The ongoing debate on The Harbinger. The facts speak for themselves and are irrefutable. When people like “James” (David James?) try to change the narrative and use straw man tactics to project them into their argument; they do so in order to replace what The Harbinger says, then it’s time to take them to task point by point, and correct the lies being said and written about the book.
Cahn's Facts Are Fiction, March 8, 2013
By
This review is from: The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future (Paperback)
I have finished reading The Harbinger. It was riveting! I believe his interpretation of Isaiah 9:10 is correct for the Hebrew people at the time that Isaiah 9:10 was written, but I can't accept that it is a prophesy for America today for the following reasons:
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: Did you really find it riveting David, excuse mean, I meant “James”? But, even though you found it “riveting” you cannot “accept that it is a prophecy for America today?” Well, you’ll be very glad to know that neither does The Harbinger believe it is prophecy of America. It does not anywhere make that claim. It does however say that there is a biblical pattern of warning and judgment, as illustrated by Isaiah 9:10, that is being repeated in America.
I just cannot accept that 9/11 was punishment by God for America's turning from God. I cannot accept that rebuilding on ground zero was defiance of God's judgment by an unrepentant nation. Let me tell you why I believe this. I attended a seminar on the difference between "atonement" (forgiveness) within Judaism and Christianity. It turns out the Jewish Bible treats atonement as a group event for the Jews and Christianity treats atonement as an individual event for each Christian. Forgiveness of sin, the breaking of one of the 613 Jewish laws occurs by going through the annual, Yom Kippur services. [...] It is the most important religious holiday of the year for Jews, established by Leviticus 23:26. It is for the Jewish people as a group to obtain forgiveness from God. In 2013, it is Saturday, September 14. For Christian's forgiveness is a personal event for the individual that can occur every day, any moment a Christian asks it of God. Therefore, I do not believe that God punishes or awards Christians as a group or as a country!
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: James, all of the feast days of Israel in the Law of Moses were types and metaphors of Christ and His atonement. You have fallen trap to Rabbinical Judaism’s reinterpretation of the Law of Moses, and it has resulted in a feigned dichotomy created by Judaism to reject the claims of Christ, because Rabbinical Judaism is currently in denial of those claims, and it must develop and propound a theology to justify its existence and its rejection of Christ’s claims upon it. Christ’s atonement is universal, it is for all of mankind, and it is for the entire human race; but it can only be appropriated individually through repentance of sin and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and His atoning work as complete and self-sufficient propitiation for God’s forgiveness. If you understand that, then you understand that a call to a nation to repent, as was the case with Jonah’s call to the Gentile Assyrians of Nineveh, was answered by every person in that city, from the smallest to the greatest. These people served other gods, were pagans in every way, yet they repented and called upon the name of the Lord, for it was the Lord who was calling them to repentance, and that generation was spared the imminent wrath of God. What problem do you have with each person repenting? A nation is made of its people, and revival begins with one person, then another, and another, etc.., until what was a trickle, becomes a mighty torrent. Wake up man.
Cahn's solution to counter the defiance by Americans at the end of the book is for the principal character to become a Christian. That is not a way for America as a country to escape judgment but for the individual to avoid judgment.
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: Again, a nation is made up of its people, and revival begins with each and every one of US. Eventually, it spreads to the entire country. Don’t just argue for the sake of arguing, but try to understand and see as God sees, for He is not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. (2Peter 3:9)
Cahn is loose with his facts. For example, he states that the Babylonian exile was for 70 years in keeping with the Biblical importance of the number 7. However, the Babylonian exile began in 586 with the destruction of the Temple and ended in 538 when the Persian King Cyrus defeated the Babylons and released all of the exiles captured by Babylon, not just the Hebrews. That is a total of 48 years. The year 586 B.C. is the traditional date the Babylon exile was said to have begun but historically it began in 597. That would have still been only 59 years. His statements about facts remind me of The DaVinci Code. Both are more fiction than fact.
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: No he is not, and you know it. You begin by counting the reign of the monarch/s who reigned at the time when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 609–598 BC, and that was the Reign of Jehoiakim (succeeded Jehoahaz, who replaced Josiah but reigned only 3 months) 598/7 BC. Now Jehoiachin reigned only 3 months. Then the siege and fall of Jerusalem Took place, with the First Deportation on 16th of March, 597. Then you include 538 BCE when the Persians conquered Babylon (October) 538 BCE the Decree of Cyrus that allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem. From 609 BC. to 538 BC, you have precisely 71 years. I defer here to the following article which explains it biblically and much better than I would:
Era:
70 years of Babylonian Empire
(analysis of Jeremiah's time prophecy)
70 years of Babylonian Empire
(analysis of Jeremiah's time prophecy)
Biblical References:
2 Chronicles 36
Jeremiah 25, 29
Daniel 1, 9
2 Chronicles 36
Jeremiah 25, 29
Daniel 1, 9
Comments:
There is a period of time that is often referred to as the "Babylonian Exile" or "Babylonian Captivity". This is said with Judah being the frame of reference - ie. the people of Judah are the people in exile or captivity. A connection is then often made between this period of exile and the 70 years which is prophesied in the biblical narrative. Having made this connection, people often have difficulty in reconciling the apparent prophecy where the exile would last for 70 years. The exile ended in 538 BC when Cyrus II of Persia (who had conquered Babylon the year before) decreed that all peoples originally from Jerusalem could return to their city. This is unmistakably the end of the period of exile. When was the beginning? There were in fact 3 separate years when people from Jerusalem were taken into exile:
There is a period of time that is often referred to as the "Babylonian Exile" or "Babylonian Captivity". This is said with Judah being the frame of reference - ie. the people of Judah are the people in exile or captivity. A connection is then often made between this period of exile and the 70 years which is prophesied in the biblical narrative. Having made this connection, people often have difficulty in reconciling the apparent prophecy where the exile would last for 70 years. The exile ended in 538 BC when Cyrus II of Persia (who had conquered Babylon the year before) decreed that all peoples originally from Jerusalem could return to their city. This is unmistakably the end of the period of exile. When was the beginning? There were in fact 3 separate years when people from Jerusalem were taken into exile:
- 605 BC - This is when Daniel and other members of Judah's elite were taken into captivity (see Daniel 1:1-6).
- 597 BC - Jehoiakim was taken into captivity (see 2 Chron 36:5,6). Three months and ten days later Jehoiachin, along with other members of the royal family, were taken into captivity (see 2 Chron 36:9,10 & 2 Kings 24:15-17).
- 586 BC - After a siege lasting approximately one and a half years, Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed. Most of the people were taken into captivity, along with articles from the temple. Only the poorest people remained (see 2 Kings 25).
Depending on which date is taken as the start, the period of times come to 67, 59 or 48 years respectively. Clearly, none of these time periods fulfil the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah, although the 67 years comes close. But not close enough, even when allowing for the necessary margin of error of about 1 year when dealing with dates BC.
To more fully understand the prophecy involved, it is necessary to examine the prophecy itself from the biblical narrative, and also examine where the prophecy is referred to. The prophecy is mentioned twice in the book of Jeremiah - chapters 25 and 29. Chapter 25 records the prophetic context itself, whereas chapter 29 contains the transcript of a letter which Jeremiah wrote to the captives in Babylon, in which he refers to his prophecy. (This letter was written after the second captivity in 597 BC - it is probably from this letter that Daniel learned of the 70 year prophecy.)
Jeremiah 25:9-12 (NIV)
"I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the Lord, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. "But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the Lord, "and will make it desolate forever."
Jeremiah 29:10 (NIV)
This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place."
It seems clear from the context in these two segments that the seventy years applies to Babylon itself, not to the period of time that the people of Judah are to spend in Babylon. In chapter 25 it says that the nations would serve Babylon for 70 years. Again in chapter 29, Jeremiah makes the connection to Babylon by saying that 70 years are "for Babylon".
So the 70 years refers to the period of Babylonian Empire. When did this start and finish? As alluded to earlier, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus II of Persia in 539 BC. So this is the finish. When was the start? For our purposes, the start would have to be when the other "nations will serve the king of Babylon" (see excerpt from Jeremiah 25 above). The major world power prior to Babylon was Assyria.
For a good overview of the decline of the Assyrian Empire refer to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (see article in Britannica CD 99: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia: Mesopotamia to the end of the: THE NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (746-609): Decline of the Assyrian empire). Here it describes how the Assyrian empire, after becoming weakened through civil war, fell to the combined forces of the Medes and the Babylonians, finally being extinguished in 609 BC. In this final battle, the Assyrians and the Egyptians fought side-by-side. Prior to being conquered by the Medes and Babylonians, the Egyptians fought against Judah - and Judah lost. This is the battle where Josiah was killed. The chronology of Judah places this event in 608 BC - but that is close enough to 609 BC when a 1 year margin of error is assumed.
The following time period emerges:
This is the proper fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy.
The seventy years is also referred to in Chronicles. This segment begins with Nebuchadnezzar carrying into exile the people of Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. - the third and final incident where people from Judah were taken into exile.
2 Chronicles 36:20-23 (NIV)
He [Nebuchadnezzar] carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: 'The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you--may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.'"
At first glance, this segment seems to imply that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. Read it again, and you will see that this is in fact not the case. This segment states that now that Jerusalem has been destroyed, the land would lay desolate at least until the seventy-year prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. The seventy-year prophecy ended with Babylon's fall in 539 B.C., and the people of Judah were allowed to return to Jerusalem by decree of Cyrus II in 538 B.C. So Jerusalem lay desolate from 586 - 538 B.C. - a total of 48 years.
The one other place where the seventy-year prophecy of Jeremiah is referred to is in the book of Daniel:
Daniel 9:1-3 (NIV)
In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom -- in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
In this passage it also seems at first glance that Daniel believes Jerusalem would lay desolate for 70 years. But if this is the case, why is he so earnest in his prayer to God in behalf of his people. This segment comes in the first year of the rule of the Medes and Persians - i.e. 539/538 B.C. At this point, Jerusalem has laid desolate for only 48 years, so surely there would be another 22 years to go?
No, Daniel seems keen on the idea that the seventy-years is in fact now over and that the exiled people of Judah should return to Jerusalem as God had promised. This can only be the case if Daniel understood the seventy years as referring to the length of time that Babylon would rule, and not to the desolation of Jerusalem. So like the writer of Chronicles, Daniel understood that after Jerusalem was destroyed it would lay desolate for the remainder of the seventy-year period. Hence Daniel says that "the desolation of Jerusalem would last [the] seventy years." Now that the seventy years is up, Daniel is asking God "How much longer?" As it turns out, he had less than a year to wait until Cyrus II gave the decree allowing the people of Judah to return to Jerusalem.
Another example is Cahn comparing the defeat of the Hebrews by the Assyrians and the destruction on 9/11 at the hands of decedents of the Assyrians. The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Others were from Egypt, Lebanon, and the UAE. None were from the area of ancient Assyria, which includes modern northern Iraq, northeast, Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran. Therefore, none of the hijackers were descendants of Assyrians.
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: Not true. Your entire premise is off and misapplied here. The Harbinger takes great pains at explaining the connections of the ancient people of the region known as the Middle East with those who dwell there today, who are to a large extent their descendants and even speak a language – Arabic – that is similar to Akkadian – the language spoken by the Assyrians. As regards the nationality of the 19 hijackers on 9/11, you are correct that 15 of the were from Saudi Arabia, and the others were from Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Each of these nations have one predominant culture – Arab, and a predominant religion – Islam, although there are other ethnic and religious minorities within those nations; but the predominant culture and religious affiliation is Arab Muslim. And every one of the hijackers were Arab Muslims. The nations you refer to have only existed historically since the end of the First World War and the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the partitioning of the land of known as the Middle East by France and Britain. The vast majority of the people of the Middle East are Arabs and they speak Arabic, and their religion is predominantly Islam. Get the picture?
Let’s examine the historical facts, and get to a more accurate assessment of what Pastor Cahn is referring to here, which should lead us to agree with his assessment which he presents rather as simple and easy to read in his book.
The Harbinger’s critics would be correct about the borders of the ancient Assyrian Empire they refer to was during the period of its rise when it gained independence from the Mitanni in 1400 – 1365 B.C., but this is not what the prophet in Pastor Cahn’s book alludes to when referencing the ancient Assyrians during the time of Babylon’s and Syria’s capture by the Assyrians in 732 B.C., and certainly does not apply to ten years later when they captured Israel in 722 B.C., during which time, the Assyrian Empire extended from what is known today as eastern Turkey in the northwest to Persia in the northeast, to the entire Sinai Peninsula and Egypt in the southwest, to Babylonia in the southeast; an area of land that covers entirely modern day Iraq. The Harbinger, we discover that Pastor Cahn made the full connection of the guilt of all history’s murderers and terrorists, where the prophet explains the connection in the following manner:
(the prophet) “From the temples of Nineveh to the beer halls of Weimar Germany…to the barren caves of Afghanistan…from Sennacherib to Osama bin Laden…it all goes back to ancient Assyria. The Assyrians are the fathers of terrorism, and those who mercilessly plotted out the calamity on 9/11 were their spiritual children, another link in the mystery joining America to ancient Israel. In both cases, the warning began with a manifestation of terrorism.” biblically all evil can be traced back the Garden of Eden, where the Satanic intelligence behind the serpent and his seed (his followers; evil men and women throughout history) would inflict a wound on the heel of the woman’s seed (Jesus Christ and the perpetual struggle between His followers and those of the serpent), but the seed of the woman (Christ) would inflict a mortal wound on the head of the evil animating the serpent and every spawn of evil men and women ever born in history.
The connection between the Messiah and His followers – His children is there, as well as the connection between the devil and his children.[1] Immediately following the fall of man, the Gospel was presented by God right there in the Garden of Eden even before Adam and Eve were expelled from it. It is called the Protoevangelium (Protoevangelion).
What Pastor Cahn is referring to here is a method of interpretation used by our Lord Himself which can be found in the 23rd chapter to Matthew’s Gospel, commonly known as The Eight Woes, Jesus pronounces on the religious leaders of His day, at the end of which He connects them with those who murdered the prophets and holy men who preceded them, even calling them their offspring.[2] Let us examine those last verses.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?
“Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”[3]
When referring to the corrupt religious authorities of His day to “fill up (Greek: plerowsate) the measure of your fathers’ who slew the prophets,” Jesus is making a connection between the religious authorities of His day with those of ancient Israel throughout its history, and with all false religious authorities who’ve opposed God’s purpose throughout history.
Jesus informs His audience of those whom He would send as His messengers, they would cruelly mistreat and kill; comparing them to examples in Jewish History – cited from the Hebrew Bible of how their predecessors murdered God’s prophets and how it would all culminate in that generation by the current religious leaders repeating the same crimes of their predecessors. The Greek verb here “pergoo” indicates “filling up to the full” and “completing” what their fathers’ had done; they will “fill it to the full.”
Note, Jesus here calls their predecessors “Your fathers;” not denoting blood ties or familial lineage, because He was Jewish like them; but a succession of office, of sitting on Moses’ seat, and a succession of repeating a crime which at a previous point in history had been committed several times at several points in history.[4]
Indeed, a religious connection, or one denoting borders or national origin does not have to be made, because the connection is made by Jesus when He refers to all of history’s murderers in Matthew 23:35-36, where He makes the following startling declaration, “so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”[5]
What’s more, He ties the guilt of history’s worst murders to those standing directly in front of Him with the statement, “whom you murdered between the temple and the altar,”[6] knowing that the particular murder Jesus was referring to was committed long before anyone standing there (with the exception of Jesus because He is Pre-Existent) had been born, much less held any position empowering them with exacting capital punishment at will to any offending party under their Law.
It is in this context, in the use of terror by the ancient Assyrians – their methods of conquest – that the prophet connects the Assyrians to the modern terrorist, and their methods to those of the modern terrorists in al Qaeda and other terror groups. I quote from The Harbinger:
“The Assyrians were terrorists?” I (Nouriel Kaplan) asked.
“As much as an people have ever been. Terrorism is defined as: ‘the systematic application of terror, violence, and intimidation to achieve a specific end.’ Terror as an applied science – this was the dark gift the Assyrians gave to the world.”[7]
It is in this context that he connects today’s terrorists as the spiritual children of the ancient Assyrians, history’s foremost terrorist nation. Indeed, Rabbi Cahn has Nouriel Kaplan rhetorically ask, “So the Assyrians are the spiritual fathers of Al Qaeda,” knowing the prophet’s answer before he gives it. “Yes,” which is the answer the prophet gives to affirm Nouriel’s observation.
THE CONNECTIONS GO BEYOND THE PHYSICAL, THEY ARE SPIRITUAL
We see the same use of this method of comparison used by Jesus in John’s Gospel, where He confronts a group of Judean Jews, promising them that if they were to continue in His teaching, they would be truly free.
They misunderstood what He was saying, and replied to Him that they were Abraham’s descendants and had never been slaves. How then could He say to them, “You will become free?”[8]
Jesus does not contest that these Judean Jews are Abraham’s physical offspring like Himself, He presages what He says by making the following observation and with the following charge – while they were Jews, yet because they were seeking to kill Him, they were doing their father’s work. Who was their father? The devil himself.[9]
Here again we see an example of the Lord Jesus calling those who sought to kill Him, sons of the devil.[10] Why does He do this? It is because their acts betray them as spiritual children of the one who comes to “rob, kill, and destroy,” the devil. As the Lord Jesus observes here, when this group of Judean Jews seek to murder Jesus, they are seeking to do what their father the devil would have them do.
THE CONTEXT IN WHICH MODERN TERRORISTS AND ANCIENT ASSYRIANS CONNECT
When Pastor Cahn has the prophet say that the modern terrorist is a child of the ancient Assyrian, he is speaking in the same vein. These are not necessarily literal descendants of the ancient Assyrians, though some could be, since they come from the same region, and as the prophet in The Harbinger observes, they speak a similar language to modern Arabic; a language known as Akkadian – an ancient Semitic language. Thus we read the following exchange between Nouriel Kaplan and the prophet:
(the prophet) “The Assyrians were children of the Middle East, so too the terrorists of 9/11. The Assyrians were a Semitic people, so too the terrorists. The Assyrians spoke a language called Akkadian. The tongue is long extinct, but there is still spoken in the modern world one language considered to be the closest of all tongues to ancient Akkadian.”
“Which is?” (Nouriel Kaplan asks)
“Arabic.” (the prophet replies)
“Arabic – the tongue of al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists.” (Nouriel Kaplan observes verbally)
(the prophet) “Yes, and so when the leaders of al Qaeda plotted their attack on America, and as the terrorists communicated with each other on 9/11 to carry it out, they did so using words and speech patterns that mirrored those used by the Assyrian leaders and warriors as they planned and executed their attack on Israel two thousand years earlier in 732 B.C.”
(Nouriel Kaplan again observes verbally) “Like an ancient drama replaying itself in the modern world.”[11]
Further down we read:
(the prophet) “The Assyrian invasion,” said the prophet, “ would ultimately draw ancient Israel into military conflict, war, and a final and tragic national drama. So too the attack of 9/11 would draw America into military conflict – a global battle against terrorism, encompassing a war in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. In the first war, the connect to 9/11 was clear. But in the second, it was not so clear. And yet there was a connection, but of a more mystical nature.”
(Nouriel Kaplan) “What do you mean?”
(the prophet) “In April 2003, American soldiers would enter the Iraqi city of Mosul. Mosul would become one of America’s major operating bases in the Iraqi war. Inside the city, near the junction of the Tigris and Khost Rivers, there rest two mounds of earth. One is called Kouyunjik, the other Nabi Yunus. Hidden inside these mounds are the ruins of a once great civilization. The ruins are all that’s left of the ancient city called Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital, the final resting place, and the graveyard of the Assyrian Empire.”
(Nouriel Kaplan) “Assyria is Iraq?”
(the prophet) “It’s the same land.”
(the prophet continues) “The nation under judgment…is drawn into conflict with the land of Assyria…ancient Israel…now America.”
(the prophet continues to explain) “And American troops were now walking the same earth on which the feet of Assyrian soldiers had once marched. And among those watching them pass by were those who could still claim to be the descendants of the ancient Assyrians.”
(Nouriel Kaplan asks pointedly) “Their actual flesh-and-blood descendants?” I ask (remember Kaplan is recounting the story to Ana Goren in the story)
(the prophet answers and conjectures) “Yes,” he replied, “And who knows but that the veins of the 9/11 terrorists did not also flow with the blood of the ancient Assyrians?”
(Nouriel Kaplan begins to piece together the connection) “So ancient Israel, in its time of judgment, was drawn into war with Assyria, which is now Iraq.”
(the prophet) “Yes,” he answered.
(Nouriel Kaplan) “And now America was drawn into war with the land of Assyria – Iraq.”
(the prophet) “But Israel would ultimately discover that the danger it faced could not be solved by the power of its weapons or the thickness of its walls. The real danger was not outside its gates, but within them. When the nation turned from God, it lost its protective covering. Apart from a return to God there would be no safety. But by the time they realized it, it would be too late. The chance was lost.”[12]
We follow the story and its thought to its inevitable conclusion; “He stopped walking and pointed upward to the figure above him on the relief…a giant Assyrian archer.
“And now, the same sign that signaled the judgment of ancient Israel two and a half thousand before reappears in the modern world – no less dark and no less threatening – the sign of the Assyrian, the attack of the Terrorist.”
(Nouriel Kaplan) “And what does that mean for America?” I asked.
(the prophet) “That is the question, “ he replied, “isn’t it?”[13]
What we take away from this is the fact that the people with whom America is at war with currently hail from the same region as those with whom ancient Israel struggled and suffered under during their period of judgment and exile. The people of those lands spoke a language that is similar to the modern Arabic spoke by today’s Arab nations.
And finally, the modern terrorist who hails from these lands is either a direct descendant of the ancient peoples of those lands in the Middle East, or without question is a spiritual son of the ancient terrorists of their day – the Assyrians.
The connections, which are many, even more than what I cite here; are there for the serious student of history, archeology, anthropology, epistemology, and theology; if one is willing to take the time to find them.
Cahn states that in Isaiah 9:10 "The bricks have fallen down" is talking about the collapse of the Twin Towers because it contained bricks. Cahn states that Isaiah 9:10 "but we will rebuild with dressed stone" is talking about the rebuilding at ground zero because the cornerstone was made from a quarried stone. The last thing, if at all, the Twin Towers was made of was brick. It is an extreme stretch of the facts to state the rebuilding at ground zero was done with "dressed stone" when the only "dressed stone" used in the rebuilding was a cornerstone. (Note: here is a link to an article about the cornerstone: [...]
MY REPLY & CORRECITON: The language of the prophecy is a Hebrew metaphor, which is clear from the comparisons made between the destruction of the “bricks” and the rebuilding with “hewn stones,” Nowhere does The Harbinger stretch the facts, as you claim, by making any claim that the Twin Towers were constructed of bricks. You have simply put it there to change the narrative and to replace with a invention of your own to use as a straw man argument against the book. Fact is, a cornerstone of NY Adirondack Granite was placed at Ground Zero amidst much fanfare. It did occur precisely as recorded in The Harbinger. Your argument is baseless and meant to project your narrative there in order to distract from the actual event. This is a trick attorneys use during cross examination, and it is meant to throw the jury off from one narrative to another, and distract them from the facts of the case being presented. It doesn’t hold here, because you got caught in the act. You can’t pull a wool over our eyes and think you can get away with it.
[1] Genesis 3:15.
[2] Matthew 23:13-36.
[3] Matthew 23:29-36. The New American Standard Bible.
[4] Matthew 23:29.
[5] Indeed it did. That generation lived to see the day on the Hebrew month of Av, on the 9th day the complete destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, and witnessed such privations as had not been seen before or since. A long two thousand year exile followed with much religious persecutions.
[6] Matthew 23:35b.
[7] Pastor Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger, page 39, Charisma House Book Group, 2012.
[8] John 8:32-33.
[9] John 8:37-44.
[10] John 44.
[11] Pastor Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger, page 39, Charisma House Book Group, 2012.
[12] Ibid, page 40.
[13] Ibid, page 41 top.
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