By Biblical Researcher & Goodreads Author Eli Kittim 📖
The New World Order
For decades, atheists, anarchists, and irreligious organizations——such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation & the American Atheists——have tried to ban religious freedom and religious expression from society, culture, education, and the media. And, by and large, these secular humanists have won that fight. The Bible was removed from American classrooms in the 1960s, and shortly thereafter prayer and the Ten Commandments were also removed.
The current shift toward atheism in America and Europe is largely due to these political endeavours. And in the globalist agenda——as propounded by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, & António Guterres (the Secretary-General of the United Nations)——religion plays a subordinate role in the upcoming one-world government.
In fact, powerful leaders have been conspiring for decades. We’re talking about a global dictatorship that has been in the making since the founding of the Federal Reserve in the early part of the 20th century. It has been affectionately called by Henry Kissinger, George H. W. Bush, Barack Obama, & Gordon Brown, among others, as “the new world order.” It’s not a conspiracy theory since many US presidents, British prime ministers, and high level officials——including Charles, Prince of Wales——have explicitly referred to it as an ideal future government that they’re all working towards as if “they are one people” (cf. Genesis 11.6)! This is no longer a conspiracy theory since this totalitarian world government——which has now reared its ugly head by censoring the masses through social media-driven panic, fake news, government lockdowns, and forced mask and passport mandates——is emerging before our very eyes. Surprisingly, the Bible foresaw this attack on religion, and especially on Christianity, and recorded it in Scripture. Psalm 2.1-3 (NRSV) reads:
Why do the nations conspire, and the
peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth
set themselves, and the rulers take counsel
together, against the Lord and his anointed,
saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us.’
The Tower of Babel & the One-World Government
The modern discoveries & innovations in virology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, molecular biology, as well as the harnessing of nuclear energy are seemingly implied in the following Biblical excerpt from Genesis 11.6:
and this is only the beginning of what they
will do; nothing that they propose to do will
now be impossible for them.
Might the scheme to “confuse their language” be a form of electromagnetic pulse attack known as EMP? An EMP is a massive burst of electromagnetic energy that can be generated using nuclear weapons. It creates an enormous magnetic field that can cause widespread damage & disruption to electrical and power grids within range. According to Peter Pry, a defense analyst with the Congressional EMP Commission:
You can use a single weapon to collapse
the entire North American power grid. …
Once the electric grid goes down,
everything would collapse … Everything
depends on electricity: telecommunications,
transportation, even water.
This is certainly one way to “confuse” or disrupt all forms of communication.
Since the towers or ziggurats that ancient people built were no match for the modern skyscrapers, might the Tower-of-Babel narrative be a *prophecy* instead of an origin myth about why people speak different languages? Let’s look at the evidence. The Hebrew Bible (Gen. 11.4) says that the people built a tower (וּמִגְדָּל֙ ū·miḡ·dāl) whose top (וְרֹאשׁ֣וֹ wə·rō·šōw) is in the heavens, or will reach into heaven (בַשָּׁמַ֔יִם ḇaš·šā·ma·yim)! Have the ancients ever built a tower that soared above the clouds? Hardly! However, the Jeddah Tower (aka Kingdom Tower), currently built in Saudi Arabia, will be 1 km (3,281 ft) high, “whose top” will literally be “in the heavens.” And it is appropriately called: a “tower.”
Notice also that many of today’s highest skyscrapers are actually called “towers” and they do, in fact, reach the clouds: the Jin Mao Tower, in Shanghai, the Willis Tower, in Chicago, the Petronas Towers, in Kuala Lumpur, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, even the Empire State Building, in New York City. Here’s a shot of the Empire State Building peeking above the clouds!
The Prophecy Concerning Babylon the Great
Revelation 18.8-21
‘therefore her plagues will come in a single
day — pestilence and mourning and famine
— and she will be burned with fire; for
mighty is the Lord God who judges her.’ And
the kings of the earth, who committed
fornication and lived in luxury with her, will
weep and wail over her when they see the
smoke of her burning; they will stand far off,
in fear of her torment, and say, ‘Alas, alas,
the great city, Babylon, the mighty city! For
in one hour your judgment has come.’ …
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a
great millstone and threw it into the sea,
saying, ‘With such violence Babylon the
great city will be thrown down, and will be
found no more.’
Conclusion
All of the evidence——including the language of the Hebrew Bible——supports an *apocalyptic* rather than a pseudo-historical Tower-of-Babel. The so-called “confusion” or disruption of communication may indicate the coming world Judgment in the form of EMP attacks & nuclear weapons, as alluded to in Daniel 12.1, Joel 2.31, Zechariah 14.12, Matthew 24.6-21, Luke 21.20-26, & Revelation 6.12-15 (i.e. the Great Tribulation). And the prophecy is set to take place when the whole world will be united as “one people” (Genesis 11.6), or one-world government!
It appears that most English translations of 1 John 5:20 say that the Son of God “has come” or “is come” when referring to Jesus Christ. Specifically, they say “that the Son of God has come” (see e.g. NIV, NLT, ESV, BSB, NKJV, NASB, CSB, HCSB, GNT, ISV, LSV, NAB, NET Bible, NRSV, NHEB, WNT, WEB). The rest of the Bible versions use the variant “is come,” which is an archaic form of English. This construction employs the term “come” as an unaccusative intransitive verb. Essentially, to say “that the Son of God is come” (e.g. BLB, KJV, ASV, DRB, YLT) not only implies the state of “having come” but also of “now being here” as well. The meaning of this construction is that “the Son of God” didn't simply come but that he is here right now! As you will see, the “is come” construction is actually closer to the original Greek text than “has come.” The worst Bible version is the AMP which makes explicit and ambitious statements that the Greek text does not make, while also adding foreign elements that are not found in the original. It’s the least faithful English translation. It reads:
And we [have seen and] know [by personal
experience] that the Son of God has
[actually] come [to this world].
Grammatical Parsing & Concordance Studies
In 1 John 5:20, the key word in this sentence is the Greek verb ἥκει (hēkei), which is a present indicative active, 3rd person singular (Strong's 2240: meaning, “to be present”). The term ἥκει is derived from the verb ἥκω, which can mean “to come,” “I am present,” “to be present,” or “will come” (see https://biblehub.com/greek/2240.htm).
Strong's Greek: 2240. ἥκω (hékó) -- to have come, be present
As a present active indicative verb, ἥκει describes a linear (ongoing) action, as opposed to a punctiliar (complete) action. Thus, ἥκει as a primary tense expresses the present & future times, whereas secondary or historical tenses (aorist, imperfect, pluperfect) express past time. So, present active indicative verbs show that the action happens in the present time. Therefore, the verb ἥκει, in 1 John 5:20, should be understood in the sense of an “ongoing present” action (in a transhistorical sense), otherwise the translation is not entirely accurate but rather misleading for the reader. Moreover, the fact that ἥκει describes an ongoing action in the *present tense* indicates that it should not be read as referring to an event that transpired in the past, during the writing of this letter, but rather to all generations of readers, that is to say, in the temporal context that they find themselves in. In other words, the term ἥκει in 1 John 5:20 should be equally read in the *present tense* whether a person is living in the Middle Ages or in the 21st century. It should not be understood as a completed event that took place in the past.
In cross-reference studies, e.g. in Luke 15:27, notice that ἥκει is translated as “is here” (now)! See the Christian Standard Bible & Holman Christian Standard Bible translations:
Your brother is here, he told him, and your
father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.
And in John 2:4 ἥκει is rendered as referring to the future: “My hour has not yet come” (οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου).
English Standard Version:
And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not
yet come.’
Conclusion
As you can see, the translation “has come”——which gives the false impression of an event that happened and was completed in the past——is obviously misleading and not faithful to the original Greek text!
The more I research the Bible, the more evidence I find of corruptions and mistranslations. Similar to the way in which almost all translations of Acts 1:11 wrongly render the Greek term ἐλεύσεται as “come back,” most translations of ἥκει in 1 John 5:20 wrongly render it as “has come.” That’s why I parsed it for you. So that we can analyze the sentence into its various components and thereby define their syntactic roles.
Another key word in 1 John 5:20 is δέδωκεν (dedōken), which is a verb, perfect indicative active, 3rd person singular. It comes from δίδωμι, which means “give.” So, all in all, when you consider the intricate workings of this sentence you will have a better appreciation of the fact that the present active indicative verb ἥκει describes a linear (ongoing) action, as opposed to a punctiliar (complete) action. Here, then, is my rendition of 1 John 5:20 (SBLGNT):
Most of us think that we are good people. We haven’t harmed anyone. We’re not that bad. So, what kind of sins do we have to confess? In fact, sometimes we can’t even think of any. Yet 1 John 1.8-10 (KJV) reads:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say that we have
not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us.
——-
Original Sin
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that human beings inherit a sin nature at birth, with some Protestant theologians even arguing for total depravity, namely, that we’re in such a state of rebellion against God that we’re not even able to follow him, by ourselves, without his effectual grace. Other Christian theologians, such as Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 AD), totally dismissed the thought of original sin by giving it a more allegorical interpretation.
Unlike Christianity, both Judaism and Islam hold a more positive view of human nature. They assert that human beings have an equal capacity for both good and evil, and that they don’t inherit another person’s sin at birth. They also claim that although humans might be culturally conditioned to sin by decadent societies, nevertheless they’re not born that way. To back that up, the Jews often quote the Torah (Deut. 24.16), which states:
The fathers shall not be put to death for the
children, neither shall the children be put to
death for the fathers: every man shall be
put to death for his own sin.
To drive the point home, they usually cite Ezekiel 18.20:
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the
iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon him, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon
him.
But these passages are only referring to actual sins, namely, to behavioral sins that each individual is personally responsible for. These verses, however, are not addressing *collective sin* that resides in human nature.
——-
The Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, defined the concept we now know as the “collective unconscious.” This phrase refers to the deepest layer of the unconscious mind which, according to Jung, is genetically inherited and is therefore not part of individual history or personal experience. In other words, it’s not part of the personal unconscious.
Jung held that each person retains these innate unconscious impressions of humanity as a collective knowledge of our species. They’re in our genes, so to speak. But, here, also lurk all the dark, animal instincts of man, as well as the archetypes. One such archetype is called the “shadow,” an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious self doesn’t recognize or identify with. It represents a large portion of the *dark side* that is completely foreign and unknown to the ego. These collectively-inherited unconscious archetypes are universally present in every human being.
Over the years, many artistic works, like Star Wars, have addressed themselves to the dark side of human nature, from Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon, to horror movies like American Psycho and Hannibal Lecter, to the constant violence that no current Action film seems to be without. Life imitating art would be when we witness the exact same things happening in real life while turning on the 6 o’clock news. We customarily disassociate ourselves from this aspect of human nature. We can never imagine that this state of mind resides within all of us. We always point fingers at someone else. In our eyes, we are saints. We’re like the Pharisee in Luke 18.11:
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with
himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this publican.
But, according to Jesus, we are all a bunch of hypocrites. In Matthew 15.18-19, Jesus implies that the dark side is hidden in the unconscious. It’s not simply a conscious thought, a spoken word, or an action that is the cause of one’s sinful behavior but rather a deep state of being (aka “the heart”) out of which proceeds all manner of evil:
But those things which proceed out of the
mouth come forth from the heart; and they
defile the man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies.
That’s why Jeremiah 17.9 declares:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it?
No wonder Paul says that the unregenerate are still carnal (Rom. 8.8):
they that are in the flesh cannot
please God.
As theologian Timothy Keller asserts:
The church is not a museum for pristine
saints, but a hospital ward for broken
sinners.
If one fails to understand Jung’s concept of the “collective unconscious,” or the dark side of human nature, one will ultimately misunderstand the Biblical doctrine of original sin.
——-
Why Does Jesus Have to Die for Humanity?
Jesus doesn’t have to suffer greatly and die on a tree simply on account of sins that were committed in the past, or to justify repentant sinners because of their current or future sins. No! Jesus dies to redeem *human nature* from original sin. He dies for humanity’s collective sin (past, present, and future). And he also redeems humanity, in himself, by dying to sin. In other words, Jesus dies to the sinful state of being, if you will, in order to free human nature from the bondage of death and decay. Not only does Jesus justify sinners by dying to sin, but because he is God, he also transforms human nature itself. In the resurrection, Christ’s human nature that rises from the grave is no longer sin-tainted, but glorious!
Otherwise, if everyone sinned voluntarily, and human beings were not tainted by original sin, then there wouldn’t be any reason for God’s Son to die for mankind. In that case, sin would be an individual or personal responsibility, not a collective one. And humanity would not need a savior because there would be neither a collective cause nor a cure for crime, violence, and murder. These people would simply be classified as criminal offenders who, unlike others, consciously “chose” to behave that way.
However, that’s not what Paul says in Romans 5.18–19:
Therefore as by the offence of one [Adam]
judgment came upon all men to
condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one [Christ] the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many
were made sinners, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous.
In fact, Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15.21-22:
For since by man came death, by man
came also the resurrection of the dead. For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive.
Conclusion
Because the concept of the unconscious had not yet been discovered in Antiquity or the Dark Ages, the existence of the collective unconscious was not known, let alone addressed by either Judaism or Islam. Their criticism of original sin is quite unsophisticated and is presented exclusively from the point of view of the conscious mind. They neither comprehend the totality of the personality nor do they consider unconscious motivation. Therefore, to deny or ignore the overwhelming influence of the dark side of man (aka sin nature) is equivalent to a naïveté: a lack of experience, sophistication, and wisdom! This lack of skillful treatment is either due to innocence or deep repression.
That’s precisely why many people don’t know what sin is. And, consequently, they keep sinning. They can’t even understand why Jesus has to die for them. They often ask, what’s the big fuss about “original sin”? Read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “The heart of man is exceedingly deceitful.”
What do you think is the meaning behind Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”? It presents the duality within man. This work is emphasizing the dark side of human nature that is hidden underneath our socially-acceptable “Dr. Jekyll” persona. But in the unconscious lurks another personality, Mr. Hyde, who represents evil that’s waiting in the wings. The depth of human cruelty is also represented in “Heart of darkness,” by Joseph Conrad. It’s the same idea in Bram Stoker's “Dracula.” All these classic works of art act like mirrors in trying to show us blind spots that we don’t usually see in ourselves and end up projecting onto others. And this darkness that proceeds from man’s collective unconscious is what Christian theologians have coined “original sin.” Louis Berkhof, in his “Systematic Theology,” pt. 2, ch. 4, writes:
actual sin in the life of man is generally
admitted. This does not mean, however,
that people have always had an equally
profound consciousness of sin. We hear a
great deal nowadays about the ‘loss of the
sense of sin.’
Therefore, the psychological and spiritual goal is to give up one's naivete and to expand one's consciousness so as to embrace and integrate all aspects of one’s personality and human nature. That’s what psychoanalysts mean when they say, “making the unconscious conscious.” It is here that rebirth in Christ becomes possible. That’s why wisdom teachers typically say that we need to see existence as it really is. What you need to do, in the words of the Dalai Lama (which represent the title of his book), is to figure out “How to see yourself as you really are.” It is then, and only then, when you will finally realize that sin is not simply an isolated behavior, but rather a state of being——deeply rooted in the “carnal mind” (cf. Rom. 6.6)——that needs to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. And that *existential experience* in and of itself constitutes not only a prelude to “rebirth,” but also the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ!
——-
For more info on this topic, see my essay, “BIBLICAL SIN: NOT AS BEHAVIOR BUT AS ULTIMATE TRANSGRESSION”: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/184880965717/i-think-the-greek-phrase-%CF%87%CF%89%CF%81%E1%BD%B6%CF%82-%E1%BC%81%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%84%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82-ie
I think the Greek phrase χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας (i.e. “without sin”) in reference to Jesus in Hebrews 4.15 has been greatly misunderstood. If in thi
The Quran Mirrors the Bible: Surah 3.55 Echoes Revelation 12.5
By Bible Scholar Eli Kittim 🎓
Surah 3.55 (Quran)
Lo! Allah said: “O Isa (Jesus)! Verily, I shall
cause thee to die, and shall raise thee up
unto Me … unto the Day of Resurrection.
Revelation 12.4-5 (Bible)
Then the dragon stood before the woman
who was about to bear a child, so that he
might devour her child as soon as it was
born. And she gave birth to a son [Jesus], a
male child, who is to rule all the nations
with a rod of iron. But her child was
snatched away and taken to God and to his
throne.
Commentary
The reference to the “great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns” (Rev. 12.3) indicates that this event is taking place in the end-times. That’s because the 10 horns are said to “make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them” (Rev. 17.12-14) at the end of the age! So, the temporal juxtaposition of the “great red dragon” with the pregnant woman (Rev. 12.2) signifies that the dragon and the pregnant woman are contemporaries. In other words, they exist at the same point in time. The idea that “the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child [Jesus], so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born” (Rev. 12.4) means that the dragon wanted to put the newborn to death. The sequence of events continues as follows (Rev. 12.5):
she gave birth to a son [Jesus], a male
child, who is to rule all the nations with a
rod of iron. But her child was snatched
away and taken to God and to his throne.
Curiously enough, the verse doesn’t deny that the newborn was killed. It only affirms that he was subsequently “snatched away” or raptured unto God. The Greek word ἡρπάσθη comes from ἁρπάζω (harpazó), which is the same word used in 1 Thess. 4.17 for the rapture! But this is also a reference to the resurrection of the dead, which occurs simultaneously with the rapture (see 1 Thess. 4.16-17). Incidentally, in this context, the term τέκνον or child seemingly refers to both a spiritual and a physical birth. Given the development of the passage, coupled with the said activities of the “son” (υἱόν)——i.e. dying, ascending to heaven, and so on——it’s quite obvious that, technically speaking, the child (Jesus) is not an infant. Thus, the biblical jargon suggests the initial physical appearance of Jesus on the world stage, who is spiritually born (or reborn) in God.
Revelation 12 clearly indicates that these are all end-time events. For example, cosmic “war broke out in heaven” (12.7). It’s also the time when Satan will be incarnated as the Antichrist & the kingdom of God “and the authority of his Messiah” will come into full view (Rev. 12.10). Further proof is given by the allusion to the Great Tribulation (Rev. 12.14), which lasts for 42 months or 3 and one half years (cf. Dan. 7.25; 12.7; Rev. 11.2; 13.5). Revelation 12.13-14 informs us that the dragon then persecuted the people of God——represented by the woman, the mother church, as it were——but they were protected for 3 and one half years:
[the dragon] pursued the woman who had
given birth to the male child [Jesus]. But the
woman was given the two wings of the
great eagle, so that she could fly from the
serpent into the wilderness, to her place
where she is nourished for a time, and
times, and half a time.
Conclusion
So what does it mean? Revelation 12 is basically telling us that the child Jesus is born in the end-times and dies soon thereafter. Then, the implication is that he is raised from the dead and “snatched away” into heaven. Since the rapture and the resurrection of the dead occur simultaneously, and since this event takes place in the end-times, it must happen during the so-called “Great day of Resurrection,” when all the dead who ever lived will come back to life (cf. Dan. 12.1-2; 1 Thess. 4.16-17; 1 Cor. 15.22-24)!
Surprisingly, that’s precisely what the Quran implies as well. Surah 3.55 seems to say that Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension will take place in the end-times, during the Day of Resurrection:
Lo! Allah said: “O Isa (Jesus)! Verily, I shall cause thee to die, and shall raise thee up unto Me … unto the Day of Resurrection.
Therefore, Surah 3.55 (Quran) seems to echo Revelation 12.5 (Bible).
OPEN ACCESS AND THE BIBLE: The Bible and Interpretation
This is Eli Kittim’s academic monograph——published in the Journal of Higher Criticism, vol. 13, no. 3 (2018), page 4—-entitled, "The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ According to the Greek New Testament Epistles."
This is the PDF of my article——published in the Journal of Higher Criticism, volume 13, number 3 (Fall 2018)——entitled, The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ According to the Greek New Testament Epistles.
