NEW EVIDENCE AND SCRUTINIZATION OF
AN ANCIENT PRACTICE THAT USED GRAVEN IMAGES AS DEVICES OF DIVINATION; CREATED
FROM SLAIN FIRST BORN MALES
Author and
researcher RF Hawthorne challenges the reader to consider a new way in
understanding graven images, the Ten Commandments and advanced methodologies
embraced by ancient inhabitants of our planet and more importantly how it may be
impacting modern medical science and why it may be crucial to our understanding
today:
I wish to
lay out for all to scrutinize a new paradigm of thought that through my own
personal, first hand experience and 30-years of study that graven images, as our
forbidden in the Ten Commandments were a form of, what I would describe as
human-oracle devices of divination that were created anciently, primarily only
known to have been a practice of the Assyrians, by slaying a first-born male and
using the head/brain as a form of 'computation server' with the purposes of
obtaining answers to any questions the possessors of such a device required,
simply by "...asking it."
There are glimpses, hints of and sketches
of these occult-driven devices talked about in both the Old and New Testaments
but for hundreds of years, civilization has not, first: Given the ancients any
credit for being anything more than 'camel jockeys' with no advanced abilities
or because of the ancient practice of creating graven images being lost since
the time Jacob collected all these "strange gods" and destroyed all of them that
were collected from his household, family and servants when they returned to
Canaan from Assyria, where Jacob buried them under an oak tree in Genesis
35! The truths of these ghastly
creations are an abomination and affront to God that have been dormant and
obscured by our own unbelief for over 4,000-years -- until now. And of course,
it is simply too unfathomable to think for a moment such devices were possible
or anyone would do such a thing.
Yet, if we examine the hard evidence that we’ve overlooked for years,
questions as to there validity begin to form.
Let us
examine to possibilities:
Why is just
a segment of the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 31, perhaps the least
understood, most overlooked scripture in the Old Testament and what, if any
significance does their events have to do with today, 4,000-years
later?
There is
hidden significance in the story of Rachel stealing her father’s image in
Genesis
31:19 that
has gone completely unnoticed and that does have relevance today with respects
to what these images were; the significance and importance for which her father,
Laban, the Assyrian used them; all combining with potentially frightening
implications with today’s most advanced, bio-medical/ethical research,
particularly with embryo stem cell research and the new paradigm of medical
science now being capable of producing any organ in a laboratory, without
harming a single, human embryo:
I think this is an important subject
which deals directly with some of the basis of our
religion as
well: This discussion involves the Book of Genesis; Jacob or Israel as he is
later known
whom is also the Father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel is at the very foundation
of our belief Christian-belief structure; Jacob's family’s sudden departure from
Assyria and Jacob's own acknowledgement of the “images” as “strange gods” and
associated practices that they (the Assyrians) participated are at issue; The
Ten Commandments, the very core of our values and religious foundation that all
Christian sects believe (which curiously has one that no one particularly
understands or acknowledges what it really is, while all the others (of the
remaining Ten Commandments) maintain simple definitions and are easily
understood and described: killing,
stealing, coveting, honoring Mother and Father...). "Thou shalt not create any graven image
or anything like it under heaven!"
Many will say, "I know what that one is too!" I learned it in Bible study
during my elementary school summer vacations at Bible school at the
church." (Or something
similar.) Is it possible we have
all been misinformed? Not in
conspiracy-like fashion but simply through a lack of understanding or clear
identification in research? I wish
to attempt to convey this new idea which is solely based on relatively new
historical data and a better explanation of the events that transpire in Genesis
31. I do this for two reasons: First, the evidence is there to suggest
what takes place in Genesis 31 indicates whatever these devices were (images)
they weren't simple "pendants", "good-luck charms" or "property deeds" as many
will suggest. I say this simply
because the dynamic circumstances that take place in Genesis simply just does
not support that.
The second
reason is a lot more personal: In 1990, our oldest, first born son, Roice was
tragically killed in an automobile accident. What took place over the first, 48-hours
of his death catapulted me into the middle of a driving necessity to
investigate, through any means possible including: scriptural, historical,
bio-medical/ethical, scientific and technological -- all forms of evidence point
squarely to the fact we are, as a modern day society which is full of advancing
discovery in all facets of achievement, reaching back clasping hands with
ancient times practices towards re-developing 'graven image technology' in what
I refer to a 'follow-the-dots' mentality to re-creating a modern day, graven
image, even if called something 'more modern'; a device that will be computer
like in nature that will incorporate all or parts of the human brain that will
be used as a computation server/brain hard drive/"know it all" or whatever
acronym will identify it. In
essence, we are on the inside track to re-creating an ancient, forbidden graven
image that has not existed on our planet for 4,000-years and we risk breaking
the one of the Ten Commandments that we are warned not to and risk our own
mortality by so doing. I know this
is slightly ‘Jules Verne’ like, but bear with me.
IS IT
POSSIBLE THAT EARTH IS AT THE THRESHOLD OF EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS SET TO UNFOLD IN
OUR DAY?
- Genesis 31 sites how they (images) are
stolen by Rachel;
- The
apparent importance Laban places in them by chasing the family down for days to
get them back;
- How they
are destroyed (Genesis 35) and subsequently, how their bizarre capability has
been lost over the past 4,000-years.
- The Book
of Jasher, referenced in the Old Testament, in Joshua and Second Samuel provides
us key understanding to Genesis 31;
- Jasher
was translated from Hebrew, by scholars in 1840AD, published in English in
1887AD.
- Jasher expands on Genesis 31 in
illuminating fashion that describes exactly what graven images are:
-
NOTE: It is Jasher that makes these
extraordinary claims, based on the Hebrew-to-English translation. Following the title page in Jasher, the
authors placed ‘certificates of authenticity’ declaring that the translation was
correct – in no nonsense terms – over 160-years ago. It is these same authors, through their
translation making these assertions even if they obviously didn’t understand it
themselves. Today’s world does give
us glimpses into the unimaginable.
We need only read our newspapers or surf the internet.
- Jasher tells how graven images were
constructed, through the slaying of first born males and through the delving
into the occult – an apparent Assyrian practice, not endorsed by
Israelites.
- Most
extraordinary, the bizarre, incredible capability and power the graven images
extended to those that possessed them – all power
unprecedented.
-Jasher
explains that Rachel steals her father’s image, even concealing the theft from
her own husband so that her father, Laban could not go to it and find out where
they had gone, (to Canaan or back to modern-day, Israel, to be near Jacob’s
father, Isaac).
-Rachel was
aware of the extraordinary powers the images possessed as she knew her father
could go to it and ‘ask it’ where they had gone and it would reveal it to him.
(Jasher points out he had other ‘graven images’ which is how he and his servants
found out and chased them down.
-Certainly,
without question, the images were not “pendants” or “good luck charms” as some,
current religionists suggest.
First, Laban wouldn’t have chased them down with his servants to get a
necklace back. Besides, he probably
wouldn’t have minded if his daughter had some good luck on her journey or in her
new life, wherever they had left in the middle of the night, stealing away off
to. He was a powerful-enough man to
do without one less trinket.
-Moreover,
and not insignificant -- when Laban and his servants do catch up to Jacob,
Rachel and all their families, possessions and cattle, Laban quizzes each of
them (Jacob and Rachel) about why they left without him getting to say goodbye
to them (his daughters, Rachel and Leah and all his grandchildren, comprising of
the 12 sons of Jacob, later to be known as the “Twelve Tribes of Israel) and
then asks them both pointedly: “Why did you steal my gods?” Whatever the images
were and after the scriptures were translated centuries ago, from Greek, to
Hebrew, to English, the translation of Laban’s question referring to them as
“gods” just doesn’t sound like a cheap pendant or cracker jack, good luck charm
to me! Obviously, there is
something more significant to the images than anyone wants to or cares to
understand.
- Perhaps
even more significant and an even greater ‘foot stomper’ is that when Jacob is
approached by Laban and his servants, further up in the travel caravan of
animals and possessions, Jacob stands his grounds when he sees them
approach. He doesn’t run for his
life, having kidnapped Laban’s family as he might have thought Laban would have
considered such a venture, then when quizzed about why he left without letting
Laban say goodbye, where Jacob says he left because he simply wanted to avoid
the confrontation and the possibility, Laban would have refused to let him
leave; and Laban also asks Jacob, why did you steal my “gods”, as he asked
Rachel. Jacob answers,
paraphrasing, ‘whomever did steal your gods, though shalt not let that person
live! Can you imagine for an
instant, that Jacob would have condemned his teenage sweetheart to death; the
same woman (Rachel) that he waited and worked for 20-years to marry? No and neither can I! It simply
does not make sense. My King James
Version of the Bible says, upon Jacob condemning the thief of the images to
death, in parenthesis, (Rachel also concealed from Jacob that she stole the
images!)
- Graven images are forbidden in the Ten
Commandments, yet no one knows what they are, although guesses are wide and
varied. The majority of people
polled when asked the question, “What do you say the graven images are that are
forbidden in your own Ten Commandments?” The most common response was: "I don't know." (Curiously, the other 9 are instantly
and easily described by all of us):
Such as: What is stealing,
killing, coveting anything… (Desiring or craving) and honoring our mothers and
our fathers – all solicit immediate responses – except for number 2 of the 10:
describing what a graven images is.
With some
further research, as in many hundreds of hours over the past 30-years as I have
invested, some further developments do reveal themselves in
scripture:
- Dozens of bible references suggest a
combining of devices -- graven images, teraphims, ephods, moulton images --
seemingly all hooked up like stereo equipment, as it was described to me by my
brother through his investigations of the same, in bringing about the powers
sought in the creation of graven images or ‘devices of divination’ as I refer to
them.
- The book of Revelations describes how
the temple in
- As people
care to dispute this, which is fine, for this weighty subject sorely needs
dialog and
communication of understanding -- it is with the scriptures they are taking
issue; by refusing to accept the incredible meaning or denying and disputing in
my view the power and impact of what has been laid out in the scriptures that
with a little research and prayer like assistance through their own personal
effort, discovery and revelation, can gain their own understanding of what this
all means pertaining to the extraordinary and revolutionary times we are living
and how it impacts this apparent linking of this 4,000-year gap, that in these
last days connects an ancient, lost and forbidden practice with today’s, hybrid,
leading edge bio-medical discovery, even paradigm of capability of producing
‘any organ’ we choose in laboratories, without so much as harming the hair on a
first born male’s head or a single cell of a human embryo!
-An understanding and background history
of the incredible story that transpires in Genesis 31 is necessary in
recognizing the dynamics and personalities involved that takes place over
2-decades which explains why Jacob and Rachel eventually leave in the middle of
the night with all their possessions to get clearly away from Rachel’s father,
Laban and out of Assyria (modern-day Iraq).
- Clearly,
Laban was a very rich, powerful, unkind and oppressive, Assyrian man, who for
nearly two-decades, cheated Jacob from the very start, when he hired him to tend
his cattle for payment in cattle off spring that Laban colluded a dishonest wage
many times; kept changing the agreement of payment...long before -- years before
Jacob asked him for his daughter's hand in marriage. Laban cheated him (or tried to, but it
kept back firing on Laban because as he changed the wage scale, example: paying
plain coated off spring for let's say, speckled coats). Consequently, Jacob was gaining
considerable wealth through that first, 6-years.
-At the
point where Jacob had enough nerve to ask Laban for Rachel's hand in
marriage,
Laban
agreed with the caveat that Jacob must tend his cattle for another 7-years, to which Jacob agreed, only to be tricked
and deceived into consummating the marriage with Leah, the older sister, where
upon another 7-year stint in cattle tending was further required to finally gain
Rachel's hand in marriage.
Remember, they met as young teenagers at their social, gathering place; a
watering well and now, when they do marry, Jacob is already wed to Leah with
children, with servants with more children and by the time he has his first
child with Rachel...it's number 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel -- when Joseph,
with his colorful coat enters the scene.
(It is interesting to me that when you read this account as many times as
I have, coupled with Jasher's verses, I have gained an amazingly close and
intimate perspective on these people and what they endured...which I believe
literally and how just in a few pages, so much of the details seem to come to
life; their epic story, what they endured and then...after all that...we see
Gen.31:18-19.
These two
scriptures could not be more trivialized, overlooked or relegated to
insignificance by all churches on the planet, yet to me have such a powerful
importance to our day an age -- more perhaps than any others concerning
end-times relevance than they do!
-Verse 18
declares their commitment to leave for
Enter
Jasher: With its 1840 translation
from Hebrew into English; it's testimonials of its translators (one being a
George Bush) with their accompanying 'certificates of authenticity' of correct
translation and it's eventual, 1887 publication into English.
- The
"importance" of these verses, if I am correct, should have the power and impact
of the equivalence of... B R E A K I N G N E W S on cable television
because of what they convey, when the whole significance of them are pieced
together:
-To
wit: Graven images were forbidden
devices of divination, used by ancient Assyria; that did, coupled with delving
into the occult and what Jasher calls, "...the influence of the stars" were
capable of providing something we can not do even today: Answer any question asked that is beyond
mortal reason and human ability to discern!
-That they
(graven images) were forbidden in The Ten Commandments; not as mere idols of
worship but as something completely different in scope and ability-- such
horrific and vial contraptions, that Jacob called, "...strange gods" destroyed
them all that had been collected from their time in Assyria and buried under an
Oak tree! (Genesis 35).
-Numerous
other scriptures can be researched about images, with a more significant
occurrence in the book of Revelations where it says that an individual, who
restores the covenant of
-No one
knows the day, time or date of this momentous event, but we can know the
approximate occurrence based on the signs.
Are not the hidden pearls of these signs available to those who will
listen, ponder and learn?
-Look at
how bio-medical discoveries are leading directly to a path that is leading to
significant developments in human brain research.
-The moral
issues revolving around the slaying of a first born male to produce an image
have been eliminated -- because as the world now knows and as Dr. Leon Cass,
President Bush’s Chair on the Council of Bioethics has said, “…We can produce
any organ”, in any stem cell research laboratory, from super cells, either
gleaned from embryos or am bionic fluids!
Ready or
not, this new paradigm is about to explode, just as the scriptures suggest an
image will be reintroduced and produced in our day.
-I look at
the insignificance our founding fore fathers placed in the regular killings and
warring between Arabs and Jews and how they must've placed these warring into
insignificance.
-Yet, the
scriptures talk about all nations being involved in the great and last conflict
to occur in the
Do you
think Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson gave even a care about them? No, I don't either. -Enter Drakes Well in 1859!
-That
first, significant production of oil from the ground would change
everything!
Do you
think we or the world cares now what takes place over there? Yes, of course!
Because
what Franklin and Jefferson didn't know, that the Bible did know was that this
earth would be based on an oil economy that 18th century men where
yet completely unaware of!
The Bible
knew!
-I hope
I've been able to qualify and clarify what I believe is a significant, latter
day matter and have helped in some small way for all to understand just a little
better, my
research
and hopefully allow you, the American people and the people of the world who
visit this webpage to scrutinize for yourself the significance of the story of
Rachel and Jacob and the understanding of what graven images really were and how
close we are to bridging a 4,000-year gap – with end-times events relevance!
-I am of
the opinion that we are in the last days of mortality and are in a final, count
down to the Messiah’s return, now with a clearer picture as to what events will
bring this about and that are setting into motion what is to occur: The modern day creation of graven images
that combine in breaking the last of the Ten Commandments given to man over
4,000-years ago.
RF
Hawthorne
Author of
“Graven Image”