A horrific video has leaked revealing the cruelty of Islamic jihadist rule. Here is the video:
Islam is a religion of the devil, it is the religion of the spirit of the Antichrist. The Christian Faith is the true Faith. I would like to present an article on this subject, written by my father:
By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Sunday Special)
Why critical scholarly opinions abound on matters that pertain to the miraculous, especially when miracles defy science? Why do textual critics abound hovering over ancient biblical manuscripts? And why is their main goal always attempting to refute God by using textual criticism? Science and miracles do not go hand in hand.
Try scrolling down "textual criticism" on wikipedia and see how you will keep scrolling down to see the scholars and critics all hone in only on the Bible. Scroll all the way till you reach the sections on textual criticism of the Quran and the Book of Mormon and what do you find? These get no attention. And the only reason these are even mentioned is because they hitch on the Bible.
Why don't these scholars switch and instead hone in on the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Shreemad Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Veda, the Tripitakas, Baha'ism's Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Confucianism's Book of Rites the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects, the Mencius or Jainism's Agamas or Shintoism's Kojiki? Why are they 'strictly', 'only', and 'exclusively' focusing on the Holy Scripture and the miracles that convert people to become Christians?
The wise instead of knowing all the answers to shut-up the critics, needs to learn how to simply ask these right questions we just asked. Why do these focus solely on a bunch of people who sing and praise and consume a chip of wheat?
And its not just the Bible. Even when miracles happen all the way in Mexico, the hound dogs attack from within the Catholic Church itself trying to debunk the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is why I smile when people use 'priestly corruption' as an argument to disprove the church.
I rarely ran across priests that I like, but in my view the more the church is infiltrated, the more proof we have that its the truth. Truth is not found by landing on a squeaky clean church. Stafford Poole, a historian and Vincentian priest in the United States began a vigorous debate which was ignited in Mexico when it emerged that Guillermo Schulenburg (another bad priest) from the Basilica of Guadalupe who lived an extravagant life-style began to shed doubts that Juan Diego was a historical person. Heck, today we have many archeologists who doubt that King David even existed.
Schulenburg was supported by three of Mexico's most famous canon lawyers who asserted that evidence indicated the entire tale to be a church farce yet these didn't mind to live extravagant lifestyles off of the Virgin of Guadalupe's fame. I have met countless wealthy ministers who made fortunes from the Bethlehemite Jesus Who simply rode a donkey. Yet people follow them because they prefer a limousine over a donkey while ignoring that a donkey is a wonderful miracle made by a creator.
Mary too rode a donkey just like this one all the way to Egypt
And yet another scandal, erupted when the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli published in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale questioning the historicity of Juan Diego who was behind the tilma which the image miraculously formed on.
But it was the same case for the Shroud of Turin when it was first carbon-dated declaring it a 'fraud' sparking a great controversy until later on scholars still marvel at its formation with many debunking the carbon dating to also find its amazing miraculous nature to have been impossible to have been made by artists.
It is always the case that such "forgeries" are finally noticed as authentic.
Likewise was the story of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They said that Juan Diego whose tilma had the imprint of the Virgin Mary that he never existed until the Codex Escalada debunked the "no Juan Diego" theory.
The document described a woman stomping on a crescent moon and even mentioned this insignificant shepherd "Juan Diego" and was authenticated to be from the sixteenth century.
"principal image comprises a rocky landscape dotted with sparse scrub flanked on the left by an Indian kneeling at the foot of a mountain and facing in three-quarter profile across the plain towards the Virgin who, in turn, flanks the landscape on the right. She is contained within a nebulous mandorla, and at her feet are traces of what seems to be a horned moon. This depicts the apparition which is said to have occurred on 12 December 1531 on the hill of Tepeyac located six kilometers (four miles) north of the main plaza of Mexico City. The sun is rising over the hills behind the Virgin. Above the central landscape is the date "1548" beneath which are four lines of Nahuatl text written in the Latin alphabet which can be translated as: "In this year of 1531 there appeared to Cuauhtlatoatzin our dearly beloved mother Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico". Below the landscape and a little off-centre to the right, is the imposing signature of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (ca. 1499-1590), the renowned Franciscan missionary, historian and pioneering ethnologist. High in the cliffs above the kneeling Indian is a much smaller depiction of a man on the hill. Directly beneath the kneeling Indian is more Nahuatl text written in the Latin alphabet, the first part of which can be translated as: "Cuauhtlatoatzin died a worthy death"; and the second as: "in 1548 Cuauhtlatoatzin died." From other sources, this is known to be the native name of Juan Diego."
Juan Diego after all did exist.
Yet around these same times while some apparition many claimed as 'demonic' was changing Mexico's savage paganism, Martin Luther's Wittenberg's edition covered 9 pages of a discussion Luther had with Lucifer and the 'scholars' could care less about his Muhammadan style encounters with the devil. Behold the Luthifer-Lucifer exchange:
Luthifer's conversation with the devil
And if papal infallibility were the issue for Luther, can the following be anything less than protestant infallibility? Following the same thread "even an angel from heaven" which Paul wrote in II Thessalonians II, Luther wrote: "even an angel from Heaven, to judge my doctrine ... I will not allow it to be judged by anybody, not even by any of the angels".
Muhammad said similar things when he was questioned about his encounters with the angel of light saying: "by God if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left on condition that I abandon this course, until God has made me victorious, or I perish therein, I would not abandon it."
And while St. Mary visited Juan Diego in Mexico to stop the bloodshed, around the same time, most of southwestern Germany was in chaotic revolt. The peasants, who called on the power of Luther's teachings became violent. Historians will tell you that Luther opposed insurrection on principle, but cavalierly Luther sanctioned wholesale theft of ecclesiastical properties on the grounds that the inhabitants had forsaken the “gospel”:
"If they are not the church but the devil’s whore that has not remained faithful to Christ, then it is irrefutably and thoroughly established that they should not possess church property." (Wider Hans Wurst, or Against Jack Sausage, p. 220)
This type of sophist liberal zigzagging is nothing new. It is sort of like taking an official position where NATO condemns terrorism while it wrecks the whole Middle East. Officially NATO is anti-terrorism, of course, while at the same time they equip Islamist terrorists in Syria after creating havoc in Egypt, Libya and Iraq. What counts of course is the 'official' stance. The tactic is simple, create a cover and then spew whatever poison you want to cause rebellion.
But of course, the scholarly critics won't touch Luther and they will tell you that Luther simply suffered from a case of "unbridled tongue". Anabaptists who advocated non-violence and toleration only had Lutherans and Calvinists and Zwinglians torture and drown these fellow Protestants by the thousands. Persecution and capital punishment of the Anabaptists was adopted in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer — where the term “Protestant” originated — with Luther’s consent.
Were Luther's accomplishments here a miracle?
Yet miracles connected to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, which cannot possibly be explained is always accused as being the work of the devil while you find no major critics with Luther's encounter with the devil. Why?
How is it that miracles which, for all intents and purposes, draw millions to Jesus Christ Himself be of the devil when Jesus assured us that the devil will not divide against himself? Luther wasn't converting pagans. He was simply converting Catholics to revolt.
Miracles have always occurred historically, as recorded in the Bible. So did God cease to reveal Himself and He only manifests to the tele-evangelist healing ministry speaking of financial harvests that bought them the latest jet? Are these the miracles and answers to prayer? Perhaps it was the latest manifestations on speaking in tongues?
I can't count how many times I have seen the same full-fledged tares say that God hates religion. These mock religion by quoting: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27).
They isolate this verse and forget that in Matthew 25 what determines the destiny of the Christian to going to heaven or hell is based on that specific "religion":
"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in ..." (Matthew 25:35)
To feed the widows and orphans and the persecuted is no small matter. The ones who did not follow this "religion", He tells them:
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels".
Jesus even tells them why they are going to hell: "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ..."
Can one easily ignore this 'religion' and demand Jesus to send them to heaven because Luther said that once saved always saved or that they speak in tongues?
To get rid of religion, during the bloody persecutions of the Church in Mexico under the Freemason socialist Plutarco Calles, on November 14, 1921, a bomb was hidden in a bouquet of flowers was placed just a few feet before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the basilica in Mexico City. It went off. The explosion was so severe that it demolished the marble steps of the main altar, even the windows of the nearby homes, but the fabric suffered no damage whatsoever when it was only protected by glass, the same type of glass that was blasted throughout the neighborhood.
One can even examine all the critiques in the Guadalupe Encyclopedia and even they could not ignore this story and they cannot explain how a bomb could not effect a tilma covered by glass. One can even examine skeptics who do not deny that hemp and cactus fibers were used. These ignore the fact that all replicas of Guadalupe's image attempting to bust the miracle (just like the Shroud of Turin) ended up with miserable failures where the paint faded away few years later. It is impossible to do this type of art on this type of material.
When stories like this parallel Moses' staff showing that mankind fail the test, I am convinced its a miracle. If the Catholics are wrong about their faith, why would Plutarco Calles persecute the whole nation just to stop Guadalupe and the Eucharist? After all its just millions of crazy people each consuming a little insignificant cracker, right? So why all the fuss?
The key is not the ability to answer all the questions, but to ask the right wise questions.
But even besides all this controversy or even the failure to replicate the image, if this image was made by the devil, here we have the evil Plutarco Calles's terrorists, who all of the sudden was doing the work of God? Was he perhaps prevented by satan who protected the image from destruction?
But of course, mankind today loves his god, science, and if only science can prove it, then he will approve and believe. So they took Juan Diego's tilma which was examined in 1979 by Philip Callahan, (biophysicist, USDA entomologist, NASA consultant) specializing in infrared imaging, was allowed direct access to visually inspect, and photograph the image. He took numerous infrared photographs of the front of the tilma.
The wise recognizes real beauty where innocence protrudes out of an image and speaks to the soul
And everything adds up. It was as was claimed made of coarse weave of palm threads called "pita" or the rough fiber called "cotense" (MC), or a hemp and linen mixture (R). It was traditionally held to be made from ixtle, an agave fiber and not expensive canvas.
Was Callahan perhaps a lying fraud sent by the minions of the devil?
Maybe then the whole Cornell University too were devils? They studied the image of the Virgin left on the rough maguey-fiber fabric of Juan Diego's tilma magnifying the iris of the Virgin's eyes 2,500 times and, through mathematical and optical procedures, they were even able to identify all the people imprinted in the eyes including Juan Diego, the man who they denied was even involved. And his photo inside the eyes of the Virgin matched his portrait. But of course, the critics will tell you that its all imagination.
A painting of Juan Diego looks the same as found in a microscopic size image imprinted in the eyes of the Virgin
The eyes of the Virgin, though the dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils of the image's eyes have imprinted on them a highly detailed picture of at least 13 people who were the same people present in both the left and right eyes and in different proportions as would happen when human eyes reflect the objects before them.
The reflection transmitted by the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the scene on Dec. 9, 1531, during which Juan Diego showed his tilma, with the image, to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and others present in the room.
This would mean that the image, like the Shroud of Turin was created in a flash.
And why would the devil choose this material? Made primarily of cactus fibers, a tilma had a rough surface, making it difficult enough to wear, much less to paint and scientists insist there was no technique used beforehand to treat the surface which is like silk to the touch, while the unused portion remains coarse. The technique would be impossible which only occurs in nature in the coloring of bird feathers, butterfly scales and on the elytra of brightly colored beetles.
O stop your complaining about icons and just look at this beauty
To paint such an image in the "ayate" fibers would deteriorate after 20 years, but this image is nearly five centuries old. A 1938 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, found that the image did not even have natural animal or mineral colorings given that there were no synthetic colorings in 1531. Infrared rays discovered to their surprise no traces of any paint and the fabric had not been treated with any kind of technique.
Even the eyes when exposed to light, the pupils contract and when the light is withdrawn, they return to a dilated state. Was the devil behind Dr. Jorge Escalante Padilla, a surgical ophthalmologist who examined these reflections and also Dr. Cherney who examined the back surface of the cornea to only discover small veins on both of the eyelids of the image?
Did the devil strike the Japanese optician who was examining the eyes and fainted? Upon recovering he stated: "The eyes were alive and looking at him." [Janet Barber, Latest Scientific Findings on the Images in the Eyes, page 90.]
Perhaps its my imagination gone wild, but a glance at the Shroud of Turin I can tell, the face imprinted one can easily find in Bethlehem today.
I never liked any of the renderings I see attempting to make a photo from how Jesus looked like by using the shroud and I love the face on the shroud the way it appears and I can find my own relatives from Bethlehem who have resemblances (in my prejudiced view). Here is my cousin Musa (Moses) Shoebat who is a carpenter. I'd say he looks more like Jesus than these modernized re-creations.
But this is only my assumption.
The question is, can the devil create the shroud and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Even better yet: can the devil create life?
Besides the pupils in Our Lady of Guadalupe's eyes, how can this same devil create a human heart which would make him a creator of life? If life is produced from such miracles, than God must be in it for the devil is the destroyer of life which only God can create.
But this is exactly the case when one eucharistic miracle that took place in Lanciano, Italy roughly 1,300 years ago, the Body and Blood from that miracle are still preserved and another in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1996 when three years later Dr. Ricardo Castañón, a Bolivian neurophysiologist, was called in to have samples from the Host examined in a laboratory environment.
Dr. Frederick Zugibe, an esteemed cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University in New York tested the samples he was given and said the person whose heart it came from must have been tortured. Further, Dr. Zugibe was reportedly amazed that when he studied the samples, they were pulsating like a living, beating heart. Dr. Castañón first came across the miracle in 1999, he was an atheist and today, he's a Catholic, of course, he's not that stupid.
But of course, he is 'Catholic' now and therefore, he cannot be 'trusted'.
Mind you, the ultimate Jesus-style challenge is this: when Doctor Castañón took the sample to the San Francisco Forensic Institute he did not tell anyone there what it was or where it came from, yet they told him that the samples constituted heart muscle, specifically from the myocardium of the left ventricle and that the blood was human, with human DNA, and of the rare AB-positive type — the same as found on the Shroud of Turin tests as well as yet another eucharistic miracle that took place in Lanciano, Italy roughly 1,300 years ago which the Body and Blood from that miracle are still preserved at a church in the town when in 1970, they were examined scientifically and, like the Buenos Aires sample, found to be from a human heart with AB-positive blood.
Maybe we should not trust Zugibe, after all he is Palestinian with family in Bethlehem. Many were the Palestinians who contributed much. He wrote "A fertilized human egg at the moment of Conception, is the opinion of the creator that a human life at that instant, must begin". Was he too sent by the devil?
But Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe is no huckster, before he died, He was M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Examiner at Rockland County, New York and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology Columbia University College of Physician's and Surgeons. He was our best in the field.
Can the "sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground" as we are told in Luke 22 :42‑44? Zugibe documented cases where hemorrhage of the vessels supplying the sweat glands into the ducts of the sweat glands extrude out onto the skin. Hematidrosis has been reported to occur from the presence of profound fear accounted for a significant number of reported cases including six cases in men condemned to execution.
Perhaps this is the Grand Conspiracy where Lucifer is using Zugibe and a Carmelite nun named Lucia to convert the world to Catholicism through the Fatima apparition? I once had this argument with three nuns who told me that the Eucharist can become heart. I laughed at them. The three nuns then prayed for me daily for twenty years and then I saw the light that a Eucharist changing into heart tissue was a real miracle. I mean common, shepherds ... Carmelite nuns ... incorruptible saints ... shrouds and images of Jesus and Mary ... are you out of your mind Walid? (just saying). But when I see Dr. Zugibe come to the same conclusion I am 100% convinced.
Dr. Zugibe and wife Catherine with Sister Lucia of Fatima on April 28, 2002.
The Three Sister Nuns who were praying for me. I always thought they were absolutely mad and uneducated, of course until I examined the facts. O that wretched man that I am. Damn the devil. Damn the devil to hell.
Was all this faked up in the Shroud with all the dumbbell-type injuries, obviously caused by the flagrum which contains leather thongs with bits of metal or bone at the ends?
Why would the devil want proven instead of denounce Psalm 22:18, Matthew 27:35, Luke 23:34 and John 19:24: “They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots”?
The Shroud proves Christ was crucified nude without His garments! Why would God embarrass Himself for a bunch of stinking sinners?
Why would the devil want Psalm 34:20, John 19:33-36 proven, that Christ Kept all His bones?
Why would the devil want Colossians 1:15, John 14:9 and John 1:18 proven, that Christ is the invisible image of God?
Why would the devil want to prove Isaiah 52:14 “His appearance was marred more than any man”?
Why would the devil want to prove the “crown of thorns” in Genesis 3:18, Mark 15:17, John 19:5, and Matthew 27:2 that Christ was the King of the Jews?
Why would the devil want Christ’s crucifixion proven as prophesied in Psalm 22:14-16 and in Zechariah 12:10 when it says “they will look upon Me whom they have pierced”?
Why would the devil ever preach the true Gospel and then etch it on a cloth preserving it for all to see?
So perhaps all these experts faked up their findings because these where messengers of Lucifer?
If so, here then lays the Jesus-style question: why aren't the rest of the anti-biblical scholars who are of the minions of this world pouring into such miracles to aid in the conversion towards Lucifer?
And why would the devil, who loves death, want known that the transference of the Image to the cloth even speaks of a future resurrection event? In the words of St. Paul:
“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’” 1 Corinthians 15:52-54.
The very war with the devil who caused death is defeated as evidenced in the Shroud. Again:
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord,” 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17.
Have I gone mad or am I living in a wicked and adulterous generation that seeks signs and wonders?
But of course, Protestants question the whole notion of an authoritative church teaching and argue that Christians have the right and the responsibility to question church institutions and teachings in the light of Scripture.
Alright then, have it your way. In the 1960s the Catholic Church held its landmark council Vatican II and instituted sweeping ecclesiastical reforms and reformulated its theology to create more openness to Protestant churches and the way these review that scripture is to be interpreted by the laity.
Has it helped? Since then Protestants have been debating what they ought to think about Rome. The views still range from fierce denunciations of Catholicism as a cult or false church to calls for Protestants and Christians to put their old differences aside and to worship and evangelize side by side.
I disagree with both. Protestants are simply stolen sheep wandering without a shepherd failing to interpret correctly the text of scripture.
And today as a result we are in a mess with the fast quicksand of liberal infiltration on all sides where liberals infused textual criticism of the very scripture that they claim they want to defend. Everything from the perpetual virginity, David's existence to even the life of Christ is under attack.
Here, I will take you on a short journey and explain just one example out of thousands just to show you what sheep must endure from the wiles of the devil and how much homework I must pour to answer them. Believe me, the response I have you would find nowhere.
Example: "And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"
So without a central authority, now questions arise and the tares make the same arguments similar to the skeptics who question the Shroud and Juan Diego's tilma. They argue; since there is no such prediction in the Old Testament about anyone coming out of Nazareth, this prophecy fails. That the name Nazareth (which means branch) and Nazarene (which means vow) aren't even remotely similar.
That, plus Nazareth was never mentioned once in the Old Testament, yet Matthew insists that "He shall be called a Nazarene" in relation to the name Nazareth. After all Matthew insists that He lived in Nazareth to fulfill this ancient prophecy that Christ would be a Nazarene but we know Christ drank wine which means He broke the Nazarene vow.
Nazareth was an insignificant tiny village from around 900 BC until the Babylonian exile, and was only reestablished during the Maccabbean era around 200 BC. It remained a small, remote, and virtually unknown rural village, although it was not far from the major Roman center of Sepphoris in Jesus’ time. Nazareth was never once mentioned in any writing; Josephus, neither the ancient Egyptians, Aramaic, Hittite, or Phoenician records and was an insignificant criticized place.
Nazareth. How did the donkeys come about? Who made donkeys?
Matthew, therefore 'so they will push in your face' must have "erred"; he must have made a mistake in his use of the Old Testament.
But its not only this verse, there are literally thousands of issues and books they bring up and a poor sheep cannot deal with the Niagara falls worth of doubts hailing on his head. Not every sheep with a Bible is a scholar. So what must one do?
Answer: recognize the devil. Ignore the devil and he will flee from you. Remember the words of our Lord.
One can throw thousands of monkey wrenches like this at both Protestants and Catholics which both have to defend the same way by getting into all sorts of nitty-gritty worthless arguments.
The wise asks: where was Matthew making any etymological comparison between Nazareth versus Nazarene?
So lets walk through just this argument alone about Nazareth to show how it is simpler than most think and how the world complicates the issues. Matthew is simply saying that God had Him move to Nazareth so that what the prophets spoken of his rejection and belittling would be fulfilled for he was later on called: "a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5).
Matthew in no way shape or form was saying that all the prophets predicted Messiah to come out of Nazareth or that He would be called Nazarene just because this is what Nazareth means.
In addition, Matthew has Christ in Nazareth which means Branch and in Arabic means Victory (Al-Nasira) and that he is a sacrificial vow (Nazarene). These two words fulfill everything the prophets foretold.
Christ in the Middle East is called Yasu' Al-Nasiri which literally means Christ the Victorious.
Yet the Protestants when they argue against Catholicism they would disagree on any answer given to them regarding saints, the Eucharist, Mary ... yet they would agree with me here on the issue of Nazareth regardless that I am applying the same approach to answer in defense of Catholic theology.
The issue is never fact but prejudice.
Nazarene being derived from Nazareth is only a subject created by scholarly conjecture. Matthew was not speaking of any specific prophecy about a Messiah being called a Nazarene to be found in the Old Testament, but that the Old Testament is fulfilled by these two words: Nasarett (Victory) and Nezeri (sacrificial vow).
Matthew was simply saying what he said: And he [Christ] went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth [Nasarett], that everything that the prophets foretold will be fulfilled and is why 'He shall be called a Nazarene'" [the Sacrifice].
The correct argument should not be that Nazareth must match Nazarene since nowhere does Matthew even hint that one word "Nazareth" must now match the word "Nazarene" but the opposite; that both words must match Him and by that fulfilling all what the prophets foretold.
Two words and in them is everything we need to prove that Jesus was the Messiah.
And once we examine the ancient languages it all fits, like a glove.
Nazarene is from Nzr and Nazareth is from Nsr (no "z" sounding as Sion in Zion) and till today Nazareth is called Nasirat (victory).
Nazarene is from Nzr (Nezer) or Ndr (Aramaic Nedhr). Ndr means "vow" and "Ndr Dbh" (نذر ذبح) is Vow to Sacrifice.
I know this because I lived it where our colloquial language remains trickling down from ancient Aramaic mixed with Arabic. That plus keeping much of these traditions which I lived to see many times. Christ becomes the "Nezer" (Ndr) or "Neder" (Ndr) the vow offering where a “covenant” with Abraham—a promise that God vowed to fulfill and Christ was the offering. In fact, one can find this is some old scholarly works. See "Nzr" and "Ndr" are but the same:
Do you see Ndr and Nzr are "only dialectically different" and both words means exactly the same thing. One can also examine Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament pages 242-252. All one has to do is to look up "Ndr" in the Arabic (نذر ذبح) in Google images to see how people still carryout customs of sacrifice where they still slaughter animals to fulfill a vow. In the Bible Ndr can be found to mean "vow" which such vows are always fulfilled by a sacrifice. "If my son survives this surgery, I vow to sacrifice a lamb" is the usual.
It also has to do with crowning. Leviticus 22:21 and Deuteronomy 33:16 is taken direct from Genesis 49:26 and the crowning of the High Priest is also the crowning of the Messiah:
"The semitic root נזר nzr / ndr ("withdraw from the customary use") is behind the Hebrew noun נזר nezær " consecration / diadem" and is related With the designation נזיר nāzîr "Consecrated / Nasirä" (→ Nasirä ). From the type נזר nezær describes rather the diadem than the closed crown (G. Mayer, 329f.).
The diadem is a visible sign of the royal dignity. Matthew's one-line prophecy was speaking on Messiah being anointed as High-Priest and King which Nzr fulfills. In 2 Sam 1,10, the young man who gave Saul the death penalty reported to David that he had taken the severely injured Saul diadem and arm brace, which he now handed over. On the ascent of the seven-year-old Joash, the diadem is placed on the throne ( 2 Kings 11: 12 , 2 Chr 23:11). When, in the post-exilic period, the High Priest assumed a deputy royal function, the diadem also surrendered to it as a royal insignia ( Ex 9: 29 , Ex . That the Diadem of David's might have been decorated with flowers, suggests Ps 132:18 . (see Krone / Krönung (AT) - Lexikon).
Nzr fulfills Psalm 132:18, a promise to crown the Messiah: "His enemies will I clothe with shame; but upon himself shall his crown [nzr] shine.'" And this Psalm connects to St. Mary the Ark Who arises with Christ to heaven.
“One relic of the ancient insignia has been preserved, which was probably prized as the most precious of all. It was the golden plate affixed to the turban, inscribed ‘Holiness to Jehovah,’ which was believed to have come down from the time of Aaron, and which, treasured through all the vicissitudes of the Jewish state, was carried to Rome by Titus, and seen there by the great Jewish Rabbi, in the time of Hadrian” (Stanley, J. C. 3:353).
A diadem is a turban with such insignia. Even when John writes on the diadems on the horns of the heads of the beast, he is referring to turbans.
A Nzr is all about God's vow:
"The Lord has made a vow (Nzr) and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever.'" Psalm 110.
Indeed, Matthews one line prophecy covers everything the prophets foretold which makes it amazing, not weak. God made a "sacrificial vow". It was the vow that changed history. It was also David's vow in Psalms 132 before He (Messiah) arose with His Ark (Mary) which we explained in detail [here].
His heart was heavy with a pain he carried since his youth, David was burdened over the lack of the manifest presence of God to rest in the midst of his people and that vow changed the course of human history establishing a tabernacle with lavish offering that God later commanded a continual ordinance amongst the people of God (2Ch. 29:25-26) fulfilling the continuation of the Passover:
"And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD to accomplish his vow (Hebrew: Ndr), or a freewill offering in beeves or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein." (Leviticus 22:21)
Being Nazarene is to be separated. Christ was separated as a the only one, unique, the sacrificial lamb "sacrifice of peace offering" from the rest of his brethren as in Deuteronomy 33:16 uses "separated"—Heb., nâzîr. This was the particular feature in Joseph’s history, when he was “sold into Egypt,” and “separated from his brethren,” is part of the meaning of “Nazarene” when applied to Messiah in Matthew 2:23.
And how many Christians even know this? How can they even contend with the onslaught of the devil?
Nazareth is also the branch:
Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous tsemah (branch) and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the earth.
And in Arabic Nsr (نَصَرَ נָצְרַת in Hebrew Nizret) is "to rescue, to save. to water abundantly which we get the term نَصْرَانِيّ (naṣrāniyy, “Nazarene, Christian”). One can look up the Arabic to see an array of how this word means "the helper" "Nasart". In Jonah 1:16, the Hebrew for "Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows." The use "sacrifice" (zebahזֶבַח ׃) which is literally "a slaughter" unto the Lord and made "vows" (Ndr: "נְדָרִֽ").
Proverbs 7:15 "I have peace offering with me; this day have I payed my vows". "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast." This always involved a sacrifice.
People who deny transubstantiation do not know what they are saying. Scholars have often wondered how the Eucharist came from the Lords Supper, which occurred in the context of the Jewish Passover. But since Passover occurs only once a year, how is it that the Christians celebrate Jesus sacrificial meal weekly, if not daily?
How many western Christians even examine the tôwdâh sacrifice (Hebrew תּוֹדָה tôwdâh), "adoration"; specifically, a choir of worshippers:—confession, (sacrifice of) praise, thanks (giving, offering) and in Arabic (وَدَى wadâ) "to become reconciled by ransom" (al-Diyya الدِّيةُ) which always includes a sacrifice.
The tôwdâh was one of the most significant sacrifices of the Jews. The Pesiqta as quoted in Hartmut Gese (Essays On Biblical Theology) says:
"In the coming Messianic age all sacrifices will cease, but the thank offering [todah] will never cease."
And indeed the animal sacrifices ceased except the tôwdâh. Many who Hebrews 13:15, they think its about a singing choir when it is about a sacrifice:
By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.
To say this is all about a choir singing praises is far from the truth. But having read so far, most doubting Thomasses would quickly look up the commentaries for help to only find more error. Zondervan note for Hebrews 13:15 reads:
“Even here, [the author of Hebrews] makes one last reference to sacrifice. Now, we have only a ‘sacrifice of praise’ to offer, because Christ accomplished all that was needed.”
But Hebrews 13:15 would be considered the tôwdâh sacrifice the life saving offering that the redeemed person would show his gratitude to God which was equivalent to the tôwdâh sacrificial meal which included lamb and bread with wine accompanied by prayers and songs of thanksgiving, such as Psalm 116. It was the most important and common peace offering. This was the backdrop for Jesus and the Last Supper which most Christians today are completely ignorant about.
The Hebrew tôwdâh was eucharistia, which literally means "thanksgiving" and is how it was viewed from the earliest Christian sources and is how they celebrated the Lord's meal, or what we call the Mass. It was known by Christians as the Eucharist from when the Last Supper Jesus took the bread and wine and gave "thanks" (eucharistia) over them (Luke 22:19).
"And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever."
This sacrificial system never ended for it is "forever" and Christ was our Ndr/Nzr and tôwdâh. Just one verse in Matthew to cover all this and more. Interpreting scripture is not for the amateur.
In the upper room with his disciples, Christ celebrated Passover transformed the old sacrificial system of the old covenant into one giving his own body and blood as the lamb for the new Passover, the tôwdâh and Passover together — giving thanks for deliverance through His death and Resurrection to the Father for His love and for the new life to be granted in the Resurrection over the bread with His thanksgiving.
This is the Christian tradition and is why every re-enactment of the Last Supper is called "Eucharist."
Most ignore that Jesus brought about a new exodus. Most do not even pay attention when God told the Israelites that the Passover celebration is "forever" (Exodus 12:14).
So how is a sacrifice forever? This alone debunks all arguments that say "Catholics re-sacrifice Christ".
So when Jesus told them "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19), this act of remembrance is not simply a mental remembrance but the tôwdâh is the exercise of such remembrance recalling in gratitude God's saving deeds which we too must partake in the literal lamb of God: the Eucharist.
This is why in John 6 both acts go hand in hand:
“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 you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me."
How can such a remembrance be void of the act? Christ was transforming the Passover sacrifice into his own body and blood and now we must eat of this new sacrifice: His Body.
This is the Eucharist for if it is not why would the verse say: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” (Heb. 13:16)?
Here we have 'sacrifices' (plural which includes praises and Eucharistic sacrifice) and is why in Hebrews 13 it says: “We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat…" Christians do eat from an altar—the altar of the Cross—when we receive Christ in the Eucharist; and we join him in giving thanks and praise to the Father for having saved him—and through him, us—from the curse of death.
Yet despite all my explanations and interpretations of that single verse in Matthew, the liberal tares would still disagree even when I applied the scripture for evidence. Why?
But its not only the liberal tare who objects. While the Protestant complains about the liberal tares, he does not realize, that his arguments against the Catholic's Perpetual Virginity, Intercession of Saints, the Eucharist ... is all identical in its approach to the liberal tare whom he complains so much about and is why Christ warned to examine the log in the eye first.
The biblical text at face-value simply does not provide all the answers unless one knows how to use the scripture. Scripture is a tool but only for the wise few.
In reality, the modern Evangelical is a product of decades worth of liberal infusion into his theology which slowly chips away on his entire foundation where what is left is a naked Jesus or a crucifix missing the naked Jesus. He does not realize he is now the tare coming after whatever the liberal locusts did not consume from poorly catechized Catholics.
Yet he fails to complain about his own approach instead of heeding to the primitive church which has ironed out most of these issues within two millennia. How can one unravel the Niagara falls of issues?
Answer: by being stubborn.
If I can describe the tare versus the wheat, a tare has no substance while the wheat has substance: WHEAT!
If anything, a devout Catholic is constantly consuming the wheat offering and believes its the literal Body and Blood of Christ regardless to how many speak of a gluten free diet and grape juice. The tare rejects this because he has no wheat and insists on offering fruit while God told Cain to offer real meat. The wheat has the Wheat, the Bread of Life: Christ.
No you fool, the tares are the two on the left. Wheat is that fat one on the right. It cares less how it looks while the tares always love to appear slim and straight shaped for they depend on their outwards appearances. The Wheat resembles the consumption of the Eucharist for it is loaded with wheat which without there is no life while the tares offer nothing but contention and divide.
When one wants to drink, he calls for a known well-digger who knows how and where to dig to draw the spring. And when all is done, you drink everyday. You are not required to know how to dig for wells. What you are required to do is to trust the well digger. This would be your good priest.
The key is to avoid bad questions. The tare will always ask the same questions: aren't the priests these days corrupt and the priesthood infested with homosexuality?
The wise would answer: didn't Jesus say: "remember Lot's wife"? He was saying this in the context of end times. Why would Jesus say this? It is because He knew that before He comes that sodomy will infest the world including the church where He called Jerusalem "Sodom". This "Jerusalem" encompasses more than the city for it is allegory of the church.
This miracle of prophecy in itself is evidence that He is true. No one can deny that this prophecy is being fulfilled to the letter. The objection is clear evidence 'for' and not against scripture. This is what I mean by 'real miracle'.
Yes, multitudes are corrupt, but a good priest produces good fruit, he does not molest the sheep. It might take sometime to find one, but they are out there. But as far as homosexuality goes, it proves that God was perfectly correct. We live in a world of constant arm-twisting. Be as stubborn as a Palestinian and make sure your righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees. You will rarely find people as stubborn as us, the Palestinians or the Coptic Egyptians. Nothing can move us or shake us. No, not even the blade of ISIS. We have been trained since childhood to know how to die with honor.
The tare would say; its all about money and power!
But if the biblical accounts were made by men seeking power, why would God choose insignificant shepherds to announce His birth in an insignificant village named "Bethlehem" instead of classy Jerusalem? He then decides to be raised in an even more insignificant village called Nazareth despite the critics. And why would Mexico too be converted by an event in 1531 involving an insignificant shepherd named Juan Diego?
Millions in Mexico where being converted to Catholicism through a single miracle while in Europe the Protestant revolution was reaching a peak during the peasant revolt arguing over all things Catholic.
To squelch all the controversy in Europe, why didn't St. Mary when speaking to Juan Diego just tell him "Listen Juan, tell the Bishop that the Catholic Church is wrong, follow St. Luther"?
But instead the results of the meeting was that Catholicism, all with its hotly debated doctrines in Europe, permeated the new world where priests daily baptized 14,000 of the indigenous population (keep in mind per day), 9 million in all, while in the old world 'a revolt' was brewing and was void of any heavenly miracles.
So we have one event that caused the loss of a third of Catholics to Protestantism while the other regained what was lost sweeping throughout South America and Mexico converting millions more of these pagans to Christianity.
The tare would ask: was all this perhaps the work of demons? Was it all perhaps a hoax created by the Catholics to convert poor uneducated indigenous Indians to the faith so they can collect more indulgences based on a fake story?
But if this story of Juan Diego was fake, what do we do with the 16-page manuscript called the Nican mopohua, which was acquired by the New York Public Library in 1880 and has been reliably dated to have been written in 1556? This document, written in Nahuatl in Latin script, tells the story of the apparitions and the supernatural origin of the image we call Guadalupe.
But then came more critics who said that the account of a Juan Diego existing is a made up story. Yet such faulty claims permeated until 1995 when Father Xavier Escalada one of today's 'dreaded Jesuits', whose four volume Guadalupe encyclopedia had just been published, announced the existence of a sheet of parchment (known as Codex Escalada), which bore an illustrated account of the vision and some notations in Nahuatl concerning the life and death of Juan Diego, previously unknown, the document was dated by experts to have been drawn in 1548.
And why is it that the Almighty kept this ace in the hole hidden if such a story of Guadalupe was a 'fraud' and only have one insignificant man named José Antonio Vera Olvera find the parchment, by chance, enclosed in a manila envelope and lodged between the pages of a 19th century devotional work on sale in a second-hand book market?
And we have similar stories like this erupt out of nowhere. When sophists and complex textual critics began to question the power of prophecy they claimed that there were two Isaiahs, one who wrote the history and another who later on injected prophecy after the fact. Such theories became popular, of course.
However, one insignificant shepherd named Muhammad Dhib in the Ta'mara village near Bethlehem busted all the myth when he accidentally found the entire book of Isaiah intact. He thought it would make good leather that he tried to sell it to a shoe repair shop downtown Bethlehem for a shilling. It finally ended up in the hands of Yeshue Samuel, a Turkish priest from the Syrian Orthodox Church who recognized a gem and purchased the Isaiah, Habakkuk and Genesis scrolls (1QIsaa; 1QapHab; and 1QapGen) from Dhib to end up being examined by the famed American scholar William F. Albright, who dated them to around 100 B.C.
Later on they even discovered an entire collection of about 900 documents in all, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in Israel that showed an entire millennia older Bible than the oldest we had proving not only that we have one Isaiah, but that our Bible has no changes which rendered many of the so-called scholarly claims worthless.
Will these guys ever rest and just let it go?
Heck, in Israel we have Silver Amulets dated 7th century B.C. – 400 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls, these are the oldest copies of biblical text known to man and you find no textual critics hovering over it or people even knowing about it
The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls establish solid evidence for the coming Messiah unquestionably predated the time that Jesus Christ walked the earth rendering all theories of 1st Century AD conspiracies and stories about prophecy manipulation by 'scholars' as worthless.
In the meanwhile, they will one day come to kill me for believing in Jesus and His Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe. But we are not the only martyrs, there are others more worthy before us: the last Crusaders, just like the Maccabees were simple stubborn Mexican peasants, not scholars:
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