Unsettled Christianity

Okay, not really. More after the jump

First, let’s look at the entire NT passage:

Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”

And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luk 10:17-20 NKJ)

The passage in question is not a prophetic one by any means. Instead, Christ is referring to an event which happened long ago – which He witnessed (Puts Revelation 12 in a whole new light, doesn’t it?). Further, this was about the adversary, the leader of the rebellion against God Himself. Do you think President Obama really looks that old?

41 seconds in, the narrator confuses Aramaic and Hebrew. While Aramaic is indeed older than Hebrew, Hebrew was spoken long before Aramaic in Palestine. A dialect of Aramaic was spoken by Christ, we strongly assume, yet, I find it difficult to believe that a modern Rabbi would be reading the words of Jesus. What he is does is confuse the reader with, well, facts. Yes, Aramaic. Yes, Hebrew. Yes, Christ spoke Aramiac. But to translate the Greek to Hebrew, skipping the Aramaic is the little leaven. Further, there is a problem with his backwards translation of heavens.

While the narrator precedes to backwards translate from the Greek to the Hebrew, his assumptions began the argument. He bypasses two things – one, Aramaic, two, the passage in question. (See above.) Christ is not speaking about what is coming, but what has already happened.

The narrator claims that Isaiah is the source of the Christian concept of Satan, or Lucifer. Lucifer is a mistranslation from the Latin by the KJV.

Lucifer is a name frequently given to the Devil in Christian belief. Use of this name as a reference to a fallen angel stems from a particular interpretation of Isaiah 14:3-20, a passage that speaks of someone who is given the name of “Day Star” or “Morning Star” (in Latin, Lucifer) as fallen from heaven.^[2] In 2 Peter 1:19 and elsewhere, the same Latin word lucifer is used of the morning star with no relation to the devil.

And

In the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translated “הילל בן־שׁחר” (morning star, son of dawn) as “lucifer qui mane oriebaris” (morning star that used to rise early).[11] Already, as early as the Christian writers Tertullian and Origen,[9] the whole passage had come to be applied to Satan. Satan began to be referred to as “Lucifer” (Morning Star), and finally the word “Lucifer” was treated as a proper name. The use of the word “Lucifer” in the 1611 King James Version instead of a word such as “Daystar” ensured its continued popularity among English speakers.

Most modern English versions (including the NIV, NRSV, NASB, NJB and ESV) render the Hebrew word as “day star”, “morning star” or something similar, and never as “Lucifer”, a word that in English is now very rarely used in the sense of the original word in Hebrew (Morning Star), though in Latin “Lucifer” was a literal translation.

Keep in mind that after an introduction to ‘baraq’ as the Hebrew word for ‘lightening,’ which is not used in this passage of Isaiah,’ he moves to the passage in Isaiah, focusing on ‘heights.’ This word is not only used here, but many other places as well – but ‘bama’ is always used for pagan places of worship. The author then confuses heights and heavens (shameh) for the listener. Remember, the heavens is given to God, while heights are pagan places of worship.

About the third minute, the narrator begins to being it together but confusing heights and heavens, and applying it to a phrase not found in Scripture. Why is this important? Because, he applies the ‘fell like lightening from heaven’ to the President, yet, in Isaiah, the adversary is seen as ascending a cultic place of worship (the heights) not heaven.

Note, the narrator, upon placing his faulty arguments together depends upon a modern Jewish Rabbi reading the Greek words of an Aramaic Jesus influenced by Hebrew poetry found in Isaiah.

Again, as a simple break down of the final argument

• Christ is speaking about a long ago event where the adversary was cast down from Heaven
• Isaiah is writing about a long ago event where the person in question attempts to climb a pagan place of worship, to set on top as God.
• Heavens does not equal heights
• Christ is not speaking prophetically, neither is Isaiah
• The narrator draws conclusions based on erroneous facts, such as heavens/heights

One last note – while the narrator uses Strong’s 1299/1300 for lightening, there are at a minimum of two other Hebrew words which are more proper for the lightening (not glare) from the sky – 216 and 2385. Both of these words refer to what we would consider lightning – you know, the kind with thunder (Job 28.26).

Now, if we were to sink to the level of biblical exogesis as the narrator, let us examine and see that the Son of God, or at least the angels, were of African origin:

Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.
(Daniel 10:5-6 KJVA)

Now, using the same methods that the narrator used, we would read this:

…His body was also like the beryl, and his was as the appearance of Barack….

I do this to show that when you properly fail to examine the Scripture, fail to use Scripture properly rather, you can make it say anything you want.

HT

Update:

Doug points us here.