 One of the axioms of the Christian Bible and of Christian theology is that the only way a person could be forgiven for their sins is by the offering of a blood sacrifice on their behalf. This assertion could be disproven in numerous ways from the Hebrew Bible. One of these is from the special case of a person who was too poor to offer either an animal or birds. And because of their poverty, the Torah allowed them to bring flower, fine flower, as their sin offering. And so we see that if a person is able to atone for their sins through offering flower, then blood was not absolutely required as an element in the atonement process. We see this concept in the book of Leviticus chapter 5 verses 11 and 12 where it says, But if his means are insufficient for two turtle doves or two young doves, then he shall bring as his guilt offering, for that which he has sinned, a tenth of an affa of fine flower for a sin offering. He shall not place oil on it nor frankincense upon it, for it is a sin offering. He shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall scoop a handful as its memorial portion and cause it to go up in smoke on the altar on the fires of the Lord. It is a sin offering. Some missionaries have attempted to poke a hole in this by insisting that the handful of flower that was placed upon the altar had to be placed upon animal sacrifices that had been previously sacrificed and left on top of the altar, and it was only through the association the contact between this fine flower and the animal's blood that the flower could be empowered to atone for sin. They insist that the flower by itself could never atone for anyone's sins. This contention that the flower had to be placed upon the blood of animals that were still on top of the altar is based upon a forced translation that certain Christians use in this verse. The verse says that the flower will be placed on the Ishehashen. The simplest translation is, as we've said, upon the fires of the Lord, meaning on top of the altar were logs. The logs were on fire, there was a perpetual fire on top of the altar, and so when the poor person came to bring their flower offering, it was placed in the fires that were on top of the altar. The Christian translation of this verse will take Ishehashen as the sacrifices made by fire of the Lord. The word sacrifices doesn't appear anywhere in this phrase. It is assumed by the missionary. It is assumed that it had to be that the flower is placed upon sacrifices that were already there. Because again, from the missionary point of view, they cannot accept the fact that flower by itself could atone for sin. So they have to have animals on top of the altar and they have to have the flower placed on top of the animals. Aside from the assertion that the phrase Ishehashen is not simply fires of the Lord, but upon the sacrifices made by fire of the Lord, there's a second problem with the translation here because the phrase in Hebrew is al Ishehashen. And the Christian assumption here is that the word al has to mean literally on top of or on. And that's not necessarily the case. We know from the scriptures that the word al can also mean besides or near or next to as we see in the book of Genesis chapter 30 verse 40. So even if there were animals on top of the altar, there's no proof or indication from this verse that the flower had to be placed literally on top of these animals. The flower could have been placed next to these animals. So here we have what missionaries try to pass off as certainty, but it really is only speculation. Furthermore, even if the phrase al Ishehashen means on top of the offerings of the Lord, these offerings could be flower offerings. The missionary assumes that the only offerings on top of the altar had to be animal sacrifices. However, in the book of Leviticus chapter 2 verses 2 to 3 and chapter 6 verses 10 to 11, flower offerings are referred to as Ishehashen, fire offerings of the Lord. Finally, even if we accept the missionary contention that al Ishehashen in Leviticus chapter 5 means that the flower was placed on top of animals left on the altar, this would still not prove that flower was only empowered by the blood. The reasons are as follows. The blood of the sacrificed animals, when animals were sacrificed, the blood was always drained before the remains of the animal were placed on top of the altar. Number two, the collected blood was placed either on the protruding corners of the altar, the blood was dabbed on the protruding corners of the altar, or the blood was sprinkled toward the curtain of the temple, or it was applied to the walls of the altar, or the blood was poured at the base of the altar, but the blood was never placed on top of the altar itself. And so even if we accept all of the assumptions that the missionaries make, that the translation means that the flower was placed on top of the animal sacrifices that were still on top of the altar, the flower would not have contact with any blood because there was no blood on top of the altar. So therefore we see that flower itself atoned for the sins of the poor person who was unable to bring an animal sacrifice, as it says in Leviticus chapter 5 verses 11 to 12, four different times. The scripture in these two verses tells us that the flower was a sin offering. The flower itself was the sin offering. And we're not told that it was a flower mixed with blood that worked as the sin offering for the poor person.