Proving Muhammad existed using 7th Century Jewish Apocalypses

Below is Copy/Pasted from the Wikipedia Page for Sallam ibn Mishkam as it read on March 12 2025 in the Debate with Muhammad Section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallam_ibn_Mishkam

When Muhammad arrived in Medina in 622, he was eager to convince the local Jewish tribes that he was a prophet like the ones in their own Scriptures. Two Muslim converts, Muadh ibn Jabal and Bishr ibn al-Baraa, urged Sallam to become a Muslim: “When we were pagans, you used to pray for the Prophet’s help to defeat us and warn us that he was coming, and you described him to us.” Sallam was unimpressed by Muhammad’s claims. He replied that Muhammad “has brought us nothing we recognize and he is not the one about whom we used to tell you.”[1]: 257 

Sallam was among the rabbis who debated with Muhammad. On one occasion, he asked: “Is it true that [the Qur’an] is the truth from God? For our part, we cannot see that it is arranged as the Torah is.” Muhammad protested that the Qur’an could be found in the Torah and that neither man nor jinn could have forged it; and the Jews challenged him: “Bring down to us from Heaven a book that will clearly demonstrate its identity [by its similarity to the Torah], otherwise we will produce one like [the Qur’an].”[1]: 269–270  When no answers to their serious questions were forthcoming, the Jews began to tease Muhammad with facetious questions such as “How did God begin?” and easy ones to which he gave a non-traditional answer, such as “How many plagues did God send on Egypt?” Sallam apparently had a great talent for asking annoying questions and creating confusion “so as to confound the truth with falsehood.”[1]: 239–270 

In late 623 or early 624 the Jews made a formal statement of their joint unbelief in Muhammad’s mission. Sallam and three friends asked: “Do you follow the religion of Abraham and believe in the Torah and testify that it is the truth from God?” Muhammad replied: “Certainly,” but added that the Jews had “added to the Scriptures, and broken its Covenant, and hidden what you were ordered to publish. I dissociate myself from your additions.” Sallam and his friends replied: “We hold by this Torah and we live according to its guidance and the truth. We do not believe in you and we will not follow you.”[1]: 268 

Next I shall Quote two Jewish Apocalypses that scholars believe were written in the 620s.  Both are organized as a set of Ten Signs and in both the section I shall Copy/Paste comes from the Seventh Sign.  But I want to clarify that these Apocalypses are very poetically playing fast and loose with the contemporary events they’re trying to connect to Bible Prophecy.  In all likelihood nothing else about Armilus is based on Muhamad and nothing else about Nehemiah Ben Hushiel is based on Sallam ibn Mishkam, just the specific exchange in question.

First is ’Otot ha-Mašiah (Signs of the Messiah) as part of the Seventh Sign events.

https://pages.charlotte.edu/john-reeves/research-projects/trajectories-in-near-eastern-apocalyptic/otot-ha-masiah-2/

He will come to the wicked Edomites and say to them: ‘I am the Messiah! I am your god!’ They will immediately believe him and elevate him over themselves as ruler, and all the descendants of Esau will join forces with him and come to him. He will march forth and subdue all the regions. He will say to the descendants of Esau: ‘Bring before me my revelation which I gave to you!’ They will bring him their ‘frivolity,’ and he will respond to them: ‘This is indeed what I gave to you!’ He will address the nations of the world (saying) ‘Believe in me, for I am your Messiah!’ They will immediately put their trust in him.

At that time he will send for Nehemiah b. Hushiel and for all Israel, saying to them: ‘Bring to me your Torah and bear witness to me that I am God!’ Suddenly they will grow fearful and be perplexed. But at that time Nehemiah b. Hushiel will arise with thirty thousand warriors from among the forces of the tribe of Ephraim, and they will bring a Torah scroll and read aloud before him: ‘I am the Lord your God! You shall have no other gods before Me!’ (Exod 20:2-3). He (Armilos) will say to them: ‘There is nothing like this at all in your Torah! Come and bear witness to me that I am God just as all the gentile nations have done!’ Immediately Nehemiah will rise up to oppose him. 

Second is Ten Signs again as part of the Seventh Sign.

https://pages.charlotte.edu/john-reeves/research-projects/trajectories-in-near-eastern-apocalyptic/ten-signs/

He will gather all the nations, and then say to the descendants of Esau: ‘Bring to me the Torah which I gave you ….’ All Israel will suddenly be confused, but Nehemiah b. Hushiel will arise, he and thirty warriors with weapons (concealed) beneath their garments, and they will take a Torah scroll and bring it to him (i.e., to Armilos). They will read out before him: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me!’ (Exod 20:3). He will say to them: ‘This is not (my Torah) at all!’ Nehemiah will say to him: ‘You are no deity, only Satan!’ 

This isn’t a similarity that can be caused by one source plagiarizing the other, both are biased memories recalling the same event from different perspectives.  In both it's the Jews who are skeptical of this new Prophet and in both the Prophet rejects the Torah when he's shown it doesn’t find what he’s looking for in it.  

The Islamic Sources are, I believe, a more accurate account of what really happened in terms of using the real names of the players involved and probably more accurately representing what Muhammad was claiming to be and the doctrine he taught.  

The Jewish sources however are probably more accurate in their depiction of Jewish Doctrinal Belief but also less concerned with actually verbatim recording what happened and have a desire to conflate Muhammad with Christianity and Rome and exaggerating the nature of the Prophet’s claims to make the scale more epic.  

I have argued that Muhammad was an ally of Rome at this time.

A title of Muhmmad in Islam is ar-Raḥmah lil-ʿĀlamīn "Mercy to the Worlds" based on Surah 21:107.

The Sefer Zerubabel written slightly later will not identify Armilus with Rome or Edom but instead make him a Qedarite and depict him as making a Stone a place of Pilgrimage.

Muhammad was a Roman Client

I believe Muhammad did exist and the basic bullet points of his life were mostly what the traditional narrative says.  My controversial disagreement is simply on where the events took place, but even that isn't really relevant to my main point here, all of the Arabian Peninsula was wrapped up in the ongoing conflicts between Rome and Persia for over a century already.

I believe the 602-628 Byzantine-Sassanid War and the Jewish Revolt against Heraclius are way more important to understanding the historical context of Islam’s Origins than is generally understood.  However others researching this topic along those lines do so trying to argue the Proto-Muslims were always Anti-Roman even though Surah 30 titled Ar-Rum "The Romans" clearly establishes Muhammad and his community as people who wanted Rome to win.

That's why I don't think it's a coincidence that 622 is the year of both Heraclius beginning his Campaign against Persia and Muhammad taking over Medina.  The Second Pledge at Al-Aqabah that same year was specifically Muhammad making an alliance with the Gentile Arab Tribes of Medina, which then quickly led to conflict with the Jews of Medina and later Khaybar who I am certain were allied with the Sassanids like the Jewish Rebels in Judea were.

In the Fourth Century the chief Arab Foederati "Confederates" of the Roman Empire were the Tanukhids, then it was the Salihids in the Fifth Century and Ghassanids in the Sixth Century. None of these were the only Tribe in said Confederation, they were just the one Rome placed at the head of it. The Ghassanids lost this status with the demise of Al-Nu'man VI ibn al-Mundhir in 583.  Surah 33 is titled Al-Ahzad "The Confederates".  I think Mahammad became the new Phylarch of Rome's Arab Foederati and that we've simply lost the primary sources on the Roman side that document that.

Also there is the tradition of Muhammad's letters to world leaders sent out in 628.  Heraclius is usually presented as not converting but responding very amicably.  So another witness that they were on good terms. 

The story of Farwa ibn Amr al-Judami being Crucified for Converting to Islam is not historical, plenty of scholars consider it a a later made up legend.  Christian Rome had actually long banned Crucifixion as a form Execution, so it's absurd on it's face.

The proposed near conflict between Muhammad and Rome at Tabuk in 629 didn’t happen, no Byzantine source mentions it.  If this is indeed the context of Sura 9, the aggressors it refers to could just as easily be the Persians or their vassals.  In fact most translations make it sound like they are Polytheists/Pagans not People of The Book.

The Battle of Mutah meanwhile was really just with the Gassanids who had ceased being Roman allies over 20 years earlier and if anything I think they were more sympathetic to Persia at this time like most Miaphysites. Baqla was also territory that was in practice actually Ghassanid.  The claim Rome was involved is entirely because of events Sebeos chapter 30 clearly places in 634 being conflated with it.  Sebeos is clearly mistakenly using the name Muhammad for Umar.  And no Arabic source for the Battle of Mutha presented it as a Arab-Jewish alliance.

We see during the Caliphate of Abu Bakr that the Arabs' first expansions beyond Arabia were against the Persians in 633.  So the tradition that one of Muhammad's last acts was ordering an Invasion of Roman Territory doesn't hold up under scrutiny.  Every other campaign Abu Bakr launched in 632 was against other Arabs, there is no good reason to believe Baqla was any different.

Engagements at Tabuk, Mutah and Balqa are considered invasions of Roman territory because they were nominally within Roman Provinces.  But this part of the Empire the Romans had been letting their Arab Foederati rather then regular Roman troops manage for centuries already. 

They certainly don't contradict my belief that Muhammad never intended his Arab movement to expand West of the Jordan.

Conflict between Rome under Heraclius and the Arabs who followed Muhammad did not begin till 634, when Muhammad had been dead for two years even in the official timeline and within The Roman Empire who did and didn't support Heraclius was changing because of the Monoenergist/Monothelite controversies. 

I realize some may confuse this with Alberto Rivera's conspiracy theory, so let me clarify.  Rivera was a fraud exposed as having never been a Jesuit like he claimed.  In the 7th Century The Bishops of Rome were struggling to even keep Italy under their control thanks to the Lombards they had no time to interfere in the east, even their contributions to empire wide religious disputes were just expressing their opinions in letters. Muhammad was in my view a political ally of Rome during this war but the doctrine he was teaching was still not compatible with Chalcedonian Orthodoxy, and to whatever extent it was it was almost certainly closer to Eastern Orthodoxy then Catholicism.

I am considering one disagreement with the traditional timeline of Muhammad, I think he may have died in 628 or the first half of 629 but then the later Muslim chroniclers wanted to weaken his death's connection to when he was poisoned by Zaynab bint Al-Harith. Certain early Chronicles older then any written Arab source say he only reigned 7 years from establishing himself in Medina in 622.  But that's a big maybe right now.

Matthew 19 does not permit Divorce in the case of Adultery.

As someone who’s politically a Leftist while being Theologically Conservative I want to clarify this discussion of what The Bible says about Divorce should have no impact on Civil Laws, Civil Marriage as a Legal Contract should have no restriction on how to enter it or leave it (besides Consent and being old enough obviously), forcing people to stay in unhappy marriages is not the way to inspire Christian Morality.

Matthew 19 is the core of why Christian Morality is traditionally Anti-Divorce and yet even the most Conservative commentators are forced to concede Adultery as a valid excuse for Divorce here because of their other Conservative agendas in how to treat a certain word.

Matthew 19:9 in the King James Version uses the word “fornication” for what the only allowable reason for Divorce is.  I’ve proven before on this Blog how that word and the Greek word Pornea are words for specifically Prostitution.  But because casual usage watered down that word to mean any perceived Sexual sin or any sex “outside of marriage” that part of the verse is often quoted as if it used the word Adultery even by people saying they are going off the KJV. 

The problem with thinking that reading is valid is the way even Jesus’s own Disciples reacts to it in verse 10.  Their reaction only makes sense if this is some utterly unprecedented restriction even though Adultery as a good enough reason for divorce is about the most precedented allowance imaginable.

According to the Talmud the Pharisees had an internal disagreement about Divorce at this time, Hillel’s school was more permissive while Shammai allowed it only for Adultery. Jesus seeming more like Shammai here is the exception to the general trend, on everything else Jesus sounds a lot more like Hillel.  But His break from Hillel here is based on very Hillelian principals, Mercy and Forgiveness.

Yes words for Prostitution are often used euphemistically to call someone a whore for being sexually active at all.  But that doesn't change what the word means, the word should be translated as what it means and let the reader interpret how literally it’s being used. And Euphemistic references to Prostitution sometimes go the other way, they are sometimes about the concept of “selling out” and not actually sexual at all.  The core Greek Root behind Pornea means “to sell off” the sex part is not in the actual Etymology.

Adultery is explicitly mentioned in this passage but not as a reason for Divorce, rather as a consequence of it.  This is the only passage in all of Scripture that defines Adultery as a Crime a Husband can commit against his Wife, in The Torah Adultery is always defined only as a Wife sleeping with someone other than her Husband.  Why is explained earlier in Matthew 5:32 where it’s clarified that a Husband causes his Wife to Commit Adultery when he divorces her, because women in that society usually needed a husband to survive.

A Transgender Marriage in the Genealogy of David and Jesus!

What if I told you there was a Trans Male in Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus?

The key verse is Matthew 1:5.  

First the name rendered in the KJV as Rachab to identify the spouse with whom Salmon begat Boaz, the Strong’s Concordance number for this name is G4477.  Modern commentators almost always default to assuming this is Rahab of the Book of Joshua.  

Problem is Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 unambiguously refer to that Rahab and how it’s transliterated into Greek is completely different, it’s simply Raab (but the KJV adds the H back in the middle even though it usually doesn’t “correct” the Greek spellings like that) it’s Strong’s Number is G4460.

Also Jewish Traditions consistently tell a different story about who Rahab later married, Megilah 14b13 says she married Joshua (Wikipedia as I write this claims the Talmud agrees Rahab married Salmon and cites this but their own link https://www.sefaria.org/Megillah.14b?lang=bi makes no reference to Salmon or Boaz).  Now as a Low Church Protestant I would agree that if The New Testament and Jewish Traditions disagree we should believe The New Testament.  But an apparent disagreement exists only because of a disputable transliteration.  Genealogies like these are supposed to be based on prior records even if only oral ones, if Rahab married Salmon and it was still well known enough in the first century for Matthew to mention it, there would exist some Jewish memory of that, but there isn’t one. 

The website BlueLetterBible.Org confirms that Raab is how Rahab’s name is rendered in the Greek Manuscripts of The Hebrew Bible we commonly call the Septuagint.  However it does not consider Rachab to be present in the Septuagint at all.  But there is one name in the Septuagint whose similarity to Rachab is striking, certainly far more similar than any form of Rahab.

To break it down, the Greek spelling of Rachab in Matthew 1:5 is Rho-Alpha-Chi-Alpha-Beta.  In the Septuagint version of 1 Chronicles 2:55 the name we read in the KJV as Rechab is spelled Rho-Eta-Chi-Alpha-Beta.  The only difference is the second letter which is a vowel, Hebrew of course has no Vowels and the way the Masoretic Text indicates Vowel pronunciations was developed well after the time of The New Testament.  This isn’t the only time Matthew disagrees with the Septuagint on what the first Vowel of a name should be, the way we commonly render the name of Solomon is based on how The New Testament Greek Texts render it, but the Septuagint actually prefers Salomon.  There is also precedent for specifically the interchangeability of Alpha and Eta in Hebrew to Greek Transliteration.  In Revelation how Hallelujah is spelled has an Alpha as the vowel after the Yot in Yah, but how Theophoric names that start with Yah are rendered in Greek usually has an Eta instead.  

1 Chronicles 2:55 is in the context of the Genealogy connecting Judah to David, in fact a variant form of Salmon’s name and Bethlehem are in the prior verse, but how they are related to each other it isn’t clear.

There is really only one reason scholars usually don’t consider this Rechab to be a candidate for who Matthew’s Rachab is, and that’s how Rechab is technically a Masculine name and so every occurrence of that name in The Hebrew Bible is usually assumed to be to a Male individual. technically however Rachab is just as grammatically Masculine in form. 

The name of Salmon, the generation between Nahshon and Boaz, is rendered three different ways in the Masoretic Text of The Hebrew Bible.  In Ruth 4:20 when he is begotten his name is Salmah (though the KJV renders it Salmon) a name that ends with a Heh making it whether the Strong’s admits it or not Grammatically Feminine. But then verse 21 when he begats Boas his name is rendered Salmon which is grammatically Masculine.  In The Hebrew Ruth 4:21 is the only appearance of the name Salmon, (Psalm 68:14’s Salmon begins with a different letter and should be Zalmon).  1 Chronicles 2:11 uses the name Salma which feels almost like it’s supposed to be a compromise between the two forms in Ruth.

Matthew and Luke both when listing this generation in their Genealogies for Jesus use Salmon, confirming that for Christians the most proper name for this person is the one used in Ruth 4:21.

So being given a Girl’s name at Birth but going by a Male name later with that male name ultimately being confirmed to be their True Name. What does that sound like to you?  It sounds to me like someone who was Assigned Female at Birth but was truly an Ish rather than an Ishshah.

So I’m confident that Salmon was Trans Masculine and that Rechab was the provider of the Seed that convinced Salmon’s children. That Rechab was Trans Feminine I’m less certain of, Matthew referring to them in a way he elsewhere only refers to mothers is compelling.  But he doesn’t use a word for Wife or Mother or Pregnancy, as far as the words used go Rachab is defined only as in some way a partner in the begetting of Boaz.

The stereotypical assumption is that a Trans Male would not be interest in getting pregnant and baring a child, but there are bound to be some who are into the idea that they can be Mpreg for real. 

Second Kings 17:24-41 was never meant to be about the origin of the Samaritans.

The word Samaritans is used in the KJV of verse 29, but the Hebrew word used there has no T in it, it’s just Samarians, and in context it clearly refers to the people who lived here before these Mesopotamians, not them or their future descendants.

I also think it’s important to note that like the entirety of 2 Kings 17 this is really principally just about the City of Samaria, it ends the Northern Kingdom because that was its Capital.  I believe in verse 24 we’ve jumped forward to the time of Sargon II and his one account of what he did here confirms it’s about that one single city.

And Samaria the City was ironically enough never a Samaritan city, it was all through Classical Antiquity the capital of Paganism in Eretz Israel right down to Herod The Great building his major Temples to the Deified Augustus and Kore there resulting in the city being renamed Sebastia. The Samaritan community was more centered around Shechem and other villages near it.

Ezra and Nehemiah refer more to these Pagan Gentiles living in the land, now definitely in Cities plural, seemingly referring to additional settlements there under Esar-Haddon and Asnappar popularly presumed to be Ashurbanipal.  But those books still never mention Shechem, the city that was the actual core of the Samaritan community.  I’ve recently bought an English Translation of the Samaritan Chronicle and they do not connect their history to Sanballat at all, that claim only comes from those hostile to them.

2 Chronicles 30 is the account of Hezekiah's Passover.  Those of Ephraim and Manasseh who rejected Hezekiah's Passover in verse 10 are who I believe became the Samaritans, while those who accepted it in verses 11 and 18 became citizens of Judah and thus would be among those considered "Jews" in Greco-Roman/New Testament times. 

But what about Matthew 10?  Doesn't verse 5 in the context of verse 6 confirm that Jesus doesn't view the Samaritans as Israelites?  

What if the Samaritans are excluded from the "Lost Sheep of The House of Israel" classification for the opposite reason Gentiles are excluded?  What if Jesus didn't consider them "Lost" per se?  

What if the sense of lostness He's referring to is a product of the cultural influences of the Babylonian Captivity and Greek Philosophy that all three Sects of First Century Judaism had been subject to in different ways but not the Samaritans who have neither the Proto Talmudism of the Pharisees the Epicureanism of the Sadducees or the Pythagoreanism of the Essenes/Herodians?

IDK, that's one possible answer, there could be others. 

Judeo-Christian

My use of Judeo-Christian as a term is usually when what I’m saying is applicable only to Judaism and Christianity, when it applies to all Abrahamic Religions I do say Abrahamic.  And a lot of times it's a term used just to acknowledge the Jewish origins of Christianity in opposition to all the Neo-Marcionites who want to deny or minimize it.

The Three Major Abrahamic Religions form a Venn Diagram, you can make any one of them seem the most different from the other two based on what you choose to Emphasize or De Emphasize.  And all three have in common not just what it academically means to be Abrahamic but also our expectation of a future Bodily Resurrection of the Dead, that is why I don't accuse Muslims of being Pagans.

Thing is Christianity’s common ground with either of the others is much more doctrinal, much more tied to the core definition of what being a Christian even is.  While the common ground between Judaism and Islam is much more cultural, a product of being more tied to the Near East and Semitic Languages.   And indeed Middle Eastern Semitic Speaking Christians seem a lot less different from Jews and Muslims on such things. 

I’ve talked before about how the core confessional beliefs of New Testament Christianity are that Jesus is both The Christ/Messiah and The Son of God.  Muslims agree that Jesus was The Messiah or Al-Maish.  Jews don’t believe Jesus was the Only Begotten Son of God but they do believe all Israelites are Children of God.

I identify with the label Judeo-Christian not because of what that tends to mean politically to American Conservatives who I loath, or because I want to deny that Islam is Abrahamic (which I don’t), or because of my sympathies with the Hebrew Roots movement, or even the Isaac connection I focused on in the Edom post.  It’s because what we have in common with Islam over Judaism is something nominal, something with minimal impact on how Islam, as it currently is, actually functions as a Religion while Judaism does still believe in the concept that they believe Jesus was not.

Islam rejects the concept of calling God Father at all, or any people even faithful Believers God’s Children.  That’s not an accusation thrown at them by Christian Polemicists, it’s something I’ve seen Islamic Apologists explain and defend.  Within Judaism there is dispute on if the Fatherhood of God applies to all of Humanity or only Israel (which has parallels within Christianity), I’ve seen Jewish Websites taking the more exclusivist position quote Rashi as agreeing with them, but today the more Universalist approach has become more popular.

The Fatherhood of God is vital to my Theology, to my Understanding of Universal Salvation.  Jesus' status as The Messiah, as a prophesied Savior figure, only has any meaning in the context of being the means by which The Father intends to Save His Children.

Of course there are Christians who’ve functionally removed the Fatherhood of God from how they view His character.  What’s I feel is wrong with Islam is largely what it has in common with Calvinism.

This is in my opinion also the key to how to solve the issue of the Quran and later Islamic Sources claiming the Jews claimed an Uzair (commonly mistranslated Ezra) to be the Son of God.  I think Sallam ibn Mishkam really condemned Muhammad for rejecting that Israel is God's Son as stated in Exodus 4:22-23 and Hosea 11:1. The Etymology of Uzair I can't be sure of but it could be Usayr ibn Zarim the leader of the Banu Nadir which was Sallam's clan and Muhammad chose to word his response like they were saying this of Usayr specifically.

Sam Aronow is a Jewish History YouTuber who I view as the Modern Josephus in that his presentation of history is better the more recent it is.  He provides an invaluable breakdown of the History of Modern Zionism for example.  But every video on Ancient History is filled with glaring issues that to someone like me who’s into the primary sources for these subjects are very frustrating to listen to.  Saying the Zealots wanted to restore the Davidic Monarchy when they were actually Anarchists is a particular pet peeve of mine.

In his video on the birth of Islam he went on a rant about how he doesn’t like the term “Judeo-Christian” because he feels Judaism has more in common with Islam than Christianity, he’s barely concealing that what motivates this is annoyance at American Conservatives, he’s looking at it through the lens of two religions that are both marginalized minorities in the West and is looking for common ground because of that.  But the most recent episodes of his own series have shown how quick and easy it was for Arab Christians and Muslims to find solidarity with each other when they felt threatened by Zionism.  And there are now plenty of Fundamentalist Islamic states where it’s Jews and Christians who have a shared status of being oppressed by Islam.  I blame Western Imperialism for the current state of the Islamic world, but regardless that’s our reality. 

But what’s funny to me is how even though it's motivated by annoyance at political usage of Judeo-Christian in a mostly Protestant Country (Conservative American Jews do go along with it like Ben Shapiro), he’s clearly making his argument based on Catholicism.

Like on the “Central Authority” issue he’s definitely thinking of Catholicism.  Low Church Congregational Polity denominations are definitely way less central in their authority then either Judaism or Islam.

Judaism and Islam have a more Dogmatic Ritual Law system while Christianity was never intended to be an Organized Religion in that way.  But various strands of Christianity do have cultural practices we debate about, like the Foot Washing argument or when to observe the Eucharist, and of course Baptism.

The idea that in Christianity our Personal Relationship with God is influenced by Worldly Affairs just comes from nowhere, the Relationship with God is via The Spirit.  Christians also don’t believe we have any promise that nothing bad will happen to us.  The only Christians who believe anything close to that today are the Prosperity Theology heretics who are a unique product of 20th Century American Capitalism.

The concept of a Personal Relationship with God is one Christianity has that the other two don’t according to Aronow, which seems true but for different reasons.  For Judaism it’s a matter of where we are on the timeline, Hebrew Bible Prophecies that Christians view as more already Fulfilled then Jews do.  For Islam it’s about doubling down on the Platonist heresies of Divine Impassibility and Divine Immutability that they inherited from Greco-Roman Christianity. 

I know when you ask Google if Judaism teaches either of those things the first answer you’ll get from the AI Overview is yes because websites like Wikipedia can only interpret that question as asking if The Messiah can be God in The Flesh.  But The Hebrew Bible definitely teaches a God who is emotional and changes and Jewish Theologians recognize that, it's also why Augustine wanted to reject the "Old Testament" until Ambrose convinced him he could just allegorize it all away.

Sam Aronow also misunderstands why the Miaphysites (if he’s against calling people things they don’t like being called he should stop saying Monophysites) and Nestorians seemingly have more compatibility with early Islam then the followers of the Imperial Churches. They did not stress the Human Nature of Christ any more than the Chalcedonians did.  

A lot of it was being more culturally Semitic, but for Nestorians it was chiefly sharing the extreme view of Divine Impassibility.  It was actually only within Chalcedonianism there was ever any resistance to Divine Impassibility especially in the 6th Century when the Fifth Ecumenical Council explicitly affirmed The Theopaschite Formula.

There was no Council of Yavne/Jamnia, that’s a conjecture formed from a few vague Talmudic references to some discussion of the Canon happening there.  

Religion for Breakfast has a good video on how there was no one single moment that Judaism and Christianity split but rather many were to some degree getting along attending Synagogue and observing Jewish Feast Days together even into the Fifth Century.  The Greco-Roman Emperors and High Church Bishops tended to not like it but for the common people it was a different matter.   And this lack of full separation I suspect lasted longer among Semitic peoples and in part explains the origins of Islam.

In a way the belief in a very early clean break between Christianity and Judaism is tied to the popular misconception of Christian persecution under Rome.   The Neronian Persecution didn't happen, the persecution under Domitian was part of his persecution of Jews and the same likely applies to what little Roman in origin Christian Persecution happened under Trajan and Hadrian. Christian Persecution happened in select outbursts, originally mostly local. Only the Diocletian Persecution was as intense as popular fiction will present the entire Pre-Milvian Bridge Era. So no, Christians were not by default excluded from the legal protections granted to Jews by Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Tertullian talks about Severus being well disposed towards Christians so I get annoyed at him being labeled one of the 10 great Persecutors just because of things that happened during his reign, same goes for Marcus Aurelius.  Also no Caracalla did not massacre his own wedding to start a War with Parthia.

Personally I theorize that in the Revolt Against Constantius Gallus some Nicene Christians allied with the Jewish Rebels seeing the Arian Emperor as a common enemy, after all Athanasius was calling him a forerunner of The Antichrist.  Cyril of Jerusalem claims loyalty to The Emperor publicly in his surviving letters but I’m skeptical of that. Likewise during the reign of Valens I suspect some Near Eastern Jews may have allied with the Nicene Arab Queen Mawiya.  But our later Historians of these events didn’t wanna talk about that. 

Aronow’s discussion of Constantine takes at face value too much of what Eusebius says, Eusebius liked to make his fictionalized Constantine a mouthpiece for his own views.  The real reason for the desire to stop using the Jewish Calendar for determining the date of Pascha was because of the same issues going on within Judaism at the time, people didn’t like it falling too far from the Spring Equinox.  The Kariates came to a similar conclusion.

And Aelia Eudocia wasn’t a Pagan, she was a Christian who even got involved in an internal Christian dispute siding with the Miaphysites in their 452-3 revolt.  Another revolt that I speculate might have gotten Jewish support that the chroniclers ignored given Eudocia's friendly relations with the Jews.

I’m not making this post to tell anyone who they should and shouldn’t feel solidarity with.  I’m simply showing why it’s not nonsense to see Christianity and Judaism as more like each other than either is to Islam. 

Euphrates in The Bible

There is possibly no type of thing that shares its name with others of the same type of thing more commonly than rivers.  People who study the geography of Britain love to make fun of how most of its many rivers have one of only three different names.  This is partly caused by a lot of communities just calling whatever river is important to their way of life simply what their word for river is.

Biblically that’s why the Nile is never mentioned by name, The Israelites spent so much time in Egypt that an Egyptian word for River simply became a loan word in Hebrew that gets translated River and used synonymously with Nahar.

However there is one River name in The Bible people continue to insist can only ever refer to one very specific river, The Euphrates.

In Speculation on where Eden and it’s Garden was, the most respectable theories are considered the ones built on assuming there is only one Euphrates and that Euphrates is the River that runs through Iraq, Syria and Turkey, which then forces so many other place names in this passage to be somewhere other then what they usually mean in Scripture. Frankly I think after The Flood (and I think this even when entertaining a local Flood view) the naming of all places were essentially rebooted, there is no real point in trying to identify any Genesis 2 locations.

However, the appearances of the name Euphrates in The Bible that really bug me are when it’s used to define the boundaries of The Promised Land in Genesis 15:18, Deuteronomy 1:7, Deuteronomy 11:24 and Joshua 1:4. 

Because the most truly detailed descriptions of the boundary of what is promised to The Twelve Tribes of Israel in Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47-48 clearly make The Jordan the eastern border.  The three Trans-Jordan Tribes are depicted as departing from God’s intention when they ask to settle in those Trans-Jordan regions, God allows it but it’s still not his ideal. In Deuteronomy 1-2 God even talks about Edom, Moab and Ammon also having their lands because God gave it to them.

And at any rate the parts of modern Jordan God merely tolerated allowing these three Tribes to settle in was not all of Jordan and certainly no where near reaching the Euphrates in Iraq.  Reuben's allotment roughly corresponds to the Madaba Governorate, Gad to the Balqa Governorate and East Manasseh aka Gilead to Irbid maybe also Ajloun and Jerash and sometimes the Golan Heights. That's it. 

If it was just the promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 we could argue the other side of Jordan is what's for the other Abrahamic Peoples.  The other three verses are the real concern.

Maybe the Euphrates is somehow a Northern Border rather than Eastern, especially given its pairing with the Al-Arish (River in Egypt) in the South?  No serious scholars thinks the "River in Egypt" is the Nile, hypothetical borders based on that interpretation are pure fantasy.  I also talked about the Southern Border when discussing Kadesh.

Well the Northern border of Israel is more complicated to explain but the mounting evidence is that it too doesn't extend further north then Sidon at the absolute most but probably no further north than the northern extent of modern Israel pre taking the Golan Heights.

The Tribe of Dan in Judges 18 leaves their intended allotment and I suspect the intended allotment of Israel altogether just like the Trans-Jordan tribes did except without even asking permission first.  So even if Laish is much further North then Tel-Dan or Banias (Caesarea Philippi) the use of Dan as an idiom for Israel’s northern extent is still in my view a matter of the Southern Border of Dan being the Northern Border of Israel, possibly northern Israelite cities like Kafr Bir'im or Jish/Gishcala or perhaps Mount Meron which I suspect is what Israelites and Canaanites south of Lebanon meant by Mount Zapphon(North) rather then Jebel Aqra.

Hamath as the name of a specific City is not even in Lebanon but Syria north of Lebanon.  However I think many Biblical uses of it are of a wider territory and that specifically the “Entering in of Hamath” is that space between the southern Litani River and the northern Jordan. 

Obadiah 1:20 is difficult to Translate it seems, but many versions make Zarephath the northern extent of Israel and that is most likely a reference to Sarepta, a city located south of Sidon.  

Joshua 19:28 defines Asher’s northern border with places approaching Sidon. 

Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 27-28 use names for the northern boundaries not found anywhere else and thus seemingly impossible to identify on their own now.  But I'm compelled by Joseph Schwars’s argument that this northern Mount Hor is the southern tip of the Lebanon Mountain Range. 

And back in Genesis 10:19 Sidon was the northern limit of the land of Canaan.

The name Lebanon in The Bible refers to a Mountain Range not a Nation-State, but it is pretty much all in modern Lebanon. And that’s the thing about the Deuteronomy and Joshua Euphrates references, if you read them carefully they are clearly placing their Euphrates in or right next to the Lebanon Mountains. Which makes the most viable river to match that description the Litani River.

When you google “Is the Litani River mentioned in The Bible” you’ll find that it’s not by that name but people see it in the references to Misrephothmain in Joshua 11:8 and 13:6 which is clearly placed south of Sidon like the northern border of Asher, but that name I think refers specifically to where it meets the Mediterranean.

I think the Euphrates in early Israelite history was always the Litani and in The Bible doesn’t refer to the river in Mesopotamia till the Babylonian Captivity or maybe at the soonest the references to Necho King of Egypt fighting Assyria there.

So that’s my take, the northern border of Israel is the East-West flowing part of the Litani River. 

1 Chronicles 5:9 associates the Euphrates with a border of the Trans-Jordan Tribes in Gilead.

David and Solomon and other Kings wound up ruling a larger territory, but that was as Tributaries, they never tried to annex anything beyond what the Twelve Tribes were allotted.

As far as the small piece of Lebanon that is Biblical Israel in the argument I just made.   God tolerated Tyre being Sidonian in Antiquity. I'm sure he’s fine with it now too.