foresight concerning the two kings is stated as about to come true in him, and did shortly after take place (see 2 Kings xv. 29 and xvi. 9). The child, however, was not called Emmanuel; nor was Jesus. The name Emmanuel was employed to designate the whole kingdom of Judah (see Isaiah viii. 8).

MATTHEW II. 5: “And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel." The original is in Micah v. 25: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel [whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting]" (literally, ancient days). These bracketed words are said to be an interpolation in the original text. "And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and shall tread in our palaces; then shall we raise against him [the Assyrian] seven shepherds and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof; thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land,” etc. A great military leader here is foretold, a native of Bethlehem, who, with the assistance of fifteen other heroes, would deliver his countrymen from the Assyrian oppressors and lay waste the land of Assyria. No such leader appeared. Bethlehem was selected simply because David-their ideal king-was said to have been born there. Jesus never was a ruler in Egypt, nor did he deliver the Jews from the Assyrians, who had ceased to exist as a nation several centuries before the reputed birth of Jesus. And, in order to trace the lineage of Jesus to David, the Matthew writer gives Jacob as Joseph's father, and the Luke writer gives Heli, at the same time that it is pretended that Jesus had not a drop of Joseph's blood in his veins, but that he was begotten by a ghost. If a ghost was the real father, he could not be descended from David.

MATTHEW II. 14: "Out of Egypt have I called my son." The original is in Hosea xi. I : "When Israel was a child I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." By Israel was meant the Jewish nation (see Hosea viii. 14; ix. 10; xii. 13, where the same occurs). Son is also applied to

Israel (see Ex. iv. 22). Hosea reminds the Israelites that when they were young as a nation the Lord loved them, and delivered them from the bondage of Egypt; yet they worshipped Baalim (Baal). If this referred to Jesus, as is pretended, he must have sacrificed to Baal and burnt incense to idols! The absurdity of the child being taken to Egypt and brought back in order to fulfil this bogus prophecy is obvious!

MATTHEW II. 17, 18: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying: In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." The quotation is from Jer. xxxi. 15-17: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children; refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears......and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border." The writer is simply referring to an event that had already occurred-that many of the children of Israel had been carried away captive to Babylon. "Rachel" represented the mothers of Israel, and the captives were the youth of both sexes-the best fitted for slaves and concubines; old people would not be worth the trouble of taking. This had as much to do with an alleged massacre by a king who was already dead when it was said to have occurred, six centuries later, as with the plague of London or the Spanish-American war; and Ramah had as much to do with Bethlehem as with London or Edinburgh. Did Herod's so-called victims " come again to their mothers from the land of the enemy"? The Massacre of the Innocents story is really derived from a similar one told of the Hindu god Krishna in the “ Bhagavat Gita." At the time of his birth, Kansa, a tyrant prince, having been informed that a child was born who would overthrow his power, unable to lay hands on him, ordered all the male infants in the district to be slaughtered. But the divine child, like Jesus, was warned, and sent away to another part of the country, and so escaped. The N. T. narrative, which is taken from this, is given in "Matthew "; but the Luke

writer, who pretends to give a correct account of everything (i. 4), does not even mention this massacre, and probably never heard of it. "Matthew❞ says that Herod, desiring to slay the child (ii. 16-18), caused all the male children of Bethlehem under two years of age to be slaughtered. But Herod was dead when this massacre is said to have occurred. Neither Josephus nor any other historian makes any mention of it; and the early Christian Fathers, who were most assiduous in searching for evidence which might corroborate the Gospel narrative, knew of no such records. Can we picture to ourselves the omniscient Yahuh having to smear the doorways with blood as a mark of security while the butchery of Egypt's firstborn was going on? Tradition tells us that the seventh Ptolemy had all the young men of Alexandria murdered; this may be the Egyptian version of the massacre.

MATTHEW II. 23: "He shall be called a Nazarene." There is no such prophecy; neither does the word Nazarene occur in the O. T. The fact is, the Greek word Nazaraios has been wrongly rendered, and really means a Nazarite (from the Hebrew Nazar = to separate). A Nazarite was one who had made a vow to abstain from wine, and from cutting his hair. Samson and Samuel were Nazarites; also James. The word "Nazarite" is frequently used in the O. T., but never in reference to Jesus. So that the Messiah is represented as having gone to Nazareth in order to be called a Nazarite! The ignorance displayed in the error is obvious. MATTHEW III. 3: 66 For this is he that was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his paths straight." These words are put into the mouth of John "the Baptist," who was said to be preaching in the wilderness of Judæa about the time of the expected birth of Jesus. The original from which the above is taken is in Isaiah xl. 3, and is, as usual, a misquotation, for in the text, correctly rendered in the R. V., it is as follows: "The voice of one that crieth: Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." But the translators of the A. V., in order to make the quotation square with the Matthew writer's deception, rendered The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a

it :

highway for our God." The Hebrew Yahuh is made to tell his prophet to comfort the people by proclaiming the news that their service in Babylon was nearly ended, and their transgression, for which their captivity was supposed to be a punishment, was forgiven. Isaiah was speaking of himself, not of someone to be born some seven centuries later. The passage was written about two hundred years after Isaiah's time, towards the close of the exile in Babylon; and the highway was about five hundred miles of desert. The word "desert" may be rendered "the heavens." In Psalm Ixviii. 4 we find (literally): "Sing unto the Mighty One; sing praises to his name. Cast up a highway for him that rideth through the heavens. His name is YAH." This is, of course, a song to the sun-god. That a baptizer named John made an appearance in Palestine during the reign of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, and that he was put to death by him, may be historical; but the Gospel accounts of the prophecy, and of his imprisonment and death, are simply fabrications.

MATTHEW VIII. 16: "They brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." The original is in Isaiah liii. 4, and is again wrongly quoted, for there are no such words as the above; but we find : "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,' which is part of the lament regarding the captivity and the return of Israel to Jerusalem.

MATTHEW XIII. 34: "All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: I will open my mouth in parables.” The quotation is from Psalm lxxviii. 1-3, where we find David saying: “Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable," etc.—which had no more to do with Jesus, who was not born till many centuries after, than with the man in the moon. A "parable," in Hebrew Scripture, meant an oracular saying, song, or poetic recital of a number of events. The Jews and the Assyrians learned this poetical manner from the ancient Akkadians.

MATTHEW XXI. 5: "Behold, the king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass." This riding feat, impossible outside a circus, is an amusing error of the Matthew fabricator (founded on a similar legend of Bacchus, who rode in procession on an ass), and led the translators of the A. V. to piously, but dishonestly, alter the original quotation, in order to make it square with the mistake of the Matthew writer, making the Hebrew word meaning even read as and. This is, however, rectified in the R. V. The quotation is from Zech. ix. 9: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee; he is just, and saved by victory; calm, and riding upon an ass, even [and, A. V.] upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Jesus never was a king, either of the Jews or of any other nation. The text has reference to the fall of the proud cities of Syria Tyre and Sidon-and the rise of Greece; and predicts the invasion of a kingdom.

LUKE XXIV. 44, 45: "All things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning me...... Thus it is written that [the] Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day." There is not a single word in the above Hebrew books referring to Jesus, into whose mouth these words are put; nor is there any prediction that anyone should rise from the dead on the third day. But all previous Messiahs and sun-gods had descended into the lower regions for three days and nights, and rose again, as we have seen.

66

JOHN XII. 37, 38: But, though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him, that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" This is taken from Isaiah liii. 1, which, as we have seen, is part of a lament regarding the captivity and the return of Israel (the Jews) to Jerusalem. The " arm of the Lord" is a figurative expression for the work of the Hebrew God, Yahuh.

JOHN XII. 39, 40: "Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, and be converted; and should heal them." This is taken from Isaiah vi. 8-12,

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