You Are What You Eat!

As I mentioned in Part 9, I would use the scientific discoveries of today to focus on laws handed down over 3200 years ago. But first it is imperative that those of the Messianic or the Christian path understand exactly how your falling away from the Lord’s commandments occurred. To do so you have to appreciate that the first Christians were Jews and that they continued in their worship at the Temple and their obedience to Jewish Law. At the same time they were able to reconcile their following of Yeshua’s teachings by referring to him as the greatest of the prophets a point of difference between them and both Karaites and Rabbanites. But soon a division was to take place as the result of one man; a man that Jesus never even selected as one of his apostles. As described in Galatians II:7 the main body of Christians were circumcised Jews and that the Gospel of the circumcised was unto Peter. But there was another group rapidly developing and Paul wrote in the same Galatians II:7 that “The gospel of the uncircumcised was committed unto me.” A self appointed commission to the Gentiles that would ultimately be a slap in the face of God. Paul reveals that Peter came to Antioch where Paul had his base and under pressure Paul convinced him to eat with the Gentiles. But when a delegation came from Jerusalem to berate Peter for his abandonment of the commandments, he quickly separated himself from the Gentiles and then insisted that they should all “live as Jews do.” Paul was furious and he went after Peter with all the ferocity he could muster as revealed in Galatians II:11. Of course having a large threatening Gentile mob in your face could be enough to convince the weak and indecisive fisherman that he was backing the wrong horse. Paul then went to Jerusalem along with Barnabas and after similarly threatening the apostles and elders he not only convinced them that the dietary laws and circumcision were not required but as he states, “they no longer needed to keep the Law!” The only restriction was they abstain from eating meats offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled and from fornication.” But we have historical proof that the community that was originally Jewish never abandoned the original Torah laws and remained as a separate entity within Christianity. Though Paul was able to intimidate them into fearing his wrath of the Gentile mob, he could not sway them from the teachings of Jesus and his brother James. For those wishing to know more about these original Christians and their preservation of Jewish ways, I suggest you read about the Ebionites. They existed for another 400 years before they were hunted down and killed by the Church of Rome.

There Are No Coincidences

Now you might ask, “What provides me with the authority or knowledge to talk of such things as if I understand the intricacies of God’s commandments. Just what are my qualifications to make the following statements?” Fair enough, legitimate questions but of course I have legitimate answers as well. Firstly, let me say that I am doing exactly what my family has been instructed to do for the past three millennia, fulfilling the role of Kahana as intermediaries with the purpose of saving mankind even if it is only one human life at a time. Secondly, for those that may have wondered what I actually do (my everyday job so to speak) since whatever my role in life it’s obvious that it’s now taking me to China on a monthly basis, has me speaking internationally at biotechnological conferences, and sees me supporting scientific breakthroughs that eliminate suffering for thousands, perhaps even millions. So let me elaborate for you and then you can judge the veracity and credibility of the statements I will make subsequently. I am a veterinary trained preclinical toxicologist, a test development medical technologist and a biotechnological researcher. Yes, I have university degrees in each of those three areas of specialization. Big words but then it’s a big job. I am one of those men that each day faces the challenge of how do we find the cures and prove that they work against X, Y or Z. And as I mentioned, it is simply the extension of what we as the Kahana have done for a thousand years both in the Tabernacle and the Temples while they still stood. Of course then it was much simpler, as all we had to do in those days was make animal sacrifices on the altar and pray for cures and divine intercession. And we only had to face the Big Boss in the Holy of Holies for our performance review once a year. Now the job is a little more demanding since in the past my family prayed that God would intervene on behalf of the people but now the onus has become for us to provide the answers on our own. It is no mere coincidence that there are three family members involved in a similar line of scientific endeavor even though we were initially unaware of each other’s professional choices at the time. One might say it’s in our genes, and a more lengthy aspect of that particular discussion can be found at http://hubpages.com/hub/GLEEM but as you will see, it is highly likely that we are products of our past and we are all predestined to do what we do. So, having the benefit of several decades of medical and veterinary specialization has provided me with a perspective that Isaac ben Abraham of Troki did not possess. It enables me to examine the dietary laws and find a rationale behind their instruction. But what it really does is leave me in awe because I have to consider that three thousand years ago these laws were clearly established with an impossible precognizant foresight and knowledge of discoveries that we have only made over the last 150 years. And that too cannot be simply passed off as another coincidence. Remember, I’ve been telling you for a long time that there are no coincidences!

The Eating of Dead Things

Over a decade ago I wrote my thesis on the Apolipoprotein E pathway’s involvement in both CJD and Alzheimer’s. Without going into the details, I was looking at ways in which abnormal proteins were absorbed, transferred and reproduced in neurological tissues to the detriment of the host. The key appeared to be Apolipoprotein E and the production of Tau proteins. What does this have to do with dietary laws you might ask, well let me explain. One of the undiscovered routes I proposed was Vagal nerve (10th Cranial Nerve) transference; a conduit directly from the stomach to the central nervous system. It was one of the only ways to explain the rapid transposition of an ingested abnormal protein to the brain (neurocellular phagocytosis) resulting in diseases we refer to as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. You would call one of these diseases Mad Cow. The story behind prion diseases is an exciting one. When Prusiner first proposed its existence he was laughed off the stage. Science refused to believe that abnormal proteins once ingested would cause a disease. Twenty years later it was a fact and more alarming would appear to be the reason that cattle had suddenly developed the disease because they were being fed rendered protein. Essentially herbivores were being turned into carnivores. Cattle were being fed byproducts that were remnants of dead animals. Let’s first think of the prohibition of contact and consumption of dead animals in Leviticus. If the animal is found dead, even if it was one of the approved animals for consumption, we would never be certain of what it had died from. Though not necessarily a prion disease, it was a forewarning that the byproducts of dead animals could still transfer disease, a finding that most certainly shocked the world in the 1980’s and still presents a major threat. Studies in a Wisconsin game park where there was an outbreak of CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) in mule deer in 1972 turned out to be a prion disease as well. The fact that Wisconsin is a major dairy state should send off the alarm bells as you’ll read in the next paragraph. All the deer in the park were eradicated and the park was not repopulated until ten years later. The new population also succumbed to CWD which meant that the prions had been retained in the soil and were virtually indestructible; a fact which leads into my discussion over the next couple of paragraphs.

Weasels, Mink and Ermine

And there’s more when it comes to prions. A little known study in the 1970’s traced a higher incidence in dairy states of downer cows where there was also intensive mink farming. A neurological disorder in mink that was later identified as a Mink Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy would be running at high levels when these mass outbreaks of downer cows would occur. For those that aren’t familiar with downer cows, it’s a term used for cows with a calcium deficiency and they start stumbling and going down. Usually, a quick IV drip of Cal-Mag salts gets them back up on their feet. The difference with these cows was they weren’t getting back up and were then sent off to the rendering plants with no diagnosis other than Downer Cow made. Incidentally, as my thesis examined, the incidence of CJD or the human prion disease was higher in the dairy states. Therein lays the link because in some way this disease in Mink was eventually showing in humans and since mink, ermine and weasels (mustelids) are all in the same family we have a credible reason why God specifically mentioned not eating weasels. What took us until now to understand a little better scientifically was known 3000 years ago. All we did was corroborate it with our current scientific techniques.

Only If It Jumps

How strange that there would be a distinction of which insects could be eaten based on their having large jointed hind legs for the purpose of jumping. Why should this even make a difference you must wonder? It took me a long time to understand this prohibition and it wasn’t until my work with prions that I finally understood it. Jumping insects like grasshoppers and locusts aren’t burrowing into the ground. They consume live and dead plant tissues above ground but not the organisms or waste in the soil. Whereas those insects that creep and crawl on the ground are consuming dead organic tissue, especially from other animals. A matter of fact, the Torah insists that once we die we do not embalm our bodies so that we will be consumed by the myriad of creatures that creep and crawl. And if that is the case, then any disease causing entity that cannot be destroyed will in turn be preserved within the bodies of these creatures. Now you should be recognizing the threat that was exposed during the investigation of prions and the insects consuming dead organic material. They are a conduit to the preservation of the disease ensuring that there is a preservation of these abnormal proteins unto eternity. We’ve only known about this new category of disease causing entities for the past thirty years. God knew about it three thousand years ago. Incredible as it sounds it is the only logical conclusion.

Scavengers

The birds listed are known carrion eaters. Not only that, some of them are hunters and would therefore eat the small animals and other birds that were forbidden. I’ve already provided a warning of the threat that dead animals present in the transference of disease. But it’s not only prions but many other viruses, bacteria and parasitic cysts that will be provided a continuance through intermediate hosts.

Forbidden Swine

It has only been over the last fifty years that medical research has demonstrated a close link between swine and humans. It is the major reason that the species is being suggested for xenotransplantation or in other words why science wants to use swine for replacement parts, such as hearts, skin, pancreatic cells, etc. The fact is that swine actually came off the evolutionary chain closer to humans than other species except for the primates. But being closer has its drawbacks which we have all come familiar with over the last year with the outbreak of Swine Flu. If we are close then we also share things in common such as parasites and worst of all viruses. Of major concern to transplant specialists are the REO and Retro viruses but there are far more diseases that can spread the fear of mass death within humanity. The transmission of disease between pigs and swine and back again is not a new thing. It would have been known long ago that pig farmers and those in close proximity to swine herds had a higher incidence of serious illness. Thereby through the forbidding of swine to be eaten the animals wouldn’t even be kept in the vicinity of the community as they’d serve no economic purpose. As a result the following would be avoided by their exclusion; Swine Flu, Swine Vesicular Disease, and Foot and Mouth virus; all of them serious diseases that theoretically could exterminate humanity. But let’s not forget the bacterial transmission of such diseases as brucellosis, campylobacteriosis, erysipelas, leptospirosis, salmonellosis, streptococcus, anthrax and colibacillosis. Swine are a threat to spread all of these and they can be as equally serious as the viruses. Then there are the parasitic diseases spread by swine such a trichinosis, sparganosis, taeniosis, scabies, cysticercosis, yersiniosis (Plague), tularaemia and balantidiasis. Probably the most serious, even though Plague was in that aforementioned list, is that pigs not only carry the tuberculosis of cattle and birds but they can also be the source for human tuberculosis and that has a greater precedence to exposure than the others.

Are you thinking twice about eating pork, well you should be? As consumed species go, swine is the one that has the greatest chance of causing severe illness through ingestion because not even cooking the meat well eliminates all of the listed organisms and quite a number on the list are deadly. Foot and Mouth has been found to survive pickling, salting and drying of meat. Even after eradication of swine herds, some of the viruses and parasites were found to survive the decontamination process living on inanimate objects. Bacterial such as leptospirosis were found to be surviving well in water barrels and bowls and sparganosis favourite means of transfer is through water where the cysts for this foot and a half tapeworm are deposited. From just these few organisms it should readily be seen why there was such concern with any water that came in contact with these prohibited carcasses and why even the bowls and utensils became a concern. Once again you must say ‘Wow’, how amazing that three thousand years ago God was able to forewarn Moses about these possibilities.

No Fins Or Scales

From the fish perspective that leaves us with either those fish that scavenge the bottoms such as catfish or those that are aggressive hunters such as eels to be avoided but it also eliminates the shellfish and mollusks from the menu. We should all know about paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) by now, there’s been enough press about it. But what you may not know is that there are at least twenty derivatives of the saxitoxin produced by the dinoflagellates that then accumulates in the shellfish such as mussels, clams and scallops. PSP is only one of these and the others can be just as dangerous. The toxins are heat stable which means that not even cooking destroys them, so how confident are you when you consume your next meal of shellfish? Does Red Lobster provide a medical plan? Tetramine poisoning is common when eating whelks (marine snails) as it exists in their salivary glands causing a wide variety of neurological signs when ingested by humans. Not to mention that these snails are both predators and scavengers which means they’re picking up whatever diseases their last meal might be carrying. But besides toxins there are many other dangers presented by shellfish. Dioctophymiasis is a parasite from crayfish and other crustaceans in which the nematode migrates to our kidneys and begins its destructive process. Removal of the kidney is the only treatment. If both kidneys are affected then there is a serious problem. Short of a transplant, you will die. The facts are that shellfish are bottom filter feeders, which means their exposure to bacteria is quite high and it should be no surprise that they are disseminators of microbial diseases. The fact that aquaculture farmers know their lobsters are susceptible to such diseases as shell disease, Gaffkemia, microbial epibiont disease, Lagenidium disease, Haliphthoros disease, and Fusarium disease does not provide us with any reassurance that these entities do not cause a disorder in humans if digested. We just don’t know enough about them yet. Back in July of 2008 the FDA released an advisory regarding tomalley, the soft, green substance found in the body cavity of the lobster that functions as the liver and pancreas. High levels of PSP toxins were present in lobster tomalley The FDA advisory applied only to tomalley, the government declaring the rest of the lobster meat was safe since high levels of PSP toxins were only present in the lobster tomalley and only insignificant levels in the remainder of the lobster. Perhaps one should define insignificant since we know that these toxins can accumulate and cooking no matter how long did not eliminate it. The symptoms of PSP included tingling and/or numbness of the mouth, face or neck; muscle weakness; headache; and nausea and in extreme cases large amounts of the toxin if consumed, could lead to respiratory failure and death. They warned that symptoms usually would occur within two hours of exposure to the toxin. Two hours before you press the panic button. And if that wasn’t enough to worry about the FDA warned that PSP toxins normally occur in clams and other shellfish. Often these symptoms will lead to respiratory failure and death. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should seek medical attention was their last bit of advice. Perhaps the advice should have been “think twice before eating shellfish.” The Torah warned you first and now the FDA is giving you their warning.

In regards to eels, there is still much we have to learn. In a report from the Protein Journal in 2008 the following was disclosed, “Although eels are well known to contain toxins in the serum, their chemical properties have remained to be clarified for a long time. In this study, a proteinaceous toxin was purified from the serum of Japanese eel Anguilla japonica and was lethal to both mice and crabs.” And in 1995 we find the following article which reveals that the researcher isolated and purified a lethal protein toxin from the Indian catfish Plotosus canius. The toxin was lethal in mice being both cardiotoxic, and having neuromuscular blocking activity. The toxin also produced cardiac arrest on isolated toad and guinea pig hearts. Prior administration of atropine and propanolol failed to counteract toxin activity on isolated heart preparations. Even antiserum raised against the toxin failed to antagonize its lethal activity in mice. And in a recent report from the University of Michigan a study there concluded that poisonous catfish are far more common than previously thought. The researcher Jeremy Wright warned of how catfish venoms poison nerves and break down red blood cells, producing severe pain, reduced blood flow, muscle spasms, and respiratory distress.

In Conclusion

This article has merely emphasized the fact that three thousand years ago dietary laws were put in place for the preservation of mankind. There were issues that the people of that time period couldn’t even contemplate let alone understand. God asked that they trust Him. An act of faith that He knew what was best for humankind. And along came a heretic twelve hundred years later that challenged the Jerusalem Church. He told Peter he was a fool for following the commandments within the Torah when it came to the dietary laws. And then Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem and they stood down the elders in Jerusalem and managed to sway them to their opinion. A fact that it was not Yeshua who changed the dietary laws but a man named Paul. And ever since Christians have been acting contrary to the commandments of the Lord. Perhaps now the science of today and the teachings of a Karaite can help you reconsider that decision

Religious Dietary Restrictions and Modern Science

Let me begin by saying, “There are those things which we could put into our mouths that would be an abomination to the Lord.” This is a line taken from the Torah but to many a Christian they would consider such an absurd statement as having come from me and it would inspire both ridicule and contempt. After all, why would God really care about what we eat? And they will quickly point out that Jesus said, “It is not that which goes in to the mouth that defiles man but what comes out of it,” from Matthew 15:11. But Yeshua was only half right. Some of the things that spew forth out past people’s lips are an abomination of that there’s no argument; Hurtful, spiteful, vicious words that maim and harm as surely as if they had a knife and twisted it into one’s back. But in regards to the other half, he was most definitely wrong for it is clearly stated in Deuteronomy 14:3, “Thou shall not eat any abomination,” and God’s instructions cannot be overridden. Rather than try to negate God’s ordinances Christians would have been better off to try and understand why the Lord would have demanded such a thing as kosher (kashruth) and to follow them. There is nothing in the Torah that does not have purpose or justification so why should it be assumed that the restrictions regarding food were just random statements made by God that could be dismissed and ignored so cavalierly? This discourse will be quite lengthy. It's not an easy topic to tackle especially since most people like to eat and denying them that pleasure might become confrontational. Part 9 of this series will examine the laws as they were dictated and the responses in the Hazuk Emunah but Part 10 is where I will use a modern age religion to support the ancient laws; a thing called science!

What is the Real Question?

A fair amount of the discourse in the Hazuk Emunah is dedicated to the dietary laws. Isaac ben Abraham of Troki wrote on this topic but alas his perspective was still that of only a sixteenth century mind and that had its limitations. Over the past four hundred years there have been major advances and far more understanding that supports the dietary restrictions of the Torah. Since then there has been an entirely new perspective that sprouted which we call science. But science is only a tool and should not be considered the new religion. Those that have read Dan Brown’s latest book ‘The Lost Symbol’ will have already heard his frequent proclamation that the Bible was actually concealing scientific facts. Unfortunately, Dan Brown became a bit too carried away thinking that every statement made in the text was a scientific code that required deciphering. He began looking for hidden meanings where they did not exist but he was right in one respect, there is an element of medical science incorporated into the Torah that should not have been common knowledge at that time and that is the real mystery. Whether it was the result of rudimentary clinical observations and thereby assumptions regarding the etiology of disease or simply the direct intervention of an all-knowing God that couldn’t possibly explain the concept of organisms causing disease to a people with absolutely no understanding of such concepts, it resulted in God commanding the Israelites to simply do as He said for their own benefit. And for numerous centuries they would ask ‘why’ but that was not the correct question they should have been asking. The question we now should ask is ‘How’. How was it possible that these scientific and medical issues were known at a time when mankind was still trying to perfect the wheel? There are many theorists that have written their speculations on the matter but let us not seriously look at these theories involving space aliens, time travelers, or inter-dimensional communications through the Ark as some have proposed. Let’s simply attribute it to God and accept that He would know of such things and that only recently we have gained the knowledge to confirm them.

The Hazuk Emunah

Troki’s argument was as follows; there are certain creatures which are unclean and Israel was intended to be a holy nation. To remain holy, it could not ingest that which was considered unclean because if it did, it would be considered contaminated. But the converse is true because if Christians willingly partake of food that was clearly identified as being unclean then they must consider themselves to be unholy based on this simple logic. Otherwise how could they ignore what is written in Leviticus 11:18, 11:43 and 11:44. “Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall you make yourselves unclean with them that you should be defiled thereby. For I am the Lord your God, ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves and ye shall be holy, for I am holy.” The use of the word abominable is severe. It is neither wishy-washy nor challengeable. If it creeps or crawls then you are forbidden to eat it. Similarly in Leviticus 20:25-6 God says, “Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowl and clean, and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast or fowl or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me for I the Lord am holy and have severed you from other people that you should be mine.” The repetition of the banning of anything that creepeth is quite interesting as it obviously was a grave concern of the Lord’s and not to be challenged or ignored. After all, Adam just ate a single apple that was forbidden and look at the consequences. If we were to examine Leviticus chapter 11 with clear understanding we would appreciate that God did not dedicate an entire chapter of the Torah so that it would be ignored. Only that which is cloven hooved and cheweth the cud is permitted to be eaten. But this required both characteristics and that meant the camel, swine, rabbit and rock badger were excluded. But more importantly, there is a strict prohibition of touching their carcasses as well indicating that contact with these animals after death also presented a danger. In 11:9-12 God prohibits anything in the waters that has neither fins or scales. Everything else is labeled detestable. In 11:13-19 those birds which are forbidden to be eaten are listed including the bat. And of winged swarming things, only those that have jointed legs to jump upon the ground are permitted which meant that crickets, grasshoppers and locusts could all be eaten but no other insects. In 11:29-30 the eating of lizards is prohibited and I should mention that just prior to this God purposely instructs us not to eat the weasel. I raise this point as its essential to my subsequent discussion. A few sentences later a considerable amount of time is spent on explaining if these prohibited animals come in contact with water and in turn this water comes in contact with our eating utensils or food, etc., then all that will be rendered unclean. And let us not forget the singular most misinterpreted command from Exodus 23:13, the prohibition of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. The Rabbanites have built an entire industry around the separation of dairy and meat products, totally unnecessary since all God was demanding was that next time you eat goat’s meat you were not to boil it in its mother’s milk. If He wanted more He would have stated do not eat anything that is from milk along with meat at the same time. God was quite direct; his commandments not intended to be cryptic. So rather than countermand God’s commands it should be more important that we try to understand them now that we have the advantage of 21st century knowledge. In part 10 I'll examine the scientific discoveries which suggest that there never should have been any doubt that God was the ultimate scientist.

The Plurality of of God

Probably one of the most difficult concepts to comprehend is the trinity as portrayed in Christianity. Many a Christian friend has struggled with it and have abandoned any hope of integrating it into their belief structure. It was far easier for them to see each component of the Trinity as a distinct and separate entity but in so doing it also permits those which have chosen to believe that the son of God could be killed an axe to grind and therefore justification of their actions to seek retribution and revenge upon hapless Jews that had no part in the murder of anyone, let alone a fellow Jew named Jeshua almost two thousand years ago. And it is the result of these hate mongers having no understanding their own 1st century religious teachings of the Trinity which would clearly suggest that at no time was any of the three parts distinct and separate and subject to mortality but merely components of a whole without beginning and without end but such understanding is long gone from Christian and Judaic teachings. How odd then that Christian scholars will attempt to point to the plurality in the Torah as their source of this ill-conceived notion claiming it as Judaic in origin but still maintaining that each entity had a singularity which was never portrayed in the Torah nor would it have been condoned. In disputing their failure to comprehend I must also admonish the failure of the Rabbanites to comprehend the plurality mentioned in the Torah and therefore their inability to argue effectively against the Christian doctrine. Their inability to appreciate the history behind our own scriptural text because of their own blindness an intolerance has led to many a downfall within our community. Isaac ben Abraham of Troki attempted to rectify the absence of argumentation but alas even he did not have the full benefit of the knowledge passed down through the family of the Kahana. And since the descendant lines of the Kahana were themselves hunted and persecuted over time, primarily by Rabbanite followers of such ignobles as Saadiah Gaon, they were unavailable to provide the answers at times when the Jewish communities were under tremendous pressures of religious intolerance for their refusal to accept the Trinity at the point of a dagger and edge of a sword.




http://legendsofthekahana.webs.com/1onthecharts.htm

The Plurality of God
Christian scholars will point to the use of the word Elohim in Genesis 1:1 as an indication that the Trinity existed from the beginning of time. Yes it is true, Elohim is the plural and means Gods. I’m afraid even my Rabbanite brethren with their refusal to accept this at face value have only served to encourage their Christian polemicists. We merely have to look at Deuteronomy to know this was true. For in Deuteronomy 32:15 we read, “And he forsook the Eloha [God] who made him.” Since Deuteronomy was the last and latest of the Torah books to be written it dealt with the issue of the use of the plurality Elohim by showing us clearly that Eloha was the reference to the one and unified God. For those seeing the resemblance between Eloha and Allah it is no surprise since they are the same word and therefore reflect the singularity. And we also read in Psalm 50:22 as Troki indicated, “Ye who forget Eloha [God]” that the singularity was in use by the time of King David and the use of the plural form was slowly being replaced. But this still does not disguise the fact that initially the reference to God was one of multiple components, a far different concept from the Christian Trinity and an ideology that is carefully explained from the Kahana perspective in Shadows of Trinity (http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ShadowsOfTrinity.html). And as one reads in that book, the three that became one was a very ancient doctrine that is very important if we are to understand and appreciate the birth of monotheism but more importantly comprehend the many references that exist within the Tanach that would imply that a plurality was not foreign to Judaism. In fact it was essential for the making of Judaism, something which the Rabbanites never truly understood then or now. But that which God has brought together was never intended to be separated ever again, and that is exactly what Christianity have done with their version of the Trinity.

Divine Beings
The quotations themselves from the Torah are not misguiding nor cryptic. What are misguiding are the numerous attempts by many to explain that which is beyond them. Often they will even ignore the grammatical keys which are provided right in the Hebrew text. A perfect example of this is Genesis 1:26 where it is written, “And God said, we shall make man in our image according to our likeness and they shall rule over the …” At first glance, those proclaiming the Christian Trinity with three separate personages existing, each functionally independent would appear to be reasonable from the above statement. But how odd that in everyday speech we will make reference to the ‘Royal We’ whenever we wish to make a universal point which in reality is only our own opinion that we are intentionally trying to enforce over others but in this case we refuse to make a similar observation. Because similarly, God is using for lack of a better terminology, the ‘Royal We’ in this case as he is obviously talking to someone or perhaps many that He is imposing his will over. And since this event precedes the creation of man, then we must be looking at some other nonhuman beings with which he is discussing his plans. How quickly we forget that throughout the Torah there are numerous references to other beings that existed on the scale somewhere between mankind and God. Genesis makes references to them as the Sons of God in 6:2 but more commonly we refer to them as angels. When we examine Genesis 11:7, we read, “Go to, Let us go down to confound their speech,” we can see that whomever these other beings are that God might be talking to, He is giving them instruction, commanding them to do His bidding. This would indicate then that these others are placed in the hierarchy somewhere between mankind and God. Of course Genesis 18:17 could be an indication that God had a bad habit of talking to himself when He asks the question “Should I conceal from Abraham what I am doing?” or we can conclude that He is sounding His thoughts off other beings that surround Him but is doing so not in a manner that invites them to debate his decision but merely nod in agreement. It was not a discussion point.

Confirmation of Singularity
Having referred to the initial plurality that ultimately became 'one' which as I mentioned is fully explained in Shadows of Trinity, then any question of whether the one became three ever again can be dispelled as it is firmly dealt with throughout the Tanach. Besides the Divine Law which is clearly pronounced in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one,” this is further reemphasized in Deuteronomy 4:35, where it is written, “Though hast been shown these things in order to know that the Lord is God and there is none besides Him.” Still not convinced? Then there can be no doubt when examining Isaiah 43:11 which reads, “I am the Lord and there is no savior besides me.” This last quote should be particularly addressed since it is Isaiah which many Christian scholars claim as the chief prophet advocating Jesus’ role as Messiah. Here we have in the same book evidence from the prophet that the only savior is the one and only indivisible God. The prophet also confirms this in 45:5 where he states that God said to him, “I am the Lord and there is none else besides me.” Does such a statement even suggest the possibility of a Trinity; definitely not! Hosea also sends a similar message in 13:4 where God says, “I am the Lord they God from the land of Egypt and thou shalt know no God but me and there is no savior besides me.” Hosea’s reference to the starting point in Egypt does correspond to the concept of three that became one as outlined in Shadows of Trinity and the fact that He makes it clear that He is the only savior is to make certain that we do not deify our Messiahs. Everything that Moses achieved was only through God and therefore the Messiah is not to be considered in any way on a level even close to godhood.

The Divisibility Trap
Not even the lesser spiritual beings or angels are even close to the level of power and authority that God holds. Though Christianity has spent copious amounts of time in perfecting an image of Satan (Lucifer) until he is somehow a rival of God’s, this is clearly not the case as expressed in Isaiah 45:7, where the prophet says, “He forms the light and creates the darkness, making peace and creating evil; I the Lord am doing all these things." As Troki comments, God is the perfect Unity as expressed in the prophet’s statement because as Troki knew, and the family members of the Kahana were aware, the Creator, the Destroyer and the Fool, were the three that became one and therefore there is no other being that affects this world either positively or negatively. That rests all in the power of God.

Troki warns us all that as soon as we entertain the possibility that a divisibility of essence can be attributed to God then we in turn find ourselves in agreement with the polytheists that certain spiritual beings possess certain attributes of power and the one God is no longer omnipresent not omnipotent. Even if we were to fall in the trap of attributing all evil to another being then we have suddenly provided a being of supreme power that can act independently and without constraint, both creating and destroying that is not God.

Nor in the New Testament is there any evidence to show that the concept of the Trinity was ever intended to be codified into early Christian belief, or that Yeshua and God were to be held as one and the same. In truth it is the exact opposite which is expounded. As Yeshua states in Mathew 10:40, “He that receives you receives me and he that receives me receives Him that sent me.” Yeshua is making it clear that he was merely a messenger sent by God and that if you accepted the message he was delivering, you shouldn’t be confused into thinking that it was of his own doing but in fact came from God much higher up. He was clearly giving his apostles the chain of command and if the apostles were captains, then he was their general, but he still took his orders from the Supreme Commander. No Trinity, no equivalence, merely a soldier doing the work of his superior officer

Predictions of a Worldwide Diaspora

It has often been said by Christian scholars that the dispersal of the Jews was God’s final judgment against us and that in so doing he has withdrawn his love and protection for his chosen people. It is a fallacious argument for many reasons that will be discussed in the body of this article, but nonetheless, these scholars persist in their argument based on what they claim is scriptural absence. But as a word of caution, Christian scholars should have never undertaken the debate with a Karaite, as Karaism's understanding of the Torah and Tanach has always been far more astute than our Rabbanite brethren that rely more often on Talmudic lore. Scriptural absence is a unique argument that goes as follows; If it is not recorded as such, then any statement that I make subsequently cannot be argued against since there is no scriptural record by which to dispute my statement. To quickly demonstrate the error of such an argument one merely has to point out that even though in the Decalogue there is no statement of “Thou shall not maim or torture,” a reasonable man would understand that just because God pointed out the extreme case to Moses of murder did not mean that He had no concern for the lesser acts of man’s inhumanity. But by these scholars’ argument, they have claimed that since the prophetic books of the Tanach speak only of the conquest by the Babylonians and Persians but say nothing of the Romans, then there could be no continuation of Jewish history following the Persian period without acknowledging that it was the end of the pre-Messianic era and that meant the Messiah had definitely come during the Roman occupation as all the works of the prophets had been fulfilled at the time of the second Temple. To support their argument they quote Matthew 11:13 where he states, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

Isaac ben Abraham of Troki dealt with this argument quite thoroughly and there’s very little I can add to his statements which are quite extensive and therefore for purposes of reader’s attention spans I will paraphrase to a large degree.

The Universal Disperal is Predicted

Troki’s first salvo in return was to quote Psalm 147:19-20 in order to demonstrate that God’s intentions to the end of time were not to be fully disclosed in scripture or by prophecy, where it say that, “He declareth his word unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel. He has not dealt so with any other nation, nor has He made known His judgments unto them.” Clearly God is forewarning all of us not to heed the words of Christian scholars because he has not provided them with any insight nor does He even recognize them.

But Troki was not prepared to accept the statement that the scriptures did not discuss the dispersal following the Roman occupation. He cited Deuteronomy 28:64 as his proof that God did foresee the event but since it was not in the books of prophecy, the Christian scholars had overlooked its presence. It reads, “And the Lord shall scatter thee among all the people, from the one end of the earth unto the other.” Until the advent of the Roman Empire, no other civilization could lay claim to conquering the known world. And since today’s modern society is an extension of the Roman Empire, having adopted much of its legal systems, language, alphabet, etc. then the scattering across the globe was only possible following this particular empire. Similarly, Troki uses Deuteronomy 3:3 to support his claim that the Roman dispersal was predicted. “That then the Lord they God will turn thy captivity…and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord they God has scattered thee.” Clearly this line would not apply to the Babylonian captivity since the Jews had only been exiled to Babylon and not scattered about the world. The reference had to clearly be made in regards to an ingathering from a worldwide Diaspora and not a singular Mesopotamian one.

The Temporary Exile

Upon hearing his argument, the Christian scholars challenged that Leviticus 26:38 outweighed all of his prior arguments and comments. In this verse we read, “And ye shall be lost among the gentiles and the land of your enemies shall consume you.” But this was neither a total loss nor an irrevocable one. Troki explained that the Hebrew word used for loss, ABAD, was purposely intended to infer a temporary state of despair. Similar to its use in Isaiah 27:13 where the ‘lost’ ones of Assyria and Egypt will also return. Furthermore he argued it would make no sense that six sentences later in Leviticus 26:44 God says, “And even this, when they shall be in the land of their enemies, I shall not reject them nor abhor them so as to consume them and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.” So as Troki clearly points out, the act of being lost was not permanent and God wished to clearly point this out within the same chapter and paragraph. But more importantly I would suggest that we pay attention to the use of the word ‘consume’. What is meant by the particular use of this word? When one consumes food it is metabolized and absorbed. It becomes part of the host which ate it and therefore continues on but in a new form. The reference therefore was not to a cessation but assimilation. And clearly in the second verse from Leviticus it is evident that God does not wish the term consumption to be viewed as a finality. For even those that have become assimilated will not be abhorred or rejected. Like the wayward child, God as parent will not break his word to them and continues to love them.

An Everlasting Promise
Troki quotes Deuteronomy 4:30-31 which states, “When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, thou shalt turn to the Lord they God and be obedient unto His voice. For the Lord they God is a merciful God and He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore unto them.” That being the case then the promise of the Lord was designed to outlast the exiles, no matter how many, how often or how distant the dispersals may have been. There was no expiry date as the Christian scholars tried to argue, nor was the promise ever to be withdrawn. As for the prophets, Isaiah does speak of the present time dispersal in 43:5-6 where the prophet says, “Fear not for I am with thee; I will bring they seed from the East, and gather thee from the West. I will say unto the North give up and to the South keep not back. Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the end of the earth.” Since the distribution of Jews to the four corners of the world did not take place until long after the prophets death, and more appropriately, not until long after the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans, his statement had to do with events long after Jesus as well. We could not be any further dispersed than we are now, pockets of us living in practically every country on the globe.

Once again, it was a Karaite that made the most successful arguments against these Christian Scholars in the sixteent century and once again it is a Karaite that reminds you that was true in Troki's time is even truer now.

Avrom Aryeh-Zuk Kahana

Karaite rejection of 'The Rejection of the Jews'

I have been watching an amazing phenomenum take place since I began this series of related articles. Though primarily a polemic highlighting the mistaken path taken by Messianic Jews, I now find that the series is in fact being linked to a number of Messianic and Christian sites that have focused on the issues raised in my articles regarding the Rabbinic philosophies and practices that led to the development of Christianity as justification for their own beliefs. How the interpretation of Messianic support can be misconstrued or distilled from such a polemic is beyond my comprehension. The polarization 180 degrees from the actual message is in itself a testimony to the human mind of how it can twist black and white into shades of grey as long as the blurring of the lines suits their purpose. Let me make it perfectly clear that as a Karaite my perspective is the antithesis of the Rabbanite view on such matters and therefore far from advocating their early distortions of messianic myth and legend that eventually realized as Christianity, I am in fact negating their arguments and therefore proposing that Christianity was the result of error and misinterpretation. This view is far from supporting the validity of beliefs in Jesus as messiah. I would hope that those linking or quotiing from my site would express the viewpoint that although early Pharisaic beliefs and the resultant Rabbanite faith would appear to support the advent of Christianity, it was in fact these early rabbinic Jewish beliefs that were nothing more than creative fabrications from which stemmed the later religion. Now that I hope that point is clear, we will examine Isaac ben Abraham of Troki's rational arguments of why Jesus was not the Messiah.

Rejection of Israel

One of the primary arguments made by Christian theologians is that God rejected Israel and then provided his love and protection to the Gentiles that held their faith in Jesus. The reason for His rejection of Israel was that the Jews refused to listen to the teachings of Jesus but went even further by executing judgment upon the Christian Messiah. These arguments would only hold water if one was to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus was the Messiah in the first place and since that is not the case, then how can there be any rejection for that which was not proven? But Isaac ben Abraham of Troki adopted a different approach. His was to look at who really rejected Jesus and a such he wrote:

Troki argued in the Hazuk Amunah that the concept of rejection of Israel never existed in the early Church. In fact, their argument of proof that necessitated that the Gentiles accepted Jesus as the messiah and that they acknowledge and put their faith in him for he suffered martyrdom for their sake did not occur until almost 300 years after his death when Constantine adopted the Christian faith for the Roman Empire. Prior to that, it was the Gentiles that persecuted and killed many of those proposing the Christian faith. So in fact he argued it was the Gentiles whom rejected Jesus until such time a political-theological alliance was created that had little to do with the teachings that they claimed the Jews rejected. Following Constantine's death, his son Constantine even rejected the established Christian articles of faith and adopted the Arian views, as did Julian that followed him. This refutation of Jesus's teachings was continuous throughout time by many that professed to be true adherants. Therefore Troki concludes, "How can they boast to be he preferred nation, selected in reward of their homage to Jesus, or how can they assume the name of Christians, since there exists among them no longer any observer of the Mosaical precepts which Jesus himself declared inviolable? Besides they deviate from his statutes by adding to and diminishing from the dictates of the Gospel, while he pronounced severe maledictions against those who should venture to add or to diminish from his word."

In addition to Troki's rebuttal, I would like to add my own comments regarding the 'Rejection of the Jewish Nation.' Firstly, as you will notice, I do use the term nation and will argue that the Jewish people are far more than a population of religious practitioners. The nation had its origin three thousand years ago and in spite of its dispersion, persecution, and partial extermination it has held together without disappearing from the annals of history. Since its orgin was unique to a particular set of people, and it generated its numbers through procreation within that same populace, then not only has it developed a distinct genetic profile but also cultural, historical, and legal subsets that are distinct from other populations, therefore meeting the defined requirements for a national heritage. Yes, over time converts have adopted Judaism and entered the population but they were of a such minute number their dilution effect would be equivalent to that of adding a glass of water to the ocean.

So as a distinct entity or nation as I have argued, we must examine the historical facts. Over the three thousand years of its existence, it has survived and outlived the dominations, persecutions, subjugations, assimilations and exterminations of the Egyptians, Hittites, Hurians, Canaanites, Philistines, Akkadians, Scythians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Sassanids, Caliphates, Byzantians, Ottomans and Europeans. Empires and nations of far greater size, worldly significance and influence. Whereas all other nations fell and were crushed under their heels, even these world dominating empires all faded over time until even their historical memories were practically lost from mankind, one small and insignificant nation survived. Once perhaps luck, twice possibly strategic intelligence, but to survive time and time again against impossible odds and never suffer extinction through natural attrition defies the human spirit. The probability to outlast the historical, socialogical and theological impacts of all these far greater powers would be a mathematical impossibility or conundrum to calcualate. Only through the hand of God could it have been possible and God's hand is only extended to those that he never rejected.

The Earthquake in Chile

The following letter was received today from an old schoolmate that lives in Chile. Being concerned for his welfare I made contact to see how he was. He's doing okay but the country is in a mess and the way he describes it, it would appear that it's only going to get worse. Here's his letter:

"Thanks for thinking of me. Yes, it was the "big one". The electric power is still out in my neighborhood, and in many other areas of Santiago there is no water either. The people are still in a daze, which is understandable, but the government is in even more of a daze, which is inexcusable. There is no coordination of reconstruction, no repair work going on, no aid, no information, and no law-and-order.

Even when things are normal, crime is out of control. So now in the south of Chile, where the tsunami struck, there is total anarchy, the law of the jungle. Even though President Bachelet declared a curfew in Concepción, they didn't send in any military forces to enforce it. In fact, the local authorities (ex-communists) opposed the curfew order saying that it "reminded them of the military dictatorship." This morning the Navy send in 150 soldiers -- in an area as large as southern Ontario and where nearly 2 million people live -- and the Army said it will send 1 battalion. But the local authorities are opposed to even that, so there will be yet another "coordination meeting" today to decide what to do while the insane violence rages out of control.

Practically all of the supermarkets and stores in the 2 affected regions have been looted and vandalized, and untold numbers of people have been killed or wounded in robberies and assaults. What is most enfuriating is that the very same poor families whose houses were destroyed or damaged are the ones that are being robbed of whatever little they managed to save -- while the police and military cannot intervene because they all know that if they use their firearms they will be the ones who will be imprisoned and the criminals will go free.

The official death toll (711) is way behind the actual count. Most of the cadavers have not yet been identified -- even in normal times, the coroner's offices are slow and understaffed, so with this disaster they have been completely overwhelmed. And since there is absolutely no central registry of missing persons, the number of missing can only be guessed at this point.

As soon as the earthquake struck on Saturday, the authorities "categorically ruled out" a tsunami, and they advised everybody to stay in their homes and not to flee the coastal areas because there was supposedly no risk of a tsunami. But the tsunamis did strike hundreds of kilometers of coastline and killed hundreds of people who would have fled had they been warned. Therefore the usual Chilean governmental policy of "lowering the profile" of problems and minimizing risks, in this case was not only a public relations disaster, it also caused hundreds of needless deaths.

This was the worst time for a disaster -- the gov't has only 10 more days left before Sebastián Piñera takes over on Mar. 11, and the bureaucracies were just going through the motions this summer anyway. The gov't wants to dump this whole problem on Piñera and then blame him for all the problems in disaster relief. But the people can't wait 10 more days for help.

And forget about foreign aid; the problem is not money or technology, it is primarily a problem of chronic ineptitude in the public sector. Even in the best of times in Chile, the public health system is a disgrace, the public education system is woefully inferior to private education, and the judicial system doesn't work. Therefore it is no surprise that the public sector is incapable of providing disaster relief now. Over the last 15 years there were several other examples of ineptitude in the face of minor earthquakes, floods and a volcano. Those fiascos should have served as a warning that if the "big one" were to hit, the country would be prostrated for a long time to come.

Many people in the street have commented that when a major earthquake struck in 1985, the military immediately deployed over 20,000 combat troops to crack down on looters and violence, and they also put a swift end to profiteering by ordering store owners at gunpoint to reduce their prices to their normal levels. This time, however, greedy merchants have quintupled the price of bread and other foodstuffs in the affected areas thus causing further hunger and desperation, which in turn leads to more violence and chaos.

Sadly, there is no spirit of solidarity this time as there always was in the past in the face of natural disasters. Chilean social groups, charities and news media had always responded heroically, as did the average person whenever they could help their neighbor. This time, however, the ugly side of human nature has prevailed. In large measure it is because there is no leadership from the top."

A Karaite Pointing the Finger of Blame

The Silence of the innocent

Why now? A simple question that deserves a simple answer. Although there are many that will argue that the world is a far better place now than it has ever been, based on their arguments that mankind has become more tolerant, more accepting of differences, more liberal in its thinking, more technologically attuned, less prejudicial against its fellow man and generally world focused regarding global causes rather than the egocentric universe of the past, I beg to differ. These are merely illusions provided to us on a daily basis by the spin doctors that control our media, our politicians, our education and if I dare say so, our religious institutions too. Scrape past the thin veneer and it becomes obvious that which is being promoted as a better, kinder, wiser world is in reality nothing more than a repackaging of everything we struggled and fought against in the past that we knew was wrong. But in past days we would speak up and would not tolerate the misappropriation of power. The wants and desires of the majority have been replaced by the whims and cravings of minorities wishing to exercise their way of life over the many. The prejudices of the past have taken on an entirely new set of labels; religious prejudices of the past are now adorned with national labels; color prejudices are merely shrouded in economic adjectives; cults and glamorized activists are merely the masks of those we viewed in the past as megalomaniacs bent on the destruction of the world. We have words such as ethnic cleansing, collateral damage, terrorism, anti-terrorism and anti-anti-terrorism bantered about as daily occurrences. Movies and television have raised the occult to a desirable status of the young generation, while an older generation looks at the anti-hero or the vigilante as a desirable endpoint since law and order no longer bears the hallmark of justice. Nothing has actually changed other than the fact that because we have now relabeled our sins of the past we can now say that mankind has progressed beyond those days of violence, pettiness and misguided prejudices. If the pendulum has swung the other way, then being 180 degrees from the starting point does not make the offense any better, merely different, designed to confuse and silence the average person who still dreams of a better world. And that is our greatest sin in that we have become silent and let this happen.

Curse of the Talmud


A while back I posed the question as to whether it was acceptable for someone to perform evil in order to achieve something good. That question runs throughout the plot of Shadows of Trinity (http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ShadowsOfTrinity.html) as each of the real-life characters was faced with answering the same question for themselves. To some it was clearly acceptable based on the things they did during those years at the end of sixteenth century. The Emperor Rudolf II definitely thought so since his status as monarch was preserved as a result, at least for another two decades before he was forced to abdicate. So it was not too surprising when some of my readers responded that they too would find it perfectly acceptable as long as the response was of a greater benefit than the action. Let me rephrase that, the majority of those that responded found it perfectly acceptable. But therein lies the problem because nothing in life is guaranteed. Just because one expects to achieve a certain result or reaction does not necessarily mean it will happen. Exactly the misguided premise that the Rabbis took when they decided to give their perspective on Christianity when writing the Talmud. Rather than deal with and confess to their own iniquity when they transformed the messiah legends that created the false legacy making Christianity possible in the first place as discussed in previous articles in this series, they instead chose to attack the religion that resulted from their fabrications, thinking that by doing so that they could make it disappear through ridicule and condemnation. Now it should be remembered that these were the ignorant actions of men living between the first and fourth centuries A.D. , so it would be difficult for us to expect any better of them or try to judge them according to modern standards but they are living proof that often evil actions do not result in good responses even though in their minds that was their expectation. Instead, by recording their religious intolerance, bias, prejudice and desire to see the Minim dead, they essentially created the future waves of anti-Semitism that underscored Christian history once the Church came to power. The Minim was an early Hebraic reference to the Christians along with the term Nazorean. The actual translation of Minim was those Jews that used the Torah in a manner deemed contrary to Judaism. One must remember that the early Christians were all Jews and therefore they’re justification of Jesus was Torah based since they used the very precepts that had been laid down by the rabbis to battle the Sadducees over the derivation of the messiah. Just how these so-called knowledgeable and righteous men could have expected any different response from a people they identified as enemies and worthy of being smitten from existence and sent to hell is beyond any reasoning I can think of? As it is written in the Talmud in Seder Mo’ed (Rosh Hashanah) page 17a, ‘But as for the Minim and the informers and the scoffers, who rejected the Torah and denied the resurrection of the dead, and those who abandoned the ways of the community, and those who ‘spread their terror in the land of the living’, and who sinned and made the masses sin, like Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his fellows — these will go down to Gehinnom and be punished there for all generations’. This very nice comment of condemnation to a rotting hell for eternity was not only directed at Christians but at Zadokites as well. One must not forget as much as the rabbis resented the early Christians their hatred for the Sadducees was far greater. In fact, anyone who disagreed with the rabbis was going to be sent to Hell forever. But the rabbis, whom I’ve often described as old men sitting about with nothing better to do than listen to the sound of their own voices, went further than they should, making comments regarding Christianity and Jesus that they barely attempted to disguise by giving false names to the individuals. But unable to restrain themselves they would always insert enough facts that it became obvious whom they were talking about as is the case of Sanhedrin 106a where they wrote, ‘Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, [did the children of Israel slay with the sword]. A soothsayer? But he was a prophet! R. Johanan said: At first he was a prophet, but subsequently a soothsayer. R. Papa observed: This is what men say, 'She who was the descendant of princes and governors, played the harlot with carpenters.' Examining their comment about a woman that was from the Davidic line that wed a carpenter, but played the harlot indicating she had someone else’s child, and that son was initially a prophet but became a soothsayer or magician subsequently is obviously alluding to Jesus. They furthermore say in their addled talk that he was slain as a result of the Jews which only further infuriated Christian clerics when they translated the Talmud. Their attempt to ridicule Christianity, never thinking it would become a dominant religion was their attempt to do something evil with the expected outcome that it would simply disappear over time. Such stupidity has led to the massacre of millions of Jews over time, all because a bunch of men sought power and had neither political nor diplomatic acumen to understand neither the ways of the world nor the foresight to realize that if you continually hit upon someone they will eventually hit back a hundred times harder.

The matter becomes even more obtuse when one realizes that the Talmud that is published today has undergone an extensive editing process over the years due to censorship. When Christian leaders became aware of some of the sayings of the Rabbis in the Talmud regarding Christianity and Jesus, they demanded these be changed. Some of the ancient Talmud manuscripts prior to these changes still exist today and one of the more noteworthy comments in Sandhedrin 107b was as follows: And a Master has said, 'Jesus the Nazarene practised magic and led Israel astray.' At first it doesn’t sound like much. Hardly enough to raise the ire or objections of any reader. It’s not until one appreciates what these rabbis have admitted in their statement. From my perspective they have publicly stated that Jesus possessed powers beyond that of most men and that he had a considerable following. As a Karaite I do not see this as a declaration of his being a messiah but what it does suggest to me that he most definitely had the abilities of a prophet, not dissimilar from an Elijah or an Elisha. If that was the case and they did know that he was special right from the start, then what were they thinking by continually ridiculing him in the Talmud. Surely they knew the lessons from the Tanach that we are a people guilty of harassing and attempting to slay the prophets sent to us by God and their own actions were reaffirming this.

It is obvious that these Rabbis had lost control of the situation. Rather than remedy the turmoil they created they only aggravated it further and alienated Jews and Christians further in the process. Nothing would improve and the resultant separation would never be resolved. The planned evil that they perpetrated certainly didn’t result in a bettering of mankind. Modern Rabbanites acknowledge that their ancient predecessors may have lacked critical judgment where necessary but then excuse them as having lived in an age without the benefits of critical scrutiny that we now possess. Rabbanites agree that some of the statements made were inflammatory and not worthy of men they hold in reverence and quickly shovel them underneath the carpet and exclaim that we can ignore these minor transgressions because of the greatness that is found elsewhere in the Talmud.

I for one am not so forgiving to accept that as a legitimate defence and I’m certainly not willing to accept any part of the Talmud which was written by these same men that were never divinely inspired based on the dissemination of intolerance that they exhibited in their writings. God would have never accepted that nor would advise His children to do so. But there also is a logical refutation to the defence made by the modern Rabbanites in support of these ancient Talmudists. And as a logical equation it removes any doubt as to their validity and is written as follows: If their logic was impaired; if their intentions were misguided and if the evil they perpetrated was nourished by malcontent and misinformation and then it must be accepted that their judgment was both inaccurate and unsupported in this regard. And that is being true then it must be assumed that everything else they’ve incorporated into the Talmud was made under identical conditions and therefore is doubtful as to its accuracy and authenticity. Essentially if they were completely wrong about their facts and approach in one area and that they fabricated the facts and stories to support their beliefs then the same will hold true for everything they produced. That would include their doctrines of the Messiah which were purposely designed to run contrary to those of the Sadducees and Zadokites. And from this we can deduce that if statement (A) being their intent behind particular stories in the Talmud was malicious and non-righteous, this leads to conclusion (C) that the Talmud was therefore not sanctioned by God. Furthermore statement (B) that these stories included derogatory and defamatory statements regarding sects and other religions which resulted from Rabbinical fabrications and lies regarding the advent of the messiah and perpetrated as in (A). That being the case, then if B=A and A=C then it can be concluded that similarly B=C indicating the resulting religions of Rabbinic alterations of the truth are not sanctioned by God.

It was this scenario that Isaac ben Abraham Troki found himself immersed in when he examined the repulsion between the two religions. But he also knew that as long as rabbinical dogma took a sarcastic and malicious approach to Christianity the slaughter of Jews by Christians would continue as a normal reaction of human nature. Only by exercising a logical approach and finding a way to promote self-evaluation amongst Christians he knew that many would see the validity and sense of his argument and Christianity would then be brought to a crossroads, not because the rabbis ridiculed them but because their own conscious demanded they do so. And upon self-evaluation he hoped they would recognise the preceding errors behind their origins and move closer to aligning themselves with Karaite beliefs.