The history of hair goes back to the times of the Bible and beyond. The Bible talks of a man called Sampson who obtained supernatural powers through his long hair. His hair was later cut and consequently he lost his powers.
G.A. Gaskell writes,
Prophet Mohammad and other prophets in Muslims also have long hairs and beard also.
Zorothustra of Zorrostrians also have long hair and beard also.
Even Jesus Christ had long hair and a beard.
The 10 Gurus of Sikhism all kept their hair uncut .
Even Sidhs and Jogis in Hindism keep hair uncut. You can see qazis and peers in Islam who also wear long hair.
Everybody believe God to be a perfect creator. It therefore follows that whatever He creates is perfect. The keeping of uncut hair is therefore, recognition of God’s perfection and the submission to the Will of God. (
Hukam) This includes Arm pit hair, Leg hair, Facial hair, ladies!!! "Un-Cut" as the Reverend Lee Stoneking said...he looked it up in the Greek. ?!
Challenge
to Oneness Christians, Messianic Jews and Hebrew-Christians
Ready?
The
Challenge: Simply & honestly answer these questions:WITHOUT
taking anything out of context, mistranslating, or imposing a
pre-conceived notion. (All chapter and verse numbers are according to
Christian bibles.)(It's what they use)
(It's
just a sampling of a list, too. There are many more issues than
this!)
Why
does the subject of 2 Sam. 7.14 “commit iniquity,” if, according
to Hebrews 1.5, this is Jesus?
Why
does the speaker in Psalms 41.4 say, “I have sinned against Thee,”
if, according to John 13.18, this is Jesus?
Why
does the speaker in Psalms 69.5 mention his “folly” and his
“wrongs” if, according to John 15.25, John 2.17, Romans 15.3, and
John 19.28, this is Jesus?
Why
is the speaker in Psalms 69.31 (who we have already established is
Jesus) declaring that praise and thanksgiving will please God better
than a sacrifice??????? Of all places for Jesus to bring this up
(which would be strange enough in any event), isn’t this the
strangest, right when he’s on the cross??????
Why
does God, in Jer. 31:29-30, make a point of stressing that “everyone
will die for his own iniquity” – immediately before introducing
the new covenant, whereby Jesus will die for everyone else’s
iniquity? Isn’t that a rather strange way for the “tutor to lead
us to Christ?”
When
does the new covenant of Jer. 31:31 come into effect? If it was 2,000
years ago, why hasn’t the first 3/4 of verse 34 happened yet?
Why
will there be sin sacrifices when the messiah comes, when the New
Testament is adamant that there won’t be? (Hebrews 9:28; Heb.
10:10,12,14,18; Ezekiel 3:18,19,21,22,25; Ezek.44: 27, 29; Ezek.
45:17,20,22,23,25)
Why
is Torah law going forth from Zion in the messianic age, in the sight
of all the nations of the world, instead of Jesus, if the law is a
curse and Jesus has fulfilled and replaced it? (Isaiah 2.3, Micah
4.2)
Why
are the Jews keeping (DOING) the Torah law in the messianic age, if
it is a curse and Jesus has fulfilled and replaced it? (Ezek. 37.24)
Why
is no one who is uncircumcised IN THE FLESH allowed to enter the
temple in the messianic age, if “neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision means anything,” according to Paul? (Gal.5.6, Ezek.
44.7) Whose opinion should I trust, Paul’s or God’s?
Why
does “forever” have an expiration date in Christianity? (Romans
10.4; Ps. 119: 44, 111, 152, 160, 172, 142; Deut. 29.29)
How
can Jesus be qualified to be the messiah through Davidic lineage if
he did not have a human father? Can the “Holy Spirit” be of the
seed of David?
How
can Jesus be qualified to be the messiah through Davidic lineage,
even through Joseph, if Joseph came through the cursed line of
Jeconiah? (Jer. 22:28-30, Matt. 1.11,12)
How
can Jesus be qualified to be the messiah through Davidic lineage,
even through Mary, if she came from Nathan, the wrong son of David,
as well as from the cursed line? (Luke 3:31, 1 Chron. 22:9,10, Luke
3:27)
How
could both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies be correct, and
divinely inspired, even if they are of two different people, if they
diverge (at Nathan and Solomon) and then come back together (at
Shealtiel)? How can two brothers have the same grandchildren???
Why
don’t the genealogies in the New Testament agree with each other,
or with 1 Chronicles 3, which came first and CANNOT be incorrect?
Why
is Paul so anxious for you to not study the genealogies? (1 Tim.1:4,
Titus 3:9-11)
Why
is Hebrews 8.9 wrong about what God said in Jer. 31.32?
Why
is Hebrews 10.5 wrong about what God said in Psalm 40.6?
Why
is 2 Corinthians 3 wrong about what God said in Exodus 34.29-35?
Why
is John 19.37 wrong about what God said in Zech 12.10?
Why
are Romans 9.33 and 2 Pet. 2.8 wrong about what God said in Isaiah
28.16?
Why
is Romans 10.6-8 wrong about what God said in Deut. 30.12-14? Why
does it leave out Deut. 30.11, and the last half of verses 12, 13,
and 14???
Why
is Romans 11:26-27 wrong about what God said in Isaiah 59:20-21?
Why
is Matt. 12.21 wrong about what God said in Isaiah 42.4? Why does he
leave out what it really says – “He will not be disheartened or
crushed until he has established justice in the earth”?
Why
is Matt. 1.12 wrong about what God said in 1 Chron. 3.19?
Why
is Matt. 2.6 wrong about what God said in Micah 5.2?
Why
is Luke 4:18-19 wrong about what God said in Isaiah 61:1-2?
In
Romans 9:24-26, why does Paul leave out the first part of Hosea 1.10,
which tells us that the verses he is quoting (the second half of
Hosea 1.10, and Hosea 2.23), refer to the sons of Israel?
Why
does Matt. 2.15 leave out the first half of Hosea 11.1, which says
that Israel is God’s son?
Where
in the Hebrew scriptures is the verse, “And he shall be called a
Nazarene,” quoted in Matthew 2.23?
How
can it be possible that the holy and inspired men of the New
Testament were so ignorant of the Hebrew scriptures?
Why
doesn’t Jesus himself know his own scripture, if he’s God and he
wrote it? (Math. 23.35; Zech 1.1,2; 2 Chron 24.20,21)
Why
is Jesus wrong in Math. 5.43 about what God said in Lev. 19.18?
Why
does Jesus change God’s law (Math. 5.32, Luke 16.18 – declaring
every legally divorced woman an adulteress, and every man married to
a legally divorced woman an adulterer), if “I did not come to
abolish the law,” and “whoever annuls one of the least of these
commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven?” (Math. 5.17,19)
Why
do most Christian translators lie about what God said in Hosea 14.2,
and change His words, “take away all iniquity… that we may
present our lips as bulls” (demonstrating that prayer substitutes
for sacrifice) to “… the fruit of our lips?”
Why
do Christians never mention verses like Hosea 14.2 or 1 Kings 8:44-52
or 2 Sam 12:13 or Lev. 5:11-13 or Ps. 32.5 or Isaiah 6.6-7 which
demonstrate that one does not need a blood sacrifice to have their
sins forgiven, or verses like Proverbs 21.3 or Psalms 40.6 or Hosea
6.6 or Psalms 69:30-31 or 1 Sam. 15.22 which say clearly that God
actually PREFERS other methods of atonement to blood sacrifice, or
Jeremiah 7:22-23 which goes so far as to say that God NEVER EVEN
COMMANDED US ABOUT SACRIFICES???
Why
are there numerous stories in the torah of people who sinned, and
were forgiven through prayer and repentance – WITHOUT A SACRIFICE,
such as David in 2 Sam 12:13, or the city of Nineveh in Jonah – and
not a single story, ever, of someone who sinned and gave a sacrifice
in order to be forgiven?
How
can Jesus be both the high priest (per Paul in Hebrews), who comes
from the tribe of Levi, and the messiah, who comes from the tribe of
Judah?
How
can Jesus be the Passover lamb for the gentiles, especially the
uncircumcised, if outsiders were forbidden to partake of it? (Ex.
12:43,45,48)
Why
is the New Testament so concerned about the laws of the paschal lamb
when it comes to the 2nd half of Ex. 12.46 (see Jn. 19.36), but not
at all concerned with these laws when it comes to Ex. 12:
3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,44, the first half of 46, or 48?
What
good is Jesus as a sin sacrifice to the intentional sinner, since
(with one exception, Lev. 6.2,3) the sin sacrifices were only for the
unintentional sinner? (Lev. 4: 2,13,22,27; 5:15,18)
How
can Zech. 12.10 be referring to Jesus’ crucifixion, as John 19.37
says it is, when Zechariah is clearly describing an end-time
apocalyptic war that has not yet taken place?
How
can Zechariah be making a “dual” prophecy, when according to the
Christians, this passage refers to God being pierced? Is he going to
be pierced again when he returns in glory?
When
was the last supper – the seder night (the first night of passover)
or the night before? (Matt. 26.17-19, Mark 14.12-16, Luke 14.7-15,
John 13.1-2)
When
did Jesus die – the first day of Passover or the day before? (Matt.
26, Mark 14, Luke 22, John 18.28, 19.14)
Why
did God, in Jer. 31.16, tell Rachel that her children would return,
if He was referring to the dead children in Matthew 2.16? Were they
going to come back to life?
Why
are the nations putting their hands on their mouth in Micah 7.16,
much like in Isaiah 52.15? What is it that they’re seeing and being
ashamed of?
Why
did the church put an unnatural chapter break between Isaiah 52.15
and 53.1?
Why
did the Christian translators remove the two plural references to the
servant in Isaiah 53.8 and 9 and replace them with a singular form?
Why
does the servant in Isaiah 53.10 have physical children (“zera”/seed)
if it refers to Jesus?
If
“zera” really means spiritual children in Is. 53, why do all
Christians agree it means physical offspring in every other place in
the bible that it is used to refer to people?
If
“zera”/seed really means spiritual children, which ONE of the
world’s Christians is the true child of Jesus, since according to
Paul in Gal. 3.16, “seed” refers to only one person?
Why
are there many clear prophecies which state that Israel is despised
and afflicted, but none which say this about the messiah?
Why
is the automatic Christian response to the problems of Isaiah 53
ALWAYS to quote the rabbis they otherwise despise and mock and whose
writings they don’t believe in, that Jesus berated and Paul called
“men who turn away from the truth” (Titus 1.14)?
Why
did the disciples not understand what Jesus was talking about in Luke
18:31-34 and Mark 9:32, if it was always common knowledge among the
Jews that the messiah was to suffer, die, and rise from the dead?
Why
did Jesus make predictions that didn’t come true, if that’s a
sure sign of a false prophet? (Math. 16:38, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27,
Deut. 18:20-22)?
Why
does God the Father know something Jesus doesn’t know (Mark 13.32)
if Jesus IS the Everlasting Father, and the Mighty God, according to
Isaiah 9.6?
Why
do the writers of the New Testament translate the word “moshiach”
correctly as “an anointed one” every time it appears in the
Torah, except for in Daniel 9?
Why
do the writers of the New Testament translate the word “ca’ari”
correctly as “like a lion” every time it appears in the Torah,
except for in Psalm 22.17?
Why
do the writers of the New Testament translate the words “y’mei
olom” correctly as “days of old” every time it appears in the
Torah, except for in Micah 5.2?
Why
do the writers of the New Testament translate the word “bar”
correctly to “cleanliness” or “purity” every time it appears
in the Torah, except for in Psalm 2.12? Why is it that 5 verses
earlier King David knew the correct word for “son,” but not in
verse 12?
Why
don’t the writers of the New Testament translate “ha’almah”
as “virgin” in Proverbs 30.19, if that’s what it means? (What
the four “ways” in vs. 19 have in common is that they leave no
trace, as evidenced by vs. 20 that follows.)
Why
did the Septuagint authors use “parthenos” in Genesis to describe
Dina who had just been raped, if it means virgin according to
messianic authorities?
If
Isaiah 7.14 refers to the virgin birth of Jesus, via “dual
prophecy” (since it obviously can’t refer to him via the
context), then whose was the other virgin birth that occurred at the
time of the prophecy?
*
Why are there numerous prophecies about gentiles bowing and
apologizing to the Jews in the last days, and admitting they (the
gentiles) have been wrong, and not a single prophecy the other way
around – of the Jews apologizing to the gentiles – if it is
indeed the Jews who are wrong?
*
Why are we commanded NOWHERE in the Jewish scriptures to believe in
the messiah when he comes, if our salvation depends on it?
*
Why do all the prophecies that Jesus supposedly fulfilled deal only
with the PERSON of the messiah, which the Torah barely mentions, and
have nothing to with the ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the messiah, which the
Torah is very specific about?
*
Why is it that all of the prophecies that Jesus supposedly fulfilled
are all things that are of no practical advantage to anyone, and do
nothing to improve the quality of anyone’s life, while all of the
prophecies that he did NOT yet fulfill are all things that will be of
tremendous benefit to every individual on the planet, and all of
mankind as a whole? (For example, how does a virgin birth that
happened 2000 years ago, or Jesus’ being thirsty and being offered
vinegar, or being born in Bethlehem, or being killed with a robber,
or riding on a donkey, etc… help me out at all? How do any of these
“fulfillments” solve a single problem in my life, or anyone’s?
Yet, on the other hand, when there is world peace, and all the evil
people are gone, and all the sick are healed, etc… now THERE are
some messianic prophecies we can surely use. )
*
Why is it that all of the prophecies that Jesus supposedly fulfilled
are all things that CANNOT BE PROVEN, while all of the prophecies
that Jesus did NOT yet fulfill, on the other hand, are all things
that COULD NOT BE DENIED IF HE HAD fulfilled them – even just ONE
of them?
*
Why is it that the ONLY way to fit Jesus into the torah’s messianic
prophecies is through the use of extreme force? Why is one or more of
the following methods ALWAYS required? 1) taking verses out of
context, 2) mistranslating, 3) placing a 2,000 year gap (at least) in
the middle of a verse – totally unjustified by the context – i.e.
sweeping any failure of Jesus to fulfill the scriptures under the rug
of the 2nd coming, or 4) making verses up? Why can’t the torah ever
just ONCE mention Jesus clearly, if it’s so important that we
believe in him?
ARE
ALL OF THE ABOVE FACTS JUST TREMENDOUS, AMAZING, UNBELIEVABLE
COINCIDENCES???????
If
God changed his mind about so many crucial things He
said in the Torah, as demonstrated above, and now wants us to believe
in Jesus, why didn't he have the decency to come down to
ALL of us, and endorse Jesus in person to make it clear to us, as he
came down to all 3 million of us on Mt. Sinai to endorse Moses, to
make sure we would believe in the Torah forever? (Ex. 19:9.11,17, Ex.
24.17)
Why
does God break one of His own commandments, “You shall
not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Lev. 19.14), since
according to 2 Cor. 3.14 and 4.4 I am blind, and according to Rom.
9.32, 1 Peter 2.8, and 1 Cor 1.23, the above challenges are all part
of “a stumbling stone?”
Why
does God trick us, and present us with such tremendous
difficulties as the above questions, and then throw us into hell for
rejecting an apparent false god, who’s really not false, if “God
our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth?” (1 Tim. 2.4)
Why
is the Christian God such a sadist? And why do Christians expect Jews
to want to embrace such a God? **
Exodus
20:2-3 - The First of the Ten Commandments
“I am the
Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, and of the land of
slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.” (See also
Deuteronomy 5:7)
Numbers 23:19 “God
is not a man that He should lie, nor a mortal that He should change
His mind.”
Deuteronomy 4:11-12 “You
came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with
fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then
the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words
but saw no image; there was only a voice.”
Deuteronomy
4:35 “You are the ones who have been shown, so that
you will know that God is the Supreme Being, and there is none other
besides Him!”
Deuteronomy
4:39 “Know therefore today, and take it to your
heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth
below; there is no other!"
Deuteronomy
6:4 “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord
is one.”
Deuteronomy 6:14 “You
shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who
surround you!”
Deuteronomy
32:39 “See, now, that I, I am He - and no god is
with Me...”
I Samuel 2:2 “There
is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside Thee; neither is
there any Rock like our God."
I
Samuel 15:29 “The Eternal One of Israel will not
lie nor change His mind: for He is not a man that He should change
His mind.”
I Kings 8:27 “For
will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven and heaven of
heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have
built?”
I Kings 8:60 “So
that all the nations of the earth may know that the Lord is God and
that there is no other!”
II Kings
19:19 “Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his
hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that You alone, O Lord,
are God.” (Psalm 113:5)
Isaiah
40:18 “To whom then will you liken God? To what
likeness will you compare unto Him?”
Isaiah
40:25 “To whom will then you liken Me, that I
should be his equal?” says the Holy One.
Isaiah
42:8 “I am the Lord, that is My name, and My glory
will I not give to another. Neither My praise to graven
images!”
Isaiah 43:10-11 “You
are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and My servant whom I have
chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am
He. Before Me no god was formed, nor will there be one after Me. I,
even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Savior.”
Isaiah
44:6-8 This is what the Lord says, Israel’s King
and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, “I am the first and I am the last;
apart from Me there is no God! Who then is like Me? Let him proclaim
it. Let him declare and lay out before Me...Do not tremble, do not be
afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are My
witnesses. Is there any God besides Me? No, there is no other Rock; I
know not one.”
Isaiah 44:24 So
said the Lord, your Redeemer, the One who formed you from the womb,
“I am the Lord Who makes everything, Who stretched forth the
heavens alone, Who spread out the earth by Myself.”
Isaiah
45:5-6 “I am the Lord, and there is no other;
besides Me there is no God... I will strengthen you...I order that
they know from the shining of the sun and from the west that there is
no one besides Me; I am the Lord and there is no other!”
Isaiah
45:18-19 For this is what the Lord says – He who
created the heavens, He is God; He who fashioned and made the earth,
He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be
inhabited – He says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I
have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I
have not said to Jacob's descendants, ‘Seek Me in vain.’ I, the
Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.”
Isaiah
45:21-22 “...who announced this before, who
declared it from the distant past? Is it not I, the Lord, and there
is no God apart from Me, a righteous God and Savior; there is none
but Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am
God, and there is no other!”
Isaiah
46:5 “To whom shall you liken Me and make Me equal
and compare Me that we may be alike?”
Isaiah
46:9 “Remember the first things of old, that I am
God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like
Me.”
Isaiah 48:11 “...And
My honor I will not give to another.”
Hosea
13:4 “And I am the Lord your God, Who brought you
out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but Me, no Savior except
Me!”
Joel 2:27 “And
you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I am the Lord
your God, there is no other; and My people shall never be
ashamed.”
Malachi 2:10 “Have
we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why should we
betray, each one his brother, to profane the covenant of our
forefathers?”
Psalm 73:25 “Whom
have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides
You.”
Psalm 81:8-9 “Hear,
O My people, and I will admonish you; O Israel, if you would listen
to Me! Let there be no strange god among you; nor shall you worship
any foreign god."
Psalm
146:3 “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in the
son of man, in whom there is no salvation!”
Nehemiah
9:6 “You alone are the Lord; You made the heavens,
the heavens of the heavens and all their host, the earth and all that
is upon it, the seas and all that is in them, and You give life to
them all, and the heavenly host bow down before You.”
I
Chronicles 17:20 “O Lord, there is none like You,
neither is there any God beside You, according to all that we have
heard with our ears!”
The Eternal
Consequences of Idol Worship
I have been
told that if I don't believe in Jesus as my savior I am going
straight to Hell after I die. This seems like a compelling
reason for me to believe in Jesus particularly since I have also been
told that there is no consequence within Judaism if I believe in
Jesus. Therefore, I have nothing to lose by believing in Jesus, so
why shouldn't I believe in him as my savior?
Answer:
Actually, belief in Jesus is a horrendous sin with grave consequences
for any Jew who professes to do so. To understand this let us look at
the tragic apostasy of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and its
dominant tribe, Ephraim. God, speaking through the prophet
Hosea declares, "When Ephraim spoke with trembling, he became
exalted in Israel; but when he became guilty through Baal, he
died" (Hosea 13:1). When they served God, Ephraim was
"exalted," but when they became guilty of idol worship and
remained unrepentant despite prophetic warnings to cease their
sinful ways they signed their own death warrant. Ephraim died a
spiritual death long before it suffered national destruction.
From
the prophetic message we learn that apostates, even during their
lifetime are reckoned as dead as long as they remain
unrepentant. The prophet not only denounces belief in molten
images fashioned by craftsmen, but also those who trust in a false
savior- god: "And I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt,
and gods beside Me you should not know, and there is no savior
but Me" (Hosea 13:4).
God desires the apostate's
repentance and beckons him/her to renounce iniquity: "From the
clutches of the grave I would ransom them, from death I would redeem
them, I will be your words of death; I will decree the grave
upon you. Remorse shall be hidden from My eyes" (Hosea
13:14).
For the apostate who does not repent, God says, "I
will decree the grave upon you." In a more literal sense,
"I will be the cause of your being cut off to the grave."
Katavcha, from the verb ketev, denotes "cutting"
(e.g. Psalms 91:6). Its primary meaning is "to cut," but
in Hosea 13:14, ketev takes on the secondary meaning "decree."
In Hebrew, the primary word for decree is gezayra, the root of
which is gezer, "to cut." There are a number of word
roots in Hebrew whose primary meaning is "cutting," yet
have a secondary meaning of a final, permanent decision or
ruling (e.g., pasak, chakak, gezer, charatz, karat).
As we
see, the belief in the false savior-god Jesus is a grave sin. The
unrepentant apostate is not only shunned and considered dead by
the Jewish community. God Himself considers the unrepentant
apostate as spiritually dead in this life and in physical death the
apostate is all the more so "cut off."[3]
**This
list may be copied and passed around, as long as credit is given to
leeannesmailbox@aol.com, who gives at least half of the credit to
Rabbi Tovia Singer.