Blue-grass blade., 1908-05-24
If Bible Prophecies Are Wrong, Whence Came
The Christ Idea?
CHAPTER TWO.
(By A. A. Snow.)


As we have seen there were predictions
made in the Old Testament of various de-
liverers that were to come in the future and
rescue the Jews from the various distresses
they were in such captivity and similar
expressions. These predictions acted as
nucleus on which future prophets extended
and enlarged Thus grew the idea of COM
ing messiah. The term messiah in Hebrew
signifies anointed. Cyrus was called the
anointed of the Lord as he was to deliver
the Jews from the seventy year captivity OF
Babylon. Being in constant warfare he con-
ceived as a great diplomatic scheme the idea
of giving the Jews their liberty in order to
insure their cooperation zeal and sympathy
This notion he made known to the people
through pretended predictions from the Lord
even going so far as to make interpretations
in Isaiah written two hundred years before,
as has been ferreted out by the Higher Crit
les of the present In lisa. 44;2S and 40; ID,
we read: "I am the Lord . That saith OF
Cyrus. He is my shepherd and shall perform
all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem
thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy
foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the
Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right
hand I have holden. to subdue nations before
him: and I will loose the loins of kings, to
omen before him the two leaved gates and the
gates shall not be shut" Now if the word
messiah means Christ Cyrus and not Jesus
was that Christ or else the Old Testament
was not only going to deliver the Jews but
also to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.
The people were very ignorant, when not
in bondage the priests and prophets had al
most entire control over them. They made
great appeals to the future or the past
rather than to the present they furnished
better fields for deception and every one who
thinks he knows that Christians are adopting
the same tactics today. The New Jerusalem
was to be built and it was to he heavenly
affair indeed and when the prediction had
fully grown and been enlarged upon that
CITY was to come down from God out of
Heaven Tn the future, yes indeed in the fu.
ture. one prophet would make the Jews kill
off all their enemies, the genties, and live
on the spoils and their dominion extend to the
uttermost parts of the EARTH Another
would make Jerusalem the cathedral OF the
world and all nations come up to Zion to
worship. And the Jews-Gods holy people
would be decidedly in it. 'In my holy
mountain nothing shall offend saith the
Lord" "The wolf and the lamb shall lie
down together" As time went on the proph-
cts still enlarged; "For behold ] create new
heavens and a new earth; and the former
shall not be remembered come into mind.
But be We glad and rejoice for ever in that
which create: for behold I create Jerusalem
a rejoicing and her people joy. . - and the
voice of weeping shall be no more heard in
her. nor the voice of crying. For as the
new heavens and the new earth. which will
make, shall remain before me, saith the
Lord. so shall your seed and your name
remain"
Such language as this and that in the book
of Daniel most surely portrayed in the eyes of