It is a common trope for apologists to find verses in scripture that happen to parallel modern scientific discoveries. To begin, let us recognize that humans are apes, and there is nothing that Christians can say on this matter: the classifications in the scriptures are at odds with any understanding of reality. Genesis 1 breaks all life into:

“Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures”, so Yahweh created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas.”
“Let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky”, so Yahweh created every winged bird of every kind. God blessed them, saying, “Let birds multiply on the earth.”
“Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind.
“Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Thus, all life is categorized as “flying”, “swimming”, “creeping” and “human;” that's it. To emphasize this, we have:

In Leviticus 11:13-19, it says “These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, ..., the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.” Thus, bats, flying animals, are categorized as birds.
In Jonah 1:17, it says “the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Thus, whales (the only sea-dwelling animals capable of swallowing a human) are categorized as fishes.

There are numerous other examples the misclassification of animals, which we will discuss here:

In Genesis 3:14, that Yahweh said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” Only the ancestors of snakes lost their legs 170 million years ago, while our ancestor, Homo erectus, only evolved 2 million years ago.

In Leviticus 11:3-7, it says: “Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud—such you may eat. But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following:

the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.
The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.
The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.
The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.”

Unfortunately, neither the rock badger nor the hare “chew their cud;” that is, they are not ruminants. True ruminants, when they eat plant matter, swallow that matter into the rumen where it undergoes fermentation. Then, on occasion, partially digested food is regurgitated into the mouth where it is thoroughly re-chewed, breaking it down into smaller particles. Then it is swallowed into a different chamber, the reticulum. Ruminants include bovines, goats, sheep, giraffes, deer, gazelles, and antelopes; they do not include rock badgers or hares.

In Leviticus 11:20-22, it says “All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you. But among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground. Of them you may eat: locusts of every kind, bald locusts of every kind, crickets of every kind, and grasshoppers of every kind.” Insects have six legs, and they use all six legs, so while for once the scribes got the classification right (Orthoptera includes crickets and grasshoppers, which include locusts), they don't seem to be able to count.

In Leviticus 11:29-30, it says “These are unclean for you among the creatures that swarm upon the earth: the weasel, the mouse, lizards of every kind, the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon.” This list of lizards, however, includes land crocodiles, that are only distantly related to lizards: within Reptilia, there are four extant clades: clades: Crocodilia (crocodiles and alligators), Sphenodontia (tuataras), Squamata (lizards and snakes), and Testudines (turtles). The last two are more closely related, but Crocodilia and Squamata are actually quite distantly related, but Crocodiles fall into the clade Archosauromorpha, and this clade also includes Dinosaurs, and therefore birds. If crocodiles are being classified as lizards, then so should all birds, not just those listed above.

In Leviticus 11:42, there is a separate prohibition against snakes: “Whatever moves on its belly and whatever moves on all fours or whatever has many feet, all the creatures that swarm upon the earth you shall not eat, for they are detestable.” However, snakes are in the same clade with lizards, a clade that does not include crocodiles, so there really was no reason to additionally mention these. At the same time, this also includes animals with "many feet", which I guess is eight or more (as insects have six, not four, legs).

The point of biological classifications are to determine the hierarchy of evolution: humans and pans (chimpanzees and bonobos) split off from a common ancestral species. Evidence for this common ancestry is independently supported by anatomical similarities, genetic and other molecular biological similarities, similarities in the embryological development, and similarities in both geographic and fossil layer distribution. There is no species that is called an "ape." An ape is defined as those simians that do not have tails (now known to be a common mutation of the TBXT gene). Apes are subcategorized into lesser apes (gibbons) and great apes, which include three species of orangutans, two species of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and necessarily humans. Bats, on the other hand, belong to the super-order Pegasoferae, and contains carnivores, odd-toed ungulates and pangolins.

Next, everything in Genesis 1 is wrong. Rather than going through in detail, here is a variation of Genesis 1 that could easily have been written and would have actually shown that either the author was divinely inspired or visited by an alien or that the author was one of the last humans to have been able to cling onto knowledge from a previous civilization that not only collapsed, but also left no indications of its existence:

In the beginning, Yahweh created the heavens from a single point, and from that point, the heavens grew. At first, the heavens were a ball of fire, and then all went black.

Then Yahweh created the stars, and light came back into the universe. Stars were born, and stars died, and some died with great bursts of fire. Out of this fire, rocks were formed and new stars were born, until finally the Sun itself was born.

Around this Sun, Yahweh allowed the rocks to gather together making wandering spheres, and two were brought together to make the Earth and the Moon, and both were molten and hot.

Then Yahweh allowed these to cool and around the Earth, Yahweh made the rain to fall and accumulate in large bodies.

In these bodies of water, Yahweh made the first life: small soft eggs, smaller than the eye can see, and these reproduced to fill the oceans.

The first life used what was in the water to live, until there came the second life that used light to make the first plants of the sea, and these plants then climbed onto the land, making the first ferns, then bushes, and then the tallest trees.

The third life used the second life to live, forming the fish of the sea, and then these fish climbed onto the land to make the first animals, and these animals on the land then reproduced, and some went back into the seas while others went into the air.

Finally, Yahweh brought one group of apes to Cush, where they gained in wisdom and stature and began to walk on two feet. From Cush, these humans spread first throughout all of Africa, and then some went through Sinai and from there spread throughout the entire Earth.

Continuing in Genesis 2:

...for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground.

Water from the are springs, and springs come form aquifers, and aquifers come from rain.

...then Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground...

A significant component of dust is silicon dioxide, something appearing in humans in any significant quantity (perhaps one to two grams). Cells are made from proteins and 60% of the body is water, and neither can be derived from dust.

A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches... The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Tigris and Euphrates do not have the same source. The source of the Tigris is Lake Hazar together with streams of the surrounding, while the sources of the Euphrates are in the lands to the north of the sources of the Tigris. This does, however, suggest that Eden is in the Armenian highlands.

So Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that Yahweh God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Human males and females evolved from male and females of our ancestors, and sexual reproduction has been necessary for that for the past billion years.

2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This part the Judean scriptures got correct: the earliest humans in Eden, together with all other animals, were naked and were not ashamed.

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Snakes do not have the lung capacity nor the vocal cords to make audible noises that can be interpreted by humans as speach.

3:14 “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life...”

Snakes had already lost their limbs tens of millions of years before even the most common ancestor of all primates. Also, snakes do not eat dust: vertebrate animals can.

3:16 “I will make your pangs in childbirth exceedingly great; in pain you shall bring forth children, ...”

Childbirth has probably one of the most painful experiences of any mother, with many mothers dying in the process. This is true for many species of mammal, not just humans. One in seven hyena mothers die giving birth to their first child.

3:17 ...cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

Grasses are evolutionarily much older than flowering plants, and thistles fall into the latter category. Thistles and grasses and fruit trees have been around much longer than even the earliest primates, and they have always competed with each other.

4:17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.

If Cain is the only male child and his wife is his sister, then what is the need of a city? Cities can only exist if there is sufficient excess production to allow the requisite civic construction projects.

4:22 Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.

Metallurgy consisted of techniques that were discovered over thousands of years. The earliest bronze artifacts are from approximately 4650 BCE, and likely created by a chance finding of a combination of copper and tin in the same ore in modern-day Serbia. Generally, sources of copper and either arsenic or tin are found far apart, requiring trade and trade routes. Meteoric iron was first used one thousand years later, and while there were sporadic instances of iron smelting, it was first done in any significant amount by the Hittites starting around 1500 BCE.

5:1 This is the list of the descendants of Adam... Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years, ...all the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years, ...all the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years, ...all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years, ...all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety-five years, ...all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years, ...all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. [A]ll the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years, ... all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years...

Humans never lived this long, ever. The only way humans will be able to live that long is through science, and not Yahweh.

6:14 “...Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.”

This is larger than the largest wooden ship ever built, and that one largest wooden ship was at best marginally seaworthy. The ark described above could not survive.

6:19 “....And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.”

There is no way for two of every species to first travel from each corner of the world to the Middle East, finding food along the way, but leaving no trace, and there is no way that there was enough room in the aforementioned ark, let alone enough room for food for those animals.

6:21 “...Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them.”

Where did Noah get eucalyptus leaves from, or bamboo? And where did Noah store the ton of bamboo needed to feed the two Pandas for forty days?

7:12 The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

The rain necessary to produce the amount of water stated (covering Mount Everest) would have created a tidal wave that would destroy any wooden boat. Also, there is insufficient water on this planet to raise the water level by more than 60 meters, let alone over 8849 meters. Also, the water that is currently been stored up in the Antarctic ice sheets is tens of millions of years old, with no indication of having all melted in the past few thousand years.

8:10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.

There is no way that a fresh olive leaf could have either survived the described flood, nor is there anyway even an olive tree could have survived the flood. With that much water, there would be hardly any soil left anywhere, what soil was left would have been saturated with sea salt, and any olive trees would have been torn out by the roots.

Let's consider the following: right now, the salinity of the ocean is at a lower estimate 32 grams per liter and there are 1338000000 cubic kilometers of water in the ocean. If we assumed the volume of land above sea level was zero, then nine kilometers of water (enough to cover Mount Everest, and then some) would be 4080000000, a factor of three larger than the volume of existing oceans. This is a factor of approximately three times the existing water in the ocean, so even if all the water that fell during this flood was freshwater, then the salinity would still be 8 grams per liter, an amount that easily falls into the category of "brackish water," water that is described as hostile to the growth of terrestrial plants. Additionally, brackish water will most certainly kill seeds of many plants that are not native to the Middle East, so even if Noah took seeds with him onto the ark, they would not be seeds from anywhere else in the world; however, in recent history, we see no mass extinction of specific species of plants, and species of plants that are killed by brackish water never-the-less thrive throughout the world.

Also, what would we expect about seed distribution after a global flood? Seeds of all plants alive at the flood would have been swept up by the waters, and after forty days, that much water would have spread seeds far beyond their locale. For example, we should expect to find coconuts throughout the world and not just in the tropics, and yet no coconuts from 4000 years ago have been found anywhere in the Arctic, the Antarctic, or any permafrost anywhere in the world; there are no coconuts in the Siberian or Canadian permafrost. Additionally, marsupials evolved to feed on plants found only in Australia, and yet, the described flood would have spread Australian seeds throughout the world. There are Mediterranean climate zones in south western Australia, so why did no seeds from Europe, or South Africa or Chile reach western Australia, and why did no seeds from western Australia just happen to make it to any other similar climate zone?

Also, if water went above Mount Everest, it would cover Antarctica with over four kilometers of water. Ice floats in water, and very quickly the ice shelves of Antarctica would break away and float to the surface, where the waters would carry them throughout the Earth, and likely melting; however, there is no record of such an event happening in the last four thousand years in any core that has been dug up from Antarctica. The ice shelves are not four thousands years old, but rather millions.

Finally, if a coup de grâce is required, is the scientific study of dating by tree rings. If such a flood occurred, all trees would have died, and any tree that lived since could only have sprouted since the end of the flood. Dendrochronology looks at the relative thickness of tree rings year by year, and is able to look at overlapping regions between a piece of wood that is known to be, for example, alive this year, and a piece of wood that was cut down in 1940. By looking at overlapping rings, to this point, we have an unbroken sequence of tree ring data going back 13,910 years, meaning if we find a piece of wood, we are able to determine the years in which that piece of wood were growing, and if that piece of wood also has bark, we know the last tree ring, and thus the last year that tree lived; i.e., the year that tree was cut down. This, and other markers, were used to date a Viking house in Newfoundland allowing scientists to determine the tree used to build it was cut down in 1021. There is no break in the record, but rather, we have an unbroken sequence of pieces of wood that allow us to go back more than twice the age of the Earth, at least according to the claims of those who believe certain scriptures are inerrant. In addition, dendrochronology is now being supplemented by looking at the oxygen isotopes in each ring, and these findings simply support existing theories, and allow examinations under conditions when usual dendrochronology is not necessarily applicable due to the condition of the wood or different sequences of years having too similar patterns.

Next, we have

8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, ...

Why would Yahweh care about the smell of burning animals? The distinct smell of barbequed meat is a result of the Maillard reaction. This is where, in the presence of heat, the nucleophilic amino group of amino acids react with the reducing carbonyl groups in the sugar to produce various compounds that result in the aroma we associate with barbeques. Why these compounds are even necessary to please Yahweh is beyond me.

Consider what happens next and what is promised:

8:21 Yahweh said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”

All life will end, as will seedtime and harvest, as will summer and winter, and ultimately day and night. From Wikipedia: In about one billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher, causing the atmosphere to become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics and the entire carbon cycle will end. Following this event, in about 2–3 billion years, the planet's magnetic dynamo may cease, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in Earth's surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect, creating conditions more extreme than present-day Venus and heating Earth's surface enough to melt it. By that point, all life on Earth will be extinct. Finally, the most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded beyond the planet's current orbit.

9:4 Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

Blood is a liquid that saturates all muscle as every cell requires oxygen to survive. It is impossible to remove all blood from meat.

9:13 “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Rainbows have existed since before life, as they are simply a consequence of reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets. Consequently, as rainbows have been in the sky since before life, there was never an opportunity for Yahweh to have “destroyed all flesh.”

9:20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard.

After such a flood, there would be little soil left, and what little soil was left would have been saturated with significant amounts of salt from the saltwater from the flood. There would have been insufficient soil in which to plant grapes, and there would have been insufficient clay to make vessels to store wine in. There may have been dead wood left from all the trees that were uprooted by the flood; however, the conditions to make wine would simply not have existed under the conditions described.

Exodus

3:2 There the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

Combustion requires fuel and oxygen, and if a bush is burning, the fuel is the bush. If there was no need for the wood, why not just have a fire?

3:8 I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

The furthest extent of the Hittite Empire was Damascus.

4:3 And [Yahweh] said, “Throw it on the ground.” So [Moses] threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake, ...

A staff is made primarily of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, and none of these appear in reptiles. To convert wood to a snake would require an incredible infusion of energy, atoms and water.

4:6 Yahweh said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” [Moses] put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was diseased, as white as snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back into your cloak”—so he put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body...

Wouldn't it be nice if Yahweh was to cure everyone as quickly as he first cursed and then cured Moses? Today, we know that Yahweh does not heal amputees, and Yahweh does not heal diseases with physical manifestations.

4:9 “If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

Once again, water is, with a few impurities, entirely hydrogen and oxygen, while blood is hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and iron. Transmutation of atoms does not happen without significant releases or absorptions of energy, especially to create iron. This is also more difficult than turning water into wine, as there are significantly more complex proteins in blood, while the alcohol molecule is rather easy. It is unfortunate that Yahweh cannot create such foodstuffs in the stomachs of those who are starving. Yahweh only converts water liquids with caloric value when it is to show off, not to actually aid in human survival.

4:11 “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?”

Speech is a consequence of air passing over the vocal cords, and almost all animals have some form of vocal cords in order to communicate. We're just better than most, but perhaps not as elegant as the whales. Being mute, deaf or blind is generally a consequence of a genetic abnormality or the consequence of a disease. I was not aware that Yahweh himself was causing these ailments, and het here Yahweh is claiming to be the source of such inflictions.

7:3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

The heart is a mechanical pump for blood. It has nothing to do with emotions or actions or reactions.

7:10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as Yahweh had commanded; Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. Each one threw down his staff, and they became snakes, but Aaron’s staff swallowed up theirs.

Not only is Yahweh becoming weaker, so is Satan, as it seems that neither can perform the miracles today that they both were able to perform millennia ago. However, once again, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are not the building blocks of the proteins and skeleton of a snake.

7:20 [Moses] lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile; all the water in the river was turned into blood, and the fish in the river died. The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt. But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts.

Once again, it seems that both Yahweh and Satan can convert water, which is oxygen and hydrogen, into blood containing numerous complex proteins. One would think if Satan wanted to lure people from Yahweh, all he would need to do is miraculously provide sustenance for those whom he wants to deceive, and such a trick would most certainly gain adherents. One would think that such a grandiose event would be recorded in history; however, it seems to be quite pedestrian, given that the Egyptian magicians could perform this same parlor trick.

8:6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and brought frogs up on the land of Egypt.

Once again, Yahweh and Satan are able to convert water into proteins and skeletons of frogs, all much more complex than just turning water into blood or wine.

8:13 And Yahweh did as Moses requested: the frogs died in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.

Generally, its really difficult to kill an animal: one requires blunt traumatic force or a poison (just consider the current condition in Australia with the cane toad), but all these frogs just died. Did each of them get a heart attack? If so, why did Yahweh not use this same approach when dealing with those he wanted to kill in the flood? Could he not have just killed all those he did not like with heart attacks (or whatever else killed all these frogs), leaving the innocent, especially the children, infants, and pregnant women alive, rather than drowning them all in a great flood?

8:17 Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and gnats came on humans and animals alike; all the dust of the earth turned into gnats throughout the whole land of Egypt. The magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, but they could not. There were gnats on both humans and animals.

Why does Yahweh never do this now? Why are such miracles only recorded in narratives, with no such evidence. Once again, dust is mostly silicon and gnats are living insects, so once again, we require that the silicon be transmuted into carbon and other elements that make up proteins. What's interesting is that Satan is able to create vertebrae animals such as frogs, but insects. Incidentally, gnats generally describe many classes of insects that happens to swarm.

8:24 Yahweh did so, and great swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh and into his officials’ houses; in all of Egypt the land was ruined because of the flies.

If all these events actually occurred, the economy of Egypt would have been utterly ruined. However, there is no record of this what-so-ever in any of the archives of Egypt or any neighboring nation. The 18th Dynasty did not collapse, and there are no indications in any historical record regarding what would be catastrophic events. There is no decade-long economic collapse, there are no major incursions from the Nubians to the south or Hittites into Canaan.

9:3 the hand of Yahweh will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.’ ”

Once again, an event that would catastrophically decimate an economy, and yet there is no record in Egyptian history that suggests that such an event occurred. What is this pestilence, for such a pathogen was to spread through the Egyptian realm, it would take days or weeks or months, but not instantaneously. Here, once again, is another mechanism for Yahweh to kill many animals simultaneously, but Yahweh could not do the same for the flood; instead, indiscriminately killing all human beings (except for Noah et al.) including children, infants, and pregnant mothers.

Matthew

1:12 And after the deportation to Babylon:

Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and

Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and

Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and

Abiud the father of Eliakim, and

Eliakim the father of Azor, and

Azor the father of Zadok, and

Zadok the father of Achim, and

Achim the father of Eliud, and

Eliud the father of Eleazar, and

Eleazar the father of Matthan, and

Matthan the father of Jacob, and

Jacob the father of

Joseph the husband of Mary, who bore

Jesus

The exile to Babylon occurred in 582 BCE and Jeconiah was born either 615 or 605 BCE. We will use the more recent date. Assuming Jesus was born in 6 BCE, this has 599 years between Jeconiah's birth and Jesus's birth. This means that the average age of each father at his child's birth was 46. This is the average age, so if even one of these had their son at age 20 (a much more likely age at that time at which to have a child), this would push back the average age of those who remained to over 48 years old.

1:18 she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit.

How did this work? To become pregnant, you require DNA. Did the appropriate chromosomes appear in Mary's egg? What were the specific genes in these chromosomes? Were there no detrimental genes in these strands? Given that Yahweh himself produced this DNA, the choice of genes must have been very specific: after all, the DNA of humans was chosen as Yahweh said “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness...” Is the DNA of Jesus the DNA of Yahweh himself?

2:2 “For we observed his star in the east...”

What star is "in the east"? all stars are in (for the purposes of a two-year period) fixed positions in the heavens, and the revolving Earth causes the stars to appear to circle through the sky, with the exception of Polaris, the North Star, which happens to be very close to the direction of the axis of the Earth. There is no such thing as a star being "in the east." There might be a comet, but even a comet, from day-to-day, appears in approximately the same location in the sky. The position of the Moon only moves twelve degrees per day, and certainly, no star is "fixed" in the sky.

2:9 When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Stars don't stop in the sky, and neither do comets. The progression of the planets appears to stop and reverse, but this is seen not in a single night, but over many months; each day, the planet continues to circle around the North Star together with all other stars. A drone might be able to stop, but there is no suggestion that a drone is being used by Yahweh to guide the magi.

3:16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

What it means for the heavens to "open up" is unclear. There may have been clouds in the sky, but it would have required an incredible increase in local pressure to push all the clouds away. This is no longer transmutation, but the actual creation of more air molecules, for high pressure is the result of PV = nRT, and for pressure to increase, the number of air molecules n must increase. There is no suggestion that the temperature was increasing. Also, as Jesus is already Yahweh, why must the spirit of Yahweh descend upon him? Either Jesus is already Yahweh, or he is not, but there does not seem any rational reason for the spirit of Yahweh to descend upon himself. Finally, sound is the result of vocal cords vibrating while air is passed over them. Did Yahweh just produce a speaker, or some phenomenon similar to a speaker to simulate a voice? Finally, what was the reaction of everyone else who witnessed this? If I personally ever saw a cloudy sky clear within a minute, and then a voice came from the direction of the sky and that voice said something, I'd certainly be curious what happened. Did none of the others seeking baptism have any reaction to this event?

4:11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

It is so unfortunate that angels are more than happy to feed Yahweh himself, but they are unwilling to help those infants, children and pregnant women today who are starving.

4:23 Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Curing diseases either requires one to eliminate viruses, bacteria or correct DNA. Any one of these requires, at the very least, that certain chemical bonds be either broken or built up. Where did this energy come from, or where did it go? Also, why does this only occur in Jesus's presence? Could Yahweh not do this all the time to everyone who is sick? If Yahweh can cure "every sickness" while present in the body, then no doubt, Yahweh can cure "every sickness" while not in a physical manifestation. Releasing or absorbing energy to break or build chemical bonds hardly needs a physical presence.

4:24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis, and he cured them.

Jesus, at the very start of his ministry, seems to be known throughout all of Galilee and now all Roman Syria, and yet there are no independent attestations of this individual. This now also says that Jesus is curing both mental and neurological afflictions; perhaps rewiring synaptic connections within the brain or throughout the nervous system, or correcting chemical imbalances in the brain. With such abilities, it is so unfortunate that it took over two thousand years and decades of scientific study to be able to start to parallel such results.

5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”

Salt is an ionic bond, one that is exceptionally strong until dissolved in polar water. The flavor comes from the Na⁺ cations. The only means by which salt may "lose" its flavor is if it becomes contaminated, but salt, by itself, is exceptionally stable and will not "lose" its flavor.

5:17 “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, ...”

The Earth will pass away long before the universe does: at some point, the radius of the Sun will expand until it likely envelopes the Earth itself, and this will be in a few billion years; however, the universe will continue to expand, and it is likely that it will do so forever, until the heat death of this universe and the last proton decays.

5:21 “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, ...”

Like the tenth commandment from Exodus, this is essentially thought crime. Just imagine that: Yahweh must record every thought every person has ever had. It could not just be the words, but it must also be the imagery, the emotions, etc. This is in addition to a record of all physical actions that each person may have taken.

5:28 “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Another example of thought crime. It is so unfortunate that Jesus, being Yahweh, did not have the willingness to emphasize that "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a child with lust has already committed a crime for which that person will burn in hell forever."

5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away;

it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away;

it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

This is likely the worst advise ever, and fortunately, I have never heard of any followers of Jesus being inspired by either of these two statements. I'm not sure what the right hand could do to cause you to sin that could not also be done by the left hand, so does this advocate for one cutting off both hands?

5:39 But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and

if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and

if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.

Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

What equally horrible advice, and I know that many followers of Jesus would not follow such guidance under any conditions. Note that the second only says that the other "wants" to sue you, you must give that person your coat.

6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

The eye is an organ for absorbing photons and converting those photons into electrical stimuli to the brain. The eye is not a lamp: a lamp generates photons, and while it may absorb a small number of photons in its casing, each photon absorbed degrades the quality of the lamp. Also, no photon absorbed by a lamp is converted into an electrical signal, it is simply absorbed and most likely converted to heat energy. However, this was not always understood, and this statement by the author of Matthew is likely a reflection of emission hypothesis of sight, a hypothesis that has long since been disproven. Here was another excellent opportunity for Yahweh to divinely inspire his authors to actually record the actual interaction between light and the eye.

6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

Food provides the energy necessary for life, and without it, you will die. Drink is even more essential, as cells require a continual supply of water, as each cell loses water over time. Clothing is necessary for many reasons: humans have moved outside the climate zones in which they evolved, and thus, the body is no longer able to provide sufficient heat to avoid hypothermia, and thus, clothing provides insulation. Additionally, those who have migrated outside the tropical zone (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) require less melanin to allow more ultraviolet rays to pass through so as to facilitate the production of Vitamin D. Without sufficient Vitamin D, humans are subject to a plethora of diseases, yet with lighter skin, humans also are now more subject to sun burns and skin cancer. Clothing protects those mutants with less melanin from the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays.

6:26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Birds, like the earliest humans, are hunters or gatherers or, in some cases, both. If a bird does not get sufficient amounts of food, it will die. If a raptor breaks a wing, it will die. If a bird is too sick to gather food, it will die. A bird feeds itself, and Yahweh is not handing out free morsels of food for his birds, just like he does not feed humans in their time of need. The struggle that birds go through each day for food should motivate people to indeed worry about what they will eat and what they will drink. Sick and dying animals recognize they are vulnerable, and thus tend to take measures to hide themselves from any potential predator, and this includes humans. When a bird dies, it is also likely quickly consumed by some other predator. The vast majority of the birds we see and hear are only the healthy ones.

6:27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?

This is likely true, but unfortunately, it does not go far enough: we now know that worrying does not add to your lifespan, but rather can increase anxiety and stress, and deteriorate one's health, thereby, in the worst case, shorten life. It is unfortunate that the scriptures did not emphasize the actual harm that worrying can potentially cause.

6:28 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

For all but the last ten thousand years, grass was not alive today and thrown into an oven the next. Grass, like all plants, evolved to fill a niche in nature. Each plant has competition and predators. All plants have defence mechanisms and means of helping propagate its existence. Sexual reproduction works best when male gametes combine with female gametes from different plants and plants do their best to avoid self pollination. Flowers look the way they do in order to attract birds or insects, allowing the plant to distribute male gametes over a wider area than would normally be possible with, for example, wind (which is the main option available for conifers). Lilies grow because they absorb nutrients from the ground and their leaves use light to combine carbon dioxide and water to form sugars. They do not toil because their source of energy is the Sun, and if a lily grows in a forest where the light of the Sun blocks it, it weakens, and if it begins to grow in a crevice or a cave, it valiantly tries to grow, using up the sugar provided to it in the seed, but then dies.

6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

If you believe that the Kingdom of Yahweh is coming soon, so soon that you expect to experience it in the not-to-distant future, this makes perfect sense. This does not make any sense if you are trying to be human in this inhospitable world. Worrying too much about tomorrow can cause anxiety, stress and deteriorate one's physical health, but not worrying at all about the next day, week, month or year is certainly equally as dangerous.

7:6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.”

Persons place beauty on many objects due to shininess, or symmetries, or in the case of pearls, both. Few mechanisms in nature have such beautiful results, but this is not for the beauty of the pearl, but rather to protect the marine oyster or freshwater mussel from parasites. Few animals have any use for pearls, so while most animals may trample them under foot, throwing pearls to swine will not necessarily cause them to want to maul you. Throwing something, or anything, at swine and frustrating them may cause them to maul, but it is not the throwing of pearls specifically that would cause such a reaction. Additionally, Jesus was a Jew, and likely knew very little about swine. Besides, the justification for humans placing value in metals and pearls may, in a sense, be a hijacking of the need for animals to desire cleanliness, as dirt is often a source of contamination. Given a choice of two apples, one symmetrical and another that is irregular (perhaps due to an injury to the fruit as it was developing), most humans will choose the symmetric apple. Given a choice of two apples, one clean and the other dirty, most humans will chose the clean apple. This is the same with our simian relatives.

7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”

Jesus is contrasting fruit-bearing trees with other plants. Fruit is simply a mechanism for spreading seeds, and sugar appears in the fruit only after the seeds are ripe, both giving a visual cue that the fruit is ripe, but also giving incentive for mammals or birds or reptiles to eat the fruit. Humans prefer fruit that are high in sugar. This does not mean that fruit that are low in sugar are "bad", they simply are not appropriate for human consumption. Except, of course, for rosehip, and raspberries, and durian, and all wild forms of lemon, orange and grapefruit. It is only through selective breeding that the latter three have fewer thorns than their wild ancestral species. Every tree bears the fruit that it genetically encodes, so the statement "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit" is no different than saying "a dog cannot bear a kitten, nor can a cat bear a puppy." As far as the discussion regarding what is thrown into the fire, this is human artificial selection. True, grapes are not gathered from thorns, but some delicious fruit are.

7:24 “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

Yes, this is true, and I suspect humans have been aware of this for the last ten thousand years. It is unfortunate that Yahweh could not have given more useful advise, such as the directions for making Roman concrete, a technique that has allowed Roman structures to remain for thousands of years, when modern concrete that uses Portland cement. This statement is not at all enlightening, except to someone who may not have understood the basics of civil engineering.

8:1 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed.

Skin disease invariably has dead skin, often going below the epidermis and the dermis, even the hypodermis. For a disease to be "cleansed", the dead skin must suddenly be transmuted and transformed into healthy cells, filled with water and nutrients. This is indeed significant, for it would require transmutation of elements to create the correct balance of atoms required for healthy cells. Alternatively, of course, Yahweh could create new atoms from energy alone.

8:5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” .. And the servant was healed in that hour.

Paralysis occurs when there are issues with the nerves running from the brain to the body. Once again, curing this requires significant corrections to the nervous system.

8:14 When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him.

Fevers have many causes, but the fever is not the illness, but rather the body having the goal of heating itself to the point of killing a threat before the heat kills the body itself. A fever is a natural defense mechanism of the human body, so Jesus was not reducing a fever, but rather, removing the illness causing the fever. If Jesus just removed the fever itself, whatever is causing the fever would be able to thrive. Had this been an honest representation of what actually happened, "When Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in a bed with a fever; he touched her hand and the virus (or bacteria) that had infected her body left her, the fever was reduced, and she got up and began to serve him."

8:16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and cured all who were sick.

To date, we have never seen an individual confirmed to be "possessed" by a demon; however, people have mental health afflictions, and these likely were interpreted as demonic possessions in years gone by.

8:21 Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Unless the dead are zombies, the dead cannot bury their own dead. Today, followers of Jesus continually bury their dead and none would think for an instance to ignore the burial of their loved ones. Jesus is an itinerant apocalyptic teacher, and for him, the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh is so imminent, that such burials are insignificant; however, since then, no kingdom has come in the intervening two thousand years, and today, all followers ignore this teaching of someone who thought the world would come to an end in weeks or perhaps months.

8:24 A windstorm suddenly arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a dead calm.

Storms are a natural phenomena, a consequence of the variable heating and cooling of the air surrounding this planet. Why would one have to "express sharp disapproval or criticism of someone (or something) because of their behavior or actions?" A storm has no intention behind its actions, it occurs by coincidence, and nothing else. Additionally, this is indeed Jesus's greatest miracle, for the energy that would have to be absorbed to absolutely calm a storm would be stupendous. There would be a massive temperature differential that would have to be balanced. The momentum of all of the water in the clouds would need to be absorbed. The incoming air from the surrounding higher pressure regions into the low-pressure region in which the storm is occurring would need to be diverted and the pressures, never-the-less, balanced. To calm a storm would require the absorption of much greater energy than what would be required to produce 750 bottles of 750 mL of wine from water.

8:28 When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, two men possessed by demons came out of the tombs and met him... Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them. The demons begged him, “If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go!” So they came out and entered the swine, and suddenly, the whole herd stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water. The swineherds ran off, and, going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the men possessed by demons.

Thus, Jesus met two individuals with severe mental health afflictions, and once again, they are alleged to be "possessed by demons." Demons must have been significantly more powerful then, as there are no signs of demon possession today; mental health issues, yes, but no demon possessions. Jesus could have simple cast the demons out, but for some reason, Yahweh enters into an agreement with fallen angels who followed Lucifer out of heaven, and agrees to transfer them instead into a herd of swine, thereby destroying the livelihood of those swine herders and those who were depending on the source of meat. If these were demons, why allow the demons to further destroy the livelihood of other humans more than the two who were currently possessed? Why would Yahweh even negotiate with his fallen creation?

8:32 [A] demon-possessed man who was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke...

Chapter 9 is just more healings, and the accusation that one who was mute is one possessed with demons, as opposed to the actual causes of muteness, including apraxia or dysarthria (lack of coordination of relevant muscles), or injury, paralysis or illness of the larynx. Nothing of the relevant healing was mentioned, but an accusation of demon possession is. One would think that an all-knowing deity could, in simple terms, explain what was actually done to cure this individual, as opposed to an appeal to the supernatural.

10:1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.

It is so unfortunate that Yahweh does not empower his agents to be able to do this today. However, followers of Jesus and demons seem to be significantly less powerful today, as well. Back then, the scriptures enumerate over a dozen explicit languages that the Galilean followers were suddenly and miraculously able to speak, and yet, today, those followers who speak in tongues cannot speak Russian or Swahili, but rather, they babble in the language of angels. Similarly, all those who are ill today have their illnesses traced back to specific causes, except perhaps for fibromyalgia. Perhaps fibromyalgia is the last stronghold of demons, the last disease that Satan is able to inflict on humans, for most other common ailments are well documented, their causes known, and in many cases are treatable.

Additionally, if Yahweh's disciples are raising the dead through Galilee, would no one have mentioned this in any sort of history? Why is the first record of such actions only in a book that was written between 50 to 60 years after the execution of Jesus?

10:5 Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons.

Again, actions that no longer happen today, and once again, the conflation with illness and the possession of demons. Raising of the dead is significant, for once the brain is without oxygen for even a few minutes, brain damage occurs, so raising of the dead not only requires that the heart start beating again, but also that all the consequent damage to the body is simultaneously repaired; otherwise, all one would have are zombies.

10:15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

As Sodom and Gomorrah do not appear to have ever existed (in the same way that the Elamite king mentioned in the Judean scriptures that defeated the kings of the Judean Rift Valley, including the kings of Sodom and Gemorrah, has a name that never appears anywhere on the Elamite kings list, and has a name more in common with Monty Python's "Biggus Dickus" or "Sillius Soddus" than it has with the names of known kings of Elam) .

10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Is not the serpent described in Genesis as "more crafty than any other wild animal"? Given that the serpent is the creature that caused the downfall of Adam and Eve, why is Yahweh now telling his disciples to be as wise as such crafty animals, the ones that first caused the fall of humans?

11:4 “Go and tell John what you hear and see:

the blind receive their sight,

the lame walk,

those with a skin disease are cleansed,

the deaf hear,

the dead are raised, and

the poor have good news brought to them.”

And yet, there are absolutely no contemporary accounts of these actions. Not one person recorded these actions at the time? And no one recorded this until at least 40 years after this preacher's execution? Finally, not one follower is able to perform any of the first five, and it seems that followers today are limited to the last of these actions.

11:6 “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Humor: Excellent, for I must be blessed, as I am not offended by an itinerant apocalyptic rabbi.

11:12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and violent people take it by force.

This seems to equate Judea with the kingdom of heaven, but yes, Judea incorporated into the Roman empire as the province of Iudaea in 6 CE.

11:14 [John] is Elijah who is to come.

How one person can be another is never explained. A few verses prior to this, the author of Matthew describes John the Baptist as "among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist." The author of Luke, however, identifies John the Baptist as a close relative of Jesus, perhaps a cousin of Mary. However, none of this explains how John the Baptist is one of the two persons in the Judean scriptures who ascended into heaven without dying.

11:20 Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”

Recall that Capernaum was the home of Jesus ("his own town") for a significant time during his ministry, and it was also the home of at least some of his disciples; however, most humorous is that Chorazin and Bethsaida are two villages that are no more than three miles from Capernaum. This is saying that those people living closest to where Jesus started his ministry, and also his home for most of the time of his ministry, also completely rejected his message (or at least rejected there being anything significant about this individual). Notice also, that Jesus is condemning the entire town to hell, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. What is interesting here is the acknowledgement that if Yahweh had taken the time to perform deeds of power in Sodom, there would have been no reason to destroy it. Consequently, instead of having, for example, Lot, perform miracles such as giving sight to the blind, having the lame walk, curing skin diseases, allowing the deaf to hear, and raising the dead, instead, Yahweh decided instead to destroy the town, even though he new that performing these miracles would have saved that city.

Another point is that Chorazin is inhabited today. Why would that village be condemned to a judgement less tolerable than for Tyre and Sidon? Today, it is likely that few, if any, of the denizens are descendants of those who lived there two thousand years ago. Jesus believed the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh was imminent, not an event two thousand years into the future. He was condemning the inhabitants of that village for not believing in his message. Today, Capernaum is in ruins, and is located in the Kfar Nahum National Park as is Bethsaida in Jordan Park. Are these ruins of the former to be brought down to Hades when the Kingdom of Yahweh comes? Are those tourists and tour guides and park rangers working there going to be sent to Hades together with these ruins? This story is told under the belief that the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh was imminent; a two-thousand year hiatus does not justify the punishments to these villages and the port described here.

However, to emphasize: Capernaum had perhaps 1500 denizens, and it is unlikely that Chorazin and Bethsaida would have even this many, as the former is landlocked and the latter was a fishing village while Capernaum was a port. Thus, Jesus was performing all these miracles:

the blind receiving their sight,
the lame walking,
the cleansing of those with a skin disease,
the deaf hearing,
the dead are being raised,

and yet, out of 4000 persons, most of whom would have witnessed at least one of these miracles, and many likely witnessing many of these miracles, and with dozens if not hundreds of people being related to those who were raised from the dead, all these people never-the-less rejected Jesus's apocalyptic message.

What this passage really reads like is an apology after the fact: followers of Jesus were being asked why the very town in which Jesus lived had no interest in receiving his message of salvation, or more correctly, they likely had no interest in receiving the post-execution interpretation of Jesus as being a sacrificial lamb offered to Yahweh. Humorously, though, Capernaum is not in hell today, but rather, it is abandoned, as are the two other villages.

This perfectly parallels another story told in the gospels: the rejection of Jesus in his home town of Nazareth. It really seems as if no one who actually knew Jesus on a day-to-day basis, despite witnessing miracles that would convert even me, wanted anything to do with his apocalyptic message or the post-execution message of salvation of his followers. Remember, Jesus never once sinned; even if he never performed a single miracle, would this one characteristic trait not stood out in both Nazareth and Capernaum?

11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

The understanding of the author of Matthew is that Jesus came into existence at his conception: there is no discussion that Jesus pre-existed his birth on Earth. This passage only emphasizes that. Remember that according to the doctrine of the trinity, Jesus, Yahweh and the Spirit are one and the same entity. Thus, we should really read this as:

11:25 At that time Yahweh said, “I thank myself, me, Lord of heaven and earth, because I have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, me, for such was my gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by myself, and no one knows me except me, and no one knows me except me and anyone to whom I choose to reveal me.

It is only later that the author of John suggests that Jesus pre-existed his birth. This should be contrasted with Mark who appears to be writing from an adoptionist point-of-view; that is, Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph and he was adopted the Son of God at his baptism when the Spirit of Yahweh descended upon him, and the Spirit of Yahweh left him on the cross. But none of this explains where the DNA came from to fertilize the egg in Mary.

Another piece of humor here is that one needs only replace the message of Jesus and the idea that the Earth is flat:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden the knowledge of the flat earth from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such is your gracious will...

Essentially, this passage says that the message of Jesus only resonated with those who were most ignorant of Judean laws and scriptures. Contrasting this with the previous curse on Capernaum, it seems that Jesus did not reveal his kinship to Yahweh to those in Capernaum and its surrounds. Also contrast this with what is said in Luke about Jesus's youth in the Temple: Jesus was "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." If he can amaze rabbis at the Temple, why can he not equally amaze the wise and the intelligent in his adulthood?

Of course, this is really an attempt to artificially prop up the egos of those who followed this belief and denigrate those who, for some odd reason, choose not to do so: the true-believer can rely on the fact that he or she is superior to the intelligent and wise, for the true-believe knows the real truth. This is still paralleled today by Flat-Earthers and all other groups of conspiracy theorists: they have the truth, and the truth is hidden to the "intelligent" and the "wise." That is why I got my COVID vaccine and booster shots as soon as was allowed by the government regulations.

12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? How he entered the house of God, and they ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

The covenant is a collection of hundreds of 613 laws, and to keep the covenant, one needs to keep all 613. Some are easy: don't wear clothing of mixed fibers. Some, however, are more difficult: you should not work on the Sabbath. What is "work"? The oral law sets out a number guidelines, in almost all cases, more restrictive than the law itself, but more clearly defined. If one keeps the more clearly defined oral law, then the covenant is maintained, and even a small breach of the oral law may still leave the covenant unbreeched. Thus, in order to guarantee that one does not breach the covenant law that one must not work on the Sabbath, one oral law is to not gather food on the Sabbath. Now, in this case, the disciples are picking individual stalks of wheat and extracting the kernels before consuming them. Jesus is right, this is likely not doing "work" in the spirit of the covenant. In my church, however, it was never explained in this context. Of course, in Judaism, this oral law may differ from one rabbi to the next, so in this case, one rabbi (Jesus) is simply arguing over the best way to keep the covenant.

12:9 He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

If I saw someone with a withered hand restored in front of my own eyes, I would immediately take note, as I have never seen such a miracle, and I have never heard of such a miracle occurring, at least one with clear evidence. The healing of hands must have been quite common and almost pedestrian for the Pharisees to simply focus on "destroying" Jesus. What a wonderful world that must have been: miracles occurring all the time, healings, mending of broken limbs, heart attacks and cancer, all cured just as a matter of course, and it seems that Jesus and his disciples are not the only ones doing this, just like the Egyptian magicians could duplicates Moses turning the Nile to blood. Curing a withered hand requires, in addition to possibly mending soft tissue, but it also requires corrections to the bones, and the attachments of the muscles to those bones, and the flow of blood vessels throughout the soft tissues, etc.

12:15 Many followed [Jesus], and he cured all of them, and he ordered them not to make him known.

How many people is Jesus healing? It is as if he is curing anyone and everyone who wants it, and yet, the people of Nazareth rejected him, and the people of Capernaum, where he spent lots of his time, and likely healed lots and lots of people, also rejected him, as well as the villages in the immediate surroundings.

12:22 Then they brought to him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see. All the crowds were amazed and were saying, “Can this be the Son of David?”

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this man casts out the demons.”

He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how, then, will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges...

First, no instance of either blindness or muteness can be attributed to demon possession. There are many natural causes of such states; however, if you are spending too much time reading scriptures and not enough time investigating the real world, perhaps you may be mistaken in understanding the cause of certain ailments. Thus, Jesus seems to have cured both non-functioning eyes, and non-functioning vocal cords. What the actual cause was for these two ailments is not made clear, after all, it incorrectly labeled as demon possession. This misattribution of the cause has resulted in untold suffering for those who had such ailments, for exceptionally violent exorcisms would be forced upon the individual, and because the individual is not demon possessed, nothing more happens than the individual suffers, sometimes to the point of death. If Yahweh was aware of all this, he could have easily included a narrative that is more true to what happened.

What is more humorous is the argument Jesus makes for why Jesus could not have cast out demons through the power of Satan. All demons have the same goal, to oppose Yahweh and those who worship him. If Demon A was possessing Person A, and Person B, a worshiper of Satan, wanted to amaze an audience and to mislead them, it would be trivial to ask Demon A to simply leave Person A (at least for a while) so that the miracle can be attributed to Person B, the worshiper of Satan. This would be a no-brainer, and Demon A could simply go on and possess someone else, and Persona B could follow and cast that demon out, again, and again and again.

12:31 Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

This leads back to the equating of Yahweh, the Son of Man and the Spirit of Yahweh. Remember that Yahweh is the Son of Man who is the Spirit of Yahweh, so why can speech against one be forgiven, but not the other, for they are one and the same. However, the very concept of the trinity was unknown to the authors of the gospels: for the authors of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born the Son of Yahweh, coming into existence with his birth. This differs from the author of Mark's interpretation, where Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph, and the Spirit of Yahweh descended into him during his baptism, and left him as he was being executed. Only in the gospel of John does Jesus exist prior to his birth, and there he is the Word of Yahweh, an agent of Yahweh no different from the Angel of Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh, the Son of Yahweh, etc. In none of the gospels is Jesus equated with Yahweh himself.

12:40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.

Well, Jonah was not in a whale for three days and nights, as there would be no air for him to breath, and his body would be washed in the acid of the whale's stomach and crushed by the other foodstuffs swallowed by that whale. Of course, it would have to be a whale, as no fish would be large enough to eat a human. The fin whale that is in the Mediterranean could not eat a human, as it is designed to eat plankton. Thus, we are left with the only other whale in the Mediterranean, the Sperm Whale. It, however, has a very narrow lower jaw, so I'm not sure how this whale could eat Jonah. Additionally, if Jonah found his way into the stomach, not being crushed by the esophagus, then he would find himself in the first chamber of the stomach, where food is crushed by the muscular walls. New food eaten would be pushed into this cavity, and there would certainly be no air in this cavity. Finally, it says three days and three nights, but Jesus died on Friday and arose Sunday morning, so three days and two nights. Was Moby Dick chosen to be a sperm whale because of the association with Jonah?

12:41 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,
because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and
indeed something greater than Jonah is here!
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,
because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and
indeed something greater than Solomon is here!

There is no historical record of the mission of Jonah to Nineveh, and what is humorous about the story of Jonah is that Jonah goes to Nineveh, proclaims that the city will be destroyed in 40 days, everyone--including the king--believes him, they repent, and they are spared. If Yahweh had the power to destroy a city three-days walk across, then why did Yahweh not do this to Babylon when they were preparing to attack Judea? This story about Nineveh is entirely isolated: there does not appear to be any threat to Judea by the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, just Yahweh, for whatever reason, decided to threaten the city. The Neo-Assyrian empire was the polity that annexed Samaria; they did not bother to invade Judea, for there was nothing there of value: Judea is a mountainous and arid region, easily defended, and of little economic value. Thus, Jonah's message did not appear to stop the invasion of Samaria. Also, no city at the time was so large that it would take three days to walk across. You can comfortably walk twenty miles in a day, and Nineveh was never 60 miles across. The city walls are eight miles long, meaning that one could walk around the city in three hours, not three days.

However, more telling, is the absolute fabrication that the Queen of Sheba (likely from the Sabaean kingdom) is from the "ends of the earth." The Earth is a sphere, and thus, there cannot be an "end." One may claim that the author of Matthew was being figurative, but if that author was divinely inspired, then that divine inspiration could have easily led the author to write "she came from the south beyond the Negev" or "she came from more than one thousand parsa (or leagues)."

12:43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none.

Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it returns, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

So will it be also with this evil generation.”

This is an interesting explanation describing demon possession. One must ask, why does the unclean spirit just invite the others into its home while it initially was there. This seems to be an attempt to describe how people who have chronic and terminal illnesses sometimes do temporarily get better, but then subsequently become more ill until the condition finally kills that person. However, it is so much easier to attribute such debilitating and terminal conditions such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney failure, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), etc. to demonic possession.

13:31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

The mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds, not by a long shot. A mustard seed is approximately 2.5 mm across, so clearly visible. Orchid seeds are the smallest, at less than 0.05 mm, so more than two orders of magnitude smaller. Had the author of Matthew been divinely inspired, that author could have inspired the author to wrote "... field; it is much smaller than many seeds, ..."

13:54 He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own hometown and in their own house.”

Recall that previously, Jesus said that Capernaum and the villages in the immediate vicinity were cursed because they rejected his message. Here we see that the people of Nazareth also rejected his message. Again, it seems that anywhere were Jesus lived, and where people saw him on a day-to-day basis reject his message, and after Jesus's execution, the message of his followers. If Jesus was without sin, and the great healer and resurrector that is described in the scriptures, no doubt many people would wonder why those people who knew him best--those who lived with him for the first thirty years of his life, those who lived with him during a significant portion of his ministry--all rejected first his apocalyptic message and then the message of his followers following his execution. Thus, we need a narrative to explain why those who knew Jesus best rejected him, and in the case of Nazareth, it is simply “Prophets are not without honor except in their own hometown and in their own house.”

13:58 And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.

Charlatans, fortune tellers, necromancers and faith healers depends on the gullibility of the crowd to perform their so-called miracles. The miracles of healing seen so often today on television depend on the careful selection of candidates together with the belief of those being healed together with the faith of those watching. When the audience and the ill have no faith in the character, the fraud cannot perform his or her magic. This is Yahweh incarnate, Yahweh who has been in existence for all time, knows all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will happen, is able to create the universe, give sight to the blind, heal those who are lame, cleanse those with skin disease, give hearing to the deaf, and give life to the dead, and this character cannot perform a miracle because of unbelief? Of course, the reason that the people of Nazareth do not believe is because they knew this person throughout his entire life: being the charismatic rabbi he became, he likely had quite the ego while he was living in Nazareth. If someone in a village of perhaps a few hundred people grew up with another villager who, for thirty years never once committing a sin, would that someone not take some sort of notice?

14:16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

So, in reality, we don't have the feeding of the five thousand, but rather the feeding of the fifteen thousand or perhaps more. If each person had only one square meter of personal space, this would result in four acres. In reality, people were likely much more spaced out: they were there for a significant period of time, or at least, so it is suggested. Let's just assume that taking one loaf of bread miraculously creates two whole loaves of bread. If one could "break" one loaf per second creating an extra loaf, that would take 5000 seconds for one loaf per family. Jesus was "breaking bread" for almost two hours, assuming he was just tearing that bread apart non-stop. And that's not starting on the fish. That would be hilarious, this person breaking a loaf of bread in two and each half forming a whole new loaf, and doing this non-stop for two hours, just ripping each loaf in half, over and over and over again. I'd love to see a movie about that. The last family to be fed must have been famished. What is more remarkable, however, is that no one other than these gospel authors bothered recording this: 15000 people, and not one witness of this miracle thought to somehow record it. Finally, where did all this bread and fish come from? Why can Yahweh not just do this right now in the stomach of each and every person who is hungry? There may be only a gram of nourishment in their stomachs, but split that nine times and you have that stomach filled with half a kilogram of food.

14:25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.

Walking on water is no different that flying. There is insufficient plasticity to water to allow an object the size and weight of a human to be supported by the area of the footprints alone. If there is sufficient force upward to keep a human from sinking into water, there is more than sufficient force to have a human fly.

14:32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Strong winds suddenly cease. This requires a huge absorption of energy, for while air has low density, it has huge volume and relatively high speeds. All this kinetic energy must somehow simultaneously be absorbed or eliminated. It is unfortunate that Yahweh can do this while he is present on Earth, but unable to stop a hurricane or cyclone that is killing hundreds or thousands and destroying the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands.

14:34 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word to that whole surrounding region, and people brought all who were sick to him and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

The land of Gennesaret is a region and not a settlement, and it is not five miles from Capernaum and Chorazim. Capernaum, Chorazim and Bethsaida witnesses countless miracles, but did not believe, and yet five miles away, people are flocking to him to "touch" his cloak to be healed. However, as one could easily describe the settlements of Capernaum and Chorazim as being in the "surrounding region," would not sick individuals come from those two settlements? If even three came from those two settlements, when they returned to their homes, would not their families be amazed that Alice with skin cancer and Bob with a broken leg and Cathy with leprosy are coming back completely healed? With their families, this would make up over 1% of the population of these two settlements, and would not their friends also be amazed that these three were miraculously healed, and would they not, too, spread the word of the miraculous powers of Jesus? When then does Jesus curse these three cities for their disbelief? Perhaps because he was nothing more than a charismatic preacher, and perhaps one with a rather overinflated ego, for he will soon be calling himself the Son of God.

15:1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”

He answered them,

And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’

But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you nullify the word of God.

The first is funny: it seems it is not necessary, and it would be indeed following the example of Jesus if his followers stopped washing their hands. Indeed, the wording is such that washing your hands before you eat would be adhering to what Jesus calls merely a tradition. Of course, in reality, washing hands with soap removes bacteria and viruses, and thus reduces the number of germs that enter the body while eating. If Yahweh was all-knowing, would he not insist that people wash their hands? It was not until the 1840s that Ignaz Semmelweis insisted that surgeons wash their hands before performing surgery or aiding in giving birth. Many women giving birth were dying when germs were passed on from the hands of physicians helping to deliver the newborns. Would this not have been a beautiful opportunity for Yahweh to let us know to wash our hands to keep them clean? How many lives could have been saved had Jesus just been a little more articulate about hygene? Are Christians not following the example of Jesus if they wash their hands before eating?

The second is also funny: If you're giving money to the synagogue or the Temple, you don't need to provide support for your parents. This is no different from the need for sacrifices to be blood sacrifices (think Abel) versus vegetable and fruit products (think Cain). After all, Yahweh, the all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, etc., being smells the smoke from burnt offerings on the alter and finds that smoke to have a "pleasing odor." Even today, there are more than just a few televangelists, priests and pastors will make all kinds of loopholes that redirect money or fresh meat to the church that benefit themselves while detrimentally harming their their parishioners and their families: nothing has changed in two thousand years.

15:10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand, [diatribe on things that defile are those that come out of the mouth, not those that go in...] These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Giving the worst advice on hygiene is done to contrast what goes into the mouth versus what comes out? Once again, the covenant specifies that certain foods must not be eaten: pork, shellfish, etc., but that one should not come in contact with other unclean items. In order to not break the covenant, Pharisees made a simpler rule that one should always wash one's hands before eating, so that if there is anything unclean, it is washed away and does not enter the body: a simple rule ensures that the covenant is followed. However, how horrible is this that to make this point, the worst advice possible with respect to hygiene is given. Instead, would it not have been amazing if an all-knowing, all-powerful god-on-Earth had had the following conversation?

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they eat pork and shellfish.”

He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you nullify the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ ”

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”

Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”

He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”

But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”

Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat pork and shellfish does not defile.”

Wasn't this one of the central messages of Paul, and did the keeping of the covenant not form a great barrier between some of the earliest followers? Would it not have been better for Jesus to simply state that pork and shellfish were acceptable for consumption?

Also, wouldn't it have been great if Jesus said something much more ethical and useful?

“... These are what defile a person, but to eat pork and shellfish does not defile. Raping or molesting anyone defiles the attacker, while raping or molesting a prepubescent child defiles that attacker and condemns that person forever for that unforgivable sin; that person is to be cast out form my protection forever. Remember, so that you may be strong in the Lord, wash your hands before eating, handling any food, touching any wound or your eyes, or touching any infant or mother giving birth; and both before and after relieving yourself.”

Jesus, being an all-knowing god, knowing that Catholic priests (and others) would for two thousand years rape and molest young children, could he not have made a single statement to this effect in all the years of his ministry? If he was all-knowing, not only could he have, but if he is all-loving, he was obligated to do so. If he wanted to save the lives of infants and mothers, he would have said this, even if he did not articulate the ideas behind the germ theory of disease, for there are religions today who practice significantly better doctrinally-imposed hygiene than as is required in Christian scriptures.

However, even the counter-example I give would have been possible, for Jesus himself said

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

Jesus never meant for his followers to eat pork and to eat shellfish: the Earth has been here for the past two thousand years; however, Paul, seeking to expand his influence and his interpretation invited Greeks who ate both, and allowed them to continue to enjoy those meals. Some followers of Jesus claim that “all is accomplished” refers to Jesus's death and resurrection; however, this makes no sense in the context of at least Earth passing away, for while we know nothing about heaven, we certainly know the Earth is still here. Additionally, if the dietary restrictions are no longer in place, then certain neither should any of the other commandments, including the first ten.

15:21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.

Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

But he did not answer her at all.

And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

And her daughter was healed from that moment.

After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down.

First, Tyre is 20 miles from the Sea of Galilee as the crow flies, and Sidon is another 10 miles north along the coast. This is the most significant journey Jesus has made since the start of his ministry, as recorded in the synoptic gospels, for while the gospel of John has Jesus visiting Jerusalem many times throughout his ministry, the synoptic gospels only have Jesus travelling to Jerusalem at the very end of his ministry. And yet, only one event is recorded: did Jesus have no other purpose going to these two cities but to have this woman grovel and demean herself in front of him? Imagine if the following was recorded as having happened in New York:

McInnes left that place and went away to the district of New York and Newark.

Just then a Black woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Mr. McInnes; my daughter is ill and she requires $127.95 for her medicine.”

But he did not answer her at all.

And his proud followers came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost white sheep of America.”

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Mr. McInnes, help me.”

He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

She said, “Yes, Mr. McInnes, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

And he gave her $130 and with the medicine, her daughter was healed.

Does the offering of giving this woman the money that helped buy the medicine that helped the child in any mitigate the demeaning words spoken to this woman? Would anyone turn around and praise McInnis for this incredible gift of generosity? This pericope tells so much about the real character of Jesus: he was an itinerant apocalyptic preacher whose only concern was for the Judean people and preparing them for the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh; however, more telling is that the Centurion, whose servant was healed, was a Roman citizen and Jesus had no qualms or hesitation about helping that individual, and this occurred immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, one of the first events recorded by the author of Matthew following the start of his ministry (even though it follows the Sermon on the Plain if you are reading Luke).

Also note the apparent weakness of Jesus: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” If one had an unlimited supply of food, one could give whatever one wished to whichever child or animal needs it. A child only receives priority in food if there is a restricted supply. If Jesus was indeed the incarnation of Yahweh, in theory, he should be able to heal every living being on the entire planet and still have energy left over: there would be no need reserve healings and other such gifts to the Children of Israel alone.

Note also that if this woman was living in Tyre or Sidon, she would be a Phoenician. The term "Canaanite" is used to describe all Semitic people in the neighborhood of Judea, for they are all descendants of Ham's son Canaan, the son who was cursed because Ham's father, Noah, got so drunk that he passed out naked, and Ham accidentally entered his tent and saw him lying there naked. The curse was that the descendants of Canaan (and no other children of Ham) would become slaves to the descendants of Shem (from whom the Judeans allegedly descend from). Of course, in reality, the Judeans descended from Canaanite nomadic pastoral herders, and it was the animosity between pastoralists and those settled in towns and cities that led to the division between these peoples and the Judeans then claimed their ancestor, Abraham, was actually from Ur in Mesopotamia, in order to differentiate themselves from the settled Canaanites. Thus, contrasting Jesus and the Phoenician woman to a person such as Mr. McInnis and a Black woman is not that unreasonable.

15:30 Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the maimed, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw

the mute speaking,
the maimed whole,
the lame walking, and
the blind seeing.

More miraculous healings, and yet, despite all the faith today, no follower of Jesus is able to replicate any of these, except, of course, under controlled circumstances such as Benny Hinn. Of course, today, the followers of Jesus are unable to heal anyone with actual visible injuries.

15:32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled, and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.

Perhaps ten thousand (10,000) men, women and children are in the mountains of Galilee, and they are all there sitting and listening to Jesus for three full days. Once again, Jesus is able to produce absolutely incredible amounts of food from a few loaves and fish, and yet, today, just as many children die as a result of or related to hunger each and every day. Could an all-loving Yahweh not be able to make just as much food for those children who are starving each and every day?

16:1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Then he left them and went away.

The statement is actually true, except it is the Pharisees and Sadducees who are saying this, not Jesus. Thus, one of the few statements in Christian scriptures that comports with reality is actually attributed to those who ultimately will oppose the followers of Jesus. The sign of Jonah, however, is invalid, for Jonah was in the stomach of a whale for three days and three nights, while Jesus was only dead for two days and two nights (what was left of Friday before sunset, Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, and he was raised before sunset on Monday). But who is counting?

16:27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

This is awkward at best: it cannot refer to the resurrection or even the day of Pentecost, because both of these occur within a year of Jesus making this statement: if I knew I was visiting Europe in the next year, and speaking to my friends, I would not say "there are some standing here who will not taste death before I go travel to Europe for a holiday." This statement is referring to the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh, what both Jesus and John the Baptist were preaching. Jesus and John seem to have suggested that this event was much more imminent than forty years, but the gospel of Matthew was written after 70 CE, so this seems to have been said to justify the fact that the Kingdom of Yahweh has not yet come even forty years after the execution of Jesus.

18:8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away;

it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away;

it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

Wasn't Jesus just healing the maimed and lame? Remember that Jesus was preaching--and likely believed--that the Kingdom of Yahweh was coming soon. If you had to live without a foot or a hand or an eye for a year or two and then you would enter the Kingdom of Yahweh, that would most certainly be worth it; however, I have yet to meet any follower who took him up on this offer.

However, this must be incredibly imporant, for it is one of the very few teachings that is repeated:

5:29 “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away;

it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away;

it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

21:7 they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

This is the hilarious seen concocted by the author of Matthew to perfectly fulfill Judean prophesies. In Zechariah 9:9, we have

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The last statement uses a poetic device where an object is described multiple times: this king is riding on a donkey; that is, on a colt that is the foal of a donkey. The other two synoptic gospels interpret this correctly: Jesus is described as riding on a donkey, but the author of Matthew has Jesus riding on two donkeys simultaneously. Imagine this in your mind: Jesus doing the splits in order to get one leg over each animal's back. One humorous apologetic site showed an image of two such donkeys with planks over each of their backs and Jesus sitting on these planks. The apologist probably has never tried getting two donkeys to walk in sync. But what is most revealing is that the author of Matthew explicitly manipulated the story that appears in Mark (from whom he was copying) in order to make the story fulfill his understanding of the prophesy. Either Jesus rode one donkey or two, but he could not do both.

21:18 In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.

The fig tree is out of season, meaning that it is not bearing fruit, and if Jesus is Yahweh who created the Earth, when he created the Earth and its plants, this was specifically the his design. Never-the-less, the fig tree does not have fruit, so he curses it, and immediately all the water in all of its cells vacates the plant and it withers. If there is any better example of the arbitrary and capricious behavior, I'm not aware. A real miracle would have been to have the fig produce fruit out of season, especially as the flowers have not yet developed, fertilization has not yet occurred, energy has not yet been stored, etc. Unfortunately, instead, Jesus causes the plant to immediately wither: a warning, for you could be punished for something that is entirely outside your control if something displeases Yahweh, and this is not without precedence: How many infants were killed in the flood? Is it fair that, as stated in Exodus 20:4,

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments,

any immoral or grossly unfair behavior on the part of your great grandparents--perhaps more than fifty years ago--could result in you being punished? Neither of these are fair, but as the above passage says, Yahweh is jealous.

21:20 When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

Once again, a promise that whatever is asked for in prayer will be received, including lifting up a mountain and casting it into the sea. This would require more energy than is generated on Earth in an entire year, and yet, this same Yahweh is unable to answer the prayers of those who are starving or the earnest prayers of those whose children and infants are starving. Like the feeding of the five thousand (or actually, 15000 persons), Yahweh could save the lives of many infants and children that die each and every day of starvation, yet he refuses to hear the earnest and heartfelt prays asked in faith by those who are suffering.

7:245 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land [or earth] until three in the afternoon.

There is a humorous forged gospel where Pilate is held accountable for darkening the skies above the entire earth, including Rome, and executed for this; however, it would be very difficult to block all the skies on the entire Earth making them opaque, and as no one in China or Rome or any other kingdom or empire made note of this event, not even in Alexandria, we should assume it was a local event. This, however, doesn't help explain the event any more: did clouds magically appear throughout the entire skies above Jerusalem? Followers of Jesus often claim that because so few at that time repented even after seeing all these signs two thousand years ago, that there is no point in Yahweh performing similar miracles today, for it would convince no one. The alternative, of course, is that there were no signs at that time, which is why no one repented, even in Capernaum and its surrounding towns where Jesus was supposed to have performed so many miracles.

27:51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.

First, we have an earthquake occurring, but then also we have the dead being resurrected. As these people include "saints," this likely includes persons whose bodies have shrunk to skin-wrapped skeletons. Let us hope that Yahweh brought these persons back their original skin, heart, liver, brain, etc. But simply imagine how much work would be required to create such a miracle: to take dust and to combine with that dust sufficient amounts of carbon and oxygen and hydrogen in order to create walking zombies that do not terrify those they meet. But who else recorded this? Did none of the Roman occupiers note these new people wandering around? Perhaps not, but it seems that at least some persons were aware that these people walking around were in fact persons raised from the dead.

Now the raising of the dead was supposed to be a sign of the end of time, at the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh, and in a sense, this is suggesting that the time of Jesus's death is the start of the period of resurrection meant to immediately precede the coming of the KingDom of Yahweh.

28:2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

Another earthquake in a region prone to having earthquakes, and angels coming down from Heaven. If they believed that Heaven was above the dome that they called the sky, and now that we know that above the sky is outer space sans Heaven, where were these angels coming from? Additionally, why do angels need wings? Are they bound by the laws of nature, and if so, could they breath in the upper atmospheres from whence they came? Angels appear to also have their own source of light in their clothing. Is there any need for this? Do angels require a source of light in heaven? And what is the source of energy to produce this light? When you consider how much energy is required to produce the light required, this would require a significant amount of resources.

28:6 He is not here, for he has been raised...

We will discuss what happens to the body after one-and-a-half days after death. Here is a good article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150508-what-happens-after-we-die