Monday, January 23, 2012

Shroud of Turin not a medieval fake, Italian scientists say


Published: Thursday, December 22, 2011, 6:25 PM     Updated: Thursday, December 22, 2011, 6:53 PM
Shroud of Turin.jpgA close-up photographic negative of the Shroud of Turin, which some believe is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.


The Shroud of Turin, revered by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, was unlikely the work of medieval forgers but rather was instead caused by an unexplainable “flash of light,” according to a group of Italian scientists.
Researchers from Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development spent five years attempting to replicate the shroud’s markings. They have concluded only something akin to ultraviolet lasers - far beyond the capability of medieval forgers - could have created the markings, Independent Online reported.
"It is obvious that a serious scientific work cannot prove any supernatural action. We have shown that the most advanced technology available today is unable to replicate all the characteristics of the shroud image," lead researcher Paolo Di Lazzaro told MSNBC. "As a consequence, we may argue it appears unlikely a forger may have done this image with technologies available in the Middle Ages or earlier. The probability the shroud is a medieval fake is really low. In this sense, the shroud image is still a scientific challenge."
Previous investigation has determined the markings could not have come from pigments or dyes, according to ABC News. Last year, the History Channel aired a special in which it revealed a 3D image of the face on the shroud constructed from the markings left in the cloth.
"The double image (front and back) of a scourged and crucified man, barely visible on the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin has many physical and chemical characteristics that are so particular that the staining which is identical in all its facets, would be impossible to obtain today in a laboratory," La Stampa reported. "This inability to repeat (and therefore falsify) the image on the Shroud makes it impossible to formulate a reliable hypothesis on how the impression was made.”
However, Joe Nickell, of the New York-based Center for Inquiry, countered that
Di Lazzaro and his colleagues started out with the assumption a miracle took place and ignored findings by past researchers. "Making the assumption of a miracle is a really, really, really, really, really big assumption," Nickell told MSNBC. "That it's done in the name of science is just astonishing."
The recent findings out of Italy were also criticized by Tom Chivers of the Daily Telegraph. He insisted the 14-foot long linen is a medieval forgery. He based his skepticism mainly on independent Carbon-14 testing sanctioned by the church, which estimated the linen was made between 1260 and 1390.
But some have disputed those findings and argued the shroud is between 1,300 to 3,000 years old. Pollen and plant images on the linen showed it originated in the area around Jerusalem prior the eighth century, the Long Island Press reported.
While the Shroud of Turin is owned by the Vatican, the Catholic Church has never taken an official position on its authenticity.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI’s “Masterpiece” Address on Logical Positivism




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We need no strategy, Benedict said at the Konzerthaus, to relaunch the Church. “Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit”.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Pope’s Sept. 22 speech to the Bundestag, Germany’s national parliament, became the latest candidate for “best speech of his papacy.” Addressing German lawmakers, but really speaking to Western culture generally, Benedict took on logical positivism -- the view that only empirical science counts as real knowledge, and that all moral claims are subjective. Secular media outlets, even those which were otherwise critical, raved about the speech. Der Spiegel called it “courageous” and “brilliant,” while Bild quoted a prominent lawmaker hailing it as a “masterpiece.” Even Die Welt grudgingly allowed that it was “not completely without cunning.” (In a further indication that Benedict got through, the left-wing London Guardian published a lengthy commentary on the speech, encouraging secular environmentalists to see past their stereotypes of the pope as “a prissy and repressed German professor”.) Armin Schwibach gave this assessment of the Pope’s visit to Germany in: THE BENEDICT REVOLUTION http://benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&p=251 ROME, Sept. 26 (kath.net/as) – There is no doubt that the German trip of Pope Benedict XVI was a historic event. What the Pope said and did is like a red-hot stone thrown into a murky pool that is incapable of heating up, of boiling, of being stirred up. But the stone is so hot that even in the scummy water it continues to burn. However, the slimy pool needs to be cleaned so that the light of the new-old glow of faith that the Pope proclaims may reach the core and work the desired renewal. Of course, the Pope’s words do not apply only to Germany. The Pope always speaks to the universal Church. But in a secularized country, his words take on a special relevance, especially when they are addressed to a Church that must internally fight its own self-inflicted secularization. Beyond the Pope’s words, inspiration and teaching which we can take away, it became clearer during the visit that there was a great distance between the truth of the faith that the Pope preached and the reality of the Church that surrounded him – like the dubious ‘democracy drill’ that preceded the Prayer Vigil with the youth in Freiburg on Saturday evening, or the way people received communion at Mass the next day. The difference between the Pope’s celebration of the Eucharist and how others do it was never so clearly demonstrated as during those four days. It also quickly became clear what Benedict XVI thinks of the so-often cited ‘dialog process’ before the visit – namely, nothing. One of the most-used words before the visit, ‘dialog’ never once came from the lips of the Pope during the visit. This in a country where the Church has programmed a ‘dialog process’ lasting till 2015, a process conceived in terms of mundane structures, following the usual worldly schemata. Instead, Benedict XVI upheld the ‘unequal exchange’ between God and man, for which the Church thanks the Lord. The emphasis was on that ‘unequal’ exchange. The Pope stressed the need for a ‘de-mundanization’ of the Church as a condition for any real ‘change’ – not just putting fresh paint on rotten wood to give the appearance of something ‘new’. In other words, change must have to do with substance, which cannot result from elaborate maneuvers, because “the fundamental motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself”. The Church, in other words, “must constantly rededicate herself to her mission”, the Pope said in his last address on Sunday at the Freiburger Konzerthaus. This message “is built, first of all, on personal experience”, “finds expression in relationships”, and spreads a universal message. But through the demands and constraints of the world, Benedict admonished, “this witness is constantly obscured, the relationships are alienated, and the message is relativised”. And that is why the Church needs urgently to set herself apart from her surroundings, to make herself ‘unworldly’. That is why one must not be so concerned with the external image of the Church but rather, to draw from the mystery of the Church, from the depths of her communion with Christ. This is not something that is readily at one’s disposal, and it can never be the subject of ‘dialog’. At Olympic Stadium, the Pope said in his homily, that if one only looks at the outward form of the Church, then the Church would “appear as merely one of the many organizations within a democratic society, whose criteria and laws are then applied to the task of evaluating and dealing with such a complex entity as the Church”. Then, “the Church is no longer a source of joy,” and “dissatisfaction and discontent begin to spread, when people’s superficial and mistaken notions of Church, their dream Church, fail to materialize”. Result: Goodbye, dialog process! In other words: To use the dialog process as the leading point to start renewing the life of the Church means placing the horse before the cart. Because Church members must first turn to God, if only to thank him for having called them to his Church. The Pope’s words in Berlin, in Freiburg to the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZDK), and finally to the entire Church, at the Konzerthaus, set a milestone: Now it will no longer be possible to hide behind commissions, committees and dialog groups. Like Christ, his Vicar poses the decisive question that cannot be answered ‘structurally”: Do you love Christ? Do you love his Church, which is his mystical Body? Benedict XVI urges that we must seriously consider the indispensable ‘scandal’ of Christianity in order to “discover the right form of detachment from the world, to move resolutely away from the Church’s worldliness”. It does not mean rejecting nor disavowing the world, but with the true freedom that Christians have, one does away with the bar of conventional ballasts in order to communicate Christian vitality and witness authentically. That does not mean withdrawing from the world, but its opposite. We need no strategy, Benedict said at the Konzerthaus, to relaunch the Church. “Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit”. The Benedict Revolution has entered a new and even more expressive phase. The Pope wants radicality, passion and a return to the primordial Rock of the faith, because only from this faith can everything else follow. He demands ‘total honesty’ which exposes everything that is relative and eliminates it by kindling ‘the torch of unvarnished faith’. Only through such untarnished faith do we recover the primacy of God, which is not a result but a foundation. “It is above all the primacy of God that we must recover in our world and our life, because it is this primacy that allows us to find the truth about who we are, and it is in knowing and following the will of God that we find our true good,” Benedict XVI said in Ancona last Sept. 11. In Germany, Benedict XVI showed that he is a prophet. His admonitions and instructions immediately bring to mind his great and saintly predecessor Gregory VII, through whose reforms a once ailing Church achieved a new flowering and sanctity. One must hope that the revolutionary storm that Benedict XVI has sought to spark off will not be stifled in the banality of everyday. It would be convenient for many if they could simply check off the visit of the German Pope as nothing more than a ‘show’ that is over and done with, and that one can now go on with business as usual’. One must hope that there is some terrain which has absorbed the words of the Pope like a dry sponge so that it can become fruitful again. One must hope that this terrain will continue to be tended by the shepherd and that it will not be forgotten by the Pope. [????] At the same time, it will be more difficult for many to remain indifferent to Benedict’s words. The ‘small relative’ that is his faithful flock in Germany is called to forge ahead cum et sub Petro (with and under Peter) and to implement the teachings of the Pope in the German Church. The testament and legacy of Benedict XVI is the possibility to go forward with him on the firm foundations of faith and make him the starting point for authentic renewal. Everything else would be banal palaver in a Church that has the mission to announce ‘the scandal of the Cross’ but which has succumbed to the illusion that it is attractive to surrender to the world and to sell the truth short. One can say, “The games are over”: Either the German Church follows the Pope, or it consolidates an already existing de facto schism. The Pope’s testament is the absolute challenge that will determine the future of the German Church.


 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.... St. Augustine: ‘[Jesus] is closer to me than I am to myself’... He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


.... it seems to me Benedict XVI decided he would be wasting his time at their meeting trying to knock sense into the heads of obstinate bishops who very likely agree with all or most of the radical reforms urged by their ‘dialog partners’. So he would use his visit to Germany, as he did, to address the faithful directly – and show them how radically different his approach was to renewal of the Church from that which most of their bishops shared with the dissidents! This was already evident from the homily at the Mass in Olympic Stadium, and he built it up over the next three days until the climactic and truly dramatic crescendo of his exposition on the last day in Freiburg. Gentle Benedict shows how one can provide high drama when needed, even without histrionics or theatrical actions. ... in Freiburg ... Benedict XVI did not relent in criticizing harshly the functioning not just of the German Church but of the entire Catholic Church. He proposed ‘a change’ in terms of a ‘continual conversion’ because “it is time to courageously give up what is worldly in the Church”. A Church, he goes on, that settles down in the world, becomes ‘self-satisfied’ and adapts to the standards of the world, giving “greater weight to organization and institutionalization”. She must, on the contrary, “detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness’, otherwise, her witness is obscured, her relationships are alienated, and her message is relativised. Nothing to do with a fresh coat of paint – it needs a ‘correction’ so she can resume the right course. This agenda of Benedict XVI is known, but he has not made it so explicit before. Of course, ‘the decline in religious practice’ is part of it, just as ‘the distance taken by a notable part of the baptized’. But the Pope also responded to the principal protest movement within the Church, Wir sind Kirche. Very much present in Germany, it advocates reforms that are anti-dogmatic and democratic. Playing on their name and turning it around, Benedict XVI said ‘We all are the Church’. Which is to say, everyone who has been baptized ‘and’ the clergy. .... “Liberated from material and political burdens and privileges... The Church can be truly open to the world... not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with St. Augustine: ‘He is closer to me than I am to myself’... He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority.” .... This trip was predicted to be difficult, but it was a success. The third visit of Benedict XVI to his native land was supposed to be a dialectical festival of uncommon vigor. But this Pope with his reserved demeanour deflected all arrows without difficulty, throwing critics and opponents alike off their game.




.... For more, see:



Friday, January 13, 2012

Einsteinian 'Dogma' Under Threat

Scientists Say E=MC2 Might Be Wrong, Say Neutrinos Are Faster Than Light


Albert Einstein Using Chalkboard

Scientists can be as dogmatic about some of their a priori scientific laws as they claim religious people are about their beliefs. It is often very much a ‘faith’ thing, with a fanatical assent demanded to a supposedly established law or scientific dogma that may later get brushed aside. All ‘intelligent’ people are expected to conform to that law, or suffer being labelled ‘flat earthers’, or the like. Atheistic physicist Stephen Hawking, considered to be this generation’s Albert Einstein, has lately been lamenting his greatest mistake, the “Black Hole Paradox”. But what if Black Holes don’t actually exist?


For now the dogma of all dogmas, Einstein’s equation of relativity (which pop star Mariah Carey has used as an album title), has been seriously called into question and may well end up being dumped. As Gavin Ardley wrote, in his Aquinas and Kant, in highly theoretical science, with the passing of time, “one Procrustean bed is replaced by another Procrustean bed”.

Anyway, here is the latest on Einstein:

Physicists working at CERN believe they may have discovered neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. If the discovery is validated it would mean Albert Einstein’s special theory of relatively marked as E-MC2 would be incorrect. Einstein states in his theory that nothing is able to travel faster than light.

Adrian Cho at Wired didn’t sugar coat the discovery, claiming:

”If it’s true, it will mark the biggest discovery in physics in the past half-century.”

The reason the discovery is so significant is that the modern world of physics is based around the notion that light travels at the fastest possible speed in the universe.

Tests are being duplicated to prove the assertion correct with a CERN spokesman noting: “The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real.”



Read more:

http://w.po.st/share/entry/redir?publisherKey=Inquisitr.com-607&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inquisitr.com%2F144267%2Fscientists-say-emc2-might-be-wrong-say-neutrinos-are-faster-than-light%2F&title=Scientists


 
Now,
 
Self-Contradictory Philosophy



[Taken from Gavin Ardley's book, "Aquinas And Kant"]





Enough has been said to show the character of a well-developed ‘humanistic’ theory of morals. It is the culmination of the movement stemming from Protagoras: man is the measure of all things. We have discussed this subject of ethics at some length because of its intrinsic importance. Such humanistic doctrines are very widely held today in some form or another.

We will now go on to show that this elaborate structure is built upon sand. Its foundation is a concealed Procrustean bed, and when this is brought to light the whole structure collapses.


Critique of Logical Positivism



Let us turn back to the starting point of logical positivism, to the foundation on which all this structure rests. This is the principle that ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’. (In the light of Stevenson’s emendations this is now to be understood as ‘no factual meaning’. The proposition may yet have an emotive meaning, to use Stevenson’s own language).



Now when any general proposition is put forward, a good plan is to apply it to itself and observe the result. In so many cases when this is done the proposed principle shows itself to be self-contradictory, as for example: ‘Everything is doubtful’. On its own criterion this is doubtful, so that universal scepticism cannot be asserted without denying itself (cf. Descartes). (It should be noted that the principles of the philosophia perennis do not annihilate themselves in this way. On the contrary, the assert themselves in the very act of being denied, so that far from being inherently self-contradictory, they are inherently self-assertive).



When we introvert the basic principle of logical positivism we find it to be a proposition which is inherently self-contradictory. For such a proposition as ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’ is not itself susceptible of empirical verification, and therefore, by its own criterion, it is meaningless.



All the logical positivist is doing is to express his private determination to admit only empirically verifiable propositions. No reason is given for this. It is evidently founded on nothing more substantial than prejudice and emotion. The basic proposition in fact, Stevenson’s own phrase, has only an emotive meaning. Its purpose is to persuade subtly to pursue a certain line of thought.



….



Saturday, January 7, 2012

‘Unknown Light’ of Fatima


Quo_Vadis_Petre:

The Rakovsky Interrogation, the  Beginning of World War II, and the  ‘Unknown Light’ of Fatima  Why did The ‘Unknown Light’ predicted by  Our Lady At Fatima appear precisely on January 25, 1938?  by Jim Condit Jr.      "When you see an unknown light in the sky . . ."    On July 13, 1917, with the end of World War I still one year in the future, Our Lady of Fatima told the three children, "... when you see an unknown light in the sky ..." it would herald that the next great war, namely, World War II — was imminent.    The three Fatima children, from left to right,
 Jacinta Marto, Francisco Marto, and Lucia dos Santos  The following is an important testimony, eye-witness report, and analysis regarding this strange, "unknown light" from Erich Christian of South Carolina. (Mr. Christian is the reader of All These Things who gave us the idea and title for the "Points to Ponder" reader’s forum which you now see in every issue). Mr. Christian writes:  Sixty years ago, on 25 Jan. 1938, I witnessed and vividly remember an unusual phenomenon: A mysterious light that covered the sky in the evening and, as I was told later, extended over a large part of the northern hemisphere. It was called an unusual northern light, an aurora borealis. But that could not be the cause for two reasons:  (a) Northern lights are caused by sun spots and at that time there was only a minimum of them recorded.  (b) The mysterious illumination of the sky – bright red color with no streaks or movement whatsoever – was entirely different from normal occurrences.  Therefore science has no explanation to offer. But Sister Lucy does: "It was the predicted sign of the Lord that He is about to chastise the world by another war." The predictions Sister Lucy made are part of what she passed on from what Our Lady told her in connection with the apparitions at Fatima.  Mr. Christian saw this light as a young soldier in Eisenstadt, Austria. A Cincinnati lady and friend of our family told me ten years ago that as a little girl she saw this strange light in the sky in Cincinnati, Ohio on the same night while sitting on her porch. And another good friend in Philadelphia relates that as a six year old boy, he looked up in the sky that evening and saw the same unknown light.  This reddish light was so impressive in London, France, and Switzerland that fire engines were called out to chase nonexistent fires. The New York Times carried an account the next day, January 26, 1938 - about the strange, unknown light which stretched from Europe to Alaska.  In Towards World Government: The New World Order, Deirdre Manifold tells us: "When the bright light shone in the sky, Sister Lucia, the Fatima seer, in her convent in Spain, let it be known that this was the sign given by God, and foretold by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917, that a major war would soon occur."  The Ravovsky Interrogation  At the precise moment six year old boys in Philadelphia, along with tens of thousands of others all across Europe and North America, were noticing the strange, unknown light in the sky on January 25, 1938, something else was happening deep in the heart of Russia.  The Stalin purges were in full swing, and Rothschild agent Christian G. Rakovsky was fighting for his life. His death sentence had already been pronounced. He basically said to Stalin’s men: ‘. . . if you interview me tonight, you will not kill me." In light of Rakovsky’s powerful connections, Stalin was intrigued enough to order his chief interrogator, Gavriil G. Kusmin, to interview Rakovsky and see what he had to say.  Who was Rakovsky, and why was he fighting for his life?  Rakovsky was top level Communist, Freemason, and international Jew. Here is how Communist Boss Leon Trotzky described Rakovsky in his autobiography, entitled, My Life, An Attempt at an Autobiography:  Christian G. Rakovsky is, internationally, one of the best known figures in the European Socialist movement. A Bulgarian by birth, ... he is a Roumanian subject by dint of the Balkan map, a French physician by education, a Russian by connections, by sympathies and literary work. He speaks all the Balkan and four European languages; he has at various times played an active part in the inner workings of four Socialist parties — the Bulgarian, Russian, French, and Roumanian — to become eventually one of the leaders of the Soviet Federation, a founder of the Communist Internationale, President of the Ukranian Soviet of People’s Commissaries, and the diplomatic Soviet representative in England and France ... Rakovsky’s personal traits, his broad international outlook, his profound nobility of character, have made him particularly odious to Stalin, who personifies the exact opposite.    The Jewish Revolutionary, top Freemason, and top Communist operative who used the name "Christian G. Rakovsky"  The above passage reveals a key aspect of reality from which we should take heart. The idea pushed by some that the "conspirators" are invincible supermen is false. This idea that we are fighting "omnipotent beings" has been one of the greatest weapons of the forces of evil, spreading defeatism, paralysis, and paranoia amongst millions whose constructive efforts could have already made a decisive difference. For instance, in the interview, Rakovsky bitterly laments how badly things had gone for "them" since Trotzky lost out to Stalin.  The age-old truth maintains: the more power they attain, the greater the intensity and bitterness of the infighting amongst Satan’s top earthly agents. Notice Trotzky’s bitter and obviously heartfelt vilification of Stalin in the last sentence of his description about Rakovsky.  In fact, Communist Stalin and Communist Trotzky had become bitter enemies. Trotzky and Rakovsky represented the genteel, upper class wing of Judeo-Freemasonry. Stalin and Kusmin represented the local, thug wing of Judeo-Freemasonry — and a fierce fight had erupted between the two. By 1937 Stalin had caught on to the plot to overthrow him— and just in time. He initiated the purges of 1938 to eliminate all the agents of the international bankers (such as Rakovsky) who had been plotting to overthrow him.  Brief History of the Communist Takeover of Russia  The international bankers of Judeo-Masonry had been trying for over a century to establish a land base to spread their Revolution. They had tried and failed n France with the French Revolution in 1789. They failed in Russia in 1905, and perhaps elsewhere. By 1917, Stalin and other secret Communist Revolutionaries had worked their way up into key positions in the Russian Czar’s secret police, waiting for the opportune moment to betray and topple him.    Czar Romanov as young man, and with his family shortly before they were murdered by the Communists circa 1918. The Romanov family had ruled a Christian Russia for 500 years at the time of the Communist takeover.      After the Czar Romanov had been overthrown in 1917, a Revolutionary named Kerensky took over the apparatus of the Russian government with one purpose in mind: to turn it over to Lenin as soon as possible. Kerensky was a "false opposition" leader who was only pretending to be against Communism. He declared a "democratic republic," or some such thing, to throw the Russian patriots off balance and buy time until the Communist agents were all in place. During the interview in question, Rakovsky informs Kusmin and us, "Believe me: despite the statues and mausoleum — Communism is indebted to Kerensky much more than to Lenin."  Lenin had been given $10 million and sent into Russia as an agent of Jacob Schiff, the Rothschilds and other banksters of Judeo-Masonry to consolidate Russia as the first land-base from which the Permanent Revolution against Christianity would try to spread its errors and influence across the world.  After Lenin arrived in Russia, at the prearranged moment, a few months later in 1917, Kerensky relinquished the reigns of power and disappeared into the background, immediately moving to the U.S.A. where he lived out his life in obscurity as a very wealthy man. (A reminder: Communism was always nothing more and nothing less than the police arm and terror apparatus of the Judeo-Masonic international bankers. There was no shortage of money to reward Kerensky for so great a service to the Permanent Revolution against Christianity.)  Once the government was in his hands, Lenin began the Communist reign of terror against the Russian people.  The key connection between Lenin and the banksters had been Leon Trotzky, who had married into the Top Judeo-Masonic mafia. Trotzky, another brilliant and capable Jewish Revolutionary, had planned to succeed Lenin himself as the World Leader of Communism.    Leon Trotzky, Jewish Communist Revolutionary  But, as Rakovsky reveals in the interview under discussion, at the key moment when Lenin was dying in 1922, Trotzky became gravely ill. Stalin did not hesitate, but seized the moment to make himself the undisputed Ruler of Russia. Trotzky had to flee Russia where he plotted against Stalin in exile. Many of Trotzky’s allies, including Rakovsky, stayed behind and pretended to be Stalinists. (In keeping with Michael Hoffman’s principle of "revelation of the method," HBO has recently released a movie called "Stalin" which details the intrigue around Lenin’s death between Stalin and Trotzky.)      Lenin and Stalin in 1922 as Stalin was outmaneuvering Trotzky to take over the Communist Revolution.      Stalin talks to fellow Communist Molotov, for whom the homemade bomb "Molotov cocktail" is named    As the years progressed between 1922 and 1938, Stalin (the local thug faction) progressively alienated the international banksters. As they saw it, (again as revealed by Rakovsky in the interview) Stalin was sacrificing the interests of the International Communist Revolution to concentrate on a more nationalist version of Communism in Russian. As they saw it, Stalin had stolen the fruits of the 1917 Revolution from them and was stifling the spread of Communism.  It was resolved to overthrow Stalin. But, as already stated, Stalin was a step ahead of the banker faction and arrested their key agents surrounding him (including Rakovsky). Now he was purging them one by one, or in groups after public show trials.  It was in this atmosphere that Rakovsky, being held in prison and already sentenced to death, pressed for an interview to try and save his life. Before getting to the interview itself, let’s recap how the transcript was preserved for posterity. As author Deidre Manifold informs us, the original is undoubtedly to be found in the Russian archives.  How and Why The Rakovsky Interrogation was Preserved for Posterity  It is this writer’s opinion that the Rakovsky interview was ultimately preserved by Our Lady of Fatima herself for reasons that will become clear by the end of this article. As far as we know, none of those who sacrificed so much to preserve the transcript were aware of Our Lady of Fatima at all, certainly not mindful of a relationship between the Rakovsky interview and the night when the "unknown light" appeared across the skies of Europe and North America. It appears that two of the three key persons who preserved the Rakovsky interview were not even Catholic, and therefore could not have been interested in confirming the prophecies of Our Lady of Fatima.  Working backwards along the chain of events, author George Knupffer, a "white" Russian who had fled Russia at the time of the Communist Revolution spent many years tracking down the document and then translating it into English. Knupffer understood the importance of the Rakovsky interview — his whole life had been disrupted by the Permanent Revolution against Christianity and its Communism arm. He had authored the insightful book, The Struggle for World Power, which appeared in 1958. In that book, he explains that he "deals with the whole problem of super-power and global enslavement through the masters of both usury-Capitalism and terroristic Communism, which are both tools of the same forces serving the same purposes."  His understanding of the key lever of power used by the Revolution against Christian peoples was evident in the closing paragraph he wrote at the end of Red Symphony, the title under which he published the Rakovsky interrogation in English: "This [interview] should be essential reading for all who wish to know what is happening and why, throughout the world, and also what alone can be done to stop the conquests of the revolution: the power of monetary emission must be returned to [Christian Rulers] everywhere. If that is not done in time, Communism will win."  Knupffer’s admonition has not been heeded yet, as today, the power to issue money in the United States remains in the hands of the Revolution, i.e., in their private company the Federal Reserve Bank — which operates largely in secret. It must be returned to Congress, as the Constitution demands, and conducted in the light of day for all to see.  Back to the action: after WW II, Knupffer had heard about the existence of the Rakovsky interview, finally tracking it down in Spain, where it had been published by the illustrious Spanish patriot, Senor Don Mauricio Carlavilla under the title, La Lucha por el Poder Mundial.  Senor Carlavilla himself explains how he came into possession of the Rakovsky interview:  This is the result of a painstaking translation of several copybooks found on the body of Dr. J. Landowsky in a hut on the Petrograd front (Leningrad) by a Spanish volunteer.  He brought them to us. In view of the condition of the manuscripts, their restoration was a long and tiring job, lasting several years. For a long time we were not sure if they could be published. So extraordinary and unbelievable were his final disclosures that we would never have dared to publish these memoirs if the persons and events mentioned had not accorded fully with the facts. ... We answer fully and personally for the veracity of the basic facts."  Who was Dr. Landowsky?  George Knupffer tells us about the man who had the courage to preserve the Rakovsky interview, Dr. J. Landowsky, who was the man Stalin held prisoner for the very purpose of translating such interrogations:  Dr. Landowsky was a Russianized Pole and lived in Russia. His father, a Colonel of the Russian Imperial Army, was shot by the Bolsheviks during the 1917 revolution. The life story of Dr. Landowsky is astonishing. He finished the Faculty of Medicine in Russia before the Revolution and then studied two years at the Sorbonne in Paris, and he spoke fluent French. He was interested in the effect of drugs on the human organism, to help surgeons in operations. Being a talented doctor, he carried out experiments in this field and achieved considerable results.  However, after the Revolution, all roads were closed to him. He lived with his family in great need, earning a living by chance jobs. Not being able to publish learned papers in his own name, he permitted a more fortunate colleague to publish them in his own name.  The all-seeing NKVD (secret police) became interested in these works and easily discovered the real author. His specialty was very valuable to them. One day in 1936 there was a knock at the doctor’s door. He was invited to follow, and he was never again allowed to rejoin his family. He was placed in the building of the chemical laboratory of the NKVD near Moscow. He lived there and was forced to carry out various jobs ... he was a witness at questionings, tortures and the most terrible happenings and crimes . . . He knew and suffered much, especially as he was a decent and religious man. He had the courage to keep notes of what he had seen and heard . . . hiding all this in the hollow legs of his table in the chemical laboratory. So he lived until the Second World War. How he came to Petrograd and how he was killed in not known."  So, because of his fluency in language and proficiency with administering drugs, Dr. Landowsky had been made a prisoner by Stalin.  Dr. Landowsky is Ordered toPrepare Rakovsky for Questioning  Just before the Rakovsky interview, fresh from witnessing tortures and terrors at Stalin’s secret police headquarters, Landowsky eventually is able to write the following:  I returned to the laboratory. My nervous system bothered me and I prescribed myself complete rest. I am in bed almost the whole day. Here I am quite alone for already four days. Gavriil (Kusmin, Stalin’s chief interrogator) inquired about me every day. He has to reckon my condition. At the mere thought that they could send me to the Lubianka (Moscow HQ of the secret police) to be present at a new scene of terror I become excited and tremble. I am ashamed of belonging to the human race. How low have people fallen! How low have I fallen!  Months later he would write: "Only after several months, when summer began, was I able calmly and simply to set out all that I had seen, disgusting, vicious, evil . . ."  It was at this point that Dr. Landowsky was informed by Kusmin (Stalin’s chief interrogator) that he was to prep Rakovsky for an interview, and that he was to be present at it himself. The doctor protested and tried to be excused, but Kusmin assured him this time would be different than the others.  Kusmin ordered Landowsky to examine Rakovsky and prescribe a diet to strengthen him for the interview. Landowsky was also to be present at the interview and slip something like sodium pentothal into Rakovsky’s alcoholic beverage to loosen him up and put him in an optimistic mood during the questioning.  The session was to be tape recorded. Kusmin and Rakovsky would talk in French so that the guards present couldn’t understand. Then Dr. Landowsky was to translate the French into Russian so that Stalin himself could read the transcript.  Dr. Landowsky Examines Rakovsky Before the Interrogation  Dr. Landowsky describes his trip to Rakovsky’s cell:  After lunch I went to visit Rakovsky. He was kept locked up in one room of the ground floor and guarded by one man who did not take his eyes off him. Of furniture there was one small table, a narrow bed . . . When I entered Rakovsky was sitting. He immediately got up. He looked at me closely and I read in his face doubt and, it seemed, also fright . . .  "I told the guard to leave and bring me a chair . . . He was about 50 years old. He was a man of medium height, bald in front, and a large, fleshy nose. In youth his face was probably pleasant. His facial outlines were not typically semitic, but his origin was nevertheless clear. Once upon a time he was probably quite fat, but not now, and his skin hung everywhere, while his face and neck were like a burst balloon, with the air let out. The usual dinner at the Lubianka [prison] was apparently too strict a diet for the former Ambassador in Paris. ...  Dr. Landowsky then relates his chat with the patient and the diet he prescribes to strengthen Rakovsky for the interview.  The Rakovsky Interrogation Begins  Dr. Landowsky again:  We prepared for the meeting with Rakovsky at midnight. Its ‘friendly’ character was stressed in all details. The room was well warmed, there was a fire in the fire-place, soft lighting, a small and well-chosen supper, good wines ... "As for a lovers meeting" observed Gavriil [Kusman]. I was to assist. My chief responsibility was to give the prisoner the drug in such a manner that he would not notice it. For this purpose the drinks had been placed as if by chance near me, and I shall have to pour out the wine ... Three large arm-chairs were placed before the fire ... It had already struck midnight when they brought the prisoner to us. ...  The conversation began with banalities . . . it is clear that Rakovsky is an expert conversationalist. His speech is exact, elegant and even decorative. He is apparently very erudite . . .  Stalin had Betrayed the Banksters, Causing Them to Finance Hitler  After the banalities, and some initial sparring, Kusmin warned Rakovsky that he’d better give them the straight truth and something worthwhile if he hoped to spare his "already lost life." The serious interview began.  The conversation under discussion takes up about 56 single spaced pages, and All These Things will return to this interview again and again in the issues ahead — as it is jam-packed with explosive insights into the minds of those who run the Permanent Revolution against Christianity. But now let us turn to the relevant points for this article.  Rakovsky explains that the reason for the attempt to overthrow Stalin was that the international bankers (who Rakovsky refuses to identify by pretending ignorance of their names, only referring to the top bankers as "they" and "them") were furious with Stalin for his "bonapartism." This meant that, just as Napoleon Bonaparte had diverted the French Revolution from its original goal and stolen it from the Rothschild banker faction who had helped him up to power, Stalin had now done the same thing to the Communist Revolution of 1917. Both men tried to become "top dogs" and throw off the bankers who had financed them to power.    Napoleon Bonaparte was helped to power by the Jewish bankers, then and then tried to overthrow them, frustrating the direction of the French Revolution (1789) as intended by the Ruling Elite of Judeo-Masonry; Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena.  The bankers eventually revenged themselves against Napoleon by exiling him to the island of St. Helena, but only after he set back the plans of the Permanent Revolution for decades.  The banksters likewise looked at Stalin as having stolen the energy of the Communist Revolution in Russia and kept it primarily a Russian phenomenon, instead of spreading it to all of Europe more quickly as was the original intent.  Unable to arrange an internal coup against Stalin by the late 1920s, the banksters were considering what options were available to oust Stalin by an external attack. Rakovsky explains that, looking around Europe, there was no country that could hope to muster the munitions and will to attack Stalinist Russia — except Germany under the right leader.  Rakovsky explained how Germany had been deliberately saddled with impossible debt and other conditions at Versailles after World War I, with the hope that in time the Germans in desperation would turn to Communism. But, he said, "thanks to the existence of Stalin at the head of the USSR and the Internationale, the [Communist Revolution] in Germany did not succeed." The top bankers than waited "in expectation that meanwhile the [Ed: Trotzkyite Communists, i.e. the banker’s agents like Rakovsky himself] would come to power in Russia ... but that, too, did not happen."  By the late 1920’s the bankers realized that a path was opening to finance the rising leader in Germany who was threatening openly in his speeches to rid Europe of Communism.  Rakovsky explains,  On the horizon of a hungry Germany there sparkled the meteor of Hitler. A pair of penetrating eyes fixed their attention on it. The world was witness to his lightning rise. I shall not say that all of it was the work of our hands, no. His rise, uninterruptedly increasing in extent, took place as the result of the Revolutionary-Communist economy of Versailles ... But even more was needed: In 1929, when the National-Socialist Party began to experience a crisis of growth and it had insufficient financial resources, "They" sent their [front man] there ... In direct negotiations with Hitler "they" agreed as to the financing of the National Socialist Party, and the latter received in a couple of years millions of dollars, sent to it from Wall Street, and millions of marks from German financiers through Schacht; the upkeep of the S.A. and S.S. and also the financing of the elections which took place, which gave Hitler power, are done on the Dollars and Marks sent by "Them."    Hitler at a Nazi meeting in the 1930s  We must pause here to remark that Rakovsky’s assertions that "They" financed Hitler was confirmed many years later, and almost a decade after the Rakovsky interview appeared in English in 1968 through the independent research efforts of James Poole in Who Financed Hitler and Dr. Anthony Sutton’s Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler.  Also, Otto Strasser, who was competing with Hitler to lead Germany in the 1920s, confirms in Douglas Reed’s book about Strasser, Prisoner of Ottawa (which appeared in the early 1950s), that circa 1929 Strasser’s faction was overwhelmed by Hitler, who seemed to suddenly have unlimited funds at his disposal. Hitler then sought to kill Strasser (after having already killed Strasser’s brother who had been one of Hitler’s key assistants in the Nazi Party). Strasser then fled Germany and ended up in Canada. Even after WW II, while hundreds of former Nazi’s were allowed to assume government posts in post-war Germany, "They" never allowed Strasser to return to his home country. The bankers liked Hitler because, like Stalin, he showed every indication of being a ruthless cutthroat. Strasser was a patriot.  Hitler Also Double Crosses "Them"  Next, Rakovsky explains to a somewhat bewildered Kusmin that Hitler, like Stalin, also tried to throw off the Rothschild bankers after he attained power. Furthermore, Hitler had now become more dangerous to the Top Insiders than Stalin, because he was issuing his own money, which was the ultimate disaster for the Rothschild bankers. Rakovsky explains that the bankers were not even using the newspapers they owned in the west to attack Hitler for issuing his own money, because they didn’t want to call attention to it for fear that other states would get the same idea.  Now the Punchline: Rakovsky Suggests to Kusmin the Hitler-Stalin Pact  Rakovsky finally comes to the punchline. He tells Kusmin that the Rothschild bankers are so desperate to rid the landscape of Hitler, that they are willing to put their feud with Stalin on hold, and make an alliance with him against Hitler.  Rakovsky knows that Stalin is always hurting for many kinds of material goods and resources. He tells Kusmin that, if Stalin wants help from "Them" again, he can win favor by putting out feelers to Hitler for a Hitler-Stalin pact, a part of which will consist of a joint invasion and partitioning of Poland.  At this point Rakovsky explains to Kusmin, how his boss Stalin can suddenly get all kinds of help from the United States, and from many other unexpected sources, if he puts out feelers for a Hitler-Stalin pact to divide up Poland.  Kusmin expresses some doubt about the power, or perhaps even the existence, of "them" — at which juncture Rakovsky becomes threatening (quite extraordinary for a prisoner facing the death penalty):  Well, if you do not want to believe that ‘They’ are able to achieve that which they had already achieved, then prepare to observe an invasion of the USSR and liquidation of Stalin within a year. You think this is a miracle or an accident, well then prepare to see and experience that ...  Kusmin then asks him what conditions would accompany such help from "Them." Rakovsky speaks confidently:  This is not difficult to assume. The first condition will be the ending of the executions of the Communists, that means the Trotzkyists (i.e. Rakovsky), as you call them. . . . There will be mutual concessions for mutual help ... You will see for example the paradoxical phenomenon that a whole crowd of people, enemies of Stalin, will help him ... There will appear influential persons at all levels of society, even very high ones, who will help [Stalin] ... Have you understood me?  Rakovsky explains that when Hitler takes the bait and invades Poland, that will provide a pretext for the democracies to declare war on Hitler, thus hopefully knocking Hitler out without a German attack on Russia. (In fact, Hitler realized what was happening when the entire western press, including that of the USA, England, and France started beating the war drums against Germany after the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, but said nothing when Stalin did the same thing a short time later. Hitler shortly thereafter attacked Stalin in what he hoped would be a pre-emptive strike..)  Rakovsky summarized this way:  Here is a scheme: 1) A pact with Hitler for the division between us of ... Poland; 2) Hitler will accept . . .; 3) The democracies will attack Hitler and not Stalin; they will tell the people that although both are guilty of aggression and partition, but strategical and logical reasons force them to defeat them one by one: first Hitler and then Stalin.  Rakovsky further intimated that in the confusion of the war, "They" would allow Stalin to take over Europe. (In fact, Stalin was allowed to take over half of Europe after World War II. Eisenhower stopped the Allied troops against Patton’s objections to allow Stalin to take the portion of Europe that he was being allotted.)  At this point, Kusmin, says that Rakovsky’s proposals are all nice sounding theory, but that Stalin would need some proof.  Kusmin: But the matter is urgent, and urgent not for us, but for you, Rakovsky.  Rakovsky: For me?  Kusmin: Yes, for you. Remember that your trial will take place very soon. I do not know, but I think it will not be risky to assume that if all that had been discussed here were to interest the Kremlin, then it must interest them before you appear before the tribunal: that would be for you a decisive matter. ... The most important thing is to get proofs that you spoke the truth, and to do this not during a period of several weeks, but during several days. I think that if you were to succeed in this, then I could nearly give you fairly solid assurance concerning the possibility of saving your life . . . In the contrary case I answer for nothing.  Rakovsky: In the end I shall take the risk. Do you know if Davis is at present in Moscow? Yes, [Roosevelt’s new] Ambassador of the United States. ... Only an exceptional situation gives me the right, as I see it, to make use of an official intermediary.  The interrogation had begun at midnight, Moscow time, on January 26, 1938. It finally ended 6 hours later, at 6 A.M. in the morning.  Dr. Landowsky said he walked back to his cell feeling as if the adults had pulled back the curtain to let a child see the way the world really works. He said he felt like he had seen an "x-ray" of the Revolution.  Kusmin would go to Stalin, and then to the U.S. Ambassador Davis, who confirmed everything that Rakovsky had said. As Knuppfer notes, Rakovsky was obviously one of "them" who was privy to the inside global strategies.  Later on, Dr. Landowsky recorded what Kusmin told him:  Do you remember the conversation with Rakovsky ... Do you know that he was not condemned to death? Well knowing all this you need not be surprised that Comrade Stalin had thought it to be wise to try that apparently so unlikely plan . . .  The London Times carried the story about the sparing of Rakovsky on March 12, 1938 with the headline: The Prosecutor’s demands: Death for all but Two.  Part of the article read as follows, sent by a correspondent of the Times who was at the trials in Moscow: "Under the pitiless glare of six arc lamps, the prisoners filed into court today to hear Vyshinsky’s closing speech for the prosecution, which ended with a demand for the death penalty for all save Bessanoff and Rakovsky . . ."  The Rakovsky Interrogated Provided Stalin the Plan which led directly tothe Beginning of World War II  Let’s hear from Deidre Manifold in Towards World Government: New World Order, regarding the timing of the Rakovsky interview in relation to the strange "unknown" light in the sky:  Now more than fifty years later, the world media keeps up the illusion that Hitler was solely responsible for starting World War II. While plans were in motion to bring about the war by one means or another, the [Rakovsky Interview shows] beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the war was triggered by the proposals set out by Rakovsky and accepted by Stalin. In return for the Plan, Rakovsky managed to save his life . . .  And here again is Deidre Manifold on the coincidence in timing between the "unknown light" and the Rakovsky interview:  The exact timing of the questioning is significant. It took place from midnight to 6 A.M. on the night of January 25-26, 1938. It is important to note that Moscow time is three hours ahead of Western European time. As reported in the daily press all over Western Europe, and in the New York Times on January 26, 1938, a strange bright light lit up the sky all across Europe from 6:30 to 9:30 P.M. on the previous evening. This would have been between 9:30 P.M. and 12:30 A.M. Moscow time. The serious questioning of Rakovsky began at about 12:30 A.M. Moscow time.  When the bright light shone in the sky, Sister Lucia, the Fatima seer, in her convent in Spain, let it be known that this was the sign given by God, and foretold by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917, that a major war would soon occur.  Now we can conclude that the exact timing of the Rakovsky interview was astounding.  The "unknown light" shown in the Western Europe evening sky throughout the entire first half hour of the Rakovsky interview at which point it faded. But the same unknown light shown in the evening skies of North America almost till the end of the interview.  As Our Lady’s prophesied "unknown light" illuminated the evening skies of Europe and North America, the top Communist, Freemason, and Rothschild agent Christian Rakovsky was giving Stalin’s chief interrogator the strategy to approach Hitler with the idea of the Hitler-Stalin pact. This was the idea which led directly to World War II ...  As is now history, Stalin accepted Rakovsky’s idea because he was badly in need of aid. Hitler, in turn, fell for the bait, and invaded Poland in early September, 1939. As Rakovsky had predicted, England and France declared war on Hitler immediately, and World War II, which would bring death to 50 million people, was underway.  17 months after Rakovsky’s words were heard, accepted, and acted upon — World War II was a reality.  Conclusion  This information should provide us with great encouragement and hope. For even if we do not know how Our Lady’s prophecies are being fulfilled, we see yet again that Our Lady keeps her promises beyond what we can imagine, and with a precision that is awe-inspiring, even if we don’t know about the details until decades later.  It’s exciting that the most important Fatima prophecy remains unfulfilled: "In the end my Immaculate Heart will Triumph." Let us take new courage and comfort today from this information about the exact fulfillment of Our Lady’s prophecy about the "unknown light", and work as never before to prepare the way for the certain approaching triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. In this all-important matter, our actions will count both here and in eternity.      Which way will the world choose? Upper: picture snapped on October 13, 1917, the day of the Miracle of the Sun was witnessed by 70,000 pilgrims at Fatima, Portugal; Below: young soldiers prepare to march from Fort Meade into World War II.    


Shortly before her death at age 97 in 2005, Sister Lucy (sitting at left) touches hands with Mel Gibson, Director of the Passion of the Christ movie, who is stretching through the grate which separates the cloistered nuns from the outside world. According to press reports, Gibson had months earlier arranged and provided the equipment for The Passion of the Christ to be shown to Sister Lucy and the other nuns in her cloistered convent. Just shy of 88 years before this picture was snapped, Sister Lucy, as the 10 year old Lucia dos Santos, had announced that "the beautiful Lady" had told them that on October 13, 1917 a Great Sign would be given to the world so that "they might believe."

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Isaiah's Miracle of the Sun for King Hezekiah of Judah



Taken from: http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/D/DIAL+OF+AHAZ/

DIAL OF AHAZ
di'-al, a'-haz:

1. Hezekiah's Sickness and the Sign
2. The Sign a Real Miracle
3. The "Dial" a Staircase
4. Time of Day of the Miracle
5. Hezekiah's Choice of the Sign
6. Meaning of the Sign
7. The Fifteen "Songs of Degrees"

1. Hezekiah's Sickness and the Sign:
One of the most striking instances recorded in Holy Scripture of the interruption, or rather reversal, of the working of a natural law is the going back of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz at the time of Hezekiah's recovery from his illness. The record of the incident is as follows. Isaiah was sent to Hezekiah in his sickness, to say:
"Thus saith Yahweh, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee; on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of Yahweh. .... And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Yahweh will heal me, and that I shall go up unto the house of Yahweh the third day? And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign unto thee from Yahweh, that Yahweh will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten steps. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto Yahweh; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz" (2 Ki 20:5-11). And in Isa 38:8, it is said, "Behold, I will cause the shadow on the steps, which is gone down on the dial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the dial whereon it was gone down."

2. The Sign a Real Miracle:
The first and essential point to be noted is that this was no ordinary astronomical phenomenon, nor was it the result of ordinary astronomical laws then unknown. It was peculiar to that particular place, and to that particular time; otherwise we should not read of "the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent .... to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land" (2 Ch 32:31). It is impossible, therefore, to accept the suggestion that the dial of Ahaz may have been improperly constructed, so as to produce a reversal of the motion of the shadow at certain times. For such a maladjustment would have occasioned the repetition of the phenomenon every time the sun returned to the same position with respect to the dial. The narrative, in fact, informs us that the occurrence was not due to any natural law, known or unknown, since Hezekiah was given the choice and exercised it of his own free will, as to whether a shadow should move in a particular direction or in the opposite. But there are no alternative results in the working of a natural law. "If a state of things is repeated in every detail, it must lead to exactly the same consequences." The same natural law cannot indifferently produce one result, or its opposite. The movement of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz was, therefore, a miracle in the strict sense of the term. It cannot be explained by the working of any astronomical law, known or unknown. We have no information as to the astronomical conditions at the time; we can only inquire into the setting of the miracle.

3. The "Dial" a Staircase:
It is unfortunate that one important word in the narrative has been rendered in both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) by a term which describes a recognized astronomical instrument. The word "dial" (ma'aloth) is usually translated "degrees," "steps," or "stairs," and indeed is thus rendered in the same verse. There is no evidence that the structure referred to had been designed to serve as a dial or was anything other than a staircase, "the staircase of Ahaz." It was probably connected with that "covered way for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without," which Ahaz turned "round the house of Yahweh, because of the king of Assyria" (2 Ki 16:18 the Revised Version, margin). This staircase, called after Ahaz because the alteration was due to him, may have been substituted for David's "causeway that goeth up," which was "westward, by the gate of Shallecheth" (1 Ch 26:16), or more probably for Solomon's "ascent by which he went up unto the house of Yahweh" which so impressed the queen of Sheba (2 Ch 9:4).

4. Time of Day of the Miracle:
At certain times of the day the shadow of some object fell upon this staircase, and we learn from both 2 Ki and Isa that this shadow had already gone down ten steps, while from Isa we learn in addition that the sun also was going down. The miracle therefore took place in the afternoon, when the sun moves on its downward course, and when all shadows are thrown in an easterly direction. We are not told what was the object that cast the shadow, but it must have stood to the west of the staircase, and the top of the staircase must have passed into the shadow first, and the foot of the staircase have remained longest in the light. The royal palace is understood to have been placed southeast of the Temple, and it is therefore probable that it was some part of the Temple buildings that had cast its shadow down the stairway in full view of the dying king, as he lay in his chamber. If the afternoon were well advanced the sun would be moving rapidly in altitude, and but little in azimuth; or, in other words, the shadow would be advancing down the steps at its quickest rate, but be moving only slowly toward the left of those who were mounting them. It may well have been the case, therefore, that the time had come when the priests from Ophel, and the officials and courtiers from the palace, were going up the ascent into the house of the Lord to be present at the evening sacrifice; passing from the bright sunshine at the foot of the stairs into the shadow that had already fallen upon the upper steps. The sun would be going straight down behind the buildings and the steps already in shadow would sink into deeper shadow, not to emerge again into the light until a new day's sun had arisen upon the earth.

5. Hezekiah's Choice of the Sign:
We can therefore understand the nature of the choice of the sign that was offered by the prophet to the dying king. Would he choose that ten more steps should be straight-way engulfed in the shadow, or that ten steps already shadowed should be brought back into the light? Either might serve as a sign that he should arise on the third day and go up in renewed life to the house of the Lord; but the one sign would be in accordance with the natural progress of events, and the other would be directly opposed to it. It would be a light thing, as Hezekiah said, for the shadow to go forward ten steps; a bank of cloud rising behind the Temple would effect that change. But no disposition of cloud could bring the shadow back from that part of the staircase which had already passed into it, and restore it to the sunshine. The first change was, in human estimation, easily possible, "a light thing"; the second change seemed impossible. Hezekiah chose the seemingly impossible, and the Lord gave the sign and answered his prayer. We need not ask Whether the king showed more or less faith in choosing the "impossible" rather than the "possible" sign. His father Ahaz had shown his want of faith by refusing to put the Lord to the test, by refusing to ask a sign, whether in the heaven above or in the earth beneath. The faith of Hezekiah was shown in asking a sign, which was at once in the heaven above and in the earth beneath, in accepting the choice offered to him, and so putting the Lord to the test. And the sign chosen was most fitting, Hezekiah lay dying, whether of plague or of cancer we do not know, but his disease was mortal and beyond cure; he was already entering into the shadow of death. The word of the Lord was sure to him; on "the third day" he would rise and go up in new life to the house of God.

6. Meaning of the Sign:
But what of the sign? Should the shadow of death swallow him up; should his life be swiftly cut off in darkness, and be hidden until a new day should dawn, and the light of a new life, a life of resurrection, arise? (Compare Jn 11:24.) Or should the shadow be drawn back swiftly, and new years be added to his life before death could come upon him? Swift death was in the natural progress of events; restoration to health was of the impossible. He chose the restoration to health, and the Lord answered his faith and his prayer.
We are not able to go further into particulars. The first temple, the royal palace, and the staircase of Ahaz were all destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and we have no means of ascertaining the exact position of the staircase with respect to Temple or palace, or the number of the steps that it contained, or the time of the day, or the season of the year when the sign was given. It is possible that if we knew any or all of these, a yet greater significance, both spiritual and astronomical, might attach to the narrative.

7. The Fifteen "Songs of Degrees":
Fifteen years were added to the life of Hezekiah. In the restoration of the second temple by Herod fifteen steps led from the Court of the Women to the Court of Israel, and on these steps the Levites during the Feast of Tabernacles were accustomed to stand in order to sing the fifteen "songs of degrees" (Pss 120 through 134). At the head of these same steps in the gateway, lepers who had been cleansed from their disease presented themselves to the priests. It has been suggested that Hezekiah himself was the compiler of these fifteen "songs of the steps," in thankfulness for his fifteen years of added life. Five of them are ascribed to David or as written for Solomon, but the remaining ten bear no author's name. Their subjects are, however, most appropriate to the great crises and desires of Hezekiah's life. His great Passover, to which all the tribes were invited, and so many Israelites came; the blasphemy of Rabshakeh and of Sennacherib's threatening letter; the danger of the Assyrian invasion and the deliverance from it; Hezekiah's sickness unto death and his miraculous restoration to health; and the fact that at that time he would seem to have had no son to follow him on the throne--all these subjects seem to find fitting expression in the fifteen Psalms of the Steps.

E. W. Maunder Bibliography Information

Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Definition for 'DIAL OF AHAZ'". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". bible-history.com - ISBE; 1915.

Copyright Information
© International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)