Law and prophets until John, from now on the kingdom of God is preached - interpretation. Interpretations on Luke
The Gospel of Luke (Luke 16:16) proves that the law has nothing to do with Christians.
This is what this passage says: “The Law and the Prophets until John; from that time on the kingdom of God was preached, and everyone entered into it by effort” (Luke 16:16). A parallel passage from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 11:13) reads: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.”
In the above passage from Lk. 16:16 the word “were” is a later insertion. Luke simply wrote: “The Law and the Prophets until John” (in the English translation: “The Law and the Prophets were before John,” while in the Russian Synodal: “The Law and the Prophets before John.” - Note per.). If the translators had compared Luke's words with Matthew's, they would have seen that Luke did not say that the law and the prophets were abolished in the days of John, but that they "prophesied" ("prophesied") down to those days. The difference is quite significant, allowing one to find the key to the meaning of the passage in question.
The phrase "prophets and law" or (more commonly) "law and prophets" is often used in the Bible to refer to the writings of Moses and other Old Testament prophets. As for the books of Moses, they were primarily distinguished by the codes of laws they contained, and it is quite understandable that they were often simply called “law” in contrast to the books of other prophets. In fact, this fact as such allows us to ignore the above objection, since neither Luke nor Matthew touch upon the Decalogue.
However, what did these gospel writers mean? The answer is clear from the context. Many Jews were skeptical of Christ and John the Baptist. They claimed to believe Moses and all the prophets. Christ constantly tried to prove to them that He was the One about whom the prophets predicted, that the appearance of His forerunner, John the Baptist, was also predicted and that the Kingdom of God was now being preached to the Jews.
Having begun His public ministry, Christ announced: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The prophets predicted the coming of the Messiah, and Christ announced that these prophecies were now fulfilled.
To the skeptical Jews who could not see the fulfillment of these prophecies in Christ, he said: “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: you have an accuser, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe and Me, because he wrote about Me. If you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (John 5:45-47).
Having found Nathanael and eager to tell him the exciting news of the coming of the promised Messiah, Philip said: “We have found the one about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth” (John 1:45).
Having risen from the dead, Jesus that same day came to the confused and perplexed disciples and asked: “Why are you troubled, and why do such thoughts enter your hearts?” (Luke 24:38). He then recalled that what happened to Him on those fateful days was predicted by the prophets, noting: “Everything must be fulfilled that was written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms” (Luke 24:44).
Paul said his mission was to bear witness “to small and great things, saying nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen” (Acts 26:22).
Thus, the prophecies of Moses and other prophets constituted one of the primary proofs that Christ and the apostles adduced to confirm that the Messiah had come. Prophets prophesy "until" the time when their predictions are fulfilled, after which the prophecies become history. Therefore, in declaring that “the law and the prophets” prophesied “until John,” our Lord simply says: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” He does not suggest that from now on Moses and the prophets will be abolished, and he does not at all say that the law of the Ten Commandments has become obsolete.
Law and Prophets
(foreigner) - this is sacred; undoubted truth
Wed."It's true, just as God is holy."
Wed. For us law, we have prophets.
We have God's power for miracles!
Khomyakov. We are the chosen race!
Wed. Ce que je vous dis, c"est la loi et les prophêtes.
Wed. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Matt. 5, 17.
Wed. Jesus said to the lawyer, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind... and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” All the law and the prophets are based on these two commandments.
Matt. 22, 37-40; Wed. Mark. 12, 30-31.
Wed. Law and prophets until John: from now on the Kingdom of God is preached. But it is sooner that heaven and earth pass away than one line of law will disappear.
Onion. 16, 16-17.
Russian thought and speech. Yours and someone else's. Experience of Russian phraseology. Collection of figurative words and parables. T.T. 1-2. Walking and apt words. A collection of Russian and foreign quotes, proverbs, sayings, proverbial expressions and individual words. St. Petersburg, type. Ak. Sci.. M. I. Mikhelson. 1896-1912.
See what “law and prophets” are in other dictionaries:
The Law and the Prophets (foreigner) are holy, undoubted truth. Wed. “It’s true, how holy God is.” Wed. For us there is law, we have prophets. We have God's power for miracles! Khomyakov. We are the chosen race! Wed. Ce que je vous dis, c'est la loi et les prophêtes. Wed... ...
THE LAW OF MOSES- [Heb. Greek νόμος Μωυσέως], communicated by God to the prophet. Moses, a set of instructions and decrees regulating religion. And social life the people of Israel and its individual members. In early Jewish and Christian traditions and in church science there is also... Orthodox Encyclopedia
Prophets- biblical term to designate special heralds of the will of God both in the Old and in the New. Testament. Heb. the name of the prophet (navi) means a herald who announces someone’s will, then, a person who foresees (through special... ... Complete Orthodox Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary
PROPHETS- religious figures, divinely inspired teachers and preachers of the Old Testament. time. The books of the *prophet-writers constitute. part of the dilapidated *canon (see PROPHETIC BOOKS). 1. The term "prophet". Heb. the word nabú, prophet, does not mean only... ... Bibliological dictionary
Law- euro Torah. Law. This word has many different meanings: 1) The Word of God in general. David sings of the law of God (Ps. 18:8ff.) and praises it in Psalm 119, giving it many different names. Paul speaks about the law of faith, i.e.... ... Dictionary of Biblical Names
I. LAW A. In the generally accepted sense, Z. is obligatory. to fulfill the rule that the society establishes for its members. The legislator expresses his will in the Law, which regulates the relationship between the two parties, the ruler and the subject (Gen. 47:26; Ezra ... Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia
LAW- and legalism. The term “Law” (Heb. Torah, Greek nТmoj) has two meanings in the Bible: as a synonym for the commandments in general and as a synonym for the *Pentateuch. General concept of religious Z. As a system of rules governing all aspects of life, Z. is present in... ... Bibliological dictionary
This article is about the Pentateuch of Moses; on the Confucian Pentateuch, see Wu Jing, The Pentateuch of Moses (Torah) in Hebrew, Vienna, 1802. Pentateuch (Hebrew: hamisha chumshe Torah or Hebrew. חֻמָּשׁ chumash), the so-called... ... Wikipedia
Law- (Hebrew Torah) has many meanings: 1) the Word of God in general; 2) Scripture Old Testament at all; 3) The Pentateuch of Moses, the first of 3 parts into which the Jews divided the Old Testament, Law, Prophets and Scriptures. 4) The Law of Moses, i.e. meeting… … Concise Church Slavonic Dictionary
Moses and the prophets. Wed. They have Moses and the prophets: let them listen to them. Onion. 16; 29, 31. See Law and Prophets... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)
Books
- Vanga and the prophets. Fire Bible, Vadim Kucherko. For centuries, the entire human race has been striving to know the truth! What are the foundations of existence? What is the meaning of life and how to live further? How to be or become happy? Who is this person? How to find eternal life... eBook
- Bible. New Testament. Apocalypse. Revelation of John the Evangelist, Absent. The Bible (from Greek - books) is called in the Christian Church a collection of books written by inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit through people sanctified by God, called prophets and ...
Drozhzhin Viktor Vasilievich
Chapter III
"The Law and the Prophets until John..."
Gospel of Luke chapter 16, v. 16.
"Search the Scriptures, for you
you think you can have life through them
eternal; and they testify
about me".
Gospel of John, chapter 5, art. 39.
G. Khadyzhensk.
"I have come in the name of My Father, and
you do not accept Me; and if different
He comes in his name, you will receive him."
Gospel of John, ch. 5, art. 43.
"But in vain they worship Me, teaching doctrines,
commandments of men."
Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, v. 9.
Surprisingly, all four evangelists were Jews - both by birth and by conviction. And yet they all bore Greco-Roman names. Why? Yes, only because these evangelists no longer lived in Judea, but in the Balkans, Apennines, Egypt, and not only there, but throughout the vast Roman Empire.
After the defeat of Judea by the Romans, the destruction of most of the rebel inhabitants of Judea, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the taking into slavery of the surviving inhabitants of Judea, the Jews of Judea, converted into slaves, were taken to various regions of the vast Roman Empire and sold into slavery in slave markets.
And only in connection with this, Jewish slaves began to disguise themselves ethnically, taking Greco-Roman names, so as not to associate themselves with slaves. As was the case with the Sardinians in their time.
Simply, Jews began to ethnically imitate, because keeping Jewish names for oneself meant revealing oneself as a slave - a Jew. And the Jewish evangelists, by taking the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, protected themselves from reproaches of belonging to the slave class. After all, to move freely, walk and preach Christ while having Jewish names meant incurring suspicion of escaping from slavery. At the same time, having accumulated enough money from the cash injections of Christian slaves, in the form of alms for the temple, it was possible to redeem oneself from slavery with other people's money and even then, under ancient names, fearlessly go and preach.
On the other hand, preaching the Old Testament even among Jews did not make sense, since the Jews who fell into slavery were severely disappointed in Yahweh, who had once again failed to protect his “chosen” people from harm. But most importantly, preaching the Old Testament among non-Jewish slaves made no sense at all, since the Old Testament truths were alien to non-Jews and such preaching would not cause anything other than ridicule.
However, the ancient, Aryan name of Christ, in the ancient environment, was the true salvation for the Jews. The death and resurrection of the Savior gave, as an example, the Jewish people hope for their own Jewish resurrection after ethnic death, for which the Jews considered the defeat of Judea and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
“Judas migrated because of disaster and heavy slavery, settled among the pagans, and found no peace; all those who pursued him overtook him in narrow places. The paths of Zion lament, because there are no ones going to the festival; all the gates are empty; its priests sigh, its maidens "He is sad, bitter and he himself. His enemies have become the leader, his enemies are prospering, because the Lord sent grief to him for his many iniquities; his children went into captivity ahead of the enemy... the enemies look at him and laugh at his Sabbaths" . (Lamentations of Jeremiah, ch. 1, v. 3, 4, 5, 7)
There was nowhere to bring first fruits, nowhere to offer guilt offerings to atone for sins, nowhere to meet and celebrate the national holidays of tabernacles, Pesach (Easter), Purim, Saturday, and to perform the rite of circumcision. All this was henceforth prohibited under penalty of death. And then the Jewish priests of the dispersion began to hold religious meetings of the Jews, secretly. And in order not to incur suspicion, they began to actively attract non-Jews into their communities and slaves for joint meetings, under the guise of worshiping Christ - executed but resurrected.
In addition, at such meetings, donations were also collected for the new Jerusalem temple, but now for the temple, supposedly Christ, for non-Jewish slaves would not give money for any other temple, which they almost didn’t have anyway. Only by associating themselves with Christ, oppressed and having lost not only their homeland, but also their gods, did people agree to make donations to the temple of Christ, completely unaware that they were simply being deceived. Donations were collected only for the future construction of a new Jerusalem temple of the god Yahweh.
However, the secret practice of a new religious cult made it possible not only to collect donations from Christian community members for the new Jerusalem temple, but also to introduce the Old Testament into the consciousness of the followers of Christ, thereby introducing Christians to Judaism.
By putting the most neutral quotations from the Old Testament into the mouth of Christ, the evangelists aroused interest in the Old Testament writings in the minds of Christians. In this way, the Jewish evangelists expanded the ranks of non-Jews converted to Christianity who found themselves in Roman slavery. And since there were more and more slaves in the Roman Empire, as a result of the Roman conquests, the Christian community grew rapidly.
Christian community members actively attracted into their ranks representatives of other nations who found themselves in slavery, deprived of everything due to their slave status. There, in the community, disadvantaged people received at least some consolation in exchange for the loss of personal freedom and their homeland. But most importantly, they had hope for a better life in a new life and a new place, inaccessible to evil, in the Kingdom of Heaven. And this could not be taken away from them, even on pain of death. On the contrary, they considered death as the happiness of getting rid of the torments of earthly life.
And these beliefs turned the early Christians away from striving for material well-being: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break through and steal; But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break through and steal; For where your treasure is, there your heart will be." (Gospel of Matthew, ch. 6, v. 19, 20, 21).
And this was preached by people whose only task was to instill in Christians an aversion to material values, these same material values to take over their hands in order to send them to the Jerusalem Temple of Yahweh.
It is clear that if the Jewish preachers of Christianity had not resorted to ethnic mimicry, essentially ethnic camouflage, then such a scam would not have been successful. But, most importantly, they would not have been able to carry out a special operation to introduce the spiritual values of the East, reflected in the Old Testament, into the consciousness of Christians, the overwhelming majority, representatives of ancient, that is, European, civilization - the guardians of its spiritual and cultural achievements and values.
Special operation to infiltrate ancient world, Old Testament “values”, instead of ancient cultural, philosophical and religious achievements, was a response to the penetration of the achievements of ancient civilization into the Near and Middle East, starting from the penetration of the Aryans, in particular the Medes with their cult of the single god Ahuramazda, at the end of 3, the beginning of 2 millennia before the birth of Christ and ending with the times of Alexander the Great and his successors.
Two powerful spiritual waves collided precisely in that place called the Middle East, locally Syria, which, among other things, included Judea. And the bright representative of the Aryan-ancient wave was Christ, and the Judeo-Hamitic, eastern wave was personified by the high priest Caiaphas.
But were the Jewish evangelists the first to adopt ethnic mimicry to carry out a special operation to infiltrate alien ethnic groups? Will we find examples of this in the past of the Jewish people?
For example, let's look at one ancient history, which occurred during the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, one of the sole rulers after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great and who died almost 80 years before the accession of Ptolemy Philadelphus to Egypt.
This story is especially instructive in how the Jews, as a result of a special operation to infiltrate the layers of power, penetrate not only into power, not only into the economic, cultural and political structures of a civilized society that had developed without them, but also how they then displace the indigenous representatives of society, replacing them by yourself. Therefore, we simply need to explore this creeping, truly serpentine expansion using the example of how the Jews penetrated the Mecedonian-Egyptian, and then the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. And they took the first step precisely through the introduction of Jewish ideology into the cultural consciousness of the Greek Macedonians living in Egypt, through the proposal to the Macedonian king Ptolemy Philadelphus to translate the laws of Moses into Greek language, to which Ptolemy Philadelphus graciously agreed.
“Search the Scriptures...” Christ allegedly commanded us and we, his followers, will do so in order to be convinced of how ancient is what we believe in, the Evangelists call us through the mouth of Christ.
The “Scriptures” are the Old Testament, that is, the Pentateuch of Moses and the books of the prophets. But in order for us to be thoroughly convinced of the antiquity of the Old Testament, we will first of all need to turn to such an authoritative source as the “Jewish Antiquities” of the Jewish historian and philosopher Josephus, who was born just when Christ was sent to suffer on the cross.
Josephus himself was a direct participant in the Jewish uprising of 66 - 72, after the birth of Christ, which he described in his work, through the prism of the ancient history of the Jewish people. This is what he writes in his “Preface” to “Jewish Antiquities.”
"3. By the way, I found that Ptolemy the Second, who was more interested in science and collecting books than all the kings, dealt with our (religious) legislation with special love and took care to translate its decrees and data on the state structure according to him into Greek; likewise Eleazar, who was not inferior in virtue to any of our high priests, did not in the least object to the above-mentioned king using this (translation), and in any case he would have forbidden him to do so if it had been our custom since ancient times to keep something good secret. I considered myself entitled to imitate the generosity of that high priest and equally assume that even now there still exist, like that king, many inquisitive people, especially since the latter did not receive a translation of the entire Holy Scripture, but the persons sent for translation to Alexandria reported (to him) only a translation of the Pentateuch (actually only that which concerns the law). Meanwhile, in the sacred books tens of thousands of various other facts are written (in addition to laws) due to the fact that it covers a period of five thousand years of historical life (of the people), here it is reported about all kinds of unexpected events, about the accidents of war, about the valor of commanders and about changes in state structure. In any case, everyone who wants to familiarize themselves with this story in detail will draw from it the foreground conclusion that, on the one hand, people who obey the command of the Lord God and do not dare to break the laws, everything succeeds beyond their expectations, and their reward from God is the future (afterlife) bliss; on the other hand, for people who deviate from the exact fulfillment of these commands, the easy becomes insurmountable to the same extent, and even everything that they would take on as something undoubtedly good turns into inevitable destruction. Therefore, I urge those who come into the hands of these books to keep in mind the command of the Lord God and take into account that our lawgiver has worthily understood His nature and always ascribes to Him only deeds corresponding to His power, keeping the narrative about Him free from all shameful, although there are mythological embellishments found in others (historians), despite the fact that, due to the remoteness of time and extreme antiquity, he could quite fearlessly introduce various false inventions into his story. After all, he lived two thousand years ago, i.e. in such a distant time to which poets did not dare to attribute not only the acts and legislation of people, but also the origin of the gods themselves. All this will be shown with due clarity and in the appropriate order by the following historical narrative; In it, I set myself the constant task of not adding anything (superfluous), but also not omitting anything.”
This is how the Jews first penetrated the consciousness of the Greek Macedonians, and then into the cultural, economic and political power structures gradually displacing the Greek Macedonians of Egypt from them.
So. Josephus, without any doubt about the correctness of his statements, says that the history of his people goes back five thousand years (if we count the period before the life of Josephus himself), and the “legislator” is Moses, who lived two thousand years before him. In addition, Josephus persistently tries to convince us that Moses gave his laws already then, “... that is, at such a distant time to which the poets did not dare to attribute not only the acts and legislation of people, but also the origin of the people themselves.” gods."
So let's remember these statements well, because it will definitely be useful to us.
So, let's start with what Josephus says about the five thousand year history of the Jewish people. But then the question arises. What chronology did he use to claim such an ancient history? After all, five thousand astronomical, or solar, years before this historian, these are precisely the times of the New Stone Age, that is, the Neolithic era, when no one kept any chronology, due to its elementary uselessness, and because in that era writing simply did not exist , except for petroglyphs, which, no matter how hard you try, cannot be mistaken for writing, and even here are the drawings in caves, which are not writing, in the literal sense of the word. Therefore, we cannot accept the statement about such antiquity as reliable.
On the other side. It is well known that the Hebrew year was equal to one lunar month and then 5000 lunar years, we divide by 13 lunar months in one astronomical, solar, year and get (5000: 13) = 384.6 years. Thus, 5000 Flavius years are only 384.6 astronomical years of the solar calendar.
To check with our calculations, let's turn to such a reliable written source, which is called the "Bible", and in the 1st book of Genesis, in chapter 4, verse 22 we read: "Zillah also gave birth to Tubalcain, who was a forger of all tools from copper and iron."
Any metallurgist will tell us that iron can only be forged in the state of steel.
What is the state of "steel"? Let's explain. Iron can be in two states - in the state of steel or in the state of cast iron.
Cast iron is iron with a very high carbon content in the alloy. Let's say that if the alloy contains more than 2.8% carbon, then it is cast iron, if less than 2.4%, then it is steel and then it can be processed by forging or pressing. In order to reduce the carbon content in the alloy, special technologies were used to charge it with oxygen, which, when reacting with carbon, was released from the alloy into the atmosphere in the form of carbon monoxide.
The carbon content of the alloy decreased and the alloy eventually turned into steel. Such technologies in Egypt became known in the 7th - 5th centuries BC: "... yet in the 7th - 5th centuries BC, the Egyptians mastered the technique of processing iron and began to use it to make tools and weapons." (Story Ancient East. Section 1, History of Ancient Egypt, page 69. Moscow. "Graduate School". 1988 edited by V.I. Kuzishchina. Second edition, revised and expanded. Approved by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR as a textbook for university students studying in the specialty "History").
As we see, the 5th century BC is closest to the 4th century BC, which we obtained when calculating the antiquity of the history of the Jewish people.
Why did we remember Egypt? Yes, only because it is believed that the Pentateuch, which includes the 1st book of Genesis, was written by Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt.
But how can this be? If Genesis was written in the 5th - 4th centuries before the birth of Christ, does it mean that Moses led the Jews out of Egypt in the 5th - 4th centuries before the birth of Christ? But this cannot be, because the Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity at the very end of the 7th century before the birth of Christ. Why did the Jews leave Egypt later than the Babylonian captivity? It's just some kind of paradox. But if you look at it, there is no paradox in this. It's simple.
The Moses who wrote the book of Genesis and Exodus is not the same Moses who led the Jews out of Egypt. It's just two different people bearing the same name. The Moses who wrote Genesis and Exodus wrote them either while sitting in the Babylonian library, in the 6th century BC, or in the Alexandrian library, in the 4th century BC. This is the only way to resolve this paradox. Then this means that the Pentateuch is not as ancient as Josephus is trying to convince us of.
And indeed. Phonetic writing and the Hebrew alphabet appeared in the 7th - 5th centuries BC. It was then that the Scriptures were recorded in writing.
But then a new question arises. And in what writing were the Laws of God given to Moses by God on Mount Horeb inscribed on the tablets?
If Moses led the Jews out of Egypt during the time of Pharaoh Ramses 2, and it was he, Ramses 2, who built the cities of Ramesseum and Pithom (in the Bible Pythom), which are precisely mentioned in the Scriptures, then at that time there were only two types of writing - hieroglyphics and cuneiform.
And if we remember that Moses spent many days on a mountain that breathed fire and smoke, and from it he brought the tablets of the Covenant, then Moses used cuneiform, because cuneiform was used to write on clay tablets, which were then carefully fired to give them great strength. This is what Moses did for many days on Mount Horeb. Because it takes a lot of time to find suitable clay, knead it, form tablets, write text on them and burn the tablets with text. Especially when you do this work alone.
They wrote in hieroglyphs on papyrus, a fragile and short-lived material. And Moses wrote the laws for centuries, which means it was cuneiform, which after several centuries no one could read, and therefore the Ark of the Covenant, in which these tablets with cuneiform were kept, was safely lost as unnecessary.
Now, regarding the statement of Josephus that Moses gave laws even then: “... that is, in such a distant time to which poets did not dare to attribute not only the acts and legislation of people, but also the origin of the gods themselves.”
So, let's remember the ancient poets - if Josephus Flavius inadvertently mentioned poets - for example Hesiod or Homer. Better than Homer, because he tells us some rather interesting details in his Iliad.
Namely, all warriors fight only with copper weapons. True, Achilles, during the funeral feast for the deceased Patroclus, distributes axes: “The son of Peleus brought out dark iron for the archers: Ten double-edged axes and ten simple ones as a reward.” (p. 337. “The Iliad”, translation by Gnedich. Moscow. “Fiction”. 1987).
Homer in the Iliad mentions iron 18 times, but never says that iron can be forged, however, every time he mentions iron he says “cunning iron products”, or “gray” or “dark” iron.
So, if we ask, any metallurgist will tell us that “gray” iron is gray cast iron, and “dark” iron is black cast iron. But it is impossible to forge cast iron, because due to the high carbon content in the alloy, when trying to forge it, cast iron simply breaks into pieces, it is so fragile. Cast iron products are produced only by casting and nothing else. In Genesis, Tubalcain forges tools from iron, which tells us that Homer’s Iliad is much, 400 years older than Ramesses 2, under whom Moses led the people out of Egypt. In addition, from the very beginning the Old Testament speaks only of iron tools and iron weapons. The Old Testament says nothing at all about copper tools. Therefore, the Old Testament was written only in the era of developed iron. And this is precisely the 7th - 6th centuries, before the birth of Christ.
True, for the sake of fairness, it must be said that the Chinese learned to produce malleable cast iron three hundred years before the birth of Christ, but they so diligently guarded the secret of obtaining malleable cast iron that in Europe they learned to produce malleable cast iron only in the 19th century after the birth of Christ.
Why are we so sure that the Iliad was written 400 years before the birth of Ramesses? Because we are convinced of this by the lines about the battle of gods with each other, from the same “Iliad”:
"The father of both immortals and mortals is afraid of thunder from the sky
Thundered over them; Poseidaon shook the valley below them
All around is a boundless land with the peaks of the highest mountains.
Everything shook, from the flinty soles to the high-water tops
Ides: and the city of Ilion, and the ships of the copper-armored Danae
Hades, the ruler of the underworld, came into horror underground;
In horror, he jumped back from the throne and screamed loudly, but above him
The bosom of the earth was not opened by Poseidon, shaking the earth,
And he would not have opened his dwellings to both immortals and mortals,
Gloomy, terrible, whom even the gods tremble.
Everything was so excited, as the immortals came together to fight!
... Thus the gods rushed against the gods. ..."
(p. 283, ibid.)
Where do we lead from this passage from the Iliad? The reader is clearly able to understand why. We are talking in this passage about the terrible catastrophe that caused such an earthquake. And the catastrophe followed by an earthquake was the explosion of the Santorini volcano, in the Aegean Sea, (that’s where the god of the seas Poseidaon - Poseidon) came from, which occurred in 1700 before the birth of Christ, and which destroyed the Minoan civilization already flourishing on the island of Crete. And this event was reflected in poetic form in the Iliad.
Pharaoh, Ramses II, was born around 1314 before the birth of Christ. That is why we assert that the Iliad was formed 400 years before the birth of Pharaoh Ramses II, in whose era Moses lived. And there are countless gods in the Iliad. So the statement of Josephus that: “... in such a distant time, to which the poets did not dare to attribute not only the acts and legislation of people, but also the origin of the gods themselves,” does not stand up to the simplest criticism.
Nevertheless, for the sake of truth, we must say that the Jews are truly one of those ancient peoples who remember their history well. And proof of this is their memory of Abraham, Egypt, Canaan and even the Hittites.
Knowing the time of birth and years of reign of Pharaoh Ramses II, we can, from the presence of these dates, calculate the time of the departure of Abraham's father Terah from Ur, the time of Joseph's arrival in Egypt, as well as the time of Moses' arrival with the Jews in Canaan.
To do this, we will give one quote from the book of Genesis, chapter 15, art. 13.
“And the Lord said to Abram: Know that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will enslave them, and will oppress them for four hundred years.”
“Answer and say before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went to Egypt and settled there with a few people, and there came from him a great, strong and numerous people...” (Deuteronomy, ch. .26, art.5)
So, “your descendants will be... in a land that is not theirs... four hundred years.”
We now know that Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, or rather from under the walls of Kadesh, in 1296. Let's add to this date 400 years, the same years that the Jews lived in Egypt since the time of Joseph. Because it was when Joseph was a priest in Egypt that the Jews of the tribe of Abraham, called by Joseph, came there.
"And they said to Pharaoh, We have come to dwell in this land, because there is no pasture for the livestock of your servants; for in the land of Canaan severe hunger". (Genesis, ch. 47, v. 4). “And famine and great tribulation came to all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no food" (Acts, ch. 7, v. 11).
And now, to the date of 1296, before the birth of Christ, when the battle of Kadesh took place between the Egyptian army of Ramses 2 and the army of the Hittites, we add four hundred years, we get the date 1696, before the birth of Christ, that is, a date very close to 1700, when the Santorini volcano exploded. True, in “Exodus”, chapter 12, verse 41, it is said about 430 years of the Jews’ residence in Egypt: “After four hundred and thirty years, on that very day all the army of the Lord came out of the land of Egypt by night.”
Therefore, if we add 430 years to the date 1296 BC, then we will get the date 1726 BC. And this is exactly the date that scientists call when they talk about the explosion of the Santorini volcano in the Aegean Sea.
Now let's ask ourselves a question. What does "no pasture" mean? This means that all the vegetation that served as food for livestock died. Why could she have died? Yes, only from the volcanic ash that fell on the land of Canaan as a result of the eruption of the Santorini volcano.
It is generally accepted that one generation of the human race is equal to 25 years. Joseph, who became a noble man in Egypt and led his tribe to Egypt, was the great-grandson of Abraham, which means he was born a hundred years later than Abraham. And if he called his tribe to Egypt in 1700 before the birth of Christ, then by adding 100 years to 1700, you get 1800 before the birth of Christ. And this date is extremely close to the time when the Medes - the Aryans penetrated the Iranian plateau and attacked the Jewish tribes living in southern Mesopotamia, that is, in the south of ancient Babylonia, where the ancestors of the Jews, the Arameans, roamed. So, as we see, the antiquity of the Jewish people is beyond any doubt. As well as, without any doubt, the antiquity of the Russian people, because one of Mithra’s brothers was Rashnu, that is, Russian, one of the sons of Ahuramazda. And the Medes were the tribes of the Avesta, or Zoroastrianism and Mithraism. So there is no point in either Jews or Russians boasting of their antiquity to each other, “there is neither a Greek nor a Jew.”
And yet, the antiquity of the Scriptures themselves, as oral traditions, is beyond any doubt, even if the Scriptures were recorded in writing by Jewish philosophers, historians and chroniclers only in the 7th - 5th centuries before the birth of Christ. It’s just that these stories were kept in people’s memory as historical legends. And therefore Moses, the chronicler, as a collector of oral folk wealth, managed to present all these legends in written form.
Well, the last thing that remains for us to find out is whether the evangelical Jews were the first inventors of ethnomimicry, ethnic camouflage. Or did they have predecessors in Jewish history? To find out, we need to go back to the Scriptures.
We will not endlessly leaf through the Old Testament to find many examples describing a special operation for ethnic infiltration and not only into the midst of another ethnic group, but first of all we will reveal cases of penetration of representatives of an alien, that is, Jewish ethnic group, into the power environment of a people representing a non-Jewish state origin.
There are many such cases in the Old Testament, and even the names of the people who became the heroes of these cases are known.
And first of all, we need, of course, to name the name of the patriarch Abraham, followed by Joseph, son of Jacob, then come the names of Moses the liberator, the prophet Daniel, Esther.
Let's start with Abraham, who was formerly Abram.
According to the Old Testament, the whole story of Abraham is the story of wanderings, and essentially nomads, through the lands of the Middle and Near East all the way to Egypt. Exactly until Abraham finally settles in the land of Canaan: “And the Lord said to Abram: go from your land, from your kindred, to the land that I will show you. ... And Abram walked through this land to the place of Shechem, to the oak grove of More. The Canaanites lived in this land at that time." (Genesis, ch. 12, v. 1, 6.)
True, at one time, when famine broke out in the land of Canaan, Abraham made an attempt to settle in Egypt, which, however, failed for some reason, but here the special operation itself of penetrating into Egypt and the attempt to gain a foothold there is quite interesting.
"And there was a famine in that land. And Abram went down to Egypt to live there; because the famine increased in that land. When he approached Egypt, he said to Sarah his wife: Behold, I know that you are a woman of beautiful appearance. ;And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is his wife,” and they will kill me, but leave you alive. Say that you are my sister, so that it may be well for me for your sake, and so that my soul may live through you. And it came to pass, when Abram came to Egypt, that the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman; and the nobles of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and she was taken into the house of Pharaoh. And Abram was well pleased for her sake; and he had a small and cattle, and donkeys, and male servants, and female servants, and mules, and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with heavy blows because of Sarai Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “Why have you done this to me? Why have you did not tell me that she is your wife? Why did you say, “She is my sister”? And I took her to be my wife. And now here is your wife; take her and go. And Pharaoh gave commandment to the people about him, and they carried him out and his wife and all that he had." (Genesis, ch. 12, v. 10 - 20).
When you read the history of Abraham and his family, you get the impression that all his movements around the East are more like throwing than like an ordinary nomadism, which would be typical for a cattle breeder. And apparently this chaotic movement was most likely connected with the troubled situation in the region where Abram, the future Abraham, roamed. Apparently frequent raids with the removal of livestock, or even devastating wars of one state with another (Assyria, Babylon, Media, and so on) drove Abram from place to place. And only in the land of the Hittites did he find protection and peace. But the memory of Egypt, as a land where milk and honey flow, remained in him and his descendants forever.
So what happened in Egypt that prevented Abram from staying there forever? And apparently this is what happened.
Sarah, Abram's wife, having settled into the pharaoh's harem, where, by agreement, she was sold by Abram for a good bribe, apparently began to approach the pharaoh too actively and influence his decisions, which, of course, caused envy among the other concubines, but above all the pharaoh's legal wife. They soon found out that Sarai was not Abram’s sister at all, but rather a real wife, and of course they reported everything to Pharaoh. Well, he, understandably, was outraged by such blasphemy and escorted Abram and his wife out of Egypt. This is how the first attempt to carry out a special operation to infiltrate the highest echelons of power in Egypt ended unsuccessfully.
Upon returning from Egypt, Abram again finds himself in troubles associated with the lack of a place of permanent residence, and then he again enters into a covenant with God. But now this covenant is connected with the obligatory circumcision of Abram himself and all his children, household members and male slaves. And this was no accident. Avram, now the newly baptized Abraham, conceived a new special operation to infiltrate power structures, and it was for this that he needed circumcision. Indeed, in his time, in order to preserve oneself and one’s offspring, and even more so to increase it, it was extremely necessary to get closer to the highest power, or even better, to become the power itself, in some strong state. And if this power requires circumcision, then so be it.
And now, having circumcised himself and circumcised all his relatives and non-relatives, Abraham undertakes a new special operation to infiltrate the layers of the supreme power. Having changed his name, that is, by ethnically mimicking, simply by ethnically disguising himself, Abraham again sells his wife, Sarah, under the guise of his sister, but to the king of Gerar, Abimelech.
"Abraham... He settled between Kadesh and between Shur; and he was in Gerar for a while. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. And God came to Abimelech at night in dream, and said to him: Behold, you will die for the woman whom you have taken, for she has a husband. But Abimelech did not touch her, and said: Master! Will You really destroy the innocent people? Wasn’t it he himself who said to me: “She my sister"? And she herself said: “He is my brother”? I did this in the simplicity of my heart and in the purity of my hands. And God said to him in a dream: and I know that you did this in the simplicity of your heart, and kept you from sin before Me; therefore I did not allow you to touch her. Now return your wife to her husband: for he is a prophet and will pray for you, and you will live; and if you do not return, then know that you and all yours will certainly die. And Abimelech arose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and spake all these words in their ears: and the people were very afraid. And Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done to us? How did I sin against you, what did you bring - was it a great sin on me and on my kingdom? You did things to me that are never done. And Abimelech said to Abraham, What did you mean when you did this deed? Abraham said: I thought that there was no fear of God in this place, and they would kill me for my wife. Yes, she is truly my sister; she is my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter; and she became my wife. When God led me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her: do this mercy to me, wherever we come, say about me everywhere: “This is my brother.” And Abimelech took flocks and herds, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee; live where you please." (Genesis, chapter 20, v. 1 - 15).
Abimelech, king of Gerar, in order to atone for his sin before God, had to pay off Abraham not only in small, large cattle, male and female slaves, but also to allow Abraham to live in his own land, subject to him, the king.
“And Abraham lived in the land of the Philistines as a stranger for many days.” (Genesis, ch. 21, v. 34)
The next attempt to penetrate into the royal house of Abimelech, king of Gerar, that is, of the Philistines, and to gain a foothold there, was made by Isaac, the son of Abraham.
“Isaac settled in Gerar. The inhabitants of that place asked about his wife, and he said: “This is my sister”; because he was afraid to say “my wife,” lest they kill me, he thought, the inhabitants of this place for Rebekah, because she was beautiful in appearance. But when he had lived there for a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looking out the window, saw that Isaac was playing with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac, and said: Behold, this is your wife; how can you said, “She is my sister?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought that I would not die for her sake.” But Abimelech said, “What hast thou done to us? Hardly one of the people had intercourse with thy wife, and thou wouldst have brought us in.” into sin. And Abimelech gave a commandment to all the people, saying: “Whoever touches this man and his wife will be put to death.” (Genesis, ch. 26, v. 6 - 11).
As we see, the second attempt, but now by a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, to penetrate the royal power structures through a woman, failed.
Nevertheless, attempts continued. And this was due to the fact that the tribe of Jews sought by all available and inaccessible means to gain a foothold on the earth, at least somewhere, in order to finally settle where “milk and honey flow.” And Canaan, Egypt and Babylon were the most promising in this regard.
Next, after Isaac’s attempt to gain a foothold in the royal environment, was the operation to introduce Joseph.
As you know, Joseph was the youngest of Jacob's sons.
"Jacob lived in the land of his father's wanderings in the land of Canaan. This is the life of Jacob. Joseph, seventeen years old, tended cattle with his brothers, when he was a boy, with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought evil rumors about them to their father. Israel loved Joseph... And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and they hated him, and could not speak kindly to him.... When Joseph came to his brothers, they took from Joseph his clothes... And they took him and threw him into a ditch; but the ditch was empty; there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread, and when they looked, they saw, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, and their camels were carrying them. styrax, balm and frankincense; they go to take it to Egypt. ... And when the merchants of Midian passed by, they pulled Joseph out of the den, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they took Joseph to Egypt. ... And the Midianites sold him to Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's courtier, chief of the bodyguard." (Genesis, ch. 37, v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 24, 25, 28, 36).
Joseph's adventures did not end there. In the house of Pharaoh's bodyguard Potiphar, he was charged with attempting to rape Potiphar's wife. For which Joseph goes to prison, but even there he quickly makes his way into the administrative apparatus. Then, after serving several years in prison, Joseph was miraculously presented to Pharaoh for the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream. Joseph managed to interpret Pharaoh's dream in such a way that he came into indescribable delight, gave Joseph a ring from his hand and put Joseph in charge of the entire land of Egypt.
“And Pharaoh named Joseph the name: Tzaphnath - paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of Heliopolis, as his wife. And Joseph went through the land of Egypt.” (Genesis, ch. 11, v. 45).
Well, just a fabulous ascent from the ditch to the very pinnacle of Egyptian power. After all, the priests of Heliopolis (Heliopolis) worshiped the supreme Egyptian solar deity Amun - Ra. And Joseph, having married the daughter of the Iliopolis priest, himself became the priest of Amun - Ra. As they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. And why? But because “... Joseph brought bad rumors about them...”, that is, he simply gossiped, that is, pawned his neighbors and, as a successful informer, moved up the hierarchical ladder. And the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has absolutely nothing to do with this, since, ultimately, Joseph betrayed Jehovah by becoming a priest of the Egyptian cult of Amun - Ra.
But Joseph managed to drag his entire family line to Egypt, starting from his father Jacob and ending with his very last relative.
“All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which passed out of his bowels, except the wives of the sons of Jacob, were altogether sixty-six souls. The sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob that passed into Egypt were seventy. ... settled in the land of Goshen. ... And Joseph settled his father and his brothers, and gave them possession in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh commanded." (Genesis, ch. 46, v. 26, 27. ch. 47, v. 11). "And Joseph died a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him, and put him in an ark in Egypt." (Genesis, ch. 50, v. 26).
Since those very times of Joseph, Jews have taken root in Egypt.
"And a new king arose in Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people: Behold, the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than us. Let us outwit them so that they do not multiply; otherwise, when the war happens, they too will unite with our enemies, And he will arm himself against us, and will come out of our land. And they appointed commanders of the work over him, so that they would wear him out with hard work. And he built for Pharaoh Pithom and Rameses, cities for stores." (Exodus, ch. 1, v., 9, 10, 11).
Next comes the story of the miraculous appearance of Moses, his killing of an Egyptian, his escape, meeting and marriage to the daughter of the Median priest Jethro, Zipporah, Moses' forty years of residence with Jethro and his return to Egypt, unrecognized by anyone. Because: “After a long time, the king of Egypt died.” (Exodus, ch. 2, v. 23). “And the Lord said to Moses in the land of Midian: Go, return to Egypt, for all who sought your life are dead.” (Exodus, ch. 4, v. 19).
“After a long time” means only one thing - everyone who knew Moses by sight, including Pharaoh, died.
But let’s return to the origins of the story of Moses and consider his story as a successfully successful special operation to re-introduce another Jew into the priestly strata of the Egyptian supreme power.
Of course, the story of Moses could be considered fictitious, from beginning to end, if this story did not have a solid basis. And it exists.
So, Joseph died, followed by the pharaoh who knew and favored Joseph, and after him comes a new pharaoh, who does not consider it necessary to favor the Jews, since the Jews demanded circumcision, which was absolutely unacceptable for the bulk of the Egyptians, although, for example, the Ethiopians, the inhabitants countries of Kush, but who were in Egypt both as free Egyptians and as slaves, practiced universal circumcision in their midst and therefore were considered on an equal basis with the Jews. And there was this pharaoh - who did not favor the Jews precisely because of circumcision - who was called Amenhotep 4 by birth, but later took his name, Akhenaten.
As you know, Akhenaten is a religious reformer. He introduced the cult of the One God, the sun god Aten. That is why Akhenaten was nicknamed “pleasing to Aten.”
The new cult demanded a new priesthood, and Akhenaten began to recruit future priests from the middle and even lower strata of his subjects. Akhenaten simply dispersed the previous priests, which included Joseph’s Jews, and sent them to build a new capital, calling it Akhetaten. The Bible, that is, Exodus, speaks of Rameses and Pithos, cities for supplies. This is done in order to hide the true picture of the events that happened then. After all, the cities of Ramses and Pithom were built much later, already during the time of Ramses II, after his battle with the Hittites at Kadesh.
So, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduces a new cult and recruits loyal people to make them priests of the new cult. He does this because Nefertiti, his wife, having given birth to six children, never gave him a son. But it was from their sons that the pharaohs made priests. And here are six daughters. This is a disaster, since Akhenaten understands that after his death there will be no one to continue the veneration of the new cult. And then he takes a desperate step, he begins to recruit future priests from commoners, except for the Jews, whom he drove out of the temples of Amon-Ra and sent to make bricks for his future capital Akhetaten.
From now on, entry into the class of future priests of Aten is completely closed to any Jew. Moreover, Akhenaten orders the killing of all born Jewish boys, because Jewish boys were circumcised according to the Jewish laws of shepherding, but “... every shepherd of sheep is an abomination to the Egyptians” (Genesis, ch. 46, v. 34).
“Amram took Jochebed his aunt to be his wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. ... Aaron and Moses are the ones to whom the Lord said: Bring the children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt according to their armies. They spoke to Pharaoh , to the king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt; these are Moses and Aaron." (Exodus, ch. 6, v. 20, 26, 27).
However, before these verses, Exodus chapter 2, verses 1 and 2 speaks slightly differently about Moses and Aaron.
"A man from the tribe of Levi went and took a wife from the same tribe. The wife conceived and gave birth to a son, and seeing that he was very handsome, she hid him for three months. But being unable to hide him any longer, she took a basket of reeds and tarred him with asphalt and tar; and having laid the child in it, she placed it in the reeds by the bank of the river." (Exodus, ch. 2, v. 1, 2. 3.). “And the child grew up, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she had him instead of a son, and they called his name Moses, …” (Exodus, chapter 2, v. 10). “And Moses was taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds” (Acts, ch. 7, v. 22).
Here we see a clear contradiction between the verses. Moses was saved from murder according to the order of Pharaoh, which provided for the killing of all born Jewish boys, and no one saved Aaron, but he remained alive and even lived to be almost a hundred years old or even more. This means that there was simply no indication of the killing of born Jewish boys. And the story about the murder was invented in order to dramatize the situation and thereby justify the fictitious story of how Moses was found in the reeds and thanks to this he ended up in the house of Pharaoh. (Well, purely Sargon the Great, King of Akkad and Sumer).
Here, the story of the reed shelter is a retelling in its own way of the story of Isis, who hid her baby Horus from the evil Set, the killer of Osiris, as well as the story of the baby who sailed along the Euphrates in a reed basket and subsequently became the king of the Akkadian kingdom, Sargon I. However, now we are not talking about this, but about Moses.
One wife - a certain husband “from the tribe of Levi”, knowing that Queen Nefertiti cannot give birth to Akhenaten’s son, whom Akhenaten so dreamed of, - at the instigation of the elders of the Jewish community, former priests of the cult of Amun - Ra, carries out a special operation to introduce the cult into the priestly class Aten, a representative of his own Jewish tribe. Knowing that Pharaoh did not have a single son, the Jewish woman threw the born, but uncircumcised, baby to Pharaoh’s daughter. And she took him into the pharaoh’s house, as the future heir to the cult of the god Aten. The pharaoh's daughter named the baby Moses, which translated from ancient Egyptian means "child" or "born" and took him to her royal home. So Moses, having appeared in the house of Pharaoh, began to be raised as an adopted son and as a future priest of the One Sun God - Aten.
However, Akhenaten, unaware that he already has an adopted son, who was raised in secret from the pharaoh, brings his concubine Kiya into marriage and with her gives birth to a boy, the legal heir, the future Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
One can imagine the mental anguish Moses experienced from the realization that he would not be the first priest of Aten and, therefore, the future pharaoh, but Tutankhamun, who was born so inopportunely. But there was nothing to be done, and twenty-year-old Moses, already preparing to become the husband of one of Akhenaten’s daughters, which means in the future to receive the rod of Pharaoh, for the time being, resigned himself to his new role as the second person.
Pharaoh Akhenaten ruled for only 18 years and died in an assassination attempt. His son Tutankhamun was only 9 years old when he inherited the royal throne from his father Akhenaten. Queen Nefertiti was his regent. And then Moses, who was brought up with Tutankhamun, realized that his time had come. At the age of 18, Tutankhamun was killed as a result of a successfully carried out conspiracy. And Moses also had a hand in the murder of Tutankhamun, “... he killed the Egyptian...”. (Exodus, ch., v. 12).
The killed Egyptian was Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The priests Ey and Horemheb undertook to investigate this matter. Moses, realizing that his participation in the conspiracy against Tutankhamun would be revealed, simply fled and “... stopped in the land of Midian” (Exodus, ch. 2, v. 15).
The attempt to become the husband of Ankhesenamun, the widow of Tutankhamun, and therefore automatically become a pharaoh, failed.
However, a question arises in connection with our statements. And why exactly did Moses take part in a conspiracy against the one with whom he was raised in the house of Akhenaten and was revered as the son of Pharaoh, although not his own, right?
The whole point is that Akhenaten raised the priests of his new cult of the One God in the spirit of selfless devotion to Aten. And since he recruited future priests from the very bottom of Egyptian society, they were endlessly grateful and devoted to Akhenaten himself and the One God, Aten. And among these priests endlessly devoted to Akhenaten was Moses.
And when, after the murder of the “apostate” Akhenaten, his son Tutankhamun, who most likely also took part in the conspiracy against his father, began not only to curtail, but literally suppress the religious beliefs of Akhenaten’s adherents, with whom the cult of the One God Aten was associated, there was discontent, but more precisely, the hatred of Tutankhamun among the priesthood and followers of Akhenaten, for his curtailment and suppression of the cult approved by Akhenaten, was so great that it led to a conspiracy against him and murder.
And Moses was far from the last participant here. Indeed, if successful, Moses became the first priest of Aten, and therefore the pharaoh of Egypt. But this is exactly what the priests of the former cult of Amun - Ra, Aye and Horemheb - did not allow. They uncovered the conspiracy and blamed it all, first of all, on Moses. And such an accusation only threatened death. Why did Moses run away? And precisely to the Medes, the eternal enemies of the Egyptians. He was absolutely sure that the Medes would never give him up. Moreover, in the absence of the pharaoh in Egypt, turmoil arose, which the priests Ey and Horemheb took advantage of.
Even when Tutankhamun’s wife, Ankhsenamun, fearing for her life and throne, sent envoys to the Hittite king, asking him to give her one of the Hittite princes as a husband, both of these priests committed a crime, killing somewhere along the way, who was going to the kingdom to Egypt, the Hittite king's son. Thus, the priests Ey and Horemheb seized power in Egypt, becoming pharaohs in turn and laying the foundation for a new dynasty of pharaohs of Egypt.
Moses' attempt to take the supreme power in Egypt into his own hands and place the Jews in all priestly positions and places ended in failure, although a special operation to introduce the Jew Moses himself into the very top of the royal power, initial stage was brilliantly implemented.
“After a long time, the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel groaned from their work and cried out, and their cry from their work went up to God” (Exodus, chapter 2, v. 23).
During this long time, Moses managed to marry not just anyone, but the daughter of the Median priest Jethro, Zipporah. Apparently, just like a fisherman sees a fisherman, so the priest sees the priest from afar.
During this long period of time, Zipporah gave birth to two sons to Moses, and during this time Moses himself had already reached the age of eighty. And all this time he did not lose contact with the Jews who remained in Egypt, and above all with his brother Aaron, as well as with the followers of Akhenaten who remained faithful to the cult of Aten. And during this time, the community of Atonists - monotheists - grew, not so much due to the emerging Jews, but due to converts from the lower class of Egyptians. After all, the newly restored cult of the Heliopolis sun god, Amon - Ra, finally became a cult only of the priestly class. Although ordinary people were not forbidden to send it.
Egyptian polytheism could not suit either the poor commoners who were obliged to bring gifts to many gods, or the slaves brought from newly conquered lands. And therefore, the cult of the one god was secretly highly revered and observed by the lower, most powerless strata of Egyptian society.
“And the Lord said to Moses in the land of Midian: Go, return to Egypt, for all who sought your life are dead.” (Exodus, ch. 4, v. 19).
Moses, who learned that another pharaoh had died, decided that since everyone who knew him had died and the young Pharaoh Ramses 2, who did not know him at all, had ascended the throne, then he could fearlessly return to Egypt to his people, whom he had not seen for several decades . Returning secretly, he met with his brother Aaron, and Aaron told him that Ramses II was recruiting a large militia for the war with the Hittites. Moses immediately realized that for him this was the most delightful plan to recoup his long-standing defeat.
Since Moses still considered himself the chief priest of the One God Aten (Adonai), and therefore the only contender for the Egyptian royal throne - since the new dynasty of pharaohs, in the opinion of Moses, ruled illegally, since they killed the legitimate Pharaoh Akhenaten - it was he, Moses . This means it will be “legal” to overthrow Ramses 2, with the help of the militia recruited by the pharaoh. And Moses, having outlined the plan to his brother Aaron, together with him began to recruit not only non-Jewish adherents of the Aten cult, but also Jews into the militia. And especially actively the Jews, secretly convincing them that only in this way will they be able to get rid of heavy duty and lack of freedom.
"Moses told this to the children of Israel; but they did not listen to Moses because of their cowardice and the hard work." (Exodus, ch. 6, v. 9).
When the militia was formed, Moses tried to take him into the desert for three days - and then you see, he never returned - to pray to his god, but Pharaoh was stubborn and did not give his consent, even when Moses tried to intimidate him with all the executions " Egyptian." Pharaoh did not let the Jews go out of fear that: "... when war happens, he will unite with our enemy, and arm himself against us, and come out of our land." (Exodus, ch. 1, v. 10)
The day of the appointed battle approached and the pharaoh led his army to Kadesh, a city on the edge of the Hittite kingdom.
At the same time, Pharaoh, at someone’s prompting, divided his army into four large military formations, one of which was the militia under the influence of Moses and Aaron.
Of course, not everyone in the militia were supporters of Moses. Those who were his supporters kept silent, the rest simply did not know about Moses’ plans and therefore moved in full confidence that they were moving after the rest of the Pharaoh’s formations. And since the formations moved with large gaps from each other, the ordinary soldiers had no idea which path their commanders were leading them on. Thus, three formations moved towards Kadesh, and the formation, in which part of the militia was betrayed by Moses, moved away from the site of the future battle.
And here is the battle between the Egyptians and the Hittites. Not only was the pharaoh misled by the spies, but also two militias did not come to the battlefield, as a result of which the pharaoh was almost defeated and almost died himself. The hopeless situation was saved only by the fact that the Hittites abandoned the battle and rushed to plunder the convoy of food and valuables captured from the Egyptians. But then another lagging militia came to the aid of the Egyptians and a turning point occurred in the battle. The pharaoh's hopeless situation was saved, although overall the battle was not won by either side. Moses' militia never appeared on the battlefield. Where was it? It was not far away. True, not in the line of sight, but not so far away that news of the progress of the battle would be delayed for a long time on the way.
Why did Moses and his army not appear on the battlefield not only on time, but never at all? There were good reasons for this.
When Moses followed the militia, he had a clearly established plan to return his beloved self to power. How? Very simple.
Moses was absolutely sure that without him, Moses, the militia, the young 19-year-old Ramses 2 would definitely lose the battle with the Hittites and would lose his entire army and his very life in this battle. And if he remains alive, he will certainly be captured by the Hittites and executed. In both cases, the royal throne of Egypt will become free, and there will be no one to protect it, since the remnants of the pharaoh’s army after defeat will simply be killed by the victors, or taken into slavery.
At the same time, the militia of Moses, without losing a single fighter led by him, will appear in the capital of Egypt, and will become the main armed support in the struggle for the throne of Pharaoh. However, there were no those left in Egypt who could defend the power of Ramses 2, since the most combat-ready men were drafted into the militia, and the remaining priests did not pose any significant obstacle to the ascension of Moses to the Egyptian royal throne.
But, unfortunately for Moses, Ramses 2 remained alive and the militia survived, although not completely. And the battle was not lost, although it was not won. So-so, a fighting draw.
And when Moses received news from his spies that both Pharaoh and his army had survived, he realized that his long-cherished plan to seize power in Egypt had collapsed. He had no choice but to run away from the places where the battle took place, for Pharaoh, having learned about the treachery of Moses, would certainly have taken his head off if Moses had fallen into his hands.
And Moses led the militia away from his own death. After all, many of the militia did not intend to secretly leave the battlefield. And if they had known that Moses was leading them in a completely different direction from the battle, they, without a doubt, would have handed him over to Pharaoh. But Moses hid his true intentions from them and led them away against their own will.
By the way, the word “passover” (Easter) translated from Hebrew means “to pass by.” This is what the militia of Moses and Aaron did, passing by the battlefield of Kadesh. And in honor of this betrayal, Jews have been widely celebrating the holiday of “Pesach”, that is, Easter, for just over three thousand years.
"And it was told to the king of Egypt that the people had fled..." (Exodus, ch. 14, v. 5.)
Having passed safely along the bottom of the sea at low tide, the militia led by Moses and Aaron moved on, and the messengers sent by Pharaoh in pursuit just followed the tracks to where Moses' militia had passed, but at that time the tide began and the messengers drowned, because ". ..by morning the water returned to its place, and the Egyptians ran towards the water." (Exodus, ch. 14, v. 27). "And the children of Israel went out armed from the land of Egypt." (Exodus, ch. 13, v. 18). “And a multitude of people of different tribes went out with them...” (Exodus, ch. 12, v. 38).
So Moses got hold of that part of the Egyptian people that would later become new basis Jewish people.
But here's what's interesting. If it is known that Moses and his companions were born and raised in Egypt, then why does the Bible, which is based on the Old Testament, say nothing about the pyramids of Giza? What? Jews did not see the pyramids, or were the pyramids not yet built when the Jews were in Egypt? But this is absurd. “I didn’t even notice the elephant.”
In the era of Akhenaten and Ramses, the pyramids already stood where they were built. And you have to try very hard not to see the amazing wonder of the world. The lack of mention of pyramids in the Bible once again proves the fact that Moses, the chronicler, was never in Egypt. This means that Moses, the guide, and Moses, the chronicler who wrote the Pentateuch, are not the same person. Otherwise, the pyramids of Giza would certainly appear on the pages of the Old Testament.
But why does Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt, say nothing about the pyramids? Did he see them?
It is known that one militia moved along the seashore, that is, along the shore of the Gulf of Suez, and therefore the pyramids of Giza would not have been visible, because of the mountain range blocking the view of the pyramids. “When Pharaoh sent the people away, God did not lead them along the road of the land of the Philistines, because it was close; for God said: lest the people repent when they saw the war and return to Egypt. And God led them along the desert road to the Red Sea. And they went out the children of Israel armed from the land of Egypt." Exodus, chapter 13, v. 17, 18.
But that means that Moses was waiting for the militia in the Nile Delta, or directly at the walls of Kadesh, and, of course, all the propaganda work in the militia was previously carried out by his brother, Aaron. It is not for nothing that Aaron will later become the chief priest of those who left Egypt, the fugitives.
So, the special operation to infiltrate the highest position of power in Egypt, conceived by Moses, his father-in-law, the Median priest Jethro and Aaron, failed in the most shameful way. The hope that Pharaoh Ramses, a very young, inexperienced military leader, will definitely lose the battle, will be killed, and the Pharaoh’s army will be defeated in battle, due to the betrayal of the militia led by Moses and not appearing on the battlefield, which will leave Egypt unprotected and without supreme power, and then it will be possible to come to Egypt with fresh military forces and seize the royal throne - it did not come true.
Not only did the pharaoh remain alive, but he also retained, although battered in battle, a large and combat-ready militia, which Moses had no point in engaging in battle with due to the small number of his own militia, which numbered about 5 - 6 thousands of soldiers (but not 600 thousand, as the book “Exodus” tells us about this).
After all, it is well known that Ramses divided his army into 4 columns, each of which consisted of 5-6 thousand soldiers. And the fact that Moses had only 6 thousand soldiers in his militia is said by Moses himself, the chronicler, in the book “Exodus,” describing the case of his followers’ retreat from the god Moses.
“When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, then he was inflamed with anger, and threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them under the mountain. And he took the calf that they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to dust, And he scattered it on the water, and gave it to the children of Israel to drink. And Moses said to Aaron, “What has this people done to you, that you have brought them into great sin? But Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord be kindled; you know this people, that they are violent.” They said to me: “Make us a god who will go before us; for with Moses, with this man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what happened." And I said to them: "Whoever has gold, take it off you." And they gave it to me; and I threw it into the fire and went out. this calf. Moses saw that this was an unbridled people, for Aaron had allowed them to become unbridled, to shame before their enemies. And Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is the Lord’s, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, The God of Israel, Take every man his sword upon his thigh, and go through the camp from gate to gate, and back again, and slay every man his brother, every man his friend, every man his neighbor: and the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and About three thousand of the people fell that day." Exodus, chapter 32, v. 19 - 28.
As we see, “about three thousand people fell from among the people.” If we take into account that each of the sons of Levi killed the one who was opposite, then Moses had 6 thousand people in total, 3 thousand of whom fell from the sword of “Levi.” It is clear that 6 thousand people is just one militia of Ramses 2, who divided his army into four formations, each of which had 6 thousand fighters. And this is once again proven by the fact that Moses’s militia was one of the formations of the army of Pharaoh Ramses 2 that came to the battle with the Hittites at the walls of Kadesh.
Why did Moses deal so cruelly with half of his army? Yes, only because this dead half was still committed to the Egyptian pagan cult of the sacred bull Apis, the statue of which the militia cast from the gold they had - stolen from the Egyptians upon leaving Egypt - while Moses was writing out God's commandments on the tablets on Mount Horeb.
Moses was well aware that these adherents of the Egyptian cult could eventually persuade the rest to return to Egypt under the rule of the pharaoh.
“And all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them: Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate bread to the full! You are taking us to this desert to starve this entire congregation to death.” (Exodus, ch. 16, v. 2, 3)
So it turns out that one thing is the plan of Moses, and another is the reality into which the militias deceived by him found themselves. And therefore, they demanded to return back to Egypt to the cauldrons of meat and a grain feast. They themselves, Pharaoh will not take revenge for the betrayal, since they knew nothing about the plans of Moses, but Moses and Aaron themselves, upon returning to Egypt, were threatened with death for apostasy from Pharaoh. And Moses came to the only right decision. Where they came, they stayed for some indefinite time, since there was simply no way back to Egypt: “... and the whole congregation of the children of Israel came to the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and between Sinai...”. (Exodus, ch. 16, v. 1).
What could Moses do in such a situation? Of course, organize a new society. Unite into a new single community. And this could only be done on a religious basis.
Since there was no way back to Egypt, just as there was no return to the previous Egyptian-pagan cults, then Moses, as the organizer of the new community, was faced with the task of giving society a religion that would not repeat the canons of previous religious views, but nevertheless and would not deviate much from the foundations of religion in general. And in this he was greatly helped by his father-in-law, the Median priest, Jethro.
"And Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt. ... And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, with his sons and his wife came to Moses into the desert, where he encamped at the mountain of God. ... Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and bowed down and kissed him, and after mutual greetings they entered the tent." Exodus, chapter 18, v. 1, 5, 7.
It is not difficult to imagine what the conversation between Moses and his father-in-law was about, for they, of course, first of all complained to each other that their brilliantly conceived plan to introduce Moses to the royal throne of Egypt had failed. Because if Moses had become pharaoh, then Media would have become Egypt’s closest ally and together they, Egypt and Media, would have captured the entire Near and Middle East, including Mesopotamia, which was called the land of Sennar. And at the same time, the Hittites would have to lose their statehood. Because Egypt and Media at that time, having joined forces, could have easily crushed the Hittite state. And this is control over the Mediterranean coast of Syria with a rich international trade market.
But now there was nothing left to do but settle down in the new habitat. And for this it was necessary to unite all those remaining in the camp of Moses. And only religion could become such a unifying force, from which the laws of social, that is, public existence, would flow.
From the Bible we remember well that Moses was brought up in the house of Pharaoh, as a future priest, and therefore knew all the Egyptian religious rites and rituals by heart, just as he knew the contents of the “Book of the Dead” very well, from which he took several articles for his “ten” as a basis. commandments." There is no doubt about it. Anyone who wishes to verify this can open the “Book of the Pyramids,” otherwise called the “Book of the Dead,” and read these commandments.
So. The basis of Moses’ legislation was the “Ten Commandments”, which he somewhat reformatted from the significantly abbreviated “Confessions of Denial of Sins”, “Book of the Pyramids”, its other name “Book of the Dead”.
However, the laws of Moses are so extensive that they go far beyond the commandments of the Book of the Dead.
Where did he, just like that, right out of nowhere, come up with more extensive legislation? Yes, everything came from the same place, from the hands of his father-in-law, Jethro, a Median priest. Who quickly realized that Moses would need strong and thorough legislation to prevent the new society from becoming a herd.
“The next day Moses sat down to judge the people, and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. And Moses’ father-in-law saw everything that he was doing with the people, and said: “What are you doing with the people? Why are you sitting alone, and all do the people stand before you from morning to evening? And Moses said, “The people come to me to ask for judgment from God; when something happens to them, they come to me, and I judge between one and the other, and declare the statutes of God and His laws.” But Moses' father-in-law said to him, "You are not doing this well. You will torment both yourself and this people who are with you; for this matter is too difficult for you; you alone cannot correct it. So, listen to my words; I will give you advice, and God will be with you: be a mediator for the people before God and present their deeds to God. Teach them the statutes and laws of God, show them His path, which they should follow, and the deeds that they should do. But you, consider from all the people capable people, fearing God, truthful people, hating self-interest, and appoint them over him as leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens. Let them judge the people at all times, and report to you about every important matter, and judge all small matters themselves: and it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, and God commands you, then you can stand, and all this people will go to their place in peace. And Moses listened to the words of his father-in-law, and did everything that he said." Exodus, chapter 18, v. 13 - 24.
As we see, Moses’ father-in-law clearly separated the role of Moses, as the supreme judge speaking on behalf of God, from the role of worldly judges - rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. In fact, Jethro gave Moses the principles of military organization of society - regiment, battalion, company and military section (1000, 100, 50, 10). And each such judge needed a judge. Otherwise, on the basis of what uniform laws could the judges appointed by Moses make and administer judicial decisions? Only guided by uniform laws set out in a replicated written collection, which was the collection of laws set out by Moses and recorded in writing.
But here's the question. Could Moses have invented a code of laws so quickly? He could, but only on the condition that such a code of law was given to Moses by the priest Jethro, whose authority in the eyes of Moses was very great. After all, Moses lived with this Median priest for 40 years, became related to him, took Jethro’s daughter as his wife and had two sons with her, adopted from him magic and sorcery, and at the same time religious rites, rituals and the Avestan Aryan legislation of the One God of the Avestans, Ahuramazda . And here we can say with confidence that Moses’ special operation to infiltrate Median society was carried out brilliantly.
But before Moses studied for 40 years with the Mazdaists their magic, sorcery, rites, rituals, Mazdaist legislation, he studied religious rites, rituals and legislation for 40 years in Egypt, in the house of Pharaoh, as a future priest, and possibly a future a pharaoh capable of replacing Akhenaten on his throne. And now, when his knowledge was useful in such an unusual situation, he synthesized the Egyptian and Avestan religious and social systems into a single legislation based on the religion of the One God, which Abram adopted from the same Medes.
And now about the prophet Daniel, and his penetration into the highest echelons of Babylonian power.
"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it; and the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah and part of the vessels of the House of God into his hand, and he sent them to the land of Shinar (Babylonia), to the house of his god, and brought these vessels into the treasury of his god. And the king said to Aspenaz, the chief of his eunuchs, that he should bring from the sons of Israel, from the line of the king and prince, youths who have no physical defect, beautiful in appearance and intelligent for every science, and those who understood science and were intelligent and fit to serve in the royal palace, and to teach them the books and the language of the Chaldeans. And the king assigned them daily food from the royal table and wine, which he himself drank, and ordered them to be educated for three years, after which they had to appear before the king. Among them were from the sons of Judah Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. And the chief of the eunuchs renamed them Daniel as Belshazzar, Hananiah as Shadrach, Mishael as Meshach and Azariah as Abednego. ... And Daniel was there until the first year King Cyrus." (Book of the Prophet Daniel, Chapter 1, Art. 1 - 7, 21)
The following is the story of how Daniel and his comrades miraculously solved fantastic dream the king of Babylon, which was told to the king himself, from which he, in admiration of the wisdom of Daniel, fell to his knees and bowed to Daniel.
“Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and bowed to Daniel and ordered gifts and fragrant incense to be brought. ... Then the king elevated Daniel and gave him many great gifts, and made him over the entire region of Babylon and the chief commander over all the wise men of Babylon. But Daniel asked the king, and he put Shadrach and Abednego in charge of the affairs of the country of Babylon, and Daniel remained at the king’s court.” (Book of the Prophet Daniel, Chapter 2, Art. 46, 48, 49)
And again we see the penetration of Jews into the highest echelons of power, now Babylonian. And here, as in the case of Joseph, “there would have been no happiness, but misfortune helped.” The captivity in Babylon turned out to be a blessing for the Jews through Daniel and his fellow sufferers, who became leading figures under King Nebuchadnezzar.
But the trouble is, the king of Babylon made a golden idol and forced all his subjects to worship this idol. But Daniel and his comrades, as true Jews, refused to worship the molten image even under pain of death.
“Then Nebuchadnezzar, in anger and rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought; and these men were brought before the king.
Nebuchadnezzar said to them: “Do you deliberately, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, do not serve my gods, and do not worship the golden image that I have set up? ... let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Book of Daniel, chapter 3, v. 13, 18)
Naturally, from such ingratitude for everything that he had endowed these Jews with, the king became enraged and ordered that the obstinate subjects, whom he had previously exalted, be thrown into a fiery furnace. But to the surprise of Nebuchadnezzar, the Angel of the Lord himself climbed into the furnace and turned the fire into unburnt heat. That is why all three Jews remained unharmed.
The stunned Nebuchadnezzar in amazement forgave Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and again made them governors, and he himself again fell into a dream, which again needed to be unraveled.
“Then came the seers, charmers, Chaldeans and fortune-tellers; I told them the dream, but they could not explain to me the meaning of it. Finally Daniel came in to me, whose name was Belshazzar - after the name of my god, and in whom was the spirit of the holy God; I told him I am a dream."
(Book of the Prophet Daniel, chapter 4, art. 4, 5.)
In general, the dream was quite unpleasant, which soon came true, as Daniel predicted.
Then Daniel (Belshazzar - mine) unraveled the mysterious letters seen by King Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, for which he was again rewarded, now by this king.
"Then by the command of Belteshazzar, they clothed Daniel in scarlet robe and placed a golden chain around his neck and proclaimed him the third ruler in the kingdom. That same night Belteshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was killed. And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, being sixty-two years old." (Book of Daniel, chapter 5, v. 21).
“It pleased Darius to place one hundred and twenty satraps over the kingdom, so that they would be throughout the whole kingdom. And over them three princes, one of whom was Daniel...” (Book of the Prophet Daniel, chapter 6, v. 1, 2.)
Next, it again tells about a new test that Daniel had to pass with honor, without sullying his Jewish conscience and faith in the One God, for which Darius ordered Daniel to be thrown into the lions' den. But the Angel of the Lord immediately came to the aid of Daniel by taming the lions, which is why Daniel turned out to be safe and sound. The astonished Darius ordered Daniel to be released: “And Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and during the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” (Book of the Prophet Daniel, chapter 6, v. 28).
However, Daniel saw not only this in his visions, but also the distant future.
“The ram you saw with two horns is the kings of Media and Persia. And the shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn that is between his eyes is her first king: He broke, and other four came out in his place: these are four kingdoms will rise from this people, but not with their power. At the end of their kingdom, when the apostates have fulfilled the measure of their iniquities, a king will arise, insolent and skilled in deceit; And his power will be strengthened, although not by his power, and he will cause amazing devastation and to succeed and to act and to destroy the mighty and the people of the saints... And with his intelligence and deceit he will succeed in his hand, and he will be exalted in his heart, and in the midst of the world he will destroy many, and he will rise up against the Lord of lords, but will be crushed - not by hand. The vision of the evening and the morning, about which it is said, is true, but you hide this vision, for it refers to distant times. And I, Daniel, was weak and sick for several days; then I got up and began to attend to the royal affairs; I was amazed at this vision. and did not understand him." (Book of the Prophet Daniel, ch. 8, v. 20 - 27).
To understand what is being said in this vision, you just need to remember who will come to reign on these lands after the Persians and Medes. And first the Macedonians will come, led by Alexander the Great (“the shaggy goat”), then the four associates of Alexander the Great, who became kings after the collapse of the Macedonian state, then the Romans (“the impudent king and skilled in deceit,” ... “but he will be crushed - not hand").
To understand this mysterious phrase (broken - not by hand), you need to read another vision of Daniel: “Know therefore and understand: from the time the commandment goes out to restore Jerusalem until Christ the Lord, there are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks: and the people will return and streets and walls will be built, but in difficult times. And after sixty-two weeks Christ will be put to death, and will not be: and the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by the people of the leader who will come and its end will be like a flood, and until the end of the war there will be desolations ". (Book of the Prophet Daniel, chapter 9, art. 25, 26).
It must be said that the prophet Daniel is a unique phenomenon. Having been taken prisoner under Nebuchadnezzar, he managed to outlive Nebuchadnezzar himself, his son Belshazzar, the Persian king Darius the Mede and live all the way to the king of Greece, Alexander the Great:
“Now I will return to fight the prince of Persia: and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come” (Book of the Prophet Daniel, ch. 10, v. 20); - and even to Christ himself. The book of this Daniel convinces us of this.
Maybe Daniel lived as long as the ancient Methuselah lived, but in the case of this book, we again have the co-authorship of several people (like the book of Moses), who wrote under the same name a book called the book of Daniel.
However, this is not the main thing here. And the main thing here is that the Jews managed to so firmly penetrate into the highest echelons of power and replace the Babylonians themselves in government structures that even the defeat of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus did not shake their strong position in the royal court of the Persians, who replaced the Babylonians in Mesopotamia. And only the defeat of the Persian kingdom by Alexander the Great deprived the Jews of Babylonia of any influence at court. This was the reason for writing the book of Daniel, with the aim of reintroducing Alexander the Great into the royal power. But Alexander was not as superstitious as Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar or Darius of Media, and therefore the attempt to convince him that the Jews could interpret incomprehensible and disturbing dreams very well did not have any success. Moreover, Alexander the Great had the Delphic oracle, that is, the Delphic prophet.
The Jews completely lost power in the kingdom of Alexander the Great. And they were never again able to penetrate the thrones of the powerful states of the East.
It must be said that, if you believe the Old Testament, then only the Jews allegedly possessed the gift of prophecy. But Homer’s Iliad, which is much older than the Old Testament (which we have already had the opportunity to verify), convinces us that this gift was also available to the ancient Greeks, especially when the Olympian gods are transformed into Greek prophets, for example Poseidon:
"... god, inhabitant of Olympus,
Having assumed the image of a prophet, he commanded us to protect the ships.
No, it is not Calchas, the broadcaster of oracles, the bird fortuneteller;
No, by the footprints and by the powerful legs from behind I knew
Reversing the departing god: the gods are easily knowable."
(Homer “Iliad”, canto thirteen, p. 176, translation by Gnedich, Moscow, “Fiction”, 1987.
So, the gift of divination was not the property of the Jews alone.
The next example of a special operation to introduce Jews into the upper strata of the ruling class is found in the Book of Esther, which tells us about the reign of the Persian and Median king Artaxerxes and how the introduction of Jews into the house of King Artaxerxes led to the complete seizure of power in Persia by the Jews. And again main role A Jewish woman played a role in the seizure of power.
We don't need to retell the contents of the book of Esther, let's just say that men's weakness for female beauty for the most part deprives him of power in general, and in some cases also of royal power, or near royal power.
Russia did not escape a similar fate at the very beginning of the twentieth century.
When Russia, as a result of the division of Poland, received part of the Polish lands, then, along with the new lands, Russia also received a mass of Jews living on the annexed Polish lands. True, Empress Catherine II introduced the Pale of Settlement for Jews who remained in the lands of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, but who did not abandon attempts to penetrate the territory of Russia proper, rich in resources, both natural and labor.
However, a century and a half later, when the Russian Emperor Nicholas II abdicated the throne, leaving Russia to the mercy of fate, huge masses of Jews poured into Russia. They deliberately organized an armed seizure of state power, unleashed a fratricidal civil war in the country, pitting one part of the Russians against another, and exterminated most of the scientific, technical, and humanitarian intelligentsia. As a result, the Jewish Zionists seized all command posts in science, culture, economics, finance, and the state apparatus.
But two decades passed and the usurper of state power in Russia, Dzhugashvili (Stalin), purged Jews from government structures, science, culture, economics and other spheres of the state.
But they did this not only with Russia, but also with Ukraine, in which in 2014 they staged a military anti-state coup and, just like in Russia, fraudulently appropriated all the wealth of Ukraine into their own property, taking this Slavic land into their greedy Jewish hands and leaving the people of Ukraine poor and barefoot.
And they managed to do all this only thanks to a specially developed system of penetration through hidden, creeping expansion into the environment of an alien ethnic group, occupation of the economy through usury and annexation of state control levers. through direct penetration into the state apparatus while ousting the state-forming ethnic group from it. And ethnomimicry helped them in this, which is essentially ethnomasking, through assigning to themselves names, patronymics and surnames characteristic of the ethnic group into which they infiltrated
The ineradicable desire of the Jews to penetrate into the highest positions in the state is not a simple hobby, behind which there is only a sporting interest, but is an indispensable condition, first of all, for the survival of the Jews as a nation, as an ethnic group. On the other hand, the penetration of Jews into the upper levels of state power opens up, first of all, unhindered access for Jews not only to the royal treasures, but also to the disposal, at their own Jewish discretion, of the national wealth of the state in general. It is for this reason that the Jews organize special operations to introduce special agents into the highest echelons of power of any state. This is what we are convinced of by carefully studying the Scriptures.
But let’s return to Moses, and to those distant times when Moses and his companions were left in the desert with nothing.
What was to be done? Return to Egypt, to certain death? After all, the surviving pharaoh will probably not have mercy. But neither Moses nor Aaron even thought of paying with their heads. Remain in a lifeless desert, dooming yourself to inevitable death from hunger and lack of water? This is also an unenviable prospect, but there is still hope to survive if you organize and make efforts to overcome temporary difficulties.
Be that as it may, strict military discipline, faith in Moses as a god, faith in God, and common efforts made it possible for Moses and his fellow tribesmen not only to survive in the desert, but also to significantly increase in number. Moreover, so much so that now Moses, without fear, could set off to conquer the land that God “bequeathed” to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as an inheritance. Although it is not entirely clear how God, who said to the first people he created: “be fruitful, multiply and populate the earth,” suddenly began to favor only the Jews. After all, for him there is neither Jew nor Greek. For him, all the people he created are the chosen and the only ones. And therefore beloved.
However, Moses thought completely differently. Having failed in the implementation of his plan to install himself on the throne of Pharaoh and being left alone with the people he had deceived, he understood perfectly well that in order to avoid punishment from the people who trusted him, it was necessary to somehow unite the motley crowd into a single society, it was necessary to master the consciousness of people, which means for this it is necessary to put into people’s heads not only the idea of their exclusivity, but also their chosenness of God. This was the only way to justify his unrighteous act.
"These are the words that Moses spoke to all the Israelites beyond the Jordan in the desert on the plain opposite the Suf, between Farran and Tophel, and Laban, and Ashiroth and Dizagab. At a distance of eleven days' journey from Horeb, on the road from Mount Seir to Kadesh - Barnea of the Fortieth year, the eleventh month, on the first day of the month Moses spoke to the children of Israel everything that the Lord had commanded him about them... Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, and said: The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, It is enough for you to live on this mountain; Turn yourselves, set out, and go to the mountain of the Amorites and to all their neighbors, to the plain, to the mountain, to the low places, and to the southern region and to the shores of the sea, to the land of Canaan and "to Lebanon, even to the great river, the river Euphrates. Behold, I give you the land that the Lord promised with an oath to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, to them and their descendants." (Deuteronomy, ch. 1, v. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8)
Of course, it is difficult to convince a person to attack someone else out of the blue. But if you convince a person of his exclusivity, and even of God’s chosenness, in the name of committing inappropriate actions, and justify this by God’s command, then a person can be directed to any act, even a crime against another person. And in ancient practice this was common. And here Moses turned out to be far from the first inventor of God's chosenness.
"... thus says the Lord: Israel is My son, My firstborn." (Exodus, chapter 4, v. 22) “Behold, the Lord your God has given you this land; go, take possession of it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, spoke to you; do not fear or be dismayed. ... The Lord Your God goes before you; He will fight for you, as He did to you in Egypt before your eyes. And in this wilderness, where, as you saw, the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son. , all the way that you walked until you came to this place... Arise, go, and cross the brook Arnon: behold, I have delivered Sihon king of Heshbon the Amorite and his land into your hand; begin to take possession of it, and make war with him." (Deuteronomy, ch. 1, v. 21, 30, 31, ch. 2, v. 24) “...if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you will be my inheritance from all nations: for all things are mine. earth; and you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,..." (Exodus, chapter 19, vv. 5, 6)
The idea of God's chosenness of an entire people, especially when this people is not large in number, was a powerful incentive to unity, cohesion and determination. And there was a goal, and what a goal:
“And the Lord said: I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry from their leaders; I know their afflictions, and I am going to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of this land into a good and spacious land, where milk and honey flow. , to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites." (Exodus, ch. 3, v. 7, 8)
If Abraham came to Canaan as a guest and therefore did not even think of staying there for a long time, then the Lord suddenly appeared to him: “And the Lord appeared to Abraham and said: to your descendants I will give this land...” (Genesis, chapter 12, art. .7).
That is, the Lord bequeathed the land of Canaan to the descendants of Abraham, but only in the future. And although the motivation is no less than strange, this future came with the departure of Moses with the militia from Egypt and after 40 years of wandering in the desert.
But was it really so easy in the time of Moses to invade Canaan just like that, even fully armed, with impunity?
We know that during the time of Ramesses II, the lands of Canaan were divided between the two most powerful powers of the Ancient East - the Hittite power and Ramesses' Egypt, with which Moses was unable to compete.
True, after the Battle of Kadesh, the Hittite state was struck by a plague brought by the warriors of Ramesses II. And for twenty years the plague decimated the inhabitants of the Hittite state, devastating the population and weakening the military and economic forces of the Hittites. At the same time, Ramesses II reigned calmly in Egypt right up to 1235, before the birth of Christ. Until the very first invasion of the “Sea Peoples”, with whom the son of Ramses II, Pharaoh Merneptah, first met.
They, the “peoples of the sea”, first defeated the already greatly weakened Hethian power, and then reached Egypt. Ultimately, the "Sea Peoples" were defeated by the Egyptians, but managed to gain a foothold in Canaan. And since the union of the tribes of the “Sea Peoples” was a rather loose formation, they could not resist the invasion of the united and well-trained army of Moses, under the leadership of the commander of Moses, Joshua, with a united front.
However, the Jews managed to do this only in alliance with the Medes and only after Egypt had completely lost control over the lands of Syria and Palestine, that is, Canaan. And only after the final fall of the New Kingdom in Egypt. Which just happened to be at the beginning, or even the middle of the 11th century before the birth of Christ. From this time on, the victorious march of the Jews across the land of ancient Canaan began.
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Give a command to the children of Israel and say to them: when you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that will be your inheritance, the land of Canaan with its borders: the south side will be yours from the wilderness of Sin, near Edom, and your southern border will go from the end of the Salt Sea in the east, and the border will go south to the heights of Akrabim and will go through Sin, and its protrusions will be south to Kadesh-Barnea, from there it will go to Hatzar-Addar, and will pass through Atzmon. Atzmona, the border will be directed towards the stream of Egypt, and its projections will be towards the sea. And your western border will be the great sea. This will be your border to the west. And your border will be to the north: from the great sea, draw it to Mount Hor; from Mt. Draw Or to Hamath, and there will be protrusions of the border to Zedad; From there the border will go to Tzifron, and its protrusions will be to Hatzar-Enan. This will be your northern border. Draw your eastern border from Gatzar-Enan to Shepham. From Shepham the border will go to Rible, on the eastern side of Ain; then the border will go and touch the shores of the Kinneref Sea on the eastern side. And the border will go to the Jordan, and there will be protrusions to the Salt Sea. This will be your land along its borders on all sides. (Numbers, ch. 34, v. 1 - 12).
Moses' truly amazing knowledge of the geography and toponymy of Canaan. But, if you agree that it was in these places that Moses the guide carried out his priestly service, then it becomes clear where he got such knowledge about this land and why it was here, in these lands rich in fruits, that Moses wanted to bring the departed Jews with him.
Why do we say that the Jews managed to conquer lands for the future kingdom of Israel, in alliance with the Medes?
The fact is that the Jews who left Egypt did not have their own land on which they could establish their state. Of course, the desert was not the best place for this. After all, all ancient states lived primarily by trade. And who will take their goods to God knows where, that is, to the desert? Therefore, Moses and his fellow tribesmen were faced with the task of choosing a place of residence where trade could flourish. And these were precisely the coastal lands with developed trading cities of Tire, Sidon, Jaffa, Gaza and so on. And since these were ancient cities with a large population and, moreover, well fortified, the followers of Moses understood perfectly well that they could not cope with the peoples living there alone. That is why they took the Medes as their allies, who by this time also did not have their own territory to found their own Median state. And here the interests of both landless peoples coincided very opportunely. And if we also take into account the fact that Moses married the daughter of the Median priest Jethro, and that his sons remained with Jethro, whom he raised as priests and magicians, then, of course, the Jews and the Medes became related and therefore their union was sealed by an authoritative marriage , one might say dynastic.
So it is not surprising that these two peoples, in search of habitable lands, united for a joint campaign of conquest. True, as a result of their joint efforts, the Jews conquered Jericho and Jerusalem with their surroundings, which allowed them to create their own state in the middle or end of the 11th century BC. The Medes managed to create their own state only in the 7th century BC. That is, much later. But there were historical reasons for this. Most likely, the Medes, that is, the Medes, for the most part did not want to leave rich Mesopotamia, for which they had their own plans. By the way, we note that the Medes were closely related to the Armenians, if not the direct ancestors of the Armenians.
Later, when the Jews had thoroughly established themselves in the lands of Canaan, they would repeatedly enter into direct confrontation with the Medes, even leading to armed clashes and even wars.
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Enmity with the Midianites, and smite them; for they dealt hostilely with you in their deceit, deceiving you with Peor and Hazba, the daughter of the ruler of Midian, her sister, who was killed on the day of defeat for Peor.” (Numbers, ch. 25, v. 16, 17, 18).
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Avenge the Midianites for the children of Israel, and afterward you will go back to your people. And Moses spoke to the people, saying, Arm yourselves for men to go to war, so that they will go against the Midianites, to take the vengeance of the Lord on the Midianites; ... And they went to war against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every male, and together with the slain they killed the kings of Midian: Ebiah, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian... And there was all the gold that was brought to The Lord's offering was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels, from the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds. The soldiers plundered every man for himself. And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, and brought it to the tabernacle of meeting, in remembrance of the children of Israel before the Lord." (Numbers, Ch.31, Art.1, 2, 3, 7, 8)
Revenge was not the leading motive for the attack on the Medes - the Midianites, but the huge reserves of gold, silver and copper in the hands and storerooms of the unfortunate Medes.
This is how the Jews thanked the Medes for their armed support, and this is how Moses thanked his father-in-law, the Median priest Jethro, both for the daughter Moses married, and for religious and ideological support.
However, Moses’ soldiers began to engage in robbery as soon as Moses and his army remained in the desert after escaping from the battlefield of Kadesh. And they did this at the instigation of Moses, for only some completely uncritical person can believe in the fairy tale about manna from heaven.
In fact, people armed with military weapons will never wait for manna from heaven, but will go to get their food by force of arms. And Moses’ warriors began to engage in elementary robbery on the caravan trails, robbing trade caravans and taking caravan leaders and traders into captivity, for whom the Mosesites then received a ransom. And so that during a raid they would not get lost upon returning from robbery, the land corsairs were guided as if by a beacon, by the very serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, ...”. (from John, ch. 3, v. 14).
Only this kite was not copper, but air. And raised very high in the air, it was perfectly visible from the farthest distance. Therefore, the Mosesites returning from the robbery simply could not get lost in the desert, seeing perfectly well where Moses was with his camp. For Moses constantly had to move through the desert so that the troops sent to capture him could not find either him, his soldiers, or his camp.
“So, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only that you fear the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul So that you may keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes, which I am commanding you today, so that it may go well with you. Behold, the Lord your God has the heavens and the heavens of heavens, the earth and everything that is in it; but the Lord accepted only your fathers, the Lord loved them, and chose you, their seed after them, from all nations, as you now see. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stiff-necked any more. For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, powerful and awesome God, who who looks at faces and takes no gift. Who gives justice to the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, and gives him bread and clothing. You also love the stranger; for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt. Fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him only. and cleave to Him, and swear by His name." (Deuteronomy, ch. 10, v. 12 - 20)
After the robbery of trade caravans and beaten Medes brought countless treasures to the Jews, Moses was faced with the task of reliable protection of the loot. And this was only possible with the help of fortress walls. But, cities were surrounded by fortress walls and, therefore, Moses and the Jews were faced with the task of conquering cities in which they could hide from attack, at least by the same Medes. Which could, in retaliation for the Jewish attack on them, gather their countless forces and attack the Jews with all their considerable might. And Moses sent his militia to the cities of Canaan, which by that time was so weakened that it could no longer offer any serious resistance.
But since this was not a quick task, and Moses understood this very well, he tirelessly repeated to his followers that the Lord did not give him the opportunity to enter the land of Canaan, but that his descendants would completely succeed if they were tirelessly persistent. The persistence of the Jews brought them many Philistine cities as trophies.
However, along with the conquest of Canaan, the Jews and, in particular, the religious Jewish elite were faced with the fact that Jehovah was not at all their only god, whom all Jews should worship.
“The children of Israel continued to do evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals and Ashtaroths, and the gods of the Aramaites, and the gods of the Sidonians, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines; but they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him. And the wrath of the Lord was kindled against Israel , and he delivered them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. They oppressed and tormented the children of Israel from that year for eighteen years... And the children of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned; do to us whatever You please, only deliver us this day.” ". (Book of Judges, chapter 10, art. 6, 7, 8, 15).
As a result, Jehovah (Sabaoth) “took” the side of the Israelites, which helped them free themselves from the Ammonites and Ephraimites. However, the Jews again began to neglect their god: “The children of Israel continued to do evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years” (Book of Judges, ch. 13, v. 1).
So what were the Jews doing that was so “evil” that the Lord was angry with them all the time and delivered them into the “hands of the Philistines”?
And “what is evil in the sight of the Lord” is nothing more than serving foreign gods: “...Baals and Ashtoreth, and the gods of Aramaean, and the gods of Sidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines...”.
But was Jehovah really right when he was angry with his foolish sons? It was not for nothing that the Jews served the gods of the Philistines. Jehovah of hosts did not understand that the Jews served foreign gods, not because they were unreasonable. But they did not serve Jehovah for the same reason. The Jews simply continued the work begun by Moses, that is, they continued the special operation to introduce Cananan into the religious cults, striving to occupy the highest priestly positions in the above-mentioned religious cults.
Mastering the highest priestly positions opened up in the future the possibility of introducing the religious concept of Judaism into these cults. But Jehovah could not read the secret thoughts of his fans and therefore was angry, and therefore delivered his sons into the hands of their enemies. And this was 300 (three hundred) years after Moses led them out of Egypt. That is, approximately 930 before the birth of Christ: “Israel has already lived for three hundred years in Heshbon and in the cities dependent on it...” (Book of Judges, ch. 11, v. 26).
It is clear that the Jews were not able to conquer all of Canaan, but only conquered some cities, so they were left with the task of spreading Judaism to all of Canaan, to the entire coastal country. And since the Jews could not achieve this by military means, there was only one thing left - to penetrate into the higher, including priestly, layers of that Canaanite society, which they managed to penetrate both by military force and by peaceful, creeping expansion.
The task of reformatting peoples into Judaism, where Jews somehow penetrated, has not been canceled. And therefore, serving alien gods was only temporary mimicry, temporary apostasy, opportunism, disguise with far-reaching goals - in the future, to lead everyone living in the “seaside country” to Judaism. This is what we observed in Syria, at the time of Christ’s arrival on the banks of the Jordan.
The main purpose of the miracles revealed by Christ, during His first public actions in Galilee, Samaria, Judea and other areas of Syria, was the desire to attract public attention. The more amazing were the miracles He performed.
Miracles always captivate the minds of people, pushing them to actions and deeds that come from the desire to see again the magic that they themselves are not capable of. And the more those who followed Christ saw the miracles performed by Him, the more quantitatively their certain community became, which later grew into a community.
And when such a community grew, then naturally, some “community members” had an irresistible desire to become the leader of this community. And since the official leader of the emerging community of followers of Christ was Christ himself, then everyone and anyone was trying to become the unofficial leader of the Christ community. And moreover, intrusively, both secretly and in reality:
“Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Him with her sons, bowing and asking Him for something. He said to her: What do you want? She said to Him: Tell these two sons of mine to sit at Your side, one on your right side, and the other on the left in Your kingdom. Jesus answered and said... to let you sit at My right hand and on the left does not depend on Me, but on whom My Father has prepared." (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, art. 21,22,23).
Here. Before Christ had time to become famous, but had just become widely known, a special operation immediately began to introduce the Jews into the closest, closest circle of Christ. So is it any wonder that Judas Iscariot secretly dreamed of replacing Christ with himself in the hope of formal leadership in the Christian community. Although, of course, he could have decided to do this at the secret instigation of the Zionist Jewish elders.
But one way or another, the desire of Judas Iscariot to oust Christ and himself to lead the already quite large community of Christ’s followers does not raise any doubt. But how to do that? Only by eliminating Christ. For in terms of personality and significance, he, of course, could not compare with Christ, although he was one of the apostles of Christ.
However, the Jewish elders, seeing how rapidly the flock of Christ was growing, did not doze at all.
Having figured out what financial benefits, in the form of monetary donations for the Temple of Jerusalem, were floating away from under their noses, they, of course, became excited and thought about how to turn numerous followers of Christ into faithful Jews bringing temple taxes to the Temple of Jerusalem. An example of this is the following episode:
“When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of didrachms approached Peter and said: Will your teacher give didrachms? He says: yes. And when he entered the house, Jesus warned him and said: What do you think, Simon? kings of the earth From whom do they take duties or taxes? From their own sons, or from strangers? Peter said to Him, From strangers. Jesus said to him, Therefore the sons are free." (Gospel of Matthew, ch. 17, v. 24 -26).
So impudently, in the middle of the street, the so-called voluntary temple tax collectors approached everyone they met and demanded donations for the temple. But Christ forbade his followers to give donations to the Jerusalem temple. For when He said “the sons are free,” He of course meant the sons of Christ’s earthly Kingdom. And in the Kingdom of Heaven no one collects monetary donations to God anyway. Therefore, Christ considered temple taxes to be outright, mossy paganism and therefore imposed a ban on the collection of temple donations.
And yet, there was still a man from among the apostles who knew about this prohibition of Christ, but who violated this prohibition. And it was none other than Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot, who voluntarily took upon himself the “responsibility” of collecting temple “donations,” of course, at the end of the “working” day, took all the donations to the Jerusalem Temple, and the Jewish high priests, seeing the zeal of this apostate, just talked with him about replacing him, Judas. , Christ in the already quite large community of followers of the Savior. After all, they had no intention of losing such a large flock from their Jewish hands. Moreover, many, if not all, who followed Christ renounced Judaism, thereby greatly reducing the number of adherents of the Jerusalem Temple.
After all, Judaism requires, in order to be cleansed from sins, a bodily sacrifice and monetary contributions to the temple, and Christ, through his disciples, baptized, remitting sins without any material compensation, just like that, without any donations. And this circumstance infuriated the Jewish high priests, as they say, I myself will not make a “racket” and I will not give it to others. And of course, the Jewish high priests considered it best for themselves to act as a roundabout maneuver. Moreover, many prominent townspeople who had their own estates served Christ. And laying hands on rich and prosperous estates was the cherished dream of the Jewish clergy. But Christ forbade it and thus once again provoked hatred towards Himself on the part of the Orthodox Jews.
Christ did not simply declare: “the law and the prophets until John.” With this statement, He simply abolished the Old Testament, replacing it with the Gospel of the Kingdom of God - “from now on, the Kingdom of God is preached and everyone enters it by force.” (Gospel of Luke, ch. 16, 16).
And yet. Many faithful evangelists can object to us, arguing that Christ said: “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until everything is fulfilled.” (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, v. 18).
And when we read these lines, we automatically believe that we are talking about the Old Testament law. But is it? After all, the Old Testament was originally written in Aramaic, and not in Greek, and certainly not in Latin. And as you know, in the Aramaic alphabet there is no spelling sign “iota” or “line”. The spelling sign “iota”, which is also “dash”, is found only in the Greek alphabet and in the Latin alphabet. But the Latin alphabet has its roots directly in the Greek alphabet, as does the Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore, when Christ spoke about the law, he did not mean the Old Testament law at all. Then which one?
At the time of the coming of Christ, the laws of the twelve tables were applied in the Roman Empire, which were copied from the laws of the Greek legislator Solon, who in turn borrowed these laws from the Greek legislator Lycurgus. And since the laws of Solon and Lycurgus and the Roman laws of the twelve tables are of the same nature and they were written using the Greek alphabet, then Christ, stating: “not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law,” meant, of course, the laws of Lycurgus and Solon, and not at all the laws of the Old Testament, that is, the laws of Moses.
And it was the Jews - the evangelists - who brought this confusion into the Gospels, in order to exalt the laws of the Old Testament over the laws of the ancient legislators Lycurgus and Solon. And therefore, for some reason, we believe that when Christ said this, he meant the laws of the Old Testament. In fact, He exalted the laws of the ancient legislators over the laws of the Jews - “the law and the prophets until John.”
Actively rejecting and even constantly trampling on Jewish laws, instead of them Christ no less actively promoted ancient laws with their democratic fundamentalism, calling for love for one's neighbor, and most of all for God.
Denying the value of blood sacrifices - even even the sacrifice of the lives of sacrificial animals, rejecting the Sabbath, the Feast of Tabernacles, Passover, circumcision, stoning to death, prohibiting the giving of temple taxes - free healing and performing rites of baptism of repentance for the remission of sins on Sabbath and on ordinary days, Christ, with his selflessness - “freely you have received, freely give” (Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, Art. 8) - attracted to his side more and more people in Palestine, who abandoned Judaism and followed him .
And what could the Orthodox Jews do in the face of the loss of financial income to the temple? Of course, either suppress the dangerous movement or lead it. Moreover, Jewish riots and rebellions in the name of restoring the Kingdom of Judah broke out constantly, although they were also regularly suppressed by the Romans.
And when a new rebellion broke out in Jerusalem led by Jesus Barrabas (Barrabi - “our teacher”), but which was immediately crushed in the bud and Barrabas was imprisoned, and therefore Pontius Pilate arrived in Jerusalem for his trial in Jerusalem, here - then Caiaphas remembered his devoted Judas Iscariot.
Having clearly instructed Judas Iscariot what and how to do in order, firstly, to replace Christ with himself in a new large community, and secondly, for the sake of rescuing Jesus Barrabas from captivity, to deliver Christ into the hands of the Romans for execution under the guise of the rebel Barrabas, that is, to give Christ away as Barabbas - Caiaphas started the illegal, unauthorized by the Roman authorities, arrest of Christ precisely at night, when all the followers of the Savior, being at home, were sleeping. And he got away with it. Because Pontius Pilate could not at all imagine that instead of the bandit Barrabas, he was presented with a completely different person, who had absolutely nothing to do with the rebellion in Jerusalem that had happened the day before.
Pontius Pilate, being absolutely sure that the rebel Barrabas was standing before him, claiming to become the king of the Jews, asked him: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him: Are you saying this on your own behalf, or have others told you about Me? " (Gospel of John, ch. 18, v. 3, 34).
Here in this dialogue, we see a comical picture. Pilate believed that standing in front of him was Barrabas, a rebel and murderer who had caused “indignation among the people,” while in front of him stood another and completely innocent person, who had not even thought about any rebellion, much less about killing anyone. neither was it. It was a dialogue between a blind man and a deaf man. Christ did not want to admit Barrabas’ guilt, and Pilate accused Him of Barrabas’ criminal act. And if Christ fully understood what Pilate was talking about, then Pilate was in complete prostration, not understanding why Christ did not admit to his “obvious” guilt.
The situation was paradoxical and Caiaphas, realizing that the truth was about to be revealed, and then he, Caiaphas, could not take his head off, shouted: “Crucify Him!”, without bothering himself with any evidence of the accusation.
But this did not have any effect on Pilate. And only when Caiaphas informed Pilate that the followers of Christ call the Savior the Son of the Living God, making Him equal to God, Pilate was horrified and the issue of the execution of Christ was resolved to the great triumph of the Jews. Because, son of the living god, equal to god, the person could only be named by the Roman Emperor Tiberius. The one whom he himself personally appointed as his successor. For the Roman emperors, since the time of the Emperor Octavian Augustus, following the example of the Egyptian pharaohs, called themselves living gods.
So, the execution of Christ took place, but the special agent to infiltrate Christ’s place committed suicide and it seemed the situation had reached a dead end. However, the Jews are not like that. They quickly realized that the one they saved from execution on the cross could well replace Christ in a leaderless community.
Thus, among the followers of Christ there appears one who calls himself Christ, but whom the followers do not recognize as Christ. Even Mary Magdalene did not recognize Christ in him when he appeared before her supposedly in the guise of Christ and told her that he was Christ. Neither do the direct disciples of Christ, of whom there were many, recognize Christ in him. And in order for the Savior’s followers to believe that he was the Christ, Jesus Barrabas secretly mutilated himself and showed them to Christ’s disciples. And he so truly inflicted these injuries on himself that even Thomas, an unbeliever, believed that it was truly Christ before him.
Thus, a special operation was successfully carried out to introduce a “double” of Christ into the Christian community.
But this was not enough for the Jews. They set themselves the task of introducing to Judaism all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire who found themselves in a slavish and therefore humiliated social position.
The self-proclaimed Apostle Paul took on this work especially zealously. Having composed a story about his meeting with Christ on a deserted road, Paul began to peddle this outright lie to everyone he met. And being an excellent philosopher, orator and liar, he successfully contributed to the growth of Christian communities in the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Italy itself. Just as successfully preaching Judaism under the guise Christ's teachings, at the same time not forgetting to collect taxes from Christians in favor of the Jerusalem Temple, which Christ categorically forbade, “freely you have received, freely give,” meaning His Teaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
However, Paul’s sermons were soon suppressed by the Roman authorities, not only because he preached Christian “heresy,” but mainly because, in violation of the law, he secretly collected temple taxes, bypassing the Roman treasury, sending what he collected to the Jerusalem Temple, without being registered by the Roman authorities as an official and therefore legal tax collector, publican. The official tax collectors sent a tenth of their “surplus” to the Jerusalem temple, and this one sent to the temple everything he collected from Roman subjects, followers of the teachings of Christ, not caring at all about Christ’s ban on temple taxes.
The first Jewish War, which broke out after the execution of “Apostle” Paul, stopped the preaching efforts of the Paulians and Petrashists, but significantly increased the number of Christian communities of Jews converted into slaves as a result of the defeat of Judea in the Jewish War. And this circumstance facilitated the conversion of Christians to “Christianized” Judaism. What the Jews tried hard to do was the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. (Note that all four, being Jews by blood, bear ancient names that are completely uncharacteristic of the Jewish language. This is ethnic mimicry with the aim of not only survival, but also introduction into the linguistic and ethno-antique environment of the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Apennines, Europe conquered by the Romans , and Egypt too).
And that translation of the Torah into Greek, which was carried out by the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the 3rd century BC, and called the Septuagint, helped the Jews, after the Jewish War, to carry the laws of the Torah into the ancient consciousness. The Four Evangelists only sketched out these Jewish laws in their Gospels so that the direct connection with the Talmud would not be obvious. And therefore, after writing the Gospels, Christians managed to get rid of Jewish ideological pressure on their religious consciousness. The Roman Emperor Constantine was especially successful in this, declaring Christianity the state religion.
So. During the time of Christ, two systems of laws came into conflict - the ancient one, based on the laws of Lycurgus, Solon, the Roman twelve tables and the laws of the Torah, through the efforts of Jewish thinkers, transformed into Zionism - the ideology of the superiority of Jews over all other peoples that they meet on their way. After all, the Jewish king David gave birth to Zionism, which later became the guide to action for all Jews.
The ideology of Judaism is based on only one postulate - “don’t give it to your brother on interest, give it to a foreigner, and don’t give it to your brother on interest.” It is clear that the ideology of Judaism is an ideology for all Europeans encountered along the way, and with them the subjects of the entire Roman Empire, with the goal of involving them in Judaism. And Zionism is an ideology for Jews who consider themselves the chosen ones, and at the same time the “superiority” of Jews over all other peoples.
The ideology of Judaism is based on usurious interest. However, for greater persuasiveness, the idea of monotheism was also added to this ideology. Although, to be frank, what kind of god can talk about usury, before trade? However, the Greeks had such a god, the god of trade Hermes, who among the Romans bore the name Mercury. Therefore, in Zionism - Judaism, the true god is not Yahweh, but the god of commerce, Mercury, also known as Hermes.
The confrontation between two legal systems - ancient and Zionist - was personified in the confrontation of Christ with Zionism. After all, Christ, being a full academician of the Athens Academy of Plato, its Alexandria branch, of course studied the laws of the Torah, translated into Greek two and a half centuries before His, Christ, birth and stored in the Alexandria Library, founded by Alexander the Great. And therefore the Jews were amazed at his knowledge of the Torah when He preached to them in their synagogues, which, as educational institutions, in turn were copied from the ancient Greek gymnasiums.
We must not forget that antiquity has firmly settled in the Middle East since the times of the “Cretan people,” that is, those very Philistines. And the name “Palestine - Philistine” is from the European “polis - philis”. “Philistan”, translated from Greek and Russian, means “beloved camp”, or “favorite camp, stop, settlement”. And when the Jews were still only Jews, having arrived in Canaan, and essentially in Palestine - Philistine, they met there Cretan trading settlements that appeared on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, long before the explosion of the Santorini volcano, which destroyed the Cretan island civilization.
That is why Christ believed, and quite legitimately, that ancient law, ancient laws, were much older than the laws of the Torah, and therefore more preferable. And that is why He declared publicly: “The Law and the Prophets until John, from now on the Kingdom of God is preached.” That is, He assigned to ancient law the role of a superlative degree over the laws of Judaism, which were transformed into Zionism through the efforts of the Jewish high priests. And since Zionism is not a religion, but an ideology that has nothing to do with religion, Christ opposed the Jewish ideology of Zionism, namely religion, that is, faith in the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom of Truth and Truth. And the Kingdom of God can only be established by one King of Heaven - the One God.
And when the high priest Caiaphas realized that the sermons of Christ nullify the ideology of Judaism and, as a consequence, the ideology of Zionism as God’s chosenness of the Jews (“there is no Greek and there is no Jew”), that is, they put a fat cross on them, then he uttered his famous phrase: “ ... you know nothing, and you will not think that it is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish.” (Gospel of John, ch. 11, v. 49, 50).
So. The special operation to introduce Jews and Judaism into the ancient environment of the Roman Empire was again successfully failed by the Jews, although echoes of Judaism remained in the developing and expanding teachings of Christ. And only because from the very beginning Christ publicly announced that the Old Testament laws and prophets remained in the past “until John”, and only the Jewish society, and it was replaced by the laws of the Gospel of the Kingdom - the teachings brought by Christ from Europe, or rather from Greece to The Middle East, that is, specifically Syria and Palestine.
Thus, at the initial stage of its journey, the ideological struggle between the religion of plant growing, that is, the religion of vegetarianism - the Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by Christ, and the religion of cattle breeding represented by Judaism - Zionism, ended.
And although over the past two millennia, the attempts of the Jews to penetrate into the power and financial structures of the countries where they came constantly failed, nevertheless, to this day the Jews do not give up attempts to carry out special operations to penetrate into the power circles of states not founded by them, with the aim of through the authorities to get to the country's monetary and raw material resources. And those countries where the Jews succeeded in this were very soon destroyed and perished. This is a natural reaction to the seizure of power in a country by an alien ethnic group. Even though the Jews, as an infiltration tool, use ethnomimicry as an ethno-camouflage. Very soon they give themselves away completely and therefore, as a rule, are expelled.
Christ said: “By their fruits you will know them.”
(Gospel of Matthew, ch. 7, v. 16)
Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 1 Genealogy of Jesus Christ from Joseph to Abraham. Joseph, at first, did not want to live with Mary because of her unexpected pregnancy, but he obeyed the Angel. Jesus was born to them. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 2 The Magi saw in the sky the star of the birth of the king's son, and came to congratulate Herod. But they were sent to Bethlehem, where they presented gold, incense, and oil to Jesus. Herod killed the babies, and Jesus escaped in Egypt. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 3 John the Baptist does not allow the Pharisees to wash, because... For repentance, deeds are important, not words. Jesus asks Him to baptize, John, at first, refuses. Jesus Himself will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 4 The devil tempts Jesus in the desert: to make bread out of a stone, to jump off a roof, to worship for money. Jesus refused and began to preach, call the first apostles, and heal the sick. Became famous. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 5 Sermon on the Mount: 9 Beatitudes, you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Don't break the law. Do not be angry, make peace, do not be tempted, do not get divorced, do not swear, do not fight, help, love your enemies. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 6 Sermon on the Mount: about secret almsgiving and the Lord’s Prayer. About fasting and forgiveness. True Treasure in Heaven. The eye is a lamp. Either God or wealth. God knows about the need for food and clothing. Seek the truth. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 7 Sermon on the Mount: take the beam out of your eye, do not throw pearls. Seek and you will find. Do to others as you do to yourself. The tree bears fruit well, and people will enter Heaven on business. Build a house on a rock - taught with authority. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 8 Healing the leper, Peter's mother-in-law. Military faith. Jesus has nowhere to sleep. The way the dead bury themselves. The wind and sea obey Jesus. Healing the possessed. The pigs are drowned by demons, and the livestock farmers are unhappy. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 9 Is it easier to tell a paralyzed person to walk or to forgive his sins? Jesus eats with sinners, fasts later. About containers for wine, clothing repair. Resurrection of the Maiden. Healing the bleeding, the blind, the dumb. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 10 Jesus sends 12 apostles to preach and heal freely, in exchange for food and lodging. You will be judged, Jesus will be called the devil. Save yourself with patience. Walk everywhere. There are no secrets. God will watch over you and reward you. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 11 John asks about the Messiah. Jesus praises John for being greater than a prophet, but lesser with God. Heaven is reached by effort. To eat or not to eat? A reproach to the cities. God is open to babies and workers. Light burden. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 12 God wants mercy and goodness, not sacrifice. You can heal on Saturday - it is not from the devil. Do not blaspheme the Spirit; words provide justification. Good from the heart. The Sign of Jonah. The hope of the nations is in Jesus, His mother is the disciples. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 13 About the sower: people are as productive as grain. Parables are easier to understand. The weeds will be separated from the wheat later. The Kingdom of Heaven grows like grain, rises like leaven, is profitable like treasure and pearls, like a net with fish. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 14 Herod cut off the head of John the Baptist at the request of his wife and daughter. Jesus healed the sick and fed 5,000 hungry people with five loaves of bread and two fish. At night Jesus went to the boat on the water, and Peter wanted to do the same. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 15 The disciples do not wash their hands, and the Pharisees do not follow their words, thus the blind guides become defiled. It is a bad gift to give to God instead of a gift to parents. Dogs eat crumbs - heal your daughter. He treated and fed 4000 with 7 loaves of bread and fish. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 16 Pink sunset marks clear weather. Avoid the wickedness of the Pharisees. Jesus is the Christ, he will be killed and rise again. Church on Peter the Stone. By following Christ to death, you will save your soul, you will be rewarded according to your deeds. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 17 Transfiguration of Jesus. John the Baptist - like the prophet Elijah. Demons are cast out by prayer and fasting, the youth is healed. Need to believe. Jesus will be killed, but will rise again. They take taxes from strangers, but it’s easier to pay for the Temple. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 18 He who is humbled as a child is greater in Heaven. Woe to the seducer, it is better to be without an arm, a leg and an eye. It is not God's will to perish. Farewell to the obedient 7x70 times. Jesus is among the two asking. Parable of the Evil Debtor. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 19 Divorce only if there is infidelity, because... one flesh. You won't be able to not get married. Let the children come. God alone is good. Righteous - give away your property. It is difficult for a rich person to go to God. Those who follow Jesus will sit in judgment. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 20 Parable: they worked differently, but were paid the same because of bonuses. Jesus will be crucified, but will be resurrected, and who sits on the sides depends on God. Don't dominate, but serve like Jesus. Healing 2 blind people. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 21 Entry into Jerusalem, Hosanna to Jesus. Expulsion of traders from the Temple. Speak in faith. John's Baptism from Heaven? They do it not in words, but in deeds. A parable about the punishment of evil winegrowers. The main stone of God. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 22 For the Kingdom of Heaven, as for a wedding, dress up, don’t be late, and behave with dignity. Caesar minted coins - return part, and God - God's. There is no registry office in Heaven. God is among the living. Love God and your neighbor. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 23 Do what your bosses tell you, but don’t take your example from them, hypocrites. You are brothers, do not be proud. The temple is more valuable than gold. Judgment, mercy, faith. It's beautiful on the outside, but bad on the inside. The people of Jerusalem bear the blood of the prophets. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 24 When the end of the world is not clear, but you will understand: the sun will be eclipsed, signs in the sky, there is the Gospel. Before that: wars, devastation, famine, disease, impostors. Prepare, hide and save yourself. Do everything right. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 25 5 smart girls made it to the wedding, but the others didn’t. The cunning slave was punished for 0 income, and the profitable ones were increased. The king will punish the goats and reward the righteous sheep for their good guesses: they fed, clothed, and visited. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 26 Valuable oil for Jesus, the poor will wait. Judas hired himself to betray. Last Supper, Body and Blood. Bogomolye on the mountain. Judas kisses, Jesus is arrested. Peter fought with a knife, but denied. Jesus was convicted of blasphemy. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 27 Judas repented, quarreled and hanged himself. At Pilate's trial, Jesus' crucifixion was questionable, but the people took the blame: the King of the Jews. Signs and death of Jesus. Funeral in a cave, entrance guarded, sealed. Gospel of Matthew. Matt. Chapter 28 On Sunday, a sparkling Angel scared the guards, opened the cave, told the women that Jesus had risen from the dead and would appear soon. The guards were taught: you fell asleep, the body was stolen. Jesus ordered the nations to be taught and baptized.
St. John Chrysostom
Blzh. Hieronymus of Stridonsky
This does not mean that He excludes the possibility of prophecy after John. Indeed, in the Acts of the Apostles we read that Agabus and the four daughters of Philip prophesied. This only means that the law and the prophets, when they prophesied about something, as we read in the Scriptures, then prophesied about the Lord. So when it says: All the prophets and the law prophesied before John, the time of the coming of Christ is indicated, so that John showed that He had come, whose coming the prophets had predicted.
Blzh. Theophylact of Bulgaria
for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John
And here the same sequence as above. For the Lord says: “I am the One who comes, because all the prophets have been fulfilled, but they would not have been fulfilled if I had not come; so don’t expect anything more.”
Interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Evfimy Zigaben
all the prophets and the law prophesied before John
He calls ancient legislation law, since it also predicted much about Christ, especially in the laws about sacrifices, which served as a prototype and foreshadowing of the sacrifice that must be made for the world. So he says: all the prophets, i.e. prophesied about the coming of Christ, and law, who prophesied about the sacrifice of a sheep and a lamb, continued these prophecies before John. Even before the time of John they were prophecies, but from that time they no longer remained prophecies, but became deeds: He himself saw their fulfillment and therefore, recognizing Christ, called Him the Lamb, saying: Behold, Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world(John 1:29). Christ said these words in order, on the one hand, to give praise to John, since he was the first to know the fulfillment of those prophecies and since he himself was a prophet, and on the other hand, to show that the One about whom they prophesied had already come , and should not expect anything else. There is another interpretation: All at all prophets and law who were to prophesy, prophesied Jews before John, and he was the last of the prophets; after him no one else prophesied to them. So, he, as the last one, should be believed, since he testified a lot about Me and brought the souls of all to Me, as friends of grooms bring brides to them. Therefore the prophet Malachi (3:1) called him sent to prepare my way before me.
Interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Origen
Lopukhin A.P.
for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John
Since γαρ (for) is placed at the beginning of this verse, it means that it contains a proof of the previous verse. The meaning is that the prophets are not like new people who forcibly invade the kingdom - they were messengers of an attack on it and its plunder, like John himself. (A somewhat strong expression - “attacking him and plundering him” - the Kingdom of Heaven did not exist on earth before Christ. Note ed.)
The word “before” here denotes terminus ad quem; in the words “from the days of John” (v. 12) terminus a quo, in time following the first. Thus, the course of events is presented in reverse chronological order. What came after came before, and vice versa. First, an indication of New Testament events, and then of Old Testament events. First in in short words- designation of the New Testament movement of people towards the Kingdom of God, and then - the Old Testament prophecy about this kingdom. The personality and activity of John are placed, as it were, in an interval, whether we take as the beginning of this activity the time of John’s speech to preach or the time of his birth. Correct chronological order is: 1) the prophets before John; 2) John; 3) the advent of the New Testament. The characteristic of the first point is that the prophets prophesied before John. But is this true? It is generally accepted that prophecy ceased among the Jews from the time of Malachi. Harnack's objection that prophecy existed among the Jews until the very time of the Savior (John, the prophetess Anna), in any case, does not contradict the words of the Savior. One can, firstly, think that if prophets existed, they did not have the same importance and fame as before Malachi (οί προφήται). Secondly, the determination of time cannot be considered accurate. Thirdly, the general fact remains true that it was the prophets who prophesied about the kingdom before John, and John himself (and with him the other New Testament prophets) was already a “messenger” and higher than all the Old Testament prophets. The easiest way to understand the matter is that a distinction is made here between the prophecy of future activity and this activity itself. The prophets only prophesied about the activity that began from the days of John. John himself became higher than the prophets, but did not rise to a full understanding of the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, although he was the greatest of the prophets and those born of women. Thus, in fact, verse 13 is a subtle transition to the next verse 14. Schematically, the entire course of speech, art. 9-14. present it like this. Verse 9: John is more than a prophet, because he is the fulfillment of prophecy. The prophet predicts the future. Under John, what he preached began. He announced the Messiah and at the same time prepared the way for Him. Verse 10: He was thus the messenger foretold by Malachi. Verse 11: Therefore he was the greatest of men. But although in a sense the kingdom began with him, he stood outside it. The least in this kingdom has more privileges than he, because (v. 12) from the time of his preaching people can already, in a sense, be inside the kingdom. The news of its advent has penetrated life with all the force and energy of a spiritual movement, and men and women desire to enter into it with ardent enthusiasm. Art. 13 and 14: the prophets before John predicted this Kingdom, and, in addition, the law, i.e. all Holy Scripture testified to the same thing. But when John came, the prophecy ended and the fulfillment began. Because John was the one prophesied by Elijah.
But whether it really follows from the words of Christ that the law appeared after the prophets, this, of course, can only be a question. One can explain the verse in such a way that closer to the time of John the prophets predicted, and before the prophets the law. It should be noted that the Savior is not talking about the personalities of the prophets, but about their writings. That they could naturally provide this service from the time they were written is indicated by the word πάντες, which apparently refers not only to the word “prophets”, but also to the word “law”, i.e. everyone prophesied: both the prophets and the law. It is certain that the prediction ceased with John; he did not predict; did not indicate, like all the prophets before him, a future day; he spoke about the present, and not about the future, he spoke about the One who had already come, with whom the Kingdom of Heaven came. Since the time of John, the language of the messengers sent from God immediately changed, prophecy became the Gospel, testimony about the future was replaced by testimony about the present.
Explanatory Bible.