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Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad"; "Hear this, all ye peoples; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth"; "The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like young sheep." And so it was with this verse: "They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture do they cast lots." In each of these couplets there is but one statement, but the John writer, in describing what occurred in his imagination, falls into his own trap, and says too much. He says (xix. 23, 24): "The soldiers......took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat; now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said..........let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be; that the scriptures might be fulfilled, which saith: "They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots'"! According to this ingenious fabrication, Jesus had four garments and a vesture or coat, though in Palestine in those days a complete suit comprised but two garments an under and an outer one. Also four soldiers only were present at the crucifixion, in order that each one might receive a garment; and the tunic was woven and without seam,' so that it would not be cut. A more transparent fraud can scarcely be imagined. The Psalmist represents himself as in great distress and surrounded by enemies, is "a worm,' a reproach," "dogs have encompassed" him "about," strong bulls" have "beset him,” and these have "pierced" his "hands and feet,” and have "divided" his "garments among them." The language is, of course, metaphorical, and contains no prediction whatever, and certainly has no reference to Jesus of the N. T.

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Gall and vinegar as drinks (Matt. xxvii. 34, 48) were suggested by PSALM LXIX. 21: "They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." And, in order to bring this in, the writer of "John " (xix. 28) makes Jesus say: "I thirst......that the Scripture might be accomplished"! When he had received the vinegar he said: "It [i.e., everything] is finished." Gospel of Peter says plainly: "And one of them said: Give him gall and vinegar to drink; and they mixed it, and gave him to drink. And they fulfilled everything," etc. This is an innocent admission by the Gospel writers that they, and not Jesus, were busy "fulfilling" everything they could in any way twist into a prophecy.

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PSALM XXII. suggested the cry from the gibbet: "My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" but, as usual, had no reference whatever to it.

PSALM XXXIV. 19, 20 is made to do duty as another prophecy: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken." The breaking of bones was a figurative expression with the Hebrew writers (see Psalm li. 8). The Synoptics knew nothing of this incident, but the John writer says: "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs; howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side...... For these things came to pass that the Scriptures might be fulfilled; 'a bone of him shall not be broken'; and, again, another scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced."' This last quotation is from Zechariah (xii. 10), where the writer predicts that the Jews would return to the worship of Yahuh, whom they had forsaken, and that in that day idols would be banished from the land (xiii. 2).

AMOS VIII. 9: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon." These words of a Hebrew cowherd we have seen brought forward as a prediction of the darkness which is said to have occurred after the crucifixion, but has no reference whatever to it. Here, too, we are told that Isaiah saw the Lord "; yet "John" says (i. 18) that "no man hath seen God at any time" !

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ACTS XIII. 33: God hath......raised up Jesus, as it is written in the second Psalm: Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." This is a most barefaced attempt at deception. The quotation is from verse 7: "The Lord hath said unto me [David]: Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." The Psalm has not the least reference to the future Christian Messiah.

GENESIS III. 15 has been converted into a prophecy by both the Catholic and Protestant Churches, the former making the woman bruise the head of the serpent—intending the Virgin Mother; the latter making the seed of the woman to do so intending Jesus. Both versions are wrong. The verse has an astronomical reference to the alternate reign of light and darkness-the summer sun and

the winter sun. The serpent was the emblem of evil. The sun at the summer solstice had conquered the evil powers as represented by bruising the serpent's head. The verse ought to read: "This seed or race shall efface thy beginning; and in the same way, also, shall efface or cover her act of cunning." It was "composed while standing opposite, as it were, to the representation of the constellations carved in a celestial planisphere. The woman Ache, Ese, or Ise, the generating fire, is the celestial Isis represented in the astronomical representations with her son Horus, “the Light," in her arms, and having under her the serpent Typhon (the Hebrew for the hidden one'). Horus was represented as the conqueror of Typhon, as Apollo was of Python, when the sun in the upper hemisphere causes the Nile to inundate the country. Then the physical evils, and the sterility of which Typhon is the principle and emblem, disappear or are healed. By altering the genders (there was no neuter in Hebrew) this verse has been converted into a prophecy, which has been applied to the Christian Virgin, the mother of the child Iso, or Iesou, the light which dawns at the winter solstice. This prophecy is nothing but a pious fraud."

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The writer of " Matthew" may be described as being the champion fabricator of prophecies; he was, in all probability, either the original adaptor of the Essene scriptures or a copyist and improver, and undoubtedly a person of some education; and, though not a Jew, yet one who was familiar with, and spent much time in finding, texts suitable for conversion into prophecies, and which might be made to predict certain events attributed to the life of the new Messiah, whose claims he was interested in and was advocating. This person, as we have before noticed, was probably Clement of Alexandria. It is clear that he was a systematic perverter of the truth, and an unscrupulous deceiver of the ignorant and credulous Christians, who were unable to verify the statements presented to them for belief, for the only persons to whom they could have gone were dead. He is very particular to impress upon his readers that everything that occurred in connection with Jesus was done "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled," or "according to the Scriptures," or that "it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," or

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"by the Lord through the prophet." The writers of the other Gospels appear to have copied from him, embellishing as they went along. The Luke writer was especially clever at this, saying that many had taken in hand to write those things that "are believed among us," and that he, “having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," would write to him (Theophilus) "in order that he might know the certainty of those things in which he had been instructed." But, instead of producing evidence to give 'certainty" to the assertions of the Matthew writer, which were simply hearsay stories, his certainty is confined to 'eye-witnesses," and " a large number"! Nowhere is anyone mentioned by name who saw anything wonderful that Jesus did, nor do any persons come forward and say that they saw what is alleged to have happened.

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All of the so-called prophecies are such obvious frauds that it is impossible not to recognize them as such at once. We find legends of old Pagan mythology dished up, such as a miraculous star, the massacre by a king (who was already dead), which might have easily been prevented; the sending of Joseph and his family into Egypt, and then to Nazareth, in order that he might be called a Nazarene, which, as we shall see, was a manifestation of ignorance of the meaning of the word Nazarite. This gives a clue to the real author of the story, who certainly was not a Jew.

The introduction of the legend of the Magi, and of the miraculous star, was very important, for, if the Gospel fabricators could induce the people to believe that the Persian magicians had recognized Jesus as the expected Messiah, the battle was half won, as the people had great faith in these, and consulted them before they undertook any important enterprise. Great events in the life of men and of heroes were always connected, as before observed, with phenomena in the starry heavens. Every hero was introduced by a star-a brilliant one shone at the birth of Moses.

The pious work of fabrication commenced as early as Paul's time, for he admits having no personal knowledge of the present Gospel narrative. He says he delivered that which he received-"how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures),

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"and that he was buried and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures." But it is impossible to accept any statement, even of Paul or his sayings, as true. might have made the above statements, or he might have made part only of them, the rest being subsequent embellishments, for the "according to the scriptures" is very suggestive of the handwork of the Matthew writer. There is little doubt but that the Scriptures were being vigorously searched at a very early date for verification of every silly tale that had got spread about concerning Jesus, and portions of the Hebrew sacred writings which had no connection with Jesus whatever were twisted and turned into prophecies. The people were ready to receive any street preacher as a messiah who could sustain his cause by performances of magic and miracle-working beyond what they were accustomed to see. The writer of the John Gospel saw that it was useless to preach the cause of a Messiah who had been ignominiously condemned by the Roman Government, and hung as a criminal; for the acts of the Government were looked upon with respect and awe; the responsibility must, therefore, be taken from them and put on the Jews. It must be made to appear that the Jews hung the Messiah; that he offered himself as a sacrifice; and references must be found in the Scriptures which might be made to predict such occurrences. These ideas, if successfully carried out, would get over the difficulty presented by the failure of any supernatural response to the cry of the Messiah for help, and his dying appeal to his "power" that had forsaken him.

The following so-called "prophecies" will be seen to be, in every instance, fabrications:

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MATTHEW I. 22, 23: "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son; and they shall call his name Emmanuel." The original is in Isaiah vii., the true rendering of which is: "Behold a young woman is with child, and bringeth forth [present tense] a son," denoting an existing condition. The account of the birth, which took place a few months after, is recorded in the next chapter, and the child was Isaiah's own son. That this is the child which was promised as a sign to Ahaz is quite clear, for the

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