forcing out a city’s inhabitants to either be brutally executed or sold into slavery, then occupying their homes for themselves.

This is exactly the fate suffered by the Northern kingdom of Israel. In 722, the Assyrians invaded and conquered the ten tribes of the North, scattering them in exile across the empire. This tragedy is covered in II Kings 17 and II Chronicles 22. With Israel in ruins, the Assyrians now gathered at the border, ready to invade Judah.

The theme of Isaiah is two-fold: forsake idolatry and turn back to worship of the One True God to be saved from Assyria. Isaiah 10:24-25: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.

But Isaiah doesn’t stop there. Not only does God promise to spare Jerusalem if they return to Him, He also foretells major world events that took place well after the eighth century BC.

While Jerusalem was spared from Sennacherib, one hundred years later, a new menace would arise to take its place, Babylon. But this time, the results would be very different. Jeremiah’s warnings went unheeded until God removed His protection and Nebuchadnezzar broke the city walls. In 586 BC, Babylon totally destroyed Jerusalem, razing Solomon’s temple to the ground and burning the city. The Jews were taken into captivity that would last seventy years.

However, Babylon itself wouldn’t last. Not long after Nebuchadnezzar’s death, his grandson Belshazzar would oversee its downfall when Babylon was invaded by a new empire, a union between Media and Persia. The Medo-Persians breeched its defensive walls and killed its king, bringing Babylon to ruin. Daniel 5:30-31: In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

The fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persians occurred in 539 BC, but was prophesied by Isaiah about 150 years beforehand. Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: (Isaiah 45:1-2). This likely refers to Cyrus II, who lived from 576-530 BC. While Daniel calls the conqueror “Darius the Median,” this could be a misnomer: history doesn’t have record of a king “Darius” during the time of the Babylonian invasion. However, Cyrus the Great did have a military general named Gobryas who oversaw the conquest, so this is probably the “Darius the Median” identified by Daniel.

There’s much controversy over Isaiah specifically naming “Cyrus” years before the man existed, leading to the charge by some critics that this is a later addition by scribes tampering with the text. But even if that is the case, it doesn’t change the point: Isaiah clearly promises that the gates of Babylon will be opened by a king the Lord had anointed to break the kingdom.

Unless the entire chapter is a fabrication.

In “The Daniel Lynchpin,” I mentioned a 19th century textual critic named JG Eichhorn who first proposed that Daniel was a fictional book created during the Maccabean revolt to inspire the Jews into believing that God and destiny was on their side. This was Eichhorn’s way of getting around the fact that Daniel prophesies so many world events, such as the rise and sudden death of Alexander the Great and the Six Syrian wars of chapter 11.

I’ve already written on this extensively, but to sum it up: Eichhorn’s date for Daniel can be dismissed if we find copies of Daniel from before the Maccabean period (137 BC), and sure enough, multiple copies of Daniel from the Dead Sea scrolls date back from thirty to sixty years prior (160-200 BC at the earliest). Furthermore, it’s clear that Daniel was a highly revered prophet among the radical Essenic Jews that formed the Qumranite community, as there are several meticulously copied Daniel scrolls; this would not be the case if he were a fictional character.

But it’s moot anyway, because Eichhorn’s proposal fails spectacularly in another gigantic way; placing Daniel during the Maccabean revolt doesn’t explain how the book prophesies world events that took place after the Maccabean revolt! Daniel doesn’t just predict Alexander the Great and the Six Syrian wars: he also predicts the rise of Rome. The two iron legs from Nebuchadnezzar’s statue represent a world kingdom founded by two brothers (Romulus and Remus), as does the great beast with iron claws emerging from the seas in Daniel 7 (he also predicts the destruction of the second temple at the hands of Emperor Titus in Daniel 9:24-27; this occurred in 70 AD).

Eichhorn was committing the classic fatal error of atheism. He presumed philosophical naturalism (the belief that physical matter is all there is in the universe, rejecting the existence of the supernatural or God), then judged all theology as if naturalism were the truth, dismissing miraculous events as described in the Bible. But he never established why naturalism is the truth. Because inconveniently for the nonbeliever, naturalism has never been proven, and is actually scientifically problematic.

But I digress. Eichhorn’s presumption that the supernatural doesn’t exist left him at a loss to explain prophesies in Daniel and Isaiah. So he had to come up with naturalistic explanations. And even when his explanations have been disproven by recent discoveries, academia, under the same philosophical bias towards naturalism, refuses to abandon them.

Eichhorn is also responsible for the “multiple authors of Isaiah” theory. Isaiah 45 predicts the fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persians. So to address that, Eichhorn proposed that it has more than one author. Isaiah 1-39 all consist of a similar pattern: it takes place in a particular time period (pre-Assyrian invasion) and Isaiah references himself several times. Chapter 39 ends with Sennacherib’s forces being smitten by the angel of the Lord just outside the gates of Jerusalem. But the final 27 chapters of Isaiah seem different. They aren’t contained within a story, don’t claim to be written during the reign of any particular king, are much more poetic, and Isaiah doesn’t mention himself. Some scholars have taken this a step further, isolating chapters 40-55 and calling them “Deutero-Isaiah.”

You would think an older copy of Isaiah would settle the matter. And it has.

The most well-preserved Dead Sea scroll has been called the “Great Isaiah scroll,” a near flawless copy of Isaiah found in Cave 1. It is the first of 22 ancient copies of the book discovered near the Dead Sea, from a variety of different time periods. At the very latest, the Great Isaiah scroll is from the late second century BC, maybe even earlier. If Eichhorn’s proposal is true, evidence for it should be found here of all places.

This isn’t just because of the scroll’s age; it’s also because the Essenic scribes were extremely diligent in their copying. They Great Isaiah scroll contains thorough footnotes and commentary from whoever compiled it. These notes are so myopic that they even focus heavily on a slight inconsistency between the account of Hezekiah’s healing in Isaiah 38 and II Kings 20. Yet there is absolutely no mention of multiple authors. Chapter 39 transitions effortlessly into chapter 40; and believe me, had there been any hint of a discrepancy within the text, the Dead Sea copyist would have spotted and wrote extensively on it in the margins.

So we can say with certainty that the no one was aware of a second author for Isaiah as far back as at least the second century BC. And since the Essenes were copying older scrolls, there was clearly no evidence for this going back much further in time.

But just like with Daniel, I have another contribution to the argument that blows Eichhorn’s proposal out of the water. In short, he was assuming that Isaiah 45 was the only reference to the fall of Babylon. But if there’s a prophecy of it in the clearly unified text of Isaiah 1-39, that undeniably was written by Isaiah, his entire premise falls apart. And sure enough, we do have such a direct prediction in the thirteenth chapter: Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it…And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 13:17,19).

Here once again, Isaiah gives an exact prophecy: God will destroy the Babylonians through the hands of the Medo-Persians. And unlike chapter 45, there is no question that this was written 150 or so years beforehand. As I stand back and look at the Bible as a whole, I am in awe of how well it stacks up despite the world of criticism aimed at it over the centuries. No other document from ancient history could endure so much yet still be so immovable. As we honestly assess the evidence, its supernatural nature becomes undeniable. This blog hasn’t even begun to address the Messianic prophesies of the suffering servant and how they are fulfilled by Jesus. Perhaps those who have tried so hard to discredit the book of Isaiah are missing one of its most dire warnings: There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked (Isaiah 48:22).

[Cronos]

I prefer the term Muhammadens — it p!$$@$ them off

[imardmd1]

Me too. Mohammedans, or sometimes Moslems. In any case, heathens whose god is not the God of the Bible. When I show them, their heads and their tempers blow out. One threatened me with death, a restaurant waiter who was ready to jump over the counter to get at me until they calmed him down.

He had tried to buddy up by telling me that his Allah was the same as my God. When I showed him in my pocket Bible that this was not possible, because Jesus was the Son of God, and that Allah had no sons, the contradiction turned him vocally abusive and wanted to take it outside.

So much for Mohammedanism as a peaceful religion. Nobody knew it, but my Peacemaker was the .45 Auto under my jacket. I was glad that other means prevailed. Insh'allah, eh?

[Cronos]

He had tried to buddy up by telling me that his Allah was the same as my God. When I showed him in my pocket Bible that this was not possible, because Jesus was the Son of God, and that Allah had no sons, the contradiction turned him vocally abusive and wanted to take it outside.

Good on you. The made-up religion takes aspects of Christianity but is not the same

What is fascinating is that

1. The word "Jesus" is used more times in the Quran (24 times) than the word "Muhammad" (4 times).
   
   
2. "Muhammad" was originally a title meaning "the praise-worthy one" and was not a given name prior to the 7th century. So this was clearly the title given to a person. in fact if you read the times Mohammad is used in the Quran it shows
   1. "The praiseworthy one" is only a messenger
      
   2. "The Praiseworthy one" is the messenger of Allah...
      
   3. But those who believe in the revelation sent down to "the praiseworthy one"
      
   4. "The praiseworthy one" is the messenger of Allah
   
   
   
3. The first time one hears of a "muhammad" or the Quran or Islam or Muslim is NOT at the time the Arabs supposedly conquered Egypt and Persia and Syria -- all HIGHLY LITERATE places that wrote down their hsitories. No, you read these words nearly a century later after the Ummayads were overthrown in 750 AD by the Abbassids
   
   
4. The first biography of Mohammad is written more than one and a half century after this person allegedly lived.
   
   
5. Prior to the "conquest" the Arabic tribes were already "Christian" - but Christian in the same sense that Jehovah Witneses are Christian - they were Gnostics or believed that Jesus was not God or was a lesser God etc etc. And these Arabs lived in the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire
   
   
6. The "arabs" in the Hejaz were heterodox, believing in Arabic paganism but also with Gnostics, Nestorians, Ebionites (Jehovahs Witnesses like), Zoroastrians, Buddhists, even Hindus - and they had a large community of Jews - Medina was a Jewish city and 50 years prior to the alleged birth of "Muhammad" you had a Jewish King in Yemen slaughtering Christians and being overthrown by the Christian Axumite (Ethiopian) empire.
   
   
7. The Quran has ben re-read in Aramaic - the lingua franca of the middle east from 700 BC to 700 AD and it reads as an Ebionite "Christian" text

To me this is clear that

• Originally there were Ebionite "Christian" converts among the Arabs
• They believed that Jesus was a prophet and "possessed" by the Holy Spirit (which is why the Koran says that he was abandoned by the Spirit on the cross
• They absorbed pagan Arab beliefs (the Ka'aba) and Zoroastrian beliefs (Paradise, dualism) and Jewish beliefs (making themselves the chosen people by having the Quran have Ishmael the one to be sacrificed instead of Isaac
• They emulated the PALMYRENE Empire (remember Palmyra which the Islamic state wanted to destroy? in the 3rd century they created an "Arab" empire that took over much of the Middle East before collapsing to the Romans) and also emulated Roman emperor ELAGABALUS (who was a descendent of the Semitic priest kings of Emesa (Homs) who worshipped a black rock) and took their chance when teh Roma and Sassanid Persian empires nearly collapsed after a 50 year brutal war
  
  
• They were WELCOMED by the Semitic Copts, the Semitic Syrians and by Jews and Samaritans -- why? Because they were fellow semites and they seemed to profess a similar Judeo-Christian monotheistic belief
• The ummayyads (661 to 750) were secular and are criticised by later Moslems for this - but they don't mention Mohammad, Islam etc - in fact Muawiyah calls himself a "defender of the faith" and has a cross on some of his inscriptions
  
  
• they were still trying to distinguish themselves from the Roman (Orthodox) Christians.
• Only with the Abbassids do they firmly make themselves Muslim
• And at the same time you see that the Moslem custom of bowing changes from Mecca to PETRA and ultimately to MECCA -- why? Why wasn't it Mecca from the beginning? Because Jerusalem was the holy city, only later under the Abbasids did they try to make it an exclusively Arab nationalism and chose Mecca, a city that wasn't on any trade-routes or cosmopolitan, hence decidedly ARAB (as opposed to other cities that were influenced by others)
  
  
• To Yulee what is the inscription on the inside of the dome of the rock? . There is no god but God. He is One. He has 2.no associate. Unto Him belongeth sovereignity and unto Him belongeth praise. He quickeneth and He giveth death; and He has 3.Power over all things. "The praise worthy one" is the servant of God and His Messenger -- this is NOT what is in the Quran -- to Muslims it would be HARAM (evil, wrong) to misquote the Quran. Yet this Ummayyad era mosque DOES it. - and notice if you read M as a title it is clearly referred to the EBIONITE Christian version of Jesus
  
  
• Yes, Jesus was the original, in the Quran referred to "praiseworthy one" - the Mohammad
  
  
• The Mohammad of the Sira is a mix of different Arab warlords ditto for the Hadiths which are heavily contradictory
  
  
• They started out as a heresy of Christianity jsut as the Jehovah's Witnesses are or the Ebionites or Gnostics were, but then added in Arab nationalism and created the idea of their prophet.
  
  
• Their very beliefs are contradictory -- "Allah is all-merciful", yet that means that he is dependent on his creations (how can you be all-merciful if you are just one). Without the concept of a Trinity, the idea of God saying "Let US make man in OUR image" makes no sense.

The push back on Mohammadenism must start from this -- [point out that the belief is contradictory, that it is originating as a Christian heresy and fails even religious belief.

[imardmd1]

(being that they aren’t part of “universal revelation,*” that is, scripture)

Hmm. Tht's not a term I have yet come across. My studies in the Bible has shown me that commentators only refer to two kinds of revelation:

(1) natural or general revelation (of the Creator and His Plan, that is )(examples Romans 1:19-20, Psalm 19:1-3); or

(2) supernatural or special revelation, which is God communicating to a human (as He did to Job in the text of Chapters 38-39)
-- in dreams (Gen. 37:5-11, Dan. 2:2829),
-- in sleeping visions (Dan. 2:19-23, 7:2),
-- in wakeful visions (Is. 6:1-13, 2 Cor. 12:1-4),
-- in extraordinary appearances (Ex. 3:2,3 cf Acts 7:30-31; Dan. 10:18, Mt. 17:3-9),
-- through "mouth to mouth" confrontation with the witness recounting it "Thus saith the Lord" (Ex. 4:22, Is. 48:17, Jer. 17:5; Rev. 1:20-3:22), and
-- through the Holy Inspired Scripture (Mt. 4:4 cf. Lk. 4:4; Heb. 10:5-7 cf. Ps. 40:7-9).

But over and above this, between 4 BC and 33 AD God revealed His Truth in and by His Son, the Living Deed and Word (Jn. 1:1,14 cf. Heb. 1:1-3).

However, since the completion of the Book of Revelation, which is chronologically the last Book of the Bible (Rev. 22:18,19), God since then ONLY reveals His truths to humans verbally by means of His Written Word (despite the claims of cults like Catholics and today's late-coming "charismatics"; 1 Cor. 13:10, "that"=neuter, "perfect"=completed).

I would say that this picture of how God reveals Himself and His Truths to mankind then and now, individually or corporately, lies athwart and disagrees with the concept that you described as being "universal revelation" (accessible to all mankind, then and now) or "private revelation" (accessible to only one or a few, both then and now). The concept you described permits new--previously unheard of or unseen--incidents that introduce extra-Biblical new information from God in our time.

I do not accept that concept. For me, the Holy Scriptures, The Word of God, is a complete and completely sufficient body of knowledge to guide both faith and practice in the temporal sphere. You say:

Contrary to many Protestants’ understandings, no Catholic is obliged to believe anything which is not scripturally based.

But the copy of the Catholic Catechism seems to say otherwise, as does Catholic practice through the Magisterium and Papal edicts. That says that special revelation is not complete, not fulfilled, not completely available to the Body of Christ on Earth.

And that is exactly where we differ. It is not possible to bridge the logical or spiritual gap, IMHO.

[Cronos]

Peter and Paul traveled within the Roman Empire. For the first Christians, they followed the route of the Roman empire - within the boundaries they had free travel, safety and infrastructure.

Going to Babylon (btw Dangus, while Babylon had been deserted in the 1st century, it was just across the river from Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthians and from Seleucia (set up by Seleucid, a diadochi (companion) of Alexander the great) of which it was originally a suburb.

Other apostles went to the east, significantly St. Thomas who preached to the Jews in southern India (Jews had and have been there since the 5th century BC)

Peter did die just outside Rome -- as dangus correctly points out, the Vatican hill is not one of the seven hills of Rome and was outside the boundaries of the city even outside the Aurelian walls

[Cronos]

The deuterocanonical canonical books were in the Jewish Septuagint which Jesus and the Disciples referred to, they were read by Christians throughout the centuries and were included in the first editions of Luther's Bible and the KJV (King James Version) and in all Bibles until the late 1700s to 1800s.

They are inspired just as the Song of Songs etc. were

In fact 2 Maccabees 7 is what Hebrews 11:35 refers to (among many cases where they are referenced in the NT

Rev. 17:14 14These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. - description of God as King of kings follows 2 Macc. 13:4 But the King of kings stirred up the mind of Antiochus against the sinner, and upon Lysias suggesting that he was the cause of all the evils, he commanded (as the custom is with them) that he should be apprehended and put to death in the same place.

also

Matt. 24:15 15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) -- this is tied to 2 Macc. 8:17 [17] Setting before their eyes the injury they had unjustly done the holy place, and also the injury they had done to the city, which had been shamefully abused, besides their destroying the ordinances of the fathers.

While in Luke 24:4 and Acts 1:10 - Luke's description of the two men in dazzling apparel reminds us of 2 Macc. 3:26

think at the very least these give an idea about the interesting happenings between the return of the exiles and the Birth of Christ, laying down the historical background. That's how I initially picked up these books.

And, interestingly, when we read this Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of 1 Maccabees, we read how Antiochus defiled the Holy Temple and put an abomination in there and the righteous Jews fled to the mountains.

And this connects with Matthew 24:15-20

[15] When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.
[16] Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains:
[17] And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house:
[18] And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat.
[19] And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days.
[20] But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath.

And you see the parallels in 1 Macc 1.34 "And they took the women captive, and the children, and the cattle they possessed" and 39 "And they shed innocent blood round about the sanctuary, and defiled the holy place"
and 1 MAcc 2:32-38

And forthwith they went out towards them, and made war against them on the sabbath day, [33] And they said to them: Do you still resist? come forth, and do according to the edict of king Antiochus, and you shall live. [34] And they said: We will not come forth, neither will we obey the king's edict, to profane the sabbath day.
[35] And they made haste to give them battle.
[36] But they answered them not, neither did they cast a stone at them, nor stopped up the secret places,
[37] Saying: Let us all die in our innocency: and heaven and earth shall be witnesses for us, that you put us to death wrongfully.
[38] So they gave them battle on the sabbath: and they were slain with their wives, and their children, and their cattle, to the number of a thousand persons

Jesus was no doubt drawing on the historical memory of the Jews -- or rather on the recent historical memory -- this had happened less than 200 years earlier.

These are canon in the Oriental (Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian), Orthodox, Catholic and Assyrian Churchs. They were included in the King James version of 1611 and the Luther Bible.

[Cronos]

"this amazing book we call the Bible!"

A pedantic point, but the Bible is not a book, it is a collection of books.

The statement at the end of Revelation/Apocalypse is refering to the book of the Apocalypse only (for instance)

[Cronos]

Are you being hyperbolic by saying this or do you really believe some "weird" school of Protestant apologists disbelieve "everything" Catholics and Orthodox believe? I have never heard of ANY "Christian" denomination that cannot find common ground on the very basics of Christianity with Catholics/Orthodox.

There are groups. For instance, Protestant groups started with Luther and you can see that Luther and Lutheranism retained the Holy Eucharist, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, confession, priests etc. Then Calvin moved away from that, then Zwingli further. Then came the Unitarians who moved away from the Trinity

And among the Unitarians they moved further and further away that they don't have anything in common with orthodoxy.

you may be right to not call them Protestants - but that's what they call themselves (I wouldnt' call them Christian either)

There are also the Oneness Pentecostals who reject the Trinity

However their beliefs are different from your beliefs, dear boatbum.

[Cronos]

To be also very specific about Catholic beliefs -- nothing, nothing what you do or say can "buy" or earn you eternal life. The only thing that "earned" our eternal life was Jesus Christ's sacrifice. THAT is Church belief.

you cannot earn your salvation - that is Pelasgian and not Catholic.

The growing in holiness prepares us for our eternity in the presence of God. In the presence of God there can be no evil, no "stain" - we progress towards godliness in preparing ourselves for Him. It does not save us, we do nothing to save ourselves.

[Cronos]

Also, the church is not semi-Pelagian either :)

"Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men."

[Radix]

The Divinity geniuses on our university campuses have long been dissecting the text in order to discredit it. The Pentateuch had 4 main Authors, Y (or J), P, E, and D. That was. 4 decades ago for me.

These days it seems that the entire’higher critical’ thing is being tossed and now most of the text is attributed to Clerks and Officers of Hezekiah (7th cent. B.C.) who lived centuries after the events of Exodus, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and much more. (See ‘The Story of the Jews’ by Schama.)

Daniel has long been in the Critics Den as there is simply no possibility that his prophecies could be valid. The ‘experts’ have decreed that it is a product of the Maccabean Period.

It is simply impossible to engage reasonably with supporters of the Criticisms and scoffers of Eschatology.

Meanwhile, 2 millennia have passed and behold just what group sits at the crossroads of the ancient world.

Fascinating stuff.

[Radix]

Actually, for a long period there was ‘Second Isaiah’ and then Third. Later there were more. Some unknown number of Writers compiled Isaiah and passed it off as the work of the dead authentic original.

In others words, the OT is the produce of Liars and hypocrites, over centuries, in collusion with each other.

[imardmd1]

Going to Babylon . . .

As you say, let's do that, should it be maintained that Babylon meant nothing in reference to Simon Peter's peregrinations in the ministry to the Circumcised People. The readers here will be greatly edified by reading articles like this one, "History of the Jews in Iraq" (click here), of which the following are excerpts:

"Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities.
. . .
In the Bible, Babylon and the country of Babylonia are not always clearly distinguished, in most cases the same word being used for both. In some passages the land of Babylonia is called Shinar, while in the post-exilic literature it is called Chaldea. In the Book of Genesis, Babylonia is described as the land in which Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh are located – cities that are declared to have formed the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom (Gen. x 10). Here, the Tower of Babel was located (Gen. xi. 1–9); and it was also the seat of Amraphel's dominion (Gen. xiv. 1, 9)."

Peter stood not so far from the Babylonian exile that the land was not any longer known by the metonomy "Babylon." Surely he could not disregard the heavy concentration of Jews remaining and multiplying in it. During the Exile, many "little sanctuaries" (Ezekiel 11:6) were to appear throughout the Near East. In the AV (cf. DRB) God announced by Ezekiel's prophesy the coming dispersion of Judah:

"Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come."

That is, each of these, proceeding from a local minyan into a shul (synagogue); from which, needing the economical allocation of resources, rabbinical learning centers coalesced, known to be still active and growing in Peter's time (to whom did he preach on the day of the 33 AD Pentecost? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia!), and culminating in a great school after his time on whose shoulders today's rabbis stand. From the above reference, another except describing it:

"The rabbi Abba Arika (175–247 AD), known as "Rab" due to his status as the highest authority in Judaism, is considered by the Jewish oral tradition the key leader, who along with the whole people in diaspora, maintained Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem. After studying in Palestine at the academy of Judah I, Rab quietly returned to his Babylonian home; his arrival, in the year 530 of the Seleucidan, or 219 of the common era, is considered to mark the beginning of a new era for the Jewish people. Rab's career is seen as initiating the dominant rôle that the Babylonian academies played for several centuries, for the first time outmoding Judea and Galilee in the quality of Torah study. Most Jews to this day rely on the quality of the work of Babylon during this period over that of the Galilee from the same period. The Jewish community of Babylon was already learned – Rab just focused and organised their study."

Despite your contention to place the center of Peter's ministry in Rome, I offer not just my opinion, but the facts of Jewish religious history, of which Peter's unpolished plainly literal inspired record says that his First General Epistle was written in Babylon, the center of one Diaspora, to the candidates of the Roman dispersion of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem to the areas of Anatolia, Greece, and Rome. There is no need at all to make Peter's words figurative in nature. That definitely was not his style.

Peter did die just outside Rome . . .

With all due respect for your leanings, there is not one smidgen of information residing in the Scriptures to support that assumption. Though your statement about the Vaticanus is probably correct, it has no bearing on the issue in view. No doubt, the witnesses maintaining Peter's demise, being fallible and supporting a Western rule of the State Church, doubtless lay a heavy thumb on the scale, so to speak. For me, an absence of mention from the surviving apostles or apostolic fathers (of whom are Beloved John, Luke, Timothy, Mark, and Paul) does not negate your contention, that fact certainly does not validate it, either.

What makes you think that Simon Peter would leave the rich, spiritually fertile geographical area that was at the center of his allocated area of ministry to Jews and Jewish Christians, to go off and drag over the territory that Paul and his evangelistic team were predominantly in the process of plowing?

It would not surprise me at all that of the many thousands of new disciples that were in Jerusalem for the mandated festival, were from the Babylonian shuls, became committed to evangelize their communities, and went back there to implement the Great Commission in the Near East. Even those fellow Disciple/Apostles would, by the Jerusalem Concord (Gal. 2:7-10), have been overseen by Peter in ministering to the scattered or lost tribes. Why would he not rather go and visit them, and perhaps even die in the effort to overcome the persecution of non-converted Iraqian Hebrews (that also includes those descended from the Northern Kingdom tribes)?

I think my speculation is just as good as your conjectural assumption, and better fits the constraints of Scripture as well as history.

[pcottraux]

The Divinity geniuses on our university campuses have long been dissecting the text in order to discredit it. The Pentateuch had 4 main Authors, Y (or J), P, E, and D.

This theory (the "Documentary Theory") is also part of the great 17th and 18th century German scholar revisionist movement. Along with Eichhorn was Julius Wellhausen; while the Documentary Theory existed in some form before him, he was the one who really put it all together in one big proposal. Wellhausen was also the one who came up with "four sources."

Author CJ Hall once tested the theory by reprinting the Bible divided into the four sources, each source color-coded. The results are incomprehensible.

The problem with the "Four Sources" hypothesis is that it criticizes the Torah for being written in different styles. But that doesn't account for the fact that one man can write in different styles. Or the fact that Moses could have had multiple secretaries dictating the work for him, each one putting their own unique spin on it. It really doesn't prove anything.

These days it seems that the entire’higher critical’ thing is being tossed and now most of the text is attributed to Clerks and Officers of Hezekiah (7th cent. B.C.)

I accept this to a certain extent, but not that Hezekiah's officers invented all the stories of the Old Testament. I do think that when they discovered old dusty copies of the Law and read them to the people, they updated them. This is likely when anachronisms entered the Torah: "Avaris" in Exodus 1:11 changed to "Pithom-Ramses" and "Eridu" in Genesis changed to "Babel" where the tower was built.

But the archaeological evidence for the Old TEstament stories is very strong, much moreso than people realize. Which is why I don't believe they were made up stories.

[pcottraux]

From "The Fundamentals" RA Torrey editor 1915, shows the specious roots of the Biblical skeptic movement of the late 18th through 19th century. Most skeptics today parrot the old refuted German and Dutch skeptics.

You're right, and JG Eichhorn was a part of that generation of Bible skeptics and critics whose theories are for some reason accepted by modern academia as fact when in reality, they were mostly guesswork. Another example was JC Doderlein, who co-authored the multiple Isaiah's theory with Eichhorn. As was Julius Wellhausen, whose theory I criticized in post 54.

[imardmd1]

The deuterocanonical canonical books were in the Jewish Septuagint which Jesus and the Disciples referred to, they were read by Christians throughout the centuries and were included in the first editions of Luther's Bible and the KJV (King James Version) and in all Bibles until the late 1700s to 1800s.

This is a very ingenious, convincing, but misleading statement to which I refer our readers: Deuterocanonical Books" (click here), from which this definitive selection comes:

"The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning 'belonging to the second canon') is a term adopted in 16th century by the Roman Catholic Church to denote those books and passages of the Christian Old Testament, as defined in 1546 by the Council of Trent, that were not found in the Hebrew Bible."

My advisedly choosing of the word "deuterocanonical" rather than "apocryphal" is correct. These books were not in the Hebrew Bible and not inspired. They are not of the same quality as the Solomonic books.

. . . in the Jewish Septuagint which Jesus and the Disciples referred to . . .

Being a translation, the Septuagint (LXX) cannot be inspired, because: (1) it is a man-made translation, (2) reference to it by Jesus and the Disciples/Apostles is an unproven theory, and (3) it was discarded by Jerome as useless for the translation into the Latin of the Vulgate.

Apparently you are either not aware, or not disclosing that while the Torah books were a fairly good translation, the LXX was mostly in the care (or even created by) the Christian community. Many of the early Gentile Christians had not the same standards of preservation as the scribes of the Hebrew texts.

I have read in scholarly accounts that many of the LXX passages that conflict with the Hebrew were copied back into the LXX from the Koine New Testament by such translators, and thus cannot be used to validate the idea that the NT speakers/writers used (hence authorized) the LXX as the source. Circular argument.

More true is that (as in Ps. 40:6-8, cf. Heb. 10:5-7) the use of the OT passage was, by the speaker/writer of the New, of the nature of an oral mishrah-type interpretation/application of the inscripturated principle. Less obvious is the fact that this was a customary method for a rabbi to teach his disciples, but being written down, it became a part of the Hebrew Oral Torah (TaNaKh). So, when such a passage was interpreted by Jesus or an Apostle to teach The Word, and was written down, it became a part of the Sacred Inspired Writings as prompted by the Holy Spirit. One needs to see such a passage in the context of rebbinical teaching to understand that Jesus or Peter or Paul were not quoting the LXX, they were creating the equivalent passage that later appeared in the imperfectly preserved LXX.

In fact 2 Maccabees 7 is what Hebrews 11:35 refers to (among many cases where they are referenced in the NT

I don't think so. The uninspired pious historical text Maccabees is probably extracting terms from the preexisting inspired texts of Ezekiel 26:7, Daniel 2:37, and Ezra 7:37, which spikes your theory.

The remainder of this reply is quaint, but it does nothing to advance the point that the cited DC books were just that, not counted by the Biblicists under the Old Covenant as God-breathed. Cited for history, perhaps; but parts of them were so lurid and fantastic that they could not be accepted as spiritual guides. Binding them in published Bibles says nothing about establishing their 100% throughout authenticity, in my opinion, nor in Jerome's, as well as that of those to whom the costs of including them did not make sense to the publishers when the Gutenberg revolution introduced competition in the marketplace, where non-essential items could be lopped off.

[imardmd1]

What you have not clarified here is that Catholic praxis is that that which undergoes sanctification can be saved, with the Church and its rituals a means of grace but may need post-manufacture polishing in purgatory; whereas Scriptural salvation means that the gracious God alone does the saving when the justifying transaction of exchange of the sin-debt (paid by the Crucified One) for His imputed righteousness (credited to the sinner’s account) in its place is accepted by the worthless but informed and pardoned petitioner; whence, with a clean slate, the easy yoke and light burden of service to the Lord Christ is imposed, and the temporal training process that God can approve of begins.

[imardmd1]

But when is the Judge's decree, "Not Guilty" announced, and the case dismissed?

You've forgotten that part, eh? It is not merely atonement, a once-for-all-and-for-all-time the satisfaction of the sin-debt and ownership of them; it is a propitiation, a placating of the fiery wrath of an Angry God, the assuaging of the hurts of a disappointed Father, a redirection of the justice of an offended Ruler?

Come on! When is that ransom process completed, the sins forgiven, abandoned, and forgotten; and the confessing penitant cleansed from all unrighteousness, for once and all time?

This is not a Paul Harvey story, is it? Does this happen at the beginning of the walk with the Savior? or only at the end?

What's your story? Come on, let's have it!

[redleghunter]

Well I thank you for this thread. Have not fully digested it but will. Just so happened I picked up The Fundamentals just days before your post.:-)

Divine Providence that is!

[boatbums]

Thanks for the clarification. I think for the sake of these discussions, it would help to AVOID the many superlatives so easily used (i.e.; every last thing, anything. N'est-ce pas?