As I start my history for May session(Western Civ.), I have noticed the decline in morals of education. It seems that during every discussion involving Christianity or Hebrews or God, the professor attempts to poke fun at or disprove what is the truth. Textbooks do the same. I am going to mention some of these anti-Christian theories.....I call them "Dead Theories" or "Ded Theoreez." I will mention some of the Ded Theoreez and refute them. 1. The most frequent theory is that Christianity is man's creation. It is true that man created religion, but Christianity is more than a religion just as nature is more than science. Man simply put Christianity in the context of religion because that is the only way he can comprehend it. Christianity was before man. Christianity was before religion. Christianity has been and is forever. Simple. Man didn't create Christianity. Man didn't create God. God created man! 2. Sargon of Akkad was a Akkadian(predecessor to Babylonians) who was placed in a basket. Ded "scholars" try to say that this refutes the story of Moses who was placed in a basket because the story of Moses was copied from this. & In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim(or Ziusudra) and his family survived a great flood in a boat while the waters wiped out the rest of the world's population. Ded "scholars" try to say that the Noah's Ark came from the Babylonian Epic, and therefore claim that Noah's Ark is not true. This is pathetic logic and reasoning. Are the Rodney King riots in L.A. fake just because similar riots occurred during the Viet Nam War? Of course not. Just because a historical event seems repeated doesn't mean that the latter event is a copy or plagiarized record of the first event. There is another James Johnson who goes to JMU. I am James Johnson, but I am not that James Johnson, nor did my parents name me for that James Johnson, nor am I a fake James Johnson. The Akkadian account is supposedly older than the Hebrew account, but realize this: What about the actual events? In reference to the Great Flood, the actual event on the time line of Noah would be older than the appearance of the Babylonian epic. If there is indeed a duplication, note this: the Babylonian story probably has a real basis on a man, his family, and the great flood, and this was handed down orally; Moses told about Noah(the man who did survive the great flood in the Ark) and Moses was told this by God Himself. 3. Abraham worshipped El. Moses worshipped Yahweh. My professor tried to say that El and Yahweh are not the same God. First, El is Hebrew meaning "God." It is true that this word comes from a Canaanite god of creation, but hold on a sec... I couldn't help but raise my hand and say, "Yahweh is El Shaddai." El Shaddai means God Almighty. El Shaddai is like a title, and all titles/names -- Jehova-Jirah, El Shaddai, Jehova, Yahweh, the Lord, God Almighty, Father, ... -- are all different names, but He is one God. We don't know His real name(this is told in Revelation 19), but we know Him. Yahweh simply means "I AM" (The tetragrammon YHWH. See Exodus 20). Now back to the origin of words: Word Origin ---- ------ El Canaanite creation god Metropolis GREEK: Metros which is derived from the Greek word Meter =Mother Polis=fort Hell Hel or Hela, Scandinavian goddess of the underworld Satan Set, the Egyptian god of the desert. These are just some examples. Here's my point. El means God. El Shaddai is God. The Canaanite god is a myth, but the God of Israel is the one true God. Yahweh is God. God is Yahweh. There is one living God and He was worshipped by both Abraham and Moses. New York is a Metropolis, but it isn't a fort or a main fort command post(mother fort) or city-state like an ancient city. Hell is the place of eternal punishment and absence of God. This place is by no means a mythical goddess. Satan is the fallen archangel once known as Lucifer. Satan is the most evil being in the universe. Satan has fallen and he will fall again. Set, the god from Egyptian mythology, was jealous and killed his brother, but he is nothing like Satan. In fact, Set ruled the desert, and his dead brother (Osiris) became the ruler of the Land of the Dead in mythology. My point is that word origin doesn't mean that the original word is the same as the modern word....it means that the two WORDS have similarities or an ELEMENT OF DEFINITION is similar, but WHATEVER IS DEPICTED BY THE MODERN WORD IS NOT THE SAME AS WHAT IS DEPICTED BY THE ANCIENT WORD. El comes from the creator god of Babylon in word origin, and El Shaddai is God (the One and Only) and Creator, but El Shaddai is more than just a creator...His many names tell us that. 4. Moses was an Egyptian, not a Hebrew because his name is Egyptian. This is absurd! My name is James and that is Hebrew in origin, but I am not Hebrew. I am a Gentile...specifically a mix of Irish, English, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, and German. Note that Moses WAS a Hebrew and the reason that he had an Egyptian name was this: He DID float in a basket as an infant and was found by a royal Egyptian woman who adopted him. Moses was raised in an Egyptian family. If I would've been adopted by a Russian family, my name might have been Janek Ivanov instead of James Johnson, but that wouldn't make me Russian by blood. If I would've been adopted by a Spanish family, my name might have been Diego DeJuan, but that wouldn't make me Spanish by blood. Whoever came up with that theory needs to get a clue... 5. Jesus was a historical man. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote too long after Jesus' crucifixion to be accurate. NOT! Jesus is forever, yesterday, today, tomorrow, the same always. In a 1979 Newsweek article, Biblical "scholars" (many of whom rely on intellect instead of faith and are usually Ded "scholars") attempt to find the historical Jesus and isolate Him as a historical figure. It tickles me, however, as I read the beginning of the article. The author writes the truth, but doesn't seem to realize it! The author writes, Since the nineteenth century, scholars have sought to isolate "the historical Jesus" from "the Christ of faith" pro- claimed in the Gospels. But today, most Biblical scholars no longer make such a facile distincion...Thus scholars agree that the real Jesus can no more be separated from the theology of the Gospel writers than the real Socrates can be separated from the dialogues of Plato. This means that failure arrives when trying to separate the history of Jesus from the faith in Jesus. Why can't they be separated? Because the faith is fact. What happened in the Gospels is fact. To the author, I would like to say, "Get a clue!" No one could "get away" with what all Jesus did unless they were Jesus! Now what about the time of the Gospels? Research shows that they were all written approximately between A.D. 50 and 80. This is about 15 to 50 years after the crucifixion. That is not too long for accuracy! This is the year 1992. Books about the Civil War have been published recently.... about 128 years later....and it's accurate. Some Ded people may say that is because we have photographs and diaries and accounts of battles. Well, Christians have the miracles and letters(Epistles) and accounts of lives and battles and miracles in the Bible. Is the history I study now accurate? The text on Classical Greek and Roman civilizations is accurate yet those are civilizations from hundreds of years before Christ! World War II ended 47 years ago and we have accuracy on that....true, we also have technology this century that helps. The American Revolution occured over 200 years ago, but we have accurate accounts. Yes, we have letters and finds and family histories to help, but for the truth found in Jesus Christ, we have the Word of God. You may want to read other files that show the evidence of the resurrection, and I cannot even begin here to tell of the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. 6. Ded "scholars" attempt to "shed light" on the crucifixion and resurrection by involving politics. Like the last theory, the author (Jeffery L. Sheler) begins to tap on the truth. He writes in the last two paragraphs of his article the following: Yet even the most skeptical Biblical scholars concede that something extraordinary happened in Jerusalem after Good Friday to account for the radical change in the behavior of the disciples, who at Jesus' arrest had fled to their own homes in fear. Could Jesus' resurrection account for the fact that within a few weeks they were boldly preaching their message to the very people who had sought to crush them? Along with the many other riddles in the last days of Jesus, it is a question that academic inquiry alone probably never will answer satisfactorily. Ultimately, the events of the "third day" in Jerusalem must remain, as they have for 2,000 years, in the realm of things unprovable -- matters, like the very existence of God, to be grasped only by faith. God surpasses human intellect and logic. Man invented math, science, intellect, and logic, but man didn't invent the soul! Faith is the key to the soul. The Ded Theoreez are indeed invalid, absolutely absurd, and fully false. As I strive in faith in Jesus Christ, He makes the truth more and more real until Christian beliefs are more believable than history itself. History on a time line with a span of 6,000 years is nothing compared to the span without ends from negative infinity to infinity of the truth! Compare the average human life span of 70-80 years to eternity! This life is nothing compared to that. We are here through trial and temptation and our many failures to strive in faith so that we may show that we really want to be with God, and by His grace, we are saved. Why does this world flee from He who can free it?! Beacon Deacon SOME MORE>>> There are so many Ded Theoreez that are absolutely absurd. In this short file, I will add a seventh Ded Theoree and refute it. 7. In 587 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Judah and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. He took 30,000 Hebrews back to Babylon where they stayed from 586 to 539 B.C. This is called the Exile or Babylonian Captivity of the Jews. According to my history professor, the Jews in Babylon formed Judaism. He also says that the Hebrew prophets picked up ideas of angels and the devil from the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. Common sense will tell a person to look at the dates -- 587-539 B.C. Judaism "formed" long before this! Recall the United Kingdom of Israel that lasted from about 1022 to 922 B.C. Also recall the earlier times with the Exodus. Now about the ideas of angels and the devil: Genesis refers to Satan and Cherubims(types of angels). Recall the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the guardians with flaming swords after man's fall. Genesis was written long before the Exile between 1500 and 900 B.C. Simply looking at the time will shed light on the truth. The world tries to take every opportunity to bring Christians down, but we can have confidence and faith because Jesus overcame this world. Beacon Deacon