The End of History—Messiah Conspiracy

CHAPTER 24—Truth or Consequences—Will the Real Faith Please Stand?

“The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken....” Moses, the chief prophet of

Judaism, Deuteronomy 18:15 KJV¹

“...This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.”

The words of those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles, John 6:14 KJV

“...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father, but by me.”

Jesus, John 14:6 KJV

“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains....” Jesus’ instruction to the Jews of

Israel at the time of the end, Matthew 24:15-16 KJV

“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liberties. To the influence of this book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.”² U.S. Grant,

18th President of the United States

“ ‘Can you give me one single irrefutable proof of God?’ ‘Yes, your Majesty, the Jews.’ ” Marquis D’Argens to Frederick the Great

“About the time of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist on their literal interpretation in the midst of such clamor and opposition.” Sir Isaac Newton

24
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—WILL THE REAL FAITH PLEASE STAND?

How can we know the many counterfeits from the real thing? The apostle John warned us 2000 years ago: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (I John 4:1 KJV).
Jesus Himself also mentions that there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing posing as prophets, who would be false. In His exact words, He warns us: “...narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves....For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not” (Matt. 7:14-15; 24:24-26 KJV). Thus, if we seek the truth for ourselves, we should remember Jesus’ answer when Pilate asked Him who He was: “...Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37 KJV). Earlier He said: “...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6 KJV).
We should, of course, very carefully avoid that which is untrue! For instance, bank tellers can tell the difference between a real dollar bill and a counterfeit one, due to the fact that they are very well acquainted with the real one.
I expect this to be the most criticized chapter of this book. That is because anyone who is not spiritually close to Jesus, who is perhaps only a curious spectator to the promises of the New Testament, may, upon reading this chapter, find these concepts to be offensive. However, it is our conviction that the darkness will never comprehend the light (John 1:1-5). We are gambling that most of our readers have a spark of light within their spirit placed there by God, due to their openness, which has brought them this far through reading the various Old Testament prophecies and New Testament fulfillments concerning the prophesied Messiah! We hope to fan this spark of Messianic curiosity and hope into heartfelt fires of salvation!

With no apologies, we proceed with this chapter, which we are aware that not all will be able to accept. We believe the Antichrist will coerce the worship of himself through ecumenical and economic pressure, as he forcefully creates a one-world religion. This one-world union will contain elements of every religion except the true one!
To understand the significance of what the book of Revelation calls “mystery Babylon” (Rev. 17:5), we should be aware of these “false spirits” to which John alluded (I John 4:1). Hopefully, we will then be equipped to steer our loved ones away from the deceptions which are presently plaguing our society,³ as predicted.

In past ages, Baal, Molech and Ashtoreth were worshipped (II Kings 23:10, 13). Dagon was the fish-god of the Philistines whose temple was destroyed by Samson (Jer. 7:31; 32:35). Molech,⁴ to whom even Israelites sacrificed their children, was the god of the Canaanites (Lev. 20:2-5; Ezek. 16:20-22; Jer. 32:35; Amos 5:26). The Egyptian sun-god, Ra, and the many Hindu dieties, have deceived millions.
In the holy book of Islam, the Koran, Mohammed instructs in the name of Allah: “Make war upon those who believe not...even if they be people of the Book [Jews or Christians]. Make war upon them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme.”⁵ In the past, Islam contributed to the murder of Jews and Christians and presently continues to perpetrated acts of terrorism!
Moslems claim that they are monotheistic and threaten those who realize otherwise! We recall that Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, was placed under a death sentence in 1989 because he implied that Islam is polytheistic. This Islamic contract on Rushdie’s life was instituted by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and is still enforced by Iran today. God forbid if they should ever find him. They have already murdered some of the foreign translators of his book.

What does the Bible, which contains the record of God’s creation of the universe and man’s very beginnings,⁶ have to say about this? “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee....But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die” (Deut. 18:10-12, 20 KJV).
Moses certainly illustrated God’s opinion of false religions. It was not very flattering, was it? If Mohammed had chanced to meet some of the righteous of Israel, he might well have become a rock pile (stoning was the required method of execution for false prophets). As a result, the killings done in the name of Islam, which we have witnessed from the seventh century until now, might never have happened.⁷

Few realize that astrology is really the religion of the ancient Babylonians. The seers of Babylon, known as Chaldeans, assigned perverted meanings⁸ to the stars and began to teach that a person’s life was governed by them. Hal Lindsey tells us: “...the Chaldeans studied a person’s birthday, asking the very hour a person was born, and then they would cast a horoscope of his destiny....The ancient astrologers believed that your fate was written in the stars before you were born and you can’t alter the course of your destiny.”⁹
The beginnings of the religion of astrology are recorded in Genesis 11:4: “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (KJV). Notice the words “may reach” in italics. They were not in the original Hebrew. The “Tower of Babel” we read about as children was not built by stupid people trying to physically reach God; it was the first ziggurat used by the astrological priests to chart and study the stars in their false attempt to foretell the destiny of men.¹⁰

Astrology was exported from the plains of Shinar, in ancient Babylon, to Egypt (Exo. 7:11). The chief reason God allowed Israel to be destroyed in 606 BC, and kept in Babylonian captivity for seventy years, was because of the sin of idolatry, which at that time, was associated with astrology. This can be seen in the biblical book of II Kings, which records many of the deeds performed by the righteous Israeli King Josiah, with God’s favor.
The Bible tells us: “...he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven....Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law....And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him” (II Kings 23:5, 24-25 KJV). When the Scripture speaks of “them also that burned incense unto....the planets and to all the host of heaven,” it is clearly identifying ancient astrology.

A display of occult artifacts and astrological items
at a local New Age store in Atlanta, GA.

“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.”

Isaiah 47:13-14 KJV

Daniel’s power of prophecy from God so amazed the king, that he made Daniel a ruler, recognized his God, and at Daniel’s urging spared the lives of his astrologers and wise men. Moreover, Daniel the prophet had a curious run-in with the astrologers of his day.
The king of Babylon was very upset with the astrologers. They were not able to fill him in on his forgotten dream. He was ready to execute them when, through the power of God, Daniel told the king not only of his dream, but of its true prophetic interpretation. “Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king” (Dan. 2:2 KJV). The king told the astrologers: “...if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof. The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean....Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these....” (Dan. 2:9-10, 25-28 KJV).
Daniel then revealed the king’s dream. As previously mentioned, the dream was about a statue, which represented the rise and fall of the mightiest Gentile powers from that time until the Second Advent of the Messiah. From our vantage point, the final portion of this prophecy, concerning revived Rome, is yet to culminate in the EEC.
After the king heard Daniel’s recounting and interpretation, he was so awed that he: “...fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon” (Daniel 2:46-48 KJV).

“Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.” Isaiah 47:1-3 KJV

DAUGHTER OF BABYLON

Not only will astrology be a key piece in this religion of the end times, but we can also see from subtle hints in the Scripture that the Roman Catholic Church seems to be indicated. Isaiah 47 makes mention of “the daughter of Babylon.”
As we look into the chief tenets of the Babylonian religions, we find the origin of mother and child worship. Once Nimrod died, his wife Semiramis proclaimed him the sun-god.¹¹ She claimed that when her son, Tammuz, was born he was, in fact, Nimrod reincarnated. She also claimed that he was supernaturally conceived and the promised seed of Genesis 3:15, which predicted God would send just such a one, coming from a woman to save mankind. As this religion developed, Semiramis and her son were both worshipped.
In Genesis 11:9, we see that the men of Babel were scattered “unto all the earth,” having been confounded by God through the creation of many different languages. Thus, this pagan mother/child tenet of worship was also spread throughout the world. As the people scattered into many different nations, regrouping according to language, the mother goddess and child assumed a different name in each new nation. Here is the evidence:

Much later, when Jesus was born, He was indeed born of a virgin—having been conceived of the Holy Spirit, with God as His Father. The Jewish Scriptures foretold that the Messiah would be the Son of God in reference to His flesh (see our chapter 5, “Which Prophesies Did Jesus Fulfill”). However, nowhere in the New Testament does it say that Mary is to be worshipped, and nowhere does she remain¹² a virgin after the birth of Jesus, as the Roman Catholic Church claims! In fact, it was documented that after Constantine, the Roman Catholic Church took the statues of Isis and Horus (one such goddess/child pair) and renamed them Mary and Jesus.¹³

“ ‘ I know that I am right in loving liberty and justice,’ he says, ‘for Christ loved liberty and justice, and Christ is God.’ ”¹⁴ Abraham Lincoln,

16th President of the United States

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon
his kingdom, to order it....” Isaiah 9:6-7 KJV

“But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” Hebrews 1:8-9 KJV

“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” II John 1:7 KJV

“What is the name of the King Messiah? Rabbi Abba, son of Kahana, said: Jehovah; for it is written, ‘This is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness.’ ” Midrash on Lamentations i.16

In the past few centuries, there has been an explosion of cults proclaiming to be a way, or even “the only way,” to the truth of God. The Scriptures—Isaiah 9:6-7, Hebrews 1:8, II John 1:7, and John 9:9—teach how to discern a cult from the truth. Cults deny the two most important truths: 1. Jesus is God, and; 2. He is solely sufficient to save us without external work on our part.
There was an excellent article in the Moody Monthly magazine of July/August 1979, listing what particular groups or cults had to say about Jesus’ deity. We have reproduced it in our Vol. II, chapter 4, “Cults, the Occult and the New Age.”¹⁵
An A to Z list of these cults includes: Ahmadiyya Movement, American Atheist Center, Ananda Marga Yoga, Anthroposophical Society, Arica, Assemblies of Yahweh, Baha’i, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, Black Muslim, Buddhism, Cabala, Center for Spiritual Awareness, Children of God, Christian Scientists, Church of the Living Word, Church Universal and Triumphant, Dhyana-Mandiram, Divine Light Mission, ECKANKAR, Findhorn Foundation University of Light, Freemasonry, Hare Krishna, “I Am” Movement, Iglesia Ni Cristo, Inner Peace Movement, Integral Yoga Institute, Islam, Jainism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement, Liberal Catholic Church, Megiddo Mission, Mormons, Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai, Peace Mission Movement, Psychiana, Radha Soami Society, Rajneesh Meditation Centers, Rosicrucianism, Ruhani Satsang, Sacred Mushroom of the Cross, Sanatana Dharma Foundation, Satanism, Scientology, Self Realization Fellowship, Shintoism, Shree Guru Dev Siddha Yoga Ashram, Sikhism, Sivananda Yoga Vedenta Centers, Spiritual Advancement of the Individual Foundation, Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, Spiritualists, Sri Chinmoy Centers, Still Point Institute, Subud, Sufism, Swedenborgism, Taoism, Tarotology, The Farm, The Foundation Church of the Millennium, The Holy Order of MANS, The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy, The Local Church, The Process Church of the Final Judgment, The 3 HO Foundation, The Unification Church, The Way, Theosophists, Transcendental Meditation, Unitarians, Unity School of Christianity, Vedanta Society, Witchcraft, Worldwide Church of God, Zen Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism.

Assuming that you just finished glancing over the nearly one hundred cults and where they stand regarding the diety of Jesus in our Vol. II, chapter 4, “Cults, the Occult and the New Age,” you may be asking, “What is true faith?” The Bible, through its hundreds of prophecies, guides us to the born-again (John 3) Messianic truth that Jesus is the Messiah.
Sir Isaac Newton, using the Scripture, traces the true faith throughout history, beginning as early as Noah. Newton wrote: “The true religion was propagated by Noah to his posterity, & when they revolted to the worship of their dead Kings & Heroes & thereby denied their God & ceased to be his people, it continued in Abraham & his posterity who revolted not. And when they began to worship the Gods of Egypt & Syria, Moses & the Prophets reclaimed them from time to time till they rejected the Messiah from being their Lord, & he rejected them from being his people & called the Gentiles, & henceforward the believers both Jews & Gentiles became his people....The God of the Jews & Gentiles was one & the same God the creator of heaven & earth, & the Christian religion was one & the same with the Jewish till the calling of the Gentiles, with this only addition that Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate was the Prince of the host or head of the Church the seed of the Woman which was to bruise the serpent’s head, the Shiloh who was to come before the scepter departed from Israel, the Prophet promised by Moses & prefigured by the Paschal lamb, the holy David who was not to be left in the grave nor to see corruption, the servant of God who was wounded for our transgressions & bruised for our iniquities & brought as a lamb to the slaughter & made an offering for sin, & the Messiah or Christ the Prince predicted by Daniel (whence came the name of the Christian religion;) & that he rose from the dead & shall judge the quick & the dead; & that we are to give him honour & glory on account of his death & to commemorate it often & to direct our prayers to God in his name as our great high Priest the mediator between God & man. But when this doctrine had been preached to the nation of the Jews about seven years, & they received it not, God began to call the Gentiles without obliging them to observe the law of Moses, & soon after caused the Jewish [Temple] worship to cease & the Jews to be dispersed into all nations.”¹⁶

In his work, David Castillejo comments on Newton’s conviction of the diety of Jesus as follows: “Newton believed that Christ dominates both the Old and the New Testament. All appearances of Jehova in the Bible are in fact appearances of Christ: it was Christ who walked in the Garden of Eden, who gave Moses the ten Commandments, who appeared to Abraham as an Angel, who fought with Jacob, who gave the prophecies to the prophets. He is the Prince Michael mentioned by Daniel, and he will come to judge the quick and the dead. The Jews are ruled by Christ in an absolute monarchy, and he is their lord.”¹⁷

RELIGIOUS DECEPTION AND THE PROPHETICAL ACCURACY OF OUR BIBLE VERSUS THE
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICAL FRAUD

Today, many claim that we cannot rely on the Scriptures because they have been repeatedly copied, translated and mistranslated. Nothing could be further from the truth. We will show that the ancient Dead Sea copies of the original Hebrew manuscript of our Bible disprove much modern liberal “scholarship,” which purports to show that the Bible, through the process of translation, underwent changes. This “scholarship” claims that we cannot take the Scriptures seriously because we “supposedly” do not know what earlier copies might have said. However, to the dismay of critics, scrolls of Bible copies were discovered in the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea, which are 1100 years older than any previously known copies. The scrolls show us that no considerable changes were made in that span of time.
The Bible we have today, in all legitimate translations, and certainly the original Hebrew, is the Bible written by God, through His prophets, in its original authorized version. Ezekiel wrote, “Thus saith the Lord” (5:5 KJV). Many, however, say man wrote the Bible. Ezekiel, one of the major writers of the Bible, said the Lord told him what to write. There are no neutrals. Either Ezekiel is a liar or the Bible is God’s message to mankind. Prophecy has shown the latter to be true, disproving the self-appointed liberal Bible “scholars.” Or perhaps we should say Bible haters; people who, for moral reasons, hope and try to prove to themselves that the Bible is not true. Deep inside their innermost being they are afraid of God, because they are unwilling to come to Him. They are: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Tim. 3:7 KJV). On the other hand, there are many sincere laymen who want to believe but have
been led by the liberals to think that the Scriptures have been discredited. Many have not been enlightened by the many archaeological discoveries and fulfilled prophecies which authenticate the truth of the Bible. Our solution to this dilemma is to tell them so they will be with us in God’s beautiful coming kingdom.
We point out here that, of the many cults and religions proliferating in the world, whose followers claim they are “the way,” not one has had the accuracy of the Hebrew prophets! Prophecy, apart from everything else, should be sufficient to set the Bible apart from all of the other religions which purport to be an alternative to Jesus. However, if foretelling the future with immutable manuscripts is not enough in the eyes of those who try to find something lacking, we have reproduced actual press photos of classified displays in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (not usually permitted to be photographed), of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran. Many of these scrolls are the earliest Hebrew copies we now possess of the Bible.

This is the oldest synagogue in the world, located atop Masada, where many brave Jews once committed suicide rather than be enslaved by the Romans. Here, in 1947, the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, including Ezekiel 37, which speaks of “Israel standing on her feet from dry bones.” Interestingly enough, Israel became a nation in 1948. A very timely find, wouldn’t you say?

---

These are the most ancient copies we have of the Bible,
eleven centuries older than those we possessed prior to 1947.

---

The Dead Sea Scrolls, here on display, are
carefully preserved between panes of glass.



Individuals are in awe as they view the entire book of Isaiah.

---

The earliest copies of Isaiah’s prophecies, displayed in a scroll-shaped encasement, under the dome of the Shrine of the Book, in the Israel Museum.

Government officials carefully scrutinize Isaiah’s handwritten words.

---

A meticulous manuscript from the Dead Sea.

Workers take a rest during excavations at the Bar Kochba cave near the Dead Sea caves of Qumran, where the scrolls were found. Perhaps more are still to come.

---

A rabbi recopies a Torah. This is reminiscent of the method in which
the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Bible were copied—very meticulously.

GAON AND JESUS ON THE DIVINE INSPIRATION
OF THE BIBLE’S HEBREW TEXT

Recently, in an October 1995 Bible Review article entitled, “Divine Authorship?” (concerning inspired mathematical Bible codes, as mentioned earlier in our chapter 20), it was noted that: “In 1988 an obscure paper was published—in a prominent, rigorous, indeed premier, scientific journal—with results that may demolish the claims of the ‘higher’ critics, and support, rather, the Orthodox Jewish contention as to the nature of the Torah. The paper, by Doron Witzturn, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg of the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Hebrew University, is innocuously entitled ‘Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis’ and was published in the eminent Journal of the Royal Statistical Society....They were rather words composed of letters selected at various equal skip distances....It was as though ‘behind’ the surface meaning of the Hebrew there was a second, hidden level of embedded meaning....Following publication of this paper, a public statement was issued, signed by five mathematical scholars—two from Harvard, two from Hebrew University and one from Yale. ‘The present work,’ they said, ‘represents serious research carried out by serious investigators....results obtained are sufficiently striking to deserve a wider audience and to encourage further study.’ The work was also critiqued and endorsed by Dr. Andrew Goldfinger, a senior research physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and by Harold Gans, an analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense.
According to Jewish tradition, the Torah contains all knowledge; therefore the codes embedded in the Torah also encompass information that transcends the limitation of time. The Vilna Gaon, the great 18th century Rabbi of Vilna, Lithuania, a child prodigy and one of the most brilliant men in Jewish history, wrote that ‘all that was, is, and will be unto the end of time is included in the Torah...and not merely in a general sense, but including the details of every species and of each person individually, and the most minute details of everything that happened to him from the day of his birth until his death.’
Some may be reminded of the words of the Rabbi from Nazareth [Jesus], seen in a different light: ‘I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter [literally iota, equivalent to the Hebrew yod, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet], not the least stroke of a pen [literally tittle, a reference to the small decoration or ‘crown’ on some Hebrew letters in handwritten scrolls of the Torah], will by any means disappear from the Torah [Law] until everything is accomplished’ (Matthew 5:18)....The phenomenon cannot be attributed to anything within the known physical universe, human beings included. Moreover, rigorous proof of the existence and validity of the phenomenon requires both high-speed computation and only recently developed techniques of statistical analysis....What then was the purpose of encoding this information into the text? Some would say it is the Author’s signature. Is it His way of assuring us that at this particular, late moment—when our scientific, materialistic doubt has reached its apotheosis, when we have been driven to the brink of radical skepticism—that He is precisely who He had said He is in that astonishing, radical core document of the Judeo-Christian tradition?”¹⁸

Circled are a ude and tittle in Hebrew text, to which Jesus referred.




Above: Two signs located at the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery site.

Publications, such as the Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Journal and Constitution and Time, featured headlines regarding newly discovered, yet repressed, Dead Sea Scroll evidence. This evidence supports the suffering role of the Messiah, and hints at the fact that these very same things happened to Jesus during this time period.

The answer to this involves a recent unauthorized computer reconstruction, which apparently precipitated the unexpected release of secret copies kept in a Huntington Library vault! The Atlanta Journal and Constitution brought this to light when they revealed several facts on the subject in two articles, “Dead Sea Scrolls” and “Dead Sea Scrolls Refer to Messiah’s Execution.” A portion of the first article reads: “...a Palestinian shepherd boy chasing a stray goat tossed a
stone into a narrow cave near the Dead Sea. The stone hit a clay jar, causing a tinkling noise that is still echoing in the halls of academia. When he and his cousin crawled into the hole, they found eight stone jars containing foul-smelling manuscripts, each wrapped in linen, coated with black pitch and hidden for 1,900 years: the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls....‘...the scrolls originated in Jerusalem and were
taken to hiding places in the Judaean wilderness for safekeeping either before or during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.’....The scrolls contain every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther [and]....ancient Hebrew commentaries on the Bible....The first two-thirds of the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared in scholarly journals a generation ago. Then, for no apparent reason, the flow of information stopped....Two professors of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati revealed that they had used a computer to reconstruct a secret text that the authorized scholars had not gotten around to publishing.
The Cincinnati scholars had started with a bootlegged copy of an index to the scrolls showing each word and its context....Soon after publication of the computer-generated texts began, the director of the private Huntington Library in California announced that he was going to break the academic monopoly once and for all by releasing 3,000 photographic negatives showing the original scrolls in their complete form.
The library had obtained its set of photos in a roundabout way....after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, a California philanthropist, Elizabeth Hay Bechtel, persuaded the Israeli antiquities authorities to let her personal photographer make a photographic record of the original scrolls so that a future war couldn’t rob the world of the Dead Sea treasure.
Before her death in 1987, Mrs. Bechtel endowed a vault in the Huntington Library and secretly deposited a master set of negatives without the knowledge of the scholarly establishment.”¹⁹
Within days of the release, William A. Moffett, the library director, said “he would allow anyone with an established interest to see a microfilm of the original Dead Sea Scrolls in Hebrew”,^[20] adding it was “like bringing down the Berlin Wall.”²¹
One aspect which may have had some bearing on whether or not to release the scrolls is revealed in an Associated Press article entitled “Dead Sea Scrolls Refer to Messiah’s Execution,” which appeared in the November 8, 1991, Atlanta Journal and Constitution. In a previous article on October 12, Dr. Newsom of Emory University was quoted as saying the unreleased portions of the scrolls would not be embarrassing to Judaism. She also said that “bomb shell” rumors that Jews “were sitting on the scrolls,” fearing publication could in some way undermine Judaism,²² would now be dispelled. The November 8, 1991 article reveals that: “The execution of a Messiah-like leader is mentioned in newly released text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating the Christian concept was shared by ancient Jews who wrote the documents, scholars say.”²³

The article continues: “The fragmentary, five-line text has ‘far-reaching significance’ because it shows the scrolls’ authors ‘had the same Messianic ideas that are familiar in early Christian teachings,’ said Robert Eisenman, chairman of religious studies at California State University, Long Beach. Mr. Eisenman said he found the text among 3,000 photographs of the scrolls opened to scholarly study last month by the Huntington Library in San Marino. The text describes...being ‘put to death’ and mentions ‘piercings’ or ‘wounds.’ It also uses Messiah-related terms such as ‘the staff,’ ‘the Branch of David,’ and the ‘Root of Jesse,’ Mr. Eisenman said....‘the idea of a dying Messiah—is new and explosive,’ said Michael Wise of the University of Chicago.”²⁴

We discovered additional evidence regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relation to ancient Judaism, Christian origins and who we are in relation to both of these subjects, in the Jerusalem Post article, “Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?” In this article, reporter Gail Lichtman quotes Professor Norman Golb²⁵ of the University of Chicago, who is a manuscript scholar and has studied with paleographer S. Goitein. Lichtman, quoting Golb in connection with his book which was released in 1995, writes: “The Scrolls do contain many new works in Hebrew which strongly resemble Jewish intertestamental writings—writings which eventually lost their popularity among Jews and have survived as translations appended to the Christian Bible. ‘These and other texts from Qumran have made possible a much fuller reconstruction of Judaism of that period, which in many ways was radically different from...the rabbinic Judaism that followed. The ideas of this intermediate Judaism are not always familiar or comforting, and sometimes even inspire repugnance. But they are there nevertheless’....‘Whether scholars will continue to indefinitely...make these texts the corpus of belief of a minority sect is a question whose answer it is still too early to venture. It is, however, becoming obvious that traditional Qumranologists have yet to offer a cogent refutation of the Jerusalem-origin theory. Much depends on the outcome—mainly, our understanding of Christian origins and of ancient Judaism and its evolution, and the manner in which the Bible came to be what it is today. For those of us concerned with the question of who we are, this understanding matters profoundly.’ ”²⁶ Under the professor’s picture were his words: “I feel it is my responsibility to write the truth as I see it and it doesn’t matter if scholars get angry.”²⁷

The cover flap of Golb’s book quite eloquently states: “The Scrolls have been the subject of unending fascination and controversy ever since their discovery in the Qumran caves beginning in 1947. Intensifying the debate, Professor Norman Golb now fundamentally challenges those who argue that the writings belonged to a small, desert-dwelling fringe sect. Instead, he shows why the scrolls must have been the work of many groups in ancient Judaism, kept in libraries in Jerusalem and smuggled out of the capital just before the Romans attacked in a.d. 70.”²⁸
Using the Dead Sea discovery of a certain text, Golb exposes the lie that the Son of God Messiah concept was pagan²⁹ (Greco-Roman). Many critics of the past have laid this accusation at the feet of Christian missionaries. This is one of the major claims of Samuel Golding’s anti-missionary book, A Guide to the Misled. In our opinion, Dr. Golb proves the Son of God Messiah idea is not pagan, but thoroughly Jewish, and from God. He states: “In one important text (4Q246) written in Aramaic, a figure called ‘the Son of God, Son of the Most High’ appears....it has been plausibly suggested that this figure is none other than the Messiah.^[30] This apocalyptic fragment may thus provide an important precursor to the New Testament’s designation of Jesus as the ‘Son of God.’ Prior to its publication, the idea of the Messiah as God’s son had not been attested in pre-Christian Jewish texts. It was often suggested that the idea derived not from Judaism, but from the Greco-Roman royal ideology, where kings were believed to have been adopted by the gods. (We may observe the appearance of similar themes also in ancient Near Eastern texts.) This scroll may thus provide a Jewish antecedent to an idea once thought to be a Hellenistic-Christian innovation.”³¹
Golb’s findings are particularly valuable to us because he is a Jewish scholar and does not profess Jesus as Messiah. His illumination of these facts is truly fair and not in any way biased, which no doubt, will capture the favor of many evangelical leaders!

Further evidence supporting our conclusions was reported in an astounding Time magazine article in September of 1992, entitled, “Is Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls?” The well-known, worldwide, news magazine reported: “...the latest discoveries on actual details in the scrolls are startling enough to generate legitimate headlines. Texts that are only now becoming widely available establish the first connection between the scrolls and Jesus’ New Testament words about his role as the Messiah. The debate over all the possible interpretations is bound to be fierce....the scrolls do speak of the coming Jewish Messiah...Two of the fragments made newly available in the Review’s photo books are especially striking....the most important phrases are clear. Apparently referring to the coming Messiah, the text declares that he will ‘heal the wounded, resurrect the dead [and] preach glad tidings to the poor.’ The passage closely resembles the words of Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4)....The text, which echoes Isaiah 11, also anticipates another primary New Testament teaching, that the Messiah must die as Jesus did....Wise, Eisenman’s sometime ally, says the evidence could equally back the conservatives who believe God prepared the way for the true Messiah: ‘Many of Christianity’s ideas were there at the time of Jesus. I believe the things that happened wouldn’t have happened if the ground were not already fertile.’ The scrolls have another important effect, underscoring anew the Jewishness of Jesus. In any event, those angry, locked-out Dead Sea scholars turn out to have been correct in their assertions that highly important material remained tucked away for decades.”³²

Professor Golb beautifully illustrates that the ancient Jews wanted the world to know about these ancient beliefs. This is why they hid them at Qumran prior to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. He tells us: “The parallels between the scrolls and the New Testament do serve to make an important point, however: They unequivocally testify to the fact that various Christian traditions recorded in the New Testament were at home in the world of ancient Judaism....Taken from Jerusalem libraries and personal collections at a crucial hour and hidden away in many places in the wilderness, the Dead Sea Scrolls are the remnants, miraculously recovered, of a hoard of spiritual treasures of the Jewish people....The Jews, for their part, deeply feared that the Romans intended to destroy the Temple, the physical embodiment of the Jewish ideals. They hoped that by saving their collections of scrolls and thereby the words that expressed their beliefs and aspirations of centuries—by literally hiding those words, that is, until the terror had passed—the time would yet come when the message of the Jews and of Judaism to the nations of the world might be heard again.”³³