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 no sooner than 4 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.  Also James 1:18.

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 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.

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 say 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, but he messed up here.

As the name of a Holy Day Pesach should perhaps 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. Gordon’s articles are behind a Paywall now so I’ll instead link to this one.

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

Both uses of “pass over” in 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 is 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 Broke, the Valley we today call Kidron is the real Valley of Hinnom.

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 Manesseh 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 some confidence that the local Traditions couldn’t have gotten it wrong is that the history of Jerusalem is filled with multiple discontinuities.  There is a lot of dispute on if the Jewish Jerusalem Church after 70 AD 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, 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, but 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 Sepulchre now stands, it had nothing to do with covering up a Christian place of worship. But maybe even before Nicea 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 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 alternate theories can be dismissed.  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 Jeursalem 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 Bishop of 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 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.  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 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 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 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, but 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.

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.

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.  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 probably 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 Religion whose local legacy Hadrian wanted to blot out was Judaism.  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 have also sometimes wondered if one of those Caves could have been the Cave of Adullam.

I believe Jesus was born in a House 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 and 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 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 Mark 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 Mark 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 very plausible.

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 Materialistic 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 Arabic culture.  It only makes sense as being a product of a person with severe Daddy Issues. 

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.

I’m not sure it’s best explained by the Daddy issues one would expect from Muhammad’s traditional Biography.  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 thoughts in the Quran.  Orphans are not typically ignorant of the fact that parents are supposed to discipline their children.

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 of 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 World 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 Mishrikun often translated as “Idolaters’ or “Pagans” actually means “Aosciators”.  I can’t entirely agree with those who argue Paganism was already dead in Arabia well before Muhammad was born, but Christianity or Judaims 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 Torah.Mean while 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 Jeiwhs 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)

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.

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 even from different perspectives.  In Both are the Jews who are skeptical of this new Prophet and in both the Prophet rejects in 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 doctrine Muhammad was claiming to be.  

The Jewish sources are 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.

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 of 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 actually 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 for 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 was 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.

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

They certainly doesn'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.  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 but those are restrictions only to entering it), 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 Pronea 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 Pronea means “to sell off” the sexual 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 Jesus!

What if I told you there was a Marriage between a Trans Male and a Trans Woman 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 there would exist some Jewish memory of that, but there isn’t. 

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 Texts 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 of Salmon’s name and Bethlehem are in the prior verse, but how they are relevant to 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

Ezra and Nehemiah refer more to these Pagan Gentiles living in the land, now definitely in Cities plural, seemingly referring to additional settlement 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 Chronicles and they do not connect their history to Sanballat at all.

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 form the "Lost Sheep of The House of Israel" classification for the opposite reason Gentiles are excluded?  What if Jesus doesn't consider "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 have 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 uses just to acknowledge the Jewish origins of Christianity.

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 a 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 wrong with Islam is mostly 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.

In his video on the birth of Islam he went on a rant about how he doesn’t like “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 100% Blame Western Imperialism for the current state of Islam, 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.

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, 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 Christianity. 

I know when you ask Google if Judaism teaches either of those things the first answer you’ll get 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.  

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 Chalceodniasm 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 or 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 signal 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, in fact the Council of Orleans is evidence for Gaul into the 6th 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 Eusbeius says, Eusibius 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, 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 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 because it’s 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, but assuming that Euphrates is the River that runs through Iraq, Syria and Turkey 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 them.

However, the appearances of the name Eurphates in The Bible that really bug me are when it’s used to define the boundaries of The Promised Land, 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.

If it was just the Promise to Abraham 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?

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 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.

Hamath as the name of a specific City is not even in Lebanon but Syria north of Lebanon.  But 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.  When defining  Asher’s northern extent Joshua 19:28 identifies it with places approaching Sidon. 

Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 27-28 use names for the Northern Borders 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 in the references to Misrephothmain in Joshua 11:8 and 13:6 which 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. 

David and Solomon and other Kings wound up ruler a larger territory, that's 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.