Could the Second Coming of Christ be near? Today's radical Muslims are operating under a crusade mentality of the middle ages. With the extinction of the colonialism of England and France in the Middle East, a political void in authority developed. The revolutionary idea of separation of state and religion was never achieved by the Muslims to the extent we have achieved it in the West. Militant Islam has come to hate their own secular Muslim leaders and have decided to wage jihad against their brothers. The West will sit back and ponder options until the militants have overthrown all of the old guard kingdom leaders of Islam and consolidated their power under a fundamental radical caliphate. Their religion will then become their State. Then the militants will turn their hatred toward Jerusalem. The West will be forced to act to protect God's chosen people. Will this Armageddon usher in the return of Christ?

Come Holy Spirit invade my soul and every cell of my being.  Christ, as God,  appeared here on earth 2000 years ago and left His Spirit behind for our benefit.  We are breathing air Jesus breathed. He not only left His spirit but His blood.  Remember when He was crucified, the soldier pierced His side with a lance to confirm His death rather than breaking His legs.  His precious blood gushed out with water and fell to the ground in Jerusalem.  In addition to His Spirit, Christ also left His blood on earth.  Priests in the Catholic Church call upon the Holy Spirit to change ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ every day all around the world.  The priests mix wine and water and the Spirit transforms the mixture into the blood of Christ.  The priest , a dedicated disciple of Christ, must rely on a determined faith to accomplish this task.  But do you believe that this transformation takes place?  You of little faith.  I guess you will have to wait till His second coming to participate in His death and Resurrection.

The Epistle of Barnabas

"The way of light, then, is as follows. If any one desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. You shall love Him that created you: you shall glorify  Him that redeemed you from death. You shall be simple in  heart, and rich in spirit. You shall  not join yourself to those who walk in the way of death. You shall hate doing what is  unpleasing to God: you shall hate all hypocrisy. You shall not forsake the commandments of the Lord. You shall not exalt yourself, but shall be of a lowly mind. You shall not take glory to yourself. You shall not take evil counsel against your  neighbour. You shall not allow over-boldness to enter into your soul. You shall not commit fornication: you shall not  commit adultery: you shall not be a corrupter of youth. You shall not let the word of God  issue from your lips with any kind of impurity. You shall not  accept persons when you reprove any one for transgression. You  shall be meek: you shall be peaceable. You shall tremble at the words which you  hear. You shall not be mindful of evil against your brother. You shall not be of doubtful mind  James 1:8 as to whether a  thing shall be or not. You shall not take the name of
the Lord in vain. You shall love your neighbour more than your own soul. You shall not slay the child by  procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it is born. You shall not  withdraw your hand from your son, or from your daughter, but from their infancy  you shall teach them the fear of the Lord. You shall not  covet what  is your neighbour's, nor shall you be avaricious. You shall  not be joined in soul with the haughty, but you shall be  reckoned with the righteous and lowly. Receive as good things the trials which come upon you. You shall not be of double mind or of double tongue, for a double tongue is a snare of death.  You shall be subject to the Lord, and to  [other] masters as the image of God, with modesty and fear. You shall not issue orders with bitterness to your maidservant or  your man-servant, who trust in the same [God ],  lest you should not reverence that God who  is above both; for He came to call men not according to their outward appearance, Ephesians 6:9 but according as  the Spirit had prepared them. Romans 8:29-30  You shall communicate in all things with your neighbour; you shall not call things  your own; for if you are partakers in common of things which are incorruptible, how  much more [should you be] of those things which are corruptible! You shall not be hasty with your tongue, for the mouth is a snare of death. As far
as possible, you shall be pure in your soul. Do not be ready to stretch forth your hands to take, while you contract them to give. You shall love, as the apple of your eye, every one that speaks to you the word of  the Lord. You shall remember the day of judgment,  night and day. You shall seek out every day the faces of the saints, either by word examining them, and going to exhort  them, and meditating how to save a  soul by the word, or by your hands you shall labour for the redemption of your sins. You shall not hesitate to give, nor murmur when you give. Give to every one that asks you, and you shall know who is the good Recompenser of the reward. You shall preserve what you have received [in charge], neither  adding to it nor taking from it. To the last you shall hate the wicked
[one]. You shall judge righteously. You shall not make a schism, but you shall pacify those that contend by bringing them together. You shall confess your sins. You shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of light.


But the way of darkness is crooked, and full of cursing;  for it is the way of eternal death with punishment, in which way are the things that destroy the soul, viz., idolatry, over-confidence,
the arrogance of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rapine, haughtiness, transgression, deceit, malice,  self-sufficiency, poisoning, magic, avarice, want of the fear of God. [In this way, too,] are those who persecute the good, those who hate truth, those who love falsehood, those who know not the reward of  righteousness, those who cleave not to that which is good, those who attend not with just judgment  to the widow and orphan, those who watch not to the fear of God, [but incline] to wickedness,  from whom meekness and patience are far off; persons who love vanity, follow after a reward, pity not the needy, labour not in aid of him who  is overcome with toil; who are prone to evil-speaking, who know not Him that made them, who are murderers of
children, destroyers of the workmanship of God; who turn away him that is in want, who oppress the afflicted, who are advocates of the rich, who are unjust judges of the poor, and who are in every respect transgressors."

Do you walk in the way of Light or Darkness?

All-out war with the Muslims is humanity’s future.  Although the Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians, they lack the love of neighbor preached by Christ.  The radical Muslims are a hateful people.  They are really like spoiled little children who always want to do things their own way, never respecting the wishes of their parents or God.

The Muslims are gradually turning the whole of the non-Muslim world against them.  We in the United States loath them for 911 and the Jews hate them for their continual conquest of the holy land, the land that God gave to the Jews.  The Russians despise them for the spread of terror in Russia with bombings and their rebellion in Chechnya.

Now the Chinese have had a taste of their hatred.  The possible hijacking of the plane in Malaysia will be the beginning of the end.  Two thirds of the passengers on that plane were Chinese.  China is a sleeping giant.  Putin is just a new bully on the block attempting to humiliate the United States through the weakness and stupidity of Obama.  Putin is weak though.  If we had a leader like Reagan who would not put up with these shenanigans, Putin would go home and hid in his hole. 

Russia and China may side with the likes of Syria and Iran at the moment, but when Russia and China, and more practically their citizens, realize that tyrannical government leaders and radical Muslims just do not mix, they will finally realize that their loyalties are in direct contravention of the good of the whole world.  When the Muslims strap a nuclear bomb obtained from Iran to a hijacked airplane and crash it into Moscow or Beijing, the communist may finally realize that the West is not the enemy but friend.

Until then, humanity must wait for the knowledge and wisdom of our perfected God to flow down upon us, we imperfect humans.

Listen to what Ignatius of Loyola says about spirits. For those of you who are advancing toward salvation, i.e., you have been forgiven your sins and humbled yourself such that you have taken on the yoke of Christ, the two spirits, the good and the evil, attack you in different degrees  The good spirit invades your soul quietly and you progress with fortitude and temperance, and the evil spirit attacks with noisy and obvious events.  But those of you who are headed the wrong way, i.e., toward your destruction (hell), the evil spirit invades you quietly, as if you were walking into your own home through an open door.  The good spirit attempts to notify you with violent alerts and distractions, yet you refuse of observe and take heed.   your destruction or salvation is carried forward in direct proportion that the disposition of your soul is like or unlike either spirit. 

When you pray to God, do you realize that you are praying to Jesus and the Holy Spirit also? Your communion with God is complete when the Spirit resides in you.    We don’t have the persons of God or the Son living within us; they reside in Heaven.  But we do have the Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, living within us, if we let Him in.  The Spirit of God, this free gift of God’s grace, activates your soul.  It gives your soul life.  God gave His life for us so we must surrender our soul to Him to receive the Spirit.  Pray to receive the Holy Spirit in your life.  Come Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will create a love for others in you just as Jesus loved.  The reason is because it is the Spirit of Jesus living within you.  You have God living within you when you accept the intruder, the Spirit.  He comes to vanquish death and give you new life, an eternal life with the Father.  How amazing is that?  My heart pounds with excitement when my mind acknowledges the Spirit within me.  I get excited to know that I love all persons, black, white, red, brown, fat, skinny, short or tall.  I love their souls.  They may not have been perfected of the Spirit, but they, their souls, were a gift of God.  Individual souls may have blemishes and spots, character defects, serious flaws, but a person living in the Spirit overlooks these “sins” of others and loves the “sinner”. 

Do you have to be a Christian to know God?  Muslims, Jews, Hindus believe in God. There is only one God.   The Hindus and Buddhist believe in Brahman.  Is their God the same God as our Christian God? The Jews worship our God.  God spoke to them first as his chosen people long ago.  The Jews believed in the one true God during a time period when the surrounding civilizations believed in many different Gods.  Isn’t it ironic that all peoples from the beginning of time believed in some supreme being, some higher power, some creator of the universe?  The Romans and Greeks and Egyptians believed in many Gods, but they all had a desire to believe in something greater than themselves.  The Canaanites, Hittites and Moabites, Babylonians, the Assyrians worshipped many Gods. The Akkadians and Sumerians, the pagans of ancient times, had numerous Gods they worshipped.  Yet the Muslims and Jews of today believe in the same God as we Christians.  This belief in our God of today emerged long before Christ appeared on this earth and revealed Himself as the God of Genesis.  I find it amazing that all of God’s creation today believes in one, supreme higher power.   We all have become predominately monotheistic.

With the rise in the use of Aramaic and Greek during the Roman era, the Paleo-Hebrew language went completely out of use around the death of Christ.   The Paleo-Hebrew had 22 consonants and no vowels.  Tannaitic Hebrew was a type of Jewish Aramaic used by Jewish scholars to draft the Mishnah and Gemara between 100 A. D. and 500 A.D. The Mishnah and Gemara were interpretations of the Old Testament.  Their scribes used Tannaitic Hebrew (Aramaic) to copy editions of the Old testament. After the expulsion of the Jews from the province of Syria Palaestina by the Romans around 135 A.D., the Jews settled in southern Arabia, Egypt and Europe.  After the appearance of Muhammad in 610 A.D., the expansion of Islam forced most of the Jews to migrate to Europe. However the Masoretes, a Jewish sect thriving from 700-1000 A.D., remained in Syria and Babalyon and added consonants to the existing Jewish language and rewrote the Old Testament with this new form of the Jewish language. Meanwhile Yiddish developed in Europe.  Yiddish is of German, Jewish origin and spoken in  many parts of the world. It developed as a fusion of different German dialects of Hebrew, Armaic and Slavic vocabulary.  In 1881 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda  immigrated to Palestine from Luzhki, Belarus in eastern Europe , and settled in Jerusalem.   He found a job teaching at the Alliance Israelite University.  Ben‑Yehuda set out to develop a new language that could replace Yiddish and other regional dialects as a means of everyday communication between the Jews. Ben-Yehuda was a major figure in the reestablishment of the Hebrew Language. He was the author of the first modern Hebrew dictionary and became known as the "reviver" of the Hebrew language.  Ancient languages and modern Standard Arabic were major sources for the modern Hebrew of Ben-Yehuda.  The differences between Paleo-Hebrew and modern Hebrew can be compared to the differences between modern English and Shakespearean English. Throw in Aramaic influences and all of the new words created within the last 200 years and modern Hebrew has become almost a new language. My whole point behind this criticism is that the transition of the Jewish language from the Tannaitic Hebrew(Aramaic) then to the Masoretic Text and modern Hebrew can be and has been used to change much of the original meaning of the Paleo-Hebrew. Many references to the Messiah,  a particular virgin and a savior in the original text of the Jewish bible have been altered or changed to cast aspersions and impugn the appearance and reputation  of Jesus Christ.  The Jews did not like the Christians during the Roman era and thereafter and used all means possible to impede the advancement of Christianity.

Isn't it amazing to see the depths to which we believers in Christ have sunk.  What am I talking about?  Well the Mormons had an add campaign a couple of years ago declaring themselves Mormon.  Remember those  "I am  Mormon" commercials.  Now we Catholics are attempting a new evangelization to bring home our lost fellow Catholics.  The main line Protestant churches are on a decline because they tend to follow secular desires and approve of homosexual marriage and allow homosexuals to preach to themselves.  Will acceptance of abortion be next?  These non- denominational churches or so called evangelical, mega churches are siphoning off the disenfranchised, but they will meet with their demise.  Most of these preacher are in the game for the wrong reasons.  They first desire to build themselves a nice retirement nest egg and then they retire on the congregation money traveling around the world pretending to establish churches around the world.  Have you ever read the letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the various churches in Asia as he was being carted to Rome in chains for martyrdom around the year 110 A.D.?

The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians
" Keep yourselves from those evil plants which Jesus Christ does not tend, because they are not
the planting of the Father. Not that I have found any division among you, but exceeding purity. For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, (those that sacrifice to idols) return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism . Take heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever you do, you may do it according to [the will of] God. in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion [of Christ.]... For though some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the Spirit, as being from God, is not deceived. For it knows both whence it comes and whither it goes, John 3:8 and detects the secrets [of the heart]. For, when I was among you, I cried, I spoke with a loud voice: Give heed to the bishop, and to the presbytery and deacons. Now, some suspected me of having spoken thus, as knowing beforehand the division caused by some among you. But He is my witness, for whose sake I am in bonds, that I got  no intelligence from any man.  But the Spirit proclaimed  these words: Do nothing without the bishop; keep your bodies  as the temples of God;  love unity; avoid divisions; be the followers of Jesus Christ, even as He is of His Father."

A look at Old Testament editions would not be complete without looking at a brief history of the Jewish Old Testament after the death of Christ. Some scholars are concerned that the Jews may have slightly altered some phrases in their Old Testament copies in order to play down, cast aspersion on,
or temper the notion that Christ was the messiah predicted in their books of old. Notice that the Jews never accepted the New Testament.  In 135 A.D. after the total destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews were scattered to the four corners of the earth and their ancient Hebrew language was
no longer in use, either by the spoken or written word.  Most importantly a complete compilation of Holy Scripture for the Jew at the death of Christ had no official name. 

In fact both Jew and gentile used the Septuagint at the death of Christ. Septuagint is derived from the Latin word meaning 70.  The Roman numeral is LXX.  Some argue that the later editions of the Septuagint included 70 books. A possible list is as follows:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2  Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Prayer of
Manasseh, Ezra(1 Ezra),  Nehemiah(2 Ezra), 1 Esdras(3 Ezra), 2 Esdras 3–14(4 Ezra), 2 Esdras 1–2; 15–16(5 and 6 Ezra), Esther, Additions to Esther, Tobit, Judith,  1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees,
4 Maccabees, Jubilees, Enoch, 1 Meqabyan, 2 and 3 Meqabyan, Ethiopic Pseudo-Josephus,Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Book of Job, Psalms 1–150, Psalm 151, Psalms 152–155, Psalms of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Book of Wisdom, Sirach, Prayer of Solomon(Sirach 52), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations  (1-5), Ethiopic Lamentations (7:1-11,63), Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch(2 Baruch 1–77), Letter of Baruch(2 Baruch 78–87), Greek Apocalypse of Baruch(3 Baruch), 4 Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Additions to
Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Most everyone who believed in one true God at the death of Christ, including many of the Jews, used some form of the Septuagint as their official compilation of Holy Scripture. The Septuagint was
quoted by the apostles as their source of Old Testament scripture as they composed the New Testament. Even though copies of the Old Testament written in Paleo-Hebrew still existed at the death of Christ, as evidenced by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they were not in general use. 
Everyone claims that the Dead Sea scrolls were hidden in the caves of Qumran around 70 A.D. in order to avoid detection and destruction by the Romans.  But these scrolls could have very well been hidden there during the period of the Maccabees, which ruled Judea from 164 B.C. to 63 B.C. or after 63 B.C., when Pompey invaded Judah and made it a client state of Rome.  These Paleo-Hebrew scrolls may not have existed in the public arena at the death of Christ or thereafter.

Jewish scholars allege that their rabbis officially adopted the list of books that compose their old testament at the Council of Jamnia about 100 A.D.  However this view has been recently questioned.  The eventual name of the Jew’s old testament became the Tanakh, an acronym of the first Hebrew
letter of each of the three traditional subdivisions:  the Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses),  the Prophets which include the  eight books of the major and minor prophets, which cover the time from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Israel until the Babylonian
captivity of Judah and the Writings which include the 11 books of truth, wisdom and prayer—hence TaNaKh.   But remember, in the first century the word Tanakh did not exist as a name for the Jewish bible.  The 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus described 22 sacred books of the Jews, not the 24 that eventually became the  Tanakh.

In time, the Tanakh, which became known as the Jewish Bible, was probably composed  between 800 A.D. and 1000 A.D. by the Masoretes. The Masoretes were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D. based primarily in present-day Israel in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq (Babylonia).  Their Jewish bible included the 24 listed books.   The Torah has always included first five books:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.   The eight books of Prophets include Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets( Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).  The 11 books of the Writings include Job  , Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel,  Chronicles,  Ezra- Nehemiah.  These are the 24 books of the Jewish Bible.  Until the invention of the
printing press in 1450 A.D., these books were copied by scribes by hand for hundreds of years. It is important to note that the Jews probably used a form of the Septuagint during their 700- 900 years of Diaspora after 70 A.D. until the Masoretes compiled the Tanakh.   

The Masoretic Text (MT) defined the books of the Jewish bible and it is the current Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible. The MT was primarily copied, edited and distributed by these Jewish Masoretes. 
 The Masoretic text (MT) established by the rabbis between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D. has until
recently been accepted as an official reproduction of the Hebrew Bible of the 1st century A. D. Yet, this proposition is now being challenged in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century A.D.  The MT of the
Aleppo Codex dates from the 10th century.  Recent inquiry has found that copies of some of the Biblical books found at Qumran reveal sharp divergences from the MT. As an example, scholars have discovered that the Paleo- Hebrew copies of 1 and 2 Samuel found at Qumran agree more with the Septuagint  than the MT. One of these fragments is dated from the third century B. C. and is
believed to be the very oldest copy of a biblical text found to date. Therefore scholars allege that the Masoretic version of 1–2 Samuel is significantly  inferior to the Septuagint.

 The Masoretic text of the Jewish Old Testament Bible differs from the Septuagint in hundreds of places.  There are glaring differences between the Septuagint and MT of 1 and 2 Samuel,
  Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Proverbs and Ezekiel, 40-48, and to a lesser degree  important differences in the books of Isaiah and Job.  Why is that?  Scribe error or intentional deceit?  And the fact remains that the oldest copies of the Septuagint are still 400 – 500 years older than the Masoretic text.  Most importantly the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are older than any surviving copy of the Septuagint, tend to agree more with the Septuagint than with the Masoretic text. Therefore, it seems that the best translation we have of the Old Testament from the original Paleo-Hebrew Bible is the Septuagint.  The only existing Old Testament at the time the Septuagint was translated was the Paleo-Hebrew text.