Is Jesus Christ Michael The Archangel?

• Defining The Issues: 

          -The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ and Michael the Archangel are the same person. They teach that Michael is Jesus in His preexisting form. Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that Christ was the first part of God's creation, prior to the formation of Adam. It is believed that Christ resumed His role as Michael the Archangel after His death and resurrection. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the concept of a bodily resurrection, so they teach that He rose spiritually from the grave. This view carries with it a number of exegetical and theological problems, however. For instance, Jesus cannot simply be Michael the Archangel because the angels worshiped Him:

          "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”?...And let all the angels of God worship Him...Your throne, O God, is forever and ever...You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands... But to which of the angels has He ever said, “Sit at My right hand, Until I make Your enemies A footstool for Your feet”?" (Hebrews 1 paraphrased)

          Jesus Christ is exalted by God in a way never given to angels. His name is above that of the angels. Further, angels are never called the Son of God. Never has God said that He is their Father. Thus, the author of Hebrews clearly distinguishes Christ from the angels. 

          Consider the following passage from Revelation in which angels worship Christ. He is given adoration, which no angels can justifiably claim for themselves:

          "And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped." (Revelation 5:13-14)

          Christ has a position of authority over creation that only God Himself can legitimately be said to have. If He is a created being, then the angels who offered Him worship would have been condemned by God for acts of idolatry. Scripture forbids the worship of creations (Deuteronomy 6:13), including angels. Therefore, Jesus Christ must not be an angel, but God Himself. 

          The Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Interlinear Translation renders Hebrews 1:3 as follows: "[Jesus] is the reflection of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of his very being." If Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel as the Jehovah's Witnesses claim, then, according to the logic of the cited text, then that would mean the very essence or nature of God must be that of an angel. That would be nothing short of sheer blasphemy.

          If Jesus is Michael the Archangel, then why is it that he had to call upon the name of the Lord in order to cast judgment on the devil?:

          "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you." (Jude 9)

           Christ openly rebuked Satan without invoking any name of authority. He wields the same power and authority as God because that is who He is:

          "and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." (Matthew 4:9-10)

Indicators Of False Witnessing

• Notice The Remarks Of The Apostle Paul Within The Context Of 1 Thessalonians 2:3-10 In Regards To The Nature Of False Preaching:

          1.) It stems from doctrinal error.
          2.) It revolves around impure motives; teachers glorify themselves rather than Christ.
          3.) False witnessing involves deceit; twisting Scripture, faulty logic, and manipulation.
          4.) False witnessing includes pleasing people through flattery and teaching what itching ears want to hear.
          5.) False teaching involves selfish gain; profiting from the gospel.

          The people whom these factors are applicable have proven to be burdensome to the church, especially to Christians who are new or lacking in discernment. False teachers need to be rebuked sharply and avoided.

Excerpts Exposing The Fraudulent Nature Of Mormonism

• Joseph Smith's Delusional Cosmological Ideas:

          -"The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform than the inhabitants of the earth, being about six feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style and are quite general in style or the one fashion of dress. They live to be very old; coming generally, near a thousand years."

• President Brigham Young's Delusional Cosmological Ideas:

          -"So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun...Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 271)

• An Example From The Book Of Mormon Revealing Mormonism's Racist History On Native American Indians:

          -"they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them." (2 Nephi 5:21)

• Mormons Celebrate The Disobedience Of Adam And Eve: 

          -"And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who oweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:22-25)

• The Incredible Arrogance Of Joseph Smith: 

          -"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)

• Mormons Believe That The Garden Of Eden Is Located In The State Of Missouri: 

          -"The Garden Of Eden was in Missouri. Noah was taken to the old world by the flood. This teaching was given by Joseph Smith and is still accepted as true doctrine. Given this teaching, Mormons have to accept the flood as a global phenomena" (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, "Adam-Ondi-Ahman", p. 19-20)

• Remarks From Joseph Fielding Smith, The Tenth Mormon President, On Man Reaching The Moon: 

          -"We will never get a man into space. This earth is man's sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it. The moon is a superior planet to the earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen." (Honolulu Stake Conference 1961)

Constructing A Case For Paul's Apostleship

• Defining The Issues:

          -There is a theory that the Apostle Paul corrupted the original teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament. It is claimed by some that present-day Christianity has fallen victim to the allegedly apostate theology of Paul, namely regarding his teachings on Christians not being under the Mosaic Law and the deity of Christ. These kinds of arguments are generally circulated by members of the Hebrew Roots Movement and Black Hebrew Israelites. Muslims also make the claim that Paul was a false apostle. However, it is not difficult to pit two individuals against each other (i.e. Paul vs. Jesus) by taking their statements out of context. The Apostle Paul did not contradict the teachings of Christ, but elaborated on His teachings. He did this both in writing and in speech. The evidence in favor of Paul being a genuine apostle is so strong, that it is incredulous that anyone would even try to discredit his apostleship as being fraudulent.

• Luke Records Eye-Witnesses Being Present During The Time Of Saul's Conversion:

          -"Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one." (Acts 9:3-7)

          -If one accepts Acts as being reliable historical material, it should be noted that Jesus Christ commissioned Paul to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. The men who had accompanied him were baffled at this encounter.

• Notice How Both The Apostles Paul And Barnabas Preached The Gospel: 

          -“Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses...As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God." (Acts 13:38-39, 42-43)

          -If Paul were a false apostle, it is certain that Barnabas would not have accompanied him in preaching the gospel to the Jews. Further, the apostles and elders accepted Paul's teaching on circumcision during the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.

• The Apostle Peter Believed Paul To Be A Beloved Brother Who Produced Inspired Scripture:

          -"And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." (2 Peter 3:15-16)

          -Even if we rejected Petrine authorship of this epistle, it would still be outside affirmation of the authenticity of Paul's apostleship. Other men in the early church who accepted Paul would be Clement of Rome and Polycarp. 

• The Apostle Paul Had Supernatural Abilities Like That Of The Other Apostles:

          -"The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works." (2 Corinthians 12:12)

          -Paul has credibility since he made reference to personal faults (2 Corinthians 12:7-9; 1 Timothy 1:12-16). He openly rebuked Peter for not living according to the gospel (Galatians 2:11-14).

• Examples Of Agreement Between Paul And The Four Gospel Writers:

          -Jesus Christ is a man (Philippians 2:6; 1 Timothy 3:16)

          -Christ is a descendant of King David (Romans 1:3-4; 2 Timothy 2:8)
          -The ordinance of the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
          -Jesus Christ died to make atonement for our sins (Romans 4:25; 1 Timothy 2:5-6)
          -Jesus Christ died, was buried in a tomb, resurrected from the grave, and appeared to people (Romans 10:9-10; 1 Corinthians 15:1-6)
          -Christ testified of Himself as being the promised Jewish Messiah before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate (1 Timothy 6:13-16)
          -Jesus Christ was crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2; Galatians 3:1)
          -He ascended into heaven to be glorified (Philippians 2:6; 1 Timothy 3:16)

          The evidence supporting the Apostle Paul as a genuine apostle is robust, coming from multiple attestations within Scripture and historical context. He was accepted by other apostles, validated by miraculous signs, and recognized by early church leaders. His teachings harmonize with the essential teachings of Christianity. Therefore, claims against Paul’s apostleship should be critically examined and ultimately considered unsubstantiated when weighed against such compelling evidence.

On The Study Of Good Moral Conduct

"In matters of human prudence, we shall find the greatest advantage by making wise observations on our own conduct, and the conduct of others, and a survey of the events attending such conduct. Experience in this case is equal to a natural sagacity, or rather superior. A treasure of observations and experiences, collected by wise men, is of admirable service here. And perhaps there is nothing in the world of this kind equal to the sacred book of Proverbs, even it we look on it as a mere human writing."

Isaac Watts, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, p. 236-237

Did Jesus Christ Literally Descend Into Hell?

• Discussion:

          -Certain Christians believe that the human soul of Jesus Christ suffered for three days in hell after His death by crucifixion. This viewpoint maintains that He needed to undergo this form of suffering to complete His work of atonement. However, that understanding of what happened with the soul of Christ during this period is an error. We should take into consideration the words that Christ spoke to the repentant thief on the cross:

          "Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last." (Luke 23:43-46, emphasis added)

          It is abundantly clear from the gospels that Christ did not descend into hell. He went not into judgment after death, but paradise. His soul entered into the Father's presence during the three days that His physical body was buried in the tomb.

          Further, the notion that Jesus Christ needed to be punished in hell to somehow complete His atonement sacrifice is logically absurd. He Himself testified plainly to this when He said of His work, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Christ's suffering ended when He died.

          The New Testament uses different terms to refer to the state of the dead, including "paradise," "Abraham's bosom," "Gehenna," and "Hades." Christ's soul entered the blessed side of Sheol or Hades (the two terms are used synonymously). Christ was there for three days, until the moment of His bodily resurrection from the grave and glorified ascension.

          The Apostles' Creed states that Jesus "descended into hell." Various explanations have been proposed as to the meaning of this, such as He went to hell after His death and resurrection to liberate the souls of the just, end the limbo of the patriarchs, transform purgatory into a pathway to heaven, and offering residents of hell a second chance at salvation. However, none of these proposals are necessary. The phrase can be understood as a symbolic representation of Jesus' total triumph over sin and death, rather than a series of additional actions. It means that through His death and resurrection, Jesus defeated evil and sin once and for all.

Society Is Engrossed In Moral Perversion

"Centuries from now, people who do not suffer our current psychoses will read about professors who gave their students credit for dressing in drag (Muhlenberg College), or who advised students that arguments against sexual perversion would not be admissible in class (Marquette University), or who elevated the trivialities of mass entertainment to the states of great art (everywhere), and shake their heads with dismay, using them as examples of how people can study themselves into a degree of stupidity for which Nature alone would never suffice. We do not produce many great comedians in the present. We produce a lot of material for comedians in the future."

Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, p. 83

The Roman Catholic Church On The Second Commandment

• Defining The Issues:

          -Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have divided the numbering of the Ten Commandments differently. While non-Catholic churches have traditionally listed the second commandment as being a prohibition against worshiping carved images, Rome has omitted this reference and split the last commandment which condemns coveting into two separate, specific prohibitions against lusting after other people's spouses and material possessions. In short, both sides uphold different renderings of the same Ten Commandments that were originally given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. This is a cause for concern, considering that Roman Catholics do indeed rely heavily upon religious iconography in their worship. Due to the fact that the ancient Israelites constantly struggled with idolatry, one would think it wise to leave a clear condemnation of worshiping objects in the listing of the Ten Commandments.

• Was Icon Veneration Accepted Within First Century Christianity?

          -While it is true that the numbering of the Ten Commandments is peripheral in nature, it remains true that a statue-infested environment where saints are incessantly venerated is not a spiritually safe place to be. History bears witness to the fact that human beings have a natural desire to create for themselves images of deities they imagine and serve them. Judaism by the timing of the first century had purified itself of any such kind of worship. The earliest Christians, who came from that sort of background, would have been mortified had they known beforehand that masses who call themselves followers of Christ in future generations would prostrate themselves before images of "saints" or worship bread and wine as God Himself. They were all too familiar with Old Testament history, which records peoples of foreign nations worshiping their gods in exactly that way.

• The Iconoclastic Controversy:

          -In the early Christian church, there was consistent opposition to creating and venerating portraits of Christ and the saints. Despite this, the use of icons grew in popularity, particularly in the eastern regions of the Roman Empire. By the late 6th and early 7th centuries, icons became central to an officially promoted cult, often associated with superstitious beliefs about their animation. This practice faced strong opposition, especially in Asia Minor. In 726, Byzantine Emperor Leo III publicly opposed the worship of icons, and by 730, their use was officially banned. This led to severe persecution of icon supporters during the reign of Leo’s successor, Constantine V (741–775). However, in 787, Empress Irene convened the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea, which condemned Iconoclasm and reinstated the use of images. The Iconoclasts regained power in 814 after Leo V's accession, and icons were banned again at a council in 815. The second period of Iconoclasm ended with Emperor Theophilus's death in 842. In 843, his widow restored the veneration of icons, an event still celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Feast of Orthodoxy.

• How Did The Apostles View The Commandment Against Coveting?:

          -"What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7)
          -"The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Romans 13:9)
             *Notice that the Apostle Paul, in his quoting of the commandment against coveting, does not split it in half (i.e. coveting a neighbor's wife and coveting a neighbor's goods). The Catholic rendering of the Ten Commandments here is redundant. It is suspicious because their devotion to statues so closely resembles worship.

• Roman Catholic Saintly Veneration In The Context Of Biblical Languages:

          -Interestingly, the Hebrew language does not provide a distinction in the word for worship, which is encapsulated by the term "avad." This implies that in the original Old Testament, the concepts later differentiated in Greek as "latria" and "dulia" would have been understood as a single form of worship or service, which is rightfully directed to God alone. In translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, the Septuagint renders "avad" variously as "dulia" and "latria." This lack of distinction in the original Hebrew text underlines that all forms of worship and veneration are to be directed exclusively to God. Therefore, the Roman Catholic practice of distinguishing between "latria," the worship due to God, and "dulia", the veneration of saints, can be seen as inconsistent with the Old Testament's original theological framework. In a religious context, our service and worship are owed solely to God, and this fundamental principle was uniformly understood in the Hebrew tradition.

Richard Carrier On The Fulfillment Of Messianic Prophecy

"Even before Christianity arose, some Jews expected one of their messiahs heralding the end times would actually be killed, rather than be immediately victorious, and this would mark the key point of a timeta­ble guaranteeing the end of the world soon thereafter...First, the Talmud provides us with a proof of concept at the very least (and actual confirmation at the very most). It explicitly says the suffer­ing servant who dies in Isaiah 53 is the messiah (and that this messiah will endure great suffering before his death) [b. Sanhedrin 98b and 93b]. The Talmud likewise has a dying-and-rising 'Christ son of Joseph' ideology in it, even saying (quoting Zech. 12.10) that this messiah will be 'pierced' to death [b. Sukkah 52a-b].

There is no plausible way later Jews would invent interpretations of their scripture that supported and vindicated Christians. They would not invent a Christ with a father named Joseph who dies and is resurrected (as the Talmud does indeed describe). They would not proclaim Isaiah 53 to be about this messiah and admit that Isaiah had there predicted this messiah would die and be resurrected. That was the very biblical passage Christians were using to prove their case. Moreover, the presentation of this ideology in the Talmud makes no mention of Christianity and gives no evidence of being any kind of polemic or response to it. So we have evidence here of a Jewish belief that possibly predates Christian evangelizing, even if that evidence survives only in later sources.

The alternative is to assume a rather unbelievable coincidence: that Christians and Jews, completely independently of each other, just happened at some point to see Isaiah 53 as messianic and from that same passage preach an ideology of a messiah with a father named Joseph (literally or symbolically), who endures great suffering, dies and is resurrected (all in accord with the savior depicted in Isaiah 53, as by then understood). Such an amazing coincidence is simply improbable.

But the Talmud and the Apocalypse of Zerubbabel are not our only evidence of a pre-Christian dying-messiah theme. The book of Daniel (written well before the rise of Christianity) explicitly says a messiah will die shortly before the end of the world (Dan. 9.2; 9.24-27; cf. 12.1-13). This is already conclusive. Given my definition of 'messiah' (in §3), Christianity looks exactly like an adaptation of the same eschatological dying-messiah motif in Daniel.

Isaiah 53 was already under­stood to contain an atonement-martyrdom framework applicable to dying heroes generally...But of the more specific notion of a dying messiah, we also have other pre-Christian evidence in the form of a Dead Sea Scroll designated 11Q13, the Melchizedek Scroll...There are many such pesherim at Qumran. But this one tells us about the 'messenger' of Isaiah 52-53 who is linked in Isaiah with a 'servant' who will die to atone for everyone's sins (presaging God's final victory), which (as we have already seen) later Jews definitely regarded as the messiah. At Qumran, 11Q13 appears to say that this messenger is the same man as the 'messiah' of Daniel 9, who dies around the same time an end to sin is said to be accomplished (again presaging God's final victory), and that the day on which this happens will be a great and final Day of Atonement, absolving the sins of all the elect, after which (11Q13 goes on to say) God and his savior will overthrow all demonic forces. And all this will proceed according to the timetable in Daniel9.Thus, 11Q13 appears to predict that a messiah will die and that this will mark the final days before which God's agent(s) will defeat Belial (Satan) and atone for the sins of the elect.

Regardless of how one chooses to understand the text of 11Q13, we still have Dan. 9.24-27, which is already unmistakably clear in predicting that a messiah will die shortly before the end of the world, when all sins will be forgiven; and Isaiah 53 is unmistakably clear in declaring that all sins will be forgiven by the death of God's servant, whom the Talmud identi­fies as the messiah. So there is no reasonable basis for denying that some pre-Christian Jews would have expected at least one dying messiah, and some could well have expected his death to be an essential atoning death, just as the Christians believed of Jesus Even apart from 11Q13 there is evidence the Dead Sea community may have already been thinking this, since one of their manuscripts of Isaiah explicitly says the suffering servant figure in Isaiah 53 shall be 'anointed' by God and then 'pierced through for our transgressions'. For this and the following points see the discussion of the pre-Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53 in Martin Hengel, 'The Effective History of Isaiah 53 in the Pre-Christian Period', in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher; Grand Rapids, Ml: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 75-146.

The Christian gospel is thus already right there in Daniel, the more so if Daniel 9 had been linked with Isaiah 52-53, which is exactly what 11QI3 appears to do. But even without such a connection being made, the notion that a Christ was expected to die to presage the end of the world is already clearly intended in Daniel, even by its origi­nal authors' intent, and would have been understood in the same way by subsequent readers of Daniel. The notion of a dying messiah was therefore already mainstream, well before Christianity arose.

The suffering-and-dying servant of Isaiah 52-53 and the mes­siah of Daniel 9 (which, per the previous element, may already have been seen by some Jews as the same person) have numerous logical connections with a man in Zechariah 3 and 6 named 'Jesus Rising' who is confronted by Satan in God's abode in heaven and there crowned king, given all of God's authority, holds the office of high priest, and will build up 'God's house' (which is how Christians described their church)

In the Septuagint text, Zechariah is commanded in a vision to place the crown of kingship upon 'Jesus' (Zech. 6.11) and to say immediately upon doing so that 'Jehovah declares' that this Jesus is 'the man named ''Rising" and he shall rise up from his place below and he shall build the House of the Lord'. The key noun is anatole, which is often translated 'East' because it refers to where the sun rises (hence 'East'), but such a translation obscures the fact that the actual word used is the noun 'rising' or 'rise' (as in 'sunrise'), which was not always used in reference to a compass point, and whose real connotations are more obvious when translated literally. In fact by immediately using the cognate verb 'to rise up' (anatelei, and that explicitly 'from his place below') it's clear the Septuagint translator under­ stood the word to mean 'rise' (and Philo echoes the same pun in his interpretation...

If this 'Jesus Rising' were connected to the dying servant who atones for all sins in Isaiah (and perhaps also with Daniel or 11Q13), it would be easy to read out of this almost the entire core Christian gospel. Connecting the two figures in just that way would be natural to do: this same 'Jesus' who is named 'Rising' (or, in both places, 'Branch' in the extant Hebrew, as in 'Davidic heir', or so both contexts imply) appears earlier in Zechariah 3, where 'Jesus' is also implied to be the one called 'Rising' (in 3.8). Both are also called 'Jesus the high priest' throughout Zechariah 3 and 6, hence clearly the same person. And there he is also called God's 'servant'. And it is said that through him (in some unspecified way) all sin in the world will be cleansed 'in a single day' (Zech. 3.9). Both concepts converge with Isaiah 52-53, which is also about God's 'servant', whose death cleanses the world's sins (Isa. 52.13 and 53.11), which of course would thus happen in a single day (as alluded in Isa. 52.6). And as we saw earlier, Jews may have been linking this dying 'servant' to the dying 'Christ' killed in Daniel 9 (in 11Q13), whose death is also said to correspond closely with a conclusive 'end of sin' in the world (Dan. 9.24-26), and both figures (in Daniel and 11Q13) were linked to an expected 'atonement in a single day'...These dots are so easily connected, and with such convincing force...here I am concerned only with the existence of the scriptural coincidences.

As I mentioned, an 'exoteric' reading of Zechariah 3 and 6 would con­clude the author originally meant the first high priest of the second temple, Jesus ben Jehozadak (Zech. 6.11; cf. Hag. 1.1), who somehow came into an audience with God, in a coronation ceremony (one would presume in heaven, as it is in audience with God and his angels and attended by Satan) granting him supreme supernatural power over the universe (Zech. 3.7)...As it happens, the name Jehozadak means in Hebrew 'Jehovah the Righteous', so one could also read this as 'Jesus, the son of Jehovah the Righteous', and thereby conclude this is really 'Jesus, the son of God'. This is notable considering the evidence we have of a preexistent son of God named Jesus in pre-Christian Jewish theology...And all from connecting just three passages in the OT that already have distinctive overlapping similarities.

The pre-Christian book of Daniel was a key messianic text, laying out what would happen and when, partly inspiring much of the very messianic fervor of the age, which by the most obvious (but not originally intended) interpretation predicted the messiah's arrival in the early first century, even (by some calculations) the very year of 30 CE...By various calculations this could be shown to predict, by the very Word of God, that the messiah would come sometime in the early first century CE. Several examples of these calculations survive in early Christian literature, the clearest appearing in Julius Africanus in the third century.47 Julius Africanus, in his lost History of the World, which excerpt survives in the collection of George Syncellus, Excerpts of Chronography 18.2.

The date there calculated is precisely 30 CE; hence it was expected on this calculation (which was simple and straightforward enough that anyone could easily have come up with the same result well before the rise of Christianity) that a messiah would arise and be killed in that year (as we saw Daniel had 'predicted' in 9.26..."

Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus (Sheffield 2014), chapter 4, originally cited by Steve Hays

The Media And Islam

"The real Muhammad is no longer revealed in numerous books or in much of the media, a phenomenon largely the result of the ubiquitous presence of political correctness in the West. With few exceptions, he is falsely portrayed as an irenic man who founded a religion of peace, contrary to the Koran’s numerous verses that specifically advocate violence and the killing of “infidels.” . . .

In recent years, the Western print media, movies, and television have produced various negative portrayals of Jesus Christ and of Christianity. But Muhammad’s past violent activities, clearly stated in the Koran and in the Hadith, are overlooked by the media and by apologists of Islam."

Alvin J. Schmidt, “The American Muhammad: Joseph Smith, Founder of Mormonism,” p. 208-209