Raising The Dead

[SEEtheScorn]

I was discussing with the family off-hand my school plans: Finish my Bible BA, then do graduate Judaic Studies program and build masters degrees. My dad says off hand "just find a Rabbi and st"udy under him." When I realized, we had a Jewish congregation up here that we pass often.

 

So I go online and to my extreme surprise, discover that it is a Messianic congregation with a startling "testimony:"

 

On Oct 17th, a man dropped dead in the lobby during the Friday night service. All efforts by first responders and paramedics failed to resuscitate his dead, life-less body. The victim had been dead for twenty minutes when Rabbi Steve Feldman laid his hands upon the man and spoke life into his body in the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Immediately, the man took a deep breath and his heart began beating. Our God is an awesome God! He's doing fine now. You're invited to visit Seed of Abraham and talk with him yourself. His name is David.

 

Now, to me, this is interesting because its 1.) Recent, 2.) Testable (paramedics, plus the person is around in the congregation to ask).

 

I plan on attending Shabbat this Saturday due to curiosity and my own personal studies.

 

But I'm curious, what are your initial reactions to this?

[OpheliaGinger]

Messianic Judaism is just Pentecostalism with a Jewish slant. Just as in Pentecostal churches, expect them to over exaggerate a claim, such as being able to raise dead.

[florduh]

Was he actually declared to be dead by a medical doctor? Are there any physical records (EKG,EEG), are his previous medical records available, was he taking any medications, and does everyone involved realize that there are medical conditions that can simulate the appearance of death? After twenty minutes of really being dead, not only would he need to be revived, but his brain would need to be replaced as well.

[Shyone]

It seems to me more like a testament to the efficacy of resuscitation than to the healing powers of the Rabbi.

 

First, assuming the paramedics did their job, they wouldn't have given up resuscitation and "hand over" the case to the rabbi in the first place.

 

Second, some of the medications administered may have started to work but, if there were no monitors, no one would have been aware of it until the "lifeless corpse" had revived.

 

Third, can we rely on the testimony of the author of the passage? Was this videotaped? Can you contact other witnesses (e.g. the paramedics)?

 

I have heard tales of cancers supposedly cured by pastors who were also receiving radiation and chemotherapy. Sometimes the treatment gets left in the background when talk of cure/resuscitation starts to circulate.

 

So, for now, I remain very skeptical. What would it take for me to believe that this person was resuscitated solely because of the rabbis actions? That's hard to say. It would probably take several things. Recording from the monitors coordinated with videotape, records from the paramedicas and hospital, interviews with everyone involved, and so forth. The "evidence" presented in the short paragraph is not sufficient for me to abandon my suspicion that the evidence was altered.

 

Perhaps, as an alternate explanation, the man was kept alive (or even resuscitated) by the people at the synagogue, given additional treatment by the paramedics and finally resuscitated with restored vital signs. Still unconcious, the rabbi bends over to bless him before they transport him to the hospital for additional evaluation, monitoring and treatment. As the rabbi is blessing the person, he wakes up or has reflex gagging from the airway he probably had in his throat.

[Shyone]

 

Wouldn't this guy be loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital if it was within 20 minutes of his collapse?

 

Phanta

Most protocols call for on-scene resuscitation with Advanced Life Support where available (paramedics can do this). Collapse to arrival of ambulance, 10 minutes. Round of CPR and ALS, 10 minutes. Trasport to hospital.

 

Do you get some impression that the person declined to be transported after he was revived?

[Shyone]

 

Wouldn't this guy be loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital if it was within 20 minutes of his collapse?

 

Phanta

Most protocols call for on-scene resuscitation with Advanced Life Support where available (paramedics can do this). Collapse to arrival of ambulance, 10 minutes. Round of CPR and ALS, 10 minutes. Trasport to hospital.

 

Do you get some impression that the person declined to be transported after he was revived?

 

It's a weird story. Lots of details, like that, left out.

 

Phanta

Kind of like the Bible.

[SEEtheScorn]

Cool. Please provide transcript of related conversations.

 

Phanta

 

I plan on it! I'm going to share the gathered information in 2 other forums, one neutrally religious, another explicitly christian. So beyond the actual experience I can draw from the synagogue, there's the varying levels of reception and skepticism from the crowds and camps. It's going to be fun and very informative. =)

 

I'm just trying to ready myself for how to proceed. First of all there's the issue of filling in the gap, like Syone marvelously pointed out, there are many facts left out. It's easy for a religiously swayed person to quickly be impressed by this "testimony." It's also easy for people to attach the unknown, with God/Jesus/religious miracles. I want to be someone who can civily ask the questions that need to be asked and not be easily impressed.

 

Although I also, naturally, don't want to offend the person. I highly respect people's personal experiences as their right. I've had/seen/experienced miracles, but I chose to look at them differently and not as what was "apparently" done by Jesus. I can respect people if they do not take my path.

 

All in all, this will be interesting!

[hereticzero]

I was discussing with the family off-hand my school plans: Finish my Bible BA, then do graduate Judaic Studies program and build masters degrees. My dad says off hand "just find a Rabbi and st"udy under him." When I realized, we had a Jewish congregation up here that we pass often.

 

So I go online and to my extreme surprise, discover that it is a Messianic congregation with a startling "testimony:"

 

On Oct 17th, a man dropped dead in the lobby during the Friday night service. All efforts by first responders and paramedics failed to resuscitate his dead, life-less body. The victim had been dead for twenty minutes when Rabbi Steve Feldman laid his hands upon the man and spoke life into his body in the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Immediately, the man took a deep breath and his heart began beating. Our God is an awesome God! He's doing fine now. You're invited to visit Seed of Abraham and talk with him yourself. His name is David.

 

Now, to me, this is interesting because its 1.) Recent, 2.) Testable (paramedics, plus the person is around in the congregation to ask).

 

I plan on attending Shabbat this Saturday due to curiosity and my own personal studies.

 

But I'm curious, what are your initial reactions to this?

My initial reaction is, it smells like horse shit to me! Oral Roberts, gawd bless his little departed soul, used to use plants in his congregation all the time as a means to encourage others to come up after he 'healed' them. He claims to have raised a woman back from the dead, same thing, sitting in his audiance and he laid his hands on her and she ROSE FROM THE DEAD! Her first response was that she had been asleep but after they began babbling, her story changed to halleluiah, I'm alive again! Don't believe every slight of hand trick you see.

[SEEtheScorn]

Indeed. But usually when I hear of such things at least, it's years ago, or somewhere where I could never do any research. This is right here in my neighborhood. =) So I'm gonna do some investigating!

 

Although I have to do it without upsetting my husband. I don't think he'd be pleased if he knew I was so excited to go to church/synagogue with such "ill" intentions.

[Casey]

(In a whimsical mood)

 

Can he walk on water?

He can ride a bike on the sea, no hands!

 

Can he turn water into wine?

No, but his brother the publican has often turned beer into water ... at ten paces!

 

But ... can he raise the dead?

Don't know as he can do that, but give him a loaded assault rifle with a few mags and he'll soon lower a few of the living!

 

Meaning I'd be very skeptical myself.

Casey

[Midnight-mindwanderings]

Messianic Jews are quite... interesting. My mom was temporarily involved with them my Junior/ Senior year of high school. I was studying Wicca at this time and they became convinced that I was demon possessed and also that I had opened a portal of evil spirits in my house that were tormenting my brother (who is mentally ill - but not from demons). Her boyfriend that got her into it also said I was having lesbian sex and orgies. I really really really wish my life was that interesting.

 

So my experience with them is that they are extremely delusional and over react about everything. That doesn't speak for all of them, but I have very little hope that the reality of the story is nearly as interesting as their spin makes it sound.

[Snakefoot]

I'll go one better than skeptical and call total bullshit. Didn't happen as described. Maybe--maybe--he had a seizure and was post-ictal, but the EMTs would have recognized that (I am an EMT).

 

I want to be someone who can civily ask the questions that need to be asked and not be easily impressed.

 

Forget it. By just asking the questions--no matter how tactfully--you will be viewed as "hostile" and treated accordingly. If I am proven wrong, I'll take my lumps, but that is what I expect based on bitter experience.

[HRDWarrior]

I would be extremely skeptical about anything anyone in the congregation had to say about the situation....by now, they'll have gone over this story so many times, they'll all be convinced of the "truth" of it, but I would guess that is mostly just due to the whole group mentality and looking for a miracle.

 

Unless the paramedics confirmed this story (and they weren't part of the congregation or hard-core christians themselves) I wouldn't even think it was true. Confirmation by the professionals may at least pique my curiosity, but I would have trouble believing it....too many other possibilities of what could have happened.

[SEEtheScorn]

My bro-in-law is/was an EMT (hospital closed, so I know the deal. I plan on asking for references, or at least a news story. I have much experience with Messianic congregations, and they were very pleasant. =) They actually thought that I was Orthodox due to my demeanor and the modest way I dressed at their services. Of course, no church or congregation is ever the same! So we'll see. I have experience with healing crowds, I "practiced miracles" myself in Mexico during a 10 day healing crusade, so nothing anyone could say would be news to me.

 

It's the boldness of the claim and it's testability that draws me. We've had many claims and manifestations of healing in this area, but this is the first time I've heard of dead raising. Although the only admonishment is to speak with him really, since he's "still in the congregation." But what would he know? Nothing really. He would have no idea that his heart stopped, only that one moment he woke up on the floor.

 

Either way, I like to keep an open mind and honestly see what's the deal. We'll see, and I'll be sure to update after Shabbat!

 

Curious though, I'm sure some of you agree that "miraculous" healings are most probably simple placebo effect, but do you think return from dead without CPR is at all possible? 20 minutes, 2 hours, 5 hours, a day, 2 days? Or just plain bullshit and trickery?

[Snakefoot]

 

Curious though, I'm sure some of you agree that "miraculous" healings are most probably simple placebo effect, but do you think return from dead without CPR is at all possible? 20 minutes, 2 hours, 5 hours, a day, 2 days? Or just plain bullshit and trickery?

 

Google "cold water drowning." That's as close as it comes.

 

Ten minutes of anoxia produces guaranteed cell infarction (death), including brain cells. Myocardial infarction is a done deal, along with brain damage/death.

[Shyone]

 

Curious though, I'm sure some of you agree that "miraculous" healings are most probably simple placebo effect, but do you think return from dead without CPR is at all possible? 20 minutes, 2 hours, 5 hours, a day, 2 days? Or just plain bullshit and trickery?

Tricky question. Life and death aren't as tidy as we would like. I pronounced a man dead based on pulse and respirations, but it seems he had a very weak pulse and Cheyne-Stokes respirations. His family was with him when he started to breath again. I was embarrassed, but it wasn't long before he was "really" dead.

 

There are also similar cases of people who were mistaken for dead and were taken to the morgue where they actually awakened (or in some cases lived a short time longer). Cold can result in something similar to suspended animation with preservation of tissue longer than "usual."

 

Returning from the dead depends on the criteria for death - and life. Brain death doesn't count in my book even with a pulse.

[Snakefoot]

I pronounced a man dead based on pulse and respirations, but it seems he had a very weak pulse and Cheyne-Stokes respirations.

 

Stroke or other brain damage?

[SEEtheScorn]

I wonder furthermore with ressurections... I was reading some of William Lane Craig's stuff online and came across something that basically said that Atheist's have no hope of escape from death, aging, and disease.

 

And I wonder, is this true? It's marvelous what medical science has been able to do thus far, whose to say some day we can defeat all illness and even death?

 

What was "magic" 200 years ago is science today, for sure!

[Snakefoot]

I wonder furthermore with ressurections... I was reading some of William Lane Craig's stuff online and came across something that basically said that Atheist's have no hope of escape from death, aging, and disease.

 

And I wonder, is this true? It's marvelous what medical science has been able to do thus far, whose to say some day we can defeat all illness and even death?

 

What was "magic" 200 years ago is science today, for sure!

 

Why would whether or not one is an atheist have anything to do with science? Penicillin and MRI machines do not ask about religious affiliation.

[SEEtheScorn]

I'm sorry Snakefoot, I might've been reading way too much today and missing something... but I don't understand what you're saying, especially in response to what I typed. Please rephrase.

[Snakefoot]

I'm sorry Snakefoot, I might've been reading way too much today and missing something... but I don't understand what you're saying, especially in response to what I typed. Please rephrase.

 

You wrote:

I was reading some of William Lane Craig's stuff online and came across something that basically said that Atheist's have no hope of escape from death, aging, and disease.

 

And I wonder, is this true? It's marvelous what medical science has been able to do thus far, whose to say some day we can defeat all illness and even death?

 

To me, that says you wonder if it is true what Craig wrote about atheists having no hope of escape from death, disease, etc. Then you mentioned science/medical advances, which I took as meaning atheists could not benefit from such advances.

 

Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning.

[SEEtheScorn]

Oh goodness no! Of course I didn't agree with what he said! Haha. Sorry. First, I think we both read "hope" differently. My main purpose in asking "is this true?" was to query whether we can look forward to science discovering cures for these things. Of course we could benefit from those things.

 

Crag's statement is assuming that we never make such discoveries, and is thus faulty. Just because we haven't yet, does not necessarily mean that we never will. Nor does it mean that we should just toss aside science and reasoning and accept magic!

[Shyone]

I pronounced a man dead based on pulse and respirations, but it seems he had a very weak pulse and Cheyne-Stokes respirations.

 

Stroke or other brain damage?

It has been 30 years since that happened and I honestly don't recall exactly.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Raising the dead (or at least trying to do so) has been a craze in the charismatic/pentecostal churches I attended from about 1990 onward. I followed an evangelist that claimed to have done it nearly 30 times. I tried a couple of times myself.

 

Here are a couple of examples:

 

http://www.etpv.org/1996-97/razedead.html

 

http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1151869132.htm

 

Do a google search on "faith to raise the dead" to see one of the primary proponents of this.

[Shyone]

Raising the dead (or at least trying to do so) has been a craze in the charismatic/pentecostal churches I attended from about 1990 onward. I followed an evangelist that claimed to have done it nearly 30 times. I tried a couple of times myself.

 

Here are a couple of examples:

 

http://www.etpv.org/1996-97/razedead.html

 

http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1151869132.htm

 

Do a google search on "faith to raise the dead" to see one of the primary proponents of this.

There is something almost ironic about this. I've noticed that people don't want their ancient relatives to die regardless of their age. Can you imagine a faith healer raising someone from the dead daily?

 

How long to people raised from the dead live? Can you schedule a resurrection?

 

The possibilities boggle the mind.

 

"Pastor Hagle VI has just raised a 195 year old woman - for the 1,000th time! He and his son, Hagle VII, now alternate resurrections since they are required much more often than when she was only 110."