I.M.C. MINISTRIES
F.A.Q. PAGE
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Has your question about the Bible & Christianity already been asked. Be sure and check the questions we have posted here. These questions were asked by other Christian brothers & sisters before you and may just be the question you have been pondering. Some of the answers below are our own and some from other sources. You may not agree with these answers but they are the best we could find.

QUESTION: What does the name Jesus mean?
ANSWER: Jesus means Joshua. In Hebrew it is Yahshua. It means: Saviour; or Deliverer

QUESTION: How old was Jesus when he died?
ANSWER: Most Biblical scholars believe Jesus was about thirty three years old at his death on the cross. They reach this conclusion based on the fact that the Gospel of Luke tells us his age at Baptisim. Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age......" Then they count the number of once a year feast the Gospels say Jesus attended. There are three mentioned, primarily in the Gospel of John. From this they gather his ministry lasted for three years. Thirty years of age at Baptisim, three years of ministry = Thirty three years. However that belief is not shared by everyone. The second century Church Father Irenaeus wrote that Jesus Christ was around 50 years old during His earthly ministry. (Irenaeus was the diciple of Polycarp, who was a diciple of the Apostle John.)

Apparently there were some teachers late in the second century who were teaching that Jesus Christ's earthly ministry only lasted for one year, at the end of which He was crucified. This was largely based upon Luke 4:19, "To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Since John mentions three distinct passovers, we know that Christ's earthly ministry was at least two years, perhaps three. But

Irenaeus says that Jesus Christ was around 50 years old during his ministry. He claimed that Jesus Christ advanced through all stages of human life so as to be an example for people of any age. "... He was an old man for old men ..." (Against Heresies 2:22:4). Pointing out their error, Irenaeus said, "... they are forgetful to their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old," when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify ..." (Against Heresies 2:22:5).

QUESTION: Were the three wise men Jewish?
ANSWER: Most likely not. What most people don't realize is that Judaism was not the only monotheistic religion of that time. In ancient Persia, about 700 B.C., a prophet named Zoroaster founded a belief that there was one God & one Devil. He predicted there would be a great war in the last days between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. He also predicted that a Savior would come to save the rightous. It is thought that these wise men were followers of the prophet Zoroaster, and this new Star they were following was part of that religious tradition. Remember the prophet Daniel, was a captive in Babylon and was also there when the Persians conquered Babylon. If you remember the story he was given charge over the wise men and the astrologers. His influence may have had something to do with this.

QUESTION: Who were the Pharisee's & the Sadducees?
ANSWER: That is a lot to answer in so short a space, but here goes. In the question above we told you about the three wise men being part of the religion of the Persian prophet, Zoroaster. This religion was founded about 700 B.C. In 585 B.C., the Babylonians attacked the Kingdom of Judah (Jews) and carried away most of the inhabitants of the land. They left some of the people to be vinedressers & sheepmen. They carried the most educated to Babylon as captives. Then King Cyrus the Persian captured the Kingdom of Babylon. He freed the Jewish captives and a later king, Darius, allowed the Jews to return to their homeland of Israel. He also paid out of his own pocket for the rebuilding of the temple of God in Jerusalem. Why? He was a Zoroastrian and believed just as the Jews that there was one God & one Devil. Because their faith was so much like the Persian's the Jews fared well under their rule.

But what does all of this have to do with the Pharisee's & Sadducees? While the Jews that were taken into captivity were under Persian rule they picked up certian tenants of the Zoroastrian religion. Namely, a belief in angels & the ressurection of the dead. Meanwhile, the Jews that had been left in Judah (Israel) still held to the old traditions and knew little of these things. When the captive Jews returned they brought their new belief's with them. This caused a division between the two groups.

The Sadducees are believed to be made up of the people left in Juda (Israel). They didn't believe in angels or the resurection of the dead, but held firmly to the law of Moses. They considered these belief's to be pagan in origin.

The Pharisees are thought to be made up of the people that were carried away captive. They also held to the laws and traditions of Moses, but also accepted the belief in angels & resurection. At least this is how the theory goes. It's not our theory, but it goes a long way toward explaining the origin of these two groups. And buddie are we glad you didn't ask about the Essenes.

QUESTION: What about the Essenes?
ANSWER: Awe maaan. Ok. The Pharisees & the Sadducees were not the only two religious groups of the time of Jesus. The largest group by far was the Essenes. Most scholars believe that John the Baptist was an Essene, and that if Jesus was not an Essene, he was at least associated wth them. The reason they believe this is that the Gospels record many accounts of Jesus confronting the Sadducees & the Pharisees, but never the Essenes. Why would he confront his on group? Much of the population went out to be Baptised of John and by the diciples of Jesus.

What made the Essenes different from the Pharisees & Sadducees was:
The Sadducees held firmly to the laws & traditions of Moses, but rejected the belief in angels & resurection.
The Pharisees also held firmly to the laws & traditions of Moses but also accepted the belief in angels & resurection.
The Essenes went even Further. They seemed to believe that the law was for the lawless. Their law was a law of love. In fact Jesus himself said: Love thy God with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and all thy might. And love thy neighbor as thyself. This is the law and the prophets. The Essenes seemed to believe that if you tried to follow the law, you were bound by the law. They believed the law of love freed you from this bond. The Essenes also practiced baptism as did the Zoroasterians. It is thought by many that this tenant was brought back by the Jews when they returned from exile. For more info on this search Essenes and Zoroaster on the www.

QUESTION: Are there any errors or mistakes in the Bible?
ANSWER: First of all, not a single original manuscript of any book of the Bible exists today. So we cannot say, in the present tense, "They are inerrant." Further-more, by the time the latest book of the Bible was written, all of the original manuscripts had long since been worn out and replaced by copies. And they were not firsthand copies: they were copies of copies of copies. . . This means that nobody ever saw the entire Bible as it was originally written.

Many people believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, but many do not believe this because we do not have the original manuscripts. We believe the Bible to be inspired, but we have never seen the hand of man touch anything that it wasn't corrupted in some fashion. Just our opinion.

QUESTION: I read in the Gospel of John, about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well and I get the impression that the Jews did not like the Samaritans. Why? Wasn't Samaria a city of Israel?
ANSWER: During the rule of King Solomon's son Rehoboam, the ten northern tribes of Israel revolted and formed their own kingdom. The two southern tribes stayed loyal to the house of David and were called the kingdom of Judea. The ten northern tribes formed the kingdom of Israel. The capital city of Israel was Samaria. This kingdom lasted through 19 Kings, but in 732 B.C. the northern kingdom of Israel was captured by the Assyrians and all of the people were carried away captive. The king of Assyria took people from other lands and placed them in the land of Israel. This story is related in 2nd Kings ch: 17; In order to shorten this up for this page we'll just give you the jist of it.

The people who came into the land followed their own gods and the Lord sent lions in amongst them and killed them when they went out of their cities. They complained to the King of Assyria that they didn't know how to worship the god of the land. The king of Assyria took one of the priest of Israel and sent him back to teach the people about the God of Israel. They learned of Abraham & the events in Egypt & Moses & the Law. Over time these people began to refer to themselves as children of Abraham who was the father of the Jewish people.

By the time of Jesus, some 600 years later, these people were almost totally given over to believing they were the children of Abraham and they followed the Lord and believed that a messiah was coming to save the world. The Jews resented the fact that these people believed they were children of Abraham and called these people Samaritans because so many of them settled in the capital of Israel, which was Samaria.

When the Jews would journey from Galilee to Jerusalem they would go around Samaria just to avoid the Samaritans. This was the reason why the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Because they weren't really Jews. Oddly enough, the Samaritans accepted Jesus as Christ, when the Jews did not.

QUESTION: Why did Hezekiah destroy the brass serpent that Moses made and what is Nehushtan?
ANSWER: The Brass serpent was created by Moses because the Hebrew people had sinned against God. This was when they were wandering in the desert before they reached the promised land. Therefore God sent serpents into their camp to punish them. Moses created the brass serpent and placed it on a tall pole in the middle of the camp. If one of the people was bitten by a serpent, he had to turn and look at the brass serpent on the pole or else he would die from the serpents poison.

By the time of King Hezekiah, hundreds of years after Moses, a cult had risen up around the supposed power of the brass serpent. The people considered it so powerful that they actually burned incense to it. Hezekiah knew that only God had power and not a thing of brass. Therefore; he broke the brass serpent into pieces in-order to do away with this cult. "and he called it Nehushtan". Nehushtan means: a trifling thing of brass.