I don’t often reprint an article in full that I have recently read. But I think you will enjoy this one. Half way through you will see the word IsikAbla. Isik was raised a Muslim and married a Muslim in Turkey. Both experiences were abusive. She fled this abuse and arrived in America only to start life over again. She became a Christian and started a TV-internet-social Media ministry to Muslim countries that now reaches millions. She has six million followers on Facebook. So the figures she quotes, though astounding, are accurate.

Enjoy

Kevin

“A country with 48,000 mosques and not one church building; ranked #3 (behind North Korea and Somalia) on Open Door’s World Watch List of countries where Christian persecution is most severe, is listed by Operation World as the country with the second fastest church growth in the world. That country is Afghanistan.

Not to diminish this fact, but one reason the growth rate appears high is because the evangelical population is so small to begin with. Still, this trend is confirmed by all of our ministry partners working with Afghans both inside and outside the country. There is, without a doubt, a significant, identifiable work of God, such as never before, taking place among Afghans today.

Like in the days of the Apostles where Paul, who was zealous for the Law and guilty of killing and imprisoning Christians was shown grace and had a miraculous conversion where the Lord appeared to him, the same God is at work in Afghanistan. There are mullahs who have come to Christ through supernatural means who have hundreds of followers. Some former Taliban members who have found forgiveness and new life in Christ are staring death in the face and sharing the Lord with other Taliban fighters and leaders.

One surprising statistic surfaced from IsikAbla’s TV, Internet, and social media ministry at the end of 2017. The #1 city worldwide for her Facebook engagements (reactions, comments, and shares) was Kabul, Afghanistan with 182,781. Kabul also ranked #2 in the list of top cities for Facebook followers (behind Cairo) with 315,840.

This figure is even more suggestive of the hunger for the truth among Afghans in that social media users account for only 9% of Afghanistan’s 34 million people, and that access and use of the Internet reaches only about 12% of the population. Eighty percent of users are 18-30 years old.*

Work among Afghan refugees

Our ministry partners also report a significant openness and response to the gospel among Afghan refugees in Iran and Turkey. In an article from Relief Web dated Feb. 7, 2018, it was reported that:

“Four decades of conflict in Afghanistan has led to massive displacement of Afghans across the surrounding sub-region. Iran alone has received around three million Afghan refugees. Close to one million of these have been registered by the government and are thus, afforded protection and are eligible for assistance. However up to two million remain un-documented and therefore have neither formal legal status nor access to assistance. Up to 800,000 of these undocumented refugees are considered to be extremely vulnerable.”

Typically, Iranians are highly educated; Afghans are not. Many Iranians look down on Afghans and treat them badly. But in today’s Persian-speaking church inside Iran you not only see many Afghans coming to Christ, but incredibly, serving alongside Iranians.

Iranian Christians have sought out these Afghan refugees to care for them. The reason they are coming to Christ, as one Afghan put it, is because “Iranians never cared for us, but you (Iranians) have loved us. That is what attracted us to Christ.”

About 70% of the Afghan population speak and understand Afghan Persian (Dari). Thus Iranian believers have also been instrumental in exposing Afghans to modern day, understandable translations of the Scripture that has been a great help in evangelism and discipleship.

Extraordinary results are being seen in Turkey as well, where Iranian refugees have reached out to the Afghan refugees. Some Afghan converts are now pastoring churches and leading many to Christ. One couple alone has led more than 100 people to Christ. Another influence in the move of God inside Afghanistan has been that many of these refugee converts are communicating with their relatives and friends at home. They tell them that they are following the wrong God, then lead them to Christ and disciple them from outside the country.

Major factors influencing the this move of God among Afghans

1. Prayer

For decades there have been Christians and groups from around the world praying for Afghanistan. Finally, we are seeing the stony ground being cleared so that there is soft soil where the seeds of the Word of God are being planted in people’s hearts. Fruit is beginning to be seen.

Still, many Afghan converts are fearful and lead dangerous lives. Converts must be careful about sharing their faith to avoid persecution by the Islamists, the police, and even their own family members and neighbors. In the village areas where conversion to Christianity is more noticeable and brings shame to families, converts suffer more persecution than in Kabul or the bigger cities. Continue to pray that the breakthroughs we are seeing increase until a full harvest is reaped.

2. The Blood of Martyrs

Prior to 9/11/2001 many Afghans–tired of war and conflict and fearful of the Taliban who came into power in 1996–fled the country. After 9/11 when the American forces came in and the Taliban were routed and defeated, many Afghans returned with hope and optimism for their country. People believed they had a chance for a new future after decades of war and fighting.

Along with those returning came expats, including a number of Christian missionaries. This started in 2002. A number of Christians came in under the umbrella of various aid and medical groups until 2007-2008 when their numbers began to dwindle. By 2014 most had stopped coming.

Many lives had been lost. A conservative estimate is that around 30-40 missionaries, as well as Afghan converts, were martyred. But an indigenous work, springing from the blood of those martyrs began, and is now spreading.

3. Fear, War, and Insecurity

Afghanistan has been a war-torn country for decades that has reduced it to ruin and privation. It has survived under the influence and control of many outside powers, including the British, the Soviet Union, and more recently, Western powers. Though the Taliban (which at one time controlled 90% of the country) were beaten back by U.S. and coalition forces, they, along with ISIS continue to be menacing and threatening forces–killing and terrorizing (sometimes innocent children) just to incite fear, subjugation and compliance. Muslims killing other Muslims has also been a factor contributing to the crumbling respect for Islam and the growing openness to alternative beliefs, such as Christianity.

4. Unemployment

With 40% unemployment, youth and young families see little hope for a future in Afghanistan. Many young men resort to fighting for the Taliban or ISIS just to collect a paycheck. But the depression and despair living in a poor society with little opportunity has made Afghans more open to the good news of a God who loves them, has a purpose for their lives, and can give them hope.

Pray: for this indigenous work of God taking place among the Afghan people.

Pray: Let’s rejoice in the growth of His church and pray for the new believers to be protected, to grow in maturity, and to be effective in outreach to others.

Pray: Also, join our brothers and sisters in Christ in praying for His peace for their war-torn land.

http://www.operationworld.org/country/afgh/owtext.html

In the 19^th Century many academics were eagerly embracing the theory of evolution and applying it to all sorts of situations; from human origins, to eugenics, to social structures, and to sadly, to legalise racism. They also applied this presupposition to Judaeo-Christian theology in order to destroy it. All Biblical narrative was suspect and subject to review from academics who had finally unlocked the key to a true understanding of how religions began. German higher critics proposed very successfully that religion evolved from simple to complex structures as society evolved.

The champion of these scholars was Julius Wellhousen. Using what he called the Documentary Hypothesis, he persuasively argued in his Prolegomena to the History of Israel that Genesis was written in the middle of the millennium just before Christ, not a full millennium before that, as stated in the Old Testament. He theorised that there were four authors who wrote the Old Testament from 850BC through to 450BC as a way of justifying social structures. Wellhousen’s theories dominated Biblical studies for a hundred years and still influence critics today.

But is this theory true in the light of discoveries made since he propagated his theories?

First of all we must be very suspicious of any theory that relies on evolutionary presuppositions for its foundation. A multitude of genetic discoveries (links here, here, here, here, here and here) in the last two decades are rapidly undermining the entire superstructure of evolutionary theory and providing startling evidence that our genome is not evolving upward at all but rather heading quite rapidly toward genetic entropy, or in layman’s terms, extinction!

But more importantly there is an abundance of evidence from within the Old Testament itself, and particularly Genesis, that the origin of these writings lies in deep history. Here are some of those evidences for an origin for Genesis somewhere in the early second Millennium BC:

Genesis describes a war in the Middle East between international foes. Many of the names mentioned in Genesis 14:1-9 appear only in the period 2,000-1,500 BC and no later. In addition, only in this era were armies able to move across this area with ease.

Some customs that appear in Genesis do continue into later periods, but their concentration in Genesis is unique. These include the custom of taking a surrogate if ones wife was barren for seven years (Genesis 16:1-4) and a betrothal gift that allows the bridegroom to marry (Genesis 34:12).

The city of Harran appears again and again, in Genesis 11:31-32, 12:4, 27:43, 28:10 and 29:4. Archaeology confirms that this city was occupied and thriving in the early second Millennium BC occupied by coalitions of Amorites.

Grazing in great distances (100km) from one’s home only occurs in Genesis, but not later in the Old Testament. For example, Joseph’s brothers graze their flocks some 100km north of Hebron, in the high country now occupied by Jerusalem. Only in this era and no later do we find confirming evidence from non-Biblical accounts of similar activity by other groups such as the Amorites in Northern Syria.

Benjamin is the only son named by his father after the family migrates south to the area of Bethlehem, just outside Jerusalem. His name is identical to an 18^th Century BC tribal confederation that lived in Syria known as the Binu-Yamina, meaning south. The names for his two brothers Asher and Zebulon also only occur in this era in all extra-Biblical records.

Joseph’s brothers sell him for 20 shekels of silver. This was the price of a young male slave only in the second Millennium BC.

The closest parallel to Genesis 1-11 comes not from the 7^th Century BC Babylonian Enuma Elish, but from the 18^th Century BC Atrahasis Epic.

The global flood mentioned in Genesis 6-9 is confirmed by the Gilgamesh Epic on display at the British Museum and the Atrahasis Epic mentioned above. It is also confirmed by over two hundred indigenous flood legends from around the world.

Some of the names that occur in Genesis 1-11 only occur in extra-Biblical sources from the first half of the 2^nd Millennium BC. These include Methuselah, Methushael, Tubal-Cain and Jabal.

As can clearly be seen, the traditional understanding of the timeframe of Genesis is on safe ground. You can read it with confidence in the events spoken of. It is important to note that none of the evidences listed above delve into the extensive scientific evidences for the accuracy of Genesis. They will be tackled in another blog.

Kevin Davis

Last year I started studying radiometric dating to see if the grand old ages for the earth, as presented by the evolutionary establishment do indeed stack up. This is something every thinking person on the planet should do. Below is a snippet of what I found out and will be in an essay published on the website later this year.

Modern radioisotope dating methods are like watching sand slide through an hour glass and working backwards to find the initial starting time. To trust an hour glass that is running with sand at the bottom we have to know if it was empty when we started, whether the flow has been consistent and unclogged, and whether no sand was added or subtracted from the pile at the bottom before we observed it.

The first of those three assumptions, in science-speak, goes something like this:

When the rock forms and hardens there should only be parent radioactive atoms in the rock and no daughter radiogenic atoms derived by radioactive decay.

If this assumption is violated, then the technique fails and all dates produced are false. If daughter atoms were present then the assumed age would be much older than the real age. Lets look at this assumption in detail to see if it stacks up by looking at the ages given for rocks that have a known historical age.

The potassium-argon (K–Ar) dating method is often used to date volcanic rocks. In using this method, it is always assumed that there was no daughter radiogenic argon in rocks when they formed. The K–Ar method works on the assumption that the radioactive decay ‘clock’ begins to ‘tick’ after the lava cooled and solidified as the argon from radioactive decay was unable to escape and started to accumulate.

For volcanic rocks which cool from molten lava, this would seem to be a reasonable assumption. Because argon is a gas, it should escape to the atmosphere due to the intense heat of the lava. It also assumes that no argon from radioactive decay was present initially. We can test these assumptions by studying modern lava flows of a known historic date.

In 1996 geologist Andrew Snelling investigated lava flows from Mt Ngauruhoe in New Zealand (Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies!). Eleven samples were collected from five recent lava flows that occurred in 1949, 1954 and 1975.

The samples were sent progressively in batches to Geochron Laboratories in Boston for whole-rock potassium-argon (K–Ar) dating. Geochron is a respected commercial laboratory, with the K–Ar lab manager having a Ph.D. in K–Ar dating. The ‘dates’ obtained from the K–Ar analyses ranged from 0.27 to 3.5 (± 0.2) million years for rocks which were observed to have cooled from lava 25–50 years ago. The lab manager kindly re-checked his equipment and re-ran several of the samples, producing similar results. This ruled out a systematic lab error and confirmed that the low results were real.

Clearly, the argon content varies greatly within these rocks. Some geochronologists would say <0.27 million years is actually the correct ‘date’, but how would they know that 3.5 million years was not in fact the correct ‘age’ if they did not already know the lava flows were recent?

Because these rocks are known to be less than 50 years old, the K–Ar dates in the hundreds of thousands of years must be due to excess argon the rock inherited from the magma deep in the earth when the rock first formed. When the lava cooled the rocks contained higher than zero concentrations of normal radiogenic argon, which is indistinguishable from daughter radiogenic argon derived by radioactive decay of its parent potassium.

Some critics have argued that the magma must have picked up chunks of old rock as it moved through the Earth. They claim, without evidence, that these pieces of old rock, xenoliths, contaminated the sample and gave the very old age. Dr Austin anticipated this line of criticism and was particularly careful to identify xenoliths and ensure none were included in the sample. Other critics suggested feldspar crystal size gave wrong ages. This criticism was also anticipated, and proved incorrect as the old ages came from multiple crystals.

In another obvious example of dating error, rock samples from a lava dome within the Mount St Helens in the USA were dated using the K-Ar method. Whole-rock samples gave ages from 1.0 to 3.5 million years. However, the lava dome only formed after Mount St Helens exploded in 1980 and the samples were just 10 years old at the time the samples were tested. Similar errors have been compiled for historically known lava flows in Hawaii, Mt Etna in Italy, Mt Lassen in California and the Sunset crater in Arizona.

These examples of dating error clearly violate assumption number one of radioactive dating. The bottom of the geological hourglass was not empty of radioactive “sand” when it was flipped. Therefore, all potassium-argon tests and dates for the earth’s basement rocks are invalid. If the method fails on rocks when we have an independent eye-witness account, then why should we trust it on other rocks where there are no independent historical cross-checks?

In regards to rocks of unknown history but the same origin and location, radioisotope dating often gives us vastly inconsistent ages. This is another clue that daughter atoms were present when the rocks were formed. One study took samples of rock from the Grand Canyon and tested their ages with respected laboratories. Seven samples from one rock formation, which should all be the same age because they belong to the same metamorphosed basalt lava flow, gave ages ranging from 1,060 million to 2,574 million years. This includes two samples only 0.84 meters apart that yielded K-Ar model ages of 1,205 million years and 2,574 million years respectively. Is it any wonder that preconceived assumptions about the age of the earth play such a huge role in the dates that are accepted and those that are rejected?

Kevin Davis

John Money was a New Zealander who grew up in a Christian home, but rebelled against the teachings of his parents. He went on to become a psychologist and moved to John Hopkins University in the USA, where he worked for many years. In 1955 he published an article in the Bulletin of the John Hopkins Hospital in which we see the word gender being used for the very first time to replace the traditional word sex in describing male and female. Seemed harmless enough until you understand more about Dr John Money.

As an adult, John Money had become a self-confessed “missionary of sex”, encouraging bisexual group sex, open marriages and refusing to condemn incest and paedophilia. It was he who unveiled to the world the novel idea that gender was a social construct rather than a biological certainty.

In 1967 Dr Money got to try out his theory on a little boy who had been through a botched circumcision and had lost most of his penis. His name was Bruce Reimer. Money advised the parents to tidy up the wound with a virginal fold, raise the boy as a girl and all would be fine. Since in Dr Money’s thinking gender was simply a social construct there would be no problem, the child would become what ever society said it should be. Bruce Reimer became Brenda Reimer.

Money misrepresented the case in glowing terms in a series of published papers, telling the world that Reimer had changed happily to the feminine gender. Time Magazine (January 1973) was sucked in by it all, declaring that this case was “providing strong support  for a major contention of women’s liberationists: that conventional patterns of masculine and feminine behaviour can be altered”. His case was used as justification for the sex resaignment of hundreds of babies in the years that followed.

But it was all a lie. Brenda never self-identified as a girl and found the medical and psychological treatment by Dr Money deeply traumatic. According to The Guardian (May 12th 2004) Reimer recounts therapy sessions where Money would show him and his twin brother explicit pornographic pictures and yell at the boys to take their clothes off.

When Brenda Reimer was finally told at the age of 14 about his original sex was male, Brenda promptly reverted to male, took the name David and tried to undo the hormonal feminisation he has been subjected to. He underwent a double mastectomy, had testosterone injections and a penile reconstruction. In 1990 he married and was a dad to three stepchildren. In December 1997 David Reimer finally went public with the sad truth in the Rolling Stone Magazine, the same year that the truth was told to the medical profession in a March article in the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine.

After 14 years of marriage his wife left David Reimer. It was too much for this sad young man and he took his life at the age of just 38 years, thanks to the seriously disturbing theories of a psychologist who was on a mission to change societies understanding of sexuality into his own warped mold. Because of him, the myth that gender is simply a social construct has gone from strength to strength and thousands of mentally disturbed young people are suffering a similar fate as David/Brenda/David Reimer, with a suicide rate 20 times the average.

Kevin Davis

In recent blogs I have highlighted the danger to Judao-Christian culture from the transgender agenda. Today I want to talk about their Australian “Trojan horse”, the Safe Schools Program.

Let’s begin by acknowledging we live in the most sexually saturated culture in the history of the planet. Pornography is now normalised in teenagers, even down to primary school. My own surveys of high school students as a teacher over many years confirm this brutal fact. Average first exposure is now 11 years, and thats average, so half are being exposed earlier than that. Most paedophiles are actually young men, saturated in pornography. Teenage girls are being shamed and abused by young men in a way that will make you blush, porn acts are now expected of them. Homosexuality has also been normalised. Experimentation is expected and “cool”.

Into this bonfire of human dignity comes the transgender agenda and the Safe Schools Program. It is compulsory in all Victorian schools from 2018. Under the pretence of an anti-bullying program it has quickly morphed into a gay/porn grooming agenda. It promotes the idea that sexuality is fluid, all choices are valid, gender is disposable and anyone who questions it is a “bully”. It is gay group-think gone mad and imposed on impressionable youth. Its philosophy says humans are no longer born into a biological sexuality, children can invent and choose it for themselves. The child is now the king of its own sexual destiny over and above its parents, and the exaltation of various child sexual rights is the ground zero in the transgender and “Safe Schools” debate.

This program presents a fundamental philosophical conflict between those who believe in the binary nature of human biology and those who believe in a non-binary view of sexuality. It goes right down to the ultimate question: what is a human being? It is an attempt to overturn what God has decided! Year 7-8 children are being told their gender is fluid and they are informed sexual agents. Sexual orientation is who you are attracted to, gender identity is who you identify as. If it is a continuum, then every human can choose any one of dozens, hundreds, and perhaps millions of genders, defying biology.

The architect of the Safe Schools program is on the public record as advocating paedophilia. If children can choose their gender and be sexualised, then the laws about paedophilia will eventually be changed. A group called MINUS18 provides 80% of resources for the Safe Schools program. It is an overtly homosexual organisation with close links with the seedy underworld of the gay movement. I know, I checked the links on its brochures. It was that simple. The sexualisation of kids now being institutionalised and funded by taxpayers. The Safe Schools program is a legally enforced government funded homosexual grooming agenda designed to destroy heterosexuality and female/ male differences. Children who object to the program are now being bullied by teachers.

The law is rapidly setting this new philosophy into social concrete. Universities teach from day one that all relationships are social constructs. Ontario, Canada recently passed a law (sponsored by the MP the Reverend Cheri DiNovo, who also describes herself as a “Christian”) banning conversion therapy for transgender children, even though studies have shown about 90% of them grow out of it. When confronted with this fact by Professor John Whitehall, she said she was unaware of the research. Such astounding ignorance from such a strong advocate. From February 17th 2017, medical practitioners in Victoria became liable if they do not comply with wishes of children who wish to undergo a gender realignment therapy or sex change. The head of the world’s leading research unit into child sexuality had to resign and the unit shut down right after the Ontario bill was passed. It advocated and successfully used conversion therapy as a healthy way to deal with transgender kids.

This issue is not going away.

Kevin Davis

Check out the three photos below, one of a liger (cross between a lion and a tiger), a wolphen (a cross between a killer whale, which is in reality a large dolphin, and a dolphin) and a zorse (a cross between a horse and a zebra). Each is a hybrid between two species and a hybrid is often has better vigour, as can be seen in the size of the liger.

How can these creatures exist? It’s a hard question for an evolutionist but an easy one for a creationist.

God made all creatures “after their own kind” and this means there was a cat kind, a bear kind, dolphn kind, horse kind etc. Our modern classification of “species” is one level down from “kind”. The modern name for “kind” is genus.

This explains how Noah could have taken all the animals onto the ark. He only needed one sample from each kind on the ship. One bear, one cat, one dog. Evolutionists often laugh at the concept of all species fitting into a ship 140m by 50m, when in reality they weren’t there and the kinds could have fitted easily, with room to spare.

In Matthew 8:14-15 (and in Mark and Luke) an event is recorded where Jesus was back in his local area around Lake Galilee and visiting Peter’s home. Peter’s mother-in-law was in the house and very sick with a fever of an unknown description. Upon becoming aware of the situation Jesus heals the woman and she joins the other women in cooking and caring for Jesus and his noisy team of trainees, the disciples.

This gives a little bit of information about Jesus’ methods of travel and team dynamics. It suggests they frequented the homes of team members and supporters often for both nourishment and rest. This is confirmed by their strong relationship and extended visits with Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus when down at Jerusalem.

It also tells us a little about family structure in ancient Israel. Family looked after family, regardless of generational and relational differences. Since he was married, it is highly probable that Peter had children, possibly quite a few. Jesus was one of at least 6 children born to Mary and Joseph (Matthew 13:55-56) so this was probably a normal sized family for that era before birth control.

Why would a married, tough, smelly, burly fisherman leave his business, wife and children for 3 years? Since there was no government welfare state and these men were often the breadwinners for their families. The businesses were probably left in the hands of relatives, or if Peter was an older man, with an eldest son. The family must have been looked after somehow. In any case they were back home visiting friends and relatives frequently.

Fishermen, like dairy farmers, would only leave their livelihood if they had a very strong reason. That reason must have been the ongoing evidence that Jesus was a very special man worth the sacrifice. Peter announces his own conclusion in Matthew 16:16 where he says publically he believes Jesus is the promised Messiah, long prophesied in Jewish scripture.

This brings us the question of Peter’s wife. She is not mentioned in scripture, but we have some clues as to what she was like. 1 Peter 3:1-7 gives us a description of the ideal wife. He talks about inner beauty, a gentle heart, purity, and a women tuned into her husband. Could it be that Peter’s wife was the opposite of Peter, who was a brash man, given to compulsive behaviour (Matthew 14:22-23), taking risks and speaking his mind when not it was not appropriate (Matthew 26:69-76)? Opposites attract so this is a real possibility.

Did Peter’s wife join him in ministry after the resurrection of Jesus, after her mother-in-law had passed away and the children had grown up? Probably! There is a clue in 1 Corinthians 9: 5 where Paul makes the following statement: “Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles?” The whole tone of 1 Corinthians 9 suggests there was obviously friction between Paul and the other church leaders at the time, which, because of his big mouth, probably meant Peter.

Most scholars agree that there was a significant gap of some 10 years between the resurrection of Jesus and the reluctant decision by the apostles to begin reaching out beyond Israel after getting a spiritual kick up the backside by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10). This would have meant Peter spent a lot of time at home, the children would have grown up and the middle-aged couple were free to engage in serious ministry to the wider Roman Empire. Were their children in ministry too as they grew older?

This brings us to the final question. Was Peter’s wife in Rome when he was crucified? Once again, probably! If she was travelling with him she would have wanted to be there when he was incarcerated and facing the death penalty. If not travelling with him she would have heard about it quickly through the now widespread Christian grapevine and tried to get there ASAP as he was incarcerated for some time. If she was already with him when he was caught, was she also caught ministering with him and killed at the same time? These are questions that we cannot answer but history leans that way.

I trust this helps you as much as it helped me when I first started asking questions about Peter’s family.

Kevin

In Matthew 27:9-10 we see Matthew quoting from Jeremiah to bolster the case that the betrayal of Jesus was prophetically announced hundreds of years before. The problem correctly pointed out by Biblical critics is that the quote has nothing to do with Jeremiah!

Wikipedia, fountain of all unbiased knowledge, gleefully pronounces that this is an example of ” the early Christians’ fictional and imaginative use of the Old Testament as a book about Jesus.”

However, as usual the truth lies buried deeper in antiquity. We have two better options:

1. Combined Prophecies…

It turns out there could be two passages being welded together into this quote. This was a common rabbinical technique that combined related prophetic passages to reveal meaning. In this case combining Jeremiah 19:1-11 and Zechariah 11:12-13.

However, Jeremiah mentions nothing of the field, the price, or the potters field. But it does contain a clear prophecy about a coming judgement on Israel that begins in the area of the garden of Gethsemane/Mount Zion/Kidron Valley. It lines up very closely with the prophecies given by Jesus about the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 24.

Because Zachariah mentions details of the silver, potters field and betrayal, but is not a prophecy, it is combined with Jeremiah. Because Jeremiah is the major prophet he gets the credit. I don’t like this interpretation!

2. Just Zachariah…

The second possibility is that there was an error in translating the story into the Greek manuscripts, which came after earlier versions in Aramaic or Hebrew. The Greek manuscripts only mention Jeremiah. However, the earlier Aramaic version of Matthew doesn’t even mention the name of any prophet. In addition, the quote is clearly a paraphrase from Zachariah, not Jeremiah as you will see if you go to this link.

In the footnotes to Matthew 27:9-10 in the Passion Translation there is also a reference to the Hebrew version of Matthew with a claim that it only mentions Zachariah as the source of the scriptures. I have now verified this source. I have also emailed the publishers to send me the link to their Hebrew Version of Matthew to double check.

So the evidence is that it is clearly a quote from Zachariah and that the Greek translators of Matthew got it wrong. It is also clear that the Greek translations come after earlier versions in the languages of Israel at the time; Aramaic and Hebrew. This would make perfect sense given Greek was of no use to the first readers who were mainly Jewish and several early church fathers speak of earlier Hebrew versions of Matthew in circulation.

This also explains why Wikipedia critics, using only the Greek, have once again come to a conclusion that suits their worldview.

Kevin Davis

The second law of thermodynamics states that total energy always decreases over time in a closed system. Things break down! The human genome is also subject to mutational entropy at 300 mutations per generation. So, if we extrapolate backwards we come to a point at which our genome must have zero entropy and was perfect. Travelling forward in time we come to a point when all genomes will be extinct. Here are six lines of evidence proving genetic entropy:

1. RNA viruses

The Spanish Flu, H1N1, killed between 50 and 100 million people. By 2009 it was extinct after 15% of its genome of 12,600 nucleotides had mutated. It followed a perfect linear mutation accumulation rate and a perfect exponential biological decay curve. The H2N2 and H3N2 outbreaks are now following the same decay curve.

2. From 450,000 to 3.6 million in 4,000 years

The accumulation of human mutations has grown from 450,000 in Eskimos that lived 4,000 years ago to approximately 3.6 million mutations today. Extrapolating backwards gives us a perfect human genome around 4,000BC. This equates to 15,000 new mutations per generation sometime in our recent past compared to the 300 per generation today. This is a differential demanding further study.

3. Recent Deterioration

In addition, a 2013 study of 6,515 individuals concluded that approximately 86% of all single nucleotide mutations predicted to be deleterious arose in the past 5,000-10,000 years. These are definitely not figures and dates friendly to evolutionary theory.

4. Research Numbers

Professor James Crow estimates we are experiencing a 1-2% drop in human genetic fitness per generation.  Professor Michael Lynch estimates we are experiencing an even more alarming 5% drop in genetic fitness per generation.

5. From the pens of geneticists

Herman Muller

“…an asexual population incorporates a kind of ratchet mechanism, such that…lines become more loaded with mutations.”

Alexy Kondrashov

“Accumulation of VSDM’s (very slightly harmful mutations) in a linage…acts like a time bomb…the existence of vertebrate lineages should be limited to 10⁶-10⁷ generations.

Michael Lynch

Our results provide no evidence for the existence of a threshold population size beyond which a population is completely invulnerable to a mutational meltdown.

Noel Howell

“We should increase our attention to the broader question of how (or whether) organisms can tolerate, in the sense of evolution, a genetic system with such a high mutational burden.”

James Crow

“I do regard mutation accumulation as a problem. It is something like the population bomb, but it has a much longer fuse.”

Fred Hoyle

“When the environment is not fixed there is a slow genetic erosion… which natural selection cannot prevent.”

Adam Eyre-Walker & Peter Keightley

“…deleterious mutation rates appear to be so high in humans and our close relatives that it is doubtful that such species could survive…”

Michael Lynch

“Without a reduction in the germline transmission of deleterious mutations, the mean phenotypes of the residents in the industrialized nations are likely to be rather different in just two or three centuries.”

6. Genetic diseases are increasing

The World Health Organisation estimates that 10,000 diseases are now known to be caused by point mutations in reproductive DNA. The number is increasing annually. As more and more recessive mutations are colliding with each other.

7. The Biblical genealogies

There is one other recorded long term exponential biological decay in nature. This time it is actually in us humans. The ancient Hebrew people faithfully recorded the lifespans of all descendants over 70 generations after Noah. The result is astounding. It also follows a near perfect exponential biological decay curve.  In addition science has now proved all women are descended from a single woman, and all men from a single man. The dates given for these two ancestors range from 25,000 to 450,000 years, far too short for the evolutionary timescale.

Conclusion

Evidence for genetic entropy does indeed exist in the real world. Evidence comes from RNA viruses, ancient preserved human DNA, ancient genealogies, increasing genetic disease load and verified human fitness decline. Problems with the concept of mutational advance and natural selection are also acknowledged, over and over again, by the world’s leading population geneticists. One researcher even suggested in the title of his research paper that we as humans should have “died 100 times over”. Evolution is a myth. The evidence says we were quite recently made perfect and are heading on a one way path to extinction.

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Matthew 19: 24 says “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.“. This has been the accepted translation of this verse for thousands of years, based on ancient Greek translations of the New Testament.

However, it can be read differently. The Aramaic word for both camel and rope is the homonym “gamla”. It is entirely possible, and I believe probable, that the translators from the original Aramaic got it wrong. It makes more sense, a lot more sense, if Jesus actually said it was easier to push a rope through a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Regardless, when you look at the behaviour of the world’s rich today the metaphor stands!

Kevin