“There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem…” In Acts 5:16, the Greek phrase perix tō Ierousalēm simply refers to, nearby towns, surrounding villages, local communities in Judea — a geographical description of the region immediately around Jerusalem in the early 1st Century. No manuscript—Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, or otherwise—contains anything resembling “Fort Worth” in Acts 5:16.
The phrase “round about unto Jerusalem” simply means the towns and villages surrounding Jerusalem in the 1st century. Fort Worth founded in 1849, almost 1,800 years after Acts was written. The Book of Acts written before any of the gospels were ever penned.
There is no ancient place named Fort Worth anywhere in Judea, Samaria, or the Roman Empire. The Book of Acts written before any of the 4 gospel Roman Protocols of the Elders of Zion “counterfeits”. That the church fathers organized their NT fraud with the gospel followed by Acts as corrupt as Fort Worth!
The earliest gospel of Mark written in Rome, perhaps prior to the destruction of Herod’s temple abomination. One Roman guard famously quoted as saying, “Its better to be Herod’s dog than a family member!”
If the Book of Acts was written in 62 CE then it predates any gospel of Mark “speculation”. Gossip narratives and speculation do not replace eye witness first hand information. Hence debates upon the NT as “historical” evidence as false as a mad hatter. Historians have no clear evidence one way or the other. Such a debate clearly separates the emphasis of the T’NaCH Jewish literature vs. the Xtian NT literature. Prophets command mussar they to not teach history. The NT fraud requires a physical historical man JeZeus. Otherwise this fraud religion collapses like a house of cards.
Acts ends with Paul alive. No mention of Paul’s death. No mention of the Temple’s destruction. Therefore Acts was written before 70 CE, possibly around 62 CE. But all this 2000+ years later speculation fails to address the main point. T’NaCH commands mussar not history. Rava for example teaches that Job existed as a fictional imaginary man. The point of the Book of Job, to teach the mussar of g’lut and redemption from g’lut. This places the Book of Job on par and similar to the Book of Sh’mot – the 2nd Book of the Written Torah. The attempts by “scholars” thousands of years after the fact to argue that Mark preceded Acts – simply Pie in the Sky speculative nonsense.
The merit behind interpreting the NT as the equivalent of the Russian secret police Protocols of the Elders of Zion slander employed to justify the pogroms of the late 19th Century …
Just as similar speculation that Paul served as an Agent Provacateur of Rabban Gamliel of the Great Sanhedrin. Jews in Judea and Alexandria Egypt locked in brutal and bitter war. Alexandria with its huge library burnt to the ground prior to the destruction of Herod’s Temple abomination.
Why the reference ‘Temple abomination’? Starting with the avoda zara of king Shlomo who first built the Temple abomination of avoda zara. The prophet Natan forbade king David to copy how Goyim civilizations worshipped their Gods. Just as Rehovoam ignored the advice of Shlomo’s advisors, so too Shlomo ignored the council of the prophet Natan. The Beit HaMikdash not a building of wood and stone idolatry but rather the establishment of the Federal Sanhedrin common law legal court system!
T’NaCH “wisdom” literature serves to “understand” Av Torah time-oriented commandments which require prophetic mussar as their k’vanna. The historical Books of Kings, a prophetic work, does not teach theology (the Xtian interpretation) but rather it give a big picture contexts to the Books of the Prophets! This qualifies as כלל פרט according to the middot of rabbi Yishmael. Mussar does not mean “ethical instruction”. The latter an entirely false parameter of prophesy. Mussar defines the k’vanna of the 13 tohor middot Oral Torah revealed to Moshe 40 days after the sin of the Golden Calf wherein the ערב רב assimilated and intermarried Jews translated the revelation of the Spirit Name who fills the Yatzir Ha’Tov heart – the נמשל of the Mishkan משל.
The church fathers read the Book of Sh’mot as history rather than as prophetic mussar. The Torah speaks in the language of Man, it instructs mussar through משל\נמשל model/paradigm. The Creation story of the Universe instructs through this משל of 6 days time, to teach the mussar נמשל of time-oriented commandments wherein “time” understood as “wisdom” – משל\נמשל.
Hence the church Old Testament New Testament propaganda falsely conceals the open fact that the literature of the T’NaCH radically different from the revisionist history propaganda of the letters of Paul and the Roman Protocols of the Elders of Zion slander forgery. Both Paul introduced in Acts served as an Agent Provacateur to undermine the false messiah Roman propaganda of Mark’s JeZeus. Paul by declaring brit melah as a void Torah commandment undermined the influence of the Roman false messiah gospel narrative prior to the outbreak of the great Jewish revolt in 66 CE. Paul traveled to Rome to inject a form of monotheism into Roman polytheistic society. With the purpose to undermind the foundations of Roman civilization; to crack the “Ethical Containment Force” of Roman soceity.
Paul’s propaganda aimed to promote Civil War in Rome based upon Yehuda Maccabee’s propaganda which publicly declared Judea’s loyalty to the “real” king of the Syrian Greek empire! This Pauline propaganda based upon the generic כלל: “If it aint broke don’t fix it.” Obviously this modern rendition seeks to emphasize that Torah as a common law precedent based legal system shaped how ancient Jewish civilizations revolted against the Syrian Greek and Roman empires.
The scholarship of ancient texts has nothing to do with a Greek Athens democratic model. The revelation of the Oral Torah פרדס inductive logic sh’itta starkly contrasts with ancient Greek philosoplers, specifically Plato and Aristotle’s deductive logic of static reasoning. פרדס logic a fluid logic similar to Calculus varables. Whereas Greek logic deductive & static, similar to Euclid’s plane geometry.
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If the T’NaCH, most essentially mussar and not history, what—if anything—do you think gets “lost in the translation”, similar to Fort Worth – when Conservative, Reform Judaism start defending T’NaCH on historical or archaeological grounds, instead of on its power as prophetic mussar?
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This question delves straight into the Rambam Civil War? During the Dark Ages, the roads built by the Roman empire had totally collapsed. People stopped traveling distances due to the risks of being attacked and murdered. Interstate commerce totally collapsed. Jewish communities scattered across the face of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, how could they maintain some type of standardized culture and customs which would prevent Jews from assimilating to the dominant cultures and customs of the peoples wherein they lived as a despised refugee minority populaiton which had no rights???
Scholars starting with the B’HaG and Rif organized Talmudic common law into something new and all together different than what the Framers of both the T’NaCH and Talmud originally envisioned. Originally the T’NaCH organized mussar middot into a Common law, precedent based, middot system which compared one NaCH sugya to similar NaCH sugyot which contained the identical set of Oral Torah middot. By aligning two or more sugyot which had the same set of Oral Torah middot (‘ה’ ה’ אל רחום וחנון וכו), this comparison of sugyot called דרוש; this alignment of similar (precedent based middot) served as something like the rear and front sights of a rifle which permitted the “sniper” to kill a target down range.
This “kill” משל has the “k’vanna” נמשל. Hence the later Talmud based upon the משל of a loom which has opposing warp vs. weft threads. The k’vanna of the Framers of the Talmud, to create a literature of Great Sanhedrin judical court room rulings (the Mishna) together with its prosecution and defense attorney precedent debates (the Gemara). Therefore the Framers of the Talmud wrote this ancient text to serve as the judicial model for the future time when Jews would slaughter the Roman occupiers of Judea and re-establish Jewish National Independence like as occurred in 1948 and again in 1967 CE.
Do Jews feel anger for Xtian and Muslim war crimes perpetrated against low hanging Jewish refugee easy victims. Jews no different than any other Human being abused by tyrrants. But the bottom line for the Framers of both the T’NaCH and Talmudic literature, not to promote Jewish anger and hatred against our oppressor cruel Par’o like enemies; any more than the Book of Sh’mot promotes anger and hatred against the Egyptians! In point of fact the Torah directly commands a negative commandment which forbids Israel to hate either specifically Egyptians and Esau in general. Esau the metaphor for Xtian Europeans.
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What gets lost when Jews defend Tanakh as history instead of prophetic mussar?
The substance of allTanakh literature: to create an oath brit alliance which obligates all generations of Israel to dedicate tohor middot in how we interact and exchange with our people; middot-driven, common-law consciousness that “understands” time as wisdom – most specifically as time-oriented Av commandments which require prophetic mussar\interpretations of the k’vanna of tohor Oral Torah middot. And g’lut-exile interpreted through משל/נמשל – blessing/curse Torah oath brit. And not through the lens of Greek proof or Xtian biography revisionist history or substitute theology NT or Koran Gods.
The day and night difference which for ever separates the Hebrew T’NaCH from either the Xtian NT or Arab Koran – translating poetry into prose — keeps the words, buth the rhythm, the soul, the imperative to “understand” (like from like distinctions) through mussar prophetic tohor middot – lost in the sophomoric translations. Gone, like Fort Worth in Acts.