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The Two Great Prophets
The Two Great Prophets
The Two Great Prophets
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The Two Great Prophets

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It was his survival of a near fatal head-on collision in 1940 that turned Elkan
Kemps life around. After crossing the threshold of death twice while
hospitalized, he gained a new perspective on life and on death, as well.
During his six years in the Air Corps, he met his dream-girl while at Pearl
Harbor, and they were married. Elkan Kemp began his college education in 1946
at the University of Iowa. There he obtained both a BA and an MA degree,
with majors in Sociology and Religion. It was during this time that his interests
included in-depth studies of the Old Testament under Rabbi Judah Goldin. He
studied religion under Dr. Marcus Bach and Theology under several Jesuit priests.
He learned five dialects in Greek and received honors in Phi Eta Sigma, Eta
Sigma Phi and Phi Beta Kappa.
Reverend Kemps religious studies at the University of Iowa led him to three
years of graduate work at the San Francisco Theological Seminary which
included research in Greek and advanced Hebrew. He also went on to earn a
divinity degree and a Seminary Fellowship for study at the University of
Edinburgh, Scotland. His experience at the University of Edinburgh led him to
more advanced work in Hebrew and extensive studies of the Muslim religion.
With a Ph.D. thesis entitled, Life, Death and What Comes After, Elkan
Kemps education now led him to his lifelong devotion to pastoral work.
After teaching from the Bible for more than 60 years, Reverend Kemp became
aware of just how many thinking people have been frustrated by the walls of
religious myth, legend, creed and dogma that the churches and synagogues have
erected. His decision to write this book came out of a desire to ease those frustrations
by helping people to break down those walls. There was a practical side
to his effort. He sat with many deeply religious laymen and ministers who came
to that event we call death, with great anxiety. Reverend Kemp believes that it is
evident that the Judaeo-Christian religion is not working, for those walls require
a hand-me-down religion and this does not work. Reverend Kemp states, We
truly believe only what we know about our God first hand. I hope, with this book,
people will be able to find that experience and to have a full life, and then come
to death with a firm, happy confidence . . . not just a vague hope.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateJan 19, 2009
ISBN9781468535341
The Two Great Prophets
Author

Reverend Elkan V. Kemp

It was his survival of a near fatal head-on collision in 1940 that turned Elkan Kemp's life around. After crossing the threshold of death twice while hospitalized, he gained a new perspective on life and on death, as well.   During his six years in the Air Corps, he met his dream-girl while at Pearl Harbor, and they were married. Elkan Kemp began his college education in 1946 at the University of Iowa. There he obtained both a BA and an MA degree, with majors in Sociology and Religion. It was during this time that his interests included in-depth studies of the Old Testament under Rabbi Judah Goldin. He studied religion under Dr. Marcus Bach and Theology under several Jesuit priests. He learned five dialects in Greek and received honors in Phi Eta Sigma, Eta Sigma Phi and Phi Beta Kappa.   Reverend Kemp's religious studies at the University of Iowa led him to three years of graduate work at the San Francisco Theological Seminary which included research in Greek and advanced Hebrew. He also went on to earn a divinity degree and a Seminary Fellowship for study at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His experience at the University of Edinburgh led him to more advanced work in Hebrew and extensive studies of the Muslim religion. With a Ph.D. thesis entitled, "Life, Death and What Comes After", Elkan Kemp's education now led him to his lifelong devotion to pastoral work.   After teaching from the Bible for more than 60 years, Reverend Kemp became aware of just how many thinking people have been frustrated by the walls of religious myth, legend, creed and dogma that the churches and synagogues have erected. His decision to write this book came out of a desire to ease those frus­trations by helping people to break down those walls. There was a practical side to his effort. He sat with many deeply religious laymen and ministers who came to that event we call death, with great anxiety. Reverend Kemp believes that it is evident that the Judaeo-Christian religion is not working, for those walls require a hand-me-down religion and this does not work. Reverend Kemp states, "We truly believe only what we know about our God first hand. I hope, with this book, people will be able to find that experience and to have a full life, and then come to death with a firm, happy confidence . . . not just a vague hope.

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    Book preview

    The Two Great Prophets - Reverend Elkan V. Kemp

    © 2009 Reverend Elkan V. Kemp. All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

    First published by AuthorHouse 1/9/2009

    ISBN: 978-1-4343-7204-8 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4685-3534-1 (ebook)

    Printed in the United States of America

    Bloomington, Indiana

    This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

    Dedication

    This book is dedicated to my wife Nettie E. Sisam Kemp, who has been my true completement (Genesis 2:18) for more than 65 years, because her patience and support has made all this work possible. I only regret that Nettie was not at my side for this second edition and its rebuilding. She died September 27, 2005.

    It is also dedicated to our three sons Paul, Everett and Earl, who were deprived of much of my attention while they were growing up because Uncle Sam and others made strong demands upon my time.

    A grateful acknowledgment is given to those faithful Jews whose devotion, in spite of ages of persecution, made possible the Bible as we now have it in the original languages. Without them, there would be no Judaeo-Christian religion.

    Dr. Ronald W. Tapp also has my sincere appreciation and gratitude for his guidance and suggestions for publication of the first edition of this book. His wisdom and experience have helped many others like myself by his selfless devotion of service to others.

    Preface

    In my more than 50 years of teaching Bible from the original languages, I have found many people who are frustrated in their sincere seeking to know the Infinite Being who was great and kind enough to create us and the world in which we live.

    Many of these are confused by the multitude of differing versions of truth as insisted upon by the three main religions that are founded in the Bible.

    Even the divisions between these three: Jew, Christian and Muslim confuse them for they differ so widely while claiming the same Bible as a foundation for their beliefs. Add to this the radical differences between members within each religion and the confusion is overwhelming.

    The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing can be applied most appropriately to knowledge of the Bible. Since all that humans have ever thought about God and man and the relationship between them is registered there, all that is false as well as all that is true is to be found in this Book of Books. Myth, legend and parable taken literally and greatly differing translations add to a reader’s difficulties.

    THE TWO GREAT PROPHETS is a sincere attempt to untangle some of this confusion. You will find it firmly based in the original languages in which the Bible is preserved. The author’s method is to look carefully at the context of the events as reinforced by recorded history and archeology, avoiding the extremes of interpretation that always exist even in these disciplines. It has been my experience that, after all the arguments are presented and weighed over time, truth is found to lie somewhere in the middle.

    Contents

    Dedication

    Preface

    Introduction

    Part - 1

    Moses, the First of the Two Great Prophets

    Chapter - 1

    A Child Is Born

    Chapter - 2

    The Making of a Prophet

    Chapter - 3

    The Call to Mision

    Chapter - 4

    Return to Egypt

    Chapter - 5

    Trials In Egypt–let My People Go!

    Chapter - 6

    Free at Last

    Chapter - 7

    Trials In the Wilderness

    Chapter - 8

    The Mission of the First Great

    Prophet Completed

    Part - 2

    Between the Two Great Prophets

    Chapter - 9

    Formation of the Witness People

    and the Record

    Chapter - 10

    The In-between Prophets

    Chapter - 11

    The World Prepared For the

    Second Great Prophet

    Part - 3

    The Second Great Prophet

    Chapter - 12

    A Child Is Born

    Chapter - 13

    The Making of a Prophet

    Chapter - 14

    Call to Mission

    Chapter - 15

    The Beginning

    Chapter - 16

    The Trials of a Prophet

    Chapter - 17

    Mission of the Second Great Prophet

    Completed: A New Commandment…

    (John 13:34.)

    Part - 4

    Validation of the Mission

    of the Second Great Prophet

    Chapter - 18

    The Old Versus the New

    Chapter - 19

    Access to Yahweh

    Chapter - 20

    There Are Few Who Choose the Way

    Chapter - 21

    The Day of Yahweh Defined

    Chapter - 22

    It Is Finished!

    Chapter - 23

    The Final Proof - Seven Times Over

    Introduction

    There is a compelling reason why one more book should be written about Bible subjects. No one has tackled the fact that, along with Moses, who laid the foundation of Judaism, Christianity and the Muslim religion, there was to be another prophet of his stature. That is to say, one who, like Moses changed the religions of the world for ever. (Deuteronomy 18:15.)

    These two prophets have not been recognized for their real roles. They have a right to take their place of pre-eminence in religious literature with proper credit. It is to this end that I wish to turn the fruits of more than 50 years of Bible study, done mostly in the original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

    It is time for the presentation of an account stripped of legendary materials so disturbing to thoughtful inquirers. Such a work ought to be made available in order that the possibility of becoming truly like Jesus, the Second Great Prophet, is made clear to those who would be like him.

    In this book is the story of the Two Great Prophets of the only true God, Yahweh. Each one came among humankind at the most appropriate time. No other humans have been so privileged as instruments of divine revelation. These two men changed religion for all peoples everywhere for ever.

    Many prophets have come and gone on the stage of human history, but only these two have as powerfully affected religious thought so as to bring about such magnificent transformations in both belief and practice. They alone led to the great steps that were adequate to bring religious thought to perfection.

    The reports we have of both Moses and Jesus (or Joshua) of Nazareth are given in the form of myth and legend. Both are recorded from hearsay rather than from eye-witness accounts. Both are recorded in ballads and poetry. These forms have given us ways of remembering and seeing more clearly the important events in the history of human spiritual growth.

    For example, the myth of the Garden of Eden portrays, in a lovely and unforgetable way, the definition of what it means to be a human or Adam. A human is the creature who alone has the freedom to rebel against the will of the Creator. How beautifully and vividly this story presents the truth of our unique nature among the great number of other creatures. (Genesis 2:8-3:13.)

    It is only by such means of communication that the full measure of the message of these two men could be presented. But when we lose sight of the method and begin to see such accounts of their lives and their mission as literal or prose history, the picture is terribly distorted. By this distortion, the truth is bent and twisted so that it is no longer seen as one but as many. This is the main cause for the numerous sects of the several dominant religions in our world today.

    Any religion to be of value must be, for any of the 24 hours in a day and for seven days a week, a comfortable consciousness of the presence of the God. To engage in any teachings that draw our minds away from the reality of His presence and His true nature makes religion worthless in our daily living. To think that He has to be summoned or may or may not hear our thoughts directed toward Him, reduces the True God to an idol–a being like ourselves. These are perceptions that the Two Great Prophets were given to us to dispel.

    This is simply to say that all teachings, dogmas and creeds that tend to make the object of our worship remote destroy the value of religion. To hold to myth and legend as prosaic or scientific history does this very thing. To say that Moses or Jesus or any of the prophets were able to communicate with Yahweh in any way differently from ways still available to us today is to deny our own ability to commune with our God.

    Even some 2500 years ago the prophet Jeremiah was able to perceive of Yahweh as not just the magnificent, infinite Creator but also perfectly intimate: ’Am I not a Mighty One nearby,’ says Yahweh, ‘and not a Power far off?…Do I not fill heaven and earth?…’(Jeremiah23:23f.) The writer of Psalm 139 plumbs the depth of this intimate relationship between Yahweh and humankind. The poet speaks of Him as knowing every thought of every person even before it is sufficiently formed to put into words. Communication between Yahweh and His children is Thought to thought and Mind to mind as it always has been. This has never changed.

    So it is that our religion should inhabit every waking moment of our lives. It must be real so as to govern our character, our way of thinking and each deliberate act. But this cannot be done if our God and His prophets are remote or strangely different from us. After all, He did make us in His very likeness! (Genesis 1:26f.)

    To say that one is Christian is just another way of saying that he is like Christ. To say that Jesus (thought of by many as the Christ) is made differently in any way from us is a cop out that people use to excuse their failure to fulfill that likeness.

    Similarly, the commandment, Thou shalt not wear the name of Yahweh worthlessly (Deuteronomy 5:11) is meaningless if we are not able, by the way we live, to bear accurate witness to His nature.

    The command:…you shall love Yahweh your God with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your entire being, (Deuteronomy 6:4f.) would be nonsense if He were not lovable and if we therefore could not love Him.

    For any religion to be meaningful, the God one worships must determine the way he lives, and the way he lives should accurately reveal the God he worships.

    It is possible to sift the practical truth from the myths and legends or parables of Scripture without losing the spiritual truth recorded there. That is the aim of this book. To achieve this end, one must put himself in the particular environment of the people of the time being recounted. One must learn to live in and among them, to see and to think as they saw and thought. Then let common sense paint the picture of the actual event from an eye-witness perspective.

    Mankind has not changed and our Creator has not changed since the beginning of the Bible’s formation. We have firm ground upon which to build a true and faithful knowledge of the will of our God because Yahweh and we are the same today as He and humans were who brought into being the Written Word we have come to call the Bible. Many who worship in our churches these days sing:

    "As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,

    World without end, Amen."

    If they only truly believed this, there would be no confusion of myth and legend or parable with reality. Amen.

    Part - 1

    Moses, the First of the Two Great Prophets

    Chapter - 1

    A Child Is Born

    Yahweh had been at work to prepare their way. A child of this tribe had been sold into slavery in Egypt by jealous older brothers. His loyalty to and faith in the God of his forefathers gave him the courage and integrity that caused him to rise from slavery to the office of prime minister of Pharaoh. So it was natural that this tribe would be specially blessed under the care of this prime minister.

    Because of their privileged status, the tribe prospered. In fact, they prospered so well that the Egyptians soon began to feel threatened by the rapidly increasing numbers of these immigrants. It was to be expected, therefore, that when a pharaoh came to the throne who did not know Joseph and his place in the glorious history of Egypt, this pharaoh saw only the danger to his nation. The growing number of the immigrants threatened to overwhelm the natives. Something had to be done and soon.

    Wise men of the court were assembled. A decision was made that Pharaoh should order the destruction of all male children born to the Hebrew women. Thus, the women of the immigrants would have to marry Egyptian men and the Hebrews would be assimilated and so no longer a threat to the nation.

    One dark night, under the flickering, dim light of an oil lamp, a Hebrew mother brought forth a male child. Her family already consisting of a three year old son and an older daughter, was devastated at the news that it was a boy. The Egyptians were under strict orders to see that any newborn male child of the Hebrews was cast into the Nile.

    Amram and Jochebed were nearly in a state of panic. They had not called the midwives. Fortunately, the birth was easy and uneventful. The baby was perfect–a very beautiful child. How could they allow this lovely infant to be taken from them and cast into the river?

    It was decided that they would hide the child as long as possible. Perhaps El Shaddai would make the way for this squirming bundle of threshing arms and legs to be preserved from the power of Pharaoh. Miriam, now about seven years old, doted on her tiny brother. Brother Aaron, old for his years, assured Amram and Jochebed that he would keep continuous watch for anyone who might reveal their precious secret.

    But the Hebrews, now reduced to abject slavery and crowded together so that the Egyptians could better maintain complete control, found keeping secrets very difficult. Privacy was practically nonexistent. Day by day, as the child grew, his voice grew with him. His cries, complaints and coos of satisfaction became too obvious. Already there were questions being asked by their Hebrew neighbors. One never knew when someone trying to gain favor with their masters might pass on that word so feared by the baby’s family.

    The two parents and brother and sister gathered around the chubby little treasure one night. Egyptians had been searching the neighborhood that day. They had almost stumbled on the the babe. But the child, sleeping soundly in the pile of their meager belongings, had escaped their notice. It was plain that their secret would soon be discovered. With aching hearts, the family had concluded that the baby had to be given up. Their hope for a sign from their God was gone. Their prayers had not been answered.

    Penalties were severe for deceiving their masters. If the parents were executed, Miriam and Aaron would be bereft of the care necessary for their survival. If their children were slaughtered as punishment, Amram and Jochebed felt that life would no longer have any value. The baby had to go. It was a heart-wrenching decision.

    Amram decided that the child should be placed in the care of their all-powerful, benevolent God. They would secure the baby in a basket sealed with pitch and lined with straw. So the law of Pharaoh would be fulfilled by putting the boy child in

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