The idea continues that The Harbinger assumes that the United States is somehow included in Isaiah 9:10 even as written to Israel, an idea so bizarre I don't know whether to laugh or cry or just sit stunned.
A couple of questions occur:
- Has anyone ever in the history of Bible interpretation been documented to have made this particular error of finding a current place or situation actually embodied in the Biblical text? Some cult? Anybody?
- Is the idea that Jonathan Cahn made such an error due entirely to his reiterated phrase about a message for America being "hidden" in that verse? Is that what this is all about?
If not, that would seem to make it something that just doesn't happen, and that being the case how is it they are willing to assume that Jonathan Cahn, alone of all Christians on the planet, would make such a bizarre error? They acknowledge that he doesn't say any such thing directly but they nevertheless believe the book expresses such an idea. Again, against all likelihood that anyone would ever commit such an error.
Just have to ask. Anyone know the answer?
4 comments:
Hi Connie,
If you continue reading the book you will find both why I say this, why every critic of The Harbinger says this, and why those who explicitly believe that America is the New Israel says this - with Mormons and offshoots of the Worldwide Church of God both using TH to defend their positions. And the fact is that many people have thought the U.S. is in Old Testament prophecies. If it were as nearly off-the-wall as you're trying to portray it, then I would never have included it in the book.
Dave James
Hello David,
I see no such idea in the Harbinger and I'm also not aware of anyone who has ever committed that error. Not even the Mormons or the WWCG, although I am not up on their reasoning so perhaps you can show me that they have done so. Believing that America is somehow in covenant with God is not the same thing as believing that the Old Testament was actually written to America. It seems to me you must be getting this mostly from the idea that a message is "hidden" in Isaiah.
Believe it or not, I am not "trying" to portray it in any particular way, I simply cannot make sense of this objection by the critics, it does strike me as outlandish in the extreme but I'm trying to find some frame of reference in which it might make sense.
I've certainly read enough and heard enough of all the critics' views to be able to make sense of it if there is a way to make sense of it from what has actually been said and written.
The best I can do with this is suppose that the critics who do seem to be in agreement with each other about this have some sort of theological grid in their minds that they automatically apply as they read the book, and that this grid comes into play in relation to certain words used by Jonathan Cahn, such as "hidden" or "mystery" and so on. I believe that Cahn uses those words in an entirely different sense than you all are attributing to them.
That's the best I can do with this.
OK let's not make this more complicated than necessary. The idea of a "theological grid" that I think is being used for judging the Harbinger is meant to be a picture of the laying down of a specific pattern over the Harbinger and discovering that it doesn't line up as you think it should -- as in, too many of his terms are "off the grid" which raises suspicions in your mind when all it means is that he's using words in a more literary or even conversational sense than you are attributing to them. I think I need a better term for it though.
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