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By MYRA JACKSON
After weeding out all of the war-mongering and woman bashing and inveighing against
"fornicators" and gays and so on, (which was added on over the millennia by the modern equivalent of political speech writers)
-- the BIBLE is actually a pretty good read. In fact it's the world's number two best-seller (second only to Martha Stewart's
MEIN KAMPF MIT DEM KITSCH.) Now a new scientific study has come along which may well vault it into first place.
A
RECENT STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STATEMENTS OF BOTH THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR PROPHETS OF THE Old Testament HAS SHOWN CONCLUSIVELY
THAT GOD IS OF A PROGRESSIVE PERSUASION. IT HAS ALSO PROVEN TWO OTHER THINGS WHICH, UNTIL NOW, HAD BEEN ONLY WIDELY HELD PUBLIC
OPINION:
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO ACCEPT BIG-MONEY CONTRIBUTIONS ARE PAID AGENTS OF THE ANTICHRIST; AND BOTH THE REPUBLICAN
AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTIES ARE SERVANTS OF THE DEVIL.
Not surprisingly this study has already provoked heated controversy.
Critics promptly labeled the conclusions demonization and heresy. "It's like apples and oranges," said one, "you can't mix
science and religion, it's unconstitutional or something."
MORE SERIOUSLY THOUGH
An objective reading of most
of the Old Testament prophets leaves little doubt that their main concern was with the welfare of the "meek of the earth."
This does not mean the wimpy of the earth, but what later ages have called variously the plain people, the masses, the common
person, the average citizen, or simply the People.
Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out that most prophets, not
only Judeo-Christian ones, were the independent socially concerned activists of their day, as Rachel Carson and Judi Bari
for instance, (to name only two of many), are of our day. True prophets are usually subjected to varying degrees of persecution
by the Establishment. Carson was vilified and hounded, the first Isaiah was sawed in half, Judi Bari was blown up.
Furthermore,
Chomsky believes, the "false prophets" or "Antichrist" referred to in the Bible were the spokespersons of their age's Establishment.
(Yes, it's capitalized in the dictionary.)
Usually a couple of generations later the meek of the earth would come to recognize
them as false, but generally by that time they would long since have taken the sheckels or whatever and run off to the Bahamas.
EVEN MORE SERIOUSLY THOUGH, we can easily see this monumental scam being played out all around us today. Just this
one segment of it illuminates the whole: listen to any of the thousands of religious radio or TV stations in the country and
see how many times you hear readings of, or references to, the very clear writings of the prophets quoted below. Whatever
else good or bad these ministries may be doing, they are, by deliberate omission, misrepresenting the Judeo-Christian prophets
and misleading the people.
Have a nice deja vu.
ISAIAH:::The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the
Lord hath anointed me to teach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound....And judgment is turned away backward, and justice
standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter....for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil
of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?....
He
who smote the people in wrath with continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars
of Lebanon, saying, since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us....Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go
before thee; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity,
and thy darkness be as the noon day.
JEREMIAH:::Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I send thee, and whatsoever I command thee
thou shalt speak....Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put
my words in thy mouth....to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant....
A
wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means;
and my people love to have it so....They have also healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace;
when there is no peace.
DANIEL::: They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, of silver, of brass, of iron, of
wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote...upon...the wall of the king's palace....Then
the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees
smote one against another....
JOEL::: Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision....
AMOS:::For I know
your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor
in the gate from their right....And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord...But
let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Hear this ye that swallow up the needy, even to
make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we
may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy
the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes: yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat....Shall not the land tremble
for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein?...
MICAH:::Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped
and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls....Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck
off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people....That they may do
evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous
desire: so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.
NAHUM:::....the
chariots shall be with flaming torches...and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken. The chariots shall rage in the streets,
they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings....
HABAKKUK:::....regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though
it be told you....Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee?...Woe to him that buildeth
a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!...
HAGGAI:::....and he that earneth wages earneth wages to
put it into a bag with holes.
MALACHI::: But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?...And
I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against...those that oppress the hireling in his wages,
the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right....
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