Isaiah's Signature? Archaeology and Scripture

Isaiah's Signature? Archaeology and Scripture

BY ERIC METAXAS AND ROBERTO RIVERA

I will never get tired of telling you about the latest archaeological find that unearths living proof of the Bible's history.

About two years ago, I told you about an extraordinary archaeological find. Archaeologists digging "at the foot of the southern part of the wall that surrounds Jerusalem's Old City," found an ancient refuse dump dating back to the eighth century before Christ.

In the refuse dump, they found 33 clay imprints or seals, known as bullae. One of these bore the inscription "Belonging to Hezekiah (son of) Ahaz king of Judah."

That would be the Hezekiah of whom the Bible speaks so highly.

Now, those of you familiar with Hezekiah's story know that one person played an outsized role in his reign: the prophet Isaiah. It was Isaiah who reassured the king that Judah would not fall to the same Assyrian army that had taken the ten northern tribes in exile.

And it was Isaiah who told Hezekiah that he would not die and by way of proof, told the king that his sundial would reverse itself by ten steps (Is 38:7).

Given the close association between Hezekiah and Isaiah in life, it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that they may be linked in the archaeological record, as well.

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review features a piece by Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University. Mazar supervised the excavation that found Hezekiah's seal among the thirty-three recovered bullea.

Archaeologists Uncover Seal of Isaiah the Prophet

Ancient Pottery Shard Found at Site Believed to be Biblical Town Where Jesus Performed Miracles

Among the other clay seals was one inscribed with the name "Yesha 'yah[u]." (יְשַׁעְיָהוּ) For those of us who didn't study Hebrew, the name means "YHWH is salvation." In English, the name is rendered as "Isaiah."

You heard me, Isaiah. The obvious question is: Did the seal belong to the Isaiah?

...name is rendered as "Isaiah."

You heard me, Isaiah. The obvious question is: Did the seal belong to the Isaiah?

Mazar believes it may well have. The biggest reason is that beneath the name "Yesha 'yah[u]" are the Hebrew letters rendered as "nvy." Now, a piece of that bottom line is missing, so Mazar can't be 100 percent certain, but "n-v-y" are the first letters of the Hebrew word "nabi" which means "prophet."

Still, she has technical reasons for thinking that the word was indeed nabi. But most of all, she believes that next to the actual inscription, the site of the find is the strongest evidence for concluding that we may very well be looking at, as the magazine put it, "Isaiah's signature."

She writes that "finding a seal impression of the prophet Isaiah next to that of King Hezekiah should not be unexpected." She points out that in 2008, seals belonging to two high officials, Gedeliah and Shelemiah mentioned in Jeremiah 38, were found "only few feet apart."

Thus, "it would not be the first time that seal impressions of two Biblical personas, mentioned in the same verse in the Bible, were found in an archaeological context."

She concludes that "the close relationship between Isaiah and King Hezekiah, as described in the Bible, and the fact the bulla was found next to one bearing the name of Hezekiah seem to leave open the possibility that . . . this may have been a seal impression of Isaiah the prophet, adviser to King Hezekiah."

You know what possibility is not open? Finding evidence that the Heracles of Greco-Roman mythology, or that the various heroes of Indian epics, ever existed—at least not in anything resembling the classic texts. The latter are set in mythical pre-historic times before the invention of writing.

The scriptures, as we never tire of reminding you, are set in the world you and I live in. They tell the story of a God who acts within recorded human history and ultimately enters it.

Thus, finding traces of this activity, even in ancient refuse, should not be unexpected.

Originally posted at breakpoint.org

And it was Isaiah who told Hezekiah that he would not die and by way of proof, told the king that his sundial would reverse itself by ten steps (Is 38:7).

Given the close association between Hezekiah and Isaiah in life, it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that they may be linked in the archaeological record, as well.

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review features a

The God Who Speaks DVD( official trailer)

AFA Store - The God Who Speaks DVD

https://afastore.net › DVDs

There is a war raging around us – in society, in our churches, and in our homes. It is not a battle over marriage, race, or the sexual revolution. Rather, it is a battle for the truth. Is God real? Does He speak, and if so, how would we know? While many churches are faithfully proclaiming the truths found in Scripture, others have lost confidence in the Bible's divine authorship.

The God Who Speaks is a 90-minute documentary that traces the evidence of the Bible’s authority through interviews with some of the world’s most respected biblical scholars. This film answers common objections about the Bible’s reliability and equips believers to confidently base their lives on the power of God’s Word.

Runtime: 90 Minutes
2-DVD set

Since God Knows Everything, Why Should We Pray?

Since God Knows Everything, Why Should We Pray? 

(*Click the above link for the whole article)

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." Philippians 4:6

One of the questions most often asked about prayer is: Why should we pray when God already knows our needs? Why tell God what He already knows or ask Him to do what He already wants to do?

Thank God we don't have to understand prayer in order to pray. Yet, there are some consistent valid questions people have concerning prayer, but these must not hinder us from relying upon it.

First, here are two reasons we don't pray:

• We don't pray to impress God. We're not heard for our "much-speaking." You don't have to use poetic language or be an amateur Shakespeare. If an earthly child can speak to an earthly father, you can speak to your Heavenly Father. We're told to cry out to Him as our "Abba" Father — literally translated, "Daddy." (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). We're not praying to impress Him.
• We don't pray to inform God. You can't tell God anything He doesn't know.

So if we don't pray to impress or inform God, why then do we pray?

We Pray to Invite God

It's very important to understand this: we are inviting God into our lives when we pray.

When we pray, we experience —

• Fellowship. We become "workers together with Him" (2 Corinthians 6:1). When we pray, God gives us the joy and privilege of administrating His kingdom, His affairs — working together with Him. He could do it without us. We could not do it without Him. But what a glory that God allows us the privilege of doing it with Him!

• Development. When we pray, God is growing us. Have you ever prayed and didn't receive immediately what you asked for? What did you do? You kept on praying, but you also began to search your heart and life to see if something was hindering God's answer. Many times there is. God uses prayer to grow us.

• Dependency. God never wants us to live lives independent of Him. If God just did everything for us and we never had to pray, soon we would begin to take things for granted. We would cease to depend upon God.

Prayer Binds Us (Up) to God
That's why we tell God what He already knows. He knows what we have need of before we ask, but we're definitely, specifically, unqualifiedly told to pray and to ask — not to impress or inform God, but to invite God, so that we might have that fellowship with Him, so that we might grow, and we would learn to depend upon Him.

What is it all right to pray for? Does God answer the prayers of the unsaved? Next time, we'll answer those questions.

( you may get another perspective from my previous post)

Would You Rescue 6 Millions Ants and two Fighting Tigers?

...Why God the Son Himself had to sacrifice on the cross for all our sins? Hadn't God made Himself the Cosmic Fool to become a creature to die for those tiny tiny humans He made?? 

There is no reason that He had to do so except His unfathomable love for us humans who were made in His image.

Looking from this perspective, God doesn't interfere human affairs should be the norm. Why should we demand Him to intervene?

Nevertheless, thank God that He does intervene from time to time in human history and /or our lives.

Furthermore, since God honors the " free will " He gave us, He wouldn't whimsically take it away any moment He is displeased with us humans.

. 

You wouldn't like it at all,  if any time you want to carry out some kind of mischievous acts, God stops you from even thinking or entertaining a bad thought. You would lose your freedom that way.

All of a sudden, I have a new insight about prayers; we are inviting our Creator God to interfere in our own lives and/or others' lives--to rescue us or them... etc. That makes a lot of sense to me because "free will" is the most precious gift God gave us or else we all become only puppets with strings attached. 

Hopefully,  looking from this perspective, we may appreciate more that God let the Sun shine on good people and bad people.

Besides, according to God's holy standard, no one is sinless or good enough to be regarded "good" in His sight.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

Dio commented onMarch 2, 2018 at 9:12 AM

1. Great insight on prayer.... with our invitation, God intervenes without violating our freewill!
   Thank you!
2. 
   BHMarch 5, 2018 at 11:27 AM

   Dear Dio:
   
   Thank you so much for your comment. Indeed, you have summed up my new insight about prayers in one sentence!

Stephen Hawking and the Limits of Our Knowledge

Stephen Hawking and the Limits of Our Knowledge: Scientism vs. Revelation

BY JOHN STONESTREET AND G. SHANE MORRIS

Stephen Hawking didn't stay in his lane. He was a scientist, but in each of his books and nearly all of his media appearances, he ventured into philosophy, masking metaphysical observations and proclamations in language of scientific certainty.

The brilliant Stephen Hawking has died. We have much to learn from him, including what he never intended to teach us.

Typically speaking, theoretical physicists do not become cultural icons, much less pop-culture icons. But Stephen Hawking, who passed away Wednesday, was both.

His book A Brief History of Time became a surprise global hit, selling more than 10 million copies. He made regular appearances on television, including hit shows like "The Big Bang Theory" and (in animated form) "The Simpsons." The film about his life, "The Theory of Everything," did more than $100-million at the box office and produced five Academy Award nominations and one win.

Certainly, Stephen Hawking was a brilliant scientist who made significant contributions to his field. But many other scientists who've accomplished just as much remain unknown outside the scientific community. So what explains Hawking's celebrity status?

Yes, he was brilliant. And who could not be inspired by his rising above such a debilitating physical condition that left him wheelchair-bound for decades? But there are other factors to consider.

Many underestimate the place that science holds in today's cultural backdrop. In pre-modern Christendom, the ultimate statement of authority was "thus saith the Lord." Today, the closest statement with that sort of gravitas is "the science is settled," despite how often that claim is misused to stifle debate and advance ideologies.

And also, Stephen Hawking didn't stay in his lane. He was a scientist, but in each of his books and nearly all of his media appearances, he ventured into philosophy, masking metaphysical observations and proclamations in language of scientific certainty.

Hawking regularly opined on what are known as the "ultimate questions," such as "Where did everything come from?" "Why are we here?" "What's the meaning of life?" "Who are we as human beings?" and "What is our ultimate destiny?"

Here's a sampling of the philosophy from this man who once proclaimed philosophy dead:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."

RELATED

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And this: "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special."

Or this one: "There is no heaven or afterlife... that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Or my favorite: "The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary."

Stephen Hawking spoke with certainty, but he did not apply the same rigorous thinking to the big worldview questions that he did in his science. Or perhaps more accurately, he tried to answer questions that do not have mathematical answers with the mathematical vocabulary in which he was brilliantly fluent.

In doing so, he looked for answers to ultimate questions where they could not be found. The result were incomplete and often misleading answers to vitally important questions presented with the Good Housekeeping Seal of scientific authority. At the end of the day Stephen Hawking, the scientist, peddled a worldview: scientism, the idea that all questions are, and therefore all answers are, scientific in nature.

Still, in a strange way, Stephen Hawking inadvertently taught us that worldview matters. Namely, that there are big questions that haunt humans; that we have much to learn from the natural world, as the psalmist said centuries ago; and that at the end of all our scientific knowledge there is still more to know.

In fact, Hawking once admitted that to know the ultimate why of the universe would be to know the "mind of God." How tragic that he never acknowledged the God who went to such lengths to make Himself known.

Resurrection--April Fool's Day Joke?

• Lee Strobel Lists Top 4 Reasons to Believe in Jesus' Resurrection

Lee Strobel, the atheist-turned-Christian author behind the The Case for Christ book and movie, has noted that Easter this year falls on April's Fools Day, but said there are four main reasons why people can believe that Jesus Christ did indeed rise from the dead.

"When I was an atheist and legal editor of The Chicago Tribune, I would have smirked at the fact that Easter this year falls on April Fools' Day. Because back then, I thought that anyone would have to be a fool to believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead," Strobel admitted in a video uploaded on Vimeo last week.

...The author touched upon some of his findings in his latest book, by presenting four important pieces of evidence surrounding Christ's resurrection.

"I found that there is no dispute among scholars that Jesus was dead after being crucified," he began.

Next, he pointed to early reports of the resurrection.

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Lee Strobel Details Conversation He Had With Hugh Hefner About God, Gospel

'Case for Christ' Scores Rare A+ CinemaScore, 'Strong' Box Office Opening Leads to Easter Expansion

Lee Strobel: Atheists and Christians Will Want to See 'The Case for Christ' (Interview)

Ex-Atheist Lee Strobel on 'The Case for Christ' Film: Nonbelievers Will See Real Evidence for God, Jesus

"Reports that come so quickly, you can't just write them off as being a legend," he argued.

"We have one report of the resurrection, including named eye-witnesses, that has been dated back by scholars to within months of the resurrection of Jesus. That is historical gold."

Third, he focused on the empty tomb.

"I found that even the opponents of Jesus implicitly conceded that the tomb of Jesus was empty," he said.

"And forth, we have nine ancient sources, inside and outside the New Testament, confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. That is an avalanche of historical data," Strobel said.

He talked about ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament that confirm the fate of Jesus' disciples and the suffering they were subjected to for proclaiming that Jesus had risen.

"The resurrection of Jesus is not some April Fools' Day joke, it is a historical reality based not on mythology, but a solid foundation of historical truth," he declared.

Strobel's latest book on miracles is said to include interviews with skeptics about supernatural events, as well as "astounding accounts of healings and other phenomena that simply cannot be explained away by naturalistic causes."

"The book features the results of exclusive new scientific polling that shows miracle accounts are much more common than people think," a preview states.

"Many American Christians are embarrassed by the supernatural, not wanting to look odd or extreme to their neighbors. Yet, The Case for Miracles shows not only that the miraculous is possible, but that God still does intervene in our world in awe-inspiring ways," it adds.

Who Created God?

If God Created Everything, Who Created God?

(*click the link above for the original post)

...

God exists in timeless eternity

How does God acting before time began get around the problem of God's creation? There are two possible interpretations of these verses. One is that God exists outside of time. Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we naturally assume that this is the only way in which any kind of existence can function. However, the premise is false. Without the dimension of time, there is no cause and effect, and all things that could exist in such a realm would have no need of being caused, but would have always existed. Therefore, God has no need of being created, but, in fact, created the time dimension of our universe specifically for a reason - so that cause and effect would exist for us. However, since God created time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence.

God exists in multiple dimensions of time

The second interpretation is that God exists in more than one dimension of time. Things that exist in one dimension of time are restricted to time's arrow and are confined to cause and effect. However, two dimensions of time form a plane of time, which has no beginning and no end and is not restricted to any single direction. A being that exists in at least two dimensions of time can travel anywhere in time and yet never had a beginning, since a plane of time has no starting point. Either interpretation leads one to the conclusion that God has no need of having been created.

Why can't the universe be eternal?

The idea that God can be eternal leads us to the idea that maybe the universe is eternal, and, therefore, God doesn't need to exist at all. Actually, this was the prevalent belief of atheists before the observational data of the 20^th century strongly refuted the idea that the universe was eternal. This fact presented a big dilemma for atheists, since a non-eternal universe implied that it must have been caused. Maybe Genesis 1:1 was correct! Not to be dismayed by the facts, atheists have invented some metaphysical "science" that attempts to explain away the existence of God. Hence, most atheistic cosmologists believe that we see only the visible part of a much larger "multiverse" that randomly spews out universes with different physical parameters.² Since there is no evidence supporting this idea (nor can there be, according to the laws of the universe), it is really just a substitute "god" for atheists. And, since this "god" is non-intelligent by definition, it requires a complex hypothesis, which would be ruled out if we use Occam's razor, which states that one should use the simplest logical explanation for any phenomenon. Purposeful intelligent design of the universe makes much more sense, especially based upon what we know about the design of the universe.

What does science say about time?

When Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose extended the equations for general relativity to include space and time, the results showed that time has a beginning - at the moment of creation (i.e., the Big Bang).³ In fact, if you examine university websites, you will find that many professors make such a claim - that the universe had a beginning and that this beginning marked the beginning of time (see The Universe is Not Eternal, But Had A Beginning). Such assertions support the Bible's claim that time began at the creation of the universe.

Conclusion 

God has no need to have been created, since He exists either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time (such that there is no beginning of God's plane of time). Hence God is eternal, having never been created. Although it is possible that the universe itself is eternal, eliminating the need for its creation, observational evidence contradicts this hypothesis, since the universe began to exist a finite ~13.8 billion years ago. The only possible escape for the atheist is the invention of a kind of super universe, which can never be confirmed experimentally (hence it is metaphysical in nature, and not scientific).

(Also click the link below for more thoughts)

Why Stephen Hawking is Wrong About God Not Creating the Universe

A Skeptic Examines Miracles

A Skeptic Examines Miracles

BY LEE STROBEL

Does a miracle-performing God actually exist, and has He left His fingerprints all over supernatural events through history down to the present age?
...To my dismay, the data of science (from cosmology and physics to biochemistry and human consciousness) convinced me there was a supernatural Creator, while the evidence from history satisfied me that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the dead, confirming his identity as the unique Son of God.

The inexorable conclusion that Christianity is true prompted me to put my trust in Christ and later leave my newspaper career to spend my life telling others the story of his atoning death on their behalf.

However, my skeptical nature didn't entirely dissipate. Did I believe in miracles? Yes, of course, I was convinced that the resurrection and other miracles occurred as the Gospels reported. But that left open the question of whether God is still in the miracle business today.

I did agree with pastor and author Timothy Keller, who said: "There is nothing illogical about miracles if a Creator God exists. If a God exists who is big enough to create the universe in all its complexity and vastness, why should a mere miracle be such a mental stretch?"

Theologically, I was not in the camp of the cessationists – Christians who believe that after the apostles died and the New Testament canon was established that signs and wonders ceased and we shouldn't seek them toda

Famous Atheist, Richard Dawkins, Says That 'We Must Overcome Our Taboo Against Cannibalism'

On top of that, I had seen God's mysterious work in my own life. For example, one day during prayer I felt prompted to get an anonymous 500 hundred dollar cashier's check and send it to a young lady in our church who was struggling to recover from a life of abuse and financial difficulty.

Leslie prayed about it and felt precisely the same urging. We knew this wasn't something conjured from our own minds because that amount constituted almost all of our bank account at the time. Specifically, we felt compelled to mail the check so it would arrive the following Monday.

On Monday morning, before the mail's delivery, the young woman called in an absolute panic. "Please pray for me," she pleaded. "My car broke down Saturday afternoon, and they said it will cost almost 500 hundred dollars to fix. I just don't have the money! I don't know what to do!"

"Okay," I said, trying to conceal the buoyancy I felt inside. "Leslie and I will pray for you."

That afternoon, she received the anonymous check – and Leslie and I experienced the joy of being the answer to someone's prayers.

Coincidence? I suppose it could have been if it weren't the only such head-scratching incident we have experienced in our Christian life. To me, it fit an ongoing pattern of God listening and supernaturally responding.

...The big issue, however, is whether belief in supernatural occurrences is based on mistake, misunderstanding, fraud, legend, rumor, wishful thinking, confirmation bias, the placebo effect – or reality.

In other words, does a miracle-performing God actually exist, and has He left His fingerprints all over supernatural events through history down to the present age? Is He even available to intervene in your life today?

That's what I set out to determine in writing my new book. While I'm a committed Christian whose convictions are widely known, I was truly interested in testing the strength of the case for miracles.

Can You Have Cake and Eat it?

SKEPTICS CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

http://christianapologeticsalliance.com/2017/05/23/skeptics-cant-have-it-both-ways/

• ( you may also click this link below for related article)
• Divine Genocide or Capital Punishment?

May 23, 2017 by Brent Hardaway

Former L.A. County District Attorney and agnostic Vince Bugliosi believes that the problem of evil is fatal to believing in Christianity.

“I’m an agnostic only on the issue of whether there is a God, a supernatural being who created the universe. I’m not an agnostic on the Christian God… while God can be all-powerful or all-good, he cannot be both, since these are irreconcilable virtues in a world overflowing with the bloody crops of evil. Even eliminating all the other supposed attributes of God, if he is all-powerful, and hence capable of preventing evil, for him to cause, or do nothing to stop, the unbelievable suffering and horror in this world immediately tells one that God cannot be all-good, as Christianity believes its God to be.” ¹

But then, in a later chapter in his book he mentions numerous parts of the Bible where God actually does something to put a stop to evil, and he is furiously outraged at Him for doing so. Ok, technically, he doesn’t say it that way. But he argues, as skeptics increasingly have in recent years,

“So Christians and Jews call God all-good and all-perfect, but when they get around to printing their bibles that describe his conduct, they describe someone who would make history’s greatest villains look like very pale imitations by comparison. Would even Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, or Tomas de Torquemada do the things the God of Jewish and Christian scriptures did?” ²

Of course, he is referring here to events like The Flood and the destruction of Jericho, among others.

But let’s think about this a moment. What if God hadn’t sent the flood? No doubt, Bugliosi and other skeptics would cry out something like this –

“God created humans, and within a short time, the earth was filled with violence. Violence, violence everywhere! And where was God in all this? Why didn’t he do something about it?”
And if God hadn’t wiped out Jericho and other cities and kingdoms around Israel, we’d no doubt here the complaint that –

“The Canaanites were sacrificing children to their gods generation after generation. It had gone on for 400 years at one point, but God just let it continue! How can God be considered all-loving and all-powerful at the same time?”

One might object that God has no right to take the life of innocent children who haven’t done anything wrong, as scripture records God doing in these cases. But what about the possibility that the children of the flood and of Jericho could easily have gone on to be as savage as their parents? I wonder what Bugliosi would say if Adolf Hitler had died in a house fire in Austria in 1890, when he was 1 years old. Probably something like this –

“An innocent baby named Adolf Hitler, who had done nothing wrong, nothing at all, was allowed by this supposedly merciful God to die in a fire. Why didn’t God stop it? Couldn’t He have easily stopped it with an impromptu rain shower?”

We have no way of knowing if a particular baby would have grown up to be a mass murderer or worse. But perhaps if Bugliosi was God, he would have let the child grow old enough until it had actually done something wrong, was no longer innocent, and then taken its life. But then, he’s just allowed evil to take place, and some skeptic would blast him because he could have stopped it. Oops!

But perhaps Bugliosi has a better idea on what to do with evil people. Instead of taking the life of those who will commit evil, perhaps he would keep them permanently suspended in a perpetual force field that keeps them from moving. But how long before this becomes sheer torture of boredom, if nothing else? How would Bugliosi respond to the skeptics who would no doubt complain that this is cruel and unusual punishment?

When all is said and done, God is merciful and has decided to withhold His wrath in many cases precisely because He isn’t the cruel, uncompassionate monster skeptics thinks He is. Yet, His goodness means that He won’t withhold it forever, and He does choose to intervene – even if skeptics call him a monster for doing so.

Would You Rescue 6 Millions Ants Or 2 Fighting Tigers?

Dear SS( sincere seeker): 

This morning when I was driving to Walnut Creek a different perspective to our old question about mystery of Holocaust, why God didn't intervene has dawned on me. Thank you for the story you made up to tell me your doubts.

Let me also tell you a story. Suppose one day you saw a millions of ants were flooded by a tsunami, so you decided to rescue them, and you did ( though almost losing your life by not running away from the tsunami). What a merciful heart and great deed of yours!

Then some other day, you were sightseeing In Africa and you saw two tigers were fighting, and you thought 

" Gee! I better stop them!, why should they kill each other since they belong to the same specie?"

And you did jump into them like Don Quixote, guess what? I no longer have a strong skeptical friend SS like you.

Hahaha! Of course, I am just kidding you!

Of course, this is an unreal story; even 6 millions of ants are dying, you wouldn't mind, right? or do you care at all? 

Even the whole specie of ants were wiped out, you wouldn't mind, right? Or do you think what an awful genocide!

( unless you believe in reincarnation, and thought some of those ants are your ancestors, I bet you wouldn't mind, right?)

It hurts our feelings to see two tigers fighting to their death, but you wouldn't sacrifice your own life to stop them. It is not worth to lose your life to save them. So this is an absurd and horrible story, I made up to illustrate a point or two for you.

I remember that you did question long time ago, "Why does our Creator God care about us at all?" You reasoned that we humans are not even counted as dusts or tiny quarks in our gigantic universe, why should God care about us at all?  Perhaps now the question should become "Why does our Creator God have to intervene in the Holocaust? " Do we have a right to demand God to stop the Holocaust from happening?" This is certainly a different perspective at Holocaust. Don't you think?

Most of time, we don't even care about other creatures, why do you think our Creator God has to care about His creatures--say, humans' mass killings at all? 

Why God the Son Himself had to sacrifice on the cross for all our sins? Hadn't God made Himself

the Cosmic Fool to become a creature to die for those tiny tiny humans He made?? 

There is no reason that He had to do so except His unfathomable love for us humans who were made in His image.

Looking from this perspective, God doesn't interfere human affairs should be the norm. Why should we demand Him to intervene?

Nevertheless, thank God that He does intervene from time to time in human history and /or our lives.

Furthermore, since God honors the " free will " He gave us, He wouldn't whimsically take it away any moment He is displeased with us humans.

. 

You wouldn't like it at all,  if any time you want to carry out some kind of mischievous acts, God stops you from even thinking or entertaining a bad thought. You would lose your freedom that way.

All of a sudden, I have a new insight about prayers; we are inviting our Creator God to interfere in our own lives and/or others' lives--to rescue us or them... etc. That makes a lot of sense to me because "free will" is the most precious gift God gave us or else we all become only puppets with strings attached. 

Hopefully,  looking from this perspective, we may appreciate more that God let the Sun shine on good people and bad people.

Besides, according to God's holy standard, no one is sinless or good enough to be regarded "good" in His sight.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

Case closed? What do you think?

BH

P.S. You may also click the following links for more related thinking.

• What is the Real Cause of Nazi Holocaust? 

• Why Would a Good God Allow So Much Evil? 
• Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?