Eastern Gate: An Atheist's Worst Nightmare

-The Muslims do not believe that Jesus is their savior. They do not accept his blood sacrifice. They also do not believe they have to be born again through Jesus.


John 3

1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

 

Uh, what in the name of all-that-might-be-holy are you talking about? The Bible has predicted hundreds of prophecies "that have already come true thousands of years before they happen"? How does something become true before it happens? The Bible hasn't even been in existance for that many thousands of years, the New Testament hasn't even been around for 2,000. Please elaborate on this because your above statement doesn't even make sense.

So you first say that the Gospels do have different accounts of Jesus, different views and perspectives as you say, yet they don't conflict... how are they different yet not conflicting with each other? Anyway, it is well known that the four Gospels' accounts are not entirely consistent with each other. The more Hellenistic John has the most apparent differences, having been derived allegedly from a different manuscript, it's why he's categorized apart from the other three "synoptic" gospels.

I'll do more digging into that then, but I'm pretty certain that Paul's belief in the second coming of Jesus was at any rate a different sort than later Christian theology would have, that is, he expected Jesus to return very soon in his time as opposed to thousands of years.

 

-The reason I said that the prophecies were true before they happen is because when they did happen, it was evident at that time that the prophecies had been trues all along. Therefore, the Bible predicts history before it happens.



Example: according to the Bible in the last days....

*The Jews would return to Israel which occured in 1948​

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*The exact order the Jews would reclaim the land.​

Judah would be occupied first, as the Bible predicted, which happened in 1948​

Jerusalem was occupied second, as the Bible predicted, which occured in 1967​

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*That when the Jews return to Israel, they would be one nation with one ruler.​

Note: Before the Jews were kicked out of Israel, it was divided into two nations with two rulers. ​

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*Israel would be surrounded by enemies...They are​

*Israel would have one of the strongest armies in the world...They do​

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-They don't conflict because one of the writers might have been focusing his attention on what the crowd was saying where as another writer was recording what a Roman soldier was saying. Yet, they are talking about the same event. They where just speaking from their perspective. If they where trying to get a story to agree they could have all gotten together and copied the story word from word. ​

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-John predicted in the book of Revelation that at the time of the end, from out of the east would arise an army of 200 million men. It is questionable whether there where 200 million men in the whole world at this time. He also predicted that cities could be destroyed in hour's time in the future. Today, however, all of this is possible. But it was not back then.​

 

Thank you PopThree for demonstrating exactly what I meant to point out.

ANYONE with the ability to read or be read to clearly understands when Jesus (and the writer) are about to start a Parable.
Then the Parable is recorded.
Often the writer then explains again that you have read a Parable.
Sometimes the meaning of the Parable (the NON LITERAL PART) is discussed or explained.

CHILDREN have NO problem grasping that this was the part where its an account and now this is the part where its a 'Parable' or 'Allegory'.

Another 'Clue' you are about to read an 'Allegorical' statement will be (example) when Jesus says something like:
"Now Im going to tell you a Parable.. The ___ is LIKE a ___

Do you actually mean to tell me that you and Lucifersam are actually at such a un-freaking-believable low level of concept grasping that you actually think your 'teaching us' how and where Allegories work inside accounts?!

Please, I really want you to tell us of your amazing intellectual discovery of 'Part of the Bible' that are 'Allegorical'.
What about the Prodigal Son?

You should really give us a 'lesson' about these things.. some of us thought it was just a Inheritance Law specifically for wealthy land-owners who had two Sons?

Oh wow.. You really have shown me the way!
Now I realise that something recorded in the Bible might be something called an 'Allegory' and be 'Non-Literal'!?

This means its not 'Real' physical descriptions of a specific event.. and therefore you just made me think "hey.. the entire Bible is proven to be partly 'not really real'... So its really just a soft nothing book that isnt real!

Wow!

- Dimwits!

 

Thats the feeling and sort of knowing that so many Christians have, I do, i expect Jesus to return very soon in my lifetime! Thousands of Christians all feel like this, it's what makes us go!! Jesus could come back any time, so we should expect him! and thats just what Paul was doing, it's not about theology or studying people, it's about listening to and living in the Spirit....
Jaz
xxx

 

Heh, well Campbell the thing about the Israel prophecy is that I don't believe it isn't a wild stretch of the imagination to not be surprised that the Bible has such content about Israel's future, since the Bible is derived from Jewish scripture. The content you posted can be attributed to Zionism or are just predictable (for instance, the Jews always had enemies around them). So would this all mean that Judaism is perhaps a more valid faith than Christianity even? Had various empires happened to actually succeed in their prophecies of ruling for thousands of years (Third Reich, just to give an example), would that have meant their leaders had astounding powers of seeing the future?

So the Israel prophecies just aren't impressive to me. Of course, my atheistic-agnostic viewpoints would explain that, as your Christian viewpoints would validate yours. I guess we can agree to disagree, or you may continue to present me with more of these fulfilled prophecies you speak of if you want.

Sometimes there are Christians who give me the impression that they really can't grasp such concepts, and take everything in the Bible at its word. If I sounded condescending it's mostly because sometimes you guys give that impression of low-concept-understanding to us, such as apparently expecting non-Christians to shake in their boots because of this gate prophecy.

Sheesh, who spat in your Bible today? And you reprimand me for only "implied" insults. From my perspective, yes, much of the Bible is a "soft nothing book" that isn't real, which is why I don't pay any regard to people presenting quotes from them to try and validate the existence of a magic gate in the real world.

 

Concerning the Prophecies.
Far from being 'Open ended' 'Allegories' - Prophecy is a way to make hard mathematical, logical conclusions about the authority of the Scriptures.

Of course, any one particular prophecy could be said to be 'Chance'.
The Gates could be said to be a 'Happenstance'. Fine.

Now so could a Prophecy predicting Tyre would never be anything more than a fishing village again for the rest of history.

What happens is that you the laws of probability quickly.. very quickly catch up to you.
Eventually.. even being extremely conservative.. you realise that the laws of statistical probability, fluke, chance (whatever you like) all can NOT explain away the hard cold numbers.

Ultimately, its anything but 'soft allegories' or some kind of subjective interpreting.
Its cold hard logical facts and an avalanche of mathematics.

Enjoy!

 

Campbell - My point was that Zechariah didn't write that passage. Ans that your prophecy is completely useless. Sealed means closed. So anything that closes will remain sealed until it is opened. I would like to see where you get the sources that the Arabs were trying to open the gate when control was handed over..... I can find no such evidence.

Brocktoon - Sam has got a real good grasp on early christian history and I think his point about parable is MORE than valid here. I think most people take literally things that were never meant to be taken literally. Like Creation, the garden of eden, perhaps even the resurrection. Most of the jewish people I have talked to about 'stories' like creation say they are just stories meant to impart wisdom and not meant to be taken literally. But Christians adopt it and now it must be read word for word and beleived literally? Did you forget whose stories these are? What do they have to do with God, with Christ? Silly christians....

 

I am not sure if I have ever read a bigger load of crap. There is no such thing as interpretation without subjectivity. Ever prophecy I have EVER heard was fullfilled was so full of generic language, fuzzy facts and obscure language that it could be twisted to mean dozens if not hundreds of thousands of things dependign on what you want to prove.

Read you bible and in tandem with any docuemtn claiming that hundreds of prophecies have been fulfilled and you will quickly realize that these people steal individual passages that 'supposedly' fulfill prophecy and never talk about the context of the scripture and how it has NOTHING to do with prophecy.

 

popthree,

"Sealed means closed. So anything that closes will remain sealed until it is opened."

-Right. Eziekel predicted that once the gate is closed that it will remain closed until the Messiah walks through it. Today, after about 1200 years, it still remains closed. However, we are only about 30 years away from the begining of God's third day. Things will begin to change.

"I would like to see where you get the sources that the Arabs were trying to open the gate when control was handed over..... I can find no such evidence."

-One source is from the book Messiah, by Grant Jeffery, copyright 1991

I have read other and sources and will try to locate. I have also heard that Jews during the '67 war were going to blast through the gate but they hesitated because they knew the prophecy.


"The next day I read a fascinating news account about one of the Jewish commando groups that had been involved in the assault on the city. The article stated that some members of the group had suggested catching the Jordanian defenders of the city off guard by blowing open the sealed Eastern Gate. But the leader of the group, an Orthodox Jew, had vehemently protested the idea, stating that "the Eastern Gate can be opened only when the Messiah comes."

That statement caught my eye. I wondered what the fellow was talking about. I knew nothing about the Eastern Gate except that it was the only gate of the city that led directly onto the Temple Mount. I was not aware that it was sealed, nor did I know that its opening was in any way biblically linked to the return of the Messiah."

read more... http://www.lamblion.com/prophecy/key/Key-13.php

 

"Twice in the last century an attempt to open the sealed Eastern Gate has failed. I found the following in Grant Jeffrey’s book "Heaven, The Last Frontier." The first attempt was on December 9th 1917, when the Grand Mufti, the Arab leader of Jerusalem, tried to open this gate. He had ordered the other gates to Jerusalem sealed to deter the approaching allied Expeditionary Army led by the British General Allenby. This was back in the early 1900s when the British were dismantling the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled over the land of Israel for 400 years.

But, the Grand Mufti did need to have one gate remain open, so he ordered his workmen to open the mysterious sealed gate. As the workmen picked up their sledgehammers, Allenby's airplane flew over the city, telling the Arabs to flee. Miraculously, without a shot being fired, the opposing soldiers fled the city. The city was delivered into the hands of the Britain, which one month earlier had promised the Jews the right to re-establish sovereignty over their ancient homeland, via the famous Balfour Declaration. The workmen fearfully put down their sledgehammers and the gate remained sealed as Ezekiel had prophesied.

Then, in 1967, the ancient prophecy was fulfilled again. But first, a little history: In 1948, the Jews declared sovereignty over a portion of their ancient homeland. In retaliation, King Hussein of Jordan, who had control over the ancient city of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, forbade the Jews from worshipping at their sacred Western Wall. This was the first time in centuries that the Jews did not have access to the Western Wall, which is a remnant of the wall around the second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans some 1900 years ago.

King Hussein decided to build a hotel for Arab pilgrims on this section of the Western Wall, closing off this area to Jewish worship forever. The planned hotel was to be built over the Magreb Gate, which Moslems used to enter the Temple Mount. So, the King needed to open another gate so that Moslems could get to the El Aksa Mosque, which was built by Moslems on the site of the Jewish Temple Mount.

In violation of the prophecy, he ordered his workmen to open the sealed Eastern Gate. But, during this time, Arabs were also preparing to attack Israel, hoping to wipe out the Jewish state. And the Jews were about to preemptively respond to this planned attack. On June 5th of 1967, as the workmen prepared their air-hammers to shatter the huge stones sealing the Eastern Gate, an intimidating array of Israeli aircraft flew overhead. The Six Day War had begun, and the workmen put down their tools.

At the end of the Six Day War, the workmen were unable to resume their project because the Jews had managed to recapture their ancient capital of Jerusalem. True to Ezekiel’s prophecy, The Eastern Gate is still sealed. The gate will remain sealed until the day when the promised Messiah will enter into His Kingdom."

By George Konig
Christian Internet Forum
www.konig.org
January 18, 2003

 

You should read several of LuciferSams posts about Early Christianity then..

Lets take a look at this statement of yours.
Maybe I leave a note on your parked car that reads: "Sorry, but I backed into your car while backing up. The damage to your left bumper will be covered by my insurance company. Heres my number. My bad!

- Now, lets get something cleared up - You 'Can' interpret that note as being a Lesson about Cats and how they should not eat peanut butter'

After all .. that is just 'one interpretation' from 'your perspective'??
However, its not an intellectually valid interpretation.. and certainly not 'equal' to the common literal interpretation.
In addition - It does not 'mitigate' the literal interpretation does it?
No, of course not.
Would an observer be helpful and accurate if he declared: "Well... One person interprets it as being a literal event... and another interpreted it as a Cautionary warning about Cats and Peanut butter... 'Therefore' we will never truly be able to find any real meaning in the note!?

"Well that note was nothing but soft fuzzy 'anything' because there were at least two different interpretations right"

No.. There was just one person that is a moron and says silly things about notes.

Where does 'Subjectivity' come in. You seem convinced you have heard of this issue.
Well.. the Subjectivity DOES come into play on most Prophecies but it is almost always regarding A SPECIFIC WORD DEFINITION and rarely has anything to do with THE CLEAR MEANING AND LITERAL EXPLANATION of the events or objects themselves.

Perfect example in the Gates Prophecy.
There is NO RIGHT for 'Subjectivity' when it comes to the Objects themselves.
The Gates are cleary described, the events are explained and the timeline is established.
(Please note.. you 'can' interpret them to be Cats and Peanut Butter sandwiches 'if' you so choose. That is not 'Subjective'.. that is 'Stupid")

Now.. YES.. there is room for 'subjective' speculation and interpretation of a particular aspect of a definition.
In this case 'Sealed'.
YOU may speculate the, in this case, the author intended to use the word in the most extreme literal and scientifically stringent way possible.
The Gates will always be 'Hermetically Sealed' and scientifically can have NO air or water pass throught them at any points.

This is technically 'fair' and yes that word can be open to some degree of subjective opinion.. since we dont know exactly the precise meaning and emphasis the writer poured into that word.

This DOES NOT LOGICALLY 'mitigate away' the clear explanation of the prophecy.
It does not make it 'Fuzzy' now.
Regardless of which extreme 'subjective interpretation' we put on the word 'Sealed' - it does NOT make the Gates themselves 'less real'.

 

This is because you were reading Nostradamus Prophecies.

Add to that you probably do not know the context of Biblical Prophecies you are reading - therefore it sounds all 'Dreamy and fuzzy and 'could be anything'.



Take Johns Revelations on the Isle of Patmos.

You might just read some prophecy about 'Armour Plated Locust' with 'Hair like women" and 'Stings in their Tails"...



Crazy.. that could be 'anything' and 'nothing' IF you think you are just reading some wild rant without any context.



In Johns case, the text CLEARLY EXPLAINS that John himself does not understand what he is seeing either- he is literally writing what he see's IN A VISION - and not transcribing a clear defined explanation of impending logical sequence.

Could it be John is descrining Apache Attack Helicopters?

Maybe.. we dont know and he would not have any 'reference' for such a thing..

What WE DO KNOW.. is that the text clearly and literally describes John as seeing something HE DESCRIBES as an armour-plated Locust with 'hair' and sounds of Rushing waterfalls.



The fact we dont know 'exactly WHAT' does not 'Cancel out' that he DID.

You seem to think 'Any Unknown' about 'any' part of a Prophecy 'therefore' nullifies the clearly explained 'Big Picture'?



But lets look at an example of a 'Literal Prophecy' which is in a clear "This will happen and how" context:



Mark 16:17-18 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."



Now you seem to believe that this is open to any kind of interpretation. Hundreds you say?



Ok sure.. you can 'interpret' that its really a morality lesson about Cats eating Peanut Butter.

Your a Dumbass and No.. No it does not 'nullify' or equal in validity to the clear, obvious and literal "It is what it is" interpretation.

(which is not even 'interpreting' but simply reading the sentences as they present themselves!)



In the book of Acts (a documentary about the Apostles after Christ) Paul picks up (and is bitten) by a poisonous snake.



So, forget for a minute whether or not you have subjectively decided the Book of Acts is a false document...

... Why would you refer to this prophecy as 'Soft and Fuzzy and open to all interpretations?!

What part of "They will pick up Snakes" is so confusing to you PopThree????
Please, please share with us what literary school of thought allows anyone to sensibly argue that its anything but a prophecy about picking up snakes?

I have no doubt there are library's of 'Quack' Prophecy books.

Many 'Crackpot' theorists have their own TV shows now.



This is not logical to presume that because some silly 'prophecy expert' is being irresponsible (and fitting news events to 'match' prophecy usually) will somehow nullify, mitigate or 'soften' what really are cold hard facts.



I look for the facts.

Fact: Prophecy is made that the Jews will be dispersed throughout the world.

Fact: Jews were dispersed throughout the world.



Of course, you can say its a lucky guess.

I think you can say that about any 'one' or even 'ten' prophecies.



Its when 100's are put together, given even a conservative estimate and even giving the most 'soft interpretation' as intellectually honestly possible... and STILL I see Odds of around 100 Million to 1.

Then I have to say.. Hmm yes, its logical to believe (beyond a reasonable doubt) that the Author of this book has some SuperNatural 'Omnipotence' that can make his Word trustworthy.

 

All I would say to ALL of that is that I have trouble recounting a single biblical prophecy that was fulfilled to the satisfaction of all who interpret the bible.

I know you says hundreds have been fulfilled... by what source does this information come? I have heard that hundreds of prophecies were fulfilled when Jesus came, but when I start looking them up more than half are not prophecies at all, another 25% have NOTHING to do with the subject matter the prophecy collectors suggest it might, and the last 25% are so open ended and obscure that they could be read to mean any number of things depending ENTIRELY on what you want to find. The Jews do not beleive ANY of these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus and I can't really find evidence to prove them wrong.

Example:
Zechariah 11:11-13
11 It was revoked on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the LORD .
12 I told them, "If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it." So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"-the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter.


Many christians claim that this is one of the most significant prophecies Jesus fullfilled. They say: "Here God indicates the Messiah will be (1) betrayed, (2) by a friend, (3) for thirty pieces, (4) of silver, that will be (5) cast onto the floor, (6) of the Temple, and (7) used to buy a potter's field."


I see nothing about betrayal, nothing about a friend. True thrity peices of silver were tossed into a house of the lord and THEN the cheif priest (who was obviously familiar with the prophecy as cheif preist) took the silver and bought a potters field. How convenient that the prophecy was fulfilled!

I prophecy here and now that $12 will be cast from my wallet into the liquor store to buy a 12-pack of Carona after work. Won't it be magical when I, who know the prophecy, find a way to fulfill it?


Besides that, the 30 peices of silver was owed to Zecharia... who says that's a prophecy at all? The fact that someone owed Zecharia 30 peices of silver and Judas received 30 peices of silver is THAT remarkably coincidental as to assume it must have been a prophecy?

 

POPthree13,

"The Jews do not beleive ANY of these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus and I can't really find evidence to prove them wrong."


-Of course they don't believe these prophecies and the Bible predicted that His own people would reject him. The Jews believed all the Messianic Prophecies untill around 1200 A.D. But after nobody else showed up, they started to believe that they would not be fulfilled literally. There was a certain time in history where these prophecies could be fulfilled and that time was during the time of Christ.



"I see nothing about betrayal, nothing about a friend. True thrity peices of silver were tossed into a house of the lord and THEN the cheif priest (who was obviously familiar with the prophecy as cheif preist) took the silver and bought a potters field. How convenient that the prophecy was fulfilled!"

(1)betrayal by a friend (Psalm 41:9; Luke 22:3-4; John 13:18)

-Question. Why would the Chief priest aid in fulfilling a prophecy that He said Jesus had no part in? The Chief Priest was trying to deny that Jesus was the Messiah, why would he purposely try to fulfill a prophecy that supported Jesus?

Your argument makes no sense.

"Besides that, the 30 peices of silver was owed to Zecharia... who says that's a prophecy at all? The fact that someone owed Zecharia 30 peices of silver and Judas received 30 peices of silver is THAT remarkably coincidental as to assume it must have been a prophecy?"


-This has nothing to do with Zechariah. It is the Lord speaking. For it says in Zech. 11:13,

"And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD."

Therefore, the Lord is speaking of Himself.

 

Heh, so you completely disregard anything I said about the early influences and variations of your faith? Please enlighten me, oh wise one, on the discrepencies then. You conveniently ignored responding to what I'd said earlier about it. I'll freely admit that you and campbell will probably always beat me when it comes to meticulously digging out bits of Bible scripture, but I do profess to have decent knowledge of early Christian history, and you've yet to give me a reasonable refutation. You may fling all the scripture excerpts you want at me, but their importance is negligible to me (regarding validating this gate theory in the real world) as the Bible, being faith-based, is just about as credible as any other religious book.

 

Whatever. The Gates haven't been proven to be so divinely protected rather than just being very well built. I won't deem the Gate prophecy valid unless all human means of destroying it have failed.

I don't chalk it all up to fluke and chance. I give the authors of prophecy enough credit that they're smart enough to make their predictions reasonably safe. When something occurs that happens to be related to some prophecy, I see no reason why it must mean the validation of that prophecy and thus the amazing vision of its author. There is such a thing as taking real-life causes into consideration, you should try that sometime. Why did the Jews get back into Israel? Hmm, well it's because the western powers and the UN put them back there. Simple as that, and whether it was prophesied or not is irrelevent to the events of history.

It may well be taking advantage of what's a predictable prophecy, or one that's so open to interpretation that people can always find some way to insist it hasn't been fulfilled yet or whatever. So sure, there's logic in that, "avalanche of mathematics" is a bit much but logic, sure. Logic, and not divine inspiration.

Hey I've got another fact for ya...

Fact: The Bible was derived from... *gasp!* Jewish scripture!

It's not difficult either to think, beyond a reasonable doubt, that scriptures based on Jewish and Zionist thought would predict that sort of thing. Religions naturally are wont to say their constituency are a special people who'll have good things coming to them. Not too long ago, most Jews had a pretty shitty time suffering from rampant anti-Semitism, not a particularly blessed lot in life. Now they've had a better time of it, more or less, over the last half-century, in part because they've gone through enough horrible shit to make their original persecutors feel substantial guilt to plant them back in Palestine, a well-meant but poorly-planned gesture. Things have, on average, been better for the Jews. Ironically, the very Zionistic ideas that many of them credit their recent good fortune to of late may end up screwing them in the end if they don't snap out of it.

 

LMFAO!!! nice one.

 

Mui,

"LMFAO!!! nice one."

-That's all you can come up with! You may be laughing but the fact is the gate is still sealed. Atleast make an attempt to prove this prophecy wrong.

 

This is a silly arguement. The parables are allegory and it is stated as such. There should me know confusion between these and the day to day events of Jesus and his apostles. For example revelations is 99% allegory. And act of the apostles is to me taked literally.