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NASB | Psalm 22:16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Psalm 22:16 For [a pack of] dogs have surrounded me; A gang of evildoers has encircled me, They pierced my hands and my feet. [Is 53:7; John 19:37] |
Subject: Does Psalms 22 stand up to the skeptics? |
Bible Note: Part Three: She said they said: 12. That what appears to happen is that the Gospel writers wrote their books with an OT blueprint. They knew what Jesus was supposed to fulfill so they made sure he did. He said: 12. Yep, they made sure that he fulfilled all those prophecies, in spite of people still living who could easily refute their claims, and they would be imprisoned, endure torture, even die to defend what they knew to be a lie. Makes perfect sense. She said: At last we agree! It does make “perfect sense”. Now, I hope you don’t “assume” I’m serious about us agreeing. But I digress. First, do you know who might have been still living? Whom do you think would have been there to “refute” after 50, 60, 100 years after the crucifixion? And a lot of so-called scholars would put those years at an even farther distance. Who would have had access to the material? Was the printing press invented yet? I don’t think so. Would any, or most, of any possible people still living, have been able to read? In GreeK? Don’t bet on it. And certainly no Book of the Month Clubs or newspaper best-seller lists would be in the mailings. Your refutation scenario would be a very, very long shot. Second: why do you think the Gospel writers would have been imprisoned, tortured, or put to death? How large of an institution do you think the early Christian movement was? How greatly did it influence society? How greatly did the Romans fear the early Christians? There were plenty of other Jewish problems for the Romans, and they had little to do with a fledging religion. Mark, Matthew, and Luke risked all the dire straits you mentioned? Hardly. Third: these writers probably believed what they were writing. Or, at least enough of it, to want to gather in the sporadic, loose, and evasive “Oral Tradition” stories and make them intelligible. It was Luke, I think, who said he was writing his Book, in order to “Set the record straight.” Perhaps there was fear, but I hope you’ve noted that in the Gospels, Jesus says to always give Caesar his due. Paul, also, stated that idea, over and over. No fools, they. She said they said: 13. Only Luke has Jesus show his hands and feet. John has Jesus show his hands and side, but not his feet. He said: 13. Tell your friends, "So what?" It makes no difference. If I gave you twenty dollars and my mother 50 dollars, would you be wrong if you wrote, "Joe gave me twenty dollars"? In other words, what they are trying to do is argue from silence. She said: And this silence is deafening! And creates questions--many, many questions. That’s fair, isn’t it? Speculation is kosher, isn’t it? Did not Mark and Matthew know about the importance of the puncture wounds? Did they not know about the OT prophecies? Three of them missed the sword in the side. Puzzling, isn’t it? Even more puzzling are the early writers like Paul, Peter and John. Why wouldn’t they think to mention the fact that Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist; or, about the virginity of Mary; even something about Bethlehem, Nazareth and Galilee; specific miracles and healings that Jesus performed; Pontius Pilate; Calvary? And lots more. Did they not know? Were they not the closest to Jesus in His own time? But, guess what? SILENCE. The people closest to Jesus are unwilling or incapable of telling a straightforward story of Him and his life. Who better to know all the missing details that plague us modern believers? Forget about the Four Gospels (which should have been placed after the epistles, since they were written some years afterward) and read the epistles. Pretend the Four Gospels don’t exist. You should be struck by the total lack of any kind of description of a human life of a man named Jesus. It’s almost as if Paul and the others don’t really know there had been a living, breathing physical Jesus. And if that SILENCE were not silent enough, think about the silence of that day’s writers. This silence roars! Nobody seemed to have picked up on Jesus as a subject of media interest. Strange? Yes, at best. Miracle after miracle, raising dead people, healing the incurable, casting out demons, and nobody thinks he’s worth mentioning in the history of the times? Now, that’s odd. And it gets worse: At Jesus’ death the world goes black for 6 or so hours (or was it 3?), graveyards break open and later these once dead people march into Jerusalem and kibitz about the weather and the prices of camels? And no one writes about it? All this has to wait at least 50 to 100 years? And no questions asked? Part three: |