July 30, 2013 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary — From the Margins
For Now
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The following is an excerpt from a still uncompleted Volume of APA:
1.
Under the best of circumstances, absolute proof of anything is elusive, a mirage that often isn’t what it seems to be when finally captured, measured and weighed. In Volume Four of APA, I argued that Matthew’s Gospel isn’t the biography of the historical Jesus; that Matthew’s Gospel cannot be historically true; that Matthew’s Gospel can only be prophetically true. But Matthew’s Gospel remains central to understanding the essence of Christianity; remains central to walking in this world as Jesus walked although Matthew’s Jesus isn’t the same Jesus as found in Mark’s Gospel or John’s Gospel.
Matthew’s Gospel differs significantly from the Book of Acts which is, perhaps, the only Sophist novel most modern Christians have read or will ever read … other novelistic treatments of the adventures and misadventures of Paul, of early Christian heroes, of heroines were composed by Greek converts in the late 1st-Century and the 2nd-Century CE. These adventure tales became instantly popular, but they were not preserved in the Christian canon whereas Luke’s Gospel and Acts were, a credit to the Sophist who wrote these fictionalized accounts.
Again, Acts is unmistakably a Greek novel that employs the popular motifs of 1st & 2nd Century Second Sophistic literature, with the naming phrase <Second Sophistic> being the literary-historical recognition given to Greek orators/writers/novelists emphasizing education from shortly before the reign of Nero until the mid 3rd-Century CE, with Laodicea and Smyrna being important Second Sophistic centers. But Acts’ great claim to fame is that Acts eluded detection as fiction while the Pastoral Epistles of 1st & 2nd Timothy and Titus have been recognized as problematic texts for centuries; for the Pastoral Epistles, while internally claiming to have been written by the Apostle Paul, differ from accepted Pauline texts in subject manner, syntax, and word usage … when Paul writes to the saints at Corinth or to the saints in Galatia, no church hierarchy—ordained clergy—exists. No one person is in charge of the congregation. No one such as Timothy or Titus has authority. Plus, within Paul’s entourage were several women of spiritual standing (e.g., Mary and Junia in Rom 16:6–7), women who were not silent, quietly learning from husbands. In addition, the words used in the Pastoral Epistles suggest that these epistles were not written by the Apostle but by someone claiming to be Paul a half century after Paul had passed from the scene. A comparable modern example would have an alleged 1960s text including a reference to channel surfing. Yes, <surfing> was a word employed by the younger generation in the 1960s, but used in conjunction with surfboards, rollers, and riding the curl, and not with television sets or surfing the Net.
Because Matthew’s Gospel includes a genealogy that the Gospel itself contradicts as soon as the genealogy is given as well as a journey to Egypt and back that spiritually prevents natural Israel being the Son called from Egypt that Hosea references (Hos 11:1), Matthew’s Gospel does “something” apart from relating a historical account of the life of the man known as Jesus the Nazarene. This something sets in place a post-crucifixion scenario that isn’t historically true, a scenario that cannot be true if John’s Gospel is true, or if Mark’s Gospel is true as it ends in the earliest preserved manuscripts (Mark’s Gospel ended with 16:8, with the two women saying nothing about Jesus being raised from death … verses 9–20 are late editions, apparently composed sometime in the 4th-Century). Therefore, since Acts is an obvious Sophist novel—obvious to anyone who has studied the history of the “novel”—and since Luke’s Gospel is the setup piece for Acts, with those things that happen to Jesus in Luke being loosely paralleled by the things that happen to the Church in Acts, and since the Jesus of Luke’s Gospel is not the same Jesus as found in Matthew, Mark, or John (each with their own Jesus) and since the Pastoral Epistles are not genuine, secular academic claims about the New Testament being a “human book” written by men and not the inspired word of God as well as Islamic and Jewish criticism of received Christian texts have merit even though these claims and criticisms utterly lack spiritual understanding.
Understanding Matthew’s Gospel is essential if a person truly wants to grasp the mind of Christ and begin to appreciate the difference between human intellect and what awaits the firstfruits of God—and Matthew’s Gospel can be spiritually understood if a disciple can push past the physicality of space-time; for Matthew’s Gospel was initially written in Greek, a fully alphabetized language that doesn’t rely upon the reader to assign vowels to inscribed consonant clusters, thereby forcing “humanization” onto texts that are allegedly revelations from God … the Quran is composed in partially alphabetized Arabic and the Old Testament was written in partially alphabetized Hebrew and Aramaic, all three being Semitic languages written in consonant clusters and not complete words. And any text composed in a partially alphabetized language relies upon tradition for its reading; relies upon a continued reading of its text from composition to the present; relies upon readers to supply the vowels needed to transform inscribed consonant clusters into words. Thus, any text written in a partially alphabetized language is received as an incomplete text that relies upon the reader for its completion and is thereby ripe for abuse. How does the reader know what vowels to assignment to consonant clusters? The reader knows the vowels to be assigned because the reader has been taught, generation upon generation, which vowels to assign to a consonant cluster; for the vowels assigned transform the text in subtle but significant ways: a book of peace can easily become a book of war, with this transformation coming through who has taught whom to assign vowels to consonant clusters and thereby complete the text.
Mohammad wrote down nothing; so the Quran, unlike the Torah, isn’t the writings of Mohammad but of disciples whereas the Torah is the writings of mostly Moses, who after inscribing a partially alphabetized passage, recited the passage to Joshua so that Joshua would know what vowels to assign to the consonant clusters: “Then [YHWH] said to Moses, ‘Write this [an account of the defeat of Amalek] as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven’” (Ex 17:14 double emphasis added).
However, the House of Judah lost the Book of the Covenant for long enough that no one observed the Passover as Moses commanded between the Judges and King Josiah, meaning that Moses’ writings went unread for generations. Moses’ recitation of his writings was lost before the House of Judah was taken to Babylon; so the vowels Moses used in his recitation of his inscribed consonant clusters to Joshua could only be speculated upon after the Book of the Covenant was recovered from the dilapidated temple.
All readings of the Quran and of the Old Testament are of human persons, with readers completing the text by assigning vowels as deemed appropriate by a particular reader to inscribed consonant clusters. Thus, all readings of the Quran and of the Old Testament are not of God, a theological dilemma that places tradition and traditional readings in the position of God. Regardless of whether Muslims or Jews want to accept the humanization of their sacred text, that humanization in inescapable through their text being inscribed in partially alphabetized languages: the inscription of their sacred text in a Semitic language that they, themselves, have to complete by supplying roughly half of every word to the scribed text says through demonstration that their sacred text is not wholly of God.
Although sacred texts in fully alphabetized languages such as Greek are inherently complete, they stand complete apart from any assignment of meaning to their “completed words” … regardless of what an Indo-European language user wants to believe about the words he or she uses, it is the one who receives the words uttered or inscribed that assigns meaning to these words. Hence, a politician will deliver a stock stump speech to a general audience—in the United States, President Obama is in perpetual campaign mode, delivering the same stale lines in 2013 as he delivered in 2007 and earlier—but every person who hears the speech hears what the person wants to hear, with the politician’s supporter believing what he or she “hears” spoken by the politician while the politician’s detractors hear definite proof that the politician is a liar and con-artist. And with the video taping of most political utterances, a word spoken in 2008 is as fresh as a word spoken in 2012, with the taping of political utterances severely hampering any change of opinion by the politician, thereby establishing the basis for the positional entrenchment presently seen in Washington, D.C.
No political deal can be made by a TEA-party supported Republican Representative that transgresses the election promises made and captured on video while the person was running for office. Likewise, no political deal can be made by a liberal Democrat that transgresses promises made to unions or to environmentalists or to minority leaders. Thus, the video taping of political speech as much as anything underlies the gridlock that prevents the United States of America from getting its financial and social house in order, thereby hamstringing the nation that is already a failed republic. And what is being witnessed by the world is the technology that brought cell-phones to remote villages in Kenya, cell-phones capable of recording short video files, is also bringing to an end the social and political conditions that permitted this technology to develop.
In January 2002, I was called to reread prophesy, not to deliver additional prophetic words to a world that cannot understand the prophecies previously delivered: I do not add sound or vowels to the Greek texts of the canonical New Testament. Rather, I give to the completed words [each a stand-alone linguistic icon] a different meaning than was formerly given to the same word when these prophecies were sealed and kept secret by the Lord (see Dan 12:4, 9; 8:17, 2:28) … a sealed and kept secret prophecy is of no value to anyone—and if a sealed prophecy for the time of the end doesn’t shortly come to pass, then the time of the end was not at hand when the prophecy was humanly assigned meaning. Therefore that particular assignment of meaning to the prophecy was not of God: the prophecy was not yet unsealed.
I do nothing other than assign differing “meanings” or linguistic objects to prophecies delivered nineteen hundred or more years ago. The proof of whether I was truly called by God to reread prophecy, thereby unsealing what was previously sealed, will come in whether a Second Passover liberation of Israel shortly occurs. I am a Baby-Boomer, but I was in college before the Beatles came to America. And if a Second Passover liberation doesn’t occur, then I shouldn’t be believed. My writings shouldn’t be preserved. However, if I am correct, then the rest of Christendom is wrong in what it teaches about God and Christ Jesus. And if I am correct, you as an uncovered firstborn will die physically in the Second Passover, with your life being given as part of the Adversary’s demanded ransom price for the liberation of all Christians, not just the Elect (for whom their ransom price has already been paid), from indwelling sin and death.
The above is correct: while the Elect were still sinners, with the Apostle Paul and the holy ones to whom he wrote being numbered among the Elect, Christ Jesus died for them, just as Christ Jesus today dies for the Elect while they are still sinners, thereby paying with His life the ransom price for the Elect. But most of Christendom is not included in the Elect for most of Christendom is comfortable as sons of disobedience, openly transgressing the Sabbath commandment and mocking any need to personally keep the commandments. Thus, these Christians, precious and honored in the eyes of the Lord, need the lives of other men to be given for them as their ransom (Isa 43:3–4). Since all that open the womb of Israel belong to the Lord (Ex 13:1) and since all of humanity will be Israel when the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation, all firstborns here on earth and in the Abyss belong to the Lord. They are His to do with as He pleases. And if He chooses to give their lives as the ransom price for greater Christendom, their lives are His to take in the Second Passover liberation of Israel. But as the death angel in Egypt passed over the houses of Israel protected by the blood of the slain Passover lamb, the death angel that slays uncovered firstborns at the Second Passover liberation of circumcised-of-heart Israel will pass over those Christians who have covered their transgressions by taking the sacraments of bread and wine that represent (on only one day a year) the body and blood of Christ Jesus, the Passover Lamb of God.
President Obama will be an uncovered firstborn for the remainder of my natural life. As such, if I have truly been called by God to reread prophecy, President Obama will be supernaturally slain and will not die a natural death. And I will have nothing to do with his demise: I wish him no ill-will. Rather, he will be slain because he is an uncovered firstborn—and because of who he is, there is nothing he can do to ward off sudden death. This includes insincerely taking the Passover sacraments.
Can a person such as the President change between now and the Second Passover liberation of Israel? Yes, certainly. But only if the Father draws the person from this world and delivers this person to Christ Jesus can the presently uncovered firstborn escape sudden death in the Second Passover liberation of Israel. And it is extremely unlikely that God would call the most powerful human person in the Adversary’s administration. It is by far more likely that the President has already received all that he will get from his time here on earth.
I realize that another person can assign differing meanings to the same prophetic words than I assign to these words, but I’m in no contest of correctness with another person. My assignment of meanings is either correct or its isn’t. And if I am correct, then everyone else is wrong to the degree that the person disagrees with what I write. And it is this concept that if I am correct everyone else is wrong that scares most … it is easy to believe what the majority believes. It takes great faith and much courage to believe that one person is correct and every one else is wrong, especially when that one person isn’t President Obama or someone with name recognition in this world.
I told a Sabbatarian pastor in Kenya who asked to be taught that he should in longhand write out the last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel through verse eight, the last chapter of Luke’s Gospel and compare these chapters side by side. Then when the pastor realized just how much the post-Resurrection accounts differed one from another, he should take his three handwritten last chapters and compare them to John chapter 20 & 21. Only afterwards will the basis for him understanding Matthew’s Gospel and all of New Testament Scripture be established; for Matthew’s Jesus, in telling His disciples that All authority in heaven and on earth has been given Him (Matt 28:18), reaches into the future to when the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation (Rev 11:15–18; Dan 7:9–14). Matthew’s post-Resurrection scenario hasn’t yet occurred, and Matthew’s eleven disciples look like the eleven founding tribes of Israel that make up the 144,000 of Revelation chapters 7 & 14, the 144,000 that follow the glorified Lamb of God wherever He goes. But more of this later.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."