Showing posts with label old testament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old testament. Show all posts

Thursday 18 March 2021

A discovery of human artefacts and human remains older than six thousand years

 

The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the discovery of a 10,500 year old woven basket in the Judaea desert.
 
Discoveries both of human artefacts and human remains that are older than six thousand years pose a fundamental challenge both to the belief that humans would only six thousand years old and the concept of a ‘seven thousand year plan’. 
 
Between 1946 and 1956, some 981 different texts and scrolls were discovered in eleven caves in the eastern Judaean Desert of what is now the modern-day West Bank. This collection known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, was a huge sensation.
 
Preserved by the aridity of that region in the southwestern part of Israel, these scrolls dated back to around 100 B.C.E.-100 C.E..  They included Hebrew texts of much of the Old Testament, which were about a thousand years older than previously known Hebrew scriptures (or Old Testament) manuscripts and showed that the these texts had been transmitted rather faithfully over centuries of scribal copying. There were also other writings peculiar to the Jewish community that lived near those caves, which gave new insights into the religious and social currents of that day.
 
The previous weeks Israeli archaeologists, having searched the caves the Judean Desert announced their findings of further texts, giving us withdozens of new Dead Sea Scroll fragments some more insight in the texts of the minor prophets. 
Other objects found alongside the scroll fragments also withstood the test of time, including ancient olive pits; remnants of clothing and sandals and a wooden lice comb similar to one that might be used today.
 

Archaeologist Chaim Cohen says the four-year project has been vital to protect the treasures inside the cave system from future plunder.

"This project is the protection of the area because, again, it is almost impossible to beat the looters," he said. "They're working, and the solution was to get to the case before the looters."

The massive excavation site spans parts of southern Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel has long been criticized for removing objects found in the Palestinian territories.

According to international law, taking cultural property from an occupied territory is forbidden, but those concerns haven't prevented the Israeli Antiquities Authority from putting the discoveries on display.

The 10,500-year-old basket as found in Muraba‘at Cave. (photo credit: YANIV BERMAN/IAA)

 
The basket, the discovery of which was announced Tuesday 16th March was found in Muraba’at cave in the Judaea desert. According to the Jerusalem Post article, it is believed to be the oldest of its kind ever uncovered. 
 
Ken Gilmore, an Australian Christadelphian,  reacts on these findings and certain people their idea that mankind only exists a 5 or 6 thousand years:

Both the belief that humans were created only six thousand years ago and the ‘Gap Theory’ that posits an earlier creation which was eradicated and replaced six thousand years ago by another creation make clearly testable predictions. The former would have no human fossils or artifacts older than six thousand years in the archaeological record, while the latter would show clear signs of a destruction six thousand years ago and no sign of continuity between human remains / artifacts on either side of this six thousand year old destruction layer. It goes without saying that we see neither. What we do see is continuity and human antiquity, stretching back well before six thousand years ago:
“The transition from the food-gathering phase to fully developed agriculture and pastoralism was a long process which began in the Near East around 10,500 B.C.E. and lasted several thousands of years. It was accompanied by changes in social organization and economic activity which expressed themselves in the establishment of settled communities and the eventual birth of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Some of the most important steps in this development can be traced in Palestine.”

 

Read more on what he has to say:

How a 10,000 year old basket (and the whole archaeology of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Palestine) falsifies the fundamentalist belief in a Seven Thousand Year Plan

Wednesday 4 April 2018

Revealing books

Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude and Peter were writers who by the power of inspiration each wrote their part independently of the others, but they all were empowered by the same one Spirit. It was that Superforce Which enabled them to make known to men the mind of God in history, precept and prophecy, so that the Bible though composed of many books and parts would be known as the one Word of God.

The writings of those men were bundled into two parts; the Old and New Testaments. But in the days of Christ, the Scriptures were known as "Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms." The Old Testament was written by Moses and the Prophets, who came after him. The New Testament was written by the Apostles.
The Old Testament was begun by Moses about 1450 [1,600] years before Christ, and finished by Malachi a little over 1,000 [1200] years afterwards. (Before Christ 397.) The New Testament was written during the lifetime of the Apostles, after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, over nearly 2000 years ago.

By wonder those writing survived the time and still today we can say that
The Bible, given by inspiration of God, reveals to us the Truth concerning God and concerning man.


  Find also to read:
  1. Getting to know the Truth
  2. Where to learn the truth (available from 2018 April 4, 2.31 pm)
  3. Put on the whole armor of God
  4. To be established in the present truth
  5. Determined To Stick With Truth.
  6. Challenging claim
  7. Challenging claim 1 Whose word
  8. Challenging claim 2 Inspired by God 1 Simple words
  9. Challenging claim 3 Inspired by God 2 Inerrant Word of God
  10. Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God
  11. Unread bestseller
  12. Book of books and great masterpiece
  13. Colour-blindness and road code
  14. Inspired Word
  15. The Word of God in print
  16. God’s forgotten Word 4 Lost Lawbook 3 Early digressions and Constantinic revolution
  17. God’s forgotten Word 5 Lost Lawbook 4 The ‘Catholic’ church
  18. Absolute Basics to Reading the Bible
  19. Bible guide
  20. Bible, Word of God, inspired and infallible
  21. Authority of the Bible

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Of Kings And Prophets a Biblically-themed network television

On Tuesday, March 8 at 10PM a Biblically-themed network television, called Of Kings And Prophets, debuted on ABC.

Thirty years after Ronald Reagan stated:
 “Religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.” 
 a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew found it time to join together to do what many in Hollywood deemed impossible: launch a Biblically-themed network television show about the collision of politics and religion that would appeal to both faith-based and secular audiences.

The makers of the show want to be faithful to the Bible and show people the Work of God. They say
In being faithful to the scriptures, we decided not to shy away from the sexuality and violence that is either implied or explicit in the text. To do so, would sanitize the reality of the biblical time and place, while at the same time bypassing important parallels that we still confront and struggle with today. We made this choice to open a conversation about how one reconciles faith with the realities of the world—whether in ancient Israel or in the contemporary U.S.
It seems there has to be some violence shown in the show.
We assumed we might be met with some resistance from Biblical literalists, as there is always the chance when dealing with religious material that faith-based audiences might negatively react to our interpretation of scriptural inconsistencies.
Surprisingly though, the most vitriolic criticism has not come from faith-based viewers, but from secular media outlets and bloggers, many of whom argued that the war, violence and brutality depicted in the show would alienate religious viewers. Clearly, these reviewers are unfamiliar with the Bible.
Today we hear also lots of people criticising the Koran and Muslims because they would keep to all sorts of cruel stories. But those complaining about those violent stories do forget or do not know that those same stories can be found in the Jewish as well as the Christian Bible.

People should be aware that
The world of the Old Testament, as described in the Bible, is often brutal and violent—a world where slavery and rape were the victor’s prerogative, and genocide was an accepted approach to foreign policy. The faithful know this better than anyone.
It are often the kafir or non-believers and those who do not know the religious texts who go in attack against one or the other religion. In Christendom we also have lots of people who have taken Jesus as their god instead of believing what Jesus and God say about each other. Many of those so called Christians do not know the other true Christians, who in Christianity proclaim only One True God, the God of Abraham, like the God of the Jews and the God of Muslims.
Often it our those Christians who keep to a three-headed god do not come to see Who the God is of the Holy Scriptures and do not realise how the whole world shall come to get to know the Only One True God, Allah, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, Who is One God of gods and Host of hosts, greater than and above all gods.

The makers of the show are devoted to their respective faiths, and passionate about their artistry. They say
That’s why we are convinced that if the entertainment industry fails to show faith-based programming, we will miss out on opportunities to explore and understand the rich values and moral complexities that exist at the heart of our religious texts.
And conclude:
It is our hope that secular critics will understand that it is vital to our fabric as a nation to explore our faith through art—to let our values, morals and faith serve as scaffolding for our creativity. That’s what we have tried to do with Of Kings And Prophets.
But after just two episodes ABC has decided to cancel its biblical drama Of Kings and Prophets.
The move came after the show received low ratings and sponsors were pressured to pull their advertising.
The show attempted to tell the story of King David’s ascent to the throne and King Saul’s demise. While an exciting premise, ABC failed to deliver a product that resonated with most viewers. Of Kings and Prophets downplayed religious themes in favor of sex, violence, and intrigue for entertainment value.
ABC also took plenty of artistic licenses and made some odd character choices. For example, the prophet Samuel was portrayed as a jealous, bloodthirsty, and senile old man who misrepresented the will of Elohim. Samuel ordered Saul to annihilate the Amalekites seemingly out of spite, not because God wanted it.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness

What can be the truth and what do we understand under ‘the truth’? Are we speaking of man made sets of concepts and beliefs, or the accumulation of scientific knowledge, or mathematical certainties?

How can we find the truth and do we need to examine only all the NT writings or do we have to look at the OT writings also?

How can we get the full story of early Christianity and how much interest do we have to have for theological writings or to church letters and books written after the gospels and epistles?

Are you not curious what those Christians in the Old Times believed and how believes changed and churches found ways to grow? But those growing churches did they keep to the Truth? Did they not bring in teachings to become more popular and to have more people who could find their traditional events integrated in the church?

With education, we are able to discern between right and wrong, good and evil, and make what we might term moral choices. The human being is privileged that it has a brain which can be used to get such an insight. We as human beings can have a level of awareness and with it an ability to come to a natural expression of our physical organisation or being, and that it is an innate capacity or potential that we are uniquely born with.

The 21st century has brought us to an age of increasing complexity and sophistication, which is being driven by scientific advancements on a scale never seen before. These advancements are coupled in a strange way with a veneer of rationality that is difficult to reconcile with the advances in science. As science seeks to explain and explore every detail of the material world, the media and entertainment industries bombard us with increasingly puerile levels of information, often delivered in oversimplified sound-bites backed by expertly crafted graphic imagery for easy acceptance. The outcome is a society which has generally lost the ability to think and reason critically on the deeper questions of life.
On the net you shall be able to find a new website which shall look at the way how we can look and interpret the Bible. There are numerous teachings in the Bible, but it can be good to now and then just to look at some basic elements which are not so hidden in that book that it would be to difficult to find.

In any case are there 5 teachings in the Bible which stand out and upon which all the others are based. Each of these are intimately connected, and none stands fully alone or independent. Other important teachings such as Law, sin, righteousness, faith, grace and salvation are all connected to these central themes and in some measure they are built upon them. These core teachings stand therefore in some measure as a foundation, and upon them and around them can be built a fuller understanding of the ways of God.

At the new website you may find core concepts for your investigation.

  1. God’s revealed purpose with both mankind and with the earth: God's Plan
  2. The revealed Creator of heaven and earth: the Elohim Allah God: Jehovah
  3. God His Revelation – God has spoken and revealed Himself and His ways. This is in His Word, in the book we commonly call the Bible.
  4. Human being, animals and plants, the elements in the universe.
  5. Jesus Christ – God’s son, whom God raised up to be a saviour. He is the completion of God’s purpose, the very image of the invisible God.  The Nazarene man whom was called Jeshua, but of whom people changed his name in Jesus 'Hail Zeus' and made him a god of a threesome.
  6. Self-Awareness – and the Choices this Awareness Brings?
 Most of us don’t really seek for answers but are somewhat satisfied by the consensus of opinions advanced by the experts and thought leaders we follow, whether consciously or subconsciously. The added complexity to the question of existence is the self-evident fact that total objectivity is rarely possible, since every one of us has prejudices that colour our reasoning and conclusions. This often works in ways that we are not even aware of. This is a peculiar quirk of the human condition. Our ability to be totally objective is often challenged by our education, culture, peer group or simply our preferred group’s prejudices. Most of us have an innate bias or need to conform to the consensus position of the particular group that we most closely identify with. This causes most people to rely upon the conclusions of those they respect and identify with, and who are often experts at articulating their positions. We rationalise, that if they cannot get it right and tell us the answers, who really can? 
Many may be looking for a long time in their life for true knowledge and wisdom. Do you have any idea where you or others can find it?
Where is the source of true meaning? Is it found in the world; in its philosophy, science, education, religions, or worldly wisdom?

While all of these fields are capable of helping us in our day to day struggles, they are not able to give us an answer to the larger question of purpose. They certainly may be treasured, but they are not that which really counts, which is more valuable than the sum total of all else. The Bible informs us many times that this treasure can only come from above, i.e. from God.  
 


Find more about it in:

  1. Chapter 1 - General Introduction to the Blog Basic Bible Teaching: The Core Teachings of the Bible.
  2. 1.The Core Teachings of the Bible 1.      TheCore Teachings of the Bible
  3. The Core Teachings of the Bible Chapter 2 - Self-Awareness – and the Choices this Awareness Brings?
  4. The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth
  5. The Core Teachings of the Bible Chapter 2 - The Common Human Experience: 1.      The Common Human Experience
  6. Is There a Greater Purpose to Life?
  7. Yes – Purpose and Wisdom can be found.

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Thursday 19 June 2014

Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery

On Journey Towards Easter with subtitle: Discovering the beauty of truth, the writer who is an Englishman, living in Scotland writes that the Trinity is a symbol of the knowable and unknowable.

According to him
 – the One who reveals Himself to us is the same One who can never be fully understood.
would the God Who loves His creation raeally not want His creation to know Him an not want His creation to understand Him?

The god of Love from the start of His creation had the intention to have a good relationship with His creation. Good relations are build on comprehension, understanding each other and on being open for each other. God never had and/or never has the intention to have secrets for the world. For millenniums He wanted to play open card game with the people who inhabited His world. He took care all people could find a Guide in their life and would be able to find the guidebook or manual to make the best of their life.

The writer of the article himself knows:
The knowledge we receive from God about Himself is sure knowledge, by which we cannot be deceived, but it only serves to deepen our appreciation for how far God exceeds our expectations, and is infinitely more than we can or could ever have imagined.
Then he refers to the Old Testament reading for his day he want to celebrate a three-une god,
from Exodus (34:4b-6, 8-9), where we read that:
“4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. 5 And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. 6 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; 7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. 8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. 9 And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.” (Exodus 34:4-9 ASV)
He clearly understands that this passage speaks of God coming near to man (Moses in this case) and revealing Himself to us.
 He ‘stood with him there’ and proclaimed His name – that is, His character, ‘a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (v.6), so that His people would know it for sure.
but than he makes a strange twist, mixing tow different persons, of one is not exactly a man because It is a Spirit and the other is a man of flesh, bones and blood.
God desires to come close to us and show us who He is – something shown to an even greater extent in today’s Gospel reading (John 3:16-18).
In that reading you may find:
“16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. 18 He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18 ASV)
clearly everybody should see that the God, Who does not tell lies,  has given His only begotten son to the world, i.e. not Himself.


The author of the article also says
To be saved by God we must first know who He is,
This is a very important issue. We should know exactly who Jesus is and who his Father is, the Only One True God.

Where he gets "the meditations" from he sells out: of His Church.
He does not give a clarification ho his church may be guided by the Spirit and than giving them the revelation that within God there would be a community of persons – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – who exist in an eternal pattern of mutual, self-giving love (which is true) but what he means is that they woudl also be one and the same person (which is not true).

People may not forget that being one in thought or even being equal does not mean being the same.

Lots of people do like mysteries but The God is a god of clarity. Some may like to say that we as human beings need the mystery of God and that in the Christian tradition the word “mystery” refers to something partially revealed, much more of which lies hidden.
We may wonder why so many would like to keep to teachings which are not clearly given in the Holy Scriptures but were imposed by men throughout history. Though beyond the reach or understanding of many of those Christians they keep refusing looking at what the words of the Bible say so clearly.

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Find the original article: The Holy Trinity: Mystery, Knowledge, Love

Plus more on the Trinity
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Recent Developments In Trinitarian Theology
Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology explores the major renaissance that Trinitarian theology has undergone in recent 9781451470406bdecades. Remarkably, all the main Christian denominations have participated in this, and contemporary Trinitarian theology is a discussion that often crosses over confessional boundaries.
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Friday 17 January 2014

Out of Context: How to Avoid Misinterpreting the Bible

Richard Schultz's recent book "Out of Context: How to Avoid Misinterpreting the Bible" as one would infer from the title collates exegetical crimes, and gives help on how to avoid them. One section which caught my eye was on the abuse of typology:

"We already mentioned a fifth approach, finding Jesus under every textual leaf...This approach is experiencing growing support today and is based on the twin convictions that (1) Jesus is the central theme of the Bible and (2) all of Scripture points to him. The former is true to a degree, although Old Testament scholar Gerhard Hasel is probably more accurate in declaring that “God is the center of the OT as its central subject.” The second conviction is based on an overinterpretation of Luke 24: 27—“ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” This led a pastor to declare in a sermon I heard recently, “If you don’t find Jesus on the page of Scripture you are reading, keep reading it until you find him there.”

"This goes well beyond finding Jesus in predictive prophecy; it turns all Old Testament texts into predictions of or, more precisely, pictures foreshadowing the coming of Jesus. Accordingly, in Numbers 11: 8 (“ The people went around gathering it [the manna], and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil”), the manna represents Jesus. After all, John 6: 33– 35, 48 teaches that he is the Bread of Life. Moreover, the grinding, crushing, and cooking in Numbers 11: 8 represent Jesus’s sufferings on our behalf. But what does the olive oil taste represent in the case of Jesus? And how did the people gather him up? The book of Hebrews and other New Testament texts give a warrant for some degree of christological (that is, Christ-centered) interpretation of Old Testament texts. This is usually called typology (see chapter 5 for further explanation). But there appear to be no limits on the creative and speculative interpretation to which this can lead.

"What exactly does Luke 24: 27 claim? A similar verse later in the same chapter may help to clarify the point Jesus was making: “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24: 44). Jesus points here to the scope of the Old Testament’s anticipation of the Messiah’s coming: all three major subdivisions of the Hebrew canon look forward to him. In Jesus’s postresurrection Bible study, he was not asserting that every biblical text is “about” or “pointing to” him. Instead, he was explaining to his disciples those passages throughout the Scriptures that spoke of him in order to clarify the world-altering nature of the prior week’s events. [1]

No one is of course arguing that typology has no legitimacy. As Shultz notes however, it is easily abused. If typology is the only exegetical tool one has, then the temptation is to see types everywhere, and without any controls on this approach, eisegesis results.

1. Schultz, Richard (2012-11-01). Out of Context: How to Avoid Misinterpreting the Bible (pp. 33-34). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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Tuesday 1 October 2013

The Gabriel Revelation Real or forgery

When older works are found it is not always as easy to find out if it is a real artefact.

Just after world war II the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls brought many scientist wondering of the ingenuity of those scrolls. Nobody ever thought they were the original Old Testament manuscripts, yet radio carbon dating places many of the scrolls at 150-100 bCE.

The new stone tablet unearthed near the Dead Sea, which contains prophecies about the Messiah as well as revelations from the Angel Gabriel has muddled scientists again.
For the last year professor, author and researcher Dr. Ken Hanson has been studying the 3-ft. tablet, known as the ‘Gabriel Revelation’.


Containing 87 lines of Hebrew, the ink is inscribed directly into the stone, which prevents it from being carbon dated, he explained, noting that it’s possible the artefact is a forgery.
English: The Psalms scroll, one of the Dead Se...
The Psalms scroll, one of the Dead Sea scrolls. Hebrew transcription included. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But Hanson said he’s come to believe the tablet is genuine. Thought to be made in the decade before Jesus’ birth, it speaks of a messianic figure who will rise from the dead after three days. “The implications are overwhelming,” he said, in that the resurrection of a messiah could be part of Jewish tradition.The ancient Judeans known as the Essenes believed in the coming of two messiahs– one from the priestly branch, the other from the lineage of King David, Hanson pointed out.


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Wednesday 1 May 2013

Armageddon, har and megiddo, an action or a place

Armageddon TimelineArmageddon:

Fact or Fiction?


What is Armageddon, when will it happen and what will happen?

Armageddon is often thought of as being a huge, violent event on a global scale, whether it be a natural disaster such as earthquakes, tidal waves, asteroids, volcanoes, or plagues, or something less natural like alien invasion or nuclear war.

In the article of 'The Bible Study' the authors look at what the Bible tells us about Armageddon, it's perhaps not quite what you think!

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The Apocalypse is a Greek transliteration of our word revelation, and apokálypsis simply means unveiling or uncovering, or as is the case of the last book of the New Testament, The Revelation.
Armageddon only appears in the Bible once. That’s in Revelation 16:16.
And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. (Rev 16:16)
This word Armageddon comes from the Ancient Greek, Harmagedon and will be according to the Book of Revelation, the site of a battle during the end times, with some interpreting it as literal and others interpreting it as a symbolic location. It will be the battle when God sends Jesus and all the saints to battle against the nations that come against Israel.

There are a couple of thoughts as to where the word comes from, one of them being that it is made up of two Hebrew words, har and megiddo, meaning “mountain of Megiddo”.
Megiddo is mentioned twelve times in the Old Testament, ten times in reference to the ancient city and twice in reference to the plains of Megiddo. None of the Old Testament passages describe Megiddo as being associated with any particular prophecy which you would think likely if it was to be the scene for the battle at the end of the world. Neither is there a mountain at Megiddo, there is a range of hills, but not a mountain. Megiddo is in the north of Israel some 50 miles from Jerusalem.

Some conclude that Armageddon is symbolic place rather than a physical place because there are no mountains of Megiddo, only plains. Others think that the word is more likely to be har moed, or the mountain of assembly, which would then refer to Mount Sinai, and therefore to its replacement at Mount Zion, in Jerusalem.
But, as it was originally a Hebrew word we should perhaps we should be looking more carefully at the word in the Hebrew language. As there is only one letter ‘d’, it might be more correct to break it down in to ‘arma’ which is a heap of sheaves, ‘ge’ which is valley and ‘don’ which means judgement.
That translates as the nations will be gathered together as heaps of sheaves in the valley of judgement.

> Continue reading: 

Armageddon: Fact or Fiction?

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