No, Barack Obama is Not the Antichrist: Debunking A YouTube Video

The following video has been sent to me four times in the last few weeks by different individuals asking for my thoughts on the matter. And while nonsense of this caliber doesn’t dignify a response, it is important to remember that it is nonsense like this that is often designed to confuse people who don’t know Hebrew and therefore don’t know any better. So despite the fact that the video is nonsense, here is my take down of this video and it’s ridiculous claims.

This is nothing but proof-texting poorly done. Here are the problems with the argument:

1) Whoever wrote this is bending over backward to try to claim that a Greek NT text was actually originally “spoken” in Aramaic. (Again, you can argue that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but the text of the NT was written in Greek, especially Luke, which no one (of significance) argues existed in Hebrew prior to its Greek text.) But then the author of the video concludes by saying “as spoken by a Jewish rabbi today”, falsely (and ridiculously) assuming that a Jewish rabbi today would read text originally spoken in Aramaic and written in NT Greek in modern Hebrew. This is the epitome of absurdity and can’t even qualify as circular reasoning.

The author of the video is attempting to use the definitions of certain Hebrew words to define (incorrectly) other Greek words, and that it is the sounds made by these incorrect definitions of Hebrew words (and not their meanings – go figure!), that give use the name of the Antichrist (which the video desperately wants to be Barack Obama).

2) Remember also that when NT writers are quoting the OT, more often than not they are quoting the LXX (the Septuagint, or the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), so these Hebrew words likely never entered into the equation. Additionally, the LXX provides excellent Greek translations of Hebrew words (as you’ll see shortly). So the author of the video is trying desperately to claim that any word he can find in any language that is remotely similar to the words in Luke 10:18 are eligible for substitution, and that it’s not the meaning of these words, but the sounds they make that matter. Of course, this is patently absurd and certainly not how language translation works, but that’s not going to stop this nutjob from trying.

3) The words that the author of this video is claiming are being used are simply wrong. He’s trying to argue that the word for lightning, ברק, or BRQ is the president’s name, when actually the President’s name is Barack, or ברך, or BRK, or “blessed”. (The president’s name is actually more likely derived from the Arabic word from the same Semitic root, which has the same meaning: “blessed”.) The author of this video confuses the qoph (Q) with the kaph (K) – a common mistake made by those who don’t know Hebrew. Thus, he’s looking at the wrong word in the concordance. But, since it “sounds” the same, he either figures he’ll be able to fool some folks, or simply doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

4) The author of the video is also using the wrong word for “heavens”. Hebrew has a very well known word for “heavens”. It is שמים, or “SHAMAYIM”. However, the author of this video is attempting to argue that the word במה or “BAMAH” is being used here. The problem here is that the word “BAMAH” is a religious high place, not unlike the altar area in a cathedral. A “BAMAH” is mentioned in the Bible, but elsewhere (not here), as the places on which gods are worshiped. We find them, for instance, at Megiddo and Tel Dan. But they have nothing to do with the heavens. So the author of the video tries to make a diversion into the book of Isaiah 14:14, and claim that the poetic phrase במותי–עב, or “BAMOTEY AV”, which is used poetically here for “heights of the clouds” is another way to say the “heavens”, and invokes this verse because of an ancient theological claim made by some early Christians, who understand Isa. 14:4-21 to be referring to some “Lucifer” (a name that doesn’t appear until in the Latin Vulgate) and comes to be equated with Satan in later centuries, even though Isa. 14:4 clearly sets the content of the prophecy as a “taunt against the king of Babylon”, and not a prophecy about “Satan” (who is never even mentioned in the text). But because of this later Christian tradition that associates Isaiah 14 with Satan, the author of the video argues that the word “BAMAH” here can be substituted for the word for “heavens”. The problem is, of course, that although the root here is “BAMAH”, the word used here to refer to the “heights” is plural, not singular. The plural of במה in Hebrew is במות or “BAMOT”. So if the text were saying “heavens”—even though this is the completely wrong word for “heavens” in Luke 10:18—the word would be the plural “BAMOT” just as it appears in Isa. 14:14, and then it would appear in the genitive construct form (BAMOTEY-), and not simply “BAMAH”. But, because “BAMOT” or “BAMOTEY” do not sound like the President’s name, the author of this video deliberately ignores this.

(It’s rough when pesky facts get in the way, no?)

Again, it is important to point out that the word used in Luke 10:18 is not the phrase used in Isa 14:14 for “heavens”. The author of the video is attempting to do an end-around and substitute a phrase from a different text in place of the word in Luke 10:18 because the word in Luke 10:18 doesn’t fit his narrative. The word used in Luke 10:18 and translated as “heavens” is “οὐρανοῦ” or “OURANOU”, which is the genitive of “OURANOS”. It sounds similar to the planet named Uranus. οὐρανος is the typical Greek translation of the word שמים, or “SHAMAYIM”, the Hebrew word for “heavens”, found, for instance, in Gen. 1:1, when God created the “οὐρανὸν” (heavens) and the earth. The Hebrew word being translated here is שמים, or “SHAMAYIM”, or “heavens”. Thus, you’ll note that when ancient authors wanted to translate the word for “heavens” into Greek, the Hebrew word standing behind the word for “heavens” in Luke 10:18 is “SHAMAYIM”, not “BAMAH”.

It is also worth noting that the LXX translates the verse in Isa. 14:14 as

ἀναβήσομαι ἐπάνω τῶν νεφελῶν, ἔσομαι ὅμοιος τῷ ὑψίστῳ.

that is, “I will go up above/on the clouds (νεφελῶν, or NEPHELON, and NOT “οὐρανὸν” or “heavens”!!); I will be like the Most High”.

So, we see that because the text of Luke 10:18 does not say what the author of the video wants it to say, he attempts a detour through Isaiah 14:14, but then is not honest about the plural form of the genitive construct, and thus changes the word into the root he wants to use (the one that sounds more like “bamah”), even though the text of Luke 10:18 says no such thing. It is sheer deception and an ignorance of Hebrew (and scholarship for that matter).

5) There is also a problem with the grammar of the phrase that the author of the video is attempting to interpret as “lightning from the heavens”. The Hebrew letter ו, or “WAW” is used as the word for “AND” at the beginning of a word. But at the 2:55 point, the author of this video is attempting to use “WAW” as the word “FROM THE” in this construction. The problem is that this is not how one creates a construct or possessive in Hebrew. The way to do this in Hebrew is by using the construct form, which usually entails the use of a “YOD” and a maqqaf (hyphen) in between the words to be joined (cf. see the phrase במותי–עב in Isa. 14:14. See the -י in the middle?), or employing the word מן, or “MIN-” meaning “from”, followed by the word. But the author claims that adding the letter “WAW” can produce the same result. Of course, it can’t, but the author of the video needs it so that he can produce the sound “O-bamah”. So despite the fact that Isa. 14:14 clearly employs the construct state (-י) to form the poetic phrase “heights of the clouds”, the author claims that since you could use a “WAW” (which you can’t), that it’s all the same thing and so poof – “Obama”. Thus, the author of this video is again betraying his ignorance of Hebrew by arguing that the genitive of possession is represented by the conjunction “WAW”, rather than following Hebrew convention and placing the words in a construct state or using the word “MIN”. Again, this is simply made up nonsense in the attempt to produce something that sounds like “Obama”.

One further mistake: the author of the video claims that the Hebrew letter “WAW” makes an “O” or “U” sound. “WAW” typically makes an English “V” or “W” sound when spoken. The only time a “WAW” makes a vowel sound is when it is used as a plene vowel – either as a holem producing an “O” sound, or as a shureq, producing a “U” or “OO” sound. When it appears at the beginning of a word, it can produce a “U” sound (which is what the author is attempting to claim), but it then means the conjunction “AND”, which would render “lightning and high place” (in the singular). So the author of the video simply claims that a “WAW” is there (when it’s not), and that you should pronounce it as an “O”, and only listen to its sound, but NOT read its meaning, because that would insert the word “AND”, and he can’t have that.

Sound absurd yet??

So in the end, we see that the author of this video incorrectly assumes that the Hebrew words are used instead of the Greek (originally, he claims), and then proceeds to use the WRONG words for BOTH the President’s name (Barack vs. Baraq) AND the word for “heavens”, and then uses the singular instead of the plural, IN ADDITION TO using the wrong word for “from”.  And even if he were to use the correct Hebrew words, a methodology that claims that one can back-translate Greek text into Hebrew words from different Old Testament passages in order to produce a combination of mere sounds (not words with meanings, but mere sounds) that when combined produce the sounds of a modern name is faulty methodology. This is not how translations (or languages, or exegesis, or theology, etc.) work. This is sheer nonsense.

This video is completely bogus, and is obviously the work of some fool ignorant of Hebrew, who simply wants to convince listeners that the Bible says that President Obama is the Antichrist. It’s completely fake – just as fake as when other fools attempted to argue that since Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in each of his names, that he represented the mark of the beast – 666.

These are the foolish ramblings of idiots who think that they can use the Bible to convince people that the sitting President is somehow evil.

why fundamentalist evangelical republican politicians scare me (and should scare you too)

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, standing in front of a wall of mounted animal heads, tells the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet that he does not believe in “evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory”, which he defines as “lies straight from the pit of Hell”. Broun is a Republican representative on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

This is the US Congressman from Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, Dr. Paul Broun. He is a member of the Republican Party and the Tea Party Caucus.

He recently gave a speech to the “Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet” (yes, THAT exists, I kid you not) on September 27, 2012, in Hartwell, Georgia. (This explains the WALL OF MOUNTED ANIMAL HEADS that serves as a backdrop for the Congressman.)

Watch a clip of the speech:

Here is the transcript of what he said:

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

Now, I’ve come to accept that there are some people on this earth that will NEVER accept science, no matter how logical, rational, or intellectually compelling it is because they are not interested in facts; they are interested in maintaining the beliefs and worldview compiled thousands of years ago by desert nomads. But this is not the problem.

Every American has every right to be religious. And every American has every right to make religious speech (just not in places where others are compelled to listen to it or participate in it, like public schools). And every American has the right, if they so choose, to deny reality. You can argue that aliens created human technology, Santa Claus, whatever – you have that right.

Every American, if they so choose, can choose to deny basic science, facts, and data. That too is OK…foolish, but within one’s constitutional rights. Likewise, every American has the right to elect as their representative someone reflects their skewed, ancient, and defunct worldview – a representative who also denies facts and information that science provides. Therefore, even though such behavior is utterly foolish IMHO, Americans have the right to believe what they want, deny reality if they want, and elect someone as their representative who reflects the denial of science, facts, and reality. It’s foolish, but they have these rights as Americans. This too is not the problem.

The real problem, and what frustrates me to no end, is that the Republican Party would place someone like Paul Broun, who obviously has a disdain for science and the factual reality of the world around us, to THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY! Forget the fact that he’s been married four times. Forget the fact that he’s a Conservative Evangelical. These aren’t the problem. The problem is that, based upon his fundamentalist religious convictions, he DENIES the fundamental tenets of science. Yet, despite this, the Republicans named him the CHAIR of the SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT!

The Republicans bring this upon themselves.

While I’m sure the Medical College of Georgia is embarrassed to have Dr. Broun represent them as an alum who rejects the “lies” of basic medical disciplines like “embryology” and other tenets of basic science, they can’t help what he chooses to believe and deny today. But the Republicans can! The Republicans do themselves a major disservice when they promulgate the perception – one rightly deserved – that they are anti-science, and that they are anti-science precisely because they are conservative Evangelicals.

Do you see the problem? The Republicans don’t have to promote a scientifically ignorant congressman to the Committee on Science. Yet, they do. Thus, the Republicans completely deserve to continue to be chided as the party of anti-intellectualism and anti-science, because they continue to elevate people who see no possible compatibility between their faith and the reality of the worldview that basic science has provided. For fundamentalist Evangelical Republicans, faith and science are an either-or choice. And they choose faith. And that’s OK. But that the GOP elevates them and puts them in places of authority over budgets and curriculum for science and technology, this is the problem.

I shake my head.

Pat Robertson Has Lost His Mind: Jokes About Beating Women

Seriously. Pat’s been a moronic fool for years, but his senile ass has officially lost his mind.

Seriously. Even for the fundamentalists at CBN, Pat has become an absolute legal liability. He needs to be retired from the air.

Not only is he mocking Muslims by misrepresenting them (because good fundamentalist Christians never beat their wives), but now he’s taken to joking about beating women and TELLING PEOPLE TO BEAT THEIR WIVES!!!! Really??

Here’s the transcript of what Pat Robertson said:

“I don’t think we condone wife beating THESE DAYS(!!!!!), but something’s got to be done to make her…”

These days???!!!!!!!!!!!! “But something’s got to be done????

And there’s more:

“She’s rebellious, and chances are she was rebellious with her father and mother. She’s a rebellious child and she doesn’t want to submit to any authority. And she probably had temper tantrums when she was a kid, and you know…you know the little girl, ‘I hate you. I hate you,’ and she wants to slap her father. Well that’s the same kind of thing. She’s just…she’s transferred the father, now, she might…eeh…oh, I hate to say everything’s got to be some psychological counseling, but…”

“But that’s the problem. She does not understand authority. When she was growing up nobody made her behave. And now, you’ve got a 13-year old in a 30-year old woman’s body and she is acting like a child. Now, what do you do with that? You can’t divorce her according to the Scripture, so I say ‘MOVE TO SAUDI ARABIA’.”

[Laughter]

Did Pat ever consider that her husband Michael is a douche? Did anyone even bother to check to see if there is something that the husband perhaps did wrong? Could there possibly be any fault with him? We don’t know, but it doesn’t matter: to Pat, it’s the insubordinate, non-submissive woman who is to blame. That’s it. So his solution it so “move to Saudi Arabia” so you can “beat her” legally.

OUT. OF. HIS. MIND!

The end has come. Watch for CBN to announce Pat’s retirement from on-air segments soon, because he’s destroying whatever is left of CBN. And while this is a wonderful thing, he’s advocating crime in the process.

mark driscoll allegedly adds exorcisims to his ‘spiritual gifts’

Mathew Paul Turner has the story, entitled,”Exorcism at Mars Hill: One Woman’s Story“.

MPT is an excellent, and very fair (he followed professional journalistic procedure and called Mars Hill and gave them an opportunity to respond) author, who has covered Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill for years. And the evidence is pointing toward a potentially tragic climax.

When will it end? Story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story.

The preponderance of evidence is growing and increasingly tilting toward what we already knew:

Mars Hill is a cult.
Mark Driscoll is a cult leader who claims supernatural powers of exorcism, psychic visions, and extrasensory perception.
Mark Driscoll’s message includes the subjugation of women and the chastisement of homosexuals.
Mars Hill attempts to shame any who leave.
Mark Driscoll has gradually consolidated power and diminished accountability to himself and his select cronies.

In my professional assessment, we are dealing with a cult, and one that is planting satellites around the U.S.

Read the story at Matthew Paul Turner’s site.

who needs reason when there’s personal revelation: god speaks to pat robertson?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a society and government that is based upon personal revelation (that is, the belief that God speaks directly to people, as opposed to, let’s say, a society and government that is based upon logic and reason that is repeatable, testable, and subject to peer-review and critical scrutiny to determine the veracity of claims) is doomed to be disproportionately influenced by religious charlatans and charismatic preachers with money like Pat Robertson.

For what is to stop a wealthy preacher with cable access to claim, for instance, that God has given him a direct, word-for-word revelation?

And in a world based upon revelation (as opposed to reason and rationality) who are you to dispute him? Does God speak to you, and if so, why are you at your desk fuming while Pat Robertson is on TV prophesying?

The Founders had a good idea: separate religion completely from the secular administration of federal government. Anything shy of this is a quasi-theocracy at the mercy of the one whom a religious majority happens to believe is in personal communication with the divine.

i see nutjob: mark driscoll’s psychic visions and extrasensory perception

You have absolutely got to be kidding me! Mark Driscoll is becoming the Glenn Beck of Evangelical Neo-fundamentalism: you desperately want to ignore him, but he keeps saying crazy crap and posting it online.

Scott has an excellent commentary on Driscoll’s latest diarrhea of the mouth. In sum, the words “delusional,” “bully,” “non-discerning,” “terrible scholar,” and “Mickey Mouse” are involved.

Please allow me to add “nutjob.” (And I agree, Scott, methinks the Driscoll train is about to go off the rails.)

It’s not enough to be a bully and an open advocate for the subjugation of women and homosexuals. But now, Mark Driscoll is admitting HE SEES THINGS!, as in, bilocative visions and psychic extrasensory perception in his head as well as back through time! In fact, Mark Driscoll claims he can see your past abuses from 10 years ago! He claims:

On occasion, I see things. I see things. Uh, like, I was meeting with one person, and they, they didn’t know this, but they were abused when they were a child, and I said, ‘When you were a child, you were abused. This person did this to you – physically touched you this way.” And he said, “How do you know?” And I said, “I don’t know. It’s like I got a TV right here and I’m seeing it.” He said, “No, that never happened.” And I said, “Go ask ’em. Go ask ’em if they actually did what I think they did, and I see that they did.” And they went and asked this person, “When I was a little kid, did you do this?” And the person said, “Yeah, but you were only like a year or two old. How do you remember that?” And they said, “Well, Pastor Mark told me.” (Watch from the 0:06 mark).

Driscoll then offers a humble disclaimer stating,

I’m not a guru. I’m not a freak. I don’t talk about this. If I did talk about it, everybody’d want to meet with me and I’d end up like one of those guys on TV. (Watch from the 0:45 mark)

The irony of the previous statement is palpable.

Then, not surprisingly, Driscoll goes on to tell the story of a woman cheating on her husband (of course):

There was one woman I dealt with, she’d never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said, “You know,” (she’s sitting there with her husband) I said, “You know, I think the root of all this, I think Satan has a foothold in your life ’cause you’ve never told your husband about that really tall blond guy that you met at the bar, and then you went back to the hotel, and you laid on your back, and you undressed yourself, and he climbed on top of you, and you had sex with him, and snuggled up with him for a while, and deep down in your heart, even though you had just met him, you desired him because secretly he is the fantasy body type.” I said, “You remember that place: it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bedspread. You did it, you had sex with the light on because you weren’t ashamed and you wanted him to see you, and you wanted to see him.” She was just looking at me like [throws hands in air]. I said, “You know, it was about ten years ago?”

I see everything [makes TV square with hands].

She says… she looks at her husband, he says, “Is that true?” She says, “Yeah.” “He was 6’2″? Blond hair? Blue eyes?” “Yeah.” (Watch from the 1:00 mark)

(Numbers 5:16-30 comes to mind.)

By the way, I’d have never guessed that Mark Driscoll would psychically see a woman cheating on her husband (and not the other way around), given his wonderful history with gender-related issues. Go figure.

And seriously, does Driscoll really end that story with, “I see everything!“?? Seriously? And he describes it as “supernatural” and “whole other realm?”

Unbelievable. Literally. Unbelievable.

And then, as if what he’s already said wasn’t enough, Driscoll goes on to offer incontrovertible evidence of his extrasensory perception skills:

“And sometimes I see things too. I see things too. I’ve seen women raped. I’ve seen children molested. I’ve seen people abused. I’ve seen people beaten. I’ve seen horrible things done. Horrible things done. I’ve seen children dedicated in occultic groups and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation. And I wasn’t present for any of it, but I’ve seen it visibly.” (Watch from the 3:10 mark in the video. Emphases mine.)

I see nutjob.

Of course, he’s claiming he possesses the “gift of discernment” mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10 (“to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits (διακρίσεις πνευμάτων)…”), but rather than defining it as “understanding,” the “capacity for judgment,” or as a “discernment” akin to wisdom as is done in other biblical lists of gifts of insight (cf. 1 Kings 4:29; Job 12:20; Isaiah 29:14), and rather than considering a cognate term’s use in 1 Corinthians 2:14 (πνευματικως ανακρίνεται), where its context leads the reader to a comparison of the wisdom and foolishness of this world versus that of the next (a lesson worth reading), “Pastor Mark” interprets the “discernment of spirits” (which as a leader, he, of course, possesses), as the ability to bilocate through time, and Driscoll is claiming to be able to see his followers’ past sordid deeds in visions!!!

Sheer quackery!

I shake my head…

(HT: MPT, Scott)

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Update:

It looks like the Pyromaniacs blog posted concerns about this back on Aug 15, 2011.

Unreasonable Faith also has some good commentary.