Great new discoveries in Eretz Yisrael are bringing to light the history of the Bible in such incredible ways. It appears that almost every day, there is something new being unearthed which bears out the stories of the lives of great people and places we read about in the Holy Scriptures. While the atheists and secular humanists attempt to debunk what is said in the Word of G-d, archeology and science with the aid of technology is unraveling the mysteries of the past in new and amazing ways.
The story below is one such example. There are many more. The Shroud of Turin is an one more. It wasn't until modern photography and forensic science that the shroud could be accurately examined. photography reveals through a negative a perfect positive image of the figure embedded in the shroud to be a person who was severely lacerated by a Roman Flagrum all throughout his body, who sustained puncture wounds to his head - specifically to the front, back, and top of the head, who had suffered trauma by severe beating, had a spear thrust to the side of his torso which went deep enough to penetrate his heart, and who had been crucified. That much is known about the subject whose image is embedded into the shroud.
But what was not known until recently, through the incredible advances in technology coupled with scientific discipline of forensic analysis, the pinpoint accuracy of advanced lasers in the use of holographic photography, and the knowledge gleaned the last fifty years in quantum physics; experts in their respective disciplines have been able to unravel the mystery surrounding this enigmatic relic of the past. When scientists, forensic pathologists, chemists, and archaeologists were allowed to examine the shroud, they removed from it fibers from various locations, and in 1988 brought some of these back to Carbon 14 Date them. Their findings have created debate as to the actual date of the shroud, because one scientist claimed that the shroud could be dated to the years A.D. 1260 and 1390, while another scientist who also had dated fibers from the shroud came up with a completely different conclusion as to its dating. His findings conclusively dated it to the first century of our common era. How can this be? And which of the two could we believe? This can easily be explained if one knows the history of the shroud and how it came to Turin, Italy and the possession of the Roman Catholic Church. We will now examine this briefly.
When we first hear of the shroud, it is in the possession of a French Knight by the name of Geoffrey Charney, who collected at Constantinople (modern Istanbul), where he found it. This was during the time of the Black Death and the Hundred Years War in Europe. The year was 1349, the month, April of that year.
The D'Arcis Memorandum, written some thirty years later, speaks of the first known expositions of the shroud in Lirey, where medallions are struck and sold as souvenirs. There is reported that a unique surviving specimen of it can be found today at the Cluny Museum in Paris. It is reported that Bishop Henri did not believe the shroud to be genuine and ordered the exposition halted. The shroud was hidden away. The year was 1355.
On September 19, 1356, when Geoffrey Charney is killed at the Battle of Poitiers, the shroud remains in the possession of his widow and his family.
On August 4th, 1389, King Charles the IV of France signs a letter orderijng the Bailiff of Troyes to seize the shroud at Lirey and deposit it in another of Troyes' churches, pending his decision as to its disposition.
These are the earliest mentions of the Shroud of Turin. But if the reader wishes a more comprehensive list of its history, I recommend that he /she go to the following link: http://www.shroud.com/history.htm
Now let us examine first the possibility that the shroud is a Medieval 13th century forgery. From the image on the shroud, the forger would have had to have found a 33 year old Caucasian, flog him mercilessly all over his body, beat him to a bloody pulp, then crucify him until that man expired from the trauma of his wounds. Then the forger would have to embed the image on the cloth of this shroud using a method unknown to modern science today and which has never been known to man since the dawn of time. This is because the image on the shroud is embedded into the very fibers of the cloth, not painted on to the surface, as some had suggested, but having become fused into the very surface fibers of the cloth of the shroud, thus creating a three dimensional image into its top layers.
Now we will examine the second possibility that the shroud is authentic. According to scientific evidence as a result of hundreds of forensic, photographic, holographic, and spectrum analysis run on the shroud, it can be effectively and accurately dated to the first century of our common era, and specifically to Jerusalem. The evidence for this is overwhelming and we will examine some of these, but is it possible that the analysis run on the shroud containing both of the above thesis are both correct? The answer is yes. This is why the late Raymond Rogers, a chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, obtained samples of the Shroud immediately adjacent to those which had been used in the Carbon 14 tests and examined them himself. Dr. Rogers had already in his possession samples from a different location of the shroud which he had tested. The second set of samples were provided to him by Gilbert Raes, the man who had originally removed them. This is what he said about his findings in his own words:
"...I got out the Raes sample, and I got out some of the shroud samples, and I went to work again; and lo and behold, in less than an hour I knew that the Raes sample was totally different than the main part of the shroud. And then the shocker that really shook me up in looking at the Raes threads, I had this one that was an end to end splice; and that is exactly the kind of thing that Benford and Marino were talking about in this invisible re-weaving."
From The Fabric of Time.
After making this discovery, Dr. Rogers contacted Thomas De Muhala, the President of AMSTAR and former President of STURP, to tell him that the results of his chemical testing of the various pieces of the shroud in his possession, and its comparison to the Raes' samples, there was no scientific "wiggle room" as to the Shroud's correct dating, it was an authentic first century fabric. The 1988 Carbon 14 Test appeared to have been invalidated.
The fibers which were extracted from the shroud that were examined and dated through Carbon 14 testing to the 13th century were taken from a part of the shroud that was sown into its cloth to cover holes made during a fire which slightly damaged it after 1353 when it was taken to Chambery, France by a crusader. The fibers taken from the shroud which Carbon dated it to the Middle Ages were from a section of the shroud that was sown on to repair the damage caused to it by this fire. This would explain how the samples extracted from the shroud from different locations could have such drastically different dates attributed to them from the Carbon 14 Tests. The shroud itself dates to the first century, whereas the patches sewn onto it after the fire of 1353 date precisely to that period. This is how both of these two findings can be explained. But this does not explain how the image on the shroud came to be. We will examine this now.
Another group of digital scientists from Amsterdam also examined the image on the shroud, and what they discovered astounded them all. They discovered that holographic information is encoded in the shroud. The repercussions of this finding indicate that the image on the shroud was a real embedded three dimensional image, something that would have been impossible if the image had been painted on. Digital Science states that every true object emanates a holographic image of itself. The findings of these digital scientists indicate that the image on the shroud is in fact that of a real person and not a forgery. Optical Engineer, Kevin Moran states, "The shroud image is made from tiny fibers that are one tenth the size of a human hair. And the picture elements are actually randomly distributed like the dots in your newspaper photograph or your magazine photograph. To do this you would need an incredibly accurate atomic laser. This technology does not exist"
The official findings published by the STURP Scientific Team with regards to the shroud image, states the following:
"...the actual image was created by a phenomenon (as yet unknown) or a momentous event that caused a rapid cellulose degradation (aging) of the linen fibers, that is, an eccelerated dehydration and oxidation of the very top linen fibrils of the cellolose fibers of the shroud, thereby creating a sepia, or straw-yellow colored image similar to that of a scorch."
With the aid of holographic technology, it has been made possible to recreate a three demensional image of the man in the shroud which can be viewed from every angle possible. In order for such an image to have been imbedded into the very fibers of the shroud, the body wrapped inside it would have had to have gone into an incredible transformation that modern science does not as yet have the technology and the capability of accomplishing. If it cannot be done today, it most certainly could not have been done by a midieval forger in the thirteenth century. The image on the shroud does not appear just on its surface, it is imbedded all the way through into the very surface fibers of the cloth of the shroud. This is astonishing. Pertaining to this, we have the following from a renowned scientist and particle physicist:
"...the shroud itself and what made the image, leads us to a mysterious gate which opens for us and lets us see a completely different world, and extraordinary world with extraordinary laws And we have a piece of cloth and it leads us to our mysterious gate which opens for us, and it lets us see a completely different world, an extraordinary world with extraordinary laws."
Dame Isabel Piczek
Particle Physicist
Monumental Artist
With regards to her discovery I quote from the documentary The Fabric of Time which best describes the phenomenom she discovered, which in her estimation, has brought science to the threshold of a whole new understanding of physics:
"While dealing with the position of the body within the cloth, she discovered one of those mysterious properties that cannot be, yet somehow is: an interface that divides the image transport into two hermetically seperate, yet simultaneous actions and forces causing the shroud to taut and parallel on both sides creating a true event horizon. In General Relativity we have found that there are certain things called Black Holes."
'Now the surface of a Black Hole is called an event horizon, and it's called that because right at that surface the laws of Physics seem to change character drastically.'
We continue quoting from Dame Isabel Piczek.......
"'When you look at the image of the shroud the two bodies next to each other (front and back), you feel that it's a flat image, but if you create for instance, a three dementional object, as I did, the real body, then you realize that there is a strange dividing element, an interface from which the image is projected up and the image is projected down. The muscles of the body are not absolutely crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means that the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity. Other strange things you discover is that the image is absolutely undistorted. Now if you imagine the cloth was wrinkled, tied, wrapped around the body and all of a sudden you see a perfect image, which is impossible unless the shroud was made absolutely taut, rigidly taut. Everybody thinks that the tomb signifies death. Not at all, the exact opposite. The shroud and the tomb signifies an unbelievable beginning because in the depth of the collapsed event horizon there is something which science knows as 'singularity'.' This is exactly what started the universe with the 'Big Bang.' We have nothing less in the tomb of Christ (Messiah) than the beginning of a new universe.'
"For centuries the shroud has been viewed and analyzed as the record of a death; the end of a physical being. But Isabel Piczek is suggesting that it is in fact, just the opposite; the record, not of an ending, but of beginning which would suggest resurrection in its truest sense. And according to Dame Piczek, this is the starting base for the new physics."
From The Fabric of Time
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Sc. D.,Apollo 14 atronaut and the sixth man to walk on the moon, made the following observation with regards to the physics behind this discovery:
"The classical tradtional model in phsyics which began in Newtonian Times describes how particles, and atoms, and molecules move and recombine. Even in most of the twentieth century, physicists only looked at the particle aspect of it, and did not really concentrate very much on the informational aspect. It's only really with the Quantum Holograph that that we have brought information up to a par of importance with energy itself, and with physicality; so that we understand that the universe we live in not only exists because of its physicality, but it's understood because of its information. And this is a powerful new concept. And all physical bodies have such a holographic emission that is available non-locally, which means throughout the universe - non-locally at all times."
From The Fabric of Time
And the question is asked, "Could be the event horizon demonstrated by the image on the shroud sent information instantaneosly throughout the universe? And does this mean that the resurrection was a universal event?" There are some who believe that the only way the image on the Shroud could have been created was through a sharp and instantaneous burst of radiation, yet undisputedly nothing like the shroud image has ever been found or reproduced.
"The Quantum Hologram is only a method of describing the total emissions from an object very much like if you look at your fingertip, then you look at one of the little swirls on your fingertip, it doesn't tell you very much about you. But if you look at the swirls on all ten fingers all at once, that's your finger print, and it uniquely defines you, and identifies you. The same with the Quantum Hologram. The emmissions from a physical object, when studied as a whole, uniquely identifies events in the history of that object."
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, The Fabric of Time
Is it possible that events unique to the history of Shroud of Turin remain there for us to discover, decipher, understand, and unwravel? Consider that if the essence of physical law is record of data about the history of every object, then not only has the information from the image on the shroud provided us with a record of Messiah's resurrection, but a description of creation itself. Could it be that image of the shroud is actually providing science with new data, new information, and helping develop a new discovery of the accuracy behind it? Science has made it possible to understand the miraculous, and the image on the shroud is providing the human race with the very real evidence of a promise G-d had made long ago about One who would come from the loins of David specically during the Second Temple Era, prior to the destruction of Judaism's holiest shrine, and its most sacred city; would suffer not for Himself (as Daniel and Isaiah say), but for His people and the entire human race; die a horrible death, and rise three days later a whole new creation, a new Adam, an archetype of an age to come?
The image on the shroud is so vivid, so clear when seen through a photographic negative (appears as a positive), that it can be examined forensically. Besides the image on the shroud of a crucified man standing 5 feet 11 inches tall who had suffered a brutal beating, merciless scourging, a large puncture wound from a spear to his side which penetrated his heart, and was crucified; there are the images of flowers. The first person to have noticed the image of a large number of flowers on the shroud was Dr. Alan D. Whanger, M.D., the Chairman Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin, who discoverd it in 1985. He spent four years examining these flowers and compared them to those in the Botany books of Israel so as to identify these flowers. When he traveled to Israel, he brought the images of the flowers on the shroud with him, and showed them to Dr. Avinoam Danin, Professor of Botany, Department of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; who after examing the images for himself told Dr. Whanger that the flowers were those of Jerusalem. He immediately understood this to be a unique discovery. This is because the image of these flowers indicates a place of origin for the shroud, and that place of origin is Jerusalem. Other images discovered by Dr. Whanger were those of coins which had been placed over the eyes of the crucified man, and the coins aided further in the study as to dating the shroud, as well as the location of its origin. The coins were identified to the "widow's mite" - which were struck by Pontius Pilate in honor of Caesar in A.D. 29 to 33 for a brief period of time localized to the region of Judea for which he was governor. These coins were discontinued by the time of the emperor Trajan. Thus, scientists were able to correctly date the shoud, as well as, confirm the location of its origin to that of Jerusalem precisely during the third decade of the first century of our common era. Another object which connects this shroud to Yeshua/Jesus is an amulat around the subject's neck with the words ABBA inscribed onto it in perfect Aramaic, the language spoken by Jews of the Second Temple Era, Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah uniquely referred to Ha Shem/G-d as His father.
A hologram of the image on the shroud was taken, and what was discoverd was that all of the data, that is information contained in the two demensional image on the shroud was also in the digitalized files. This is remarkable, because a set of photographic negatives of the shroud taken at the beginning of the twentieth century contain the same information in them as those of digitalized files of the shroud taken recently. This indicates that the data collected by both means is the same, that is, the image on the file contains the same information regardless of the means by which this information is recorded. There were three imaging processing in the shroud - the blood, which was direct contact, the flowers which was a completely different image process than that of the body itself, and that the only three demensional information contained was that of the image of the body on the shroud. Another astonishing element unique to the Shroud of Turin is the fact that it presents us a three demensional image contained within a two demensional negative - a scientific impossibility - yet it is present in the shroud!
"Scientists have recently discovered a way to unlock hidden information contained in the artifact, leaving us to grapple with whether Christ left intentional physical evidence—data if you will—of His Resurrection,” says David Balsiger, senior producer of the TV/DVD program. “Viewers will see the newly discovered scientific information presented by scientists and scholars that gives a never before seen up-close look at a three dimensional view of the face of Christ and His entire body. It’s absolutely breathtaking,” continues Balsiger. “This is truly historic—it is an image the world has never seen. People associated with the movie’s production, who have seen the image, have expressed how deeply moved they have been when they see it."
From Randy Hardman's excellent summation of the above named documentary in his Shroud of Turin? at the following URL: http://www.shroudstory.com/faq/Shroud-Turin-wiki25.htm, posted on Apr 7th, 2007 at 12:47 PM.
If the shroud is authentic, how then does one explain the passage in the Gospel of John, specifically, chapter 20, verses 6 and 7; where it says: Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, (the un-named disciple "whom Jesus loved") and entered the tomb, and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself, indicating more than one piece of burial cloth used to cover the dead body of Jesus? It is true that there were at least two pieces that were used to entomb Jesus' body, and other than the Shroud of Turin also there is the Sudarium. About the Sudarium, this is what appers on Wikipedia the Online Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudarium_of_Oviedo):
"The Sudarium of Oviedo, or Shroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained cloth, measuring c. 84 x 53 cm, kept in the Cámara Santa of the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain. This small chapel was built specifically for the cloth by King Alfonso II of Asturias in AD 840. The Sudarium (Latin = sweat cloth) is claimed to be the cloth that was wrapped around the head of Jesus of Nazareth after he died. It is displayed to the public three times a year: Good Friday, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross on 14 September, and its octave on 21 September."
Scientists superimposed the Sudarium over the face of the figure on the shroud, and it formed a perfect match. The Sudarium is the face cloth of the Messiah. The Shroud is what His body was was wrapped into. The Sudarium also dates to the first century. Also, the weave on the shroud is first century Jerusalem, and the image on the shroud is consistent with first century Judea. Other facts corroborate the authenticity of the shroud, and they are the following:
1.) Flury-Lemberg, expert in textile weave, cites the weave used in the shroudas the herring bone linen of first century Jerusalem. A Midieval forger would not have found out what first century Jerusalem cloth was like.
(2.) Barrie Schworz, one of the STURP group of scientists analyzed image on shroud and detailed the blood stain and blood type as AB, a common blood type Middle Eastern Semites, but not among Midieval Europeans.
3.) Fred Zugibe detailed the image for its injuries consistent with what we have recorded in all four gospel narratives.
4.) Stephen Mattingly detailed microbes, staphloccus epidermis, distort carbon dating and produce polymers to make a photoimage. He ran an experiment to show that microbes can produce a photoimage of a person. This conclusive shows that the image on the shroud was not painted, but imbedded by other means, as yet unknown, because it was fused onto the surface fibers intricate weaving.
5.) The shroud contains 4 poker holes in which also appear in a text of a Hungarian Prayer Manual dated 1190, effectively predating the shroud to a period much earlier than the Middle Ages, as some have alledged.
6) Mark Guscoin, an expert on the Sudarium, connects the Sudarium Head Covering to the Shroud which match the wounds and blood type AB, and the Suderium is known to be 1st century
7.) The material on both the Shroud of Turin and the Suarium are identical, though the weaving is slightly different. This indicates a point of origin for both.
In conclusion, I would like to write that before us, we have in the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah outside of the Gospel Narratives, and this evidence is unique in its properties and chemical composition, as well as origins. It is remarkable that in the face of such evidence anyone at this point could claim otherwise. Unmistakably however, we have in the Shroud of Turin the first photograph of a man via the microbes on his body leaving polymers fused into the linen cloth! We have the world's first photograph made by a science as yet unknown to us. We have the world's only true picture of Yeshua/Jesus the Messiah representing for us in the image of this picture scientific evidence of His existence, suffering, horrible death, and magnificent resurrection from the dead.
The image created and fused into the surface fibers of the shroud were not just created by a sudden burst of energy - a change of matter into energy - beaming the data of the body of the crucified man onto the front and rear of the cloth, the process by which this was done presents us with a much greater event; an event horizon - singularity where the properties of physics are radically changed and the laws known to us are suspended, and a whole new creation takes place. This entails that what we have in the Shroud of Turin and the Sunarium of Oviedo is the most tangible evidence of an event witnessed to by hundreds of Jewish followers of Jesus, some of whom who wrote about this; all of whom were eye-witnesses, who interacted with the risen Master for a period of forty days, and whose records and testimony we have in the four Gospels of the New Testament.
The recent discovery of a stone tablet with first century Hebrew inscriptions on it depicting a dead Messiah who would rise from the dead has added to the evidence outside of the New Testament building the case for the authenticity of the records contained the corpus of New Testament writings pertaining the topic of the resurrection of Jesus. It was argued by liberal scholars that a crucified and resurrected Messiah was a late Christian invention, but archeology once again corroborates the facts and debunks the speculations of late twenty-first century skeptics. Technology has enabled scientist to examine and glean information which previousluy could not have been possible. Amazingly, instead of debunking the Scriptural records, it instead presents evidence for them. We have examined here some of them pertaining to the most inegmatic relic ever discovered, the Shroud of Turin.
Prejudice is a great weapon of deception and it has been used to seperate Christian and Jew for almost two thousand years. Yet with the rise of Hebrew Christianity and Messianic Judaism, these prejudices and fears are being dispelled and disproven. Information is doing this. It is information that dissipates the clowds of suspiciion and recrimination that has divided the only two authentic expressions of devotion to the great G-d of the universe to ever exist. It is in this light that the following is presented, because it is Messiah who will one day unite the two faiths into one. We are already seeing a foretaste of this with the phenomonenal growth of Messianic Judiasm, another fulfilled prophecy. Remember, it is only the Messiah whom the prophets say would bring the knowledge of the G-d of Israel to the nations. It is only Messiah who brings shalom to the two groups, and to Jew and Palestinian Arab, and every person from every race and ethnicity. The phenomenon is already being seen in Israel, where Messianic Congregations share their Shabbat Services with Palestinian Arab believers in Yeshua the Messiah. If Yeshua was just another of fifty or so false messiahs which have plagued Israel the past two thousand years, these things would not be happening. The fact that they are serve as a very loud testimony of the authenticity of what the four Gospels, the writings of the New Testament, and especially what the Tanakh say about Him.
You have often heard me say that the Chassidic group called Neturei Kartah is correct when they state that before the Jewish people could be restored to their homeland from exile, Messiah would have to appear first. But, where this group falls woefully short of the mark is when they make that statement that the current State of Israel and the restoration of six million plus Jews from every nation under heaven is unlawful, and therefore they do not recognize the current secular State of Israel.
Oh, but they love to live there as Jews don't they? It is amazing how the Israeli government has allowed such a group to return to Israel under the Law of Return guaranteeing every Jew the right to make Aliyah (move and settle in Israel), when Neturei Kartah does not believe in the legitimacy of Israel, its government, or its Jewish population returning to the land under its current government. Amazing also that up until recently, no Jewish believer in Yeshua/Jesus the Messiah would be allowed to return to the land as a Jew because of his/her faith in the Messiah. But, I digress from the subject at hand.
Neturei Kartah (and Rabbinical Judaism under all of its current permutations) are also woefully wrong in believing that the Messiah has not come, when in fact He has. Messiah's coming took place precisely on the prophetic timeline of G-d and not Judaism's. The problem is one of recognition and acceptance. The Messiah has been so morphed by Christian teaching and Gentile Anti-Semitism that He - as He is presented to the Christian masses and to the world - is scarcely recognizable as what He really is and was ever meant to be, Israel's King, and G-d's Anointed, who would come as a direct descendant of King David, and who would be the One whom Ha Shem would choose to sit on David's Throne some day in G-d's Kingdom over the nations.
Because of two things (and a good many others not mentioned here), the Jewish people do not recognize who the Messiah is, when He was supposed to come, or how many times He was supposed to come. These questions are answered in the sacred writings of the New Testament by Jesus' Jewish followers who were eye-witnesses of His life, His death, and His resurrection. His teachings and exploits are preserved for everyone in the four Gospels and Acts, and can even be read in Hebrew.
What is often overlooked by a majority of both Jews and Christians is the fact Jesus' appearance was an inconvenience to the corrupt civil and religious authorities of the Second Temple Era, and this is the reason why they acted as they did towards Him. Anyone who believes in the coming of the Messiah knows that with regards to Torah and the teachings of the Scriptures, He would be uncompromising, and His character would be beyond reproach. They understand that if He were truly G-d's Son; His "Prophet like Mose," He would not countenance incorrect teachings, amorality in leadership and government, and immorality of any sort. Also, the Messiah would Himself teach with an authority that no rabbi in His day commanded, because more than any other person, the Messiah would be the very authority about the message G-d would wish to convey to His people and the human race in general. And of course, it goes without saying that the Messiah would visit His people first, and that His message would be originally directed to the Jewish people. Thus was Jesus of Nazareth towards the Great Sanhedrin. The Messiah could be no less, and He was not.
Thus, the leadership of the Sanhedrin, headed by its Nasi (Caiaphas), and Annas of the High Priestly Dynasty allied to Rome opposed Jesus - not on the grounds that He was not the Messiah - but on the grounds that if they did not neutralize Him and His message the Romans would do precisely what they did on the 9th of Av of A.D. 70, which ironically is what they were trying to avoid by prosecuting Jesus under the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate on the grounds of sedition, because Jesus was being proclaimed as a King; King Messiah.
Jesus’ actions, His statements, and the affect this was having on the populous was proving to be too much of a destabilizing factor, and was threatening to destroy the delicate civil and religious order of things between the Jewish religious authorities and their Roman civil counterparts. As the noted writer Frank Morison has written in his work, “Who Moved the Stone?”:
“None knew better than Caiaphas what were the personal and political consequences of the coming of the real Messiah in the flesh. That is involved some definite kind of kingship, with Jerusalem and the holy places as its court, is obvious. It involved, further, an immediate and bloody clash with the Roman garrisons throughout the land. It meant a vast uprising of the people and the certainty of a punitive expedition, led by a Roman leader of resource, such as that which forty years later laid the city in ruins.”
“All these things belong to the broad outlines of a situation as inevitable as that night follows day. These facts could not have escaped the penetrating eyes of those responsible for the maintenance of the hard-won Jewish privileges under the Roman occupation.”(1)
This was a price that none of the high priestly families were willing to pay. A unique moment in history had presented itself before the rulers of Israel, and the decision they would make would set the nation and Judaism on a course that it would not return from for two thousand years. The High Priest and his allies chose to reject Jesus and eliminate Him for good. In doing this, little did they know that they had set Daniel’s prophecy into motion where it prophesies Messiah’s death in the following manner:
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.
“So you are to know and to discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
“Then after sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.
“And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”(2)
The prophecy was clear.
1.) The Messiah would come after the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusaelem and its Temple.
2.) The Messiah would come in times of political, social, and religious upheaval.
3.) The Messiah would come from the Jewish people (“your people” – Israel)
4.) The Messiah would come for the Jewish people first.
5.) The Messiah would enter the holy city, Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
6.) The Messiah would die for sin, but not for Himself, but for His people, and for the human race.
7.) The Messiah would finish the transgression, make an end of sin’s power, and make atonement for iniquity in one day, the day of His great suffering and horrible death at the hands of His enemies.
8.) The Messiah would rise from the dead and be seen by many, thus conquering death itself so as to give all who believe in Him the hope of the resurrection.
9.) The Messiah, through the sacrifice of Himself, would usher in everlasting righteousness – the righteousness of God – through His surrender on behalf of the human race for all of those who would believe.
10.) The prophecy pertaining to the Messiah would be sealed from Israel’s knowledge.
11.) The Messiah would anoint the holiest place in His creation – the human heart – the New Birth.
12.) The Messiah would present Himself to His people and be cut off from them and have no place in the religious and community life of Israel – He’d be cut off and have nothing.
13.) The Messiah’s death (and resurrection) would be followed by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Daniel describes war and devastations decreed against Israel with the armies of the prince who was to come converging on Jerusalem like a flood. This is precisely the word used by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in describing how the Romans came into the city and Temple.
14.) This prince would commit the most abominable act against the Most Holy Place, rendering it desolate. When Titus broke into the Temple, he went to the Holy of Holies and there sacrificed the most unclaen animal in Judaism - a pig - and afterwards made lude sexual acts with prostitutes within the precincts of the Temple itself.
Every one of these things came to pass within a generation of Jesus having warned about them, and they had to take place at a precise moment in history, because Messiah would only appear at the precise moment prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in A.D. 70. Only One figure in Jewish history fits this description: Jesus. But there is more in the prophetic timeline, thus our list continues...
15.) Centuries later, because Messiah had appeared first, Israel would return from exile to its land, and reestablish itself, resurrect its language - Hebrew - and be there to welcome Him at His return. The modern State of Israel is G-d's testimony to His people and the world that He has kept His prophetic timetable, and Messiah did come precisely the time He was supposed to. He is not late, because He already came.
16. The Messiah will come again, and Israel will be there to welcome Him, just as the prophetic timeline of the near future dictates.
17.) What's more, the prophetic timeline is correct and on time, because on June 7th, 1967, after two thousand years, Jerusalem was retaken by Israel, and has been under Israeli control since. This is key to Messiah's return, because Jesus promised prophetically to the leaders of Jerusalem, "You shall not see Me here again, until you have learned to say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." In order for Messiah to return to Jerusalem, it must be under Israeli control, and in order for Him to enter the city, they must be there to welcome Him, but before they can welcome Him, they must first believe that He is who He says He is. He cannot return and enter Jerusalem until the vast majority of Israel recognize Him and welcome HIm back into Jerusalem, then He will enter the city.
18.) When this has happened - the return of the Jewish people to the Messiah and the Messiah to the Jewish people - Teshuvah - this will mean the final reconciliation between Israel and the nations around it. It will literally be like life from the dead for the human race, becuase there will be no more war, no more crime, no more of the old order of things.
19.) Then G-d will restore the kingdom to Israel through the Messiah, and the nations of the world will travel to Jerusalem to worship and be taught at His feet, then the lion will lie down with the lamb, and nation will not take up arms against nation, nor kingdom against kingdom.
20.) Afterwards the dead will rise and the books will be opened.
Judaism for the last two thousand years has followed the Sanhedrin's lead, and because of this, and because the Church has done such an effective job of morphing King Messiah into a Gentile god, He is barely recognizable to His own people today. Also persecution has served to alienate Jews from Jesus, and has kept them from recognizing Him as who He is. As Benjamine Disraeli, himself a Hebrew Christian, declared once: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." He knew firthand from personal experience what he was talking about.
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