Twenty easily confused pairs of Bible characters

The Bible is not short – in fact it consists of 66 books, 1,189 chapters and 31,103 verses.

That’s a lot of words.

In fact there are apparently 593,493 words in the Old Testament and 181,253 in the New Testament giving 774,746 words altogether.

Given that 70% of the Bible is narrative - and other sections list family names and genealogies in great detail - there are a phenomenal number of different named individuals, from Er to Maher-shalal-hash-baz!

Perhaps it is not surprising that many pairs of people with similar or identical names are easily confused.

Here, for your entertainment, and possibly also your education, are twenty such couples.

First are those with similar but not identical names.

1. Ahijah and Abijah.One was the prophet who tore his coat into twelve pieces and gave ten to Jeroboam, to signify that he would lead the ten northern tribes of Israel. The other was a King of Judah who did not follow the Lord whole-heartedly but wonan unlikely victory against huge odds when his men asked for God’s help.

2. Micah and Micaiah.Both were Old Testament prophets. The first predicted Jesus’ birth in Bethlehemin the book named after him. The second courageously spoke the truth to King Ahab, when no one else would, in spite of being imprisoned as a result.   

3. Abimelech and Ahimelech.  The first was the son of Gideon who murdered his seventy brothers and later died a violent death when hit on the head by a millstone dropped by a woman during a siege. The second was a priest whose loyalty to David cost him his life at the hands of Saul. He had a grandson of the same name. 

4. Amos and Amon.Amoswas an Old Testament prophet who was called as a shepherd and predicted a major earthquake. Amonwas a king of Judah who revelled in idolatry and was assassinated by his officials after being on the throne for only two years.

5. Enoch and Enosh.Both come from the early chapters of God. Enoch was a holy man who was taken up into heaven by God without dying. He was also Noah’s great grandfather and gets a mention in the New Testament book of Jude. Enosh was Enoch’s great grandfather and also the grandson of Adam.

6. Adoni-Zedek and Adoni-Bezek. The first was the Amorite king of Jerusalem who was defeated by Joshua on the day the latter commanded the sun to stand still. The second was a Canaanite king in the time of the judges who had a penchant for cutting off his enemies’ great toes.

7. Jude and Judah.The first was a brother of Jesus and wrote the New Testament letter of the same name. The second was one of the twelve sons of Israel and an ancestor of Jesus Christ, ‘the Lion of Judah’.

It’s particularly confusing when people with similar names live close together in history and interact with each other

8. Joram and Jehoram.Both were Old Testament Kings; Joram of Israel (he was the son of Ahab and Jezebel) and Jehoram of Judah. They were related by marriage as Jehoram married Joram’s sister. Neither did much good and Jehoram passed away, it is said, ‘to no one’s regret’.

9. Uz and Buz.Abraham’s nephews. Their mother may have had difficulty telling them apart but seemed to have a liking for unusual names. Her other sons were called Kemuel, Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.

10. Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Rehoboam was the son of Solomon who was king at the time the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled. Jeroboam led the rebellion.

11. Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was one of the most famous of the Old Testament prophets. Elisha was his apprentice and later surpassed him, possessing a ‘double measure’ of his spirit.

But when two people have exactly the same name even biblical editors can get them mixed up.

12. Daniel and Daniel. The best known was the famous prophet who was rescued by God from a den of lions. His book of prophecy tells about the rise and fall of the empires of Babylonian, Median, Persian and Greek Empires, much of it before it actually happened. The lesser known was the son of David’s second wife Abigail.

13. Saul and Saul.One in each Testament: the former was the first king of Israel, who rejected God and was rejected by him. The second persecuted the early church but was converted on the Damascus Road and became one of Christ’s Apostles, changing his name to Paul. He later established churches all over the known world and wrote 13 books in the New Testament.

14. Joseph and Joseph. Again, one in each Testament: the first was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (later renamed Israel), who was sold as a slave by his brothers. He later ended up running the Egyptian Empire and saved its people, and his own family, from starvation during a famine. The latter was the husband of Mary and father of Jesus.

15. Mary and Mary.One was wife of Joseph and mother of Jesus. The second (Mary Magdalene) was a follower of Jesus and the first witness to his resurrection.

16. Tamar and Tamar. Both were the victims of sexual abuse. The first was Judah’s daughter in law who had two sons by him through posing as a prostitute after he had mistreated her. She is listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1. The second was the sister of Absalom and daughter of David, who was raped by her half brother Amnon. The event led directly to Absalom’s murder of Amnon and subsequent rebellion against David.

17. Joshua and Joshua. The former was the successor of Moses who led the people of Israel out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. The second was a high priest referred to the book of Zechariah who was cleansed from his sin by God. Joshua is a Hebrew word meaning ‘saviour’; the Greek equivalent is Jesus.

18. James and James.The first was the brother of John, one of Jesus twelve disciples, who was put to death by Herod. The second was the brother of Jesus, chair of the Jerusalem Council and writer of the New Testament letter which bears his name.

19. Judas and Judas.Both were disciples of Jesus. Judas Iscariot betrayed him but Judas the son of James (also known as Thaddaeus) was faithful.

20. Zechariah and Zechariah. Both were Old Testament prophets. The first, Zechariah son of Berekiah, was the author of the book of the same name. The second was the son of Jehoiada the priest. He confronted king Joash over his idolatry but paid for it with his life. A New Testament editor appears to confuse the two in Matthew 23:35. Zechariah is one of the commonest names in the Bible and is also shared by a lesser known king of Israel and the father of John the Baptist.

No doubt you can think of other confusing biblical couplets and similarities, but of all the Bible characters one life stands out as absolutely unique: the one solitary life of Jesus Christ (literally ‘Saviour Messiah’).

Jesus  marks himself out by his words, claims and actions to be God in the flesh: Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb of God, Prince of Peace, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, Lord, Judge and Saviour.

As the Apostle Peter said to the rulers and elders in Jerusalem, he is the only way to God:

‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)

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Jesus in the Qur'an - What Islam affirms and denies about Christ

The whole of the New Testament, indeed the whole Bible, is about Jesus Christ.

By contrast, the Qur’an, which is about the same length as the New Testament, only mentions Jesus in a few of its 114 chapters. What little there is in the Qur’an both affirms and denies what the Bible teaches.

Jesus' birth

The Qur’an deals with Jesus’ birth in Sura 19:16-23, 29-33 and in Sura 3:42-47, 59. These verses affirm that an angel visits Mary (cf Luke 1:26,27) and indicate that God has chosen her and singled her out (cf Luke 1:28). She is said to be blessed among women (cf Luke 1:31-33) and great things are spoken of the son she will bare (cf Luke 1:31-33). The Qur’an in Sura 3:59 likens Jesus to Adam (as does the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 5:22, 45-49 and Romans 5). Most importantly the Qur’an repeatedly affirms the fact of the virgin birth (Sura 19:20). Interestingly Jesus is the only one of the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an who is said to have had a virgin birth.

Jesus' life

There are also similarities in the Qur’an and the Bible with regard to the life of Christ. Like the New Testament, the Qur’an affirms that Jesus performed miracles: in particular that he restored sight to the blind, healed lepers and raised people from the dead (Sura 3:49, 5:11). The Qur’an also affirms that Jesus brought ‘the message of the gospel’ and that he committed no sin (Sura 3:46).

Jesus' titles

There are also similarities between the titles given to Christ in the Qur’an and those in the Bible. The Qur’an calls Jesus ‘the statement of truth’ (Sura 17:24), a similar claim to Jesus calling himself ‘the Way the Truth and the Life’ in John 14:6. Similarly, the Qur’an calls Jesus the Word (Sura 10:19 cf John 1:1), the Apostle (Sura 19:31 cf Hebrews 3:1) and the servant or slave of God (Sura 4:172 and 19:31 cf Isaiah chapters 42, 49, 50 and 53). 

The servant of God was one of Jesus’ favourite terms for himself and he clearly taught that he was the person talked about in the prophet Isaiah’s ‘Servant Songs’ written many centuries before. Most remarkably, the Qur’an refers eleven times (for example Sura 3:45, 4:71, 5:19, 9:30) to Christ as the Messiah. This is particularly interesting because Messiah (or Christ in Greek) is the title repeatedly applied to Jesus throughout the Bible. In fact, much of the Old Testament is devoted to explaining the characteristics and qualities that the coming Messiah will have.

Strange stories

Other material about Jesus in the Qur’an is not in the Bible at all. For example the Qur’an tells us that a palm tree provided anguish for Mary after Jesus’ birth (Sura 19:22-26) and that the baby Jesus talked from the crib (19:29-33). Furthermore Jesus, as a child, is said to have created pigeons from clay which turned into real birds and flew away when he threw them into the air (Sura 3:49 and 5:11).

These ideas to Christians sound quite bizarre, but now with the benefit of archaeology we have some idea as to what their sources may have been. At the time of Muhammad the New Testament had not yet been translated into Arabic and so he didn’t have access to the New Testament manuscripts when recording the Qur’an. However, we know that he was in contact with a number of groups who, although calling themselves Christian, had quite bizarre beliefs. 

Some people suggest that Muhammad may have been influenced by this and simply incorporated ‘heresy’ into the text of the Qur’an and there is, in fact, very good support for this view. The story of the palm tree is found in an apocryphal document called ‘The Lost Books of the Bible’. Similarly the story of the pigeons comes from ‘Thomas’ Gospel of the infancy of Jesus Christ’ and the story of baby Jesus talking is remarkably similar to that found in an Arabic apocryphal fable from Egypt named ‘The First Gospel in the Infancy of Jesus Christ’. All these documents predate the Qur’an by several hundred years.

Plain untruths

The Qur’an also adamantly denies that Jesus is divine (Sura 5:17,75) and says that he is no more than an apostle (4:171; 5:75; 43:59, 63-64). The Qur’an’s claim that Jesus is not the Son of God (9:30) runs starkly in contrast to Jesus’ own claim to divine sonship at his trial (Mk 14:61-64), which led to him being crucified on a blasphemy charge. The Islamic Scriptures also deny that Jesus died on the cross (Sura 4:157) and also, by implication, that he was resurrected.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all we are told that God, Mary and Jesus together constitute the Christian trinity (5:116). This false belief was peddled by a heretical sect called the Collyridians which had been banished to Arabia at the time, and appears to have been unknowingly incorporated into the qur’anic text.

Conclusions

Honest Muslim seekers will want to know more about the life of Christ than the sketchy details recorded in the Qur’an some 600 years after he lived on earth. We need to encourage them to look at the eye-witness accounts of Jesus recorded in the Gospels within a few decades of his death. They can also learn about the historical fact of the crucifixion from late first and early second century documents written by non-Christian Jewish and Roman historians (such as Josephus and Tacitus).

While we can, and should, use what is true about Jesus in the Qur’an to lead Muslims into the fuller truth revealed in the Bible, at some stage we will also have to deal with the differences in the qur’anic and biblical accounts. Why do they believe what the ‘angel’ [claiming to be] Gabriel said above the eye-witness testimony of those who Jesus personally knew, chose and commissioned? ‘Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned’. So said Paul (Gal 1:8,9) In the same way Peter affirmed, ‘we did not follow cleverly invented stories... but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty’ (2 Pet 1:16).

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The queen fulfils her coronation Oath to uphold the true profession of the Gospel

On 2 June 1953, 60 years ago today, the queen on her coronation took an oath.

She was askedby the Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?’

She answered, ‘All this I promise to do.’

Gillan Scott has usefully catalogued on his blogexcerpts from the Queen’s Christmas messages over the last few years and says, I believe correctly, that she has become ‘one of our nation’s greatest evangelists’.

And one does not have to look far in these speeches to see the evidence of her own faith in Christ and the Christian Gospel:

‘For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.’ (2000)

‘I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel.’ (2002)

She sees both the beauty in man (being made in the image of God) but also our fallenness and need for redemption:

‘Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.’(2011)

She emphasises the historic truths at the heart of our faith, that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead:

‘…Jesus of Nazareth who, often in circumstances of great adversity, managed to live an outgoing, unselfish and sacrificial life.’ (2008)

‘His death might have been the end of the story, but then came the resurrection and with it the foundation of the Christian faith.’ (2000)  

‘Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith.’ (2012)

And she goes on to emphasise what is at the very heart of the life of faith of the believer:

‘God sent his only son “to serve, not to be served”. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ.’ (2012)

 What is our rightful response to Jesus, she asks:

‘The carol, In The Bleak Midwinter… gives the answer “Yet what I can I give him – give my heart”. (2012)

The heart, biblically speaking, refers to our whole selves – mind, will and emotions.

In Passion Week, just before his crucifixion, Pharisees and Herodians sought to catch Jesus out by asking him whether the Jews should pay taxes to Caesar.

The plan was to put Jesus in an impossible position.

If he said ‘no’ he would be in trouble with the Romans, the governing authorities. If he said ‘yes’ he would lose the popularity of the people.

His answer was brilliant:

Jesus knew their hypocrisy. ‘Why are you trying to trap me?’ he asked. ‘Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.’ They brought the coin, and he asked them, ‘Whose image is this? And whose inscription?’

‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ And they were amazed at him.

Roman coins carried the image of the emperor and so they belonged to the emperor.

This of course begged the question of what it was that carried the image of God.

The Pharisees, who in spite being hypocrites knew their Bibles, would have known the answer to this question.

It is human beings who carry God’s image (Genesis 1:27).

The implication is clear. Human beings belong to God (Psalm 24:1) and so should give their hearts – their whole selves – to God.

This is what the queen, in upholding her coronation oath, encourages all of us to do.

So have you? 

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Theresa May needs to look beyond al-Mihajiroun for the real cause of the Woolwich murder

The search for what radicalised Michael Adebolajo (pictured) and Michael Adebowale to kill soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich last week is leading increasingly to the influence of al-Muhajiroun leaders like Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Al-Muhajiroun is an Islamist group fronted by the radical Luton-based cleric Anjem Choudary, which has been rebadged under a multitude of brands since being proscribed by the previous government.

Its founder, Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Lebanon-based preacher, who was banned from Britain and once ran courses in fighting jihad at a disused nunnery in Sussex, claimed last week that he had converted Adebolajo.

If Theresa May is to stop thousands being radicalised in Britain however she needs to look beyond al-Mihajiroun to the text that is radicalising that movement, the Qur’an itself.

As Jay Smith points out in a Pfander Films videopublished this week, Adebolajo and Adebowale were in fact just taking the Qur’an literally (See also Answering Islam here which makes the same point).

Smith asks why these two men killed this soldier, attempted to decapitate him, pulled him into the street and then, without attacking anyone else, waited around for the police to arrive before running into their guns.

It’s all in the Qur’an, he says.

Sura 5:32, which was ironically quoted this week by Nick Clegg in support of peace, was the very verse that Adebolajo quoted to the cameras to justify his action:

‘whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely’

Rigby was a British soldier in Afghanistan and some British soldiers have killed Muslims. But killing one Muslim is like killing all Muslims. It was British soldiers who killed Muslims so a British soldier and not British civilians had to pay the price.

So what should a Muslim fighting jihad do with such people? The answer in is Sura 47:4:

‘So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them’

And the reward for losing one’s life in carrying out such activity? Well, it’s Paradise, as explained in Sura 47:4, 5 & 6:

‘And those who are killed in the cause of Allah - never will He waste their deeds… He will guide them and amend their condition. And admit them to Paradise, which He has made known to them.’

By shooting them without killing them the police denied these two Muslims their actual aim, promotion to Paradise under the sight of the world’s media cameras.

Theresa May and Nick Clegg cannot of course ban the Qur’an, which is why they must seek instead to reinterpret it to claim that it is not saying what these men believed it was actually saying.

But if we don’t like what happened on the streets of Woolwich, it is perhaps the Qur’an itself, and not just al-Mihajiroun, that we should be calling into question.

Adebolajo justified his actions as ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.

By contrast Jesus, when one his disciples (Peter) took up the sword urged him to place it back in its sheath:

‘Put your sword back in its place,’ Jesus said to him, ‘for all who draw the sword will die by the sword’ (Matthew 26:52)

And he urged them not to follow the ‘eye for an eye’ directive but rather to ‘turn the other cheek’:

‘You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.’ (Matthew 5:38, 39) 

The history of Islam began with bloody military conquest by Muhammad and his followers.

But Christianity began with the death of Jesus (on our behalf) and of his twelve disciples eleven gave their lives as martyrs in his service because they preached the word of God rather than taking up the sword. It was a peaceful revolution that conquered the Roman Empire through spreading love and the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection.

This is the same love and good news that Christians are called to spread today to all people whatever their age, sex, race, ideology or creed. And it is for this reason that I join many in condemning without reservation not only the Woolwich atrocity itself but also any violent reprisals against Muslims by any British citizens. 

It is true that since the first century others have taken up arms in the name of Christ. But this was never part of Jesus’ teaching. It was however, according to the Qur'an, part of Muhammad’s.

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Margaret Thatcher recognises the wisdom and goodness of Jesus Christ

Whatever one’s final verdict on Margaret Thatcher, even her harshest critics have conceded that she was at heart a ‘conviction politician’ who was driven by ideology and not swayed by public opinion.

One of her most famous quotes was that given to Conservatives at the party conference in Brighton in 1980 and underlining her determination to stick to tough economic policies:

‘To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!’

In like manner Sir Malcolm Rifkind recalled this week a time when she was asked ‘Do you believe in consensus?’ and replied:

‘Yes, I do believe in consensus: There should be a consensus behind my convictions.’

However a touching letter she wrote to a schoolboy published this week in the Expressand Daily Mail reveals that she felt she lived in the shadow of at least one person.

On 15 March, 1980, in the same year as Thatcher’s Brighton speech above, David Liddelow, the young son of a vicar, wrote to her, posing her a challenging question. The youngster, from Borehamwood, Herts, asked:

‘Last night when we were saying prayers my Daddy said everyone has done wrong things except Jesus. I said I don’t think you have done bad things because you are the Prime Minister. Am I right or is my Daddy?’

A few weeks later, David and his father, received a handwritten reply in fountain pen:

‘However good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus… There will be times when we say or do something we wish we hadn’t done and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again! We do our best, but our best is not as good as his daily life. If you and I were to paint a picture it wouldn’t be as good as the picture of great artists. No our lives can’t be as good as the life of Jesus.’

In a touching and candid final paragraph, Mrs Thatcher added:

‘As Prime Minister, I try very hard to do things right and because Jesus gave us a perfect example I try even harder. But your father is right in saying that we can never be as perfect as He was.’

Jesus himself was once called good by someone asking him a similarly tricky question and gave a surprising reply:

‘ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.’ (Mark 10:17,18)

The text is often misunderstood as implying that Jesus was denying his divinity, but as described in more detail here, he was actually doing the very opposite.

Jesus’ question to the man was designed not to deny His deity, but rather to draw the man to recognize Christ’s divine identity.

Such an interpretation is substantiated by passages such as John 10:11 wherein Jesus declares Himself to be ‘the good shepherd’. Similarly in John 8:46, Jesus asks, ‘Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?’

Of course the answer is ‘no’. Jesus was ‘without sin’ (Hebrews 4:15), holy and undefiled (Hebrews 7:26), the only One who ‘knew no sin’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The logic can thus be summarised as follows:

1: Jesus claims only God is good
2: Jesus claims to be good
3: Therefore, Jesus claims to be God

Such a claim makes perfect sense in light of the flow of Mark’s narrative with regards to the unfolding revelation of Jesus’ real identity. It is only before the high priest in Mark 14:62 when the question of Jesus’ identity is explicitly clarified.

I am not sure whether Margaret Thatcher followed the logic through to this conclusion, but she had certainly taken a step onto the first rung by recognising the goodness of Jesus.

See also:

Is Jesus the only way to God?

Why did Jesus have to die?

The queen once again points her subjects to Jesus Christ

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Why doesn’t the British government help compensate this poor paralysed man in Saudi Arabia?

Western commentators have been quick to condemn a Saudi Arabian court this week for allegedly sentencing a man to be ‘paralysed’ for inflicting a similar injury on a friend.

According to the Daily Telegraph Ali al-Khawahir, 24, has been sentenced to ‘Qisas’, or retribution, for allegedly stabbing a childhood friend ten years ago. The attack, which is said to have happened during a dispute, left the victim paralysed from the waist down.

Saudi Arabia uses Islamic Sharia law, which involves ‘eye-for-an-eye’ punishment for crimes, but also allows victims to pardon offenders in exchange for compensation.

Al-Khawahir was sentenced to be surgically paralysed unless he can pay his victim one million riyals (£180,000) and has spent the last ten years in jail awaiting his punishment. His mother claims that the victim initially demanded two million riyals, but that although this has since reduced to one million riyals, the family ‘don’t have even a tenth of this sum’.

It is said that an unnamed philanthropist is trying to raise funds to pay the money, but it is unclear how much time remains before the punishment is inflicted.

Predictably the sentence has been called ‘grotesque’ by the British Foreign Office (FCO) and ‘akin to torture’ by Amnesty International.

But what is tellingly absent from all the media commentary is any expressed concern for the victim except, ironically, from the mother of the man convicted of the crime.

Al-Khawahir's mother says she feels sorry for the victim, and that he deserves ‘millions in compensation’. The problem is, she says, the Al-Khawahir family is poor and does not have the amount necessary to avoid the ‘eye for an eye’ ruling.

Under British law ‘common assault’ carries a custodial sentence of up to six months imprisonment under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (section 39) (or up to life imprisonment for grievous bodily harm under the Offences against the Person Act 1861) but the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 also grants payments to victims of violent crime of up to £500,000 per victim to cover injury,  loss of earnings,  special expenses,  bereavement, dependency and funerals.

Given that the average monthly salary in Saudi Arabia is 15,200 SAR (about £2,600) per month, £180,000 doesn’t seem to me to be unreasonable compensation for a serious spinal cord injury by our own British standards in order to cover a lifetime of lost earnings and healthcare costs.

Any just solution in this tragic case needs to include compensation for the victim – and if the perpetrator is unable to foot the bill, and the Saudi government is unwilling to, then why shouldn’t foreign governments and charities step in to help?

I for one would strongly support the British government spending some of its foreign aid money on cases like this. In fact I’d far rather see the Department for International Development (DfID) giving £180,000 to help support a paralysed man in Saudi Arabia than spending  £150 million supporting international abortion providers (!).

Wouldn’t it be amazing if, instead of condemning the Saudis, the British government forked out both to compensate the victim and to save the accused.

Personally I’d be quite content to see some of my tax money used in this way or to respond myself to an appeal to raise the funds if some individual – or some charity - would like to set one up.

An ‘eye for an eye’ (sometimes called the lex talionis) is the principle that a person who has injured another person is penalised to a similar degree or, according to other interpretations, the victim receives the value of the injury in compensation.

It has a long history.  In the famous legal code written by Hammurabi, the principle of exact reciprocity is very clearly used and according to Jewish interpretations the victim in criminal law gets financial compensation based on the law of human equality.

The principle of an ‘eye for an eye’ has its origin in Old Testament Law (Exodus 21:23; Leviticus 24:19; Deuteronomy 24:7) and was aimed primarily at limiting retaliation for injuries (no more than the same injury could be inflicted). However it also established the principle that any punishment should fit the crime.

It was ‘humanised’ by the Rabbis who interpreted ‘an eye for an eye’ to mean reasonable pecuniary compensation but this very principle of financial recompense was itself explicit in the Old Testament.

A person guilty of assault was required to ‘pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed’ (Exodus 21:19). In other words he paid both for lost income and also healthcare.

For true justice to be done violent injuries should be compensated, and if it’s not possible for the perpetrator to do so, then it makes sense that others should help.

Jesus, of course went one step further in calling on Christians not to demand compensation but to forgive their violent attackers (Matthew 5:38-42). But in saying this he was not saying that wrongs should not be redressed.

Rather he was pointing to the way that God himself was to forgive our sins against himself through taking the punishment we deserved through his death on the cross. Jesus, in other words, stepped in to pay the compensation that we should have paid, but could not afford.  

Maybe instead of condemning the Saudis we should be following Jesus’ example. Wouldn’t that be a great post-Easter gesture?

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The real meaning of Easter: Why did Jesus Christ have to die?

‘Agnus Dei’(literally Lamb of God) is an oil painting of a bound lamb upon an altar by Francisco de Zurbarán which was started in 1636 and completed in 1640. 

The version opposite is one of six painted by the artist and hangs in the San Diego Museum of Art, USA.

It represents the teaching right at the very heart of the Christian faith whereby God makes peace with estranged and condemned human beings through the death of his Son Jesus Christ on a Roman cross.

Jesus is called the ‘Lamb of God’ because his death was an act of ‘substitutionary atonement’.

In other words Jesus died in our place receiving the judgement and wrath that our sins deserved.

We remember it on Good Friday, the day after the Jewish Passover.

This concept of ‘dying in our place’ has its roots in the very first book of the Bible -  in Genesis 3 -   where God protected Adam and Eve from his deserved judgement by turning them out of the garden of Eden and clothing them in the skin of slaughtered animals.

The theme is similarly central to Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac when God produced a sheep as a substitute.  

Also in the Passover, preceding the Exodus, the blood of a firstborn lamb smeared on the doorposts and lintels of Israelite homes protected them from the wrath of God that fell on the Egyptians. God ‘passed them over’ and did not give them what they deserved.

Substitutionary atonement is also the basis of the Jewish sacrificial system whereby bulls, goats, sheep and pigeons were killed instead of the people to forestay God’s wrath, and also the Day of Atonement, six months after Passover, where one goat carrying the nation’s sin was slaughtered in the place of the people and a second was sent out into the wilderness never to return.

All of these were imperfect means by which a temporary reprieve was achieved for sinful human beings. They all foreshadow the death of Jesus, the Lamb of God on the cross. As Revelation, the last book in the Bible declares, Jesus was ‘the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world’ (13:8).

As the writer of Hebrews informs us, ‘the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year’ can never ‘make perfect those who draw near to worship’ because it is ‘impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’.

We can only be ‘made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy’ (Hebrews 10:1-10).

It is said that God’s wrath and mercy meet at the cross. If God was purely a God of justice our judgement as a human race would have been immediate and final. But because God is also a God of mercy, He has provided a means by which our sin could be completely paid for.

Jesus through dying on the cross took the wrath and judgement that our sins deserved; and because he has taken that wrath and judgement in our place we receive mercy and are thereby forgiven. 

The idea of substitutionary atonement, that Christ died in our place for our sins, is central to both Old Testament and New Testament.

Nowhere is it spelt out more explicitly in the Old Testament than in Isaiah 53, the last of the four servant songs, written 700 years before Christ was crucified but written in anticipation of it:

‘Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ (Isaiah 53:4-6)

The central theme in Isaiah 53 (v7) is that of the ‘agnus dei’, the Lamb of God, who ‘did not open his mouth’, was ‘led like a lamb to the slaughter’ and ‘as a sheep before its shearers is silent’.

The idea of substitutionary atonement is frequently returned to in the following verses of the chapter: ‘for the transgression of my people he was punished’, ‘the Lord makes his life an offering for sin’, ‘my righteous servant will justify many’, ‘he will bear their iniquities’, ‘For he bore the sin of many’.

In the same way substitutionary atonement is the central teaching of the New Testament.

Paul says that Jesus died ‘for us’ (Romans 5:6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:10) and also that he died ‘for our sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:3; Gal. 1:4).

Jesus describes his own ministry as giving his life ‘as a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45) and Peter says ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1 Peter 2:24).

Christ, Paul tells Timothy, ‘gave himself as a ransom for all people’ (1 Timothy 2:6). The writer of Hebrews adds that Christ ‘died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant’ (Hebrews 9:15).

Peter sums it up in saying that ‘Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God’ (1 Peter 3:18).

To further unpack this theme the New Testament explains substitutionary atonement with four main metaphors.

First is the metaphor of the altar of sacrifice. Christ is the sacrificial lamb whose blood is shed in our place. It is we who deserved to die but Christ substituted himself instead.

Second is the slave market. Christ paid the redemptionprice that we could not pay in order to free us from bondage. He bore the cost for us.

Third is the law court. Christ is our justification, that is, he took the punishment that we deserved in order than we might not be condemned.

Fourth is the metaphor of relationship. Christ’s death on our behalf brings reconciliation after our unilateral abandonment of God. 

Like any metaphor, each of these illustrations provides merely a picture of what actually happened when Jesus died on the cross in our place. But in each case he did what we, in our weakness and sin, were unable to do (Romans 5:6-8).

He saves us from sin, judgement and Hell, to which we would inevitably be going had he not intervened at great personal cost.

The question for us is how we respond to this act of Jesus Christ.

Knowing that Christ, the creator and sustainer of the universe, whom we abandoned through passive indifference or active rebellion, sought us out and paid the ultimate price because it was the only thing that was sufficient to achieve our forgiveness and reconciliation, how can we possibly respond?

The only right response is surely to fall as his feet, to acknowledge him as master and deliverer and to give our lives to love and serve him – to come to him in repentance (turning from sin) and faith (trusting obedience).

And to those who do this he offers not only the forgiveness of sins – a clean slate – but also a renewed life and new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), the power to change through the gift of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), the gift of service (Ephesians 3:7), the certainty of eternal life (Jude 24) and the promise that nothing will ever separate us from his love for all eternity.

‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:35-39).

(See also 'Jesus’ resurrection: what evidence is there that it really happened?')

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Speaking out for truth and justice – a Christian responsibility

Speaking out for truth and justice is just one of many responsibilities we have as Christians. But I suspect it is the one that we most willingly shirk, simply because it can be so costly. 

Being a Christian is costly in many ways. It is costly to live a life of obedience and service, costly to go on loving against the odds, costly to persevere when we are tempted to give up and costly to give generously of our energy, time and money. But when we speak out we pay a cost of a different kind, because speaking out makes us a target for attack.

John the Baptist lost his head for speaking out about vice and corruption – but he did not shrink from confronting individuals in power when it was appropriate to do so. The prophets and apostles were persecuted for what they said, rather than what they did. Jesus himself was crucified for his words, rather than his healing or his miracles.

And yet Christians are often reluctant to risk ridicule, attack or ‘loss of influence’ by putting their heads above the parapet. Karl Marx was particularly disdainful of Christian priorities, ‘You Christians have a vested interest in unjust structures which produce victims to whom then you can pour out your hearts in charity.’ And whilst we would not embrace his communist philosophy or solutions he did have a point. Real concern for the marginalised is evidenced both by charity and by speaking out.

Bishop Dom Header Camara of Recife, Brazil, who lived as a bishop among the poorest of the poor during the Brazilian dictatorship (post 1964), made this observation. ‘When I served the poor they called me a saint, when I asked why they were poor, they called me a communist.’ Camara understood the structural reasons for the deep poverty of so many of his fellow Brazilians. He challenged the obscene wealth of the rich, and the embarrassing linkage of the Church with the powerful in his country.

As Christian doctors we have a responsibility to speak out on behalf of the marginalised, the disempowered and those who have no voice– the poor, elderly or confused, those with head injuries, dementia or strokes, those suffering from chronic or psychiatric illness, the terminally ill, children, unborn children and human embryos.

We need to speak out in everyday conversation, through our NHS trusts and hospitals, through the BMA and Royal Colleges, through government and on the Christian, secular and medical media – both nationally and internationally. And we need to encourage one another to make and create opportunities and remember that we are not alone.

Mordecai’s words to Esther urging her to speak out when her own people were under threat are just as relevant to us today: ‘If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance… will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’(Esther 4:13-14)

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy… If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? (Proverbs 31:8,9 and 24:12)

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