MATTHEW,
THE WAILING OF THE MOTHERS
Hugh Fogelman
In a passage from Jeremiah (chapter 31, verse 15),
crying is heard in Ramah, and Rachel is mourning her lost children. But in the
very next verse (verse 16), God ― Hashem/Adonai etc, the Hebrew "Invisible Friend in the Sky" ―
tells Rachel to stop crying and start rejoicing because her children are not
dead, but are coming home out of captivity. Instead of being a passage of
lamentation, this is one of rejoicing. As usual the unknown New Testament author
of Matthew (Matthew
The
author of Matthew tries to prove that Jesus was the Jewish prophesied messiah. Concocting
the life story of Jesus, Matthew scoured the Hebrew bible for any verses which
might be construed as a prophecy about the coming messiah of the Hebrews. Matthew made sure that his Jesus story
included some sort of prophecy-fulfillment fourteen times in this gospel. Most
of those times, the author misquoted, took verses out of context,
misinterpreted or simply made them up. Funny, but no one ever stops to think
that the Jewish messiah has not materialized in over 3,320 years since this
concept was invented; nor has the Christian Jesus turned up in the past 20
centuries. Duhhhh! It is all imaginary!
For example, the author of "Matthew" claims that the wailing of the
mothers of the children murdered by King Herod was foreshadowed hundreds of
years earlier in events described in the book of Jeremiah. The Jeremiah story
had nothing whatever to do with an evil king and murdered children ―
Matthew was mistaken. Reading the entire Rachel Passage in Jeremiah, clearly
shows that it is about Hope and Joy.
Jeremiah
speaks of the Jews who had been scattered abroad during the Diaspora (exile),
figuratively referring to the
Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your
work will be rewarded, declares the LORD. They will return from the land of the
enemy. So there is hope for your future,
declares the LORD. Your children will
return to their own land." (Jeremiah 31:17)
Matthew distorts
the meaning of Jeremiah verse, and takes it out of context. In telling the story
about King Herod ordering the murder of all the young children of
"After Jesus was born in
Bethlehem... King Herod...asked where the Christ was to be born and gave orders
to kill all the children in Bethlehem
and its vicinity who were two years old and under...” Then what was said through the prophet
Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping
for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." Matthew 2:17-18
There is not the slightest connection between events described in Jeremiah and
the story of Herod's slaughter reported by Matthew. In Matthew's story of
Herod's murders, the children are dead and are never to return; in Jeremiah's
story, the children are alive and returning to their homeland. In no way does
the Jeremiah passage have anything to do with a king's murder of children, or
any other event in the life of a savior in the first century CE. Furthermore,
if Matthew was right, then the mothers' lamentations and cries of grief were so
loud that they could be heard in the
Matthew's story is just another example of Christianity's effort to mold Jesus (god
incarnate) to Hebrew bible passages, even if the pieces don't fit. Matthew just
keeps pounding his square peg, trying to get it to fit the round hole. This
failed attempt, one of many, to grow a messiah out of non-existent prophecy
fulfillment based on a non-existent prophecy is reason enough to question not
only all of Matthew, but the intelligence of the elder church fathers who
decided to include his writings in their bible.
Christian apologists wishing to explain away the apparent inconsistencies
between the Ramah verses in Jeremiah and Matthew will need to address the
following points:
1. The alleged Herod murders supposedly occurred in
2. Jeremiah spoke of scattered Israelis of the Diaspora (exile),
not murdered babies.
3. Rachel was weeping for her lost children of
4. Matthew says Jeremiah foretold the grief of the mothers of
Herod's murder victims.
5. Only Matthew wrote invented the Herod murders (24 words only).
6. There is no extra-canonical account of these murders. Why? It
never happened; it is only fiction.
But
then, unlearned Christoholics do not want to know the truth about their gospel
writers. They developed their “blind faith” from preachers telling them that all these great(?)
men were “inspired by God” ― the "Invisible Man in the Sky."
Doesn’t
exposing Matthew’s lie simply show the world the lies in Christianity? YES! And being fair, doesn't believing in a
cunning, walking talking snake and a giant fish tale etc show the world the
lies in the Hebrew bible and Judaism? YES!
"If only God would give me
some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank." -Woody Allen (1935 -)
DISCLAIMER:
Citation of Hebrew scripture and
sources in articles or analyses is not in any way an acceptance, approval or
validation of the Jewish religion, its works or scriptures. The Hebrew bible,
like the Christian New Testament, is fictitious; From a 6-day creation of the
universe; a cunning, walking, talking snake; big fish tales; world flood and an
"Invisible Man in the Sky" ― it is all fiction, a bold sham
perpetrated on mankind.