My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Psalm 22:1
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" -which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" -Matthew 27:46
Chapters and verses were added to the Bible around 1500ad. Before then people would always identify a passage by saying the first line of it (making Bible memorization crucial). Many have wondered why Jesus said the words "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why would God forsake his only begotten Son? Isn't Jesus always with the Father, and the Father always with Jesus? The obvious answer is that Jesus became sin on the cross for our sakes (2Cor 5:21), and God cannot associate with sin. The other answer, the answer you may not know of, is that Jesus was identifying a Psalm. The Psalm he identified is Psalm 22. You should take some time to read it and see if it reminds you of something.
Now that you're done reading Psalm 22, I suppose you can tell that it describes the crucifixion in rather good detail. "scorned by men and despised by the people" -They yelled "crucify him." "All who see me mock me" -Jesus was mocked several times. "He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him" -just what the chief priests and teachers of the law said. "all my bones are out of joint" -crucifixion stretches the body, pulling bones out of joint. "My heart has turned to wax" -it's believed that Jesus died of cardiac arrest. "my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth" -Jesus said "I am thirsty." "Dogs have surrounded me" -dogs is a common word used for gentiles, and Jesus was surrounded by Romans. "a band of evil men has encircled me" -Jesus was crucified between two criminals, and surrounded by the Romans doing the act. "they have pierced my hands and feet" -nails driven into Jesus' hands and feet. "I can count all my bones" -None of Jesus' bones were broken, unlike the two criminals whose legs were broken. "cast lots for my clothing" -Romans cast lots for Jesus' clothing.
The Atheists will call this postdiction. Postdiction means that someone writes a story, either entirely fictional or partly fictional, with the intent of fulfilling some specific prophecies. In other words, some people made up the crucifixion story to fit with this Psalm, as well as all the other prophecies (Isaiah 53 and others). The first difficulty with this is that the entire list of details comes from a collection of all four gospel accounts. In only Matthew and Mark does Jesus say "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And there's not one gospel account that has all these details in it. So in order for postdiction to be true all the writers of the gospels would have had to conspire to achieve this. The other thing that makes it difficult is the fact that this psalm was never perceived to be prophetic. It was poetry not prophecy, so what would prompt a bunch of collusive story-tellers to adapt it in that way? It only makes sense for it to be a genuine fulfillment of prophecy, but I won't stop there.
When was David's hands and feet pierced? The writer of this psalm, David, says "they have pierced my hands and my feet." However there is nothing that ever records David having his hands or feet pierced. Was it an expression? Maybe, but we do not hear that expression anywhere else in the Bible, nor do we know of that being an expression of that time. The closest thing to an expression like that would be Job 30:17 - "Night pierces my bones." So why did he say it? The only reasonable answer is that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to prophesy about the crucifixion of Jesus. But even if it was just an expression, what a convenient coincidence for those collusive story-tellers. Crucifixion was invented by the Persians around 500bc, long after David wrote this psalm. Crucifixion was then perfected and widely used by the Romans starting in the first century BC. Jesus was crucified, something that is confirmed even by secular historians and the Jewish Talmud. And crucifixion is one of the rare reasons anyone would ever have their hands and feet pierced. I can't think of any other reason in the first century, but maybe you can. Add all of this together and it would be one great coincidence that an expression would accurately describe a form of execution that hadn't even been invented yet. Again the only logical answer is that David was writing by the Holy Spirit, and was foretelling of the crucifixion of Christ.
So the Atheists are then required to believe that four or more people got together, devised or amended an elaborate story, fulfilled prophecies and poetry, benefited from atleast one greatly convenient coincidence, and were able to convince people of its truth, even their contemporaries. I don't know about you, but I'm not an Atheist for alot of reasons.
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" -which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" -Matthew 27:46
Chapters and verses were added to the Bible around 1500ad. Before then people would always identify a passage by saying the first line of it (making Bible memorization crucial). Many have wondered why Jesus said the words "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why would God forsake his only begotten Son? Isn't Jesus always with the Father, and the Father always with Jesus? The obvious answer is that Jesus became sin on the cross for our sakes (2Cor 5:21), and God cannot associate with sin. The other answer, the answer you may not know of, is that Jesus was identifying a Psalm. The Psalm he identified is Psalm 22. You should take some time to read it and see if it reminds you of something.
Now that you're done reading Psalm 22, I suppose you can tell that it describes the crucifixion in rather good detail. "scorned by men and despised by the people" -They yelled "crucify him." "All who see me mock me" -Jesus was mocked several times. "He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him" -just what the chief priests and teachers of the law said. "all my bones are out of joint" -crucifixion stretches the body, pulling bones out of joint. "My heart has turned to wax" -it's believed that Jesus died of cardiac arrest. "my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth" -Jesus said "I am thirsty." "Dogs have surrounded me" -dogs is a common word used for gentiles, and Jesus was surrounded by Romans. "a band of evil men has encircled me" -Jesus was crucified between two criminals, and surrounded by the Romans doing the act. "they have pierced my hands and feet" -nails driven into Jesus' hands and feet. "I can count all my bones" -None of Jesus' bones were broken, unlike the two criminals whose legs were broken. "cast lots for my clothing" -Romans cast lots for Jesus' clothing.
The Atheists will call this postdiction. Postdiction means that someone writes a story, either entirely fictional or partly fictional, with the intent of fulfilling some specific prophecies. In other words, some people made up the crucifixion story to fit with this Psalm, as well as all the other prophecies (Isaiah 53 and others). The first difficulty with this is that the entire list of details comes from a collection of all four gospel accounts. In only Matthew and Mark does Jesus say "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And there's not one gospel account that has all these details in it. So in order for postdiction to be true all the writers of the gospels would have had to conspire to achieve this. The other thing that makes it difficult is the fact that this psalm was never perceived to be prophetic. It was poetry not prophecy, so what would prompt a bunch of collusive story-tellers to adapt it in that way? It only makes sense for it to be a genuine fulfillment of prophecy, but I won't stop there.
When was David's hands and feet pierced? The writer of this psalm, David, says "they have pierced my hands and my feet." However there is nothing that ever records David having his hands or feet pierced. Was it an expression? Maybe, but we do not hear that expression anywhere else in the Bible, nor do we know of that being an expression of that time. The closest thing to an expression like that would be Job 30:17 - "Night pierces my bones." So why did he say it? The only reasonable answer is that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to prophesy about the crucifixion of Jesus. But even if it was just an expression, what a convenient coincidence for those collusive story-tellers. Crucifixion was invented by the Persians around 500bc, long after David wrote this psalm. Crucifixion was then perfected and widely used by the Romans starting in the first century BC. Jesus was crucified, something that is confirmed even by secular historians and the Jewish Talmud. And crucifixion is one of the rare reasons anyone would ever have their hands and feet pierced. I can't think of any other reason in the first century, but maybe you can. Add all of this together and it would be one great coincidence that an expression would accurately describe a form of execution that hadn't even been invented yet. Again the only logical answer is that David was writing by the Holy Spirit, and was foretelling of the crucifixion of Christ.
So the Atheists are then required to believe that four or more people got together, devised or amended an elaborate story, fulfilled prophecies and poetry, benefited from atleast one greatly convenient coincidence, and were able to convince people of its truth, even their contemporaries. I don't know about you, but I'm not an Atheist for alot of reasons.
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