Ezra-Nehemiah Chronology

It does not serve my own personal interests to argue for what I’m about to argue for given how it would destroy the 70 Weeks Chronology I have favored for over a decade now. 

It is often assumed that every Darius in Ezra but especially in chapters 5 and 6  is King Darius I sometimes called Darius The Great and that every Artaxerxes in both Ezra and Nehemiah is King Artaxerxes I Longimanus.  However this assumption has caused a lot of Chronological confusion for Ezra Chapter 4. 

A much simpler, more coherent timeline forms when one simply assumes the Darius of Ezra 4:5 is Darius I. The way this reference is worded it could be the same Darius as later being referred to in advance, but that wouldn’t fix the other Chronological problems.  The Ahasuerus of Ezra 4:6 is Xerxes I and thus also the Ahasuerus of Esther, in fact I think this verse is about the drama that Esther describes in more detail and thus upon reaching this Verse is where you should read Esther if you wanted to do a strictly Chronological reading of The Bible or just its Narratives.  Then the Artaxerxes of Ezra 4:7-23 is Artaxerxes I.  The Darius introduced in Ezra 4:24 through chapter 6 is Darius II Ochus and then the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7-8 and Nehemiah is Artaxerxes II Memnon. And then finally the Darius of the last verse of Nehemiah 12 is Darius III.

Josephus famously records Sanballat and Jaddua being still alive when Alexander comes to Jerusalem in 332 BC which definitely makes more sense if the Nehemiah narrative is late in the time of Artaxerxes II rather than almost a century earlier. 

The Seder Olam Rabba, which is in part the basis for the modern Jewish Calendar, removed about a century from the Persian period.  Now in-spite of the Seder Olam being a Jewish text the only people I’ve ever seen try to argue its shorter timeline for the Persian Empire is literally true are fringe Fundamentalist Christians trying to make it fit some alternate chronology they want to be true.

Part of what makes the Seder Olam’s timeline seem plausible to some is that our conventional understanding of Biblical History skips right from the first Artaxerxes to when Alexander conquers the Persian Empire.  So about a Century of Persian History is viewed as essentially just a long Filler Arc to someone viewing History mainly through a Biblical lens. 

I’ve seen people try to argue that the Ahasuerus of Ezra 4 is actually Cambyses II son of Cyrus but he didn’t reign long enough to have a 12th year. 

This new theory about the Persian Kings in Ezra-Nehemiah can potentially fix that. 

The only problem is that Ezra has Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak being important leaders both during the time of Cyrus in Ezra 3-4:3 and the time of Darius in Ezra 5-6. And that is a lot less plausible if that Darius is Darius II rather than the first. 

However there is a text known as 1 Esdras (or 3 Esdras when Ezra-Nehemiah are called 1st and 2nd Esdras) as well as Greek Esdras and Greek Ezra which is essentially another version of what Ezra covers.  It is not considered Canon by Jews or most Protestants but is included in Catholic Bibles and is firmly canonical to the Eastern Orthodox Churches. There are those who would argue the very early Church favored this Esdras over the Ezra now considered more universally Canon.  That usually goes hand in hand with other Septuagint Primacy arguments I don’t agree with, but it does exist. 

In the Greek Esdras narrative Zorobabel and Jesus don’t appear till the time of Darius in Chapter 5 and are not mentioned back during the time of Cyrus in Chapter 2. 

While this version lacks a reference to Ahasuerus or the first Darius it does have two separate Kings named Artexerxes, with the one who would be the first in chapter 2 and the second being introduced in chapter 7.

In Josephus Antiquities of The Jews Book 11, a Zorobabel is mentioned during the time of Cyrus near the end of Chapter 1, but his father isn’t identified and no High-Preist named Jeshua/Jesus is mentioned.  Zorobabel son of Salathiel and Jeshua son of Josedek as a pair, don't show up till the time of Darius in Chapter 3. Now Josephus is definitely presuming that Darius is Darius I, but it’s notable that the narrative he’s giving only has the fullness of this pair during the time of Darius. 

The Elaphantine Papyri seemingly place Johanan’s time as High Priest during the reign of Darius II, or already in the past during his 17th year.  So that could be a counterargument to all this. 

But the standard view that Ezra and Nehemiah served under Artaxerxes I can’t explain the earlier bad Artaxerxes who reigned before Darius.

Pilate's Governorship may have begun sooner in AD 17 or 18.

Here is an article on the subject arguing it could be the case based mostly on Roman Coinage.

http://www.academia.edu/8296217/The_Chronology_and_Tenure_of_Pontius_Pilate_New_Evidence_for_Re-dating_the_Period_of_Office._Judaea_and_Rome_in_Coins_65_BCE_-_135_CE._The_Numismatic_Circular_pp._1-7._Kenneth_L%C3%B6nnqvist

The above Article is behind a Paywall now, I first read it years ago when it wasn't so my memory of exactly how it made it's argument is foggy. 

There is a potential argument for this model from Josephus I have noticed that I don't think that article included.  Which is notable because something Josephus said is also basically the sole reason for the more common AD 26 date.

In Antiquities of The Jews Book 18. the last thing Josephus talks about at the end of chapter 2 before introducing Pilate in chapter 3 is the Death of Antiochus III of Commagene who died in AD 17.  The first three sections of chapter 3 are stories about affairs when Pilate was Governor, one of them being the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Then section 4 begins a long account of calamities that befell the Jews and Egyptians in Rome.  Tacitus Annals II records those same events, his Annals are explicitly year by year and he places them in AD 19 (the Year of the Consulship of Silanus and Balbus), the same year as the death of Germanicus.

Now the above article stresses how this need not change assumptions about the chronology of The Gospels, they're expanding Pilate's administration not moving it, he was still governor during the Passovers of 27-36, with myself long favoring the Passion being in AD 30.

However I have been flirting with the possibility of moving it down.  It would make my arguments for sooner Nativity Dates (Like 12 BC) even more plausible.  The 12 BC Model would have Jesus turn 30 in 19 and his 30th Year begin in 18. 

Apparently Tertullian had said there were 52 years between the first Advent and the fall of Jerusalem to Titus.  Which points us to AD 18.

What about the 15th Year of Tiberius?  Well I've already said more then once that Jesus Baptism could have actually happened before that, it's simply when John was arrested that happened then, which I do view as possibly merely months or even weeks before the Passover of the Crucifixion.  And it could be Luke was using a source counting from when Tiberius truly became Augustus's Heir and given the Tribunician power in AD 4 which can give us a 15th Year that begins in 18 and ends in 19.

This chronology would also make even more plausible the theory that Simon the Pharisee of Luke 7:36-50 is Simeon Ben Hillel.

This redating of the Crucifixion messes up the 70 Weeks Model I have argued for on this blog.  

Whether or not when the Crucifixion happened should be affected, I am convinced of these arguments for beginning Pilate's Governorship almost a decade sooner. 

Neo-Conservatism was a CIA op

First of all, to debunk the popular Trotskyist origins of Neo-Conservatism narrative, watch these videos from InDefenseOfTooucan, I’m not a Trotskyist but they are a Trotskyist YouTuber I respect.

https://youtu.be/xzM0lUko6hY

https://youtu.be/sgr2jkZxFcM

What most people typically mean when they refer to someone as a “Neo-Con” is the most Hawkish Pro Intervention people in the Republican Party in contrast to the firmly Non Interventionist Paleo-Cons.  Specifically how such Foreign Policy aims were framed during the Cold War and War on Terror.  Anyone meaning anything more specific than that is frankly referring to something that doesn’t even really exist., rarely has anyone actually called themselves a Neo-Con.

The core of Neo-Con ideology was defined by the magazine National Review and its founder William F. Buckley Jr.  Buckley was a Yale Graduate who is known to have worked for the CIA for two years at the start of the 50s including one of those for E. Howard Hunt in Mexico City. 

When he launched National Review in 1955 he made a point to hire intellectuals who were Ex-Communists of some sort.  This is tied to the basis for the Trotskyist claim, but the small number of Trotskyists among them were specifically Shachmanites, a sub group disowned by both Trotsky himself and James P. Cannon and are people who ultimately fell out even with Shachman. What most of them do happen to have in common is having all worked for either OSS or CIA at some point previously as they transitioned into abandoning The Left.  James Burnham is perhaps most important as the Magazine's lead writer on Foreign Policy specifically.  Whitaker Chambers proved a valuable spy because he’d spied for the Soviet Union when he was a Communist, a rare example of that McCarthyist accusation being true (usually Soviet Spies did not publicly claim to be Communists or participate in the CPUSA). 

But going outside the realm of intellectuals.  Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles were major players in the internal politics of The Republican Party and were in fact key backer of the early rise in political importance of both Prescott Bush and Richard Nixon.

Irving Kristol was part of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a known CIA operation.  However I don’t consider Irving Kristol important actually, he and many others you usually see named as the key Neo-Conservatives are part of the Genre of historical figures whose importance as “behind the scenes” political players is grossly exaggerated while just so happening to be Jews.  However since Kristol is the only person who has ever really self identified as a Neo-Con I couldn’t ignore him completely.

Fascism is the original Red-Brown Alliance

Neither popular answer to the question of why “Socialism” is in the name of “National Socialism” is entirely correct.  They were not indistinguishable from other Socialists on everything but the Nationalism v Internationalism question.  But neither can a claim it was all a lie to trick the working class with no sincerity behind it hold up to scrutiny.

The term “Red-Brown Alliance” is one of many used for the concept of the Far Left and Far Right being sometimes allied in mutual disdain for some aspect of the current Status Quo.  The reason the color Brown is referenced in that term is because in the post WW2 era Fascism is the Far Right.   But in the 19th Century the Far Right was regular old fashioned Royalism, in France it was being a Bourbon-Legitimist.  While the Far Left included both Internationalists and Nationalists, both Socialists and Jacobins, while The Center was Burkean Conservatism and Constitutional Monarchy.

The Philosophical groundwork for trying to be both a Monarchist and Revolutionary at once was laid by Thomas Carlyle who romanticized Medieval Europe and French Revolutionaries at the same time.  His works were popular in the Antebellum South and in Germany.  In The South it helped the Proto-Confederates from a justifying ideology that married Robert Filmer Paternalism with Jeffersonianism.

However the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War is where Proto-Fascism begins to take shape on the ground in Europe.  

In France it resulted in Revanchism and the creation of the Ligue des Patriotes in 1882 by Paul Déroulède.  In 1883 the last heir to Charles X died and so the Legitimists were split between those who now supported the Orleans line and the Carlists, this opened the door for a fusion of Ultra Royalism with the Bourgeois Nationalism of the Oleanists.  But importantly this was contemporary with the rise of Revanchism, that was the pan ideological phenomena.  Revanchism helped spawn a new mode of Antisemitism in France as France’s Ashkenazi population became included in French Germanophobia.  In 1886 Édouard Drumont published La France juive (Jewish France).  

In Germany meanwhile their Victory in the Franco-Prussian War emboldened the Volkisch Movement allowing Pan-Germanism to become no longer just a liberal but also an Imperialist goal as well as appealing to Social Reactionaries.  All while Modern Antisemitism got its start there.

1888 and early 1889 saw the rise and fall of Georges Ernest Boulanger whose ideologically vague movement was founded on three Principles, Revanchism, Revision of the Constitution and Restoration of The Monarchy.  One influential student of that movement was Maurice Barres. 

Later 1889 also saw the formation of the Second International where Nationalists were formally disowned from the Socialist movement.

From 1984 the Dreyfus Affair became a new animating movement that untied Socialists and Royalists. Maurice Barres wrote La Cocarde (The Cockade) to defend his ideas, attempting to bridge the gap between the far-left and the far-right and went on to become a leader of the before mentioned Ligue des Patriotes.

At this time Action Française was founded by Maurice Pujo, Henri Vaugeois, Jacques Bainville and Léon de Montesquiou, and then was later lead by Charles Maurras.  Charles Maurras created the ideology of Integral Nationalism combining Olreanist Royalism with the Mutualist Anarchism of Proudhon.  A student of his was Georges Valois. And he would also influence Jean Denis and the Rexist Party in Belgium.

Hubert Lagardelle and Gustave Hervé were other Anti-Reformist French Socialists who became radicalized by Nationalism during the WWI era, Mussolini himself cited Lagardelle as an origin point for Fascism. Herve founded in 1919 the Parti socialiste national (PSN) which was openly Class Collaborationist, and he openly vocally supported Mussolini.

Most of the key founders of Italian Fascism were former Leftists of some kind, not just Mussolini himself.  The common denominator was not which ideological subgenre they came from, they included former Marxists and Leninists and Syndicalists and Futurists and Anarchists of both Collectivist and Individualist varieties.  The common denominator was they were all people who supported Italy entering WWI because of their Nationalism. 

And today the primary unifying issue of the Far Right and Far Left is Anti-Zionism, and has been since Fancis Parker Yockey and Francois Genoud.

No God does not Condemn based on Thoughts Alone

Among Conservative Evangelical Christians it is common to emphasize that “according to The Bible we are judged even for our thoughts”, this influenced even my own thinking way back in the day.  

 

The basis for this is mainly The Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21) and certain quotes from The Sermon on The Mount (Matthew 5: 22 and 27-28).

Many theologians have argued that Coveting in The Bible refers to more than just having ever felt like you want something someone else has.  It’s about dwelling in that Envy and letting it consume you.  It’s a Sin of thought rather than action only in contrast to actual Theft or Adultery, but it is very likely still affecting your actions towards the person you are Envious of even if only subconsciously.  2 Peter 2:14 refers specifically to “Covetous Practices”.  Roman 13:9 lists this command among those sufficiently covered under “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” so if you are obeying that commandment you are sufficiently obeying the Tenth. 

Looking at a Woman with Lust in your Heart absolutely involves an action the word "look" is a verb.  It’s about leering, ogling. (And that’s leaving aside the dispute of whether the context being about Adultery means Gune should be translated Wife rather than Woman.) It’s not a condemnation of having ever had horny thoughts, or even of indulging such thoughts privately in a way that harms no one.

Likewise calling someone a “Fool” or “Raca” is an act of insulting them, the way people twist that into being a condemnation of ever being Angry is absurd. Righteous Anger is absolutely something The Bible condones. 

Hebrews 4:15 says Jesus felt all the same Temptations we do but never Sinned, this to me is clearly about more than just the famous story of Satan directly tempting Him three times.  It’s an affirmation of the Full Humanity of Jesus, He had thoughts that would be Sinful to Act upon, but because He didn’t Act on them they were not Sins. 

And it’s because I’m a former Conservative when it comes to this very aspect of morality, that I’m among those Leftists who see similar attitudes among so-called Leftists as inherently Conservative.  It is pure Idealism, a product of Immanuel Kant’s pseudo intellectual babble about thoughts somehow being more powerful than actions.

And this is part of why I’m against Antishipers.

Harm Reduction needs to be the basis for Morality.

That is my position as both a Christian and a Communist. 

Whether an action is truly "Evil" or not should solely be about whether or not it does Harm, not whether or not you find it "Weird" or "Gross".  But unfortunately many who claim to agree with that still seek to define "Harm" in increasingly abstract ways. The Harm has to be tangible and measurable especially if you want to make it a civil crime. 

In addition to that, in my view whether someone is a currently a bad person or not is solely determined by whether they are currently doing or inclined to do harmful actions or not.  I don't believe they need to in anyway "make up" for their past sins, I don't even really think they need to regret them, Anime does a great Job at turning Villains into Heroes without even changing anything about that character's thought process.

Deserved or Earned Redemption is an Oxymoron, the literal definition of the word is about Redeeming a Debt that can't actually be paid off, same with Forgiveness.  

What's funny is people are gonna tell me my attitude can't be a Leftist one because it's the traditional Christian one.  The problem is modern mainstream Christianity is as Conservative as it now because they don't believe that anymore.  They may deny that fact, they may still preach from the Pulpit that all you need to do to be Forgiven is accept Jesus, but when you get into the weeds of their Theology that is utterly contradicted, because they are all either Calvinists or Arminians, they believe either Evil People were Predestined for Damnation by God for the fun of it, or that they all chose to be Evil.  However I view Sin as an illness that needs to be cured not a Crime that needs to be Punished, and Christians who agree with me were the ones who invented Communism and Liberalism long before any Atheists came along.

Leftists are supposed believe in Materialism not Free Will.  There is no value in Punishing people because that won't undo the harm they caused. 

Materialism and Idealism

 One thing that unintentionally poisons the well of Internet Leftist Discourse is that both of those words (as well as their -ist forms) have more than one meaning, and yet many either only know one meaning, ignorantly conflate the meanings, or are willingly ignorant that others don’t know the other meanings.

Idealism as in the Metaphysics of Platonism and Immanuel Kant has nothing to do with what it means when someone is called an Idealist in contrast to being a Pragmatist or Cynical.  In the latter case Ideal is being used as a synonym for Value or Moral rather then a Platonic Ideal Form.

Likewise Materialist Metaphysics (or lack of metaphysics) has little to do with the “Historical Materialism” of philosophies like Marxism and nothing to do with the Madonna song Material Girl.

You can be Idealistic while still rejecting Philosophical Idealism, and you can be a Historical Materialist while while holding to Idealist Metaphysics.

Materialist Metaphysics is a key pillar of Stoicism, and the main reason I call myself somewhat of a Stoic rather than most anything popularly associated with Stoicism.  While the rejection of anything metaphysical existing is Epicureanism. 

I agree with Historical Materialism but not the more specific Dialectical Materialism which I view as a symptom of Pythagorean Dualism.  And that’s why my status as a Marxist is questionable.

So I’m definitely not a Philosophical Idealist.  How much the other Idealism applies to me is purely subjective. 

Feast Days and the Gestational Cycle

I have skepticism of certain aspects of how Zola Levitt and others have presented this thesis before, but there is a strong basis for it.

Here is a Wikipedia Link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy#Timeline

It is a mistake when they equate Birth with Hanukkah.  The 280th day of a Gestational Cycle identified as beginning on the First of Aviv would be the 10th Day of the Tenth Month at the soonest unless there are five extra intercalary days inserted somewhere in the first 9 months in which case its the 5th Day at the soonest.  And that’s using full 30 Day months not Lunar Months as the Hebrew Calendar is popularly understood.

But I want to focus on the first month for now.  

The 14th Day of a woman’s Menstrual Cycle is typically when the Egg leaves the Ovary and Ovulation begins, with Fertilization usually happening on the 15th Day.  Fertilization can sometimes be accomplished with Sperm planted earlier. That compelling correlation is what the rest is built on.

The first issue comes when they claim Implantation can happen at any point for a Week after Fertilization so they can identify it with the common Christian understanding of the first day of Omer in Leviticus 23:9-14.

The truth is Implantation rarely happens sooner than four days after Fertilization or later then five days.  The typical estimate is Day 6 from Fertilization and Day 20 of Gestation.  So Implantation on Day 16 or 17 to fit either Common Christian understanding of how The Resurrection fulfills “First Fruits” isn’t viable, but neither is my proposed model where The Resurrection happened on Day 22.

I’m about to now work on my own particular model for this with the Gospels-Acts narrative in mind.  And using my own proposed revision of how the Passover Chronology and The Passion interact.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/04/passion-week-chronology-completely.html

The starting point however is that the Child being conceived is The Church fitting my The Man Child of Revelation being The Church or Individual Believers thesis.  And that’s how I can be cool with no notable day correlating to Resurrection Sunday.

The Mother is Israel, the Womb is Jerusalem and the Ovaries are the Northern and Southern Kingdoms and the Egg(s) represents individual Israelites who at some point became followers of Jesus.  The Baby Daddy is The Messiah her Bridegroom and His Seed is The Word of God based on Luke 8:11.  And we are the Children of the Bridechamber in Luke 5:34. James 1:18 adds further support.

In my proposed Passion Model the significance of the 14th day of the first month is John 12:1-11.

Jesus and his Disciples entered Jerusalem on the 15th..

Implantation is the day I place The Crucifixion, a day the Followers of Jesus fled and hid for safety in Jerusalem.

The finishing of Implantation is typically day 26 which in this model would equate to Bright Thursday, the traditional reading for which is Luke 24:35-48 but I don’t think those events are actually believed to happen on that day.

Day 9 of Implantation, Day 15 of Fertilization and Day 29 of Gestation is when the Embryo Stage begins.  That correlates to the Sunday a week after Resurrection Sunday which is Thomas Sunday, John 20:24-29.  Once all of the Eggs have seen the Risen Jesus then the Embryo is formed. 

Day 20 of Implantation, Day 26 of Fertilization and Day 40 of Gestation is the day Primitive Heart Function can first be detected. Maybe we could arbitrarily identify this with Matthew 28:16-20.

Day 51 of Implantation, Day 57 of Fertilization and Day 71 of Gestation is the day The Fetal Stage begins.  And that equates to day 50 of the Omer, Pentecost.  Now that day is popularly called the Birth of the Church, but it can be viewed as in truth the day it took its basic visible form.  It is also about here that Fetal Breathing Movements start, so remember that both the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit also mean Breath, this is when The Holy Spirit entered The Church.

Sex Organs do not take form till during the Fetal Stage, hence Paul saying in Galatians 3:28 that we are neither Male or Female.  The Holy Spirit will guide us to our true intended Gender Identity, not the biology of The Flesh.

The Fall Feasts connections are also an area where I’m skeptical of Zola Levitt’s claimed connections. Being able to hear distinct sounds at the start of the third trimester does seem to hold up.  But Blood Cells form well before the third trimester and the Heart Beating starts before then too, same with Breathing as already shown.

Revelation 12:3-5 is part of a collection of signs being seen in Heaven, so maybe not when on the timeline the events they represent happen.  But as it’s about the preparation for Birth it could be correlated to entering the Third Trimester after the Seventh Trumpet is sounded.

Deuteronomy 16:17-19 which applied to all the Pilgrimage Festivals is also I think part of the root of the Communism of the Early Church which is described twice. Acts 2:44-45 is definitely on Pentecost so Acts 4:32-37 could be set at Tabernacles.

Our true Birth happens at the Bodily Resurrection, when the Earth gives Birth to her Dead and all Flesh sees Salvation.

But it may be worthwhile to note at least typologically that according to Acts 8 it was after the death of Stephen that The Church finally left Jerusalem, that’s when we left The Womb.  Stephen’s Martyrdom is traditionally dated to December 26th, the day after Christmas, in the West and December 27th in the East. A date that on a Hebrew Calendar could correlate to Hanukkah or the Fast of the Tenth Month. 

Protection, Passover and Easter

One of the silliest hills you will see a radical KJV Onlyist die on is defending the use of the word Easter in Acts 12:4 specifically and nowhere else.

Now I suspect the people at the King James Research Center YouTube Channel I discovered in December of 2024 are scholarly types who’d know better than to do that.  They would just argue that in King James English Easter and Passover are synonyms so it’s not a big deal that this one verse translates the name of the holiday differently then the others.  And that position isn’t entirely wrong, I’m not one of those “Easter is Pagan and the very etymology of the word proves it” types.  But I do think the baggage the word now has is a good reason to avoid it at least in how we translate Scripture.

These bad KJV Onlyists first argument is “it’s during Unleavened Bread so Passover is past already”.  That is based on Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23’s rather strict usage of Passover for the 14th specifically, but Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45:21 set the precedent for using Passover to describe the entire Spring Festival season and that’s clearly how all New Testament references are using it like in Luke 22:1-7.

Herod Agrippa was a devout Jew not a Pagan, so no he would not have been observing any “Ishtar” festival in Jerusalem. 

The fact is this verse of Acts uses the same word as every other reference to Passover in the Greek, Pascha which is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach.  So I think it should be translated consistently with all the others.

The little historical footnote they will cling to is that it was William Tyndale who coined the word Passover and he used Easter in this verse.  The problem is Tyndale used Easter for every Pascha verse of the New Testament.  You see he did the New Testament first and then started work on the Hebrew Bible which he never got to finish and it was for that he coined Passover.  If you asked him if future translations should use Passover for Pascha in the New Testament including Acts 12:4 he would probably have said yes.

I am however now going to say something that will be anathema to even those more sane KJV Onlyists. I think even Passover was a wrong translation of Pesach.  I think Tyndale got a lot of stuff right (like translating Limne as Lake), but he messed up here, though the error begins with the Septuagint version of Exodus 12:23.

As the proper name of a Holy Day Pesach should probably just be transliterated.  

But as far as what the word means when used as a verb I agree with scholars like Nehemiah Gordon that it really means Protect and thus as a name means Protection or Protector. Gordon’s articles are behind a Paywall now so I’ll instead link to these.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-passover-on-the-true-meaning-of-pesah

https://fatheroflove.info/article/view/explaining-that-passover-means-god-protecting-not-deciding-not-to-kill

The Septuagint in fact agrees with this interpretation of the word in two out of the three Exodus 12 verses.

Both uses of “pass over” in the KJV of Exodus 12 make more sense if translated “protect” especially verse 23, and “passed” in verse 27 works as “protected”.  Likewise “passing over” in Isaiah 31:5 definitely makes more sense in context as “protecting”.  

The seemingly contradictory way this word is translated in 1 Kings 18 as “halt” in verse 21 and “leaped" in verse 26 is fixed by understanding inherently defensive actions as what both verses were going for.  In 2 Samuel 4:4 the second “lame” in the KJV is a form of Pesach but the first “lame” is different, in this case I think it’s an ironic usage about Johnathon’s son being defenseless.

Continuing the running joke of me when talking about translation issues suggesting a Japanese word because I watch Anime, the best Japanese Translation of Pesach would be Mamoru.

East of Jerusalem Crucifixion

I’d considered just supporting the Holy Sepulcher Site now that I’ve made an effort to restrain my bias for Alternative Biblical Geography theories, which includes that I do now mainly favor the Mainstream Sinai View and definitely do not think it was in Arabia or Jordan.

But the more I think about it and look into it the more convinced I become of an East of Jerusalem model for The Crucifixion and Resurrection rather than West or North. 

The most compelling reason is the parallel accounts of Matthew 27:51-54, Mark 15:38-39 and Luke 23:45-47.  

One can argue there is some reasonable doubt that the Veil being torn has to be specifically among what the Centurion saw, but looking at it as an an aspiring writer and one who likes to analyze the writing of others, to deny every sign here is among what the Centurion saw is worse then denying that Blue Curtains symbolize Sadness.  And if you know even the basics of the Geography of The Temple and Jerusalem then you know that is only theoretically possible if they were directly due East of The Temple.

I’m still undecided about how I fully view Zechariah 12-14, but for Chapter 14 Verses 4-5 I lean towards the Earthquake cleaving of the Mount of Olives there as being the one from Matthew:26:51-54.

John 19:20 says The Crucifixion was “nigh to the city”.  To a modern reader that doesn’t seem to say anything about which direction, but when you understand all the Torah and Scriptural Emphasis on entering The Tabernacle and Camp from the East you’ll understand that best fits being on the road leading to Jerusalem from The East.

And that also applies to Hebrews 13:10-13 and it’s allusion to Torah Passages like Exodus 29:14, 33:7, Leviticus 4:12-21, 6:11, 8:17, 9:11, 16:27, 24:14 and Numbers 19:3-8.  

Additionally Numbers 31:13-19 identified “Without the Camp” as where Censuses were held, and because of Exodus 16:13, 38:16, Number 1:2-18-20-22 and 1 Chronicles 23:3-24 the Hebrew word gulgoleth could be associated with Censuses.  So Golgotha could refer not to a Geographical feature but to a place for holding a Census.

Second Kings Chapter 23 in Verses 4, 6 and 12 refer to Josiah burning Idols and other pagan paraphernalia in the Brook Kidron which is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, even saying “without Jerusalem”. Verse 12 names Ahaz and Manasseh showing this is still tied to the Tophet mentioned two verses earlier. 

Gehenna in The New Testament is a name derived from Hinnom of The Hebrew Bible.  I disagree with the popular view that it was South of Jerusalem, that’s based on a misunderstanding of Joshua 15:8 and 18:16.  Jeremiah 19:2 much more explicitly identifies Hinnom with the Eastern Gate. 

In The Bible Kidron is always the name of a brook, the Valley we today call Kidron is the real Valley of Hinnom.  I also think the valley of Jehoshaphat and valley of decision in Joel 3 is also probably this same valley and that Joel was using poetic names rather then what it was normally called, but I know other more popular theories for that valley exist.

The Tophet is why Hinnom became associated with Fiery Judgment in Jeremiah 7 and 19 and Isaiah 30:33.  The Tophet was something related to the Worship of Molech built by Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28:3 (and 2 Kings 16) and used by Manasseh in 33:6.

In Genesis 22 Moriah is the name of a land not a single Mountain, but the Hebrew word translated “mount” in 2 Chronicles 3:1 can itself refer to a mountain range rather than a single mountain.  So the Mount of Olives rather than the Temple Mount being where Abraham offered Isaac is plausible.

2 Samuel 15:30-16:1 tell us David worshipped God at the Summit of The Mount of Olives as he fled the rebellion of Absalom.  In Ezekiel 11:22-23 the Glory of God leaves the midst of The City and stands on the Mountain on the East Side of The City.

In my Sunday post at the start of 2025 I mentioned Biblical reasons to view Sunrise as a symbol of The Resurrection.  Well the Sun Rises in The East so likewise Jesus should Rise East of Jerusalem.

The Romans usually Crucified criminals in front of a City's Main Gate to make sure a maximum number saw the example being made.  And for Jerusalem especially during the Pilgrimage Festivals that was The East Gate.

The problem with having so much confidence that the local Traditions couldn’t have gotten it wrong is that the history of Jerusalem is filled with multiple discontinuities.  

There is dispute on if the Jewish Jerusalem Church after AD 70 ever returned to Jerusalem from Pella even in part, because Jerusalem was largely not actively inhabited at all during that time.  But what’s most significant is after the Bar Kochba Revolt, Jews, including Jewish-Christians, weren’t even allowed anywhere Jerusalem was visible from (according to Eusebius Church History Book IV Chapter 6 Section 3), so in Hadrian’s City a new Gentile Christian community was formed that had no direct continuity with the prior community. And the thing is I don’t believe these truly Early Christians were all that invested in worshiping as special sacred locations to begin with.  

This is relevant to debating the location of The Temple as well.  You’ll see it claimed that during this period of Jews being banned from Jerusalem they were at least allowed to visit the site of The Temple once a year on the 9th of Av, but even that wasn't there from that start, that allowance was granted by Septimius Severus.  By then it’s very well possible no Jews who had ever been in Jerusalem previously were still alive, or any who had been were very old and possibly Senile.

The Architect Hadrian used for Aelia Capitolina also oversaw a similarly shaped complex at Baalbek, where a Temple to Venus was also built nearby the Temple to Jupiter, that’s why a Temple to Venus was built where The Church of The Holy Sepulcher now stands, it had nothing to do with covering up a Christian place of worship. But maybe even before Nicaea local Christians desired to imagine it was.

Where The Church of The Holy Sepulcher is located was outside the city limits during the first century, unfortunately the early history of people arguing against it was so wrapped up in people before we knew that starting with that argument that traditionalists just think that being debunked is itself enough to dismiss alternate theories.  As I laid out above, the real issue is that it’s in the wrong direction. 

However Melito of Sardis and my own date for the writing of Revelation (Chapter 11 verse 8) can be cited as evidence that the Crucifixion site was now in the City Limits after Hadrian's rebuilding of the City.  Neither Melito or Revelation are being strictly geographically literal, and the Mount of Olives can be considered part of the area of Jerusalem in any time period.  In the Fourth Century Cyril of Jerusalem referred to both The Mount of Olives and Bethlehem as part of Jerusalem at least as far as his clerical authority went.  But if Hadrian’s rebuilding did create some increase in a willingness to refer to the Crucifixion site as within Jerusalem maybe it was some nuance in how a Roman style city is defined.  Or maybe what Cyril claimed goes back to Marcus the first Greek Orthodox Bishop of Jerusalem.  At any rate the Mount of Olives is absolutely considered part of Jerusalem now, even when modern Jerusalem is divided between East and West because of the Partition the Mount of Olives is in the same part as the Old City both being East Jerusalem.  

The Garden Tomb has the issue of its Tomb being too old going back to the Bronze Age.  We also know the Skull like Feature tourists find so attractive probably didn’t exist yet in Antiquity.  Ron Wyatt’s claim about finding The Ark under that Crucifixion site is attractive for a lot of symbolic reasons I understand, but his story also sounds way too much like Joseph Smith’s. 

There are different East of Jerusalem sites that have been proposed for The Crucifixion and Resurrection.  One of the first I read about was looking way too far north not lined up with any proposed Temple Location.  Bob Cornuke places The Temple way too far South and thus is also looking for The Crucifixion way too far South.  

I have come to favor the Northern Conjecture or Dome of the Tablets view of where The Temple/Holy of Holies stood, of alternatives to the official view it’s the least extreme, it's not that far away being essentially on the same large platform. And it involves reading sources like the Bordeaux Pilgrim pretty much the same as the mainstream view does, my hunch is simply that the Rock underneath the Dome of the Rock and the “Well of Souls” beneath is the Cave where these Fourth Century Witnesses say Solomon wrote “The Book of Wisdom”.  And that’s even if the Pilgrim was still referring to the correct Temple Site, as I said above the core mistake could have been made before the 2nd Century was even over.

The main reason I like that view is it places The Temple directly due West of The Golden Gate, which is definitely where it should be.  Placing the Temple anywhere else required arguing the Golden Gate was originally somewhere else but there is was too much archeological verification that it's always been where it currently is.  

Yes I have made a point elsewhere out of the discontinuity of Jerusalem's history caused by Hadrian, but that's about population more then lay out.  If he did place an important Shrine or Status right where The Temple was the entry gate lined up with it he wouldn't want to move, especially if the road leading up to it from the east was still in place.

I therefore think the Crucifixion site should be looked for directly due East of The Golden Gate.  It is principally the Crucifixion site that has to be directly due East, the Tomb can be a little north or south as long as it isn’t too far away from its corresponding Crucifixion site. 

I think the original Jerusalem Church may have casually commemorated these locations and they may have in some form been inherited by the Greek Church set up after Hadrian, but no one built grand structures as Christian Worship sites in the area till Constantine. I think after the site of Hadrian’s Temple to Venus became the official imperial backed site the true sites may have become reframed as more obscure references, that may or may not have been at the same location anyway.  But maybe not, again I have no great confidence that the Traditions got anything right.

So I decided to look at Churches that are due East of The Golden Gate. Attempting to start in the West then moving East, but I can’t find a single Map with all of them so I may be uncertain about some of the order.  And all of this is speculative, I don’t know nearly enough about the geography of the area to propose a definitive exact location for anything.

First is The Church of All Nations and the nearby Garden believed to be Gethsemane. The Church commemorates a Rock they believe is where Jesus prayed on the Eve of his Passion. I’ve looked at pictures of this Rock and I feel it could justifiably be said to look like the top of a Skull and thus be a  Golgotha.  But I’m not gonna be like other people insisting their Golgotha is obvious and nothing else could be Golgotha, I’m self aware that there is a bit of a Rorschach test in my seeing it here, and I’ve argued against it needing to refer to what anything looks like anyway.

John 18:1-26 mentions a Garden popularly assumed to also be Gethsemane of Matthew 26:36 and Mark 14:32.  John 19:41 and 20:15 say the Tomb where Jesus was buried was in a Garden.  Could it be that they were meant to be the same Garden?  I don’t know for certain and I don’t know if this Gethsemane has or had any First Century Tombs, but this Garden is considered to have been larger than it is now in the First Century. Sometimes I’m tempted to speculate that the traditional Tomb of The Virgin located a little north of here was actually the Tomb of Jesus.

The Church of All Nations is the point on this route that I think seems to be of the same level elevation as The Temple would have been.  Whether or not this is the Crucifixion site it feels like it makes the most sense for being where the Tophet was.

Next is The Church of Mary Magdalene.  Given that her original core importance is as the first Eyewitness of The Resurrection naming a Church for her at or near where that happened makes sense. But this Church isn’t ancient. 

The Dominus Flevit Church is a bit too far south for a Crucifixion site, but it does long fascinate me not for what it in name claims to commemorate but because of the good reason for believing it marks the primary burial site used by the original Jewish Jerusalem Church.  Christians and Jews in Antiquity chose Burial over Cremation primarily as a witness to their Faith in the General Resurrection of The Dead.  To Christians the Resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that, so it makes sense for them to choose their first burial site as close as possible to where Jesus was buried.

Last is The Chapel of The Ascension at the Mountain’s Summit.  

The idea that the Ascension happened on the Summit of the Mount of Olives originates in a misunderstanding of Acts 1:12, that verse in my view can be read as placing the Mount of Olives between Jerusalem and where the Ascension happened.  Luke 24:50 places the Ascension at Bethany, which can be considered on the Mount of Olives but is its eastern edge not the Summit.  Bethphage was closer to the summit then Bethany was and still significantly east of it.

A lot of Prophecy students want to interpret Acts 1:11 as saying Jesus will return to the same spot he left from and tie that into Prophecies about the Mount of Olives, but that verse isn’t about location but the manner in which Jesus Ascended.  And the Eschatological significance of the Mount of Olives I think is fulfilled by the Crucifixion and Resurrection happening there, but I’ll get into that someday on my Materialist Eschatology Blog.

The “Ascension Rock” is another rock that arguably looks like the top of a Skull to me. 

Just a little South of the proper Ascension site is the Church of the Pater Noster where the Eleona was built during the reign of Constantine. It was associated with the Ascension but Eusebius also stressed it as containing a “Cave” where Jesus taught His Disciples “Secret Knowledge”, that is not a Biblical concept. The modern name implies it’s the Our Father that was taught here, but The Bible doesn’t place that in a cave and Eusebius never hints at that. In Eusebius’s writings this site is presented as the Holiest most central site of Christian veneration prior to 325. There are reportedly first century tombs carved into the cave. 

The Boreux Pilgrim refers to a location near the summit of the Mount of Olives as where the Transfiguration happened, which has long confused scholars since that happened in Galilee.  Ernest L. Martin in his book on a Mt of Olives Crucifixion theory says this is a linguistic confusion with Transfixiation which could have been used to describe Crucifixion.  But I want to note that the Gospel event we typically call The Transfiguration was just a lesser preview, the true permanent Transfiguration of Jesus to a fully Immortal Unfallen state was The Resurrection. 

Jerome’s Commentarius in Sophoniam or Commentary on The Twelve Prophets is a work I can’t find an accessible English Translation of Online even though so many other Jerome works are easy to find.  There is a claim for which Ernest L. Martin sources this text on page 108 of Secrets of Golgotha that I want to independently verify about a woman named Poemenia placing a large Cross at this spot on The Mount of Olives in the late 4th Century. 

There is a lot of folklore involving Helena’s role in all this.  For one thing Eusebius’s Life of Constantine does not imply she had anything to do with choosing The Church of The Holy Sepulcher, just the Church of The Nativity and the previously mentioned Eleonia near the mainstream Ascension site.

Update August 29th 2025: I'm by no means 100% sold on the Northern Temple location, it simply being where the Dome of the Rock is could be correct.

The East of Jerusalem Crucifixion and Burial model I am firm on however.

Update September 2025: Josephus stressed the entirely of every Wall but the Western Wall being destroyed, so despite my denial before there absolutely could  be a discontinuity in the location of the Eastern Gate. 

The other pillar of the northern Temple argument is about what could plausibly be a Threshingfloor.  But I have long felt what 1 Chronicles 3:1 could mean by the Temple's construction beginning there could be flexible.  In fact I have my own reasons for thinking this Thresshingfloor was itself East of The Temple on the Mount of Olives and so wonder if anyone looked for a plausible thresshingfloor there. 

Some Rabbis have concluded the proper place for the Red Heifer Offering is on land now owned by the Dominus Flevit Church. And I have seen photos verifying the plausible visibility of the inside of The Temple from there as well.  

Update September 10th 2025: The more I learn about Dominus Flevit the more attractive of a Crucifixion site it becomes.  

One of the Trees growing in-front of The Chapel is a Throne Tree very likely exactly the kind of the tree The Crown of Thrones was made from. 

There is also an ancient wine press there, and Judges 6:11 tells us that wine presses were sometimes sued as threshing floors.  Going back to 1 Chronicles 3:1 it perhaps makes sense for the site of the Red Heifer offering to be where The Temple's construction would begin.

The Tabernacle of David

In December of 2023 I made the most refined version of my Zion/The City of David is Bethlehem not Jerusalem argument, more refined mainly in that I resisted the urge to trail off the main topic at hand into more specific geographical speculations.

So I do here want to speculate on where in Bethlehem the Tabernacle of David that for a time housed The Ark of The Covenant was located.  But first I need to talk about some of Bethlehem’s History.

When Emperor Hadrian banned Jews from living in Jerusalem he also banned them from living anywhere Jerusalem was visible from (according to Eusebius Church History Book IV Chapter 6 Section 3).  Jerusalem is visible from Bethlehem. That’s why it’s easy for some more fringe skeptics to try and argue Bethlehem as we know it didn’t even exist before the 130s, there was this massive discontinuity in the population. 

Hadrian also impacted the history of Bethlehem in another way, he built a Temple on the site where the Church of The Nativity now stands.  Fourth Century sources identify it as a Temple to Adonis or Tammuz, it was possibly actually originally part of the Cult of Antinous which was probably from the start Synchronized with those kinds of cults.  I doubt that Church is actually the location of the Nativity (the Cave fixation is Anti-Biblical), but even if it was, Jerome is wrong to claim that’s why Hadrian built a Temple there.  

I doubt Pre-Hadrian Bethlehem ever even had a local Christian population to identify and venerate that location.  The New Testament never refers to missions to Bethlehem focusing instead on the Church’s spread Northwards and Westwards from Jerusalem, nor does Eusebius. There aren’t even any later traditions I can find about there being an Apostle in Bethlehem in the first Century. All Ante-Nicene references to Bethlehem are from a distance, from Justin and Origen.  Christian Bethlehem as we now know it really does begin in the 4th Century.

But even if there had been, the earlier religion whose local legacy Hadrian wanted to blot out was Judaism not Christianity.  In his turning of Jerusalem into Aelia Capitolina the main Temple Complex was built over the former Temple of Herod.  I’m working on another Post about why the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus had to be East of Jerusalem not West or North.

If the original local Jewish population of Bethlehem who Hadrian had just deported remembered that they were the true City of David, then maybe they also remembered where The Tabernacle of David had been?

The Church of The Nativity is most well known to those who’ve never visited it for its underground Caves one of which being where they claim the Manger was. But the Church proper is above those Caves on a Hill with a similar lay out to other Byzantine Churches that can be compared to the design of The Tabernacle and Temple of The Hebrew Bible.

I believe Jesus was born in a house that Joseph owned, so if St Joseph’s Church in Bethlehem is the site of St Joseph’s House like it claims to be, then that is where the Nativity happened.

Now I know some people might eventually say “what if the Church of The Nativity is both?  Maybe Jesus was born where The Tabernacle of David was” and that would be neat.  But The Church of The Nativity is too heavily tied to the false Cave tradition.

The Cave tradition is Anti-Biblical but it also can’t be blamed on Constantine or Helena, it is Pre-Nicene, it’s in Justin Martyr, Origen and the Protoevangelium of James.  But none of them Predate Hadrian’s remaking of this entire region.  I think the Cave tradition came from a desire to presume Hadrian was desecrating the place of The Nativity.

I believe Jesus was born in a house that Joseph owned and lived in.  And if the site of David’s Tabernacle was still locally known up until Hadrian it’s unlikely any residential house was there, at best Joseph could have been living in a Davidic Family estate adjacent to it.  So a theory that the Church of The Nativity’s above ground Altar could correlate to where Jesus was born instead of the Cave would be mutually exclusive with that being the Tabernacle of David. 

If I were to consider a second option for the location of David’s Tabernacle, it would begin by asking if the location of the former Kathisma Church would have been considered part of Bethlehem territory rather than Jerusalem in Antiquity?

The Kathisma or “Church of Mary’s Seat” was an Octagonal Byzantine Church on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem that tradition said marked a place where Mary rested on the way to Bethlehem.  Christians of Late Antiquity symbolically associated Mary with the Ark of the Covenant, so for example at Abu Gosh which was Kirath-Jearim in The Bible a Church dedicated to The Virgin Mary marks where the locals believe The Ark of The Covenant was kept when it was there.

So a Church of Mary’s Seat built around a Rock that The Ark once rested on is feasible.

Who was Muhammad’s Daddy?

I have been and will continue to explore different historical critical theories about the origins of Islam, some that may seem mutually exclusive with each other.  But I do believe a singular person is responsible for the final form of the Quran.

I’ve talked before about how my main theological issue with Islam is the rejection of God as Father in any sense, and that does come directly from the Quran. 

And it’s also the biggest problem with trying to come up with a purely Materialist origin story for Islam.  It’s not something that makes sense as a natural development out of any sect of any prior Abrahamic Religion.  Nor can it be explained by Paganism or anything about Arabian culture.  It only makes sense as being a product of a specific person with severe Daddy Issues. I say this reluctantly as someone who is not a fan of Great Man Theory or Auteur Theory.

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 Usayr specifically was the Son of God.

I’m not sure it’s best explained by the Daddy issues one would expect from Muhammad’s traditional Biography however.  Usually Orphans turn to religion because they're looking for God to be the Father they didn’t have.  

The fact that Surah 5:18 uses the fact that God punishes people for their Sins as proof he’s not their Father is one of the most baffling things in the Quran.  Orphans are not typically ignorant of the fact that parents are supposed to discipline their children, they often come to recognize it as an important part of what they lacked.

No it suggests to me the mindset of someone whose father was very Neglectful and/or Spoiled them.  Which fits seeing him as someone raised in a Wealthy or Royal family, that’s often how things play out there. Muhammad’s family in the Traditional Narrative was more important than many presume it was, his Grandfather and Uncle were each heads of the Quraysh Tribe.

Or it could be the product of having a highly Abusive Father who punished him way too severely for even small things and so can’t separate parental discipline from abuse.

The author of the Quran definitely got most of their ideas from earlier sources.  But the filtering of it all through this Complex is what made it something irreconcilable with all prior religious traditions.

The Nestorian influence manifests mainly in the emphasis on Mary as the Mother of The Messiah and not God, Christokos rather than Theotokos.  But this rejection of God as a father at all makes it incompatible with normal Nestorianism.

Heteroousian Arian Influence probably explains the emphasis on Shirk as the worst Sin.  But the Quran also says Allah does not Beget and Arian Creeds always stressed Jesus was Begotten of God to argue He had a beginning.

The Virgin Birth affirming Ebionites may have been the source of the Ingel Muhammad was familiar with.  But they reject the Resurrection as well as Jesus' pre-existence.

Anyone who thinks Islam also rejects the Preexistence of Jesus is ignorant of the fact that Islam is Origenist, it teaches everyone had a Preexistence.

These sources could never go together when taken as a whole, any two were pretty mutually exclusive. But the Author of the Quran was selectively borrowing from everything they could to create their Anti Divine Fatherhood theology.

Sabians of the Quran were Ancient Arab Baptists

My past speculations about who the Sabians of The Quran were I have abandoned and come to a new conclusion. 

The problem with thinking it’s in any way derived from how Sabeans of Yemen were referred to is that the Quran does refer to them explicitly in Surah 27 and Surah 34.  So they are distinct. The "I" coming right after after the B is what really makes it distinct.

Daniel Chwolsohn in 1856 suggested it’s derived from an Aramaic word meaning “To Dip” or “To Baptize”.  This fits well with other theories I support about some of the Quran being at least indirectly of Aramaic origin.  Another proposed Etymology is that it comes from the Arabic word Sabi meaning “to turn to” and thus means “Converts”.  Perhaps both are true, perhaps it’s a pun combining them to refer to people for whom Baptism and Conversion are the same, for observers of Believers Baptism.

Others interpreting the meaning of the word in that Baptism context argue it refers to the Mandeans.  The Mandeans rejected Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus and thus did not revere any of the Books necessary to qualify as “People of The Book”, nor are they Monotheist by even the loosest sense.  Also they only existed in Iraq back then and in fact didn’t come into contact with Muslims till after they Conquered parts of Iraq in 633-640. It seems they only started calling themselves Sabians in order to co-opt this Quranic term and appropriate “People of the Book” status.

To repeat myself, I am not a Landmark Baptist in the doctrinal sense of thinking that an unbroken chain of Believers Baptism back to the Apostles matters.  But I do believe there have always been Christians who came to the correct conclusions on Believers Baptism and other distinctly Baptists views like Congregational Polity and Freedom of Conscience.

The word translated “Christians” in English Translations of the Quran is Nasara or Nasrani. Nazarenes is a term used for Christians in Acts 24:5, by the late 4th Century Epiphanais of Salamis and Jerome were using it specifically for Jewish Christians who still kept Torah in Aleppo and Bashan. These Narzarnes do teach Jesus was the Son of God and do consider Canonical the entire New Testament and consider Paul a valid Apostle unlike the Ebionites they are sometimes confused with.  But I do think Ebionites may have also called themselves Nazarenes.  Liturgically Aramaic Christians sometimes use a variation of Nazarenes instead of Christians even while being Gentiles with no Torah observance at all.  

The term Mushrikun often translated as “Idolaters’ or “Pagans” actually means “Associators”.  I can’t entirely agree with those who argue Paganism was already dead in Arabia well before Muhammad was born, but Christianity or Judaism had become the majority and dominant religion all over the Peninsula.  Shirk “Associating a Human with Allah” is something the Quran considers the Jews, Nasara and probably Sabians all guilty of in their own way.  But it’s possible each are smaller groups not as bad as the unqualified Musrikun which I think mainly referred to the Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christians who held the actual political power in Western Arabia.  The Ghassanids and Banu Kalb were both Miaphysites and the Kingdom of Kinda were likely either Miaphysite or Chalcedonian as Byzantine Foederati.

The idea that the Sabians are particularly tied to the Psalms came from later Islamic speculations.  While the Psalms of David are the only Book besides the Torah and Gospel specifically mentioned in the Quran no verse says there were a people of the Palms specifically. 

It might be that the Sabians aren’t linked to a specific Book because they are the ones who have a high enough view of Scripture to revere them all equally.  While the Jewish-Christian Nazarenes prioritize The Gospel of Matthew and the Jews the Pentateuch. Meanwhile the High Church Mushrikun placed their ecclesiastical tradition above Scripture entirely which might be why they’re kind of excluded from being People of The Book.  Another trait the Sabians would today share almost only with Credo-Baptist Denominations. 

There were probably not a lot of them hence being mentioned only three times. But there were enough to be worthy of note.

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 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 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 Quedarite 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 congoing 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 agaisnt 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 leader 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. 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 Muhammad following Arabs 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 contributing 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. Certainly 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.