Wikipedia: Push Your Propaganda

My apologies for the lack of updates. I have been busy doing preliminary reading for my upcoming semester at Oxford, and also reading a lot about the abuses of Wikipedia, as well as editing it.

In some fields and some topics, there are groups who 'squat' on articles and insist on making them reflect their own specific biases. There is no credible mechanism to approve versions of articles.

- Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia 

It’s chilling because so many people — young journalists especially — look to Wikipedia first. They not only shun print reference sources, they even balk at scouring the Web for information if it entails, God forbid, clicking on more than a single link.

-Steve Cuozzo, New York Daily Post

Wikipedia is rapidly becoming prime source material for American judges.

-Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian 

There are quite a few great articles out there, as well as blogs you should be watching.

Wikipedia Hijacked
The Wikipedia Battle for Rupert Sheldrake
Climategate
Wikipediocracy: The Wikipedia Watchdog Organization

I have already mentioned Gerbic and her Gueurilla Skeptics in previous posts. What's even more interesting is what happened from 2003 until 2010. Instead of a group of ideologues hijacking Wikipedia, as Gerbic has done, a dedicated Green Party ideologue named William Connolley completely rewrote pretty much everything Wikipedia had to say about global warming.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

 Not only was he able to hijack over 5,000 articles, his admin status helped him control who got to write Wikipedia articles and who didn't. Ideologues know that the people who educate are in the best position to indoctrinate. This is why so many of them seek jobs as teachers and professors. Control where people get their information, and you will control where they receive their ideologies.

Co-founder Larry Sanger quit the Wikimedia Foundation out of concerns of Wikipedia's integrity, and founded rival online encyclopedia Citizendium. It allows anyone to edit, but requires verification by experts. I don't know if this will be any better, but I suppose time will tell if Citizendium becomes hijacked in the way that Wikipedia has.

What can we do about it? I have suggested building counter-movements to the one run by Gerbic. There are other ways.

For one, it is against the rules to run a "secret cabal" for editing Wikipedia the way that Gerbic is doing. So if you want to do something about it, email, call, or Skype the people at the Wikimedia Foundation. Let them know about these tactics, and that they have to put an end to this ideologically-driven madness.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 20

Troki argued:

Matthew 20:23, Jesus, addressing his disciples, namely the two children of Zebedee, says, "To sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them, for whom it is prepared of my Father." The reader will find the same idea expressed in Mark 10. Now if the Son is less powerful than the Father, how can it be asserted that the Father and Son are all one? 

Williams replied:

This, however, is only one more instance of the way in which our Rabbi has misunderstood the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. For it is plain to any thoughtful Christian that He answered in the character in which He was addressed. The two disciples, and their mother, did not make their request to Jesus as God, but as Messiah, the leader of Israel, and Jesus answered in the same capacity. You address Me as man, He might have replied, and as man I am unable to do this for you. It rests with My Father in heaven, and with Him alone. In other words, the question of the Divinity of Jesus is not raised. We should add that an attempt has been made by well-meaning Christian expositors to translate our Lord's words: "To sit on My right hand . . . is not Mine to give except to them for whom," etc. But it is barely possible to translate the Greek in this way. 

 We can better understand this passage if given the whole pericope:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” (Matthew 20:20-23)

Troki is making the classic mistake of overinterpretation. The status of Jesus as God is nowhere in the context of the passage. Jesus received a mother's request that her two sons receive special preferential treatment as disciples. They were willing to drink from the cup of martyrdom, but God had already ordained who would sit at the right and left of Jesus in the kingdom. Jesus was not about to alter this plan for the sake of a mother's request. So how do you tell a mother "no" in the most polite way possible? You claim that the issue is out of your hands. In a sense, it was out of the hands of Jesus, since it was already set in place, and hence, no longer his to give.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 19

Matthew 19:16 and subsequent verses, "And behold one came and said unto him, Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God"; an expression which proves that Jesus is not God. Then Jesus continued, "If thou desirest spiritual salvation keep the commandments." An injunction indicating that there is no salvation without the observance of the law of Moses. He [the querist] saith unto him, "Which?" Jesus said, "Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Further he said, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast and give to the poor." The same is to be found in Mark 10:21. In Luke 18:22, Jesus thereby advises, "Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor," etc. Jesus, in saying there is none good but one, that is God, taught his followers a monotheistic principle. He taught them at the same time that salvation depends on the observance of the Divine commandments. All these injunctions, given by Jesus, are renounced by Christians; and thus, having thrown off those inconvenient and onerous observances taught in the New Testament, they might well allege that the severe precepts of the Mosaic Law were abrogated, and must give place before a Lawgiver whose laws they think proper to disregard. We would ask, which precept is the most severe, that of Jesus, which demands that a man should divest himself of his property for the benefit of the poor, or the Mosaic Law, which ordains that a tithe only should be devoted to holy purposes, leaving the remainder at the free disposal of the owner of the property?

Quite the opposite of what Troki is claiming, this verse is implying Jesus' self-image as God incarnate. Notice that Jesus did not deny that he was good. He did not say "I am not good" or "I am not God." He let the man know just what it means to call someone good. Even today, we throw around terms without really understanding their meaning. Heresy has been historically a major charge. Today, we throw around the word "heretic" as though it meant very little. Jesus was correcting the man's light use of the term. As Lukyn Williams writes:

His reply cuts at the very root of much of the Jewish teaching of the time, subservience to mere authority. Human teachers, human institutions, however good they are, must not usurp the place of God. This young ruler, who assuredly has no real knowledge of the divine nature of Him whom he is addressing (and Jesus cannot at this stage enlighten him on this point without doing him more harm than good), is bid seek God rather than man. Alas, for the ever-recurrent need of the Lord's warning! Judaism has suffered, and is suffering, from insisting on tradition, instead of bidding men see that they come into touch with the living God.

The second attack that Troki uses is that Jesus taught his followers to live like Francis of Assisi. We should also note that Jesus is mentioning what a perfect person would do, and secondly, that this is a command to the rich young ruler, not some universal command to all of his followers at all times and places. Jesus knew that the rich young ruler valued money and status tremendously, and this was harming his ability to come close to God. The man thought he was just fine, hence his boasting that he had been so observant of the Law.

Randy Newman teaches based on this method. When conducting evangelism, you need to use questions in order to get the other person thinking. The rich young ruler was assuming that he was good, and trying to ask a holy man in order that he might boast in front of his friends. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter by questioning his very assumptions, calling into question his very motives in front of the crowd.

Also, Troki mistakenly believes that Jesus was asking people to behave perfectly. He was instead showing them that nobody else is perfect. Nobody else is truly good. We violate God's moral law all the time. Every time we lie, lust, act opportunistically, or pad our timesheets at work, we are violating God's moral law. The entire thrust of Romans is that nobody keeps God's moral law well enough to earn heaven. This is not to say that no one can in theory. This passage shows that it is the sins we commit that keep us out of heaven, and not some inherent sin nature or inherited sin from Adam. Again, the point in Romans is that Jesus knew that we all failed the test, and hence offered us a way out of our condemnation. If we would believe in him, then we can receive his righteousness.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 18

Matthew 15:1 to 25, When the Pharisees blamed his disciples for eating without previously washing their hands, Jesus argued that whatever enters the mouth does not defile man, but that defiles him which goes out of the mouth. The same is said in Mark 7 from the beginning to verse 24. If that were true, why should the Law of Moses prohibit us from eating certain unclean things? See also Leviticus 11:8, "And ye shall not defile yourselves with them [viz. the unclean animals] lest ye grow unclean through them." This shows, that a certain class of food is considered by Divine authority as impure and unlawful. By what right then did Jesus dare to contradict the law, and to absolve his Jewish followers from prohibited meats? If unclean food did not defile the mouth of the eater, why did the Apostles forbid the eating of blood and of the flesh of strangled animals? And did not Adam commit a sin, even according to the belief of the Christians, by the act of eating of that of which he was enjoined not to eat? How much strong drink is able to defile the soul of man is early demonstrated in Scripture, as we learn from the history of Noah and Lot. While on the other hand the expression of Jesus that words coming out of the mouth of man alone defile him, is subject to great limitation. For all praises and thanksgiving offered up to the Almighty, as well as all wise, moral and social converse do not defile the soul. 

 The ritual hand-washing is not the same as the hygenic hand-washing that we do before we eat. When the disciples ate with unwashed hands, this does not mean that their hands were dirty. It just means that they did not perform the ceremonial hand-washing  that the Pharisees prescribed. Biblically, there is no mandate for hand-washing, except for the priests.

The Lord said to Moses, “You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations.” (Exodus 30:17-21)

The only other reference in the Pentateuch to hand-washing is in Deuteronomy 21, as part of a ritual for unsolved murders. Leviticus 11:8, by the way, means something quite different than what Troki is implying. The chapter lists the clean and unclean animals, suggesting that you should not eat pork because it will defile you and you will grow unclean through it. The remedy if one touches an unclean carcass is to wash with water and be ritually impure until evening. Rabbinic tradition does not interpret this as washing the hands, but washing the whole body in a mikvah.

This passage does not state that Jesus has absolved any law about kosher foods. It simply states that the Pharisees had a custom to perform something like the priestly washing before meals, probably something similar to the ritual hand-washing that Orthodox Jews do before eating bread.

Nowhere is this prescribed in the Torah. It is an additional commandment that the Pharisees added in order to democratize the Priestly function. With Hellenism threatening to destroy Jewish culture, the Pharisees added additional restraints to prevent assimilation. These added rituals exist to this day. Ever wonder why Orthodox Jews dip their bread in salt on the Sabbath table? It's because the Sabbath table is supposed to function as an image of the sacrificial altar.

J.P. Holding of Tektonics has a simpler solution. "These words alter or ignore no Jewish law; they merely stress the obvious point that it is the disobedience, not the food itself, that is the essence of the violation."

Also from Holding:

One Skeptic accuses Jesus of ignoring his own guilt in lawbreaking with a "you do it too" excuse. But Jesus is not breaking the OT law; he is violating a "tradition of the elders" - part of the Pharasaic oral law, or code of interpretation, not the actual law. Jesus' own reply is a typical rabbinic response which points out that his accusers are guilty of a greater offense, which is a violation of the clear law (to honor one's parents) for the sake of a lesser interpretation of the law (Corban).

Attempts to interpret the law after this fashion resulted in peculiarities: For example, one could borrow something as long as they did not ask to borrow it (for that would constitute a transaction, and hence work); one could put out a lamp to save one's life, but not merely to turn it off to save oil; a man could not put vinegar on his tooth for a toothache, but he could put vinegar on his food -- and if he happened to get relief from that, it was OK.

 The context clearly indicates that Jesus was using "defilement" to mean sin. It is not ritual impurity that makes someone a sinner. It is what that person says that God will judge.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 17

Matthew 13:55; it is related there that the Jews said of Jesus, "Is not this the carpenter's son? And is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?" See also Mark 6:3. How then can the Christians constantly worship Mary as a virgin, she having given birth to the several brothers and sisters of Jesus? 

Again, I will reiterate that no denomination of Christianity worships Mary. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox venerate Mary in the way that you might give respect and honor to a hero or ancestor of yours. A Catholic or Orthodox defender might say that these are metaphorical brothers and sisters. The context, as well as other uses of brother and sister in the New Testament do not warrant such an interpretation. They might also say that these are half-brothers and half-sisters from Joseph's previous marriage. There is no evidence that Joseph ever had a previous marriage, let alone children from it

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 16

Matthew 12:32, "And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall bet forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." See also Luke 12:10. Both Matthew and Luke acknowledge, by this warning, that Jesus is the Son of Man; and that he and the Holy Ghost are not identical, consequently they were fully convinced that there is no doctrine in the Testament enforcing the belief in a triune deity, and that such a notion rests merely on imagination.

Ironically, a group of secularists used this verse to initiate the "blasphemy challenge" where people would go on record denying the Holy Spirit. I wonder here if Troki is ignorant of Trinitarian Monotheism or if he is exploiting his readers' ignorance. The New Testament certainly does teach that Jesus is not the Father, nor is he the Holy Spirit. Let's to to that diagram again:

Monotheism - There is one God
Unitarianism - God is one person

The Bible teaches the former, but not the latter. Even Artscroll translates the Shema as "God, the one and only." It is an affirmation of monotheism, but not unitarianism. The same context of "one" applies to Zechariah. "And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one." This does not mean that God will only have one name, but that God and his name will be the only being worshiped.

The Bible Gateway blog notes this about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:

Note that Jesus didn’t address his comments to his disciples or a mere crowd. He was talking specifically to Pharisees who had personally witnessed his miracle of completely and instantly healing a blind and mute demon-possessed man (Matthew 12:22). Rather than acknowledging the obvious fact that Jesus was exercising divine powers, the Pharisees were so spiritually depraved that they attributed his power to Satan (v. 24). “Their problem was not blind ignorance, but willful rejection,” pointed out Cornish. “That deliberate refusal to believe, even though knowing the truth, seems to be what Jesus called the unforgivable sin.”

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 15

Matthew 11:13, 14, Jesus is made to say, "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if ye will receive it, this is Elijah which was for to come." See the same passage in Luke 16:16. From this it would seem that it was intended to inculcate a belief, that the law and the prophecies had only a certain temporary object in view, which was to find its point of completion in John, a contemporary of Jesus. On the other hand, Jesus declared in Matthew 5:17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (see our opinion on this subject in Chapter 19 of the First Part of this work). We would ask the question, how did he fulfil the predicted ingathering of the Ten Tribes, and the carrying on of the war against Gog and Magog? We would also notice a discrepancy between the opinion held out in this chapter of Matthew, that John was the Elias (Elijah) of the Bible, and the following statement made by the author of the Gospel of John: "And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not. Art thou the Prophet? And he answered. No."

Let's remember that fulfillment ≠ prediction, as I have already argued. I would also respond to Troki's question with a question: which prophecies is Jesus disqualified from fulfilling? If he was indeed resurrected, then he has as much time as he wants to fulfill prophecies in any order that he chooses. Who is Troki to insist that Jesus fulfill everything within the span of 40 years, instead of 4,000 years?

The really interesting question here is whether John the Baptist was Elijah or not. Jesus said that he was, and John said that he was not. Let's look at the two quotes in context and see if that helps.

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 11:11-15)

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:19-23)

As you can see, merely quoting the two passages in context does not solve the dilemma, although it does shed some light on it. Matthew emphasizes the coming of the age, while John is emphasizing the man's humility. Because John denies being Elijah, this should eliminate the possibility of saying that John is Elijah reincarnated. The Tanakh teaches resurrection, which is not compatible with reincarnation. As we can see in Daniel 12, "coming again" means being resurrected in a glorified body, not reborn into a different form.

Luke clarifies the dilemma:

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:13-17)

This is the distinction that we were looking for. John is not literally Elijah, as he himself noted. Instead, he occupies the office of Elijah, as the great prophet of his day. This is in the same context that Tiberius was Caesar. He was not literally a member of the Caesar family, but he held the position, rank, and office that both Julius and Augustus held.

Notice also that John is not denying that he is a prophet. He is denying that he is THE Prophet. This is a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15 "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen." John was not denying that he was a prophet, but that he was Messiah.

I'll conclude with a quote from A. Lukyn Williams:

John is the greatest of the prophets, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven; the weakest and most insignificant of those who believe in Me, has greater privileges than he. For a great change has taken place. True religion is no longer a matter of birth and early training. It is obtained by personal grasp of faith. Only men of real determination seize the kingdom for themselves. For now has come that consummation to which the prophets, and even also the Law itself, looked forward, so that their work is done. If we may explain the meaning in another way, we may say that as the moon and the stars are not abolished by the advent of the dawn, yet do become insignificant in the rays of the sun, so it is with the prophets and the Law now that the Light of the world has appeared. And the herald of the dawn was John, foretold under the name of Elijah.

 

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 14

Matthew 10:40, Jesus is made to say to his apostles, "He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." By this expression the Christians are reduced to the necessity of believing that Jesus and his apostles are identical; and as they are taught that three make one, they ought, by parity of reasoning, to deduce the inference from the present passage, that the trinity, with the twelve apostles, make altogether one unity.

I assume this is a response to a bad Christian argument. Presumably, the argument states that those who accept or reject Jesus accept or reject God the Father, hence, Jesus is the same being as God the Father. If that is the Christian argument, then yes, it is a bad argument for the Trinity.

The point here is fairly simple. Jesus was sending his followers out to recruit for his movement. He was telling his apostles not to worry if people reject them. It is not you that these people are rejecting, but God. This is also taught in Berakhot of the Mishnah. "A man's messenger is as himself." Rashi also noted this in his commentary on Exodus: "He who seeks the face of an elder is as if he receives the face of the Divine Glory." Rabbinic tradition recognizes that someone who rejects a messenger rejects the person who sent the messenger. That is all that Jesus is saying in this verse.

God, Cosmology, and the Silver Ghost

If you have not seen this debate, it is a good debate between a theist and an atheist regarding the role of God and cosmology. It is focused and high-level. Both debaters likely talked over the heads of the majority of audience members.

One point that struck me as odd was a comment about the fine-tuning argument. For those who do not know, fine-tuning is a term in physics, where certain constants and quantities that the universe has, had to fall within very narrow ranges in order to make life possible. For example, there are enough stars out there that every person could own two trillion of them. The density of these stars is over 1,000 tons per level teaspoon full. Yet, had the mass of the universe been a dime's mass more or less, life would not have been possible. And there are thousands of finely tuned constants and quantities.

Sean Carroll argued that theism is unlikely because the universe contains too much fine-tuning. This sound on the face of it, crazy. It's almost an argument that too much design is evidence of no design. There are also loads of counterexamples to this argument.

I present to you, the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.

The Silver Ghost: One of the most excessively fine-tuned cars ever made.

This car is contemporaneous with the Ford Model T. The engine, and indeed the whole car, was built to ridiculously precise specifications. It was massively over-engineered, capable of running 15,000 miles with almost no maintenance. Less than 8,000 of these were built, and many of them run just fine to this day. The car was finely tuned far beyond any car ever needed to be. In fact, the fine-tuning of this vehicle is beyond even what was useful. The fine tuning was well beyond even what would be useful in a car. After all, there is no real benefit to building a car that can last 100 years. Yet no one would argue that this excessive amount of fine-tuning provides any evidence that the car was not designed.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 13

Matthew 10:34, 35, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." The same matter is treated on in Luke 12:51, and is a strong indication that Jesus was not filled with that spirit of peace so indissolubly attached to the office of Messiah. For, regarding the expected Messiah, Zechariah, in chapter 9:10, says, "And he will speak peace unto the nations." Concerning that period it was prophecied by Isaiah in chapter 2:4; and in Micah 4:3, "Nation shall not lift up the sword against nation." How much less will it then be allowable that a man should "be set at variance against his father?" On the contrary, the Divine promise runs thus (in conclusion of Malachi), "And he shall restore the heart of the fathers unto the children, and the heart of the children unto their fathers." 

This is extremely ironic coming from the mouth of a Jew. One of the main charges that the rabbis continually bring to Jesus is that he did not overthrow the oppressors of Israel in a manner akin to the Maccabees, establishing Israel as an independent power. Every other Messianic claimant tried to establish the kingdom of God through violent revolution. N.T. Wright notes that there were many of these before Jesus, and they generally got themselves killed, ending their messianic claim.

Jesus came on to the scene preaching peace:

While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” And when those who were around him saw what would follow, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:47-53)

The next question is: what did Jesus mean by bringing a sword:

"The one key element in this lengthy passage is the word "sword," and its meaning is now clear. It indicates that following Jesus in his original Jewish society may not bring peace to a family, but may "split" it up, the precise function of a metaphorical sword. Are his disciples ready for that? This kind of spiritual sword invisibly severs a man from his father, and daughter from her mother, and so on (Micah 7:6). Given Jesus’ own family resistance early on (they later came around), it is only natural he would say that no matter what the cost, one must follow him to the end, even if it means giving up one’s family. But this applies only if the family rejects the new convert, not if the family accepts him in his new faith; he must not reject them, because the whole point of Jesus’ advent is to win as many people to his side as possible, even if this divides the world in two, but never violently."

The passage is not advocating violence, but to win so many converts that it would cause divisions within families. This act of division continues until this day. Jews from Orthodox families who decide to follow Jesus risk total alienation. Some are shunned. In some Islamic countries, they are put to death, ratted out by their own families. This is the cost of following Jesus.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 12

Matthew 8:19, 20, "And a certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." The same saying is recorded in Luke 9:58. This passage we deem a strong proof of the consciousness of Jesus that he was not God. For, if he had really been filled with such a conceit, why should he have called himself the Son of Man? And moreover, why should he have dissuaded others from relying on him? Perhaps he bore in mind the admonition given in Psalm 146:3, "Do not rely in princes nor trust in the son of man, for salvation belongeth not unto him." Or perhaps the words of Jeremiah in chapter 17:5, "Cursed is the man who relieth on man." Had he imagined he was God, why should he have said he had nowhere to lay his head? Would he not have considered the whole earth to be his own resting-place; for does not the Psalmist remind us in Psalm 24:1, "That the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, the world, and the inhabitants therein?"

In this chapter, Troki misunderstands the term "Son of Man." The key indicator here is the definite article. Jesus is not just calling himself a son of man, as Ezekiel was called. Jesus is calling himself The Son of Man. This is a specific claim that Jesus uses of himself, but that his followers almost never used of him. The clearest hint to what Jesus meant by "The Son of Man" is in Mark 14.

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. (Mark 14:61-64)

This is a reference to Daniel 7.

“I saw in the night visions,

and behold, with the clouds of heaven

there came one like a son of man,

and he came to the Ancient of Days

and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion

and glory and a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)

 Blasphemy was not a light charge in those days. If Jesus was claiming to be a mere human, there is no need for the high priest to react like that. They had heard Jesus refer to himself as the Son of Man before, and had finally made the connection when he used it in this context.

Psalm 24 does not say anything about God having a resting place. It only states that God has ownership over the world. The reference in Matthew 8 that Jesus had not place to rest his head is an indication of humility. Other leaders had wealth and worldly gains to offer their followers. These other leaders could promise their followers money, influence, possessions, fame, and glory. They were like rock stars, able to have sex with as many young ladies as they wanted. Jesus promised his followers none of these things. He promised them that they would suffer for the sake of truth.